Tag: history

Thomas Jefferson Warned Us About the Media

We all know that the American “mainstream,” “corporate” media cannot be trusted. Well, they can be trusted to always Polly-parrot the Democratic Party’s talking points, thus they can be trusted to lie, be dishonest, corrupt, and always wrong. They are the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, just as Joseph Goebbels’ media was the propaganda wing of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. It is unfailingly the case that today’s media never supports the conservative, Christian, godly, pro-traditional American perspective. They are as evil as Democrats, because they are Democrats, and religiously so.

Apparently, in American history, media bias has always been a problem. Thomas Jefferson wrote that, in his day:

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” (Letter to John Norvell on June 11, 1807)

Nothing the media says can be trusted. Even on the rare occasions when they tell the truth, Jefferson said, we can’t trust that they are speaking the truth because they lie so much that anything they say must be viewed with suspicion. The best approach, and the one most conservatives and patriotic Americans take, is just to assume that anything the media reports is wrong, or incomplete in its reporting (especially if the event has an element contrary to their left-wing narrative, like any murder not committed by a white, male, MAGA Christian).

Jefferson also wrote:

“I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them.” (Works of Thomas Jefferson)

Best thing to do is not bother watching ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, et al., or reading The New York Times or any other liberal rag. Truth can be found, but you’ve got to dig a little to find it now. Townhall is a good source, of course, as is X. But to most Americans, I would simply advise not wasting time watching or reading any of the “corporate” media outlets. As Jefferson implies, you’ll be dumber if you do.

Now we do need some good, courageous, well-grounded conservatives scouring the mainstream media sites to expose their errors. Many Townhall writers do this, and we appreciate them. But for most Americans, the mainstream media is nothing but a lying, dangerous nuisance. No sense in getting close to a cobra and slapping it in the face.

Keep reading

Stadium Erupts as Florida Brings Back Chant That Was Banned for Years Due to Imaginary ‘Racist’ History

Sanity returned to the University of Florida Saturday when the Gators took on the Florida Atlantic Owls at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

During the neo-Marxist cultural revolution that was the summer of 2020, everything deemed “racist” had to be purged, regardless of context or logic dictating otherwise. ESPN reported that this included the popular “gator bait” chant, in which fans would extend their arms in front of them and clap their hands together like an alligator seizing its prey.

What exactly does that have to do with race? The university’s president that year, Kent Fuchs, announced racial undertones were a concern because artwork from the late 1800s and early 1900s showed alligator hunters using black babies as bait.

However, Fox News’ Outkick Sports reported that Fuchs had admitted UF’s chant had nothing to do with any of those depictions.

“While I know of no evidence of racism associated with our ‘Gator Bait’ cheer at UF sporting events, there is horrific historic racist imagery associated with the phrase,” he said.

Fox sports writer Zach Dean observed, “Translation: ‘This isn’t racist, but we’re bending the knee to the mob because that’s what everyone is doing right now.’”

So, the president was weak-willed and he caved.

Keep reading

SO DUMB: California Now Planning to Force Companies to Disclose ‘Historic Links to Slavery’

California has seen a mass exodus of companies from their state in recent years due to ridiculously high taxes, burdensome regulations, and the draconian lock down policies of Gavin Newsom during Covid-19.

Are they trying to fix any of this in order to retain the businesses that haven’t fled? Nope. In fact, they are about to make things even worse.

California is now planning to force companies to disclose any historic ties to slavery. Is Governor Newsom aware that California never even had slavery?

From the New York Post:

The bill is facing pushback from insurance companies, which argue it largely repeats an earlier California law requiring insurers to disclose past policies issued to slaveholders that covered the death or injury of enslaved people.

New York Life Insurance Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company and American International Group, known as AIG, were among the companies that disclosed ties to enslaved people and slaveholders.

Some reparations advocates have viewed the measure as a significant step forward, while others have questioned how much of an impact it would actually have.

