Posts on Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Beijing is accelerating its bid for global leadership in key technologies, planning to pump more than a trillion dollars into the economy through the rollout of everything from wireless networks to artificial intelligence. In the masterplan backed by President Xi Jinping himself, China will invest an estimated $1.4 trillion over six years to 2025, calling on urban governments and private tech giants like Huawei Technologies Co. to lay fifth generation wireless networks, install cameras and sensors, and develop AI software that will underpin autonomous driving to automated factories and mass surveillance. The new infrastructure initiative is expected to drive mainly local giants from Alibaba and Huawei to SenseTime Group Ltd.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didn’t back down in the face of media umbrage over the firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. Not only did he say President Donald Trump canned Linick at his recommendation, Pompeo added that he should have done it much sooner. “I recommended to the President that Steve Linick be terminated,” Pompeo said on Wednesday, at his first press conference since the firing. “Frankly, should’ve done it some time ago.” (Video) Trump fired the State Department’s internal watchdog on Friday night, saying he had lost confidence in Linick, who was appointed in 2013 under President Obama.
Wednesday on MSNBC, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez accused President Donald Trump of attempting to “steal the election” by opposing vote-by-mail during the coronavirus pandemic.Host Chris Hayes said, “For more on the president’s efforts to subvert the democratic process, I’m joined by the chair of the Democratic National Committee. I’m always conflicted about, you know, stories of the variety the president tweeted. He tweets a lot of things and most of it is nonsense or lies or liable or slander or whatever. But the way he attacked absentee voting today struck me as genuinely dangerous and genuinely sort of threatening to democracy.
Arizona lawmakers are moving to erect new hurdles to protect individuals from having their property seized by the state. SB 1556 would end the ability of prosecutors to be able to take property simply by convincing a judge that it is connected to criminal activity. Instead, they would have to actually first convict someone of a crime. The 6-4 vote Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee came over the objections of prosecutors who argued that it would impair their ability to protect Arizonans from criminal activity. But (snip) their real objection is that the current law allows prosecutors — and the police agencies (snip) — to keep what they seize.
Michigan's jobless rate topped 22% in April, the state said Wednesday, likely an all-time high for the state, as widespread layoffs continued in the month as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1.05 million unemployment claims were filed in Michigan in April, also an all-time high, according to the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget. The previous peak was 725,000 claims in June 2009 during the recession, the department said. “April’s historic unemployment rate and job declines reflected the first full month of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the state’s labor market,” Jason Palmer, director of the Bureau
Study: Washington ranks among
states with most restrictions
still in place due to coronavirus replies
states with most restrictions
still in place due to coronavirus replies
Washington is taking a gradual approach to its reopening, using data and a series of metrics to determine when to move forward and continue easing restrictions. But the approach differs from that of many other states across the country. According to a new study from WalletHub, Washington ranks among the top 10 states with the most restrictions still in place due to the novel coronavirus. To rank the states, WalletHub looked at 11 factors, including the status of shelter in place orders and restrictions on large gatherings and travel. The study also looked at whether nonessential businesses, including restaurants and
Ben Sasse: Fire Officials Who Approved
Pandemic Aid For ‘Big Abortion’ Provider
Planned Parenthood replies
Pandemic Aid For ‘Big Abortion’ Provider
Planned Parenthood replies
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) called for President Trump to fire the bureaucrats who illegally approved millions of dollars worth of small-business loans for Planned Parenthood clinics.Sasse issued a strong statement on Wednesday slamming the well-known abortion provider for taking advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that it is ineligible to receive.“Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, tried to defraud taxpayers during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Sasse said. “The Paycheck Protection Program is supposed to be a lifeline
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during her weekly press briefing declared that President Donald Trump and those who work for him had “doggie doo” on their shoes. When asked about Trump’s Joe Scarborough tweets, Pelosi said, “It’s so completely inappropriate in so many that it is almost a given. It’s like a child who comes in with mud on their pants, that’s the way it is, they are outside playing. He comes in with doggie doo on his shoes, and everybody that works for him has that on their shoes too for a very long time to come.”
Burger Jones will permanently close its Minneapolis location, according to a post on social media.
