There are defining moments in every political career — decisions that have the power to rewrite a person’s future. They can take a no-name conservative to celebrity status, or send a rising star cratering back to earth. Everyone with big dreams stands at those crossroads eventually — and for Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), that time is now. The popular governor, who made a name for herself bucking COVID restrictions, has had her eye on bigger things in the Republican Party for a long time. But if she fails this test — if she can’t find the courage to stand up to the Left — that’s all she’ll be remembered for.
For Noem, protecting girls’ sports isn’t a heavy lift. The one-time athlete and mom of three doesn’t need to look far to find enormous support for the battle her state is waging. Thanks to Joe Biden, who started a gender war on day one, bills like the one South Dakota is considering have caught fire — fanning out across almost 30 states and becoming law in two. Across gender, party, and generational lines, Americans have come out in force, demanding an end to the transgender agenda that’s destroying girls’ competition. In a state that Donald Trump won by 26 points, the idea of keeping biological boys off the girls’ teams isn’t radical — it’s practical.
Noem herself seemed to be on board with the idea at first, tweeting that she was “excited to sign this bill very soon.” Two weeks later, after meetings with the Left’s top critics, the Chamber of Commerce, and Amazon, the governor suddenly changed her mind. On Friday afternoon, to the astonishment of everyone, she announced that she was vetoing HB 1217 — caving to the mob in spectacular fashion. She tried to tamp down the outrage by scheduling a Monday press conference. Damage control, people assumed. But the damage was a lot more than she counted on.
Over at Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Waggoner was speechless. “Governor Noem had an opportunity to protect women and girls… but instead she pandered to the demands of special interests… We are shocked that a governor who claims to be a firebrand conservative with a rising national profile would cave to ‘woke’ corporate ideology.” Others, like American Principles Project Terry Schilling, made it clear that Noem had just thrown away her chances for a spot on the big stage. “If you can’t stand up to the Chamber of Commerce, how will you stand up to China?” he wanted to know. Matt Walsh was equally frustrated. “Republicans who don’t stand up to the Left’s gender madness are useless. This is a hard line issue. No capitulating. No compromise. Our side is 100 percent right. The other side is 100 percent wrong. They should get no concession and no consideration.”
Unfortunately, not everyone was surprised by the governor’s cowardice. Groups like FRC and Republicans on the ground were already well acquainted with Noem’s bad track record on transgenderism. Most people never knew it, but Kristi Noem was responsible for killing a much better bill that would have protected kids in February of last year. Right before the virus exploded, South Dakota was on the verge of becoming the first state in the country to put an age limit — 16 — on gender reassignment surgery and cross-sex hormones. Very quietly, after the legislation passed the House, Noem started working behind the scenes to kill it. Publicly, she said she was “concerned” about the idea. Privately, Republicans in both chambers told us, her message was much stronger: make it disappear. If she couldn’t be bothered to stand with parents then, it was probably foolish to think she’d start now.
And unfortunately, what Noem has done by bowing to the phony power of the NCAA and the corporate Left has implications for a lot more than her career. In this morning’s media event, the governor did tremendous damage to the entire effort by suggesting this debate over girls’ sports can be solved with a meaningless Title IX pep rally. As far as she’s concerned, all conservatives need to do is hold hands, sign a petition, and hope this whole thing blows over. “Once we have enough states on board, a coalition big enough where the NCAA cannot possibly punish us all, then we can guarantee fairness at the collegiate level,” Noem said Monday. That’s not a serious strategy, and she knows it. That’s a full-blown, white-flag surrender. It’s political theater, Waggoner fired back. “Empty words.” The only thing that will stop this lunacy is for states to pass laws — and, if necessary, fight for those laws in court.
In a desperate attempt to justify her decision, Noem resorted to the Left’s talking points, claiming that South Dakota “would face retaliation” if they passed the bill, “and that would be a cost to taxpayers.” It’s the same tired argument we’ve heard from the other side for years. If the NCAA pitches a fit and pulls their tournaments from her state, so be it. If Amazon decides to take its 1,000 jobs away from Sioux Falls, then you know what? That’s a small price to pay for a generation of women’s scholarships and opportunity.
