EXCLUSIVE: George Soros Gave $250K to British Group Working To Censor Conservative News Sites and ‘Kill Musk’s Twitter’

From Free Beacon.com (Nov. 17, 2025):

The left-wing philanthropy funded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations (OSF), bankrolls a British nonprofit that works to censor conservative news websites and social media companies, including through a plot to "kill" Elon Musk’s X by pressuring advertisers and investors to boycott the company.

OSF gave $250,000 last year to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) for "general support," according to the Soros charity’s grant database. The CCDH, under the guise of stopping "the spread of online hate and disinformation," has pressured social media companies’ investors and advertisers to censor supposed "disinformation" or other content it deems to be offensive.

The organization, founded by former Labour Party operative Imran Ahmed in 2018, has also pressured tech companies to pull advertisements from the conservative websites the Federalist and the Daily Wire over allegedly racist content.

The grant, which has not been reported, could resurrect a longstanding battle that Musk has waged with both the CCDH and Soros. Musk has accused Soros of "crimes against humanity" and funding groups involved in violent protests across the country this year. And he has called the CCDH a "criminal organization" and said he was "going after" the group’s donors over its efforts to harm X’s finances.

Last year, the CCDH quietly organized a campaign to "kill Musk’s Twitter" by pressuring advertisers to cut ties with the company, according to memos published by Racket News. The CCDH, which the watchdog group Capital Research Center calls a "UK-based censorship advocacy group," met with 16 congressional offices to discuss Musk’s lawsuit against the organization, and held "policy engagement" meetings with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.). The nonprofit also lobbied American policymakers toward the creation of an "independent digital regulator," according to Racket News.

While the CCDH has criticized most social media companies for failing to curtail extremism, the organization has been particularly hostile toward X since Musk purchased the site, formerly known as Twitter, in October 2022. Musk, who pledged to end censorship on the platform after purchasing the site, sued the CCDH in July 2023 over a report from the group that claimed hate speech had spiked on X since Musk’s takeover.

The revelation of the Soros grant helps answer longstanding questions about the CCDH’s funding. In 2023, Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) subpoenaed the CCDH for a list of its donors as part of an investigation of the firm’s alleged collusion to censor social media platforms.

The CCDH does not voluntarily disclose its donors. But some organizations have revealed contributions to the nonprofit. The Skoll Fund, the private philanthropy of former eBay president Jeff Skoll, gave $415,000 to the CCDH in 2023, according to tax filings. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a donor-advised fund that manages charitable contributions on behalf of anonymous donors, contributed $403,175 to the CCDH in 2023. The CCDH received $2.1 million in revenue in 2023, the year of its most recent tax filing.

The grant revelation comes as the Trump administration sets its sights on the Soros operation and the CCDH. President Donald Trump called over the summer for Soros and his son Alex, the chairman of OSF, to be investigated for allegedly funding violent riots across the country. The Soroses have denied the allegation. [read more]

The Spooky Dude drama continues...

More Soros stories:

• Soros-Funded PAC Aims to Turn Texas Blue
• Report: Soros Family Pours $103 Million Into Midterms

Glenn Beck: Here's What's Wrong with Conservatism Today

From Glenn Beck.com (Nov. 4, 2025):

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

• for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
• for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
• for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
• for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
• and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn't cling to the past -- he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still. It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself. This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to ¬nd.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past,that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want. They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for. Do you? [watch the video]

Great principles now and in the future.

19 Black Americans Explain Why They’re Conservative

From The Daily Signal.com (June 22, 2020):

These are difficult times, and Americans are looking for guidance on how to make sense of the most divisive issues we face. When it comes to race in America, Heritage President Kay C. James says that conservatives should be leading the civil rights movement.

That’s why The Daily Signal reached out to African American conservatives to ask why they are conservative. Here are their responses.

1. W.B. Allen: Good Sense Needs No Explanation

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My political conservatism is an effect or consequence, not a cause.

I am an American patriot, informed by a deep appreciation of the human significance of the advance in human affairs occasioned by the founding of the United States. For the first time in human history, the idea that mankind in general was capable of self-government had been realized.

Moreover, the fulfillment of the promises attending that realization have been made manifest in the consistent progress of civilization in the United States, in which the power of the individual and the value of self-agency, informed by the security of religious conviction, have steadily reinforced real material progress and the opportunity for moral progress.

For those reasons, it is a matter of prudent judgment that one’s political exertions should ever be careful to reinforce and not to undermine the foundations of the hopes invested in the political constitution of this nation.

The United States was formed as a lamp unto the world, and whatever undermines the power of the United States to perform that role constitutes an impediment to human happiness.

If it is conservative to wish to preserve the “last best hope of man” on earth, then such conservatism is the effect of devotion to liberty. No one could do otherwise, if guided by good sense and a due appreciation of the values of faith, freedom, and responsibility.

W. B. Allen, Ph.D., is the chief operating officer of UrbanCURE.

2. Brian Bledsoe: Most Fair for All

As a conservative who happens to be Black, I’m typically asked why I am a conservative. So here’s why.

I’m a conservative because the most innocent among us should be given the chance to live.

I’m a conservative because you shouldn’t be punished for being successful.

I’m a conservative because securing our borders against those who seek to come here illegally should be as commonsensical as securing our residences.

I’m a conservative because we need to defend the Second Amendment more than ever from the constant and vicious attack on our right to bear arms.

I’m a conservative because speech should be free whether I agree with it or not.

I’m a conservative because I stand against the deceptive allure of an all-controlling government by way of socialism, which threatens everything that made this country great.

I’m a conservative because we should remain forever vigilant in advocating limited government.

Leftists will argue that being conservative goes against what they perceive is in my self-interest. I’m a conservative because the principles of conservatism are the most effective, realistic, and fair for all—regardless of individual outcome.

Brian Bledsoe is a Heritage Action Sentinel from Texas.

3. The Rev. Arnold M. Culbreath: Not Sellouts, but Solutions

We are living in turbulent times. Racial tensions run high, and intensified feelings, conversations, shouts, and pressure reverberate across the land. And in the midst of all this, a wide variety of perspectives abound.

Being Black in America is not easy. However, I remain hopeful and work to make America better every day. As a pastor, Army veteran, business owner, and national ministry leader, I strive to model what being a Christian, socially conscientious, Black man in America looks like, while frequently facing racism and exclusion in the process.

