Monthly Archives: July 2020

This Could Be Very Informative And Very Sickening

Posted on by

The U.K. Daily Mail is reporting today that Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan ruled on Thursday to unseal more than 80 documents that Ghislaine Maxwell had wanted to keep under wraps. These documents include flight logs, police reports, communications between Ms. Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts Giuffre made allegations against Jeffrey Epstein, and a 2016 deposition in which Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers claim she was asked intrusive questions about her sex life.

The article reports:

A judge today has ordered the unsealing of a vast tranche of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, which could shed light on his friendship with powerful men accused of having sex with his victims.

Judge Loretta Preska said that 80 documents – which will run to hundreds of pages – should be made public within a week.

The documents will include depositions from Ghislaine Maxwell, which could explain her alleged role in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

They could include details about Maxwell’s sex life that her lawyers have previously tried to stop from being released, relating to a seven-hour, 418-page deposition Maxwell gave which her legal team said was ‘extremely personal, confidential’.

In filings Maxwell’s lawyers have called the depositions a ‘series of (efforts) to compel Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life’.

The documents will also include communications between Maxwell and Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts made explosive allegations about them in court papers.

In the papers Roberts claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was just 17 at Epstein’s command. 

The case is separate from the criminal proceedings against Maxwell, 58, who is accused by federal prosecutors of procuring girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse. She has pleaded not guilty and is due to stand trial next year.

She is innocent until proven guilty, but I have a feeling that a lot of young girls could have been saved a lot of pain if she and Jeffrey Epstein had been brought to trial when the charges against them first came to light.

Elections Have Consequences

Posted on by

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about the recent Democrat primary races in New York State.

The article reports:

A half-dozen insurgent candidates in Brooklyn and Queens — some backed by the Democratic Socialists of America — toppled veteran incumbents in Democratic primary races, including close allies of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx).

With Heastie’s backing, the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee poured more than $400,000 combined to prop up 46-year veteran Joe Lentol, Felix Ortiz and Walter Mosley in Brooklyn and Aravella Simotas, Michael Den Dekker and Michael Miller in Queens.

They all lost.

Insurgent Zohran Mamdani, who defeated four-term incumbent Simotas in the 36th Assembly District covering Astoria, said in a tweet: “Socialism won.”

He was endorsed by the DSA.

The DACC donated $125,000 to Simotas’ re-election campaign.

So what does this mean for the State of New York? Emily Gallagher, one of the socialists elected stated, “I’m ready to get to work.” She has already stated that she would push to raise income taxes on the “top one percent” to preserve services, adding, “We need the revenue to survive.” Someone needs to tell her about the Laffer Curve.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, five other progressive Democrats backed by the WFP (Working Families Party) and other progressive groups are expected to win open Assembly seats.

The newcomers are expected to raise hell, but Albany watchers said the jury is out on how much impact they will have in a body with more than 100 Democrats — including many moderates representing suburban and upstate districts.

“Clearly the candidates who won have a more liberal, progressive agenda,” said University of Albany political science professor Bruce Gyory.

He said he believes Heastie’s position as speaker is secure.

Heastie personally called all the winning insurgents to congratulate them.

All the candidates are running in heavily Democratic districts and are expected to prevail in the general election.

There is actually some good news here. A group is arising out of the Democrat party that will eventually form a third party (to the left of traditional Democrats). As the results of their policies become obvious, they will lose votes. If any of the tax increases and other policies of these recently elected Democrats are put in place, I predict that New York State will lose its tax base.

According to a Forbes Magazine article in January 2020, New York was already leading the nation in the number of people leaving the state:

Actually, I am surprised that California did not make the top ten states losing population.

 

Posted on by

The following was pasted on Facebook by a friend of mine who does very good research:

Just the Facts:
Before you attack anything in this post please understand that I did research at the Smithsonian Institute and the US Census Bureau. I also researched from several historical publications, Harvard university, Oxford university, the transatlantic slave trade database, slavevoyages-org, and a few others.
Information regarding the current slave trade came from the US Department of Defense, the US State Department, the united nations, amnesty international, and a confidential paper on Russian mining.
——
History:
The historical African slave trade operated from the discovery of the New World until 1808 with a recorded exception being the slave ship “Clotilda” in 1860. There were more than 32,000 voyages that delivered more than 10 million captive slaves to the Americas.
Of the more than 10 million captive African slaves, less than 310,000 were brought to North America in what is now the USA and Canada. The vast majority went to South America and the Caribbean. More than 900,000 went to Jamaica. The first delivery of captive slaves in North America was in 1619 but slaves had been brought to the Caribbean for about 100 years before that time.
The largest slave importer in Jamaica was an ancestor of Senator Kamala Harris. Ms. Harris, contrary to her claims, does not have any verified American slaves in her ancestry. But she has at least five slaveowners in her ancestry.
Of all the Black people living in America who were born here, less than 6% can document their ancestry to people who were slaves in the United States. That is less than 1% of the current US population.
More than half of black Americans claiming to be descendants of slaves trace their slave history back to the Caribbean, including to Kamala Harris’s Jamaica.
——-
In today’s world the countries exporting the most slaves are North Korea and China. North Korea sends about 20,000 people to Russia every year to work in the Russian mines. China sends about double that amount. Of all of the people sent every year to Russia from North Korea and China the only documentation I could find showed less than 10 people (eight) ever returned to China.

