Memo to AOC: BE THE RICH

Memo to AOC: Be the Rich

“We need to have a conversation in this country about working families,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last Monday. While the real working class was at home watching Monday night football—wearing a mask between sips of their Budweiser, AOC, the former bartender turned social justice activist/warrior, shed her mask, donned a white dress, and hobnobbed with Saweetie, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Ben Affleck, Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, AKA the wealthy class.

Oh, the perks of being a servant of the people.

AOC’s ticket was reportedly comped. But her rich and famous peeps paid upwards of $35,000/ticket—with tables costing at $275k—for a seat at the elite MET fundraising gala. Reactions on social media and in the press were swift and divided over her “bold” and “courageous” political message emblazoned on the back of her dress: TAX THE RICH.

Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy blasted her hypocrisy, saying, “AOC wanted to hang out with a bunch of rich celebs at a cool party without losing her socialist street cred, so she tossed ‘Tax the Rich’ on the back of her dress & called it a day. It’s not much more complicated than that.”

[SNIP] Conservative Christian commentator Charlie Kirk got it right with his new line of clothing merchandise based on AOC’s dress. Instead of advocating TAX THE RICH, his white and red t-shirts say: BE THE RICH.

If AOC really wants to help her constituents, that’s the radical notion she should be pushing. She should show how the middle-class can leverage their freedoms, their creativity, their own efforts to improve their economic standing—rather than going through life as a Taker “panhandling for handouts,” which enslaves the human spirit by promoting a victimhood mentality.

Read the rest of the post HERE.

Biden's Vax Mandate Scarier Than Halloween Kills Movie

What does President Joe Biden's latest dictate have in common with the new Halloween Kills movie? Both are terrorizing 100 million people—with one difference. Unlike Hollywood's latest horror flick, Biden's latest executive order—that companies with more than 100 employees must vaccinate, isn't fictional. His slashing of our constitutionally guaranteed personal freedoms is on par with the nightmare Halloween Kills evokes.

On Thursday, Biden made the unconstitutional, mandatory vaccination decree, saying, "We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin—and your refusal has cost all of us." Biden blamed American citizens, upwards of 100 million who have chosen not to be vaccinated for a variety of personal, health, and religious reasons, as the real problem in the fight against COVID. "This is not about freedom or personal choice," he said.

Whatever happened to "My body, my choice"? When it comes to abortion, he's for freedom and choice; not so with the mandatory vaccinations of 100 million people.

Ironically, Biden-Harris Administration policies exclude forcing the vax upon illegal aliens crossing the border. Upwards of 30 percent of illegal immigrants have refused to be vaccinated against COVID. American citizens will no longer enjoy that same choice if Biden's mandate survives a swarm of legal challenges.

Read the rest of the blog HERE. Oh, and for the record, avoid the Halloween movie as if it were the plague.

Joe Biden: Words Matter—Except His

President Biden has banned the term “Illegal alien” when the Customs and Border Protection agency deals with people attempting to enter our country illegally.

In an effort to sound noble, compassionate, and enlightened, the Linguist in Chief’s acting CBP Commissioner, Troy Miller, said, “We enforce our nation’s laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact” . . .

Going forward, Biden’s Word Police require government employees to drop the “unaccompanied alien children” label. They’re now “unaccompanied non-citizen children.” Likewise, “illegal aliens” are now magically changed to the less offensive, dignity-preserving “undocumented non-citizen” or “undocumented individual.”

Ironically, Joe Biden is tone-deaf to his offensive choice of words. Last year he called a student a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” at a campaign rally in New Hampshire . . . How’s that for preserving her “dignity”?

Read the rest of this blog HERE at ChristianHeadlines.com.

Shakespeare: Ban the Bard?

Reading the sanctimonious rant by Amanda MacGregor, feminist and former library assistant, you’d think William Shakespeare was the devil incarnate. This watchdog of woke rights is highly critical of the Bard. She accused him saying, “Shakespeare’s works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogynoir”—the hatred of black women.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Shakespeare, born 457 years ago this month, continues to have a monumental impact on students worldwide. But like MacGregor, Dana Dusbiber, a high school educator, believes all that glitters isn’t gold.

Shakespeare may be the gold standard, but hers is a jaded view: “I do not believe that a long-dead, British guy is the only writer who can teach my students about the human condition.” She prefers “literature written by a wide range of ethnically-diverse writers” rather than clinging to “one (white) man’s view of life as he lived it so long ago.”

