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Election Day: Eight episodes that awakened parents to liberal indoctrination in schools

School trip to a gay bar, male student in skirt assaults girl in female bathroom, and a student sent to “the black class.”  

From the marquee Virginia governor’s contest to school board contests across America’s suburbs, parents of schoolchildren are expected to play an outsized role in Tuesday’s off-year election and provide a measurement of just how potent an issue liberal indoctrination in the U.S. education system has become to a restless electorate.

The unexpected rise of the school curriculum movement was sparked by a pandemic that trapped students at home with parents for months, unmasking what was being taught in classrooms and how it was being taught.

Parents suddenly become incensed that their children were being forced to conform to transgender-friendly language or subscribe to the notion the color of their skin was predetermining their future in an inherently racist America. Soon a revolt was waged, with parents confronting their educators and their school boards about such concepts as critical race theory and equity learning.

Along the way, stunning revelations cemented the determination that change was needed, from proclamations that parents don’t deserve a say in what is being taught to schoolchildren to disclosures that highly sexualized books involving abortion and pedophilia were being assigned to young students.

“I was able to see into the classroom and see what was being taught and how it was being taught,” explains Lysa Kosins, one of three of moms who banded together in a bid Tuesday to oust long-term school board members in the Dayton, Ohio, suburb of Centerville. “And you know, it doesn’t work. We need to start treating our kids like individuals, and we need to start allowing the parents who really know what is in the best interest of our children to make choices that better fit their educational needs.”

Here are eight defining moments that catapulted the fight against liberal school indoctrination into a nationwide movement that has sparked more than 80 school board recall elections this year.

  1. A Washington suburb’s push for equity learning and gender neutrality ignites a protest.

The wealthy enclave in Loudoun County, Va., became ground zero for the parents’ rights movement this past spring, as its school board pushed through equity learning and gender neutrality provisions over objections from parents who don’t believe that students must be guaranteed equal outcomes or that teachers or students who don’t comply with the gender identification wishes of transgender students should be punished.

2. A coverup of skirt-wearing male student’s sexual assault on a girl in a female bathroom.

Already in the midst of an intense parent revolt, Loudoun County emerged anew to the forefront of the debate this fall with revelations a biological male student wearing a skirt committed a sexual assault on high school girls in the female bathroom. The offender has been convicted of committing two unwanted sex acts on one girl and faces charges of a sex assault on another girl at a different school. Students have now launched their own protests over what they saw as a coverup.

3. The election in Southlake, Texas, affirms parents have the electoral muscle.

A parents-led movement in the affluent community of Southlake became the national proof of concept in May, when candidates who renounced their school district’s racial equity curriculum won every race by wide margins, including two school board seats, two city council seats and the mayor’s office. Since then, more than 80 school board recall elections have been launched targeting more than 200 officeholders, more than triple a normal election year’s tally, according to Ballotpedia.

4. Terry McAuliffe and the debate line heard around the country.

In Virginia’s closely watched gubernatorial race, Republican outsider Glenn Youngkin was already tapping into the suburban parents’ angst over ideologically-infused education when his Democrat opponent, Terry McAuliffe, uttered an unforgettable line in their final debate, transforming the race. “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision,” McAuliffe declared. “… I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Almost instantly, the race changed in the reliably blue state to a dead heat in a political bellwether that swept across the country.

5. Attorney General Merrick Garland unleashes the FBI on parent protests.

No single event had more impact in transforming the predominantly local debate over school curricula to a federal issue than Garland’s ill-fated memo asking the FBI to investigate parents’ threats against school board members, which was prompted by the National School Boards Association’s letter equating parents with domestic terrorists. The association had to apologize, and Garland has spent weeks trying to explain his edict to distrustful members of Congress. The reverberations were still being felt Monday, when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) renewed his request to have Garland retract his memo. “Mr. Attorney General, parents are not domestic terrorists, and you have only one reasonable choice,” Grassley said from the Senate floor. “Withdraw your memo and focus on the real threats. Stop being a pawn for the White House by politicizing the Department of Justice.”

