<![CDATA[Politics]]>

John Fetterman Calls on Bob Menendez to Resign, Irony of Which Is Lost on Fetterman

September 25, 2023 by Ward Clark Leave a Comment

In one of modern politics’ great ironies, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has been the only Democrat in the Senate to call for the resignation of New Jersey’s Senator Bob Menendez.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has called for Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey to resign in the wake of bombshell bribery allegations against him, but so far their Democratic colleagues are being more guarded.
In interviews on Sunday news programs, three Democratic senators were highly critical of Menendez, who was recently indicted on sweeping corruption charges, but did not call for him to vacate his seat in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who’s on the Foreign Relations Committee, which Menendez chaired until Friday, called the allegations “devastating.”

My RedState colleagues have been covering this story as it unfolds; read these for the complete picture:

As of this writing, however, Fetterman is the first sitting senator to call on Senator Menendez to surrender his Senate seat.

Fetterman became the first Democratic senator to call for Menendez to resign Saturday. “He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations,” Fetterman said in a statement.
Menendez has denied wrongdoing, and he said in a statement Friday night, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Of course, Senator Menendez is innocent until proven guilty; he is entitled to the same constitutional rights and the same protections under the law as any citizen. But on the execution of a search warrant, federal investigators found almost half a million dollars in cash as well as gold bars, and there are records of mysterious mortgage payments by third parties, among other things.

That’s a lot of smoke for there not to be a fire there someplace.

It sure appears that Senator Menendez intends to brazen his way out of this. But his legal protections don’t preclude increasing calls for him to resign, and it seems unlikely in the extreme that Senator Fetterman will be the last Democrat politician to call for him to step down. Unless there is just some staggeringly good defense that Senator Menendez’s attorneys are going to unleash, his political career has taken a shot to the hull and is taking on water fast.

Senators aside, New Jersey’s Governor and some other New Jersey (and therefore Democrat) politicians are calling for Menendez to step away:

Numerous Democrats in Menendez’s home state, meanwhile, including Gov. Phil Murphy, have called for him to step down. Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., has also called on him to resign, and he said Saturday he plans to challenge Menendez for his seat.

Expect these calls to grow louder and more insistent as the case proceeds.

But what about John Fetterman?

Senator Fetterman is arguably unfit to serve in the Senate himself. Forget his presiding over the Senate dressed in a manner that a janitor would find slovenly and unacceptable; forget his bizarre response to the House impeachment inquiry. He has serious health issues, both physical and mental, that should have precluded his being elected, much less holding his Senate seat throughout all of his various issues.

The fact that one senator who is arguably unfit to serve due to mental and physical health issues calls for the resignation of another senator who is arguably unfit to serve due to credible allegations of corruption? If that’s not the great irony of the week, it will do until a better one comes along.

Justin Trudeau Accuses India of Being Behind Death of Canadian Citizen/Sikh Nationalist

September 18, 2023 by Ward Clark Leave a Comment

In the future, when schoolchildren (who will be, one would hope, once again being taught history) read about the early 21st century, it’s highly doubtful that the Great Canadian/Indian War will be mentioned. With good reason; there won’t be one. Of all the nations in the world that one might expect to suddenly be at odds with each other, Canada and India wouldn’t be on many people’s bingo cards; and yet here we are, as Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has openly accused India of being behind the murder of a Canadian citizen in Canada. That is a serious accusation, of course.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr. Trudeau said that he raised India’s involvement in the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar directly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 summit meeting earlier this month “in no uncertain terms.” He said the allegation was based on intelligence gathered by the Canadian government.
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Mr. Trudeau told lawmakers. He said Canada would pressure India to cooperate with the investigation into the killing.
Mélanie Joly, the foreign minister, later announced that Canada had expelled an Indian diplomat whom she described as “the head” of Indian intelligence in Canada.

While the expulsion of diplomats is no laughing matter, it’s pretty certain India and Canada aren’t about to go launching missiles at each other. As for the unfortunate murder victim, it appears India had labeled him a wanted terrorist:

Mr. Nijjar, 45, was shot near a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. Investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said he was ambushed by masked men, but would not reveal whether the attack appeared politically motivated.
But Mr. Nijjar was known for his advocacy of the creation of an independent Sikh nation, Khalistan, that would include parts of India’s Punjab state, and India had declared him a wanted terrorist.

