We have a lot to do here and we’re determined to do it quickly. So buckle yourself in.
The one thing which seems to have come from the leak of the decision in the Dobbs case is what the overturning of Roe v. Wade was always going to produce; namely, a fresh debate on the question of abortion that you’d expect to get when the issue is back in the political sphere.
And what we’ve seen is the same thing we see from the Left on pretty much every issue. They just don’t have good arguments. It’s no wonder all we get from them are attempts to kill the discussion because they lose the discussion.
With Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, the pro-abortion argument was somewhat protected, at least where the national conversation was concerned. We had a very limited set of parameters around abortion that began and ended outside the pro-life formulation and the conversation — at least in a legislative context — never got to the heart of the issue.
But now, all of that is on the table. And there are essentially two arguments the pro-abortion side now has to defend, neither of which they’re good at.
The first has to do with whether aborting a baby is taking a life. They’ve never had a handle on that was any good; back in the 1970s when they thought they’d won the day, it was fuzzy whether you had a viable human being on your hands before birth, but medical science has obliterated that argument in a major way. Everybody willing to consider this question objectively knows that it’s a viable human being long before the natural end of pregnancy.
But the pro-abortion argument wasn’t built on that, so you get what happened when a Texas abortion advocate showed up on Capitol Hill for what was supposed to be a hearing promoting “abortion rights” and got annihilated by Rep. Mike Johnson.
Truly incredible clip
pic.twitter.com/hjTgdoxX6G— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 18, 2022
I’m not just throwing this at you because Mike is a personal friend, one of the best human beings I know, and the writer of the foreword to The Revivalist Manifesto, my book due out somewhere around the end of this month. I have a separate point to offer here, which is what do you do after an exchange like that?
That’s a disaster for the pro-abortion cause, isn’t it? How do you counter the primary pro-life argument, which is that it’s a human life in there and you can’t kill it without being a monster, after taking a loss like what Johnson just dished out?
Does this change the public’s take on abortion? I don’t know. I do know that objectively the pro-abortion side can’t survive it.
The other question, and one where the pro-abortion side might have a little more traction, is this business of women having the right to control what happens in their own bodies. Politically, that’s a better frame than the one which focuses on whether it’s a human being being killed.
That’s what this Aimee Arrambide, who works at some pro-abortion outfit called Avow Texas, which is funded by all the usual people, attempted to establish before Johnson ate her alive.
The argument is that since it’s a woman’s body where all this happens, she should be in control of all of it. And that’s fair. It might not be right, but it’s at least a reasonable place to start the conversation.
Except we are now in a position where we can’t even agree on what a woman is. And the pro-abortion side has allowed that to more or less destroy the argument.
This is dystopic and hilarious at the same time…
Q: "Do you believe that men can become pregnant and have abortions?" –@RepDanBishop
A: "Yes." -Democrat witness pic.twitter.com/TfxboajSJU
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) May 18, 2022
Bear in mind both of these exchanges happened in a hearing that the pro-abortion Democrat House majority called in an effort to promote “abortion rights” in advance of the Dobbs decision being finalized.
You probably haven’t heard much about this. Of course you haven’t. They’ve lost this argument, just like they’ve lost lots of other arguments they don’t want to revisit anymore, and so it’s absent from the news media. The problem is that they control less and less of the conversation. And November is coming.
It was the disgust of parents over the awful performance of schools during the COVID lockdowns engineered by the teachers unions and their allies on school boards which largely fueled the resurgence of the MAGA/revivalist movement across the country.
We know this because we saw what happened in Virginia last year.
But now we have the hard data which backs up the political data. How about this?
A Virginia Department of Education report released Thursday morning slammed the state of the commonwealth’s public schools, saying expectations, standards and academic performance have all been in decline, while the achievement gap among Virginia’s students has grown.
The report, presented Thursday morning by Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow and Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera, also says the state has failed to be transparent about academic failings and calls for an expanded say for parents in public education.
The numbers are horrendous. “Only 38% of Virginia’s fourth graders and 33% of eighth graders were proficient in reading on the 2019 NAEP, compared to 75% and 76%, respectively, on the 2019 state fourth- and eighth-grade SOL reading tests,” the report says.
The parents in Virginia knew. They were drafted into proctoring their kids’ educations, and they recognized a couple of things — first, that the school systems were essentially scamming them and goldbricking their way into all of the tax dollars for a bare minimum of effort. And second, what was supposed to be education was indoctrination into stupid left-wing causes that don’t make these kids ready to succeed in the real world.
People didn’t pay attention before they were stuck having to participate in their kids’ schooling. Once they were, it was a mass wake-up call, and folks who had thought it was harmless to vote for woke Democrats got decidedly red-pilled.
It’s not over. Because the teachers unions and others who are responsible for these test scores haven’t realized the danger they’re in.
