Trump Picks The Weirdness of Oz to Lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Listen up Donny, that's nuts!

By Rich Kozlovich 

Trump picked RFK, Jr. as the the Secretary of Health and Human Services which I thought that was nuts and said so, a lot!  What I've been shocked at is the number of conservative writers, that I normally have a great deal of respect for, who've come out swinging in his favor.  Here's the reality of RFK, Jr.  He's a lunatic.  But now it's worse.  Now Trump has picked another lunatic to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  He's chosen the Weirdness of Oz. 

For years I've written about and posted articles about this quack who endorses astrology, and pushes quack remedies such as eating grapefruit to cure anxiety.  He pushed a green coffee cure that was pure fiction,  and in spite of all his snake oil sales pitches he headed up a very popular TV show that was more like an old time traveling medicine show preying on gullible Americans.

Today, we may laugh at how gullible we once were. But have we really changed? Dr. Oz, who remains popular despite offering "medical" advice with little to no basis in scientific fact, is the modern-day equivalent of the traveling medicine show. 

But this appointment isn't the beginning of the Trump/Oz story, that stared in 2018, where "the Trump Administration announced its plan to appoint America's Quack to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. This is an abomination to the biomedical science community." 

Dr. Oz claims he can talk to the dead, promotes Reiki healing, and homeopathy, is an anti-vaxer, and has promoted quantum healing, which is as voodoo as it comes: 

Quantum healing is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice that claims to use quantum mechanics, psychology, philosophy, and neurophysiology to improve health and well-being. It's based on the idea that quantum phenomena, such as wave-particle duality and virtual particles, govern health. 

When I read this stuff it reminds me of the claptrap about the honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder issue.  One lady insisted the reason there was a problem with honey bees was because the Devic Kingdom of bees was really unhappy with people.  She said she was in communication with them and they weren't going to return their hives until people started treating them better, and got rid of genetically modified plants.  Isn't it fortunate bees can speak English?  And according to her their solution, since they were no longer going to return to their hives any longer, was suicide.  

In 2014 Senator Claire McCaskill ripped into Oz over his ineffective dietary supplements, which American Council on Science and Health's Josh Bloom explains in this Science 2.0 piece entitled “The Lizard of Oz Takes His Own Medicine.” 

He started a crusade against apples with Consumer Reports claiming "that about 10 percent of the samples of apple and grape juice that they tested had levels of arsenic exceeding federal standards for drinking water."  There was a problem with that:

 There's a massive difference "between between organic and inorganic arsenic"an important distinction, because organic arsenic is considered to be non-toxic. The FDA responded with a statement explaining that most of the arsenic in apple juice comes in the harmless organic form; the agency and other experts called Dr. Oz’s report “irresponsible and misleading” for creating hype and fear around a perfectly safe product…….

And as far as I am concerned that applies to all these TV doctors who can only stay on the air and make all of that lovely, lovely money by maintaining an audience. That means they have to entertain as well as inform. Part of being entertaining is being outrageous, and then they lend themselves to outrageous scare mongering.

 In this article, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom adds:

Dr. Oz should follow the yellow brick road back to the cardiac surgery department at New York Presbyterian Hospital. At least he knows what he's talking about there. Kudos, however, to ABC News Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Bessor, who publicly confronted Dr. Oz about his latest claims. He compared Dr. Oz s apple juice scare to yelling fire in a movie theater, noting that there was no truth to the doctor s irresponsible allegations.

He finally went all the way over to the dark side warning “parents that the apple juice they’re giving their children may be harmful.” His show staff, crack toxicologists all I’m sure, “arranged to have several samples of store-bought apple juice tested for arsenic, and found that the arsenic levels in some brands were higher than others.” 

Apparently the man from Oz decided that the level was too high and dangerous in spite of the fact that the amounts were “minuscule”. The FDA immediately refuted this piece of junk science noting that there was a difference between organic and non-organic arsenic, and organic arsenic is harmless.  Why didn’t Ole Doc Oz know this? Who knows what kind of damage he has done to the apple industry.

He presents himself as a medical scientist doesn’t he? Why was he investigating arsenic in apple juice in the first place? What events took place that caused this concern? Is there a connection between Ole Doc Oz and the insane activists that infest the green movement?

Perhaps he and his producers concluded the same thing and decided they needed him to jazz up his presentations. As I would see parts of some of his shows it became obvious to me that he was pretty much selling the same kind of junk science and scare mongering as the organics, the greenies and the all natural crowd. 

I know most have no recollection of the Alar scare story, but this is the same kind of fallacious scare mongering that went on back then.   The only difference is now we have the internet with experts who can debunk these lunatics.  Now Oz went so far off base he was finally caught because he ventured into the realms of provable science, and in those realms he is lost. 

Perhaps what disturbs me a bit is that those who know me best know that I am fascinated by everything. Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. The reward is that you know the truth. The punishment is that you know the truth. My friends also know that I understand it all because I read extensively over these issues, and I read both sides, so when I finally come to a conclusion about something I am very rarely wrong. So why do they disagree with me over a whack job like Oz?  Because he’s so nice! Then again isn’t that true of all cult leaders.

What I would have really liked to have seen the nation’s apple farmers sue him for any drop in the sale of apples, whether it is for eating, for juice or any other use. Perhaps this kind of claptrap would end if this was done on a regular basis. Oprah was the one responsible for getting him on the air in the first place. Oprah was sued years ago over her comments about beef, and even though she won, she never did that again. Dr. Phil was one of the ones who helped her win this case. I have come to think he is a loon also. My wife says that I think everyone is a loon. Once again, no I don’t, it’s just that I can’t help it when there are so many loons out there and so little time to point it out. 

And now Trump has chosen Herschel Walker to be in charge of missile defense.  Listen up Donny, this is nuts, what's wrong with you?  These appointments puts all your appointments in jeopardy. 

Update: Is Burgum the Right Choice for Interior Secretary and Energy Czar? - his views on issues important to conservatives and his many constituents make his choice extremely questionable.......the COVID plandemic, January 6, China, zero carbon, carbon dioxide capture, and land grabs....... financed and promoted a tracking app as part of a public-private partnership between the North Dakota Department of Health and ProudCrowd.  He imposed strict masking rules, penalizing violators up to $1,000.  Restaurants were limited to 50% of capacity, bars had to close at 10 p.m., and sports and recreation at schools were suspended, though championship contests and performance events were allowed to continue.......make his choice extremely questionable.....

