Monthly Archives: August 2020

Why Is The Information Still Classified?

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article by Kenneth R. Timmerman about the 2012 attack on the embassy annex in Benghazi. I strongly suggest that you follow the link to the article as it is extremely complex.

The article reports:

US intelligence agencies are sitting on a treasure trove of documents that detail Iran’s direct, material involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that cost the lives of four Americans. But until now, deep state bureaucrats have buried them under layers of classification, often without reason.

From CIA officers, military contractors, and sources within US Special Forces, I have learned of the existence of at least 50 briefing documents that warned of Iranian intelligence operations in Benghazi. Some specifically predicted an Iranian attack on US diplomats and US facilities. Those documents have remained inaccessible, including to the Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by former US Representative Trey Gowdy.

The deep state is expert at hiding information that would have a negative impact on its members. The fact that the Select Committee on Benghazi cannot access certain documents relating to Benghazi is further proof of that.

The article continues:

By the summer of 2012, US intelligence and security officers in Benghazi and Tripoli warned their chain of command — including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that the Iranians were preparing a terrorist attack on the US compound in Benghazi. These increased Iranian preparations prompted the head of security for Stevens, Green Beret Colonel Andy Wood, to send a cable to his commanding officer in June 2012 that the Iranian-backed militia — Ansar al Sharia — had received their funding from Iran and were now sending their wives and children to Benghazi, as I reported in these pages previously.

Until now, the government has released just a handful of heavily redacted documents relating to Iran’s Benghazi operations. Throughout the Obama administration, officials with knowledge of the Quds Force presence in Benghazi, including security contractors who defended the CIA Annex in a 13-hour battle with the jihadis, were repeatedly threatened with prosecution if they revealed what they knew. Among them was the then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Flynn.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is amazing.

Unfortunately This May Be An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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The Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday that Rick Ector, a prominent firearms instructor in the Detroit area, founded an all-female handgun safety training event in 2011. Last weekend that event trained 1,938 Detroit women–twice the attendance in 2019.

The article notes that the Sunday session was so popular that the classroom portion had to be changed to an open-air event in the range’s parking lot due to overcrowding concerns and coronavirus-related precautions.

The article reports:

The event may serve as another indicator of the unprecedented demand for guns and training driven by the coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest, and the 2020 elections. About 10 million guns have been sold in the United States since March—a record-setting pace. The diversity seen at the Detroit event coupled with dealer-reported increases in gun sales to minorities indicates the surge is bringing in new shooters from across the social and political spectrum.

The article continues:

Moner (Tanisha Moner who has had a gun pointed at her twice in her life. Once by two strangers who kidnapped, robbed, and sexually assaulted her when she was 17. And, again, by another robber as she worked a management shift at a restaurant.) said helping women learn to take a more proactive role in their own safety is now part of her life’s work.

“I don’t have my own personal police force around me 24/7,” Moner said. “It is my duty and obligation to take care of my own personal protection. They’re gonna come after the fact, if I’m lucky. But who is there in that moment? I’ve been in that moment on more than one occasion. There’s nobody there but me.”

Moner now spends much of her time teaching gun safety professionally. She’s racked up several different certifications to teach NRA training courses and offers a gun-carry course for those trying to obtain a Michigan permit. She says the women’s training event—which Ector is looking to expand again next year—is her favorite event of the year.

“I live for this event. I really do,” Moner said. “There’s nothing like seeing a woman pull the trigger on a firearm for the very first time. It’s like a light just goes off in her. It’s a moment of enlightenment.”

I hate to think that America is becoming the wild west again, but this may be a time when all of us need to take responsibility for our own personal safety.

 

 

 

Why Everyone Needs At Least One Alternative News Source

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The mainstream media is getting very bold about its censorship of all things conservative.

Yesterday Newsbusters reported the following:

Guest-hosting MSNB’s AM Joy today, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and MSNBC suggested that network execs shouldn’t show the “felonious couple,” i.e. the McCloskeys, when they speak at the RNC convention next week.  And guest on the show claimed that President Trump would use the McCloskeys as an example to promote a “violent mutiny” should he lose the election.

The McCloskeys made national news when they defended their home by displaying weapons when a large BLM group entered their gated community. The McCloskeys have been convicted of nothing, and the Missouri Attorney General has intervened, calling their indictment by the Democrat St. Louis Circuit Attorney a “politically motivated prosecution.” And the governor of Missouri has stated that he would pardon the couple, if convicted, saying “they’re being attacked frankly by a political process that’s really unfortunate.”