Granted, Dusbiber and MacGregor are free to castigate Shakespeare. But their fashionable assassination of classic literature exemplifies what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery”—the unfounded logic that art, science and the thinking of a prior age are inherently flawed, worthless and should be discredited.

By contrast, Matthew Truesdale, a high school English teacher, embraces the teaching of Shakespeare and believes banning him is obscene: “To dismiss Shakespeare on the grounds that life 450 years ago has no relation to life today is to dismiss every religious text, every piece of ancient mythology (Greek, African, Native American, etc.), and for that matter, everything that wasn’t written in whatever time defined as “NOW.”

Not surprisingly, the halls of academe are in a pickle: There are those who mimic the efforts to besmirch Shakespeare. During her employment as a high school teacher, Claire Bruncke banished him from her classroom so she could “stray from centering the narrative of white, cisgender, heterosexual men. Eliminating Shakespeare was a step I could easily take to work toward that.”

Put another way, Out, damned spot!

While the cancel culture wants their pound of flesh, Sachel Bise, who teaches special education, is a champion of Shakespeare. She cites an Ohio State University study which found reading Shakespeare arouses and “improves brain function, test scores and social skills.” She says the critics concerns are overblown, adding, “When Shakespeare programs remain in schools, students gain the best advantages.”

Here’s the zany part of the debate.

When pious protesters ban the Bard, they ignore his unquestioned impact upon the English language. Shakespeare invented more than 2,000 useful words and phrases we use everyday—including all of the bold-faced words and phrases in this article.

As good luck would have it, last week my new book Hazel the Outlaw Mummy was able to outsell a Shakespeare play. To be clear, that doesn’t mean Hazel will still be marketable 400 years after its release—as are his works.

Comparatively speaking Hazel is a shooting star while Shakespeare is a moonbeam, shedding unrivaled rays of insight and meaning.

While there are many worthy contemporary authors, none rise to his level of cultural impact. This is why, come what come may from the fiendlike wonk censors, I believe educators should stick with the time-honored place Shakespeare has earned in education. And, by all means, incorporate modern voices to supplement the instruction.

With William Shakespeare, there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.

DR. SEUSS: BANNED I AM

One Book. Two Books. Now Look. Banned Book. An ode to Theodor Seuss Geisel—a liberal Democrat—whose award winning children’s books failed to pass the latest round of “inclusivity” according to the Overlords of Learning at Loudoun County Schools in Virginia.

The Loudoun County Sneetches had brains of lard. “We’re the best kind of Sneetch, we’re avant-garde.”

Working late into the night, sneaky Sneetch teachers gave such a fright. ‘Cause Whos down in Whoville were decidedly too white.

With their snoots in the air, they sniffed and they snorted, “Have nothing to do with those Seuss loving Sneetch sorts.”

“But it’s Seuss’ birthday,” Sneetch students said in dissent. Came the reply: “We meant what we said, and said what we meant.”

“Kids cannot, they should not, read Dr. Seuss! Too many racial undertones we’ve deduced.”

Those Seuss loving Sneetchs asked, “May we read him in a tree?” “NO!” came the word, “Not in a tree. Not anywhere—leave him be.”

High above in their academic tower, Sneetch teachers teetered and glowered:

“We Sneetches up top, we see great sights, Down at the bottom, readers have no rights.”

Now, the lard-brained Sneetches said another Thing 2: “Children may read A is for Activist, in class . . . or in a canoe.”

OREO: THE COOKIE CRUMBLES

Less than .5% of the U.S. population identify as transgender. And yet the Wizards of Smart at Nabisco’s OREO division decided to tweet “Trans people exist.” Imagine the media feeding frenzy if the cookie company had tweeted “Unborn babies exist” or maybe “Conservatives exist.”

Why would the best selling cookie in the world—with $2+ billion in annual sales—feel the need to say “Trans people exist”? Wouldn’t it make more sense to tweet “Double Stuf Cookies exist”?

Evidently, with President Biden’s pick of a transgender Health and Human Services deputy secretary nominee, cookie company executives thought it’d be sweet to add their affirmation. How’s that working out?

The Twitter-sphere has been buzzing with mixed responses including:

“Why even take a political stance on this? This is why America is so divided. Even cookies have to be divisive.”

“We don’t want propaganda with our snacks.”

“Just make cookies, please.”

“Well it looks like no more OREOS for me & my family. They’re horrible for you with no nutritional value anyway.”

