Liberty & Prosperity Blog

Never has a political party exhibited less seriousness about violen crime than today's Democrats. It's gotten so bad that Bernard Goldberg has written this op-ed in the Hill. In the article, Goldberg writes "Violent crime is on the rise in America — and Democrats, with good cause, are worried that they may be among the casualties. And it’s not only a surge in shoot-outs or drive-bys in our nation’s capital and in Chicago, Baltimore, and other big cities. NPR reports that 'Many small cities that typically have relatively few murders are seeing significant increases over last year. Killings in Albuquerque, N.M., Austin, Texas, and Pittsburgh, for example, have about doubled so far in 2021, while Portland, Ore., has had five times as many murders compared to last year, according to data compiled by Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.'" Last month, St. Cloud, MN, had 3 homicides for the first time in its history. As a lifelong reside...

Things just got stickier for Jeff Ridlehoover, the superintendent of Sartell-St. Stephen schools. After Kelsey and Haylee Yasgar's interview on Fox & Friends, Ridlehoover issued a statement, saying that "the context that was shared -- which may have been misinterpreted by students and/or staff -- was that students were asked to answer the questions related to their own personal experience and that their answers not reflect those of classmates, friends or family members." That's just the start of things. According to this article , "In the Sartell-St. Stephen School District, school administrators entered into an $80,000 contract with Equity Alliance Minnesota last October, according to a copy of the contract recently obtained by a group of concerned parents. The district was charged $54,243 for an equity audit and another $40,000 for an 'equity action plan' but received a $14,000 discount for selecting 'multiple services.'" That isn...

The White House Takes a Stand to Promote CRT By Ramblin’ Rose It’s no surprise that Biden supports the inclusion of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in our schools. He’s a leftist Democrat married to a leftist teacher. He even stated that he had to support CRT if he wanted a romantic relationship with his wife. Since when does our federal government lead our citizens based on personal relationships? Revelation…how about using the historical documents from 1620 through 1776 to 2021 to reveal historical facts? Parents and citizens agree that our children should be taught diverse opinions and how to make informed decisions based on facts. CRT is a Marxist lens to divide our country based on race and distorted historical events that were determined by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram X. Kendi in the debunked 1619 Project. Unfortunately, there is no instruction, only indoctrination of CRT and the fictionalized version of US history. Recently, the NEA, the largest teachers’ union, pledged to "s...

Despite protestations from the teachers unions and multitudes of Democrat politicians, evidence keeps popping up that CRT is getting pushed in schools. The latest proof comes from Sartell, MN, just a few miles north of where I'm writing this post. Fourth grader Hayley Yasgar appeared on Fox & Friends Monday morning with her mother Kelsey to tell what happened in school . Hayley said that "students were told not to tell her parents about the activity. Sitting alongside her mother Kelsey, fourth grader Hayley Yasgar told "Fox & Friends" on Monday that the questions were confusing and it made her 'very nervous and uncomfortable' when the students were told not to tell their parents." Let's hope that this isn't a set of normal instructions to students. The next logical question is about the teacher is trying to hide. Why would a teacher say such a thing? Kelsey Yasgar has some thoughts on that question: Kelsey Yasgar said that although p...

This article doesn't bury the lede. It starts with the lede that minority communities want more police officers, not fewer. It opens, saying "Amid a jump in violent crime in this and other cities nationwide, Detroit residents report being much more worried about public safety than about police misconduct, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University/Detroit Free Press Poll finds." The next paragraph continues, saying " By an overwhelming 9-1 [margin] , they would feel safer with more cops on the street, not fewer. While a third complain that Detroit police use force when it isn't necessary – and Black men report high rates of racial profiling – those surveyed reject by 3-1 the slogan of some progressives to 'defund the police.'" That's a humiliating rejection of the Democrats' defund movement. This is telling: The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year by a then-police officer and other examples of brutality toward Black people, some of...