I find all this to be very strange, and that's being kind.  What is wrong with Trump?

Voters Just Didn't Understand! Really?

By Robin Itzler

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK

In the days following Donald Trump’s historic landslide win of both the electoral and popular votes, recapturing the Senate and keeping the House, it was fun listening to Democrat pundits dissect why their party lost. Many have no clue. For instance, when a Democrat in good standing says/writes that the party moved too far to the radical woke left, that person is attacked. A key reason Americans tossed out the jackass “Demonrat” party is because since January 20, 2021:

• Overall costs have risen 19.9%
• Overall food and gas risen 22.3%
• Overall shelter has risen 23%
• Overall energy has risen 29.4%
• Between 10 and 20 MILLION illegal alien invaders entered the USA 
  
• Plus, the year-over-year increases in fentanyl/other drug deaths due to the open southern border. hearing

The Harris campaign spent $1.2 BILLION, and still ended in debt!

The Harris/Walz campaign had $1.2 BILLION to spend on their campaign and they reportedly ended up $20 MILLION in debt. The $1.2 BILLION was raised in less than four months, giving the vice president of word salads twice as much money as the Trump campaign.

When it came to staff salaries, the Harris campaign outspent Trump’s campaign six-to-one.

Americans now have a good idea as how some of the $1.2 BILLION was spent. Let’s start with celebrity endorsements. Harris had to PAY big bucks for many leftist celebrities to interview her or appear at her rally. (Donald Trump didn’t need celebrities at his rallies. If any came, they received ZILCH.) As to Kamala Harris:

Oprah Winfrey, worth $3 BILLION, had her Harpo Productions charge the Harris campaign $1 MILLION for her to interview Ms. Word Salad.

Cardi B was paid $2.5 MILLION.

• Beyonce (who did NOT sing even one song) was reportedly paid much more. < $100,000 was spent to recreate the “Call Her Daddy” podcast set in a Los Angeles hotel room since Harris didn’t want to fly to New York where the show is filmed.
• Al Sharpton’s National Action Network received two donations totaling $500,000 prior to Harris’s October 20 MSNBC interview with him.
• According to The New York Times, six figures were spent flying banners over four NFL October games. 
• According to The Guardian, ads were displayed on the Las Vegas Sphere for several days at $450,000 per day. 
• Harris/Walz held a seven swing-state $20 MILLION concert on election eve (November 4). The event featured performances by Jon Bon Jovi in Detroit, Christina Aguilera in Las Vegas, Katy Perry in Pittsburgh and Lady Gaga in Philadelphia. Two days before (November 2), 2 Chainz joined Harris for a concert in Atlanta. The New York Post reports that Obama campaign staffers Stephanie Cutter and David Plouffe believed the money spent on these concerts would encourage lower-propensity voters to show up at the polls. Hmmm, how about lowering the costs of food, clothing and shelter?

Patriot Neighbors would have reached out for comment, but we assumed many celebrities were at the airport leaving the United States.

And Kamala Harris wanted to be the chief executive in charge of our nation’s finances. Gulp!

What Happens After Major Cuts In Government Spending? The Latest From Argentina

November 18, 2024 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

If you believe the messaging of the Trump transition, big cuts in U.S. government spending are coming. Announced cabinet appointments include several who are opponents of the mission of the agencies they will soon be heading. A new Department of Government Efficiency is to be created, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, with instructions to take an ax to wasteful programs.

But, assuming that some big cuts actually get implemented, you know what inevitably comes next: Because all government spending is (foolishly) counted as a 100% addition to GDP, the cuts first get recorded as a decline in GDP. Economists on the left (e.g., Krugman) then immediately scream that the cuts have failed, the country has gone into recession, and the people are suffering. In recent U.S. experience, the Republicans have never had the political fortitude to stay the course.

But let’s look at the latest news from Argentina.

Argentine President Javier Milei was elected just over a year ago, on October 22, 2023. He then took office on December 10. The main thrust of his program was major cuts to government spending, and he immediately set to work to accomplish that. While I find it difficult to get comprehensive statistics in English, here are some notable data points:

• An April 23, 2024 article in the Buenos Aires Times reported that, according to the Argentine Institute of Fiscal Analysis (IARAF), for the first quarter of 2024, “primary [government] expenses fell by 28.6 percent year-to-year in real terms (deducting inflation).”
• From the same piece: “IARAF indicated that in the first three months of the year, 15 of 16 categories of spending were found to have declined in real terms, with the exception of universal social protection allowances (10.6 percent).”
• From a piece in Reason magazine, June 6, 2024: In March Milei had announced a cut of 70,000 employees from Argentina’s public sector workforce; and by June, 25,000 of those job cuts had been accomplished. Then, in early June, “Argentine President Javier Milei on Wednesday [June 5] announced the layoff of an additional 50,000 state employees, advancing his effort to "reduce the state in half."
• The result of the large spending cuts was that Argentina’s fiscal balance had swung from large deficit to surplus in the course of mere months. From IARAF via the Buenos Aires Times: “[For the first quarter of 2024] the primary deficit became a primary surplus of 625 billion pesos,” wrote the IARAF. “Interest expenses dropped by 31 percent in real terms from the same month last year. Consequently, a fiscal deficit turned into a 276-billion-peso fiscal surplus.”

The inevitable immediate result of the large cuts to government spending was an official recession, as the government spending was removed from the official GDP accounts. From BBVA Research, October 2, 2024:

[Argentine] GDP contracted by 3.4% in the first half of 2024.

Trading Economics shows similar figures for Argentine GDP: -2.49% for 4Q 2023, -2.57% for 1Q 2024, and -1.7% for 2Q 2024. Actually, those declines were remarkably small given the very large cuts to government spending. Perhaps unnoticed to the statisticians, some entrepreneurial spirits were beginning to awaken among the Argentine people.

