FOX Business host and former congressman Sean Duffy warned those types of comments may pose a national security risk.
The TikTok video was taken at Rainbow Oaks restaurant in Fallbrook, California, and showed diners standing for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The video was captioned as “the most dangerous situation I’ve ever been in” with commenters claiming the incident is their “worst nightmare” and “feels like a horror movie.”
Duffy said his heart “swells” at the sight of Americans honoring the national anthem, but he issued a somber warning about the state of the country if action isn’t taken to address comments like the ones on the TikTok video.
“This is a national security risk for this country that you don’t have people who love their country, that don’t think their country is great,” he said on “Outnumbered” Wednesday.
“You’ve got all these Marxists in our elementary education, but also in our university system. If this country doesn’t get serious about rooting them out, taking them out to get back to the basic principles that have made this country so wonderful, I do think the country is doomed.”
“Outnumbered” co-host Emily Compagno noted that many of the TikTok users leaving negative comments not American.
Rainbow Oaks restaurant diners stand to salute the flag during the National Anthem. (Fox & Friends First/Screengrab)
“They can say what they want,” Compagno said. “But here to Sean [Duffy]’s point, that’s a mark of honor. That’s a mark of deep pride and respect and gratitude for the foundational elements that this country was founded on and those that sacrificed their lives supporting and defending it.”
She went on to say the voices of true American patriots won’t be silenced by progressive TikTok users.
“That also goes to show that despite the overwhelming pressure that we receive on a daily basis from the woke left, you cannot take away pride, you cannot dampen pride,” she said.
Co-host Kayleigh McEnany called out the callous attitude progressives have toward patriotic American symbols, saying she doesn’t know what’s so “triggering” about the anthem or the flag.
The anthem, she said, is about the heroes that made America great. She recalled Mara Gay of MSNBC and the New York Times saying in 2021 that it was “disturbing” to see American flags on the pickup trucks of Trump supporters.
Rainbow Oaks owner Jeanene Paulino responded to the complaints on “Fox & Friends First,” saying the TikTok user likely posted the video for attention. She assured Fox News she “won’t be stopping” her tradition of playing the anthem.
Los Angeles-based PacWest tumbled by more than 27%. It is ranked 53rd among U.S. lenders with $41.2 billion in assets as of the end of last year, according to Federal Reserve data.
Phoenix, Arizona-based lender Western Alliance, the No. 40 U.S. bank with $68 billion in assets, sank 15% while Cleveland, Ohio-based KeyCorp (KEY.N), the 20th largest bank with $188 billion in assets, fell 9%.
Comerica (CMA.N), a Dallas, Texas-based bank ranked 37th among U.S. lenders with $86 billion in assets, shed 12%. Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus Financial Corp (SNV.N), with $60 billion in assets and ranked the 42nd U.S. biggest bank, lost nearly 7%.
Valley National Bankcorp (VLY.O), which owns Valley National Bank based in Passaic, New Jersey and is the 43rd largest lender with $57 billion in assets, closed 3% lower after shedding more than 20% on Monday.
All Forms of Redistribution Are Slavery And every leftist is a kind of slave-owner.
Do I have your attention? Good. It’s time for people on the right to wake up.
At this point, I suspect that a majority of Republicans and conservatives have accepted that the welfare state is okay, but that it should be a lot smaller…
It’s okay to have welfare and Social Security and Medicaid and transfer payments of all sorts—we should just have less of them. They should be managed better. We should tailor them to reduce dependence.
No. No no no no no.
If this describes you, then I am talking to you. And though I will sound intense, I am doing this in solidarity with you, in the hopes of waking you up.
You are wrong. You have accepted a fundamentally evil premise.
You have allowed socialism to colonize your mind, just as it has colonized all of Western civilization.
The original creator of the property, wealth, income, etc. is not the sole claimant upon it.
They (the left, and government) have the authority to control the property and adjudicate between competing claims.
Both claims are not just wrong—they’re moral crimes. In order to explain why, I am going to have to hit you with some philosophy. Don’t tune out! Philosophy—good philosophy—is what made this country. It’s what undergirds the founding documents that you love and the protections they seek to enshrine. If you do not understand the philosophy, then you won’t know why the left is wrong, and why you are wrong to go along with these premies even a little bit.
Start by asking yourself why slavery is morally impermissible. Really think about it. Write your thoughts down. Chances are, you’ll come up with things like this:
Slavery is wrong because it…
forces people to labor against their will,
forces people into an arrangement they did not choose,
forcibly compels a person’s actions and choices,
creates a condition wherein one person is legally “owned” by another,
imposes punishments for resistance or attempts to escape.
You know, intuitively, that those things are morally forbidden. And yet you accept, to one degree or another, practices that, though they may differ by degree, do these exact same things. And you need to stop. Our whole civilization needs to stop.
