January 5, 2021 was very rough day for the Republican party. Having lost the U.S. presidency just two months earlier to Joe Biden, the GOP’s prospects of retaining control of the U.S. Senate went down in flames in Georgia, when both incumbent Republican senators — David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — unexpectedly lost their runoff races to Democratic opponents.

I say “unexpectedly,” but the fate of those seats, initially projected to be easy Republican wins (both Perdue and Loeffler had led in the general-election vote counts), started to come into question a few weeks earlier. President Trump had ratcheted up his false claim that his Georgia loss to Biden was the result of a rigged election system, and he very publicly set his sights on Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (both Republicans), pressuring them to do whatever it took to overturn the results.

Kemp and Raffensperger, much to their credit, weathered the pressure (which included numerous threats against them and their families from irate Trump supporters). They held firm to the law, and maintained the integrity of Georgia’s voting system. Unfortunately, enough Republican voters had bought into Trump’s “rigged election” narrative that a significant number of them declined to participate in the runoff election. The result was disastrous for the party. The GOP lost both Senate seats to the Democrats, and with them, the Republican majority they had in the U.S. Senate.

Joe Biden, empowered and emboldened by his party controlling both branches of Congress, went on to pursue a far more progressive agenda than anything he could have hoped for had Mitch McConnell remained Senate Majority Leader. Over those same two years, Trump has made it his mission (sometimes referred to as a “revenge tour”) to unseat Republican officials who stood in the way of his efforts to steal the election. Kemp and Raffensperger topped that list, with Trump often labeling them “RINOs”, “cowards”, and “turncoats”.

Trump recruited David Perdue (yes, the same guy whose Senate seat Trump lost) and endorsed Jody Hice. Both were effectively single-issue “Stop the Steal” candidates who ran respectively against Kemp and Raffensperger in this week’s GOP Georgia primary. The contests promised to be good indicators, outside of crowded and open primaries, of just how influential Trump still is in the Republican party… as well as how many Republicans are still buying his fraudulent election claims.

The answer, at least in Georgia, was devastating for the former president.

Kemp absolutely crushed Perdue, more than tripling the challenger’s votes. Raffensperger won by an impressive margin as well, avoiding a runoff election.

“Georgia Republicans have spoken about how they feel about Trump,” said Saxby Chambliss, former two-term Republican Senator from Georgia.

“The vast majority of Georgians are looking for honest people in elected office,” Raffensperger said in his victory speech. “I think people are tired of the lying and bickering, and they’re tired of the incompetence.”

Georgia-based conservative commentator Erick Erickson expressed similar sentiment last night, tweeting, “Georgia Republicans do like Trump, but they’re tired of his bullshit and want to move on.”

There’s an old saying we’ve all heard before: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

On Tuesday, Georgia Republicans decided they weren’t going to be fooled twice. They rewarded officials for standing up for election integrity, and the state will be better off for it.

Let’s hope Republicans in other states have learned a similar lesson.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty on “Restitution”.

Welcome to episode 4 of The No BS Zone with Bernard Goldberg and John Daly. Today, the two discuss the Sussmann trial, Buffalo shooting blame-game, Supreme Court, and much more!

Show Notes:

– This episode was recorded prior to yesterday’s terrible Texas school shooting, which is why Bernie and John did not comment on it.

Editor’s Note: If you enjoy these video discussions (along with the weekly columns, audio commentaries, and Q&A sessions), please share this page with your friends and family. Thank you!

If an American president has ever given as mendacious, anti-American and hate-filled a speech as President Joe Biden did in Buffalo, New York, last week, I am not familiar with it. Nor are you.

Biden used the terrible mass shooting of black people in a Buffalo grocery store to smear America, divide Americans and foment race-based hatred. A decent man would have given an entirely different speech.

A decent man would have gone to Buffalo and said something like this:

“My fellow Americans, what happened here in Buffalo was pure evil. Let there be no equivocating about this moral fact. If evil exists, what happened here was evil. But, my fellow Americans, this young man and his race-based homicidal hatred represents an infinitesimally small number of Americans, white or otherwise. The overwhelming majority of Americans of every race, ethnicity, and religion get along with each other beautifully. We work alongside each other, date each other, socialize with one another and marry one another. We are the most successful experiment in creating a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country in world history. The actions of a deranged teenager do not change this fact.”

