Carrying us home.

 “A 1970 legislative acorn has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development ‘under the guise’ of just a little more process.” Justice Kavanah’s words in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County are an apt description of what the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has become. Indeed, a law that was once simple and easy has made any infrastructure development crawl at a snail’s pace.  NEPA is a purely procedural statute that only requires agencies to prepare an environmental impact statement (or an assessment) before approving a project or commencing with a project. The law’s text requires nothing further. All a government agency has to do is create a “detailed” study. But over the years, federal courts have reviewed NEPA cases. And reviewed them some more. Over the decades, some courts’ aggressive review of NEPA has created an arduous, seemingly impossible task of compliance. “Those rulings have slowed down or blocked many projects and, in turn, caused litigation-averse agencies to take ever more time and to prepare ever longer [environmental studies] for future projects.” The study at issue in Eagle County was 3,600 pages long. Yet, the D.C. Circuit still determined that the study was not comprehensive enough. The study involved the effects of an 88-mile railroad extension that would help connect oil reserves in rural Utah to the open market. Yet the D.C. Circuit chastised the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which conducted the study, for not considering the effects on refining oil in Texas and Louisiana. The judicial oak required a seemingly limitless reach of studies, just to build a small railroad extension.  This is the system we have all become accustomed to, sadly. If a project is proposed, we all assume it will take years to come to fruition, if ever. Companies spend considerable resources just to get a go-ahead. And even further, the go-ahead may be paused when an environmental activist sues, asking the court to require even more hurdles. Some project managers may give up hope and not even try, understandably. But perhaps this arduous system is no more. The controlling opinion established two common-sense principles for NEPA. First is deference. Courts are not to take the place of a government agency in determining what factors are required to author a detailed decision. Justice Kavanagh is careful to stress this in several sentences of the opinion: [T]he question of whether a particular report is detailed enough in a particular case itself requires the exercise of agency discretion — which should not be excessively second-guessed by a court …. Brevity should not be mistaken for lack of detail …. An EIS need not meander on for hundreds or thousands of pages …. So long as the [study] addresses environmental effects from the project at issue, courts should defer to the agencies’ decisions about where to draw the line. This is significant! Not only can courts not enter their own make-believe, extra-statutory rules, but agencies will no longer feel compelled to author excessively long studies that take years on end to complete.  Another good result of this opinion is that it takes one of the biggest tools out of the toolkit for environmental activists. No longer can they sue over made-up rules and convince courts to lay roadblocks to projects. Lawsuits will be less effective. Second, the controlling opinion makes clear that the statute does not require agencies to consider every possible effect of the project. The “mandated focus of NEPA is the ‘proposed action’ — not other future or geographically separate projects that may be built … as a result of or in the wake of the immediate project under consideration.”  This, too, is significant! Now, agencies do not have to spend extraordinary amounts of time and effort determining every possible thing that could happen if a project were to happen. Again, this should shorten the process. Nitpicking NEPA has cost the taxpayers a fortune. It has slowed down needed projects. It does not do good for the American public. Only those who wish to harass the “doers” enjoyed this system. But the harassment litigation system, hopefully, is no more. It is cause to celebrate. Curtis Schube is the Executive Director for Council to Modernize Governance, a think tank committed to making the administration of government more efficient, representative, and restrained. He is formerly a constitutional and administrative law attorney. READ MORE: Do Rivers Have Rights? Biden EPA’s ‘Gold Bars Off the Titanic’ Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg The Green Grift: How Power Forward Communities’ $2 Billion Boondoggle Misses the Mark The post Thanks to the Supreme Court, Government Should Finally ‘Get Things Done’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I’m just going to get this started. This is the kind of week that’ll leave you speechless, and I’m right there with you. 1. You Might as Well Pick Now to Boycott Walmart She isn’t the CEO of the place, but she’s one of the principal beneficiaries of Walmart’s profits. So when you turn Walmartian, you’re feeding Christy Walton’s overstuffed wallet. And what does that get you? Riots. She pays for riots, or at least the promotion of them. And your fellow patriots are PISSED. Walmart is facing a furious boycott by the MAGA world after its billionaire heiress endorsed and promoted an anti-Trump rally amid the raging protests happening in Los Angeles. Republicans have erupted online over Christy Walton’s support of the group “No Kings” — which took to social media several times calling President Donald Trump’s response to the protests ‘a distraction’ because ‘he wants to blind us to the chaos and damage he’s inflicting nationwide.’ Christy Walton is the widow of John T. Walton, who was one of the sons of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Although Walton, who is worth $19.4 billion, has not publicly spoken out about the protests or Trump, she placed a full-page ad in the New York Times Sunday calling on Americans to stand up ‘against aggression by dictators’ and ‘mobilize’ this upcoming Saturday — the same day the president is set to host a military parade in Washington D.C. I’m going to let Ace of Spades take the lead on this one… Walmart says that it has nothing to do with Christy Walton’s call for more rioting. If that’s true, then they should run a counter-ad. But they won’t. Christy Walton doesn’t work at Walmart. She doesn’t work at all. Wikipedia lists her occupation as “heiress.” She gives Walmart proceeds away; that’s how she occupies her time. And she isn’t good at it, so you’ll know — this is somebody who once gave $30,000 to the Lincoln Project. No wonder she’s now promoting this asinine “No Kings” thing, which is a Randi Weingarten joint with the noxious Ezra Levin (Levin fronts the communist agitation group Indivisible). This is a classic case of the sepsis that sets in among the idle rich. You would think that if your wealth, which you didn’t have to work for, comes from a retail chain catering to working-class Americans, your values and overt activities would be at least somewhat sympatico with the identity of your meal ticket. But… of course not. Almost every hard-core leftist I’ve ever met came from money. Almost all of them have every material convenience it’s possible to have. Very few of them have real jobs — or if they do, they universally aren’t good at them, a couple of trial lawyers of my acquaintance excepted. I don’t know anybody as rich as Christy Walton. But then, I don’t live in a massive estate in Jackson Hole like she does. And here she is promoting a Marxist organization which is almost certainly going to engage in — at minimum — property damage this weekend at a time there are riots going on in the second-largest city in the country that the local government, made up of people who believe in all the same limousine leftism Christy Walton does, refuses to put an end to. She’s perfectly emblematic of the modern AWFL. Will a boycott hurt Christy Walton? Not really. It’ll probably hurt the working-class employees of Walmart a lot more. Christy Walton is so rich from her husband’s money that nothing ordinary Americans do will send a message to her that she’ll even take notice of. She’s pushing “No Kings” while enjoying all of the trappings of royalty. Yes, it’s frustrating. And you’ll do nothing productive by boycotting Walmart. Should you do it anyway? Well, if you shop at a locally-owned grocery or hardware store, or a locally-owned pharmacy or clothing store, you’re probably doing some good for your community’s economy. That money will stay in the community rather than being siphoned off into the trust fund Christy Walton donates to stupid leftist causes from. When you consider how likely it is that this weekend’s “demonstrations” being pushed by the Christy Waltons of the world will result in the looting and burning of at least one and probably several locally-owned retail establishments, it’s worth thinking about supporting the ones you can. Walmart’s corporate headquarters is breathlessly hollering to anyone who’ll listen that Christy Walton doesn’t work there, isn’t on the board, and doesn’t represent them. And that’s valid. At the same time, their profits flow to her, which is something they can’t stop. And they’re not doing anything to counter her destructive “activism.” Let’s just leave this one where it is, but I can’t help reiterating how absolutely obnoxious it is that somebody who sits on billions of dollars made in the retail business would be promoting an organization that is going to stage riots during which retailers will suffer catastrophic losses. No depth of contempt is sufficient enough for this woman. And if there is collateral damage from the public’s efforts to show that contempt through a boycott, so be it. 2. Alex Padilla Needs To Be Censured, If Not Expelled From the Senate This is not acceptable. Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem. Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’… https://t.co/5TGxrRZ2Ex — Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 12, 2025 At Front Page, Daniel Greenfield had a spot-on assessment of Padilla and his fellow California Democrats… Sending in the National Guard, the Marines or for that matter, the Rangers, won’t stop the riots. Much like bombing Afghanistan didn’t stop Islamic terrorism, arresting street level activists isn’t going to deal with the root cause which operates at a level far above the Molotov hurlers. And that’s not just George Soros or the Ford Foundation (which got into funding the radicalization of Latinos back when George was still grifting his way across Manhattan) or a handful of groups here and there… it’s California’s entire Democrat political leadership.That majority claimed that outraged Latinos rose up over Prop 187. What really happened then, much as now, is that leftists set off riots, and steamrolled sellout Republicans who never really believed in 187, and built a massive network of organizations to seize permanent power. Some of those organizations, under various names, are still active today 30 years later. Under whatever names they go by, their real name is the California Democrat Party. The same network of organizations trying to murder law enforcement officers in Los Angeles provides voter turnout and outreach to California Democrats. No politician can get elected, however dubiously, as governor or as the mayors of certain key cities, especially Los Angeles, without its support. Its activists call themselves “community organizers,” much as current Mayor Karen Bass, does, what they actually are is “community commissars,” using federal, state and local funds to run groups that double as voter turnout operations for local Democrats. California is not, as Gov. Gavin Newsom falsely claims, a “democracy.” It’s a leftist political network riddled with “ghost districts” filled with illegals, where elections depend on the flow of government money to the “community groups” who provide manpower for election rallies, find voters, harvest ballots, advocate for propositions (usually for pay) and determine “elections.” He says taking down the kleptocrats in charge of that state’s political class is the only way to truly restore order. That’s hard to argue with when you see how they’re handling Los Angeles. 3. The Warner Bros.