On Wednesday, the National Association of Police Organizations, which backed Barack Obama and Joe Biden in <a href="http://p2008.org/interestg08/napo092208pr.html">2008</a> and <a href="http://www.p2012.org/interestg/napo072512.html">2012</a>, issued an open letter endorsing President Trump for reelection, thanking him for his “steadfast” support for law enforcement.
Leaders of the group, which is comprised of over 1,000 police associations and boasts 241,000 sworn officers nationwide, met with President Trump on Monday. Trump <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/national-association-police-organizations-endorses-trump-reelection-after-backing-biden">said on Monday</a>, “Our officers have been under vicious assault. Reckless politicians have defamed our heroes as the enemy…These radical politicians want to defund and abolish the police.&#8221; He added, “My administration is pro-safety, pro-police and anti-crime.”
NAPO President Michael McHale’s letter announcing the endorsement noted the “unfair and inaccurate opprobrium being directed at our members by so many,” adding, “We particularly value your directing the Attorney General to aggressively prosecute those who attack our officers.”
NAPO did not endorse a candidate in 2016.
McHale’s <a href="http://www.napo.org/">letter stated</a>:
<blockquote>On behalf of the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO), I am very pleased to formally announce NAPO”s endorsement of your reelection campaign for President of the United States.  Our endorsement recognizes your steadfast and very public support for our men and women on the front lines, especially during this time of unfair and inaccurate opprobrium being directed at our members by so many.
We particularly value your directing the Attorney General to aggressively prosecute those who attack our officers; your signing into law the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act; your advocacy and signing into law the legislation which permanently authorizes funds to support 9/11 first responders and their families; your revitalization of the Project Safe Neighborhoods program to help reduce violent crime; and your unflagging recognition that America’s law enforcement officers, just like any other citizens, have Constitutional rights, too.
NAPO is a coalition of police unions and associations from across the United States that serves to advance the interests of America’s law enforcement through legislative and legal advocacy, political action, and education. Founded in 1978, NAPO now represents more than 1,000 police units and associations, and 241,000 sworn law enforcement officers, who share common a dedication to fair and effective crime control and law enforcement.
NAPO is pleased to support your reelection campaign, and we are confident of your continued strong support of America’s law enforcement community.</blockquote>
Speaking on Fox News at the beginning of June, McHale asserted: “As we’re seeing, many of our groups, of our associations throughout the country, are being placed in harm’s way.  As you have seen the last couple of days, many police leaders throughout the nation have given their opinion and their objections to what they’ve witnessed as a result of the tragedy that took place in Minnesota. However, our men and women of our association and all law enforcement are still compelled to be a line of defense to protect the innocent. It’s a tragedy what’s taken place; many elected officials and professionals have clearly identified that the agitators that have taken part throughout this nation are undermining the message that the peaceful protesters are attempting to deliver.&#8221;
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Donald Trump Addresses Members Of Law Enforcement On Long Island

National Association Of Police Organizations, Which Endorsed Obama/Biden Twice, Endorses Trump

Donald Trump

Police

Police arrested a suspect outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon for allegedly setting fire to a court police car, which was parked in the lot near the Supreme Court building, in broad daylight.
Supreme Court spokesperson Kathleen Arberg told Fox News correspondent Edward Lawrence in a statement that the suspect managed to injure himself in the process and was subsequently arrested, but was then sent to a local hospital for unspecified treatment because of his injuries.
“An individual poured an accelerant on and set on fire an unmarked Supreme Court police vehicle parked on Maryland Ave. near First Street, NE. The car was totally burned and an adjacent Court vehicle was also damaged,” said Arberg.
“The individual suffered burns in the process. He was taken into custody by Supreme Court Police and was transported by ambulance for treatment of his injuries,” she said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The statement continues; “The individual suffered burns in the process. He was taken into custody by Supreme Court Police and was transported by ambulance for treatment of his injuries.&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SCOTUS</a>
— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdwardLawrence/status/1283484626238033924?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
The suspect was the only person injured in the alleged arson, and he only suffered minor injuries, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/police-cruiser-set-ablaze-outside-of-supreme-court">Fox News</a>. His identity has not been released, and a motive has not yet been determined.
A witness to the scene told <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/supreme-court-arson-car-fire-washington-dc/65-32b802b2-f294-4866-ba09-4ab0cbfd82fa">WUSA9</a>: &#8220;I heard someone shriek and run away right after the fireball caught my eye. I saw a flash, but unfortunately didn’t see enough to be able to identify them.&#8221;
Video purportedly from the scene shows a car burning in the parking lot, with the person who posted the video describing it in the caption of the video as “in the process of exploding periodically.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It’s still in the process of exploding periodically. Outdoor lunch break is OVER.
— Marissa D. Barrera (@mdb2) <a href="https://twitter.com/mdb2/status/1283459564805984256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
The Wednesday incident occurred the same day Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, was discharged from the hospital after seeking treatment for a fever and a &#8220;possible infection.&#8221;
In a press release announcing Ginsburg&#8217;s hospital stay on Tuesday, the court spokesperson said Ginsburg was &#8220;initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., last night after experiencing fever and chills. She underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August.&#8221;
While the court spokesperson initially said Ginsburg would remain in the hospital for “a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment,” the court spokesperson has since revealed that Ginsburg is “at home and doing well,” according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ruth-bader-ginsburg-discharged-from-hospital-possible-infection/">CBS News.</a>
Ginsburg was also briefly hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital back in May after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-hospitalized-with-infection-supreme-court-says">she experienced</a> an infection related to a gallbladder condition. The Justice spent a night in the hospital, but was released the following day and participated in oral arguments from the hospital, as the court was not conducting business in-person anyway.
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SCOTUS Car Burned

Man Allegedly Sets Fire To Unmarked Police Car At Supreme Court, Burns Himself, Gets Arrested

Crime

Supreme Court

In the latest <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2020/white_house_watch_jul15">weekly White House Watch survey</a> conducted by Rasmussen Reports, President Trump, who trailed former Vice-President Joe Biden by 10 points in last week’s survey, has narrowed the deficit to just three points.
Rasmussen reported, “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds the likely Democratic presidential nominee earning 47% support among Likely U.S. Voters to Trump’s 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate. Four percent (4%) are undecided.”
In the latest White House Watch survey, Trump garnered 79% of the Republican vote; Biden got 76% of Democrats.  Among Independent voters, Biden scored 44% of the vote, Trump 38%; last week Biden’s lead among Independents was 12 points.
Real Clear Politics showed figures after the smoke had cleared from the 2016 presidential election that Rasmussen Reports was the <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/rasmussen_reports_calls_it_right">second most accurate</a> poll out of 11 major polls RCP selected regarding the presidential final results, only one of which (IBD/TIPP Tracking) predicted a Trump victory. Rasmussen predicted an extremely narrow victory for Hillary Clinton, prognosticating that she would win the popular vote by 1.7%; she won by 2%.
While Rasmussen has a sanguine view about Trump’s current position, Quinnipiac haa precisely the opposite perspective. On Wednesday, Quinnipiac reported that Biden had soared to a 15-point lead over Trump, 52%-37%, virtually double the lead Biden had in a Quinnipiac poll last month, when he held an eight-point advantage. Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-down-15-points-biden-national-poll">stated,</a> “there’s still 16 weeks until Election Day, but this is a very unpleasant real time look at what the future could be for President Trump. There is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the president.”
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-down-15-points-biden-national-poll">Fox News</a> noted, “An average of the latest national polls in the 2020 presidential race compiled by <a href="http://i/">Real Clear Politics </a>indicates Biden with an 8.1 point lead over Trump. More importantly, Biden enjoys single digit advantages over the president in an average of the most recent polls in many of the key battleground states where the general election will be won.”
1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, who at one point had a mammoth 17-point advantage over George H. W. Bush according to a Newsweek/Gallup poll, told the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/03/opinion/dukakis-has-some-advice-biden-dont-take-those-polls-seriously/">Boston Globe</a> earlier this month that Biden should not grow overconfident if polls suggest he has a huge lead, He stated, “Particularly this year, [polls] should be studied cautiously. Biden can and should win, but being at 50, no matter how weak your opponent is, is no guarantee of success.” Newsweek/Gallup was not the only poll showing Dukakis with a huge advantage; three other polls that also stated Dukakis was leading Bush by double-digit numbers.
In August 2016, <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/trump-clinton-polls-mike-dukakis-led-george-bush-by-17-points/">The Wrap</a> warned, &#8220;But anyone thinking Hillary Clinton will cruise to a crushing win might want to look back eight more years, to 1988. About this time 28 years ago, Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis had what appeared to be an insurmountable lead over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.&#8221;
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President Trump Visits The Customs And Border Protection National Targeting Center

Rasmussen Survey Claims Trump Has Narrowed Biden’s Lead To 3 Points

Joe Biden

Michael Dukakis

Rasmussen Reports

The Trump campaign has removed Brad Parscale from his role as campaign manager and reassigned him to a role as senior adviser for digital and data.
&#8220;I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the role of Trump Campaign Manager,&#8221; President Donald Trump said in a statement. &#8220;Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a very long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while being a Senior Advisor to the campaign.&#8221;
&#8220;Both were heavily involved in our historic 2016 win, and I look forward to having a big and very important second win together,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;This one should be a lot easier as our poll numbers are rising fast, the economy is getting better, vaccines and therapeutics will soon be on the way, and Americans want safe streets and communities!&#8221;
Stepien, who was the campaign&#8217;s deputy manager, is a veteran political operative and was tapped to the role as Trump&#8217;s advantages heading into the election have evaporated in wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in communist China. The Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/b6c7104b6b6de2d512bec8afd9f4f6bb">reported</a> that Stepien previously worked for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and was Trump&#8217;s national field director in 2016.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/politics/trump-campaign-brad-parscale.html?smid=tw-share">told</a> The New York Times in a statement: “Brad and Bill were both unsung heroes of the 2016 campaign and have done a great job building the infrastructure for the president’s campaign for the 2020 race. Together they both bring unique strengths.”
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-replaces-campaign-manager-brad-parscale">reported</a>:
<blockquote>A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday &#8212; which was conducted July 9-13 – shows Biden with 52 percent support among registered voters, with Trump at 37 percent support.
Biden’s lead is almost double the 8-point advantage he held in Quinnipiac’s previous survey, which was conducted in mid-June. And it tops 14-point leads Biden held over the president in CNN and New York Times/Siena College polls conducted last month. &#8230;
The poll indicates Biden topping the president by a 59-35 percent on handling the pandemic, 57-38 percent on dealing with a crisis, and by a more than two-to one margin on addressing racial inequality. &#8230;
The president’s overall approval rating stands at 36 percent, a drop of 6 points from Quinnipiac’s June poll. Trump’s approval on the economy was also underwater at 44-53 percent, and only 35 percent gave the president a thumbs up on the job he’s doing steering the federal response to the pandemic.</blockquote>
Former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg recently <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/27/trump-losing-2020-election-342326">told</a> Politico: “Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president.”
Nunberg added that if Trump&#8217;s numbers dipped down to the 35 percent range that Trump was &#8220;going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee.&#8221;
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President Trump Campaigns In Iowa Ahead Of Democratic Caucus

BREAKING: Brad Parscale Out As Trump Campaign Manager, Campaign Names Replacement

