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Sunday shows preview: Jan 6. panel to hold hearing on Trump inaction; inflation picks up speed

The upcoming hearing that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot is set to hold next week, which will focus on former President Trump’s inaction while the attack was underway, and “unacceptably high” inflation numbers out this week are expected to dominate this week’s Sunday shows circuit.

The House panel will be holding its next hearing on Thursday during prime time, in which it will examine the actions, or lack thereof, that Trump took on Jan. 6 between finishing his remarks at his rally that day and making a statement later online telling the mob at the Capitol to leave.

It’s not immediately clear who might be testifying during the Thursday hearing, but committee members Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Elaine Luria (D-Va.) are expected to lead the proceedings.

“Mr. Kinzinger and I plan to go through that 187 minutes. What happened between the time that he [Trump] left the stage and gave these inflammatory remarks and gave people the impression … that he was going to himself march with this crowd to the Capitol?” Luria told ABC News’s “GMA 3” on Wednesday.

“What happened between that moment and then around 4:17 in the afternoon, which is 187 minutes later, when he finally made a statement to the nation, to the people at the Capitol to go home?” the Virginia Democrat noted. 

The special committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), has said that he hopes it will be the final hearing, but the possibility of other hearings has not been ruled out.

The Thursday hearing will follow one that committee held earlier this week on Tuesday where it examined how a tweet issued by the former president on Dec. 19, 2020, caught attention among far-right circles and extremist groups, with some interpreting it as a call to action to go to Washington, D.C., on the day of the riot.

The hearing also featured recorded testimony from witness, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, about a heated Dec. 18, 2020, meeting where White House lawyers and Trump allies clashed over proposals to seize voting machines and appoint Trump attorney Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate alleged voter fraud.

Several committee members will be on Sunday shows, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on ABC’s “This Week,” Kinzinger on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and Luria on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Labor Department released data on Wednesday showing that inflation was rising higher and faster than economists expected, with the consumer price index increasing 1.3 percent in June and 9.1 percent over the past 12 months, the highest rate of annual inflation since November 1981.

Economists had anticipated that annual inflation would reach 8.8 percent and monthly inflation about 1 percent.

Both President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the inflation rate “unacceptably high.” Biden argued, however, that some of the data released on Wednesday was not reflective of developments from the last month.

“While today’s headline inflation reading is unacceptably high, it is also out-of-date,” the president said in a statement on Wednesday. “Energy alone comprised nearly half of the monthly increase in inflation. Today’s data does not reflect the full impact of nearly 30 days of decreases in gas prices, that have reduced the price at the pump by about 40 cents since mid-June.” 

The inflation comes against the backdrop of supply chain issues driven by the pandemic and the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine. 

Jason Furman, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein is scheduled to appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday.”

Below is the full list of guests scheduled to appear on this week’s Sunday talk shows:

ABC’s “This Week” — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.); White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Preempted by coverage of the British Open.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.); Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser; Amos Hochstein, senior advisor for energy security at the State Department; Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner; Jason Furman, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers

CNN’s “State of the Union” — Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz); Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.); White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein.

“Fox News Sunday” — Bernstein; Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)

Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” – Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas); Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas); Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.); Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters (R)

Source: TEST FEED1

West Virginia v. EPA and the SEC climate risk disclosure rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in the process of finalizing its proposed “climate risk” disclosure rule for public companies. But the SEC has a huge amount of work to do, as the problems with the rule as proposed are legion, reflected by the voluminous economic, legal, scientific and policy- and sector-specific criticism that it has received.

And that was before the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The court ruled that the EPA lacks the legal authority under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to change the historical definition of “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) to force a state-by-state shift toward aggregate electricity generation systems – gas replacing coal, and wind and solar power replacing gas and coal – rather than emissions reductions from individual power plants. Before such a change in the definition of BSER is adopted, clear statutory authority must be enacted by Congress.

So, what does this decision have to do with the SEC’s proposed rule? A lot. To see this, it is useful to review Justice Roberts’s language on the “major questions doctrine” (precedent citations deleted).

Precedent teaches that there are ‘extraordinary cases’ in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.

Under this body of law, known as the major questions doctrine, given both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent, the agency must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the authority it claims.