The restaurant had operated in the Calhoun Village Shopping Center for 11 years.
"It is with a heavy heart that we announce to our beloved guests in the Twin Cities that Burger Jones in Calhoun Village will close it's doors for good," the post stated. "We are so proud, and so happy for all of the friendships we have made with all of you."
The Burger Jones location in Burnsville will remain open, the post stated.
An old tale goes something like this. A rich man asks a beautiful woman if she’ll sleep with him for a million dollars. “Sure!” she replies. “How about for a hundred bucks?” he asks. She indignantly responds, “What kind of woman do you think I am?” He answers, “We’ve determined that, madam. We’re just haggling over the price.”
This hoary old chestnut came to mind when news broke that the FBI seized Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr’s cellphone, pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge upon probable cause, in an investigation of Burr allegedly misusing information from a classified Feb. 4 briefing
The House will have to wait a little longer to see what's inside secret grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee issued an emergency request for the undisclosed files last summer, and Washington, D.C.'s federal appeals court ruled in the committee's favor in March. But the Supreme Court overturned the appeals court's order on Wednesday, likely keeping the materials under wraps through the 2020 election, The Wall Street Journal reports.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily prevented the House of Representatives from obtaining secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The court's unsigned order keeps previously undisclosed details from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election out of the hands of Democratic lawmakers at least until early summer. The court will decide then whether to extend its hold. The federal appeals court in Washington ruled in March that the documents should be turned over because the House Judiciary Committee’s need for the material in its investigation of President Donald Trump outweighed the Justice Department’s interests in keeping the testimony secret.
We Were Never Asked
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Police officers dealing with the public have a fairly savvy approach to persuasion: first ask, then tell, then force. It works because it accounts for the dignity and self-respect of others. Uncertain rookie cops and bullies are the ones who forget to ask, adding unnecessary friction to encounters between citizens and the state. In the early days of the coronavirus, everyone went from being carefree and complacent to scared in the blink of an eye.
Yesterday’s release of Susan Rice’s inauguration-day email to herself provided further evidence of former President Barack Obama’s participation in the FBI’s targeting of Michael Flynn. The recently declassified paragraph in Rice’s email, however, proves significant for another reason: It confirms the FBI had no valid investigative purpose for questioning Flynn on January 24, 2017.
In February 2018, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham announced that as part of their efforts to conduct oversight of the FBI and DOJ they had discovered “a partially unclassified email sent by President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (NSA) Susan Rice to herself on January 20, 2017—President Trump’s inauguration day.”
Ukraine judge orders Joe Biden be listed
as alleged perpetrator of crime
in prosecutor’s firing replies
as alleged perpetrator of crime
in prosecutor’s firing replies
The infamous story of Joe Biden’s effort to force the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor in 2016 has taken a new legal twist in Kiev, just as the former vice president is sewing up the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in America.
In Kiev late last month, District Court Judge S. V. Vovk ordered the country’s law enforcement services to formally list the fired prosecutor, Victor Shokin, as the victim of an alleged crime by the former U.S. vice president, according to an official English translation of the ruling obtained by Just the News.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden on Tuesday blasted Donald Trump Jr.’s “sick” joke that labeled him a pedophile. The president’s eldest son was criticized over the weekend after he posted a meme that showed the former vice president saying, “See ya later, alligator!” and an alligator responding, “In a while, pedophile!” Mr. Trump Jr. refused to delete the meme, saying “anyone with a scintilla of common sense” should have known it was a joke.(Snip) Mr. Biden called the attack “bizarre” during a Yahoo News virtual town hall Tuesday. “What he’s trying to do is get something going on the Internet.
Ever since he matured from Marxist revolutionary to conservative heavyweight champ, the American left has felt free to smear Clarence Thomas in ways they’d scream “racism!” at if he were still one of them. It’s a half-century reminder of which political team consistently weaponizes a twisted conception of racism to obtain power at any cost, instead of recognizing racism as a moral evil with objective standards of transgression that apply equally to all.In this reprehensible tradition, The New York Times published an article on May 18 titled, “Passed By for Decades, Clarence Thomas Is a New Symbol of the Trump Era.”
