Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday became the first Republican senator to publicly say he will object to the certification of the presidential election results when a joint session of Congress meets in one week to formally certify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College victory over President Trump. Roughly a dozen Trump supporters in the House – led by Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama – have said they will challenge the slate of electors from six battleground states where Biden narrowly edged Trump in last month's election. But the challenge of at least one senator is needed for both houses of Congress to debate the objections. Hawley, a conservative lawmaker and Trump supporter, said in a release issued Wednesday that in his objection he’ll highlight what he said was the failure of some states – most notably Pennsylvania – to follow their own election laws. A number of states – including Pennsylvania – allowed for a greater use of absentee balloting.
Hawley also charged, "I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden. At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections.
He pointed out that "following both the 2004 and 2016 elections, Democrats in Congress objected during the certification of electoral votes in order to raise concerns about election integrity. They were praised by Democratic leadership and the media when they did. And they were entitled to do so. But now those of us concerned about the integrity of this election are entitled to do the same."
The president has repeatedly claimed he beat Biden, who topped the president by more than 7 million votes. Trump has charged that widespread voter fraud aided Biden’s victory. Trump has unsuccessfully urged states with GOP governors or Republican controlled legislatures to overturn Biden’s victories in their states.
With Hawley joining the small group of House Republicans in objecting, the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 would be dissolved and the House and Senate would then meet separately for two hours to debate a contested state’s electoral vote. Each body would then vote whether to accept or reject that state’s slate of electoral votes. Then the House and Senate reconvene in the joint session. The last time this happened (and only the second time in U.S. history) was in January 2005, following President’ George W. Bush’s narrow reelection victory over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. A state’s slate of electoral votes would only tossed if both the House and Senate vote to do so. But with the Democrats controlling the House and most Senate Republicans not expected to back the push to contest the results, it’s extremely unlikely there would be enough votes to reject any state’s certification.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has upheld the bribery conviction for Chi Ping Patrick Ho, the former Hong Kong home affairs secretary and former chairman of a think tank funded by a Chinese energy conglomerate, CEFC.
Prosecutors said that Ho and CEFC executives offered $2 million in cash stuffed in a box to President Idriss Déby of Chad during a meeting in December 2014. Meanwhile, Uganda's foreign minister, Sam Kutesa, allegedly accepted a $500,000 bribe disguised as a payment to a charitable foundation from Ho around February 2016.
Despite Ho's claim of insufficient evidence, the judges said in the ruling that evidence introduced at trial was "more than sufficient" to prove that Ho acted on behalf of a U.S. non-governmental organization to "assist it in obtaining business for CEFC Energy" Ho was sentenced last year to 36 months in prison and imposed a fine of $400,000. He was released in June due to good behavior.
Correspondence with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming from 2017 shows Hunter Biden extended "best wishes from the entire Biden family," and urged the chairman to "quickly" send a $10 million wire to "properly fund and operate" a joint venture. The $10 million transfer to the joint venture was never completed.
Throughout the pandemic, citizens have often questioned the orders and guidelines issued by certain state governors. Some state leaders have been stricter than others in 2020. One of those was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who threw down an executive order that imposed limitations on religious gatherings; in some “hot spots,” the total number of attendees was capped at 10 or 25 people depending on infection rate.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stopped the enforcement of the religious gathering order. They ruled that Cuomo’s restrictions were unconstitutional — that the rules were in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
An annual poll conducted by Gallup revealed President Trump is the “most admired man” in 2020. The recently released survey showed the President garnered 18 percent of the vote. The poll is conducted every year when Gallup asks Americans who their favorite man is out of everyone living in the world. Historically, Americans vote for the incumbent president. This is President Trump’s tenth time on the top 10 list of most admired men. Four of those instances occurred before he even entered party politics.
First Lady Melania Trump is at the top of the top 10 list of most admired women after garnering 4 percent of the vote.
Pelosi is already facing a much slimmer majority in the next Congress, after Democrats were clobbered at the polls in November, meaning she can afford far fewer Democratic defections than the 15 who opposed her two years ago. And lawmakers must be present on the House floor to cast their vote for Speaker, precluding the option for members to vote remotely, as many have done throughout the pandemic.
The combination of factors creates the chance that Democrats could face a dilemma on Jan. 3 in which Pelosi locks up the Democratic support to remain Speaker, but coronavirus concerns — illnesses, quarantines or otherwise — prevent a sufficient number of them from being in the Capitol to log their votes.
“Let's say, just theoretically, we had six or eight people out with Covid and the Republicans have none. They probably could elect [Kevin] McCarthy,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), referring to the House GOP leader.
Lawmakers were reminded of their vulnerability this week, when five more members of the House tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of infected lawmakers to at least 35 since the pandemic hit the U.S. roughly a year ago.
To protect the continuity of government, House and Senate lawmakers now have the opportunity to receive a vaccination in the Capitol from the attending physician. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were among the first to get their shots on Friday.
Democrats are on track to have a razor-thin majority of 222 seats, and at least three moderate members of the caucus are already on record saying they don't intend to vote for Pelosi on Jan. 3.
“The implications that it could have on the race[s] down in Georgia, it is unsettling.”
"Breaking into a police compound and firebombing a police vehicle ... is clearly not a peaceful protest," a federal prosecutor said.
Renea Baek Goddard, 22, was associated with a group that tossed Molotov cocktails toward Little Rock Police Department vehicles on Aug. 25 as a large crowd demonstrated outside the department’s 12 Street Substation. Photos of Goddard posted online included an image of her in a nun-like outfit with a see-through top and slit-open leather skirt.
Another of the four, Brittany Dawn Jeffrey, 31, is accused of allowing activists to use her home for assembling incendiary devices. Jeffrey has numerous previous arrests.
"Today’s arrests send a message that violence targeted toward law enforcement will not be tolerated," U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland stated.
Small-cap stocks have been dominant over the last six months and the Russell 2000 has roared to all-time highs.
the Russell 2000’s 19.2% year-to-date return trumps both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. More impressively, its one-, three- and six-month returns handily beat the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow.
The returns are similar when comparing the iShare's Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) and the Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ).
Detroit has filed a lawsuit against Black Lives Matter activists, alleging a "civil conspiracy" and claiming the protests in the city "have repeatedly turned violent, endangering the lives of police and the public." The city cites four protests that occurred in the city this year, and alleges that injuries to police officers included "cracked vertebrae, lacerations, and concussions." The repeated violence should negate BLM protest group Detroit Will Breathe’s claims that the demonstrations should be protected under the First Amendment.
Following the protesters’ lawsuit, a judge on Sept. 4 ordered Detroit’s police to stop using batons, shields, rubber bullets and other anti-riot tools and tactics against crowds. City police Chief James Craig responded at the time that his officers had never used force against any protesters who remained peaceful. "If someone is resisting arrest, or trying to attack our officers, we will use the force that's both reasonable and necessary to overcome the resistance. We don't want the protesters injured, and we don't want officers injured, either."
More residents escaped from New York over the last year than from any other state, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday. Some 126,355 people high-tailed it out of the Empire State between July 2019 and July 2020, a dip of 0.65 percent, the preliminary figures show. New York has been losing locals since 2016, but the most recent drop was significantly larger than in years past.
It was also the state with the nation’s biggest population decline, followed by Illinois with a 0.63 percent dip; Hawaii with 0.61 percent and West Virginia with 0.58 percent. The estimates are based on the 2010 Census and the official 2020 Census results will be released next year, along with a new legislative map. The once-a-decade national head count determines how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the 50 states based on the population changes recorded. If the numbers hold, New York could lose one seat, dropping to 26. That would leave the Empire State with fewer seats than Florida for the first time ever.
Overall, the US population grew at the smallest rate in at least 120 years from 2019 to 2020, according to the figures from the Census Bureau. Population growth in the US has been sluggish because of a dip in fertility and immigration restrictions.
Two Minneapolis City Council Members are denying their involvement with the "defund the police" movement just days after the council approved a budget that shifted approximately $8 million from the police department and months after they joined colleagues in calling for the dismantlement of the Minnesota city's department.
Fletcher and Cunningham were two of the nine city council members who attended an event in June where they stood behind a sign that stated "defund police" and said they would dismantle the police department.
Minnesota small business owners are preparing to reopen this week in opposition to COVID-19 restrictions put in place by Gov. Tim Walz last month following a surge in cases.
The group, known as the ReOpen Minnesota Coalition, is calling on businesses in rural Minnesota to reopen Wednesday and for businesses in the Twin Cities metro area to reopen Friday. More than 150 businesses have pledged to participate.
"The main goal is to get small businesses back open to the point that they can use their right to free enterprise to support their families and employees. The restrictions have largely put these small businesses on the verge of utter destruction. And not just the owners, but also their employees, and a terrible trickle down effect to the surrounding communities." Both the Department of Health and the governor's office have "consistently refused" to provide the data behind their decision.
Trump Jr. will hold a "Defend the Majority" rally with Perdue, R-Ga., in Irwin County on Friday and will also campaign with the incumbent on Saturday.
"Few have been stronger advocates for me and Kelly Loeffler than Donald Trump Jr. has -- it will be fantastic to have him down in Georgia to campaign with us this week," Perdue said in a statement.
The VP Pence and Trump Jr. events are effectively the Trump team's answer to President-elect Joe Biden's Tuesday rally in Georgia on behalf of Democrat challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Biden, even before his inauguration, is staking his political capital -- at least partially -- on a win for the Democrats in Georgia, which could make it much easier to advance his agenda through Congress.
If Republicans win even one of the races then they will have at least a 51-49 majority in the new Senate and be able to stand in the way of many of Biden's priorities. But if Democrats sweep both of the Georgia races then the party will have a de facto majority thanks to the fact that Harris will be able to break ties on party-line votes.
President Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and VP Pence, meanwhile, have all been rumored in some form or another to be considering a 2024 presidential run. So there is something at stake for the three of them as well.
Thomas Kirsch II is the 230th federal judge to be picked by Trump and confirmed. The former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana is filling the position that was left vacant when Justice Amy Coney Barrett left the Seventh Circuit to join the Supreme Court.
Kirsch is the 54th judge Trump has appointed who was confirmed to a federal court of appeals and 230th federal judge overall, with more likely to follow. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination of Raul M. Arias-Marxuach, who Trump picked for the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, Trump's nominee for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Katherine A. Crytzer, will have her confirmation up for a vote before the Senate Wednesday morning.
With just over a month left in his term, Trump has confirmed more than 200 judicial nominees, including three Supreme Court justices. There are currently 56 federal court vacancies with 33 nominations pending, making it likely that when Trump's term comes to an end he will leave less than half the number of vacancies as President Barack Obama left in January 2017. The confirmation of conservative judges has been a priority for Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Filling as many seats as possible before Jan. 20, 2021, will leave fewer positions for President-elect Joe Biden to fill.
Officials in Orange County, Calif., are fighting a court order aimed at slashing the population of inmates in the county due to the coronavirus. Sheriff Don Barnes pushed back against the Orange County Superior Court, which ordered the reduction of the county's jail populations by 50% on Friday in an effort to achieve proper social distancing and prevent further spread of COVID-19. "I have no intention of releasing any of these individuals from my custody," Barnes said.
"We are going to file an appeal and we're going to fight it and if the judge has any intent of releasing any one of these individuals, he will have to go through line by line, name by name, and tell me which ones he is ordering released."
The order would allow for the release of more than 1,800 inmates, which Barnes and Spitzer believe would create more crime and victimize more people.
The deal will also grant overflight rights and direct flights to and from Israel.
President Trump announced Thurday that the two nations would restore diplomatic relations, which means the countries would reopen liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat and eventually would open embassies.
Much of the motivation behind the peace deals is to counter the influence of Iran.
In return, the U.S. has recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region. The Western Sahara is a desert region formerly under Spanish control, where a decades-long territorial dispute has pitted Morocco against the Algeria-backed Polisario front, which seeks to establish an independent state in the territory. “Morocco recognized the United States in 1777. It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara.”
Eric Schmitt, the attorney general from Missouri, announced on Twitter late Tuesday that his state is "in the fight" after Texas announced its election challenge that would invalidate the 62 Electoral College votes from four battleground states and award President Trump with a second term. Attorneys general from Louisiana, Arkansas and other states have reportedly announced their support of the lawsuit.
“Election integrity is central to our republic,” Schmitt, a Republican, tweeted.
Ken Paxton, the attorney general from Texas, said that election management in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – the states named in the suit – directly impacted voters in the his state. In particular, he pointed to changes that were made to expand mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“If other states don’t follow the Constitution and if their state legislature isn’t responsible for overseeing their elections ... it affects my state,” he said. “Our job is to make sure the Constitution is followed and that every vote counts. And in this case, I’m not sure every vote was counted. Not in the right way.”
Paxton’s case stands on the grounds of Article II of the Constitution, which mandates state legislatures have the sole authority to manage and change election processes – a clause he aims to prove was ignored during the 2020 election.
YouTube has announced it will remove videos criticizing Joe Biden’s alleged victory and reporting on election “fraud or errors,” instead promoting the content of corporate media outlets and fact checkers.
Specifically, the platform vowed to crack down on any content that exposes “widespread fraud or errors” incurred during the 2020 election.
Three whistleblowers together painted a comprehensive and interlocking picture of illegality and malfeasance involving hundreds of thousands of ballots being prepared, curated, and moved across state lines.
"We've got the Starship development here in South Texas where I am right now. We're hopefully going to do a launch later today. And then we've got big factory developments just outside of Austin for Giga Texas as well."
The move to Texas means that he will increase his chances at avoiding a 13.3 percent state income tax on the capital gains he takes in the event he sells Tesla stock or receives bonuses — though California’s Franchise Tax Board can be known for their relentless pursuit of income taxes across state lines. Texas has no personal income tax.
He’s not alone. What started as a trickle may become a flood. Musk’s personal change of address follows quickly on the heels of Hewlett Packard Enterprise moving from Silicon Valley to Houston, Joe Lonsdale, like Musk, a Silicon Valley founder (Palantir and Addepar) and venture capitalist moving to Austin, and innovative millionaire podcaster Joe Rogan moving from Los Angeles to Austin. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, it isn’t just the rich and famous who are leaving California. Every year for the past 15 years, about 100,000 more Californians leave the state than other Americans move in, with the most popular destination consistently Texas, 1,300 miles to the east.
Commenting on California’s business climate, Musk likened the Golden State to a sports team that starts winning for so long that its players take things for granted and get complacent and entitled and “…then they don’t win the championship anymore.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO noted he still has a large corporate presence in California and observed, “Tesla is the last car company still manufacturing cars in California. SpaceX is the last aerospace company still doing significant manufacturing in California.” He then drove the point home at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council summit on Tuesday saying, “There used to be over a dozen car plants in California. And California used to be the center of aerospace manufacturing. My companies are the last two left.”
Business relocation experts say firms can save about 32 percent of their operating costs by moving out of California to Texas, largely due to tax and regulatory savings, but also lower energy costs, land costs, and housing costs for employees.
Last May, Musk threatened to move Tesla out of California in a dust-up over conflicting COVID-19 restrictions that shut down Tesla’s factory in Fremont in the San Francisco Bay area. Musk called the health orders “fascist” and said the stay-at-home orders were “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes.”
In Musk’s move to Texas, he appears to not only be getting the last word but also following in the footsteps of one of the most famous early Texans, Davy Crockett, who after losing his reelection campaign for Congress in 1834 said: “…you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.” Musk might add today, “And save hundreds of millions on my income taxes.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Tuesday said he has authorized police to use "all lawful means" in ending an illegal occupation at a home in the city. 'It’s time for the encampment and occupation to end,' Wheeler wrote.
Protesters have rallied at the private North Portland residence for months to demonstrate against the eviction of a Black and Indigenous family, according to reports.
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), with the assistance of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), made at least seven arrests and cleared people on Tuesday morning who they said have been trespassing for months at the "Red House on Mississippi."
Wheeler said on Tuesday night, "There will be no autonomous zone in Portland."
'When she boycotted us, our sales actually increased 1,000%'
Goya's CEO Unanue noted that the boycott allowed Goya to reach "so many new people" while maintaining its base, saying it was interesting to see AOC "go against her own people," adding that she is 'naive' when it comes to her support of policies like the Green New Deal."
Ocasio-Cortez's call came after Unanue declared at a White House event that the United States was "blessed" to have "a leader like President Trump who is a builder."
Goya has doubled its production with an $80 million facility in Texas to meet increasing demand.
A Michigan judge is allowing a forensic investigation of 22 Dominion vote tabulation machines in rural Antrim County amid claims that votes there were compromised. Trump campaign attorneys celebrated the decision although the case is not related to the presidential contest.
"Our team is going to be able to go in this morning at about 8:30 and will be there for about eight hours to conduct that forensic examination and we’ll have the results in about 48 hours, and that’ll tell us a lot about these machines."
The order from Judge Kevin Elsenheimer stems from a challenge made by voter William Bailey, who alleges that ballots were damaged during a recounting of ballots in a village marijuana proposal that narrowly passed. Elsenheimer's order does not mention the presidential race. The county did, however, draw controversy after an error initially showed that President-elect Joe Biden won, even though Trump was later shown to have won by several thousand votes. The county clerk, a Republican, corrected the error, saying it was the result of human error.
Big Sales Strategy Changes to Survive in a Changing World
Chief Executive James Daunt is abandoning the strategy that made Barnes & Noble a bookselling behemoth two decades ago -- uniformity designed to create economies of scale and simplify the shopping experience. Instead, the company is empowering store managers to curate their shelves based on local tastes. It's the most ambitious restructuring ever undertaken at the company, one that will help determine the future for traditional bookselling.
Barnes & Noble has suffered seven years of declining revenue in the face of Amazon.com Inc.'s dominance in online retail. The pandemic crushed sales in big cities. Mr. Daunt took the reins after hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. bought Barnes & Noble in August 2019.
"How is it that bookstores do justify themselves in the age of Amazon? They do so by being places in which you discover books with an enjoyment, with a pleasure, with a serendipity that is simply impossible to replicate online."
"This feels so much better," says John Radford, who manages the store in Idaho Falls, Idaho. His store has increased profits this year.
In recent months, Mr. Daunt has cut the ranks of once-powerful staffers who supervised large groups of stores and fired nearly half of the company's New York-based book buyers, powerful tastemakers who decided which titles stores should carry. In the process, he has severed decades-long relationships with publishers who paid to have their books placed in stores.
"As you let the stores diverge, a quarter will be brilliant and a quarter will be absolutely terrible," Mr. Daunt said. "A significant number of your stores will become worse, not better. Then you teach and encourage them and, in time, everybody becomes better."
Barnes & Noble went through several unsuccessful turnaround attempts, including new store layouts and a greater emphasis on toys and gifts, as it churned through five CEOs between 2013 and 2019. The past several chief executives were brought in for their expertise in big-box retail, with little or no experience in selling books. Mr. Daunt, by contrast, has been a bookseller for three decades and sees it as an art form.
At one time, Barnes & Noble focused on using its bricks-and-mortar presence to beat independent bookstores on price and selection. Now the task is to compete with Amazon. Barnes & Noble's high fixed costs makes it difficult to match Amazon's rates.
Mr. Daunt said Barnes & Noble would keep a close eye on each store's performance, but not out of New York. Instead, the new roster of managers for local clusters of stores will provide oversight. "It will be the bloke down the road knocking on your door saying, 'You're struggling,' " Mr. Daunt said. "They can be in there every day, sharing best practices. What works in Texas will be different from what works in North Dakota."
GM recently gave Cadillac dealers a choice: Accept a buyout offer to exit from the brand or spend roughly $200,000 on dealership upgrades—including charging stations and repair tools—to get their stores ready to sell electric vehicles. 17% of Cadillac’s 880 U.S. dealerships decided against spending for necessary upgrades.
The buyout will shrink Cadillac’s dealership network, which is nearly triple the size of luxury competitors like Lexus and Audi. GM executives and some Cadillac dealers for years have said the large dealership footprint crimps the profitability of Cadillac outlets and hurts the brand’s cachet.
The skepticism from some Cadillac dealers underscores that, even as investors bid up the value of electric vehicles, questions persist about interest among consumers and the retailers who serve them. Even in markets where electric vehicles are more popular, like San Francisco, dealers say the lack of commuting during the pandemic has led to a drop off in demand for cars like GM’s Chevrolet Bolt.
As plug-in models take up more space in showrooms, they are also likely to reshape the economics of running a dealership. Electric vehicles have fewer components and require less frequent maintenance, posing a threat to dealers’ parts and service business, a key profit source.
Cadillac is to play a central role in GM’s electric-vehicle push, which is among the most aggressive of legacy auto makers.
Cadillac executives see GM’s electric-vehicle focus as a chance to transform the image of the luxury brand, which has seen its U.S. market share steadily slide since losing its status in the late 1990s as the No. 1 luxury brand in the U.S. by sales. Cadillac will get first dibs on electric-vehicle innovations as the company rolls them out, and its dealerships could feature plug-in models only by 2030.
The brand’s first all-electric model, a sporty crossover SUV called the Lyriq, is scheduled to go on sale in the spring of 2022.
Surveillance video that allegedly showed poll watchers being led out of a room at State Farm Arena, the state's largest vote-counting center, after being told that the vote count was complete for the night. Once they left, a woman could be seen pulling out suitcases from underneath a table that allegedly contained ballots. The votes were allegedly counted for hours, with no election supervisors present.
The Trump team has questioned the validity of absentee ballots on the state that helped propel Joe Biden to a 12,670 vote victory in the Peach State, where 5 million ballots were cast.
1,506 votes received in the general election came from deceased voters
42,284 voters voted twice, roughly 20,000 voters were found to have voted without a Nevada mailing address and 2,468 voters had changed their address to another state.
For those investing long-term, such as for retirement, staying in the market is often the best strategy. Research has shown that missing out on the best trading days has a huge impact on long-term returns, as they often follow the worst days.
A market dip can be nerve-wracking, but it does not signal that it’s time to get out of risk assets. In fact, it can be an opportunity to set yourself up for the next market rally.
“Volatility is part of the equation, and that’s kind of what the reward is for. If your capital isn’t at risk, you can’t get those returns.”
That is true because the stock market as a whole reflects the economy. Despite short-term ups and downs, in the long-term the economy is growing. The economy is the foundation for the stock market. The political environment, however, is the foundation for the economy.
"If we are right about the fraud, Joe Biden can't be president. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of votes. We're talking about numbers like nobody has ever seen before."
"The mail and voting scam is the latest part of their four-year effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election. And it's been like living in hell."
The president vowed that he’s “determined to protect our election system,” which he claimed, “is now under coordinated assault and siege.”
“We are going to defend the honesty of the vote by ensuring that every legal ballot is counted and that no illegal ballot is counted.” He emphasized that his efforts are “about ensuring that Americans can have faith in this election and in all future elections.”
“I don’t think Hell exists,” said The Right Reverend John Shelby Spong. “I happen to believe in life after death, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with reward and punishment. Religion is always in the control business and and that’s something people don’t really understand. It’s in the guilt-producing control business and if you have heaven as a place where you’re rewarded for your goodness and hell is a place where you’re punished for your evil then you have control of the population.”
Religion invents ideas and concepts just like any creative human enterprise. He believes that Hell was invented by the Church in order to control people. The effect of threatening to punish people for bad behaviors is to stifle their natural curiosity. Spong is suggesting that Hell is a myth, in order to help the Church continue to survive.
“The Church doesn’t like for people who grow up because you can’t control grownups. That’s why we talk about being born again. When you’re born again, you’re still a child. The people don’t need to be born again; they need to grow up, accept responsibility for themselves in the world.”