Okay. Let’s take a look at the McCloskeys and their case. One of the oddities here is that based on some of their statements it is a pretty safe bet that the McCloskeys were not (or ever planned to be) Trump voters. That may or may not have changed recently. The BLM gang that was threatening them broke through the gate of a gated community to get to their house. They were verbally threatened, and the ‘protestors’ were visibly armed. The McCloskeys are protected under the Missouri Castle Doctrine that gives them the right to defend their home and themselves. They were well within their legal rights. There was nothing ‘felonious’ about what they did.

The article continues:

While suggesting the canceling of the McCloskey couple—who benefit from the presumption of innocence—Capehart predictably didn’t utter a peep about the Democrats having given a convention speaking slot to someone convicted of murder in a particularly gruesome and grisly slaying. 

Commenting on the RNC’s invitation to the McCloskeys, activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham claimed that President Trump “wants to give permission to the people who intend to harm us.” 

Cunningham also asserted that President Trump is using the McCloskeys as an example for others to “emulate,” and is “readying his people for violent mutiny” if he loses the election.

Just for the record, the convicted murderer at the Democrat Convention was Donna Hylton.

This is the history of Donna Hylton according to an August 22 article at Fox News:

She was behind bars for her role in the grisly murder and torture of Thomas Vigliarolo, a balding New York businessman found stuffed inside a steamer trunk and left to rot in Harlem. Hylton and six others let him die “in the most heinous circumstances,” the prosecutor said at their trial in 1985. On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hailed Hylton as one of “America’s most impactful community leaders” and asked her to participate in a video reading of the Preamble to the Constitution during a televised portion of the convention.

To be fair, Ms. Hylton claimed to be the victim of human trafficking and sexual abuse who was coerced into her role in the torture and murder. She has served her time, and it working to better her community, but I still question the wisdom of putting her in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, if you plan on watching the Republican Convention, find a source that will show you all of it.

Misquoting For Political Purposes

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The only reason this story has not died is that the Democrats keep lying about it and people who know the truth keep correcting them.

Yesterday Real Clear Politics posted an article by Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) about some remarks Joe Biden made in his acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention. Either he knew he was lying or he is misinformed. Neither one is a good look for a presidential candidate.

We are back at the quote from President Trump regarding Charlottesville.

The article includes the entire quote. This is the quote from President Trump:

You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

This is the quote from former Vice-President Joe Biden:

Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville.

Remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists coming out of the fields with lighted torches? Veins bulging? Spewing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s?

Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it?

Remember what the president said?

There were quote, “very fine people on both sides.“

This is a myth that the Democrats are continuing the embrace. The Democrats claim that they are the party that will unify Americans. How does lying about what the President said create anything but disunity? In perpetuating the lie they are telling, the Democrats are creating racial division. That is unacceptable.

The Following Appeared On Facebook Today

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Posted by a friend:

WE HAVE A PROBLEM: This is a well written and thought out article written by a 26 yr old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who’s in grad school for her MBA. What a GREAT perspecitve…

My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!

I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.

I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it.

Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought.

We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!

Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.

When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.

My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.

People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.

Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn’t see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.

We don’t know what it’s like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.”

I would love to know where this young lady is going to college. She has definitely learned critical thinking skills. Kudos to her parents for raising an amazing young woman.

 

Truth vs. Fiction

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Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog posted an article that included a timeline of Joe Biden’s statements about the coronavirus (put together by Karl Rove). The timeline pretty much contradicts everything he claims he would have done and will do if elected.

Here is the timeline:

1) Jan. 31: In response to Trump’s travel ban, Biden says “this is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia.”

2) Early February: Biden says the coronavirus is less lethal than the SARS virus and “is probably not a serious epidemic.”

3) Mid February: Biden says “we don”t have a Covid epidemic, we have a fear epidemic.”

4) Late February: Biden says the virus is “like the flu” and will dissipate with warmer weather moving to the southern hemisphere. Masks will not help, he adds.

5) Early March: Biden holds an indoor rally in Wisconsin and criticizes the European travel ban as ineffective and “counterproductive.”

6) Mid March: Regarding Trump’s January 31st decision to close travel to China, Biden says “stop the xenophobic fear mongering.”

Regardless of how you feel about President Trump, his actions saved lives. Joe Biden would not have taken those actions. Joe Biden was part of an administration that for eight years did very little to help the working people of America, what makes anyone think that will change if he is given another chance?

Thank You, Attorney General Barr

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Just the News posted an article today about a recent action by Attorney General Barr.

The article reports:

The Justice Department will try to reinstate a death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped in the 2013 attack that killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

Attorney General William Barr on Thursday told the Associated Press that the department would appeal a court ruling last month that threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence and ordered a trial to determine whether he should be executed for the attack .