6. Teachers in one Missouri school district fight back against training they deemed racist.

A group of teachers in Springfield, Mo., opened a new front in the school curriculum battle when they filed suit saying they were subjected to illegal and discriminatory training videos centered around Critical Race Theory. Their suit accused the school district of violating their First Amendment rights by requiring them to take Critical Race Theory training, which included telling the employees to vote for socialist candidates

7. ‘That’s not the black class.’ An Atlanta mom stands up to racial segregation of classrooms.

Kila Posey made national waves when she and her husband filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over the local elementary school principal’s segregation of classrooms, a submission that included recordings of their conversations with administrators. Posey alleged that when she tried to pick the classroom that was best for her daughter, who is black, her principal proclaimed, “That’s not the black class.” Their case prompted other complaints, including a lawsuit this month alleging similar racial segregation in a Massachusetts school district. 

8. A class trip to a gay bar ignites disbelief.

When a Florida elementary school class in Broward County recently took its students to a gay bar and grill, there was bipartisan outrage over the choice of the venue. Some believed it was an effort by educators to introduce students to a gay lifestyle, while others found it inappropriate for kids to be in a drinking establishment.

J&J Vaccine Recipients 3.5x More Likely To Develop Potentially Fatal Blood Clot In The Brain

New study by a Mayo Clinic doctor reveals those who received the J&J injection face more than three times higher risk of blood clots in the brain

A new study lead by a Mayo Clinic doctor suggests that individuals who were injected with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine are 3.5 times more likely to get Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis, a potentially fatal blood clot in the brain.

According to the study, individuals who were injected with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shot are 3.5 times more likely to get a Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (CVST), a potentially fatal blood clot in the brain, when compared to the pre-pandemic general population.

WebMD explains that CVST “is a type of rare blood clot that forms in the venous sinuses in your brain” that “can block the blood in your brain from draining out toward your heart” causing “a type of stroke” that “stems from internal bleeding.” The resource explains that “CVST can be life-threatening” and warns readers, “You’ll need immediate medical attention.”

The study was lead by Dr. Aneel A. Ashrani, a medical doctor and researcher at the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Internal Medicine. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. It was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a peer-reviewed medical journal. Despite the increased risk, researchers insist the “absolute CVST risk was still low.”

The Mayo Clinic researchers also found that women between the ages of 30 and 64 were at the highest risk of the potentially life threatening blood clots.

While the Johnson & Johnson injection only accounts for a reported 4% of the reported 400 million people who’ve been injected with COVID-19 vaccines, many individuals chose to get injected with their shot because it only required a single dose to be considered “fully vaccinated.” This is no longer true, as booster shots for both the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines have now been approved.

Of note, the researchers reference reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) when presenting its findings:

As of May 7, 2021, 8 727 851 Ad26.COV2.S vaccine doses had been administered in the US; 46 potential CVST events occurring within 92 days after Ad26.COV2.S vaccination were reported to VAERS. Eight events were excluded because they were potentially duplicate reports (4) or were not objectively diagnosed (4). Twenty-seven of 38 objectively diagnosed cases of CVST after Ad26.COV2.S vaccination (71.1%) occurred in female individuals. The median patient age was 45 years (range, 19-75 years). The median time from vaccination to CVST was 9 days (IQR, 6-13 days; range, 1-51 days); 31 of 38 cases of CVST (81.6%) occurred within 15 days after vaccination, and 36 (94.7%) occurred within 30 days.

CVST was one of the vaccine reactions listed in the letter written by Dr. Patricia Lee, M.D., an ICU doctor based in California, who wrote to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claiming she has observed more vaccine injuries from the controversial COVID-19 vaccines than she has in the last 20 years working as a doctor.

In the letter, she described observing “transverse myelitis, resulting in quadriplegia, pneumocystis pneumonia, multi-system organ failure, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, postpartum hemorrhagic shock and septic shock, and disseminated CMV and CMV viremia.”

“I can no longer silently accept the serious harm being caused by the Covid-19 vaccines,” Dr. Lee concluded. “It is my sincere hope that the reaction to this letter will not be to focus on me, but rather to focus on addressing the serious safety issues with these products that, without doubt, you have either missed or are choosing to ignore.”