It’s impossible to verify where human “souls” or “spirits” go to after death, yet religions create myths about places like Heaven and Hell; why? The answer is simple, according to Spong. Maintaining these myths keeps people in a fearful state where they turn to the Church as their savior.
“Every Church I know claims that we are the true Church, they have some ultimate authority. We have the infallible Pope, we have the inerrant Bible. The idea that the truth of god can be bound in any human system, any human creed, by any human book is almost beyond imagination for me.”
“God is not a Christian! God is not a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist. Those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God.”
ormer President Barack Obama, in his latest memoir, criticized Americans for liking “cheap gas and big cars” more than they care about “the environment”. The comments came during a section in Obama’s 700-page book, “A Promised Land,” released earlier this month.
What he really wanted to say was that government regulatory agencies were not fully equipped to address an environmental accident because many American voters for decades had “bought into the idea that government was the problem – it is – and that business always knew better – it does – , and had elected leaders who made it their mission to gut environmental regulations, starve agency budgets, denigrate civil servants – all good – [...]"
Note the typical socialist thinking: government knows better, and business is inherently evil – when the fact is that first and foremost government must be restrained. Since businesses are just run by people, that anti-business comment is a statement by a pompous, wannabe elitist ruling class about those whom they consider to be in an ignorant, inferior commoner class – never mind that nobody in the government is any different.
The only way to truly prevent another catastrophe, like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Obama says, “was to stop drilling entirely. But that wasn’t going to happen because at the end of the day we Americans loved our cheap gas and big cars more than we cared about the environment, except when a complete disaster was staring us in the face,” he writes.
Note (1) the desire to control others; (2) the limited thinking that does not realize that all of human progress is meeting and overcoming challenges; (3) the desire to stifle progress and to regress to a more primitive existence, returning humanity to a time of barbaric misery.
If Obama really believed what he said, particularly about the environment, he would not have bought a $15M estate in Martha’s Vineyard, which according to the power-hungry climate scaremongers like him, will be underwater in 30 years.
My response to Obama is my most-recently purchased automobile:
Stop being so anti-American, Obama. Go back to your third-world country and live the kind of life those people are forced to endure with their tyrannical governments you say you prefer.
Claims of voter fraud are spiraling throughout most of the U.S. population. One Facebook group called "Stop the Count" reached 365,000 members before the platform shut it down. However, the users didn't give up. They went over to Parler.
Whether they like it or not, Dominion Voting Systems is in the middle of the issues with the election system.
Founded in 2002, Dominion is privately held and backed by private equity. The company was acquired by Staple Street Capital (as well as its own management team) in July 2018. While the full board of directors for Dominion isn't publicly available, we do know someone who sits on the board for Staple Street Capital. It's a former presidential ambassador who operated under the Obama administration. This isn't abnormal for funding firms, but it's often been used as a point of contention for opponents of the Democrat party.
Chief Justice Roberts sided with the court's liberals in the dissenting opinion – "reinterpreting" the Constitution? “It is not necessary, however, for us to rule on that serious and difficult question at this time.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night blocked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from reimposing strict attendance caps at worship services in areas hit hard by the novel coronavirus. The court ruled 5-4 to bar Cuomo from enforcing his Oct. 6 “Cluster Initiative” against houses of worship that sued to challenge the restrictions. The majority said his limits violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.
“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” wrote Justice Gorsuch.
Lawsuit alleges that Pennsylvania's mail-in voting law violated the state's constitution. A Pennsylvania state court issued an injunction Wednesday blocking any potential further certification of election results in the state, pending a hearing to be held Friday.
The complaint in the case centers on Act 77, which the plaintiffs called "the most expansive and fundamental change to the Pennsylvania election code to date." That law expanded mail-in voting, even though Article VII, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which covers absentee voting, is very narrow in its scope of who can participate.
The lawsuit claims that Pennsylvania's mail-in votes are invalid because in order to expand absentee voting, a constitutional amendment is required, not simply the passing of a bill. They alleged that more than 680,000 ballots were counted without proper observation.
A member of Biden’s transition team is giving us a good glimpse into how little any of our rights matter to the former vice president.
Richard Stengel, an Obama administration alumnus, wrote last year in a Washington Post op-ed that US freedom of speech was too unfettered and that changes must be considered.
We already know that Biden has little appreciation for our Second Amendment rights. His entire gun control platform shows just how little he respects our rights. Now we know that with Biden, there’s no reason to believe any of our rights are sacred.
Stealing from the poor, to give to the rich:
This sets up those Democrat Governors, once Biden is President, to request emergency aid assistance for distressed businesses, that will be then be distributed among their friends and cohorts.
The Board of Elections in Georgia's Floyd County voted Thursday to oust Chief of Elections Clerk Robert Brady after officials found thousands of uncounted ballots. Election officials faile to upload votes from a memory card in a ballot-scanning machine.
During a hand audit in the Peach State, election officials uncovered more than 2,600 ballots that were not counted before the county's initial certification, forcing election workers to rescan more than 8,000 ballots.
As House Democrats prepare to reelect their entire leadership team this week, one thing has come into clear focus 14 days removed from the 2020 election: They got beat -- badly.
While much of the focus in the days immediately after November 3 fell on whether Joe Biden had beaten Donald Trump (he had) and whether Democrats would win back the Senate majority (they haven't -- yet), the last few days have been filled with close House races (finally) being projected. And those projections reveal just how poorly House Democrats did.
With just a handful of races still uncalled at this point, Republicans have gained nine seats -- having won 12 Democratic-held districts and lost just three of their own. A single competitive seat went from red to blue. And even though It hass been almost two weeks since Election Day, Democrats still have not won a single one of the 27 House closely-contested races.
A host of California residents and California-based political organizations are prepared to descend on Georgia to campaign for two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates whose victory would have profound implications for the direction of the country.
Democrats in the Golden State have been hounding political organizers with questions about how they can travel to Georgia to volunteer for Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock. The runoff election has fired up Democrats from out of state. According to campaign finance data, more than 83% of funds for Ossof’s campaign came from outside Georgia, as did nearly 80% of funds for Warnock’s fall campaign.
This is how Democrats win elections.
The vast number of people who said they were willing to move to Georgia just so they can vote in the runoff election has prompted state officials to push back on the idea.
Georgia’s voting system manager cautioned during a press conference last week that doing so would violate state law. “In order to be able to register to vote in Georgia, you have to be a Georgia resident,” he said. “That means you have to believe you are staying in Georgia.” Those who try to vote in Georgia while merely visiting the state may face felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.”
A major new allegation of voter fraud has been raised in Michigan, where a lawsuit filed by the Great Lakes Justice Center on behalf of two poll challengers says multiple levels of improper conduct took place on orders from election officials. The allegations are aimed at election officials from Detroit and Wayne County, according to a release from the center, and are based on affidavits of named individuals who said they witnessed misconduct.
“[I]t was observed that all of these new ballots were cast for Joe Biden.”
This is how Democrats win elections.
“Such rampant fraud cannot be undone. We ask the Court to enjoin the certification of this fraudulent election, void the election, and order a new vote in Wayne County.”
Michigan, along with Pennsylvania, are two major states targeted by President Donald Trump’s campaign, which has alleged widespread voter fraud linked to mail-in ballots cast there.
Religious liberty and free speech are among Americans' personal freedoms potentially imperiled along with government overreach during the coronavirus pandemic, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned Thursday. “Tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply. In certain quarters religious liberty has fast become a disfavored right.” Justice Alito also said that Christians deserve the same protections as the any of the religious minority groups.
“Religious liberty is in danger of becoming a second-class right,” he warned, adding concerns about free speech and the Second Amendment.
“Judges dedicated to the rule of law have a clear duty” and they can’t “compromise principle or rationalize any departure from what they are obligated to do.”
Standing up for the Constitution and freedom is work that lies ahead for all Americans.
A Pennsylvania judge ruled in favor of the Trump campaign Thursday, ordering that the state may not count ballots where the voters needed to provide proof of identification and failed to do so by Nov. 9. “[T]he Court concludes that Respondent Kathy Boockvar, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacked statutory authority to issue the November 1, 2020, guidance to Respondents County Boards of Elections insofar as that guidance purported to change the deadline … for certain electors to verify proof of identification,” Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said in a court order.
This was in line with the Trump campaign’s argument, which was that there was no basis in the state’s law to extend the identification deadline, and that Boockvar did not have the power to unilaterally change it.
“I commit to you tonight, and I commit to all of your viewers and everyone else that’s watching, I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now. Because when they talk about, whether it be packing the courts or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that. I will not vote to pack the courts. I think — and I will not vote to end the filibuster. … I will not be the 50th Democrat voting to end that filibuster or to basically stack the court, and in all the other things you’re hearing about…”
This is significant because the current breakdown in the Senate is 50-48 in favor of Republicans with two seats yet to be determined by runoff elections in Georgia. The GOP will be favored to win both of those seats, but if the Democrats were to pick up both of them and Joe Biden were to become President, it would have been possible for them to fundamentally change how the country worked. If they had gotten rid of the legislative filibuster and stacked the Supreme Court, they could have essentially done ANYTHING they wanted.
With GOP adding House seats, it would take only 10 Democrats to block Pelosi from being House speaker
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., saidthat it would only take 10 Democrats to block Nancy Pelosi from being reelected as House speaker. McCarthy made the comments after his party flipped at least seven seats from blue to red and an eighth seat in Michigan that was most recently occupied by a Libertarian.
“We are close enough now that we can control the floor with a few Democrats joining with us.”
House Majority Whip James Clyburn criticized calls to "defund the police" during several media appearances on Sunday, saying that the phrase hurt Democratic congressional candidates and could potentially derail the Black Lives Matter movement.
The South Carolina Democrat points to his own generation of activists' experience with provocative catchphrases for his reasoning. "We lost that movement over that slogan," he said of the phrase "Burn, baby, burn," which became a popular song and chant during the 1965 Watts Riots, and later again during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier voted in the 2018 election. He died on 11/7/2011!!!
Will Smith’s grandfather voted in 2017, 2018. He died in 2016.
I bet Biden dominated this group. We will find out. — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 8, 2020
Counting ballots after Election Day to change the results in multiple states is unprecedented and seems at odds w/Federal law requiring states pick their electors on Election Day. Counting ballots in secret is against the law and has fatally compromised results in Pennsylvania. — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 8, 2020
Two scholars of demography and generational trends observed that every generation of Americans fits a particular archetype that influences the personality and practices of subsequent generations.
Every 70 to 80 years or so since the founding of the United States, this generational cycle reaches a tipping point. The crisis generation at such times ultimately sweep away many established norms and institutions and open the gates to social, economic and political changes that carry the nation forward on a new path. they called this Phoenix-like era “The Fourth Turning,” and their influential 1997 book of the same title predicted that the U.S. would enter another Fourth Turning early in the 21st century.
The Fourth Turning actually is here, they say. It began around 2009 after the Great Financial Crisis, meaning that the U.S. is about halfway through this transformational and critical period. It’s hard to argue otherwise after a decade of tremendous upheaval that has created deep and often dark divisions in Americans’ lives and lifestyles. the coming decade will be one of “creative destruction” in the U.S.
This existential clash of generations — played out against the backdrop of the post-pandemic recovery, mounting personal and national debt, climate change and the rising power of China — will challenge and change what it means to be American.
A secession crisis, if it does happen, won’t happen among the blue zone states. It would be a red zone movement.’
The best ones share business insights that help readers understand a company.
The gold standard of the genre is Warren Buffett, whose pithy statement from his 1997 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway sums it up: “When you receive a communication from us, it will come from the fellow you are paying to run the business. Your Chairman has a firm belief that owners are entitled to hear directly from the CEO as to what is going on and how [he/she] evaluates the business, currently and prospectively. You would demand that in a private company; you should expect no less in a public company.”
The Labor Department's payroll report released Friday showed the unemployment rate unexpectedly slid to 6.9% from 7.9%. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected the report to show that unemployment dropped to 7.7% and the economy added 600,000 jobs. The U.S. economy added 638,000 jobs in October.
Republicans retained key Senate seats Tuesday in critical states -- setting up multiple roadblocks to Democrats' path to flip the Senate and dashing any hopes for a blue wave. Democrats had only picked up a net gain of one seat, after winning Colorado and Arizona, but losing Alabama. GOP senators swatted down well-funded challenges in Texas, Iowa, South Carolina, Kansas and Montana. And in the latest news Wednesday, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, a prime target for Democrats, declared victory in Maine shortly after 1 p.m. ET as her challenger Sara Gideon publically conceded that she "came up short."
In one major victory, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., fended off a serious scare from Democrat Jaime Harrison, who raised a record-breaking $107.6 million to challenge the powerful Judiciary Committee chairman. During his victory speech, Graham took aim at all the liberal donors who were banking on a GOP defeat. "To all the pollsters out there, you have no idea what you are doing. And to all the liberals in California in New York, you wasted a lot of money," Graham said. “This is the worst return on investment in the history of American politics.”
Competitive races have yet to be called in Alaska, North Carolina, Michigan and two seats in Georgia that may not be decided until after the new Congress is sworn in next year.
Five of the six states with the nation’s lowest unemployment rates are in the Midwest, have Republican governors and have almost no restrictions intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The governors say their decisions not to impose harsher restrictions are paying off with fewer business closures and more hiring reflected in the strong jobless numbers.
“If hospitalization and death rates increase, then you have a motivation by politicians to close the economy down. That would be very deadly and push unemployment rates back up.”
Most of the Midwestern governors imposed some restrictions last spring, but they were among the first to ease them, arguing that they needed to balance efforts to slow the virus’ spread with the need for a robust economy.
For now, though, those Midwestern states have a lock atop the unemployment rankings, far below the national average rate for September of 7.9%. Nebraska leads the nation with a 3.5% unemployment rate, followed by South Dakota, Vermont, North Dakota, Iowa and Missouri.
In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem said: “There’s consequences to what we’ve seen happen in other states — that shutting down businesses, stopping people’s way of life has some devastating impacts. We’re taking a very balanced approach.”
Between December 2009 and December 2016, the unemployment rate dropped 5.2 percentage points, from 9.9% to 4.7%. By December 2019, it had fallen another 1.2 percentage points, to 3.5%. A cursory look at those numbers might lead you to believe that the improvement under Trump was at best a continuation of a trend that began nearly a decade earlier. It’s necessary to place those numbers in context.
By 2016, officials in the Treasury Department and at the Federal Reserve had concluded that the economy was at full employment and that further improvement in the labor market was unlikely. This was in line with the Congressional Budget Office’s guidance that further declines in the unemployment rate would push the economy beyond its sustainable capacity. Once in office, Trump ignored this consensus.
Trump’s goal of 3% growth was derided as delusional, while a bipartisan chorus of commentators declared his policies reckless and irresponsible. They were anything but. Not only did the unemployment rate continue to fall, but the percentage of Americans aged 25 to 54 either employed or looking for a job saw its first sustained rise since the late 1980s.
In 2016, real median household income was $62,898, just $257 above its level in 1999. Over the next three years it grew almost $6,000, to $68,703. That’s perhaps why, despite the pandemic, 56% of U.S. voters polled last month said their families were better off today than they were four years ago.
Trump broke the mold by aggressively battling on all three fronts: tax cuts, spending increases, and interest-rate policy.
If one had to choose between Trump’s three good policies plus trade wars, or the more modest economic policies of his predecessors, the easy choice is Trump.
The FBI reportedly opened an investigation in December 2019 into "Hunter Biden and his associates." Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski says he is a "material witness" after sitting down with the FBI for five hours Friday, Oct. 23.
Biden has emphatically denied the claims, but the Trump campaign has pushed them as an example of a "corrupt politician." Biden critics have held mainstream media and social media under fire for not covering the potentially explosive claims during the run-up to the Nov. 3 presidential election
President Trump has made restoring a once-vibrant economy from its coronavirus downturn a centerpiece of his reelection bid.
The U.S. economy grew at a record-shattering pace in the third quarter. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, surged by 33.1% on an annualized basis in the three-month period from July through September, the Commerce Department said in its first reading of the data Thursday. The previous post-World War II record was a 16.7% increase in 1950. The third-quarter growth reported Thursday was spurred by a resurgence in consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the nation's GDP.
Economists expected the report to show the economy had expanded by 31%.
The economy contracted at an annual revised rate of 31.4% in the previous quarter, the sharpest decline in modern American history. The economy remains 3.5% smaller than at the end of 2019. The U.S. economy came to a near standstill earlier this year to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 9 million Americans and killed over 227,000 world-wide.
Still, the Trump administration toutied it as "absolute validation of President Trump's policies, which create jobs and opportunities for Americans in every corner of the country."
"The President built the world’s best economy once and he’s rapidly doing it again, proving that cutting taxes and reducing regulations and red tape clear the way for American ingenuity and our entrepreneurial spirit to thrive."
Twitter suspended U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan for a post celebrating the success of the U.S. southern border wall keeping violent criminals from reaching American communities.
According to screenshots, Twitter locked Morgan’s account Wednesday afternoon for apparently violating platform rules governing “hateful conduct” after the commissioner
attempted to tweet about the wall’s benefits.
“You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease,” Twitter wrote in an email explaining the suspension. As is clear from the banned post’s text, the commissioner did not threaten anyone based on race, national origin, or anything else.
High-end residents have been warned to take precautions by the NYPD. “Everybody is doing it, adding elevated security to make sure that buildings are safe.” The measures include hiring off duty police to protect against “violence” and “property damage.”
At the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle, where the penthouse is going for $62.5 million, managers are deploying off-duty cops with “submachine guns” to stand watch, while other wealthy city enclaves are also beefing up protection for residents. The building is working with the NYPD and Homeland Security, the insider said.
Many buildings are hiring off duty cops instead of private security companies because they fear a repeat of Denver, where a private guard shot and killed a protester, said one real estate insider.
At 220 Central Park South, which is home to hedge funder Ken Griffin’s $238 million condo, they are already well guarded but will take extra precautions, like keeping entrances locked at night, and only open to residents.
In Florida, one New Yorker who owns a luxury condo in Naples said her building has hired two ex-marine “snipers” to stand on guard, with guns, on the roof, on Election Day and after.
Security will begin on Election Day but the extra security measures are expected to continue in the days and even weeks that follow.
Joe Biden and his presidential campaign are staying mum after Hunter Biden’s former business associate went public to say he met twice in the past with the former vice president -- despite past statements from Biden on the campaign trail that he had no involvement with or discussions about his family's overseas business ventures.
Bobulinski described at length how Joe Biden arrived for a Milken conference, partly held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and how he was introduced by Jim and Hunter Biden to the former vice president.
Bobulinski also claimed Biden’s denials of knowledge in his son's foreign dealings during the presidential debate was "a blatant lie." "I didn't request to meet with Joe" Biden, he said. "They requested that I meet with Joe [Biden]. They were putting their entire family legacy on the line. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
The meeting on May 2, 2017, would have taken place 11 days before a May 13, 2017, email which included a discussion of “remuneration packages” for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email includes a note that “Hunter [Biden] has some office expectations he will elaborate.” A proposed equity split references “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no further details. Bobulinski has repeatedly said “the big guy” was Joe.
“I remember saying, ‘How are you guys getting away with this?’ ‘Aren't you concerned?’” He claims that Jim Biden chuckled. "'Plausible Deniability,' he said
Bobulinski said that he believes Joe Biden and his family are “compromised.”
The Atlantic published a piece by Shadi Hamid which makes the argument that if Trump wins the 2020 election, Democrats are not going to handle it well. The basis of his argument is pretty simple. Democrats didn't handled the 2016 loss very well.
"Liberals had enough trouble accepting the results of the 2016 election. In some sense, they never really came to terms with it. The past four years have witnessed the continuous urge to explain away the inexplicable, to find solace in the fact that the voters betrayed them. How could so many of their fellow Americans side with a racist and a fabulist, someone so callous and seemingly without empathy? It was easier to think that those Americans had been lackeys, manipulated and deceived, or that they simply hadn't understood what was best for them. Moreover, the Russians had interfered, and tipped the balance in an extremely close election through propaganda, fake news, and collusion with the Trump campaign. Perhaps, as former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suggested, the Russians had even tampered with the vote itself."
"In presidential elections, once is a fluke; twice is a pattern. I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. A loss for Biden, after having been the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high. If Democrats can't beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore?"
No one at CNN or MSNBC is going to admit the left is behaving badly and failing to accept the results.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, of the center-left New Zealand Labour Party, announced in a video that if people sent to a quarantine camp refuse to be tested, they will be required to remain another two weeks after their initial two-week stay.
New Zealand has had 25 COVID deaths. Yet the government forcibly puts you in a “quarantine camp” if you refuse to get tested. If you don’t think this is fascism, you’re probably voting for Biden.
Thought for the Day
Hillary Clinton calls most Republicans "cowards" and "spineless enablers"; she describes herself as "literally sick to my stomach," thinking of a win for President Trump.
Is she referring to Republicans in the government, her cronies of decades past? Or is she referring to all Republican voters? We already know what she thinks of people who vote for President Trump. She called us "deplorables". In this statement, she doesn't even seem to recognize there are voters. That President Trump is in office, and may win a second term, for a REASON: because people want him there. Because they believe he offers them something much better than career politicians like herself.
Instead of trying to understand why President Trump defeated her, she simply hates him. She scorns his supporters. She doesn't learn. She doesn't grow. She doesn't evolve. Of course, the woman is a sociopath, and an unindicted criminal. We all know that. But her attitude is the dominant one in her party -- including the people who fervently vote Democratic. They don't want to understand. They just want to hit "delete" on the existence of any attitudes other than their own. Leftists I know, even when calmly and nicely confronted with an answer to their claims, hold up their hands and say, "I don't want to hear it!"
In Hillary Clinton's case, this is the mentality of a sociopath. When mass numbers of people adopt this attitude, you have the social and psychological attitude that dictators exploit. Civil wars and dictatorships are both awful things, things we should avoid. But how can we avoid them when one side says the others' views have no validity, and should not even be permitted expression? That's where we are.
Amy Coney Barrett's first votes on the Supreme Court could include two big topics affecting the man who appointed her. The court is weighing a plea from President Donald Trump to prevent the Manhattan district attorney from acquiring his tax returns. It is also considering appeals from the Trump campaign and Republicans to shorten the deadline for receiving and counting absentee ballots in the battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Other election-related issues are pending at the high court, which next week also will hear a clash of LGBTQ rights and religious freedoms. The fate of the Affordable Care Act is on the agenda on Nov. 10, and Trump himself last week reiterated his opposition to the Obama-era law. "I hope they end it."
On Friday, Barrett, the most open opponent of abortion rights to join the court in decades, also could be called upon to weigh in on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. The state is appealing lower court rulings invalidating the ban. Abortion opponents in Pittsburgh also are challenging a so-called bubble zone that prevents protesters from getting too close to abortion clinics. The court put off acting on both cases before Barrett joined the court, without offering any explanation in the Mississippi case. It ordered Pittsburgh to file a response to the appeal filed by the protesters, who call themselves sidewalk counselors.
Barrett declined to commit to Democratic demands that she step aside from any cases on controversial topics, including a potential post-election dispute over the presidential results. As she settles into her new office at the court, Barrett will be joined by four law clerks, usually recent law school graduates who have experience working for federal judges. At 48, she's the youngest justice since Clarence Thomas joined the court in 1991 at age 43.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, fresh off her confirmation to serve as associate justice on the nation's highest court, took her Constitutional Oath on Monday at the White House. The Supreme Court said in a press release that Barrett will be able to start her new role after Chief Justice John Roberts administers her Judicial Oath on Tuesday. Justice Clarence Thomas administered the Constitutional Oath at Monday's ceremony. Thomas has long been considered one of the more conservative justices on the Court, along with Barrett's mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
The Senate confirmed Barrett along a 52-48 vote, with all 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats opposing her confirmation.