This morning on CNN Newsroom, CNN White House correspondent John Harwood attacked Trump allies in the GOP for looking for doctors who support reopening the economy to appear on television and advocate this position. CNN obtained this information from a leaked conference call between members of Trump’s reelection campaign, discussing finding pro-Trump doctors who will go on television and advocate the need to reopen. CNN Newsroom co-host Jim Sciutto posed skeptically to Harwood, “Trump’s reelection campaign is now recruiting doctors?
Is NBC the next Weinstein?
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New York state is investigating sex misconduct at NBC news including an allegation that Tom Brokaw assaulted Linda Vester.
Tom Brokaw?
Old Marbles Mouth?
I refuse to believe it, but that is what Vester told the Daily Mail. The London-based newspaper said, "She claimed in 2018 the veteran anchor had pinned her against the wall and attempted to kiss her on two separate occasions" in the 1990s. (Snip)The investigation began 3 years ago when CBS and NBC purged themselves of morning anchors Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer after decades of looking the other way when it came to their sexual misconduct.
US deaths are lower per million than eight European countries despite having the highest total number of deaths in the world. As of Wednesday morning, there had been 92,000 deaths across America—the highest reported number of any country in the world by far, and more than 1.5million cases. Modelers are now predicting that another 4million will become infected by July 24 and that as many as 290,000 could die in total if social distancing isn't adhered to. But when weighing the death toll up against America's enormous population of around 328million, then comparing the per capita rate to other European countries, the US slips
The FDA has warned against taking hydroxychloroquine, but President Trump says he's taking it and isn't concerned.
Dr. William O'Neill, a world-renowned Henry Ford doctor, is leading one of the largest U.S. studies into the drug. He gives us a little more information. "The drug has been available for decades. Initially, it was used as a treatment for malaria, (snip) In fact, Dr. O'Neill calls a recent report based on veterans and the dangers of hydroxychloroquine "junk science."
"The report has never been peer-reviewed, meaning that other doctors haven't been able to review the information. And it's an incredibly inaccurate, biased report," he says.
It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of the challenge we are facing today. The damage done by this pandemic, and the certain knowledge that more lies ahead, is daunting. Its shocking human toll and as-yet-unmeasurable economic effects will shape us for a generation or more. But even now, it is heartening to see how New Jersey residents have risen to this moment.
Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe with her husband Joe Scarborough, tweeted Wednesday morning she would be “reaching out to the head of Twitter” to get President Trump banned from Twitter, saying, “the world world (sic) be safer.” Trump and the the Morning Joe couple have been in a long running feud since the 2016 election, with both sides taking deeply personal shots at each other. (Update at end).(Photo) Brezinski also berated Trump on Wednesday’s Morning Joe: (Tweet)
Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline was on display again Tuesday evening when he committed several blunders during an interview with Yahoo News.The Democrat presumptive nominee seemed to forget the name of the coronavirus:(Tweet/Video) Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline was on display again Tuesday evening when he committed several blunders during an interview with Yahoo News.The Democrat presumptive nominee seemed to forget the name of the coronavirus:(Tweet/Video)
Michael Jellison shut the doors to PA Fitness in March as COVID-19 spread across the state.
Gov. Jay Inslee had issued a stay-home order, and Jellison dutifully closed — as did owners of thousands of other businesses deemed by the state’s chief executive to be non-essential.
On May 11, Jellison unlocked the doors, welcoming customers back six days a week for “protest hours.” Working out is a “mentally and physically essential” activity, he said Tuesday, (snip) On Monday, Attorney General Ferguson sued Jellison in Snohomish County Superior Court, alleging that by remaining open his gym is endangering public health and engaging in unfair business practices because competitors have followed the state’s rules
Andriy Derkach, an independent member of Ukraine’s parliament, said at a press conference on Tuesday that he had received recorded phone call conversations between presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, then-vice president in the Obama administration, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which Derkach reportedly played at the press conference. The Washington Post reported that the “recordings of private phone calls between former vice president Joe Biden and former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko” were “a new broadside against the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president.”
