BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG -
The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four F’s: faith, family, freedom and fairness.
The Democratic Party is the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer).
I resolve to be unafraid to embrace my freedom of speech as guaranteed to me -- and all Americans -- by the First Amendment to our United States Constitution.
The reason for my resolution:
I believe we must have the freedom to express a difference of opinion and, unless rallying people to violence, there is no "hate" speech. Indeed, some people may feel uncomfortable by speech they deem "offensive" but so what? The offended persons are not otherwise impaired and their "feelings" have no precedent over the universal right to freedom of speech. And yes, you can yell "fire" in a crowded theater but you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of legal prosecution for any harm you cause. This reality underpins why free speech is a universal right.
Here is my first expression of my freedom of speech:
I'm a capitalist/conservative and I do not agree with socialist/progressive ideology.
So, what prompted me to make this pronouncement?
In essence, while listening to a radio program, I heard a caller who identified himself as a "socialist progressive" opine that Americans who believe in "capitalism" are evil because our "capitalist nation" embraced slavery.
As is attributed to Voltaire, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it." This sentiment expressed by Voltaire that I espouse captures the essence of upholding freedom of speech even when you don't agree with the opinion being expressed.
Here is why I disagree, respectfully, with that caller.
I was born and reared in a Southern state, Georgia, and during my formative years, I was taught to believe that slavery was an evil institution that was unique to America. Even so, I was taught to love our country because, despite the stain of slavery, America is also the land of freedom and opportunity.
I was encouraged to get a good education and work hard so that I could rise above the impoverished conditions into which I was born. To make a long story short, I followed that advice which is why I was able to reach my current level of accomplishment. For those who are interested, my brief biography is posted at this link.
After having spent twenty years of my life in the military, serving my country starting in 1964, mostly when it was tough being a woman, and a black one at that, in a male-dominated combat-oriented world, I decided to spend my retirement years relaxing and enjoying life.
However, I became concerned when I observed that, in recent years, black children were being taught to hate America and view themselves as victims of racial oppression that had not ended since the days of slavery. As a consequence, they were no longer being encouraged to get a good education and work hard to achieve success.
In response, I began an educational campaign to inspire at-risk youth to succeed by delving into the annals of black history and uncovering stories of successful black Americans, like myself, who had persevered and achieved in the face of obstacles.
During my journey of discovery, I uncovered information about the ancient origins of slavery, including the fact that slavery did not start in 1619. It began with kings. Whenever you had the first king on top you had slaves on the bottom. All ancient cultures made slaves of those captured in battle, as seen in Babylon, Persia, Greece, China, India, and Africa. This slavery history capsule is included on my new website along with a more detailed article, The History of Slavery: "Revelations" by Historian Bill Federer, at this link.
Here is the list of topics that are covered briefly in Federer's article as posted on my website with illustrative images provided by me:
The Ancient Origins of Slavery
Slavery in America
A Black Man Owned the First Life-Time Slave
England's Irish Slaves
The Triangle Slave Trade
Native American Slave Owners
The Abolition Movement: Birthed Out of Christianity
The End of Slavery in America
The Amistad
The Political Battle to End Slavery
The Emancipation Proclamation
Modern-Day Slavery
Posted also on my website are these topics:
The Two Civil Rights Eras: A Comparison
- The Civil Rights Movement of the 1800s (1865–1896)
- The Modern Civil Rights Movement (1954-1964)
Civil Rights: Myths and Facts Articles (with links to the posted articles)
The 69-year-old actor was baptized and received his minister's license in New York City's historic Kelly Temple.
Denzel Washington has become a minister after claiming that actors “can’t talk” about religion in Hollywood.
On Saturday, Dec. 21, the 69-year-old was baptized and received his minister’s license in New York City’s Kelly Temple. The news was confirmed by Archbishop Christopher Bryant in a Facebook post.
“We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister’s license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment,” wrote Bryant. The archbishop noted that the Oscar-winning actor donned a white robe because “in the same service, he received water baptism.”
Bryant added that the Kelly Temple is “a place close to [Washington’s] heart” as he “attended the church as a child and testified to being filled with the Holy Spirit after visiting another church” with Richard Townsend in the 1980s.
“It took a while, but I’m finally here,” Washington said during the ceremony, according to Bryant. “If [God] can do this for me, there’s nothing He can’t do for you. The sky literally is the limit.”
Facebook Post
Christopher Bryant
We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister's license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment.
He is dressed that way because, in the same service, he received water baptism. Both the baptism and the licensing took place at the Historic Kelly Temple in NYC, a place close to his heart. Denzel Washington attended this church as a child and testified to being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Washington previously told Esquire in November that going to the West Angeles church with Townsend was a “powerful” experience. He recalled that at the end of the sermon, the church offered a “call to the altar,” asking those who want to be “saved” to go up. Washington shared that he was taken “into a back room somewhere,” where they “prayed for” him.
