Monday, February 1, 2021

January 31, 2021 Democrats get ready to unleash the IRS for selective enforcement on political opponents By Monica Showalter

 

American Thinker

Democrats get ready to unleash the IRS for selective enforcement on political opponents

Democrats have an amazing array of third-world dictator tricks targeting their Republican opponents.

Item A is their bid to use the IRS to cut off Republican freedom of assembly.

According to Judicial Watch:

Reminiscent of the Obama Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) witch hunt of conservative groups, a U.S. Senator who sits on the committee that oversees the tax agency is pushing it to revoke a student charity’s nonprofit status. The veteran lawmaker, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, says the conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, should lose its nonprofit rating because it held large events that could help spread COVID-19. In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig the senator describes the gatherings as “superspreader” events. He specifically mentions a Palm Beach, Florida winter gala at the Mar-a-Lago Club famously owned by former President Donald Trump.

“According to press reports and social media posts, many participants gathered and mingled indoors without wearing masks, in violation of Palm Beach County’s COVID-19 regulations,” Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS chief. The powerful chamber has oversight over the IRS, among many other government agencies. “In holding these ‘superspreader’ events, Turning Point USA knowingly exposed hundreds of young people and staff working at the events to serious risk of infection,” the letter continues. The legislator asks the IRS to review whether the group, which has more than 250,000 student members, should continue to enjoy its tax-exempt nonprofit status. “Established law has long held that an organization is not eligible for tax exemption under section 501(c)(3) if a purpose of the organization is contrary to public policy or is illegal,” the letter states, reminding the IRS commissioner of a three-part test established to determine whether an organization’s activities are consistent with tax exemption under the code.

Which is a pretty impressive way of shutting conservative groups down. They're so concerned about superspreader events, they want to permanently shut down conservative groups themselves for their events so that conservatives can't assemble at all. Sounds pretty convenient for their purposes.

Not only do they want to take away our freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion, they'd also like to take away freedom of assembly. Just like they did during the Obama presidency when conservative groups such as the Tea Party were targeted by the IRS with long delays for approval and long intrusive questionaires about distant relatives. That targeting, according to some accounts, actually swung the election to the low-popularity President Obama in 2012.

Now they're back up to their dirty tricks, trying to use COVID as an excuse to shut conservative groups down and deprive them of their constitutionally guaranteed right to assembly. Instead of fining groups for violations or whatever is normally done, their plan is to shut the groups down.

Here's the hypocrisy of it: Joe Biden held a public inauguration of 1,000 handpicked people on Jan. 20, which most certainly was a superspreader event based on the failure of the participants to stand six feet apart, and for many, Joe Biden among them, wear masks.

Shall we shut the White House down on that logic. Rest assured, many Republicans would like it, but you can bet nobody's going to shut the Biden administration down for this same superspreader behavior.

Which goes to show how political these Democrats are, attempting to coopt the government into targetting and shutting political opponents, while doing the same things themselves. COVID sure seems like an increasingly handy weapon for amassing power in the eyes of Democrats.

This stinks.

Image:  Logo, via Wikimedia Commons / public domain




January 31, 2021 Parents at ultra-elite prep school mobilizing against race-obsessed curriculum changes By Thomas Lifson

 

American Thinker

Parents at ultra-elite prep school mobilizing against race-obsessed curriculum changes

One of the very fanciest, most expensive prep schools in the country recently has been convulsed with demands to alter its curriculum and staff to force feed a radical racial agenda on the children of the Ruling Class.  But a group of parents has circulated a letter of protest, seeking to ensure that Junior and Muffy will not be dumbed down and radicalized in the name of avenging the death of George Floyd of a drug overdose while in custody of the Minneapolis Police.  

It is notable that the parents backing the letter remain anonymous; such is power of casual accusations of “racism” today. Nonetheless, at least when their privacy is protected, parents can recognize that the demands of the racialists can harm their offspring, curtailing the breadth and depth of their education, degrading their ability to think and be aware of the intellectual heritage of our civilization, and maybe even cheapening the value of the education they receive, currently at the price of $54,180 a year and certain to rise further every year.

Dana Kennedy of The New York Post writes of the revolt of the elites at The Dalton School in New York City:

The Dalton School

Parents and alumni at the tony Dalton School have fired off a scathing open letter decrying the school’s new race-obsessed agenda.

The anonymous missive to the “Dalton community,” obtained by the Post, charges the “love of learning and teaching is now being abandoned in favor of an ‘anti-racist’ curriculum.”

It reads, “Every class this year has had an obsessive focus on race and identity, ‘racist cop’ reenactments in science, ‘de-centering whiteness’ in art class, learning about white supremacy and sexuality in health class. Wildly inappropriate, many of these classes feel more akin to a Zoom corporate sensitivity-training than to Dalton’s intellectually engaging curriculum.”