Barr said the department would take the matter to the Supreme Court.

I was living in Massachusetts during that time. One of my daughters has a friend who ran the marathon that year and came up on the scene just after the bombing. She was so traumatized by what she saw that she did not want to run the marathon the following year. Eventually my daughter agreed to do it with her and she did run. There is no reason this crime does not deserve the death penalty. It was an intentional terror attack on innocent people.

The article concludes:

Under Barr, the Justice Department has again begun carrying out federal executions, putting three men to death so far and scheduling at least three others next week and in September.

In the Tsarnaev case, a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit court found in July that the judge who oversaw the 2015 trial did not adequately question potential jurors about what they had read or heard about the highly publicized case.

What was the evidence? And was he convicted on the basis of the evidence?

The First Amendment Only Applies When It Is Convenient

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Red State Observer posted an article yesterday about some recent actions by Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago.

The article quotes the Chicago Tribune:

Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department’s ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives, telling reporters Thursday that she and her family at times require heightened security because of threats she receives daily.

Lightfoot refused to elaborate on the specific threats, but said she receives them daily against herself, her wife and her home. Comparisons to how the Police Department has protected previous mayors’ homes, such as Rahm Emanuel’s Ravenswood residence, are unfair because “this is a different time like no other,” Lightfoot told reporters.

“I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure,” Lightfoot said.

Doesn’t anyone else have the right to make sure that their home is secure? It seems to me that the mayor’s job is to protect all of the citizens–not just herself.

 

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Yesterday Just the News reported the following:

…Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to a single false statement charge, admitting that he doctored an email that the FBI relied on as it sought court approval to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2017, according to the Associated Press.

The article notes:

Clinesmith, who resigned from the FBI before an internal disciplinary process was completed, faces a maximum six months in prison, according to sentencing guidelines.

He was charged Friday, in documents that show Clinesmith altered the email from another government agency to say that Page was “not a source” for that agency.

Page has publicly said that he had worked as a source for the CIA.

The FBI relied on Clinesmith’s representation in the email when it applied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to renew its secret surveillance of Page on suspicions that he was a potential Russian agent, the wire service also reports.

Stay tuned. This may actually be like pulling a loose thread on a sweater.

How About A Level Playing Field?

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According to The Gateway Pundit (in an article posted Tuesday), the following slide is from a Goodyear diversity training:

I don’t understand why Black Lives Matter (BLM) is okay and Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are not. If they want to ban political slogans, I can understand that, but Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are not any more political than Black Lives Matter.

The article notes:

Goodyear did not respond to the station’s ( WIBW) inquiries about whether or not the slide came from their main office, but said that they allow associates to support “racial injustice,” but not advocacy that falls “outside the scope of equality issues.”

“Goodyear is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace where all of our associates can do their best in a spirit of teamwork. As part of this commitment, we do allow our associates to express their support on racial injustice and other equity issues but ask that they refrain from workplace expressions, verbal or otherwise, in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party as well as other similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of equity issues.”

Again, I think Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are equity issues and thus fall under the guidelines. I wonder if the people at Goodyear have read the charter of Black Lives Matter.

Myths vs. Truth

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On Tuesday The Daily Signal posted an article about the current lies being told about the U.S. Postal Service. It is a long and detailed article, so I suggest you follow the link and read the actual article. I will try to summarize it for you.

These are the 10 things we are currently being told:

MYTH No. 1: The Postal Service is removing sorting machines to sabotage delivery

MYTH No. 2: The Postal Service is removing collection boxes to block mail-in ballots.

MYTH No. 3: The Postal Service is locking collection boxes to prevent public access.

MYTH No. 4: The Postal Service could go bankrupt before the election without a $25 billion bailout.

MYTH No. 5: The Postal Service plans to triple postage rates on mailed ballots.

MYTH No. 6: Postal Service delivery changes are illegal “sabotage” by the postmaster general.

MYTH No. 7: The Postal Service needs more money to process mailed ballots.

MYTH No. 8: The postmaster general “massacred” Postal Service management.

MYTH No. 9: The Constitution requires a government-run Postal Service.

MYTH No. 10: The Postal Service loses money only because of unfair funding requirements.

The article debunks all of these myths with a healthy does of truth.

Here are a few of the realities:

The volume of mail has plunged in recent decades, due to the spread of electronic communication. As a result, the amount of infrastructure needed to manage the flow of mail also has declined.

…The Postal Service has more than 141,000 blue collection boxes spread across the country. Those boxes are moved regularly from low-demand to high-demand areas to maximize efficiency.

