Who Is Aaron M. Zaliponi?

My VIP for this week is Sgt. Aaron M. Zaliponi of the Adams Township Police Department. Zaliponi is the Butler County SWAT operator who shot at would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks and ended his ability to continuing firing at former President Donald Trump on July 13.

According to Joseph M. Hanneman at Blaze News, U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) revealed Zaliponi as the SWAT operator from Butler County during “during the first hearing of the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump.

According to testimony at the hearing, Zaliponi quickly acquired Crooks in the sight of his M4 rifle while Crooks was firing his AR-15 at Trump and the rally crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Zaliponi fired what became known as shot No. 9, which knocked Crooks down and prevented him from resuming his attack before a U.S. Secret Service counter-sniper fired a fatal shot to the head.

‘As I’m getting my target acquired, I’m getting my red dot up, I can see the gas emit from his barrel, his muzzle.’

“My investigation thus far leads me to conclude that Zaliponi’s ‘shot 9’ impacted Crooks in some way, effectively stopping him from ever squeezing the trigger again,” Higgins told Blaze News after the hearing. “Stock of his AR or into his rear shoulder, I’m not sure, but impact.

“Zaliponi never took his red dot off of Crooks, and as Crooks rose up from shot 9, Zaliponi was a half-second away from pressing another round into Crooks when the USSS southern counter-sniper team ended the threat,” Higgins said.

The hearing served as a bit of redemption for state and local Pennsylvania police, who were initially blamed by the Secret Service for Trump being shot in the ear during a speech before tens of thousands of rally-goers at the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds.

The hearing opened the door for the truth to come out about who actually saved Trump that day. This helped heal the wounds of having the finger pointed at the local police officers.

Should Mary Peltola Be Re-Elected?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is that elected representatives should represent the views of their constituents. The Constitution of the United States outlines how leaders are chosen for the federal government. Members of the House of Representatives are chosen by the people in their districts to represent them in Congress. They must run for election every two years to give the people of their district an opportunity to re-elect them or to fire them. Representatives have the two-year election cycle to make sure that they represent the views of the people in their district.

Alaska is about two-thirds Republicans and one-third Democrat, so it is a mystery how Mary Peltola, a Democrat, was ever elected to representative mostly conservative Alaska. The only reason for her election is the dastardly ranked choice voting that will hopefully be voted out this year – along with Peltola being voted out of office.

Many Alaskans are against the re-election of Peltola, and they have received help from Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell who published an article about Peltola in The Daily Signal. I learned much from the article, so I am doing what I can to see that it is distributed widely in Alaska. Here is part of what Mitchell shared in her article. 

A member of Congress from Alaska voted against a bill allowing parents to access the curriculum at their children’s school while accepting thousands from groups that support schools hiding gender identity from parents.

Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola voted against the Parents Bill of Rights Act in March 2023, which would have required schools to allow parents to inspect curriculum and library books; to obtain parental consent before letting a child socially transition at school; and to inform parents of violent activity at school.

Aimed at protecting the right of parents to guide their children’s education, the Parents Bill of Rights passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 24 on a 213-208 party-line vote. Peltola was one of the 208 Democrats who voted against parental transparency in education.

Mitchell wrote that Peltola not only voted against the Parents Bill of Rights, but she also accepted thousands of dollars from far-left groups. Mitchell gave the following information about such donations.

·        "$40,000 from far-left groups’ political arms that support schools socially transitioning kids and giving kids access to sexually explicit library books, like the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and Human Rights Campaign."

·        "$20,000 from the PAC of the far-left National Education Association, which also opposed the Parents Bill of Rights….”

·         "$15,000 from the American Federation of Teachers’ AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education since 2022….”

·         “$6,000 from the Human Rights Campaign Fund. The Human Rights Campaign supports irreversible transgender medical interventions for children and peddles the lie that children are less likely to commit suicide if they transition.”

According to Mitchell, Peltola wrote on X last summer “to urge followers to donate to Identity, which helps children get sterilizing hormone treatments and irreversible transgender surgeries….”