The letter calls for an “impartial ombudsman” outside of the “DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] industry” to advocate for the school’s educational mission and solicit feedback from alumni and parents about changes to the curriculum. It also suggests the school immediately pause the new “anti-racist” curriculum and “anti-racist” teacher training.

Maybe you don ‘t care what a few snobby parents at a school with only 1300 students have to say, but these are mostly parents with a lot of influence on the peak institutions of communications and culture. The reality of the cost of the measures demanded  by the racialst know-nothings seeking to degrade education even further is hitting people who thought that their money and status could exempt their kids from the damage inflicted on the rest of us.

It’s a small step, to be sure. But even those parents who didn’t back the letter know that there is truth to their charges that the value of education at the Dalton School is collapsing, if these changes go forward:

The seven-page treatise, signed only “Loving Concern @ Dalton,” calls for a return to empowering “teachers to passionately take responsibility for the children’s education and teach their subject matter in accordance with the Dalton Plan. It seems insane that we have to say this but let’s restore the centrality of education to the school’s mission.

“In place of a joyful, progressive education, students are exposed to an excessive focus on skin color and sexuality, before they even understand what sex is,” the letter reads.

“Children are bewildered or bored after hours of discussing these topics in the new long-format classes. Dalton used to awaken children’s imagination with fiction, art, Aztec bookmaking, the Renaissance, ITL and Carmino Ravosa musicals. Having children focus on skin color and their sexual identities, rather than immersing them in the beauty and joy of human civilization, the wonder of science and nature, or the meaning of power and words and math and music, seems nuts to us.”

A Dalton dad seethed to The Post Friday, “What we’re seeing at the school now is the atrocious mismanagement of the precious social and intellectual development of children. It’s inexcusable for with an institution with a 100-year old pedagogy to have so quickly and sharply shifted to a radical and untested approach to child development and education.”

There is an “Emperor’s New Clothes” aspect to what these parents have to say. Children don’t get into an elite school like Dalton unless their parents believe in, and are willing to pay for, the best quality grounding in reason and knowledge for their children. That applies to scholarship students and much as to those whose parents pay full freight.

Only the obsessive radicals among them ignore the peril to their children of putting the race-obsessions of a few ahead of the quality education they sought.

It may be that the threat of being called “racist” will silence these still-anonymous parents. If so, the Dalton School will decline and fall into just another propaganda factory. And with it will go a small backstop against the utter degradation of education in the United States.

Photo credit: Jim.henderson CC BY-SA 4.0  license




January 31, 2021 Corrupti-looza: Biden family wastes no time profiting from public office By Monica Showalter

 

American Thinker

Corrupti-looza: Biden family wastes no time profiting from public office

In one-party states such as the old PRI-ruled Mexico, the stealing tended to start late. Before a Mexican president was escorted out for the next, he and his would sweep the presidential palace for everything not nailed down -- the lightbulbs, the toilet seats, the doorknobs and more. There were exceptions, but it was generally the known narrative. In more than one Latin American country, the last-minute asset grab on the way out actually had a name -- "La Pinata." After all, as former PRI mayor of Mexico City, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, used to say: "A politician who's poor is a poor politician." 

Which brings us to Joe Biden, and his family's unusually fast scramble to profit from his public office right out the gate.

Son Hunter still has his 10% China equity fund stake, contrary to what had been reported, and a new art gig just perfect for bringing in money from non-transparent sources, as the New York Post, in this excellent report notes, all because his blow-pipe 'art' done as his personal art therapy is somehow so very valuable. 

Brother Frank, meanwhile, is advertising his connections to old Joe for Florida law firm he's connected with, using Joe's name in a bid to drum up business. As New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin reported:

The latest sordid example involves one of Joe’s younger brothers, Frank Biden, appearing in a Florida law firm’s ad — on Inauguration Day no less. The ad used the president’s name to draw attention to the Berman Law Group’s class-action suit against sugar cane growers.

“The two Biden brothers have long held a commitment to pushing environmental issues to the forefront,” says the ad. “The president-elect has vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement and wants to set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.”

The ad, first reported by CNBC, appeared in the Daily Business Review and carried a picture of Frank Biden and quotes him saying, “My brother is a model for how to go about doing this work.”

How touching. And shameless. 

Brother James hasn't changed any, still under federal investigation for a hospital company that feds say isn't being run properly. 

Bidens of all sorts are under federal investigation for tax evasion, money-laundering, and unregistered agent foreign ties, as this Politico report citing Hunter notes.

And it seems to be having a knock-on effect as Vice President Kamala Harris's stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, an art student (which generally isn't the most employable of professions), has suddenly gotten a fancy modeling contract, to be a 'style icon,' which hadn't been her forte until the establishment noticed she was close to power. Now they're gushing about her, selling her as stylish as emperor's new clothes. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, might just owe someone a favor. 

It's happening, Goodwin observes, because the Bidens have been doing it for decades, and never with any consequences. Now that Joe's 'the big guy' and not a mere vice president, for them it's all the better.