…Locked caps are sometimes put on collection boxes in areas where there is a rash of mail theft. Employees place the caps after the final pickup of the day and remove them in the morning, since collection box theft is overwhelmingly done at night.

…Although some were concerned that the COVID-19 pandemic would push the Postal Service over the financial edge, revenues have been stable, thanks to a big increase in package deliveries.

In addition, Congress provided a $10 billion loan to the Postal Service earlier this year.

…The Postal Service provided commonsense guidance to state and local governments regarding how to handle time-sensitive ballot requests. This guidance was already in the works before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy began his job.

You get the picture. Please follow the link to the original article for the rest of the story.

Stanly Hall Last Night

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Last night the CCTA (Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association) held their monthly meeting at Stanly Hall in downtown New Bern, North Carolina. The meeting was a forum on voter integrity. The featured speaker of the night was Jay Delancy of the Voter Integrity Project. Jay brought us up to date on some of the issues in North Carolina involving voter fraud.

There was also a question and answer section of the meeting with questions directed at a panel consisting of Senator Norm Sanderson, Representative Michael Speciale, Representative Keith Kidwell, Meloni Wray, Director of the Craven County Board of Elections, and Caitlin Sabadish, Director of the Carteret Board of Elections. The legislators explained some of the changes to election laws during the recent legislative session.

Voter integrity is going to be an issue in the upcoming election. Please visit the site linked above to learn more about the issue.

 

Sometimes The Domino Effect Is A Good Thing

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Yesterday Sara Carter reported the following:

After last week’s historic peace deal brokered between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, Sudan wants in. The Sudanese Foreign Ministry Spokesman reportedly told Sky News Arabia Tuesday that it could quite possibly make a similar deal in the near future and didn’t deny having talks with Israel.

“There is no reason for the continuation of hostility between Sudan and Israel,” the Sudan’s FM said. “We do not deny the existence of contacts between the two countries.”

The article notes:

Notably, Sudan was the location where Arab nation’s declared they wouldn’t normalize ties with Israel and had three ‘nos’: “No negotiations. No recognition. No peace.” Yoni Michanie first pointed to this on Twitter Tuesday.

The article includes the following tweet:

This is a milestone. Sudan (and the other Arab countries) have to make a choice–do they want to submit to Iran or make peace with Israel and remain as independent countries? The goal of Iran is to restore the caliphate (the former Ottoman Empire) with Iran as the head. This would involve bringing all the Arab countries in the region under the control of Iran. Not every Arab country wants to give up their sovereignty. The behind-the-scenes negotiations of the Trump administration have brought the possibility of peace to the Middle East.

Critical Thinking Takes A Vacation

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The Democrat convention hit a new low last night. This is a video (from YouTube) of one of the speakers:

I am sorry that the young lady lost her father. However, her father was responsible for his own actions. It is interesting to me that she is blaming President Trump for her father’s death  She is speaking at a convention where one of the main speakers sent many elderly people with the coronavirus into nursing homes,  causing the deaths of the residents there, yet no one in her party is willing to speak about that. She is being used as a political prop.

This May Save Lives

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Yesterday Real Clear Politics reported the following:

This past week Minnesota became the second state to reject regulations that effectively ban the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for use by COVID-19 patients.

The decision, which comes two weeks after the Ohio Board of Pharmacy reversed an effective ban of its own, was rightfully praised by local health care advocates.  “We are pleased that Governor [Tim] Walz lifted his March 27 Executive Order 20-23 restrictions on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine,” said Twila Brase, president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.

The article notes that studies have shown the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine:

Though his critics are likely loath to admit it, there’s reason to believe the president may have been on to something. In recent weeks a chorus of voices in the medical community has emerged to challenge the view that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as a COVID treatment. Dr. Harvey A. Risch, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said a full analysis of the literature suggests hydroxychloroquine may be the key to defeating the coronavirus.

“Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic,” Risch wrote in Newsweek, adding that a full review of the COVID literature on the drug shows “clear-cut and significant benefits.”

Prescribing hydroxychloroquine in the early stages of the virus is key, Risch said, and others agree. Steven Hatfill, a veteran virologist and adjunct assistant professor at the George Washington University Medical Center, says the literature supporting hydroxychloroquine is overwhelming.

“There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections,” Hatfill wrote in RealClearPolitics. “There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results — and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect.”

The article notes that this decision was not widely reported:

It’s unclear if it was this research that prompted Walz to reverse his March ruling, which ordered the Board of Pharmacists to instruct pharmacists to not issue hydroxychloroquine prescriptions unless the diagnosis was “appropriate” — which halted any off-label prescription requests.