2020 Election

Brad Parscale

Left-wing radio host Charlamagne tha God suggested on Wednesday that ViacomCBS terminating its relationship with Nick Cannon following remarks by Cannon that were viewed as anti-Semitic and anti-white was proof that Jewish people &#8220;have the power.&#8221;
&#8220;Listen, Nick is my guy,&#8221; Charlamagne tha God said. &#8220;I hate it had to be him, but that’s what you can do when you have the power. And if there’s one thing Jewish people have showed us, it’s they have the power.&#8221;
&#8220;I can&#8217;t wait until the day black people are able to fire people for saying things about us that we deem racist,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We can barely get cops fired for actually killing us. They fired Nick for referencing a theory written by a psychologist on racism.&#8221;
Right-wing pundit Candace Owens responded to Charlamagne tha God&#8217;s comments by tweeting: &#8220;I respect @cthagod, but his comment that Nick Cannon’s firing proves ‘Jews have the power’ is off base. Did the hundreds of white people who have been fired over these past few months for disagreeing with the radical goals of black lives matter prove that we have the power?&#8221;
&#8220;Thousands of blacks promoted to comply with BLM,&#8221; Owens continued. &#8220;Thousands of whites fired for disagreeing, and everyone pretended it was cool. ONE black man gets fired and now it’s &#8216;the Jews have power&#8217;? Nope.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Thousands of blacks promoted to comply with BLM. Thousands of whites fired for disagreeing, and everyone pretended it was cool. 
ONE black man gets fired and now it’s “the Jews have power”?
Nope.
&mdash; Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1283470626045464576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Cannon came under fire after he promoted fringe anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people, including “the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the 13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America,” according to <a href="https://pagesix.com/2020/07/14/nick-cannon-responds-to-backlash-following-anti-semitic-comments/">Page Six</a>.
Cannon also made anti-white remarks in which he suggested that blacks were superior because of their skin color.
“When you have a person that has the lack of pigment, the lack of melanin, that they know that they will be annihilated,” Cannon <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-nick-cannon-white-people-are-a-little-less-closer-to-animals-true-savages">said</a>. “So, therefore, however they got the power, they have the lack of compassion. Melanin comes with compassion, melanin comes with soul. We call it soul. Soul brothers and sisters. That’s the melanin that connects us. So the people that don’t have it, and I’m going to say this carefully, are a little less.”
“When they didn’t have the power of the sun, the sun then started to deteriorate them, so then they’re acting out of fear, they’re acting out of low self-esteem, they’re acting out of a deficiency,” Cannon continued. “So, therefore, the only way that they can act is evil. They have to rob, steal, rape, kill … in order to survive.”
“They had to be savages, they had to be barbaric, because they’re in these Nordic mountains, they’re in these rough … environments, so they’re acting as animals,” Cannon added. “So they’re the ones that are actually closer to animals; they’re the ones that are actually the true savages.”
ViacomCBS <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/viacomcbs-terminates-nick-cannon-over-anti-semitic-remarks-does-not-mention-anti-white-remarks">released</a> a statement yesterday announcing that they were severing ties with Cannon:
<blockquote>ViacomCBS condemns bigotry of any kind and we categorically denounce all forms of anti-Semitism.
We have spoken with Nick Cannon about an episode of his podcast “Cannon’s Class” on YouTube, which promoted hateful speech and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
While we support ongoing education and dialogue in the fight against bigotry, we are deeply troubled that Nick has failed to acknowledge or apologize for perpetuating anti-Semitism, and we are terminating our relationship with him.
We are committed to doing better in our response to incidents of anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry. ViacomCBS will have further announcements on our efforts to combat hate of all kinds.</blockquote>
Various members of black community, including <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dwyane-wade-tells-nick-cannon-to-keep-leading-after-cannon-fired-for-racist-remarks-wade-later-tries-to-clarify">Dwyane Wade</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-are-for-our-people-first-diddy-defends-nick-cannon-invites-him-to-join-truly-black-owned-revolt-tv">P Diddy</a>, expressed support for Cannon after he made his remarks. Wade later tried to clarify his remarks.
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2017 BET Experience &#8211; Genius Talks Sponsored By AT&amp;T &#8211; Day 1

Charlamagne Tha God: Nick Cannon Getting Fired For Anti-Semitic Remarks Proves Jews ‘Have The Power’

Anti-Semitism

Charlamagne Tha God

Nick Cannon

Let’s play a game. It’s a simple game. You have to decide whether the following statements were made by David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, or the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a project of the Smithsonian Institution.
Should be easy, right?
Let’s find out.
Whiteness stands for “rugged individualism,” and the notion that “independence and autonomy” are “highly valued.” Whiteness stands for “the nuclear family” in which children should “be independent.” Whiteness stands for “objective, rational linear thinking,” values “cause and effect relationships” and “quantitative emphasis,” and places “emphasis on scientific method.”
Whiteness says that “hard work is the key to success” and that you ought to “work before play.” Whiteness represents “plan[ning] for the future,” “delayed gratification,” and a belief in progress.
Whiteness places value on being on time; on English common law traditions; on protection for private property; on intent as an element of crime. Whiteness is all about “decision-making” and “majority rules” and “do[ing] something” about a situation” and “be[ing] #1.”
If you answered David Duke to any of these questions, sorry, you lose.
Every single one of these statements comes from the NMAAHC, from a document titled “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture in the United States.”
According to the NMAAHC, “White dominant culture, or whiteness, refers to the ways white people and their traditions, attitudes and ways of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United States. And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America, we have all internalized some aspects of white culture – including people of color.”
If all of this seems insane, that’s because it is.
But only if you use supposedly “white” qualities like “objective, rational linear thinking.”
So why in the world would an institution dedicated to the honoring and uplift of black Americans reject such obvious goods as the scientific method, data-driven analysis, rational thinking, the nuclear family, had work, individualism, delayed gratification, private property, and principles of individual justice as aspects of nefarious “whiteness”?
Isn’t that inherently derogatory toward black Americans, the vast majority of whom both agree with all of these principles and implement them in their daily lives?
The answer lies in the absurd and disgusting redefinition of “racism” itself by “anti-racist” thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi (and knockoff product Robin DiAngelo). Kendi argues that racism isn’t a belief in the inherent superior or inferiority of a particular race. It is instead an embedded system that results in racial inequality.
<div id="attachment_129102" style="width: 710px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-129102" class="wp-image-129102" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ibram-X.-Kendi.jpg" alt="Ibram X. Kendi visits Build to discuss the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You at Build Studio on March 10, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)" width="700" height="399" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ibram-X.-Kendi.jpg 995w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ibram-X.-Kendi-300x171.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ibram-X.-Kendi-768x438.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />Michael Loccisano/Getty Images</div>
In Kendi’s view, any system that results in inequality is racist, and any complicity in that system is similarly racist — silence is violence! Thus, anti-racism means opposition to such systems.
Kendi explains, “To be antiracist is to reject cultural standards and level cultural difference. Segregationists say racial groups cannot reach their superior cultural standard. Assimilations say racial groups can, with effort and intention, reach their superior cultural standards.” In fact, says Kendi, “‘Civilization’ is often a polite euphemism for cultural racism.”
By conflating “culture” with “racism,” Kendi indicts systems that produce progress, wealth, and happiness – but that, like all free systems, also result in inequalities.
The American system established by the Declaration of Independence — a system that sinned grievously against black Americans in slavery and Jim Crow by failing to uphold those standards, but that sought self-correction over far too long a period of time — has made black Americans the richest and most powerful black people on the planet.
The very systems Kendi indicts as hallmarks of a “culturally racist” system — hard work, individualism, family structure, thinking about the future, delayed gratification — are the systems that have generated unprecedented wealth for black Americans.
In essence, then, the NMAAHC isn’t merely rejecting good ideas as racist. It is damning black Americans to lack of success by pushing against the very paths to success that have allowed black Americans to thrive.
By characterizing such pathways as “assimilationism” as “whiteness,” so-called anti-racist thinkers make life worse for black Americans.
How does rejecting family structure make black lives better? It doesn’t. Single motherhood is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/19/the-biggest-reason-for-income-inequality-is-single-parenthood/#7996d0102555">single greatest reason for income inequality</a>.
How does rejecting “hard work” pay off for black Americans? It doesn’t.
How does evading the scientific method provide an avenue of uplift for black Americans? It doesn’t.
All it does is provide impetus to greater suffering and greater inequality — all of which can then be used as ammunition in the war against the system Kendi decries. By failing to participate — and then falling short as a result — the system remains the enemy.
And that’s the point, not making life better for anyone.
More from Ben Shapiro: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-safety-lies-only-in-surrender-or-resistance">Safety Lies Only In Surrender … Or Resistance</a>
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National Museum of African American History and Culture

SHAPIRO: ‘Anti-Racists’ Say Science And Reason Are ‘Whiteness.’ That’s Insane And Dangerous.

Race

Racism

This week, gadfly New York Times columnist Bari Weiss resigned her position at the so-called newspaper of record. She did so after years of fielding slings and arrows from her own colleagues and editors, who treated her as an ultra-conservative enemy — this despite the fact that her perspective on the world is an eclectic mix of social progressivism, skepticism toward regulation and foreign policy hawkishness. (Personal disclosure: I, along with many people right, left and center consider Bari a friend.)
The pressure on Weiss from within the newspaper had reached extraordinary proportions: Excerpts of staff Slack chats revealed colleagues openly discussing why Weiss ought to lose her job, maligning her as a bigot and suggesting publicly that she is a liar.
So Weiss quit, and she burned the bridge behind her.
&#8220;The lessons that ought to have followed the election — lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society — have not been learned,&#8221; Weiss wrote in her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gadfly-bari-weiss-quits-new-york-times-savages-them-if-you-speak-your-mind-youll-be-hung-out-to-dry">resignation letter</a>. &#8220;Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn&#8217;t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.&#8221;
This is the nature of the game: Mirror the perspectives of de facto Times editor Nikole Hannah-Jones and her woke colleagues, or find yourself ostracized, publicly shamed and pressured to leave.
And the actual editors of The Times have caved to this nonsense time and again. As Weiss raged: &#8220;If a person&#8217;s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome.&#8221;
Weiss is hardly the exception inside the bastions of leftist groupthink. At Vox.com, co-founder Matthew Yglesias was shamed into silence for suggesting — sin of sins! — that cancel culture is wrong. His co-founder, Ezra Klein, subtweeted Yglesias, even as Yglesias remained quiet.
At Princeton University, professor Joshua Katz wrote an open letter decrying demands from fellow Princeton faculty that the university engage in open racial discrimination in favor of minorities. He was quickly labeled a threat to decency, with fellow professor Eddie Glaude complaining, &#8220;Professor Katz, at times in this letter, seems to not regard people like me as essential features, or persons, of Princeton.&#8221;
The list goes on. And on and on.
In fact, there is only one way to avoid the blacklist: to surrender, utterly and completely. Any sign of remaining dissent must be purged. Bow before Zod, or pay the price. Thus, Ben Howe (again — personal disclosure — a friend), an anti-Trump Republican who edited videos for the pro-Joe Biden Lincoln Project, found himself fired from the project for two- and four-year-old tweets. Thus, Gary Garrels, senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was forced to resign his position after he insisted that the museum continue to acquire the odd piece from white artists.
The mildest sign of unwillingness to become an &#8220;ally&#8221; in the Great Culture Purge of 2020 ends with your neck in the guillotine.
Have we finally reached the glorious age in which Absolute Truth is known with such fulsome certainty that our cultural betters should be trusted to wish dissenters away into the cornfield? Of course not. We&#8217;re just watching the latest cultural revolution in real time. Which leaves those who wish to not be purged with two simple choices: Stand up together against this round of Maoist purification, or hang separately.
More from Ben Shapiro: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-not-all-black-lives-matter-to-black-lives-matter">Not All Black Lives Matter To Black Lives Matter</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