This Barrett confirmation is completely constitutional. It is in line with the overwhelming historical precedent and norms. And it has won the backing of the American people. In other words, in spite of Senate Democrats' agenda-driven efforts to delegitimize this process and result, it is entirely legitimate.
Republican senators had no choice but to adopt their Democratic counterparts' so-called "Reid Rule" precedent and confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court with a simple majority threshold. Democrats were engaged in a partisan filibuster against Gorsuch, the first time in history such an effort was undertaken to thwart a SCOTUS nomination. That maneuver merely represented the latest entry in a long line of unprecedented, unilateral, escalatory power grabs undertaken by Senate Democrats in the judicial confirmation wars. Democrats had shown themselves to be ends-justify-the-means aggressors in these fights, often behaving outrageously in pursuit of power and ideological supremacy. The time had arrived to finally start evening the score, forcing the opposition party to live by their own brass-knuckles rules. And that's exactly what has happened over the last four years. While screaming about legitimacy, Democrats are pretending that they're the victims in all of this and that Republicans are the ruthless, power-hungry actors in the ugly saga that they themselves have created through their own choices and tactics.
It was Senate Democrats who first began our contemporary difficulties with judicial nominations back in 1987, and who have initiated every meaningful escalation -- every single one of them -- from then up to the present day.
Senate Democrats became very allergic to experiencing the effects of what they had started -- the effects of their own playbook. They had no patience to taste their own medicine.
The accurate history lesson from McConnell, which we've been highlighting for years, eviscerates Democrats' fictional, self-serving narratives and justifications.
The Senate voted 51-48 Sunday afternoon to limit debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, setting up a vote on her confirmation for Monday evening. Sunday's vote limited debate over President Trump's court appointee to 30 hours, meaning the full Senate will be able to hold a confirmation vote Monday beginning at approximately 7:26 p.m. ET.
"Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a stellar nominee in every single respect. Her intellectual brilliance is unquestioned. Her command of the law is remarkable. Her integrity is above reproach."
Previously, Supreme Court justices needed to clear a 60-vote threshold to advance to the high court, a tradition that forced nominees to win bipartisan support. But McConnell changed the standard in 2017 to allow for a simple majority, a move that allowed for the confirmation of President Trump's previous two nominees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., first eliminated the 60-vote threshold in 2013 to overcome GOP stonewalling of President Obama's nominations to the lower courts and the executive branch. Known as invoking the "nuclear option" at the time, Reid kept the higher standard in place for the Supreme Court.
Biden to Iowa voter: "You're a damn liar." "Lunch-bucket Joe," has this "Aw, shucks!" image as a nice guy. But the 84-year-old retired farmer who questioned him at an event last year may not agree. He's the guy Biden immediately got aggressive with, called a "damn liar."
Then there was the time, earlier this year, when Biden told a worker who questioned him on the Second Amendment, "You're full of s***." It's classic Biden: When the "little people" don't show the expected obeisance, he slaps them down hard.
While President Trump is fabulously wealthy, he's more Main Street than Wall Street. He has taken up the cudgels for the little guy, combatting the big-money interests, establishment vultures and foreign predators that have been raping the middle class and crushing the American dream.
The reported death of Husam Abd al-Rauf follows weeks of violence, including a suicide bombing.
Afghan special forces led by the intelligence agency raided Kunsaf, which he described as being under Taliban control. On the village's outskirts, they stormed an isolated home and killed seven suspected militants in a firefight, including al-Rauf.
Kamrani alleged, without providing evidence, that the Taliban had been offering shelter and protection to al-Rauf. The Taliban told the AP on Sunday they are investigating the incident. If the Taliban had provided protection for al-Rauf, it would violate the terms of its Feb. 29 deal with the U.S. that jump-started the Afghan peace talks. That deal saw the Taliban agree "not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies," which includes Al Qaeda.
Facebook doesn't like it when the tables are turned.
Academics, journalists and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is being micro-targeted by political ads on the world's dominant social media platform. The researchers say the disputed tool is vital to understanding how Facebook has been used as a conduit for disinformation and manipulation.
A Facebook executive demanded they disable a special plug-in for Chrome and Firefox browsers used by 6,500 volunteers across the United States and delete the data obtained. The plug-in lets researchers see which ads are shown to each volunteer; Facebook lets advertisers tailor ads based on specific demographics that go far beyond race, age, gender and political preference.
The outcry over Facebook's threat was immediate after The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Friday considering the valuable insights the "Ad Observer" tool provides.
"That Facebook is trying to shut down a tool crucial to exposing disinformation in the run up to one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history is alarming. The public has a right to know what political ads are being run and how they are being targeted. Facebook shouldn't be allowed to be the gatekeeper to information necessary to safeguard our democracy." The tool lets researchers see how some Facebook advertisers use data gathered by the company to profile citizens "and send them misinformation about candidates and policies that are designed to influence or even suppress their vote."
The tool lets researchers see how some Facebook advertisers use data gathered by the company to profile citizens "and send them misinformation about candidates and policies that are designed to influence or even suppress their vote,"
Last year, more than 200 researchers signed a letter to Facebook calling on it to lift restrictions on public-interest research and journalism that would permit automated digital collection of data from the platform.
Piers also said that journalists have an obligation to reports news fairly and that potentially important claims should be investigated. He said, "[I]t doesn't matter what side you're on here. Journalism, freedom of speech, dictates - the First Amendment dictates - that when a story like this drops, and it's not being denied by the people it's accusing for six days now, clearly, there is something there that they want to hide."
Morgan considers himself a "liberal" but wonders what has happened to the left-wing political movement. "What is going on when liberals want to attack and suppress freedom of speech?" Morgan questioned. Morgan called the situation a "conspiracy."
Eric Trump, who has been campaigning for his father, told FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo he's never seen the kind of enthusiasm for President Trump than he's seen in recent weeks. Responding to national polls that show Joe Biden leading Trump just days ahead of the Nov. 3 election, the president's son claimed the polls are wrong.
Traveling to Pittsburgh, Penn., Thursday, Trump said he visited a bakery selling sweets for each candidate, and noted the business said they sold over 13,500 Trump cookies versus 1,900 for Biden.
Trump and Biden faced off in their final presidential debate Thursday night. "Biden really hurt himself yesterday with the oil and gas comment," Eric Trump said. "It's the difference between a guy that's stuck in his basement and doesn't understand the real world versus a guy who really understands this country," he said.
"We applaud the beginning of the process of normalizing relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan, which deserves universal support by all who seek peace in the Middle East. Sudan is the third Arab country to make peace with Israel in the past two months, the significance of which cannot be overstated."
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) hailed the agreement as an accomplishment for US President Donald Trump.
"This is very welcome news, and the Trump administration deserves tremendous credit for this diplomatic success," former US Senator Norm Coleman - RJC national chairman - said in a statement. "Today, Muslim countries are entering into diplomatic, trade, and other relations with the State of Israel. These amazing changes will bring greater peace, stability, security, and opportunity to millions of people. And the credit for bringing those historic achievements to fruition goes to President Donald Trump."
U.S. business activity increased to a 20-month high in October, but the pace of new business growth and new orders eased slightly amid the lingering COVID-19 pandemic and caution ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.
'I was told this past Sunday by somebody who was also involved in this matter that if I went public, this information -- it would bury all of us, man.'
Hunter Biden's ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski confirmed on Thursday that he met with former Vice President Joe Biden regarding his son's business dealings and alleged that someone involved with the controversy had warned him about coming forward.
Bobulinski went on to accuse the former vice president of lying about his involvement with his son's business dealings, and indicated that his family sought to conceal his activities. Specifically, Bobulinski alleges he met with the former vice president on May 2, 2017, introduced by his son, Hunter and brother, Jim. "At my approximately hour-long meeting with Joe that night we discussed the Bidens' history, the Bidens' family business plans with the Chinese, with which he was plainly familiar, at least at a high level," Bobulinski said.
"In fact, Hunter often referred to his father as the big guy or 'my chairman.' On numerous occasions, it was made clear to me that Joe Biden's involvement was not to be mentioned in writing but only face-to-face.
His latest comments came just before the final presidential debate.
Almost 80% of registered voters told the Pew Research Center that the economy was a very important issue in this highly-charged election. Seventy-seven percent of voters told YouGov that domestic issues were most important; the economy was the second top priority behind the coronavirus outbreak and response.
Trump has a first-term record that includes the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, an overhaul that reduced income tax rates while expanding some credits and exemptions as it capped others. Major features, like the paired-down income brackets and heightened estate tax exemption are currently set to expire at the end of 2025. Taxpayers paid almost $64 billion less in income taxes during the first year under the new tax rules than they did the year before that, IRS statistics show.
"The basic Biden story is if you're rich or if you're a corporation, you're going to pay more tax. If you're middle-income or lower-income, you'll pay either what you pay now, or you'll pay less depending on your specific circumstances," said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
"With tax cuts and deregulation President Trump has fought to protect the paychecks of everyday Americans from an overburdensome federal government," said Trump campaign spokesman Ken Farnaso. "Joe Biden wants to overturn that progress and tack on a $4 trillion tax hike and his version of a Green New Deal. Whether it be the payroll tax cut or the highly successful Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, President Trump has never stopped fighting to preserve our economic freedoms."
Biden is calling for a 26% refundable tax credit that applies for each dollar contributed to an IRA or 401(k). "The tax credit would be deposited into the taxpayer's retirement account as a matching contribution," explained Garrett Watson, Senior Policy Analyst at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. Under current law, 401(k) contributions come right off the top of a person's taxable income. But the tax benefit accrues more to the higher earners taxed at higher rates. "Compared to current law, the flat credit would provide a larger benefit to lower-income earners and reduce the benefit to higher-income earners," Watson wrote. Biden's plan would not touch contribution limits or affect the rules on Roth IRAs, where after-tax money goes into the account and is withdrawn tax-free.
Tony Bobulinski, who was listed as the recipient of an email published by the New York Post that appeared to detail a business arrangement involving a Chinese company and members of the Biden family, has confirmed that the email is "genuine" and provided more information regarding the Bidens' role in the deal. Bobulinski went on to say he does not believe Joe Biden's past claim that he and Hunter did not discuss his son Hunter's business, claiming that Hunter "frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals."
"I've seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I've seen firsthand that that's not true. The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China."
The Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees requested that he turn over "all documents relating to my business affairs with the Biden family as well as various foreign entities and individuals," and that he intends to fully cooperate. "I have extensive relevant records and communications and I intend to produce those items to both Committees in the immediate future."
NPR has ignored the ongoing scandal surrounding a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden - which contained emails revealing his foreign business dealings, first reported by the New York Post.
"Defund NPR. American taxpayer dollars should not be out there being utilized to push false propaganda and cover up for Joe Biden's corruption! It's been corroborated with a third-party witness who is on the emails what a disgrace NPR has become."
"From 'this is blocked on social media' to 'it's Russian disinformation' to 'ok yeah it's all true but in our editorial judgment its not really a story' in just over a week. You can't be more dishonest and fraudulent than national political media. It's not possible."
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans powered past a Democratic boycott Thursday to advance Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate, keeping President Donald Trump's pick on track for confirmation before the Nov. 3 election.
All 12 Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Barrett, a conservative judge. Senators plan to convene a rare weekend session before a final confirmation vote expected Monday.
With Republicans holding a 53-47 majority in the Senate, Trump's pick for the court is almost certain to be confirmed. All Democrats are expected to oppose Barrett's confirmation.
Senator Ted Cruz and at least 5 other Republicans introduced a Constitutional Amendment this week that would effectively ban "packing" - or adding additional seats- to the Supreme Court at any point in the future.
The proposed amendment is just one sentence long, stating "The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices."
In order to pass, the proposal would need to be supported by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths - or 38 - of the country's 50 states.
Giuliani says the FBI also has a copy of Hunter's hard drive along with his own legal team. The evidence of the Biden's corruption overseas is under review.
Both Bannon and Giuliani have claimed more evidence on the corruption scheme will be released in the coming days.
Despite all the faulty polls showing a double-digit loss, I believe President Trump is on his way to a landslide electoral victory (slightly bigger than that in 2016).
This election looks like a carbon copy of 2016. Every poll back then showed Trump headed for disaster. But I had a secret weapon. I called it The Taxi Poll. My buddy drove a taxi in Las Vegas. Every person who got in her taxi was told, "I'm doing a poll. It's 100% confidential. I don't even know your name. So, tell me, who are you voting for?" The results were overwhelmingly for Trump. I knew then what was about to happen. Today, I have what I call The Truckers Poll. But it's not just my trucker fans; it's my fans who drive cross-country in their RVs. All of them report the same phenomenon. In Middle America, there are thousands and thousands of Trump lawn signs. But where are the Biden signs?
What matters is only the votes of people in a few key battleground states, in particular Florida and the Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. My fans tell me these states are 100 percent Trump country. In small towns and outer suburbs, you can't find any support for Biden.
A new Gallup poll reports 56% of Americans say they are better off now under Trump than they were four years ago under then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden. Every expert knows what clinches elections -- "It's the economy, stupid." A solid majority of Americans feel better off today than four years ago, despite COVID-19. You think they're voting for Biden? That 56% is the highest number in the history of Gallup asking, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Ronald Reagan got 44% in the Gallup poll and won the election in a landslide. Trump is at 56%.
Finally: if Americans aren't yet convinced Trump is great for the economy, on Oct. 29, five days before the election, the third-quarter gross domestic product will be released. The Atlanta Fed estimates it will be 34.6% economic growth, the highest in the history of America -- since 1776.
Emails from a former business associate of Hunter Biden's inner-circle who's serving time in prison for a 2016 investment scheme reveal that Hunter and his colleagues used their access to the Obama administration to peddle influence to potential Chinese clients and investors - including securing a private, off-the-books meeting with the former Vice President.
The emails, given to investigative journalist Peter Schweizer by former Biden associate Bevan Cooney and published by Breitbart also reveal that in 2011, the younger Biden and his business associates discussed strengthening relations with "China Inc." as part of a "new push on soft diplomacy for the Chinese."
These emails are completely unconnected to the Hunter Biden emails released by the New York Post.
This election looks like a carbon copy of 2016. Every poll back then showed Trump headed for disaster.
All of them report the same phenomenon. In Middle America, there are thousands and thousands of Trump lawn signs. But where are the Biden signs? There are almost none to be found.
What matters is only the votes of people in a few key battleground states, in particular Florida and the Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. These states are 100 percent Trump country. In small towns and outer suburbs, you can't find any support for Biden. The Democracy Institute Sunday Express poll from this week that showed Trump beating Biden 46% to 45% and winning almost all battleground states by a healthy margin. That poll didn't oversample Democrats by a mile (as most other polls do) and polled only likely voters. Likely voters in battleground states are all that matter.
Every expert knows what clinches elections -- "It's the economy, stupid." A solid majority of Americans feel better off today than four years ago, despite COVID-19. You think they're voting for Biden? By the way, that 56% is the highest number in the history of Gallup asking, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Ronald Reagan got 44% in the Gallup poll and won the election in a landslide. Trump is at 56%.
If Americans aren't yet convinced Trump is great for the economy, on Oct. 29, five days before the election, the third-quarter gross domestic product will be released. The Atlanta Fed estimates it will be 34.6% economic growth, the highest in the history of America -- since 1776.
The Supreme Court plans to hear President Trump's case on why he believes illegal immigrants should be excluded from the census counts used to create congressional districts. On Friday, the court announced that it will review the case at the end of November after a lower court panel of judges attempted to block the President's initiative. The federal court panel said as long as undocumented citizens reside in a region, they must be counted.
This comes after President Trump signed a memorandum in July, directing the Department of Commerce to use all resources available in order to determine the amount of non-citizens included in the census. The President said he believes the additional information would allow for a more accurate tally of citizens in the country, which could alter the mapping of congressional districts. Congressional districts are the designated regions within a state used to determine how many representatives a state is allowed to have in the House of Representatives.
If the Supreme Court rules to uphold the President's memorandum, some states such as California could stand to lose representatives.
High-fliers like Apple Inc., Amazon Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have all climbed at least 250% since President Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. Those gains have been fueled by earnings generated under the president's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which dropped the top U.S. corporate rate from 35% to 21%, among the lowest in the world.
New presidents typically "don't care" about the economy during their first year in office because voters pay more attention to years three and four.
Two major pharmacies will help distribute a pending coronavirus vaccine to American seniors once it becomes available, the Trump administration announced on Friday. Residents in all types of long-term care facilities will be able to access the vaccine at no charge.
CVS and Walgreens will coordinate on-site clinic dates with facilities, which will likely include three total visits over the course of two months.
One of the people on an explosive email thread allegedly involving Hunter Biden has corroborated the veracity of the messages, which appear to outline a payout for former Vice President Joe Biden as part of a deal with a Chinese energy firm. The source said that "the big guy" is a reference to the former vice president.
Another email from May of 2014 shows Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma's board, allegedly shows him asking for the younger Biden's advice on how to stop "politically motivated actions." Biden's campaign has denied wrongdoing and claimed that the former vice president's schedule showed no meeting taking place, though the campaign wouldn't rule out the possibility that the former vice president had an informal interaction with Pozharskyi.
Tens of millions of people could lose their plans as a result of the proposed change. A frequently overlooked part of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's platform would upend the traditional tax preferences of retirement accounts like 401(k) plans - a change that industry experts warned could force some small companies to cut those benefits.
"If you take the tax deduction away and reduce the tax benefit, without also addressing the nondiscrimination rules, you've blown up the bargain." Employers who make contributions to a 401(k) must offer that same benefit to their workers. Under Biden's plan, business owners would have to reduce their own tax benefit, while continuing to contribute on behalf of their employees, which is expensive.
Small businesses, which would be the most affected by the new rules, employ roughly 58.9 million people, or 47.5% of the nation's workforce.
Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan - who once called the police-free autonomous zone in her city a "block party" amid a "summer of love" - is now "deeply concerned" over the mass exodus taking place within the city's police department.
The exodus is part of a continuing trend that has resulted in at least 118 officers leaving the force this year. He added that "even this number is misleading" because "many officers are using their accrued sick time as they begin their escape to other agencies or wait for retirement."
The total number of officers in the department now sits at just over 1,200, which is on par with police staffing levels in the early 1990s, even though the city's population has grown 44% since then. As a result, 911 call response times have been increasing and police investigative services have been crippled.
The exodus follows the City Council's decision in September to override a mayoral veto and slash the city's police budget, leading to the cutting of as many as 100 officer positions and the elimination of the Navigation Team, which cleared homeless encampments. The mayor, who is in favor diverting police funds to social programs, only vetoed the measure because it lacked "the type of collaboration" she desired.
He wasn't sure what to do with the laptop that had been dropped off at his shop. Once he realized it contained sexually explicit and drug-related photos of the former vice president's son, along with suspicious emails between Hunter Biden and Ukrainian and Chinese business executives, he had no idea what to do.
"I was afraid, I reached out to some people that I trusted, that could possibly get me in touch with the FBI," said Mac Isaac. "Then they showed up. They probably knew I had a copy because I was pretty vocal about not wanting to get murdered."
When asked if he feared Joe Biden might seek to harm him, Mac Isaac replied, "People that work for him, sure."
Biden has to decide: will he really work to prevent China from gaming the system or will he cave in to a treaty that institutionalizes it? He can't have it both ways.
In his climate change plan Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden says that the United States will "re-enter the Paris Agreement on day one of the Biden Administration." The former vice-president reassures readers in his "Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice" that he will "not allow other nations, including China, to game the system by becoming destination economies for polluters?
The Paris Agreement is one of the primary tools with which China is gaming the system.
Restricting CO2 emissions in developing nations would almost certainly involve significantly reducing the use of coal, the source of well over half of China's electricity, for example. As coal is the cheapest source of power in most of the world, restricting CO2 emissions by reducing coal use would obviously interfere with development priorities. So, no matter what emission reductions they promise, China and many other developing countries are unlikely to follow their commitments, citing UNFCCC Article 4 as their excuse.
Facebook and Twitter likely restricted the spread of a New York Post story alleging Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to an executive at a Ukrainian energy firm, because their employees and PACs shelled out millions for Democrat federal candidates in the 2020 election cycle.
According to donation records, Twitter individuals donated $347,270 (98.99%) to Democrat federal candidates and $3,556 (1.01%) to Republicans. Facebook individuals and PACs gave $2.4 million (91.68%) to Democrat federal candidates and $218,576 (8.32%) to Republicans.
Viewing people as individuals rather than simply as members of a collective would be an important antidote to racism. This would require educating people to judge others, in accordance with Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, according to their character rather than their skin color. Such judgments require actual thinking, not just sense perception.
What would be a more objective way of looking at people than as racial clones? My favorite quote is from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech where he expressed the hope that children (implying all people) "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Character, I submit, and I think King would agree, is individual; it is not determined by race.
People should be taught introspection and how to judge others as individuals from a young age.
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails
At right: federal subpoena showing the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI
Emails show the Obama administration let a Democratic p.r. company that worked for Ukrainian energy firm Burisma take part in a conference call about an upcoming visit to Ukraine by then-Vice President Joe Biden. The memo, sent shortly after the Dec. 2, 2015, call, also "outlined the trip's agenda and addressed several questions regarding US policy toward Ukraine."
The trip, in December 2015, turned out to be the one during which Biden later bragged about forcing Ukrainian officials to fire a state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee.
The correspondence is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop.
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails.
"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It's realty [sic] an honor and pleasure," the email reads.
The blockbuster correspondence flies in the face of Joe Biden's claim that he's "never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."
Other material extracted from the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who's admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.
Hunter Biden pursued lucrative deals involving China's largest private energy company - including one that he said would be "interesting for me and my family."
In addition, the email outlined a "provisional agreement" under which 80 percent of the "equity," or shares in the new company, would be split equally among four people whose initials correspond to the sender and three recipients, with "H" apparently referring to Biden. The deal also listed "10 Jim" and "10 held by H for the big guy?"
Hunter Biden's laptop was abandoned at a Delaware computer repair store. The FBI seized it on Dec 17, 2019.
That was the day before Nancy Pelosi held the vote to impeach the President. Someone from the store had contacted the FBI about the laptop, but also made a copy of the drive that he gave to Robert Costello, an attorney for Rudi Giuliani. Giuliani just released the information to the New York Post. Why did the FBI never make this information public?
The Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to take the first steps toward approving Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett following two long days of Senate testimony in which she stressed that she would be her own judge.
Barrett's confirmation would cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court and would be the most pronounced ideological change in 30 years, from the liberal icon to the conservative appeals court judge.
Senate Democrats are trying to turn the confirmation hearing on Amy Coney Barrett into a political victory for their party, but so far they've failed miserably. Barrett is the poster-woman the GOP needs to attract college-educated female voters and help close the gender gap come November.
Democrats warned Barrett that "her participation in any case involving Donald Trump's election would immediately do explosive harm to the court's legitimacy and to your own credibility." Yet blame the Democratic Party for the increasing likelihood that the election will land in the Supreme Court. Democratic groups across the country are aggressively suing in lower state and federal courts demanding that ballots arriving after Nov. 3 be counted, contrary to state laws. In effect, canceling the finality of Election Day. That strategy is already being challenged in the US Supreme Court. The court could resolve the issue before the election or afterward.
Asking Barrett to recuse herself makes no sense. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't recuse herself in a case involving President Bill Clinton, though he named her to the high court.
