One Problem With The Relief Bill Passed By Congress

Issues & Insights posted an article today about the impact of one item that was included in the CARES Act.

The article reports:

Buried in a story about the overly generous unemployment “bonus” that Democrats added to the CARES Act is the reason why they insisted on it in the first place — and why it will drag down the recovery once the lockdown ends.

While lawmakers were hammering out the massive $2 trillion bill, a key focus of which was to keep workers connected to their jobs through a loan guarantee program — Democrats insisted on a huge increase in unemployment benefits.

The result was a $600 a week bonus. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to call this “unemployment on steroids.”

Well, guess what?

“The $600 payment aligns with working full time at $15 an hour – the minimum-wage level many Democrats in Congress support,” notes the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports that – thanks to this bonus – workers will get an average of $978 in unemployment benefits. What’s more, “Labor Department statistics show half of full-time workers earned $957 or less each week in the first quarter of 2020.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had it exactly right when he said that: “You’re literally incentivizing taking people out of the workforce at a time when we need critical infrastructure supplied with workers. If this is not a drafting error, then it’s the worst idea I’ve seen in a long time.”

The article includes comments from an employee who states that she will not go back to work unless she gets a raise–she likes unemployment at $15 an hour.

The thing to remember here is that the Democrats are all about the November election. If they can manage to pass bills that include things that will prevent the economy from returning to a growth mode after the coronavirus is past, they believe they can win the election. President Trump’s strong point has been his handling of the economy. If the democrats can destroy the economy, they have a better change of getting elected. There is no concern here for the well being of the American people–the Democrats simply want to be back in power. That is not a good thing for America.

 

How Spin Works

The recent sexual assault charges against presidential candidate Joe Biden have created a problem for the candidate. If he were a Republican, there would be pressure for him to withdraw from the race, but he’s a Democrat, so the reaction from the mainstream media is very different.

Yesterday Townhall.com posted an article detailing how the Biden campaign is handling the allegations. It should be noted that investigative reporters (not in the mainstream media) have found corroborating evidence that indicates the charge of sexual assault may be valid. This makes it a little more challenging for the media to deal with the charges.

The article reports:

Buzzfeed originally published talking points for Democratic candidates that were drawn up by the Biden campaign. The memo instructs Democrats to categorically deny Reade’s claims and stand in solidarity with the former vice president if asked about the allegations:

“Biden believes that all women have the right to be heard and to have their claims thoroughly reviewed,” the talking points read, according to a copy sent to two Democratic operatives. “In this case, a thorough review by the New York Times has led to the truth: this incident did not happen.”

“Here’s the bottom line,” they read. “Vice President Joe Biden has spent over 40 years in public life: 36 years in the Senate; 7 Senate campaigns, 2 previous presidential runs, two vice presidential campaigns, and 8 years in the White House. There has never been a complaint, allegation, hint or rumor of any impropriety or inappropriate conduct like this regarding him — ever.”

That sounds good. Unfortunately it isn’t true.

The article at Townhall explains the problem with this defense:

Biden’s campaign also cites The New York Times’ story that exonerated the former vice president, claiming that NYT “investigated” Reade’s claims. The puff piece published in defense of Biden was not only unfair to Reade, but also did not actually investigate her claims. NYT cleared Biden of guilt purely on the word of his campaign and a few of his staffers from his tenure in the Senate. NYT’s exoneration occurred before new evidence and corroboration from Reade’s family and friends became public knowledge, but NYT has published no follow-ups thus far. The Times’ take on the allegations against Biden represents a 180-degree spin from their coverage of the claims against Brett Kavanaugh; this same newspaper ran with the claims of Dr. Ford, Julie Swetnick and Michael Avenatti on face value, while piling onto the character assassination against the future Supreme Court Justice and putting due process on the back burner. 

First of all, anyone who has watched Joe Biden’s behavior over the years could easily question his treatment of women. There are numerous videos of his inappropriately touching women and children around him.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today with the following information about The New York Times ‘investigation’:

The New York Times has issued a statement slamming the talking points being sent around by Joe Biden’s campaign claiming that the newspaper cleared him of the sexual assault allegations by his former staffer.

…The New York Times article did not clear Biden or deem the allegation uncredible.

The article they have been referencing, “Examining Tara Reade’s Sexual Assault Allegation Against Joe Biden,” actually states that “a friend said that Ms. Reade told her the details of the allegation at the time. Another friend and a brother of Ms. Reade’s said she told them over the years about a traumatic sexual incident involving Mr. Biden.”

The mainstream media will do all it can to make this scandal go away without it being investigated. The people who pay attention to the media that actually reports things will have the information they need to make an informed decision on the matter. The coverage of these charges is only one example of things that cause division in America.

Sometimes Justice Takes A Long Time

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at Just The News detailing some new information in the investigation of General Michael Flynn. People who have followed this story closely have had doubts about the charges against the General from the beginning.

The article reports:

A senior FBI official’s handwritten notes from the earliest days of the Trump administration expressed concern that the bureau might be “playing games” with a counterintelligence interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to get him to lie so “we could prosecute him or get him fired.”

The notes and other emails were provided to Flynn’s lawyers under seal last week and released Wednesday night by court order, providing the most damning evidence to date of potential politicalization and misconduct inside the FBI during the Russia probe.