Instead, the hater-in-chief went to Buffalo and said:

“What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that, through the media and politics, the internet, has radicalized angry, alienated and lost individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by ‘the other.’ By people who don’t look like them.

“Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year, in Atlanta. This week, in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York. White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None …

“Look, the American experiment in democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime. It’s in danger this hour. Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America, but who don’t understand America. …

“Now is the time for the people of all races, from every background, to speak up as a majority in America and reject white supremacy …

“We have to refuse to live in a country where black people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause …”

As noted earlier, this was not only a hate-filled speech; it was a speech of the Big Lie. The Big Lie of white supremacy as a major threat to America generally and to black America specifically.

Let’s examine each of the examples of white supremacist mass shootings he gave:

“Charleston, South Carolina”

Seven years ago, Dylann Roof killed nine black worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“El Paso, Texas”

In 2019, a 21-year-old white racist, Patrick Wood Crusius, killed 23 people and wounded 21 others at a Walmart store. The great majority of his victims were Hispanic.

“Pittsburgh”

In 2018, a white antisemite, Robert Gregory Bowers, murdered 11 Jews attending Sabbath services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. As was the case with the Buffalo shooter, Bowers was a deeply troubled man. His father, while on trial for rape, committed suicide when Bowers was 7 years old, and like all the examples Biden cited, he was a troubled loner. Neither he nor any of these other shooters worked in concert with any hate group or co-conspirators.

“Last year in Atlanta”

In 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long killed eight people at three massage parlors. The killings were motivated by his sex addiction and his religious conviction that those who tempted him should be killed. Race had nothing to do with it.

“This week in Dallas, Texas”

Last week in Dallas, Jeremy Smith shot and wounded three women of Asian descent.

Jeremy Smith is a black man.

Why Biden included this shooting as an example of white supremacy is a puzzle. Why no mainstream media I could find noted and condemned this lie is not puzzling.

So, then, our hate-fomenting president mentioned six examples of “white supremacist” shootings. A total of two, one of them seven years ago, involved a white racist shooting black people. One involved a sex addict killing sex workers. One involved a black man shooting Asian people. One involved an antisemite targeting Jews. And one was a black man who shot Asian-Americans.

With these examples, Biden went to a grieving black community to lie to them in order to stir up anger in them about the alleged scourge of white supremacist violence in this country.

At least half of this country knows why Biden did this:

First, to focus Americans’ attention on “white supremacy” rather than on the inflation, looming recession, food crisis and energy crisis he and his party have created with their policies.

Second, to keep black Americans voting Democrat by saying to them, in effect: “You need protection from your fellow hate-filled Americans; we Democrats are your protectors.”

Meanwhile, 9,941 black Americans were killed in 2020. Nearly all were killed by other black people. But to Joe Biden, his party, and the mainstream, i.e., left-wing, media, those black lives don’t matter. At all. Why not? Because they weren’t killed by white supremacists, and they therefore don’t serve the Democrats’ deliberately divisive narrative.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, “No Safe Spaces,” was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

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Last Updated: Monday, May 23, 2022 20:03:37 -0700

Despite what the polls are telling us, inflation, impactful as it is, is not the biggest problem facing us at the moment.   Polarization is. It’s turning Americans against each other. It’s turning everything into a political battle. And even the slaughter of innocent grocery store shoppers in Buffalo isn’t off limits — not as far as Democrats facing tough November elections and some of their media allies are concerned.  

The apparent shooter is an 18-year old white racist who reportedly traveled 200 miles from his home in upstate New York just to kill black people. “Naturally, this has progressives spewing their rote condemnations of systemic racism, Trump supporters, and Republicans generally — when not railing against the availability of guns,” as National Review neatly put it.