So why are these things morally impermissible? Here’s where the philosophy really kicks in. Fortunately, it’s easy. It may sound fancy, but it really is just an expression of things that even toddlers know intuitively.
We begin with the reality of free will. Every individual has personal control over his thoughts, choices, and actions.
An individual may be subjected to forcible compulsion, but no external party can actually think, choose, or act for him. Free will is thus naturally exclusive. Free will is a consequence of personhood, and since no one’s personhood can be unmade, it is naturally inalienable.
This leads to a simple argument in which we demonstrate that free will lies at the heart of human self-ownership:
1. Exclusive, inalienable personal control over thoughts, choices, and actions (free will) grants to each individual exclusive, dispositive decision-making power over his own body and life.
2. The primary characteristic of property rights is exclusive, dispositive decision-making power.
.˙. Free will grants to each individual property rights over his own body and life.
Self-ownership is thus an outgrowth of free will. It is the quality of being the exclusive owner of one’s own body and being—of having a property in one’s own person. Let us then define self-ownership as Dispositive decision-making power over one’s body and life (with all the concomitant rights and responsibilities), rooted in (naturally and morally) exclusive, inalienable personal control over thoughts, choices, and actions.
Dispositive decision-making power over one’s body and life, for short.
Here again, just about everyone knows that their self-ownership is real. Savvy lefties understand that self-ownership stands in the way of their primary objective—taking the property of others by force—and thus may use sophistry to try to deny its reality. But they will react just the same as anyone else when their self-ownership is directly violated—because even they know it’s real!
Now let us return to Dinesh D’Souza’s discussion of the flute. It was created by one person: the girl who used her mind and her labor to take a previously unowned thing and convert it. This process is an outgrowth of her free will and self-ownership. Her property rights in her own person have extended to property rights in the thing she made. It is hers…and hers alone. Her property right is grounded in a natural and moral reality.
Where would any other claim come from? The utilitarian claim (the flute should go to the person who would play it the best) and the leftist claim (the flute should go to the person who “needs” it the most) have no such grounding. They are opinions. And actuating those opinions (in the context of a society) requires two things:
The violence required to take the flute from the owner, and
A “legitimate” entity empowered to deploy that violence, i.e., government.
Why do you think the left likes big government so much? They want to use violence to take people’s stuff, and government allows them to do so “legally” and “legitimately.” It also gives them jobs and power, which requires that more stuff be taken by force to fund those jobs and create that power.
Are you catching on yet?
It’s a racket. The racket provides money and power to the left’s operatives and feeds the bottomless narcissism of its virtue-signaling rank-and-filers. It’s not noble. It’s just a modernized and legitimized iteration of the age-old human strategy of taking, by force, that which has been produced by another. It’s nothing more than that, and you should not be supporting it in any form.
So as to keep the main text of this article short, I will put into the footnotes
the arguments for why the initiation of coercive force against self-ownership is itself morally impermissible. We will take those as understood.
Now, return to our list of reasons why slavery is morally impermissible. They all are demonstrably wrong because they all violate one’s dispositive decision-making power over one’s body and life. They all violate self-ownership.
Our system of “legitimized” forced redistribution does the same thing It…
forces you to labor for the benefit of others, against your will;
forces you into an arrangement you did not choose;
forcibly compels your actions and choices;
imposes punishment if you resist or try to escape.
These are all clear. The last one—the concept of “ownership” of the “slave” may seem like more of a stretch, but wargame it out just a little bit…
A slave is kept in his condition by force. So are you. A slave is punished if he resists. So are you. (Try not paying your taxes for a while and watch what happens.) The slave has been forced into an arrangement he did not choose, and so have you. The slave cannot opt out and neither can you. You may enjoy dispositive decision-making power over your body and life in some areas, but not in this one. When it comes to the redistributive state, you are, in essence, a slave. If there is a difference, it is one of degree, not of kind.
Do not fool yourself into believing that “voting” gives you some sort of choice. Voting is nothing but a wish, cast into the wind, and all the incentives of democracy are a gale pushing the whole of society towards more redistribution. Never less. (Search your feelings, Luke—you know this is true.)
The people who run the redistributive state, and those who support it and fuel its continuance, believe that your stuff does not belong to you. They believe that they have a license to forcibly violate your self-ownership—the foundation of your rights as a human person. They believe that they, and their agents in government, have the legitimate right to determine what stuff of yours they steal, and how much, and when, and to whom it will be given, and what punishment you will suffer if you resist.
EVERY kind of redistribution is a species of slavery. (Even when the intended recipient is the most sympathetic of characters.) And EVERY person who actively engages in redistribution, or who empowers those who do, is a kind of slave owner.
Do not mince words. Do not dither about on the margins, wondering exactly how much moral crime is allowable.