The notes show FBI officials discussed not providing Flynn a Miranda-like warning before his January 2017 interview — a practice normally followed in such interviews — so that he could be charged with a crime if he misled the agents, the officials said.

The article includes a link to all of the FBI notes that were recently unsealed.

This is one of the notes:

“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?,” the handwritten notes of the senior official say. The notes express further concern the FBI might be “playing games.”

The fact that they were even discussing the idea of getting General Flynn fired does not say good things about their motives.

The article includes other evidence that the interview with General Flynn might have been a set-up to frame him and have him removed from office:

Among the new evidence released Wednesday night is an email chain involving former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and Strzok, the lead agent in the Russia probe known as Crossfire Hurricane. In the email exchange, the two and others discuss whether the FBI has to follow its normal rules and give Flynn the customary “1001 warning” at the start of his interview that if he misled agents he could be charged criminally.

“I have a question for you,” Page wrote in an email that included Strzok. “Could the admonition re 1001 be given at the beginning at the interview? Or does it have to come following a statement which agents believed to be false? Does this policy speak to that?

She added: “It seems to be if the former then it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in, Of course you know sir federal law makes it a crime to…”

A while later, Page gets an emailed response: “I haven’t read the policy lately, but if I recall correctly, you can say it any time. I’m 90 percent sure about that, but I can check in the a.m.”

The mere fact that FBI agents were using phrase like “slip that in” when talking about a warning designed to protect someone’s constitutional rights is certain to give Flynn’s lawyers more fodder to argue in court that his January 2017 interview was a set up as Powell has argued,

The people behind this operation need to be in jail. They have totally mishandled the trust the government placed in them to execute equal justice under the law.

Just for the record– so far none of this news has shown up on the Drudge Report. I am wondering how the mainstream media will report it (assuming they will report it).

This Is A Real Story–It’s Not Satire

The quest to be Joe Biden’s running mate is getting interesting. One of the people that is said to be in the running is Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Her handling of the coronavirus has made the news more than once. At one point (I don’t know if this is still in force), Michigan residents were forbidden to leave their primary residences to go to their second homes. They weren’t allowed to work, but they weren’t allowed to go to their lake house and chill. They were also prevented from buying seeds to plant a garden.

One America News posted an article about Governor Whitmer yesterday. What you are about to read is not a joke.

The article reports:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said former vice president Joe Biden has been counseling her on how to handle the coronavirus in her state.

In an interview Monday, Whitmer praised her “good relationship” with Biden by saying she talks to him often about how to “communicate with people” about the pandemic.

This comes as many are speculating that Whitmer may be on the short-list of candidates that Biden is considering to be his running mate.

“I have a good relationship with the (former) vice president, he came and helped me a bit when I was running for governor,” she stated. “We’re cut from a similar cloth…he loves people, he is regularly checking in with me about what’s going on here in Michigan and what do we need.”

Is this the same Joe Biden that couldn’t even stay awake during the video of Hillary Clinton’s endorsement of him? Wow.

The article continues:

When asked about rumors she may be on Biden’s short-list, she said “you don’t run for that” and anyone he’s considering should focus on just “doing their jobs.”

You have to give the lady credit–she has obviously learned to lie with a straight face.

This Is A Problem

CNS News posted an article today about a recent comment by Mayor DeBlasio of New York City.

The article reports:

“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is simple: the time for warnings has passed,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Tuesday, declaring a Jewish funeral he saw “absolutely unacceptable.”

“I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups, de Blasio tweeted, explaining that he had been so offended by news of a Jewish funeral service for a New York City rabbi that he personally went to it to break it up:

“Something absolutely unacceptable happened in Williamsburg tonite: a large funeral gathering in the middle of this pandemic. When I heard, I went there myself to ensure the crowd was dispersed. And what I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the Coronavirus”

I wonder if he would have worded it the same way if it were a Muslim gathering, or an Italian-American gathering, or an Irish-American gathering.

New York City has been hit hard by the coronavirus, and I understand the Mayor’s concern, but I am very troubled by the way he voiced his concern. New York City’s biggest problem with the coronavirus has been in nursing homes, particularly after the Mayor forced them to admit patients who had the coronavirus. I suspect the people gathering for the funeral were probably much safer than the people in nursing homes that he willingly exposed to the coronavirus. Specifically citing the Jewish community in his statement can easily be described as antisemitism and has no place in government.

Every Now And Then The Truth Slips Out

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that brings up a very interesting question.

The question is found in a tweet from Kentucky representative Thomas Massie. Here is the tweet:

That is a really good question. The article then provides an insightful answer. The article is very complex, so I suggest you follow the link to read the entire article. However, I will post some excerpts here.

The article notes:

Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.

In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.

The article explains that elected representatives are no longer writing bills:

Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.

Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.

The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.

These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.

In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.

Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.

The article explains how the election of President Trump temporarily flummoxed the system:

President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.

The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.

Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.

Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.

No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.

This is a system that needs to be permanently broken.

Most Parents Already Knew This

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a study released Monday by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute. The study shows the complete failure of the Common Core academic standards to educate American children.

The article reports:

A study released Monday by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute reveals a historic drop in national reading and math scores among U.S. students since the adoption of the Common Core Curriculum Standards a decade ago.