A College That Has Chosen To Follow The Law

Posted on by

Yesterday The Daily Signal reported the following:

The Citadel, the public military college in Charleston, South Carolina, has announced it will require all cadets to complete a class on the U.S. Constitution and other founding documents beginning in the 2020-21 academic year.

The article notes that South Carolina has a law requiring teaching of the Constitution and other founding documents that has been in place for 96 years.

The article reports:

The Citadel’s decision to comply with the law is in stark contrast to most other colleges in South Carolina that have flouted and balked at the law.

For example, the University of South Carolina—the state’s largest public college—called the law “archaic” and refused to comply with it. The university said a required class on the Constitution is too financially burdensome—yet somehow manages to finance classes on the history of the devil and Tailgating 101.

Instead of complying with the law’s mandate of a yearlong class, the University of South Carolina said it hands out pocket Constitutions on Constitution Day. The university has not said whether a student can pass Tailgating 101 by being handed a hot dog at a football game.

Similarly, Clemson University—the state’s second-largest public college—pretends to comply with the law by requiring students to watch a one-hour video about the Constitution as a single module within its freshman diversity class. Clemson claims the video is a sufficient equivalent to the law’s mandate of a yearlong class.

Concerned about the “optics” of breaking state law, Clemson has sent taxpayer-funded lobbyists to the state Legislature to “kill” the requirement to teach the Constitution.

Has it occurred to any of the esteemed college presidents who choose not to follow the law that one of the reasons for the lack of appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans might be the lack of knowledge of the Constitution and the the founding documents of America? Has it occurred to any of the esteemed college presidents that their students have no idea of the price the signers of the Declaration of Independence paid for their signatures on that document?

I am the daughter of a Clemson graduate who attended the school when it was a military college. When my father graduated, he was shipped to Europe as part of the D-Day landing. That is the heritage of Clemson. They need to remember that heritage and teach what their graduates fought for.

Taking A Necessary Action In Regard To China

Posted on by

The tension between America and China is growing. There are reports out of China that the Chinese Communists are preparing to move on Taiwan. Many people assumed that after Hong Kong was brought under control, Taiwan would be the next step. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ordered the closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

Just the News posted an article about the closing of the consulate today.

The article reports:

The Trump administration said Wednesday that it has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston “to protect American intellectual property,” the most recent episode in a growing divide between the two governments over such concerns as trade, the coronavirus, human rights and security.

The article concludes:

Firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry, according to Houston news media reports.

The consulate was informed Tuesday of the decision, according to the Associated Press.

The Chinese foreign ministry reportedly called the move “an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.”

The ministry is also warning about countermeasures, the wire service also reports. The U.S. has an embassy in China and reportedly five consulates on the mainland.

Unfortunately, the relationship between America and China will probably get worse before it gets better. China has suffered economically because of the coronavirus and needs an enemy to unite its people as its economy suffers. The move on Hong Kong did not really draw a strong response from western countries, so they may be willing to gamble that this is the time to end Taiwan as a separate country. Stay tuned.

Things That Cause Division In Our Country

Posted on by

The New York Post posted an article yesterday about the role the media played during the Russia scandal.

The article reports:

Despite what The New York Times and Washington Post were loudly reporting in early 2017, the FBI had failed to find any evidence of Trump-Russia “collusion” — and indeed had found that the central source of those claims was a joke.

This is a key takeaway from the Justice Department’s latest release of documents from the FBI’s investigation.

One shocker is the summary of the long FBI interview that January with the “Primary Subsource” for the infamous Steele dossier — indeed, about the only source.

The FBI had learned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid for British ex-spy Christopher Steele to produce dirt on Donald Trump, and the resulting dossier was pretty much the entire basis for any investigation (barring gossip about a drunken conversation with an on-paper-only Trump adviser).

And now Steele’s “factual” source admitted, essentially, to simply repackaging rumors — some of them from Internet “research.”

Yet the nation’s two most prestigious papers were reporting that the FBI was finding a treasure trove of scandal.

Such as a Feb. 14, 2017, Times piece declaring, “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

Ha! A memo from Trump-hating (now ex-) FBI man Peter Strzok shows that story was garbage: “We have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with” intelligence officials. The story also said top FBI officials trusted Steele, when they’d learned he was full of it.

Think about the impact this dishonest reporting has had on the American political discourse. Half the country believes that President Trump has some sort of arrangement with the Russians. That half of the country considers themselves well-informed because they read The New York Times or The Washington Post. The other half of the country has been reading the media that has been reporting on the classified documents that have been de-classified and understands that the accusations of Russian collusion are not true. We have entered a topsy-turvy world when the people we should trust to keep us informed are lying to us and the honest investigative reporting is left to the alternative media. I am reminded of the scene in “Men in Black” where the agents pick up the tabloids to find out what is actually going on. Unfortunately, dishonest reporting is a threat to our republic. The job of the media in a republic is to inform the voters so that they can make informed choices when they vote. Our mainstream media has forgotten (or abdicated) their responsibility.