Finally, we cannot ignore that the regulatory writ EPA newly uncovered conveniently enabled it to enact a program that, long after the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions ‘had become well known, Congress considered and rejected’ multiple times. At bottom, the Clean Power Plan essentially adopted a cap-and-trade scheme, or set of state cap-and-trade schemes, for carbon. Congress, however, has consistently rejected proposals to amend the Clean Air Act to create such a program. It has also declined to enact similar measures, such as a carbon tax.

Under the proposed climate risk disclosure rule, the SEC is seeking to create a new regulatory requirement for detailed disclosures by public companies on climate matters never addressed by the SEC and with respect to which the SEC has no institutional expertise or experience; and that Congress repeatedly has failed to authorize in legislation. Such failed legislation includes the Climate Disclosure Act of 2021 (H.R. 2570), the Climate Disclosure Risk Act of 2019 (H.R. 3623) and the Climate Disclosure Act of 2018 (S. 3481).

There is the further matter that legal authority for SEC information disclosure requirements is limited to information that is “material,” that is, that increases the ability of investors to make “informed, rational investment decisions.” The SEC’s proposed rule would require firms to report direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their own operations, indirect GHG emissions from the purchase of electricity and other energy, and under some conditions GHG emissions from upstream and downstream operations.

Those disclosure requirements are a major part of a proposed rule that ostensibly is intended to inform investors about the climate risks relevant to investment in a specific firm. But firm-specific GHG emissions, however broadly defined, cannot possibly represent material information for investors because such firm-specific emissions would yield climate impacts effectively equal to zero.

Accordingly, firm-specific emissions cannot affect the prospective returns to investment in that firm; the effects and “risks” of anthropogenic climate change are driven by global emissions. Under West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency, only under an assumption of congressional acts penalizing GHG emissions can such information be material, and such laws have been “considered and rejected multiple times.”

The proposed rule would create political pressures, regulatory constraints and litigation risks leading public companies to undertake climate risk analyses insulating them from such threats. Such analyses would have little to do with science, but instead would be politicized, biased heavily toward published estimation of climate risks greater rather than smaller on the part of public companies, with no material benefits for investors. This would provide regulators and other public officials a rationale for constraining capital access for disfavored firms and sectors, resulting in a misallocation of capital and a reduction in aggregate economic performance, with no measurable climate benefits.

Congress has enacted no legislation with such intended or even unintended consequences. The court emphasized that protection of our political institutions is consistent only with formal policymaking by Congress, institutional protection that preserves the political accountability of the policymaking process under the institutions of democratic decisionmaking as constrained by the Constitution.

Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Source: TEST FEED1

Kentucky county GOP takes down Facebook post calling Biden ATF director part of ‘Jewish junta’

A county Republican party in Kentucky has taken down a Facebook post from its page that said the confirmation of President Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) demonstrates the “Jewish junta” is getting stronger. 

The Bracken County Republican Party page made the post on Friday, calling the new ATF director, Steve Dettelbach, a “Jewish anti-gun activist,” the Louisville Courier Journal reported. 

The Senate confirmed Dettelbach on Tuesday by a mostly party-line vote of 48-46. He is the first Senate-confirmed director of the bureau since 2015. 

The Courier Journal reported that the post was taken down after the news outlet reached out to the county party chairwoman, Karin Kirkendol, about the post. 

Kirkendol did not immediately return a request from The Hill for comment. 

She signed a Facebook post from the county party before noon Friday saying that the post does not represent the party’s values. 

“It was incredibly insensitive,” she said. “We will investigate how this occurred and we commit to tighter oversight of our social media going forward.” 

Kirkendol told the Courier Journal that the page was hacked and said she decided to delete the county party’s Facebook page entirely “due to the hurtful nature of the article, and how much harm it was bringing to so many.” 

She said the party did not publish anything antisemitic, and some of the party’s members have “Jewish heritage.” 

“Whoever hacked into our account meant to divide,” she said. “Let’s not give them that satisfaction.” 

The original post also criticized Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) for voting to confirm Dettelbach. It also attacked Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) for not attending the vote, a move the post said was an “obvious tactical choice since they don’t want to have to explain it to their heavily rural gun loving voters in the future.” 