Peltola faces small business owner Nick Begich in November in the Alaska congressional race. According to Begich, “Peltola is on board with the Biden-Harris administration’s plans to push gender ideology into the classroom, ‘forcing teachers to push concepts that are neither rooted in science nor basic logic.”

Mitchell added that Peltola did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal, but she told Anchorage Daily News in 2023, “The reason I did not vote for this particular bill, is because I feel like students should have some right to privacy … And I think they should have some right to feel safe at school.”

What happened to the right of parents to know what is being taught to their children at school? Parents have the responsibility to instruct their children, and they will be held accountable to God for what they teach. Schools have no right to infringe on the rights of the parents.

Did Jesus Christ Visit Ancient Americans?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to 3 Nephi 8-11 in a lesson titled “Arise and Come Forth unto Me.” The lesson was introduced by the following information. 

“Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world” (3 Nephi 11:10). With these words, the resurrected Savior introduced Himself, fulfilling over 600 years of Book of Mormon prophecies. “That appearance and that declaration,” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland wrote, “constituted the focal point, the supreme moment, in the entire history of the Book of Mormon. It was the manifestation and the decree that had informed and inspired every Nephite prophet. … Everyone had talked of him, sung of him, dreamed of him, and prayed for his appearance—but here he actually was. The day of days! The God who turns every dark night into morning light had arrived” (Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 250–51).

The above-described experience took place in ancient America and is depicted in a video titled “Jesus Christ Appears in the Ancient Americas.” The video is described with these words: “It is about AD 34. In the Americas, great storms, earthquakes, fires, and floods witness to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion in Jerusalem.” 

As with all scripture blocks, the lesson included several principles, including the following: (1) Jesus Christ is the Light of the World (3 Nephi 8-11), (2) Jesus Christ is eager to forgive

(3 Nephi 9-10), (3) The Lord requires “a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” and (4) Jesus Christ invites me to gain a personal witness of Him (3 Nephi 11:8-17). The principle that I feel prompted to discuss is “I can learn to hear and understand God’s voice” (3 Nephi11:1-8).

Have you heard God’s voice speaking to you? How do you know that you have or have not? The experience of the people in 3 Nephi 11:1-8 teaches some principles about hearing and understanding God’s voice. While reading the following verses, note the characteristics of God’s voice that the people heard and what they did to better understand it.

1 And now it came to pass that there were a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful; and they were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place.

2 And they were also conversing about this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning his death.

3 And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.

4 And it came to pass that again they heard the voice, and they understood it not.

5 And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.

6 And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard; and it said unto them:

7 Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.

8 And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them. (3 Nephi 11:1-8; emphasis added.)

The above verses tell us that the ancient Americans were near the temple and discussing Jesus Christ. The first and second times that they heard the voice, they could discern what was said. After the second time, they turned their eyes and ears towards the direction from which the voice came. The third time, they heard the voice and understood what was said. Then they continued looking in that direction and saw Jesus Christ coming down from heaven.

So, what can you do to hear the voice of God when He speaks to you. We can hear more about God’s voice and learn from Elijah’s experience:

11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12; emphasis added.)

We may not hear a voice, but we can know that God is near us as shown in Galatians 5:22-23:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

There are other scriptures that discuss communication from God. We can also benefit from hearing for today’s prophets, apostles, and other leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have experience hearing and following God’s voice. Several of them share their experiences in a video collection titled “Hear Him!” located in the Gospel Library. 

The big question is, “How will you apply what you learned to hear and recognize the voice of God more clearly?”

I personally have heard God speaking to me – His Spirit (the Holy Ghost) speaking to my spirit. Sometimes, He gives me a sudden idea. Other times, He speaks peace to my soul. I recommend that you listen for His voice because He loves all of His children, including you and me.

What is the Success Sequence and Why Does It Work?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when the rising generation follows the success sequence. According to social scientists and reported by Lois M. Collins, the “success sequence” contains some important steps that must be taken in a certain order. She wrote the following in her article published in the Deseret News. 