“I’m thinking, I’m just gonna give it up to God today, whatever that means,” he said. “And I got back there, and they were praying and telling it to us. I’m hallelujah-ing. I was just feeling. It felt like I was getting lifted up. It felt like my back was arched, and I had my eyes closed. Not that I was going up in the air, but—I can’t exactly describe it. And I was blabbering, and kept blabbering because I was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
The actor explained that this experience connected him with his religion more than ever before while no longer having the fear of having to hide this aspect of himself. “When you see me, you see the best I could do with what I’ve been given by my lord and savior,” he told the outlet. “I’m unafraid. I don’t care what anyone thinks. See, talking about the fear part of it—you can’t talk like that and win Oscars. You can’t talk like that and party. You can’t say that in this town.”
To Washington, religion is “not talked about” in Hollywood because it’s “not fashionable, not sexy.” He added that, however, that “doesn’t mean people in Hollywood don’t believe.”
"Legacy Makers: Celebrating African American Resilience and Excellence Across Generations" highlights the remarkable contributions and enduring impact of African Americans who have broken barriers, inspired change, and left an indelible mark on the fabric of U.S. history.
FEATURED AFRICAN AMERICAN LEGACY MAKER
In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
MARK E. DEAN (Born 1956) is an Inventor, and Computer Engineer who was the chief engineer on the team that designed the original IBM Personal Computer (PC). As the co-creator of the IBM PC released in 1981, he holds three of nine patents. He assisted with the development of technologies, including the first gigahertz chip and the color PC monitor. He worked, also, with a colleague and devised a means for printers and monitors to be plugged directly into computers. He was named an IBM Fellow in 1996, becoming the first African American ever to receive that honor. In 1997, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and, in 2001, he was designated as a member of the National Academy of Engineers.
This state was supposed to be as blue as the Pacific by now. It’s why ideas like the national popular vote interstate compact were mulled for a hot second. That’s no longer true because public opinion is shiftable sand, and demography is not destiny. We were warned that Florida was on the verge of slipping out of competitiveness for Republicans.
One thing the political class never expected was Donald Trump coming like a bat out of hell. Not only is Florida never being more Republican, but Ohio, too. Both states, the source of heartburn for GOP pollsters regarding national elections, are now safe red bastions. Trump has shown that he can shatter the blue wall. What GOP candidate has given us that opportunity? Trump won every swing state this cycle, and as Democrats grapple with how to right the ship, the answer might be below the Mason-Dixon Line.
The Sunshine State is where some in the Democratic Party’s operative class feel that things must turn around if they wish to remain a viable national party. As of now, with the census and congressional reapportionment, it’s looking grim as red states are also bound to gain more Electoral votes. Politico wrote about how Florida is a microcosm of all the issues facing Democrats, but there’s also a huge problem that the progressive base might not like:
For those who’d been in denial, the 2024 election proclaimed Florida as a red state. The party got romped up and down the ticket, and many of the same factors that affected the rest of the U.S. were magnified here: Voters were deeply concerned about immigration, inflation and the economy, and Republicans received strong support from Hispanics.
[…]
If national Democrats ignore the trends in Florida then they may very well be writing their own obituary, party strategists in the state say.
“If you want to elect presidents from 2032 on, we have to start winning states that we are losing,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who successfully helped former President Barack Obama win Florida twice. National Democrats would need to invest in Florida and other southern states because it would otherwise take a “crazy set of circumstances to win Congress or the presidency,” he added.
Population growth leading up to 2030, when the next census and reapportionment take place, could deliver even more congressional seats — and Electoral College votes — to Florida, Texas and other Republican-friendly states, while Democratic-leaning behemoths of New York and California are poised to lose ground. The bottom line? It may not be possible for Democrats in future presidential cycles to get to 270 electoral votes without reversing their fortune in the South.
The progressive base can no longer push its ‘woke’ action items, get nutty about transgender stuff, and maintain this exclusionary, anti-Semitic, and unhinged platform that has done nothing but turn people away from the party. The GOP is now a multiracial working-class party, which is not an easy coalition to beat using whatever Democrats are trying to sell voters, which is soaked in condescension.
There’s also the timeline many Democrats might not like: the time to turn things around must start now because it could take as long as 25 years to see tangible results if successful.
“I don’t think this is a problem that unfortunately Florida Democrats can fix on their own,” said Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who worked on Obama’s successful campaigns in Florida, and frequently dismissed claims that the state was in play for Democrats in 2024. “It will require the national party and national donors to look hard in the mirror and say, ‘We cannot afford as a party to sacrifice Florida.’”
But before any of that can happen, he said, Florida Democrats have to do an autopsy that’ll take a hard look at who they are, what they’re about, and why they’re coming across as a “toxic brand to the state.” Then they can rehabilitate, rebrand and start recruiting candidates around issues that voters tell them are priorities, he added.
It won’t happen quickly. Longtime Florida Democratic consultant Beth Matuga said a return to competitiveness for Democrats in Florida may take 25 years — that’s how long it took Republicans to build their now-massive advantage — and must start with a laser focus on voter registration.
Have you seen how liberals have reacted to their 2024 loss? This is a party that still feels they’re better simplyfor being—that’s a sure way to lose voters. And Democrats have done that quite well.
The South is their refuge, an area of the country they hate. It’s quite clear that there aren’t enough insane white, wealthy, and college-educated snobs to win nationally. Cope and seethe, Democrats—or don’t. I wouldn’t mind 12 years or more of uninterrupted Republican rule.
The curtain has finally come down on one of the longest acts in American history: after lingering in hospice care for nearly two years, Jimmy Carter is dead at the age of 100. Now, as we all learned in Latin class, de mortuis nisi bonum, that is, only say good things about the dead, and by most accounts, Jimmy Carter was a decent fellow who tried to do the right thing by his lights. There is no Latin maxim, however, about not speaking ill of a dead president’s time in the Oval Office, and on that score, a great deal can and should be said about Jimmy Carter.
Although Carter was the longest-lived president of the United States ever, it is a shame that he didn’t live even longer. The second Trump administration promises to put an end to the long, slow decline of the United States and the now well-established habit of betraying our allies that Carter did so much to initiate, and it’s too bad that Carter won’t be around to witness America’s resurgence — if, that is, the late president’s friends and ideological kin don’t manage to block any such rebound.
Back in 1978, when America was in the midst of Carter’s weak and sanctimonious presidency, the earnest chief executive lowered taxes and proposed cuts in federal spending. Then he immediately contradicted his efforts to bring fiscal responsibility to the enormous and ever-growing federal government by creating a new Cabinet-level agency, the Department of Education. This new agency introduced the federal government into areas that had hitherto been under private control; constitutional literalists pointed out that there was no mention of education in the nation’s founding document, and hence no clear warrant for the federal government to get involved in it.
Forty-plus years later, Carter’s Education Department bears vivid witness to the fact that putting something under the control of the federal bureaucracy invariably makes it less efficient, more wasteful, and more bloated than it would have been otherwise. The test scores of American students have been plummeting, and the left has used Carter’s department to introduce all manner of woke madness into American schools. Trump has pledged to close the Department of Education, and if he manages to do it, American students might have a fighting chance to get an education.
Carter also established the sanctimonious style of all subsequent Democrat presidents, with the partial exception of Bill “I Did Not Have Sexual Relations with That Woman” Clinton. On Apr. 18, 1977, with inflation and unemployment spiraling ever upward, Carter went on television in the guise of an apocalyptic prophet crossed with a scolding schoolmarm. In full prophet of doom mode, Carter informed Americans that the sky was falling: “The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are simply running out.... Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980’s the world will be demanding more oil than it can produce.... World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970’s and 1980’s by 5 percent a year, as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”
Carter the peevish scold told Americans it was all their fault: “We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren.... Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on Earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan, and Sweden.”
Echoing Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, Carter created another unwinnable war against a nebulous foe: “This difficult effort will be the ‘moral equivalent of war,’ except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.” But the whole endeavor was built on sand: there was actually no energy crisis. The world’s oil reserves did not run out in the 1980s, and not because Carter saved the day by winning his “moral equivalent of war.” The real problem was one that Carter only made worse: oil companies were so beset with restrictions and regulations that they couldn’t take adequate steps to find new oil supplies. Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, changed that, and the days of the energy crisis were over, at least until apocalyptic climate hysteria of a different kind became the centerpiece of later Democratic presidents’ efforts to assert even more federal control over the lives of Americans.
As is so often the case, it gets worse. In Sept. 1978, President Carter invited Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the presidential retreat of Camp David to end the protracted conflict between the two countries. Sadat told his aides: “What we are after is to win over world opinion. President Carter is on our side. This will end in Begin’s downfall!” He was right. Carter told Sadat: “I will represent your interests as if they were my own. You are my brother.” A jubilant Sadat told his aides that “poor naïve Carter” was ready to pressure Begin into giving Egypt everything it wanted.
Sadat was right. “Mr. Prime Minister,” Carter told Begin icily after Sadat presented his proposals “that is not only the view of Sadat, it is also the American view—and you will have to accept it.” Angrily he repeated, “You will have to accept it.” These proposals included Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied after Egypt attacked it in 1967. While territorial expansion at the expense of an aggressor nation had been recognized as a right of the victor in a war from time immemorial, Carter was determined that it would not apply to Israel. He also wanted Israel to acknowledge that it was carrying out an illegitimate occupation of Palestinian land. He complained to Begin: “Listen, we’re trying to help you bring peace to your land. You would have us feel that we are going out of our way deliberately to be as unfair to Israel as possible.” Indeed.
Carter received a great deal of praise, as well as a Nobel Peace Prize, for the Camp David Accords, but in reality, they accomplished little. The final agreement had Israel making substantial territorial concessions in exchange for promises that Egypt would not attack Israel, which the Egyptians kept because U.S. foreign aid was made contingent upon peace. Other than that, the Accords brought no peace to the Middle East. They legitimized the existence of the “Palestinian” people, a propaganda invention of the KGB in the 1960s, and advanced the claim that Israel was occupying Palestinian territory to which only Israel had a legitimate claim. After his presidency, Carter wrote several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have brought him charges of anti-Semitism; the deep bias of the Camp David Accords strongly suggests that, even at that time, he had an animus toward Israel. His palpable lack of sympathy for the Jews of Israel, who are permanently under siege, continued to the end of his long life.
As protests against the rule of another American ally, the shah of Iran, engulfed that country, Carter abandoned the shah to his fate. The shah later recounted: “The fact that no one contacted me during the crisis in any official way explains everything about the American attitude.... It is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out.” On Jan. 4, 1979, Carter told French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing that the U.S. was abandoning its ally, withdrawing all support from the shah and backing the Ayatollah Khomeini. “I was horrified,” recalled Giscard. “The only way I can describe Jimmy Carter is that he was a ‘bastard of conscience.’” On January 16, 1979, the shah and his family left Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran was established soon after.
Nine months later, on Oct. 23, 1979, Carter reluctantly allowed the gravely ill shah to enter the U.S. for medical treatment. On Nov. 4, a group calling itself Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line (that is, Khomeini’s line) retaliated by entering the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran and taking hostage the skeleton staff of sixty-six that was still serving there after the fall of the shah. Khomeini sneered, “Jimmy Carter is too much of a coward to confront us militarily.” Carter did, however, mount Operation Eagle Claw to rescue the hostages in April 1980, which was a miserable failure; a crash killed eight U.S. military personnel. Fifty-two hostages remained in captivity for 444 days, only to be freed on Jan. 20, 1981, the day Reagan took office. A pattern of American impotence and betrayal of its allies was established.
On top of all that, of course, Carter gave away the Panama Canal, another America-Last decision that Trump has vowed to reverse.
As president, Jimmy Carter was as sanctimonious as he was inept. America is still paying the price for the damage he wrought during his presidency. It is a shame that he will not see efforts to reverse the effects of his disastrous legacy.
If you've spent any time on X/Twitter this past week you witnessed a fairly large blow-up between Big Tech bros like Elon Musk and MAGA over the H-1B Visa program. Of course, our pals on the Left and in the useless, fading legacy media latched onto the debate hoping for some sort of massive break up that would FRACTURE the Right and RUIN DONALD J. TRUMP ...
But alas, they won't be getting any of that because people on the Right are not mental cases looking to be outraged and oppressed by those who disagree with them. Sure, the debates can get ugly and even turn into knock-down fights BUT in the end, we almost always figure it out.
Unless Never Trump is involved but they're not really on the Right so we digress.
The debate culminated here:
_____________________
Post on X
Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling
H-1B DATA MEGA-THREAD 🧵
I downloaded five years of H-1B data from the US DOL website (4M+ records) and spent the day crunching data.
I went into this with an open mind, but, to be honest, I'm now *extremely* skeptical of how this program works.
Here's what I found 👇
------
This thread from Robert Sterling is pretty damn good and definitely worth your time. Normally we would share the whole thing because it is a good read HOWEVER the focus on this article is how the Right worked this H-1B 'mess' out.
Musk responded:
----
Post on X
Elon Musk @elonmusk
Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically.
I’ve been very clear that the program is broken and needs major reform.
-----
Well well well, what do you know? The Right debated a hot topic, the debate even got heated because people care SO MUCH on both sides, BUT like adults, it all worked itself out in the end. Sort of like how the Right and Left used to debate until the Left completely lost its mind and started seeing every disagreement as some sort of racist slur.
It has been an exceptionally stupid 16 years or so.
*cough cough*
----
Post on X
Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter
So, we debated a problem and now we’re talking about solutions. You know, like an adult political coalition does.
----
Almost as if this was the way it was supposed to work all along.
Crazy.
---
Post on X
Jared Jensen @jared_jensen75
Clean up the corruption, attract and retain the best builders, and eliminate identity-based preferences. That is how we win.
---
Post on X
End Wokeness @EndWokeness
This would be a major improvement
----
Honestly, the program as is sucks so much ANY improvement would be major.
___
Post on X
TaraBull @TaraBull808
Can we all go back to being one big happy family now? 🫶🏻
---
Yeah, we really should.
Then again, we never really stopped being one big happy family, we just had a disagreement that needed to be had.
Businesses love cheap labor like a fat kid loves cake. The reason we have so many illegal aliens in the United States is we have so many companies willing and wanting to hire them. They aren’t simply hiring them over Americans, they’re hiring them over Americans for much cheaper than they can hire Americans – many times for cash, avoiding taxes. It’s just a simple fact of economics, made much worse by the failures of Joe Biden and his administration to secure the border. But the fight that is brewing just over the horizon is not about illiterate illegal aliens coming to service the physical labor tasks around the houses of rich Democrats; it is about the fight over the legal immigrants these Democrats will not fire for making eye contact or speaking to the: people coming to the United States on a H1B visa.
The American Immigration Council describes an H1B visa as “a temporary (nonimmigrant) visa category that allows employers to petition for highly educated foreign professionals to work in ‘specialty occupations’ that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent. Jobs in fields such as mathematics, engineering, technology, and medical sciences often qualify. Typically, the initial duration of an H-1B visa classification is three years, which may be extended for a maximum of six years. Before an employer can file a petition with USCIS, the employer must take steps to ensure that hiring the foreign worker will not harm U.S. workers.”
These visas came into existence to fill the void left by the failing American education system. We were not creating enough educated, skilled workers, instead pumping out gender and race studies grievance drones and sociologists to manufacture studies to keep them feeling self-righteous.
The problem is we never corrected that failure.
Engineering is hard, medicine requires a lot of work and discipline, etc. American popular culture requires immediate gratification – social media influencers only have to wait a few seconds for the likes and “tips” to come rolling in. Planning for when you’re really old – like 30 – is something people with fewer than a million followers do.
Rather than address this rot by disallowing federal student loans and grants to study fields with a 3 percent employment rate – fields like gender or race studies, where the only jobs available are teaching other people dumb enough to take those classes or explain to left-wing corporations why they need to defecate on Martin Luther King’s grave by hiring based on the color of an applicant’s skin and not the content of their resume. There aren’t nearly enough of those jobs to go around, relative to how appealing these universities make the profession seem.
Choke off the federal money, and these students can choose a useful field of study or get their fitting for the barista uniform before they pack on the freshman 15. If their parents want to cover the costs, let them. Not everyone can be saved – the world needs cautionary tales too.
Without an effort to create enough high-skilled labor being churned out (and I mean skilled, not simply people with the degree) the H1B will continue to exist.
But to pretend it is not being exploited by tech companies looking to do what those Democrats who don’t want to pay an American to cut their lawn are doing is ignorant.
Foreign labor, even skilled labor, is cheaper. Companies throwing their hands up and whining about how they can’t find enough workers is an old, tested trick to get people for less, who can’t bitch about their low wages or they’ll be let go and shipped back home. The H1B visa worker is tethered, essentially owned, by the company that sponsored them. Get fired and they’re gone.
That incentivizes silence and acceptance of low pay and abuse.
The truth is there are plenty of people with the education to do the job being graduated, but many lack the skills and drive of foreign workers. That’s a failure of the education system and no one seems interested in addressing it.
It’s being described as “meritocracy,” when in reality it is manipulation. Acknowledge the problem, but do not address it because the problem itself is actually beneficial to the businesses.
There is a fight brewing that is just now bubbling over top about H1B visas that will get ugly very quickly, if the Trump administration isn’t ready for it. Democrats won’t help, they’ll try to make things worse because that will help them.
The incoming President has to realize he’s already a lame duck. He has a year, at the most, of political capital to push for big changes he campaigned on, then the mid-term campaigning starts. Once that happens, nothing major is going to get done legislatively – that just the nature of the beast. If Republicans hold the House and Senate, or even expand, he gets another year of getting things done before the 2028 cycle starts up.
Time is of the essence here. Someone in the incoming administration needs to step up and break up this gathering storm between Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk and the rest of MAGA before it gets out of control and derails Trump II.
President-elect Donald Trump has announced his position on the H-1B visa, which imports hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, mainly from India, to work specialty occupations. His statements starkly contrast his first term, where he emphasized the need to prioritize American workers and "America First" policies. His first administration implemented several measures, including stricter eligibility criteria, increased scrutiny of applications, and reduced visa approvals, to ensure that American workers were not displaced or underpaid.
Trump said he has many H-1B visas employed on his properties and believes in the “great” program.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas,” Trump told the New York Post. “That’s why we have them.”
Trump, who was previously critical of foreign worker visas during his first administration, agreed with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who argued that the program is crucial for enabling American companies to access highly skilled labor that may be scarce within the U.S. workforce and should be expanded to meet growing demands.
However, critics say the program prioritizes H-1B holders over U.S. citizens for American jobs. According to reports, there are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in America at any time. U.S. citizens are often laid off and forced to train their foreign replacements.
Musk, however, has doubled down on his support for the program, slamming a social media user who criticized the billionaire's stance on the H-1B visa.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," Musk wrote on X.
Ramaswamy echoed Musk’s sentiments: "American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence.”
Breitbart News reported that in 2015, Trump laid out key visa program reforms, such as increasing the wage for issuing visas to attract Americans to corporate positions rather than foreigners.