And now, what’s the latest from Argentina? It looks like the economy is starting to take off. From Mario Nawfal on X, November 16:

ARGENTINA’S ECONOMIC SURGE: JP MORGAN HIKES GDP GROWTH FORECAST TO 8.5% UNDER MILEI’S POLICIES JP Morgan has raised Argentina’s GDP growth forecast to 8.5%, citing optimism around recent reforms by President Milei. Milei, known for his bold free-market agenda, is pushing plans to dollarize Argentina’s economy, slash public spending, and reduce government intervention — aiming to curb inflation and boost economic stability. This updated forecast signals rising confidence in Argentina’s potential for a turnaround. Source: Buenos Aires Times.

As of this writing it’s still just a forecast. However, all indications are positive. Milei has stayed the course through a first year of strenuous opposition from entrenched interests. The dead hand of government overspending, over-regulation, crony capitalism and handouts has been dramatically loosened.

Now it’s up to Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy, et al., to follow the same course. May they have every success.

Blame Washington for the Great Depression, Part II

November 19, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

With regards to economic policy, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were two peas in a pod. They both responded to an economic downturn by dramatically expanding the size and scope of government. As a result of those mistakes, they turned a recession into the Great Depression.

But that statement doesn’t come close to capturing the terrible consequences of their statism. So I went to the Maddison database and created two charts that illustrate the utter failure of Hoover’s interventionism and FDR’s New Deal.

The first chart is very straightforward, showing that there was almost zero growth in per-capita GDP between 1929 and 1940.

That’s a miserable performance, and it is also is a massive historical anomaly.

Here’s another chart comparing the 11-year change in per-capita GDP during the Hoover-Roosevelt era of statism with the average of every other 11-year period from the end of the Civil War until today.

The bottom line is that there have been plenty of recessions in American history, but they usually have not lasted very long and they’ve been more than offset by periods of growth.

 

It was only when Hoover and Roosevelt delivered 11 years of statism that America suffered 11 years of stagnation. Let’s now augment GDP data with some analysis. In a column for Law & Liberty, Amity Shlaes wrote about how the Hoover-Roosevelt policies were a failure that deepened and lengthened the Great Depression.

If you’re in a rush, these excerpts summarize her findings.

…many historians have been unwilling to probe the effect of Roosevelt’s multi-year recovery program, the New Deal. …Why did recovery not return after five years, or after seven? …It was the duration that made the Depression great. …These days, politicians routinely invoke the New Deal as a model of inspiration…even though the New Deal never…“put America back to work.” …other factors, well documented by the extensive studies of the early years, exacerbated the subsequent downturn: the young Fed’s missteps, an international crisis, the collapse of vulnerable small banks across the land. …

Historian Robert Higgs has developed a useful thesis to explain this lost decade: “regime uncertainty,” the notion that an erratic, aggressive government can terrify businesses into slowdown. …the downturn after 1929 would not have become the Great Depression had Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt replayed the restrained federal policy of the early 1920s: reduce uncertainty and allow the market to take the lead.

She documents some of Hoover’s failures.

Congress passed, and President Herbert Hoover went along with, a damaging tariff, Smoot-Hawley. …Hoover, unlike Harding or his successor Calvin Coolidge, was inclined to action. …Hoover therefore turned to measures his “do less” predecessors would have eschewed. …

Hoover loaded burdens on business with a large tax hike, raising the top income tax rate to 63% from 25%. Even Hoover’s smaller interventions today look perverse: At a time when transactions were difficult, Hoover threw sand in the gears by introducing a tax on checks. …Hoover likewise tried to manage prices in another new area: labor. …Under a then-novel theory, higher wages would prompt recovery because they would invigorate workers and enable workers to spend more, stimulating the economy.

Amity then explains that Roosevelt delivered more of the same.

Like Hoover before him, …Roosevelt promised..new interventions. …With his New Deal, the President claimed that license. In the famous 100 Days, his first legislative drive, Roosevelt established dozens of large programs to oversee or alter virtually every sector of the economy. The National Recovery Administration, tasked with managing the industry, became the centerpiece of the New Deal. …

Under statutes bearing visible traces of Benito Mussolini’s syndicalism, the NRA assigned large firms and industry leaders, to draft codes to promote efficiency in their markets. These codes spelled out in magnificent detail right down to what price a cleaner might charge to press pants, or which chicken a butcher must kill first — every aspect of daily business. …the NRA’s corollary agency in agriculture, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration both forced and paid farmers to destroy their crops, again on the principle that less product would drive up prices. …Though Hoover had raised taxes, Roosevelt boosted them yet again, specifically targeting those who were most likely to create jobs through investment: top earners.

Amen. Amity is right (and historians are wrong) about the destructive policies of the 1930s.

P.S. Amity also includes some discussion of what happened during the “Forgotten Depression” shortly after the end of World War I. Harding did the opposite of Hoover and Roosevelt and got infinitely better results.

In the early 1920s, …Washington and the young Fed addressed a severe downturn by halving federal spending and raising interest rates. These moves would today be considered counterintuitive, to put it politely. …a new president, Warren Harding, sent a signal: there was no need for grand reform from the government, despite the downturn. …

Assailing the heavy burden of taxes postwar, Harding, once elected, made it clear to the public that he intended to reduce taxes wherever and whenever he could. Fewer burdens would free the private sector to pull the country forward. It did. Indeed, the economy recovered so rapidly that the early 1920s downturn is today known as The Forgotten Depression. Stock prices rose dramatically, more than tripling over the decade. Jobs materialized, and most importantly, the standard of living increased. Productivity gains meant the old six-day work week could drop to five days. That gave America a gift we still enjoy: Saturday.

P.P.S. Fortunately, FDR was not able implement his “Second Bill of Rights” or his proposal for a 100 percent tax rate.

P.P.P.S. Some claim that World War II spending shows that Keynesian economics can work, but proponents of that view have never been able to explain why the economy didn’t fall back into depression when the war ended.

 

 

Socio-Feudalism’s War on the Individual

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

The transformation of the medieval world into the modern world came about with the idea that man could and should transform his lot in life. The liberal individualism of the Enlightenment however was soon countered by reactionary movements, feudal and socio-feudal, seeking to put the genie of individual autonomy back in the box through collectivist movements.

Among the most prominent of these was what would eventually be called socialism. While early socialist movements had been a radical Christian heresy emphasizing communal living, these experiments invariably failed on a local level leaving behind a trail of wrecked lives.

19th century radical theorists began laying out plans for the communal transformations of entire societies. Fourier’s socialist ‘Phalanxes’ which would influence everything from Soviet communal farms to hippie communes in the U.S,. were feudal mass communities with no private property and everyone assigned a role in life under the rule of a centralized ‘omniarch’.

Socialists had to justify the elevation of the collective over the individual through fatalism about the role of man. All evidence to the contrary, man had no ability to change his lot in life. He was only an atom in the larger phalanxes of life. As Robert Owen, the Father of British Socialism, told Congress in an address in 1825, man “never did, nor is it possible he ever can form his own character” but is “universally plastic” and socialists could make him over into anything at all.

The Declaration of Independence asserted that man was born free, but to the socialists he was born a slave and the best that he could ever hope for was to be a slave to the right cause.

Ralph Waldo Emerson insightfully critiqued Fourier because he “treats man as a plastic thing, something that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, moulded, polished, made into solid, or fluid, or gas, at the will of the leader… but skips the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns system and system-makers, which eludes all conditions, which makes or supplants a thousand phalanxes.” Was man a “plastic thing” or the bearer of the mystery of the “faculty of life”?

Leftist revolutionary movements might begin by hailing the power of the individual but invariably ended up in a socio-feudalism system making malleable man over to fit the five-year plan.

Socialism postured as progressive when it was reactionary. Its leaders, most often hailing from the upper class and upper middle class, reverted newly liberated societies in Russia and China back to feudalism under the guise of liberating them. The Bolsheviks took Czarist feudalism and rebranded it as collective farming, forbidding the ‘liberated’ farmers from owning property or livestock, and even from leaving their farms to seek a better life in the big cities.

The empowerment of the individual had given way to the enslavement of man in the service of an ideal society. Individuals were once again worthless except as they fit into a larger plan.

The socialist argument against individualism was human fallibility. The muckrakers gathered every example of misery and described them as social ills that society had to collectively remedy. Outwardly private philanthropic organizations claimed to help the poor, but their embrace of eugenics, including mandatory sterilization, seizing children from parents, prohibition, and greater state intervention, including mandatory centralized state education, set a pattern that was innately socialist even when its proponents avoided the use of the word.

Every crisis, including WWI and the Great Depression, was seen as a reason for replacing smaller institutions with larger ones and further disempowering the individual. The National Socialists blamed Germany’s loss in WWI on free enterprise. FDR and the Democrats blamed the Great Depression on free enterprise. Both built a state system for seizing control of it. The Bolsheviks not only blamed individual farmers for their famine, but used it to wipe them out.

The post-war economic rebound in America and Europe did not end socialism, but rebooted it with governments confiscating even more wealth for the benefit of society. The macro conflicts of WWII and the Cold War, the threat of atomic annihilation, were used to define the individual as too small to make a difference on his or her own except as part of a larger mass movement.

Class warfare gave way to identity politics. Individuals had to join groups to fight for a fairer society. What governmental institutions had failed to accomplish in fully transforming man, the new movements set out to accomplish in the psychedelic decade. The individual was told that liberation would come from losing his bourgeois background, worldview, inhibitions, morality and values to a new emerging humanistic blob shooting along the rainbow to the right side of history.

The eighties marked a reassertion of individual priorities over mass movements. The movements that had broken the country were distrusted. Socio-feudalism struck back with an environmental crisis taking place on such a scale that individuals were nothing when measured against it. Global authorities had to immediately seize total power to save the human race.

Environmentalism has brought socio-feudalists closest to realizing Fourier’s vision of abolishing private property and packing everyone off to collective compounds with a defined role in life. Man has had his day, but individuals can’t help selfishly wrecking the planet. Only subservience to larger systems can stop global warming, end human misery and transform the world.

A new wave of gender identity activism further eliminated the line between the individual and the state. The personal was political at the most granular level. The pronouns you used, the products you bought, whether you left the light on or not, were political choices. Human existence became a series of political tests measuring allegiance to a state ideology.

When the personal is political, there is nothing personal left to the individual.

Socio-feudalism had contrived to reduce man to a state of total subservience.

Medieval England banned playing games especially “fute-ball” because it was seen as a distraction from the priorities of the state. Postmodern California passed two laws outlawing Indian mascots, along with plastic bags, gendered toys and a thousand other things.

Postmodern man occupies a world of illusory technologies and shrinking possibilities where children are discouraged from riding bikes, packed off to early schooling at toddlerhood and indoctrinated to believe that their playthings are the reason for the destruction of the world.

Socio-feudalism has the destruction of individual autonomy as its central goal and the pandemic lockdowns showed how easy that goal is to achieve in the face of a crisis. Government could and did assert control over what an individual could wear and whether he could leave the house. The public eventually responded to it not with a mass movement, as those mostly failed or were repressed, but by unilaterally discarding the prohibitions of the state.

Americans had ultimately fulfilled Emerson’s faith in “the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns system and system-makers, which eludes all conditions.” And that is why socio-feudalism will fail unless it can reduce mankind to a state of abject helplessness, ignorance and fear. That is what Communist and Islamist regimes strove for with varying degrees of success. And it is still the great aim of socio-feudalism today.

The ultimate struggle will be less about movements and more about individuals. The more the system fails, the more repressive it will become. And only millions of individuals can defeat it.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation. Thank you for reading.

Bob Casey and PA Democrats Flout the Law to Reverse Election Loss

Surrogates for the ousted incumbent want illegal ballots included in the Senate race recount.

By Graham J Noble | Nov 19, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

He refused to accept the outcome of an election and decided that he was not prepared to hand over his office to the man who beat him at the ballot box. And so, he and his associates decided that, by whatever means possible, they would find enough votes to reverse the result of that election. Is this about Donald Trump in November of 2020? No, this is about Democrat Bob Casey in 2024.

