Breitbart Economics Editor John Carney discusses the real state of former President Donald Trumpβs finances.
The post Breitbart News Daily Podcast Ep. 506: Breitbart Economics Editor John Carney on Donald Trumpβs Finances appeared first on Breitbart.
Anti-Squatter Activist Flash Shelton joins host Mike Slater to discuss the rising rates of squatters in America and the efforts to address the problem.
The post Breitbart News Daily Podcast Ep. 503: Anti-Squatter Activist Flash Shelton on Americaβs Potential Dystopian Squatter Future appeared first on Breitbart.
This weekβs episode could be mistaken for the Three Martini Happy Hour, because this weekβs installment comes with a tangy twist. John Yoo is away this week, so we brought in a ringer to take his place: Prof. Hadley Arkes! Thus this episode become a Positivism-Free Zone, in which we review the deepest ground of the natural law unencumbered by Johnβs usual alarums, excursions, and errors.
The episode comes in three parts: Hadley made some news yesterday, celebrating the retirement of the noted Notre Dame Law professor Gerard V. Bradley, who will be joining Hadley at theΒ James Wilson Institute on Natural Law and the American Founding.
From there Hadley proceeds to answering the question that weβve been kicking around ever since the Dobbs decision, namely, just how should pro-life politicians break out of their self-imposed muteness about abortion. Hadley has the strategy.
Finally, we spend some time toward the end getting down some of Hadleyβs βorigin storyβ that brought him to Leo Straussβs classroom at the University of Chicago back in the 1960s, and key friendships made along the wayβespecially our late friend and unsung hero Michael Uhlmann.
Note: We had some internet glitches while recording this episode that werenβt easily edited or smoothed over, so we ask listenersβ indulgence with these hiccups, in return for which weβre presenting this installment ad-free.
As usual, listen here, or at our hosts at Ricochet when it goes live there.
FIRST ON DAILY SIGNAL: A District of Columbia library sought to engage a drag queen with a criminal background to perform at pride-themed Drag Story Hours for children.
A staff member at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library solicited drag queen Latrice Royale, otherwise known as Timothy Wilcots, to sing and dance in drag before children, according to an email obtained by the Heritage Foundationβs Oversight Project (The Daily Signal is Heritageβs news outlet).
According to that May 17, 2023, email, the library employee was under the impression that the LGBTQ organization the Human Rights Campaign would pay the drag queenβs travel fees and $10,000 performance fee. Wilcots ultimately proved too pricey for the event, the HRCβs Brandon Hooks shared in a later email (neither Hooks nor the HRC responded to requests for comment).
βBefore I ping her manager again, I just want to make sure HRC would be able to cover 10k fee plus, hotel, ground, and air. Please let me know if this is possible,β wrote the libraryβs youth services manager, Paula Langsam. The library did not immediately address The Daily Signalβs inquiries.
That email was addressed to both Hooks and Amy Oden of the HRC. The emailβs subject line read: βPride Family Day at MLK Update.β
Wilcots, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment, was previously arrested and incarcerated for possession of oxycodone, clonazepam, cannabis, and ecstasy,Β court records show.
Wilcots has described his time in prison in a number of media interviews since then.
The libraryβs interest in Wilcots, despite his criminal background, underscores concerns that drag queen story hour organizers are failing to perform background checks on the adults who dress in drag and read LGBTQ books to children at drag queen story hours.
Wilcots is a biological man who stands at 6 feet, 4 inches tall, weighing almost 400 pounds. When dolled up and wearing heels, one media report says, Wilcots βtowers close to seven feet tall.β He is legally married to a man, describes himself as βlarge and in charge chunky yet funky bold and beautiful,β and has over a million followers on social media.
Drag queen story hoursΒ beganΒ as niche events on the West Coast that spread to libraries and schools across the U.S. The official Drag Queen Story Hour website boasts of almost 50 independently operated chapters across the U.S., including in New York City, D.C., and Chicago, as well as two international chapters in Tokyo and in Berlin.
