Oh, So This Is What Ford's Theatre Thinks of President Lincoln
Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., has been preserved by the National Park Service since 1933 as a National Historic Site due to its status as the infamous venue in which President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. But now more than 150 years since Lincoln's assassination, it seems the National Park Service has different thoughts on their duty to preserve and share a piece of consequential American history.
On Saturday, some bureaucrat running the verified National Park Service account dedicated to Ford's theatre shared a question: "Do you ever feel we, as a nation, put Abraham Lincoln 'on a pedestal'?"
Maybe a fair question, although it has an obvious answer — yes we do. There's literally a temple built in his honor on the National Mall, and more than 200 statues of his likeness exist across the country.
The tweet then takes a woke turn: "What do you think might be a more useful, more complex, or more realistic way to think about or memorialize the 16th president?"
Ah.
To most, the reason we literally put Abraham Lincoln on a pedestal is obvious. He held firm in his belief that all men are created equal and carried the nation through a civil war over whether that founding promise should apply to all Americans. In the process he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, defeated the Confederacy, and reunited the country as one. For his steadfastness, he paid with his life, dying shortly after being shot while attending a play at Ford's Theatre, a venue which now turns around to ask if there's a "more realistic way" to remember the American hero some Biden bureaucrat apparently doesn't believe belongs on a pedestal.
Unsurprisingly, the tweet from the people supposed to be preserving a key piece of President Lincoln's story did not play well.
Yes, I do feel we put Abraham Lincoln “on a pedestal.” And appropriately so. If Lincoln doesn’t deserve a pedestal, no one does. That @FordsTheatreNPS of all people/orgs questions this is a sad commentary on the @NatlParkService
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GOP Governors Lead the Way in Economic Recovery
The unemployment rate is on the rise under the watchful eye of President Joe Biden, despite the president's promise to jumpstart the economy as the pandemic continues on. While blue state governors implement lockdown measures that hinder businesses and local economies, red states are leading the way with lower unemployment rates.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the vast majority of states with the lowest unemployment rates are led by GOP governors. The national average unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, and red states rank consistently below that. The mean unemployment rate for Republican-controlled states is 4.2 percent, while the average for blue states is 5.8 percent.
The Republican Governors Association (RGA), looking to elect more GOP governors in 2022, took note of the overwhelming failure by Democrat governors.
"Month after month, history repeats itself with blue states ranking last as they crumble under the weight of their Democrat governor’s bad economic policies," said RGA Communications Director Jesse Hunt. "The consistent, top performance of Republican-led states is no coincidence. The latest unemployment report proves once again Republican governors foster the best environments for business and earning a living while Democrat governors blindly go along with the Biden Administration’s reckless policies and put partisan politics before the people of their states."
The data proves that states controlled by Republicans, that choose open economies over lockdowns, are leading the way in pandemic recovery.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/09/17/red-states-lead-the-way-in-recovery-n2596066
*******************************************Senate parliamentarian deals blow to Dems' immigration push
Democrats can’t use their $3.5 trillion package bolstering social and climate programs for their plan to give millions of immigrants a chance to become citizens, the Senate’s parliamentarian said, a crushing blow to what was the party’s clearest pathway in years to attaining that long-sought goal.
The decision by Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate’s nonpartisan interpreter of its often enigmatic rules, is a damaging and disheartening setback for President Joe Biden congressional Democrats and their allies in the pro-immigration and progressive communities. Though they said they’d offer her fresh alternatives, MacDonough’s stance badly wounds their hopes of unilaterally enacting — over Republican opposition — changes letting several categories of immigrants gain permanent residence and possibly citizenship.
The parliamentarian opinion that emerged Sunday is crucial because it means the immigration provisions could not be included in an immense $3.5 trillion measure that’s been shielded from GOP filibusters. Left vulnerable to those bill-killing delays, which require 60 Senate votes to defuse, the immigration language has virtually no chance in the 50-50 Senate.
In a three-page memo to senators obtained by The Associated Press, MacDonough noted that under Senate rules, provisions are not allowed in such bills if their budget effect is “merely incidental” to their overall policy impact.
Citing sweeping changes that Democrats would make in immigrants’ lives, MacDonough, a one-time immigration attorney, said the language “is by any standard a broad, new immigration policy.”
The rejected provisions would open multiyear doorways to legal permanent residence — and perhaps citizenship — for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children, often called “Dreamers.” Also included would be immigrants with Temporary Protected Status who’ve fled countries stricken by natural disasters or extreme violence; essential workers and farm workers.
Estimates vary because many people can be in more than one category, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says 8 million people would be helped by the Democratic effort, MacDonough said. Biden had originally proposed a broader drive that would have affected 11 million immigrants.