North Carolina’s Republicans did a much harder thing by passing a privacy bill five years ago, and they were fed the same baloney about financial ruin, boycotts, and the collapse of their collegiate sports. As usual, none of the Left’s prophecies of doom ever materialized. In fact, North Carolina went on to top Forbes’s Best States for Business List three years running! Job growth, gross state product growth, hospitality were among the strongest — if not the strongest — in the entire country in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Even the state’s population grew twice as fast as the U.S. average. North Carolina didn’t just weather that storm, they thrived.
Someone once asked then-Lt. Governor Dan Forest what he would tell other states who were on the corporate hot seat over social policies. His advice? “Don’t be bullied. When these fights come to you, you need to stand up and fight.” South Dakota’s daughters deserve a fighter and a leader. So far, in Noem, they have neither.
Thus it was that establishment Republicans expressed their utter disdain for Donald Trump.
Oh, sorry. They weren’t talking about Donald Trump; they were talking about — Ronald Reagan. And the “they” in question in those quotes above had proudly had their names attached to their views of Reagan as an extremist and walking political disaster. The names were, successively, then-GOP Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, New York Republican Sen. Jacob Javits, Illinois Republican Sen. Charles Percy, and former President Gerald Ford. And there were more, with less illustrious names.
Reagan had a name for these kind of GOP opponents, famously put this way in an address to the 1975 Conservative Political Action Conference:
Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?
• When the choice comes down to a Republican who is, like Reagan, pro-life and has made a central point of appointing constitutionalists to the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts — in record numbers — these Pale Pastel Republicans are endorsing the candidate who vows to put pro-abortion, anti-Reagan/Scalia judges on the bench.
• When the choice came down to Trump, a Republican who, like Reagan, supports peace through strength and, as with Reagan dealing with Gorbachev, was unafraid to sit down and confront America’s tyrant/dictator adversaries face to face — and walk out on the dictator when required? As Reagan did with Gorbachev and Trump did with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un? The Pale Pastels opt for Biden, the candidate who notoriously signed on to sending pallets of cash to appease the Iranian mullahs so that they could fund terrorists. Biden, the candidate from the infamous “apology tour” Obama administration. Hell would freeze over before Reagan — or Trump — would ever apologize for America.
• When the choice came down to a Republican who insists that our NATO allies live up to their financial obligations to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defense — the Pale Pastels sided with those who refused to live up to their obligations and wanted a free security ride on the backs of American taxpayers.
When the choice came down to a Republican who, in Reagan-esque fashion, cut taxes, the Pale Pastels have signed up for the candidate who pledges to raise them — the Walter Mondale of 2020. A pledge Biden repeats over and over.
• The Pale Pastels say their choice came down to “character and competence” and that Trump was engaging in “corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.” Seriously? Not a peep from any of them about the most corrupt vice president in American history, who blatantly used his offices as senator and vice president to enrich his family, bringing his son along to China on an official trip so he could make a rich deal with a Chinese banker or getting a prosecutor in Ukraine fired for investigating that same son.
There’s more — oh so much more.
But the fact is that the Pale Pastel Republican signers of this 70-person letter from various GOP security officials endorsing Joe Biden, not to mention the Pale Pastel Jeff Flake–led endorsement of Pale Pastel ex-GOP members of Congress for Biden, are nothing remotely new. This is the wing of the GOP that repeatedly produces disastrous Republican nominees with names stretching from Dewey to McCain and Romney and others.
What is new is that the socialist agenda of the Biden/Harris/Bernie/AOC Democrats is out there for all to see. This is socialism on steroids.
Happily we know the names of all the Pale Pastels — aka “Republicans for Biden” — who have endorsed it. As here and here.
Thanks. Good to know. No Republican president should hire you or any Republican support you — ever again.
You will also be voting for a man whose health is failing, and who may have to relinquish his presidency to a vice president with even more radical views on important issues.
Unprecedented Judicial Nominations
In his first three years in office, Trump had successfully appointed a record 50 judges to the U.S. circuit courts of appeals. For comparison purposes, by the same point in their first terms, President Obama had appointed just 19 and President Bush 26.
With the cooperation of the Republican Senate, Trump also pushed the judges through far faster than his predecessors. After three years in office, Trump had already set a modern record for the appointment of appeals court judges.
Trump’s judicial juggernaut could not have succeeded without the cooperation of a Republican Senate majority. Mitch McConnell not only held open the Scalia seat in Obama’s last year and eliminated the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, but he also made the confirmation of appellate judges a Senate priority.
By the end of three years in office, Trump and McConnell had confirmed enough federal appeals judges to ensure that Republican presidents had appointed a bare majority of all federal appeals judges in the nation.
The 11th Circuit has 12 judges, seven of whom were appointed by Republican presidents after Lagoa’s confirmation on Wednesday. That count now includes five Trump appointees.
“This success – along with the record number of federal appellate judges President Trump has appointed to date – is a testament to the tangible impact the president has had in reshaping the federal judiciary with constitutionalist judges who are committed to the rule of law,” Carrie Severino, the chief counsel and policy director at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said in a tweet about Lagoa’s confirmation.
Trump has now named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit — more than one-third of its active judges — compared with seven appointed by President Obama over eight years.
“Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.
If Trump were to win reelection, he would probably succeed in flipping most, if not all, appellate courts to conservative control.
Trump’s success with judicial appointments came about through the normal constitutional process. He may have chosen younger, more conservative judges. But here he followed closely the example set by President Reagan.
Reagan and Trump have been the two greatest American presidents in the past century-plus.
Joe Biden opposes:
Biden supports:
Biden flip-flopped on:
Miscellaneous
For more, read:
The Beltway Bidens: Creepy, crooked, and NOT just like us
Eight Things to Know About the Biden Family’s Culture of Corruption
Dr. James Dobson:
“In the history of our nation, there have been times when evil was so apparent—and so heinous—that they stand in infamy decades later. They include the Dred Scott Decision on slavery in 1857, and the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion in 1973. Now, we are faced with another such tragic moment in American history.
A few days ago, May 17th, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed what they call The Equality Act of 2019, which is breathtaking in its scope. If it survives a vote in the Senate, this legislation will represent one of the most egregious assaults on religious liberty ever foisted on the people of this great nation. It therein imposes a thinly veiled death sentence to the First Amendment of the Constitution, and takes away the protections against tyranny handed down to us by our founding fathers. It was this unyielding commitment to religious liberty that led to the American Revolution in 1776. The pastors and the patriots of that day died to free themselves from British imperialism. Thank God for the men who stood courageously against the most powerful military in the world, because freedom meant more to them than their own lives.
Let me speak candidly and passionately to people of faith throughout these United States of America. We must not remain silent as our historic liberties are gutted by Democrats and their friends in the LGBT movement. They will enslave us if they prevail! We must let our voices be heard, first in the U.S. Senate, and then to the world.
Viva liberty! Viva the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Viva biblical values and beliefs. And woe to those who would take them from us.”
Now that Mrs. Bill Clinton has wrapped up the Democrat Party nomination for the presidential election, it’s time to examine her past and who she really is:
As U.S. Senator from New York, Mrs. Bill Clinton’s chief accomplishment was winning a debate against her Republican election opponent.
As secretary of state, she intentionally lied when she insisted America’s consulate in Benghazi was attacked because of a Youtube video that was critical of Islam.
Mrs. Clinton is currently under investigation for using a private server to store classified government documents.
Also, Clinton is a member of the “National Organization for Women Who Approve of Elected Male Officials Who Have Abused Women but Support Abortion Rights.”
Clinton supports Planned Parenthood, which is on defense in several courts for refusing to protect under-age girls from rapists, under investigation for defrauding the government of millions of dollars and under investigation for illegally selling baby body parts. She says abortion should be safe, legal and rare.
She said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom is a slippery slope for women – even though the nation has no history of forcing employers to violate their consciences and provide abortion drugs.
Fought in 1993 for the U.S. to fast-track government approval of RU-486, a dangerous drug which has killed several women and girls and caused complications for many more.