In spite of the odds, I have labored long and participated in initiatives that help hopeless and hurting people, and programming that moves past rhetoric to get real resources to people in need. Things like after-school feeding programs, grocery giveaways, the First Step Act, opportunity zones, free help to women in crisis pregnancies, and more.

These principles need not be defined or confined by polarizing labels such as left or right, conservative or liberal. The question is: Does an initiative strengthen and lift impoverished and disenfranchised people and communities that need it most?

If so, collaboration is desperately needed to serve those ravished by a pandemic, shaken by injustices such as the brutal killing of George Floyd and many others at the hands of police, racial upheaval, and socio-economic disparities, and we need it now.

In order for this to occur, name-calling and marginalizing of viewpoints must stop. It’s much more helpful to stop viewing me and others like me as “Uncle Toms,” but as fellow team members. Not as sellouts, but as solutions to the problems.

This is our country, and our world, so let’s work to make it the absolute best that we can together.       

The Rev. Arnold M. Culbreath is the director of ministry engagement at the Douglass Leadership Institute.

4. Michael E. Kerridge: Reasonable Human Imperative

If anyone is willing to step away from the noise and cacophonic discourse that now compromise political discussion, we can begin to see that conservatism is not just an opposing or competing ideology. It is a human imperative wrought in the will and psyche of every reasonable person.

I am a conservative because personal initiative favors personal economic freedom. I oppose excessive government control of business and the subversion of the traditional family structure. I fully endorse and favor a free-market economy and the rule of law.

The values inherent in the individualism of my grandmother that spawned four generations of conservative thought and action embodied the sentiment that “all are created equal,” and that government does not bestow anything on anyone.

The entrepreneurship, individual effort, and hard work that made all of my grandmother’s efforts and her life rich and full have influenced and spawned generational success. This makes me a “reasonable man,” a reasonable person.

The family is a microcosm of what works best for all of mankind. We realize that God created us male and female, that we are to train up our children and equip them with self-confidence, discipline, and respect for all that is good and right.

This fortifies our society with reasonable people who think critically about their impact and legacy for their families, their fellow citizens, and their society.

Only this actually works for all concerned.

Michael E. Kerridge is a Heritage Action Sentinel from Florida. [read more]

12 Principles of Economic Wisdom

From Economic Wisdom.org:

Our vision of economic wisdom is summarized in twelve “elements” that provide starting points for thoughtful, biblically informed understanding of contemporary opportunities and challenges.

……..

Stewardship and Flourishing

We were given stewardship over the world so our work would make it flourish for his glory.

1. We have a stewardship responsibility to flourish in our own lives, to help our neighbors flourish as fellow stewards, and to pass on a flourishing economy to future generations. (PDF) (one-pager)

2. Economies flourish when people have integrity and trust each other. (PDF) (one-pager)

3. In general, people flourish when they take responsibility for their own economic success by doing work that serves others and makes the world better. (PDF) (one-pager)

Value Creation

Through economic exchange, we work together and create value for one another.

4. Real economic success is about how much value you create, not how much money you make. (PDF) (one-pager)

5. A productive economy comes from the value-creating work of free and virtuous people. (PDF) (one-pager)

6. Economies generally flourish when policies and practices reward value creation. (PDF) (one-pager)

Productivity and Opportunity

Economic systems should be grounded in human dignity and moral character.

7. Households, businesses, communities and nations should support themselves by producing more than they consume. (PDF) (one-pager)

8. A productive economy lifts people out of poverty and generally helps people flourish. (PDF) (one-pager)

9. The most effective way to turn around poverty, economic distress and injustice is by expanding opportunity for people to develop and deploy their God-given productive potential in communities of exchange, especially through entrepreneurship. (PDF) (one-pager)

Responsible Action

Economic systems should practice and encourage a hopeful realism.

10. Programs aimed at economic problems need a fully rounded understanding of how people flourish. (PDF) (one-pager)

11. Economic thinking must account for long-term effects and unintended consequences. (PDF) (one-pager)

12. In general, economies flourish when goodwill is universal and global, but control is local and personal knowledge guides decisions. (PDF) (one-pager) [read more]

Nice. H/T: “12 Principles of Economic Wisdom” table podcast from voice.dts.edu.

How inclusivity affects the Church and repentance

From Christian Post.com (June 9, 2023):

When we hear the term “inclusion” in today’s world, it is often in combination with “diversity” and “equity.” This combination of words can be used to demand that all lifestyles, characteristics, or choices be deemed legitimate. They can also be used to combat the prejudices and partialities that often create new classes of vulnerable, marginalized outcasts in today’s world.

While diversity, equity and inclusion programs have many problems, one glaring difficulty lies in the telos, or final aim, of such programs. If, for instance, inclusion is confused with unconditional acceptance, we will likely lose the ability to call others to repentance. Jesus recognizes the diverse audiences to whom He speaks as equally in need of being included in the message of salvation. That message demands repentance and would require discipleship.

As Christians, both individually and collectively, we need to take care not to exclude any group from the message of salvation. When we withhold the message of salvation and the repentance it requires from one group or another, we tend to exhibit inevitable theological mistakes.

First, consider Jonah’s refusal to preach repentance to Nineveh. His hatred for the Ninevites drives him to disobey God. Jonah does not only see the Ninevites as an irredeemably lost cause but as unworthy of the salvation God has asked him to present to them. Jonah did not want the Ninevites to be saved (Jon 4:3–4). His mistake was not in his characterization of God as “gracious ... and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (4:2). His mistake was rooted in his unwillingness to accept that God would show such grace to the people of Nineveh. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we have become too much like Jonah in our dealings with those we have identified as our opposition.

Second, if we are willing to write off “tax collectors and sinners” as irredeemable, we place constraints on the God who has no constraints. This mistake is closer to that made by the Pharisees, who were blind to the possibility that God was not limited by their systems or traditions. Jesus’ ministry demonstrated that God was living and active beyond the boundaries constructed by the religious leaders of the day. We see a similar dynamic in the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. Having been accused of speaking against the temple and Moses (Acts 6:11–14), Stephen responds by narrating the numerous times when God worked beyond the confines of the temple or the nation of Israel (7:2-53). God does not work within limits. When we exclude others from the message of salvation, we may be placing an artificial constraint on God and underestimating the power of the Gospel.

Finally, we can assume that calling others to repentance is a form of exclusion. As such, we draw individuals toward a Jesus whose expectations and values align suspiciously with our own. This method of withholding the message of salvation instills inclusion with a strong dose of individualism and human-centeredness so that one’s life is determined less by Christ and more by one’s own thoughts and feelings, as well as the thoughts and feelings of the community of which one is a part.

