Dems’ Comparison to Pearl Harbor Bombs
It was a mistake, the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin quipped, that “should live in political infamy.”
Restraint doesn’t come easy for Democratic leaders. When the chance came to rub the January 6th riot in Republicans’ faces, they couldn’t help themselves. They went too far. Despite a year of plotting and scheming, the desperate Left overplayed its hand on the Capitol mob – turning a moment that could have been to their political advantage into yet another reason the American people see the Democrats as unfit to lead.
There were prayer vigils, hourly speeches, and a cable news network devoted to replaying the worst January 6th moments on a 24-hour loop. And still, their messaging failed. By the time Vice President Kamala Harris stood up and absurdly put January 6th in the ranks of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, the Left had lost its audience entirely. “Certain dates echo throughout history,” Harris said, “including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them where they were, and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault – dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory: December 7, 1941, September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021.”
It was a mistake, the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin quipped, that “should live in political infamy.” And to viewers, it was further proof (not that they needed it) that this White House has become completely unglued. The Left’s hyperbole had been over-the-top all day, to be sure, but equating the deaths of more than 5,300 people to one tragic loss at last year’s riot is, as one conservative called it, “a deeply delusional comparison.” The blowback was so severe that Press Secretary Jen Psaki was sent in to clean up the mess, arguing (somewhat ridiculously) that the critics of Harris’s remarks need to stop talking and start getting involved in “solving the threats of democracy…”
In so many ways, Goodwin warned, what Democrats have done by likening their opponents to Osama bin Laden or other enemies of the state, is “a far greater danger to democracy than anything that happened on that fateful day.” And according to pollsters, most Americans didn’t see the storming of the Capitol as an insurrection anyway. In a survey that CBS went to great lengths to bury, 76 percent of the country believes that January 6th was not an effort to overthrow the government – but instead a “protest that went ‘too far.’”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who I was with when the events of last January were unfolding, agreed that it was not “America’s finest moment.” But that doesn’t excuse the dangerous distortions the Left is using to hang on to its political power. “[T]o hear some in Washington talk today about how this puts our democracy at risk, misunderstands our nation, its strength, the courage, and patriots that I see out there every day America has survived much, much more difficult challenges than the horrible rioting that took place on January 6th.”
Ironically (or more likely providentially), the secretary and I were praying together on that day – in part, because we felt like the nation has a lot of work to do. One year later, those divisions and challenges have only gotten worse, thanks, in large part, to the vindictive, demagogical leadership we have today. “It seemed pretty apparent to me,” Pompeo said, “that [Democrats] have chosen to try to take [January 6], nickname it an insurrection, and create a storyline that will help them be successful in elections in November… As a practical matter, I don’t think that’s going to work. I think the American people can see through that. I think people have made their decisions about how they’re going to think about that day – and [trying to exploit it] is not the right thing for leaders to do. We shouldn’t politicize riots. We should stop them.”
Speaking of politicization, Pompeo continues to rail against the idea of the U.S. sending athletes to the Beijing Olympics, accusing the administration of helping to “whitewash the image of China.” Honestly, he argued, “the world’s leaders have let these athletes down. They trained for decades for this moment,” Pompeo said ruefully, and the Games are being organized by “the Chinese machine, which is conducting genocide against Uyghur Muslims in the West at a scale that we haven’t seen since the 1930s. It’s putting media people in jail in Hong Kong. And it foisted a virus upon the world that’s killed millions. And now, it’s going to be hosted by a leader, Xi Jinping, who will stand on this prominent stage and use his propaganda tools to continue to threaten the people.”
His passion for the innocent people of China – and the rest of the world’s persecuted – was one of the hallmarks of Pompeo’s leadership. In fact, one of the last things he did was to formally label the systematic torture and oppression of the Uyghurs “genocide.” Now, more than a year later, that effort is starting to bear fruit, as big companies like Walmart and Sam’s Club try to disentangle their goods and supply lines from anything tainted by slave labor.