‘God’s Always Got a Plan’: MLB Star Delivers Powerful Faith Message to National TV Audience After Braves Win

Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson believes “God’s always got a plan” and he delivered that very message during a national TV interview on Saturday following Game 4 of the World Series. 

Swanson, who helped lead the Braves to victories on Saturday and Sunday, expressed his gratitude for being able to play the game. But he also credited the Lord and expressed our need to place trust in the Almighty. 

“I’m just so thankful to be here. I really can’t say it enough,” he told Fox TV. “Being traded over here — at the time, I didn’t understand it. But God’s always got a plan. And if I’ve learned one thing is having faith in that plan will never fail you. And it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

Swanson was initially with the Arizona Diamondbacks before being traded — a move that left him confused until he came to recognize the importance of trusting in God’s plan.

Watch what Swanson had to say before a national audience:

The MLB player also spoke about the importance of “playing the game to win” as the Braves continue to take part in the World Series.

This isn’t the first time Swanson has openly spoken about faith. In a past interview with the “That Sounds Fun Podcast,” he discussed failure and a time in 2017, when he didn’t measure up to expectations.

“When everything is going good, you don’t make any adjustments. Failure teaches you so much,” he said. “We talk about God’s timing is everything. There’s so many things I can start to list out that ‘His timing is everything’ and me struggling last year was one of them. Last year was miserable.”

Despite those challenges, Swanson said he was “tremendously thankful” for what he went through and the lessons he took away.

Swanson has been quoted as saying he grew up in a faithful family and attended church on Sundays; faith has always been “ingrained” in him. Over the years, he said his faith has only grown. Read more about his journey.

Globalist Great Reset Will Require ‘Vast Military-Style Campaign’: Prince Charles

U.K.’s Prince Charles calls for a worldwide “fundamental economic transition” that is accomplished without the approval of sovereign nation-states, “beyond even the governments of the world leaders.”

QUICK FACTS:
  • Prince Charles of Wales delivered a speech at a United Nations (U.N.) opening ceremony for COP26 (here), a U.K.-hosted conference on climate change held in Glasgow from Oct 21 to Nov 12, 2021.
  • During his speech, Prince Charles pleaded with world leaders to “come together” and to “take the action required” in order to “marshal the strength of the global private sector” and achieve a word-wide “fundamental economic transition.”
  • This transition will cost “trillions—not billions—of dollars” and will require a “vast military-style campaign” whose power goes “beyond even the governments of the world leaders.”
  • Prince Charles regularly promotes the so-called “Great Reset” planned by the globalism-promoting World Economic Forum (WEF).
  • The WEF’s Great Reset is referred to by The Transnational Institute as “a silent global coup d’etat” to capture world dominance.
WATCH PRINCE CHARLES:
BACKGROUND:
  • Prince Charles is an advocate for the WEF’s Great Reset agenda, the goal of which is to end American sovereignty and to usher in “a new world” order controlled by “stakeholders,” corporations who are partnered with the WEF. After the Great Reset takes place, world populations “will own nothing. And you’ll be happy,” according to a video presentation created by the WEF (see below).
  • The Prince of Wales spoke at the launch of the WEF’s Great Reset, “There is a golden opportunity to seize something good from this [Covid-19] crisis…global crises know no borders, and highlight how interdependent we are as one people sharing one planet.” “Unless we take the action necessary, and build in a greener and more inclusive and sustainable way, then we will have more and more pandemics,” he added.

Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith and author of “An American Revival: Why American Christianity Is Failing & How to Fix It.“

‘Reimagine Capitalism’: Fortune Magazine Pushing Globalist Klaus Schwab’s Anti-American ‘Great Reset’ Agenda
Companies Mandating COVID Vax Are Owned By Same Company That Owns Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, J&J
Where the World’s Most Powerful Meet the World’s Money: World Economic Forum & BlackRock
Military-Industrial Complex, Big Media Owned by Same Companies

Trafalgar Poll: Youngkin Has 2.3-Point Lead in Virginia Gubernatorial Race

One of the most accurate pollsters from the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections has Virginia GOP candidate Glenn Youngkin with a 2.3-point lead over Democrat Terry McAuliffe on the eve of Election Day.