Which is true enough as far as it goes, but still doesn't entirely explain the speed of the influence-peddling and pocket-lining -- why, contrary to the Mexican and Latin American model -- did the rush to grab money start on day one? 

With these questionable acts starting early -- despite Joe's call to brother Frank to 'watch yourself,' what seems a distinct possibility is that the family members think the gig is not going to last so the time to act is now.

Maybe they're betting Joe isn't going to last for one reason or another. That might explain why they are rushing to scarf up all they can without covering their tracks. They're like fund managers divesting a stock  --- quickly, and all at once. Fund managers buy stocks quietly and gradually on expectations the price will go up, but when they think it's heading down, they don't play around, they dump it all at once and don't care who's watching.

That kind of desperation seems to be evident in House Biden's quick bid to cash in all at once, too. Do they know something we don't? Do they expect their window of opportunity will be short? How is it they can jump up so fast to cash in, even against warnings from Joe, who after all, assured the voters last fall with this malarkey:  

“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict, with inappropriate distance from the presidency and government,” he said.

Even with the spotlight on, for them, it's as if the walls are closing in and Gotterdammerung is beckoning. If that's not a vote of low confidence in the durability of Joe and his presidency, what really is?

Image: Screen shot from a camera aimed at a television set, processed with FotoSketcher.

 




Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am It won't be pretty. Read More...

 

View this email in your browser

Recent Articles

Trump: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Does Trump still have a trump card to play? As time passes, this glimmer of hope is fading faster than our freedom of speech on social media. It’s not in his nature to lose, especially in such fashion, exiting the biggest stage in the world. Read More...

Crossing the Digital Rubicon

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Installing totalitarianism with a convenient app... Read More...

Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
It won't be pretty. Read More...

The ‘How to Reform Islam’ Sales Pitch

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
"Reforming Islam" is nowhere near as simple as many moderate muslims would like us to think.  Read More...

Liz Cheney’s Predestined Future

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
While it may seem at first glance that her political career is at a dead end, it is far from it. Liz will be rich very soon, if she is not already.   Read More...

Governing Elites Are Destroying the Nation They're Supposed to Run

Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Those who insist on governing us have spent decades shaking and shaking the world's largest can of carbonated Coke, and now they expect it somehow not to explode all around them. Read More...


 

Recent Blog Posts



The political storm ahead
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
It looks to me as if we are about to enter a very dark and dangerous political storm such as our nation has not seen.  Read more...

Chicago teacher strike looms over Mayor Lightfoot’s demand for a return to classroom learning
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Democrat leaders like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot are caught between pressures from parents and the irrational demands of their single most important interest group.  Read more...

Trump, the GOP, and the House
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Some disloyal House members are about to be fired.  Read more...

Researchers in Israel found something wonderful
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
This has nothing to do with politics; instead, it's a rare glimpse into the world of Kings David and Solomon.  Read more...

Peter Barry Chowka explains the real story of Dr. Fauci
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Once you understand how Fauci exploited AIDS decades ago, his takedown of Trump with COVID makes sense.  Read more...

Leftists are trying to destroy Trump's new attorneys
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
The old idea that everyone is entitled to a defense is being replaced by the new idea that anyone associated with Trump must be destroyed.  Read more...

Politically and culturally, we are witnessing a journey to 'abnormalcy'
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
There is nothing normal about Democrats in the Biden era, for they are driven by a deep and abiding hatred for America, Trump, and you.  Read more...

A new racism emerges from the wokester set in Vermont
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Wokester leftists are trying to paint "whitest state" Vermont as naturally racist.  Read more...

The sleazy Lincoln Project has the sleaziest of all co-founders
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
When news emerged that John Weaver is a sexual predator, his Lincoln Project colleagues issued an inadvertently funny and possibly dishonest statement.  Read more...

We must demand a clear standard for 'peaceful protest'
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Why are Capitol protesters deemed a threat to the republic while BLM and Antifa arsonists and looters are deemed peaceful?  Read more...

The Dems care too much about the people in Gitmo
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
Groveling before the "Death to America" crowd.  Read more...

Iranian students are victims of the regime’s terrorism goals
Feb 01, 2021 01:00 am
In its pursuit of a Shia caliphate, the Iranian regime willingly denies its youth food, fuel, and education.  Read more...

Democrats get ready to unleash the IRS for selective enforcement on political opponents
Jan 31, 2021 01:00 am
Democrats now targeting freedom of assembly.  Read more...

Parents at ultra-elite prep school mobilizing against race-obsessed curriculum changes
Jan 31, 2021 01:00 am
Maybe you don‘t care what a few snobby parents at a school with only 1300 students have to say, but these are mostly parents with a lot of influence on the peak institutions of communications and culture. They are a backstop against the utter degradation of education in the United States.  Read more...

Corrupti-looza: Biden family wastes no time profiting from public office
Jan 31, 2021 01:00 am
The question is, why are they doing it so early?  Read more...

View this email in your browser
American Thinker is a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans.







Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *