Monthly Archives: August 2020

A Forgotten Precedent

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Recently I have heard members of the mainstream media opine that President Trump’s acceptance of his party’s nomination from the White House would be against the law (Hatch Act). Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article that might shed some light on that opinion. An acceptance speech from the White House would not be something that has not happened before.

The article notes:

Even the media are piling on the outrage. An Aug. 6 piece by Deb Riechmann of the usually reliable Associated Press wrote, “Using the Rose Garden, the Executive Mansion or even the Oval Office as the backdrop for his speech capping the Aug. 24-27 convention would mark an unprecedented use of federal property for partisan political purposes.”

Except it wouldn’t be unprecedented at all.

Just past midnight on a muggy Thursday night in July 1940, Franklin Roosevelt was wheeled into the Diplomatic Reception Room on the White House’s ground floor. His chair was placed before a large, silvery microphone. Roosevelt felt comfortable speaking in that particular spot. It was where he had delivered many of his famous “fireside chats” and where, four years later, he would lead people in prayer on the evening of D-Day.

But Roosevelt wasn’t performing an official duty at the moment. Sitting in his shirt sleeves, he thumbed through the papers in his hands, scanning the words typed on them one last time. At 12:14 a.m., a producer pointed a finger toward him indicating that it was time to talk. Franklin Roosevelt took a quick breath and spoke these words: “Members of the Convention — my friends …”

He then spent the next half-hour accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination for the third time and laying the groundwork for his upcoming reelection campaign. And he did it inside the walls of the White House.

The article explains why Roosevelt gave the speech from the White House:

While the party machinery was firmly in Roosevelt’s control, Democratic leaders were jittery. Would rank-and-file delegates vote to make it official? Outgoing Vice President John Nance Garner had sought the nomination, giving them an alternative. And Roosevelt himself had been coy all spring and summer about running for a third term. The president’s advisers had him stay home in Washington, just to be on the safe side. But in the end, there was nothing to worry about. Roosevelt was easily nominated on the first ballot.

Which was how Roosevelt became the first (and to date, only) candidate to ever deliver this most political of all speeches from the White House.

Those condemning President Trump for considering the idea might want to take a look at their own history!

The RussiaGate Scandal Begins To Unravel

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to charges of altering evidence involved in the surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016.

The article reports:

Kevin Clinesmith, who worked on both the Hillary Clinton emails investigation and the Trump-Russia inquiry, will admit that he falsified a document during the bureau’s targeting of Carter Page, according to multiple reports. Clinesmith, 38, claimed in early 2017 that Page was “not a source” for the CIA when the CIA had actually told the bureau on multiple occasions that Page was an operational contact for them — a falsehood used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewal against Page. Durham submitted a five-page filing to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, noting Clinesmith was being charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(3) for “False Statements.”

Attorney General William Barr had hinted at a “development” in Durham’s investigation during a Fox News interview on Thursday night.

Clinesmith’s responsibilities during the Trump-Russia investigation included communicating with “another specific United States government agency,” which is believed to be the CIA, as well as providing support to the FBI special agents working with the Justice Department’s National Security Division to pursue FISA warrants and renewals against Page.

Why is this important? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed to allow the FBI to track terrorists more easily. It was never intended to be used against American citizens who were not breaking the law. The falsifying of a document to allow the surveillance of Carter Page resulted in the violation of Carter Page’s civil rights (and unauthorized spying on the Trump campaign) . The use of FISA to spy on an opposition political campaign was simply Watergate using government surveillance warrants that were unjustified.

The article also notes:

In a scathing July 2018 inspector general report on the FBI’s Clinton emails investigation, Clinesmith was mentioned — again, not by name — numerous times as being one of the FBI officials who conveyed a possible bias against Trump in instant messages, along with Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, both of whom have left the bureau.

In a lengthy instant message exchange between Clinesmith and another FBI employee on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump’s presidential victory, he lamented Trump’s win and worried about the role he played in the investigation into Trump and his campaign. “My god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff,” Clinesmith said, adding, “So, who knows if that breaks to him what he is going to do?”

Other messages showed Clinesmith, listed in Horowitz’s report as “FBI Attorney 2,” expressed favor toward Clinton and said “Viva le resistance” in the weeks after Trump’s win.