Trafalgar Group pollster Robert Cahaly tweeted Monday:

“FINAL @trafalgar_group #VAGov race #Poll #Youngkin has 2.3% lead which could grow by capturing most late deciders.

  • 49.4% @GlennYoungkin.
  • 47.1% @TerryMcAuliffe.
  • 1.9% Third Party/Write-In.
  • 1.6% Undecided

“Conducted 10/29-31 #vapol See Report.“

“This race is neck and neck,” Youngkin told rallygoers Monday in Richmond, Virginia, in comments aired live on Newsmax‘s “John Bachman Now.”

“We got to get it done tomorrow. The entire nation is watching us.”

The race between Youngkin and McAuliffe, who has had former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris stump for him, is considered a bellwether for the support for the current administration and Democrats’ control of Congress.

The fact the final poll puts the race within the margin of error in the final days before polls close Tuesday night puts an onus on the late ground game of both candidates. Youngkin is completing a 10-day bus tour in the state.

Youngkin has sided squarely with parents against indoctrination in schools and has vowed to oppose Biden administration vaccine mandates in his state. McAuliffe, who served as governor of the state starting during the Obama administration, has adopted many of the Obama-Biden policy positions, pitting an Obama-era progressive Democrat against a conservative in a key battleground state before the 2022 midterm elections.

Newsmax’s John Gizzi reported a potential Republican sweep in Virginia looms Tuesday night.

“I think Youngkin will win by around 3%,” historian Henry Olsen told Gizzi.

“There’s a 50-60% chance of winning the House of Delegates if Youngkin wins by 3 – about 40-50% chance if he wins by 1.”

Trafalgar was one of the most accurate polls in both the 2016 and the 2020 presidential elections.

The Trafalgar Group conducted its final Virginia gubernatorial poll Oct. 29-31 among 1,081 likely 2021 Virginia general election voters. The margin of error of the poll is plus or minus 2.98 percentage points.

Viganò to world’s bishops: Question the moral and mental suitability of Bergoglio as Pope

In a brief statement reflecting on President Biden’s visit with Pope Francis, Archbishop Viganò points out the severity of the current papacy.

On the occasion of the October 29 visit to the Vatican, the press agencies have spread the news that Joe Biden reported the content of the meeting and said that Francis called him “a good Catholic,” inviting him to “continue to receive Communion.” It is disconcerting that, to date, no clarifying comment has come from the Vatican Press Office. This leaves us to presume that Joe Biden’s words correspond to the truth and that Bergoglio actually spoke them.

Even if what Biden said corresponds perfectly to the intemperate quips of Jorge Mario Bergoglio – who called a notorious radical abortion activist a “great Italian” – it is evident that such statements represent an unheard of scandal, since they fail to condemn the positions of a political personality who supports abortion, disavow the immutable position of the Magisterium of the Church, and resound as a blatant invitation to commit sacrilege, profaning the Most Holy Eucharist by receiving it in the state of public and manifest sin.

Every Catholic knows that the killing of a defenseless creature in the mother’s womb is a horrendous crime; and that the most serious scandal is given to the faithful not only by Joe Biden as a convinced supporter of abortion, but also by Bergoglio himself, who is recognized as holding the authority of Supreme Pastor of the Church. His work of demolition knows no respite before the astonished silence of the Cardinals and Bishops.

The very rare exceptions of Pastors who truly have at heart the souls entrusted to them – the example of His Eminence Cardinal Burke stands out among others – are seen with hostility by the majority of their brother Bishops and by the Vatican, in a disturbing subversion of the mission of the Church of Christ, which today has been reduced to climate change, inclusive capitalism, and mass vaccination.

Bergoglio was recently recognized as “moral guide” by the Council for Inclusive Capitalism led by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and he appointed Jeffrey David Sachs as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Sachs is the president of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations, a supporter of reducing the global population and of the fight against climate change – this has nothing to do with the mission of the Papacy and ought to lead the Prelates of the Church to seriously ask themselves about Bergoglio’s mental and moral suitability for the role he holds.