The reason it’s unclear is that Walz has been mum on why he rescinded his order. There’s been no announcement or new stories. Local lawmakers told me they had no idea Walz had reversed course.

For whatever reason, the drug has become political. Part of that may be due to the fact that it has been around so long that there is no great profit in using it, but I suspect part of it is due to the fact that President Trump mentioned it months ago.

Not Really A Surprise

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The Epoch Times reported yesterday that Alexander Yuk Chung Ma, a 67-year-old Hawaii resident has been arrested and charged with selling top-secret information to China over the span of a decade, the justice department said.

The article reports:

Ma began working for the CIA in 1982 and later became an FBI linguist.

Prosecutors said Ma worked with a relative who was also a former CIA officer, an 85-year-old Los Angeles man, but he was not charged because he suffers from a “debilitating cognitive disease.”

The charges are the latest in a string of prosecutions targeting Chinese espionage activities in the United States.

Ma, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Hong Kong, was stationed overseas, where he had a “Top Secret” clearance, prosecutors said. He left the agency in 1989, and then lived and worked in Shanghai before moving to Hawaii in 2000.

Prosecutors said Ma turned allegiances by 2001, when he met several times with at least five officers of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country’s top intelligence agency, in a Hong Kong hotel room. During these meetings, Ma “disclosed a substantial amount of highly classified national defense information,” including the identities of CIA officers and assets, methods of covert communication, information about the CIA’s internal structure, and details about the agency’s spycraft.

The FBI procured video footage of one of the meetings in March 2001, which showed MSS agents paying Ma $50,000, which he counted while relaying the classified information, the court document said. It is unclear how the FBI obtained the footage.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

The justice department has in recent years brought cases against several current and former U.S. officials accused of supplying secrets to the Chinese regime. Last year, former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to deliver classified information to Chinese intelligence after leaving the agency in 2010.

“The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, strewn with former American intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement.

China is not our friend and has not been a fair trading partner or a responsible member of the world community. It is time to hold them accountable for their spying and for their human rights violations within their country.

That Was Then, This Is Now

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On April 19th Townhall reported the following:

New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo was asked on Sunday whether or not he has faith in President Trump when it comes to handling the Wuhan coronavirus. Gov. Cuomo made it clear that he not only trusts the president but that what Trump and his administration have done was nothing short of a “phenomenal accomplishment.”

“What the federal government did working with states was a phenomenal accomplishment,” the governor marveled. “We bent the curve. We flattened the curve. Government did it. People did it, but government facilitates people’s actions, right?”

Gov. Cuomo has consistently praised the president for helping New Yorkers while the state quickly emerged as an international hotspot of the Wuhan coronavirus. Only on the issue of ventilators, when Gov. Cuomo anticipated New York would need some 40,000 ventilators, were the president and the governor at odds. Trump expected the actual number of ventilators New York needed to be much lower, and Trump was right. Instead of 40,000 ventilators, New York needed about 5,000. The state now has so many ventilators they have begun sending them to other states.

“We had to double the hospital capacity in New York State,” Gov. Cumo recalled on Sunday. “That’s what all the experts said. The president brought in the Army Corps of Engineers. They built 2,500 at Javits … It was a phenomenal accomplishment. Close to a thousand people have gone through Javits. Luckily, we didn’t need the 2,500 beds. But all the projections said we did need it and more … so these were just extraordinary efforts and acts of mobilization, and the federal government stepped up and was a great partner, and I’m the first one to say it. We needed help and they were there.” 

That was then.

This is now.

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon reported:

In his remarks, Cuomo blamed the Trump administration for its failure to anticipate the pandemic’s magnitude. But like the Trump administration, the governor himself downplayed the threat of the virus as it was beginning to spread across the United States, telling New Yorkers in early March that it was “a manageable situation” and didn’t “merit the hysteria.” Weeks later, his state became the center of the U.S. outbreak.

For Governor Cuomo it’s not about doing the right thing–it’s about politics. The Democrats have chosen to ignore the fact that the Governor sent coronavirus patients into nursing homes after other facilities were made available. For those who lost loved ones because of that decision, this is not a small matter. His speech last night at the Democrat convention was a disgrace.

More Spin

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Mollie Hemingway posted an article at The Federalist today that illustrates how the media manipulates information in order to fit a pre-planned narrative.

The article reports:

Adam Goldman broke, and cushioned, the news that former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was to plead guilty to fabricating evidence in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to spy on Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page.