And as if to prove the point, Rolling Stone magazine ran a piece under the headline, “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.” To which Laura Ingraham, from Fox News on the other side of the divide, unsurprisingly snapped back, “The gonzo journalists at Rolling Stone say no, no, no, no, no, there are accomplices here: The Republicans. …  It’s so lame, because the real accomplices are in the media. The media that are propping up an administration that has brought this country to its knees with policies making American families poorer every single day. And they’ve tried this tack so many times.”

And then there’s the New York Times, which was busy connecting dots — dots that led from Buffalo to Republicans in general and to Ingraham’s Fox News colleague Tucker Carlson in particular. Here’s how an editorial in the Times explains the connection: “Republican politicians, including some of the party’s top leaders, openly espouse versions of a white supremacist conspiracy theory holding that an orchestrated effort is underway to displace white Americans. … On Saturday, a gunman who said he was motivated by a version of this ‘replacement theory’ killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store, officials said.” 

As for Carlson’s supposed link to the mass murder, the Times has this to say: “The Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a leading purveyor of replacement theory rhetoric, has promoted the idea that elites are seeking to replace white Americans on more than 400 episodes of his program, according to an analysis by The New York Times.”

I’m no fan of Tucker Carlson or his wild theories. I think he’s often irresponsible in what he says on Fox. Last year, he said, for example, that liberals are “trying to replace the current electorate with new, more obedient voters from the Third World.”  

But even if the shooter in Buffalo believes the same thing, there’s not a shred of evidence that he ever watched a single episode of Carlson’s show or was influenced by anything Carlson ever said. In fact, he wrote a 180 page hate-filled manifesto and doesn’t mention Carlson even once. But Carlson’s critics would have us somehow believe that he bears some responsibility for what happened at the supermarket in Buffalo?  

And Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party’s leader in the Senate just couldn’t resist politicizing the Buffalo massacre. “Every time MAGA Republicans or pundits vilify wrongly immigrants and call them invaders,” he said, “every time they falsely claim that millions of undocumented people cast ballots in our elections, and every time loud bigoted voices bemoan the disintegration of an imagined ‘classic’ America, the subtext is clear: these hard-right MAGA Republicans argue that people of color and minority communities are somehow posing a threat—a threat—to the American way of life.” And then he got to the punchline: “This is replacement theory in a nutshell.”

And, as the Wall Street Journal reminded its readers, because liberal media outlets aren’t interested in such things: “The media’s massacre blame-game also goes only one way. When a deranged black man ran down white grandmothers at a Waukesha, Wis., holiday parade, the media soon turned away from the awful story. President Biden didn’t show up and claim America is at risk of losing its democracy, as he did in Buffalo on Tuesday.

“When a Bernie Sanders supporter and MSNBC aficionado nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise at a baseball practice in 2017, no one sensible blamed the anti-Republican rhetoric of Mr. Sanders or MSNBC for the gun violence. No one sensible did this because they realized the men who pulled the trigger or drove the SUV in Waukesha are responsible for their actions.”

We’ve moved on from reasonable disagreements between the right and the left. The very idea seems quaint. We’re now in what feels like a constant state of confrontation where, as I say, everything is a political battle. So should we really be surprised that partisans are politicizing a horrible tragedy in Buffalo? I’d be surprised if they didn’t. I mean, who wants to let a crisis go to waste, right?

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Now, let’s get to your questions (and my answers):

I’m sure you’re correct [in Monday’s column], Sir Bernie (if I were king, I surely would have knighted you by now). However there is this nettlesome issue going on… reality. I just got back from a quick trip to the store and noticed that regular gas had risen .25 since 5 PM to 4.39…. at a RaceTrack … in Texas….and surely much worse in other places. There is a 50% supply shortage on baby formula in the state, affecting young voters the DNC fancies itself attracting. Groceries are reaching a prohibitive level for the most vulnerable while there are shootings in Dallas several times a week. People tend to focus on the visible over the theoretical. Therefore the strategy is certainly headed toward a frustrating end. Traps work best when the prey seems unaware that the tasty looking bait might lead to a snappy conclusion. Maybe we should let them? Just a thought… — Jesse B.

Thanks for considering me for Knighthood, Jesse. I’m not suggesting that running on abortion will be a winner for Democrats. All I’m saying is that it likely will energize the Democratic base. And for those who care deeply about abortion rights, the issue isn’t theoretical. I’m still betting on a GOP victory in November — at least in the House. Not sure about the Senate.