Casey, who was running for his fourth term as Pennsylvania senator, was defeated by his Republican challenger, David McCormick. When the Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, the margin of votes separating the two candidates was slim. The Republican was leading Bob Casey by about 26,000 votes. The call in favor of McCormick was made on the determination that, of the votes still to be counted, not enough of them were from precincts favoring the incumbent, and there was little to no chance that Casey would overcome the deficit. As AP put it, there “were not enough in areas supporting Casey for him to make up the difference.”

Nevertheless, the senator refused to concede. The result, as it stood, was within a one-half of one percentage point difference, and, in accordance with state law, that triggered a recount.

Nothing much to see here so far, right? A very close race goes to a recount. This was certainly not a first. The problem – and it could turn into a legal one for Democrats – is which ballots are being included in the recount. Prior to the Nov. 5 election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that incorrectly dated or undated ballots could not be counted. However, Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia has announced that the ballots ruled ineligible by the Supreme Court will now be counted.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a Democrat majority.

Bob Casey Has Friends in All the Right Places

Ellis-Marseglia was endorsed by Bob Casey when she ran for the office of commissioner. She reportedly donated to Casey’s re-election campaign. Her justification for disregarding a state Supreme Court ruling? “[B]ecause I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws anytime they want. So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

What the commissioner meant by that is open to interpretation. And certainly, she is not speaking for all Democrats. Ellis-Marseglia has come under fire by members of her own party in the Keystone State. Nevertheless, the commissioner is openly admitting that she is willing to disregard state law – and clearly, in this case, she is doing so because she believes or suspects that enough ineligible ballots can be counted to overturn the election result in favor of Bob Casey.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited freshman senators to Washington, DC, for orientation, he did not initially extend an invite to McCormick.

Pennsylvania Republican Party Chair Lawrence Tabas declared, “What’s taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness.” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley took to X, stating, “Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Democrats in Pennsylvania are brazenly trying to break the law by attempting to count illegal ballots. They are doing this because they want to steal a senate seat.” And it seems Republicans are not the only ones who think so.

As Fox News reported Monday, November 18:

“The state Supreme Court reaffirmed its prior decision in a 4–3 ruling Monday that counties cannot count incorrectly dated or undated ballots. The decision singled out the Boards of Elections in Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia County, whom they said ‘SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified’ for mail-in and absentee ballots in their Nov. 1 ruling.”

This ruling prompted Pennsylvania’s Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro to finally weigh in on the matter. He said “Any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process… The rule of law matters in Pennsylvania. … It is critical for counties in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions.”

Lost Causes and Election Deniers

The recount will run through Nov. 26, with the result expected to be announced the following day. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reporting on the contested race, observed, “Recounts that have changed the result of a statewide election are exceptionally rare. Of the 6,929 statewide election recounts across the country between 2000 and 2023, only three resulted in the trailing candidate coming out ahead, according to an analysis by the election-focused nonprofit FairVote.”

The paper added, “The four automatic recounts that have taken place in Pennsylvania during that time have all confirmed the leading candidates’ victories.” By most accounts, Bob Casey has nothing more than the slimmest chance of prevailing in the recount.

Casey could have conceded. He could have waived the recount that, by various estimates, will cost the taxpayers of Pennsylvania between one and two million dollars. Instead, the senator and those who are backing him in his likely hopeless fight to keep his seat have decided to commit what so many elected Democrats at the federal level have declared a cardinal sin. Then again, this is by no means the first example of certain high-profile Democrats taking the position that election results cannot be disputed – unless they lose.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Graham J Noble

Election Integrity Going Forward

We've made good progress in the last four years

John Droz jr. Nov 18, 2024 @ Critical Thinking About Select Societal Issues

The worst development of the 2024 Presidential election, would be if pro-American citizens believe that we now have the election integrity issue under control, so that we can “rest on our laurels” — i.e., relax and forget about that concern.

—> THAT WOULD BE A CATASTROPHICALLY BAD CONCLUSION!!!!!

There were less (NOT none!) shenanigans in the 2024 election due to an extensive four year effort by thousands of citizens working hard to fix the numerous holes that exist in our election system. My rough estimate is that we’ve done about 40% of the job.

There are still major changes needed to be done by both States and the Federal Government. A primary objective of Federal regulations should be to standardize election requirements. To have 50 sets of rules for Federal elections is absurd.

It is child’s play to advance partisan election requirements. The objective of these recommendations is to bridge the currently expansive gap between Democrat and Republican proposals, as it’s imperative that we negotiate a middle ground that meets the pro-American objectives of both sides.

This list was put together by a team of independent experts, who volunteered their time to advance the cause of US election integrity. To date, they have generated multiple reports on that nationally important subject.

The items on this list are explained in more detail in Part 3 of their Election Integrity Recommendations Report:

1. Election laws and regulations may not be changed within 120 days prior to that election.

2. Primary elections will be closed.

3. All votes, regardless of voting method, will comply with equal standards.

4. There will be 1+ week advance in-person voting, at convenient locations for every precinct.

5. Absentee voting will be allowed only in very specialized circumstances.

6. All absentee ballots must be received by Election Day.

7. Drop Boxes are prohibited.

8. Ballot harvesting is prohibited.

9. It is illegal for the state, county, or precinct to accept third-party election-related funds.

10. The state will provide appropriate voter assistance where needed.

11. Some type of legal ID is required when voting.

12. It is illegal to have any ballot-related equipment accessible from the Internet.

13. USPS will be fixed so that all ballots are delivered promptly and properly.

14. Election day voting will end at 7 PM, local time.

15. All absentee and early-voting ballots will be tabulated, and reported, first.

16. Legal election observers will be allowed complete access to the election process.

17. Fixing deficient ballots (or mail-in envelopes) will be restricted and must be fully transparent.

18. All counties will be required to report their election results in a standardized format (e.g., CSV).

19. Sample forensic audits will be required.

20. Chain of custody must be maintained for all ballots for at least 22 months.

21. Negative vote tabulations (e.g., to Edison) must have detailed transparent supporting data.

22. All eligible US citizens will be automatically registered to vote.

23. All states will be required to annually update their election rolls.

24. Rules prohibiting non-citizens from voting will be tightened.

25. A website and an 800 number will be set up for citizens to report possible improper election actions.

26. National uniform requirements for state vote certification will be established.

27. Citizens and state legislatures will have legal standing to file in-state election-related lawsuits.

28. States will seriously consider eliminating Electronic Voting Machines.

29. State recall rules (if and when a recall is allowed) must be consistent with state election rules.

30. A bi-partisan Federal commission will be created in 2025 to research and issue a public report on the voting rules and regulations of European Countries, Canada, Mexico, and Australia.