The July 2018 report shows Clinesmith claimed his messages reflected only his personal views and that his work was unaffected by them; Horowitz ultimately was unable to find that “improper considerations, including political bias,” influenced any investigative decisions.

Horowitz’s December report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau’s reliance on the Democrat-funded discredited dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. Declassified footnotes from Horowitz’s report indicate the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation.

The DOJ watchdog called the FBI’s explanations for these mistakes “unsatisfactory across the board” and testified he wasn’t sure if the errors were “gross incompetence” or “intentional.”

In January, the Justice Department determined that the final two of the four Page FISA warrants “were not valid.” The FBI told the court it was working to ” sequester” all the information from the Page wiretaps, and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress he was working to ” claw back” that intelligence. The FBI director also testified that the bureau likely illegally surveilled Page.

“After several years, Kevin Clinesmith is finally being held accountable and pleading guilty to committing a felony for his involvement in the plot to falsely portray me and, by implication, the Trump administration as traitors. The actions by the full band of government officials and Democrat operatives involved in the creation of the false applications for my FISA surveillance warrants were entirely unconscionable,” Page said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.

I am sure there is more to come. The fact remains that the trial will probably be held in a Washington, D.C. court. It will be very interesting to see how the court rules. We may be about to find out if we actually do have equal justice under the law in America.

Facts vs. Spin

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The mainstream media has informed us that Kamala Harris is a pragmatic progressive or a practical moderate. She is never described as extreme. Just the News posted an article yesterday that examines her voting record.

The article reports:

Harris, who is in her first term as a senator, co-sponsored Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for all” single-payer health care bill in 2017 and 2019. Opponents of the bill, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, argue that it would eliminate the existing private health insurance system. 

In 2019, Harris was also a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Green New Deal, which is estimated to cost $16 trillion over 10 years. She recently introduced a climate equity bill incorporating elements of the Green New Deal with New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Harris co-sponsored a bill with New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker to set up a federal commission to study providing reparations to African-American descendants of slaves and “make recommendations on reparation proposals for the descendants of slaves.”

Harris also supports the Marijuana Justice Act of 2019, which “removes marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act and eliminates criminal penalties for an individual who imports, exports, manufactures, distributes, or possesses with intent to distribute marijuana.”

The former California attorney general is a co-sponsor of a bill introduced by Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Markey that would “authorize the admission of climate-displaced persons” from other countries into the U.S.

Some of the other bills she has supported are the the Save Voters Act, which would prevent states from purging from voter files the names of individuals who are inactive or have changed addresses, and a bill to “prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of federal law and for other purposes. She opposed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would establish “requirements for the degree of care a health care practitioner must exercise in the event a child is born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion.”

The article notes:

She also voted against legislation that would prohibit “the use of federal funds for abortions or for health coverage that includes abortions.” During the presidential primary debates, Harris slammed Biden for supporting the Hyde Amendment during his Senate career. The Hyde Amendment is included in appropriations bills to prohibit federal funds from going toward abortion. 

Is that the profile of a moderate Democrat?

We Are Truly In The Political Silly Season

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President Trump brokered a peace deal between Israel and the UAE. That is amazing. He was able to do that because Israel trusts him and because the UAE is aware of the danger Iran poses to the region. As expected, Joe Biden is taking credit for the peace deal.

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about the peace deal.

The article reports:

On Thursday, following the announcement of the historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made the astonishing claim that the Obama administration was partially responsible for preparing the way for the deal.

Biden said that “the coming together of Israel and Arab states builds on the efforts of multiple administrations to foster a broader Arab-Israeli opening, including the efforts of the Obama-Biden administration to build on the Arab Peace Initiative,” adding, “I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the UAE during our administration building the case for cooperation and broader engagement and the benefits it could deliver to both nations, and I am gratified by today’s announcement. It is a timely reminder that enmities and differences — even long standing ones — are not set in stone, and of the role American diplomacy can play,” as Fox News reported.

The article explains why the claim from Joe Biden is false:

The Arab Peace Initiative that Biden cited was proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at the 2002 Arab League Summit in Beirut, Lebanon, endorsed by that summit, and later endorsed at the 2007 summit in Riyadh. It called for full Israeli withdrawal from Golan Heights, which would leave Israel vulnerable to attacks from above it, withdrawal from the Biblical Judea and Samaria, where the ancient Jewish kings were crowned, and withdrawal from East Jerusalem, which includes the Temple Mount, the site of the Biblical temples, and for Jews, the holiest place on earth.

As it turned out, Israel never compromised on those issues, and yet the UAE has made peace, so Biden’s citation of the Arab Peace Initiative to buttress his claim that the Obama administration had anything to do with the deal is ludicrous.

The article notes the role the policies of the Obama administration played in this peace deal:

But in one sense, Biden is correct, albeit not for the reasons he cited. The Obama administration, by its support for the theocratic, despotic Iranian regime, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, triggered Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia to link with Israel as all four countries were aware of the Iranian threat to all of them.

The Obama-Biden administration was probably the most hostile to Israel in American history. The administration repeatedly treated Israel as an obstacle to peace in the Middle East while praising Iran, a knows sponsor of terrorism.

It is the political silly season. We can expect much more of this before the election in November.

Symbolism Over Substance

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Yesterday WRKO AM 680 posted an article about a recent directive from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The article reports:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is taking seriously Gov. Tony Evers’ order that everybody in the state must wear a mask while indoors. The department sent out an email to employees reminding them of the order, which took effect on August 1.

In addition to wearing masks while working at DNR facilities or in the field, Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole told employees they should also wear one while on video conference calls, even if they are home alone.

Are they afraid the computers will catch the virus? Seriously, this is an employer attempting to control the actions of employees while the employees are in their own homes. That sets an awful precedent.

The article continues:

“Also, wear your mask, even if you are home, to participate in a virtual meeting that involves being seen — such as on Zoom or another video-conferencing platform — by non-DNR staff,” Cole wrote, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Set the safety example which shows you as a DNR public service employee care about the safety and health of others.”

The agency said they want their employees to set an example to others and demonstrate how vital it is to wear a mask in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

“By wearing a mask while video conferencing with the general public, we visually remind folks that masking is an important part of navigating the business of natural resources during this tumultuous time,” DNR spokeswoman Megan Sheridan told McClatchy News.

She also said that the agency is concerned that screen grabs of high-ranking employees not wearing masks could be misconstrued to insinuate that they are not following the governor’s order.

On August 7th, The Hill reported the following:

An Illinois school district is cracking down on remote learning dress codes, disallowing students from wearing pajamas while attending online classes.

The Springfield Public Schools Board of Education approved the district’s new handbook this week, which applies in-person dress codes to remote learning settings, NBC News reported.

“We don’t need students in pajamas and all those other things while on their Zoom conference,” Director of School Support Jason Wind said during a virtual school board meeting on Monday.

Does anyone else feel that this is a bit intrusive? I really don’t like the idea of any government agency trying to control what I wear or don’t wear in my own home.

If The Facts Get In The Way, Just Make It Up

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The seeds for the division we now see in the country were sown years ago. Some were sown during the Obama administration when lies were told about the way the police treated different races. The seeds of division were sown when people like the New Black Panthers were not charged after intimidating voters at a polling place in Philadelphia despite a video showing the events. The seeds were sown when the IRS treated certain groups differently when they applied for 501c3 status. One of the biggest lies that has been told that has sown division is the misquoting of a statement made by President Trump after the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Ann Althouse reminds us of this lie (and the fact that it has continued) in an article on her blog.

She notes:

Biden put up that tweet last night after the speech. This post is to look at the transcript of the speeches that Biden and Harris gave at their event yesterday and to pull out the Charlottesville quotes

We have a racial justice crisis Donald Trump seeks only to inflame it with his politics of racist rhetoric and appeals to division. Today’s not only the day I’m proud to introduce Senator Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. It’s also the third anniversary of that terrible day in Charlottesville. Remember? Remember what it felt like to see those neo-Nazis, close your eyes, and those Klansmen, white supremacists, coming out of fields…

Real Clear Politics posted the real President Trump quote:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

This is the quote that is being ignored:

“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.” 

Joe Biden is either lying or he is misinformed. Neither one is a good look for a presidential candidate.