CCTA Backs The Blue

Posted on by

The Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association held their first Back the Blue event this morning outside City Hall in New Bern, North Carolina. There were about thirty people holding signs supporting our local police. The group then moved to Union Point Park where various elected officials spoke–Representative Michael Speciale, Senator Norman Sanderson, and New Bern Chief of Police, Toussaint Summers. There were a number of other speakers with law enforcement backgrounds who expressed their gratitude to the group for their support. The featured speaker was Mark Robinson, a candidate for Lt. Governor.

Mark Robinson spoke about the need for conservatives to get involved in government in a positive way. We need to participate not only by voting, but by serving on school committees and various other government entities.

 

The CCTA will hold an event at 7 pm at Stanly Hall tonight to honor some of the outstanding policemen from our area.

 

Putting An End To A Really Bad Idea

Posted on by

Breitbart reported yesterday that President Trump has announced that his administration is moving forward to eliminate the AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) rule. I wrote about this rule on July 1 (article here). The goal of the rule is to end single-family housing in the suburbs.

The article at Breitbart reports:

During his remarks last Thursday, the president targeted the disastrous Obama rule.

“The Democrats in D.C. have been and want to, at a much higher level, abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs by placing far-left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions,” Trump said on the White House South Lawn. “They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations that you read about today. Your home will go down in value, and crime rates will rapidly rise.”

Trump continued:

Joe Biden and his bosses from the radical left want to significantly multiply what they’re doing now. And what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs. Suburbia will be no longer as we know it. So, they wanted to defund and abolish your police and law enforcement while at the same time destroying our great suburbs.

“The suburb destruction will end with us,” the president said, adding:

Next week, I will be discussing the AFFH rule — AFFH rule, a disaster — and our plans to protect the suburbs from being obliterated by Washington Democrats, by people on the far left that want to see the suburbs destroyed, that don’t care. People have worked all their lives to get into a community, and now they’re going to watch it go to hell. Not going to happen, not while I’m here.

The article concludes:

The AFFH rule is a bald-faced federal government takeover of every community. By using its power to approve banking and funding, the federal government would have the ability to tell suburban areas who will be allowed to live in their neighborhoods and what kind of homes they can build to force immigrant and low-income residents into every neighborhood. In the end, the rule would destroy wealth and lower property values. It would also tend to undermine any bastion of conservative voters by injecting government-dependent voters into every single American community.

Ending this rule is a welcome idea to those who imagine that the federal government should not be telling people how to build their communities.

Notice that this is a government program–not a law passed by Congress. It is time we went back to the idea that laws are passed by Congress–not created by un-elected government bureaucracies.

I Really Have My Doubts About This As Positive Parenting

Posted on by

Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about an interview with Ali Wentworth, wife of George Stephanopoulos.

Here are some parenting tips put forth in the interview:

In a recent podcast interview with Will & Grace’s Debra Messing, comedian Ali Wentworth – who has been married to George Stephanopoulos since 2001 – opened up about her insane parenting methods involving educating her kids about pornography. 

There’s the normal strategy of staying vigilant as a parent and educating them about the dangers of this corruptive, and addictive medium, which profits off of violent exploitation of women and has been linked to sex trafficking. Then there’s what Mrs. George Stephanopoulos told her Hollywood friend — watching porn with her children.

…Wentworth, who has two daughters with the Good Morning America anchor, claimed, “You can’t stop them, so I would watch it with them. I would look at the porn with them that one time, like, ‘They’re performing.’” Oh that’s wonderful. Though Wentworth, a comedian, explained that this was a way in which she could provide context about the practice to her kids. You see, watching it with her kids would allow her to explain how it’s exploitative of the actors in pornographic productions.

She added, “In porn, women have been conditioned to look and act a certain way… They are performing and it’s dangerous to have boys see this as something women want.” Oh wonderful. How about telling your daughters to turn it off if it’s dangerous. Also how would it not be awkward for the Stephanopoulos parents to sit in with their teenage daughters as the actors simulate sex?

The article concludes:

Porn is bad for men and women in different ways. Though many studies focus on porn’s destructive effects on males, anti-porn research group Fight The New Drug notes that “women can be just as at risk of becoming dependent upon pornography as men.” 

The group cited a German sex study published in The Telegraph which claimed, “at least 17% of women consider themselves addicted to porn, and half of the women surveyed were internet porn consumers.”

So yeah, great for Wentworth. Expose your daughters to a potential porn addiction, as long as you talk to them about their feelings afterward. Besides peddling harmful hippie BS parenting techniques, they’re also contributing viewership to an industry that utterly destroys the dignity of the performers, turning them into a sexual commodity. It’s an industry so exploitative of young girls that the internet’s largest free porn provider, Pornhub, has been accused of featuring videos of rape and sex trafficking victims.

Well as long as George and Lindsey explain why human trafficking is bad as they sit down to watch as a family.

This is not healthy for the children. It should not be promoted anywhere as a good idea. There are studies that show a link between sex trafficking and pornography. There are also studies that show a negative impact on the brain leading to addiction. This is insanity.

Another Lie From A Political Candidate

Posted on by

On July 10, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Cal Cunningham, the North Carolina Democratic Senate nominee. It seems that Mr. Cunningham was less than honest about his connection to a company that received between $1 and $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds.