The bill, known as Assembly Bill 2599, would require companies with more than $100 million in annual worldwide sales to search their records for evidence that they, their predecessors or subsidiaries bought or sold enslaved people or provided financial support for those transactions, including through insurance or loans.

The measure would only take effect if the Legislature sets aside funding for it, a requirement added through late amendments.

Once funding is allocated, the California Civil Rights Department would be required to create a digital platform for the disclosures.

Companies are going to keep leaving, and who can blame them?

Keep reading

Ayanna Pressley Declares MAGA is the Confederacy Alive and Well 

Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts compared President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement to the Confederacy during a Monday campaign appearance in Boston, delivering one of the sharper attacks heard in an already heated Democrat Senate primary.

The accusation turned a routine endorsement event into another display of progressive political theater.

Pressley spoke at Roxbury Community College while campaigning for Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Markey is seeking another term but first must defeat Rep. Seth Moulton in the Democrat primary.

“It is bigger than Trump,” Pressley said.

Her message was that removing Trump from the White House would not eliminate the political forces she believes are represented by his supporters.

“Because whenever we do the work of ousting the occupant of the Oval Office, the Confederacy is still alive and well. That’s all MAGA is.”

The sweeping charge placed millions of Trump voters in the same rhetorical bucket as a rebellion formed to tear the nation apart.

Keep reading

Feds keep 860 million pages of historical records inaccessible to Canadians

Nearly 860 million pages of historical records held by Library and Archives Canada remain inaccessible to the public, according to internal federal documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

An April 21 briefing note, Comprehensive Expenditure Review, revealed an estimated 78% of the federal archives remain closed, leaving only 22% to 25% of records accessible to Canadians either online or in person.

“Seventy-eight percent of records, 860 million pages, are still inaccessible, underscoring the need for continued effort and reform,” said the note, according to Blacklock’s.

Officials blamed the enormous backlog partly on the labour-intensive process of retrieving and digitizing paper records.

“Boxes must be physically retrieved from storage and transported from one building to another,” managers wrote.

Staff must then inspect pages, remove paper clips and staples, determine which scanning equipment to use and review digitized files for legibility. Fragile or mould-damaged documents can require conservation work, while classified records create additional complications.

The problem isn’t new.

A 2021 internal evaluation found Library and Archives Canada’s backlog of private archival material stretched an estimated eight kilometres of cartons, with staff acknowledging the material was unavailable to researchers.

The Auditor General raised similar concerns more than a decade ago.

A 2014 audit found Library and Archives Canada was warehousing boxes without even processing them to determine exactly what they contained or whether the records were historically significant.

“Until the boxes are processed Library and Archives Canada will not know what is in them,” auditors wrote.

Among the warehoused material were 24,000 Department of National Defence records, some dating as far back as the Boer War, along with another 5,200 cartons from the Department of Justice.

Keep reading

How The First World War Destroyed The Gold Standard

As Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth demands a fifty-percent increase to the war budget—topping an eye watering $1.5 trillion—it may be instructive to remember that war spending has always and everywhere been the primary enemy of sound money. Some advocates of the warfare state like to lay the blame on social spending, but it has historically been wars that end up ruining currencies and blowing the top off the public fisc. While social spending can indeed be crippling, and certainly empowers the ruling class, it is the fiscal demands of war that cause enormous surges in public spending to levels that would have never been politically unjustifiable for mere pension programs. Rather, it is during wars that government budgets will triple or quadruple, or, —in the case of Britain during the Great War—increase by a factor of twelve. Moreover, it’s important to note that in cases like these, tax revenues rarely keep up. During the war in Britain, for example:

Part of the military spending was paid for with cuts to other spending; civil spending fell from 10% of GDP to 5%. Still, even together with tax increases, this could not match the growth in war-related spending. While tax revenues quadrupled during the war years, expenses increased by a factor of twelve. So, only 25% of spending was met by taxes in the five fiscal years starting April 1, 1914. 