Each Saturday afternoon, Fox has a show called The Big Saturday Show. Each week, there are 4 panelists discussing the previous week's biggest stories. One of this week's stories was about the US Department of Education's "mistake" of including a link to an organization's website. That organization's name is the Abolitionists Teaching Network. During Thursday's White House Briefing , Peter Doocy asked Jen Psaki "On schools, first: Now that the Education Department admits they made a mistake in their guide for reopening by in -- they included advice from the Abolitionist Teaching Network, and they came out and said that was not supposed to be in there. Is the administration going to follow up with school districts to make sure that the Abolitionist Teaching Network material is not in lesson plans?" Psaki replied "Well, just to be clear, for the context — because I know you love context of what -- you’re asking about here — what you’re refe...

Last night, James Craig, the retired police chief of Detroit, announced on the Tucker Carlson Show that he's running to unseat Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan. It's pretty clear that he's a serious threat to Gov. Whitmer. Chief Craig is the personification of a leader. Gov. Whitmer is the personification of an authoritarian. There's a difference. There are performance differences that Chief Craig can highlight, too. For instance, he can highlight the fact that Detroit didn't burn while Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Kenosha and New York were looted and violent crime skyrocketed. Meanwhile, Gov. Whitmer placed her state on lockdown, then immediately flew to Florida's open beaches. The Democrats' rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me habit showed off Gov. Whitmer's elitism. It isn't a good look for her. It isn't a good look on any politician. Here's Chief Craig's confident-sounding announcement: "I can't help but think about t...

Wednesday afternoon, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy took Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House, to the proverbial woodshed . During his impromptu news conference, McCarthy refered to Pelosi as the "lame duck speaker." Specifically, he said "This has not happened before. House Democrats must answer this question. Why are you allowing a lame duck speaker to destroy this institution? This is the peoples' House, not Pelosi's House." This happened after Speaker Pelosi announced that she wasn't approving Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to be part of the select committee. Leader McCarthy said that "Speaker Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of denying the minority party's picks for the select committee on Jan. 6. This represents something that has not happened in the House before for a select committee, by the historian." Undoubtedly, Jordan and Banks were picked to cause heartburn for Pelosi's Democrats. It's also true, t...

The minute I started reading this article , thoughts of defining the First Amendment flooded my head. The article's setting is New Jersey. The lesson in First Amendment rights comes thanks to Roselle Park Municipal Court Judge Gary Bundy and homeowner Patricia Dilascio. Andrea Dick, Dilascio's daughter, put up some signs that Judge Bundy has determined to be offensive. In his ruling, Bundy said "This is not a case about politics. It is a case, pure and simple, about language. This ordinance does not restrict political speech. Neither this town or its laws may abridge or eliminate Ms. Dilascio’s freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech is not simply an absolute right. It is clear from state law and statutes that we cannot simply put up the umbrella of the First Amendment and say everything and anything is protected speech." The Constitution didn't give this judge the authority to determine what's permitted by the First Amendment. There's no denying th...

At first, anti-CRT activism was located exclusively in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. As more parents study the subject, the more anti-CRT sentiment spreads . Just the News reports that "Demographically and regionally disparate efforts in Virginia to counteract the spread of critical race theory in public schools are underscoring the broad-based nature of the grassroots backlash against the ideology." This isn't a fringe movement anymore. It's a mainstream movement with momentum. The article continues, saying "Interest in and criticism of the theory has reached a fever pitch since the start of the year, thanks in part to public awareness efforts by activists such as Christopher Rufo, who has utilized social media to expose the significant amount of critical race theory present in U.S. elementary, middle and high schools." This isn't surprising, considering how arrogant the school boards have been. That's been especially true in Loudoun County, though ...

Identifying Joe Biden's America is a complex assignment. Biden's economic model is the European social welfare state . Biden's civil rights model is the Chinese Communist Party's model. Let's start with Biden's civil rights model. Asking Big Tech to filter out COVID posts that the administration deems as misinformation is censorship. The administration isn't hiding their plan. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that's what they were doing from the Briefing Room podium last Thursday, then doubled down on the policy Friday. She initially said "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We're working with doctors and medical experts…who are popular with their audience with accurate information. So, we're helping get trusted content out there." One of the heros in fighting the administration is Peter Doocy. He noted "the checkered history of Big Tech deciding what was and wasn't mis...