The article reports:

North Carolina Democratic Senate nominee Cal Cunningham falsely claimed he cut ties with his waste management company before it applied for up to $2 million in taxpayer-funded coronavirus relief.

After a Washington Free Beacon report revealed that Cunningham’s company, WasteZero, obtained between $1 and $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds, the North Carolina Democrat claimed he wasn’t working at the company “at the time they applied for the loan.” He accused incumbent senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) and his “allies” of “distorting the facts” and launching a “pathetic attempt to mislead voters.”

However, Cunningham on Thursday admitted that he was “aware” of WasteZero’s PPP loan application, telling the Charlotte Observer that he is “still available to do occasional hourly work” at the company. While Cunningham previously said he left the company on March 20—a week before the loan program was enacted on March 27—he signed the company’s 2019 annual report on March 31.

Meanwhile the article notes that Mr. Cunningham has criticized the PPP program:

Cunningham has repeatedly criticized the PPP, which aims to support struggling small businesses during coronavirus shutdowns. “For PPP loans to have ‘generally missed the industries and areas most heavily impacted by COVID-19′ is unacceptable,” he said in a June tweet. “Leaving behind small businesses—and disproportionately those that are Black and Latino-owned—harms communities.”

He may be critical of the program, but his company was willing to take the money, and he was willing to lie about his involvement with the company.

This Isn’t Politics–It’s Illegal Activity

Posted on by

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about the information found in some recently declassified emails. The one thing we are learning from the recent release of newly declassified documents is that the documents were classified solely to protect those in the intelligence community who were breaking the law.

The article reports:

Donald Trump was president for only 24 hours when then-FBI supervisor Peter Strzok sent an angry missive to his boss. A colleague had given the new White House a counterintelligence briefing and hadn’t consulted on how to use the meeting to further the Russia collusion investigation.

“I heard from [redacted] about the WH CI briefing routed from [redacted],” Strzok wrote on Jan. 21, 2017, a day into the new Trump presidency after learning fellow agent Jennifer Boone had given the White House a briefing without his knowledge.

“I am angry that Jen did not at least cc: me, as my branch has pending investigative matters there,” Strzok added in his email to Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap. “This brief may play into our investigative strategy, and I would like the ability to have visibility and provide thoughts/counsel to you in advance of the briefing.

The article continues with the relevant timeline:

“When Strzok found out those briefings were already conducted without his knowledge, he got upset. Since the CI briefings apparently were no longer available as a subterfuge, soon thereafter Deputy Director McCabe reached out to Flynn directly to set up an interview appointment,” he added. “Director Comey admitted later they took advantage of the disorganization of a new administration to avoid the protocols that would normally be in place to control access to senior WH personnel like Flynn.”

The article concludes:

“Because Flynn was expected to attend the first such briefing for members of the Trump campaign on August 17, 2016, the FBI viewed that briefing as a possible opportunity to collect information potentially relevant to the Crossfire Hurricane and Flynn investigations,” Horowitz wrote. “We found no evidence that the FBI consulted with Department leadership or ODNI officials about this plan.”

Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, said the FBI’s conduct during the investigation reeked of politics.

“These documents suggest that President Trump was targeted by the Comey FBI as soon as he stepped foot in the Oval Office,” Fitton said.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is becoming obvious that many of the people in the intelligence community during the Obama administration considered themselves above the law and had no problem violating the civil rights of American citizens. Those people belong in jail. Hopefully that will happen someday soon.

What Happens If Joe Biden Is Elected President?

Posted on by

The Washington Examiner posted an article today listing ten things the Democrats would do if they manage to take control of the White House and the Senate in November.

This is the list:

1. Gun control

2. Amnesty for illegal immigrants

3. Taxpayer funding of abortion

4. Tax increases

5. Ending the secret ballot for unionization

6. D.C. statehood

7. Court-packing

8. The public option — and maybe Medicare for All

9. Oil company crackdowns

10. The Green New Deal

This platform would destroy America as we know it. It would end constitutional gun rights, negatively impact the income of average Americans, end the freedom of workers to refuse to join a union, end American energy independence, ruin our healthcare system, and end any possibility that the Supreme Court would uphold the Constitution rather than rewrite it. This is not a platform that would create or ensure the continuing success of America.

This Doesn’t Seem To Be The Answer

Posted on by

Just the News reported yesterday that one month after California Governor Newsom unilaterally ordered state residents to wear masks in most public settings, the average daily number of coronavirus cases in the state has increased by over 160%. Wow.

The article reports:

Newsom’s June 18 order “mandate[d] that face coverings be worn state-wide” while in “any indoor public space,” while on public transit, during virtually every form of work in which the public might be involved in some way, while walking through “hallways, stairways, elevators, and parking facilities,” while in “any room or enclosed area where other people (except for members of the person’s own household or residence) are present when unable to physically distance,” and in outdoor settings where six feet of distance between individuals is not possible.

Every state resident older than two years old is bound by the mandate; a small number of exceptions exempt individuals due to medical conditions and other limited circumstances.