“Nearly a decade after states adopted Common Core, the empirical evidence makes it clear that these national standards have yielded underwhelming results for students,” said Pioneer executive director Jim Stergios in a statement. “The proponents of this expensive, legally questionable policy initiative have much to answer for.”

The study, titled “The Common Core Debacle” and authored by education policy researcher Theodor Rebarber, asserts the “shocking trends” in American student performance in critical math and reading skills since the creation of the U.S. Education Department 40 years ago recommends reevaluation of federal involvement in education.

Performance in reading and math since the adoption of Common Core has especially declined in the nation’s lowest-achieving students – many of whom come from low-income families and failing public schools – widening the achievement gap and creating further inequality.

Supporters of Common Core, however, touted the Obama-era federally incentivized standards would be “rigorous” and also “level the playing field.” The Common Core State Standards Initiative boasted that the standards are “important” because:

[h]igh standards that are consistent across states provide teachers, parents, and students with a set of clear expectations to ensure that all students have the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life upon graduation from high school, regardless of where they live. … The standards promote equity by ensuring all students are well prepared to collaborate and compete with their peers in the United States and abroad.

Rebarber observed, however, that while national fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores were rising at about half a point each year from 2003 to 2013, since that time, reading scores have dropped.

One of the unintended consequences of Common Core is that many parents are getting involved in their children’s education after being alarmed at what they are being taught and what they are not being taught.

The article notes:

“Several of us allied with Pioneer Institute have been pointing out, ever since it was introduced, the deeply flawed educational assumptions that permeate the Common Core and the many ways in which it is at odds with curriculum standards in top-achieving countries,” Rebarber said.

In the wake of the Common Core “debacle,” a national organization of parents has risen and is calling for an end to federal involvement in education and a return to policy-making at the local level.

United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) has produced Truth and Lies in American Education, a film focused on what the coalition of parents says is “the scheme behind the workforce development model of education and liberal indoctrination of children in government schools”

…“The sustained decline we’re now seeing, especially among our most vulnerable students, simply cannot be allowed to continue,” Rebarber also said.

“It’s time for federal law to change to allow states as well as local school districts to try a broader range of approaches to reform,” he added. “With a more bottom-up approach, more school systems will have the opportunity to choose curricula consistent with our international competitors and many decades of research on effective classroom teaching.”

It’s time for parents to take back their children’s education. Some of the states that claim to have removed Common Core have simply renamed it. Teach your children phonics,  and teach them to ‘carry the one.’

 

 

No Longer Fair And Balanced

“Fair and Balanced” has been the slogan of Fox News since it began in 1996. Unfortunately, as the children have taken the management over from their father, the station is no longer quite as fair and balanced as it used to be.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday reporting that Fox News reportedly cut ties with social media personalities Diamond & Silk after the pair stirred controversy over incorrect comments about the novel coronavirus. Actually I am not sure anyone on the news is currently making accurate comments about the coronavirus.

Diamond & Silk are Trump supporters who are entertaining and funny. They do not claim to be scientists. They are as entitled to their opinion on the coronavirus as much as anyone else is. I believe that they are being censored not because of their comments about the coronavirus but because of their support of President Trump.

The article reports:

“After what they’ve said and tweeted you won’t be seeing them on Fox Nation or Fox News anytime soon,” a source with knowledge of the situation said according to The Daily Beast.

Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.

The siblings came under fire after saying on March 30 that the number of Americans who have died from the novel coronavirus is being misreported to make President Donald Trump look bad, The Daily Beast reported.

They also accused billionaire Bill Gates of being involved with the virus on April 10 during a livestream, saying he has pushed for “population control,” the publication reported. Diamond & Silk said they would not be taking any vaccine that Gates was involved in producing, according to The Daily Beast.

Just for the record, Bill Gates is an advocate of population control and is one of the major fund sources for the World Health Organization. It may be that Diamond & Silk were fired because some of what they were saying was a little too close to the truth.

Internet Censorship Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a Laura Ingraham interview with Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi about what they have learned about the coronavirus through their testing and what they believe about what measures should be taken to prevent the spread of the virus.

The article includes the following video:

The doctors had originally placed a video on YouTube explaining what they have learned, but YouTube took that video down. The video was taken down because it did not agree with official WHO policy (which incidentally does not have a great track record for being truthful or helpful).

The article at The Gateway Pundit reports:

Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi said their facilities have tested over 5,200 patients for the coronavirus throughout the county, making up for over half of all testing in Kern County. According to their data, the death rate of the coronavirus is similar in prevalence to the flu. And they believe only the sick and elderly should be quarantined and that businesses should open. They also revealed that the state of California is pressuring doctors to pad the COVID-19 numbers.

These two doctors are not the only medical professionals stating that the nationwide lockdown is not the answer. It is becoming obvious to many medical professionals and many others that we have made a mistake by shutting down the entire country and need to reopen it.

The article at The Gateway Pundit also includes a longer video by Dr. Erickson explaining what the doctors have learned about the virus and why they believe that the current lockdown is not the right way to protect Americans.

This Is A Very Strange Story

Remember when the media was blaming President Trump for the death of the man in Arizona who died from drinking fish tank cleaner? Well, he did die from drinking fish tank cleaner, but there are a lot of details surrounding his death that somehow have been overlooked in the major media.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article on Friday about some details that were somehow left out of the mainstream media.