His job was to present the news as something other than an indictment of the FBI’s handling of the Russia collusion hoax, to signal to other media that they should move on from the story as quickly as possible, and to hide his own newspaper’s multi-year participation in the Russia collusion hoax. One intelligence source described it as an “insult” to his intelligence and “beyond Pravda,” a reference to the official newspaper of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Here’s how Goldman did it.

The New York Times used to put every Russia collusion story it had on the front page. Then, when the narrative fell apart, the Times moved on to a new narrative of redefining America as irredeemably racist.

Even though Clinesmith’s guilty plea is directly relevant to the false story the Times peddled for years, and even though it broke the news of his guilty plea, the publication hid the story deep in the paper and put a boring headline on it. “Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Durham Investigation,” as if begging readers to move on. If they didn’t, the subhead told them that the news really wasn’t such a big deal. “Prosecutors are not expected to reveal any evidence of a broad anti-Trump conspiracy among law enforcement officials,” it claimed, without, well, evidence.

In fact, while the charging document was brief, it revealed that while Clinesmith deliberately fabricated evidence in the fourth warrant to spy on Page, all four warrants failed to mention the information the CIA gave the FBI months before the first warrant was filed. That information was that Page, a former Marine officer who graduated from the Naval Academy, had been a source for the agency, sharing information about Russians the agency was interested in. In fact, he’d done it for five years.

The article notes:

Goldman claims, without evidence, that Trump “has long been blunt about seeing the continuing investigation by the prosecutor examining the earlier inquiry, John H. Durham, as political payback.” In fact, Trump has said that no president should go through what he went through: the weaponization of a political opponent’s conspiracy theory to undermine a duly elected president.

Is it payback when you are trying to find the truth and prevent future wrongdoing?

The article concludes:

Had the FBI been properly informed that Steele was working both for the Clinton-funded operation and the Russian oligarch, they said they would have been much more sensitive to the possibility his entire operation was related to Russian disinformation. Also, Steele’s two most explosive claims — about Michael Cohen being in Prague and the “pee tape” claim — were both thought to have been part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The dossier was key to securing the wiretap on Page, which Goldman doesn’t mention. He instead writes, “Investigators eventually suspected that Russian spies had marked Mr. Page for recruitment” as the reason they were able to get a wiretap.

All of which to say, in a story about malfeasance on Carter Page’s FISA warrants, Goldman doesn’t mention the dossier until the penultimate paragraph of a 30-paragraph story.

These are just a few of the ways Goldman manipulates the story to protect the Russia collusion hoax he participated in. Because they were co-conspirators in the hoax, too many in the corporate media are serving as obstacles to holding the FBI and other powerful government agencies accountable for their actions.

Be prepared for much more silly-season spin.

It Really Should Be About The Constitution

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Issues & Insights posted an article today titled, “It Was Obama, Not Trump, Who Failed The Constitution.” The article contrasts the ways both men governed while in the office of President.

The article notes:

One of the key aspects of the Trump presidency has been his success at maintaining the vibrant and dynamic role of the office of the president.  In John Yoo’s latest book “Defender in Chief,” he counters the narrative that President Trump challenges our constitutional order.  On the contrary, Yoo explains, President Trump has been quite remarkable in promoting and protecting the presidency as an integral part of our federal system.

From its inception, our Constitution contemplated that the head of the federal government have the agility and flexibility to accomplish his agenda – one that had been presented to the public in the national election.  President Trump’s effective use of his office to focus like a laser on his policy goals has been truly amazing to watch.

The article continues:

In “Defender in Chief,” Yoo carefully explains the seriousness of the Trump administration in pursuing its objectives lawfully and also simultaneously reveals how so many of his critics colored outside Constitutional lines.

In nine chapters, he reminds us of the myriad methods of this dichotomy that psychologists might otherwise call projection. Remember the left’s attacks on the Electoral College? Yoo also reminds us of the odious court-packing schemes of FDR, repackaged by progressives Pete Buttigieg and VP candidate Kamala Harris.

…Even when the policy issue doesn’t necessitate a visit to federal courts, Trump’s critics twist themselves into pretzels figuring out how to oppose him. Take the Paris Agreement or the Iran nuclear deal. In both cases, President Obama failed to follow the Constitution’s predicates to submit the agreements to the Senate as treaties. Yet when Trump withdrew from both he was criticized for “undermining America’s standing in the world.”

The article concludes:

John Yoo’s latest book reveals that Trump is a bold and vigorous force in Washington, and even more an agent of support for his office just as our founders planned.  While the left continually challenges his position as president and his person as a threat to our Constitutional order, the reality Yoo reveals is quite different.