For example, here in Louisiana, the Republicans in the state legislature have agreed to throw some of the massive federal swag that’s been sent their way into a $1,500 pay raise for all of the public school teachers in the state. It’s a stupid call for them to do so; Louisiana’s educational performance hasn’t improved, and these aren’t merit pay increases. They’re an across-the-board giveaway that makes zero objective sense. It’s GOP weakness, rather than public policy, which contributes to this decision in the state budget.
Almost hilariously, the teachers are screaming about it. Because $1,500 isn’t $2,000, and that’s what they wanted.
Well, OK, but we’ll see what the voters think about that when the statewide elections come up in 2023.
Shall we lament the short tenure as a mini-potentate of internet speech that poor, poor pitiful Nina Jankowicz had before being dispatched?
Nay, I think not. Miss Nina deserved little else.
The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly “paused” it’s new Disinformation Governance Board, and its director, Nina Jankowicz, has apparently resigned amid a major pushback from conservatives who compared the board to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”
According to the Washington Post, “working groups within DHS focusing on ‘mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended.”
The board was reportedly shut down on Monday, and Jankowicz submitted “a resignation letter in response to the board’s dissolution” Tuesday morning. However, DHS officials reportedly had an urgent call with her Tuesday night, and gave her the option of staying onboard, even if her work was put on hold due to the backlash.
What was so hilarious is that this was first reported by the Washington Post‘s embarrassing digital reporter, Taylor Lorenz — who has made a career complaining about “disinformation” while engaging in it enthusiastically.
Lorenz’s report whined about Jankowicz essentially being canceled by bloggers and tweeters on the Right, and that’s just hilarious given the past couple of years. It’s a sign that there is balance in the universe.
There was another $40 billion package of money to Ukraine which passed the Senate Thursday. What the hell, man?
Eleven Senate Republicans voted on Thursday to defy the Republican and Democrat establishment and oppose a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine.
The Senate voted Thursday afternoon to approve H.R. 7691, the Ukraine Supplemental Aid Package, 86-11. Nearly the entire Senate voted for the gargantuan aid package to the embattled eastern European nation, and notably, only Republicans opposed the legislation to grant tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Ukraine.
The 11 Senate conservatives that voted against the bill cited that America cannot keep spending more of its taxpayer dollars while its people reel from inflation or grapple with baby formula shortages. They also contended that it was not in America’s interest to further instigate conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. Many of them also raised objections to spending $40 billion without proper offsets to the massive spending on foreign aid.
This is nuts. We’re sitting at inflation rates knocking on the door of double figures, if not passing that mark, and we’re supposed to borrow money from China to give to the corrupt regime in Ukraine?
When our friends there are already winning?
Vladimir Putin‘s top security officials understand that the war in Ukraine is ‘lost’ and a coup is now a realistic possibility, a Russian analyst has predicted.
Christo Grozev, a Russia expert, believes GRU and FSB elites are the most likely to try and topple Putin, because they know the truth of what is happening on the ground.
And those elites are already looking for ways to move their money and families out of the country in anticipation of Putin falling, Grozev claims.
Speaking to Radio Liberty about what may spark the coup, Grozev said the moment could come if or when Putin orders his generals to carry out a nuclear strike.
‘If Putin decides to give an order to use nuclear weapons, he must be sure that everyone along the chain will carry out this order,’ he said.
‘If one does not comply, then this will be a signal of insubordination. And perhaps even the physical death of Putin.
‘Until he is sure that everyone will comply, he will not give this order.’
Grozev believes similar fears are preventing Putin from giving the order for a general mobilisation of the Russian armed forces and population.
Such an order would allow him to massively boost troop numbers in Ukraine, perhaps shifting the tide of the war in his favour.
But the order would also cause a ‘social explosion’ among ordinary Russians, Grozev says, because it would mean admitting the ‘special military operation’ – which until now Putin has presented as a resounding success – has failed.
It’s insane to throw more money we don’t have at this when inflation is now a national security issue and the military situation doesn’t warrant it.
We need more Republicans to recognize that and speak out. Thanks to the 11 Republicans in the Senate who have done so — hopefully their colleagues will recognize the truth of their position.
So I’ve mentioned several times that The Revivalist Manifesto is coming out soon. It isn’t the only project I want to mention. Along with the book, there will be a website that will focus on promoting revivalism, or revivalist conservatism — think conservatism going on offense, and distilling the MAGA movement into something which can sustain long-term without needing the personal power of a Donald Trump to drive it — which is on its way to making a debut.
Rvivr.com isn’t up yet, but when it’s live in a couple of weeks it’ll be an interesting mix. It’ll have its own content, and if you’re interested in contributing as a journalist or pundit you’re welcome to contact us about that, but it’ll also be a news aggregator that will seek to replace the Drudge Report now that it has abandoned its core audience. You’ll also find the latest video and podcast highlights, and there will be a lot more than that.
Of course, rvivr.com will be tied inexorably to The Revivalist Manifesto. And it should not surprise you if I’m on a radio or TV show or a podcast soon talking about all this stuff. It’s time to have these conversations in advance of what needs to be a sea change in American politics.