“I want to applaud every member of Congress who voted for the Uyghur [Forced] Labor Protection Act,” Pompeo interjected. “It [passed with] bipartisan big numbers. It’s glorious. It’s America recognizing that these things matter – that human rights matter, that we’re not going to let the Chinese Communist Party coerce us into allowing this activity to take place in a way that that is a moral stain on the United States of America. So good on them for getting that done now. I hope it will be enforced incredibly rigorously, and I hope business leaders who are making an awful lot of money in China will come to see that there’s an enormous risk from doing business there.”
These are the things our country can accomplish when we stand together – when we resist the urge to treat our fellow Americans as enemies and rally around the common values people care about. Right now, the leaders of the Democratic Party don’t seem interested in fighting for anything but power. That’s a shame, because not only are they going to lose that, they’re going to miss the opportunity to be a part of something greater: America’s comeback.
Originally published here.
Military Works to Boot Christian ‘Extremists’ from Its Ranks
January 6 was a convenient background for a lot of Democrats, but especially the ones in Joe Biden’s Department of Defense. To them, it was a chance to highlight the dangers of conservatives – and fight to get them out of the ranks, once and for all.
Gearing up to the riot’s one-year anniversary in December, Press Secretary John Kirby warned that new rules on “extremist activity” were coming. “As Secretary [Lloyd] Austin has emphasized, the department is focused on prohibited activity, not on a particular ideology thought or political orientation. The department has always maintained a distinction between thoughts and actions.” So they say. But behind the camouflage, FRC’s Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin argues, is a different agenda entirely. And it’s not about weeding out extremism – it’s about weeding out the people of faith and principle.
“First of all,” he warned, “nobody in the [DOD] can define extremism. And because this is so ill-defined and because there are so many nebulous things associated with [it], what you’re going to see is that they’re going to start adding to it. And even though they say that they’re not after ideology – they’re not after people’s ideas or people’s faith or people’s leanings politically – that’s just simply not true. [They’re] going to start adding groups like ours – the Family Research Council – as an ‘extremist group,’ telling our troops, ‘You cannot be associated with them, because we stand [things like] biblical marriage.”
How does he know? Because it’s happened before. Remember, Joe Biden served under Barack Obama for eight years – and in that time, the duo turned America’s government into one of the most vicious, anti-faith institutions the country had ever seen. During the wave of “diversity training” in Obama’s second term, organizations like the American Family Association were on a hit list of “hate groups” that service members were ordered not to follow or engage. If they did, there would be consequences. If you’re associated with them, the military said, you’re risking a court-martial and dishonorable discharge.
So this isn’t an empty threat. It’s not hypothetical. It’s already happened. Only now, unfortunately, it’s starting to progress. Thanks to radical groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who’ve partnered with the Biden administration in this extremist witch hunt, it’s not going to stop with organizations like American Family Association, Family Research Council, or Alliance Defending Freedom. Under the Defense Department’s new regulation, just released before Christmas, anyone with a natural view of “gender identity or sexual orientation” or any other biblical truth that is politically incorrect could be labeled as an extremist.
Consider what these new regulations will eventually do to chaplains who are endorsed by religious denominations that actually believe the Bible. These chaplains will silence themselves on a growing list of “untouchable” issues or they will be silenced by the military for these teaching, which they’ve labeled “extreme.”
General Boykin has seen a lot of things, but he says he’s “more concerned about our military today” than he’s ever been in his life. He points to the vaccine mandates and the good people our country is losing. “We’re recruiting the wrong people, and we’re [kicking] out the right people. We’re upside-down in the military today, and this is going to destroy our [force] if somebody doesn’t step in and turn this around. And I hope that will be Congress in 2022, when [Republicans] retake the House and Senate.”
Until then, he agrees, there’s an intentional effort to purge conservatives from the ranks, and we need to stop it. Without a viable military, we live in a vulnerable America. And obviously, if Democrats can’t succeed in abolishing our force, like the Marxist squad wants, then they’ll settle for the next best thing: hallowing it out until it’s nothing but an empty shell.
We can’t sit on the sidelines and watch. We’ve got to be engaged – and even more so now, when things aren’t going the direction we want. When we see these threats against our freedoms, it’s all the more reason to be active, informed, and hopeful – because we’re anchored in the truth. And that hope doesn’t change. It doesn’t come around every four years. It’s new every morning as we see the glory and goodness of the Lord.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