Bernie- Like you, I enjoy reading Gerard Baker’s WSJ columns. In his piece today commenting on the PA Republican Senatorial Primary, he states: “It has been obvious for some time that if the GOP can find a genuine standard-bearer for this ascendant conservative populism, short of the vulgar narcissism of the former president, the lunatic extremism of the QAnon crowd, and the transparent implausibility of neophyte MAGA types, it would have a winning formula. If it could find someone who hadn’t conveniently recently discovered the damage from globalization, the tragedies of a hyperactive foreign policy, the injustice of soft-border immigration policy, and the erosion of the traditional values of American life without sounding like an anticonstitutional conspiracy theorist, that candidate would be a sure—and authentic—winner.” — Joseph R.

Short answer, Joseph: I think he’s spot on!

Bernie, Any chance we can get access to the segments you did on Real Sports? You did one of the best pieces ever on “Stud Fees” in horse racing and I cannot find it anywhere. Not to mention the segments on Trump’s golf course in Scotland and so many more…. — Richard M.

Thanks very much Richard. I appreciate the kind words. Your best is to go to HBO’s YouTube channel, and do a search on my name. Here are two links to help you out: one and two. But as a rule, HBO doesn’t like giving away content for free, so good luck.

As a centrist Democrat I’ve felt abandoned by the failure of Democratic government to maintain law and order, and to maintain a decent economy by not burdening businesses with ever more regulation and taxes. I don’t feel alone. I see that Elon Musk is saying he’s going to vote Republican for the first time. It won’t be my first time, but it seems to me Democrats are throwing away a big opportunity to govern as centrists and paint the Rs as crazy and I don’t think a Supreme Court ruling on abortion will change that. Is centrism doomed in America? — John R.

If the Dems lose you, John, it’ll be their fault — for caving into to the progressives. As for centrism: It’s not dead in general elections but it’s on life support in primaries because a disproportionate number of hyper-partisans vote in primaries. FOR THE RECORD: I’m NOT saying that everyone who votes in primaries is a right or left wing screwball. I’m saying that hyper partisans vote in big numbers in primaries — and when they pick an extreme candidate, it’s an uphill battle in the general election.

The good news is that Madison Cawthorn lost his GOP primary race in NC. The bad news is that — despite making up stories about cocaine orgies, calling Ukraine’s president a “thug”, carrying loaded guns onto planes, encouraging people to “lightly threaten” members of Congress, driving with a revoked license, shown on video nakedly humping his cousin, and facing multiple accusations of insider trading and sexual harassment — he nearly pulled it out and won. I would argue that Trump’s endorsement of him is what kept him in the race, because I don’t know what else would have. Your thoughts? — Ben G.

Cawthorn was running against a bunch of opponents (not sure how many, but probably 6 or so) … and I suspect they split the vote … and he may have been the only name they heard of without knowing much else about him. But .. in some parts of his district the Trump endorsement probably helped. Also, North Carolina has an open primary, so we can’t discount the possibility that some Dems voted for him hoping he’d win the primary but lose the general.

I must say as a resident of Oregon, there are many of us here that don’t like this idiotic woke-ness. There are lots of good people in this state believe it or not. Hopefully, we can turn things around though I decline to hold my breath. — Thomas C.

I’m sure there are plenty of sensible, good people in Oregon, Thomas. But the majority wins in elections and Oregon has a knack for electing progressives who worship at the altar of woke. I hope you really can turn things around, but like you, I’m not holding my breath.