Kentucky GOP spokesman Sean Southard told The Hill that the state party condemns the post and wants to make clear that the post does not represent the party’s values. 

Sara Klein Wagner, the president of the Jewish Federation of Louisville, told The Hill that she has reached out to Kirkendol and the two have traded messages. She said they will speak on Monday. 

“While we are glad the antisemitic post on the Bracken County Republican Party Facebook page was taken down and an apology from their chair was given, we feel compelled to reiterate that antisemitism of this nature is dangerous,” Wagner said. “There is no place for it directed at our public officials or anyone in our communities.” 

She said antisemitism has increased significantly in the past few years both in Kentucky and in general, and that a “long history” of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories have led to violence. 

Wagner said the organization is encouraging the county party to use this opportunity to dispel antisemitic falsehoods from the post.

Source: TEST FEED1

San Francisco airport evacuated for bomb threat

The San Francisco International Airport (SFIA) was evacuated on Friday night due to a bomb threat, according to a public information officer for the city’s police department.

“Tonight @SFPD officers received bomb threat at @flySFO. Offs located suspicious package,” wrote Officer Robert Rueca of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) on Twitter.

Rueca said that the international terminal of the airport was evacuated and that the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit was conducting an investigation.

“We will provide live updates as the investigation continues,” Rueca wrote.

The officer told travelers to expect flight delays because of the interruption and its effects on airport operations.

The Hill has reached out to the SFPD and the SFIA for comment on the incident.

Airports are experiencing high levels of flight cancellations this summer as many scramble to travel after years of lockdown.

About 1,400 flights were canceled over the Fourth of July weekend, following widespread cancellations of closer to 3,400 over Memorial Day weekend and Juneteenth weekend.

Earlier this month, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported that the number of guns detected at airport security checkpoints is on track to outpace last year’s record-setting number of 5,972.

Over 3,000 guns were detected at checkpoints during the first six months of this year.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why investment in the social sciences is critical to public health

“We got the biological science right, but we didn’t get the social science right.” 

That poignant assessment of the U.S. response to the pandemic by White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Ashish Kumar Jha at the Aspen Ideas Forum captured the sharp contrast between the remarkable success in the rapid development of vaccines and the persistent challenges in communicating health information to the American public — challenges that ultimately increased suffering.  

Carnegie Mellon’s Delphi Group, which pioneered the use of AI and machine learning to build real-time models of the pandemic, made essentially the same point. As the team’s leading scientist, Roni Rosenfeld, has stated, while advances in data science facilitate more accurate tracking of disease outbreaks, we lack the capacity to model human behavior and the impact that lack of trust in government can have on successfully combating a deadly pandemic. 

These observations highlight the importance of acting on the recommendations of both the Biden administration and bipartisan leadership in Congress to more effectively integrate the social sciences into efforts to respond effectively to not only pandemics but also the wide range of serious challenges we face as a society, such as climate change and the transition to clean energy it requires, cybersecurity, inflation and crime. 

In my view, solutions to these problems require both the humanities and social sciences, but in response to Jha’s remarks, I will focus on the latter. 

The social sciences are essential to designing strategies that involve science and technology that will be effective in the real world, in part because they are crucial in communicating information about science or technology to the general public. Vaccine hesitancy is a perfect example. Social scientists have learned that different social groups (determined by race, ethnicity, age and religion, not just political party) all had different initial responses to the vaccine, and these groups’ uptake behavior all evolved differently as a result of national- or community-level communication efforts. One size does not fit all, and understanding human behavior and decision making are key to customizing strategies and building trust.   

Another example is the integration of advances in artificial intelligence into society at large. AI is fueling incredible advances in efficiency and automation, but these advances have the potential to either improve people’s lives or put vast numbers of people out of work or both. We can’t stop the technology from being developed, and most of us don’t want to, but how AI plays in our society will be determined by how we manage it — which we cannot do without understanding the social world the technology will be embedded within.   