Shortly after the 2016 election, an editor from my alumni magazine emailed to say she was putting together a collection of essays exploring Donald Trump’s presidency and asked if I’d be willing to contribute an article on “lessons learned” from the election. My piece, titled “Beware the Confident Experts,” appeared in the March 2017 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly and laid out the case for the why the polls weren’t nearly as wrong in 2016 as the pundits were.
I went back through the data to show the race was objectively close, but that’s not how it was presented to the American people by the supposed experts. I wrote:
The core of cruelty defining New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo marches on. As many contend, his policies are responsible for the shocking number of deaths at nursing homes in the state.
In a response to a reporter inquiring about the situation, Mr. Cuomo declared, “He [President Trump] worked it out so we always had available beds. Nobody was deprived of a bed or medical coverage in any way. And still people died. Still, people died. Older people, vulnerable people are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen despite whatever you do. Because with all our progress as a society, we can’t keep everyone alive.”
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the Navajo Nation is now leading the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita.
According to the data, the Navajo Nation has 2,304 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people. In comparison, New York has a rate of 1,806 per 100,000. New Jersey follows at 1,668 cases per 100,000.
Much of the Navajo Nation lacks water and electrical utilities. At a time when disinfecting and hyper sanitation is critical to fight the virus, many homes don’t even have the basic infrastructure of running water.
As we previously reported there were were some folks buying masks demanding we all “Trust Fauci” because we must “trust scientists” whether they are right to not, elected or not. A Los Angeles clothing company Canava has taken the “pandemic cult” even a step further. They are putting out a limited edition of women’s underpants so you can show your appreciation for people who have “impressed” them during the pandemic – Dr. Anthony Fauci, California Governor Gavin Newsom or New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Journalists are pack animals. That’s especially true in Washington. Despite the hunger for scoops, when it comes to the substance of stories, few have the guts to go against the ideological groupthink that prevails in our nation’s capital.
That’s what makes CBS’ Catherine Herridge so exceptional. In an era when too many network journalists slant their reporting to serve establishment opinion, Herridge sticks to the facts. Her dogged determination to get to the bottom of stories has made her an invaluable source on the national-security beat.
Her sterling quality and integrity have also put a target on her back.
When it comes to misinformation, disinformation and the now-disproven Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory, it would not have been possible without a strong dose of media support. Here is a timeline that breaks out some important reports by — and leaks to — the news media. March 25, 2016 Ukrainian-American operative for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Alexandra Chalupa meets with top Ukrainian officials at Ukrainian Embassy in Washington D.C. to "expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia," according to Politico. Ukrainian embassy proceeds to work "directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions," according to an embassy official (though other officials
States across the country are implementing their own plans for reopening in the wake of the coronavirus, with some allowing citizens to get back to their lives and livelihoods, while others continue to order people to remain at home and stay away from public places.The personal finance website conducted a survey to determine which states have the most and least freedom as Americans are posed to celebrate Memorial Day. WalletHub said about its survey:
Americans experienced unprecedented restrictions on their everyday life in order to fight the coronavirus,
Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday night said FBI Director Christopher Wray "has declined to respond" to their May 4 letter seeking information and interviews with key FBI officials after the bombshell revelations in the Michael Flynn case -- prompting the lawmakers to take matters into their own hands. "Because Director Wray has declined to respond to our request, we are forced to write to you directly," Jordan and Johnson wrote in an extraordinary letter to FBI agent Joe Pientka
We all wondered why the names of so many Obama Treasury Department officials appeared on the list of those who requested unmaskings of Gen. Michael Flynn’s telephone calls. The requests all came on December 14, 2016 and were made by then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew (Lew made a second request on January 12, 2017), then-Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Arthur “Danny” McGlynn, then-Acting Assistant Deputy Secretary Mike Neufeld, then-Deputy Secretary Sarah Raskin, then-Under Secretary Nathan Sheets and then Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin.
n light of the nursing home disaster in New York, what kind of a ghoul would take that as an example to emulate instead of a baleful death warning, and then order contagious COVID-19 patients into her state's nursing homes?
Only Michigan's hard-faced Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the ambitious Democrat who banned sales of garden seeds to Michiganders, saying she's doing it in the name of keeping everyone 'safe.'