More “moderate” increases were also enormous. In France total government spending, fueled by war spending, increased from 10.5 billion francs in 1914 to 46.9 billion francs in 1918. The German state’s spending rose 17 fold during the war, rising from 3 billion marks in 1914 to 52 billion marks in 1918. 

In France, as in Britain, the United States, Germany, and the other belligerents of the war, massive war debts made up for enormous gaps between tax revenue and total government spending. The European governments generally chose to monetize much of this debt, rather than raise taxes enough to cover war costs. France, the UK, and Germany, “relied much more heavily on debt and inflation than on taxation to fund government spending.” Consequently, monetary inflation was significant: 

German debt … became monetized and the volume of new currency exploded. German currency in circulation rose 599 percent over the course of the war … Great Britain and France saw an increase of money in circulation of 91 and 386 percent respectively.

These enormous surges in deficits and spending over such a short period are rarely, if ever, seen in connection to social spending. Rather, runaway government spending, to the point of increasing total spending by five or ten fold, is justified on the back of a complex of nationalism, fear, and propaganda claiming that “winning” the war—what constitutes victory is defined by the elites, of course— is worth any expense.

Keep reading

The Long Road to War

If you’re wondering why the United States and Iran have been bitter antagonists for more than a half century, and why they are now at war, you won’t find the answer in today’s media coverage where the conflict is portrayed as a dispute over terrorism and nuclear weapons. To truly understand what underlies this ongoing conflict you need to look back much further to a history that has been forgotten, or ignored.

Known for most of its history as Persia, Iran is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with human habitation dating back more than seven millennia.  Despite this foundational history, by the early twentieth century Persia had become a semi-colonial state dominated by British and Russian influence. A rising nationalist movement arose determined to restore the country’s political and economic independence.

The 1953 Coup

A crucial turning point came in 1953. Iranian oil resources had been controlled by the British, who kept most of the vast profits and left little to the Iranians. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a popular reformist who resisted foreign domination, took the bold step of nationalizing his country’s oil industry in 1951. In response, the CIA working with British intelligence organized a successful coup that overthrew his government. Although most citizens of the US and UK have little if any knowledge of this event, the 1953 coup and its consequences remain deeply embedded in Iran’s national memory, even today.

The Shah’s Iron Rule

In Mossadegh’s place, they installed a brutal dictatorial regime headed by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s monarch who ruled the country ruthlessly for the next 26 years. To protect his new-found power, the Shah condemned Mossadegh to three years of solitary confinement, then kept him under house arrest until his death in 1967. In the years following the coup, the Shah and his CIA-trained secret police, Savak, became notorious for their vicious murder, imprisonment and torture of political dissidents. Much of Iranians’ growing hatred of the Shah was focused on the United States, since the Shah was viewed as a puppet of the Americans who put him in power. 

CIA Audacity

The overthrow was considered a resounding success by the CIA, which then became emboldened to undertake a series of regime change operations in other parts of the world. This newfound bravado also influenced America’s decision to undertake its disastrous involvement in the Vietnam War starting in 1954.

A partial list of the countries destabilized and overthrown by the United States following the 1953 coup includes Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), and later Panama (1989), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Regime change is now considered an accepted instrument and goal of US foreign policy. Destabilizing and supporting the overthrow of unfriendly governments has become a central function of the CIA and the State Department. 

The Islamic Revolution

Resistance to the Shah and his totalitarian rule grew over the years, and finally culminated with the Islamic Revolution in January 1979. The Shah was driven into exile, eventually settling in Egypt. His government was replaced by a theocracy headed by the previously exiled religious figure Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who became Iran’s Supreme Leader. Although Khomeini was revered among religious conservatives, he was a ruthless tyrant who executed thousands of political prisoners, often hanging his victims in public from construction cranes for everyone to see. Nonetheless, his anti-Americanism resonated with many Iranians as he stirred up further hatred and a desire for vengeance, calling America the “Great Satan.”