We can acknowledge the impact of biology, upbringing, circumstances, external influences, and even luck, but the reality of free will remains. Biology and upbringing can be analogized to the earth beneath our feet, and our external circumstances to the sky above—yet in spite of these, each of us still chooses how we move upon that ground and weather life’s storms. Free will is real!
Ontological/automatic/birthright authority does not exist. All authority must either be granted or imposed upon the unwilling by means of coercive force. Any attempt to refute this claim produces a performative contradiction: Anyone who asserts automatic authority MUST use force to impose it upon anyone unwilling to grant that authority. The same applies when asserting a claim of authority on behalf of another.
The unavoidable use of the claim in the attempted refutation raises the claim to the level of an axiom. The absence of ontological authority is a natural fact. Authority is, in essence, the license to compel the actions and choices of others, and no one has this license as a mere fact of his existence. So…
1. Authority is imposed upon the unwilling by means of the initiation of coercive force.
2. No one has ontological authority (automatic authority as a mere fact of his existence) over any other.
.˙. No one has the ontological authority to initiate coercive force upon the unwilling.
The ontological authority to initiate coercive force against another does not exist, and the initiation of any such force is morally impermissible. As shorthand, then, we will say that the initiation of coercive force is ontologically and morally impermissible.
Relating this back to self-ownership…
The natural facts of reality confer upon the individual a property right—that is, exclusive, dispositive decision-making power—in his own person. Such a right constitutes a just moral claim; it came about as the result of an organic process (birth and life), and its exercise does not inherently coerce any other (save for the natural, temporary, and generally welcomed period during which parents must care for their children). Thus,
1. A naturally exclusive, inalienable property right in one’s own person (self-ownership) constitutes a just moral claim.
2. Violation of a just moral claim is morally impermissible.
3. The just moral claim of self-ownership is violated by the initiation of coercive force.
.˙. The initiation of coercive force against self-ownership is morally impermissible.
Of course, we’ve just dealt with redistribution and welfare here. Later, we’ll have to tackle taxation and government in general. But just focus on this for now. Baby steps!
“Of all the 69 reports we now have, this is the most disturbing,” expressed DailyClout CEO Dr. Naomi Wolf in a live stream on Sunday. “Because the bottom line is, according to a new tranche of Pfizer documents released just this month, this past month, April of 2023. And these are documents that go back to April of 2021 — exactly two years ago. Both Pfizer and the FDA knew that the mRNA COVID vaccine caused dire fetal and infant harms, including death.”
The batch of Pfizer clinical trial documents released in April 2023 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under court order contains a shocking, eight-page document titled, “Pregnancy and Lactation Cumulative Review” …
This document is among the most horrifying yet to emerge into public view. It reveals that both Pfizer and the FDA knew by early 2021 that Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine, BNT162b2, resulted in horrible damage to fetuses and babies.
• Adverse events in over 54% of cases of “maternal exposure” to the vaccine (248 out of 458). The language “maternal exposure” implies that Pfizer acknowledged intercourse, inhalation, and skin contact as methods of exposure to its mRNA injection, as also evidenced by Protocol Amendment 14.
• Six premature labor and delivery cases resulting in two newborn deaths.
• 19% (41/215) of babies in Pfizer’s records exposed to the company’s COVID mRNA vaccine via their mothers’ breast milk were recorded as suffering from 48 different categories of adverse events.
The damage and suffering feel even more real when you narrow it down to individual stories.
• “A 15-month-old infant with medical history of vomiting experienced skin exfoliation and infant irritability while being breastfed (latency <7 days). The outcome of the event’ skin exfoliation’ was not recovered and outcome of event’ infant irritability’ was unknown.”
• “A 9-month-old infant with a medical history of meningococcal vaccine and no history of allergies, asthma, eczema or anaphylaxis experienced rash and urticaria a day after exposure via lactation.”
• “A day after the mother received vaccination, a baby developed a rash after breastfeeding. At the time of the report, the event was ‘not recovered.”
• “An 8-month-old infant experienced angioedema [an area of swelling of the lower layer of skin and tissue just under the skin or mucous membranes] one day after his mother received vaccination.”
• “There were 2 cases reporting ‘illness’ after exposure via breast milk’. In the first case, a 6-month-old infant developed an unspecified sickness 2 days post-mother’s vaccination. The outcome of the event sickness was recovered, and no causality assessment was provided. The second case, a 3-month-old infant developed an unspecified illness and required hospitalization for 6 days post-exposure via breast milk (>7 days latency).”
Pfizer employee, Robert T. Maroko, approved the Review with these horrific findings on April 20, 2021.
“This is a real person working at Pfizer, Mr. Robert T. Maroko, who looked at this damage to babies, these dead babies, these dead fetuses, these miserably-injured babies — approved it and sent it on to the FDA. The FDA approved it and gave it to Rochelle Walensky and the CDC,” shared Dr. Wolf.