This weekend, it was reported that Rep. John Thompson, DFL-St. Paul, had been accused twice of demanding women perform sex acts. Alpha news is now reporting that Rep. Thompson's attorney is saying that the reports are "doctored." Thompson's attorney also insists that the "police reports are a product of the campaign to silence an African American man who speaks out against powerful and abusive interests, and not the product of any effort to uncover truth." This is turning into a pattern. Thompson insists that the police are out to get him because they're racially profiling him. That's rather convenient. He's insisted that the officer that pulled him over for driving with his front plate missing pulled him over for "driving while black":   Last Monday night, Thompson made a statement saying "I do not know the officer who pulled me over and I have no reason to believe they have any hate towards me specifically." Here's M...

DFL Gov. Tim Walz and other DFL politicians are calling on Rep. John Thompson, DFL-St. Paul, to resign immediately. It's worth noting that they didn't call on Thompson to resign when he accused Rep. Eric Lucero, a Hispanic, of being a racist. Democrats didn't call for Thompson's resignation after Thompson accused a police officer of racially profiling Thompson. This time, Democrats are calling on Thompson to resign immediately because the DFL allegedly just learned that he's allegedly abused his girlfriend. Alpha News's Kyle Hooten smells a rat: MN Rep. John Thompson has TWICE been accused of demanding women perform sex acts on him in front of children during arguments with women His history of alleged domestic abuse has been public for a decade, but MN Dems just now dropped their endorsements https://t.co/V17v1v1dXd — Kyle Hooten (@KyleHooten2) July 17, 2021 From Scott Johnson's Powerline post : At Alpha News Kyle Hooten comments: "It is unclear w...

Joe Biden's open borders policy just got more bad news when it was reported that 188,829 "people attempted to cross the southern border illegally from Mexico into the United States in June, the most seen in more than 21 years." This was reported Friday by US Customs and Border Protection. This turns the challenge into a catastrophe. According to Customs and Border Protection, "the 188,829 encounters recorded include people who tried to get into the country by coming over between land crossings and those who were denied entry at border crossings." That isn't a challenge, as DHS Secretary Mayorkas called in March. That's a full-blown catastrophe. Check out this history of Southwest border apprehensions: Though Secretary Mayorkas will deny that this is a crisis, the objective truth says otherwise: Border Patrol, the federal law enforcement agents who work in the spaces between crossing checkpoints, saw 113,000 adults, 15,000 unaccompanied children, an...

When Peter Doocy questioned Jen Psaki about the Biden administration's collusion with Big Tech, Psaki's response was defensive. On Thursday, Psaki admitted from the White House press briefing room that the Biden administration is working hand-in-glove with Facebook and other social media companies to stop the spread of "disinformation." What was amazing is that Psaki admitted it so nonchalantly that it was like this wasn't a big deal. She said that the Surgeon General's office had identified posts containing misinformation about COVID. Then she admitted that they were "in regular touch with the social media platforms" and that "those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team." Who gave this administration that authority? It certainly isn't in the Bill of Rights. It isn't in the First Amendment. Ms. Psaki said that the administration had "increased disinformation rese...

It should frighten people that the Biden administration is working with Facebook on which Facebook posts should be flagged as "misinformation." On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said " We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given, as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic." Psaki then said "Within the Surgeon General's Office, we're flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We're working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts with people, who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content. So, we're helping get trusted content out there. We also created the COVID Community Corps to get factual information into the hands of local messengers." Virtually immediately, ...

The Cuban people's uprising is inspiring in light of our recent celebration of our nation's birthday, our Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, Joe Biden falls exceptionally short of the mark expected of American leadership. Forget about his administration falling short of this nation's Founding Fathers. I'd be thrilled with him living up to mediocre US leadership. Unfortunately for Cuba, Joe Biden is as weak as Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. Obama was famous for drawing red lines, then "leading from behind" when Syria crossed his red lines. Jimmy Carter's fame came from him calling Ayatollah Khomeini "a great man of religion." Carter called him that after Islamic terrorists stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran. The 52 hostages didn't leave until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the United States. This is Joe Biden's pathetic initial statement on Cuba's uprising: We stand with the Cuban people and their cla...

It isn't a matter of if Hispanics are leaving the Democrats. It's more a matter of how big the shift is when it happens. This article should frighten Democrats. Mostly, it's an interview. The first eye-popping exchange happened when Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks David Shor "So after the election, there was this narrative that the Latino vote swung right because of Cubans in Florida or Mexican Americans in South Texas. But what did you find when you looked precinct by precinct?" Shor replied, saying "Precinct by precinct, you know, what we really found was that even though there were particularly market shifts, you know - in South Texas, there were 30-point swings in many counties. You know, there were counties that had voted for Democrats solidly in the 70 to 80% percent range since the 1890s that Trump either won or came very close to winning. And in South Florida generally and Florida in general, there was something like a 13 or 14% swing. That said, basically ...

Texas Senate Democrats vacationing in Washington, DC, are spreading the whoppers around. Joe Biden is doing his part to spread the BS, too. Biden said that "They want to make it so hard and inconvenient that they hope people don't vote at all. This year alone, 17 states have enacted, not just proposed, but enacted, 28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote. The 21st century Jim Crow assault is real. It's unrelenting. We're going to challenge it vigorously." That's just 4 sentences but there's much to fact-check in those sentences. To do that, we'll need to know what's actually in the bill . House Bill 3 "would make it a crime for public officials to offer or send vote-by-mail applications to those who have not requested one." Senate Bill 1 would ban "drive-thru voting or casting a ballot from inside a vehicle unless participating in curbside voting due to a disability. A ban would also be placed on overnight voting, requ...

The nightmare that is the streets of Minneapolis might get safer in spite of Democrats. That's because Don Samuels, his wife and some of their neighbors filed a lawsuit against the city , then won that lawsuit. Since George Floyd's murder, the turmoil in Minneapolis has hit another gear. In part, that's because the activists on the City Council decided that dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department without a plan on what to replace it with was the right thing to do. Don Samuels and his wife knew better. "Samuels said he and his wife Sondra were stunned by the council’s move. 'They just thought, 'Get rid of police and the world would be great.' My wife and I look at each other and go like, 'Oh, my God, it’s going to be crazy around here.'" Things got crazy alright but in a positive way. "Late last year, Samuels and his wife, along with their neighbors, finally took action by filing a lawsuit against the city for failing to provide the m...

Apparently, DFL Rep. John Thompson is a deadbeat dad in addition to being a scofflaw . Rep. Thompson has a colorful history, to put it politely. Last summer, Thompson led a BLM rally in Hugo, MN, against the police union's president. During the BLM rally, Thompson let fly with a lengthy, profanity-laced diatribe:   This is what KARE11 wrote at the time: A DFL-endorsed candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives issued an apology this week, after video surfaced of his conduct at a protest outside police union president Bob Kroll’s house on Saturday in the suburb of Hugo. Knowing that, it isn't surprising that there's more to the Thompson story than that. Here's more: Rep. John Thompson, DFL-St. Paul, was pulled over by St. Paul Police near Seventh Street East and Wacouta Street at 1:18 a.m. Sunday for not having a front license plate, police said.  Thompson has been an outspoken advocate for changing state law to prohibit so-called "pre-textual" tra...

Do you want to live in an America where police officers aren't supported, ATF agents are shot, teachers unions tell the administration whether schools should open and school board members talk down to parents? If you answered that question in the affirmative, vote Democrat. If you'd rather live in an America where the US-Mexico boarder is secured, the military is properly funded, where Chicago's gang wars are taken seriously, the US is energy independent and law enforcement is praised for their heroic efforts, vote Republican. California and Florida are polar opposites in terms of states. California is poorly run, has a homeless crisis and high income taxes. Florida is well-run, the schools are great, school choice is always on the menu and they don't charge individuals or families income tax. ( Kyle Smith's article is well worth reading.) Living where 1-month-old babies are shot isn't the type of city I want to live in: Back to Kyle Smith's article: Though...

AFT President Randi Weingarten declared war against the GOP during a Wednesday night event. She isn't hiding her partisan leanings, which is partially surprising. Anyone that's looked at any Democrat's FEC filing knows that AFT supports that Democrat. At Wednesday night's event, Weingarten said "There are legislators, mostly from the Republican party, who are currently bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching kids honest history." By saying these things, Weingarten is driving people away from Democrats. Loudoun County has jumped into the news a lot lately for fighting against CRT. The thing is that Biden won that county in 2020 with 60% of the vote. Weingarten's speech likely drove lots of Loudoun County parents into the Republicans' arms. During Day 2 of the TEACH 2021 event, Weingarten said that CRT "is not a theory to be taught to school children K-12." Despite that statement, Weingarten said that they have a legal defense fu...