New York Times

SHAPIRO: Safety Lies Only In Surrender … Or Resistance

Bari Weiss

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Princeton University

As an organization, Black Lives Matter is diametrically opposed to the majority of Americans of every race, creed, and color, not just the American way of life. With the help of mainstream media coverage, which sanitizes its radical views and goals, the organization has hoodwinked many well-intentioned Americans and will continue to do so with its particular brand of neo-Marxism, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-faith-in-a-dark-time">deconstruction of traditional values</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-cancel-culture-is-now-invading-the-american-workplace">calculated outrage</a>. Amid the rapid spread and scope of the movement in recent months, here are five ways in which the organization’s values and goals clash with the majority of Americans.
1. BLM seeks to abolish traditional family values 
With its repeated attacks on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronormativity">heteronormativity</a> and the nuclear family, BLM seeks to abolish not only traditional values as they exist in America, but, also, as they exist in nearly every culture around the world. The truth is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation#General_findings">vast majority of men and women are heterosexual</a> and most still believe in traditional notions of marriage and fidelity, especially among immigrant communities here in America.
Here is how <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/">BLM’s official site</a> describes its goal of &#8220;disrupting&#8221; the nuclear family:
<blockquote>“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement… When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual…”</blockquote>
The massive blind spot in BLM’s antagonism toward traditional family values is that those very same values continue to serve as the bedrock for immigrant communities throughout America and have done so for centuries, whether it’s generations of Italian and Irish immigrants or, more recently, Asian, Latino, and Eastern European immigrants. Citing the Census Bureau, the <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/most-immigrant-families-are-traditional-families">Institute For Family Studies</a> reported:
<blockquote>“[C]hildren of immigrants are more likely, not less likely, than children of native-born Americans to be growing up in traditional families, i.e., with two married parents.” </blockquote>
Additionally — and crucially to the aims of the larger &#8220;black lives matter&#8221; movement (as opposed to the organization) — the traditional nuclear family is imperative for black prosperity in America now more than ever, as Glenn T. Stanton of <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/16/how-black-lives-matters-antagonism-to-marriage-and-family-hurts-black-americans/">The Federalist</a> points out:
<blockquote>“Beyond the mistaken assumption that the “nuclear family” is unique to the Western world, their position is profoundly concerning. BLM, as an organization, seeks to dismantle the very institution that mountains of published <a href="http://familyinamerica.org/files/3214/5806/3564/Stanton.pdf">academic research</a> has consistently demonstrated as most likely to strengthen and empower Black Americans and their children: the traditional, nuclear family.”</blockquote>
2. BLM seeks to cancel capitalism 
Capitalism has allowed the U.S. to become the greatest economy the world has ever seen. For centuries, generations of Americans and immigrants from all over the world have been afforded a far greater standard of living because of America’s capitalism-based economic system. It’s the driving impetus behind the American dream. Yet Black Lives Matter organizers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-led-drive-to-defund-the-police-also-targets-capitalism">openly seek to dismantle it</a>.
In 2017, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-leaders-campaign-to-cancel-capitalism-shaped-by-marxist-upbringing">Melina Abdullah</a>, one of the most influential of BLM’s leaders and a professor at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/black-lives-matter-black-christmas-capitalism-724309">declared</a> on her radio show, <a href="https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/beautiful-struggle/">Beautiful Struggle</a>:
<blockquote>“[W]e have to disrupt the white supremacist, capitalistic, patriarchal, heteronormative system that is really the root cause of these police killings.”</blockquote>
Anthony Ratcliff, another BLM leader and tenured professor at CSULA, echoed her assertion, declaring that capitalism is “just as nefarious” as white supremacy and thus must be eliminated as well:
<blockquote>“Black Lives Matter and other organizations have as much hatred or vitriol against capitalism… Until we start to see capitalism [is] just as nefarious as white supremacy, we will always be struggling.&#8221;</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_125103" style="width: 904px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-125103" class="size-full wp-image-125103" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Melina-Abdullah.jpg" alt="Melina Abdullah participates in the Hollywood talent agencies march to support Black Lives Matter protests on June 06, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)" width="894" height="530" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Melina-Abdullah.jpg 894w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Melina-Abdullah-300x178.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Melina-Abdullah-768x455.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 894px) 100vw, 894px" />Rich Fury/Getty Images</div>
3. BLM disallows anyone from transcending the superficial categories of race and color
According to BLM, one is hopelessly confined to the superficialities of race and color by supposedly overarching patriarchal strictures and structures. This is a classic Marxist trope promoted in the works of <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/fouc-pol/">Michel Foucault</a> and other radical theorists that refuses to acknowledge the volition and agency of each and every individual, regardless of color, creed, or circumstance.
It’s also a Marxist trope that the great and complex American writer, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin">James Baldwin</a>, summarily dismissed even as a gay, black man in the 1950s.
In the final lines of “<a href="http://faculty.gordonstate.edu/lsanders-senu/Everybody's%20Protest%20Novel%20by%20James%20Baldwin.pdf">Everybody’s Protest Novel</a>,” a scathing critique of Richard Wright’s Marxist novel, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son">Native Son</a>,” Baldwin dismantles the spurious notions of being confined to one’s race and class by some nebulous patriarchal structure with eloquent precision:
<blockquote>“The failure…lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization which is real and cannot be transcended.”</blockquote>
The great failure of BLM is that it yields to an inherently flawed Marxist paradigm that disallows the individual to prosper, grow, and transcend regardless of race, color, or circumstance. Instead, it seeks to confine all people, particularly minorities, to narrow, external categories of race and color to further its agenda.
4. BLM marginalizes many shared values of minorities and immigrant communities
Whether by misandry or the constant derision directed at heterosexuality and values such as marriage, fidelity, traditional gender roles, and religious beliefs, most minorities in America are also targeted, directly or indirectly, by the agenda of the Black Lives Matter organization.
Most minorities come from immigrant communities that hold to values that are directly opposed to what BLM espouses. This includes most <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/importance-thriving-black-church">black communities</a> as well. These individuals and communities do not want their beliefs and ways of life challenged or ruined by the postmodern constructs, loose sexual mores, and gender-fluid values that BLM propagates.
In particular, the supposed “spirituality” that BLM promotes is really just a mishmash of New Age tropes that are anathema to the religious beliefs of many immigrant communities that have or are assimilating into the American way of life. For example, according to <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-fight-for-black-lives-is-a-spiritual-movement">The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs</a>:
<blockquote>“The movement [BLM] infuses a syncretic blend of African and indigenous cultures’ spiritual practices and beliefs, embracing ancestor worship; Ifa-based ritual such as chanting, dancing, and summoning deities; and healing practices such as acupuncture, reiki, therapeutic massage, and plant medicine in much of its work, including protest.”</blockquote>
It’s worth noting that, according to the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/immigrant-status/immigrants/">Pew Research Center</a>, almost 70% of immigrants to America are Christian. The New Age <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/syncretism">syncretism</a> that BLM espouses is often considered sacrilege to the religious practices of these immigrants. Yet, the organization continues to indoctrinate the children of these immigrants through the media and on <a href="https://reason.com/2017/10/04/black-lives-matter-students-shut-down-th/">campuses nationwide</a> to oppose the beliefs of the religious teachings of their upbringing until it falls in line with their larger cultural and political agenda.
5. BLM is explicitly Marxist in orientation
BLM’s founders, <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/our-co-founders/">Alicia Garza, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Opal Tometi</a>, openly admit to being <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpIIiBe7Wc">Marxists</a>. They draw almost exclusively from critical theory and its offshoot, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory">critical race theory</a> (CRT). Both theories are rooted in Marxist thought and have been a mainstay in left-wing academia for decades. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/">The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a> offers a detailed analysis of critical theory while <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory">Encyclopedia Britannica</a> offers a more succinct definition: 
<blockquote>“Drawing particularly on the thought of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx">Karl Marx</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud">Sigmund Freud</a>, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed…Since the 1970s, critical theory has been immensely influential in the study of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/history">history</a>, law, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/literature">literature</a>, and the social sciences.”</blockquote>
Writing for <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/06/65132/">Public Discourse</a>, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. offers a necessary critique of why critical theory and BLM are in opposition to the American way of life:
<blockquote>“[G]uided by Marxist ideology that seeks to revolutionize our culture and society… Black Lives Matter operates from a worldview that undercuts human dignity. It sees each person’s identity as determined by externally imposed social structures, which are in turn determined by the human desire to seize power and oppress others. Such identity politics entangles human identity in subjective, materialist terms…”</blockquote>
It’s important to note that Mohler does not, at all, dismiss the notion of “black lives matter” as a sentiment. In fact, as the president of <a href="http://www.sbts.edu/">The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary</a>, he offers a broad and compassionate take rooted in the very American values BLM seeks to erase:
<blockquote>“Today, there are very real and urgent moral concerns about the lives and well-being of black Americans. It is not wrong in our context, therefore, to say ‘black lives matter’ as a sentence…But it’s not that simple…Black Lives Matter did not emerge merely as a sentence. Those three words function as a message and a platform making a significant political statement…”</blockquote>
Currently, BLM has far more to do with Mao and his violent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution">Cultural Revolution</a> that lead to the death of untold millions than Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. King demanded an end to injustices rooted in the inequality and racism that were contrary to American values. Mao, however, sought and succeeded in uprooting an entire nation through violence and propaganda.
Like Mao, BLM seeks to uproot the very foundations of a nation with its Marxist goals. In this sense, they view our nation, in its entirety, with all its deep struggles and great achievements, as a lost cause.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/8-ways-black-lives-matter-activists-changed-the-nations-largest-criminal-justice-system">8 Ways Black Lives Matter Activists Changed The Nation’s Largest Criminal Justice System</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