And three days later, on April 23, 2021, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky held a press conference, which kicked off an aggressive campaign to get pregnant women vaccinated.
“No safety concerns were observed for people vaccinated in the third trimester or safety concerns for their babies. As such, CDC recommends that pregnant people receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“The FDA signed off on this document showing dead babies, sick babies, dead from the injection, sick from nursing, the spontaneous abortions, or dead subsequent to the injection, the spontaneous abortions, the respiratory distress, babies hospitalized … These monsters looked at whether the babies would get sick and die or whether the fetuses would spontaneously abort, and they did. And they saw that they did, and they kept going.”
“This was just [four] months into the rollout,” Dr. Wolf mentioned. “And I want to remind you that breastfeeding has gone from 34% of moms and babies at the start of the pandemic to only 15% now, meaning that babies are having a terrible time with their mother’s breast milk. Pfizer knew they would!” she exclaimed. “Pfizer knew they would! The FDA knew they would, and they told pregnant women and lactating women to get vaccinated anyway.”
“At the end of this horrific, demonic analysis of all these sick and dying babies, all these aborted fetuses, all these babies getting sick from poisoned breast milk. Seriously sick. Damaged. They held a press conference. And Dr. Walensky, who has this report in hand, who has this report in hand,” Dr. Wolf said twice with emphasis, “told the women of America and anyone else who is listening in the world that these vaccines were safe and effective for pregnant women and for their babies. And that to protect their babies, they had to get vaccinated. They knew. They knew. Absolutely criminal.”
And there are 68 other damning reports — just like this one — using primary source Pfizer documents released under court order by the U.S. FDA.
These important summaries, which detail astonishing ranges of deaths, disabilities, and other systematic harms to subjects — damage that both Pfizer and the FDA sought to keep hidden from the public for 75 years — contain vastly important headlines: twenty forms of menstrual damage to women — how Pfizer covered up a flood of adverse events — PEG in breast milk — within a month of rollout, Pfizer knew the mRNA vaccines did not work.
Now, the information Pfizer and the FDA wanted to keep hidden for 75 years is available in paperback form. Funds and proceeds raised go to the research project, which helps makes more Pfizer Documents Analysis Reports possible. So, please, show your support and get your hands on this critical information in one place — by ordering your copy today.
A lighted sign adorns the Coca-Cola Store in Las Vegas on Feb. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Coca-Cola shareholders vote down proposal that targets pro-life states. Companies have increasingly come under public scrutiny for alleged political biases. One of the WOKE Groups holding Coke stock wanted Coke to go after pro-life states. Under the false pretense of protecting the mother.
Coca-Cola shareholders recently voted against a proposal to conduct a survey into how state laws restricting abortion impact the company’s business performance.
The proposal was introduced by As You Saw, a nonprofit that promotes ESG policies in corporations. Eighty-seven percent of controlling shares voted against the measure.
Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax Monday that enough evidence has been uncovered in the case involving the Supreme Court Dobbs decision leaker “for the Justice Department to get involved” and that the “ball is now squarely in [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s court.”
“Why doesn’t the Justice Department open an investigation?” he asked during an appearance on Newsmax’s “National Report.” “Why don’t they appoint a special counsel?
“Why are they relying on the marshal’s office? I know the marshal’s office. I was a law clerk in the Supreme Court. They’re the nicest people in the world. They help people to their seats, and they make sure there’s order in the court, but they’re not equipped to conduct a major investigation. They can’t give immunity — the Justice Department can do this.”
“There’s enough evidence now to warrant probable cause for the Justice Department to get involved on the basis of probable cause that a serious crime may have been committed,” he continued. “We cannot leave this unresolved. It must be solved.”
Dershowitz said that the implications for future cases at the high court are “horrible” and that it’s important to understand that the “leaker was not a whistleblower.”
“He was not trying to reveal government misconduct; he was trying to corruptly influence the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said. “He deserves, or she deserves, no protection at all and I think [Justice Samuel] Alito now has an obligation to go to the marshal’s office and to the chief justice and to say, Look, here’s my suspicion, not enough to name it publicly, but enough for you to call this person in and subject them either to further interrogation, a lie detector test, testimony under oath to make sure … that he’s convictable of a crime.”
“There’s a great deal more that can be done right now,” he went on. “I mean, the ultimate thing that could be done is Congress could call the reporters from Politico and ask them to name the leaker. Now they’ll say, No, no, there’s a journalistic privilege, but I’m not sure the courts will recognize the journalistic privilege when the source of the privilege was not somebody who was a whistleblower, but somebody who was either committing a serious crime or at least a serious ethical breach.
“This should be the beginning, not the end. We must discover who this leaker was. This is not an ordinary leak. This is an attempt to corruptly influence a decision of the United States Supreme Court.”