“Yup, and I’m transitioning to @ChipsAhoy.”

Set aside the adverse health risks of ingesting high fructose corn syrup—a core OREO ingredient. Even if a case could be made for double stuffing another handful of nutritionally deficient, overprocessed Double Stufs down your hatch, there are those in the trans community who take issue with OREOS agenda:

“Thank you, large soulless brand . . . I’m sure this has nothing to do with manipulating more trans people into buying your cookie.”

“Trans people exist . . . as a marketing tool for corporations.”

“Thank you for reminding me, I forgot I existed for a second.”

“Pandering cookie brands exist.”

Whether or not you plan to keep OREOS on your shopping list, there are two unshakeable truths. First, in the beginning God created male and female (Genesis 2:4-24). Those are the options. For people of faith, there’s no confusion over that fact. And there’s clear medical science which supports this.

Secondly, Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Notice, there aren’t any caveats. Which means my goal as a follower of Jesus is to love everyone—whether or not I agree with their political or life choices . . . and we can have those conversations with or without OREOS and milk.

Then again, maybe this is much to do about nothing. Maybe we’re all missing the target audience for OREOS tweet . . .

WOKE CULTURE: CANCEL COMBS & COKE?

Country artist Luke Combs is the latest to run into the buzzsaw of The Woke Police.

Social media’s Wonky Wokers blasted Combs, who had a global No.1 selling album in 2020, for the sin of previously having a Confederate flag sticker on his guitar and, worse, for performing in Ryan Upchurch’s video “Can I Get a Outlaw” standing in front of a Confederate flag.

The 2015 music video has had more than 73 million views with no complaints about the rebel flag—until this current volcanic eruption of woke lava, spewing hatred for anything that offends their snowflake sensibilities.

The problem with wokers is that they slept through history class. As Michael Savage has said, they don’t know the difference between tortellini, fettuccine, and Mussolini. If they did, they wouldn’t cherry pick their targets with such gleeful ignorance.

Clearly they aren’t aware that Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rolling Stones, Ted Nugent, Alabama—along with a slew of other bands, used the Confederate flag as a stage prop, or in promo photos and memorabilia. To these artists, the rebel flag wasn’t a racist proclamation—it was a symbol of Southern identity and regional pride. Charlie Daniels put it this way:

“The Confederate battle flag was a sign of defiance, a sign of pride, a declaration of a geographical area that you were proud to be from. That’s all it is to me . . . I know in my heart that most Southerners feel the same way.”

Associated Press, 1971.

The Woke Police judges Luke Combs for his past choices, but will they also hose former Democratic President Jimmy Carter who, as Governor of Georgia, had both the American flag and the Confederate flag flanking his desk in the Governor’s office? Will they require the editors of TIME magazine (May 31, 1971) for featuring Carter against the backdrop of Confederate and American flags to apologize?

Will they ask Sesame Street to repent for featuring Johnny Cash and the Muppets dancing and singing “Ghostriders in the Sky” in front of the Confederate flag on the Disney Channel? Maybe Big Bird needs to do an Apology Tour. Just saying. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander—or the Big Bird as the case may be.

Combs has since apologized saying, “As I've grown in my time as an artist, and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years, I am now aware how painful that image can be. I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else."

Okay . . . so . . . what will Combs do when the Woke Police take offense at the sight of the American flag on his jacket, shirt, or shoes? Oh wait, Nike already pulled the Betsy Ross flag from their shoes because former footballer Colin Kaepernick was offended by it.

If Luke Combs et al must apologize for their past association with the rebel flag, then by all means the members of the Woke Gestapo, specifically those who drink Coca-Cola products, should be required to publicly apologize for their blatant hypocrisy.

What’s that you say?

If these intolerant, cancel-culture vultures knew their history, they’d know that John Stith Pemberton was a biochemist and the inventor of Coca-Cola. They’d also know he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army. His final resting place is marked by a gravestone bearing a Confederate flag.

Arguably, by drinking a Coke, the Wokes are perpetuating the legacy of someone who not only stood in front of a Confederate flag strumming a guitar, but put his life on the line fighting for the Confederacy. We can’t have that now, can we?

Maybe Wokes should pay reparations—they should be forced to switch from Coke to Pepsi.

To be clear, I am not a fan of that historical symbol. Nor am I suggesting that the aforementioned companies and artists should be sanctioned over the rebel flag. In a free society, I can respectfully agree to disagree with my neighbor.