'Safe' to Whitmer is seeding the nursing homes with COVID-19 patients, supposedly as a means of lightening the loads of hospitals. Too bad if granny gets it.
There are two aspects to the current imbroglio over the Justice Department’s attempt to dismiss the Michael Flynn case, which U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan so far has rejected. The first is procedural -- whether Sullivan following Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure must dismiss. The second is substantive, whether the basis the government gave for dismissal is legitimate. (snip) The issue of materiality is essentially “Obamagate,” the scandal the left refuses to acknowledge. Was the FBI interview of Flynn conducted for legitimate purposes of pursuing the Crossfire Hurricane investigation
President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to punish Michigan for mailing absentee ballot applications to all state voters ahead of the election. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” (Tweet) On Tuesday, Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sent ballot applications to 7.7 million voters in the state.“By mailing applications, we have ensured that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote,”
Ronald Reagan famously declared that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Those words resonate with many during a time when some governments are aggressively enforcing efforts that seek to prevent society from re-opening. Polling I conducted this past weekend found that 52 percent of voters share Reagan's view of how terrifying government "help" can be. Only 35 percent disagree.
Initially, of course, there was strong support for the lockdowns. But a backlash is brewing.
China’s communist regime has shown a shocking proclivity for lying and deceptive behavior in handling the Wuhan virus pandemic. Now, Australia, already backed by 113 countries, wants a full accounting of China’s unacceptable behavior. China’s answer? Punish Australia.
It’s arguable whether China ever intended to live by the same rules as the rest of the world when it first gained membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001, backed strongly by the U.S. That move, more than anything, cemented China’s accession to world power status, with its economy soaring from just $80 billion in GDP in 1980 to $12 trillion
One has to wonder, do those on the left, including the media, actually think that Joe Biden is a viable candidate for president? Do they not realize that Nancy Pelosi is as senile as Joe? Like Joe, she often slurs her words, suffers brain freezes mid-sentence and spews gibberish. (snip) And yet, at the moment, Biden is their candidate and Pelosi is their Speaker who embarrasses herself every time she opens her mouth, as does Biden. Both of them belong in a long-term care facility for the aged. That the Democrats consider either of these pols a credit to their party is proof of their willful blindness.
In national polling, former vice president Joe Biden is the clear 2020 front-runner. He's up nearly 5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average; he's up in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona. That's because Biden campaigned as the anti-Bernie Sanders: a "return to normalcy" candidate rather than a transformational one. His entire pitch relied on his high name recognition, the general perception of his likability and his unthreatening demeanor.
The coronavirus pandemic merely underscored this pitch. Biden hasn't waned in the national polling since the pandemic -- his lead has been utterly consistent. That's true even though Biden has been relegated to his basement, gaffing through completely anodyne statements about COVID-19,
After Flynn Fiasco was Exposed, Mitt Romney's Old Mueller Tweets Should Keep Him
at the Kids' Table replies
at the Kids' Table replies
Oh, Mitt. Mitt Romney what are we going to do with you. You haven’t been a total pain in the ass, which was a fear—but you’ve had your moments, sir. You voted with Democrats on one of the politically motivated impeachment articles against Donald Trump. You forever betrayed the Republican Party, this president, and should be relegated to the kids' table for all coming time. Then, you’re all worried about Donald Trump firing all these inspector generals, which was already in the works because most if not all are Obama holdovers.
One dominating response to Donald Trump’s presidency has been anger.
Trump has stoked outrage among his supporters, who have echoed his rhetoric and fury, and his detractors, who have launched anti-Trump resistance protests and helped recruit new congressional candidates in 2018. It has also set the mood for the 2020 election. There’s only one problem for Democrats looking to replicate Barack Obama’s multiracial coalition: The voters most energized by anger are white.
According to the book “The Anger Gap” by political scientist Davin Phoenix, white Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — are a lot more likely to be motivated by anger than black Americans
They've been through riots, protests, and natural disasters—but America's colleges have never seen anything like the financial meltdown the coronavirus is about to bring to their campuses.