BLM Fist

KHAN: 5 Radical Goals Of The Black Lives Matter Organization The Media Ignores

Black Lives Matter

Gender

Marxism

Some of the biggest names in comedy are rallying to Judy Gold’s side. Think Chris Rock, Rosie O’Donnell, Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin, Jon Stewart and Margaret Cho.
They’ve all given blurbs for Gold’s upcoming book, one with a title tied to the Cancel Culture zeitgeist.
“Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble” shares a welcome message for free speech supporters – from a rock-ribbed liberal, no less.
The aforementioned comics clearly cheer Gold on, both for her decades in show business and, more importantly, her vital message.
Consider:
&#8220;Judy Gold’s years of blazing free speech trails serve her well in this thoughtful funny book.&#8221; (Stewart )
“The fact that the world needs a book like Yes, I Can Say That is appalling. That the marvelous Judy Gold has written it is a gift.&#8221; (Black)
“Judy Gold warns us all what happens when they come for the comedians. She shows how urgent and critical it is that we, as comics, speak truth to power—before it&#8217;s too late. Yes, I Can Say That is funny and insightful—pure Judy!” (O&#8217;Donnell)
What do these comedians all have in common?
Yes, they’re all reliably progressive. Lewis is a <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/article/20160418/entertainment/304189804">self-described socialist</a>.
That’s not the connecting tissue that matters. Each has been virtually silent on free speech, Cancel Culture and a society in recent weeks, a time when simply sharing an opinion can get you fired or, in the case of New York Times writer Bari Weiss, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gadfly-bari-weiss-quits-new-york-times-savages-them-if-you-speak-your-mind-youll-be-hung-out-to-dry">bullied out of a gig</a>.
Let’s start with Stewart. The former “Daily Show” host has been mostly off the radar in recent years, toiling on feature films instead of his signature Comedy Central platform.
<div id="attachment_120563" style="width: 710px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-120563" class="wp-image-120563" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Stewart.jpg" alt="NEW YORK - JUNE 17: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Jon Stewart during Monday's June 17, 2019 show." width="700" height="467" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Stewart.jpg 594w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Stewart-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images</div>
Yet he’s been making the press rounds for the last few weeks to promote “Irresistible,” his mostly fair and balanced satire starring Steve Carell and Rose Byrne as D.C. swamp creatures.
Surely Stewart could have spared a word or two about Cancel Culture, media groupthink and the pressure comics face to tell the “right” jokes. Heck, the best way to promote a film that’s ideologically neutral is for an avowed progressive like Stewart to rush to Conservative Nation’s defense.
Nothing doing.
If Stewart said anything like this, it’s been buried by the press. Instead, we watched as Stewart slammed the Trump administration and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jon-stewart-why-joe-bidens-humility-makes-him-right-leader-us-1300362">reluctantly backed Joe Biden</a> during various interviews.
The most he could muster on the vitally important subject of free speech, alas, is a book blurb for a pal.
The same holds true for Black, Cho, Griffin and O’Donnell. They’ve been on the free speech sidelines while <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gervais-says-the-woke-mob-wants-to-shut-you-up">Ricky Gervais</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-adam-carolla-gets-raw-about-our-all-woke-no-joke-culture-friendship-with-jimmy-kimmel-truth-about-trump">Adam Carolla</a> do the heavy lifting.
Griffin’s Trump Derangement Syndrome can’t be measured by man-made instruments. Here’s part of her book plug:
&#8220;In this staunch defense of comedians, Judy skewers a corrupt administration that regards the First Amendment as a nuisance.”
Remember when Griffin ran to the rodeo cowboy’s defense when he got fired for poking fun at President Barack Obama?
No one can … because it never happened.
<div id="attachment_13409" style="width: 710px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13409" class="wp-image-13409" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/gettyimages-691580938-1024x683.jpg" alt="Kathy Griffin speaks during a press conference at The Bloom Firm on June 2, 2017 in Woodland Hills, California. Griffin is holding the press conference after a controversial photoshoot where she was holding a bloodied mask depicting President Donald Trump and to address alleged bullying by the Trump family. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)" width="700" height="467" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/09/gettyimages-691580938.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/09/gettyimages-691580938-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/09/gettyimages-691580938-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images</div>
Still, Griffin could side with those being canceled for saying the “wrong” thing. She’s lived that tale herself, thanks to her cruel, laugh-free image holding Trump’s severed head in grand ISIS style.
Why not take a page out of J.K. Rowling’s pristine playbook and become a warrior for free speech, not just a single Trump term?
She’d rather summon all of her courage for a single book blurb, apparently.
Rock may be the worst offender on the list. The revered comic is perfectly situated to speak out on Cancel Culture. He’s a legend in the field, and as a comic of color he has more gravitas than his white peers in the social justice universe.
Plus, he previously spoke out about why many comics don’t play colleges anymore. Students are too easily triggered.
Then again, Rock shared those views in 2014, a lifetime ago in cultural terms and an era when speaking back to the woke mob had few consequences.
Yet Rock is mum these days. Even worse? When fellow comic Jimmy Fallon got hammered for a 20 year old “blackface” sketch Rock didn’t rally to Fallon’s side.
Why would he? Well, Fallon was doing an impression of Rock and added face paint to complete the illusion. Surely Rock could have supported a peer and said something like, “yes, blackface is now off limits, but clearly Fallon meant the moment to poke fun at me in good humor.”
Instead, Rock stayed silent while Fallon groveled for forgiveness. Repeatedly.
Imagine the blow to Cancel Culture Rock could have struck with one sharp, sincere statement.
The Amazon page for Gold’s book indicates she’s targeting conservatives with her tome, but a recent interview with Adam Carolla suggests something else.
The Progressive Left, she told Carolla, bares the blame for <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/judy-gold-progressive-left-free-speech/">corrupting free speech</a>. We can also blame the progressive left, with but a few exceptions, for standing down when free speech needed a helping hand.
<div id="attachment_83304" style="width: 710px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-83304" class="wp-image-83304" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Jimmy-Fallon-965x576.jpg" alt="Jimmy Fallon arrives to the 2019 E! People's Choice Awards held at the Barker Hangar on November 10, 2019 -- NUP_188989 (Photo by: Amy Sussman/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank)" width="700" height="418" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Jimmy-Fallon-965x576.jpg 965w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Jimmy-Fallon-300x179.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Jimmy-Fallon-768x458.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Jimmy-Fallon.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />Amy Sussman/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images</div>
More from Christian Toto: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/toto-resistance-actor-channels-trump-swipes-at-halle-berry-for-caving-to-cancel-culture">‘Resistance’ Actor Channels Trump, Swipes At Halle Berry For Caving To Cancel Culture</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Chris Rock

TOTO: Jon Stewart, Chris Rock And Rosie Don’t Want You To Know They Hate Cancel Culture, Too

Cancel culture

Hollywood

Jon Stewart

Kathy Griffin

Rosie O'Donnell

The &#8220;believe all women&#8221; mantra, unceremoniously abandoned by the Left after their presidential nominee was accused of sexual assault (a purely coincidental chain of events, to be sure), has now been resurrected and repurposed. Instead of believing all women regardless of evidence, we are now meant to believe all claims of racism regardless of evidence. An <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-does-being-an-ally-look-like-companies-offer-training-in-support-of-black-colleagues-11594602000?mod=e2tw">article</a> published in The Wall Street Journal this week drives the point home.
Titled, &#8220;What Does Being an Ally Look Like? Companies Offer Training in Support of Black Colleagues,&#8221; the piece is a lengthy tutorial on how to be white in the modern workplace. Among other things, white people are supposed to be &#8220;sounding boards&#8221; for their minority coworkers. Also, whites must not &#8220;refer to their black co-workers as being ‘too loud,’ or ‘aggressive’ or their appearance doesn’t fit within their personal acceptable standards.&#8221; This would be a &#8220;micro-aggression,&#8221; we are told. But the main point, according to consultant Wilda White, is this: &#8220;If a Black person tells you that they’re feeling something is racist, just believe them.”
On one level, this makes sense. If someone tells you they are feeling a certain way, you really have no choice but to believe what they say about their own personal feelings. But the implication in this case is that we should believe the person not just about their own feelings, but about the fact that the thing is racist. CNN recently posted a handy guide on &#8220;how to talk to your black friends&#8221; which explains that to deny a black person&#8217;s racism claim is to &#8220;invalidate his experiences.&#8221; Instead we are instructed to respond affirmatively to any charge of racism with statements like &#8220;That&#8217;s hard. I wish that hadn&#8217;t happened to you,&#8221; or &#8220;What can I do to try to address it?&#8221;
This intentionally conflates feelings, facts, and experiences as if they are all the same. But your feelings about a fact don&#8217;t change the fact or have any other effect on it. Facts don&#8217;t care about your feelings, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/ben-shapiro">someone</a> once said. And your experience of an event is just your experience. It doesn&#8217;t tell you everything you need to know about the objective reality of that event. In some cases, it may not tell you anything at all.
Moreover, racism is fundamentally a matter of intent. If a statement or action is motivated by racial animus, then it&#8217;s racist. If not, it isn&#8217;t. Some statements and actions are overtly, clearly racist in both interpretation and intent. But when it comes to &#8220;microaggressions&#8221; and other slippery forms of perceived potential racism, like telling someone they&#8217;re &#8220;too loud,&#8221; the intent behind a statement or action can only be truly known by the person making the statement or performing the action. Only they can speak authoritatively on the subject of their own feelings and motivations. Apart from the individual revealing those feelings and motivations in some way, one would need to see some clear pattern of racist behavior to confidently presume racial motivation.
Let&#8217;s take a specific example from the WSJ article. If a white person (let&#8217;s call him Ted) tells a black person (Mike) that he&#8217;s being &#8220;too loud,&#8221; Mike may feel that he is the victim of a racist attack. Yes, we should believe that he feels that way if he says he feels that way. But how Mike feels about Ted&#8217;s intentions is irrelevant to the question of what actually motivated Ted&#8217;s behavior. In this scenario, there are a whole host of reasons why Ted may have said this to Mike. One of those explanations is that Mike was actually being too loud in the workplace and preventing Ted from doing his job. Another explanation is that Ted has overly sensitive eardrums. Or maybe Ted is just a pushy guy who does this sort of thing to everyone. Or maybe he&#8217;s racist. Or maybe one of a dozen increasingly less likely explanations.
We can all theorize about why Ted said what he said, and Mike can feel any way he wants about it, but without some further evidence, the only person in the entire universe who can definitively confirm or reject any explanation is Ted himself. The Left&#8217;s warriors for racial justice would like us to believe that, in fact, Mike is the authority on Ted&#8217;s intentions, and that even Ted himself should defer to Mike&#8217;s analysis of Ted&#8217;s behavior. This, of course, is lunacy and should be firmly rejected by all thinking people.
More from Matt Walsh: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-the-mob-is-trying-to-destroy-america-over-imaginary-oppression-heres-why">The Mob Is Trying To Destroy America Over Imaginary Oppression. Here’s Why. </a> 
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Believe Women

WALSH: The Left Wants To Replace ‘Believe All Women’ With ‘Believe All Racism Claims’

Feminism

The following is satirical.
A team of medical experts or possibly cranks has released a new report declaring that Joe Biden’s election as president will completely cure coronavirus.
The experts or cranks — it has now become impossible to tell the difference — said that until Biden is installed in the Oval Office, the flu will continue to spread like a raging wildfire, killing every single person in its path, including people statistics say will not be killed, and even including people who actually will not be killed but will be killed in news reports until Biden is elected.
The experts or cranks, known among their expert crank colleagues as Moe, Larry, Curly and Bill Kristol say that as soon as Biden wins, the painful panic and fear sweeping the nation will subside because outlandish news stories bearing false claims and causing over-reactions by tyrannical petty officials will suddenly disappear like magic.
The cranks or possibly experts say that not only will Biden’s election cure the disease, but it will also bring racial harmony to the streets of our cities, which have been so devastated by having Trump be the president while Democrat policies are destroying them.
Once Trump is out of office, say the expert cranks, spiraling crime rates, widespread homelessness and government corruption will suddenly vanish from Democrat cities — or at least from news reports about Democrat cities, which is the same thing.
Police brutality will only resurface if it becomes necessary to distract Americans from the fact that Joe Biden has been staring into a waste basket and calling for his mother for the last six days.
Clearly racial tension has been a problem ever since Barack Obama healed our nation’s wounds by twisting the knife of his failure in them, but with Joe Biden at long last in the government as opposed to wherever he’s been all these many decades, these problems will be completely solved.
Unless the experts are cranks, then this is just more of their leftist crap.
More satire from Andrew Klavan: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/after-reading-their-own-manifesto-radical-anti-americans-realize-theyre-insane-satire">After Reading Their Own Manifesto, Radical Anti-Americans Realize They’re Insane</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Medical Experts Now Believe Joe Biden’s Election Will Completely Cure Coronavirus [Satire]