So another dreadful mass shooting has occurred, this time at a TOPS Supermarket in Buffalo New York, by a vile and wicked white supremacist. Let me say up front that I look forward to hearing him get sent to a pre-dominantly black prison, but as a Christian, I sincerely do hope that he has that eventual “Come To Jesus” moment that he needs. Let me also say that I feel for the families of all those innocent victims who were attacked by the scum bag. However, I can’t help thinking that the mainstream media members and the Biden Administration, while truly shocked and horrified by this tragedy, are also absolutely delighted that it was an admitted white supremacist this time. Why? Well because recently when a Muslim took hostages at a synagogue in Texas, when a black racist threw a smoke bomb on a New York City subway and then shot a bunch of people, when a black supremacist ran over a bunch of white people at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and This past weekend when a Taiwanese Presbyterian Church was shot up by an Asian scum bag (with NO cries to stop the Asian hate from the usual suspects), for some odd reason not only were guns blamed (and not black racism and those who propagate it NOT called out by the mainstream media members), but Joe Biden oddly enough didn’t have time to visit those areas to comfort the grieving (at least that’s what Jen Psaki claims). Well Jeepers Mister, now WHY do ya suppose THAT might be!? Your thoughts? –“Never Let A Crisis GO To Waste When It Benefits Left Wing Democrats” regards from The Emperor

We’re on the same page, Emperor. My column that will be posted on Monday is not only on this very subject, but some of the lines in my column are lines in your comment above. Check it out, Your Holiness.

Bernie, I saw the other day that Dolly Parton awarded your old path Dan Rather the Peabody Career Achievement Award for battling “disinformation” and “division” that permeate the country. I think it would have been more appropriate if she’d awarded him the biggest boob award. What are your thoughts on this? –Bruce C.

My thoughts about Dan are complex.  He has many good qualities. But he won’t … or can’t …take serious criticism about journalism seriously. As for the award: There’s a bit of irony at work here because of that infamous CBS News story that came to be known as either memogate or … Rathergate.

Two items.

One, the Oregon situation is stupid. They are over thinking this a lot.

Second item is about the racially based killings in Buffalo, New York, from a Republican standpoint in this time of no CRT in school hysteria, in this age of denial that there is white supremacy or racial problems in this country: How do you imagine teachers explain to their students what has just happened? If you can’t talk about issues that are racially based because someone may feel bad, and you cannot point out what this one particular white man implemented (a plan to specifically kill black people because of the color of their skin), do you think that schools should just ignore the issue? And act like nothing happened and we live in this wonderful utopian society? — Douglas S.

I think schools should tell kids what happened (in a class that deals with current events) … but if they’re in kindergarten or first grade I think teachers need to be very careful on how they explain it — if they need to explain it at all. A kid in high school can grasp things in a way a much younger child can’t. But if you’re asking should they ignore it, no. Nor do I think they should make generalizations about race that progressives might like. Does racism exist, of course. In a country of more than 330 million it’s bound to exist. Is America a “systemically racist” country? Not in my opinion. And just as we don’t want teachers to pander to the right, they shouldn’t pander to the left either and say racism is everywhere (as a colleague of mine once said on national television.).

[Regarding this week’s Off the Cuff]…, Or how about this: make the tampons/napkins available IN THE OFFICE, like they were when I was in school? — Gwen B.

Stop being so logical, Gwen.

Bernie, Oregon has always led the way in weirdness. Do you remember the community where everyone dressed in Red? They took over almost an entire county as I recall. I even remember the lady who was on Donohue. I can’t remember the name of the group, but I do recall the community. Now I know we have a lot of sects in this country and that is what a free country will assuredly always have. This is one example of how a state with otherwise intelligent people can be duped into ridiculous ideals. — Charles M.

I’m not letting the folks in Oregon off the hook, Charles. They voted for these whackos. They had a choice. If they don’t like what’s going on in the state, I’m sure they could find a candidate who agrees with them.

Bernie, a few years ago, Tucker Carlson used his show to slam Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson for mocking Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw’s use of an eye-patch (that covers Crenshaw’s war-sustained injury).

Then, earlier this week, Carlson himself mocked Crenshaw’s eye-patch, referring to him as “eye-patch McCain” when criticizing the congressman’s pro-Ukraine stance.

Do you think testicle tanning is behind Carlson’s reversal on Crenshaw and his eye-patch?  — John D.

Maybe. I’m not a medical expert but as I understand it tanning your testicles can make you nuts (pause while that sinks in) … which may explain not only the eye patch example but a lot of other nutty stuff he says.

Thanks, everyone! You can send me questions for next week using the form below! You can also read previous Q&A sessions by clicking here.