Millennials can add better mental health to the list of reasons they should hit certain life milestones in a particular order, according to new research from the Institute for Family Studies.

The “success sequence” – three steps that include graduating from high school, getting a job, marrying before having kids, in that order – provides a “huge boost to mental health,” according to Wendy Wang, the institute’s director of research, and Samuel T. Wilkinson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University.

While the sequence has been touted in a lot of research as key to avoiding poverty and reducing the risk of divorce, the study is possibly the first to look at the impact on mental health, Wilkinson, also an associate director of the Yale Depression Research Program, told Deseret News.

Focusing on young adults born between 1980 and 1984, who were surveyed in their mid-30s, Wang said they studied three groups of millennials: those who married before having children, those who had children before or without marrying and those who never married and didn’t have children. Their analysis showed:

·         The vast majority (97%) of millennials who followed the success sequence were not in poverty as adults and 9 out of 10 were at least middle class.

·         Mental distress drops as each sequence step is completed. While 30% of young adults who missed the sequence entirely are distressed, the same is true of just 9% of those who completed the three steps.

The report, “The Success Sequence and Millennial Mental Health,” finds that young adults who are married when they have children enjoy better mental health than those who have a baby outside of or before marriage. They are also happier and have better mental health than those who never married and don’t have children. It says those who are married before having children are not as apt to experience “high emotional distress” by their mid-30s (12%), compared to those who had a baby first (19%). And more of the sequence followers report being healthy (65% vs. 52%) and feeling happy at least most of the time (82% vs. 74%).

“So it looks like the people who had children before marriage or outside marriage, their mental health and physical overall wellbeing is kind of similar to the ones who have never married and are childless. The group that stands out is the one who married before having children,” Wang said.

The report comes in the midst of a mental health and loneliness crisis in the U.S. Per the report, “Suicide, anxiety, depression and drug overdose deaths have all risen to record levels. Younger generations have been hit especially hard during this crisis. Millennial men and women experience increased anxiety and depression compared to previous generations at the same age.”

While acknowledging the impact of financial well-being on mental health, Wang and Wilkinson said that’s certainly not the whole story. They point out that even when they controlled for income, the findings on the success sequence boosting mental health held up. “The sequence remains a significant factor in predicting your adult mental health,” they wrote. The odds of experiencing high emotional distress by their mid-30s are reduced by about 50% for young adults who have completed the three steps of the success sequence, after controlling for their income and a range of background factors including gender, race and family background.” …

Mental distress is significantly higher for women who had children before marriage and are now divorced. One-third of them report mental distress. About 21% of married women who do not have children report high mental distress, as do 23% of never-married childless women. The lowest level of distress is found among mothers who had their children after marrying and who are still married, at 12%.

The study found those who married after having children are about twice as likely to divorce or separate by their mid-30s, compared to those who married first (27% vs. 14%).

They also found a gender gap when it comes to mental health among the millennials. “Women are consistently more likely than men to report experiencing emotional distress,” they wrote. “The gender gap is the largest among millennials who missed all three steps of the success sequence (38% vs. 22%). But even among those who followed all three steps, women are still more likely than men to experience higher emotional distress (12% vs. 7%).”

Wilkinson said the finding showing that “women have more emotional distress is repeated across different cultures and there are likely several factors at play, including hormonal shifts.” Wang and Wilkinson also noted “a racial gap in mental health. White young adults who did things in a different order than the success sequence experience more anxiety and depression than their Black or Hispanic peers, while there’s no statistically significant difference by race for those who get a high school diploma or better, a job, then marry and have kids, as the sequence prescribes.”

Parents and other adults have a responsibility to teach the rising generation about the “success sequence.” We should make sure that they understand that following the “success sequence” will help them to avoid poverty, reduce the risk of divorce, and have better mental health. I know that we can strengthen families, communities, states, and nations by teaching correct principles, and the “success sequence” has been proven to be a correct principle.

