Posts on Friday, May 15, 2020
On Tuesday night, I went to bed cheering the Wisconsin results but wondering if "ballot-harvesting" would erase Mike Garcia's lead in California.
On Wednesday, we got the good news that the lead was just too big to steal.
Mike Garcia beat Christy Smith by double digits. In other words, a conservative GOP Hispanic candidate beat a very liberal Democrat in a district that went for Hillary by seven points in 2016.
So do we say hello to the red wave of 2020? I don't think so, but we do say be careful about buying into the anti-Trump wave of 2020.
Hairdressers are essential. Three months is too long for anyone to be forced to forgo a haircut. When my hair annoys me by hanging in my eyes, I become intolerant.
On April 30, when Minnesota governor Tim Walz once again moved the goalposts, canceling a second scheduled haircut since the earliest days when governors began controlling our lives, I had had enough. Minnesota is a blue state. Our governor is a blue governor, although somewhat less tyrannical than many other states’ blue governors.
What he must realize is that many of Minnesota’s neighbors are not blue states.
’Former CIA Director John Brennan, one of dozens of Obama administration officials who requested the “unmasking” of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, has called the recent release of those names an “abominable abuse of authority.”In an interview with his benefactor, MSNBC, Brennan also blasted the Justice Department for dropping its case against Flynn, despite evidence that the FBI, then under Director James Comey, set up a perjury trap for the retired three-star Army general.Brennan seemed to be channeling the administration he worked for when he characterized the decision as “blatant political corruption at the highest levels of U.S. government.”
The phrase "drunk with power" seems relevant to modern times in America. New information about the Wuhan Virus indicates that it's here to stay and that a total shutdown is both ineffective and counterproductive. Nevertheless, Democrat politicians are clamping down ever harder on their beleaguered constituents. No wonder a rant against government overreach from David Portnoy of Barstool Sports is going viral.
It seems as if, every single day, even as they murmur vaguely about "opening up," Democrat governments are tightening restrictions on the people unlucky enough to be in their jurisdictions.
Democrat politicians intent upon perpetuating the Wuhan virus lockdown — even as more data show that the lockdown is pointless — have resorted to snatching business licenses when the owners refuse to allow their primary asset to wither away because of a useless edict. Revoking permits without due process is a powerful weapon that instantly destroys businesses because it makes the owners criminals if they continue to operate.
In Michigan, power-mad governor Gretchen Whitmer seized 77-year-old Karl Manke's business license when he refused to starve. He has announced that he will keep cutting hair, even without a license:
A Michigan barber intends to continue defying the state's lockdown order
Remember stare decisis? It was all the rage in late 2018, and again in early 2017, when two Republican nominees got confirmed to the Supreme Court. Senate Democrats made them pledge fealty to the principle of stare decisis, which requires that previous Supreme Court precedent must be followed and upheld in all but the most unusual circumstances for the stability of the law. Over at Forbes, Mark Chenowith labors under the impression that this principle still applies. He notes that Judge Emmet Sullivan’s attempts to appoint a prosecutor to look for crimes that Michael Flynn might have committed by accepting a plea deal violates not one but two controlling
A high school junior who learned how to code by watching YouTube videos online has created one of the most extensive coronavirus-tracking websites that now brings in 30 million visitors a day. Avi Schiffman, 17, from Mercer Island, Washington, launched nCoV2019.live in January - months before the coronavirus outbreak was even declared a pandemic. The user-friendly website provides visitors with accurate updates on coronavirus cases in countries around the world, including the number of infections, deaths and recovered cases. The data, which is pulled from various government websites and health authorities including the WHO and CDC, automatically updates every 10 minutes,
The House of Representatives enacted an unprecedented plan Friday to allow for proxy House votes and remote committee meetings during the coronavirus pandemic for the first time in history.The vote was 217-189 in the House Friday evening, reflecting the widespread GOP objections to changing the procedures in the House.The plan will allow for absent members to cast votes by proxy on the House floor and for committees to allow members and witnesses to join from home for 45 days. The special provisions could be renewed or modified for the remainder of the congressional term that ends in January.
President Donald Trump touted a 'super duper' missile as he staged a 'very special moment' and unveiled the new flag of the Space Force Friday.Trump, who regularly claims he inherited a hollow military, staged the ceremony for the new military service he pushed for in the Oval Office – and claimed the U.S. was ahead of Russia and China. 'It's a very special moment,' Trump said. (Photo) 'We've worked very hard on this and it's so important form a defensive standpoint, from an offensive standpoint, from every standpoint there is,' he said. 'We should have started this a long time ago, but we've made up for it.'
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, officials at the Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general are focused on Google’s ad business and how it has used its search monopoly. According to the WSJ, the DOJ is planning to bring a case as early as this summer, while state AGs are likely to file a case in the fall.The Wall Street Journal reports that both the Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general are likely to file an antitrust lawsuits against Google and have already begun to plan litigation according to sources with knowledge of the matter.The Justice Department is reportedly planning to
The passage of time can do wonders for historical memory, especially when it comes to politics. Consider the reputational evolution of three American presidents: Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan. Grant departed the WhFDRite House in 1877. For pretty much the entire 20th century, the received wisdom held that his administration was a corrupt failure. Today, we are awash in books extolling Grant’s hitherto underappreciated greatness. Eisenhower’s rehabilitation did not take quite so long. In 1962, the year after he left office, one survey of scholars ranked him in the bottom half of American presidents.
Recently published documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) unmasked former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s name in “unfinished” intelligence and disseminated that intelligence — likely a transcript of Flynn’s calls with a Russian ambassador — to then-Director of National Intelligence and a group of Obama White House officials, which then illegally made its way to the press.
According to former FBI Director James Comey’s interview with the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, recently released as part of the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case against Flynn, the FBI first collected and disseminated to the DNI some kind of “unfinished intelligence” of Flynn’s December 29, 2016, phone calls
Obama's 'My Pet Goat' moment
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Remember how President George Bush took all that flak from leftists as the flames of 9/11 destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon? It happened as he was by chance reading a story to schoolchildren called "My Pet Goat." He finished the story as the bad news was whispered into his ear, so as not to panic the children.
Now it's President Obama's turn, but it's a lot less innocent.
Just as unprecedented scandal over the weaponization of government is flaming out and licking ever closer to Obama, Obama and his wife Michelle decided to read kids a story, and pontificate a little,
The FBI announced on Thursday that it has arrested Dr. Qing Wang, a longtime employee of the famed Cleveland Clinic, on charges of fraud for accepting grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) without disclosing that he was simultaneously working for a Chinese university.
“This is not a case of simple omission. Dr. Wang deliberately failed to disclose his Chinese grants and foreign positions and even engaged in a pervasive pattern of fraud to avoid criminal culpability,” said Eric B. Smith, FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC)
(Snip) misled the National Institutes of Health about support he received and research he conducted in the People’s Republic of China,”
The far-left PBS NewHour interviewed 74 former Joe Biden staffers and uncovered even more women who claim to be victims of the former vice president’s unwanted and inappropriate touching.
These alleged victims are in addition to Biden’s eight accusers and the female Secret Service agents who say Biden exposed himself to them (without their consent) while swimming in the nude almost daily.
(Snip)even with these bombshell revelations, PBS still tries to exonerate Biden and attack Tara Reade (Snip) as a liar.
PBS glosses over its own bombshell findings of further misconduct by Biden, and does so by way of an over-written, exhausting 3,500-word piece of “BenSmithing.”
Report: Amb. Marie Yovanovitch Knew
More About Burisma than She Admitted
to Impeachment Inquiry replies
More About Burisma than She Admitted
to Impeachment Inquiry replies
Newly-released State Department documents suggest that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch knew more about Burisma, the corrupt company tied to Hunter Biden, than she told the House impeachment inquiry last year.
In November 2019, Yovanovitch testified in a public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee that she first learned about Burisma when she was being briefed for her confirmation hearings in 2016, and that the company was “not a focus”
(Snip)
State Department memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Yovanovitch’s embassy in Kiev, including the ambassador herself, was engaged in several discussions and meetings about Burisma as the gas firm scrambled during the 2016
‘Something stinks here’: Don Jr responds
to reports of unclaimed mail-in
ballots piling up in Nevada replies
to reports of unclaimed mail-in
ballots piling up in Nevada replies
With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic Party cohorts fully intent on exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to ensure a nationwide vote-by-mail effort, the resulting concerns about voter fraud and ballot harvesting just got a major boost.In Nevada, an all-mail voting system is being used in the most populous county in the state ahead of its June 9 primary election, and Fox News reported Thursday that red flags are being raised “amid reports that thousands of ballots are being sent to inactive voters.”The initial report stirred the interest of Donald Trump Jr., who smells a rat.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany laid out all the reasons President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are up in arms about revelations on the Obama administration’s use of the intelligence community. McEnany detailed how Vice President Joe Biden was found to have requested the unmasking of Gen. Michael Flynn just one day before the Washington Post published a story on Flynn that relied on leaks from the Obama administration. She also laid out how several former Obama administration officials had testified they found no empirical evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, but said the opposite publicly.
Scientists at a California biotech company have found an antibody that completely blocks coronavirus in a discovery they called a 'cure,' Fox News reported. Sorrento Therapeutics, based in San Diego, claims its STI-1499 antibody stopped coronavirus from entering 100 percent of healthy human cells in petri dish experiments. It's one of several antibodies planned to be combined for a drug 'cocktail' Sorrento is developing in collaboration with Mt Sinai School of Medicine in New York.(Snip) The company has filed for emergency approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but has not yet received the green light. Stocks for Sorrento soared
A top Biden communications aide attacked CBS’ Catherine Herridge over a Wednesday report showing the names of the officials who unmasked former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Herridge went public with documents, declassified by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, that revealed former Vice President Joe Biden was among those who had called for Flynn to be unmasked. (Snip)Andrew Bates, rapid response director for Biden’s presidential campaign, referred to Herridge in a now-deleted tweet as a “partisan, rightwing hack” and a “regular conduit for conservative media manipulation ploys,” appearing to take issue with her for not reaching out to Biden for comment prior to publishing the documents.
Beyond Biden, Brennan, and Clapper:
How Grenell’s satchel tells us this is on
the right track replies
How Grenell’s satchel tells us this is on
the right track replies
There’s an understandable impatience and frustration from many with how long it’s taking to see visible action from the Obamagate investigators. We’ve been getting clues and “bombshells” for a long time now, and yet nothing concrete seems to happen.
What I’ll briefly lay out here is the case that it’s going to happen soon – it might be any day now – and we know that from the appearance of Grenell with the satchel at the Justice Department, along with a very few, easy-to-miss words of tweet in journalist Adam Housley’s feed in the last 48 hours.
The clues are minimal, but if you know how to read them, you know
She came down with a bug two days after Christmas, and for the next week or so, Jean, a 64-year-old retired nurse, suffered through a series of worsening symptoms: a dry, hacking cough, a fever and body aches, and finally, a wheeze that rattled her lungs. . . .
But after Jean received word from her doctor earlier this month that a highly touted serology test found a sample of her blood positive for antibodies to COVID-19, she’s now convinced the official timeline is wrong — and public health officials say she may be right.
Is it possible that Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Coronavirus Task Force are suffering from temporal myopia? According to the Encyclopedia of Psychopharmacology, “Temporal myopia is the inability to consider the long-term outcomes of an action when making a choice.” I am a certified behavioral analyst, not a psychologist, so I’m not in a position to diagnose. But from what I can observe, Fauci and the Task Force have made some horrifically short-sighted choices.
Since the media-whipped-frenzy surrounding Covid-19 took over the news, an increasing number of doctors are openly stating their disagreements with the recommendations of the government’s experts, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. The problem? Many of these on-the-front-line medical professionals are being ignored or mocked. Some medical professionals are even seeing their videos removed from social media platforms. The reason? Their views don’t align with the prevailing narrative of the media and what I’ll call the globalist medical establishment.
A San Diego official has said the county has only had six 'pure' COVID-19 deaths where victims had no underlying health conditions, while the county's official death toll reached 194 Thursday. Republican County Supervisor Jim Desmond downplayed the death toll of San Diegans amid the pandemic when speaking on the Armstrong & Getty Extra Large podcast Tuesday. As of Thursday, San Diego has recorded 5,278 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 194 people have been killed by the virus, according to official figures.(Snip) 'We've unfortunately had six pure, solely coronavirus deaths—six out of 3.3 million people,' he said. 'I mean, what number are
That satchel that Acting DNI Ric Grenell personally delivered to the Department of Justice on May 7, 2020 was far too big for just a list of the 39 Obama administration officials, including his chief of staff and ambassador to Italy. Those higher ups have been exposed as requesting the unmasking of General Flynn. But there must have been a lot more inside, (Snip)
That is the basic message of this long and fascinating post by retired naval officer J.E. Dyer at Liberty Unyielding. I urge those who take a keen interest in the subject to read the whole thing, for it is full of technical points and complexities,
The number of new coronavirus cases is going
down in 28 states as reopening efforts continue replies
down in 28 states as reopening efforts continue replies
The number of new coronavirus cases reported each day is going down in more than half of US states, according to an analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. In all, 28 states have seen a downward trend, including several that took steps toward reopening relatively early, like Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Colorado. A notable exception is Texas, where case numbers are up between 20% and 30% since the state began lifting stay-home restrictions on May 1. Thursday was particularly grim as the Lone Star State recorded 58 new deaths -- the state's highest one-day increase in coronavirus fatalities since
For the third time, Peter Robinson interviews Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medical School for Uncommon Knowledge. (Snip) Dr. Bhattacharya brings bad news: 1) Only a small percentage of Americans, less than one percent in his study, maybe two or three percent nationwide, have had COVID-19. Herd immunity requires something like 70 percent or 80 percent to have antibodies. So the disease has a very long way to go before it has run its course. 2) There is no vaccine for COVID-19 on the horizon, and there may never be one. 3) The shutdowns that have paralyzed the developed world have
A graduate of Puyallup’s Rogers High School who was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2018 died Thursday, according to the U.S. Secret Service.