It may seem odd to think of inclusion as a means of exclusion, yet inclusion in a community willing to call “evil good and good evil” (Isa 5:20) is not an inclusion in the message of salvation. It is a de facto exclusion because it denies the transformative decision that the Gospel requires. When we accept Christ, we are not only saved from death but also from the fallen state that caused it.

Jesus did not offer outcasts inclusion into the Kingdom on their own terms, yet He was not afraid to include Himself with outcasts to proclaim to them the way of salvation. As we seek to be inclusive, we should keep in mind that we are not including people in the kingdom but in the message of salvation. That message leaves no one who accepts it unchanged, nor is it a message that requires one to change before receiving it. When we orient ourselves toward inclusion, we do not embrace the notion that God has no moral standards but that all are invited to consider the Gospel. Inclusion welcomes everyone to conform to the image of Jesus Christ. [source]

Amen. DIE isn’t about inclusion but about control being a derivative of Marxism. It’s its own religion.

Happy Birthday America!

From The Daily Signal.com (July 28, 2020):

If we’ve learned one thing from the demonstrations and riots that followed the death of George Floyd in police custody, it’s that Americans, particularly younger Americans, don’t appreciate the great history of their country.

It’s been a team effort to get into this situation. Teachers, schools, universities, even former first lady Michelle Obama, who said in a commencement speech earlier this year: “For too many people in this country, no matter how hard they work, there are structural barriers working against them that just make the road longer and rockier.”

It is unclear how this message is constructive, and it certainly is not correct. America is a good and virtuous nation, and millions of its people from all walks of life not only have survived but excelled.

Take, for example, C.J. Walker. Born in Delta, Louisiana, in 1867 to former slaves, she lost both parents by age 7, married at 14 to get out of an abusive living situation, then found herself widowed with a child by 20.

Walker moved to St. Louis and began to work as a barber for $1.50 a day. She soon began to develop hair-care products designed for women who had conditions affecting their hair growth.

Her products became popular, and by 1910, the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co. was turning profits equivalent to millions of dollars per year in today’s money.  

Then there is David Tran, a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee who served as an officer in the South Vietnamese army until the communists took over. Tran left on a boat named the “Huey Fong” and eventually arrived in the U.S. in 1979. Poor and unemployed, he began to sell a variety of spicy chili sauces that he had made back home in Vietnam.

Tran sold his sauces to Asian restaurants and soon was making deliveries all over the West Coast. He made a modest income on these sauces until one day he came up with Sriracha hot sauce, which is now popular all over the world.

By 2012, Tran’s company, Huy Fong Foods—named for the boat on which he escaped Vietnam—was grossing more than $60 million per year.

Walker and Tran are just two examples of the millions of Americans of all races, backgrounds, nationalities, and faiths who have done incredible things in this wonderful country.

Of course, others face challenges here—bad actors who try to put others down for their own selfish desires, racists and sexists with their own warped views of humanity.

But none of this should take away from the fact that America was built on the principles of freedom, individual liberty, and old-fashioned hard work. America, like all other nations, has made mistakes, but it also has bestowed great blessings on its citizens and opportunities available to all, thanks to a commitment to human dignity and individual freedom.

It is up to each of us to overcome our own obstacles, prove the naysayers wrong, and pursue greatness. Do not believe anyone that tells you otherwise. [source]

Democracy Can Be Trusted Because Citizens Can Be Trusted

From Robert Lowry Clinton on The Public Discourse.com (Mar. 7, 2023):

In the wake of disappointment that the “red wave” never materialized after the 2022 midterm elections, some prominent conservatives expressed skepticism about democracy, citing historical failures to end slavery and abortion, suggesting that the culture war has been lost due to the electorate’s embrace of the tenets of the left, and even attacking universal suffrage.

Frustration at the midterm results is understandable, but critiques of democracy tend to be shortsighted. After all, the alternative to democracy is always some form of elitism—which hardly has an unblemished historical record. Furthermore, I doubt that the midterm results really mean that the average American now believes in the values of the hard left (abortion on demand, open borders, CRT, gender ideology, queer theory, anti-Americanism and all the rest). For example, Alexandra DeSanctis has persuasively argued in these pages that pro-life legislation fared poorly in the states not because voters are actually pro-choice, but because conservative leaders have failed to articulate a clear, coherent, commonsensical pro-life program that they could get behind. I suspect that a similar case can be made for the other issues mentioned above. So the problem isn’t that voters have pernicious views and can’t be trusted; rather, elected officials have offered them poor choices.

Therefore, it would be foolhardy to discard democracy for elitism. In fact, democracy is superior to elitism, however bad the results of any given election may seem. Democracy, construed properly, safeguards against tyranny, and it recognizes the fact that most voters’ moral sense can be trusted.

Wallace Mendelson, a late friend and mentor, was fond of saying that “no man is really fit to govern another.” Every human being is endowed with reason, and knows his circumstances and needs better than anyone else does—and most people tend to have sound moral judgment (more on that later). Mendelson’s simple statement contains the moral basis of democracy: people ought to have a say in the decisions that shape their lives. In a similar spirit, Abraham Kuyper declared: “No man has the right to rule over another man, otherwise such a right necessarily, and immediately, becomes the right of the strongest. … Authority over men cannot arise from men.” Democracy, when it’s working properly, allows men to rule themselves.

Our democracy in particular—which perhaps is more accurately called a constitutional republic—keeps total power from falling into any one person’s hands. And Lord Acton told us why when declaring that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Fallen human nature ensures that those who wield power will almost always succumb to pride. Democracy helps keep a check on the pride that elite rule fosters in people.

Elites have always argued that ordinary people are incapable of governing themselves. But this argument about capability misses the moral basis for democracy mentioned above: however much of a mess ordinary people may make of self-government, the fact remains that “entitlement to rule cannot be taken from one on the basis of the IQ, experience, knowledge or expertise of another.” Again, every person is rational by nature and should have a say in the laws and rules that govern his life. [read more]

The Left don’t really believe in democracy as defined above. They definitely believe the elites can rule over men.

Excerpts from “2025 Mandate for Leadership” Part 3

Until it is privatized, TSA should be treated asa national security provider, and its workforce should be deunionized immediately. TSA could privatize the screening function by expanding the current Screening Partnership Program (SPP) to all airports. TSA would turn screening operations over to airports that would choose security contractors that meet TSA regulations and would oversee and test airports for compliance. Alternatively, it could adopt a Canadian-style system, turning over screening operations to a new government corporation that contracts screening service to private contractors.