According to theΒ Drag Queen Story Hourβs official website, the events are designed to be about 45 minutes long for children aged 3 to 8 years old and intended to capture childrenβs imagination and help children explore their gender fluidity through βglamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.β
For example, The Daily Signal previously reported that drag queen βVV Majestyβ led a Capital Pride Alliance drag queen story hour in Washington, D.C., where βVV Majestyβ read a book about a trans-identifying little boy to toddlers.
The drag queen was dressed in a voluminous tulle princess dress with a black bodice and an exposed red braβa βfairy rose princess,β as the drag queen told The Daily Signal. He also sported a long black wig, a three-horned crown with red paper roses on it, and a large glittery necklace.
Critics on both sides of the aisle have expressed strong concerns about lasciviously dressed men, often in corsets, heels, wigs, and heavy makeup, reading books about gender ideology to very young children.
These concerns are heightened by news reports, such as the arrest of a Milwaukee judge on child pornography charges. That judge was the former president of an organization sponsoring Drag Queen Story Hour
The Justice Department sentenced Brett Blomme in December 2021 to nine years in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release for distributing child pornography showing abuse of young boys. At his sentencing, District Judge James Peterson described the child pornography that Blomme was distributing as βthe worst of the worst.β
Drag queens who perform for children at story hours insist that they are well intentioned.
βIβm a nonviolent offender, not a child molester, or a pedophile,β Wilcots reportedly said in an interview with NewNowNext. βI wasnβt standing in front of schools targeting kids.βΒ
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailΒ letters@DailySignal.comΒ and weβll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular βWe Hear Youβ feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The post EXCLUSIVE: DC Library Sought to Hire Ex-Felon for Drag Queen Story Hour appeared first on The Daily Signal.
When veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen surveyed a group of Americans he calls the elite 1% earlier this year, he discovered a startling number who say itβs OK to win an election by cheating.
The elite 1%βindividuals who make over $150,000 a year, live in densely populated areas, and have postgraduate degreesβare overwhelmingly liberal. They give President Joe Biden an 82% approval rating, compared to his 40% average from the rest of Americans.
Rasmussen asked these liberal voters: βSuppose that your favorite candidate loses a close election. However, people on the campaign know that they can win by cheating without being caught. Would you rather have your candidate win by cheating or lose by playing fair?β
Among all Americans, just 7% said they would want their candidate to win by cheating. But that number rose to 35% among the elite 1% and skyrocketed to 69% among those who are part of the politically obsessed 1%, meaning they talk about politics every day.
βIβve been polling for a very long time and the last finding is the most terrifying poll result Iβve ever seen,β Rasmussen told The Daily Signal.
Rasmussen spoke to βThe Daily Signal Podcastβ about his findings and his upcoming plans for a weekly TV show. Listen to the full interview or read an edited transcript below.
Rob Bluey: Your firm, RMG Research, takes a different approach to polling and public opinion, trying to understand where voters stand on key issues. Youβve coined the term counterpolling. Tell us what that means.
Scott Rasmussen: Counterpolling is designed literally to counter misleading information thatβs that comes out from a lot of establishment polls. Our belief is that most public opinion polling that comes out of Washington is presented and analyzed in the language of a Georgetown cocktail party. They use words that nobody else in America uses.
We go out and we make a strong effort to ask questions in the language of everyday Americans. We respect voters. We think they are intelligent. We have great hopes for the commonsense wisdom of the American people, but we also know they have better things to do with their lives than talk politics every day.
Bluey: It reminds me of after the 2016 presidential election when so many media organizations had a reckoning that they were out of touch with everyday Americans.
Rasmussen: We start by trying to understand. We donβt want to get into the innards of what you think about this policy detail vs. that policy detail. We want to know their attitudes. We want to know because that is something that is constant.
Iβve been polling on immigration for decades. And you know whatβs never changed. About 80% of Americans say legal immigration is good for America and about 80% say illegal immigration is bad for America. Thatβs constant.
Bluey: One of the polls you did recently was on what you call the elite 1%. Can you give us some toplines on what you learned?
Rasmussen: The elite 1 % are people who make at least $150,000 a year. They live in a densely populated urban area, more than 10,000 people per square mile. And they have a postgraduate degree.
That last one is very important. We hear a lot about the diploma divideβthat people with a college degree are more Democratic. Actually, itβs the postgrads who are different. The gap between postgraduates and people with a bachelorβs degree is often bigger than the gap between people with a bachelorβs and without a bachelorβs degree.
The elite 1% represent 1% of the population. They are extraordinarily influential. A heavy concentration of them went to one of 12 elite schools. The reason I bring that up is about half the policy positions in government, half the corporate board positions in America, are held by people who went to one of these dozen schools.
Their views really play a large role in the country, and it all feeds into this elite 1%.
They are in power centers. Somebody who is in Manhattan or Washington, D.C., is in a different circle of public influence than somebody who lives in McKinney, Texas.
If youβre thinking of whoβs shaping the mainstream media narrative, itβs this group.
Bluey: The biggest headline for me was what this group thinks about the issue of cheating in elections. Can you unpack that one for us?
Rasmussen: We asked voters, 1,000 voters, to suppose there was an election and it was close but your candidate lost. And if their campaign team knew they could win by cheating and not get caught, would you want them to do so?
Among voters, only 7% say theyβd rather cheat than win. I wish it was 1% or 2%, but 7% is not bad. Among the elite 1%, 35% would rather cheat than win. Then among a group that we call the politically obsessed eliteβpeople who are not only in the elite 1%, but they talk politics every dayβ69% of them would rather cheat to win the election.
Itβs because they donβt have much respect for the opinions of voters.
Bluey: What are their views on government compared to the general population?
Rasmussen: Letβs start with a very simple one. Most Americans think we donβt have enough individual freedom. Among the elite 1%, about half say, βNo, weβve got too much freedom.β And among that politically obsessed group, about 7 out of 10 say, βThereβs too much individual freedom in America.β
Thatβs just mindboggling to me, but part of the reason is because they trust government. In America, itβs been 50 years since most voters trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. But among the elite 1%, 70% trust the government.
When I look at all the data, thereβs a sense that most of us believe in government βof the people, by the people, and for the people.β And I think they would say, itβs of and by the elites that is whatβs best for the people. They really believe that if they could just make the decisions and get us out of the way, we would be a lot better off.
Bluey: As somebody whoβs been in the polling business for a long time, what is it that keeps you going?
Rasmussen: I remain convinced that most of the polling data is misleading. Most of the data that guides the polling narrative is misleading. And as someone who believes deeply in our nationβs founding values, I want to lift up the voice of the people so loudly that it canβt be ignored in this city.
Thatβs the objective. We want to transform the debate. We want to help people see most Americans still embrace those founding ideals.
It just offends me to no end to see this misleading impression of the American people. And by the way, as a people, we are far more united than we are politically. In our day-to-day lives, thereβs an awful lot of unity and common ground.
Bluey: On April 7, βThe Scott Rasmussen Showβ will premiere. Could you give us some details on the show and where people can tune in to watch?
Rasmussen: Itβs going to be on the Merit Street Media, which is Dr. Philβs new television network. Itβll be available everywhere. And Iβm sure that theyβll have something on the website to tell you about specifics in your local area.
The show came about because of the counterpolling concept and because of my belief that most Americans still believe in those founding ideals and traditional values.
The show is going to be a lot of politics because as a pollster you canβt get away from that. But weβre also going to touch on other things. Weβll do some holiday types of stories and how people are reacting to cultural twists.
My favorite polling question every year is about New Yearβs Eve. Most people are shocked to learn that more Americans pray than drink on New Yearβs Eve. Now, thatβs because a lot of Americans pray every day. Itβs not because theyβre out there just on that one day. Thatβs just a different perspective of the world. And we want to highlight that. Again, itβs all part of lifting the voice of the American people up so loudly that you canβt ignore it.
The post βMost Terrifying Poll Result Iβve Ever Seenβ: Scott Rasmussen Surveys Americaβs Elite 1% appeared first on The Daily Signal.