Granted Canada’s government has not yet released any of the evidence they claim to have about India’s involvement. Of course, if India really wanted this guy dead, they could have simply filed an application for a wheelchair lift in his name, at which point the Canadian healthcare system Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) would have started nagging Mr. Nijjar to do himself in.

So, one might ask, who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and why would India want him dead?

Nijjar, who moved to Canada in February 1997 to be a plumber, was a key figure in the movement for an independent Khalistan — a separate homeland for Sikhs in the Indian subcontinent.
But for the Indian government, he was wanted for allegedly being a “mastermind/active member” of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), which the Indian government designates as a terrorist group.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjar’s friend and fellow Sikh nationalist, had told Global News in June that Nijjar said that gang members had warned him Indian intelligence agents had put a bounty on his head.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service also told Nijjar they had information that he was “under threat from professional assassins,” Pannun had said.
The 1980s and early 1990s in India saw an armed conflict between the Indian government and Sikh separatists in the Sikh-majority northern state of Punjab. Amid a crackdown on the insurgency, Nijjar’s brother was arrested by police in India. In 1995, Nijjar himself was arrested.

While it lends some insight as to why Mr. Nijjar came to Canada, it seems pretty weak sauce to label him a dangerous terrorist, much less to send “professional assassins” to murder him.

But it’s doubtful in the extreme that India did any such thing.

It’s fair to point out that India does have a history of political assassinations. Some examples:

Indian anti-colonial activist Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, killed by gunshot in 1948
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, killed in 1984 by her own bodyguards
Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, killed in 1991 by a suicide bomber

And, most recently:

Congress leader Major Singh Dhaliwal, killed in February 2023 by gunshots from an unnamed woman

But India has no history of extrajudicial assassination and has not, in the post-colonial years, used assassination as a matter of official policy.

If forced to offer a prediction, mine would be that nothing much will come of this. There will be some diplomatic-level snap and slash, maybe some sanctions that won’t affect either nation much, and the issue will gradually be forgotten. Trudeau won’t do anything to India, and the Indians know it; the Indians can’t really do anything to Canada, and Trudeau knows it. And there it will end.

The games nations play among themselves are frequently complex, while also being full of posturing and bluster. This would appear to be another of those; as Peter Gabriel described them, “games without frontiers, war without tears.”

New Survey Showing Young Women’s ‘Red Flags’ Suggest an Ever Widening Political Divide With Men

September 14, 2023 by Brandon Morse Leave a Comment

In today’s America, men and women are not seeing eye to eye politically, and it’s apparently now dictating their dating life.

A new study from Bay Area polling firm Change Research released a study revealing “red flags” that millennial and Gen Z women see in men and according to the data, a few notable things top the list including identifying as a “MAGA Republican” and saying things like “All Lives Matter.” The firm claims that listening to Joe Rogan is also a big turn-off for younger women.

According to a Bay Area polling firm, young women consider MAGA Republicans and Joe Rogan listeners to be walking red flags. pic.twitter.com/UKnXHHpbmf
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) September 14, 2023

Given the location of the polling firm, we can expect that there’s a bit of bias here but the firm claims to conduct online polling nationwide.

Still, the answers here line up with previous polling from other firms. A poll from the University of Michigan found that women are drifting left at a very rapid rate, especially young women:

Nowadays, it is girls who are drifting to the left. The share of 12th-grade girls who identified as liberal rose from 19 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2022. Only 12 percent of girls identified as conservative in last year’s survey, administered by the University of Michigan.

Meanwhile, men and boys appear to be drifting further to the right. In fact, fewer and fewer boys seem to be identifying as “liberal” while identifying as “conservative” is on the rise, further pushing the male and female of our sex further and further apart.

According to a recent study, high school senior boys are trending conservative. Waiting on the corporate media to tell me whether this is the fault of Andrew Tate or GamerGate. pic.twitter.com/nlMpjBJGDr
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) July 31, 2023

(READ: The Report That Gen Z Are All Democrats Is Greatly Exaggerated)

While all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, these results make sense given the attitudes both parties display toward the sexes.

The left tends to embrace radical feminism and the Democrat Party is only too happy to tell women they’re fighting for their rights against Republicans and an overarching patriarchy that wants women back in the kitchen, barefoot, and pregnant. They push pro-abortion narratives, equating them with rights, then convincing women that the right is taking it all away from them.