Democrats argued that "it's simplistic to think" being a justice is a "robotic performance." But as Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) pointed out at the beginning of Tuesday's hearing, "no one ever questions whether our liberal friends can set aside their views."
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating newly released emails that reveal that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2015 at Hunter's request.
An email from May 2014 also showed Pozharskyi, reportedly a top Burisma executive, asking Hunter for "advice on how you could use your influence" on the company's behalf The meeting took place less than a year before the former vice president purportedly pressured government officials in Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin. "I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money," Biden infamously said to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
Universities in the 1960s began to become training centers for "activists," much like Marxist in the 1930s, who learned they could utilize legitimate current issues in order to manipulate the masses into cooperation, oblivious to incoherent, illogical ideologies. Berkeley's "student rebellion" of 1964 engaged in violation of property and physical assaults, even of police, justifying itself by hiding behind a false mantle of civil rights, smearing opposition as racist, all the while receiving outside money and resources to help achieve its goal: the seizure of power. Sound familiar?
These activists would later plant themselves in education, media, and politics, or even serve as muscle on the streets to work toward indoctrinated ideological objectives.
"The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow."
In the 20th century, the American public education system was heavily influenced by Progressive philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952). In Dewey's own words in his My Pedagogic Creed, he lays out his ultimate vision and goal for American education. He states:
"I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration in all of his training or growth[.] ... I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's own social act. I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life ... the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth." (Pestritto & Atto, 129-134).
In other words, he simply wants to train 1) social activists aligned with his ideology and 2) masses of people, not knowing any better, who feel compelled to go along.
Fields within the humanities at large, not just subfields such as Critical Theory, the grievance studies, Postmodernism, etc., have always intertwined themselves with the various flavors of socialism.
"Young people do seek a comprehensive view of life, i.e., a philosophy, they do seek meaning, purpose, ideals - and most of them take what they get[.] ... [T]he majority are open to the voice of philosophy for a few brief years. These last are the permanent, if not innocent, victims of modern philosophy."
U.S. Navy veteran Joe Collins on Saturday released a scathing campaign ad attacking Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for living in a multi-million dollar mansion while representing a district plagued by crime and poverty.
"Do you know where I am right now? Maxine Waters' six million-dollar mansion," Collins asks. "Do you know where I'm not right now? Maxine Waters' district."
Two lawyers, Urooj Rahman, 31, and Colinford Mattis, 32, are accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a parked NYPD vehicle during the riots in late May in Brooklyn. When they were caught, explosive materials were found in their car. The feds have now brought seven charges each against the pair. Those charges include "the use of explosives, arson, use of explosives to commit a felony, arson conspiracy, use of a destructive device, civil disorder, and making or possessing a destructive device." Samantha Shader is also being accused of targeting an NYPD vehicle which was occupied by four police officers at the time that she threw a Molotov cocktail at it. The same seven charges were lodged against her. All three are now eligible for sentences that include life sentences.
U.S. Attorney for the EDNY Richard Donoghue said, "Such criminal acts should never be confused with legitimate protest. Those who carry out attacks on NYPD Officers or vehicles are not protesters, they are criminals, and they will be treated as such."
Attorney General William Barr has more than enough evidence to indict members of the Obama administration for spying on the Trump campaign in 2016, including former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
"These people should be indicted, this was the greatest political crime in the history of our country, and that includes Obama and it includes Biden," the president said. "These are people that spied on my campaign - and we have everything - and now they say 'we have much more,' and I say, 'Bill, we got plenty, you don't need anymore,'" Trump continued.
With the general election in 26 days, any major indictments are unlikely. But should charges be formally announced against a high-ranking member of the Obama administration it would certainly send shockwaves through Washington and across the country.
White House physician Dr. Sean Conley sent out a memorandum on Thursday stating that President Trump will be able to return to public engagements this weekend.
It will be ten days since Trump was first diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, Conley anticipates that Trump can return to his usual schedule by Saturday. Trump has responded "extremely well to treatment" and there is no sign of "adverse therapeutic effects." "Today the President has completed his course of therapy for COVID-19 as prescribed by his team of physicans."
Other White House staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 at this point include senior adviser Hope Hicks and director of Oval Office operations Nick Luna. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien also tested positive for COVID-19. Former counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway has also tested positive and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who participated in debate prep with the president recently, did too and was admitted to the hospital over the weekend.
The Centers for Disease Control says people "with mild to moderate COVID-19 remain infectious no longer than 10 days after symptom onset. People with more severe symptoms can remain infectious for longer.
San Francisco experienced a 43% year-over-year decline in sales tax revenues during the pandemic, which has been credited to an exodus from the expensive city.
Data supports an exodus of residents from San Francisco - as remote work guidelines allow some workers more freedom in choosing where to live. The latest report from United Van Lines shows that outbound moving requests from the city were 128% above the national average at the start of September.
Data also showed a continued yearly decline of 20.3% in median rent prices in San Francisco this month, which was among the largest yearly decline ever recorded - and marked a milestone as prices dropped below $3,000 for a one-bedroom.
Two U.S. senators from Indiana and a former law professor will introduce Judge Amy Coney Barrett to America on Monday as the Supreme Court nominee's high-stakes Senate confirmation hearings get underway.
Senators Todd Young and Michael Braun, both Republicans, and Patricia O'Hara, a former Notre Dame Law School professor, will speak at the start of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, according to new details released by the committee Friday night. O'Hara is a former dean of the Law School and a mentor and friend to Barrett. In an article about O'Hara's retirement, Barrett praised O'Hara's encouragement and kindness. "Despite her many responsibilities, she visited me with gifts when my children were born and never forgets a birthday," Barrett, a mother of seven, said of her mentor.
Barrett, a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals judge, will then deliver her opening remarks to the committee to cap off the first day of her confirmation hearings.
Questioning of Barrett will start in earnest Tuesday when Senate Democrats on the committee are expected to grill her on issues related to health care, abortion and gun rights.
Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. After clerking for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and working in private practice, she returned to Notre Dame in 2002 as a law school professor. Her fellow Fighting Irish faculty supported her successful 2017 nomination to the federal appeals court.
Monday's hearing will kick off an ambitious schedule set by Senate Republicans to confirm Trump's third Supreme Court pick by the Nov. 3 election. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority over 45 Democrats and two independents in the upper chamber and the GOP appears to have the votes to approve Barrett, despite Democrats' outcry that the process is illegitimate just days before Americans will decide control of the White House and Senate.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will preside over the hearing. The hearings are expected to run through Thursday, with an anticipated Oct. 22 committee vote on advancing Barrett's nomination to the Senate floor.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency's potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show.
"I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!"
Allies of the president, including Republicans on Capitol Hill leading their own investigations into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, have criticized officials like FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel, claiming that the directors have been blocking the release of documents.
The president's move come after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton's purported "plan" to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as "a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server" ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
A source familiar with the documents said that "this information has been sought by hundreds of congressional requests for legitimate oversight purposes and was withheld for political spite?and the belief that they'd never get caught."
Last week, during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, then-FBI Director James Comey was asked whether he received an investigative referral on Clinton from 2016, but he said it didn't "ring any bells." "You don't remember getting an investigatory lead from the intelligence community? Sept. 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to James Comey and Strzok regarding Clinton's approval of a plan [about] Trump?as a means of distraction?" Graham asked Comey. "That doesn't ring any bells with me," Comey said.
The odds are extremely favorable for Trump's full and complete recovery.
President Trump is now reported by the White House to be mildly symptomatic with fatigue. He walked independently and with a strong stride to the helicopter taking him to Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Maryland on Friday night, and was not receiving oxygen. He spoke on a brief video shortly before he headed for the hospital and did not appear short of breath.
The poll - conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Real Clear Education and College Pulse - asked 20,000 students at 55 campuses across the nation questions regarding free speech issues and comfort. The question measured such elements as tolerance, openness and self-expression. On a question about options for "action to protest a campus speaker," the students answered how acceptable it is to remove flyers or ads for an upcoming event, shout down a speaker or block them from speaking, block other students from entering the event or even use violence to stop a speech. The percentage of "never acceptable" responses increased with the more violent an action became, but with 82% of students answering "never" for "using violence," that means 17-18% of students responded that violence was in some form acceptable.
Top schools among the 55 polled with higher scores of overall perceived Freedom of Speech included the University of Chicago, Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, University of California - Los Angeles, and Arizona State University.
The study noted that colleges at both ends of the rankings have suffered free-speech controversies - likely the reason they were selected for the study. One example from the University of Chicago - with the highest Free Speech score - noted that a student responded to a prompt "I vote because..." with "the coronavirus won't destroy America, but socialism will." For this, she was widely denounced by her peers, threatened with violence, and told that she did not belong at the University of Chicago because of her beliefs.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden once again avoided giving a straight answer on whether he would support packing the Supreme Court if elected.
"The Constitution says that the American people - I taught constitutional law for over 20 years - says the American people get an opportunity to choose who they want on the Supreme Court by who they pick as their senator and their president," said Biden. However, the Constitution, which discusses the Supreme Court in Article III, says nothing about the people getting to choose who sits on it.
Remarks came as State Department announced a 15,000-refugee admissions cap.
"Biden has even pledged to terminate our travel ban on Jihadist regions, opening the flood gates to radical Islamic terrorism." Biden would turn Minnesota "into a refugee camp," "overwhelming public resources, overcrowded schools and inundating your hospitals" in reference to the former vice president's plan to raise a refugee admissions ceiling in the U.S. from 15,000 people to 125,000. Former President Obama set an annual cap of 110,000 refugees in 2017.
Trump also brought up Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, saying, "I've been reading these reports for over two years about how corrupt and crooked she is," then asking the crowd: "How the hell did Minnesota elect her? What the hell is wrong with you people?" The president suggested during an earlier Sept. 22 rally in Minneapolis that Omar would help him win the election, saying, "How about Omar of Minnesota? We're going to win the state Minnesota because of her, they say."
Minnesota has the largest population of Somali-Americans than any other state with 69,000 people who claim Somali ancestry, or 40% of the entire Somali-American U.S. population, according to local news outlet WCCO.
Earlier this year, Boeing said it would slash production of passenger jets and cut its workforce by about 10%. As the pandemic worsened in the U.S. and air-travel demand remained deeply depressed, Boeing said it was weighing cuts beyond the 19,000 already earmarked. Boeing has assembled the 787 Dreamliner in Everett, Wash., since the first of the popular widebodies rolled off the line there over a decade ago. It announced plans in 2009 for a second line in North Charleston, S.C., a right-to-work state where attempts to unionize the workforce haven't succeeded.
Consolidating Dreamliner production in South Carolina would mark another step in the shift of the U.S. aerospace industry to southern states from the West Coast. Companies have already shed thousands of jobs in California while states including the Carolinas, Florida and Alabama have attracted aerospace businesses with less-clogged infrastructure and cheaper, nonunionized labor.
Boeing employs more than 7,000 workers in North Charleston, where it also has an engine-research facility. That compares with almost 70,000 staff in Washington, including around 30,000 at the sprawling Everett plant. The Everett plant, where Boeing also produces 767s and 747s, produced around 15 widebody jets a month at its peak, which would drop to around six and fall further with the 747 program due to end in 2022 and output of the new 777X reduced as Boeing delayed first deliveries until 2022.
After boosting Dreamliner production last year to 14 a month?split evenly between Everett and South Carolina?Boeing has reduced output to 10 and plans to make six a month next year.
With the narrow-body 737 MAX grounded for over a year since two fatal crashes, building and selling more 787s has been crucial to Boeing's financial recovery. The company has orders for 526 of the planes and has delivered almost 1,000. The twin-engine plane overcame years of delays and cost overruns to become a bestseller and is expected to overtake Boeing's 777 and the Airbus A330 as the most popular wide body jet by 2023, according to analysts at Jefferies. Airlines are retiring older 777s and A330s in favor of the smaller 787 and Airbus A350.
A Somali whistleblower working in the sheriff's office helped O'Keefe record evidence of a cash-for-votes scheme.
A "ballot broker" boasts about keeping hundreds of absentee ballots in his car trunk. He brags about them being filled in by people other than the voters. Often, money changes hands. Witnesses tie the rampant fraud to the campaign chairman of a prominent member of the radical "squad" in the U.S. House. Loose election laws allow people to come from out of state, vote, and then leave again. It's been captured on video.
A concerted effort is being made to use the coronavirus as an excuse to transform how we vote in elections by shifting to mail-in or absentee ballots.
"Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud," concluded the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter. Allowing such ballots "increases the risks of fraud and of contested elections." In 2012, a grand jury in Miami-Dade County warned about the risks of absentee voting: "Once that ballot is out of the hands of the elector, we have no idea what happens to it. The possibilities are numerous and scary."
Alan Schulkin, Manhattan's Democratic election commissioner, said, "It's absurd. There is a lot of fraud. Not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud." He explained, "They put [people] in a bus and go from poll site to poll site." Schulkin was promptly fired for his candor by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.
Massive ongoing voter-fraud scheme is occurring in Minneapolis. It is linked to the political machine of Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman from Minnesota's fifth district (Minneapolis) and a close ally of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the U.S. House. Omar's complete domination of the district's politics is rooted in her machine's ability to fool, seduce, or bribe members of her Somali community into committing voter fraud.
Joe Biden's proposal to hike taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans could dramatically shrink the nation's economy and destroy millions of jobs, according to new projections from President Trump's former chief economist. The Democratic presidential candidate's plan would increase the tax rates on capital and labor income, ultimately resulting in about 3 million fewer full-time employees and reducing the nation's GDP by about 4% to 5%.
"Although Biden asserts that his plan 'rewards work,' economic analysis of the plan belies that claim."
Biden has pledged to hike the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% on "day one" if he wins. Biden has promised to roll back other changes made by Trump in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including restoring the top individual income tax bracket to 39.6% from 37% for those earning more than $400,000 annually.
That would result in an average tax increase of nearly $300,000 for households in the top 1% of the country, compared with a $260 per year increase for those in the middle.
Exceptional jurists like the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia know judges need to be humble and allow the Constitution and the law, not personal feelings or political pressure, dictate their rulings.
Judge Barrett has shown a strong commitment to originalism and goes wherever the law may lead her, even if it results in unpopular outcomes. In her legal writing, she consistently argues for the value of judicial restraint and understands a judge's role is not to legislate from the bench. She sees her job as calling balls and strikes, not imposing her policy wishes on the American people.
She has shown an acute awareness of the negative consequences of government regulation. In 2017, she wrote, "Nearly every government regulation comes at some price to individual liberty. Determining whether a government regulation truly serves the public interest, therefore, requires determining whether the price is worth paying." Clearly, Judge Barrett is grappling with the thorny issue of when to roll back government regulation. She correctly places the Constitution itself above regulations, above acts of Congress, and above past Court decisions.
Barrett argues large chunks of the administrative state may need review to make sure they follow the Constitution. But she states that Courts need to be pragmatic about when they review decisions. Her judicial views are grounded deeply in the Constitution as opposed to the overreaching Beltway bureaucracy. Barrett's principles guide her when she is evaluating difficult legal questions.
In Orchard Hill Building Co. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, Judge Barrett joined with the majority in ruling that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had acted too broadly in claiming the Warmke wetlands were "waters of the United States," even though they were over ten miles away from the nearest navigable river.
It is impossible to deny Barrett's qualifications and character objectively, but already her opponents are trying to demonize her religious faith and her adherence to the Constitution and free-market policies.
"Mostly, I'm looking for somebody that can interpret the Constitution as written."
Nominee Amy Cohen Barrett said Saturday in accepting the nomination that she has the same judicial philosophy as the late Justice Antonin Scalia, which is to "apply the law as written."
It's not just the Supreme Court on which the president will have a lasting effect, but the lower courts, as well. "By the end of the term, we'll have almost 300 federal judges and Court of Appeals judges, which is a record. So we will have had a great impact on the court system going forward," Trump said.
Trump has publicly pressured Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to release his own list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. Biden will have a chance to respond to Trump on Tuesday in the first presidential debate. The debate which will cover both candidates' records, the Supreme Court, the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, race and violence in cities, and the integrity of the election.
"We've done a great job. We created the greatest economy in history," Trump said. "And now it's coming back. We closed it. We saved millions and millions of lives by doing what I did. And now we're bringing it back."
Several Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have said that Biden shouldn't debate Trump, but Biden has rejected those calls.
Democrat Senators on the Judicial Committee say they won't meet with Amy Coney Barrett.
Sen. Blumenthal said he refuses 'to treat this process as legitimate.' "I will not be meeting with her, I will take the opportunity to question her when she is under oath," Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii said.
Confirming SCOTUS nominees in an election year has always been common practice for American Presidents.
William Barnett, an FBI official who served on Robert Mueller's team said he believed the special counsel's prosecution of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was part of an attitude to "get Trump,"" and that he did not wish to pursue a Trump-Russia collusion investigation as it was "not there"" and considered it to be a "dead end."
A grand jury is composed of people drawn randomly from the community, similar to a trial jury. Together they must decide whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge.
In proceedings closed to the public and members of the media, grand jurors listen to evidence presented by prosecutors and hear from witnesses. There is no judge present nor anyone representing the accused, and prosecutors do not have to offer any evidence favorable to the defense. A single grand jury can sit for months and will typically be tasked with several cases. Grand juries exist in the federal court system and in nearly every state. In some states, prosecutors must go to grand juries to bring felony charges. In other states, prosecutors are free to file those charges themselves. Unlike juries that hear a trial, grand juries don't decide whether someone is guilty or innocent. They only decide whether there is sufficient evidence for someone to be charged. In Kentucky, nine of the 12 jurors must agree there is enough evidence for the panel to issue an indictment. In the federal court system, grand juries are made of 16 to 23 people, and at least 12 jurors must find there is probable cause to indict someone.
Centuries-old rules have kept grand juries under wraps to protect the reputations of people who end up not being charged and to encourage reluctant witnesses to testify. The U.S. Supreme Court has also said that making grand jury proceedings public would carry the risk that "those about to be indicted would flee, or would try to influence individual grand jurors to vote against indictment."
Defenders say the process is a crucial safeguard against politically motivated prosecutions.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Democrats are willing to vilify these women based on their spirituality, in an effort to derail Trump's nominee out of spite. "If you are a conservative woman in DC, you are treated like a fourth-class citizen."
"Democrats don't respect the Constitution because they want to act like 2016 and 2020 are the same and they're totally different. In 2016 we had divided government with different parties in the White House and Senate. They want to use the Constitution when it's convenient for them and not use it when it's not convenient for them," said Florida's Senator Rick Scott.
"I want to see a judge who understands their proper role. And that is they're not there to make law," Montana's Senator Steve Daines aidd. "They're there to take laws that Congress passes and determine whether they're Constitutional or not. They've got to stay in their Constitutional lane."
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, has been discharged from hospital after just over a month.
The 44-year-old Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month and was hospitalised there before being flown to Berlin. He spent 32 days in the Berlin hospital, including 24 days in intensive care, before his release.
German toxicology tests provide "unequivocal proof" that the critic of President Vladimir Putin had been poisoned by the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent, which was also used in a separate poisoning in 2018 on ex-double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, Britain. France and Sweden ran tests independently that corroborate Germany's conclusions.
The Utah Republican noted that historically an election year nomination is for the Senate to confirm if they are made by a president of the same party.
"At this stage, I think it's appropriate to look at the Constitution and to look at the precedent which has existed over - well since the beginning of this country," he stated. "And in a circumstance where a nominee of a president is from a different party than the Senate, then more often than not the Senate does not confirm, so the Garland decision was consistent with that."
Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed the President will announce his Supreme Court pick this Saturday. In an interview Tuesday, he said the White House and Republicans have not made a decision yet on the timetable for the confirmation process. However, Meadows said senators are engaged and ready to get to work on the President's pick. He also noted he's confident the President's nominee will have enough votes to be confirmed either before the election or shortly after.
American households' collective net worth climbed nearly 7% in the April-June quarter to $119T.
According to new data released Monday by the Federal Reserve, American households' collective net worth climbed nearly 7% in the April-June quarter to $119 trillion. That's up from $111 trillion in the first quarter, when the pandemic triggered an unprecedented shutdown of the nation's economy, cratering the financial markets.
But other parts of the economy have been slower to recover. Government data released at the beginning of September shows the labor market is far from pre-coronavirus levels: Employers added 1.4 million jobs in August and the unemployment rate fell to 8.4%, but there are still 11.5 million more out-of-work Americans than there were in February. The employment rate among the country's highest earners has dropped by 1.6% compared to January, while employment among the lowest-earners is down 16.1% from January.
Obama administration 'ignored the glaring warning signs' when Biden's son joined board of the company.
The 87-page report stated that Obama administration officials "knew" that Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma was "problematic" and that it interfered "in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine." During the time Biden was on the board the company's board, then-Vice President Joe Biden was running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration.
The report also stated that Hunter Biden "formed significant and consistent financial relationships" with the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, and that his and his business partner Devon Archer's firms "made millions of dollars from that association" while his father was vice president.
Hunter Biden "sent thousands of dollars" to individuals who have "either been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; an association with the adult entertainment industry; or potential association with prostitution."
Senate investigators found millions of dollars in "questionable financial transactions" between Hunter Biden and his associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of Moscow as well as individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Not just Hunter Biden but other members of the Biden family "were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe." Hunter Biden "opened a bank account" with a Chinese national linked to China's communist government, which "financed a $100,000 global spending spree" for the former vice president's brother, James Biden, and his wife, Sara Biden.
A massive police presence in her quiet California neighborhood was the result of her claim that an armed an gunman was on her property. But it was really a teen shooting at squirrels with an air gun.
At least seven Ventura County Sheriffs' vehicles, one K-9 unit, a police helicopter and one Los Angeles Fire Department team sat down the street on standby.
'It turned out it was a neighborhood teen with an air gun shooting at squirrels,' a resident said.
Democrats have made no mystery of their plans should they ever obtain power again, and it's not good for fans of individual liberty, personal responsibility, or just being left the hell alone by the government. That's why Republicans need to move quickly and deliberately to replace her. So much of the progressive agenda is dependent upon twisting the plain language of the Constitution into a rat's nest of snarls and bastardizing words to the point of unrecognizability.
Still in shock, Democrats are scrambling to find a way to block any nomination. They don't have one. They changed the rules under the Obama administration so they could stack liberals on the courts and their chickens have come home to roost.
Reports of her dying wish - that she not be replaced until after the election, in the hope of a Democrat being able to do it - showed who and what she really was. When the news of Ginsberg's death broke, the threats of violence started. Threats of violence show who leftists really are.
Democrats were already talking about getting rid of the filibuster to ram through their bills, packing the courts to ensure whatever they pass is ruled legal, and creating new states to solidify power in the Senate. if you believe them, there is little choice but to act preemptively to prevent their naked power grabs by quickly confirming a new Justice. You know they'd do the same.
If the crowd at President Trump's Saturday rally in North Carolina was any indicator, the president's supporters have already decided what he should do about the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. "Fill that seat!" the crowd chanted as the president spoke at Fayetteville Regional Airport about who he might nominate to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the nation's highest court.
"It will be a woman -- a very talented, very brilliant woman," Trump told the crowd of his potential choice.
He later told reporters his announcement could come as early as this week.
Graham is chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee charged with processing Supreme Court nominees, and he is in the midst of a competitive reelection campaign that could factor closely into the fight for control of the upper chamber.
His comments Saturday, coming after less-decisive statements in the hours after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death Friday, amounted to the latest indication of how Republican leaders are rallying quickly around a strategy of seeking to fill her seat this year. "The trade-off for Trump's unorthodoxy has always been that he will support conservative judges," said Matt Moore, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman and consultant for the Graham campaign. "The president's nominee has the potential to really animate the Republican Party base in South Carolina."