What  Jha’s observation and the examples noted above speak to is the urgent need for a national strategy to reinvest in and reinvigorate the social sciences.  This strategy should have three key pillars:   

• First, there must be a focused commitment to foster deeper engagement in the social sciences in K-12 education, particularly in underserved communities, with the same urgency with which we are appropriately working to broaden the STEM pipeline. 
   
• Second, there must be an accelerated investment in the frontier of social science research with a particular focus on advancing interdisciplinary research that fully integrates disciplines like psychology, economics, political science, sociology, education and business with each other but also with technologically oriented disciplines like computer science, engineering, robotics, bioengineering, chemistry and medicine.  
   
• Third, we must spend particular attention to the data science relevant to the social sciences. As we have in medicine, we must fund the creation and curation of large data repositories that protect privacy but give social scientists the raw information they need to understand the social world. The analytical tools available for analyzing social networks, social structure and social trends are light years ahead of where they were 30 years ago — the problem is good data in the commons to analyze.   

Technology is advancing rapidly because industry has a large desire to put technology to use in advancing its goals and government agencies, particularly those focused on national security, are investing heavily in basic technology research. These are both good things, but we need commensurate investment in our ability to understand the society those technologies will become a part of and influence. Many efforts are already underway. The National Science Foundation has integrated social and behavioral science programs and funding with initiatives to accelerate U.S. leadership in the development of critical technologies. We need much, much more.  

Richard Scheines is the Bess Family Dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and a professor of philosophy. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Family of Andrew 'Tekle' Sundberg calls for release of police footage after fatal shooting

Lawyers for the family of Andrew “Tekle” Sundberg, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police early Thursday morning, are calling on the department to release footage and other details of the incident.

“No information has been provided as to why Tekle, who officers had isolated for hours, suddenly needed to be executed,” wrote civil rights lawyers Ben Crump and Jeff Storms in a statement obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“We call on the Minneapolis Police Department to immediately provide the family with the video evidence and other information necessary to answer this question,” Crump and Storms wrote.

Sundberg’s mother, Cindy Sundberg, said her son was experiencing a “mental health crisis” when police were called because of shots fired in his apartment building, according to video released by Crump on Twitter.

The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) reported that a mother with two young children called claiming that someone had shot into her apartment and that officers witnessed additional shots when they arrived on the third floor of the building.

“MPD Crisis Team Negotiators and MPD SWAT responded and attempted negotiations throughout the night and early morning hours. These attempts included identifying and calling the man’s cell phone as well as bringing the man’s parents to the scene to help,” wrote the MPD in their report.

Officers allegedly refused the requests of Tekle Sundberg’s father, Mark Sundberg, to enter the building and speak with his son during the six-hour police standoff.

Mark Sundberg said that the officers claimed that they would only use rubber bullets and that no one would be shot, according to Crump’s video.

“The police are portraying it and the mayor is portraying it like we collaborated and the police were all kind and loving to our family as they tried to help Tekle. That is a lie, they were not,” said Cindy Sundberg.

Documents filed Friday revealed that police snipers fatally shot Sundberg from a roof of an apartment building across the street from his, according to The Washington Post. It is unclear what prompted the shooting at this time.

The Sundbergs said that they do not believe the police would have handled the situation the same way if dealing with one of their white biological children.

“Everyone knows had it been a white person in that building they would have talked him out, they would have waited,” said Cindy Sundberg, who has nine children total with husband Mark.

An internal Minneapolis Police Department investigation into the situation is still ongoing.

The Hill has reached out to Crump and the Minneapolis Police Department for comment on the case.

Source: TEST FEED1

It’s time to rethink America’s 911 system

Of the 240 million calls made to 911 each year, only one-quarter relate to an actual crime in progress. Despite this, most calls beget a quick response from armed police. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong.

Over the past few years, a growing number of communities have been thinking about ways to diversify who is best to respond to a 911 call, with the goal of removing armed police from the untenable position of navigating scenarios they are not trained for. While some critics argue these initiatives chip away at law enforcement’s ability to effectively do their job, the reality is they allow police to dedicate greater time and resources to the work they are trained for: preventing and solving crimes.

Those kinds of staffing changes are a start, but issues plaguing America’s emergency response system run far deeper than who responds to a call. Recent events, and years of unanswered pleas for reform from those working within the 911 system, underscore how urgently transformative change is needed.