Special Agent Ronald J. Shurer II was 41. Shurer had battled lung cancer for some time, and recent posts on his Instagram feed said he’d been hospitalized recently with complications.
President Donald Trump awarded Shurer the highest military honor for saving several wounded soldiers under fire in Afghanistan.
“Today, we lost an American hero: husband, father, son, Medal of Honor recipient — special agent Ronald J. Shurer II,” the Secret Service said on its Twitter feed. “From a grateful nation and agency
Do not wait. That is the part of wisdom for President Trump and Attorney General Barr as the United States seeks to end its wrongful prosecution of General Michael Flynn. It is for the United States to petition the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a writ of mandamus against Judge Emmet Sullivan. A newspaper is not a lawyer. Our advice, though, could not be more emphatic: Do ... not ... wait.
We say that because with every passing week it will be harder to stop Judge Sullivan from violating the constitutional restrictions on the power of our courts.
Chinese government deception regarding the coronavirus outbreak is raising new fears about Beijing’s biological weapons activities, including population-specific research on germ weapons capable of attacking ethnic groups, according to current and former U.S. officials. A senior Trump administration official told The Washington Times that China is known to be engaged in a covert program that includes development of biological weapons capable of attacking ethnic groups with pathogens. “We are looking at potential biological experiments on ethnic minorities,” the official said on the condition of anonymity. Details about the activities were obtained from sources with direct knowledge of the Chinese programs
House Democrats started breaking with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday as Congress’ lower chamber prepares to vote on the $3 trillion, 1,815-page bill.Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) said before the House vote: Unfortunately, many Member of Congress — including some in my own party — have decided to use this package as an opportunity to make political statements and propose a bill that goes far beyond pademic relief and has no chance at becoming law, furhter delaying the help so many need.Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) said he will also vote against the $3 trillion coronavirus bill. He called the legislation “Washington politics at its worst”
In an effort to aid presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in his struggle to forge a campaign during the coronavirus crisis, MSNBC’s The Last Word hosted an hour-long interview/town hall special featuring the former Vice President and Stacey Abrams, who's been more than adamant about wanting to be his running mate. Among the softball questions, slow-pitched to Biden was whether or not he would commit to not pardon President Trump of his crimes, and to describe how he would face the crisis on day one.Host Lawrence O’Donnell set the tone for the gooey hour right from the get-go,
Five percent of New York City's population has fled since the coronavirus pandemic gripped the city, new smartphone data reveals.From March 1 to May 1, about 420,000 residents of the Big Apple left, particularly from the wealthiest neighborhoods, reported The New York Times.While there was relatively little change in some zip codes, others such as SoHo, the West Village, Morningside Heights, the Upper East Side, the Financial District, Midtown, Gramercy and Brooklyn Heights emptied by at least 40 percent.Meanwhile, Manhattan's overall population fell by almost 20 percent. Income was perhaps the strongest indicator of how many residents in a particular neighborhood had fled.
Memo To Mitch McConnell: You Won’t
Get Judges If You Don’t Hold
Resistance Accountable For
Russia Hoax replies
Get Judges If You Don’t Hold
Resistance Accountable For
Russia Hoax replies
For Americans hoping Senate Republicans might finally engage the Russia collusion hoax seriously, last night’s interview of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by “Special Report’s” Bret Baier was a tremendous disappointment. McConnell better figure out quickly that if he doesn’t hold the Resistance accountable for the Russia hoax that harmed his party and the entire country for many years, he won’t have a majority in the next term. If it helps to motivate him, he should remember that not having the majority in the next term means he won’t get to confirm judges, an issue he hopes will be his defining legacy.For three years,
While much of the farming industry has been decimated by the global coronavirus pandemic – forced to wastefully slaughter livestock, abort piglets, crush food and pummel perfectly healthy crops – one group spawning America’s heartland claims that its method has actually seen sales soaring.The so-called Carbon Cowboys are the subject of a new 10-part documentary series detailing the farming technique known as regenerative grazing, which seemingly is saving them from a sales' drought.The series, directed by Peter Byck, was filmed over six years in various rural communities across the U.S., Canada and the U.K.“The coronavirus is showing how food supply has become too centralized,
On April 29, Governor Inslee released a series of dials called the “COVID-19 Risk assessment dashboard,” reflecting the data he claims to be using to make decisions about reopening the state economy. He told the reporters that he was doing this “so we can be completely transparent with Washingtonians about how we are making these decisions,” which he promised he is doing “based on data and science.”
Analysis of that dashboard and the dials, however, shows this is simply not true and there are several problems. The dial settings do not match the underlying data trends. The dials are extremely imprecise, and some of the metrics the governor uses are meaningless.
To judge from campaign oratory, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the Democrats and Republicans are contesting for the honor of governing the same country this election year.