The Embassy Takeover

When the Shah was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment in October 1979, Iranians demanded that he be returned to Iran to face prosecution for his crimes. In a dramatic confrontation in Tehran, an angry crowd besieged the US embassy. A group of militants stormed the embassy and took the American diplomats hostage, outraging American leaders. The Iranians insisted on the Shah’s return as a condition for release of the hostages. President Jimmy Carter refused and the hostages remained captive in Iran for more than a year. Carter would spend the rest of his presidency struggling to find a way to free them. His reelection depended on it.

Keep reading

The Normalcy of American Wars

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory.

When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful reason for doing so. His director of national intelligence and his own CIA had publicly told him that Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon and had ceased building one in 2005.

His secretary of state told him that Iran and Israel had threatened each other, but he could not articulate how Iran imminently threatened the United States. Yet, since Israel planned to attack Iran, he wanted the U.S. to help Israel do so. This was not a lawful request as the U.S. has no treaty with Israel and, under treaties to which the U.S. is a party, the legal bases for all offensive wars can only be treaty compliance or prevention of an imminent attack.

When Trump addressed the nation, his helter-skelter rationale argued for replacing Iran’s government, destroying its civilian-use enriched uranium, destroying its ability to build a bomb it wasn’t building, and neutralizing its offensive and defensive weaponry. None of these goals was lawful; nor was attacking a Tehran girls school. There was no mention of an imminent attack on the U.S. or the economic effect of war on the vital international oil super-highway, the Strait of Hormuz.

No one in Trump’s inner circle registered disagreement, except his vice president and his director of counterterrorism. They told him there was no legal or constitutional basis for his war.

They were correct, but Trump had history on his side.

For much of American history, presidents have steadily accumulated the power to wage war while Congress has gradually surrendered the constitutional authority that the Framers explicitly entrusted to it. This transformation has weakened constitutional checks and balances, expanded executive power beyond its constitutional limits, claimed millions of lives, cost trillions of dollars, and repeatedly drawn the United States into conflicts that had little or nothing to do with defending America.

The Constitution is remarkably clear on the question of war. Article I grants Congress · not the president · the power to declare war. The president, under Article II, wages war, but only after Congress has authorized it.

James Madison argued that the executive branch is the branch “most interested in war, and most prone to it,” which is precisely why the Constitution deliberately divided the war power.

The Framers believed that no single individual should possess the authority to plunge the nation into armed conflict, yet over the past eight decades, presidents of both political parties have steadily ignored these constitutional limits.

President Harry Truman committed hundreds of thousands of American troops to combat in Korea without obtaining a declaration of war from Congress because he said U.S. troops there constituted a “police action.”

The pattern only intensified during the Vietnam War. Although Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it was based on a fraud and effectively delegated its congressional constitutional responsibility to the president. The result was years of escalating conflict that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese while achieving none of its stated objectives.

Keep reading

Cubs Star Pete Crow-Armstrong Shares Bizarre Conspiracy Theory that Babe Ruth ‘Didn’t Exist’

Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong seems to have gone all-in for the bizarre conspiracy theory that Baseball legend Babe Ruth is a storybook character and never existed in real life.

The player known as PCA divulged the strange theory while appearing on Kristin Cavallari’s Let’s Be Honest podcast, according to the New York Post.

“This is gonna be crazy,” he admitted as he launched into the topic. “Babe Ruth never existed is one that I like. I heard some pitcher with the Mariners … I think he did some podcast on Zoom where he was going down the rabbit hole with somebody about how Babe Ruth never existed.”

He went on to insist that, “We always talk about how the game is evolving; people might as well have been like underhanding the ball to that guy. And he’s regarded still as one of the best players ever. Might as well dive further into it and be like, well, maybe he just never existed.”

PCA referenced a claim made by one-time Mariners pitcher Tayler Saucedo, who once said that he’d only ever seen one video of Ruth, so he didn’t think the famed player ever really existed.