Middle school student allegedly sent home for refusing to change shirt that said ‘There are only two genders’ Liam Morrison addressed school board about his concerns on April 13.
A 12-year-old student was allegedly sent home from school after he refused to change his T-shirt that said, “There are only two genders.”
Liam Morrison, a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, said he was taken out of gym class on March 21 and met with school staff who told him people were complaining about the statement on his shirt and that it made them feel “unsafe.” His comments were picked up by popular Twitter account LibsofTikTok.
“Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe. They told me that I wasn’t in trouble, but it sure felt like I was. I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class. When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father,” he explained during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13.
“Thankfully, my dad, supportive of my decisions, came to pick me up. What did my shirt say? Five simple words: There are only two genders. Nothing harmful. Nothing threatening. Just a statement I believe to be a fact,” he said.
Morrison added that he was told his shirt was “targeting a protected class” and was a “disruption to learning.” “Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights?” he asked. “I don’t complain when I see Pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs, just as I do,” he said.
“I was told that the shirt was a disruption to learning. No one got up and stormed out of class. No one burst into tears. I’m sure I would have noticed if they had. I experience disruptions to my learning every day. Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done. Why do the rules apply to one yet not another?”
Liam Morrison, 12, reads a statement during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13. (YouTube / Middleborough Educational Television)
The student said “not one person” directly told him they were bothered by the words on his shirt and that other students had told him they supported his actions.
Morrison told the committee he felt like the school was telling him it wasn’t OK for him to have an opposing point of view and that he didn’t go to school that day to “hurt feelings or cause trouble.”
“I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned that a lot of other students share my view. I learned that adults don’t always do the right thing or make the right decisions. I know that I have a right to wear a shirt with those five words. Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions. Even at school. This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution,” he stated.
Middleborough School Committee members hear concerns from 12-year-old Liam Morrison after he was allegedly sent home for refusing to change his shirt. (YouTube / Middleborough Educational Television)
“My hope in being here tonight is to bring the School Committee’s attention to this issue. I hope that you will speak up for the rest of us, so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class. Next time, it may not only be me. There might be more soon that decide to speak out.”
CNBC’s Financial Confidence Survey, conducted in partnership with Momentive, found most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
More women than men admit feeling financially stressed.
Joe Biden and a loon said the economy is great. Only 8% of Americans agree with them. CNBC did a recent survey on people personal finances. Only 8% aren’t worried or stressed out. 70% are totally stressed. The rest are somewhat stressed.
Majority living paycheck to paycheck. Two biggest worries are Inflation and the Economies instability. 59 and 43%. You even have a loon from California claiming they’re able to buy more fried chicken and flavored drinks.
OXFORD, Pennsylvania —Despite the wealth of information at our fingertips in the information age, there is a glaring emptiness that plagues us in our storytelling.
We remove nuance and replace it with sensationalism. We shun original stories because they stray too far from the pack. In the process, we miss the beauty, pain, and magic, the simplicity and grace of simple, real-life stories about the ordinary lives of people who work the soil to make America possible. The result is that we lose touch with who we are as a nation.
Bill Hostetter was sitting in the banquet hall of the massive Spooky Nook sports facility in Manheim, Pennsylvania. He was surrounded by hundreds of other farmers, as well as agriculture scientists who do research and development work for the nation’s food supply. They all traveled from across Pennsylvania to attend the annual PennAg banquet, which honors outstanding leaders in the agricultural community.
The Hostetter family has been operating their grain farm for three generations.
(Salena Zito)
Seated to Hostetter’s left was Russell Redding, Pennsylvania’s secretary of agriculture. The lights dimmed as the program began with a video recalling the Hostetter family’s impact in this country; despite most of the audience having experienced the same things, his story of sacrifice, hard work, loss, and success brought much of the packed room to tears. That included Hostetter, who had never seen the video before.
Hostetter, along with a team of research scientists from the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System, was here to accept Distinguished Service Awards for their contribution to America’s food supply. PADLS scientists keep track of zoonotic diseases, working hand in hand with farmers to ensure their farms can continue providing a reliable food supply.
Without both the grit of the farmer and the training of these hardworking scientists, we would not have that food on all of our tables every day. Yet their respective contributions are unevenly understood.
Without the hard work of the scientists at the PADLS lab, who work around the clock tracking the avian flu, its ravages could have been significantly worse than the 4 million birds lost locally last year. Hostetter’s impact on our lives is less visible, less understood especially by reporters, who are often drawn more to science than to farming. Science is something they were taught in school; farming was not. Science brings new gadgets to their lives and makes things easier. Farming, without which they could not live at all, is too far removed from where they live and what they do.
Hostetter explained that his father, Wilmer, and his mother, Joyce, started their family’s grain business in 1977, when Wilmer built a grain elevator to support the grain business he had started 10 years prior.
Before that, his parents had a well-respected dairy farm, known not just across the country but also internationally for breeding quality dairy cows.