The article notes:

But friends of 68-year-old Gary Lenius, the Arizona man who passed away last month from drinking a fish tank cleaner that contained an ingredient, chloroquine phosphate, that Trump had touted as a potential coronavirus cure, say they are still struggling to understand what drove an engineer with an extensive science background to do something so wildly out of character.

These people describe Lenius as intelligent and levelheaded, not prone to the sort of reckless and impulsive behavior he reportedly engaged in on the day he died. This account is based on interviews with three people who knew Lenius well and paints a picture of a troubled marriage characterized by Wanda Lenius’s explosive anger.

The article goes on to detail some of Wanda Lenius’s destructive behavior toward her husband–destroying his aircraft model collection that represented hours of work to create and at one time breaking husband’s laptop screen, allegedly because she was angry he had updated the Windows software on her computer.

The article notes:

In a phone interview with the Free Beacon, Wanda said she and her husband had seen President Trump praise a drug called chloroquine on the news, citing preliminary studies that showed it could be a promising treatment for coronavirus. She said she remembered purchasing a jar of “chloroquine phosphate” years before to clean a fish tank.

The powder form of the drug is sold by aquarium suppliers and is used to treat viral outbreaks in large fish tanks. She told the Free Beacon she had mentioned this to her husband “and he kind of laughed at me, you know. It was just a regular conversation.”

She said she didn’t think about chloroquine again until a few days later, March 22, when Lenius confessed to her that he had hurt his leg while riding his new dirt bike and might have to go see a doctor.

“I’d already stocked the house with groceries and extra dog food and everything was set. We were ready to self-isolate,” said Wanda. “He didn’t want to tell me that he got hurt bad because he knew I was upset. I didn’t want him to ride a motorcycle, he was 68 and I didn’t want him getting hurt.”

Wanda Lenius said her husband was planning to schedule a doctor’s appointment to have his leg looked at and the couple worried he might pick up coronavirus at the clinic. That’s when, she said, she reached for the fish tank cleaner in her pantry.

There is no way of knowing if Wanda Lenius knew that her actions would result in her husband’s death. However, it was a really, really dumb thing to do. I suspect the friends of the couple have their own ideas of what the truth is, but I suspect we will never really know if Wanda Lenius understood exactly what she was doing.

The Details Of The Soft Coup Against President Trump Are Slowing Emerging

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article connecting a lot of the dots in the soft coup attempt against President Trump. It is a long article with a lot of screen shots to support the claims it is making. I suggest that you follow the link to the article as it would be impossible to summarize it here. However, there are a few noteworthy points I would like to share.

The article reports:

Former HPSCI Chairman, and current HPSCI ranking member, Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss several matters of importance.  One of the critical topics touched is the ongoing investigations of Obama era intelligence and political surveillance via the DOJ-NSD FBI, CIA, DNI and State Dept.

Representative Nunes hits the key point when he highlights current redactions and current decisions to classify ongoing investigative documents.  It is critically important to accept this reality. There are current intelligence officers and career officials in place hiding material by labeling evidence as classified.  A recent example was the December 9, 2019, inspector general report about the manipulation of FISA.

There is a video embedded in the article that gives an example of the actions being taken to prevent the truth from coming out.

The article concludes:

Politico, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post are all implicated in the James Wolfe leak to Ali Watkins. They had the FISA information since March 2017, yet those media outlets were disingenuously falsifying their reporting on the actual content of the FISA application despite their actual knowledge.

Remember all of the media denials about what Devin Nunes wrote in the “Nunes memo”? Remember the media proclaiming the Steele Dossier was not part of the FISA application?

How was the media fifteen months later (July 2018) going to report on the Wolfe leak to Watkins without admitting they had been manufacturing stories about its content for the past year-and-a-half?

It was in the media’s interest NOT to cover, or dig into, the Wolfe story.

Additionally, from both the DOJ and Media perspective, coverage of the Wolfe leak would prove the senate intel committee (SSCI) was, at a minimum, a participating entity in the coup effort. That same SSCI is responsible for oversight over the CIA, FBI, DOJ-NSD, ODNI, DNI, and all intelligence agencies.

Worse yet, all officers within those agencies require confirmation from the SSCI (including Chair and Vice-Chair); and any discussion of the Wolfe leak would highlight the motive for ongoing corruption within the SSCI in blocking those nominations (see John Ratcliffe).

Stunning ramifications.

There was a clear fork in the road and the DOJ took the path toward a cover-up; which, considering what the DOJ was simultaneously doing with Mueller and the EDVA regarding Assange, is not entirely surprising.

Was that decision wrong? Oh hell yes, it was corrupt as heck. .

Were the decisions done with forethought to coverup gross abuses of government? Yes.

Where the DOJ is today is directly connected to the decisions the DOJ made in 2017 and 2018 to protect themselves and internally corrupt actors from discovery.

It is often said: “the coverup is always worse than the crime.” This is never more true than with these examples, because where we are today… now miles down the path of consequence from those corrupt decisions… is seemingly disconnected from the ability of any institutional recovery. That’s now the issue for Bill Barr.

If Bill Barr wanted to deal with the issue he would not be telling President Trump to stop talking about the corruption; instead he would be holding a large press conference to explain to the American people about that fork in the road.

That type of honest sunlight delivery means taking people back into the background of the larger story and explaining what decisions were made; with brutal honesty and without trepidation for the consequences, regardless of their severity and regardless of the friends of Bill Barr compromised by the truth.