…The website of Johns Hopkins University, which offers pandemic tracking tools for every U.S. state, says average daily cases in California have increased from 3,385 on the day of Newsom’s order to 8,889 as of July 16, an increase of 162%.

Though Newsom’s mask mandate appears to have had little effect on the trajectory of the virus in California, the governor nevertheless this week imposed additional mask requirements on the state, ordering that most students who return to school in the fall will be subject to “strong mask requirements,” namely that “all staff and students in 3rd grade and above will be required to wear a mask or face covering” during the school day.

Can you imaging trying to keep a mask on the third grader all day? I don’t know why the masks did not help, but I think we need to look at this carefully. If the coronavirus spread that much with masks, why are we mandating them?

Facts vs. Politics

Posted on by

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about an interview of Doctor Robert Hariri on the Justice with Judge Jeanine Show last night.

This is what Dr. Hariri said about the coronavirus and about opening our schools:

The first information we got from China was terrifying. If you remember early on we thought this might be a virus that could have a mortality of 5 or 10 percent. That means somebody you know is going to die from this disease. Now fortunately the data has indicated that although this is a bad, bad virus, no doubt about it, ruthlessly lethal against the elderly and the infirmed, it is sparing the younger population.

In fact, kids for the most part will do very, very well, in most cases won’t experience any symptoms if infected. If they do experience any symptoms they tend to be very very mild. So that is something that is heartening when we’re thinking about having our kids return to the classroom.

…So what we know is this, COVID-19 is extremely limited in its lethality in children. In fact, on the list of the 10 most common causes of death in the 5 – 24 year old population, COVID doen’t even make the top 50.

The article includes a video of the interview:

I understand the concern for teachers. However, the science also states that children are not carriers of the coronavirus. Teachers with medical conditions might consider staying home, but there is no reason to force the entire student population to remain at home.

Slowly The Truth Becomes Available To The Public

Posted on by

Based on the information that has already come out, many Americans (at least those who don’t depend on the mainstream media for their news) believe that there was a soft coup attempt on President Trump that began immediately after he was elected. As information is made public from various investigations, this is becoming more obvious.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about some of the latest information to come out.

The article reports:

  • The Senate Judiciary Committee released a newly declassified FBI document Friday showing that a New York Times report about contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence was riddled with errors. 
  • Peter Strzok, who served as FBI deputy chief of counterintelligence, spotted 14 errors in the Times story, published on Feb. 14, 2017. 
  • Strzok also critiqued Christopher Steele, saying that the dossier author was unable to judge the reliability of his network of sources.

The article continues:

An FBI document released Friday details at least 14 inaccuracies in a New York Times report from early 2017 that leveled shocking allegations of Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

The document shows then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok’s comments on a Feb. 14, 2017 article entitled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

Written by journalists Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, the story cited four current and former American officials who said that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies had intercepted call records showing that Trump associates had contacts with Russian intelligence in the year prior to the election.

Strzok, who was the lead investigator on the Trump investigation, spotted 14 errors in the article.

The article concludes:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who released the FBI documents on Friday, said in a press release that Strzok’s annotations on the Times article “are devastating in that they are an admission that there was no reliable evidence that anyone from the Trump Campaign was working with Russian Intelligence Agencies in any form.”

James Comey, the former FBI director, criticized the Times report shortly after he was fired in May 2017. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 7, 2017, that the story was “almost entirely” inaccurate.

The Times stood by the story despite the pushback from Comey.

“The original sources could not immediately be reached after Mr. Comey’s remarks, but in the months since the article was published, they have indicated that they believed the account was solid,” the paper said in a statement following Comey’s testimony.

The New York Times was driving the narrative that President Trump was a Russian agent. Their reporting was inaccurate from the beginning. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who still believe the fiction The New York Times was publishing. That is one of many causes for the divisiveness that we are currently seeing in America.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once stated, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

The Problem With Mail-In Voting

Posted on by

Yesterday Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the recent primary in New York State. The primary was held on June 23. All voters had until May 29 to register online, in person at a local board of elections, or by mailing in a voter registration form.

The article reports:

How badly has the state of New York handled its vote-by-mail primary? Only today did the Associated Press make the call on the race in NY-16, concluding three weeks after the election that Rep. Eliot Engel lost to his primary challenger, progressive insurgent Jamaal Bowman — by sixteen points. It took that long to get through enough of the mail-in ballots and navigate the opaque reporting on the count for the AP to reach a firm conclusion in a landslide for Bowman.

That race is no fluke, either. The New York Times reports that some races have only a handful of ballots counted, and that outcomes of many of the primary contests have yet to be determined, more than three weeks after the election day. This portends disaster in November, the Times warns:

More than three weeks after the New York primaries, election officials have not yet counted an untold number of mail-in absentee ballots, leaving numerous closely watched races unresolved, including three key Democratic congressional contests.

The absentee ballot count — greatly inflated this year because the state expanded the vote-by-mail option because of the coronavirus pandemic — has been painstakingly slow, and hard to track, with no running account of the vote totals available.

In some cases, the tiny number of ballots counted has bordered on the absurd: In the 12th Congressional District, where Representative Carolyn B. Maloney is fighting for her political life against her challenger, Suraj Patel, only 800 of some 65,000 absentee ballots had been tabulated as of Wednesday, according to Mr. Patel, though thousands had been disqualified. …

The delays in New York’s primaries raise huge concerns about how the state will handle the general election in November, and may offer a cautionary note for other states as they weigh whether to embrace, and how to implement, a vote-by-mail system because of the pandemic.