A truck in a long line of trucks carrying signs in support of Barry Hostetter drives past the entrance of his farm.
(Salena Zito)
Bill said that he, along with his brothers Barry, Bernie, and John, were all involved with the business right from the start as kids. “I learned it literally from the ground up, working long days at the pit, unloading corn trucks and sweeping out the grain bins,” he said.
To this day, he said, he does not ask anyone working around the grain elevator to do anything he hasn’t done.
Hostetter Grain started here in Oxford with a 95,000-bushel storage bin in the spring for the wheat harvest, followed by a 95,000-bushel bin for the corn harvest.
Today, it owns three elevators outright and holds lease agreements with six other elevators with a total capacity of more than 8 million bushels.
“I remember my father and I standing out in the parking lot taking a look at that first bin and saying, ‘That’s a big bin,'” he said. “We were really concerned about filling it. Now, with all the elevators we have and the relationships we have, we fill that 95,000-bushel bin by 9:30 Monday morning.”
Hostetter said that his is a world of trust and relationships. “If you think about what we do, we write grain contracts that could value well over a million dollars, all done with a simple conversation over the phone, followed up by a one-page contract, either by mail or email,” he said. “And it works.”
If it were any other industry, it would be a much more complex transaction, with multiple layers of lawyers, pages of contracts, and hundreds of emails. In the faster, often sterile world outside of agriculture, where relationships are not cultivated, texting is preferred. Handshakes are improbable. It is good to be reminded, then, that there are still places in this world not so detached from the people and things in which they deal.
Hostetter, 64, said that no matter who he is working with in the industry — the producer or the end user — it is a great industry to be part of. “We work with salt-of-the-earth people,” he said, “honest people, trustworthy people.”
For those who would look at this assessment as naive, Hostetter is not that. There is something to be said about anyone who has spent an entire career dealing with transactions this way, and has not only grown the business, but has been arguably very successful. In fact, he now looks forward to his nephews — Jared, Eric, and Jason — taking over from him.
“I guess the greatest accomplishment was not only growing the business but now having it ready for the next generation to lead it forward — the third one in my family to take my parents’ risk into the future,” he said.
Hostetter’s life has not been without loss. Three years ago, his then 60-year-old brother Barry was battling late-stage pancreatic cancer. Like Bill, Barry was in the family business, and like Bill, his list of civic involvement in the community was long. He served on the Chester Co. Holstein Club, the Chester-Delaware County Farm Bureau Board, the Oxford Zoning Hearing Board, and the board of directors for the Lighthouse Youth Ministry in Oxford for over 30 years.
The Hostetter Farm.
(Salena Zito)
Because of Barry’s dedication, the community wanted to let him know what he had meant to them. His health took a sudden turn for the worse, and within days, local farmers volunteered to coordinate the local township, fire company, county sheriff’s department, state police, and PennDOT to close down the road leading to the Hostetters’ house. They put a call out to local farmers who worked with the family and hoped that a few trucks would show up for the prayer parade they wanted to offer for Barry.
Instead of a few trucks, several hundred grain trucks, tractors, and farm vehicles from several different states and surrounding counties came out to offer prayer for the Hostetter family. Many of them taped homemade signs of hope, love, and appreciation to the sides of their vehicles as they lined the road for miles and for hours for Barry.
“The sight of those trucks that just went on and on, and the effort it took to make that happen, with many of them traveling over the back roads to get here, was humbling,” Hostetter said, his voice cracking as tears welled up. “You never really know the impact you have on others. You just try to do your best every day.”
“Barry, well, he sat in his pickup on the farm, waving at everyone,” Bill said. “Barry passed not long after that, but he was able to see the impact he had had on other peoples lives, and he really, really enjoyed that day.”
Hostetter explained that his wife Melissa was also injured in a car accident in 1999. This left her with a spinal cord injury and wheelchair-bound at a young age.
“I admire overcomers, and her zest for life is powerful,” he said.
Hostetter lost his father Wilmer in February.
“He and my mother are the biggest influences on life,” he said. “It was such a great loss. Still ask myself every day, ‘Well, what would my father do in this situation?’”
Then, he smiled. “Why would anyone want to know my family’s story?” he asked. “There are thousands, millions of families like mine across this country.”
A partial answer may lie within a speech given 45 years ago by Paul Harvey at that year’s FFA Convention, when he described the hard work, sacrifice, and sense of community farmers and ranchers have passed down for generations in this nation.
The people who form the backbone of our country, often working from sun-up to sundown, caring for the land and their livestock, placing food on all of our tables, have stories of their own. We need to tell more of those stories.
Progressives today making the same mistakes as those who did in the 20th Century.
It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that Nazi Germany embraced wage controls, Social Security, public schooling, a government-managed economy, a military-industrial complex, and other programs that have long been central to the American progressive program.