The Bottom Line - 

It’s more than disconcerting that there is no continuity in all fifty states, on ANY of the above items! How does that make any sense?

The US House GOP legislators are planning on new election integrity legislation. I will be submitting this to them. Please post any suggestions to improve on any of the above recommendations, in the comments below.

——————

PS 1 — I would be glad to share some of my expertise with new federal department heads. For example, if anyone knows a good email address for Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, or Chris Wright, please email them to me (use email button at top of this page).

PS 2 — FYI I did send my letter to RFK, jr, but have not heard back yet. That is understandable as he has a LOT on his plate!

---

Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

Please vote for Michele Morrow to be part of the new Department of Education.

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks for reading Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues! Please pass a link to this article on to other associates who might benefit. They can subscribe for FREE to receive new posts (typically about once a week).

Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part II

By Rich Kozlovich Tags: My Media Commentaries

 

CNN has been tanking for years, it's continued existence is in question, and they're facing a major defamation fight with James O'Keefe they're most like to lose as the judge who ordered this case to be continued said:

"If you stay on the bench long enough, you see a lot of things. Still, I never thought I'd see a major news organization downplaying the importance of telling the truth in its broadcasts. But that is what CNN has done in this case."

 

If CNN had issued a retraction, which is what was originally asked of them, this could have been avoided, but they didn't because they deceived themselves into believing they could deliberately lie and get away with it by hiding behind the New York Time v. Sullivan decision, since actual malice is hard to prove, and it's long overdue for Sullivan to be overturned.

CNN has it's troubles, and the nation can smile.   At CNN they're going to chop hundreds, including network stars off the payroll.  

"If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they're not reading any of this media, and we've lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form."..........The report cited Nielsen ratings for CNN, and also MSNBC, that revealed the networks' audiences have vanished. They're down by 40% or more. "Insiders told Puck the new round of firings will likely see on-air talent like them affected, as the network's new CEO looks to free up finances amid waning ratings," ............

In the midst of this Chris Wallace has decided to forego his seven million dollar a year salary in order to podcast.   Chris Wallace is leaving because "at 77, is eager to see what a transformed media environment has to offer, and neither he or his family want him to retire, and he wants more control over what he produces, which will be "unbiased".  Yeah right!  While I'm sure he's more than financially secure, it still comes down to this.  If he couldn't carry the freight at CNN, what makes him think he can carry the freight on his own.

Wallace, who CNN thinks is "one the the most respected political journalists int he news business" was hired at CNN to be their lead guy at CNN+ streaming service which lasted a month. 

• Even CNN’s Star Personalities Won’t Be Safe From Firings Amid Massive Ratings Drop-Off

One of the things I found interesting is all of a sudden we're seeing the worm turning on air.  In times past they made sure everyone was in lock step. No on dared dispute the leftist meme of the moment.  All over the Pravda media they played the bully boy making sure no one dared to defend conservative views, and big tech censored any one who did.  

All the panels were rigged, just like The View with one weak conservative and multiple mouthy leftists who interrupted and talked over the "conservative", constantly spewing out red herring fallacies in order to altering the subject at hand. 

But what happens when a bully has been shown to be a punk?  We're now seeing their own defending those they hate.  And even proclaiming their constant far left drum beat helped elect Trump.  Why?  Because they see the handwriting on the wall, and the bully is almost down and out.   

• Update:  CNN's Scott Jennings: I Did Not Expect Hitler to Get So Many Meeting Requests

Paraphrasing Daniel Greenfield:  "all this reflects the larger reality that most leftist organizations are interchangeable pieces of the same movement with the exact same politics who use different brands to appeal to different demographics."   For the media this is like an infectious communicable disease, and they're all collapsing together as a result.   Let's hope they continue on down that dark path.

 

Democrats Must Stop With the "Hitler" Name Calling

By Robin Itzler 

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK 

 

Every sane person knows that Democrat leadership (starting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) would not have given post-election speeches proclaiming that the United States will have a peaceful transfer of power IF they really thought Donald Trump was a fascist or a Hitler. The problem is that while they know their name calling was part of the Democrat Party’s political playbook, many of their party’s indoctrinated followers don’t. As Dennis Prager wrote in “Calling Trump ‘Hitler’ Has Done Permanent Damage to the Moral Realm.” 

 “Don’t y’all find it strange that now that he’s (Trump) won, they’re not calling him a threat to democracy? They’re not calling him a fascist … I would think that, if you really believe that, then somebody’s speech would be about how America effed up and how things are about to be really bad. It just makes you wonder how much of it did they really believe or how much of it was just politics.” —Lenard McKelvey known as Charlamagne tha God

"It is beyond belief that American Jewish organizations and American veterans groups have not greeted the labeling of Trump "Hitler" with howls of protest. It is difficult to know if Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust will ever again evoke the horror that these words have heretofore evoked.

That Jewish groups have not vigorously protested labeling Trump "Hitler" and "Nazi" only shows how deep the left-wing influence has been on most American Jewish organizations, especially the Anti-Defamation League, the organization founded to protect American Jews and combat antisemitism."

On October 25, Ric Grenell, the ambassador to Germany during Donald Trump’s first administration, resigned from the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum because of their “silence” following then– presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s comments comparing Trump with Adolph Hitler. Grenell wrote in his resignation letter:

"The Museum leadership's silence in the face of Vice President Kamala Harris comparing her political opponent to Adolf Hitler is dangerous. I have been a part of this Board when lesser comments about the Holocaust were debated for condemnation and action taken."