……….

The ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] and CIA should fire or refer for prosecution any employee who is suspected of leaking information, and penalties should include the removal of pension benefits for those who are found guilty.

…………

An incoming conservative President can right the ship and return the IC [Intelligence Community] governance model to first principles by using a limited but empowered leadership and coordination design to serve the nation’s intelligence and national security needs while reclaiming the public trust with fiscal responsibility, political neutrality, personnel accountability, technological prowess, and necessary human capital needed to counter the immense nation-state and asymmetrical threats facing our country.

…………

For the sake of American children, Congress should shutter it and return control of education to the states.

………..

[T]he Secretary of Education should insist that the department serve parents and American ideals, not advocates whose message is that children can choose their own sex, that America is “systemically racist,” that math itself is racist, and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideal of a colorblind society should be rejected in favor of reinstating a color-conscious society.

Source: "Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership" [pdf]

Five Rules for Fiscally Responsible, Pro-Growth Tax Reform

From Heritage.org (May 7):

Fiscal conservatives generally support reducing the size and scope of the federal government, but few would have any qualms with acknowledging that certain federal spending is beneficial and warranted. Conservatives should also recognize that the details matter when it comes to tax cuts. Tax cuts can be highly beneficial, but certain tax cuts in certain situations can be counterproductive. With the United States facing a $2 trillion annual deficit (and growing) and already having accumulated $34.6 trillion of debt, a poorly designed tax cut could do more harm than good. A deficit-financed tax cut that fails to spur economic growth would exacerbate America’s fiscal situation and ultimately lead to future tax increases, higher inflation, or both.

On the other hand, a well-designed tax reform could dramatically improve the economy and the federal budget, especially over the long run. By spurring investment, innovation, higher employment, and increased productivity, strongly pro-growth tax reform can reduce the nation’s debt burden as a share of the economy. Advocates of higher taxes often ridicule the notion of tax cuts paying for themselves, but all that they can refute is the generalized statement that tax cuts always, unequivocally do pay for themselves. However, the idea that tax cuts never pay for themselves is equally absurd. Clearly, when tax rates are sufficiently high, they discourage productive activity so much as to become utterly counterproductive to the goal of deficit reduction.

No serious policymaker would advocate a 99 percent income tax bracket. People would not continue working and taking entrepreneurial risks if the government confiscated 99 cents for every additional dollar they earned. Such a tax would cost taxpayers dearly and destroy the federal budget in the process. However, a tax need not have a 99 percent rate to worsen the budget situation. Look no further than the spate of wealth taxes that European countries have tried and abandoned, and it becomes clear that poorly conceived taxes can be economic and budgetary disasters even with low statutory tax rates of 1 or 2 percent of wealth.

For tax reform to be economically beneficial and fiscally responsible, policymakers should mitigate the parts of the tax code that are especially anti-growth. Fiscally responsible, pro-growth tax reform improves incentives to work, save, invest, and innovate and removes unnecessary distortions and complications. It also makes the tax system simpler and fairer by repealing unjustifiable tax carveouts such as tax credits for politically favored businesses or activities.

This report briefly describes how the looming expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will bring tax reform discussions to the forefront in 2025. It then explains why fiscally responsible tax reform should be strongly pro-growth, providing five basic rules for evaluating whether a tax-reform package would mostly spur a larger economy or just a larger deficit. It includes some recommendations and specific examples of tax changes that would satisfy these rules. However, the purpose of this report is not to provide a specific blueprint for the ideal tax reform but rather to describe general principles that should underlie effective reform.

Tax Reform and the Looming Tax Cliff

The next Congress will have to grapple with whether to extend some or all the provisions of the 2017 TCJA. Most of the TCJA will expire after December 31, 2025. Some of the provisions have already begun phasing out. If Congress fails to act, the expiration of the tax cuts would result in a large tax increase for most Americans. Alternatively, Congress may plot a different course for federal taxes by passing an altogether new reform.

How Congress decides to act will have important implications for the American people, the economy, and the federal budget. The TCJA included some very strong, pro-growth elements. It reduced excessively high taxes on businesses and corporations, which faced among the highest tax rates in the developed world. The improvements to the business tax code spurred job growth and higher wages.

The tax cuts also simplified and reduced the cost of capital investments by businesses through the allowance of full and immediate expensing of equipment and machinery. With expensing, businesses can simply deduct valid business expenses instead of using complicated, drawn-out depreciation schedules that diminish the value of tax deductions before they are claimed.

The TCJA was strong overall, but it was not perfect. Important pro-growth provisions, including expensing, were made temporary instead of permanent. The reforms added to the complexity of the international tax code and small business taxation. They increased the tax code’s use of refundable tax credits—payments to individuals with no net income tax liability. They left many problems in the tax system unaddressed, including many unjustifiable tax breaks. All this leaves an opportunity for further improvements in 2025. [read more]

Rules that Comrade Kamala (or as Tampon Tim called Harris a "prostitutor") will ignore. I do like the rule about keeping the tax cuts permanent.

Trump-Reagan Fusion Can Win the New Cold War

From Real Clear Politics.com (Mar. 24):

Since Donald Trump’s rise within Republican ranks, conservatives have divided into two competing foreign policy camps. One contends that Trump’s approach suits the world in which we live and supersedes previous GOP national security and foreign affairs outlooks. A smaller contingent contends that Ronald Reagan’s understanding of America and his conduct of diplomacy remain the gold standard for U.S. foreign policy.

Atlantic Council colleagues Matthew Kroenig (also a Georgetown professor of government and international relations) and Dan Negrea contend that considerably more agreement about foreign affairs prevails among conservatives than they themselves realize. When fleshed out, a Trump-Reagan fusion represents, they persuasively maintain in their new book, “the foreign policy synthesis around which the Republican Party can coalesce.”

Taking their title from Ronald Reagan’s succinct 1977 statement of his stance toward the Cold War, Kroenig and Negrea argue in “We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War” (the acknowledgements thank me although I contributed at most encouragement), that the United States has been thrust into the New Cold War by the People’s Republic of China. Trump administration veterans – Kroenig in the Defense Department and Negrea in the State Department – the authors maintain that Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy rightly recognized that America had already entered an era of great-power competition with Russia as well as with China.