Here’s a big reason why Bill Barr should take that approach: We Know.

We know; the DOJ trying to hide it doesn’t change our level of information.

Regardless of whether Bill Barr actually admits what surrounds him, there are people who know…

We know….

You know….

AG Bill Barr shouting at President Trump ‘don’t tweet‘ like the Wizard of Oz doesn’t change the fact the curtain has been removed.

Turn around Bill, it’s time to come clean.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. There are many in the government who are still working hard to cover up the truth.

This Really Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

Breitbart posted an article yesterday about what has happened to the crime rates in New York City during the coronavirus lockdown.

The article reports:

While New York City remains under lockdown orders from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, major violent crime continues to soar.

Cuomo implemented stay-at-home orders on March 20 that effectively force the closure of most businesses, except those deemed “essential,” to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Even with the lockdown, major crime categories such as murder, burglary, and auto theft have spiked across New York City.

Over the last 28 days, in the middle of the lockdown, murders in New York City have jumped more than 55 percent compared to this same time last year, when there were no lockdown orders in place.

Between April 13 to April 19, murders increased 100 percent compared to the same week last year. From year-to-date, murders are up by 5.7 percent.

Likewise, grand larceny auto — a crime that no longer warrants bail in New York — has increased more than 53 percent compared to last year. Specifically, there have been 500 charges for auto theft in the last 28 days. During that same time in 2019, there were 326 charges for auto theft.

Actually, I don’t think these numbers are related to the coronavirus at all. The last few paragraphs of the article contain what I believe is the cause of the problem:

The lockdown has dwindled the number of shootings and shooting victims in New York City but the overall year-to-date totals are still up. For instance, the number of shooting victims from January 1 to April 19 has increased 5.5 percent and total shootings have increased 4.1 percent compared to last year.

At the beginning of the year, Cuomo implemented bail reform laws that eliminated bail for suspects accused of second-degree manslaughter, aggravated vehicular assault, third-degree assault, promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child, criminally negligent homicide, aggravated vehicular homicide, and about 100 other crimes.

Simultaneously, Cuomo has ordered the release of thousands of inmates across New York to ensure prisons are abiding by social distancing guidelines. The New York Post has reported that at least 50 of the 1,500 inmates released in New York City have been rearrested for crimes.

When you eliminate bail and let criminals out of jail, bad things happen. The only relationship this has to the coronavirus is that the coronavirus was used as the excuse for letting the criminals out of jail. What is happening in New York City is another example of failed liberal policies.

Americans Need To Understand Exactly What This Means

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported the following:

A Minneapolis neighborhood, which lies in controversial Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s district, will begin broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer five times a day over outdoor loudspeakers throughout the month of Ramadan, reports say.

The move is “believed to be the first publicly-broadcast call to prayer in a major US city,” al Jazeera English said in a post on Twitter.

Americans need to wake up. This is not your friendly neighborhood church playing hymns on their church bells. The goal of Islam is domination over all other religions. The goal is to remove other religions from the earth. Islam is a religion of conversion by force and taking land by force. This is not only letting the camel’s nose into the tent, it is letting half of the camel into the tent.

America was founded as a Christian nation. Our laws are based on the Judeo-Christian principles found in the Bible. We do not discriminate against other religions, but we do not submit to them either. Unfortunately, the goal of Islam is the submission of the population to their rules and their way of life. It’s time for America to wake up. If American women in particular want to maintain the freedoms and independence that they have, they need to speak out strongly against giving ground to Muslim customs.

Blasting the Muslim call to prayer in an American city is not acceptable.

An Alternative View From A Doctor

Dr.

The article states:

The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Dr. Atlas lists five key facts that he feels are being ignored as the lockdown continues:

(the above summation of Dr. Atlas’ statement was posted in The Daily Caller on Friday).

The article at The Hill concludes:

The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation. Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.

It’s time for common sense to make a comeback.

 

 

Things That Are Beginning To Add Up

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail reported that on January 21, 2020, China filed a patent for Remdesivir, one of the drugs being used to treat the coronavirus. January 21st was the day after China confirmed human transmission of the disease.

The article reports:

The revelation that it moved so fast fuels concerns about a cover-up of the pandemic when it erupted in Wuhan last year, and suggests that China’s understanding of the virus was far advanced from the impression given by its public stance.

Last night, Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, joined the growing global clamour for a full, independent inquiry into China’s role.

‘It is quite clear there is an awful lot that we don’t know about the emergence of this disease and the responses to it,’ he said. ‘We all need to learn the lessons of the outbreak so the international community can respond better in the future.’

China’s Communist Party leaders face accusations that they suppressed data, blocked public health teams from investigating, silenced doctors seeking to warn the world about the epidemic and delayed admitting there was human transmission.

We need to remember that in dealing with China, we are dealing with a closed society. The people of China either say and do what the government tells them to say or do or they wind up dead, missing, or in re-education camps. China is in no way a free society, and the information they put out cannot be trusted.

The article concludes:

Professor Martin Landray, a leader of the Oxford study, said doctors would probably end up with a range of drugs to fight the virus, adding: ‘It is unlikely we will get a wonder drug that will knock out the infection.’

Prof Landray said drugs might be used in combinations to help reduce death rates.