The rising wave of health fears, added costs, and vanishing tuition payments could crush small colleges, many of which were already hanging by a financial thread. Those that can weather the crisis—including big-name universities with billions in their bank accounts—in turn stand to gain big from the fallout. The emptying out of schools and the mass transition to distance learning has already been "the largest all-sector hit that we've ever seen," Jim Hundrieser, a vice president with the National Association
Time to Pillage Pelosi’s Village
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It’s been a remarkably dumb week even for 2020. One of the highlights was watching the media hacks looking at each other and pretending they have absolutely no idea what Donald Trump is talking about when he repeatedly tweets “#OBAMAGATE.” Remember, these are the same geniuses who are always wrong yet expect us to pay attention to their special insights into current events. Sheesh. On the upside, it’s becoming clear that we have a good shot at sending Nancy Pelosi back to Scat Francisco. Plus, I want to intro you to an Army guy who is trying to take a swing seat away from Nancy’s bestest purple district buddy!
California’s Budget Bust-Up
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Every state and municipal budget in America will take a big hit because of the coronavirus lockdowns, but no public purse is in as much trouble as California’s. Its Department of Finance recently estimated that the Golden State could face a $54 billion shortfall in the fiscal year beginning July 1, which surely must be the largest deficit any state has ever accumulated, surpassing the $40 billion hole that nearly swallowed Sacramento in 2008. Still, though Governor Gavin Newsome said last weekend that the staggering deficit was “a direct result of Covid-19,” that’s clearly not true. Critics have long warned that the state’s tax base
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) declared a state of emergency for Midland County on Tuesday night after two dams failed, flooding areas along the Tittabawassee River. The National Weather Service warned anyone near the engorged river to seek higher ground after "catastrophic dam failures" at the Edenville and Sanford dams, about 140 miles north of Detroit. Michigan officials said about 10,000 residents are being evacuated in Midland, Edenville, and Sanford. Midland, a town of 42,000, has a major Dow Chemical plant on the city's riverbank.
Politico’s press critic, Jack Shafer, pithily punctuates every major media donnybrook, and so it was on Monday, when he tweeted: “There is something wonderfully cleansing about a full-bore New York Times vs. New Yorker fight.”
The Times’ new media columnist, Ben Smith, had just published a 4,000-word takedown of The New Yorker’s seemingly sacrosanct Ronan Farrow — the whiz-kid investigative journalist whose pathbreaking work on Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes helped launch #MeToo, won him a Pulitzer in 2018 and led to the publication of the best-selling “Catch and Kill” last year.
There are those of us who view such a fight as the cultural, though certainly not the moral, equivalent
That the ACLU is suing the federal government in the hope of altering its due-process standards is not headline news. That the ACLU is suing the federal government in the hope of weakening its due-process standards is headline news for the ages. Once more, the line between parody and reality has been blurred.
The targets of the ACLU’s suit are the Department of Education; its secretary, Betsy DeVos; and its assistant secretary for civil rights, Kenneth Marcus. Their offense? To have made it easier for the accused to defend themselves. As NBC News explains, the changes that Secretary DeVos has spearheaded “effectively bolster the rights of due process
Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn’s lawyer in the criminal case against him, has filed a Writ of Mandamus to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The petition asks the D.C. Circuit to issue an order directing the district court to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss its case against Gen. Flynn. It also asks that the district court be ordered to vacate its order appointing amicus curiae in the case and that the case be reassigned to another district judge for any further proceedings.
I speculated here about the prospects for succeeding with such a petition at this stage of the proceedings
Presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden warns there will be no peace in the Middle East if Israel doesn't stop the threat of annexation.
During a Tuesday virtual fundraiser with members of the U.S. Jewish community, Biden vowed to reverse President Trump's policies in the Israeli region and restore the hope of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
In order to achieve that goal, Biden said the United States should restore diplomatic relationships with the Palestinian Authority. If elected president, the former vice president said he would help build efforts with Palestinians to take steps toward a two-state solution if they agreed on it.
“My commitment to Israel is absolutely unshakable,” Biden said,
Some bicycle shops in Brooklyn are selling twice as many bikes as usual and drawing blocklong lines of customers. A chain of shops in Phoenix is selling three times the number of bikes it typically does. A retailer in Washington, D.C., sold all its entry-level bikes by the end of April and has fielded more preorders than ever in its 50-year history.