A quote by Hitler regarding the importance of public schooling, one of the main German socialist programs that progressives imported to the United States, should be contemplated by every American who enthusiastically supports the idea that the state should be responsible for the education of people’s children.
And how about some of the famous people who early on had no issues with the Nazi’s. Chamberlan, FDR, Ford, Joseph Kennedy, and those below.
Ezra Pound was a famous modernist writer who was prominent during the early 20th century among writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway in Europe, who he edited and collaborated with. After World War I, Pound had moved to Italy in apparent defiance to the UK and struck up support for Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator. Pound met Mussolini in 1933. He spent years before and during World War II broadcasting on Rome Radio in support of Mussolini and Hitler and against Jews.
Pound was arrested when Italy fell to the Allies and would be charged with treason by the US. During this period, he spent three weeks in an outdoor cage before suffering a mental breakdown. He reportedly called Hitler “a saint” when talking to reporters and had asked to record one last radio broadcast which, among other things, would ask for leniency toward Germany. Pound would spend 13 years in a psychiatric hospital in the US before returning to Italy, where he still harbored anti-Semitic views.[1] He died in 1972, leaving behind a literary legacy which is revered but a personal legacy which is full of controversy.
The assertion that the man behind one of the most famous and loved companies in the world harbored pro-Nazi sympathies is extremely controversial and somewhat shocking. However, there are reports that Disney was linked to a few events in the 1930s which were essentially US Nazi Party meetings. In the period before the war and the full atrocities of Hitler’s regime were known, there are smatterings of information that suggest elitist groups in the US and the UK held views similar to those of the Nazis, and Disney seems to have been one of them. In a book called Hitler’s Doubles, it is said that Disney was attending pro-Nazi meetings prior to the war.[2]
It is also known that Disney had hosted Leni Riefenstahl and gave her a tour of his studios. Riefenstahl was the director of Nazi propaganda films Olympia and Triumph des Willens. Disney’s company was criticized for this move. Disney would go on to create anti-Nazi films such as Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi, which somewhat muddies the waters. We will probably never know the true nature of his Nazi links.
Edward VIII is perhaps the most visible and remembered person on this list who had pro-Nazi sentiments. His abdication of the throne in 1936 was caused by his marriage to the American Wallis Simpson, which caused a constitutional crisis, but it was said that he also had too close a connection with Adolf Hitler. Hitler was fond of Edward VIII, and his abdication in 1936 was seen as a blow to the relations Hitler hoped to keep with the UK. In 1937, the then-duke and duchess (Simpson) visited Nazi Germany and are famously pictured with Hitler during this visit.
During World War II, Edward was seen as a risk to the future democracy of the UK, as Hitler had plans to reinstate him upon successful invasion of England. He was made governor of the Bahamas during the war to keep him out of the way. There are numerous accounts of Edward professing his support of Hitler and his policies, with suggestions that he and his wife were fascists. It remains an awkward and contentious point of history in the monarchy of the UK.[3]
Henry Ford is an American pioneer who revolutionized the motor industry with the first assembly line for cars in the early 20th century, but some links exist between the man and the Nazi regime. In 1920, he gave an interview to New York World in which his anti-Semitic views were apparent, calling the “International Jew” a “threat” and accusing them of being behind World War I. The New York Times would also publish an article that suggested Adolf Hitler had a large picture of Henry Ford up on his office wall—in admiration of Ford.[4] This admiration is made clear when Hitler actually name-drops Henry Ford in his book Mein Kampf, calling Ford a “single great man” who “still maintains full independence” from the Jewish threat.
In 1938, only a year before Hitler would invade Poland, Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal possible for a person of non-German origin, with Ford being the only US citizen to receive the award. Ford’s name and collection of articles The International Jew was also brought up during the Nuremberg Trials after the conclusion of World War II as an influential piece of anti-Semitic rhetoric. Ford died in 1947.
Charles Lindbergh was made famous overnight in 1927 when he successfully manned a plane from New York to Paris and won the Orteig Prize. His life was also struck by tragedy in 1932, when his infant son was kidnapped and murdered in a ransom attempt which was widely covered in the US media, being dubbed the “Crime of the Century.” He is perhaps remembered least for his outspoken rhetoric against entering the war against Nazi Germany and for his pro-Germany actions.
In June 1936, Lindbergh visited Germany on behalf of the US government in an effort to learn more about how far German aviation had come. Lindbergh also sat near Hitler during the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Summer Olympics but, by all accounts, did not communicate with him.[5] After this, Lindbergh became a pariah in the US, as he called for neutrality and nonengagement in the war with Germany, often attracting German American Bund (a US pro-Nazi organization) members to his speeches. Lindbergh was careful never to admit to Nazi sympathy, and to some extent, he may not have been a sympathizer, but his position was confusing for the US public, and his reputation undoubtedly suffered from it.