The headline of this article is enough to fire Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot immediately. Weekend after weekend, the citizens of Chicago serve as target practice for rival gangs and other thugs. The title is "6 kids wounded as 92 are shot, 16 fatally, across Chicago in city’s most violent weekend of 2021." Why would anyone want to live in a city like that? People living in a city that size shouldn't have to live in such a violent city. Year-after-year, Chicago is the homicide capitol of the US. The article says "In the deadliest and most violent weekend this year in Chicago, 92 people have been shot over the long Fourth of July weekend, 16 of them killed. The 76 wounded include six children and teenagers and two Chicago police supervisors." Who wants to live in a city that looks like this? Watkins said she cried when she heard about an earlier shooting in which a 1-month-old baby was shot last week while in a car. She said she’s distraught over kids being sho...

Jim Clyburn's Voter ID about-face is driven by desparation to pass HR1/S1. Clyburn, like Stacey Abrams, wants to federalize election. Both called Voter ID voter suppression. When Abrams ran for governor of Georgia, she said "This is simply a redux of a failed system that is designed to both scare people out of voting and make it harder for those who are willing to push through, make it harder for them to vote." In mid-June, though, Abrams started singing a different tune . After Republicans filibustered HR1/S1, "Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams threw her support behind Sen. Joe Manchin’s voting legislation compromise, including the component requiring a form of voter identification , handing the West Virginia Democrat a key endorsement ahead of a crucial vote next week." Jim Clyburn did a similar about-face. Recently, Clyburn said "When I first registered to vote as a 21-year-old – back then, 18-year-olds could not vote – I got a voter registration c...

Jonathan Turley's op-ed highlights the foolishness of Merrick Garland's decision to file a lawsuit against Georgia's new election law. Prof. Turley didn't mince words questioning Garland's decision: The 6-3 decision upheld Arizona’s new voting rules in Arizona over claims of racial discrimination. While the court said it would be imprudent to create a sweeping rule for all future such cases, it was equally imprudent for the Biden administration to ignore the forthcoming decision in filing a new challenge to Georgia’s new voting rights. The lawsuit against Georgia’s new voting rules was clearly timed to beat the court to the punch, but Brnovich delivers a haymaker for those seeking to block such state laws. Indeed, the decision magnifies the concern that the Georgia challenge is more of a political than a legal statement from the Biden administration. Here are Prof. Turley's harshest words against the Biden administration: In the new decision, the court declared...

245 years ago today, the greatest team of leaders ever put together in the history of this planet declared our indepence from the tyrannical (at the time) British throne. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most influential documents in the history of the planet. If you haven't read the Declaration recently, you should. Once you've read it, you'll immediately understand that the 1619 Project is propaganda that should be rejected immediately. The first 2 paragraphs of the Declaration lay the foundation for who we are. It says "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. "We hold these truths to...

Two-hundred-forty-five (245) years ago, a great nation was born. It faced an uphill fight against a more-than-fomidable tyrant. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence understood that they'd be tried and convicted of treason if Gen. Washington didn't deliver a victory in the Revolutionary War against the British military. That's the definition of a daunting mission.  These 57 men understood the risk involved in signing the Declaration. I'm sure that they spent many sleepless nights thinking about the right path forward. In the end, they made the right decision. They wrote why they were declaring their independence from the British throne: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of man...

This past week, the US Supreme Court ruled on the Brnovich v. DNC lawsuit. Predictably, they ruled that the law, signed into law in 2016, didn't infringe on voters' rights. After the ruling, AZ AG Mark Brnovich issued a statement, saying "Today is a win for election integrity safeguards in Arizona and across the country. Fair elections are the cornerstone of our republic and they start with rational laws that protect both the right to vote and the accuracy of the results." DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison wrote this op-ed , which didn't celebrate the ruling. Chairman Harrison said "On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled on Brnovich v. DNC and once again set back voting rights in the United States. In 2016, the Democratic National Committee sued the state of Arizona over two restrictive voting laws. One law automatically tossed out votes that were cast in the wrong precinct. The other law made third-party ballot collection, a practice that communities of color rely ...