–Discovery Mess One of the Big Five media conglomerates is disintegrating before your very eyes. Breitbart’s John Nolte… And so, this week, what was long expected to happen finally happened. WBD announced it would split into two separate publicly traded companies. One will be known as “Streaming and Studios” and consist of Warner Bros. TV, Warner Bros. Studios, DC Studios, HBO, HBO Max, and the studio’s legendary library of television and films. That’s what you call the “good stuff.” The second company, Global Networks, will consist of “CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, top free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as the profitable Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report (B/R).” That’s what you call the dead weight. Each company will have its own president. David Zaslav, the current CEO of WBD, will grab the good stuff. WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels will take over the dead weight. The reason for the split is obvious. The dead weight is a huge drag on the WBD stock price. With the split, investors can purchase stock in the good stuff, in the future, in streaming and content production (the TV and studio units), without worrying about the dying and discredited CNN’s cratering ratings or TNT losing its license to broadcast the NBA. I’m not sure who’s going to buy Global Networks stock. That’s a collection of channels on the cable rolls with practically zero use. TBS and TNT haven’t had original programming of note in forever, other than the NBA coverage that’ll be going away and their participation in the network blob with the NCAA Tournament rights. They show old movies that most people would rather just stream on demand. And CNN? Good Lord. The ratings for that channel are utterly microscopic. If it weren’t for boomer couch potatoes droning out in front of the TV instead of taking up a productive hobby — and Scott Jennings, but let’s face it, you watch Scott Jennings clips on X; you don’t watch him live on TV — there would be no audience at all. At one point, the thought was that CNN would try to become more of an actual journalistic enterprise. That didn’t materialize, because how could it? No conservative media stars would work there. Jennings has become a star on CNN’s air only because he’s the Christian who can actually kill the lions he’s fed to, and everybody knows he’s not going to be there long. What’s that company going to look like in a year? I can’t tell you. It’ll be interesting to watch its denouement. 4. I Can’t Stop Watching This, and You Can’t, Either It needs no introduction, and you can’t watch it just once… Would love to see this guy go same foot, same shoulder – but the explosiveness and snap from his hips when running through the tackle MY GOD It’s art in motion https://t.co/o7vbIlAug3 — Will Compton (@_willcompton) June 12, 2025 5. The Rescission Arriveth I should give at least a little bit of space here to the great vote in the House for the first rescission bill to pass in quite a while. The $9.4 billion spending cut that OMB Director Russ Vought sent up to Capitol Hill passed Thursday on a party-line vote, and it’s already been filed in the Senate, thanks to freshman Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Rescission Cometh) Well, not quite a party-line vote. Thomas Massie voted against it in the House, which is a little dispiriting. Massie says he wants a balanced budget, and he’s right in holding the line for that, but then a rescission bill comes in and it shaves just under $10 billion off the federal baseline, and he says… no? Anyway… “Under President Trump’s leadership, your taxpayer dollars are no longer being wasted. Instead, they are being directed toward priorities that truly benefit the American people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. Today’s House passage of this initial rescissions package marks a critical step toward a more responsible and transparent government that puts the interests of the American taxpayers first. Thanks to DOGE’s work, this package eliminates $9.4 billion in unnecessary and wasteful spending at the State Department, USAID, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds politically biased media outlets like NPR and PBS. It is just one of the ways Republicans are codifying DOGE’s findings and putting taxpayer dollars to better use. We had hoped our Democrat colleagues would join us in this effort to ensure every dollar spent by the federal government is used efficiently and effectively. Rather than expressing concern over the misuse and misspending of funds, Democrats have instead chosen to oppose these reforms simply because Republicans are leading the charge. While they defend the failed, toxic status quo, Republicans will continue to deliver real accountability and restore fiscal discipline. The NPR/PBS defunding is only $1.1 billion. The other $8.3 billion is DOGE cuts for stupid foreign aid spending. You would assume there are 51 votes for this in the Senate, and as you know, if you’re a frequent reader of this column, the Democrats can’t filibuster it. This is the way. There are supposedly more rescission packages coming down from OMB based on cuts DOGE has found, so this is a template that hopefully will be reused often. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Why Do Republican Voters Hate Our Politicians? Los Angeles Isn’t What’s Burning. The Democrat Party Might Well Be. Five Quick Things: Is Katie Hobbs a Traitor? The post Five Quick Things: The Walmart Heirs Turn on America appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I recently wrote a column titled, “Why Is Trump Protecting Hollywood?” It was written in response to a proposal from President Trump to impose a 100 percent tariff on movies produced in foreign countries. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump stated. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.” (RELATED: Can Trump Make Hollywood Great Again?) I fully disagreed. Hollywood is dying not from foreign competition but from its own rotten corruption and toxic wokeness. Moreover, the cost to make movies in Hollywood has become cost-prohibitive because of California’s obscene tax rates, imposed by the left-wing politicians that Hollywood liberals eagerly reelect. What Hollywood is getting is self-inflicted and well-deserved. The culprit? Liberalism. From morally and fiscally bankrupt filmmakers and policymakers. Hollywoke’s hideous environment has sent many good American filmmakers fleeing abroad. They have been chased out, effectively exiled to make movies in overseas safe havens, free from the Hollywood Left’s thuggish cancel culture and California Democrats’ confiscatory tax rates. (RELATED: As Hollywoke Crumbles) As a case in point, I gave the example of one of President Trump’s designated Hollywood ambassadors: Mel Gibson. Gibson’s magnificent The Passion of the Christ is the most successful independent film ever. Did he make it in Hollywood? Certainly not. He had to shoot it abroad — in Italy. The same is true for his coming sequel, on the Resurrection (again starring Jim Cavaziel). Like The Passion, it will be filmed in Italy. Hollywood’s leftists revile Mel Gibson. They’d crucify him if they could. And yet, President Trump’s tariff action rewards Gibson’s tormentors and, conversely, punishes Gibson for making his films abroad — for exercising his only real option. Trump’s proposal protects Hollywoke but harms Mel Gibson. As I said, I wrote about this a few weeks ago. I don’t know if Donald Trump was listening, but perhaps Mel Gibson was. Gibson has responded with a brilliant proposal. Mel Gibson and Italian producer Andrea Iervolino have proposed a co-production agreement between the United States and Italy that would incentivize Italian filmmakers to make movies in America. The “bilateral agreement” calls on the Italian government to initiate “support programs for productions that strengthen cultural ties between Italy and the United States.” Reports on the proposal are sparse in detail, including whether Gibson has brought it up to the Trump administration. But according to Iervolino, he and Gibson have talked about reaching some sort of agreement during the Venice Film Festival in late August. They hope to draw “authoritative representatives” from both the motion picture industry and the American and Italian governments. Does this proposal have legs? It should. Italian filmmakers have long talked about forming some sort of cooperative agreement with the United States. And either way, we should much prefer talk of cooperation between America and Italy on matters of film than confrontation. The fact is that Americans and Italians have worked beautifully for many decades to create some of history’s best films, done by names from Frank Capra to Franco Zeffirelli, from Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola, of course, directed The Godfather, based on a book and screenplay by Mario Puzo, with a cast of legendary Italian-American actors. The Godfather series combined American and Italian artistry and genius in a way unprecedented in film history. Other examples? You can even look at musical scores, like any of the countless ones done by the splendid Ennio Morricone. He created the memorable sounds for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the iconic film starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone. Americans and Italians together have made great films as faithful partners who like and respect one another and each other’s countries. Beyond film, the current politics are conducive to a bilateral deal. The current political leadership in America and Italy is molto simpatico. President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are two tough cookies. Meloni might well be the new Iron Lady of Europe, a no-nonsense donna who could slap around wimps like Canada’s Justin Trudeau and France’s Emmanuel Macron. (RELATED: Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and the Future of the West) Meloni is a fierce defender of the West, unafraid to confront the woke. She fights for family and traditional marriage and gender. She is boldly, brazenly, happily politically incorrect. As is, of course, Donald Trump. Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump respect one another. Both have shared strengths and a willingness to resist the revolutionaries. Both are nationalists and patriots who love their countries, their heritage, and their people’s remarkable record in film. Donald Trump’s America should not be penalizing countries like Italy on matters of film, but instead should find ways to support each other and work together. Mel Gibson himself has done that in the past and now suggests a new level altogether. His proposal ought to be carefully considered by Trump officials. READ MORE from Paul Kengor: Destroyers of Tradition A Hopeful Pope Leo Change for Life ‘Peace Be With You’: The Deep Meaning in Leo XIV’s First Words The post Mel Gibson’s Excellent American-Italian Idea appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The United States is “united” in name only. The blue/red state political divide masks a much deeper cultural divide that exists within states, within cities, within suburbs, though less within rural America. The divide even exists within the two major political parties. Donald Trump did not cause this divide — he exposed it, and for this, we should be eternally grateful to him. The anti-Trump forces in this country were used to getting their way in political and cultural affairs even under Republican administrations, but no longer. That is why many of them have taken to the streets in major cities across the country — Los Angeles, Chicago, New York (and more to come) to protest the lawful enforcement of federal immigration laws. That is why they previously took to the streets to protest George Floyd’s death. And that is why they consistently use violence — a Marxist-Leninist tactic designed to produce government repression and create a revolutionary environment. The uncomfortable truth is that we are two Americas. (RELATED: Do We Have a Nation?) The anti-Trump political forces led by Democratic Party politicians feign attachment to God, but it is a God unrecognizable to the Judeo-Christian tradition. In President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, he noted that both sides in the Civil War “read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.” In today’s political and cultural divide, that is no longer true. The anti-Trump cultural forces led by the legacy media, Hollywood, and academia are hostile to the Judeo-Christian religion of Lincoln’s God.  