I exhort the faithful, on the Feast instituted by Pius XI in honor of the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to beseech the Divine Majesty, asking that among the many societies afflicted by the present crisis, the Church of Christ may be the first in which Jesus Christ, who today has been replaced by the idols of globalist ideology, returns to reign.

FDA DELAYS its decision on Moderna vaccine use for children aged 12 to 17 to evaluate myocarditis risk, says firm

  • FDA is delaying its decision on whether kids 12 to 17 should receive Moderna to determine if it increases the risk of a rare side effect that impacts kids’ hearts  
  • The biotech company said that it would need until at least January 2022 before the FDA can finish its review of the Moderna application for children 12 to 17 
  • The agency informed Moderna on Friday night that it would require the extra time to further examine ongoing and emerging data on the risks of myocarditis
  • Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that in rare cases occurs after vaccination 
  • The news comes after several countries, from Nordic nations to Japan, voiced concerns that Moderna vaccine increased risk of myocarditis in men 18 to 30  
  • Meanwhile, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children between ages five and 11 on Friday 

The FDA announced it will delay its decision on whether children ages 12 to 17 should receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to determine if the shot increases the risk of a rare side effect that impacts kids’ hearts, the agency said Sunday.

The announcement comes just three days after the FDA authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children between ages five and 11. 

Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was told the federal agency would need until at least January 2022 before the FDA can finish its review, according to the Washington Post.

The company also added that it will delay its request for FDA authorization of its COVID vaccine for children 6 to 11 years old, the paper reported. 

The agency informed Moderna on Friday night that it would require the extra time to further examine ongoing and emerging data – from international sources –  on the risks of myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle that in rare cases occurs after vaccination.

The announcement comes after several countries, from Nordic nations to Japan, voiced concerns that the Moderna vaccine increased the risk of myocarditis in men ages 18 to 30. 

The FDA informed Moderna Friday that it would need  more time to examine data on the risks of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that in rare cases occurs after vaccination
The biotechnology company specifically said that it would need until at least January 2022 before the FDA can finish their review of the Moderna application for children aged 12 to 17
Pictured: Illustration comparing a normal heart and another with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that in rare cases occurs after vaccination
Meanwhile, the Moderna delays come just after the FDA authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, pictured, for children between ages five and 11 on Friday

And in Sweden and Finland, health officials there have recommended against the use of the Moderna shot for men younger than 30, the outlet reports. 

In June, Moderna requested the FDA to authorize its vaccine for adolescents, with the shot having been approved previously for people 18 and older.

The proposed vaccine treatment protocol for teens would be the same as that for adults, with two 100-microgram shots received 28-days apart. 

Moderna’s proposed vaccination for children 6 to 11 years old that is now on hold would have been for them to receive two half-dose shots of 50 micrograms, the Post reported.

In its statement, Moderna said ‘the safety of vaccine recipients is of paramount importance’ and that it’s working closely with the FDA.  

Pictured: Lydia Melo, 7, is inoculated with one of two reduced doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a trial at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, September 2021
Pfizer released data showing its vaccine is 91% effective against infection after 16 cases of Covid were reported in the placebo group compared to three that received two kid-size doses

The Moderna delays come just after the agency’s advisory committee recommended emergency use of the vaccine be expanded to young children.

About 28 million American kids will be eligible to receive the two-dose vaccine, which is one-third the dose given to people aged 12 and older, and is administered 21 days apart.

The final step will be a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) advisory panel next week, meaning the first children may be dosed starting Wednesday. 

Parents have been split 50/50 over vaccinating children because kids rarely get severely ill and make up less than 0.1 percent of all Covid deaths in the US.

There have been fewer than 600 deaths among children since the pandemic began, with just 94 occurring among the aged 5-11 group
Weekly COVID-19 cases among children have declined from a peak of 243,000 in early September to 117,000 currently 
Because of the low risk of severe illness, more than one-third of parents with children in the 5-11 age range are not planning to get their kids vaccinated against Covid

Last week, the Biden administration released its plans for vaccinating children over the next few months.