Republican leaders appeared determined to press ahead swiftly to fill the court vacancy with a conservative jurist. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Trump during a Friday phone call that his nominee would get a vote in the Senate. Trump told McConnell he liked Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit.
If Republican leaders are successful, they could move the court to the right for generations and leave a deep impact on laws governing abortion, guns and other divisive issues.
Graham also pointed on social media to recent comments in which he said he was prepared to move ahead with a Supreme Court nominee this year. "After Kavanaugh, the rules have changed as far as I'm concerned." It was clear on Saturday that partisan rancor that has seized the Senate in recent years was only likely to intensify in the wake of the court vacancy.
The U.S. accounts for one quarter of the entire world economy. It used to be said that "All roads lead to Rome". The modern rephrasing would have to be, "All financial roads lead to the U.S."
The U.S. is followed by China, Japan, Germany, India, United Kingdom, France, Italy - the complete list of 8 countries with economies of $2T or more.
Brazil and Canada lead off the sub-$2T countries, and when added to the first 8 countries, include more than two-thirds of the world economy. The others in the over-$1T group include (in declining order) Russia, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Spain, and Indonesia.
If you divide the economy by the population, you get the per capita amount. That would give you an estimate of average wealth per person. Obviously, the per capita in the U.S., with 300 million people, would be the highest ($71,000+); the U.S. is the good news. But dividing China's by the 1.5 billion people there ($9,500+), or India's by the 1 billion people there ($2,880), you would get a very low amount - poverty-level.
The economy of little South Korea is about on par with that of Russia, which possesses about 1/7th of the Earth's land mass. That illustrates how much the degree of freedom, and its economic extension, capitalism, that exists in a country can so greatly affect the well-being of a country's population. Just having the resources (and labor - putting the lie to Marxism) is not a deciding factor (as Japan, with no resources, has proven since World War II).
The same can be said for the U.S., compared to the rest of the world. Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa have had a head-start measured in thousands of years. The upstart United States was nothing but a couple of small colonies 400 years ago. But freedom was born with the founding of the U.S. Freedom and capitalism have clearly out-performed all of the monarchies, dictatorships (Marxist or otherwise), and other variants of oppression so devastatingly that it should be obvious to anyone which is better.
Note that in the Middle East, only Israel and two oil-producing countries are even ranked.
Africa, with some of the most oppressive and abusive governments on the planet, as well as its endemic slavery, is glaringly absent from the list, with only South Africa, Nigeria (oil), and Egypt being stable enough to show an economic presence. No surprise: all three have been the most heavily influenced by their interaction with the greater freedom of European and American countries and civilizing cultures.
Venezuela would have been a shining star high on the list 20 years ago. Its socialism has reduced it to abject poverty in just two decades.
The "Rest of the World", too small to be shown, includes about 200 countries, which altogether are just under 10% of the world economy.
Oil-rich Iran, which is not on the chart, with its oppressive state-run economy, is according to one estimate only 0.37% of the world economy, smaller than Israel's 0.45%. Again, oppression fails, and freedom and capitalism work better.
Call it "Western Culture" if you will, say it with disdain if you like. But freedom and its economic extension capitalism work better than anything else.
Ginsburg, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was known for her soft-spoken demeanor that masked an analytical mind, a deep concern for the rights of every American and a commitment to upholding the Constitution.
"She changed the way the Supreme Court views the issue, and she changed millions of people's lives in the process," said David Schizer, who served as a law clerk during Ginsburg's first year on the high court bench in 1993. "She did it with her soft-spoken, quiet manner. She understood if you're trying to do something momentous, you should present it as quite ordinary." Her strategy was to take a measured approach, carefully choosing cases that would promote equality but not appear radical to often skeptical federal courts.
"No door should be closed to people willing to spend the hours of effort needed to make dreams come true." - Justice Ginsberg
Trump was given the award for his 'exceptional' contribution to freedom in Kosovo. Kosovo gave President Trump one of its highest honors on Friday for his role in an historic economic normalization deal with Serbia earlier this month.
While most Western nations have recognized Kosovo's independence, Serbia, Russia and China have not - keeping tensions high in the Balkan region.
Trump was praised for the deal, and even received another nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Magnus Jacobsson, a member of the Swedish Parliament, said he was nominating Trump along with Serbia and Kosovo "for their joint work for peace and economic development, through the cooperation agreement signed in the White House."
1776 Unites, a group that says it wants to "shape the American future by drawing on the best of its past," released its first curriculum program this week in part to counter the New York Times' 1619 Project. A group of historians led by Princeton professor Sean Wilentz wrote a letter to the New York Times that cites multiple factual errors in the 1619 Project.
The curriculum, developed by civil rights leader Bob Woodson and American Enterprise Institute scholar Ian Rowe, offers lesson plans, activities, reading guides and other resources to illustrate what 1776 Unites calls a "more complete and inspiring story of the history of African-Americans in the United States." Education Secretary Betsy DeVos praised the 1776 Unites curriculum.
"1776 Unites maintains a special focus on stories that celebrate black excellence, reject victimhood culture, and showcase African-Americans who have prospered by embracing America's founding ideals."
Leaders from three Middle Eastern nations gathered on the White House's South Lawn to herald what was called a "pivot of history" in the region. In an address ahead of the signing of normalization agreements by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the host of Tuesday's event - US President Donald Trump - remarked, "We're here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East."
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said, "We are witnessing today a new trend that will create a better path for the Middle East."
The Israel-UAE-Bahrain normalization agreements were made possible by a concerted strategy adopted by President Donald Trump that bypassed the Palestinians, concentrated on Iran, emphasized unapologetic support for the Jewish state and won the trust of Arab leaders.
Asked what was different about the president's strategy from his predecessors' unsuccessful efforts, Haley replied, "The difference was, go back to the first foreign policy speech the president gave, it was to the Arab community, and he said: Let us all work together in the name of peace. And he did something no other president has done. Rather than focus on the Palestinians, which is what every president has thought they had to do to negotiate peace, he focused on Iran." They trusted him because he got out of the Iran deal.
"It was bringing them together in the name of: Let's do away with terrorism. The number one sponsor of terrorism is Iran, and if we're going to all get together and do this, we have to start acknowledging the truth. And that's what the president did."
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said on Wednesday that recent regional developments, and especially the peace treaties between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, mark the beginning of the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Friedman said that many more countries would soon follow suit and normalize relations with the Jewish state.
As for the impact of the developments on the Palestinians, Friedman said the Palestinian people are not being served by their leadership. "I believe the people in Judea and Samaria want a better life," he said, adding that the Palestinian people need to understand it's possible for them to attain such a goal.
It was announced last week that Serbia and Kosovo planned to establish their embassies in Israel's capital - much to the consternation of the European Union. The European Union warned Serbia and Kosovo that they could undermine their EU membership hopes by moving their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem.
"There is no EU member state with an embassy in Jerusalem," said European Commission spokesman Peter Stano. "Any diplomatic steps that could call into question the EU's common position on Jerusalem are a matter of serious concern and regret."
Malawi announced that it will establish an embassy in Jerusalem - the first African nation to do so. Honduras also aims to move its embassy to Jerusalem, and Oman, Sudan and Morocco could be next. The EU will be left behind.
Minneapolis City Council, eat crow. In the face of rising crime, the socialist-slash-Marxist-slash-unicorn-dreaming delusional of local government - the ones who spent oh-so-long denouncing police, defunding police, trying to replace police with some sort of soft and fuzzy enforcement team armed only with "Time Out" cards to slap on criminals - in the face of real crime hazards, these guys now want to cry for the police.
Jamal Osman, one of the newest members of the Minneapolis Marxist society called the City Council, said to the local police chief, Medaria Arradondo, at a special work session held this week: "Residents are asking, 'Where are the police?'" "[The police department] is the only public safety option they have at the moment," Osman went on. "MPD. They rely on MPD. And [the residents] are saying they are nowhere to be seen." There's the "no duh" moment.
If you tell police they can't do their jobs, if you strip police of the ability to do their jobs.
"Everybody knows what they're gonna get with a Biden administration. It's exactly what they got under the Obama administration. There's a reason China wants Biden to win. They see [Biden] as going along with any trade deal just to say they did it."
"Let's face it. We can't have a man who is shot because, you know, who is not shot: Putin, President Xi, Kim Jong Un, they're not shot. They're world-class chess players. {Biden] is shot. Everyone knows it," President Trump said.
President Trump "has a record of strength and success," Haley said. "The former vice president has a record of weakness and failure. Joe Biden is good for Iran and ISIS, great for Communist China, and he's a godsend to everyone who wants America to apologize, abstain and abandon our values."
President Donald Trump reached a 1-point lead over Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in mid-September, according to a new Rasmussen Reports weekly survey.
Fox News has drawn our attention to the fact that George Soros is bankrolling the leftist district attorneys who are fostering so much rioting in America's blue cities, based on their refusal to prosecute looters and rioters. But probably not in the way the network meant to.
They invited Newt Gingrich on, they asked him his take on the leftist riots in America's blue cities, and they got an answer: Gingrich pointed out that the riots were happening because of district attorneys, financed by George Soros, who refuse to prosecute rioting. Fox News itself had reported it.
Fox News's commentary show, at least one of them, maybe more, seems to be on some kind of mission to protect Soros from scrutiny, which is rather unfitting for a news outfit that calls itself "fair and balanced."
If you read #openbordersinc, you remember that Fox banned the great Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch in 2018 for reporting on Soros-funded NGOs propping up illegal alien caravans. If you've been paying attention to Fox's ever-expanding blacklist, none of this is a surprise.
On this day in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem, The Defence of Fort McHenry, his ode to Freedom, to the great country where Freedom was born, the United States of America, and to those great people who defend it. The poem would one day be put to music and become America's National Anthem, the beautiful, poignant, and unforgettable
The Star-Spangled Banner.
Includes John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey
The Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday voted to authorize subpoenas for former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, and other Obama administration officials as part of its broad review into the origins of the Russia investigation. The committee also authorized subpoenas for Sidney Blumenthal, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI counsel Lisa Page, former FBI agent Joe Pientka, former ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former FBI director of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, former White House national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith - who pleaded guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham's review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign - among others.
The committee further authorized subpoenas for "the production of all records" related to the FBI's original Russia investigation and the Department of Justice Inspector General's probe, as well as the process of "unmasking" for James Baker, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, FBI case agent Steven Somma, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Teftt, former deputy assistant attorney general Tashina Gauhar; and Stefan Halper.
Congressional Republicans call the purported accidental "wiping" an "amazing coincidence", and suggested this could amount to "anticipatory obstruction of justice."
President Trump weighed in on the matter Saturday morning. "ALERT: So now we find out that the entire Mueller 'hit squad' illegally wiped their phones clean just prior to the investigation of them, all using the same really dumb reason for this 'accident,'" Trump wrote on Twitter. "Just like Crooked Hillary smashing her phones with a hammer, & DELETING HER EMAILS!" "All that time and money spent, and it turns out that the Mueller Investigation was a total SCAM!" Trump later added.
Newly released records from the Justice Department showed that at least several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller's team were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion or other reasons?all before the Justice Department inspector general's office could review the devices.
One of the main focus for President Trump and his initial run for president in the 2016 election was immigration reform. Since being elected, the President and his legal team have relentlessly fought to keep illegal aliens out of the country, while accepting those who came into the country legally. Now, the President, with a recent US appeals court, has just scored a major legal victory which may enable the administration to deport hundreds of thousands.
The United States 9th Circuit of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, reversed a lower court ruling which had previously blocked the President's attempts at phasing out what has been known as the Temporary Protected Status. This status typically applies to people from Sudan, Haiti, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.
"The Secretary's discretion to make TPS determinations, while not without check, is undoubtedly broad and unique in nature. The decision to designate any foreign country for TPS begins and ends with the Secretary, so long as certain limited statutory criteria are met."
The TPS is supposed to allow asylum seekers to come into the country and work legally while their home country is experiencing some type of turmoil. The TPS is supposed to be temporary and must be renewed occasionally six to 18 months at a time.
President Trumps administration has argued against renewing TPS, stating that the majority of lawful reasons for those people to be here have rectified. Instead of removing those provisions and ordering the people back to their own countries, they have been allowed to remain in the United States seemingly endlessly.
Lauren Boebert pulled off a stunning primary victory after defying government shutdown orders. But could she lose a GOP seat?
In June, Boebert pulled off a stunning upset of a five-term incumbent in the Republican primary - the first time an incumbent member of Congress had lost a primary in Colorado in almost a half-century. The owner of a gun-themed restaurant called Shooters Grill in the town of Rifle, Boebert went into the race with scant experience, money and national support.
In early May, with Colorado under stay-at-home orders from Democratic Governor Jared Polis, Boebert defied state policy and reopened her cafe. After Garfield County obtained a temporary restraining order to stop her from serving dine-in customers, she moved tables outside, leading officials to suspend her restaurant license. The dispute generated headlines - and free publicity for Boebert's campaign - during the crucial final weeks leading into the primary, as the candidate denounced "the heavy hand of government to make us do whatever they want."
In her stump speech, Boebert exhorted attendees to protest COVID measures by voting her into Congress. "They want to take away our freedoms, our rights, our liberties," she told the crowd. "They want to tell you where you can shop, when you can shop, what time of day and what you have to wear."
"This isn't the proper role of government," she continued, as attendees shouted, "No way!" "It's government's role to inform us of risks and let us use personal responsibility to evaluate that risk ourselves."
Hundreds of cars decked out with Trump flags and American flags are rolling through Miami as part of HUGE 'Cubans for Trump' caravan.
It's a big rally, and not only is Florida critical to the election, the shift in the Hispanic vote toward Trump is both confounding and terrifying Democrats.
Then we have the Democrats' election campaign plan.
Friday is not only a day for solemn memorials for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but it's also the somber remembrance of the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans. On Sept. 11, 2012, a mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery nightlong attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a CIA annex in Libya.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Glen "Bub" Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed when the compound was ambushed in a coordinated attack by the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia.
The Benghazi attacks and their aftermath quickly became a divisive political issue in American politics. Republicans accused then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of intentionally misleading the public and stonewalling congressional investigators. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the head of an Islamist extremist militia who directed the attacks, was convicted in 2017 on terrorism-related charges but acquitted of murder. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Nine Black Lives Matter protesters who were confronted by an armed St. Louis couple on their lawn have been issued citations for trespassing, officials told Fox News.
The June 28 encounter between the demonstrators, and Mark and Patricia McCloskey made headlines as the country was gripped by nationwide protests over police brutality. The couple -- both personal injury lawyers -- were seen on video and in photos pointing a handgun and a rifle as demonstrators moved through their neighborhood. No shots were fired.
The protesters could face up to $500 in fines and up to 90 days in jail. However, Bush told NPR it was rare for anyone to receive such penalties for a municipal ordinance violation.
The incident landed the couple an appearance during the first night of the Republican National Convention last month, where they asserted their Second Amendment right to defend themselves. "The radicals are not content just marching in the streets," Mark McCloskey said during a virtual speech. "They want to walk the halls of Congress. They want power. This is Joe Biden's party. These are the people who will be in charge."
The protesters were tresspassing the moment they broke down the gate - which was destruction of private property.
President Trump on Friday announced that Bahrain has agreed to normalize relations with Israel, another diplomatic win for the president coming after a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates just last month.
The region "will become more secure and prosperous" as a result of the diplomatic moves.
Israel had also affirmed that all Muslims may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem's other holy sites will remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths.
The leaders of Israel and Bahrain praised Trump for "his dedication to peace in the region, his focus on shared challenges, and the pragmatic and unique approach he has taken to bringing their nations together." The agreement makes Bahrain the fourth Arab country, after Egypt, Jordan and the UAE, to have full diplomatic ties with Israel.
White House adviser Jared Kushner said that it took Israel 72 years to form its first two peace agreements, and there have been two more in the last 29 days -- describing it as a sign that the region is changing.
Ex-VP Biden is 'trying to hide from the people because he is not actually representing the people.'
Groups of Trump supporters greeted the Democratic nominee with signs and loud chants of "four more years" as he arrived in the Detroit suburb of Warren.
Biden's Michigan visit was centered around the auto industry and unemployment caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But Michigan residents expressed little faith in the former vice president's ability to facilitate economic recovery in the state.
Biden "is not actually representing the people. The people have different views than what he is actually pushing."
A New York congressman has a very simple message for his constituents: Mayor Bill de Blasio is the worst.
Earlier this year, Rose bashed Democrats for opposing all of President Trump's foreign policy moves. "I am perpetually concerned that the Democrats' foreign policy is just being opposed to whatever the president does," the freshman lawmaker said in March, shortly after the U.S. signed a peace treaty with the Taliban. "We should all be rallying behind this, making it a bipartisan solution and putting the country first," Rose said.
Rep. Max Rose, a Democrat who represents Staten Island and parts of south Brooklyn, released a campaign ad that makes his feelings towards the mayor crystal clear. "Bill de Blasio is the worst mayor in the history of New York City. That's the whole ad," Rose said in the six second long video.
Just weeks after helping to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), President Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
The nomination submitted by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, lauded Trump for his efforts toward resolving protracted conflicts worldwide. "For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees," said Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of Parliament. "As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity."
Also cited in the letter was the president's "key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and - creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea."
"The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts - not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing."
"The results of those actions speak for themselves: over the first five weeks of Operation LeGend in Chicago, murders dropped by 50% over the previous five weeks. August ultimately saw a 45% decrease in murders compared to July, and a 35% decrease compared to June."
The federal government through Operation LeGend has "reversed" Chicago's surge in violence, making more than 500 arrests and charging 124 people with federal criminal charges since it started.
At least 400 federal agents have been assigned to the Illinois city as part of Operation LeGend - roughly 200 of whom were already working there but whose roles were repurposed, and the remainder being deployed from elsewhere - and over one-thousand in total have been dispatched nationwide.
"Bringing federal charges is significant because defendants arrested for violent crimes are often detained before trial, unlike state defendants who are too often released," Barr said. "In addition, federal defendants will face serious sentences if convicted, with a real possibility of long-term imprisonment ... knowing that, many of the arrestees cooperate with the government and lead to even more violent offenders."
Olivia Winslow, left, and Camryn Amy, both 21, face charges in connection with a Thursday incident in Wilmington, Delaware.
Two Delaware women accused of stealing a MAGA hat outside the Democratic National Convention were indicted Tuesday on charges including second-degree robbery and felony hate crimes. Olivia Winslow and Camryn Amy, both 21, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree robbery, second-degree conspiracy, endangering the welfare of a child, third-degree assault, attempted third-degree assault, offensive touching and felony hate crimes, a spokesperson for Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings confirmed to Fox News. Three of the charges are felonies, and the two women could spend a total of 15 years in prison, the spokesperson said.
At the same time, Trump used the announcement to hit his opponent for not releasing his own list of potential nominees. He said Joe Biden had not released names because "they are so far left [they] could never withstand scrutiny."
"Unfortunately, there is a growing radical left movement that rejects the principle of equal treatment under the law," he said. "If this extreme movement is granted a majority on the Supreme Court, it will fundamentally transform America without a single vote of Congress."
Over the past few months, it has become painfully obvious that the Democrat party no longer even pretends to care about Americans. Democrats only care about power, and they'll get it by any means necessary.
The right thing to do for any Democrat who disagrees with their party's platform but is still hanging on would be to get out while they still can. Following in dissenting Democrat Congressman Vernon Jones' footsteps, six Minnesota Democrat mayors, plus one Independent, wrote a powerful letter to the American people explaining their decision to endorse President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for re-election this November.
"Like many in our region, we have voted for Democrats over many decades," but, "by putting tariffs on our products and supporting bad trade deals, politicians like Joe Biden did nothing to help the working class."
"Today, we don't recognize the Democratic Party. It has been moved so far to the Left it can no longer claim to be advocates of the working class."
The president never fails to put his biggest enemies in check, and that's certainly what happened this week. Rather than invoking the Insurrection Act or overstepping state boundaries, Trump has acted within his legal rights as president, instructing the federal government to slash funding to multiple cities under siege by radical Leftists.
The memo asks federal agencies to report to the OMB all funds that can be redirected away from the cities, which could amount to billions of dollars. The OMB will then have 30 days to restrict the identified federal grants "to the maximum extent permitted by law".
"My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America's cities."
A rioter in Portland tried to chuck a Molotov cocktail at a line of police on Saturday night. His attempt came up laughably short, and he ended up setting one of his comrades on fire.
That gives a new meaning to the term "friendly fire".
'As you can see, black conservatism is the new punk rock!'
MAGA Hulk said those who call Trump a racist "have no facts on their side." "They can't answer the question because they have no facts on their side. They have no facts. They don't do any research. They don't ... do any type of higher learning when it comes to what they believe. All they know is what the media narrative tells them to believe, and that's all they parrot."
"I personally believe the [Black Lives Matter] movement is fake. It has nothing to do with advancing the lives of black people."
As November looms, the White House has opened another front in the culture war. At the direction of the president, the Office of Management and Budget is ordering all federal agencies to "cease and desist" any government training programs that include any reference to "critical race theory" or "white privilege."
The theory has long been in vogue within academics. Among the ideas underpinning CRT, now formally condemned by the White House, is that the law and all accompanying legal institutions are inherently racist, and that race itself has no biological grounds. The concept of ethnicity is, instead, the product of a white society that uses systems and institutions to advance its own interests at the expense of minorities.
"The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government."
President Trump could flip Minnesota -- a state that has been blue since 1972
"It's sort of a microcosm of the entire country. As the urban liberals become a little bit more crazy, it drives everybody else into Trump country and red country."
A Utah police union is demanding that the state Board of Education denounce what it calls anti-police "political indoctrination" in classrooms.
The union cited an unnamed elementary school teacher who it said wore a "Black Lives Matter" shirt and made "disparaging comments" about police to her students. "If teachers want to protest police, then it needs to be on their own time," the Utah Fraternal Order of Police wrote to the board Tuesday. "The classroom is NOT the place for political indoctrination or social engineering based upon the political leanings of the teacher."
The killer was a frequent participant in the nightly protests in Portland and was reportedly involved in several confrontations. In an online post from June 16, he described himself as being "100 % ANTIFA all the way!"
The suspect was shot by law enforcement after drawing a gun on officers.
Republicans want AG to determine whether Pelosi committed criminal act for ripping up Trump speech
The GOP lawmakers believe Pelosi could have violated 18 U.S.C. - 2071 which deals with the mutilation of official federal records and sets a criminal penalty of destroying documents of up to three years in prison.
The anti-crime Operation LeGend is 'fully underway across the country'.
More than 470 people have been charged with federal crimes in major metropolitan cities, including nearly 150 people wanted for murder.
"We are not just arresting people for low-level warrants here," U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Justin Herdman said. "We're talking about very violent fugitives, very violent criminals and we're getting them off the streets of these nine cities across the country."
First launched in Kansas City, Operation LeGend expanded to Chicago and Albuquerque on July 22; to Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee on July 29; to St. Louis and Memphis on Aug. 6; and to Indianapolis on Aug. 14.
Attorney General William Barr launched Operation Legend as "a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative in which federal law enforcement agencies work in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight violent crime,"
"2,000 violent fugitives and violent criminals" are now "off the streets because we have the support of the community. We've taken over 500 guns off the street, we've charged almost 500 people federally under Operation LeGend, we've even taken seven kilos of fentanyl off the street and that's enough fentanyl to kill the entire population of Chicago and Detroit combined."