To share your thoughts with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Email: unavailable, Phone: 202-488-0400, Write: 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, DC 20024 

Update:  CNN's Scott Jennings: I Did Not Expect Hitler to Get So Many Meeting Requests

 

A Sincerity Test for the United Nations

November 18, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I get annoyed by the virtue-signalling leftism from the United Nations. And it irks me when the U.N. peddles dishonest analysis. And I’m also nauseated by the bureaucracy’s pervasive corruption.

 

But, unlike the International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.N. has very little ability to turn bad ideas into bad policy.

Which is why I rarely write about the United Nations. But rarely is not the same as never.

I’m going to pontificate about the U.N. today because Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute has put forth a very good proposal. He wants the bureaucracy to act like it believes global warming is real.

More than 67,000 delegates are in Baku, Azerbaijan, to attend the United Nations’ annual climate summit. …The United Nations itself sent hundreds of “observers” on behalf of both U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and specialized agencies. …There is normal hypocrisy, and then there is John “[private jets are] the only choice for somebody like me,” Kerry hypocrisy — but all pale in comparison to U.N. hypocrisy. The private and jumbo jets ferrying delegates to Baku, the idling sedans and limousines, the steak dinners and caviar mock any pretense that their climate concern is real.

In reality, the annual environmental conference is glorified tourism under the guise of activism. Nothing occurs in Baku that the U.N. could not conduct online and in video breakout sessions at a tiny fraction of the cost and carbon footprint. The same is true for almost every other U.N. conference. U.N. employees often fly first or business class. If the U.N. went online, it could slash not only its travel expenses but administrative ones as well. …Moving environmental conferences online would end U.N. climate hypocrisy and could serve as a test to curtail U.N. jet-setting and shrink the administrative bureaucracy that supports that lifestyle.

Amen. This change would be good for taxpayers and good for the environment.

 

When I issued my Eighteenth Theorem of Government, I was mostly thinking about the preening nitwits in the British royal family and the hypocrites in who go to Davos.

But it obviously applies perfectly to the type of people who attend U.N. climate conferences.

P.S. I’ve participated in two conferences at the United Nations. Sadly, both were in New York City so I didn’t get to travel to some exotic location.

Exclusive: Are Vaccines and Parental Consent Headed to the Supreme Court?

Can parents opt out?

By Liberty Nation Authors  Mark Angelides and National Correspondent John Klar, Esq. Nov 18, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Law, Opinion

In 2021, six-year-old Leo Politella was given a COVID-19 vaccine while attending school against the direct instruction of his father. Three years later, this case could be headed to the United States Supreme Court. However, it is the path to the highest Court that may end up being the most significant facet of this story.

Liberty Nation News’ correspondent, John Klar, is an attorney on the case* who spoke exclusively with us to explore the ramifications of the upcoming filing, Politella v. Vermont.

Parental Consent

Mark Angelides: John, can you give us a brief background on how Leo came to be vaccinated against his parents’ wishes?

John Klar: Tony and Shujen Politella were not anti-vax, but because they knew the vaccine was early in development and children were at low risk from COVID-19, they did not want their son, Leo, vaccinated. Tony visited the school the week before the clinic and was assured Leo would not receive the vaccine. On the day of the clinic, Leo was given another student’s arm tag, and when he protested that he was not supposed to be vaccinated, he was distracted by the workers and jabbed against his will. It should be noted that Vermont schools received cash awards from the state if they achieved high vaccination rates.

 

MA: What happened when this was first brought to state court? And what do you think are the further ramifications of Vermont’s ruling?

JK: The family did not sue for vaccine injury against a manufacturer but for breach of duty by government representatives. The trial court surprisingly ruled that the federal PREP Act, which governs emergency vaccines such as the one used on Leo, provided immunity to the school officials. The Vermont Supreme Court agreed, so this becomes a binding precedent for future instances in Vermont and possibly for children in other states. School personnel could force jab any child with a PREP Act vaccine with complete immunity unless they cause “death or serious bodily injury.”

MA: What is it that you are asking the Supreme Court to rule on, specifically? What is the “question presented” you propose the Court answer?

JK: The question is whether the Vermont Supreme Court erroneously interpreted the PREP Act to pre-empt traditional constitutional rights and medical ethics for parents and children, including the core right of informed consent. We are asking SCOTUS to issue an opinion that the PREP Act was intended to protect Americans’ health, not eliminate their children’s liberties, and that Vermont and other state courts are wrong to imply pre-emption of basic rights.

MA: Have there been other cases – or are there other cases ongoing – that deal with this question?

JK: Supreme Courts in Wyoming and Nevada have agreed with Vermont, as well as the Kansas Court of Appeals and federal courts in Kentucky and Oklahoma. There is a similar case pending in North Carolina about a football player who was administered a shot against his family’s wishes that we expect will go the other way: We await that decision.

More Common Than You Might Think

MA: I wonder, John, if this were another type of vaccine, for example, measles or DPT, would there have been a different outcome from the Vermont courts?

JK: Yes. The PREP Act only applies to emergency measures during a declared pandemic. Without the PREP Act’s protection, this would be actionable under various legal paths, including “the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment.”

MA: It’s terribly common for people to say they will fight a case to the Supreme Court, but the Court only takes a small fraction of appeals presented to it. What makes Leo’s case different and worthy of such an extraordinary appeal?

JK: The Court takes perhaps 150 out of some 8,000 filings annually. This case has improved odds because it is an issue of national importance and because there is a division between various courts and geographical districts. We believe this is the first petition on this specific issue, and we do not know what will happen in cases “behind” us – for instance, the North Carolina football player case may never be appealed beyond state court. It also concerns compelling facts – this was a very young child, and the school’s error was rather egregious. The case begs for justice. So, Leo’s case is particularly timely.

The SCOTUS Approach

MA: What is the timeline for this writ? And do you think the Supreme Court will grant it?

JK: It will likely be two months before the Court decides, though that may take longer. I am hopeful the Justices will grant our Petition because it is important for all children. The odds remain long, but ours are better than most!

MA: If that happens, what does the process look like?

JK: Both sides would file additional briefs followed by oral arguments in Washington, DC. If that happens, I am very confident we will win the case on the law. The Politellas would then resume seeking their “day in court” in Vermont.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

MA: It seems to me – and I am not a lawyer – that should the Court take up the case, it has implications beyond that of vaccinations. What are your thoughts on this?

