November 9, 2023

Why Elon Musk Is Right about George Soros



My latest on American Thinker.

Musk gets it: at the core of Soros’s project is the destruction of America and what she stands for.

Something some observers of public life in the United States and elsewhere have been wondering for a long time is whether, if you wanted to destroy American civilization, its values, traditions, and institutions, you would act differently from how George Soros has acted so far. I’m pretty sure the answer is no. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s richest man, seems to agree.

“In my opinion, he fundamentally hates humanity,” Musk said during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “He’s doing things that erode the fabric of civilization, getting D.A.s elected who refuse to prosecute crime. That’s part of the problem in San Francisco and L.A. and other cities.” As for why Soros uses his Open Society Foundations to focus on local races instead of national campaigns, “once you get to city and state district attorneys,” he explained, “the value for money is extremely good. Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws; you just need to change how they’re enforced; if nobody chooses to enforce the law — or the law’s differentially enforced — it’s like changing the laws.”

Not by chance, to make an example, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who a few months ago became the first prosecutor to bring a criminal case against a current or former American president when a grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump, according to reports, got support from a political action committee that took money from George Soros. Not to mention that Bragg’s controversial “Day One” memorandum reportedly said his office wouldn’t prosecute some “nonviolent” crimes, such as resisting arrest and fare-beating. Later, Bragg backtracked on that policy after strong public resistance.

Cities in which Soros has successfully installed D.A.s have become ungovernable and increasingly unlivable because of the high rate of crime and violence.

Another recent example is that, according to the filings reviewed by Fox News Digital [...]  

 








June 8, 2023

Ron DeSantis’s War on Woke




My latest on American Thinker.

There is no politician who better understands that Woke is an existential threat to America

Ron DeSantis calls himself the governor of the state “where woke goes to die,” and his track record of accomplishments in the fight against wokeness as governor of Florida – which he believes will be a model for his presidency of the whole country – has caught the attention of many across the country.  Take Senate Bill 266, which prohibits Florida’s public universities from spending money on programs or activities that “advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion or promote or engage in political or social activism” and weakens tenure protection for professors. Or House Bill 1069, dubbed by critics as “Don’t say gay,” which liberates teachers and students from having to use fashionable nonstandard pronouns. The law also expands existing parental authority over a child’s education by extending the existing prohibition on instruction relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through grade 3 to include prekindergarten through grade 8 and expressly stating that charter schools must comply with this requirement. The bill also requires that instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades 9 through 12 be age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students. A review process is also established that allows parents to object to inappropriate books in schools and requires school boards to discontinue the use of any material the board doesn’t allow a parent to read aloud in public meetings.

As former diplomat and host of “DeSantisland” podcast Dave Seminara summarizes [...]  

 








April 23, 2023

School choice could destroy the Democrat party


My latest on American Thinker.

School choice will drastically reduce the Democrat Party’s election workforce, squeeze its finances and even discredit its basic philosophy

"Surviving the next decades might be an uphill struggle for the Democrat Party. This not so much, or not only, because of the strength of its opponents, but because of education options that give students the choice to attend a school other than their neighborhood public school, commonly referred to as ‘school choice’ policies. So says The Spectator’s Lewis M. Andrews. His reasoning goes as follows: only occasionally in U.S. history does an issue surface that challenges not only the core values of a political party but the party’s working system, that is its ability to function. Now, “if any such issue has emerged in our own time, it’s clearly school choice.” Why? ‘Cause school choice “will severely reduce the Democratic Party’s election workforce, squeeze its finances and even discredit its basic philosophy”. Simple as that. The subject of fierce debate in various state legislatures across the United States, school choice policies, especially the widespread subsidy of K-12 grade schooling in venues not run by teachers’ unions, “would deplete the enormous army of campaign workers that Democrats have come to depend upon during every election cycle.” Not a minor matter. The case of New Jersey is both emblematic and paradigmatic of these dynamics:  [...]  

 








February 27, 2023

People, Publishers Speaking Out Against 'Insane' Censorship of Roald Dahl




My latest on American Thinker.

This latest woke assault to common sense and freedom of expression might just be turning against those who launched it.

"Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship.  Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed," tweeted American-British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie in response to  chief executive officer of free expression group PEN America Suzanne Nossel, who said the group is "alarmed"  at hundred of changes to venerated works by Roald Dahl "in a purported effort to scrub the books of that which might offend someone."

As the Daily Telegraph first reported, "language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten."  For instance, the word "fat" has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word "ugly" has also been culled.  As a result, Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as "enormous" (instead of "enormously fat"), while in The Twits, Mrs. Twit is no longer "ugly and beastly" but just "beastly."  In addition to numerous changes made to the original text, some passages not written by Dahl have been added.  In The Witches, a passage explaining that witches in the book are bald beneath their wigs now includes a line that reads: "There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that." [...]