But, unlike the woke’s rush to judgment, I’m with James, the brother of Jesus, who rightly pointed out, “because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13).

Imagine a world where we were quick to extend to one another mercy—not judgment.

LucasFilm Cancels Gina Carano: This is the Way

She survived the Empire’s Death Star blast on planet Alderaan. Here on Earth, #Mandalorian mercenary and fan favorite @GinaCarano took a direct hit when LucasFilm and Disney+ vaporized all future appearances of the actress in any Star Wars projects. Her crime?

Was she arrested for reckless and drunk driving like Bruce Springsteen—causing JEEP to put the brakes on his Super Bowl Ad? Did she advocate explicit sex acts with multiple men like Cardi B does in her new No.1 Spotify single UP? Was she glorifying smoking pot and oral sex like CJ does in Whoopty? Nope.

The Gatekeepers of Diversity and Tolerance at LucasFilm were ironically intolerant and impatient with Carano’s pattern of “controversial” and “abhorrent” tweets including her:

  • Support of President Donald Trump

  • Refusal to include pronouns in her Twitter bio

  • Anti-mask beliefs and stance against the prolonged COVID shutdown

  • Call to open up churches and businesses

These tweets prompted LucasFilm Overlords to privately begin plotting a course to drop the rising star. But her post yesterday on Instagram was the final straw:

“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.” [Emphasis added].

A thoughtful person understands Carano’s point: Having neighbors turn against their neighbors—as was the case under Hitler—is a bad thing and spawned the rise of fascism. It happened then. It could happen again. How is her observation of history anything but factual and logical? Clearly Carano is concerned about the rise of covid-snitching neighbors as evidenced in San Diego, Akron, Chicago, and Austin among many other cities.

Alas, LucasFilm and Disney+ executives fail to understand, as has been said elsewhere, there is a “distinction between banning hate speech and banning speech it hates.”

Ironically, liberalism portrays itself as being compassionate, loving, and quick to embrace diversity—except when you disagree with them. The adjacent sampling of hate-filled, profanity-laden tweets aimed at Carano by a fleet of “tolerant” Woke Commanders is an example of “Allodoxaphobia”—the fear of hearing other opinions.

Civil rights activist and author John Perkins is rightly concerned about a country “marked by the sins of racism, sexism, and all the other –isms, where we can’t disagree without also hating one another.”

He’s right. We can lob verbal grenades in social media all day long and even fire them from their jobs—or, preferably, we can follow the Lord who said, “come and reason together” (Isaiah 1:18).

This is the [better] Way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cancel Culture to Morgan Wallen: You’ve Been Chopped

I’m not a fan of the N-word and, for the record, I refuse to use such a degrading word myself. But the hypocrisy from the Cancel Culture Crowd is stunning. Here’s the latest.

On one hand, Cardi B uses the word “nigga” half a dozen times in her song “Be Careful”—which has more than 130,559,700 YouTube views—and she uses it several dozen times in “Sauce Boyz” . . . and makes big bucks doing so.

But . . . when country artist Morgan Wallen called a friend the N-word—BOOM!—Cumulus Media banned his music from 400+ radio stations for “using a racial slur”, his music was instantly dropped by Pandora, SiriusXM, and both Apple Music’s Today’s Country and Spotify’s Hot Country Songs axed him from their playlists.

But wait there’s more.

CMT is censoring all of Wallen’s appearances from their various platforms and his record company has suspended his recording contract. Now that Country Music has given him the boot, will Wallen take up singing the blues? Inquiring minds want to know.

Welcome to the sanctimonious Cancel Culture. Someone says the N-word and their entire career and livelihood is vaporized. Or not. Where is the outrage over Cardi B using racial slurs? Why aren’t streaming services and stores dropping her music?

This hypocritical censorship isn’t entirely new. Where was the same outrage when Ludacris—President Obama’s favorite rapper—wrote the little ditty “Too Many Niggas Not Enough Hoes“?

Or take Eminem, who used the N-word back in 1993. He claims the rap was “made out of anger, stupidity and frustration when I was a teenager.” At the time he rapped, “All the girls I like to bone have big butts / No they don’t, ’cause I don’t like that n***er sh*t / I’m just here to make a bigger hit.” (N-word aside, gotta like his adoring view of women.)

Rapper 50 Cent, who uses the N-word constantly, told NBC’s Today Show, “I’m not using it as a racial slur . . . It’s just slang.” He gets a pass from the left for raps like “To All My Niggars” and “The Realest Niggars.”