Most voter fraud occurs in absentee ballots or mail-in ballots. This is the place where ballot harvesting occurs–a person can go into a nursing home, get people with limited cognitive ability to sign a ballot, and fill out the ballot themselves and turn it in. Ballots can be stolen from mailboxes, filled out, and turned in. It is a nightmare to anyone who wants an honest election.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

The vote-by-mail system, however, truly is a disaster, and not just over security concerns. The timelines in our Constitution are too tight for the kinds of delays seen in this year’s primaries. We are at risk of being without a legitimate Congress as well as a legitimate president by the time the deadlines for both are reached. The only way to ensure that we can meet those deadlines is to vote in person by paper ballots utilizing optical-scan technology for fast and accurate counts. The delay from a relative small number of contests in that system where absentee ballots could make the difference will be easy to absorb, but we can’t wait several weeks to confirm outcomes in races with double-digit in-person vote gaps.

Stop pretending this is a Trump problem. This is an electoral legitimacy problem in more than one aspect, and it’s time we treated it as such. If we can go to Walmart in this pandemic, we certainly can figure out how to vote in person to choose this country’s leadership.

Why All Of Us Should Question What We Hear

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the number of coronavirus cases in Texas.

The article reports:

Texas health officials removed more than 3,000 reported coronavirus cases from an overall count after “probable” cases for people who were never tested were counted as confirmed cases.

“Since we report confirmed cases on our dashboard, we have removed 3,484 previously reported probable cases from the statewide and Bexar County totals,” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the state health agency, said to the Austin American-Statesman.

“The State of Texas today had to remove 3,484 cases from its Covid-19 positive case count, because the San Antonio Health Department was reporting ‘probable’ cases for people never actually tested, as ‘confirmed’ positive cases.- TDHS,” Fox 4 Dallas Evening News anchor Steve Eagar tweeted Wednesday. “What other departments make this same mistake?”

This is not an isolated problem. Recently a friend told me of an incident where a person who had tested positive for coronavirus was retested three times during a two week period. When two of the tests came back positive, the results were reported as a new case each time. Therefore, one person’s battle with the coronavirus resulted in the reporting of three new cases. There was another incident of a person who signed up to be tested, but left before being tested because of the extended wait time. Two weeks later she received a telephone call stating that she had tested positive. When she explained that she had not actually been tested, she was removed from the positive test list, but why was she on the list to begin with?

The article at The Washington Examiner concludes:

The change in cases comes as questions have been raised across the country about coronavirus testing, most notably in Florida. An investigation in the state determined that the test positivity rate reported by officials was inaccurate and that the number of positive tests was much lower than reported.

In May, coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx suggested that the actual number of coronavirus cases could be inflated by as much as 25%, while others have argued that cases have been undercounted.

Questions about the number of coronavirus cases have also been raised in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey over claims that suspected coronavirus patients are dying from causes other than the virus.

Be careful what you believe.

Under The Radar

Posted on by

On Wednesday The Epoch Times reported the following:

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced on Wednesday significant developments in the administration’s efforts to eradicate the notorious MS-13 gang, including its plan to seek the death penalty of an alleged gang member in connection to the slayings of two New York teens.

Trump said his administration’s “campaign to destroy MS-13” had lead to the arrest and indictment of dozens of MS-13 members and its leaders. The Justice Department launched Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) in August 2019 in an effort to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy the vicious gang, which has been responsible for a wide range of criminal activity across the United States such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.

Among the arrests include the indictment of Melgar Diaz, who became the first MS-13 member to be charged with terrorism-related offenses, officials say.

“He was responsible for activities in 13 states—20 cliques in the United States.  He was also the person who would greenlight assassinations in the United States.  The orders come from El Salvador—or they request to assassinate people who go down to El Salvador, and he would greenlight the hit,” Barr said during a press conference at the oval office on Wednesday.

Diaz, whose indictment was unsealed on July 14, was charged with offenses including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to kill or maim individuals overseas, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

The article concludes:

The attorney general told reporters that more actions against the leadership of MS-13 are expected, saying that the administration had been working very closely with counterparts in El Salvador.

MS-13 was initially formed by Salvadoran immigrants that came to the United States in order to escape the civil war in their home country, according to a study published in the Journal of Gang Research in 2009.

This action is long overdue. Securing our borders is one way to keep members of MS-13 from coming into the country. Arresting the members that are already here is another step toward making America a safer place.

Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant

Posted on by

Yesterday I posted an article about a chart on The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) website. The chart was essentially an accusation that the things that form the foundation of American culture are racist. Things such as a work ethic, the family unit, manners, respect for authority, self-reliance, delayed gratification, etc. Denigrating those values is not helpful to our social framework, nor is it a good thing to put in front of our children as fact. I wasn’t the only person upset that this chart was totally inaccurate and paid for with taxpayer money. Evidently someone was upset who knew how to get results.

Last night, Fox News reported that the chart had been removed from the website.