Notwithstanding “real divisions within the party,” argue Kroenig and Negrea, recognition of “[t]he existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” provides conservatives “a central, unifying theme.” By combining Reagan’s characteristic “commitment to individual liberty, free markets, and a strong national defense” with Trump’s emphasis “on the interests of all Americans and confronting countries, such as China, whose economic policies harm American interests,” Kroenig and Negrea contend, conservatives can fashion a strategy for winning the New Cold War.

………….

The Trump-Reagan fusion promises much better by respecting America’s founding principles and by concentrating on advancing America’s interests in an increasingly volatile world. The fusion, according to the authors, comprises three chief elements.

First, the Trump-Reagan fusion seeks peace through strength. In the absence of world government – agreed upon international authorities with the power to make and enforce laws and adjudicate the controversies that arise under them – the United States must maintain the world’s most powerful and adroit military and make clear its readiness to use it to secure the nation’s vital interests. Reagan’s defense build-up, which hastened the Soviet Union’s demise, is a classic case of achieving peace by preparing for war.

Second, the Trump-Reagan fusion upholds free and fair trade. Reagan championed free-market and free-trade policies that sparked an economic turnaround in the 1980s and set the stage for dramatic innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth in the 1990s. But the freedom in free trade must be reciprocal, Reagan explained: “If trade is not fair for all, then trade is free in name only.” Trump applied this principle, write the authors, “countering countries like the PRC that systematically violate the rules of international trade.”

Third, the Trump-Reagan fusion takes pride in American exceptionalism. The United States is the world’s only rights-protecting and democratic superpower. Its constitutional system furnishes “an unending source of economic, diplomatic, and military strength that helps the United States excel in geopolitics.” Since the construction of the U.S.-led international order following World War II, the authors observe, democracy has proliferated, poverty has fallen dramatically, and the world has become, by any objective measure, “much safer, richer, and freer.”

To deal with America’s principal national security threats, the authors advance a “conservative deterrence and diplomacy strategy.” China is the foremost threat, and “getting to a point where the Chinese government no longer has the will or the capacity to threaten core U.S. interests” is the chief objective. The United States must operate simultaneously on two tracks, imposing costs on China’s malign conduct – in the economic, diplomatic, and military realms – in regions around the world while building “a pro-freedom, anti-CCP coalition” – which will include friendly authoritarian nations – in hopes of cooperating “with a future, reasonable government in Beijing.” This two-track approach applies also to Russia, Iran, and North Korea – authoritarian powers bent on undermining the U.S.-led global order. [read more]

This fusion triad will never be part of the mindset of Crooked Joe or any of the crazy Marxist Left. But this America First mindset is what we need to win the new cold war. Good article.

The Seven Keys to President Trump’s Triumph

From Gingrich360.com (Mar. 7):

President Donald Trump had a remarkable showing on Super Tuesday. He won 11 of the first 12 contests. This is all the proof you need that the Republican Party is now the Trump Party.

No non-incumbent has so decisively dominated and shaped his party since Andrew Jackson. President Jackson reacted to what his supporters regarded as the theft of the presidency by John Quincy Adams in 1824. As Robert Remini outlined in his classic work, “The Election of Andrew Jackson,” the Jacksonian movement was determined to defeat the oligarchy which had been dominating American politics and the economy, through the Bank of the United States. (This book is such a clear study of an effective insurgency that we used it in planning the Republican Contract with America campaign in 1994.)

Like President Jackson, President Trump is far more than a candidate. He is the leader of a national movement. As the movement’s champion, he can survive attacks and legal assassination attempts that would destroy normal candidates.

Winning 24 of the first 26 primaries and caucuses is an historic achievement.

How has a businessman from New York come to dominate the GOP so thoroughly?

There are some obvious answers. However, they involve practical, common-sense analysis which Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to block most reporters and analysts from recognizing. There are at least seven unique personal characteristics that have led to President Trump’s Triumph.

President Trump is smart.

Many people are put off by President Trump’s tweets and his occasional angry outbursts. They can’t admit that he is a deeply smart man. Look at the facts. He is a billionaire. He beat 15 other Republicans to become the GOP nominee in 2016 – and Hillary Clinton – when all the so-called experts said this was impossible. President Trump survived eight years of unending lies against him by the deep state and the elite media. He has endured the greatest effort of legal assassination in American history. And during all this, he increased his control of the GOP. Analysts ought to read President Trump’s remarkable book, “The Art of the Comeback” to get a sense of how he recovers when times get tough.

President Trump works.

President Trump believes in – and has spent a lifetime focusing on – principles and approaches that work. Because he is an entrepreneur, he understood how to relaunch the American economy. His life before politics was all about negotiating successfully. So, he was able to deal with foreign countries effectively to achieve his goals. Sometimes his tactics are tough. Many of the European nations who had been hiding behind America’s strength disliked being lectured by President Trump. But they have now increased their defense spending.

President Trump is deeply strategic.

President Trump thinks strategically all the time. Part of his mind is always focused on the immediate – whether it is speechmaking, golfing, or chatting with people – but part of his mind is constantly analyzing data and thinking about what it means for the long run.

President Trump loves what he is doing.

President Trump gains energy from people. He is amazingly existential and focused on the present in a way which gives him authenticity and allows him to focus his energy and his efforts on the immediate. This ability to compartmentalize and focus on the immediate is part of the secret of his surviving eight years of endless news media, bureaucratic and legal assaults. Analysts can’t bring themselves to think through the implications of President Trump knowing people in all 50 states. But that is one of the keys to his enormous grip on the Republican Party. He combines President Ronald Reagan’s charismatic appeal with President Richard Nixon’s detailed knowledge of every state. It is an awesome combination.

President Trump is tough.

I don’t know of any other American leader who could have taken the beating he has taken and still be standing. Yet he is always enthusiastic and ready to fight through another day. He sees himself as engaged in an historic mission to save America – and he accepts that the leader who wants to save the country must be prepared to pay the price for patriotism.

President Trump is not a traditional conservative.

President Trump did not grow up reading National Review or studying Friedrich Hayek. However, he is the most effective anti-left politician of my lifetime (and that includes President Reagan). The simple act of waking up every day, thinking like an entrepreneurial businessman, and applying common sense is devastating to leftwing ideology. Leftwing ideology exists in a fantasy world. It is built on principles that simply don’t work and can’t produce acceptable results. President Trump understands this and rejects it every day to the rage of his critics and the joy of his supporters.

President Trump focuses on achievements.