Then there’s Kid Rock who, back on June 19, 2013, appeared on Howard Stern and said,

“We all use the n-word. We call each other the n-word all the time. We cut it up. My dentist’s name is Taco. We say stuff like that all the time ‘What’s up my ni66er?’ We’re just living up pop-culture. We just call it like it is, like band members do in privacy.”

Shock jock Stern went on to ask whether or not Kid Rock used the N-word around his son—who happens to be half black. Answer? “Why can’t I say the N-word to him?” Nice.

Def Jam founder Russell Simmons who defended the use of the N-word, saying, “When we say ‘nigger’ now, it’s very positive.”

If the N-word is so “very positive” now, why did Paula Deen, The Queen of Cooking, get such a bad rap eight years ago? Her critics became boiling mad that Paula used the N-word three decades prior. She promptly lost endorsement deals worth more than $12.5 million when sponsors like Home Depot, Target, Walmart and the Food Network dropped her like a hot potato. Their argument was half-baked at best.

To her credit, Paula Deen has apologized several times. So has Morgan Wallen. Can’t say the same thing about Cardi B, Post Malone, Machine Gun Kelly, Ludacris, 50 Cent, Kid Rock, Snoop Dogg, Vanilla Ice or any number of rappers before and after them who have sold millions of albums drenched with the N-word.

This begs a few questions:

Why do Walmart and Target still carry their albums, books and videos? Why doesn’t YouTube suspend the streaming of their music videos? Why isn’t their music pulled from radio—satellite and terrestrial—just as Wallen’s music was banned?

Is it possible that the prevalence of N-words in rap and hip hop music over the last 40 years has popularized the word so much its become common parlance? Why, then, are we so surprised when Morgan Wallen or some suburban kid in Kansas throws around a word they’ve heard a million times in their headphones?

If using the N-word is so offensive—yes, even worthy of losing your entire career over, why aren’t we equally concerned about those peddling and profiteering from of its usage?

And what about the salacious words Wallen spewed? Sexually degrading terms for female genitals are Okay? Who decides which words are acceptable and which words get you cancelled?

While the Cancel Culture arbitrarily picks who will be held accountable and who gets a pass, there’s One who will hold all of us accountable for our word choices—even those said in private.

Jesus says, “But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (Luke 12:36-37).

Thankfully, there’s some good news: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Jesus isn’t in the business of canceling us. He desires to transform us.

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Is On Your Screen

I never met New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait. If I have the opportunity to meet him one day, I’ll be sure to buy him lunch. After all, finding an honest liberal commentator on pop culture these days is about as rare as sighting an albino crow.

In his piece, The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Is on Your Screen, Chait admits what conservatives used to argue, namely, that TV programming is a vast wasteland of liberal indoctrination.

Regarding Hollywood’s impact, he notes that “A trio of communications professors found that watching Will & Grace made audiences more receptive to gay rights.” Furthermore, “When Joe Biden endorsed gay marriage in May, he cited Will & Grace as the single-most important driving force in transforming public opinion on the subject.” Although I’d suggest Glee made Will & Grace look like a couple of lightweights by comparison.

If conceding that a connection exists between extreme liberal values on TV screen and a values shift in the culture wasn’t brave enough, this self-proclaimed “liberal hawk” does something I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed any liberal journalist do—he invites his reader to empathize with conservatives:

“…think of it from the conservative point of view, if you don’t happen to be one. Imagine that large chunks of your entertainment mocked your values and even transformed once-uncontroversial beliefs of yours into a kind of bigotry that might be greeted with revulsion. You’d probably be angry, too.”

However, he rightly points out that conservatives have largely stopped publicly holding Hollywood accountable for the daily dose of excrement they shovel into our living rooms via TV. Which begs a question: Why do millions of people in fly-over country wear a muzzle when Follywood producers mock, trample upon, and vilify their core beliefs?

Chait confessions “The more uncomfortable reality is that the culture war is an ongoing liberal rout. Hollywood is as liberal as ever, and conservatives have simply despaired of changing it.” Some might argue that we shouldn’t impose our values on others. Ah, yes, but clearly Hollywood doesn’t have that issue, do they?

That said, it’s decades after the fact—but hats off to this brave soul for having the hutzpah to say we conservatives are right about Hollywood’s role in corrupting our culture. I wonder if he saw the light because he got married and had two children . . . funny how that works.