Are Democrats as Stupid as They Appear?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the importance of honesty and integrity between government officials and the American people. According to Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, House Democrats held “unofficial, Democrat-only ‘hearing’” today. In doing so they “blamed abortion and Donald ‘Trump’s Project 2025’ for pregnancy-related tragedies.” They did this even though “every state law limiting abortion includes an exception to protect the life of the mother.” 

An example of the Democrat lies came from Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) who is a member of the far-left group known as “the Squad.” “Every single woman who has died from Trump abortion bans should be alive today…. What do we have instead? No compassion, no care, and no justice.”

The unofficial “hearing” was led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and hosted by the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which is not an official House committee. The topic of discussion for the hearing was “Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-led project that includes a book of conservative policy recommendations and a personnel database for use by the next conservative presidential administration.”

“The Dems are focusing on Project 2025 because they need a made-up bogeyman to cover up their lack of an agenda and because they hate anyone proposing real reforms that would actually drain the swamp,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal. 

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., agreed that Democrats are wasting time on Project 2025, which he said is a “menu of policy options available to any administration to come,” not “some evil hidden agenda.”

“It is absolutely beyond me that the Democrats are wasting time having a sham ‘hearing’ regarding Project 2025,” Normal told The Daily Signal. “Clearly, Democrats have never heard of presidential transition projects before … something that has been a part of our process for years.”

“Democrats ought to spend less time on their sham ‘hearing’ and more time actually reading Heritage’s ‘Mandate for Leadership.’” Norman continued. “Mandate for Leadership” is the name of the book of conservative policy recommendations, and Heritage has been producing “Mandate” since Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980.

As evidence of the dishonesty of the Democrats, neither Trump nor “Project 2025’s materials call for a nationwide ban on abortion or on contraception.”

Project 2025 was launched by The Heritage Foundation two years ago, but Trump has distanced himself from it. There are “more than 110 conservative organizations” that worked on the project, and the “work is nonpartisan and available to whomever occupies the White House next year.

What Is Project 2025?

Democrats keeping trying to tie former President Donald Trump to Project 2025, a project put together by The Heritage Foundation. President Kevin Roberts of The Heritage Foundation confirmed that Trump was not involved in Project 2025. Nevertheless, the Democrats continue to say that he did. 

Rob Bluey wrote about the Democrat’s lies in his article published at The Daily Signal and made the following points. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign publicly admitted two months ago that it was deliberately misleading voters about Project 2025. Now, House Democrats will join the chorus in feigning outrage.

Led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the party’s Steering and Policy Committee – which isn’t an official House committee – plans to hold a fake “hearing” Tuesday about Project 2025.

You can expect Democrats to invoke Donald Trump’s name repeatedly and associate it with Project 2025 – even though the former president isn’t involved with the effort and has called it “merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs.”

Trump has repeatedly proclaimed that he was not involved in creating Project 2025 and has not even read it. However, Democrats do not let facts dissuade them from lying.

That won’t stop the Democrats who show up for Tuesday’s stunt, starting with their ringleader, Jeffries. According to Bluey, Jeffries told the following lie on the House floor last week: “It’s Project 2025 week because at the end of the day, my extreme MAGA Republican colleagues are determined to jam Trump’s Project 2025 down the throats of the American people.”

Trump is denying any connection to Project 2025, and the Democrats are lying about it. So what is so bad with Project 2025? Bluey explained as follows:

Launched by The Heritage Foundation more than two years ago, Project 2025 has grown to a coalition of more than 110 conservative organizations that developed a transition plan for the next presidential administration. Its work is nonpartisan and available to whomever occupies the White House next year.

Many of its policy recommendations – such as securing the U.S.-Mexico border and unleashing American energy production – are overwhelmingly popular. But its recommendations for reining in the administrative state have triggered the Left to a near meltdown.

For months, The Daily Signal has documented the Left’s lies about Project 2025 and will continue to do so, including for today’s hearing. (You can prepare by reading Evan Maguire’s excellent commentary on the top five falsehoods about the initiative.) But we are hardly alone. In total, news organizations spanning the globe have done more than 60 stories documenting the Democrats’ deceit. 