The article reports:

The National Museum for African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has removed its controversial chart on whiteness from one of its webpages, telling people on Thursday that it didn’t contribute to a “productive conversation” about racial issues.

“Since yesterday, certain content in the ‘Talking About Race’ portal has been the subject of questions that we have taken seriously. We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended,” the museum said in a statement.

Fox News reported yesterday that some described the chart as racist since it categorized things like “decision-making” and “delayed gratification” as part of whiteness.

The museum’s graphic broke the “aspects and assumptions of whiteness” into categories such as “rugged individualism” and “history.” For example, under “future orientation,” the graphic listed “delayed gratification” and planning for the future as ideas spread by white culture.

The article continues:

For instance, that information includes potential microagressions that could be committed by White people. “Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages,” the site reads.

It also tells readers that “if you are white in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin.” The website also maintained a video from “White Fragility” author, Robin DiAngelo — whose book has been touted as a go-to in the wake of protests against racism ignited in part by the death of George Floyd.

According to DiAngelo, white people have a hard time admitting their privilege. The portal reads: “Dr. Robin DiAngelo coined the term white fragility to describe these feelings as ‘a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.’ Since white people ‘live in a social environment that insulates them from race-based stress,’ whites are rarely challenged and have less of a tolerance to race-based stress.”

So according to this, if I encourage a child of another race to do better in school, that is a microagression, but if I encourage a white child to do better in school, that’s okay. Can you see where this is going? This was a probe. Had the chart not been exposed, the museum would have pushed its racist (yes, this is racist) agenda even further. The message in this chart (dismissing the value of the family unit, dismissing the value of a good work ethic, dismissing the idea of self-reliance, and delayed gratification) if followed will lead to a life of poverty and dependence. Consider the fact that the key to Democrat political victories is a permanent underclass that will continue to vote for the promises made be Democrats.

I am glad that the chart was taken down. I am saddened that there are people in leadership positions that believe the ideas expressed in the chart. The chart is a recipe for failure–not for success. It is not a message we want to teach any of our children.

“Cabin Fever” Strikes Again

Posted on by

Most Americans did not enjoy being cooped up in their homes during March, April, and May. Not all of us were actually allowed out in June, but a lot of us were. Cabin fever struck. Shopping online gets old after a while.

Breitbart is reporting today:

U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in June even as coronavirus infections climbed in many states that began to reopen their economies.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday retail sales rose 7.5 percent last month, easily surpassing the 5.2 percent gain expected by economists.  Compared with a year ago, retail sales are 1.1 percent higher.

Excluding autos and parts, retail sales were above 7.3 percent, above the forecast 5.2 percent. Excluding sales at gasoline stations, retail sales rose 7.0 percent. Excluding both, sales were up 6.7 percent.

Sales by autos and parts by dealers rose 8.7 percent and are 7.5 percent higher than a year ago.

The below-the-headlines details paint a picture of an economy reeling from the pandemic, with sales surging by record amounts after historic declines in March and April.

Stores that had been shut down because of anti-pandemic measures saw huge month-over-month jumps in sales. Furniture store sales jumped 32.5 percent compared with May but remain 3.5 below last year’s level. Sales at electronic stores jumped 37.4 percent but were 12.7 percent below a year ago.

We definitely have a way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.

A Toxic Website

Posted on by

The Federalist posted an article yesterday about some additions to The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) website that I would consider toxic. The NMAAHC is part of the Smithsonian museum group.

The article includes a screenshot of “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness.”

Some of the traits listed on this chart are negative traits. However, some of the traits listed on the chart are traits needed to become a contributing member of society and avoid poverty. For instance, a two-parent family is less likely to be poor than a nuclear family. Delayed gratification is often the key to success and stability–it can also be called self-discipline. That is not a racist concept. Being polite should not be considered a racist concept. Respecting authority is also a key to an ordered society–it is not a racist concept. The chart notes that our aesthetics are based on European culture. That is because up until Ted Kennedy changed the immigration laws in 1965, we were a country of European immigrants. In 1860, slaves made up 12.8 percent of America’s population (article here). In a time that did not have mass communication, they were not going to have a lot of influence on the culture regardless of their status.

What this chart does is undermine the foundations of a civilized society. The foundations of America are Judeo-Christian. They include such things as two-parent families, a work ethic, manners, respect for authority, and all the things that make living together possible. Without those things society would devolve into chaos. I am sorry that the Smithsonian considers those things ‘white.’ I consider them civilized. Categorizing these values as ‘white’ places an obstacle in front of people of color if they want to be successful. Calling those things that result in success ‘white’ discourages others from doing the things necessary to succeed.  If someone considers the foundations of our society ‘white’ and thus racist, I suggest they find a country whose foundations and expectations are more to their liking and emigrate there.

Policies Proposed By The Biden Campaign

Posted on by

Issues & Insights posted an article today about one of the proposals of the Biden campaign. All of us understand that politicians often do not keep their campaign promises, but in this case that might actually be a good thing.

The article reports:

Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate change plan, released this week, was described by one liberal outlet as “the Green New Deal, minus the crazy.” We beg to differ. Just look at Biden’s plan to eliminate the internal combustion engine.

Biden says that on his first day in office, he will develop “rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions.”