Child-size vials that can be kept in refrigerators along with smaller needles necessary for injecting young kids will be sent to providers across the country.

Youngsters will be able to get the shot at their pediatrician’s offices or local pharmacies, and potentially even their schools rather than mass immunization sites.

And children’s hospitals will set up clinics on nights and weekends so mothers and fathers can vaccinate their kids after they get off of work.

As of Friday, the federal government has purchased 110 million doses of the Pfizer pediatric shot and 15 million doses are ready to be shipped as soon as the vaccine is authorized, reported the New York Times.

American Airlines cancels 262 more flights, taking total to more than 2,000 amid staffing shortages & unfavorable weather

American Airlines canceled a further 262 flights on Monday after nearly 2,000 were called off over the weekend, as the company struggles with staff shortages worsened by severe winds at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

On Monday, the US carrier said the additional cancelations represented some 5% of its total flights planned as of 7.30 am ET (11:30 GMT). American Airlines has now canned some 2,211 flights since Friday.  

The cancelations have been put down to staffing shortages exacerbated by severe winds at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, which has seen the airline’s arrival capacity reduced by more than half at the hub. The firm said at the weekend that the unfavorable weather had impacted staffing. Fort Worth is also home to the airline’s headquarters. 

In a statement, the firm said further cancelations would likely be prevented with the return of some 1,800 flight attendants from leave, starting on Monday. “We expect considerable improvement beginning today with some residual impact from the weekend,” company spokeswoman Sarah Jantz said in a statement. 

Southwest Airlines has also faced service disruptions in recent days, with the carrier dropping 192 flights on Sunday. It had a whopping 774 delays and 87 cancelations on Saturday. 

As US federal contractors, both airlines are also subject to the vaccine mandate introduced by the Biden administration, which insists employees must have received a Covid-19 shot by December 8, unless exempt for medical or religious reasons. Last month, hundreds of American Airlines employees gathered outside the company’s Fort Worth headquarters to protest the vaccine mandate, while a similar but smaller demonstration was reportedly held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Southwest Airlines has also seen employees protest the federal vaccine mandate. The company last month denied that a raft of its flight cancelations was in any way linked to the mandate issue.

McAuliffe Abruptly Cancels Virginia Beach Rally on Election Eve as Youngkin Draws Large Crowds as Both Candidates Barnstorm State

The campaign of Democrat candidate for Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe abruptly canceled an election eve rally in Virginia Beach set for 12:45 p.m. Monday, offering no reason as to why. McAuliffe has struggled to draw enthusiastic crowds as the rival Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin has held large, boisterous rallies of supporters across the state. Youngkin has a rally scheduled for Monday evening in Virginia Beach.

WVEC-TV reported the cancellation by McAuliffe (excerpt):

Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe were both initially scheduled to hold events in Virginia Beach on Monday, Nov. 1, but a spokesperson for McAuliffe said he would no longer be having one in Hampton Roads.

Instead, McAuliffe will be campaigning today in a different portion of the state.

Youngkin is still on schedule to host a rally today at Neptune’s Park, which is located on Atlantic Avenue, at 5 p.m.

The McCauliffe rally was to be held at Smartmouth Brewing:

The Washington Times reported McAuliffe’s schedule before the cancellation:

“Democrat Terry McAuliffe is crisscrossing Virginia on the eve of the governor’s election, making stops in Roanoke, Virginia Beach, Richmond and Fairfax County.”

Photos from McAuliffe’s first stop of the day in Roanoke shows he drew an anemic crowd of a few dozen:

Meanwhile, Youngkin drew large crowds at two rallies held Monday in Roanoke and Richmond with rallies in Virginia Beach and Loudoun County.

The New York Times reported Sunday that McAuliffe crowds are so lame that staffers have to lead cheers, “When Mr. McAuliffe went to speak, the crowd yelled ‘Terry, Terry, Terry’ only after a campaign staffer started the chant to ramp up the energy in the room.”