Since replacing Joe Biden by entering the presidential race in July, Harris and her campaign have falsely attacked Project 2025 and the policies outlined in Heritage’s latest “Mandate for Leadership” effort on nearly a daily basis. Project 2025 featured prominently at the Democratic National Convention last month in Chicago and was a talking point for Harris at the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Trump. Next up, House Democrats will take their turn to mislead and distort.

I have not watched the House hearing, but I expect that it was full of lies about Trump and Project 2025. However, I did read some of the information that is in 2025, and I can understand why Democrats are lying about it. Project 2025 is full of information that would bless the lives of Americans.

The bottom line is that Kamala Harris’ campaign is built upon lies of all kinds. She and her campaign believe that Americans will believe their lies if the lies are repeated often enough. I hope that Americans are honest enough to admit that the past four years have moved America far down the road toward destruction. I hope that they will open their eyes and see things as they really are.

Americans should honestly ask themselves: Am I better off than I was four years ago? America was better under Trump. He is like an open book. Most honest people know that he has better policies and that another Trump administration would be much like his first one. In addition, most honest people would recognize that Kamala Harris is promising to do things after the election that she could be doing right now. A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for four more years of the Biden-Harris administration. Really! Are you better off now?

 

How Can We Save the American Dream?

The recent decision by the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates was proclaimed to be “a new chapter in the D.C. Cartel’s long march toward the bankruptcy of our nation” by Richard Stern, the director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. It definitely looks like the decision was made for a political reason rather than the good of the nation. 

The decision may bring “some relief from higher interest rates for consumers and businesses,” but it may also fuel the “fires of inflation.” However, the fact that “prices for essentials” have risen “over 20%,” the decision does not “prioritize the interests of the American people.” Stern then listed “the five key things” that Americans must know about the rate cut by the Federal Reserve and what it means to Americans and their families.

1. Federal Spending Real Cause of the Problem.

The federal government has recklessly expanded in recent years, redirecting more of your hard-earned money into the hands of bureaucrats and their allies. Federal spending either can be paid for through taxes or borrowing.

Tax increases, of course, harm Americans in a direct manner by taking from your paycheck and bank account. Borrowing, on the other hand, creates a more insidious and obscure harm. The federal government can crowd out private investment and eat everyone’s lunch off the money market buffet table….

Without cutting government spending, any Fed action is merely a form of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic of debt.

2. The Fed Chooses High Inflation Over High Interest Rates.

This dynamic means that the Fed is left with only a Sophie’s choice between high inflation and high consumer and business interest rates. For roughly the past three years, the Fed has tried to restrain the money supply to reduce inflation at the risk of increasing interest rates – and it has….

3. Decision Comes Right After Federal Interest Costs Top $1 Trillion a Year.

Of course, the Federal Reserve’s decision comes right after federal spending on annual interest payments broke $1 – close to $8,000 per American family per year. When interest rates are high, it isn’t only consumers and businesses that face high rates, it’s also the government.

Reversing the course back to lowering rates at the expense of higher inflation seems rather self-serving for the government when viewed through this lens.

4. This Rate Cut Comes Suspiciously Right Before Election.

The Fed’s actions always take time to permeate through the economy. And although tightening conditions can have faster impacts on sending interest rates higher, in monetary loosening it takes more time for inflation to be seen.

This is because markets tend to react quickly to the specter of scarcer money by sending rates higher, but prices rise only as the newly created money fully flows through the economy. As such, the Fed’s decision to cut rates – and increase the money supply – likely will lead to a flurry of activity now, with inflation coming in well afterward….

5. The Problem Only Expected to Get Worse.

Disturbingly, the problem is likely to get worse. Modest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that we can expect to add at least $20 trillion to the national debt – ballooning it to well over $400,000 per American household.

Whiplashing between high inflation and high interest rates will only continue to grow in intensity if the debt continues on this path.