Calling 911 in the event of an emergency was introduced to the American public 54 years ago and meant to create a centralized public safety contact point. Help, in theory, would be just a phone call away, wherever you were. In reality, the nation’s 911 system has become incredibly decentralized. It’s a patchwork of thousands of locally operated emergency communications centers that all operate differently. There is little to no federal oversight, with no uniform training protocols, standards for technology or universal practices for collecting and reporting call information.

Reliance on 911 is a constant across America, but this fragmented system is starkly different from one jurisdiction to another.

While Congress plays politics with issues as important as policing, criminal justice reform, and behavioral health, the pivotal role of 911 is largely excluded. But, as events make clear, the nation cannot move forward with the current 911 status quo.

The 911 professional is literally the first of the first responders in any emergency response, playing a pivotal role. That’s why 911 professionals — along with more than 100 leaders in law enforcement and emergency response, public health, government, academia, technology and philanthropy — worked together over many months to reimagine 911 as a cornerstone of community safety and public health. Evidence-based research augmented by the experiences of affected individuals pointed to a seven-step policy blueprint to transform 911. It represents the most comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s 911 system ever. 

Recommendations cover the spectrum from governance to on-the-ground operations. A federal taskforce to establish 911 data-sharing ethics, as well as a cabinet-level position to identify national standards, are urgently needed. So is an infusion of capital necessary to support an expert 911 workforce. Additionally, all 911 call centers need to be autonomous and equal to other public safety departments, not subordinate to EMS, fire and police. And while broad federal oversight and guidance is needed, community perspectives must be sought and embedded in improving 911 systems for dispatch and response. Ultimately, 911 must be reintroduced to the public, so all people understand the importance of this incredible resource, use it wisely and protect its role in ensuring public health.

Professionals working in emergency communications centers across the country can quickly dispatch the right professional at the right time, every time. It’s the system that is currently broken, not the people who work in it.

Policymakers in federal, state, regional and local government now have a blueprint to transform 911 and save lives. How many more must be lost before they act? 

S. Rebecca Neusteter, Ph.D., is the executive director of the University of Chicago Health Lab and principal investigator of Transform911.

Source: TEST FEED1

Our woke military needs volunteer units that hold to strict physical and mental standards

Last week, while at the United States Military Academy at West Point to make a television appearance to discuss my book, “The 56,” which seeks to prevent the “cancellation” of our Founding Fathers and the Fourth of July, I was approached by a Special Operator for the U.S. Army who is a West Point graduate. He literally pleaded with me to get the word out that West Point is going woke across the board — as are our other service academies, apparently — and has dramatically watered down its high physical, mental and accountability standards in the process.  

These changes in policy, he believes, will cheapen the values and code of conduct at the storied academy and ultimately weaken national security.

After speaking with him, I reached out to several other retired military officers from the Navy and Air Force. During our conversations, an important question arose: What if our military branches created all-volunteer units that adhered to the strictest physical, mental and accountability standards? Not Special Operators, but regular company, battalion and brigade units. 

No identity politics. No lowering of the bar. Race, religion, gender and sexual orientation would not matter. If you volunteered and met and maintained the highest standards, you’d be in, period. 

I suspect, as do those with whom I spoke, that if such units were created, there would be a great deal of interest in volunteering to be a part of one — to be a part of “the best” — and not just among the officer corps but also the rank-and-file enlisted personnel.

As “Top Gun: Maverick” demonstrated at the box office with its $1 billion-plus success, there is a great yearning for, and pride in, American exceptionalism. There likely are thousands of young men and women in our country who believe in high standards and also believe that rank, success, accolades and victory are to be earned, not granted.

There is nothing wrong with someone being “the best.” There is nothing wrong with real and fair competition that identifies and then rewards top performers.   

Make no mistake: The “We can’t hurt feelings” movement that puts identity politics before all and seeks to eliminate test scores, valedictorians and advanced placement courses, while ensuring unlimited participation trophies and inflated/layered test scores for the less qualified, has taken root in our military branches.    