President Trump’s mind moves from achievement to achievement. This focus on getting things done has been true for his business, political, and governmental experiences. When he has a moment of downtime, he starts thinking “what else can I get done.” He doesn’t focus on personalities or building circles of friends. Those occur because of his work to achieve things. His focus on achievement and accomplishment during his four years in the White House clearly impressed the American people. It is clear how much better things were under President Trump than President Joe Biden.

Because of all these qualities, President Trump has assembled a campaign team led by Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, which may be running the most thoughtful and competent campaign seen in decades.

Super Tuesday was President Trump’s triumph. His election in November will be the American people’s triumph. [source]

A good analysis of President Trump.

MacIntyre: Trump’s indictment threatens to shatter our founding myths

From The Blaze.com (Aug. 3, 2023):

Every state is operated by an organized minority, a ruling class. That class may rule by divine right, wealth, the authority granted by their birth, or even in the name of the people, but there will always be two groups: the rulers and the ruled.

Brutal warlords and dictators can rule through raw force for a time, but that is brittle power that can easily snap. Eventually, every regime requires a political formula that grants its rule legitimacy in the eyes of the public. In America and the wider Western world, elections are the only acceptable legitimating mechanisms for state power, while any other political formula is considered authoritarian.

Both major political parties have made a habit of calling the validity of America’s elections into question for decades, but with the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, an incredibly dangerous line has been crossed. The criminalization of political opposition in America threatens to become a common feature of the electoral process, shattering the illusion of legitimacy that has held our decadent ruling class in power for so long.

Conservatives like to see their elections as practical affairs, a contest between two competitors in the marketplace of ideas vying for support and the chance to implement the priorities of their supporters. Once every four years, Americans walk down the supermarket isle and evaluate their choices for president as if they are selecting a brand of toothpaste, then go on about their business. But the relationship between rulers and the ruled is far more metaphysical than most voters are willing to admit.

Americans believe in popular sovereignty, and like the coronation of a king, elections are a ritual meant to affirm their faith in the system by which they transfer authority to the ruling class. Humans will always invest their leaders with some portion of their hopes, dreams, and identity. This might sound silly to modern ears, but one only needs to remember the fainting spells of supporters at Obama rallies or the former president’s speech about causing the waters of Earth to recede after his election to see this manifested on the left. The right’s constant worship of the ghost of Ronald Regan and the numerous pictures of Trump being guided by the hand of Jesus Christ shows that this is not a one-sided affair. When progressives now invoke “our sacred democracy,” they are speaking to a real belief people hold, whether they realize it or not, and the validity of that belief must be protected if a regime is to survive.

Donald Trump now faces three counts of criminal conspiracy and one count of obstruction for repeatedly and publicly questioning the fairness of the 2020 election. It should be obvious that making it impossible to question the fairness of a political process through the exercise of an individual’s First Amendment free speech protections ends any chance at substantive political opposition, and it is obvious. That is the point. The alleged co-conspirators named in the Trump indictment were attorneys who were offering advice to a client. It is not just the ability to question electoral results that is being threatened, but core aspects of due process and freedom of speech that are enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Questioning the legitimacy of elections is a tradition as old as elections themselves. Voter fraud always has existed and always will exist at some level, and the fervent denial of that basic fact raises questions of its own. The slogan “vote early and vote often” has been jokingly used to refer to the wildly corrupt machine politics of Tammany Hall in New York or various leaders in Chicago. The highly disputed election of 1877, which ended with the installation of Rutherford B. Hayes in the Oval Office, required a back-room congressional deal to keep the nation from tearing itself apart again after the Civil War. American history is full of examples, but in general elections have conveyed legitimacy because individuals could exercise their right to free speech and raise questions if they felt the process was in some way compromised. Coronations are about the rigid transfer of unquestioned authority. Elections are not. [read more]

True, but the Left doesn't care.

Texas AG Sues to Stop Biden Censorship of Conservative Media

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a motion for preliminary injunction against the Biden administration for allegedly censoring American media companies with which it disagrees.

In December, Paxton, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist sued the State Department, Secretary Antony Blinken, and other government officials, claiming they conspired to censor, deplatform, and demonetize American media outlets shunned by the federal government.

"I am proud to lead the fight to save Americans' precious constitutional rights from Joe Biden's tyrannical federal government," Paxton said in a press release. "The State Department's mission to obliterate the First Amendment is completely un-American. This agency will not get away with their illegal campaign to silence citizens and publications they disagree with."

The motion, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division, says the plaintiffs "hereby move to preliminarily enjoin Defendants from continuing to fund, test, market, promote, host on its platform, and/or otherwise assist with or encourage the development or use of technology that targets in whole, or in part, Americans' speech or the American press."

Mark Chenoweth, president and general counsel of New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is serving as co-counsel, said in the press release: "The State Department supposedly developed these speech-suppressing technologies to combat foreign propaganda overseas. That the federal government now sees fit to wield these weapons — or put them in others' hands to wield — against American citizens and stateside media outlets is as frightening as it is forbidden."  

The Texas attorney general is no stranger to litigation involving the Biden administration and has sued them multiple times during his tenure.

The Daily Wire made the following statement to Newsmax: "The Biden administration is illegally funding organizations with the stated goal of financially crippling media outlets whose coverage does not walk in lockstep with the government's ideological agenda.

"We sued the Biden administration before over its unconstitutional vaccine mandate, and we won. This time, we're suing for our rights, all news organizations' rights, and the constitutional guarantee of a free press that all Americans deserve."

Newsmax reached out to The Federalist for comment as well. [source]

Good for him. More AGs should sue this regime for censoring. The Left needs some push back for their oppressive actions.

Right-Wing Lega Back in Power: US Conservatives Have a Friend in Italy!

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Feb. 17, 2021):

While wild-eyed Democrats have seemingly taken over in Washington, the left-wing government of Giuseppe Conte has collapsed in Italy, opening the way for conservative parties to return to government in Rome.

It all started with the resignation of the two Ministers of Italia Viva, a minor left-wing party led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Conte government was relying on Italia Viva’s votes for their majority in the Parliament, as the online populist 5 Star Movement plus the other left-wing parties were not enough to rule. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte survived a vote of no confidence in the Senate, but with such a small majority that it was clear the coalition would not hold. Conte resigned.

For many Italians, this came as a complete surprise, since the general assumption was the left would do everything they could to avoid new elections, which the center-right parties would probably win.

Many Italians and the center-right parties then called for new elections, as they have since the first Conte-Salvini government collapsed in 2019. However, due to the COVID crisis, President Sergio Matarella instead chose to form a Government of National Unity, involving all political parties, under the former head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi.