In “Defender in Chief,” Yoo gives the reader a robust defense of Trump’s commitment to the American experiment.  That our president has an unalloyed love of our country is clear.  Now we see with numerous examples that Trump has been able to accomplish his policy goals while staying within the lines of Article II because he’s the defender in chief.

Quite often the things the Democrats accuse others of doing are the things the Democrats themselves are doing. President Trump has never claimed that because he has a phone and a pen he can enact laws.

Beyond The Spin

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I suspect that I am not the only one confused by all the current discussions relating to the Post Office. I understand that it is the political silly season, but it does seem as if things are getting even more ridiculous than usual. Yesterday Byron York posted an article at The Washington Examiner that sheds some light on what is actually going on. Please follow the link to read the entire article. I will try to summarize the highlights here.

The article reports:

The news is filled with reports of President Trump’s “assault” on the U.S. Postal Service. The president, Democrats and some in the media say, is deliberately slowing mail delivery and crippling the Postal Service so that it cannot handle an anticipated flood of voting by mail in the presidential election. Former President Barack Obama said Trump is trying to “actively kneecap” the Postal Service to suppress the vote. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the House back into session this week and has set an “urgent hearing” for Aug. 24, demanding Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the head of the Postal Service Board of Governors testify “to address the sabotage of the Postal Service.”

Some of the accusations have grown so frantic that they resemble the frenzy of a couple of years ago over the allegation, from many of the same people, that Trump had conspired with Russia to fix the 2016 election. Now, it’s the Postal Service. But what, actually, is going on? Here is a brief look at some of the issues involved.

…The idea that the Postal Service will not be able to handle the volume of mail in the election, or not be able to handle it within normal Postal Service time guidelines, does not make much sense. According to its most recent annual report, last year, in fiscal year 2019, the Postal Service handled 142.5 billion pieces of mail. “On a typical day, our 633,000 employees physically process and deliver 471 million mailpieces to nearly 160 million delivery points,” the report says. This year, that number is higher, given the Postal Service’s delivery of census forms and stimulus checks. Those alone added about 450 million additional pieces of mail.

The article notes that the post office has a history of losing money:

The Postal Service has lost money for a very long time. In fiscal year 2019, it had operating revenues of $71.1 billion and operating expenses of $79.9 billion, leaving it with a deficit of $8.8 billion. At the moment, Postal Service officials have told Congress, it has about $14 billion in cash on hand, putting it on the road to fiscal insolvency (without further aid) in late 2021.

The article reports:

The House HEROES Act would give $25 billion to the Postal Service in what is essentially a bailout. The bill mentions nothing about helping the Postal Service handle the upcoming election or any other election. Indeed, the only stipulation at all placed on the $25 billion is that the Postal Service, “during the coronavirus emergency, shall prioritize the purchase of, and make available to all Postal Service employees and facilities, personal protective equipment, including gloves, masks, and sanitizers, and shall conduct additional cleaning and sanitizing of Postal Service facilities and delivery vehicles.” If the House Democrats who wrote and passed the bill intended the money to be spent specifically for elections, they did not say so in the text of the legislation.

Separate from the Postal Service provisions, the bill would give $3.6 billion to the Election Assistance Commission for distribution to states “for contingency planning, preparation, and resilience of elections for federal office.” There has been some confusion about that; some discussion of the current controversy has left the impression that Democrats want $3.6 billion for the Postal Service for the election. In fact, the $3.6 billion would be for the states’ election use. In neither the CARES Act, which is now law, nor the HEROES Act, which has been passed by the House but not the Senate, is there any money given to the Postal Service specifically for the election. In any event, the Postal Service has the capacity to handle the election and does not need any additional money specifically to do the job.

Another item mentioned in the article deals with the charge that President Trump is sabotaging the post office:

In addition, there have been reports of the Postal Service removing collection boxes and sorting machines. While some Democrats and journalists have portrayed that as another effort toward voter suppression, the fact is the number of letters the Postal Service handles each year has declined for 20 years since the arrival of email. In those last two decades, the Postal Service has downsized its capabilities as the number of letters handled has decreased. Here is how the Washington Post described the situation, specifically concerning sorting machines: “Purchased when letters not packages made up a greater share of postal work, the bulky and aging machines can be expensive to maintain and take up floor space postal leaders say would be better devoted to boxes. Removing underused machines would make the overall system more efficient, postal leaders say. The Postal Service has cut back on mail-sorting equipment for years since mail volume began to decline in the 2000s.”

Evidently some Democrat focus group has decided that the post office would make a good campaign issue,so Speaker Pelosi is calling her minions back to Washington to capitalize on that idea. This is a charade to try to damage President Trump in order to elect the most radical Democrat candidates ever.