If that is what those on the left — the Democrats and our current military leaders — want, well then, fine. We can continue down that path of woke conformity. But in watering down and weakening standards, let’s allow each of the service branches to create one unit that excels at maxing out on physical fitness, intelligence tests, training, simulations and combat. Why? Because our military — and by extension, our nation — will be in big trouble if we don’t.

Let’s look at obesity in today’s military as a glaring example of lower standards. It’s not easy to talk about because we’ve been told for a decade or so by many on the left that if we attempt to discuss obesity in the military — or, for that matter, the growing obese and unhealthy American population — we are “fat-shaming” people. Preventing hurt feelings, even if it threatens to perpetuate bad health, evidently comes before ensuring combat readiness. But isn’t that the reason we created a military — to be fully combat ready, to engage with enemies if needed? 

During the pandemic, many Americans came to view the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an organization with politicized leadership aligned with the Democratic Party. That said, some on both sides of the political divide may be surprised to learn that once upon a time, the CDC flagged obesity as a serious issue for our military. It did so via a slide presentation, “Unfit to Serve: Obesity is Impacting National Security.”

Of course, that presentation was from 2016 and there is every reason to believe that today’s CDC might disavow it for fear of backlash from the cancel-culture activists. But the CDC honestly reported some fairly shocking statistics. Chief among them was that “71 percent of young people in the United States would not be able to join the military if they wanted to.”

Let’s look at the reasons the CDC cited: “Overweight or obesity,” “educational deficits,” and “criminal and drug abuse records.” Again, that was in 2016. Things probably have gone from bad to worse in the six years since.

Beyond that, the CDC also reported that between 2011 and 2015, “overweight and obesity [status] among active-duty service members has risen 73 percent.”

The fact is that physical fitness, intelligence, competence, accountability and overall quality control do matter. For a recent example of really bad quality control in our military, look no further than the Stars and Stripes article titled, “Super Hornet on USS Truman blown off deck in Mediterranean Sea.” 

A $57 million aircraft was lost to the sea, presumably because a sailor (or sailors) did not properly do their job. But, hey, as long as they’re offered classes in the use of proper pronouns and how to report microaggressions, what’s the problem? It’s not as if the Chinese and Russian militaries would actually take hostile steps against us … as they increasingly threaten to do.

Like many in the media, academia, corporate America and the sports world, our military appears to be going woke at the expense of its mission: protecting the United States of America.

Knowing this, what would our military leaders have to lose by establishing elite volunteer units?  Surely they are not afraid that such units might make the rest of the branches look inept and feeble. Or maybe they simply wouldn’t want to upset the woke crowd. But if they can’t overcome a few thousand from the Grievance Generation tweeting nasty words about them, how will they ever defeat our real enemies?

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. His latest book is “The 56: Liberty Lessons From Those Who Risked All to Sign the Declaration of Independence.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Japanese Breakfast cancels concert at venue hosting event backed by Michael Flynn

The indie band Japanese Breakfast has canceled a concert scheduled for September in Rochester, N.Y., after the group learned that the venue also plans to host an event backed by Michael Flynn next month. 

The group said in a tweet on Thursday that multiple people reached out to them to inform them that they were boycotting the Main Street Armory in Rochester because it was hosting an event of the ReAwaken America Tour, which includes a range of right-wing speakers like former Trump campaign consultant Roger Stone, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

The band said they were originally told that the ReAwaken America event was canceled, but later learned it was “secretly” still scheduled. They said they want to stand by their principles. 

“It’s a picket line we support and are not interested in crossing,” they said. “We are unfortunately unable to move the event to a different venue this time but we love Rochester and I am sure we will return someday soon.” 

The venue, Main Street Armory, did not immediately return a request from The Hill for comment. 

The ReAwaken America tour was organized by Clay Clark, a businessman from Tulsa, Okla., who originally organized the event in opposition to COVID-19 restrictions put in place during the pandemic. It was cosigned by Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

Flynn resigned from his role in the Trump administration after a few weeks following news that Flynn allegedly misled administration officials on his communication with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office.

Flynn most recently has become embroiled in controversy over his role in supporting the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Flynn reportedly met with Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, to discuss the possibility of the military seizing voting machines as part of the efforts to keep Trump in office.

Source: TEST FEED1