Democrats and their pro-immigration allies have said they will offer alternative approaches to MacDonough that would open a doorway to permanent status to at least some immigrants.
“We are deeply disappointed in this decision but the fight to provide lawful status for immigrants in budget reconciliation continues,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a written statement. “Senate Democrats have prepared alternate proposals and will be holding additional meetings with the Senate parliamentarian in the coming days.”
“A path to permanent residency and citizenship has a significant budgetary impact, great bipartisan support, and above all it is critical to America’s recovery,” said Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the Immigration Hub, a group of pro-immigration strategists. She said work would continue “to ensure that millions of undocumented immigrants can have lasting protections.”
The parliamentarian’s ruling was riling progressives at a time when Democratic leaders will need virtually every vote in Congress from their party to approve a 10-year, $3.5 trillion bill that embodies Biden’s top domestic goals.
It also comes with Republicans already signaling that they will use immigration, linking it to some voters’ fears of crime, as a top issue in next year’s campaigns for control of the House and Senate. The issue has gained attention in a year when huge numbers of immigrants have been encountered trying to cross the Southwest border.
“Democratic leaders refused to resist their progressive base and stand up for the rule of law, even though our border has never been less secure,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky. He said putting the provisions into filibuster-protected budget measure was “inappropriate and I’m glad it failed.”
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North Carolina Judges Strike Down Voter ID Law, Claiming It’s Racist
Two North Carolina judges on Friday struck down a law that required identification to vote, alleging it “was enacted with the unconstitutional intent to discriminate against African American voters.”
The law was enacted in violation of the Equal Protection Clause in North Carolina’s Constitution, the majority of the panel said. The clause says that nobody shall be denied equal protection of the laws nor shall anybody be subjected to discrimination by the state due to race.
Defendants, including North Carolina House Speaker Timothy Moore, failed to show that racial discrimination was not a substantial or motivating factor behind enactment of the law, Superior Court Judges Michael O’Foghludha and Vince Rozier Jr., both Democrats, wrote in a 102-page ruling permanently blocking the measure.
“Other, less restrictive voter ID laws would have sufficed to achieve the legitimate nonracial purposes of implementing the constitutional amendment requiring voter ID, deterring fraud, or enhancing voter confidence,” they said.
The law in question, Senate Bill 824, was enacted after a majority of voters in North Carolina approved it as a constitutional amendment in 2018. Before that, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed the bill and overrode a veto from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
According to previous court rulings, plaintiffs challenging a law in the state must show that discrimination was a “motivating factor” in passing a law, the pair of judges said in their majority decision. That puts the burden on defendants to prove that the law “would have been enacted without this factor,” they added, quoting from a North Carolina Court of Appeals ruling from last year, Holmes v. Moore.
Jabari Holmes and five other voters in the state sued over the law on the same day the legislature overrode Cooper’s veto, noting that a previous voter identification requirement was invalidated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit because it was alleged to be intentionally racially discriminatory, in a decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The bill “unconstitutionally and unjustifiably burdens the right to vote of Plaintiffs and similarly situated registered, qualified North Carolina voters who lack acceptable photo ID when they go to the polls and are subject to a complex process to vote,” the group of voters said in their complaint.
Moore and other defendants charged that the suit should be dismissed because, they said, the law did not violate the state Constitution.
Judge Nathaniel Poovey, third judge on the panel, offered a dissenting opinion in which he highlighted how the law was approved by the voters of the state.
“Presenting some form of identification is a task we must perform quite frequently in everyday life. Adding more familiarity to the process of casting a vote increases the level of certainty in the electoral process. And doing so by requiring the presentation of photographic identification ensures each person offering to vote is who they proclaim to be, thereby increasing confidence in the outcome of each election,” Poovey, a Republican, said.
The evidence showed that “no registered voter in this State will be precluded from voting by the identification requirements in this law,” he added.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which represents the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement that the ruling “Is a testament to the overwhelming evidence, including compelling stories of disenfranchisement from voters themselves, which highlighted how the state’s Republican-controlled legislature undeniably implemented this legislation to maintain its power by targeting voters of color.”
Sam Hayes, general counsel for Moore, the North Carolina House speaker, said in a statement that “Once again, liberal judges have defied the will of North Carolinians on election integrity.”
“This fight is far from over. We look forward to appealing this partisan ruling on behalf of the people of North Carolina,” he added.
Two other lawsuits against the bill are also being considered by courts. A federal suit brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is set to go on trial in January 2022; a separate suit brought on the state level by the association is awaiting a decision on appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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