Charles Coughlin, commonly referred to as Father Coughlin, was a Roman Catholic priest who used radio before World War II to reach millions of listeners to his doctrines. Coughlin expressed interest in fascist governments, including the Third Reich, in an apparent contrast to communism and Jewish control of banking. In November 1938, Coughlin effectively spoke out against Kristallnacht when asserting that Christian persecution came first. After this controversial broadcast, he became an outcast from mainstream radio and began to receive followers who were anti-Semitic, to the extent that public protests were carried out.
After World War II broke out, he was forced out of radio by the US government and was also made to stop publishing his newspaper, Social Justice. He was to cease all political activity and perform only parish duties. Coughlin denied his anti-Semitic views throughout his active political life, but there is a wealth of facts (including some evidence that suggests Coughlin received funding from Nazi Germany) that point to him being sympathetic with Hitler’s regime.[6]
4 Cliveden Set
The “Cliveden set” was a name given to a group of wealthy individuals who would regularly meet at Cliveden, a home in Buckinghamshire that was the residence of Nancy and Waldorf Astor in the interim period between the World Wars. The group, who were dubbed the Cliveden set in 1937, were one of the most controversial of the period. They seemed to be deeply anti-Semitic and had considerable influence on some of the highest members of the British government. They also seemed to have connections with some high-ranking officials of the Nazi Party and were known in the US. Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of the UK from 1937 to 1940, was said to have been influenced by the group.
However, in more recent years, it has been discovered that the Cliveden set may have been misunderstood and were on a list of people who would be immediately arrested on the successful invasion of Britain by Germany. The Cliveden set were often written about by Claud Cockburn, the editor of The Week, and his shaming of the group is disregarded today as biased. It might be called “fake news” in 2019. It remains unclear if the group were really pro-Nazi, but they seem to be linked forever in history to being pro-German.[7]
Sir Oswald Mosley is probably the most obvious Nazi sympathizer on this list. Mosley was a British politician who had failed to be elected in his constituency in 1931, despite being a convincing speaker. After visiting Mussolini in Italy in 1936, he became convinced that fascism was the best alternative to communism and that Britain needed to embrace it.[8] He founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. The BUF targeted Jewish neighborhoods with Mosley’s Fascist Defence Force (nicknamed the “blackshirts”) but remained popular with some strands of followers in England. Mosley would perform the Nazi salute to his blackshirts, who, in turn, performed it back. In 1936, Mosley married Diana Guiness in the home of Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler in attendance.
During World War II, Mosely attempted to convince the British government to accept Hitler’s offerings of peace, but he would be arrested and placed under house arrest. Mosely had extremely strong verbal skills, and this was considered dangerous in a turbulent time in Britain. However, public opinion on Mosley dipped after Nazi Germany began the Blitz on London. He spent the majority of World War II under house arrest, and after the war, he pursued trying to drive Europe to become a single state.
The architect Philip Johnson, known for designing the Glass House in which he lived in Connecticut, was an active supporter of Hitler’s Third Reich prior to the outbreak of World War II. Johnson was linked with Father Charles Coughlin and the anti-Semitic newspaper Social Justice, writing articles for them. Johnson was also known to have traveled to Nazi Germany to report on the huge rallies that were organized, including the annual Nuremberg rally. He was said to have been enthralled by them and made contacts with key Nazi officials during his visits.[9]
In 1940, the FBI would uncover Johnson’s involvement in driving German propaganda to the US “on the Nazis’ behalf.” Johnson would refer to the destruction of Warsaw as a “stirring spectacle.” He was undoubtedly a Nazi sympathizer, but Johnson would try to distance himself once World War II broke out. Years later, in 2018, The New Yorker wrote that Johnson still professed admiration for Hitler as of 1964 by calling him “better than Roosevelt.”
Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, may not be a name you have heard before, but he was a groundbreaking journalist who was fundamental in the creation of the UK newspapers the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. To this day, his family have control over the newspapers and have had an influence on British politics due to this. During the years between the World Wars, Rothermere corresponded with Hitler and would publish articles in his newspapers that essentially promoted fascism. He was also supportive of Oswald Mosley and his BUF. To have a man in such an influential position as Rotheremere openly supporting the Nazi regime must have been deeply concerning.
Rotheremere also paid an annual fee to Stephanie von Hohenlohe, a notorious German spy who was watched by British and American authorities and eventually arrested. This fee was said to be in the aim of promoting Nazi Germany and helping Rothermere get closer to influencing Hitler.[10] In 1939, he wrote a book, My Fight to Rearm Britain, in which he detailed his fight for increased spending on defense and resources needed to protect the country. Regardless, he was heavily linked with the Nazi party in their earlier days, as many English aristocrats seemingly were, yet held such an influential position that it can only be regarded a miracle that many others were not persuaded by his publications.
