Friday, June 21, 2019
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"Where do I go to get my reputation back, even though nobody knows I lost it?"
That seems paradoxical, since your reputation is what people generally think of you -- but in digital publishing what really counts is what computers think of you. Earlier this week, secret algorithms besmirched my digital reputation, in ways that could negatively impact my paycheck, and my employer's profits.
And it all happened behind the scenes, without any of my readers knowing. To you, I'm still the same old VodkaPundit with the same old reputation. For whatever that's worth...
So what happened?
On Tuesday I wrote a generally well-received column
Trump’s Way To Victory
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Ignore the battlefield prep from the mainstream media – Donald Trump is the odds-on favorite for reelection against whichever weirdo, loser or mutation the Democrats finally pick as their nominee. The leaked polls purportedly showing Trump deep underwater to Floppy Joe and Bernie Stalin and that has-been furry from Texas are about as reliable as the ones the placed Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit in the White House. She’s now stumbling around the woods guzzling from a queen-sized goblet of Trader Joe’s Chardonnay while The Donald is racking up the greatest streak of conservative victories since Ronald Reagan – maybe even Cal Coolidge.
With the latest news that Iran shot down a United States Navy drone, it shows that President Trump was right all along. The Iranian regime cannot be trusted, and appeasement was never a practical or realistic solution. When President Trump announced the American withdrawal from the nuclear deal last year, his political opponents loudly criticized his strategy, arguing that the agreement signed under President Obama was the only way to contain Iranian nuclear ambitions. Since then, however, Iran has demonstrated that the skepticism that President Trump has held of the appeasement policy of his predecessor was in fact entirely justified.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter continues to play an active role in a Chinese-sponsored investment fund, according to ABC News.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden confirmed to ABC News that Biden remains in his position despite questions about his role at a Chinese investment fund.
Hunter Biden traveled to China with his father in 2013, and his firm formed a $1.5 billion joint venture with the Chinese government called Bohai Harvest RST. Hunter serves on the board of the company.
Author Peter Schweizer first reported the details of the questionable dealings with China in his bestselling book Secret Empires.
President Trump is beginning his 2020 re-election effort by trying to woo Hispanic voters with a kickoff event in the crucial swing state of Florida. Vice President Mike Pence will visit Miami on Tuesday to roll out the "Latinos for Trump" campaign, a nationwide project aimed at engaging Hispanic communities. Florida is home to more 2 million Hispanic voters and could play a key role in next year's presidential election, Politico reported. "The strong Latino support for President Trump and his policies will be instrumental in re-electing the president for a second term," Hannah Castillo, director of coalitions for the Trump campaign, told The Hill in a statement
Members of the Project 21 black leadership network said that the legislative proposal to study giving reparations to descendants of slaves is a “sham,” calling the idea both unnecessary and divisive.The proposal in question is Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-TX) bill HR 40, which would set up a commission to study reparations strategies. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing on the bill on Wednesday.The text of the bill states: To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and
Appearing Thursday on CNN Newsroom, New York Times national political reporter Astead Herndon falsely labeled segregationist Democrat senators whom former Vice President Joe Biden praised for their “civility” Republicans.The day prior, MSNBC host Kasie Hunt made the same error by misidentifying Sens. James Eastland (D-MS) and Herman Talmadge (D-GA). She has since issued a correction, while Herndon has yet to follow suit. A partial transcript is as follows: POPPY HARLOW: What have we learned in the last 24 hours about the frontrunner in the Democratic primary? ASTEAD HERNDON: I think what we learned is similar to things that we’ve already known about the vice president.
Republican lawmakers in Oregon are in hot water after they refused to partake in a historic vote Thursday to implement a cap-and-trade program to help rein in industrial carbon emissions. Gov. Kate Brown authorized the state police to round up the 12 Republicans who walked out of the Capitol in protest of the bill and bring them back to the Senate floor for a vote. If passed the measure will make Oregon the second state in the country after California to implement such a program. "It would have been historic for Oregon, historic for the country, and frankly historic for the world,
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has apologized to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer for his comments about the lack of diversity among their top staff that stirred furor within the upper ranks of leadership. Clyburn's swift efforts to recant his criticism of his fellow Democratic leaders are the latest in a string of recent verbal missteps in which the No. 3 House Democrat has been forced to walk back contentious remarks. Earlier this month, Clyburn had retreated from his comments suggesting that an impeachment inquiry was inevitable. Weeks before that, Clyburn came under fire by some
Recent caravans of foreign nationals included more than 1,500 previously deported convicted criminal illegal aliens, nearly 30 of which were convicted of sex crimes, federal officials say.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data provided to the House Oversight and Reform Committee this week reveal that two recent caravans of about 11,300 nationals that flooded the United States-Mexico border in October 2018 and January 2019 included about 1,520 previously deported illegal aliens who had been convicted of crimes in the U.S.
Of those 1,520 previously deported illegal aliens with U.S. criminal convictions:
Four were convicted of murder
Nearly 30 were convicted of sex crimes
More than 60 had been convicted for assault or
Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost spoke to Congress on Thursday about the immigration crisis, and how it’s keeping agents from apprehending migrants who cross the border illegally. “I have been forced to divert 40% to 60% of Border Patrol’s manpower away from the border as we process and care for nearly 435,000 family and children that have flooded across our southern border so far this year,” Provost said Thursday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations. Border Patrol and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security have long complained the immigration crisis has forced them
As reported earlier by Joseph Curl — Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old former bartender turned member of Congress, on Monday said President Trump “has established concentration camps on the southern border.”“This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying. This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis,” she wrote on Twitter, citing a magazine article.