As the coronavirus pandemic shrinks life in major American cities — limiting pastimes and discouraging use of buses and subways — hundreds of thousands of Americans are flocking to one of the most basic forms of mobility: the bicycle.
Crenshaw nails what’s fueling deep partisan
divide, and why the Left’s in ‘no rush’
to re-open America replies
divide, and why the Left’s in ‘no rush’
to re-open America replies
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw exposed what he thinks is really behind the partisan divide in the nation over reopening efforts in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. The Texas Republican addressed the “psychology and morality” of the politics behind why Americans are so polarized over the country getting back to a sort of normal following the ravages of the pandemic in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.“The debate over reopening the economy has a peculiar characteristic: It breaks down almost entirely along political lines,” Crenshaw began the piece titled, “Why Does Reopening Polarize Us?” “Liberals emphasize the dangers of an open society,
The Hunting of the President
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Washington-
Let us turn to the controversy surrounding Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first choice for national security adviser. Mr. Flynn was prosecuted and found guilty of lying to the FBI years ago, and, as the wheels of justice grind slowly in the United States, after much expense to both the government and to Mr. Flynn he was found guilty and about to be sentenced when the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr two weeks ago let him off the hook. The attorney general, after a lengthy procedure, found Mr. Flynn committed no crime.
Yet, if no crime was committed by Mr. Flynn, that does not mean no crime was committed
Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. took the mainstream media to task on "The Ingraham Angle" Tuesday after he received heavy criticism for keeping the Lynchburg, Va. campus open in March, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Well, if you're a conservative college president, be careful because they'll come after you," Fallwell told host Laura Ingraham. "It's totally political. It was totally political. And it was just so reprehensible how they did it. They spent days on campus. The New York Times reporter and the other reporter [from] ProPublica. And even though there were 'No Trespassing' signs everywhere, [they] never called
Susan Rice's resurfaced 2017 comments
denying knowledge of Trump
team surveillance raise eyebrows replies
denying knowledge of Trump
team surveillance raise eyebrows replies
A three-year-old interview clip of former National Security Adviser Susan Rice resurfaced Tuesday after the declassified email she sent to herself on the final day of the Obama administration was released.
During an April 2017 appearance on PBS News Hour, Rice was asked about the then-breaking revelations about members of President Trump's transition team having been surveilled before he took office.
"In the last few hours, we've been following a disclosure by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, that in essence, during the final days of the Obama administration, during the transition after President Trump had been elected, that he and the people
There aren’t enough disparaging epithets in the English language to adequately describe “journalists” such as ABC Nightly News anchorman David Muir, the dashing 40-something actor who pretends to share important national news with America. Five days a week, Muir recites agenda-driven propaganda as if it were truth, while his allies who run the social media monopolies throttle down, demonetize, shadowban, or flat out censor reports that conflict with his narrative.
One of Muir’s biggest crimes is his façade of objectivity. Unlike the hosts of the cable news networks, such as CNN’s rabid Don Lemon, or MSNBC’s smirking Rachel Maddow, Muir isn’t obvious.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has introduced legislation that will defund states and localities providing American taxpayer-funded coronavirus relief money to illegal aliens.Cotton’s legislation, titled the No Bailouts for Illegal Aliens Act, would prohibit sending additional federal funds to states and localities that issue stimulus checks to illegal aliens. Cotton said in a statement:
Congress passed the CARES Act to help workers impacted by the China virus pandemic, not to give a handout to those who broke our immigration laws. The federal government shouldn’t be subsidizing states’ efforts to send cash to illegal aliens.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D-Wisc.) announced that he will no longer be pursuing any attempts to initiate another statewide lockdown due to the coronavirus, as reported by The Hill.
Evers’ decision comes after the State Supreme Court struck down his attempted extension of the stay-at-home order last week, due to his failure to cooperate with the state legislature in doing so. Any further extension, the court ruled, would have to be agreed upon by both the governor and the legislature, which is controlled by Republicans.