Matteo Salvini’s Lega party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party decided to support the new government, for the sake of the Italian people. The only party to oppose this National Unity government was Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy).

While many leftist media mocked Eurosceptic Matteo Salvini for joining a Draghi government, the Italian media have largely lauded the Lega for their maturity, responsibility and problem-solving, as Salvini put Italy First and paved the way for more dialogue with our international partners.

On Friday, Feb. 12th, Draghi presented the list of Ministers he had kept as a surprise until the last minute. The Ministers were sworn in by President Matarella the following day.

The new government reflects the multitude of parties that compose its majority: three Ministers for Lega, three for Forza Italia, three for the Social Democrats (Partito Democratico), four for the 5 Star Movement, one each for Italia Viva and for Liberi Uguali. It also includes a number of neutral experts not associated with any one party.

The Lega has three important Ministers in areas that have been of crucial importance for the party: Giancarlo Giorgetti as Minister for Industry and Economic Development, Massimo Garavaglia as Minister for Tourism and Erika Stefani as Minister for Disability.

The main priority  now is to work together to help get Italy back on its feet. This is a vital lesson that Democrats and Republicans in Washington should maybe pay attention to: It is possible to overcome party divisions when the nation is at stake.For Lega, joining this government was a brave move by Matteo Salvini. It will make sure the new government has a strong center-right component to balance out the leftist influence of PD and 5 Star in the Draghi cabinet. After all, the center-right parties Lega, Forza Italia and Fratelli d’Italia now rule fourteen out of twenty Italian regions. It would have been even better if all the right-wing parties had joined Draghi’s cabinet.

It is clear this government is divided from the start, especially on issues like Lockdown, Immigration and EU Integration, but having the Lega in power puts us at the center of the new government, with a seat at the table when the decisions are made.

In a time when our nations are so ideologically divided and riven by crisis, Conservatives need to show they can step up and take responsibility for solving the problems our nations face every day.

For all the Conservatives in America who are feeling alone and left out in the cold, take heart: You have a great friend in Italy, and that friend is back in power in Rome! [source]

It’s good to see conservatism in other countries. It’ll make their countries more prosperous and free.

Let’s thank the Pilgrims for defeating Socialism this Thanksgiving

From Glenn Beck.com (Nov. 24, 2021):

This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies in 1621. Tragically, nearly half of the Pilgrims had died by famine and disease during their first year. However, they had been met by native Americans such as Samoset and Squanto who miraculously spoke English and taught the Pilgrims how to survive in the New World. That fall the Pilgrims, despite all the hardships, found much to praise God for and they were joined by Chief Massasoit and his ninety braves came who feasted and celebrated for three days with the fifty or so surviving Pilgrims.

It is often forgotten, however, that after the first Thanksgiving everything was not smooth sailing for the Pilgrims. Indeed, shortly thereafter they endured a time of crop failure and extreme difficulties including starvation and general lack. But why did this happen? Well, at that time the Pilgrims operated under what is called the "common storehouse" system. In its essence it was basically socialism. People were assigned jobs and the fruits of their labor would be redistributed throughout the people not based on how much work you did but how much you supposedly needed.

The problem with this mode of economics is that it only fails every time. Even the Pilgrims, who were a small group with relatively homogeneous beliefs were unable to successfully operate under a socialistic system without starvation and death being only moments away. Governor William Bradford explained that under the common storehouse the people began to "allege weakness and inability" because no matter how much or how little work someone did they still were given the same amount of food. Unsurprisingly this, "was found to breed much confusion and discontent."

The Pilgrims, however, were not the type of people to keep doing what does not work. And so, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery." And, "after much debate of things" the Pilgrims under the direction of William Bradford, decided that each family ought to "trust to themselves" and keep what they produced instead of putting it into a common storehouse. In essence, the Pilgrims decided to abandon the socialism which had led them to starvation and instead adopt the tenants of the free market.

And what was the result of this change? Well, according to Bradford, this change of course, "had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." Eventually, the Pilgrims became a fiscally successful colony, paid off their enormous debt, and founded some of the earliest trading posts with the surrounding Indian tribes including the Aptucxet, Metteneque, and Cushnoc locations. In short, it represented one of the most significant economic revolutions which determined the early characteristics of the American nation.

The Pilgrims, of course, did not simply invent these ideas out of thin air but they instead grew out of the intimate familiarity the Pilgrims had with the Bible. The Scriptures provide clear principles for establishing a successful economic system which the Pilgrims looked to. For example, Proverbs 12:11 says, "He that tills his land shall be satisfied with bread." So the Pilgrims purchased land from the Indians and designated lots for every family to individually grow food for themselves. After all, 1 Timothy 5:8 declares, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

We often think that the battle against Socialism is a new fight sprouting out of the writings of Karl Marx which are so blindly and foolishly followed today by those deceived by leftist irrationality. However, America's fight against the evil of socialism goes back even to our very founding during the colonial period. Thankfully, our forefathers decided to reject the tenants of socialism and instead build their new colony upon the ideology of freedom, liberty, hard work, and individual responsibility.

So, this Thanksgiving, let's thank the Pilgrims for defeating socialism and let us look to their example today in our ongoing struggle for freedom. [source]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Another article on Thanksgiving: Why Commies Hate Your Thanksgiving Dinner

Conservatives, Get Busy Ballot Harvesting Or Get Busy Losing

From The Federalist.com (May 9):

Joe Biden has announced he will seek reelection as president. This comes as he is experiencing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency — 37 percent, according to Gallup. Former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will almost certainly be the GOP nominee. The blunt reality, however, is that regardless of who the GOP puts up against Biden, they will lose if the party isn’t prepared to get down in the mud and beat the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at their own dirty game: ballot harvesting.

The 2020 election left conservatives shellshocked. How could Trump lose to a supposedly senile candidate who spoke to tiny, lackluster crowds? The consensus for many was that it had to be cheating, which led to persistent claims that the 2020 election was stolen, resulting in a $787.5 million lawsuit against Fox News.

Raging against an illegal election is cathartic, but it doesn’t get to the root cause of Trump’s loss. While voter fraud exists, the reality is that there was no massive election fraud, the DNC simply worked harder, played dirtier, bent every rule, and didn’t care about how they looked as long as they won. It is a mentality that the Republican National Committee (RNC) will have to adopt. In politics, it is better to be a dirty winner than a gracious loser.

So what will winning require in 2024? The first step is to get meaningful voting integrity legislation passed in time.