Make America Even Greater
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Those themes were a mix of traditional Republican positions (tax reform, deregulation, conservative judges, military strength) and a populist agenda (draining the swamp, trade, immigration). Mr. Trump spent much of Tuesday night highlighting the promises kept and the resulting prosperity, while vowing to complete those items that have had a rougher ride—the border, that China deal, health care. He threw in a few new proposals at the end, like eradicating AIDS in America and a mission to Mars. But broadly the president’s message was this: Give me four more years to protect and finish the plan.
Retired NFL player and author Burgess Owens is blasting the Democrat Party for its dark past of suppressing black Americans. During the House Judiciary hearing on slavery reparations Wednesday, Owens said if any modern Americans should be held responsible for the evils of slavery and forced to pay restitution for it then it should be the Democrats. Owens went on to say reparations would only hold back African Americans, forcing them to believe they are victims — which he called the biggest insult. (Tweet)
Situation Room briefing on Iran crisis concludes,
as McConnell says 'measured' response is coming replies
as McConnell says 'measured' response is coming replies
Top administration officials and lawmakers have left the White House after a more than hourlong briefing about Iran's downing of an American surveillance drone in the Middle East.
Amid mounting tension between the U.S. and Iran, the White House invited House and Senate leaders and Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees to meet with President Trump on Thursday.
Others who arrived for the meeting included CIA Director Gina Haspel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Army Secretary Mark Esper, whom Trump has said he'll nominate as defense secretary.
Veteran journalist Art Moore was editing a story on the Trump-Russia probe last October when he heard a knock at the door. He saw a couple of men in suits on the front porch of his suburban Seattle home and thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses making the rounds. But they weren’t missionaries there to convert him; they were FBI agents there to interrogate him, sent by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The G-men wanted to talk about WikiLeaks, specifically whether the Trump campaign had any connection to the hacktivist group’s release of thousands of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election.
As the 2020 presidential race gains momentum, religion is shaping up as a surprisingly important issue and a key sector of voters sought by both parties this time. Faith voters were a vital segment of Donald Trump’s GOP primary campaign in 2015-16 and the general election that year. This despite Trump’s three marriages, alleged affairs and sometimes sexually explicit language, a fact that Democrats still find difficult to believe. [Snip] There’s no accident that he announced his reelection campaign this week in the South and the Republican National Convention will be held in Charlotte next summer. A poll by the
Over 5.8 million individuals have discontinued their participation in America’s food stamp program since President Donald Trump’s first full month in office, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data.
The most recent USDA data shows that 5,829,890 people discontinued their participation in food stamps received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) since February 2017, Trump’s first full month in office.
Overall food stamp participation had consistently declined since 2013 back when the Obama administration was in power and enrollment in the program reached its peak in U.S. history.
One sure sign the Democratic primary race is getting more heated: Those 23 wannabe presidents are promising to take more of American workers’ income in taxes to pay for some of the free stuff they’re offering simultaneously. Such a deal! We’re sure to hear more about their vast spending hopes next week during the first pair of Democratic debates. Fact Checker to Aisle 3 please! [Snip] Joe Biden promised that the very first thing he would do as president is kill President Trump’s tax cuts. That, of course, means a tax hike for most Americans.
Byron York has put down the crustless triangle sandwich and white wine spritzer long enough to finally discover the October 20th, 2017, scope memo written by Rod Rosenstein that authorized Weissman and Mueller to target Michael Flynn Jr .[…] The Justice Department has recently allowed members of some congressional committees to view the scope memos, and out of that has come the news that there was a third scope memo to Mueller. Dated Oct. 20, 2017, its contents remain a secret. But its very existence suggests something was going on behind the scenes in the relationship of Mueller and
President Trump will appear Sunday on “Meet the Press,” his first NBC interview since he sat down with anchor Lester Holt in 2017. It will be Trump’s first time on the Sunday morning news show since he became president, CNN reported on Thursday. His last appearance occurred on August 2015. The sitdown comes days before NBC will host the first round of Democratic presidential candidate debates next Wednesday and Thursday. Trump spent 30 hours with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in a highly-teased interview that aired Sunday evening.
You may have suspected this was coming, ever since the last time you banged your knee on the airplane seat in front of you.
Airlines have been reducing the space between rows of seats in order to squeeze in a few more rows of seats and max the profits per flight. As a reward, they’ve also raised fares. You don’t mind do you? Now, comes a daring new concept in air travel comfort, the airplane saddle. This week at the Paris Air Show Avio Interior unveiled
When Donald Trump’s campaign manager said in Miami recently that he planned to launch a national Hispanic outreach effort in Florida, Democrats took notice.
The state’s 2.2 million Hispanic voters make up an outsized portion of Florida’s electorate, and nearly two-thirds voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Last year, Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and rhetoric contributed to sweeping Republican losses around the country as strong Hispanic turnout helped Democrats take the House of Representatives.
But the belief in demographic destiny is dead among Florida Democrats, crushed in November by victorious Trump-backed candidates who more than
Earlier this month RealClearPolitics posted Paul Sperry’s intensely reported account of the Mueller investigation from the perspective of its objects in “‘Scorched Earth’: Mueller’s Targets Speak Out.” Sperry prefaced his report:
Now that [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller has ended his probe finding no election collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, 10 witnesses and targets of his sprawling, $35 million investigation agreed to speak with RealClearInvestigations because they no longer feel in legal jeopardy. They include several people who became household names during the two-year probe – including George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Roger Stone – as well as lesser-known figures whose lives