Instead, the roots of the anti-Trump cultural and political forces can be traced to the French Revolution, which was hostile to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God of the New Testament. And the French Revolution is the antecedent of the Marxist-Leninist revolutions of the 20th century, which were equally hostile to the Judeo-Christian God.  The great Whittaker Chambers understood the “religion” of today’s anti-Trump forces. He explained it in his “Letter to his Children” in Witness. The West’s struggle with communism, he wrote, was a clash of “two faiths … the two irreconcilable faiths of our time — Communism and Freedom.” The communist vision, Chambers explained, is the vision of man without God. It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because man’s mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals.  Similarly, the philosopher Michael Oakeshott in Rationalism in Politics called the real “God” of today’s anti-Trump forces “modern Rationalism,” which substitutes “reason” for religion and God. Modern rationalists, Oakeshott wrote, are the “enem[ies] of authority … of the merely traditional, customary or habitual.” The modern rationalist is a skeptic — “there is no opinion, no habit, no belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates to question it and to judge it by what he calls ‘reason.’” Why can’t men become women and vice versa? Why shouldn’t biological males compete in sports with females? Why shouldn’t men be able to have babies? Why shouldn’t elementary and middle schools have drag queen hours? Why shouldn’t illegal aliens be able to stay in our country and vote in our elections? Why shouldn’t we “defund” police to make our communities “safer?” And why shouldn’t violence be used against federal law enforcement officers who are attempting to enforce democratically passed laws?  The anti-Trump cultural and political forces constantly invoke “democracy” and claim that Trump is a threat to democracy because he takes seriously his constitutional duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The modern rationalists insist that enforcing laws against illegal aliens and using force to restore law and order are evidence of Trump’s “authoritarianism.” These modern rationalists, by the way, are the same forces who imposed authoritarian restrictions on people, churches, and businesses during the COVID pandemic, required certain people to take untested “vaccines” to keep their jobs, required employees to wear masks, and enforced “social distancing.” (RELATED: The Wages of COVID — Part Two) Today’s American rationalists are reminiscent of the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks during the revolutionary turmoil at the end of Czar Nicholas II’s reign in Russia. They want to topple the incumbent Trump administration and are willing to encourage, support, or tolerate violence to bring that about. But there are other forces at work — more reminiscent of Lenin’s Bolsheviks, who commit violence and terror to create the revolutionary environment that they will use to seize power. Those are the people (and the organizations funding them) who throw rocks at and burn police cars; who attack law enforcement officers; who set fire to American flags and wave the flags of foreign nations; who block freeways. They are the vanguard of the revolution. And they and their rationalist allies are testing Lincoln’s pledge made in his Gettysburg Address, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: The Party of Anarchy Conservatives and the Myth of JFK Neocon Hal Brands Says Ukraine Is Trump’s War The post The Two Americas appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass misspoke Monday when she said of the rioters in her city that “people should exercise their right to protest; that’s their First Amendment right.” But she had good reason to expect that few Americans would recognize the error of her words. Thankfully, Harris Faulkner of Fox’s Faulkner Focus refused to accept Bass’s wording in the June 9 lead-in to her show — “you won’t hear me calling them protesters; they are criminals.” (RELATED: Do We Have a Nation?) For many Americans, designation of activist behavior as “protests” reflexively evokes approbation associated with the Civil Rights movement they honor. But since Barack Obama’s first term as president, protests staged by left-of-center groups have borne less and less resemblance to those led and inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. For those who witnessed Bull Connor’s dogs and hoses in Birmingham, the marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and blacks unlawfully seated at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the Los Angeles rioters cannot claim to be heirs of the Civil Rights movement. In contradiction to MLK’s carefully planned events demanding absolute adherence to non-violence methods, Obama called for a general “taking to the streets” and reiterated it repeatedly to fuel the now infamous conflagrations that produced the George Floyd Summer of Love. His attorney general and self-described “wing-man,” Eric Holder, said, “When they go low, we kick ‘em.” Against the model provided by King, Obama and his heirs have sown violence in the wind, and now America is reaping a whirlwind of destruction as a result. Of Trump Administration officials, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters urged, “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” From the steps of the Supreme Court Chuck Schumer warned Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh that if either voted to overturn Roe v. Wade “you will pay the price,” and “you won’t know what hit you.” The contrast between such incitement of mobs with the strategies of King could hardly be more stark. Pointing to both Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi, MLK emphasized above all the necessity that the Civil Rights protests be peaceable, non-violent, and, whenever possible, legal. King always petitioned for permission to protest from all appropriate authorities. When denied, non-violence was maintained, and protesters did not resist arrest. King’s followers engaged in courageous, self-sacrificing acts of civil disobedience. Post-Obama left-wing protesters do anything but. The most peaceable protests in our time were launched by conservatives and Jews. The Tea Party gained notoriety for cleaning up after themselves when their protests were concluded. Over the decades, no annual Right to Life marcher has thrown rocks or burned cars. But 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Barbara Steinmetz was burned by a counter-protester as she walked in silent protest with Jews in Boulder, Colorado, on June 5. (RELATED: Unseen, Unchecked, Unsafe — America’s Visa Overstay Problem) Faulkner’s refusal to call the rioters in LA protesters is appropriate on both historical and constitutional grounds. The First Amendment of the Constitution prohibits Congress from making any law “abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The word protest is nowhere to be found. But that word has won widespread valorization and legitimacy in the American psyche because of the Civil Rights movement. Faulkner recognized that when rioters illegitimately co-opt the now historically freighted and virtually hallowed term “protest” to justify their destructive criminal acts, they win an unwarranted and dangerous legitimacy in the minds of the masses who remain largely blind to the deception perpetrated. Two-thirds of Americans were born since 1970. Vital distinctions between the King-inspired protests and LA today tend to be lost on most of the populace. What today’s left-wing rioters lack that King possessed touches upon that subject that has so seized the attention of the West in our day — identity. Though King’s theology and politics were liberal and moved further left with each passing year, his American identity was conservative. Progressives burn civilization down as the supposed necessary precursor to a promised utopian future. Conservatives seek to preserve goods bequeathed to them and build upon them. Conservatives, as Roger Scruton put it, have an instinct for home and a large capacity for neighborliness. They tend to be patriots and religious, as was King. The murderous degradations of Jim Crow notwithstanding, Martin Luther King, Jr. refused to relinquish his claim upon either the flag flown by the nation of his birth or the Bible it placed in his hands. His words, penned in a Birmingham jail cell, record the miracle: One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. What lay at the center of the identity of King’s nation also lay at the center of his own being, his own identity. Because this was so, Martin Luther King Jr., as a native son, was able to deliver an ennobling shaming of America. Post-Obama protests yield no such noble fruit. King dreamed of a future in which America lived out the content of its creed. Barack Obama dreamed of a future in which that creed was gone, replaced by a transformed America. Obama sought no recovery of, much less reaffirmation of, America’s founding. He really did not and does not like us very much — insulted us as Bible clingers and gun toters, uncomfortable with folks who don’t look like us. That his political progeny throw rocks and set fires should surprise no one. READ MORE: Los Angeles Isn’t What’s Burning. The Democrat Party Might Well Be. Do We Have a Nation? The post Don’t Confuse Obama’s Rioters With Martin Luther King Jr.’s Protesters appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Mexican Senate President Gerardo Fernández Noroña made a striking comment Wednesday when asked about the ongoing unrest in Los Angeles over illegal immigration. Speaking about American borders and migration into the U.S., he said, according to a translation, “We’ll build the wall and we’ll pay for it, but we’ll do it according to the map of Mexico in 1830.” Noroña showed the cameras a map of Mexico, reflecting land ownership nearly 200 years ago, depicting vast swaths of the American Southwest as part of Mexican territory. He went on to state, “We were dispossessed of those territories, we were settled there before the nation now known as the United States,” and asked, “With this geography, how can the U.S. talk about liberating Los Angeles and California?” The Historical Nature of Conquest In his statement, Noroña appears to overlook the fundamental principle of human civilization: one group occupies land until another group conquers it, claiming the land as their own. At that point, the land no longer belongs to the conquered, but to those who acquired and established control, forcefully or otherwise.  Although the “might makes right” nature of conquest may be unsettling to some, the U.S. conquered and purchased its way through the Southwest, and that land now belongs to us. Calling this “stolen land” misrepresents history by applying contemporary notions of fairness to war, the history of which is far from fair. In reality, the American acquisition of Mexican territory was far tamer than history often witnesses. After roughly two years of fighting, the United States captured Mexico City, and in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was presented. According to the terms of this treaty, the U.S. government gave Mexico $15 million for roughly 525,000 square miles of land.  This presents the irony: land was not stolen in the Mexican-American War; it was largely paid for. However, even if the government had not paid Mexico anything for such vast swaths of territory, we would still be justified in calling it ours. The nature of human conquest does not make America a malevolent force, but one that participates in the same struggles that have shaped every nation on earth.  Returning ‘Stolen Land’: An Endless Cycle A historical justification of human conquest is not the only defense against the claims of people like Gerardo Fernández Noroña. He claims that the U.S. government has no right to remove illegal immigrants, and — seriously or not — that an agreed border should return nearly 10 American states under the control of Mexico.  There is one obvious problem: If the U.S. decided to give the Southwest back to its original and rightful inhabitants, it would not be returned to Mexico. Land has changed hands constantly throughout history, and Mexicans were not the first to inhabit the Southwest. Although America conquered Mexico for the land, Mexico overthrew Spain for it. Spain, in turn, defeated native tribes, and before the Spanish arrived, Indigenous groups were already conquering, displacing, enslaving, and assimilating one another for hundreds or even thousands of years.  The correct and often-noted point on the Right is a simple question: to whom should the land be returned? Gerardo Noroña seems to want it for Mexico. But should we return it to Spain, which controlled the land before Mexico? What about the Aztecs, who controlled it before the Spaniards? Ancestral Puebloans? The dinosaurs? While ironic, this exercise underscores the absurdity of claiming that America owes its land to people who owned it hundreds of years ago, and could not defend it from outside forces.  Additionally, Mexico controlled the Southwest portion of modern America from its independence in 1821 until the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 — roughly 27 years. Why should the U.S. return land it has governed for almost 177 years to a country that held it for less than three decades? If simply existing on land establishes a rightful claim to it, then the land should remain with the nation that has occupied it for nearly 150 years longer. Acknowledging Ourselves Into Oblivion Although the U.S. will not surrender its territory back to Mexico, Western leftists have devised other means of apologizing for past sins. This penitence for a guilty heritage is known as land acknowledgment, a statement recognizing that a given location sits on land originally inhabited by indigenous peoples.  NPR gives an example of land acknowledgment by a theater company in California. The company’s performances and meetings all begin by stating “that the land beneath our theater and our studios and throughout East Bay is Huichin, the traditional unceded land of the Lisjan Ohlone people.” A much higher-profile land acknowledgment took place when King Charles bent a knee to the ancient indigenous inhabitants of Canada on May 28. The address to the Canadian parliament began with the King stating, “I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people,” and that “While continuing to deepen my own understanding, it is my great hope that in each of your communities, and collectively as a country, a path is found toward truth and reconciliation.” (RELATED: O Canada!) The obvious irony of this statement is that the land acknowledgment was delivered by the king of the most colonizing nation in human history. Beyond this, statements such as those by King Charles represent a cowardly inability to follow through. Instead of simpering statements and half measures, leaders ought to either champion the fact that their country’s land was won through conquest or fully embrace penitence and return the land.  Without actually returning the “stolen” land and leaving it, those who embrace land acknowledgments are hypocrites. They feel authorized to enjoy the land and Western civilization while virtue-signaling that it is wrong for the same Western civilization to have been brought to the continent.  While the argument of Gerardo Fernández Noroña is flat-out ridiculous, he at least maintains consistency. He believes that the Southwest was stolen from Mexico and that it ought to be returned. Liberals in the U.S. and other Western countries also claim their country is stolen land, but are perfectly content to work, raise children, vacation, and live on it until they die.  For many on the left, living comfortably in Western civilization requires only land acknowledgments — an easy gesture that conveniently disavows the hard-won conquest that made their comfort possible. READ MORE from Andrew Gondy: Elon Musk Walks Back Attacks on Trump CBO Finds That Taxpayers Footed Massive Costs of Illegal Immigration Under Biden   The post The Irony and Absurdity of ‘Stolen Land’ Virtue Signaling appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

But of course. Flag Day is described thusly by no less than the Associated Press: The first, local Flag Day observances came after the Civil War and eventually a federal law designated June 14 as Flag Day in 1949, under World War I combat veteran Harry Truman. He declared in a proclamation the next year that the U.S. flag symbolizes freedom and “protection from tyranny.” …. The holiday marks the date in 1777 that the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag for what to Great Britain were rebellious American colonies. … National observances for Flag Day began well ahead of the law signed by Truman, with a proclamation issued by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Wilson’s action came several decades after communities began Flag Day celebrations. In 1891, Philadelphia held its first — at one of Ross’ former homes — and it evolved into an annual, weeklong Flag Fest. The small village of Waubeka, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, claims the first observance in 1885. Civil War soldiers showed extraordinary courage under fire to keep their colors aloft, and multiple flag bearers died in single battles, said Matt VanAcker, who directs a now decades-old project at the Michigan Capitol to conserve flags from the Civil War and later conflicts. Michigan has collected about 240 old battle flags and had a display in its Capitol rotunda for decades. “Many of the flags in our collection are covered with bullet holes,” VanAcker said. “A lot of them have blood stains — the physical evidence of their use on the battlefield.” June 14th, by the sheerest of amazing coincidence, coincides with President Trump’s birthday. Safe to say, unless one believes the future president was already manipulating things from the womb, this is, as noted, sheer coincidence. Not unlike two of America’s Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — dying on the very same day of July 4th in 1826, the Trump birthday and Flag Day tie-in amazes. Noted as well amidst the Flag Day celebrations is that the United States Army has embarked on a year of celebrations marking the 250th anniversary next year of the Army, founded on July 4, 1776. (RELATED: Yes, Flag Day Is Trump’s Birthday — and the Army’s 250th Anniversary) My late Dad served first as a lieutenant and then a captain of Artillery in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1947. Serving right in the middle of the battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. But because President Trump’s beloved mother made so bold as to give birth to her son on Flag Day, the president’s foaming adversaries are going crazy about the upcoming Flag Day parade on June 14th. A day that will be shared with a happily celebrating president, members of the U.S. Army, and doubtless an endless crowd of celebrating Trump supporters. So, what to do? In light of the Left’s parade of violence and looting in Los Angeles — quite vividly on televised display — Washington authorities are doubtless braced for more of the same as the president, with help from the celebrating Army, hosts what ordinarily should be a happy, band-playing, and flag-waving quite patriotic celebration. The fact that this may indeed not happen, replaced with a Los Angeles-style attack on patriotic Americans out to celebrate a long-held day devoted to the flag, speaks volumes about the reality of the American Left. (RELATED: Los Angeles Isn’t What’s Burning. The Democrat Party Might Well Be.) No small thing is the historical fact that Flag Day came to be in the aftermath of the Civil War. It was a decidedly real effort to bring the once bitterly divided country back together. And so, June 14th arrives. Bringing together not only a celebration and salute to the famed banner of red, white, and blue stars and stripes but, by the purest of historical coincidence,  a birthday celebration for the nation’s 45th and 47th President. Under ordinary circumstances, it should be a day to celebrate America and salute the duly and freely elected president, wishing him a decidedly Happy Birthday. But it is, sadly, very safe to say that if this Flag Day is turned into a Los Angeles-style day of violence and hatred?  Then the American people will yet again have reason to understand that there are people in this country who are not only not patriots but rather serious haters. Haters of not just President Trump but America itself. Buckle in. And Happy Birthday, Mr. President. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Is It Time to Dox Hakeem Jeffries’s Security? No, Elon, Americans Elected Trump — Not You Conservatives Have Reason to Admire Kennedy The post Flag Day, and President Trump’s Birthday Arrives: The Left Recoils appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

General Motors Co. announced on Tuesday that it plans to invest $4 billion in U.S. manufacturing plants over the next two years. The new investments in its domestic factories will increase U.S. production of both gas and electric vehicles, enabling GM to assemble over two million vehicles in the U.S. per year. The move will expand factories in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee that produce several of GM’s most popular vehicles, replacing much of the company’s reliance on its factories in Mexico.  The announcement comes after President Donald Trump implemented tariffs of 25 percent on imported vehicles and many auto parts earlier this year; the country also experienced muted May inflation that defied the expectations of those fearful over tariffs. Prices for both new and used cars actually declined last month. GM’s pivot to bring more manufacturing to the U.S. marks one of the largest responses by automakers thus far to the Trump tariffs, which increasingly seem to be permanent, at least in part. While Trump has not announced a revised trade deal with Mexico, even recent announcements of deals with the U.K. and China have both retained significant tariffs. (RELATED: Trump’s New US–UK Trade Deal Puts America First) In GM’s statement, the company’s chair and CEO, Mary Barra, said, “Today’s announcement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to build vehicles in the U.S and to support American jobs. We’re focused on giving customers choice and offering a broad range of vehicles they love.”  According to an Oxford Economics report, GM directly created $39 billion’s worth of U.S. GDP and directly employed 97,000 workers in U.S. automotive manufacturing jobs in 2022. The company’s network includes 50 U.S. manufacturing plants and parts facilities in 19 states. According to GM, “nearly one million people in the U.S. depend on GM for their livelihood, including employees, suppliers, and dealers.” The company’s president, Mark Reuss, also emphasized how GM’s new move, spurred by Trump’s tariffs, will lead to more American jobs. “Today’s news goes well beyond the investment numbers — this is about hardworking Americans making vehicles they are proud to build and that customers are proud to own,” he said. The shift dramatically reverses a decades-long trend of auto companies moving much of their manufacturing out of the U.S. to Mexico and overseas. According to Bloomberg News, GM had accelerated moves to produce parts and vehicles in Mexico beginning in the 1980s to take advantage of lower wages and avoid growing labor and retiree costs in the U.S. After GM’s new American investments, the company will build its pickups in five factories: three in the U.S. and one each in Canada and Mexico. Overall, GM told Bloomberg that the company plans to add between 3,000 and 4,000 U.S. jobs after all the new production is set up. The move is a sign that GM “believe[s] the future of transportation will be driven by American innovation and manufacturing expertise,” according to their statement. At the very least, as the future of tariffs remains in flux, the safest move is to make in America. READ MORE from Jonah Apel: What C. S. Lewis Can Tell Us About New IVF Eugenics Technology  As Trump’s Federal Layoffs Continue, Critics Miss This Crucial Point  Australian Machete Ban Ignores the Real Causes of Crime The post Trump Tariffs Spur $4 Billion in GM Investments in US Factories., Reversing Company’s Decades-Long Trend appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Route 66, often called the Mother Road, stands as a testament to American adventure, innovation, and resilience. Stretching from Chicago to Santa Monica, it has inspired generations of travelers, artists, and dreamers. Today, a growing movement is sweeping the nation to safeguard the road’s most iconic landmarks. Recent preservation initiatives are shining a spotlight on ...