The Military’s Turn to Wokeness Shows the US Faces No Real Military Threats

Over the course of this year, conservatives have expressed a number of grievances they have with the US military. Tucker Carlson delivered a monologue questioning Joe Biden’s emphasis on the issuance of flight suits designed for pregnant women. (Noteworthy is that Tucker is not against women in combat roles per se, since he states, “If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best, we will be the first to demand an entire Air Force of pregnant pilots.” I don’t believe anyone has accused Tucker of thinking carefully about tradeoffs.) Other conservatives, however, do express disagreement with filling combat roles with women. A recurring demand in pursuit of egalitarianism is extending mandated registration for the Selective Service to young women, opposition to which is typically due to the prospect of drafting women to fight, rather than the morally correct position of opposing involuntary servitude for anyone.

A further gripe is the trend of the military’s embrace of wokeness, as evidenced by statements made by General Mark Milley defending the teaching of critical race theory at West Point and the need to “understand white rage,” as well as the approach taken in recent recruitment ads. While Chinese and Russian military recruitment campaigns appeal to a sense of patriotism, one US Army ad features a woman inspired by the activism of her two moms and who feels the need to compete with her sorority sisters in doing something meaningful with her life. How she does this through operating Raytheon and Lockheed Martin’s Patriot Missile Defense Systems is left unexplained.

One of the latest controversies involving the military is Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, which leaves service members potentially facing a dishonorable discharge if they refuse to be vaccinated. Hundreds of thousands of US troops have not yet complied with this mandate. While it is unlikely that all of them would continue to refuse if the alternative were a dishonorable discharge, a significant percentage will. Hundreds of Navy SEALs who have refused the vaccine are currently considered undeployable.

Many believe that some or all of these issues hurt troop morale and render the US military a less capable fighting force. This is unambiguously the case when discharging or not deploying personnel who are otherwise qualified and on whom millions of dollars have been spent to train. It serves as an illustration of something those of us skeptical of US military adventurism already knew: Americans in the continental US are incredibly geopolitically blessed in terms of being able to live at peace with the rest of the world, if only those with political authority allowed it. We have mostly friendly neighbors to the north and south, no one who poses a threat close by, and thousands of miles of ocean between us and everyone else. And because of this the US military has the luxury of engaging in terrible, wasteful decision-making that undermines effectiveness without much cost in terms of domestic civilian lives lost from foreign aggression (with the exception, of course, of blowback caused by US foreign policy).

So why would the US military embrace wokeness and other policies if they could possibly come at the slightest cost of effectiveness or morale? The military is a bureaucracy (or rather a set of bureaucracies) and the primary institutional goals of bureaucracies are to preserve their own existence and increase their budgets. Fully embracing the cultural concerns of establishment leftism certainly doesn’t hurt in terms of encouraging the mainstream Left to forget their former opposition to Bush’s wars. Congressional Republicans will present no serious opposition to wokeness in the military, certainly not in terms of reducing their budgets. The CIA seems to be employing a similar strategy. Promoting the fact that they hire gay people covers a multitude of sins, such as assassinations, torture, and regime change. Furthermore, vaccine mandates help purge the military of personnel willing to question certain types of orders.

Indeed, pursuing this strategy seems to come with little downside risk. If it does, in fact, reduce the ability of the military or intelligence agencies to protect Americans (to the extent that that is still considered part of their purpose) and results in civilian deaths, their budgets are far more likely to be increased rather than decreased. Their failure to prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11 led to unprecedented increases in their powers and resources. We are now told that their failure to prevent whatever you want to call what happened on January 6 (setting aside their role in facilitating it) justifies further increases in their powers. For them, failure is success.

Thankfully, the veil is being lifted and those with previously promilitary sensibilities are seeing that the military is not unambiguously their friend. This is a necessary step to achieve the ends of peace and a noninterventionist foreign policy. Questioning the military is increasingly considered within the realm of reasonable discourse for those who consider themselves patriots. Polls have traditionally found that the military enjoys among the highest levels of trust among the general public. This is changing and that’s a good thing.

Reprinted with permission from LewRockwell.com.

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