As we previously reported, a recent interim report from the Committee on House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight found that the events of Jan. 6 were preventable. It also dropped some bombshell allegations against former Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney including that she may have tampered with a witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. The report said "numerous federal laws were likely broken" by Cheney, the Vice Chair of the Jan. 6 Committee and recommended that they be investigated by the FBI.
Cheney did not handle the report well, tossing a bit of a fit. She went on and on about the pages of the report:
Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.
But what she didn't do in her statement was deal with the questions about her communications with Hutchinson.
As I previously said, we may find out soon if any "reputable, lawyer, legislator or judge" will take this seriously, if the FBI takes up the case.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight, skewered Cheney's reply.
"Cheney claims the Select Committee's report was based on the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, whose testimony was made public. However, Cheney and Thompson did not make ALL transcripts public. They hid transcripts of first-hand witnesses who directly refuted their 'star witness' Cassidy Hutchinson's sensational story, which Cheney had personally procured.
"Americans can see the facts for themselves. That is why I have always released first-hand accounts and evidence, including today, where I am releasing the transcripts from the interview of USSS employees who directly refute Hutchinson's story. Cheney and Thompson's Select Committee conducted these interviews and had this information but chose not to release it publicly.
"Former Chairman Thompson might not be aware of these transcripts, which refute the narrative put forward by his committee, so I understand his confusion. I encourage him to read these transcripts taken by his select committee.
"I also invite Chairman Thompson to explain why the Vice Chair of his committee, Liz Cheney, was having secret conversations with the committee’s “star witness”, behind his back."
Now there's more bad news for Cheney.
A majority of voters are in favor of an investigation into her actions on the Jan. 6 Committee.
According to a new Rasmussen poll, 57 percent of likely voters were in favor of the Republican call for an FBI investigation into Cheney.
Of the 57 percent, 36 percent strongly approved and 21 percent somewhat approved. Only 33 percent disapproved.
I don't think Cheney expected that during the election, and I'm fairly certain Kamala Harris didn't. Another example of how much Harris completely misjudged the opinion of the American public. She embraced Cheney, thinking that she was somehow reaching out for some mystical, middle vote that Cheney represented. But as the people of Wyoming proved, Cheney has no constituency except Democrats and those folks are already were voting for Harris (or sitting out). She didn't add anything. Harris only lost leftists who saw the embrace as a cynical rejection of all their past concerns about Cheney and her father.
But the report and the poll are certainly going to add to the call for Kash Patel to act, if he is approved to head the FBI.
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion at a ceremony in honor of Joan of Arc on May 27, 1945 in Paris ; A scene from Netflix's ' The Six Triple Eight' (2024). Everett Collection Historical/Alamy ; Laura Radford/Perry Well Films 2/Courtesy of Netflix
Based on a WWII History Magazinearticle by Kevin M. Hymel, the film, out Dec. 20, was written and produced by Perry and stars Kerry Washington as Lt. Col. Charity Adams. She was the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only unit made up of Black women in the Women’s Army Corps sent to Europe during World War II.
The Six Triple Eight, as the battalion was nicknamed, was tasked with sorting through 17 million pieces of undelivered mail in Europe and ensuring it was delivered to U.S. soldiers. At the time, letters were the only way for soldiers to communicate with their families, and the 6888th’s motto became “no mail, low morale.”
Though they were given six months to complete their task, the battalion sorted the parcels in half that time —just 90 days. The 855 women in the unit “wanted to fight for her country and wanted to be of service,” Perry told PEOPLE in 2024.
“These women were incredibly important to the war efforts toward the winding down of the war,” he said. “It's important that these types of stories have their voice and their place, because so many of us are trying to erase and write out the history of the contributions of certain people.”
In addition to Washington, the ensemble cast includes Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson, Kylie Jefferson, Sarah Jeffery, Susan Sarandon, Dean Norris, Sam Waterson and Oprah Winfrey, among others.
Here is everything to know about the real events that inspired the Tyler Perry film The Six Triple Eight.
What was the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion?
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion take part in a parade ceremony in honor of Joan d'Arc at a marketplace in 1945.
During World War II, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion — nicknamed the Six Triple Eight — was the first and only unit of color in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) stationed in Europe.
The battalion was led by Charity Adams, the first Black woman to be commissioned into the WAC. She received her mission order to deploy to Europe in late 1944, and the 6888th’s 855 members were deployed overseas in February 1945.
The unit was an important link connecting American soldiers and their families back home.
“Ladies, we have been ordered to provide hope,” Washington says as Adams in TheSix Triple Eight. “The soldiers have not heard from their loved ones, and their loved ones have not heard from them.”
Who was Lt. Col. Charity Adams?
Archive Photos/Getty
American Women's Army Corps (WAC) Captain Mary Kearney and American WAC Commanding Officer Major Charity Adams inspect the first arrivals on February 15, 1945 in Birmingham, England.