The Democrats describe a country where, if the administration had acted more quickly and subjected the entire population to constant testing for the coronavirus even before any of its characteristics were known, Americans would have been spared scores of thousands of avoidable deaths. It is a country where there is now no alternative to a near-complete national shutdown while the whole population submits to constant testing and anyone with whom an identified COVID-sufferer has met in the previous 14 days must
One can pinpoint the exact moment when life in the United States changed, possibly forever. It was the night of March 11th, 2020 and the NBA suspended its season. At about the same time, arguably the world’s most famous actor made a shocking announcement.
Within days, states would begin to issue orders restricting the number of people who could gather together. Shortly after that, they began closing schools.
But it wasn’t until March 16th that governments began to shut down their states entirely. Why did they take such a draconian step? Because of the release of a bombshell report in Great Britain.
Don’t expect to see Rory McIlroy on the golf course any time soon with President Donald Trump. McIlroy, the top-ranked golfer in the world, appeared Thursday on the McKellar Podcast. The 31-year-old McIlroy teed off on Trump and his leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic. "We’re in the midst of something that’s pretty serious right now and the fact that he’s trying to politicize it and make it a campaign rally and say we’re administering the most tests in world like it is a contest — there’s something that just is terrible,’’ McIlroy said, per the New York Post. “It’s not the way a leader should act.
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit rural Nevada early Friday morning, the United States Geological Service (USGS) said. The quake struck rural Nevada at 4:03 A.M. and was felt all the way from California to Utah. There have been at least six aftershocks so far, including two with magnitudes of around 5.4, the Associated Press reported. (Tweet/Map) The USGS initially said the magnitude was 6.4, but has since upgraded it to 6.5.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh compared the coronavirus to climate change and accused federal health officials and the national media of using a global pandemic to scare American citizens."It seems like every day we get some new scare tactic from some supposedly credible source," Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated program Thursday. "And what generally happens is after some reporting of what everybody would consider good news, in less than a day, a couple of stories come along, maybe three, that try to throw cold water on the good news and make it sound even worse than it was the day before — and that’s what this is."
Top officials with the Hillary Clinton campaign re-engaged with the opposition researchers behind the Steele dossier just three weeks after Donald Trump’s inauguration, newly declassified congressional witness transcripts reveal, indicating her campaign’s participation in an ongoing and well-funded effort to undermine the president by casting him as a tool of the Kremlin. Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta testified that he met on Feb. 10, 2017, with Daniel Jones, a former aide to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Glenn Simpson and his partner Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS. In separate testimony, Clinton’s senior foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan revealed he also participated in the meeting.
I want to give a “hat tip” to a person who inhabits the comments at Patterico under the moniker “Sammy Finkleman”. (Snip)
Two days ago he posted a comment (No. 32) in which he included an excerpt from the transcript of the first sentencing hearing in the Flynn case before Judge Emmet Sullivan, (Snip) set off alarm bells in my head based on my experiences in having taken maybe 1000 guilty pleas in my time(Snip)
The Dec. 18 hearing was where Judge Sullivan made the infamous “suggestion” — via asking the prosecutor if the issue had been examined — that maybe Gen. Flynn might have committed treason.
Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday night he’s taking a "big step” by allowing New Jersey beaches to be open this summer, with restrictions, as signs continue to show the coronavirus pandemic is slowing in the state. But, Murphy stressed during an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, he’d be forced to “pull back” if cases spike again after people begin to gather en masse at the Jersey Shore. “We’ll have no choice,” he said. And that, Murphy said, goes for any of the "baby steps” the state is taking as he starts to
That satchel that Acting DNI Ric Grenell personally delivered to the Department of Justice on May 7, 2020 was far too big for a just a list of the 39 Obama administration officials, including his chief of staff and ambassador to Italy. Those higher ups have been exposed as requesting the unmasking of General Flynn. But there must have been a lot more inside, and that material, voluminous to require a briefcase-sized container, and that is the key to exposing the real extent of the spy operation that President Obama carried out on his political enemies
When the coronavirus landed on our shores, communist China came with it.
We have become part of a mass scale human experiment in government control and it turned out that stripping away our freedom wasn’t all that difficult. Under the guise of concern for our health and well-being, tyrants came out of the woodwork. Our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our lives are being destroyed as the left solidifies and expands their oppressive powers. We’ve been herded around like cattle, threatened, isolated, confined, silenced, and arrested. You name it, it’s happening
From the evidence, the case could be made that if President Barack Obama had terrorist Osama bin Laden killed in May 2011 at the latter's Abbottabad compound in Pakistan, Obama would have had to bring him back from the dead to do so.