He added: ‘Even if you find a drug that reduces the death rate by one fifth, that would have meant we would have been able to save about 4,000 lives already in Britain.’

We need a reliable cure for the coronavirus more than we need a vaccination or a lockdown.

How Convenient

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article reporting the following:

Christopher Steele’s lawyers claimed last year that he had “meticulously documented” his interactions with the main source for the various memos that became known as the Steele dossier. But last month in court, Steele admitted he no longer has any of that documentation. He claims all of it was deleted three years ago.

The article concludes:

Earlier this month, declassified footnotes from IG Horowitz’ report revealed that the FBI believed in 2017 that Steele’s dossier was at least partly based on Russian disinformation. At the time I wrote about it, the exact dates of some of the events in question were still redacted. However, those redactions were later removed. They show that despite evidence the dossier was compromised with misinformation it was used as a key part of a FISA warrant application renewal targeting Trump campaign aide Carter Page. In fact, the FBI never mentioned the potential compromise to the court.

The FBI accused an American citizen of being a foreign agent based on a document which likely contained Russian disinformation. And now we know that any effort to double-check Steele’s work appears to be lost because he deleted all of his own notes and recordings.

Is anyone surprised that Christopher Steele’s notes were deleted? Do you suppose we could find them in a stack under Hillary Clinton’s emails and President Obama’s college records?

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Breitbart is reporting today that Governor Cuomo of New York has ordered election officials to automatically mail New Yorkers a postage-paid absentee ballot application during the coronavirus pandemic. These ballots are for the June primary, but if the idea is carried over to the presidential election, I can now guarantee that Governor Cuomo will be re-elected, Joe Biden will win New York State in the presidential election, and all Democrat members of the state legislature will be reelected by overwhelming majorities.

The article reports:

“I am issuing an Executive Order to ensure every New York voter automatically receives a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot because no New Yorker should have to choose between their health and their right to vote,” the governor continued.

Recently, Cuomo also issued an executive order allowing residents to vote absentee in the June 23 primary election, the announcement noted.

However, the New York GOP called the move an “illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections,” according to Breitbart News.

“The ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has permeated the Governor’s office and Cuomo is using this pandemic as a reason to expand his powers and force his political agenda through,” said chairman Nick Langworthy.

The article concludes:

Nearly 30 million mail-in ballots sent to registered voters went missing in the last four election cycles dating back to 2012, Breitbart News reported.

“In 2012, for instance, more than 33 million mail-in ballots were sent to registered voters. Of those, nearly four million went missing, more than 425,000 were undeliverable, and almost 260,000 were rejected,” the article read.

In a statement, Public Legal Interest Foundation (PILF) President J. Christian Adams called vote-by-mail a “disaster.”

“People who think it works haven’t studied the failures. The facts show mail voting doesn’t work,” he concluded.

This is not the path to an honest election. This is a dry run. If the Governor is successful in doing this, he will push for a mail-in presidential election. If he is successful, New York State will never again have an honest election.

Social Distancing Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today detailing how the country of Sweden has handled the coronavirus outbreak. Sweden tried a totally different path than most of the world, and the results are astonishing.

The article reports:

Reporter Johan Norberg joined Laura Ingraham on Thursday to discuss the Sweden’s ‘controversial’ policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike other Western countries progressive Sweden, of all places, decided to leave their economy running and let the disease run its course while the population reached herd immunity.

The Swedish plan appears to be working.
Sweden, a country of 10 million, now has 2,152 reported coronavirus related deaths.
New York, a state of 19.85 million, now has 20,861 reported coronavirus related deaths.

Sweden is actually seeing better results than several of its European neighbors.

On Thursday Sweden’s chief epidemiologist announced the Swedish strategy appears to be working and that “herd immunity” could be reached in the capital Stockholm in a matter of weeks.

The article concludes with a portion of the transcript of the conversation:

Laura Ingraham: We found out that herd immunity will be reached in about 2-3 weeks in Sweden. I mean, then they’re kind of done.

Johan Norberg: That’s why we shouldn’t make too many comparisons to cases and deaths right now. Because almost every other country except Sweden has just postponed deaths. They won’t avoid them because there is still no argument that has been made that suddenly this disease will go away after their lockdowns are over. I mean if they’re waiting for a vaccine that could take over a year if we’re lucky. It could take several years. And no society can be shut down completely and shut down the economy for more than a year without ruining society and the economy entirely. And that will kill many more people than the virus does.

Herd immunity is the best solution to this virus. It seems that because of our lockdown, we may have delayed reaching that point. However, because we are being told that the virus does not like heat or humidity, the virus may exit the southern United States before the south faces the long term health consequences of the lockdown.

Making It Easier To Deport Criminals

Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about a decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.

The article reports:

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled to make it easier for the federal government to deport lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who have been convicted of serious crimes.

In a 5-4 decision, the top court justices sided against a man who was seeking to cancel deportation orders stemming from firearm and drug offenses. LPRs who are subject to deportation orders can apply to have their removal canceled under a federal immigration law if they meet strict eligibility requirements.

That law gives the attorney general power to cancel the removal of an applicant who has been an LPR for five years and has resided continuously in the United States for seven years, during which time he or she must not have been convicted of an aggravated felony. If an LPR is found to have committed such felonies, a rule called the “stop-time rule” would be triggered. This rule would cause the accrual of the seven-year requirement to pause from the time when the individual commits a crime that renders them “inadmissible.”