“The Republicans have made it very clear that they don’t believe a statewide approach is the right way to go at this point in time,”
A powerful donor club cofounded by liberal billionaire George Soros quietly established two big-money entities to help its effort to inject $275 million into the 2020 election.The Democracy Alliance, a coalition of deep-pocketed Democratic donors, launched the Strategic Victory Fund super PAC in March. The PAC appears to be aimed at state-based initiatives and can collect and spend unlimited sums on political advertisements. The group also created the Strategic Victory Fund nonprofit arm, which supplied the PAC's initial $500,000 deposit.
Don’t Be Fooled: LA Public Health Director
is an Activist Using “The Data” to Advance
an Agenda replies
is an Activist Using “The Data” to Advance
an Agenda replies
Over the last few months our nation’s public health and medical “experts” have become a huge part of the news cycle; a few have become household names and celebrities in their own right, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, who even made it to Saturday Night Live. Since Dr. Fauci (NIAID/NIH), Dr. Deborah Birx (CDC/State Dept), and Dr. Robert Redfield (CDC), all medical doctors having decades of experience researching infectious diseases, are the “experts” advising the federal government response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, it’s reasonable to assume that public health officials in each state and in major cities have had the same type of training and a similar professional focus.
Trump Gives CBS News Journo Paula Reid
the Answer She Deserves After Ridiculous
Jobs Plan Question replies
the Answer She Deserves After Ridiculous
Jobs Plan Question replies
As I’ve said before, President Trump really should appoint a babysitter to the coronavirus task force because clearly one is needed to mind the children masquerading as diligent mainstream media reporters during press briefings.
The latest instance of a credentialed White House press corps “journalist” showing out came earlier today, when CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid asked one of the most ridiculously biased questions any of the press corps reporters have since the start of the daily coronavirus task force briefings back in early March.
Reid, who has clashed with Trump and other members of the administration in recent weeks,
President Donald Trump ripped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while visiting Congress on Tuesday after she described the president as “morbidly obese.”The president was asked by reporters to respond to the comment Pelosi made in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, but he declined.“I don’t respond to her, I think she’s a waste of time,” he said.But he did have additional criticism for the Speaker and the Democrat members of Congress who pushed the Russia “hoax” investigation into his administration.“These people are sick. Pelosi is a sick woman, she’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems,” he said.
Like most other DC/NYC/Beltway media figures and journalists, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough had something to say about President Trump’s Monday comments to reporters that he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a Wuhan coronavirus preventative after consulting with the White House doctor.
It was standard fare for Scarborough, who along with wife and “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski feed off of daily talking points from the elite media outrage machine. The only reason worth mentioning it in this case is because of how White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany swatted him down in response.
The recent court decisions overturning COVID-19 lockdowns in Wisconsin and Oregon focused on abstruse issues of statutory interpretation. But both cases also addressed a more fundamental question: Is the rule of law suspended during a public health emergency?
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state officials have imposed unprecedented restrictions on our liberties and livelihoods, acting on the assumption that they can do whatever they think is necessary to protect the public from a potentially deadly disease. The courts, which were initially reluctant to second-guess state responses to COVID-19, are beginning to recognize that public health powers, while broad, are not a blank check.
The government has closed most schools.
So, more parents are teaching kids at home.
That upsets the government school monopoly.
Education "experts" say parents lack the expertise to teach their kids.
Without state schooling, "learning losses…could well be catastrophic," says The New York Times. Home schooling "will set back a generation of children," according to a Washington Post column. Harvard magazine's "Risks of Homeschooling" article quotes a professor who calls for a "presumptive ban."
The professional education establishment actually tried to ban it 98 years ago. Then, they tried to ban private schools, too! But the Supreme Court stopped them, writing, "the child is not the mere creature of the state."
I have a confession to make. I am sick…
…of coronavirus commercials. I in no way feel comforted by them, moved by them and I’m certainly not entertained by them. At the very least they make me want to change the channel. At worst they make me want to actively boycott the products.
I don’t want to see one more damn coronavirus commercial!
No more “We’re all in this together”…we are decidedly not. From celebrities doing Tik Toks from their palatial estates to Nancy Pelosi’s subzero freezer filled to the brim with expensive ice cream it has become increasingly clear that we are indeed not all in this together.