JK: Not really so much, in my view. The case is a narrow one of proper statutory construction and application of established doctrines of federal pre-emption. We are simply asking the Court to rule that Vermont and other states are wrong to expand PREP Act immunities in ways never intended by Congress, which shocks the conscience in cases like Leo’s. If the Court agrees, it need not make any ruling on constitutional issues with broader implications. The case is really quite narrow: “Does the immunity granted to vaccine manufacturers extend to healthcare workers who jab people without consent?”

MA: Will you be conducting oral arguments should the case be scheduled for a hearing?

JK: I expect so. You know how I like to talk!

*As a lawyer on the case, Mr. Klar may benefit from any award won.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Meet the Gay Muslim Man Running the Women’s March

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

Ahead of Election Day, women wearing red Handmaid’s Tale costumes, rainbow scarves, and toting warning signs about their private parts rallied in D.C. for Kamala and abortion.

The crowd was so small that the media hardly bothered reporting on the rallies.

The Women’s March had come a long way since it claimed to have brought out millions to protest Trump in 2017. And the long way it had come was mostly down. In an early preview of the antisemitism controversies in today’s leftist movements, the March fell apart when its leaders were revealed to be bigots who hated Jews and supported the Nation of Islam

But with Trump back, the Women’s March is back too. And the pre-election rallies are supposed to usher in much bigger post-election and post-inauguration rallies using the “power of diverse women” as part of “a women-led movement” to beat men and take back power for women.

There’s one problem with the Women’s March: its chief of staff is a man.

Aquib Shaheed Yacoob, the chief of staff of the Women’s March, is a gay Muslim man who cut his teeth on early BLM activism in Ferguson through Amnesty International. Then he became the chief of staff to Tamika Mallory, one of the three March leaders, just as controversy broke out over her support for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who had praised Hitler

After Mallory’s departure, Yaqoob climbed through the ranks until the Muslim man became the chief of staff for a leading feminist organization which describes itself as “women-led.”

Has the Women’s March redefined the definition of a woman? Or has Aquib Yacoob?

Yacoob does use the trendy ‘He/Him/They’ pronouns implying that some vague undefined part of him has transcended the gender binary, but that falls far short of even identifying, let alone being, a woman. The Women’s March failed to respond to a request for comment on how they define women or “women-led movement”, or whether Yacoob will identify as one by next week.

The presence of a gay Muslim man in the top ranks of a “women-led movement” reflects the larger reality that most leftist organizations are interchangeable pieces of the same movement with the exact same politics who use different brands to appeal to different demographics.

Yacoob became the chief of staff at the Women’s March and a managing partner at the AdAstra Management Collective, a leftist movement consultancy which had worked with the Women’s March, with Amnesty International, where he had previously worked, and the Ford Foundation, which funds the Women’s March, Amnesty International and other AdAstra clients.

AdAstra was founded by Rachel O’Leary Carmona who is the executive director of the Women’s March and a former director of Amnesty International. AdAstra includes multiple people who are also associated with the Women’s March including Yacoob, Noor Mir, a Pakistani activist with Amnesty International and senior advisor to the Women’s March, Tabitha St. Bernard, a founder of the Women’s March, and Shawna Knipper, who is a secretary of the Women’s March.

What does it mean that Amnesty International, a British organization set up in 1961 based on a hoax, and the Women’s March, a trendy modern American group, overlap in this way? The same thing as the revelation that Axe, Dove, Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers are different brands of the same British multinational. Behind the familiar ice cream, soap and cause names are a handful of organizations making up one larger movement staffed by many of the same people.

The Women’s March appears to be AdAstra. And AdAstra names the Ford Foundation as a client, but the infamous radical foundation also funds AdAstra. A number of AdAstra’s people have their own consultancies including Yacoob whose group is named BrownManRunning.

And that is why a gay Muslim man is the chief of staff of a “woman-led movement”.

The Women’s March is just a recruitment arm for the larger leftist machine. The Left doesn’t actually care whether the Women’s March is run by women, men or some random combination of pronouns, only whether it recruits warm bodies for the “resistance” against Trump.

But “resistance” like “woman-led” is another empty brand for the larger movement. Behind the “resistance” is a massive foundation with total assets of $20 billion. Behind the “resistance” are private consultancies that actually place and run the front groups that the media covers.

The “resistance” is the establishment which has a highly developed corporate system for finding teams to run the front groups that manufacture the facade of a populist leftist movement

Are Aquib S. Yacoob and AdAstra doing a good job with their part of the “resistance”?

After Trump’s victory, the Women’s March tried to start a dance party outside the Heritage Foundation. The New York Times was obligated to report that “while a band and a D.J. played upbeat songs at top volume, the crowd did not do much more than sway to the beat.” The New York Times did not report anything about who was actually behind the Women’s March.

The forces behind the Women’s March would like to launch another fake resistance dancing to its tune. They are so convinced that no one is paying attention to the man behind the curtain that their “women-led” movement has a literal man behind the curtain as the chief of staff.

The “resistance” is composed of fake populist front groups like the Women’s March or Black Lives Matter that claim to speak for tens of millions, promise to turn out millions, but are actually controlled by small groups of political consultants who deliberately cultivate a radical image.

Their mission is to recruit, rally and riot, to create chaos, tear apart the country and prevent the government from functioning. The media covers them as if they were actual organic popular movements rather than wholly manufactured front groups which did not arise spontaneously in response to an event, but were the work of operatives funded by foundations who were calculating how to best recruit gullible college students to bring the Left back to power.

Activism is not an outraged response to oppression, but a career funded by some of the wealthiest special interests in this country. The causes are products not passions and the activists are professionals whose job is to sell the product. The product changes all the time.

One day they’re for human rights, the next day they’re for Hamas. One week they’re fighting for the environment, another week they’re fighting for illegal aliens. One month it’s abortion and another it’s anti-war or pro-crime because the activists are as interchangeable as their causes.

And if you doubt that, ask the gay Muslim man running the “women-led” Women’s March. 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation. Thank you for reading.