The operation is named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he slept in the early morning of June 29 in Kansas City, Mo. "LeGend is a symbol of the many hundreds of innocent lives that have been taken in the recent upsurge of crime in many of our urban areas," Barr said at a press conference in Kansas City. "His life mattered and the lives of all of those victims matter. His name should be remembered and his senseless death, like those of all the other innocent victims in this recent surge, should be unacceptable to all Americans."
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson has not been living at home following protests there. "We did it to deescalate the situation, to save police resources, and importantly because our neighbors were being disturbed and threatened. I ran for this job -- my neighbors did not."
Homes of mayors in other U.S. cities have attracted protesters. In Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler is looking for a new place to live as the condo building he currently resides in has become a flashpoint for protests over the past few months. And in Washington, D.C., demonstrators reportedly massed outside the home of Mayor Muriel Bowser last night following a police-involved shooting in that city.
Interestingly, no problems are reported in towns with Republican mayors.
Deepfakes are described by Microsoft as "photos, videos or audio files manipulated by artificial intelligence (AI) in hard-to-detect ways."
The technology can detect manipulated content with the goal of assuring people that the content they're viewing is real. Microsoft cited research from Princeton University professor Jacob Shapiro that cataloged foreign influence campaigns using social media to defame people and "polarize debates." Microsoft said 26% of these campaigns targeted the U.S. and 74% "distorted objectively verifiable facts."
"They could appear to make people say things they didn't or to be places they weren't."
"The only realistic way to mitigate the risk of deepfakes is through technology." However, "the bad guys will do their best to beat any tech that companies like Microsoft throw at them. They will adjust, adapt, and refine on their end. It is a perpetual game of cat and mouse."
It's too late for Biden to denounce the rioters and looters. And anyway, why would he? He needs their votes.
Too many months of inaction and equivocation about "mostly peaceful protests" have branded the Democrats as the party that's okay with street violence and mob action.
The images from Kenosha, Portland, and Washington, D.C., say, loud and clear, that Democrats think rioting and looting and violence are okay, under the circumstances.
The Democratic National Convention was conspicuously silent about the riots earlier this month. They know - as we all do - that many of those rioting are part of the Democratic Party's left-wing base. Biden isn't about to denounce them.
The mob is now a core Democratic Party constituency.
Everyone - even The New York Times and The Atlantic, which have been starting to sound the alarm - knows these mobs belong to the Democratic Party. That's one reason the mainstream media have released no battleground state polls, zero, since the Kenosha riots began on August 23. Given that a Zogby poll last week showed Trump with a 52 percent approval rating, a new high, one can surmise that major media polls right now are showing a decisive shift in Trump's favor, which is why they're not releasing them.
"If we don't start standing for something don't you know that the people that are looking at what's happening in Washington, in Detroit, in Portland, in Seattle, they're getting emboldened because we act like a bunch of punks. Too frightened to stand up and protect our own stuff. You tell me that somebody has the right to tear down property that Tennessee taxpayers paid for? That American taxpayers paid for? And somebody has the right to destroy it, deface it, and tear it down? What kind of people have we become?"
"Peaceful protests ends peacefully, anarchy ends in chaos."
DeBerry predicted possible consequences of his words saying, "I'm sure everything I say is going to be misconstrued and misquoted and used against me in November. Fine, fine, because I stand for my father's legacy."
The consequences DeBerry mentions are very real this election year. In May, the Tennessee Democratic Party's State Executive Committee voted to remove DeBerry from the Democratic primary ballot after 26 years in office. One of the committee members who voted to remove him said that DeBerry wasn't "exemplifying the basic Democratic principles."
Biden's failure to call on elected officials in his own party to stop allowing murder and looting in the cities they run shows you how weak he is.
Now that polls won't let them ignore the rioting, looting, murder, and arson this summer in Democrat-run American cities, openly cheered on by leftists like the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times author Nikole Hannah-Jones, Democrats have made a hard pivot to - what else? - "Blame Trump."
"Nice place you've got there, it'd be a shame if someone burned it down. Now pay up that protection money."
"Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?" - Joe Biden.
Senator Edward J. Markey turned back a primary challenge Tuesday from Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, handing the Kennedy family its first-ever electoral loss in Massachusetts and demonstrating the growing strength of the progressive left.
An unidentified man who says he belongs to the conservative Patriot Prayer organization discussed the murder of a fellow member he was with in Portland on Saturday in a viral video posted online.
"It escalated to the point that they executed my partner," the man says. "They hunted him down, they hunted us down, they recognized our Patriot Prayer hats.
"So they identified our hats. 'We got a couple of 'em right here. We got a couple of 'em right here. Pull it out. Pull it out,'" the man said, suggesting that someone following them take out a weapon.
"We turned around — it didn't even register that somebody was pointing a gun at us 'til the shots went off and he took off running."
Portland police have identified Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, as someone who may have been involved in Danielson's murder. In a separate report, The Oregonian said he had previously been accused of carrying a loaded firearm at an earlier protest in the downtown area. Reinoehl is a regular at the protests in support of BLM and Antifa.
Biden's address is the first of two dueling speeches by the two presidential nominees as they trade fire this week over the unrest that has rocked cities from coast to coast this summer over police brutality and racial injustice.
The Trump campaign quickly noted that Biden on Monday did not mention or condemn the Antifa movement, which the Trump administration has blamed for much of the violent acts committed during the riots.
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh repeated the line "you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America."
"Dem leaders and their allies in the media cheered on the violent left every step of the way," Trump Jr. tweeted, sharing a video on Monday that shows Democratic leaders, liberal pundits and Hollywood stars cheerleading violence against political opponents as America has seen unrest and chaos erupt in major cities.
The video kicks off with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, asking why there aren't "uprisings all over the country."
Thought for the Day
Leftism is not about reason, rights or serenity. It's about group-think, hatred and violence. Force is their only argument. Don't try to persuade a Democrat. They're all beyond reason. Just stop them.
US tech stocks have overtaken the entire European stock market in market value. The tech sector is now worth $9.1 trillion, while European stocks — including those in the UK and Switzerland — are worth a collective $8.9 trillion.
The five largest US tech stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook — are worth a collective $7.5 trillion and make up nearly 24% of the S&P 500. Of the five giants, Amazon has surged the most through the year. The stock is up roughly 85% in 2020
To emphasize the speed at which tech stocks have grown, the bank noted that Europe's market cap in 2007 was roughly four times the size of the sector.
And Europe had a 2,200-year head-start, beginning about 600 BC in Classical Greece and the Roman Republic in 605 BC, vs. America's start in 1607.
U.S. stocks on Friday wrapped up the week and day higher, capping a powerful monthly rally for equities that leaves the main benchmarks at or near records, powered by gains in technology and e-commerce stocks as well as financials, amid growing optimism around coronavirus cures and treatments.
The week's stock activity was also affected by a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared to usher in an era of looser monetary policy after the central bank dropped its longstanding practice of pre-emptively lifting rates to head off higher inflation.
The Dow closed up positive for the year, finally overcoming its coronavirus-induced losses.
The gains for the Dow and the S&P 500 represent the best August returns since 1984. For the Nasdaq, it is the best August so far since 2000.
Senator Paul was among the guests at President Donald Trump's speech on the South Lawn of the White House accepting his party's nomination. Protesters attempted to drown out the speech, and later harassed people leaving the event.
"They were shouting threats to us – to kills us, to hurt us. You couldn't reason with this mob. But I'm actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they're trying to kill the person who's actually trying to get rid of no-knock raids. They were shouting and screaming – really these people were unhinged."
Powell is an unlikely candidate to tilt U.S. monetary policy toward the working class. But just as former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker changed U.S. central banking to fight inflation in service of the larger economy, so Powell, the current Fed chair, has seized the moment to ease up on that battle and, if a new Fed approach works as expected, register economic gains for a broader set of Americans through more jobs and better wages.
If it sounds more humanist than "central bank," the underpinnings nonetheless are deeply practical. They rest on a decade's recognition that inflation is much less of a threat than in Volcker's day, on changes in Powell's own perspective from his first years as a Fed governor, and on research about how persistent inequality can cause larger economic damage. In the background, workers and labor groups scarred by the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis pressed for a different approach from the central bank.
The Democratic Party propaganda machine, more commonly known as the mainstream media, has been gushing over the establishment Republicans who appeared at the Democratic National Convention to denounce President Trump and endorse Joe Biden, but as last night's Republican National Convention showed, the days of the Republican Party being a pale shadow of the Democrats are over.
The dominant mainstream of Republicanism ever since President Eisenhower has been to say "Me too" to the Democrats, rather than "I object."
Rating America's Presidents shows that while Ronald Reagan gave some pushback to this one-party rule, it has not been until the presidency of Donald J. Trump that it has been seriously challenged. The two-party system is back, or more precisely, the one-party system is facing off against one determined individual who is attracting an increasingly large following. This November will be decisive for the question of whether the one-party elites will in the future exert their hegemony unchallenged, as they did for so long.
Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced that Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has had a change of heart, and is now welcoming federal law enforcement into Kenosha, Wisconsin after three nights of increasing violence stemming from the shooting of Jacob Blake by local police officers this past weekend.
It seems like as long as Democrats thought that the riots, looting, arson, and unrest could be pinned on Donald Trump, they were happy to let the mob run wild. Now that voters are pinning the blame on the Democrats in charge of these cities, they've decided it's time to get serious about the disorder on their streets.
Thought for the Day
"There is no mother in this country that wants to raise her children on the streets of Portland, Seattle or Washington."
Kudlow credited the Trump administration's economic and relief policies with helping the U.S. economy rebound from a coronavirus-induced recession that began in February – and he said more tax relief is on the way if the president is reelected.
"Looking ahead, more tax cuts and regulatory roll back will be in store – payroll tax cuts for higher wages, income tax cuts for the middle class, capital gains tax cuts for investment, productivity and jobs."
Kudlow criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for plans to implement a "$4 trillion tax hike" as the economy emerges from a deep recession. "Who in their right mind would pick the pocket of taxpayers and drain money from their wallets and purses?" Kudlow asked.
Kudlow also said Biden would have to raise rates on the middle-class to pay for his spending agenda, because his plans just don't "add up."
Their recent record is worse than Trump's on the Middle East, Europe, and China.
For them, the past four years have been a catastrophic break with the strategic progress for which they were responsible in the post-Cold War world.
This strategic record includes al Qaeda, 9/11, the Iraq catastrophe, the messy stalemate in Afghanistan, the collapse of U.S. authority in the Middle East, civil war in Libya and Syria, the rise of the Islamic State, a resurgent Russia against eastern Europe, and the rise of China as a superpower.
Part of the problem is that it is hard to stomach that Trump, a neophyte, has been so effective. Whatever you think of him, his efforts have been more consequential than those of the bipartisan foreign policy that preceded him. The President dispensed with all the failed policy strategies, and has radically reoriented U.S. foreign policy, with more success.
In contrast, Democrat nominee Biden has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
The Past is behind us. What is to come will be something different from what they want.
Klacik spoke during the first night of the Republican National Convention. Kim Klacik, a GOP congressional candidate who suggested that Democrats don't care about Black voters in a viral campaign ad, took aim at Joe Biden in a speech during the first night of the Republican National Convention, accusing the Democratic nominee of believing that Black Americans "can't think for ourselves."
"Joe Biden believes we can't think for ourselves -- that the color of someone's skin dictates their political views," she said in her remarks. "We're not buying the lies anymore -- you and your party have ignored us for too long."
Klacik, who is Black, is the Republican nominee running to represent Maryland's 7th Congressional district, a Democratic stronghold that was represented for years by the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.
"And yet, the Democrats still assume that Black people will vote for them, no matter how much they let us down and take us for granted," she continued. "Nope. We're sick of it and not going to take it anymore. The days of blindly supporting the Democrats are coming to an end."
The opposition leader is one of Vladimir Putin's strongest critics.
Navalny was first OK'd to be transferred to a Berlin hospital Friday, but when the German plane equipped with medical supplies arrived, his Russian doctors said he was too fragile to travel, leading supporters to believe his transfer was delayed for political reasons -- until any poison would be untraceable in his system.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who fell into a coma after a suspected poisoning, landed in Germany for treatment Saturday following a day-long standoff over whether he would be allowed to leave a Russian hospital. Navalny remains in a coma but is in stable condition.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in the incident but it wouldn't be the first time Putin has been accused of poisoning or murdering someone he sees as a threat.
Democrats are 'not helping' Black Americans. A Black businessman in North Carolina, who was a lifelong Democrat before he voted for President Trump in 2016, said Friday the Democratic party is "not helping" African Americans.
He points to Trump delivering on his campaign promises, including trade deals and bolstering Black colleges and universities, compared to the Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who had been in office for several decades and will be "controlled" and "manipulated" by the far left.
O'Rourke has called for sending law enforcement to people's homes to confiscate their lawfully-owned firearms if they did not comply with his extremist agenda. Biden wants him in charge.
Joe Biden is going to "take care of the gun problem", he says. What about the millions of peaceful, law-abiding citizens? What about the 2nd Amendment? What might be in store for the creepy, ancient career politician if he tries to obliterate our right to defend ourselves–mostly from tyrants like himself?
"2020 Democrats are unambiguous about their anti-Second Amendment agenda."
"Biden hugging Beto going 'You're going to take care of the gun problem for me!' is a thing you will see in a Republican ad someday." The moment was yet another headache for Biden as he struggles to appeal to gun owners.
Standard operating procedure for Marxists: make criminals of us all.
Before the pandemic struck the U.S., only five states—Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington—conducted their elections using a vote-by-mail system.
Ohio and Maryland sent mail-in ballots for their primary eletions.
Governors in Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and North Dakota have said voters will receive vote-by-mail ballots for primary elections in June and July.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said all California voters will receive vote-by-mail ballots for the general election in November.
While many other states have loosened their restrictions for voting by mail, most still require voters to apply for a mail-in ballot, rather than send every registered voter an absentee ballot automatically.
President Trump said last month. "Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters. They go collect them." - a process called ballot-harvesting, a tactic frequently used by Democrats for obtaining votes from illiterate voters.
The operation is named for LeGend Taliferro, 4, who was shot and killed while he slept in June. The federal government has dispatched to nine U.S. cities more than 1,000 additional agents from the FBI, ATF, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals Service to work shoulder to shoulder with state and local partners on homicide and assault squads to crack cases.
"We saw one result of those efforts last week when Kansas City olice arrested the suspected murderer of LeGend," Barr said. "This arrest will not bring LeGend back but it will make his case an example of how we can come together to take violent criminals off the street and to make our communities safer."
"Operation LeGend is the heart of the federal government's response to this upturn in violent crime. Its mission is to save lives, solve crimes and take violent offenders off the streets before they can claim more victims," Barr said. "Rather than demonizing and defunding our police, we are supporting and strengthening our law enforcement partners at the state and local level."
Apple Inc. became the first U.S. company with a $2 trillion market capitalization as its share price climbed above $467.77.
Apple reached the $2 trillion milestone just over two years after becoming the first U.S. company to achieve a $1 trillion market cap on Aug. 2, 2018. Since then, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft have all joined the $1 trillion club. Both Amazon and Microsoft currently have market capitalizations of about $1.6 trillion while Alphabet's is near $1.05 trillion.
He's one of the few remaining soldiers from World War II – and he isn't done yet. John Mastrocola, 95, wants his neighbors to remember who he is, and more importantly, what he believes in. In order to leave a lasting impression, he wakes up every morning and uses his cane to walk into his front yard and sit in a chair, waving the American flag. Beyond being remembered, he wants people to respect the United States and her flag again, like it used to be.
"The [Senate] Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election," Rubio said. "What the Committee did find, however, is very troubling."
Rubio detailed the committee's findings, which included "irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling" and "deeply troubling actions taken" by the FBI, "particularly their acceptance and willingness to rely on the ‘Steele Dossier' without verifying its methodology or sourcing."
The FBI "lacked a formal or considered process for escalating their warnings" about the hack of the Democratic National Committee; while noting that WikiLeaks "actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence campaign." WikiLeaks "likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort."
The president, defending his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, then slammed the Obama-Biden administration for their "response" to the H1N1 Swine Flu, which he said was considered "weak and pathetic." "Check out the polling, it's really bad," he tweeted. "The big difference is that they got a free pass from the Corrupt Fake News Media!"
"The ObamaBiden Administration was the most corrupt in history, including the fact that they got caught SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, the biggest political scandal in the history of our Country," Trump said. "It's called Treason, and more."
The Democrats' only hope to win the election is to cheat
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called for "unrest in the streets" on Saturday. "There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there's unrest in our lives and unfortunately there's plenty to go around."
Advocating violence is criminal, and subverts the American rule of law and constitutional government, in favor of tyranny.
South Carolina could become an unlikely trailblazer in blocking one of the most abused powers of law enforcement: civil forfeiture. Without ever needing to charge someone with a crime, police and prosecutors can permanently confiscate cash, cars, and other valuable property, and keep millions of dollars in proceeds to pad their budgets.
Earlier this month, the Institute for Justice (IJ) filed a brief asserting that the state's civil forfeiture regime violates the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and the Eighth Amendment's ban on "excessive fines." IJ is urging the South Carolina Supreme Court to uphold a circuit court decision that declared the state's civil forfeiture laws unconstitutional. Such a ruling would be monumental: Today, only Nebraska, New Mexico, and North Carolina have ended civil forfeiture.
In its brief, the Institute for Justice identifies multiple problems with South Carolina's "constitutionally infirm scheme." First and foremost, state law lets police and prosecutors retain 95% of the proceeds from forfeiture, which "creates an impermissible financial incentive that offends due process."
South Carolina law enforcement agencies seized more than $17.6 million and over 400 vehicles between 2014 and 2016. Owners were never convicted of a crime in almost 40% of cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly voided schemes that granted judges and prosecutors a personal or institutional gain as a result of their decisions. That reasoning applies to civil forfeiture as well.
Civil forfeiture in South Carolina denies the presumption of innocence.
Not only does South Carolina infringe one of the bedrock safeguards for due process, it also imposes an unconstitutionally excessive fine. Under the Eighth Amendment, fines and forfeitures must be proportional punishment to the underlying offense. But if an owner is blameless, by definition, "forfeiture is always excessive."
Another small victory in the long fight to end robocalls.
Among the act's features are an increase in penalties for those scammers who knowingly initiate illegal robocalls and the requirement that phone companies authenticate calls to determine if the number calling you is real. As part of a Federal Communications Commission push, major wireless carriers and home phone providers have been implementing a verification process known as STIR/SHAKEN throughout 2019 to authenticate calls and fight spammers.
In addition to raising penalties and pushing for authentication, the bill also gives regulators like the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission four years to go after scammers, as opposed to the one-year statute of limitations that was previously in place.
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham's review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Clinesmith is being charged in federal court in Washington and is expected to plead guilty to one count of making a false statement, said his attorney Justin Shur.
The development Friday comes amid much speculation, and even a tip-off by Barr, who said on Fox News' "Hannity" that there would be a "development" in the investigation, teasing that it wouldn't be "earth-shattering," but would be "an indication that things are moving along at the proper pace as dictated by the facts in this investigation." "There are two different things going on," Barr said. "I said the American people need to know what actually happened, we need to get the story of what happened in 2016 and '17 out. That will be done."
Barr also said that "if people crossed the line, if people involved in that activity violated criminal law, they will be charged."
The bonds, which are backed by gold, were issued as long ago as 1912
Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., introduced a resolution Thursday calling on China to repay U.S. bondholders more than $1.6 trillion of sovereign debt, including interest, that pre-dates the country's Communist government.
"We are holding China accountable for their debt and for unleashing the coronavirus on the world.  We demand China pay back the $1.6 trillion it owes to American families."
Under international law, successor governments are responsible for the debts of their predecessors. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987 ordered Beijing to pay Brits for their holdings or lose access to British capital markets, enticing then-Chinese President Li Xiannian's government to reach a settlement of 23.5 million British pounds.
By paying some bondholders and not others, Beijing is technically in selective default, according to the ratings of bond-risk firms Moody's, Standard & Poors and Fitch, and cannot access the international debt market until it pays the remaining holders.
Choose Wisely
The News in Pictures
Mugshots from Seattle ANTIFA arrests
all unemployed – all losers
Israel will suspend plans to annex certain areas of the West Bank.
An historic deal was announced Thursday between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, to establish a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern nations. The deal was brokered by President Donald Trump's administration.
"The United Arab Emirates and Israel will immediately expand and accelerate cooperation regarding the treatment of and the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus," the White House said in a statement. "Working together, these efforts will help save Muslim, Jewish, and Christian lives throughout the region." The deal will formally be known as the "Abraham Accords." The UAE follows Egypt and Jordan in becoming one of only three Arab states, and the only Gulf state, to agree to a peace deal with Israel.
The agreement will give more Muslims the opportunity to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, by allowing flights from Abu Dhabi into Tel Aviv.
Billionaire liberal activist George Soros told an Italian newspaper that he sees the coronavirus epidemic as a "revolutionary" opportunity.
"I would describe it as a revolutionary moment when the range of possibilities is much greater than in normal times," he said. "What is inconceivable in normal times becomes not only possible but actually happens. People are disoriented and scared."
Committee rules payments from campaign after she won election were illegal but there was no 'ill intent.'
The House Ethics Committee unanimously ruled Friday that Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and member of the rebellious group of liberals known as "the Squad," violated election law by paying herself campaign funds after winning the 2018 election.
The ruling was made public just a few days after Tlaib won a tough primary race on Tuesday.
The left views opposition as 'evil because we stand in the way of their progressive utopia'
Don't you mean Dystopia?
Black Lives Matter is comprised of "Bolsheviks" with a focus on on "some form of socialism, communism. They're essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic." The nationwide riots organized by ANTIFA is "a new form of urban guerrilla warfare. They go into the demonstrations, which are exercising First Amendment activity, and they insinuate themselves in there to shield themselves. That's where they swim. And what they do is they hijack these demonstrations and they and they provoke violence."
The group's radical leanings are reflective of the Democratic party's far-left shift in recent years. "The left has "pulled away from the umbrella of classical liberal values that have undergirded" America and made a "secular religion" out of seeking "complete political victory."
Power has become a "secular religion of the left," Barr asserted. "They want to run people's lives so they can design utopia for all of us...and it's the lust for power. And they weren't expecting Trump's victory. And it outrages them."
A group of citizens in Fort Collins, Colorado rose up to defend their neighborhood against a gang of Antifa thugs. "We are currently marching Antifa commie bastards out of the neighborhood," said one man filming the encounter. "Nobody wants Antifa in the neighborhood. Nobody wants them here so we're marching them out."
Some of the local residents had just returned from a "Back the Blue" rally only to find the black-clad Antifa mob prowling their streets. They were given multiple orders by the residents to leave peacefully.
"Bye, bye commie scum," another resident said. "You came to the wrong city, boys and girls."
At some point the incident turned violent — but the impromptu neighborhood watch men were not to be messed with. "Commie grabbing a knife," one person could be heard shouting. "Commie grabbing a knife." It's not clear who threw the first punch, but neighborhood watch threw the last.
One professor asserts his conscience against rampant Marxism.
Refusing to be a party to Converse's indictment of America as systemically racist, Jeff Poelvoorde dared it to do him its worst. A seasoned academic, and a scholar of politics, Poelvoorde knew that the proposed training would be — could not but be — ideologically inflected.
Krista L. Newkirk, Converse's president since 2016, asserted that systemic racism haunted Converse's campus. A number of initiatives were accordingly announced including mandatory "anti-bias training." Only one voice rose publicly against it: that of Political Science Professor Poelvoorde. The training was polluting the intellectual life of a liberal-arts college Poelvoorde had grown to love. He couldn't be an accomplice to its violation, and refused to participate.