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Satire

Defund the Police

Murders, Gun Violence Increased In These 6 Major Cities As ‘Defund The Police’ Went Mainstream

Breonna Taylor

Defund The Police

George Floyd

Law Enforcement

Rayshard Brooks

The pandemic remains a serious issue in America. It would be disingenuous to state otherwise. How serious, though, remains a bone of contention for many given the levels of obfuscation.
It seems much of the overarching narrative surrounding COVID-19 insists on either <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/832171895/coronavirus-panic-how-to-get-your-thinking-brain-back-online">sanctifying anxiety</a> or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/8-times-dr-fauci-revised-the-coronavirus-narrative">misleading us to some extent</a>, rather than providing clarity and responding with composure.
Recall Neil Ferguson’s <a href="https://idp.nature.com/transit?redirect_uri=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01003-6&amp;code=9c280baa-9238-40a3-b28d-5d59b626571d">Imperial College Model</a> that predicted the death of millions. Ferguson’s model compelled lockdowns all across the world. While they were certainly necessary for a spell, Ferguson’s model not only appears to have been inherently flawed, Ferguson himself <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/05/uk-coronavirus-adviser-prof-neil-ferguson-resigns-after-breaking-lockdown-rules">defied the very lockdown</a> he insisted upon.
As Kevin Dayaratna pointed out quite succinctly for <a href="https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/failures-influential-covid-19-model-used-justify-lockdowns">The Heritage Foundation</a>:
<blockquote>It is fundamentally important for models used in policy to be made publicly available, have assumptions clearly stated, and have their robustness to changes to these assumptions tested. Models also need to be updated as time goes on in line with the best available evidence.
Bottom line: The Imperial College model didn’t meet any of these criteria. And sadly, its model was one of the inputs relied on as the basis for locking down two countries.</blockquote>
While there still remains a paucity of data, the pandemic is also being politicized to exhaustion. When the BLM protests erupted for weeks upon weeks, the pandemic all but disappeared from the headlines. A little more than a month later, tremendous COVID-19 surges began occurring all across the country. The media adamantly refused to make any kind of connection between the surge and the protests.
<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/24/883017035/what-contact-tracing-may-tell-about-cluster-spread-of-the-coronavirus">NPR</a> ran a piece insisting that parties and disdain for masks were the main culprits in the surge, not the protests. <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/06/30/black-lives-matter-protests-did-not-cause-an-uptick-in-covid-19-cases">The Economist</a> stated the same, even arguing that any concern over the possible spread of COVID-19 during the protests was tantamount to “scaremongering.”
The answer, unfortunately, is that we may never fully know how much massive nationwide protests contributed to the recent surges. According to <a href="https://www.thecity.nyc/coronavirus/2020/6/14/21290963/nyc-covid-19-trackers-skipping-floyd-protest-questions-even-amid-fears-of-new-wave">The City</a>, New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio explicitly instructed those conducting contact tracing to actively avoid asking anyone if they had attended a protest:
<blockquote>The hundreds of contact tracing workers hired by the city under de Blasio’s new “test and trace” campaign have been instructed not to ask anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a demonstration, City Hall confirmed…</blockquote>
It’s certainly not beyond the scope of reason to wonder if governors and mayors like Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and Eric Garcetti instructed their own contact tracers to follow suit.
Even more perplexing, many of the very epidemiologists involved in battling the pandemic allowed their own political misgivings to color their analyses. They had no problem scolding conservative anti-lockdown protestors for large gatherings. However, when it came to the BLM protests that were infinitely larger in scale, they did not voice any concerns.
Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, at the very least, admitted to her own inherently contradictory views. 
She told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-coronavirus-protests-quarantine.html">The New York Times</a>: “I certainly condemned the anti-lockdown protests at the time, and I’m not condemning the protests now, and I struggle with that…I have a hard time articulating why that is OK.”
The argument that protestors were maintaining social distancing, actively wearing masks, and using copious of amounts of hand sanitizer is woefully inaccurate. Even on the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/blmgn-slider-now-we-transform-062220-2000x1125-01-1024x576.jpg">very front page of the BLM</a> site there’s a young man clearly not wearing a mask.
Finally, how COVID deaths are being counted seems as contentious as ever. In April, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, stated in a press conference that, regardless of any comorbidities, if someone tested positive for the virus and died, it would be counted as a COVID death, as reported by <a href="https://week.com/2020/04/20/idph-director-explains-how-covid-deaths-are-classified/">25 News</a>:
<blockquote>If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it&#8217;s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who&#8217;s listed as a COVID death doesn&#8217;t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death.</blockquote>
While such a statement doesn’t necessarily prove that the numbers surrounding COVID-19 are inflated, as many claim, it rightfully gives many pause regarding the data and information we receive on a daily basis.
Regardless, it’s hopelessly unfortunate that there remains little to no open discussions about the pandemic and our continued response to it. Any counterpoint or question, no matter how <a href="https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/07/09/a-conversation-with-john-ioannidis/">reasoned or insightful</a>, is bludgeoned into silence online and elsewhere. One is simply forced to cede to the many dogmatic overtures presented to us or be vilified into silence.
This piece has been revised for clarity.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

KHAN: How Politicization, Anxiety And Misdirection Are Still Driving The Pandemic Narrative

protests

Over the Fourth of July weekend, Colin Kaepernick tweeted: “We [meaning black people] reject your celebration of white supremacy &amp; look forward to liberation for all.”
On Monday, Disney announced that it had signed a commitment to develop content with Kaepernick, which would include potential shows on Hulu, movies with Pixar, and an ESPN docuseries about Kaepernick’s career.
Nikole Hannah-Jones is the New York Times race hustler-slash-reporter who engineered the dishonest 1619 Project, which falsely claims the United States was founded on principles of slavery and racism. She says she’d be “honored” to have the recent riots and looting called the “1619 Riots.”
Now Oprah Winfrey and movie studio Lions Gate are partnering with Hannah-Jones to transform 1619 “into an expansive portfolio of films, television series and documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment,” according to the industry website Deadline.
But so what? Conservatives have “God is Not Dead 16: This Time God is Really Not Dead,” with even more smiling piety than the last sequel, and absolutely no cussing or sex for two hours or until the audience dies of self-satisfaction, whichever comes first.
And we have Ayn Rand. In fact, those on the Right who believe in the philosophy of Ayn Rand should be delighted for Kaepernick and Hannah-Jones. They’re living the Randian dream: making big money through their creations with no regard for the objections of the little people who believe in things like moral truth.
Those conservatives, on the other hand, who have misgivings about ignorant creeps burning down our cities, might ask themselves if maybe value-free capitalism and reality-free Christianity are not a winning cultural strategy for the Right. Because, if the rioting 1619 creeps are a product of sixty years of leftist propaganda, just think what the country will look like twenty years from now when Colin and Nikole get through with it.
But there’s a different message out there: “Hamilton,” the Tony-winning Broadway hip-hop musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
“Hamilton” is spectacularly good. I hate hip-hop music, but Miranda is a superb lyricist with a real understanding of the American musical stage. The show is historically accurate (for a musical). It has brilliantly etched characterizations. And it includes two numbers — &#8220;Helpless&#8221; and &#8220;It&#8217;s Quiet Uptown&#8221; — which are as good as anything I’ve seen onstage, and I’ve seen everything.
“Hamilton” is also the anti-1619. It not only portrays the founding fathers as people of color singing songs in traditionally black genres like hip-hop and R &amp; B, it shows them as young, scrappy black men ready to seize the historical moment and take their shot at greatness.
In other words, Miranda, of Puerto Rican descent, is saying that U.S. history is his history too. When you become an American, you inherit it.
I know how he feels. A Jewish kid growing up in the sixties, I was twelve before I realized I wasn’t descended from Ben Franklin and George Washington. My teachers called them our forefathers, so I figured I was part of the family.
That’s called assimilation: you adopt a grand history of ideas as a dominant over-structure to the history of your particular tribe. As an American, you become the idea-descendant of the Founding Fathers.
“Hamilton,” then, is the opposite of 1619. 1619 says America is inherently, unchangeably antithetical to people of color. “Hamilton” says, no, we can join in the greatness too. The Left hates this. They tell us that assimilation is a racist code word. Why should we adopt the ideas of dead white males, they ask, even as they are turning on a light bulb or driving a car or using a computer, which are also the ideas of dead white males.
In fact, assimilation is the opposite of racism — that’s why the racist Left hates it. Assimilation is adopting the best ideas no matter who thought of them. Assimilation says freedom is good, and if the British and their colonists figured out how to bottle it, pass the bottle. It’s my bottle now too.
Conversely, the Left says: if whites discovered fire, we’ll sit in the dark.
Assimilation was not always open to blacks, but it is now, and many of them know it. You can tell they know it because it also inspired another popular cultural work, “Get Out,” a horror movie in which a black man about to marry into a WASP family discovers that blacks who assimilate have their souls stolen.
I’m familiar with that fear too. When I discovered I believed in Jesus Christ, I had to ask myself: Is this faith, or just another stage in the process of assimilation? I had to think hard before I was certain I was acting from my authentic self.
We need more “Hamiltons,” a lot more. We need more conservatives who recognize what “Hamilton” is. We need more real talk from conservatives about assimilation: its beauty — the fact that it elevates you above tribe into a community of great ideas — and its difficulties — the fact that it inevitably draws you away from your blood ancestry and culture.
Instead we waffle between aesthetic garbage like Ayn Rand and “God is Not Dead.” We allow Colin Kaepernick and Nikole Hannah-Jones to spew their racist hatred into the cultural atmosphere unchecked.
We have a tough election coming up. We may well lose in November. But if we lose the fight for the culture, we’ll lose everything forever.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Hamilton