Election Integrity Legislation

On April 27, the House Administration Committee, chaired by Bryan Steil, R-Wis., held its first hearing on the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE Act), the key Republican election integrity bill. Among other recommendations, the ACE Act aims to prohibit voting by noncitizens, provide each state with federal data on deaths and citizenship status to better maintain voter rolls, and require a Real ID. In a bid to boost election best practices and to counter the ballot issues that plagued the 2020 election, the bill would require the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission Standards Board to release a series of recommendations by no later than Dec. 31, 2023.

While well-meaning and potentially useful for future elections, the act’s reforms to the Real ID Act will not come into effect until 2025, and the recommendations of the EAC Standards Board will be just that — recommendations for states. There will be no binding legislation. In other words, despite their best efforts, the federal government can’t protect the election process much better in 2024 than it did in 2020.

Conservatives can, however, use the information gathered by the House Administration Committee to identify how to win in 2024. To give a sense of just how dirty the fight will be, in 2020 Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson refused to purge her voter rolls of 26,000 dead registrants in the run-up to the election. Obviously, there is no legitimate reason for not purging the rolls. The GOP will need to ensure that all voter rolls are clean before 2024. Where the DNC refuses to cooperate, the GOP needs to sue in federal court and use the issue aggressively in campaign ads to highlight Democrats’ corruption. After 2020, talk of padded voter rolls was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. In 2024, there is no excuse not to have data in hand and advertising ready in every offending DNC-run state.

Banning ZuckBucks

One of the most actionable and essential recommendations of the ACE Act is passing the End Zuckerbucks Act, which would stop tax-exempt organizations from directly funding official election groups through donations or donated services. In 2020, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $420 million to ostensibly nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations such as the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), which in turn funneled it into funding local government elections offices under the guise of providing Covid relief. However, less than 1 percent of the money went to providing personal protective equipment to election offices. While it seems impossible that this would be legal, it was.

Zuckerberg made sure DNC activists had access to daily ballot information, were able to choose preferential voting methods, and knew exactly where to target get-out-the-vote initiatives, including doorstep ballot curing and witnessing of absentee ballot signatures. Zuckerberg’s efforts were so successful that he has been credited with winning Arizona and Georgia for Biden. As of January 2023, 24 states have banned so-called Zuckerbucks, but six DNC governors have vetoed attempted bans. Among these are the important swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina.

If the End Zuckerbucks Act isn’t passed in time for 2024, GOP donors will have to match the DNC’s billionaires dollar for dollar in funding local election offices and weaponizing poll workers in every battleground state. It goes against the spirit and impartiality of the democratic process, but that line has already been crossed.

Other Billionaires’ Election Efforts

It wasn’t just Zuckerberg who funneled hundreds of millions of private dollars into innovative get-out-the-vote initiatives in 2020. Craig Newmark and George Soros also exploited grassroots and nontraditional means of swaying the election and will do so again in 2024. Since January 2020, Soros has spent roughly half a billion dollars on DNC causes, dispersing his donations through a complex web of nonprofits to obscure its origins. Newmark spent approximately $200 million in the run-up to 2020, for example funding the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law organization, which pushes suing for expanded mail-in voting and opposing voter ID laws. This is why the ACE Act is vital.

In addition, both Soros and Newmark have spent millions of dollars targeting black and immigrant communities to get out the vote over the past two election cycles. Both understand that nonwhite ethnic minority groups in America favor the DNC, with black Americans overwhelmingly voting Democrat. Both men have invested heavily in black get-out-the-vote initiatives. Newmark has funded DoSomething, among others, while Soros donated $2.5 million to the Color of Change PAC and the same amount to Black Pac.

These DNC mega-donors understand which racial demographics are not coming out to vote. In 2020, only 63 percent of black voters turned out. The black vote is, overwhelmingly, the most monolithic bloc in U.S. politics and the backbone of DNC power, with 92 percent voting for Biden in 2020. DNC organizations have the money to pay thousands of volunteers to knock on doors, register voters, and, where legal, harvest ballots. In 2024 they will invest massive amounts of money and time in black urban districts. The RNC needs to match this.

Door-to-Door Efforts

Conservative super PACs need to spend money putting boots on the ground in battleground states. This isn’t like the good old days when the pastor or local pillar of the community drove the elderly to the polls out of his love for democracy and pride in the right to vote. Sure, do that, but PACs need to pay professional, persuasive, and well-trained individuals to go door-to-door to harvest as many ballots as legally allowed.

Laws vary from state to state. In Pennsylvania, for example, those qualifying for an absentee ballot must authorize in writing a representative to return their ballots if they don’t do it themselves. In Arizona, a designated caretaker can return absentee ballots. Therefore, in reliably red areas in these states, there needs to be a designated RNC outreach representative in every care facility, hospice, hospital, and retirement home who is registered to return ballots. An obvious solution to finding individuals to go door-to-door to register first-time voters, sway independents, and ensure strong youth turnout — only 50 percent in 2020 — is to recruit college RNC members. Weaponized local election office staff need to coordinate doorstep ballot curing and signature witnessing on absentee ballots.

While there are useful legislative steps being taken at the party level to ensure election integrity for future elections, the reality is that if the RNC wants to be competitive in 2024, it needs to get busy harvesting or get busy losing. [source]

Good points. And conservatives need to vote early. Don’t wait until election day when something might happen to prevent you from voting.

To the Left politics is war. Republicans are not just an opponent or adversary, they are the enemy. Republicans have to understand this. The Left will use deception and lies to gain and keep power, the Constitution be damned. They will also destroy their perceived enemies personally and financially (and not just politically.) That is exactly what is happening to Trump and anyone who is representing him and advising him.

The Left’s political war:

• Is lady justice still blind?
• George Soros Bankrolls ‘Mysterious’ Institution in Texas Looking to Elect More Democrats, Records Show
• Voter Groups, Funded By Liberal Megadonors, Launch Pressure Campaign For Meta To Censor Election Info
• Fake charities are spending millions to help Democrats win elections
• RINOs and Democrats Just Stole Future Elections in Deep Red Alaska — And the Republican Party DID NOT LIFT A FINGER to Stop It
• RNC Sues Pennsylvania for Dems' 'Brazen Defiance' of Election Law
• 'The Perfect Crime': Tech Companies Are Manipulating Our Elections and Indoctrinating Our Children — How We Can Stop Them
• Trump Charged With Questioning Election Results While Not Being A Democrat