She supported the grisly, barbaric practice of partial-birth infanticide.
She supposedly supports women’s rights, but paid her women staffers at the Department of State less than men.
She is a big fan of the late Saul Alinsky and practices his Rules for Radicals – the book he dedicated to Lucifer — in all of her political activities. He invited her to work for him as a community agitator. Clinton says she believes in tactics over principles.
As First Lady, Mrs. Clinton attempted – in secret meetings — to force socialism and government medical insurance on the nation, but failed.
She made up lies to try to justify the firing of White House Travel Bureau employees, allegations which were proven false.
She said the unborn have no rights.
Mrs. Clinton enabled her husband’s rampant womanizing by trashing the women who were used and abused by himd – rather than sympathizing with them and acknowledging a very serious problem.
Clinton wanted the U.S. to apologize for slavery.
She supported the Defense of Marriage Act, then said she “evolved” on same-sex marriage.
Also, she supports “hate” crimes laws. Even though all crimes are commited with contempt for the victim.
She wrote an op-ed claiming Common Core was recycled Clinton policy from the 1980s and 1990s. She opposes school vouchers.
Clinton believes in so-called manmade “global warming” and supports the Kyoto Treaty and cap and trade policy.
Plagiarized the title of the book “It Takes a Village.” Author Jonah Goldberg said of the book: “No more thorough explication of the liberal fascist agenda can be found than in Hillary Clinton’s best-selling book, “It Takes a Village.” All the hallmarks of the fascist enterprise reside within its pages.” Clinton learned from Marian Wright Edelman how to use children as propaganda tools for her ideological agenda: childhood is a crisis, and the government must come to the rescue. “I cannot say enough in support of home visits,” Clinton said.
Big government advocate.
Clinton said Wall Street donates to me because I rebuilt them after 9/11.
She voted against voter ID, though the Democrats require photo ID to attend their national conventions.
Clinton wants tough gun control and says gun manufacturers should be subject to lawsuits (for individuals’ behavior).
She says that because she is a woman she is a political outsider.
If elected president, Mrs. Clinton says Bill Clinton will advise her and represent the U.S. abroad.
She considers herself a member of the “Christian Left.” It’s a religion whose “god” is government.
She voted against the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Clinton is proud of the controversial nuclear agreement with Iran in which the U.S. got taken for a ride.
As a U.S. Senator, Mrs. Clinton delivered a half-billion dollars in earmarks to 59 corporations. Then 64 percent of those corporations donated to her campaign.
She said she flew into Bosnia in 1996 and ran through sniper fire on the ground. Video showed a calm, peaceful deplaning, and Clinton later called the lie a “minor blip.”
The Clinton Foundation has accepted millions of dollars in exchange for political favors by Hillary and Bill Clinton, and it is still happening today. The Clintons have accepted illegal campaign cash from convicted criminals like Mauricio Celis, of Mexico, and Norman Hsu, of Hong Kong. They pardoned Mark Rich after his wife gave them a huge donation
In his book, “Liberal Fascism,” Jonah Goldberg wrote: Clinton “is a representative figure, the leading member of a generational cohort of elite liberals who brought fascist themes into mainstream liberalism. … What follows, then, is a group portrait of Hillary and her friends – the leading proponents and exemplars of liberal fascism in our time.”
She was offered an internship in the Berkeley office of attorney Robert Truehaft, a communist who fought for the Stalinist faction the California labor movement.
As an attorney in Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton wrote articles in favor of children’s “rights” to divorce their parents. Goldberg wrote: “Hillary Clinton’s writings on children show a clear, unapologetic, and principled desire to insert the state deep into family life – a goal that is in perfect accord with similar efforts by totalitarians of the past. … She condones the state’s assumption of parental responsibilities … because she is opposed to the principle of parental authority in any form.” She believes families hold children back and the state sets them free. “Hillary Clinton’s ideas are, in general, fascist.”
Hillary’s guru was Rabbi Michael Lerner, who authored The New Socialist Revolution. He wrote of the coming socialist take-over.
One of Hillary Clinton’s most outrageous statements: “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”