Unless there are serious cuts to planned federal spending and debt accumulation, this burden will continue to grow without end. Whenever the government spends a dollar, it commits to steal that dollar from hardworking American – either through taxes, or through borrowing and money-printing.

Stern presented only one solution: “restrain government spending” before it destroys the American dream. The bottom line is that we need more Americans working and paying taxes and fewer Americans expecting the government to provide for them. We need to elect Donald Trump who will lessen the number of regulations holding back the economy, control the number of people coming into our nation, and make America great again. 

Who Is the Real Enemy of America?

My VIP for this week is Donald J. Trump, the former president and current presidential candidate who escaped a second assassination attempt in two months. Many people believe that God is protecting Trump because the Secret Service leadership is certainly dithering.

If God is protecting Trump, then who is influencing the people trying to assassinate him? Any sane purpose would agree that Satan is usually the person behind the desire to murder another person. However, people who are loony enough to doubt the existence of Satan would not recognize that he is the spirit behind most murders.

The people responsible for the two assassination attempts are the shooter (Pennsylvania) and the alleged shooter-to-be. However, Democrats – from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris down – have certainly been calling for Trump’s assassination. Daniel McCarthy discussed Trump, Democrats, and the assassination attempts in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

If Democrats didn’t believe they’d put former President Donald Trump in an assassin’s crosshairs the first time, they have no excuse for pleading innocent now…. [McCarthy then described the Florida attempted assassin and why he believes Democrats are to blame.]

You can’t lose if your opponent is dead, and if democracy’s in danger, what conclusion does a desperate man of action draw?

Instead of moderating their rhetoric, Trump’s critics only doubled down after the first assassination attempt [on July 13^th].

On July 19, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., called Trump “an existential danger to our democracy.”

In the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris accused Trump of “attacking the foundations of our democracy.”

Democrats cut Trump no slack for telling his supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically” on Jan. 6, 2021, when some of them ran amok and invaded the Capitol. But Trump’s enemies don’t hold themselves to the same standard, when their own apocalyptic language incites a man like Routh to plan political murder.

Democrats have tried since 2016 to identify Trump with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

A man with a gun who wants to stop Putin might well think slaying Trump would save lives if, as Democrats and liberals in the media say, Trump is Putin’s catspaw….

The media have been recklessly uncritical of the incendiary characterizations of Trump that his opponents have trafficked in for years.

Listening to the Democrats or watching MSNBC, a terrified citizen might think the country is on the brink of dictatorship, and if ever there was a time for preemptive violence, it must be now.

Democrats who denounce political violence while leading their supporters to think freedom is finished if Trump wins aren’t just hypocritical – they’re culpable.

Progressives must find ways to argue against Trump without giving ammunition to the paranoid and impulsive.

Trump’s life is already in danger, but think about what happens if he wins.

On election night, what will people convinced Trump is a dictator do?

I agree with McCarthy who calls for Democrats to “lower the temperature” politically. One way to cool things down is for Democrats to stop lying about Trump, Vance, and other Republicans and start discussing policies. The media should be calling Kamala out of hiding and insisting that she talk about her policies. However, I will not hold my breath!

However, I cannot help but wonder why so many people hate Trump so much. As soon as Trump announced that he was running for President of the United States in 2015, the haters started to spew hate. Before he was even inaugurated in 2017, the haters were calling for his impeachment.

The haters cannot base their hate on moral grounds as so many of my friends and family members say. Otherwise, they would condemn Joe Biden for destroying Jill Biden’s first marriage, and they would condemn Kamala Harris for being the mistress of San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. In fact, they would recognize that the current Democrat candidate for POTUS slept her way to where she is, even while taking full advantage of her skin color and sex.

No, there must be another reason for the deep hatred of Donald Trump by the so-called elites like Liz Cheney. The hatred might have something to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” and the arrest of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. Who knows!