On December 26, 2001, the Egyptian newspaper a-l Wafd posted a death announcement for bin Laden, citing as its source "a prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement." According to the source, bin Laden had received a formal Islamic burial ten days prior in Tora Bora.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden made another coronavirus gaffe by claiming 85,000 jobs have been lost in the US as a result of Covid-19 and millions of Americans have died.The b lunder follows a previous bungle, where he called the disease Covid-9, rather than Covid-19 — and referred to Wuhan where the disease originated as "Luhan". In the latest faux pas, which was made during a live streamed “virtual roundtable” on PBS, Biden babbled: "We're ... in the middle of a pandemic that has cost us more than 85,000 jobs as of today. "Lives of millions of people. Millions of people.
How Much Are We Spending
To Prevent One COVID-19 Death —
Millions, Billions, Trillions? Nobody Knows replies
To Prevent One COVID-19 Death —
Millions, Billions, Trillions? Nobody Knows replies
“I’d say the cost of a human life, a human life is priceless. Period.”
That was Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, arguing for stretching the economically catastrophic lockdowns into the foreseeable future. Never mind that more than 105,000 abortions were performed in New York in 2017 alone, at an average cost of about $600. Clearly, human life is not priceless.
In a world where resources are limited and everything involves a tradeoff, we are constantly making decisions that put a value on human lives. Federal regulators have even set an amount for what’s called the “value of a statistical
Voters concerned by the sexual assault allegations of his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, should “vote their heart,” Joe Biden said on MSNBC — and if they believe her, they shouldn’t vote for him at all.“If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told host Lawrence O’Donnell. “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade,” he added. Biden continued to strongly deny Reade’s account — that in 1993 he pinned her against a wall and sexually assaulted her. “Well to be honest with you, I don’t,”
The “Heroes Act” introduced Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should erase any doubt that the Democrats hope to leverage voting by mail and ballot harvesting into a November victory. The legislation purports to be a coronavirus “rescue package,” but it’s a $3 trillion wish list that would strip the states of the power to determine how they conduct elections. It would require every state to allow “no excuse” absentee voting, provide postage-paid mail-in ballots, mandate that votes are counted up to 10 days after Election Day, and eliminate voter ID laws. Ironically, even if this bill had a prayer of passage in the Senate, it wouldn’t achieve its goal.
Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have broadcast themselves reading a children’s book aloud to the interwebs while “Obamagate” revelations about former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn have erupted.The Obamas posted a tweet of themselves Thursday reading the children’s book The Word Collector, about a child who collects words that he hears in scrapbooks, ignoring the news of President Donald Trump’s call ordering Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to have him testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for investigating Flynn and Trump during Trump’s transition period. (Tweet)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's warning that there will never be another Camelot isn't stopping her grand-nephew from trying to recreate a little family history.
Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, 39, surprised few pundits last September when he announced he wanted to run for the Senate, hoping to reclaim the seat held by the political dynasty for more than half a century.
But what rankled establishment Democrats was that the grandson of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy wanted to run now, challenging incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, the 73-year-old dean of the state's congressional delegation. Rank-and-file members of the party don't seem as bothered though.
Flattening the curve is a new term for most of us not steeped in the world of public health or epidemiology. Prior to the Chinese Coronavirus making a mess of lives and economies, this term might have featured in a Saturday morning infomercial on the latest weight loss fad. Now it has become the holy grail of fighting this viral pandemic.The New York Times, in a rare moment not bashing President Trump, explains flattening the curve. There are two curves, a steep one and a flat one, as we have seen endlessly on the news. One had a steep peak indicating a surge of coronavirus outbreak in the near term;
In Defense of the PPP
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The Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a massive federal aid program meant to help small businesses stay afloat and sustain payrolls during the antivirus shutdowns and quarantines, has attracted considerable criticism, including accusations of corruption. Lawyers have filed suits, congressional representatives have complained, and journalists have highlighted abuses. While abuses have likely occurred, PPP aid nonetheless seems to have flowed quickly to the small businesses that it was intended to help.
Launched in early April as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act and intended to help firms with 500 or fewer employees, the PPP was originally funded at $342 billion. The money included aid for larger restaurant and hotel chains, presumably
The Teflon Campaign
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It was congresswoman Pat Schroeder, Democrat from Colorado, who labeled Ronald Reagan the "Teflon" president in a fit of exasperation in August 1983. What frustrated Schroeder was that nothing "stuck" to Reagan—not the recession, not his misadventures in Lebanon, not his seeming detachment from his own administration. Reagan's job approval had plunged to a low of 35 percent at the beginning of that year, but his numbers were rising and his personal favorability remained high. "He is just the master of ceremonies at someone else's dinner," she said.
Ironically, the one thing that did stick to Reagan was Schroeder's nickname. The phrase was so catchy that writers applied it to mobsters
In a time in which even a virus has become the subject of partisan disinformation and myth-making, it’s essential that mainstream journalistic institutions reaffirm their bona fides as disinterested purveyors of fact and honest brokers of controversy. In this regard, a recent course of action by the New York Times is cause for alarm.