KLAVAN: ‘Hamilton’ Is The Anti-1619 Project

1619 Project

Colin Kaepernick

Conservatism

Leftism

On Sept. 6, 1492, when Christopher Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, with the smaller vessels Niña and Pinta in its wake, set sail from the Canary Islands in search of new lands, he embarked on a mission of discovery that the historian George Bancroft declared “the most memorable maritime enterprise in the history of the world.”  In this and his three subsequent expeditions over the course of a decade, he relentlessly explored and charted the Caribbean islands and on his final and, in many ways most daring, voyage in 1502, the mainland isthmus of Central America — setting the stage for the world-changing discoveries of Balboa and Magellan, who would soon follow his path. The importance of Columbus’ expeditions is not that he was “the first” European to set foot in the New World. Scholars agree that title most likely goes to the Norwegian explorer Leif Erikson who, while en route to Greenland from his home in Iceland sometime around A.D. 1001-1002, strayed off-course and instead landed on modern-day Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where evidence of Viking settlements have been found. But the Norse, whatever their prowess as sailors, did not last as colonists and thus North America, and the Pacific Ocean beyond, remained unknown to Europeans for the next five hundred years. It would take the hazardous voyages of the Italian seaman Columbus and his crew, backed by the treasure of the Spanish court, to open up the New World and launch a decisive age, the effects of which are still shaping the modern world.
This image of the intrepid captain courageously braving the great unknown is, of course, not the way Columbus is often portrayed today. Instead, we see his statues being torn down by mobs for whom any moral purity begins with today’s sensibilities, as if this is some American version of Pol Pot’s Year Zero.  Columbus’ memorials have been vandalized, beheaded, and burned, much as superstitious villagers in the 13th century might have treated their local witch after a nasty wave of the smallpox. The ignorance on display is the same. One wonders how many of the masked nihilists in their obnoxious self-righteousness that only the unlearned can possess could even tell you the name of one of Columbus’ vessels, let alone the year in which he first set sail. (Something any first grader in my class could have told you.)
This is not to place Columbus on a pedestal higher than the height of the statue in the eponymous New York City circle. Clearly, the man was no saint and it does a service to history to humanize him…but he was no demon either. But that has not stopped our education system from utterly gutting this man’s reputation and presenting the entrails for ritual immolation upon the altar of P.C. wokeness. In my lifetime, just over a half-of-a-century, Columbus, the man for whom an entire country is named, has gone from being viewed as a noble explorer to a personification of the destruction of the indigenous Americans by Europeans bent on conquest, plunder, ecocide, and genocide. Now, he may not have been the most talented administrator as his brief stint running Hispaniola shows. But the picture that has been redrawn of him as a lascivious plunderer and murderer, one worthy of beheading in effigy, is off-sides. Russell Means, the late Native American activist, went so far as to attach the dreaded “H” word to him. “Columbus,” he seethed, “makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent.” Ouch! But such criminally ignorant histrionics bespeak more of emotional revisionism than they do a grounding in the historical record.
I&#8217;ve often wondered what is at the heart of this assault on Christopher Columbus’ memory for this was truly a man whose impact makes him one of the most important figures in history. I have a hunch that the drive to reshape him in an ugly light has to do as much with the context of his voyage as with its aftermath. And yet it is this very context that makes his voyages so immeasurably important to the very survival of the West itself. The oft-told story is that Columbus was seeking an all-water trade route to Asia. And that is true. But this prompts the question: why was an all-water route so vitally important in the first place? What forces were at work in the world to prompt this man to risk his reputation and even his life to sail into uncharted seas again and again in search of something that may or may not have existed?
In 1453, when Columbus was still a toddler, the Ottoman Turk armies under Mohammed II conquered the city-fortress of Constantinople, and extinguished the last vestiges of a Byzantine Empire that had lasted for a millennium. Despite – or perhaps because of – the courage of the last Emperor Constantine XI, who died in the breach of his city’s walls, the behavior of the Turks in the city was savage, even by the standards of the time. But more than just the calamitous loss of a city as the last expression of the West in Asia Minor, the closing of this gateway effectively cut Europe off from any direct access to Asia. Muslims now controlled all overland trade routes to the East, threatening all what was then called Christendom. Thus a new direct route was needed by necessity in order for trade to Asia to be safe from the Mohammedans who were busy washing the blood of thousands of innocents from their swords with the water of the Marmara Sea.
And so, in 1492, Columbus was on a mission to re-establish the West’s place as a global trader around the world. The Spanish Court, themselves having just defeated the last of the Muslim invaders at Granada that same year, were eager to do an end-run around their Eastern rivals. One wonders how much different the world would be today if the explorers from across the Atlantic who discovered the New World flew the crescent of Mohammed rather than the cross of Jesus, and with it carried the Western values that would shape the two continents. One certainly can guess that the protesters we see today in the streets of our cities, protected (to a point) by our Bill of Rights, courtesy of a Western legal and cultural inheritance, would not be so free to be so vocal — most certainly not the women — had a different brand of conquistadors who prostrated themselves before a different god laid claim to the New World.
I imagine that the progressive Left, with its unfriendly, often suicidally hostile view of Western culture, values, and traditions, would prefer we not be reminded by Columbus’ voyage that out of the undeniable violence and cruelties in his wake, as with the birth of so many great nations, a freer and more just world did, in fact, emerge over time; one that saw unprecedented advancements not just of technological and economic growth, but advancements in human dignity and civil rights. Especially courtesy of the most consequential nation to emerge as a direct result of Columbus’ voyages: the United States. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” The Emancipation Proclamation declared North America’s slaves were “henceforth and forever free.” And the Civil Rights movement a century later would see that real attempts to live out those lofty and morally superior ideals to any other potential colonizers’ should be matters of fact and law and not just noble aspirations.  No, for the nihilists attempting to justify their rampage, better to paint the unwashed Western bearded fiend in armor as the aggressor, the destroyer of the fantasy Eden that was pre-European America. This keeps the focus squarely where it belongs: on the sins of the West as represented in this preying man.
Actually, Columbus was not so much a preying man, as a praying man. And thus do we have another motivation for Columbus’ voyage that the education system has all but erased from the story. That is that Columbus was deeply religious, and he saw the New World as a place where more than just fortunes could be made. In describing his discovery to King Ferdinand of Spain, Columbus portrayed himself as a devout and sincere Christian who rejoiced in the souls that would be saved in this new land: “Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven, when he foresees coming to salvation so many souls of people hitherto lost.” Many of the islands Columbus discovered he named in homage to his Christian faith such as Trinidad (trinity), San Salvador (holy savior), Dominica (Sunday/“The Lord’s Day”), La Navidad (nativity/Christmas), Santa Cruz/St. Croix (holy cross), San Pedro (Saint Peter) and a host of others.
His sense of religious duty was very much apparent and so from its absolute beginning our nation’s narrative is one of a religiously rooted foundation. This is an uncomfortable idea for those whose religion seems to be secular wokeness, and thus must be stamped out. George Orwell said who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past, and thus is it imperative for progressives to try and play down or even eliminate any reference to the role of religion in the genesis of this American “city upon a hill.” Again, this is part of the new Year Zero in America.
From academia, to pop culture, to media, the flow of information, the gateways to knowledge, are often manned by those who view our civilization in an unfavorable light and are blatantly contentious towards many expressions of our Judeo-Christian heritage. I do not deny their sincere empathy toward the indigenous people, many of whom suffered terribly at the hands of the conquistadors and colonists who followed in Columbus’ wake. But this tells only half the tale. As renowned author and law professor Dr. John Edsmoe points out, I do not lament the spread of Western civilization as reflected in “contributions to art, music, architecture, ethics, liberty, law, government, a Constitution that has served as a model across the world, an economic system that has produced the greatest good for the greatest number and the highest level of prosperity the world has ever known, and a spirit of ingenuity and achievement that led to unparalleled medical and technological advances.”
Still, if one wishes to see the memory of this incredibly brave and dedicated explorer and his world-changing voyage torn down, there are ways within the system of discourse and laws brought to the New World by Columbus’ descendants to achieve this. But the roving gangs prefer the Stalinist/Maoist approach: erase the man, like a one-time party insider now out-of-favor and deleted from old group photos. And if they in the process wish to demean Columbus in such a way as to unfairly paint him with the crimes of the conquistadors who followed and as a profiteer and racist, well, it’s a free country, isn’t it?  I guess the reaction to this viewpoint will tell me.
As for me, I will continue to honor this man, warts and all, who braved the uncharted realm not just for profit alone, but to spread the Gospel he fervently believed in as Truth, and Western traditions that have served us so well in the five-and-a-quarter centuries since he first set sail into the true unknown. To me, Columbus represents capitalism, Western exceptionalism, and faith in a higher power than ourselves. Indeed, he represents the best of us in some ways. Conversely, this man represents the worst of several worlds to certain segments of the nihilist, atheist mindset that have wormed their insidious way into the ranks of those who tell the story of who we were, and who we are, in the hopes of changing us into the secular grievance-driven and tribalist society that they believe we ought to be. They say to judge a man by his enemies as well as his friends. Given what I have seen of those who violently and with no regard for the law or even decency take Columbus to task without any sense of historical context, as well as their disdainful view of the values and traditions I hold dear, I will side with the man from Genoa and take on all comers.
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and writer whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, Celeb Magazine, Zerohedge, Frumforum, and other news outlets.  He is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel Of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1682616630">Another Time And Place</a> (Post Hill/Simon &amp; Schuster, 2018).
More from Brad Schaeffer: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schaeffer-united-states-exceptional-ask-japanese-brad-schaeffer">The United States IS Exceptional. Ask The Japanese.</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Columbus Statue

SCHAEFFER: Christopher Columbus Deserves To Be Celebrated

Christopher Columbus

Michael Rapaport forged a career from slipping in and out of different people’s skins.
He’s played a Southern mobster on “<a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/5-reasons-miss-justified-raylan-givens-fx-season-6/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Justified</a>,” a boorish man-child in “Beautiful Girls” and the father of an autistic teen in “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Atypical</a>.”
His latest role? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/sports/michael-rapaport-podcast.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Political pundit.</a>
The part isn’t always a snug fit. He’s been belligerent at times, doling out dubious hot takes on the latest headlines. For example, he celebrated Mother’s Day by <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/05/10/michael-rapaport-uses-mothers-day-to-attack-trump-family/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">savaging First Mother Melania Trump. </a>
He <a class="broken_link" href="https://www.newsweek.com/who-michael-rapaport-actor-slammed-ariana-grandes-appearance-1266057" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">critiqued Ariana Grande’s looks</a>, earning the ire of the Woke Police.
Rapaport is a loud and proud member of the Hollywood Resistance, slamming President Donald Trump at every possible turn.
<iframe title="Michael Rapaport Talks Trash On Trump, LeBron James &amp; Jay-Z&#039;s 4:44" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5lypbhnPGhU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This week, the actor took a page out of Trump’s playbook.
The president dedicated part of his <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/trump-cancel-culture-mt-rushmore-hollywood/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mt. Rushmore speech to Cancel Culture</a>, what he called a scourge on western culture. Part of Cancel Culture is making actors turn down roles that could otherwise go to marginalized groups, a vague explanation with considerable side effects.
For example, Scarlett Johansson accepted and then turned down the chance to play a trans character in the fact-based film <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/scarlett-johansson-casting-woke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Rub and Tug.”</a> The superstar’s decision effectively sank the project.
More recently, Halle Berry flirted with a gig playing a trans character, but after Social Justice Warriors rose up on social media <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/halle-berry-apologizes-backs-out-of-transgender-role-after-backlash" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">she backpedaled.</a>
<blockquote>“As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role and that the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories.”
“I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and I will continue to listen, educate and learn from this mistake,” added Berry. “I vow to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on-screen, both in front of and behind the camera.”</blockquote>
Rapaport thinks she made the wrong decision, and he shared why on Twitter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
We need REAL GANGSTERS in MOB films. Real Boxers in Boxing films. 
Fuck Denzel,DeNiro &amp; all actor’s&#8230;. get real people to ACT in films. 
Dummies
— MichaelRapaport (@MichaelRapaport) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelRapaport/status/1280279693615230977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
More from Christian Toto: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/toto-shouldnt-hamilton-get-canceled-next">Shouldn’t ‘Hamilton’ Get Canceled Next?</a>
A version of this article appears on <a href="http://hollywoodintoto.com/">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Halle Berry