The court on Thursday ruled to uphold a lower court decision that found the man ineligible for the discretionary cancellation of his removal because he had committed aggravated assault offenses within the initial seven years of his residency, even though those crimes were not grounds for his deportation.

The ruling is widely viewed as a victory for the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has been running on a platform that pushes for stronger enforcement of national immigration laws.

There is no reason for us to allow criminals who are not Americans to remain in this country. We are perfectly capable of creating enough criminals on our own–we don’t need to take anyone else’s.

It’s Time To Reward Good Behavior

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line about Taiwan. As you know, Taiwan has been shunned by the World Heath Organization (WHO) and other international bodies because of the influence exerted by China.

The article reports:

China’s behavior during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has been disgraceful — marked by deceit and an unwillingness to cooperate with the rest of the world until it was too late. In addition, there’s reason to believe that the virus originated in a Chinese lab that did not meet safety standards.

By contrast, Taiwan’s behavior has been exemplary. According to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., Taiwan has donated more than two million Taiwan-made masks to the U.S. and more than five million to the EU. It plans to donate another five million globally.

Moreover, according to our friend Michael Auslin, Taipei tried early on to warn the World Health Organization that the coronavirus might be transmitted between humans. That body, which is heavily influenced by China, refused to act on these warnings. (To appease China, the WHO refuses membership to Taiwan.) “If the WHO and Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus had acted responsibly, the COVID crisis could have been significantly contained, even in the face of Beijing’s misleading the world about the nature of the virus and the numbers of infections and deaths in China,” says Auslin.

Indeed, Taiwan’s understanding of the virus, along with its experience with the SARS outbreak, enabled Taipei to respond to the outbreak in a highly effective manner and without a lockdown.

…The numbers (from Worldometer) demonstrate the effectiveness of the response. Taiwan has had 427 total cases (184 of them now active) and 6 total deaths.

The article concludes:

Moreover, Taiwan will be a key player if the U.S. diminishes, as we must, our reliance on China for supplies:

For decades, Taiwan has been a leader in the high-tech economy, and will become increasingly important as global supply chains shift away from China, due to China’s maturing economy, President Trump’s trade war and now the coronavirus. It has long been one of the world’s leading producers of advanced semiconductor chips, while Foxconn, one of the major suppliers to the iPhone, has already urged Apple to move its production out of China. As the competition between China and the United States heats up over semiconductors, 5G and artificial intelligence, a closer tech relationship between American and Taiwanese firms should be a priority.

I agree with Auslin that the U.S. should use its budgetary power to get Taiwan full membership in international groups such as Interpol and the International Civil Aviation Organization. We should also the leverage our $400 million contribution to the WHO, the world’s largest, to force WHO’s member states to invite Taiwan into the organization.

Taiwan never should have been exiled from the world. As Auslin concludes, “it’s long past time to bring Taiwan in from the cold.”

Taiwan is a successful democracy. The only reason they are blocked from joining various international organizations is the influence of China. China does not acknowledge their existence as a separate country and at some point in the not-to-distant future will attempt to take them over. China wants to take freedom away from Taiwan just as it took freedom away from Hong Kong (after promising not to). It is time to show Taiwan the respect and acceptance into the world body of nations that it deserves.

This Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Sad

Fox News posted an article about some recently declassified documents today that really makes me wonder about the wisdom of choosing Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee for President.

The article reports:

Usama bin Laden wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama so that the “totally unprepared” Joe Biden would take over as president and plunge the United States “into a crisis,” according to documents seized from bin Laden’s Pakistan compound when he was killed in May 2011.

The secretive documents, first reported in 2012 by The Washington Post, outlined a plan to take out Obama and top U.S. military commander David Petraeus as they traveled by plane.

“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency,” bin Laden wrote to a top deputy. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden specifically wanted fellow terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri to shoot down Obama.

“Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to the top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Kashmiri wouldn’t get too far along in the plot, however; he was killed in 2011 in a U.S. drone strike shortly after bin Laden himself was shot to death by Navy SEALs.

I guess Joe Biden’s reputation internationally is not too wonderful.

I Totally Agree

Yesterday the U.K Daily Mail posted an article about some recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Senator made it clear that the federal government was going to help the states with financial problems caused by the shutdown of the economy but not with financial problems caused by bad management.

The article reports:

Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he is OK with states going bankrupt instead of increasing federal bailouts even further – as Democrats demand more money for state and local governments be included in the next coronavirus relief bill.

‘My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that,’ McConnell lamented.

‘That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of,’ he continued in an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt Wednesday.

‘I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,’ the Kentucky Republican senator said. ‘It saves some cities. And there’s no good reason for it not to be available.’

Many of the states looking for bailouts need bailouts because of unfunded liabilities such as pension funds and retiree medical expenses. The only way these problems are related to the coronavirus is that there is reduction of tax revenue coming in. However, these problems were eventually going to occur with or without the coronavirus.

The article notes:

He also insisted, however, that he didn’t want to send money to states just to have them used the money to bail themselves out of preexisting issues, like a pileup of pension debts.

‘You know, we’ll certainly insist that anything we’d borrow to send down to the states is not spent on solving problems that they created for themselves over the years with their pension programs,’ McConnell told Hewitt.