…Aside from fuel economy mandates, Biden also wants to extend and expand the EV tax credit, pump federal money into charging stations, and create a new “cash for clunkers” program for those who trade in a gasoline-powered car for a plug-in.

The cost of all this? Who knows. Aside from the $2 trillion price tag that Biden put on his entire Green New Deal plan, he hasn’t broken down his EV mandate scheme. But Sen. Chuck Schumer has already proposed a cash-for-clunkers plan, which would cost $454 billion over a decade.

The article continues:

And for all this, the electric car mandate will have a negligible impact on CO2 emissions and zero impact on the climate.

For one thing, the CO2 advantage of electric cars is vastly oversold. These are not “zero emissions” vehicles. They simply change the source of the emissions from the car to power plants — most of them powered by coal and natural gas.

A study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute found that when you factor in CO2 emissions from electricity production, the average plug-in produces as much CO2 over its lifetime as a gas-powered car that gets 55 miles per gallon.

The CO2 advantage of electric cars diminishes even more when you consider the entire lifecycle of the vehicle, including the environmental impact of mining required to manufacture the batteries. A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that CO2 emissions from manufacturing electric cars was 68% higher than gas-powered cars.

We already did cash-for-clunkers in 2009. The cars turned in had to be disabled or scrapped. The ultimate result of the program was that it artificially inflated the cost of used cars, hurting the people who couldn’t afford to buy new cars.

Wikipedia (not always a reliable source, but in this case cited sources) reported:

The Economists’ Voice reported in 2009 that for each vehicle trade, the program had a net cost of approximately $2,000, with total costs outweighing all benefits by $1.4 billion. Edmunds reported that Cash for Clunkers cost US taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold, that nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold, and that only 125,000 of vehicle sales were incremental. Edmunds CEO concluded that without Cash for Clunkers, auto sales would have been even better.

I think we need to learn from our mistakes.

Losing The Right To Defend Yourself

Posted on by

There is little doubt that the couple in St. Louis who brandished weapons to defend their home would have met a very different fate had they not had those weapons. They would have become another fatality statistic caused by the protesters (rioters). Well, according to some of the people in charge in St. Louis, it was their job to be killed and their house trashed.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the latest chapter in this story.

The article reports:

St. Louis police have applied for warrants in the case of the Central West End couple who pointed guns at protesters on their street.

St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden on Tuesday told News 4 they applied for warrants but did not elaborate on what those warrants allege or who they are against. The guns were turned over to police as evidence.

“The hostility is what I noticed,” Hayden said. “I don’t want to see guns out when people are very hostile and angry at each other. Those are recipes for violence, so again we applied on warrant, there’s been follow up information and we are waiting on the decision on the warrant application.

The incident – which went viral around the globe, happened Sunday, June 28 when a large group of people were headed to a protest calling for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson to resign.

…During an interview with 5 On Your Side’s Casey Nolen on Tuesday, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Chief John Hayden said the department has turned over an ‘unlawful use of a weapon’ case to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office.

Hayden said it will now be up to the prosecutor’s office.

How can you not be hostile or angry when someone threatens to murder you, rob your house and kill you pets? Missouri has a fairly expansive Castle Doctrine, so the couple was well within their rights to defend their home. It would have been better if the police had arrived and chosen to defend the home, but they didn’t, so what was the couple supposed to do? I hope any prosecution will be thrown out of court as soon as it is brought. Anyone faced with death threats (as they were) by a mob would have defended themselves in some way.

The Double Standard At Work

Posted on by

There is a meme going around Facebook that misquotes Joe Biden as saying, “The things I did while in elected office should not be made public while I am seeking a higher public office.” The meme is close, but not exact. In the interest of truth, I am posting a portion of the interview that the quote is based on.

On May 1, 2020, Breitbart reported:

Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Biden why he did not grant open access to papers from his Senate career that he had given to the University of Delaware. The following exchange ensued:

Brzezinski: The first [question], about the University of Delaware records. Do you agree with the reporting that those records were supposed to be revealed to the public and then they were resealed for a longer time until, quote, after you leave public life. And if you agree with that, if that’s what happened, why did that happen?

Biden: The fact is, that there’s are a lot of things — speeches I’ve made, positions I’ve taken, interviews that I did overseas with people, all of those things relating to my job. And the idea that they would all be made public, and the fact while I was running for public office, they could really be taken out of context. The papers are position papers — they are documents that existed, for example, when I met with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, or when I met with whomever. And all of that to be fodder in a campaign at this time — I don’t know of anybody who’s done anything like that. …

Brzezinski: I’m asking why not do the same [as the National Archives] in the University of Delaware records, which have raised questions because they were supposed to be revealed to the public, and then they were sealed for a longer period of time. Why not do it for both sets of records?

Biden: Because the material in the University of Delaware has no personnel files, but it does have a lot of confidential personal conversations that I had with the president about a particular issue, that I had with the heads of states of other places. That that would not be something that be revealed while I was in public office, or while I was seeking public office. It just stands to reason — to the best of my knowledge, no one else has done that either.

Oddly enough, at the same time Joe Biden was refusing to release his records, he was demanding that President Trump release his tax returns. Disclosure for you, but not for me!