‘Resistance’ Actor Channels Trump, Swipes At Halle Berry For Caving To Cancel Culture

Transgender

If you trust the corporate press you’d think Americans have all but given up on the whole patriotism thing.
Night after night we see rioters tear down statues, hear major news channels reduce the Founding Fathers to “slave owners” and watch pundits say it’s time to shake America like an Etch-A-Sketch and start anew. Mt. Rushmore? That’s the next statue to be toppled if <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyt-lays-out-the-case-against-mount-rushmore-critics-remind-paper-of-its-own-problematic-past">The New York Times</a> has any say on the matter.
The media narrative couldn’t be more obvious, but is it real?
We’re seeing three examples from the pop culture world suggesting just the opposite.
Last week the military saga “The Outpost” hit VOD services. The film, co-starring Scott Eastwood (son of Clint), scored the top slot on iTunes’ American movie list. The film also gave its company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Inc., its largest opening day in company history.
The film also snared the top spot on FandangoNow’s movie streaming service, topping “Trolls World Tour,” “The King of Staten Island” and Jon Stewart’s “Irresistible.”
Director Rod Lurie’s fact-based film, co-starring Orlando Bloom and Caleb Landry Jones, follows a small unit of U.S. soldiers battling a massive Taliban force in a coordinated assault.
The <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2020/05/21/watch-the-first-trailer-for-the-battle-of-kamdesh-film-the-outpost/">numbers from the Battle of Kamdesh are staggering</a> – “a 13-hour assault by nearly 400 Taliban forces on a detachment of only 50 American soldiers at Combat Outpost Keating.”
While Hollywood routinely cranks out films critical of the U.S. Military, particularly true during the Iraq War, “The Outpost” takes a different path. Like “American Sniper” before it, “The Outpost” treats soldiers with respect and honor. These aren’t oppressors or imperialists. They’re men and women fighting valiantly for their country.
The film even features three soldiers who fought in the battle in question, including Medal of Honor recipient Ty Carter (played by Jones in the film).
<iframe title="The Outpost Trailer #1 (2020) | Movieclips Trailers" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m2RebNGTqjM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The folks behind “The Outpost’s” press division didn’t downplay the film’s patriotic bona fides. It leaned into them.
“We are excited to release The Outpost and are very honored to bring this true story of American heroism and valor to U.S. audiences on the Fourth of July weekend,” David Fannon, president of Screen Media Ventures said in a press statement.
Hardly sounds like a must-watch movie for the Antifa crowd … or Don Lemon.
Another pro-America film is enjoying healthy returns over at Netflix.
“Patriots Day,” an underrated homage to the Americans who caught the Boston Marathon bombers, recently joined the streaming platform. It didn’t take long for it to jump to the number one title on the service.
Earlier today “Patriots Day” slumped to number five, a still-impressive showing for a four-year-old movie that hardly caused a commotion in theaters. The film’s weak box office tally &#8211; $33 million despite the combined star power of Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon and John Goodman.
And then there’s “Hamilton.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster musical made its small screen debut July 3 on Disney Plus. Any attempt to portray the Founding Fathers as heroes could draw the PC Police to the scene. Right on cue, #CancelHamilton began trending on Twitter shortly after its debut.
The film adaptation of the Tony winner <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hamilton-drives-disney-plus-app-122613753.html">still drew a crowd</a>, above and beyond the lavish press coverage afforded the event. The platform’s app got a 74 percent download boost over the weekend.
From Friday through Sunday, the Disney Plus app was downloaded 752,451 times globally, including 458,796 times in the U.S., according to analytics firm Apptopia.
Perhaps American consumers who watched “The Outpost,” “Patriots Day” or “Hamilton” came away with a better appreciation for their homeland … at least until a news outlet tells them differently.
More from Christian Toto: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-few-the-proud-the-free-speech-heroes-of-hollywood">Meet The Few, The Proud, The Free Speech Heroes of Hollywood</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

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TOTO: Pro-American Military Film ‘The Outpost’ Crushes The Competition

Military

Patriotism

Hollywood certainly doesn’t have a reputation for being harmless. The amount of child actors who have walked away from an acting career untouched by the social pressures are few and far between. But even more scarce are those that lead a life as “put together” on the inside as they appear to be on the outside. 
Kirk Cameron, one of such men, would be the first to admit that he’s far from perfect, but he is also quick to remind people that his faith in God is the leading reason why he enjoys the life he does. 
In a December 2019 “Sunday Special” interview with Daily Wire’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, actor and producer, Kirk Cameron, shared how his faith impacted his career in the entertainment industry and how it has proved to be the foundation of a purposeful and successful life, both in Hollywood and at home. 
Cameron’s acting career launched when he was 9 years old. Only 5 years later, he found himself starring as Mike Seaver on ABC’s hit show “Growing Pains.” It was at that point Cameron knew he was meant to be an entertainer.  
The “Growing Pains” cast was like a family, said Cameron. And his experience was an overall positive one. 
“But being a teenager in Hollywood is a pretty dicey road to take,” Cameron admitted to Shapiro. “And I think that’s where faith in God kicked in and pointed me in a different direction — I took the road less-traveled, so to speak.” 
His journey of faith started at 17 when he was “captivated by the message of the Gospel” during a Sunday church message. Cameron said it helped him answer questions, existential and philosophical, that he was wrestling with at the time. 
From that point on, Cameron worked to navigate a lifestyle of reconciling his new faith with his career in Hollywood. 
“I was trying to figure out ‘how do I do this’ — I didn’t grow up like this. ‘How do I honor God in an industry that doesn’t always look to accomplish the same goal?’”
The changes in his behavior were subtle, indicated Cameron. “I just wasn’t dropping as many F-bombs, you know. I wasn&#8217;t going to the same parties, and I wasn&#8217;t interested in some of the same stuff my friends were interested in.”
The outside response to Cameron’s conversion was about as expected, considering the track record of teen celebrities.
“I would say there were some people who had a healthy concern,” Cameron explained. “You know when you hear of teen celebrities, child actors, often things enter into their life that makes them go wrong. And you know that can be very concerning.” 
Despite those concerns, Cameron is confident that he picked the best path. And he attributes his faith for keeping him on track.
Looking back, Cameron stated, “Wow, I’m really blessed to have this life and I want to really live it in a way that honors the One who gave it to me.’ And I think that kept me on track more than anything.” 
Forging the same career path but with a new identity was not as difficult for Cameron as one might expect. Cameron said doors began to open after high school, “and the doors that were opening were lining up with things that were happening to me on the inside.” 
Not everything stayed the same — but for Cameron that was ok. 
“There may have been some parts that I had to pass on because of content or conscience issues,” admitted Cameron. However, “It wasn&#8217;t like I felt like people&#8217;s disagreements with my faith or my values was inhibiting my career.” 
Rather, Cameron has had the opportunity to pursue entertainment he’s passionate about through films including “Fireproof” and the documentary “Monumental: In Search of America&#8217;s National Treasure.” 
“I want to be about things that promote faith, I want to be about things that promote family, and marriage,” Cameron told Shapiro. “And I think it’s really helping people,” he added. 
Now, as a husband to his once-girlfriend on and off screen, Chelsea Noble, and father of six children, four of whom are adopted, Cameron seeks to live out the same values that he promotes in his films. He is convinced that, “when the family crumbles, the nation crumbles.” 
<div class="image"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-127379" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-919x576.jpg" alt="Ben Shapiro Kirk Cameron" width="600" height="376" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-919x576.jpg 919w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-300x188.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-768x482.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></div>
In addition to his film work, Cameron and his wife lead marriage conferences across the country.
Cameron said all families begin with an expectation of success. “Nobody goes to the altar thinking, ‘Hey, if this whole thing blows up, I’m ok with that,’” he told Shapiro. Rather, he believes “people want and appreciate things that help them to live life in a way that causes people to flourish, families to flourish, and the nation to flourish.” 
With marital commitment in Hollywood today being a rare phenomena, Cameron joked during the discussion, “I’ve been married for 29 years, which is like 290 in Hollywood years.”
Parenting is also a full-time job for Cameron. He told Shapiro that there are three key principles he and his wife refer back to. The first is to be the person you want your kids to become. The second is prioritizing the relationships with your children and making sure your house doesn’t become a “correctional center,” as Cameron put it. 
Finally, “point them to truth,” urged Cameron.
“You know the kids get inundated with so much error,” he remarked, “with so much, you know, right is wrong, wrong is right.”
“For me, I go to God’s Word — those principles, those ancient truths that I can always go to,” he explained. “I want my kids to learn those things and know that truth is not relative when it comes to morality and things like that. Truth is something they can build their life on.”
Cameron is fully aware of the secularization in today’s society and is persuaded that culture is the key to bringing about change. 
“Politics is downstream of culture,” argued Cameron. “I think that the hearts and minds of young people are being formed, and they vote accordingly.” 
Cameron said one of the solutions is more people of faith in Hollywood.
Understandably, there are objections to joining such an industry. Cameron acknowledged the complaints that Hollywood can be “dark” and “dirty.” But just like politics, Cameron stated, “If you don’t like it, change it.”
While there is a strong but inarticulate demand for faith-based entertainment, fear of producing or even participating in such films is a big roadblock. Contrary to popular opinion, he suggested, there are in fact people of faith in the entertainment industry. 
Cameron said that “there are more people of faith than you would think” in Hollywood, but “many of them are very cautious about expressing that faith.” 
The actor is optimistic that we will be witnessing more people of faith “coming out of the closet,” both in Hollywood but also “all around the country and the world.” 
Practically speaking, “people are making projects where faith is at the center because it does well at the box office,” he noted.
“Many people think that what I have done, like talking about my faith, would be suicide for a career,” he told Shapiro.
To those debating whether or not they should vocalize their faith or conservative values in their professional setting, Cameron said, “Go with your convictions.” 
For him it was a matter of not wanting “to look back” in regret for not making the courageous choice. You won’t want to reflect back and say, “‘I wish I could do that over again. You know, I wish I had some courage and I wish I didn’t care so much about what other people thought.’”
“I care about people,” Cameron concluded. Ultimately that is why he wants to try to “speak the truth and live the truth in a compassionate way.”
“If I don&#8217;t do that I&#8217;m really not loving people,” he said. “I&#8217;m really just protecting myself and my career, which is selfish.”
At the end of the day, acting upon your convictions is of far greater value. 
“You only live once,” said Cameron. “Do what you believe you’re here to do.” 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-82-kirk-cameron">Watch Cameron&#8217;s full interview with Shapiro</a>

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron Discusses Finding Faith Amid Fame