The Silly Season Is In Full Swing

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about the Delaware debut of the Biden-Harris ticket. Since there are those who constantly accuse President Trump of lying and needing to be fact checked, Tim Graham, the author of the article, decided to fact-check the roll out of the campaign.

Here is a list of eight of the major untruths he found:

1. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have given us “four years of mismanagement and coddling of terrorists and thugs around the world,” Biden said. Did Trump “coddle” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group? No, he’s dead. Did Trump “coddle” Iranian terrorist Gen. Qassem Soleimani? He’s dead, too. Biden opposed taking down Osama bin Laden, so he should sit a spell.

2. Trump has no “plan” for the pandemic. He has “no real help for the states and local governments trying to fill the vacuum of leadership from the White House, no real help for children and educators, for small businesses and front-line workers,” Biden said. We didn’t allocate $3 trillion to mitigate the pandemic, aiding governments and businesses and vaccine development?

3. Trump was accused of referring to neo-Nazis and racists when he said, “There are very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 Charlottesville protests. This is transparently false … and yet, fact-checkers like PolitiFact go limp and let Biden unspool this lie. Reporters at the time prodded Trump, and he explicitly condemned the neo-Nazis and racists.

4. Trump is “on track to leave office with the worst jobs record of any American president in modern history.” In January, FactCheck.org reported, “The economy added 6.7 million jobs, and unemployment fell to the lowest rate in half a century.” We’re now in a pandemic that shocked the economy, but the economy is recovering. Does anyone think the “fact-checkers” would let a Republican blame the Democrats for the economy if this were to happen under a President Hillary Clinton?

5. Kamala Harris said: “The president’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunged us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. … He inherited the longest economic expansion in history … And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.” Did Democrats oppose the lockdown kicking and screaming? Shouldn’t they share responsibility for it?

6. Harris insisted, “After the most competitive primary in history, the country received a resounding message that Joe was the person to lead us forward.” That’s a joke. There were a huge number of candidates, but it didn’t end up competitive at all, in part because of the pandemic. It certainly didn’t match Obama vs. Clinton in 2008.

7. Harris said, “I cannot wait for America to get to know my husband, Doug, and our amazing kids, Cole and Ella.” Our? Facebook labels claims like this as having “Missing Context.” They’re Harris’ stepkids from her 2014 marriage to Doug Emhoff, and they’re 26 and 21 years old.

8. Speaking of terrible context, Harris tried to compare the coronavirus pandemic to the Ebola outbreak of 2014: “Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people in the United States died. Two. That is what’s called leadership.” These are apples and oranges in epidemiology. Ebola is much deadlier than the coronavirus. But the spread isn’t nearly the same, since Ebola is not infectious until you have symptoms, and you’re quickly bedridden.

Just for the record, the mainstream media didn’t report any of these statements as untrue.

Something To Consider Before You Vote

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Yesterday Jed Babbin posted an article at The Washington Times titled, “Biden’s loose lips will make it difficult to maintain national security and America’s secrets.” That is a frightening statement, but unfortunately it is true.The article notes the events following then Vice-President Biden’s statement that Osama bin Laden was killed by a Navy SEAL Team.

The article notes:

On May 2, 2011, President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. He credited the action to a “small team of Americans.” That was the right way to do it.

Nine days later, Mr. Biden made a speech in which he said that the bin Laden operation was conducted by Navy SEALs. He did not name SEAL Team Six specifically, but once the SEALs were named, any intelligence agency (or terrorist network) could easily determine that it was Team Six. The location of their home base — and thus their families — has been one of the worst-kept secrets in the military. Mr. Biden’s remarks endangered them all.

Caring for the nation’s secrets is a mundane task at which the Obama administration — including Mr. Biden — failed utterly. 

The members of Navy SEAL Team Six were killed in an ambush on August 6, 2011. The claim that the ambush was a result of Joe Biden’s stating that the SEALs killed bin Laden is disputed by some, but those familiar with the events believe the ambush was the result of the Vice-President’s statements.

The article also notes that during the Obama administration classified information was sent over non-secure computers (Hillary Clinton’s private server) even by the President. It is considered highly likely that the Chinese had a copy of everything that went through Mrs. Clinton’s server in real time. We lost a lost of intelligence assets in China during those years.

Those who have watched the infrequent appearances of the former Vice-President believe that he is showing his age. He does not seem to be able to hold a train of thought for an extended period of time and seems to be easily distracted or confused. Are the American voters willing to trust a man who may not be working at full mental capacity?