‘There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations,’ he continued.

The Senate Majority Leader said he knows that states’ would rather have money given to them by the federal government in another large-scale coronavirus stimulus package.

I agree with Senator McConnell. Each state is responsible for its own financial situation. That’s part of what federalism is about. States who have managed spending better will come through this crisis in better shape. It is my guess that states that have consistently mismanaged money and raised taxes will have people moving out of their states in the coming months.

How To Write A Report Without Actually Saying Anything

When I heard about the article in The New York Times that proclaimed that a Republican-led Senate panel has issued a report that “undercuts claims by President Trump and his allies that Obama-era officials sought to undermine his candidacy by investigating Russia’s 2016 election meddling,” I wondered how that was possible considering the recently declassified information relating to Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Well Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review yesterday that cleared that up for me. First of all I would like to state that I believe that the Senate Intelligence Committee is one of the most corrupt and leaky groups in Washington. They have been caught leaking fake news on more than one occasion. At any rate, Andrew McCarthy explained in his article exactly what was said in the report and what was not said in the report.

The article notes:

In truth, the story is a nothing-burger. We learn that one of the most useless committees on Capitol Hill, the Senate Intelligence Committee, has issued a 158-page report — festooned with the usual “there are things we can’t tell you” redactions — as a capper to its three-year investigation into a question no one is asking: Did the intelligence community competently conclude that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign?

No one is asking that question because, for the vast majority of people closely following the collusion caper, that would be like asking whether the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.

We know Russia interfered in our campaign. Given Moscow’s long history of meddling in American politics, it would only have been a story if Russia did not meddle. The principal argument by President Trump and other intelligence agency critics has not been that Obama officials undermined Trump’s candidacy and presidency “by investigating Russia’s 2016 election meddling.” The argument is that they undermined Trump’s campaign and presidency by claiming that Trump and his campaign were complicit in Russia’s 2016 election meddling.

On that key question the Useless Committee is, as is its custom, mum.

They also punted on another key question:

The real question is whether the Obama administration and its officials held over by the new administration fabricated a tale about the Trump campaign’s complicity in Russia’s hacking. Did they peddle that tale to the FISA court while willfully concealing key exculpatory evidence? Did they continue the investigation under the guise of counterintelligence after Trump was elected, in the hope of finding a crime over which he could be impeached? Did they consciously mislead an American president about whether he was under investigation? Did they purposefully suggest in public testimony that the president was a criminal suspect, while privately assuring him that he was not one? And finally, when the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense was collapsing in a heap, did they open a criminal obstruction case — based on an untenable legal theory and facilitated by a leak of investigative information that was orchestrated by the just-fired FBI director — in order to justify continuing the probe under the auspices of a special counsel?

On these questions, the Useless Committee’s report is silent. Indeed, the report says right up front, in the findings section, that the intelligence agencies, over the FBI’s objection, did not include information from the infamous Steele dossier in its December 30, 2016, assessment on Russian interference — though, “as a compromise to the FBI insistence,” dossier allegations were included in an annex to the assessment. The Senate-report findings do not get into why the FBI was pushing so hard on the preposterous dossier. Nor do they mention that, by the time of the assessment, the bureau had already heavily relied on the dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant from the FISA court, and was even then preparing a submission to get yet another warrant — telling the federal judges the bureau believed that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Andrew McCarthy explains how a 158-page report can say absolutely nothing. It is not a coincidence that this report was released just as declassified documents are showing illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign and administration and we are awaiting the Dunbar report. This report is a pre-emptive strike put out by the political class in Washington.

Sometimes The News Is Just Silly

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a recent comment made by a CBS news anchor. It is an amazing comment.

The article reports:

CBS This Morning anchor and Barack Obama donor Gayle King gushed over Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams on Tuesday morning, saying the former state legislator and failed gubernatorial candidate is “extremely qualified” to be vice president of the United States.

Abrams is openly lobbying to serve as Joe Biden’s running mate come November, despite never being elected to any office beyond the state legislature. As she touted her voting rights work and “competence and skills and willingness to serve,” King cut in to praise her as ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

“That’s a great nuts and bolts answer because everybody knows you’re extremely qualified,” King said. “I’m looking for something about Stacey Abrams the person. Why is she a good choice and have you had any talks at all with the Biden team?”

What is the world are her qualifications? The article notes that Abrams has never held a position higher than House minority leader in the Georgia legislature. It also notes that she told Elle magazine in an article published April 15 that her credentials for vice president included “25 years in independent study of foreign policy.” Exactly what does that mean?

The article also notes:

Outside of her political career, Abrams is a noted romance novelist, publishing several books under the pen name “Selena Montgomery.” CBS is currently adapting one of her novels, Never Tell, into a TV drama.

Keep in mind that if Joe Biden is the Democrat nominee for President, his choice of running mate is extremely important. The videos Joe Biden is making in his basement don’t show a man who would be able to handle the job of president, so it is likely his vice-president will assume the office sometime during his first term if Joe Biden is elected. Stacy Abrams may be a very nice person, but she has never actually run a business or exhibited leadership skills. Her claim to fame is that the Georgia gubernatorial election was stolen from her by suppressed voter turnout when the numbers actually show increased voter turnout. No objective person looking at her resume would in any way describe her as extremely qualified.