Ben Shapiro

Christianity

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1280661677273464834?s=20">declared</a> during a press conference yesterday that America&#8217;s &#8220;system of oppression&#8221; must be &#8220;dismantled.&#8221; She identified our political and economic systems, as well as the criminal justice system, as perpetuators of this oppression.
While listening to Omar deliver one of her trademark soliloquies about our evil and oppressive country, one wonders what exactly is this oppression she speaks of? Who is being oppressed and in what way are they being oppressed?
Omar is not the only one painting such a dystopian picture of our society. This is the message we hear all across the Left — from the protesters and riots, from Hollywood, from academia, from the media. Take this <a href="https://twitter.com/TeenVogue/status/1280661656847220736">article</a> just published by Teen Vogue, claiming that the United States is &#8220;by every indication, more committed to death, subjugation, and grief than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.&#8221; To prove the point, the author (who, for the record, goes by the Twitter handle @SatansJacuzzi) points to the recent but unconnected murders of two women. A vague attempt is made to link their deaths to racism. But what the esteemed Satan&#8217;s Jacuzzi neglects to mention is that both women were killed by black men.
Why didn&#8217;t the author use more useful and relevant examples of black women killed by white men? Probably because such cases are exceedingly rare. Despite America being, as the piece says, &#8220;a vast tapestry of death,&#8221; the fact is that white people rarely kill black people. The reverse is also true. As FBI statistics <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls">show</a>, the vast majority of blacks are killed by blacks, and whites by whites. Interracial murders do occur, but very rarely, and the rare black-on-white murder is twice as common as the reverse.
And yet people are marching through the streets with <a href="https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/stop-killing-us-thousands-of-protestors-take-over-south-florida-streets/2241631/">signs</a> screaming &#8220;Stop killing us.&#8221; A writer for the Atlantic is more specific, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/damage-white-onlookers-inflict/612583/">saying</a>, &#8220;I want white people to stop killing us.&#8221; We are supposed to believe that black people are being hunted and gunned down in the street by racist whites, but this epidemic of racial violence is almost entirely imaginary. It&#8217;s a fable that is being repeated over and over again, from all corners of society, until people are persuaded just by the force of sheer repetition.
Even McDonald&#8217;s is getting in on the act. The fast food chain recently tweeted a <a href="https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/1277433235111202816?s=20">video</a> of a &#8220;trans woman&#8221; pleading with the public to &#8220;stop killing us.&#8221; Once again, the plea is unnecessary. The supposed problem of anti-trans violence is a <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/04/the-left-is-lying-about-a-hatred-and-violence-epidemic-against-transgender-people/">myth</a>. Trans people are murdered — just like people of all groups are murdered, given that we are mortal beings living in a human society — but almost all of the murders are tied to domestic violence, prostitution, or drugs. Bigotry rarely has anything to do with it.
McDonald&#8217;s is not alone. A great many of the largest and richest corporations in America have adopted the far-left talking points of Black Lives Matter and done their part to spread the misinformation to the public, which is not exactly what you&#8217;d expect in a country supposedly committed to the oppression and extermination of racial minorities. Indeed, corporations are so firmly on the side of the alleged &#8220;oppressed&#8221; that Colin Kaepernick has been able to parlay his oppression into multi-million dollar partnerships with three major corporations. He now has deals in place with Disney, Nike, and Netflix. Not a bad kind of persecution, if you can find it.
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Not every allegedly oppressed person is as rich and (unduly) admired as Kaepernick. But, statistically speaking, almost everyone in this country is richer, freer, and more comfortable than almost everyone else who has lived on Earth at any point in history, anywhere on the globe. We all enjoy an unprecedented amount of freedom and luxury. Some of us more than others — we can&#8217;t all be as privileged as Colin Kaepernick — but even the most economically disadvantaged in our society still have liberties and luxuries unknown to the poor and downtrodden elsewhere on the planet and throughout history. None of this means that we should be complacent or accepting of actual injustice when it occurs, but it does make you wonder why now, of all times, and here, of all places, we should be seeing crazed mobs burning cities and calling for the dismantling of the system that has made them historically secure and comfortable in the first place.
I think the answer is that struggle is a basic human need. Humans, it turns out, must have something to struggle against, fight against, overcome. Humans need, even, to suffer — if only in manageable doses. What we cannot do is sit still, luxuriating in our comforts, and remarking on how easy we have it. We cannot be happy that way. Decadence is not quite as fun or fulfilling as we thought it would be. We need a struggle of some kind, but in modern society, there aren&#8217;t many forms of struggle immediately on offer. So we have to create one for ourselves.
There are two ways to go about this: the healthy or unhealthy way. The healthy way is to set out to do constructive and meaningful things that are difficult and require sacrifice. The most obvious and important example of this is starting a family. By starting a family, you make your life far more complicated, but in the bargain you get love, meaning, purpose, and an escape from loneliness.
And then there are the smaller undertakings, the little things people can do to purposefully make their lives a little harder than they need to be. Gardening, hunting, fishing, fixing your own plumbing, changing your own oil, making meals from scratch, etc. Modern society has provided much easier ways to obtain the practical benefits of all of these kinds of things, but we do them anyway, because it takes effort, and healthy people find value in putting in the effort. It is work largely for its own sake.
There was a time of course — the majority of human history, in fact — when people had no choice but to do everything the hard way. If you wanted something built, you had to build it. If you wanted something to eat, you had to grow it, kill it, or catch it. And we notice that in those times, there rarely were people marching through the streets over imaginary oppression. They had their struggle. They lived it every day. There was no need to create any new ones for themselves. Because every other human need was not automatically met, the human need for struggle was always met.
But what happens when someone rejects all of the fruitful and constructive outlets to satisfy this need? Then they resort to self-martyrdom and persecution complexes. For a lot of people, this means randomly ruining their relationships, creating drama where it doesn&#8217;t need to be, and convincing themselves that everyone is out to get them. They thrive on gossip, envy, and feelings of personal offense and injury. They are likely to find supposed backstabbers, cheaters, liars, and fake friends everywhere they go, because that is how they see the world; it is the struggle they have made for themselves. &#8220;Why can&#8217;t I find an honest man,&#8221; a woman of this sort will lament. The answer is that she can find an honest man, and quite easily, but she doesn&#8217;t want to. She has found meaning in her manufactured struggle, and she doesn&#8217;t want to let it go.
The protesters are in this camp, doing a version of this same thing. They fulfill their need for struggle by making up elaborate mythologies about oppression and persecution. They convince themselves that they are in a fight for their lives against the murderous racists and oppressive bigots who lurk around every corner. It&#8217;s all hallucinatory, a mirage for people whose freedom and luxury has made them thirst for struggle the way a man in the desert thirsts for water. But mirage or not, they will hang onto it and no mere fact or statistic will be allowed to interfere. They are determined to take vengeance on America, even if America never did anything to them but give them everything they could ever want or need. The irony is that if they succeed, if they actually do tear this country down, dismantle it, then the luxury and freedom and comfort will disappear, and they will finally get the authentic version of the oppression they so desperately want.
And once they have it, they will quickly decide that they don&#8217;t really want it. But then they will no longer have a choice. All they will be able to do is lie in the bed that they have made.
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WALSH: The Mob Is Trying To Destroy America Over Imaginary Oppression. Here’s Why.  

This week, CNN&#8217;s Don Lemon, who has spent the last few weeks bashing the supposed thoroughgoing systemic racism of the United States, hosted black actor Terry Crews. He then proceeded to browbeat Crews, who had committed the great sin of tweeting, &#8220;#ALLBLACKLIVESMATTER 9 black CHILDREN killed by violence in Chicago since June 20, 2020.&#8221;
Lemon specifically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cnns-don-lemon-black-lives-matter-movement-is-not-about-all-black-lives-matter">objected</a> to Crews&#8217; hashtag. After Lemon humbly informed Crews that he has skin &#8220;as tough as an armadillo,&#8221; he then lectured: &#8220;The Black Lives Matter movement was started because it was talking about police brutality. &#8230; But that&#8217;s not what Black Lives Matter is about. It&#8217;s not &#8230; all-encompassing &#8230; The Black Lives Matter movement is about police brutality and injustice in that matter, not about what&#8217;s happening in black neighborhoods.&#8221;
This, of course, is largely false. The Black Lives Matter movement did indeed begin with protests about police brutality but quickly morphed into broader debates over the validity of looting and rioting, tearing down historic statues, slavery reparations and defunding the police. And Black Lives Matter, as Crews correctly pointed out, has never restricted its mandate to the question of police violence: It has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-what-we-believe-page-disrupt-the-western-prescribed-nuclear-family-dismantle-cisgender-privilege">announced</a> that its focuses also include police brutality, transgender rights, gay rights, disrupting the nuclear family and freeing Palestine, among other diverse topics.
So why is Lemon so deeply invested in preventing conversations about black lives? Why, in fact, do only some black lives matter, rather than all?
That&#8217;s not merely a question asked by conservatives or contrarians. It&#8217;s being asked all over the United States by black Americans being left to the predations of criminals, in large part thanks to the woke virtue signaling of many Black Lives Matter leaders and media allies.
In Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser emblazoned the enormous yellow words &#8220;BLACK LIVES MATTER&#8221; on 16th Street. Protesters quickly added &#8220;DEFUND THE POLICE.&#8221; One month later, 11-year-old Davon McNeal was shot in the head while heading to a family cookout on July 4. His grandfather, John Ayala, lamented: &#8220;We&#8217;re protesting for months, for weeks, saying, &#8216;Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter.&#8217; Black lives matter it seems like, only when a police officer shoots a black person. What about all the black-on-black crime that&#8217;s happening in the community?&#8221;
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McNeal was just one of the latest victims of a wave of violence gripping America&#8217;s major cities. Last weekend, at least 89 people were shot in Chicago, leaving at least 17 dead. Shootings in Philadelphia have spiked 67%. In the first week of June, Los Angeles saw a shocking 250% increase in murders from the prior week. New York City&#8217;s shootings have skyrocketed 44% over last year&#8217;s numbers; every person shot there the week of June 29 — 101 — was from a minority community.
It turns out that the agenda of Black Lives Matter, which includes fighting against the prevalence of police — a call taken up by Democratic mayors and city councils around the United States — endangers black lives far more than the presence of police.
Yet these lives don&#8217;t particularly matter for Black Lives Matter advocates, apparently. Black lives matter when we&#8217;re talking about police brutality. But Don Lemon has no airtime each night for those who seek to talk about threats to black lives that dwarf in severity problems related to policing — and that are just as newsworthy. Indeed, the statistical case is unassailable that the daily murder of minority youths in America&#8217;s major cities is far more newsworthy than the latest cable panel discussion of &#8220;white fragility&#8221; or the &#8220;power of whiteness.&#8221;
But our current Black Lives Matter moment isn&#8217;t about Davon McNeal, even if the wages of Black Lives Matter&#8217;s recommended policies are death for those left unprotected by law enforcement. All that matters for too many in our elite institutions is the narrative that America&#8217;s systems are the greatest obstacle to black Americans. And not all lives lost are equally valuable in promoting that perverse narrative.
More from Ben Shapiro: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-anti-racism-crusade-seeks-to-eradicate-everything-we-share">‘Anti-Racism’ Crusade Seeks To Eradicate Everything We Share</a>

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SHAPIRO: Not All Black Lives Matter To Black Lives Matter

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8 Ways Black Lives Matter Activists Changed The Nation’s Largest Criminal Justice System

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Charlamagne Tha God: Nick Cannon Getting Fired For Anti-Semitic Remarks Proves Jews ‘Have The Power’

National Association Of Police Organizations, Which Endorsed Obama/Biden Twice, Endorses Trump

Man Allegedly Sets Fire To Unmarked Police Car At Supreme Court, Burns Himself, Gets Arrested

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