Yet in our unheroic age, and in a very unheroic academy, his predicament is worth notice, regret — and alarm.
A Clemson University professor is labeling all Donald Trump supporters and Republicans as "racist scum," demanding that they "denounce your affiliation, or admit you're a racist."
Professor Bart Knijnenburg even directly advocated violence in one Facebook post, saying, "I admire anyone who stands up against white supremacy. Violent or non-violent," and adding the hashtag "#PunchNazis."
Democrats are 'suddenly' interested in mail-in voting to 'collapse' and 'overwhelm' the system.
Last month President Trump warned that mail-in voting would "rig the election."
"The states are incapable of doing 100 million potentially or 80 million or 60 million people with mail-in voting. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election."
Senator Graham calls for people to be prosecuted over what he called 'a second crime' after the FBI misled the FISA court
The Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018 called the FBI to testify on the reliability of the notorious Steele Dossier. The FBI told the committee there was no reason to doubt the dossier. "They did to the Senate Intel Committee what they did to the FISA court. They misled the hell out of them. They said there's no evidence from the subsource to suggest that Steele fabricated anything in the dossier."
Documents recently released by the Senate Intelligence Committee indicate that as early as December 2016 there were strong doubts about the reliability of the Steele Dossier.
"Somebody needs to go to jail for this," Graham said. "This is a second lie. This is a second crime. They lied to the FISA court. They got rebuked, the FBI did, in 2019 by the FISA court, putting in doubt all FISA applications ... a year before, they're lying to the Senate Intel Committee. It's just amazing the compounding of the lies."
Hundreds of demonstrators attended the "Rescue America" rally in Beverly Hills on Saturday afternoon. The pro-Trump march was organized by the #WalkAway Foundation, a campaign that "encourages and supports those on the Left to walk away from the divisive tenets endorsed and mandated by the Democratic Party of today."
China is building up its mass surveillance tech tools and exporting them all over the world
Technologically-advanced China and its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, are "committed to the production and use of technology that controls and surveils its population. The decision to use these tools of repression is politically motivated to sustain the Party."
And what happens in China does not stay in China. Surveillance -- or simply spying -- has become a booming business in the world's most populated country. But human rights activists say that the enterprise has quickly become a critical apparatus for suppression and abuses, especially on minority groups. Notably, Beijing has endeavored for decades to crush the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang, and in recent years swept millions into concentration camps that the government prefers to call "re-education camps."
The system in play is quietly called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), which has the ability to audit entire populations. From there, it can rapidly produce names of people classified as "suspicious" -- and thus marked for possible detention -- purely as a result of their travel patterns abroad, mobile applications installed and key phrases used in bulletins or private messages, sometimes as basic as asking someone else where they can pray.
But it is not only minorities that are tracked. "It is targeting the whole population with the focus on anyone who has independent thinking." There is approximately one CCTV camera for every six citizens in China.
Business owners have had their property destroyed and their personal safety put at risk because of the mob of ANTIFA and BLM hooligans.
A group of small business owners are suing the city of Seattle for failing to protect them from the occupation of the Capitol Hill district which became known as CHAZ (later renamed CHOP).
The lawsuit claims that 'Seattle's unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public' resulted in enormous property damage and lost revenue.
The Seattle city government not only permitted the establishment of a police-free zone but provided infrastructure like concrete barriers and portable toilets to sustain it.
Similarly, the owner of a manufacturing plant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, says he will move his business out of the city after officials failed to protect his livelihood from being set on fire in riots this month. The owner of 7-SIGMA plans to leave Minneapolis after protesters, arsonists, and looters wrecked the city in weeks-long riots. 7-SIGMA designs, manufactures, and supplies polymer and metal components and assemblies for printing, medical, aerospace, and industrial companies and has about 50 employees — and will not be returning to Minneapolis after it was set on fire in the riots.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler Thursday evening condemned the actions of rioters who attempted to set fire to a police precinct and blocked the exits while officers were inside. "When you commit arson with an accelerant in an attempt to burn down a building that is occupied by people who you have intentionally trapped inside, you are not demonstrating, you are attempting to commit murder," Wheeler said in a news conference with Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell.
In responding to each of the 13 questions asked of her, Rice claimed 18 times that she "does not recall" critical information.
Rice's interrogatory responses come in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that seeks records concerning "talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack" (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). This FOIA lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015. Judicial Watch uncovered "talking points" created by the Obama White House and other documents showing that statements about the attack made on the eve of the 2012 elections by then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice were false.
New York City's total wealth has fallen by billions of dollars over the past year – amid a severe coronavirus outbreak that has driven the richest residents out of town. The combined wealth in the Big Apple fell by $336 billion in the 12 months ending June 30.
New York's Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has expressed concern about the loss of high-income taxpayers during the pandemic – which would exacerbate ballooning state and local budget holes. "We're trying to get people to come back," Cuomo said during a press conference this week. "They're not coming back right now. And you know what else they're thinking, if [they] stay there, they pay a lower income tax because they don't pay the New York City surcharge."
Tax collections in New York City dropped 46 percent in June. That decline follows a 32 percent drop in May and a 23 percent decline in April.
Revealed in a hearing on Capitol Hill on Antifa and violent protests
The FBI has opened hundreds of federal criminal investigations surrounding the violence and rioting since May 28.
In addition, Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told lawmakers that an estimated 140 federal law enforcement officers guarding a Portland federal courthouse sustained 277 injuries due to the violent and sustained nightly attacks at the building.
The hearing Tuesday was titled "The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble: Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence".
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., defended the work of federal officers in Portland. "If we had done nothing, what would have happened to the courthouse, Mr. Cuccinelli, in Portland?" Graham asked. Cuccinelli responded: "That courthouse wouldn't be there." "So I challenge anyone on the other side to say differently," Graham said. "If we hadn't intervened they'd have burned the god--n thing down."
"Across the country, we're seeing horrific violence, we're seeing our country torn apart," Cruz said Monday. "Violent anarchists and Marxists are exploiting protests to transform them into riots and direct assaults on the lives and safety of their fellow Americans."
Democrat-Run KKK Burnt Crosses; Democrat-Run BLM Burn Bibles and American flags.
They are the George Soros bought-and-paid-for search and destroy arm of a Democrat Party well on its way to steal the 2020 Election with a universal MAIL-IN Vote.
"Leftists are showing their contempt for America and her virtue by burning Bibles and American flags outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
"Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown struck a deal with the Trump administration earlier this week, whereby federal officers will begin to withdrawal from downtown Portland as state agencies attempt to provide enforcement on their own. But Democratic leaders have consistently sided with the protestors, ignoring the violence and the threat and safety the riots pose to members of the community."
Rumors and intel flew around for days leading up to Saturday, August 1. Dozens of activists were being bussed into Austin, Texas from Portland and Seattle to do to this city what they have done to both of those. Rumors suggested they wanted to destroy Austin police headquarters, the Texas state capitol, or both. Downtown apartment residents received flyers warning them that the outsiders might attempt to gain entry to their buildings to get to the roof.
Saturday's protest activity was billed as the biggest yet, at least in part due to the shooting of Garrett Foster. Foster was the man who apparently pointed his AK-47 rifle at the car window of driver Daniel Perry while protesters surrounded and pounded on his car during an unpermitted protest and illegal taking of the public street just before 10 PM on July 25. Perry, an Army sergeant and licensed handgun carrier, fired his weapon after Foster had used his rifle to order Perry to roll his car window down. Pointing a gun at someone can, obviously, be read as hostile action. Texas castle law covers drivers in vehicles defending themselves, including the use of deadly force.
Many of the protesters were carrying rifles. Law enforcement were deployed and ready downtown. According to a source familiar with Saturday's events, no officers were injured. Little force was used in shutting down the protest — which illegally blocked streets and was intended to bring violence to Austin. No property was damaged despite the protesters' plan.
The protesters hopefully learned two lessons. One: Texas is not Oregon or Washington State. Two: Don't mess with Texas. A few dozen protesters were arrested Saturday night. They came to Austin for their little vacation, but some will leave at least on probation.
Dear Democratic voters: You claim I am physically assaulting you by not wearing I mask. No, you've got that wrong. I KNOW you're physically assaulting ME by voting Democratic.
You don't get to say, "I don't support defunding the police" while actively supporting a party dominated by mayors, Congresspersons, and governors who ARE ACTUALLY DEFUNDING THE POLICE.
You don't get to claim you're not a Communist or a socialist when you vote for people in a party THAT'S ACTUALLY IMPOSING COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM on the country.
You don't get to say, "Joe Biden is a nice guy and he's not a Communist" when his campaign actively and openly courts, for Vice President, a woman who considers the late Fidel Castro a cherished hero.
You don't get to explicitly endorse repealing the Bill of Rights in the name of "progress" and still get to call yourself an American.
I take assaults on my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness seriously. I consider YOU my enemy — you supporters of America's gravest enemy today, the Democratic Party. I consider your party the enemy of America's Bill of Rights just as the Soviet Communist Party and National Socialist Party of Germany were the enemy of America in earlier eras, and the Communist Party of China is today.
It's not "just about politics". It's about real, life-or-death issues.
I am not merely talking about career politicians. I am talking about the great majority of ordinary, everyday Democrat-supporters. Your intolerance, self-deceit and fundamental irrationality are your own moral flaws and personal problems; however, you have no right to impose those flaws on me by force, whether it's coercing me to toil long hours to pay for "free college" for other people, to pay for the medical care of illegal immigrants — homicidal criminals, in some cases — or forcing me to wear a mask. In practice and in principle, you are deeply wrong about virtually everything. And you are deeply disturbed, whether you camp out like savages on the streets of Chicago, Portland or Seattle, or whether you root for such savages from the comfort of your laptop, television or cell phones. Morally, you are all the same.
You don't get to pretend you're not something you clearly ARE — totalitarian — not when you impose it on myself and other people who don't want it, and not when you impose it with the full threat of government coercion. The wildly exaggerated COVID crisis has made that clear in a way neither Ayn Rand nor George Orwell ever could have put into fiction. And we know you're just getting started.
So scream, shame and lecture all you want about my not wearing a mask, about my choice to vote for Donald Trump, about my choice NOT to "take a knee" at the National Anthem, about my determination to keep everything I earn and about my desire to own weapons of self-protection. YOU are the victimizers here. Ignorance is no excuse. Not when things get to this point. Democratic leaders speak loudly and clearly when they articulate and endorse such insane ideas as outlawing fossil fuels, nationalizing private property, imposing 70 or 90 percent tax rates, confiscating guns, and demanding that people apologize for their race, no different than a National Socialist would. You SEE Democratic mayors and governors literally opening up prisons, and you hear Democrat after Democrat call for nationalization of private property. Yet you keep voting for them anyway.
This isn't funny, and it's not playing around. If you really believed you were certain of defeating Donald Trump in November, you wouldn't support placing the electoral process in the hands of the inept, floundering and historically incompetent post office. Obviously, you're more than a little worried if you feel you must resort to "mail-in voting," something you would never, ever permit if you thought it would benefit President Trump or Republicans.
You know what you're doing, Democrats. And I hold each and every one of you personally responsible for everything that's happening, and whatever comes next.
I blame YOU, Democrats and leftists everywhere, not just in government and media. Your media and your schools have brainwashed you, but our country still offers choices, and you possess the free will to learn of different views. Instead, you smash dissension through shaming, social media blocking and even "doxing" of anyone who dares to disagree with you.
I will not respond to your shame, your threats, your hostility or your insults, because I know you are the ones destroying everything that was worthwhile about America, and about life itself. You can all go to hell, but you will not take decent people with you.
If you think you can get rid of the justified hostility and resentment the people you call "deplorable" feel toward you simply by extinguishing Donald Trump and his presidency, you are in for the rudest awakening in all of human history. We are not going away, and we're in your communities, often closeted and silent because of the hostility, threats and fear YOUR establishment has created. Sooner or later, the dam will break. And while we know — being Democrats — you'll never take responsibility for anything, you will feel the intensity of liberty-loving individuals who cherish life and freedom.
Aramco, Saudi Arabia's majority state-owned oil conglomerate's market value has fallen to $1.7 trillion. The price of oil has been hammered in the global pandemic as airlines and cruise lines came to virtual standstills.
Apple reported a blowout quarter on Thursday posting an 11 percent jump in revenues to $59.7 billion exceeding Wall Street estimates, despite 25 percent of global stores still closed.
Apple also announced it will split its stock 4 for 1. The stock split will occur for owners of record at the close of the market on August 24th, with the split reflected in trading on Ausgust 31st.
'Where's Al Sharpton? Where's Black Lives Matter?'
"Obama has did nothing for us. Everybody says 'health care,' we can't afford health care. We ain't got no money," 60-year-old Milwaukee man Bernell Trammell said in remarks captured on video days before his death. "So Trump at least had, whether the will of God or his own inspiration, to do something that no president has ever done and that's why he's got my vote."
"Apparently, certain Black lives do not matter. Let's not forget the left's long history of ignoring, vilifying or dehumanizing Blacks who disagree."
More than 20,000 signatures on a "Stop Defunding" petition.
Hundreds of Seattle residents spoke up about proposals to "Defund the police" during a city council budget meeting on Wednesday.
"Defunding the police is a radical experiment that will hurt the vulnerable."
The city – along with Portland, Ore., Chicago, and other locations – has taken criticism from President Trump and other Republicans, who have portrayed Democratic leaders in the cities as enablers of the rioting and destruction rather than law enforcers who are dedicated to maintaining public safety.
The attorney general described Gardner's litigation as nothing more than a politically motivated move.
"The shameless circuit attorney filed suit against a St. Louis couple who, according to published reports, say they were doing just that–defending the safety of their property," he said. "A political prosecution, such as this one, would have a chilling effect on Missourians exercising their right to self-defense. The law of Missouri is clear and must be protected … enough is enough."
"As Missouri's chief law enforcement officer, I simply will not stand by while Missouri laws are being ignored," Schmitt said in a video shared on Twitter. "That is why I am entering the case in terms of seeking the dismissal of the case to protect the rights of Missourians to defend themselves in their property under Missouri's castle doctrine." The rule recognizes residents' right to respond to intruders with force and without a duty to retreat because their home is their "castle." If someone trespasses and disrupts the "sanctity" of their home, they intend to harm, and residents can ward off their advances.
The action comes after the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission directed that the Milwaukee Police Chief change department policy to restrict the use of tear gas and pepper spray.
Only around 300 people are expected to attend in person.
"Our concern is that in the event protests turn non-peaceful, such a policy would remove tools from officers that may otherwise be legal and justifiable to utilize in specific situations."
"I can not send personnel if they are not properly equipped or will not be allowed to engage in appropriate actions which would ensure their safety."
Gold prices jumped to record highs on Monday as an intensifying U.S.-China row hammered the dollar and cemented expectations that central banks would continue pumping out stimulus to ease the economic pain from a worsening coronavirus pandemic.
Gold rose 1.5% to $1,928.83 per ounce; silver rose to $23.86 per ounce.
Bob Woodson says low-income Blacks face systematic neglect from the left
Civil rights activist Bob Woodson, founder of the Woodson Center, ripped Democratic mayors such as Chicago's Lori Lightfoot for blaming Republicans and the status of gun control legislation, among other things, for continued violent unrest in their jurisdictions.
"I believe that the salvation of this country ... will be the sleeping giant: When low-income Blacks wake up and realize that they are being bamboozled and hustled and scammed by people like Lori Lightfoot and others -- they are going to realize that they must address the enemy within."
"Elected Democrats' solutions to complex societal issues continue to become "more frivolous and disconnected from reality."
"All of these inequities that they have been talking about have been done on their watch."
A group of Republican House members, led by Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas, introduced a resolution Thursday that would effectively ban the Democratic Party from the House or force a party name change over past slavery ties.
It specifically cites the Democratic Party platform's support for slavery between 1840 and 1856, and other racist actions by party members through the early-to-mid 1900s.
The resolution calls on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to "remove any items that names, symbolizes or mentions any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery or the Confederacy" from the House and its properties.
The resolution also says such a party "shall either change its name or be barred from participation in the House of Representatives."
Chinese hackers charged by Justice Department with trying to steal US coronavirus research
The 11-count indictment alleges the Chinese nationals hacked into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, government organizations and more. They also allegedly broke into the accounts of democratic and human rights activists in the United States, Hong Kong, and mainland China.
They also targeted countries with high tech industries including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
"China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being 'on call' to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist Party's insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies' hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research."
China's own ineptitude in these areas is clearly on display by stealing what others have done.
It comes as part of an ongoing push by the Trump administration to make sure that illegal immigrants are not included in the census.
The Constitution requires the 'persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed,' to be enumerated in the census, that requirement has never been understood to include in the apportionment base every individual physically present within a State's boundaries at the time of the census. Instead, the term 'persons in each State' has been interpreted to mean that only the 'inhabitants' of each State should be included. It is delegated to the executive branch to determine who qualifies as an inhabitant includes authority to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.
The Apportionment Memorandum is titled "Ensuring American Citizens Receive Proper Representation in Congress."
An Afghan teen gunned down two Taliban fighters in an act of retaliation after a group of the militants killed her parents.
The incident involving Qamar Gul, who is around 15 years old, happened last week in Ghor province. The Taliban was after her father – a village chief and supporter of the Afghan government – and ended up dragging him and his wife outside of Gul's home before killing them. The militants have been waging a lengthy insurgency against the Afghan government, and have been known to target citizens they suspect of acting as informants.
"Qamar Gul, who was inside the house, took an AK-47 gun the family had and first shot dead the two Taliban fighters who killed her parents, and then injured a few others."
"'Ayn Rand' is trending now so maybe we've finally hit rock bottom in this awful year."
Who was Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand wrote books, articles, and newspaper columns. She created a philosophy that she named "Objectivism," and people like Robert Reich are still attacking her over it.
"Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand's character, Howard Roark, in 'The Fountainhead,'" Reich sneered in his Twitter video, "an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn't meet specifications that he had it dynamited."
Actually, the book is about the battle of a individual who thinks independently and builds great achievements against a world filled with frightened and officious "secondhanders" who try to tear him down for not doing things the way other people do them.
In the last lecture she gave before she died, Rand addressed a group of businessmen on the topic of "The Sanction of the Victim." We saw a recent illustration of this concept when Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther was told by a judge that she could avoid a jail sentence for operating her "non-essential" business in violation of the law only if she apologized. But Luther, who said she and her stylists had had no income from March until May because of the stay-at-home order, defended her actions. "Feeding my kids is not selfish," she said. The judge desperately sought the sanction of the victim. He wanted her to say the law was right and she was wrong. She didn't think so, and she wouldn't say it. Which of those two people would you want in the room if you were trying to accomplish something?
"The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign, rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth."
Florida COVID-19 numbers have been making waves in the news as of late but they may not be telling the real story, according to one hospital and a report of multiple testing laboratories.
Some hospitals and labs in Florida have been reporting up to 100% positivity rates, meaning that 100% of people who come in and get tested end up testing positive for COVID-19.
A report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when contacted, the hospital confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health's positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.
Florida's record count of infections may be overestimated by 30%.
Sen. Blackburn blasts 'cancel culture' in response to comment by former Hillary adviser
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., responded Friday to a former Hillary Clinton adviser and super PAC leader who called her "inbred, racist trash" after she criticized the Black Lives Matter organization earlier this week.
"The life of every African American matters. But Black Lives Matter is a 501(c)(3) organization run by 'trained Marxists.' We cannot allow our great country to be destroyed under the pretense of social justice," she wrote.
The senator added that Parkhomenko's remark is another example of the virulent response to people who oppose leftist orthodoxy. Turning to a discusson of "cancel culture" in general, Blackburn described the phenomenon as "what happens in socialist and Marxist societies. If you disagree with anyone on anything with some of these leftists, then all of a sudden everything to do with you ... is considered all bad and canceled out."
Black preachers, Black politicians, and Black civic organizers "go down and peddle this stuff for the Democrat Party and they are paid by White liberals to keep the Black people in line for one reason, [to] make sure they vote 90 percent for the Democrat Party and they do this very, very well. And this is part of it. This lie about, you know, giving people free stuff, reparations. It will never happen. They keep saying it every two years until we figure it out. They're gonna continue to do it."
"These Democrats are doing nothing but destroying the Black community. And these reparations is a part of their plan. They're going to continue it and continue with until we figure out these people are no good."
The party's "divide-and-conquer approach" advanced their political ambitions to the detriment of our unifying motto "E Pluribus Unum"
Cancel culture logic demands that the Democratic Party be relegated to "the dustbin of history."
Up to the 1960s the Democrat Party "was the party of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, poll taxes, and literacy tests for voting," as well as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
"Shall we also change the names of months? We might start with July, which honors Julius Caesar, who by common standards committed genocide against the Gauls, and August, named after the man who put the last nail in the coffin of the Roman Republic and declared himself emperor — both were also slave owners themselves as well as leaders of vast slave empires."
Conservative group Turning Point USA launched a new initiative Thursday encouraging college and university donors who believe their values no longer align with their alma maters to "de-commit" their gifts and redirect the money to different causes – rather than fund "left-wing indoctrination."
"DivestU" is the "most aggressive project yet to combat rampant Leftism at universities by striking where they are most vulnerable: their wallets."
President Trump last week tweeted that schools could be stripped of their tax-exempt status if they engage in "Radical Left Indoctrination."
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Thursday accused Portland politicians of enabling the "mob" of protesters who have besieged the city for more than six weeks -- and posted a lengthy timeline of the damage caused by "violent anarchists."
"The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city."
Instead of fixing climate change, Biden's policies expand an already bloated government bureaucracy and make it difficult for businesses to create new jobs and offer innovative products. While presented as being about climate change, Biden's ideas are a progressive effort to take over the economy.
Biden is also making apocalyptic claims like, "Science tells us we have nine years before the damage is irreversible." In reality, science says no such thing, as many left-leaning experts acknowledge.
Some of the more extreme elements in Biden's plan include a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the creation of a civilian climate corps and plans to spend trillions retrofitting cars and buildings to be energy efficient. These proposals would kill energy jobs by choking the fossil fuel energy to death with red tape. We already see early casualties of Biden's plans, as Duke Energy recently pulled the plug on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline due to regulatory uncertainty. If Biden wins, expect many more energy jobs to disappear.
The surprise ruling Thursday from the European Court of Justice invalidates a widely used EU-U.S. data-transfer agreement known as Privacy Shield. The EU and the U.S. implemented the Privacy Shield agreement nearly four years ago, after a prior framework, called Safe Harbor, was scrapped in 2015 by the same court. The decision, which pits European data-privacy concerns against U.S. national-security priorities, will create legal headaches and potentially disrupt operations for thousands of multinational companies.
Thousands of companies will face restrictions on storing information about European Union residents on U.S. servers, after the bloc's top court ruled that such transfers exposed Europeans to American government surveillance without "actionable rights" to challenge it.
Blocking data transfers to the U.S. could upend billions of dollars of trade from cross-border data activities, including cloud services, human resources, marketing and advertising.
The governor of Missouri says President Trump has promised to "do everything he could within his powers" to shield a St. Louis couple who wielded guns at protesters in their gated community from prosecution, even as an attorney for the client says charges are imminent.
President Trump "understands the situation in St. Louis and how out of control it is for a prosecutor to let violent criminals off and not do their job and try to attack law-abiding citizens."
The President's support behind the scenes was vital to permitting local police to step back from prior directives to be 'hands off' protesters. "The support of the Executive Office appears to have motivated The Governor to garner a heightened degree of appreciation for implications and rights at risk in this situation."