On December 27, 2019, the Times published a column by their opinion journalist Bret Stephens, “The Secrets of Jewish Genius,” and the ensuing controversy led to an extraordinary response by the editors.
Stephens took up the question of why Ashkenazi Jews are statistically overrepresented in intellectual and creative fields.
The release of the names of Obama officials who sought the unmasking of Michael Flynn is longer than expected. It seems to include everyone but the White House custodian. Naturally, the media is treating this revelation as perfectly normal. You see, one party spying on the other is only shocking if Republicans do it. But if Democrats do it? Well, the Obama officials who wanted a peek at Flynn’s conversations were simply “doing their duty.” Right. That’s why they had been spying on him since at least 2014. Recall that the Cambridge academic Stefan Halper, the “confidential informant” the FBI used to try and trip up George Papadopoulos,
Judge Sullivan’s decision to have a former federal judge argue against the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn prosecution is bizarre enough. In addition, though, Sullivan asked the same judge to consider whether Flynn should face a perjury charge based statements he made to the court in connection with his guilty plea.
I assume Sullivan recognizes that the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the charge of false statements to the FBI makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for Sullivan to sentence Flynn on that charge. The judge is looking for an alternative way of nailing Flynn — one that doesn’t require Justice Department participation or approval.
Every Karen on Facebook is shaming her neighbors for not wearing a face mask. We are being told by governors that if we don’t wear them we are selfish, horrible human beings with no souls who want Grandma to die a horrible death. Police are tackling people who don’t wear them properly in the subway. Grocery stores are throwing maskless people out and denying them service. But now, there’s another doctor weighing in—besides Dr. Fauci, bonafide sex god and ruler of us all, who also said face masks are largely security theater and of no use to the healthy. Dr. Russell Blaylock, a neurosurgeon,
A leaked database from a Chinese military-run university suggests the country may have at least 640,000 COVID-19 cases — a figure substantially higher than Beijing’s dubious claim that it has seen just 80,000 coronavirus infections.
The virus tracker, compiled by China’s National University of Defense Technology and leaked to Foreign Policy magazine, appears to confirm fears that the nation’s Communist government is hiding the true nature of the outbreak that originated in Wuhan late last year.
Plastic Bags Are Back
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At a time when the world is focused on cleanliness, trendy — yet filthy — germ-carrying practices of the past are being discarded for common sense and good hygiene.
Yes, I’m talking about bringing back single-use plastic bags for grocery and convenience stores.
The saga of the plastic bag ban began in 2007, when the city of San Francisco banned them in the name of saving the planet. Many other large cities followed suit with similar bans or fees for using single-use bags in stores. As of January this year, eight states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont — have banned single-use plastic bags.
There’s a new story at Bloomberg today headlined, “Democratic Women Urge Stronger Biden Response in Tara Reade Case.” Here’s how it opens: Democratic activists and women’s groups say they saw a familiar and distressing playbook unfolding when Joe Biden addressed the sexual assault allegation against him by denying them and largely moving on.
Now, they’re trying to convince Biden that if he doesn’t continue to address the issue head on, he risks depressing turnout of women voters, potentially giving a boost to President Donald Trump. Wow! Does this mean that Democratic activists and women’s groups who previously went silent
One of the officers who was fired over his handling of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, high school shooting will get his badge back.
Sgt. Brian Miller will receive full back pay and seniority when he returns to his duties at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association Union said Wednesday.
(Snip)An internal investigation found that Miller, who was the first supervising officer who responded to the scene, hid behind his car while shots rang out inside the high school.
Pelosi’s $3 trillion coronavirus bill lets her play
left-wing Santa Claus with your tax dollars replies
left-wing Santa Claus with your tax dollars replies
It’s a good seven months until Christmas, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already playing Santa Claus with taxpayer money.
The California Democrat is proposing a $3 trillion bill, titled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, or HEROES Act, that is packed full of gifts to Democrats. And incredibly, this is the pared-down version.
The New York Times reports that the original Democratic bill asked for $4 trillion. If you had any doubts that Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus crisis, Pelosi’s grab-bag of left-wing goodies should clear your mind.
Hollywood is seeing a wave of staff reductions from the corporate suites to the theme park turnstiles as entertainment giants including the Walt Disney Co. and Endeavor implement layoffs and furloughs in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Just how bad is the carnage? In Los Angeles County alone, 14,000 entertainment-related workers saw their jobs evaporate in less than two months, according to a new report from tech news outlet dot.LA. Meanwhile, Tinseltown could see even more bloodshed in the second quarter, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Endeavor — the largest Hollywood talent
If Joe Biden happens to be elected president this year, he will enter office more hobbled by major scandals than any president in the history of the presidency, and there is just no question that his administration will be immediately paralyzed by impeachment proceedings.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I can think of no other major presidential candidate, and certainly no other president (if he should win) who, on the day he was sworn in, would be immediately engulfed by not just one, but four — four! — impeachable scandals.