Are Colleges and Universities Cheating on Admissions?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns equality for all Americans and the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court being supreme in the land. For years, U.S. colleges and universities based their admissions on race rather than meritocracy. Then they were called on it.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that colleges and universities must “comply with the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment in their admissions policies.” The current question is whether the colleges and universities are complying to the court decision or cheating. Hans von Spakovsky and GianCarlo Canaparo wrote of the circumstances in their article published at The Daily Signal. 

In June of 2023, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court held that the academy had to end its pernicious policy of discriminating on the basis of race in deciding whether to admit students. The colleges argued they need to discriminate to achieve “diversity,” a practice based, as Chief Justice John Roberts said, on the “offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particular race, because of their race, think alike.”

“Universities,” the court held, “have for too long” not treated students as individuals, but have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

The response by the universities to the many criticisms of these discriminatory practices, which included their using overbroad, underinclusive, and arbitrary racial categories, said the court, was “trust us.”

So, can we trust them, or have they been practicing a latter-day form of “massive resistance” to complying with the Students for Fair Admissions decision and the constitutional requirement to treat their students equally, without regard to skin color?

Keep in mind that the students who sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina were Asian Americans, who were discriminated against to keep their numbers down in the admitted classes of schools such as Harvard, UNC, Yale, Duke, and Princeton, among many others.

Despite having higher test scores and better academic credentials than other applicants, they were being disproportionately kept out of these schools, and by a wide margin.

Duke, Yale, and Princeton, along with 13 other schools, filed an amicus brief in the case claiming that if the Supreme Court eliminated their ability to discriminate, they would not be able to maintain the diverse composition of their student bodies. Instead, they would have a “racially and ethnically homogenous class” – i.e., the proportion of minority students (anyone who isn’t Asian or white) within the student population would decrease.

The universities’ “consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions avoids this outcome,” they said, warning that if they could not consider race, there would be, for example, “a near 33% reduction in the number of African American students admitted” and similar reductions for other “underrepresented” minority groups.

Relevant to all of this are the recent race statistics released by some schools for the Class of 2028. Yale, for example, which was discriminating against Asian American students, just like Harvard and UNC, engineered a 6-percentage-point drop in the admission of Asian American students, which went from 30% in the Class of 2027 to only 24% in the Class of 2028. On the other hand, the percentage of black and Native American students was unchanged.

Similarly, at Princeton, the percentage of Asian American students fell from 26% to 23.8%, and at Duke, from 35% to 29%.

These numbers suggest that the schools are either cheating, or that they lied to the Supreme Court when they said that a victory for Asian Americans at Harvard “would undercut [their] vital efforts to attain diverse student bodies.”

As it turns out, the schools have had no trouble attaining what they call “diverse” student bodies; that is, a student body where fewer Asian American students get in than deserve to.

So, did they lie to the Supreme Court? Or did they figure out how to cheat?

The authors indicated that there is “reason to think that they may be cheating.” Then they gave reasons for that belief: (1) “influential left-wing deans and professors have been explicit about getting around the decision.” (2) “President Danielle Holley of Mount Holyoke College publicly declared that her school still thinks it’s important to racially balance its student body, and so the schools’ admission process “will have to” be less transparent. (3) “the Biden-Harris administration issued guidance to help schools carefully circumvent the ruling,” (4) “left-wing academics have begun acclimatizing the public to the idea of openly disobeying Supreme Court opinions they don’t like.”

After sharing reasons for the belief that the universities and colleges are cheating, the authors gave several ways in which they could be cheating: (1) “encourage applicants to disclose their race in essays,” (2) “require or encourage applicants to submit photos or to do application interviews from which their race can be determined,” (3) “give advantages and disadvantages to applicants from ZIP codes or high schools where students of one race or another tend to congregate.”

The organization behind the Supreme Court victory against Harvard and UNC has put these schools on notice that they are its next target. And the next time that the Justice Department is controlled by people who aren’t racial ideologues, these schools may well be targets of the federal government, too.

            We hope, however, that these schools will agree, without coercion, that racial discrimination                     is illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral. But we aren’t holding our breath.