As it does this, it consistently villainizes men and masculinity. It punishes boys for acting like boys do, and attempts to repress their inherent adventurousness and aggressiveness during play. It targets young men as the guilty party in any negative situation involving a woman and devalues men in the workplace and in relationships.

Meanwhile, on the right, men are more valued and treated fairly. Masculinity is prized as necessary and various influencers on the right tend to break through to the reality of men and women, showing that men are more essential to society than the left claims. This has had the effect of driving men to the right.

The widening divide is troubling for society as both sexes grow to disagree and distrust one another. However, this trend may ultimately be more trouble for Democrats in the long run as I wrote previously:

Being so young, these political preferences may shift and change by the day, but if this trend continues, it’s not going to mean too much good for Democrats. For one, people do tend to become more conservative as they get older and the idealism of youth is replaced by the reality of being a grown-up. Secondly, while many women may become and stay leftists well into their adulthood, many women end up voting the way their husbands do and seldom the other way around.
So if the Democrats continue to push away men, then men will find themselves pulling the lever for Republicans. Should women marry those men, they will statistically pull the lever for Republicans too.

This assumes, of course, that marriage rates don’t fall much further than they actually have.

Regardless, the right should figure out solid messaging to women and begin winning them back. Women are important to the future of humanity, not just a political party. They’re clearly being led off a cliff by the left, and it’s dragging society with them.

(READ: Democrats Can’t Stop Gaslighting Women and Their Latest Lazy Attempt Is a Whopper)

Perhaps a dam will break and women will realize they’re being lied to and used. At this time the Democrat Party can’t even tell you what a woman is until it’s time for them to be useful again. Regardless, the left’s messaging to women is working out very well, and it has to be disrupted.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Boebert? Why the Elite Media Wants You to Read This Story

September 13, 2023 by Jeff Charles Leave a Comment

The United States is currently ensconced in a pitched debate over the power of a governor to violate gun rights, a burgeoning impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, a spirited Republican presidential primary race, and several other important issues.

In the middle of all that, the media also thinks it is important for you to know that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was escorted out of a stage performance of the musical “Beetlejuice.”

Yes, that’s right, dear reader.

Amid all the crazy, and at times, scary, stuff going on in the world, our intrepid media overlords think we should also be focused on Boebert’s behavior at a musical performance. Whatever would we do without them?

On Wednesday every major news outlet peppered digital media with their coverage of the story. In fact, all you had to do is type in “Boebert” into Google, and you would see headlines from CNN, Politico, NBC News, ABC News, MSNBC, and tons of others.

Seriously, the list is longer than the time it takes to explain the show “Lost.”

Surveillance video from a performing arts theater in Denver shows Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert being escorted out of the musical “Beetlejuice” on Sunday after “multiple complaints” from patrons.
The Buell Theater surveillance video, obtained by CNN affiliate KUSA, shows officials addressing Boebert and her companion at their seats inside the theater. After several minutes of conversation, they can be seen getting up and following officials out of the theater.
The pair can be seen walking with officials through the theater and exiting out onto the street.
Denver Arts & Venues emailed CNN a report Wednesday detailing an incident involving theater officials escorting two patrons out of the theater after they received three different complaints that the patrons sitting in Orchestra C Row E seats 1 and 2 were “vaping, singing, causing a disturbance.”
“The patrons were not at their seats when we arrived, and we waited until they returned,” the report said. “Once the patrons returned, I informed them that our usher team had noticed vaping and also that they were causing a disturbance for the area with noise, singing, using their cell phone, and that they need to be respectful to their neighbors.”

Alright, so the lawmaker was escorted out of a theater for being too loud and rowdy.

So what?

Why, exactly, do we need to hear about this?

The only thing these reports are missing is a quote from Carl Bernstein claiming that this fiasco is “worse than Watergate.”

With all that is going on in the world, Boebert’s silly behavior should be the lowest item on a long list of priorities for members of the media. But a closer look might show why our once-vaunted Fourth Estate is so focused on this weird tale. Perhaps it is because they want desperately to get Boebert out of Congress.

During the midterm elections, she barely edged out her Democratic opponent. Currently, her challenger for her next term is in a statistical dead heat. While this story won’t be likely to sway any voters, perhaps the left-wing activist media still thinks it can do its part to ensure a Democratic victory in 2024.

It’s either that, or members of the press are so out of touch with the American public that they actually believe they are not the only ones wringing their hands about this non-issue. Maybe it’s both. But either way, it is even more clear that the elite media does not deserve our trust or respect.