There’s just no question that if Biden wins, once he takes office, his administration will be bogged down by legitimate investigations
Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a group of men who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona. Agents identified the five men as Bangladeshi nationals.
Yuma Station agents patrolling the border near the levee on Tuesday apprehended a group of five migrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico. The agents conducted medical screenings in the field and cleared the men to travel with agents to the Yuma Station, according to information obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
During processing, the agents identified the five men as Bangladeshi nationals. “Yuma Sector agents conducted thorough interviews and screenings,
No Justice, No Freedom
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The opening credits of the Perry Mason television drama featured a statue of justice as a blindfolded woman raising aloft a pair of scales. This common visual metaphor captures the two critical dimensions of justice: balancing the punishment with the crime, and the equality of all under the law. Four years ago the Obama administration and rogue partisans in the FBI and DOJ abused their powers in order to keep Donald Trump from being elected, and then to hamstring and sabotage his administration.(Snip)But if the verification of these crimes is not followed by indictments and the malefactors put on trial, our political system will be seriously damaged
Houlton Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Jackman Station in Maine arrested a group of five Mexican nationals after they illegally crossed the border from Canada.
Jackman Station officials received a tip from a citizen about a group of people illegally crossing the border from Canada into Maine. The witness said he observed the group coming out of the brush onto a road south of the St. Juste Port of Entry. The witness picked up the five people and drove them to the port of entry to meet up with Border Patrol agents, according to information obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
A judge on a Washington state court has a chance May 21 to quash a dangerous, outlandish lawsuit against Fox News that would eviscerate First Amendment media freedoms.(snip)
The suit is brought by a 3-year-old group of leftist provocateurs called WASHLITE, (snip) They are suing Fox News for alleged violations of the state’s Consumer Protection Act, which outlaws deceptive practices in the course of commerce. WASHLITE says Fox should be punished because some of its on-air personnel, (snip) spent weeks downplaying “the danger of the international proliferation of the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19.” The result, says the group, was that its members’ health and livelihoods were put at risk,
PA’s Transgender Health Secretary Snaps
over Reporter Calling Her ‘Sir’: ‘It’s Really
Insulting’ replies
over Reporter Calling Her ‘Sir’: ‘It’s Really
Insulting’ replies
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine, the nation’s first openly transgender public health secretary, lashed out at a reporter — pleading, “please don’t misgender me” — during a media call on Tuesday after the reporter referred to Levine as “sir” multiple times.
KDKA Radio talk show host Marty Griffin reportedly referred to Levine, who was born Richard Levine, as “sir” multiple times during the call.
“What’s the end game, sir?” Griffin asked Levine.
“Where do we get to the point where folks can be confident they can conduct business if they do it safely and there’s no time frame and there’s no window? Correct me if I’m wrong, sir — ma’am,” he continued.
After defending Joe Biden despite the sexual assault allegation against him, actress and Democratic Party activist Alyssa Milano has pushed for mail-in voting, accusing Trump and the GOP of using the COVID-19 pandemic to suppress voter turnout in the upcoming election.In a lengthy op-ed for CNN, the former “Charmed” star first blasts President Trump for allegedly trying to suppress the vote ever since his election, arguing he has now seized the pandemic moment to make Americans choose between exercising their right to vote or protecting their health
On Thursday, a report appeared in a Communist Chinese state media outlet asserting that Communist China was targeting various GOP politicians, including Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who has harshly criticized the Chinese regime for its actions regarding the coronavirus. Crenshaw issued a defiant tweet in response, snapping, “So apparently I’m on the Chinese government’s radar now. Good. Bring it.” (Breitbart News) The Global Times. which even CNN acknowledgedin 2019 is “one of China’s most outspoken state media outlets,” wrote, “China is extremely dissatisfied with the abuse of litigation by the US against China over the COVID-19 epidemic, and is considering punitive countermeasures against US individuals,
Signal cuts out when CNN asks Obama
spy chief James Clapper about leaking
classified information replies
spy chief James Clapper about leaking
classified information replies
The signal cut out when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was asked about leaks of classified information to the media.CNN host John Berman pressed Clapper on the issue Thursday morning, a day after a declassified memo containing a list of Obama administration officials who received information in response to "unmasking" requests pertaining to retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump's first national security adviser, was made public. Clapper was on the list, which has generated renewed interest in the mystery of who leaked classified details about Flynn’s conversations with a Russian ambassador to the Washington Post in early 2017."Asking for names, nothing wrong with that,