"Let's push a BUY-cott, not a boycott, Let's show the #Goyaway people what compassion can do." The tweet received more than 27,000 likes and 12,000 retweets.
"This is an 'offendanista' group, we call them. They're a group of folks who wake up every morning angry because Donald Trump is their president and they look for a reason to dislike him even more."
"It looks like love is winning and that's really what this is about, taking a negative and turning it into a positive that works for the employees of Goya and the people who need food right now."
FTC fined TikTok $5.7B in 2019 for illegally collecting personal information from children under age 13
The White House is moving forward with a major crackdown on the popular social media platform TikTok, looking possibly to ban the company from being used by U.S. consumers in the coming weeks.
TikTok has become immensely popular with kids in middle school and high school, but also celebrities and social media influencers. The app has already been downloaded 165 million times just in the first quarter of 2020 and is now the largest short-form video platform operated out of China.
Lawmakers and the White House believe the company is using its technology to gather sensitive information on U.S. users for surveillance purposes on behalf of the Chinese government, which essentially owns companies domiciled in the mainland.
Now it appears the Trump administration is looking to possibly shut down TikTok through a CFIUS ruling. CFIUS is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The agency reviews foreign purchases of U.S. companies or that do significant business in the U.S. and maintain a presence there.
Many took to social media to express their displeasure with Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue after he praised President Trump at a White House event on Thursday, but others are flipping the narrative and calling for a Goya Foods "buy-cott."
"I am encouraging all to join me in purchasing $10 worth of Goya Foods products."
Our partnership with Mexico is deepening in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago
From the successful negotiation of the USMCA to our cooperation to combat illegal immigration to securing our common borders, to fighting arms traffickers, U.S.-Mexico relations have never been closer, stronger, better, or more productive. These developments directly benefit the American and Mexican people by promoting our shared national security and our economic prosperity goals.
The timing couldn't have been better, either. The deal was finalized before China's mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak upended the global economy, and the USMCA's benefits will help drive our vigorous recovery.
The standoff between a gun-toting couple who stood in their front yard and protesters who marched through the private neighborhood is under investigation, according to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner's office.
Gardner, who was elected in 2016 on a platform of reforming the criminal justice system, was reportedly backed by liberal billionaire
George Soros. The total funds donated by the super PAC were at least $190,750, according to the report, with Soros giving at least $30,000. Soros is known for backing left-wing causes across the globe, having last year used his super PAC to successfully boost two liberal prosecutor candidates in Virginia over incumbent Democrats.
Since being elected, Gardner has butted heads publicly with Missouri's Republican attorney general Eric Schmitt and faced lawsuits for allegedly ignoring public records requests. Gardner was sued last week for at least the third time over the state's Sunshine Law, an open records law that requires the government to respond within three days to requests for public records.
Schmitt had earlier criticized Gardner on Twitter for allowing the release of all 36 rioters and looters arrested in the city following protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. "In a stunning development, our office has learned that every single one of the St. Louis looters and rioters arrested were released back onto the streets by local prosecutor Kim Gardner," Schmitt tweeted June 3.
Gardner has also been at odds with the St. Louis police and local legal establishment since taking office.
She said her office was working with the police department to investigate the confrontation, adding that authorities "will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable." However, no charges were filed against the couple as of Tuesday morning.
Couple told police they were threatened by 'multiple' armed individuals when they got their guns
The St. Louis couple caught on video brandishing guns in the front yard of their home while protesters passed through their private neighborhood are being investigated by the St. Louis Police Department and the city's circuit attorney, Kimberly Garder.
"I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault," Gardner said. "We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated."
However, the McCloskeys' attorney, Albert Watkins, saw the couple's clash with protesters differently. Under Missouri's Castle Doctrine, "a person has the right, has the absolute unmitigated right to protect his or her castle or family while on their property," Watkins said. "And in this particular fact situation, you have individuals who are acting on private property, trespassing as lawbreakers onto private property, damaging and destroying private property and acting in a threatening and hostile fashion, such as to give rise to what any human being would consider to be placing them in a position of abject horror and certainly in a position of feeling in fear of imminent harm. My clients didn't sit on their front stoop with guns ... No firearms were on them at the time that they, were, as property owners standing in front of their home. It was not until they basically were in a position of seeing and observing violence, recklessness, lawbreaking, and knowing that the police were not going to be doing anything."
Watkins also slammed Gardner's decision and said if she had read the McCloskeys' police report from the incident "she would have recognized the pure folly of her suggestion that she was going to evaluate the case for criminal charges. If Kimberly Gardner wants to press charges against two attorneys who are protecting their home and their family and themselves on their own property, I will tell you that it will be nothing short of the proverbial cluster f---."
Mark McCloskey, 63 said in a Tuesday morning interview that he, his wife and his home were threatened by a fringe group that accompanied protesters marching to the mayor's nearby home. "There were people wearing body armor. One person pulled out a loaded pistol magazine, he clipped them together and said, 'You're next. We were threatened with our lives, threatened with the house [being] burned down."
Authorities in St. Louis executed a search warrant Friday evening at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who made headlines last month when they took up arms to defend their home from protesters. There was no immediate indication the McCloskeys were arrested or charged with a crime. The warrant applied only to a search for the guns.
Soon after the June incident, Kimberly Gardner, circuit attorney in St. Louis, announced that her office and the St. Louis Police Department would be conducting an investigation into the McCloskeys' display of firearms. The couple's attorney at the time, Albert Watkins, said in a statement that the couple did not arm themselves until after they began feeling threatened. "My clients didn't sit on their front stoop with guns. ... No firearms were on them at the time that they, were, as property owners standing in front of their home. It was not until they basically were in a position of seeing and observing violence, recklessness, lawbreaking, and knowing that the police were not going to be doing anything."
"[The protesters said] that they were going to kill us. They were going to come in there. They were going to burn down the house. They were going to be living in our house after I was dead, and they were pointing to different rooms and said, 'That's going to be my bedroom and that's going to be the living room and I'm going to be taking a shower in that room'." The couple said protesters also threatened to harm their dog, which was outside the home at the time.
Protesters had returned to their neighborhood July 3 – but the couple was alerted in advance and hired a private security company to protect their residence.
The Gov. Walz' administration conducted a preliminary damage assessment that found nearly $16 million of eligible damages related to fires. The federal funds would have been used to reimburse local governments for repairs and debris removal.
Republican Minnesota U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer on Thursday sent a letter to Trump in response to Walz's aid request, asking for a "thorough and concurrent review" of the state's response to the unrest so that "every governor, mayor and local official can learn from our experiences" and prevent such a situation from happening again.
Perhaps they should start by not condoning and allowing them to happen in the first place.
Ramona Javier never received a mail-in ballot for New Jersey's vote-by-mail election. Neither did eight of her family members and immediate neighbors. But they are all listed as having voted in the recent election. "We did not receive vote-by-mail ballots and thus we did not vote," said Javier. "This is corruption. This is fraud."
New Jersey's municipal mail-in election and mail-in primary elections were small scale experiments in what Democrats want to do nationwide this November. The disastrous outcomes should worry any American who supports the principle of one person, one vote.
The White House announced Friday that President Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting the "unjust sentence" of Roger Stone, just days before the longtime political operative was slated to report to prison to serve more than three years for charges stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
The president had made the decision to commute Stone's sentence "in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest, and trial."
The legal landscape is littered with the destruction wrought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his "hit squad" of partisan prosecutors
Illegitimately appointed under federal regulations, Mueller employed a scorched-earth strategy to bully, intimidate, and threaten people like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos into coerced guilty pleas. Mueller's ultimate goal was to get these people to incriminate President Trump for imaginary crimes based on invented evidence of Russian "collusion" to steal the 2016 presidential election. But they didn't. There was nothing incriminating. But the truth was irrelevant to the special counsel.
Penn State Liberal Arts tweeted a message affirming diversity in various forms. This included an acknowledgment of conservative students and their viewpoints.
After intense backlash, the Pennsylvania State University liberal arts department deleted a tweet ensuring conservative students that their voices matter. The original tweet was a picture with the title "Dear Students: You Belong Here" followed by various affirmations of black, Muslim, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ students. It also had a message for conservatives: "Dear conservative students, your viewpoints are important."
The Black Lives Matter political organization "is a very divisive organization based on Marxist principals. This week they threatened to burn the system down, literally and figuratively if they don't get what they want. This is an organization that looks to destroy American principals."
There's Black Lives Matter the concept and Black Lives Matter the institution. Most people who sign onto the BLM movement believe they are backing the concept, but it should be understood very clearly that the institution is reaping all the benefits.
Black Lives Matter has absolutely no concern for the well-being of black lives or equality in this country. In fact, by their own admission, their purpose isn't to heal this country, it's to rip it apart and remake it into a more Marxist kind of society.
From a 2015 video of an interview with co-founder Patrisse Cullors: "We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular, we're trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories."
Black Lives Matter the institution isn't trying to hide their Marxism either. In their "what we believe" section, they list their goals and all of them are extreme leftist stances concerned with destroying the very fabric of America in favor of the implementation of radical marxist ideals.
Marxism doesn't have the interest of the people in mind. It often uses people or causes as an avenue to dismantle and rebuild political systems. Communism and socialism are not a solid system to replace anything with as they deteriorate and degrade everything, including the lives of the people. Socialism in all its variants – e.g., Communism, Socialism, Fascism – has claimed the lives of well over a hundred million people in its implementation in various countries.
BLM the institution doesn't seem to want to solve the problem. They are, by their own admission, not interested in coming together with law enforcement bodies to solve the problem and will reject any attempts or events that do so.
ActBlue states that users can obtain the fundraising group's "latest financial report" by emailing the company. Yet when asked, the company would not provide that report.
The ActBlue website features a donation tracker which shows that since their establishment in 2004, the organization has raised over $5,247,111,000.
Act Blue's tag line: "Powering Democratic candidates, committees, parties, organizations, and c4s around the country."
The riot in Madison was inspired by the arrest of organizer Devonere Johnson for 'organizing' in a restaurant. The resulting violence saw statues toppled and a Democrat state senator beaten.
Now the Feds have busted Johnson for blackmailing businesses.
"You don't want 600 people to come here and destroy your business and burn it down"
The man whose Tuesday arrest in Wisconsin sparked a violent riot that culminated in the beating of a state lawmaker boasts a lengthy criminal record and appears to have a history of controversial social media posts.
Devonere Johnson was captured on video entering a restaurant in Madison carrying a bat, using profanities, and speaking through a bull horn after what appeared to be a dispute over racism, according to police reports cited by Madison.com. He was arrested outside of the restaurant for disorderly conduct while armed, resisting arrest and attempting to flee, and probation violation. After officers wrestled Johnson to the ground, he attempted to fight them off and tried to run before he was put in a squad car. Dane County court records show he was on probation at the time of his arrest. While Johnson has no open cases against him, he has been convicted or pleaded guilty at least three times, including for felony theft.
Protests calling for Johnson's release soon spiraled into vandalism and violence during which vandals pulled down two statues.
Fear, ignorance, panic, mob hysteria, propaganda, agitators, and hidden-agenda groups are the environment where the Leftists gain the most ground. Marxist ideologies like Socialism, Fascism, and Communism do not work. They destroy the incentives for productivity and hence prosperity; poverty is the inevitable result. They are purely destructive, and their so-called proponents know it. Being in power and in control as despotic tyrants is the ulterior motive and ultimate goal of Leftists. Well-meaning but misguided and misled average people, mobs, dupes, stooges, and thugs are their tools.
The decision upheld and expanded a "ministerial exception" for religious institutions.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision on Wednesday that civil courts cannot get involved in employment discrimination claims brought against religious organizations where the employee served a religious function.
The "Big Five" – Amazon, Apple, Alphabet-Google, Microsoft, and Facebook – combined have annual revenue of almost $900 billion – more than Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and almost as much as the Netherlands. How do they earn their billions?
Four out of five of those "Big Tech" companies have grown to trillion-dollar market capitalizations.
Trump called on the GOP to push back against left-wing ideology.
Trump rejected what he called "a new far-left fascism" and a "left-wing cultural revolution" that he said threatened American civilization.
"We are in a culture war. If the Republicans don't toughen up and get smart and get strong and protect our heritage and protect our country, I think they're going to have a very tough election."
He also pushed back against "cancel culture," wherein people have been shaming others for past social media posts they disagree with, and in some cases threatening their livelihoods by trying to use the posts to get them fired from their jobs. "This is the very definition of totalitarianism. And it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America."
That same message against cancel culture was recently put forth by well-known liberal writers and activists who warned that their fellow leftists were going too far. A letter published in Harper's Magazine that was signed by notable figures including author J.K. Rowling, activist Gloria Steinem, and linguist Noam Chomsky said that liberals have exhibited "an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty."
"Easier to talk and squeal, and complain ... than to actually help people."
"People are trying to shame people from their jobs, their disagreement with any dissent, they're trying to cancel individuals."
"We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing. We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children." – President Trump
Hysteria about COVID is cool. It's hip. It's WOKE. In fact, it's increasingly mandatory. How long before government-ordered "truth" is mandatory, just like masks already are mandatory, even in Republican states like Texas?
Why will few or no people fight it, or speak out against it? Are they really THAT worried about not being seen as WOKE? Will they give up their freedom so people won't think them "on the outs"? If so, they deserve what's coming.
In the meantime, here are a few facts to distract you from the hysteria:
In truth, Texas' ICU capacity is currently 90% occupied, but of these beds, COVID-19 patients occupy only 15%. The remaining 85% are filled with a backlog of patients whose various non-urgent procedures had been postponed for months due to (ultimately unsubstantiated) fear that COVID would overload the health care system.
Dr. Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institute:
Atlas said that he has done more than a superficial analysis of the numbers, and after analyzing them, he…[e]xplain[ed], "When you look all over at the states who are seeing a lot of new cases, you have to look at who is getting infected because we should know by now, that the goal is not to eliminate all cases, that's not rational, it's not necessary, if we just protect the people who are going to have serious complications. We look at the cases, yes there's a lot more cases, by the way they do not correlate in a time sense to any kind of reopening of states. If you look at the timing, that's just a misstatement, a false narrative. The reality is they may correlate to the new protests and massive demonstrations, but it's safe to say the majority of new cases are among younger, healthier people."
Furthermore, Dr. Atlas emphasized the fact that the death rates are not going up, despite the increase in cases. "And that's what really counts, are we getting people who are really sick and dying, and we're not, and when we look at the hospitalizations, yes, hospitals are more crowded, but that's mainly due to the re-installation of medical care for non COVID-19 patients."
Here Dr. Atlas gets down to the nitty gritty in Texas:
Dr. Atlas used Texas of an example saying, "90+% of ICU beds are occupied, but only 15% are COVID patients. 85% of the occupied beds are not COVID patients. I think we have to look at the data and be aware that it doesn't matter if younger, healthier people get infected, I don't know how often that has to be said, they have nearly zero risk of a problem from this. The only thing that counts are the older, more vulnerable people getting infected. And there's no evidence that they really are." [Sources here]
Texas is the reason for the hysteria. It goes like this: "Texas is bad. They opened up before they should have. Now everybody in Texas IS GOING TO DIE. Soon everyone else will die. It's because of Texas, and other states like Texas, who dared to end 10-15 percent of the lockdown. They should have stayed 100 PERCENT LOCKED DOWN FOREVER. Everyone is going to die, and it's all their fault! And it's all Trump's fault!"
The "reasoning" and hysteria are truly infantile. If infants could talk, this is how they would reason. The defiance of facts is stunning. This is only the latest.
Imagine an airplane pilot with no radar, and with air traffic controllers who deliberately lie to him about the facts on the ground. How safely do you think that pilot could land the plane?
You don't have to imagine. We are lied to daily and repeatedly by a compliant, biased and totally dishonest media hellbent on only one thing: Destroying Trump. And, right after that, totally destroying freedom in America.
We can't have rational conversations about COVID. Why? Because the "facts" most of us are reading aren't facts at all. Either they are lies, or they are half-truths, leaving out crucial facts that would lead you to a different conclusion than the brazenly far left-wing media wants you to have.
It's beyond insane. Yet that's where we are. We are in so much more trouble than any virus could ever foist upon us.
Knowledge is power. In order to have powerful knowledge, the facts and reasoning must be honest and truthful. A sincere desire to know the truth is essential. That way, you get to the truth, at least eventually.
Liars will bring us down with them, and ultimately destroy us. America had so much to lose, and — as of this moment, at least — we are losing. The war isn't over, and there's no rational reason ever to give up. But dishonesty is a powerful thing when people are ignorant and indifferent toward real facts. If we're to win this war for truth, people will have to become courageous and stop worrying about what others think. Others are not your friend … the truth IS.
Fear, ignorance, panic, mob hysteria, propaganda, agitators, and hidden-agenda groups are the environment where the Leftists gain the most ground. Marxist ideologies like Socialism, Fascism, and Communism do not work. They destroy the incentives for productivity and hence prosperity; poverty is the inevitable result. They are purely destructive, and their so-called proponents know it. Being in power and in control as despotic tyrants is the ulterior motive and ultimate goal of Leftists. Well-meaning but misguided and misled average people, mobs, dupes, stooges, and thugs are their tools.
Governor's office says it has fully mobilized the Minnesota National Guard for the first time since World War II
He also appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for financial assistance to help cover the cost of debris removal, emergency measures and damage to public buildings and equipment.
The violence has subsided, but federal prosecutors have filed a slew of charges against arson suspects and continue to seek to identify more persons of interest.
She was ordered held without bail on multiple sex abuse charges, including conspiracy to entice minors to engage in sexual acts.
"I think that a lot of the friends of Jeffrey Epstein who were very relieved after he died are probably pretty terrified at this moment, because I think that Ghislaine Maxwell has every incentive to talk in this situation. Epstein is dead ... she doesn't really have to worry about protecting him or anything else at this point. And I think that [the Department of Justice] also has more leeway to potentially kind of deal with her than it did with Epstein because ... he was accused of being the kingpin in this situation."
Police cleared the area early Wednesday, making more than a dozen arrests after Mayor Jenny Durkan declared the gathering an unlawful assembly following a string of shootings, two of which turned deadly.
Business owners' comments included: "It was a good time (for police) to come in. A few weeks too late, but a good time to come in. The mayor hasn't looked out for anybody's safety that we are aware of, in weeks," and "We looked for answers from mayor and city council and we got nothing."
Hawley blasted circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner – the prosecutor spearheading the probe – pointing out that she has had "dozens of violent criminals referred to her by the St. Louis police and she hasn't prosecuted any of them. She hasn't even charged any of them. She's turned them back out on the streets," he accused.
"And then you've got this couple who, by the way, are on their own property – they never left their property – just standing there with their perfectly Second Amendment right to keep their arms — standing right there. And, they're going to be investigated?" asked Hawley. "I mean, it's just insane."
The homeowners told police the protesters broke a gate to get onto the private street, adding they only retrieved their firearms when they spotted "multiple" people who were armed, department records show.
"There were people wearing body armor. One person pulled out a loaded pistol magazine, he clipped them together and said, 'You're next,'" Mark McCloskey said. "We were threatened with our lives, threatened with the house [being] burned down."
Under Missouri's Castle Doctrine, "a person has the right, has the absolute unmitigated right to protect his or her castle or family while on their property," Watkins said. "And in this particular fact situation, you have individuals who are acting on private property, trespassing as lawbreakers onto private property, damaging and destroying private property and acting in a threatening and hostile fashion, such as to give rise to what any human being would consider to be placing them in a position of abject horror and certainly in a position of feeling in fear of imminent harm."
Federal law enforcement officials on Thursday arrested Jason Charter in Washington, the "ringleader" in the recent attempt to destroy the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square near the White House.
"They were very organized," a federal law enforcement official said. "Charter was on top of the statue and directing people ... they had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue."
Appeals court upholds bribery conviction for Chinese think tank official with ties to Hunter Biden
Gallup Poll: President Trump ‘Most Admired Man’ 2020
Arkansas far-left journalist among 4 charged in BLM firebombings of police vehicles
Small-Caps Were Big Winners in 2020 - Will They Lead Again in 2021?
Trump Jr. to stump for Perdue after VP Pence rallies Thursday, as Trump team answers Biden event
Goya CEO says AOC was named 'employee of the month' after her boycott call led to sales spike
Barnes & Noble’s new CEO tries to save the chain — and traditional bookselling
About 150 US Cadillac dealers to exit brand, rather than sell electric cars
FBI Investigation Into Hunter Biden Active
Twitter Suspends U.S. Border Chief For Celebrating Wall’s Protection From Illegal Aliens
attempted to tweet about the wall’s benefits.
The meeting on May 2, 2017, would have taken place 11 days before a May 13, 2017, email which included a discussion of “remuneration packages” for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email includes a note that “Hunter [Biden] has some office expectations he will elaborate.” A proposed equity split references “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no further details. Bobulinski has repeatedly said “the big guy” was Joe.
Facebook, Twitter Donated Over 91% to Dem Federal Candidates
Reason and Individualism: The Antidote to Racism
Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad
At right: federal subpoena showing the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI
Senate Judiciary to consider Barrett ahead of vote next week
Details of Amy Coney Barrett's Monday confirmation hearing released
Boeing to move all 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina
Voter Fraud in Ilhan Omar's District
Minneapolis Marxists now cry at the Marxism they brought
Thanks, Fox News, for reminding us of the Soros role in creating America's riot-coddling DAs
Senate Homeland Security Committee authorizes subpoenas for testimony from Obama officials as part of Russia probe
The Gun-Toting, Millennial Restaurant Owner Trying to Ride the Covid Backlash to Congress
St. Louis BLM protesters from McCloskey confrontation cited for trespassing
Chicago murder rate cut 'roughly in half' since before Operation LeGend - AG Barr
Delaware women accused of stealing MAGA hat indicted on robbery, hate crime charges
Portland rioter throws Molotov cocktail at police, misses, sets comrade on fire
Black conservative men praise President Trump, lambaste leftists who accuse him of racism in high-octane, viral video
Did House Speaker Pelosi break the law?
The operation is named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he slept in the early morning of June 29 in Kansas City, Mo. "LeGend is a symbol of the many hundreds of innocent lives that have been taken in the recent upsurge of crime in many of our urban areas," Barr said at a press conference in Kansas City. "His life mattered and the lives of all of those victims matter. His name should be remembered and his senseless death, like those of all the other innocent victims in this recent surge, should be unacceptable to all Americans."
"Elites" Yearn for a "Restoration" Abroad Under Biden
Biden-O'Rourke: The Hug Seen Around the World
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The media refuses to cover this murder because it does not fit their racist narrative
House ethics panel concludes 'Squad' member Tlaib violated campaign law, must repay $10,800
AG Barr – a great Attorney General
Gold soars to all-time high as dollar dive adds fuel to record run
Oakland Mayor Victimized By BLM Vandals She Supported
Afghan teen wielding an AK-47 kills two Taliban fighters after parents were murdered
The visionary woman the Left can't stand
Goya 'buy-cott' begins as customers load up on product after Trump backlash
"We're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder."
Who is Kimberly Gardner, the St. Louis prosecutor investigating gun-toting couple?
George Soros. The total funds donated by the super PAC were at least $190,750, according to the report, with Soros giving at least $30,000. Soros is known for backing left-wing causes across the globe, having last year used his super PAC to successfully boost two liberal prosecutor candidates in Virginia over incumbent Democrats.
"And then you've got this couple who, by the way, are on their own property – they never left their property – just standing there with their perfectly Second Amendment right to keep their arms — standing right there. And, they're going to be investigated?" asked Hawley. "I mean, it's just insane."