Kerry Washington portrays Lt. Col. Charity Adams in the Netflix film.
The real-life leader was born in Kittrell, N.C., on Dec. 5, 1918, and raised in Columbia, S.C. She was valedictorian of Booker T. Washington High School and attended Wilberforce University in Ohio, where she majored in mathematics, Latin and physics.
She taught math and science in Columbia before joining the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) in 1942 (“auxiliary” was later removed from the title). She attended the first-ever African American Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines in Iowa and was promoted to major in 1943, becoming the highest-ranking female officer. She then led the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion on their European mission in 1945.
Adams married Stanley A. Earley Jr. in 1949, and the couple had two children, son Stanley Earley III and daughter Judith Earley. She died at age 83 on Jan. 13, 2002.
Who was Corporal Lena Derriecott King?
In the Netflix film, Corporal Lena Derriecott King is portrayed by Ebony Obsidian.
Born on Jan. 27, 1923, in Washington, Ga., King was an only child. After her parents divorced, she lived with her mother and aunt in Philadelphia, where she graduated from Germantown High School. She enlisted in the Army Air Force at 18 and started active-duty service in 1943.
King’s first assignment was as a nurse at Douglas Army Airfield in Arizona, where she met her husband, Hugh Thadius Bell, at the post exchange. Soon after, she signed up for overseas duty and became one of the 855 women in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.
While researching his film, Perry made it his mission to meet with the living members of the Six Triple Eight. While visiting King, then 99, at her home in Las Vegas, he found his approach to crafting TheSix Triple Eight.
“After one few-hour session with her I had a whole script in my head,” he told PEOPLE.
King died on Jan. 18, 2024, at the age of 100. Obsidian was honored to spend the day with her real-life counterpart in Vegas on King’s 100th birthday.
What was the Six Triple Eight's main task?
National Archives via AP
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion sort mail in an undated Department of Defense photo.
En route to Europe, Adams learned she would lead an all-Black, all-female unit and what their mission was: to sort through a two-year backlog of 17 million pieces of undelivered mail to U.S. soldiers.
After arriving in Scotland on Feb. 12, 1945, the battalion was deployed to England, where the mail was located in stuffed-to-the-brim warehouses in Birmingham. On March 12, the women officially became the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Their task was to get the parcels organized, redirected and delivered in six months.
“They did not send us because they thought we could do it,” Washington says as Adams in the film. “We are here because they are sure we cannot.”
The 6888th’s motto was “no mail, low morale,” and Perry told PEOPLE that reflected their mission to bring “communications to exhausted soldiers of every race of our country who were fighting.”
CPL King knew their job was important.
“One thing people in the service looked forward to was mail, knowing somebody was still thinking about them,” she told WWII History Magazine in 2019. “In the military, mail call (when soldiers gathered around a designated mailman as he called out their names for letters or packages) is a very important time.”
How long did the Six Triple Eight's mission take?
National Archives via AP
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-female, all-Black unit formed during World War II, are shown in an undated Department of Defense photo.
The women of the Six Triple Eight far exceeded expectations, completing their mission in 90 days despite being given twice that amount to get the job done. They then moved on to Rouen, France, working out of a French monastery.
“That was men’s war. Women did not belong. But I’ll tell you something, there was a group of women that were brave,” 6888th member and veteran Cresencia Garcia told History Channel’s HistoryTalks in 2023. “I am proud of what I did. And I belong.”
How did Lt. Col. Charity Adams lead the Six Triple Eight?
Adams was a clear leader with a plan who led with the 6888’s motto, “no mail, low morale.” She set up a system for the women to work around the clock in three eight-hour shifts, seven days a week.
“It was long and tiring ... we had mail almost stacked to the ceiling,” Elizabeth Bernice Barker Johnson told the America’s Veteran Center in 2018.
Barker Johnson explained that they had lists with recipients’ new addresses on them and any old addresses listed on the backlogged mail had to be changed to the new one. King told WWII History Magazine that readdressing letters “took a lot of work. It kept you really busy, on your toes.”
After her unit’s success, Adams was promoted to lieutenant colonel. At age 27, she became the highest-ranked Black woman in the United States Army. The Six Triple Eight also opened doors for future Black women in the armed forces.
Adams received many honors during her lifetime and after, including an elementary school in Dayton being named after her. In April 2023, she became the first Black woman in U.S. history to have an Army fort named in her honor. Formerly known as Fort Lee, the Virginia fort now honors Adams and retired Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg, the Army’s first Black three-star general.
During a 2023 Zoom call, Romay Davis Robinson, Adams’ motor pool driver in the 6888th, said that Adams “was herself. Her disposition was leadership."
What challenges did the Six Triple Eight face?
Archive Photos/Getty
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion take part in a parade ceremony in honor of Joan d'Arc at the marketplace in 1945.
While overseas, the unit faced many obstacles, including racism, sexism, cultural differences and logistical issues.
The unit was put in segregated housing in the former King Edwards Boys School, and the women used their ingenuity to create their own amenities like a food hall and hair salon.
When Adams boycotted the segregated living quarters and facilities and was faced with racial slurs from the general who commanded the battalion, her unit supported her. The film includes a real-life moment when Adams stood up to the general and said, “Over my dead body.”
As for the mail, not only was there the sheer volume to contend with, but some of the parcels had become moldy or eaten by vermin, while others had illegible addresses. The women had to sort through it all in unheated, rat-infested warehouses with poor lighting, as the windows were darkened to protect them from German raids.
Then there was the toll of the war itself, with bombs and rockets showering England and bombers and fighter aircrafts lining the skies.
“It was hard, blackout conditions. We had poor lighting, poor heating. We couldn’t let the sunlight in because they were still fighting and bombing in that area,” King told CNN in 2023.
The corporal added that Birmingham residents treated the battalion like heroes, which was not the same welcome they received from many of the White American servicemen. She recalled a time when a dance was thrown and a White soldier came in and used a racial slur while asking her why she was there.*
“That was very devastating and very painful to see that the same countrymen that you’re fighting the same war for was the one who disrespected me the most,” King said.
What happened to the members of the Six Triple Eight?
AP Photo/Jay Reeves
Romay Davis shows a photo of her as a member of 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion during World War II, on July 25, 2022 at her home in Montgomery, Alabama.
Adams resigned the year after the 6888th mission was complete and earned her master’s degree from Ohio State University. She began work as a registration officer with the Veterans Administration in Cleveland, before working at colleges in Tennessee and Georgia.
Later in life, she served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Sinclair Community College and the Dayton Power and Light Company. Adams also volunteered with the YWCA, National Urban League and United Way and founded Dayton’s Black Leadership Development Group in 1982.
Like Adams, several of the women worked for government agencies after returning home from Europe. Abbe Campbell was a nutritionist at the Tuskegee VA Medical Center in Alabama, Anna Tarryk worked for the VA’s Insurance Division and Evelina Rachel Griffin spent her entire career with the VA.
Many of the women also took advantage of the G.I. Bill, which provided some of the returning WWII soldiers with education benefits. Barker Johnson joined the WAC in 1943 and, after serving, returned to school and later became a teacher. She died in August 2019 at 100.
King died in early 2024 but did see a rough cut of Perry’s film — and he told PEOPLE that she gave it her approval. She even saluted the actresses on-screen.
“It was a beautiful moment,” Perry said.
There are only four women out of over 9,000 Americans buried at Colleville-sur-Mer Normandy American Cemetery in France, and three of them are from the 6888th. Fourteen members of the battalion are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Only two members of the Six Triple Eight were alive as of December 2024 — Fannie McClendon and Anna Mae Robertson.
How has the Six Triple Eight been honored?
Nikki Kahn/The The Washington Post via Getty
U.S. Army Program Manager Maj. Eurydice S. Stanley speaks with Mary Crawford Ragland, a former member of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion on February 25, 2009 in Arlington, Virginia.
It took decades, but the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion have begun to get the recognition they deserve.
In 2016, the Six Triple Eight was inducted into the Army Women’s Foundation’s Hall of Fame, and the Army awarded the battalion with the Meritorious Unit Commendation in 2019. On Nov. 30, 2018, the unit had a monument dedicated to them at Fort Leavenworth.
Four years later, the U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously to honor all 855 members of the Six Triple Eight with the Congressional Gold Medal.
In 2019, King, along with the other 6888th surviving members, received the Audie Murphy Award during the American Valor Awards ceremony, and she was an Honor Role Awardee at the World War II National Museum in New Orleans.
Tribute has also been paid to the battalion in the entertainment world. In addition to Perry’s 2024 Netflix film, they’ve been immortalized in a musical, Six Triple Eight, a 2024 historical novel by Sheila Williams called No Better Time and many nonfiction books.
_______________________________
*[EDITOR'S NOTE: Of course, not all American soldiers exhibited racial animus toward black servicemembers during World War II. White soldiers from the Southern states that were controlled by Democrats were the primary ones who harbored animosity toward black people as is explained in the article "The Party of Civil Rights" posted on the NBRA website at: https://nationalblackrepublicanassociation.org/history/the-party-of-civil-rights/
FACTOIDS:
According to available data, approximately 30-35% of soldiers in World War II were from the Southern states, representing a significantly higher proportion than their share of the overall population at the time.
The Solid South was the electoral voting bloc for the Democratic Party in the Southern states between the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
To recreate the social status of blacks as slaves, “Jim Crow Laws” were established by Democrats that limited African American's political and social rights in the Southern states. This era of racial discrimination lasted well into the twentieth century and did not end until 1965 after the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.]