There is indeed very little film footage of Ruth, who retired from baseball in 1935. But film was far less common of current events and media figures until the 1940s and 50s and later, so the lack of film footage is not at all unusual for news figures of his era.

Still, Ruth’s life and career were well documented by the newspapers of the times, and there are even people still alive today who could have seen him play.

Still, PCA may have been commenting more on Ruth’s legendary sports achievements than his actual existence

Keep reading

Before Hormuz, There Was Suez: What Trump Can Learn From Eisenhower

Oman and Iran appear close to a temporary arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially providing both an exit from the current round of fighting and the foundation for a more durable maritime order. Washington should welcome such an agreement – even if it acknowledges a degree of Iranian authority in administering traffic through the strait – because US interest dictates that open and non-discriminatory passage must be given priority over control.

The emerging formula would reportedly divide responsibility for the shipping lanes. Vessels entering the Persian Gulf would travel through waters administered by Iran, while outbound traffic would pass through an Omani-administered route. Iran would be notified of departing vessels and, while this has not yet been discussed, Tehran appears open to also ensuring that Oman would be notified of incoming traffic. Tehran and Muscat may collect and share fees for specified security and environmental services, although this sensitive issue has not yet been settled. The negotiations remain fluid, and any agreement is reportedly linked to the lifting of the American blockade on Iranian ports.

The arrangement would represent a slight climbdown by Tehran. Iran’s earlier position would have required traffic in both directions to pass through some portion of Iranian waters as well as Omani waters. That would have brought even ships already inside the Persian Gulf under an Iranian-administered transit system. The emerging division of lanes would give Oman primary responsibility for outbound shipping and limit the universe of vessels requiring Iranian approval or coordination.

If successful – and if Washington accepts it – the agreement could help end the present fighting. It remains unclear whether that would restore the previous American-Iranian memorandum of understanding or require a new framework. Nor does it in and of itself move the needle on two other major stumbling blocks: Iran’s demand for a regional ceasefire and Washington’s demands on Iran’s nuclear activities.

The Trump administration will likely receive strong pushback from hawkish elements in Washington and Israel who will complain over the arrangement’s de facto acceptance and legitimization of Iran (and Oman’s) management of the Strait.

But this critique is borne out of a confusion of what the US’s actual core interest in the Strait is: The free and predictable flow of commerce or preventing the ability of a hostile power to assert control.

The Trump administration has increasingly framed the objective as preventing Iran from “controlling” the strait. Yet the central American interest in strategic waterways has historically been less about who administers them than about whether ships can pass through them freely, predictably and without discrimination. Preventing a hostile state from acquiring coercive leverage has generally been a means of preserving passage, not an end that supersedes passage itself.

That hierarchy of interests matters. If reopening the strait requires acknowledging that Iran possesses some capacity to regulate traffic in waters along its coast, Washington should not reject an agreement merely because it fails to preserve the appearance of unqualified American dominance.

The Suez crisis provides the clearest example. In 1956, Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal Company, displacing the British- and French-controlled corporation that had operated one of the world’s most important commercial arteries. Britain and France regarded nationalization not merely as an economic injury but as a strategic humiliation and, together with Israel, invaded Egypt.

President Dwight Eisenhower refused to support them. After rejecting the Anglo-French invasion, Eisenhower’s administration did not make restoration of British or international ownership a condition for accepting Egypt’s continued administration of the canal. Instead, Washington opposed the invasion and pressed for a diplomatic arrangement that would preserve international access. The applicable legal regime emphasized the canal’s free use by ships of all countries on equal terms, while leaving Egypt responsible for administering and defending the waterway.

Egyptian control was not the same as unrestricted Egyptian discretion. The distinction was crucial. Washington could accept Egyptian sovereignty over the canal while insisting that sovereignty be exercised within rules guaranteeing nondiscriminatory passage. The overriding American interest was not which flag flew over the canal authority, but whether the canal remained open under internationally accepted rules.

Keep reading