Please follow the link to the article by Ann Althouse that is linked above for the whole story.

Part Of The Democrat Party Platform

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Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Kamala Harris’ views on guns.

The article reports:

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has done something unprecedented with his pick of Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) as his running mate: put a candidate on the presidential ticket who publicly supports gun confiscation.

During her failed primary campaign, Harris was one of only a handful of candidates to explicitly advocate for the confiscation of what she estimated to be tens of millions of legally owned firearms.

“We have to have a buyback program and I support a mandatory gun buyback program,” she said during an October policy forum hosted by the gun-control group March for Our Lives. “It’s got to be smart. We’ve got to do it the right way but there are five million [assault weapons] at least, some estimate as many as 10 million, and we’re going to have to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets but doing it the right way.”

First of all, those who call for the ban on assault weapons never quite define what an assault weapon is. In the past, some Congressmen have added guns to that list simply because they were ‘scary-looking.’ Second of all, there is a reason for the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is there to protect Americans from a tyrannical government. It seems to me that one of the indications of a tyrannical government might be that they want to take your guns away. The Second Amendment is there to secure the rights of the First Amendment.

The article reports:

“During her short-lived presidential campaign, she demanded gun-control legislation within 100 days and threatened executive action if Congress didn’t deliver,” Oliva (Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation) told the Free Beacon. “Senator Harris was clear when she said gun control would be an administration priority. Her platform included entertaining forced confiscation of lawfully owned semiautomatic rifles, redefining ‘sporting purpose’ for lawful firearm possession, criminalizing private firearm transfers and repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. In fact, she supports politicizing the Department of Justice and using the weight of the federal government to harass a constitutionally protected industry in a series of frivolous lawsuits to bankrupt manufacturers.”

Oliva called the pick a danger to gun owners.

“Joe Biden’s selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate makes this ticket the most serious threat to American Second Amendment rights ever faced in a presidential election,” he said.

Gun-control groups, on the other hand, cheered Biden’s decision to name Harris his vice-presidential nominee. Giffords, the gun-control group headed by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, emphasized Harris’s support for expanding background checks to private sales in a celebratory email to its donors and didn’t mention her support for confiscation.

“Joe Biden just announced his pick for Vice President and we are so thrilled to have Senator Kamala Harris join the fight to defeat Trump in November,” the group said in an email to supporters. “Like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is a gun safety champion with a proven record of fighting the NRA and standing up for common sense. They will work tirelessly together to pass universal background checks and make every community safer from gun violence.”

Gun violence will not stop when you take guns away from law-abiding gun owners; it will only stop when you take guns away from criminals. We already have laws that do that. Those laws don’t work because criminals do not obey laws.Taking guns away from law-abiding gun owners will not cause criminals to give up their guns–it will simply result in more unarmed victims of those criminals (or a tyrannical government that cannot be stopped). Neither is a positive step forward.

This Article Is NOT Satire

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article with the following headline, “Jamie Lee Curtis warns of Trump fans stealing mail trucks to win 2020: ‘Let’s not let it happen!'”

The article includes this tweet:

The article reports:

Celebrity activist Jamie Lee Curtis says she’s worried that President Trump’s supporters may steal the 2020 election by making off with United States Postal Service trucks. 

The “Halloween” star left Twitter users confused on Tuesday after peddling a conspiracy theory of enormous size and scope. 

“I swear, in broad daylight, the driver of the red truck had a red cap on with white letters,” she tweeted nearly 560,000 fans while attaching an image of a damaged USPS vehicle. “Conspiracy? Outright attempt at stealing the election by denying the access of the @USPS ? Let’s not let it happen! @JoeBiden.”

I have nothing to add.

Wonderful News Brought To You By The Trump Administration

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Sara Carter is reporting today that in a deal brokered by the Trump administration, Israel and the United Arab Emirates have normalized diplomatic ties.

The article reports:

“This historic diplomatic breakthrough will advance peace in the Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of the three leaders and the courage of the United Arab Emirates and Israel to chart a new path that will unlock the great potential in the region,” a joint statement released Thursday read.

“All three countries face many common challenges and will mutually benefit from today’s historic achievement.”

This is the statement:

Although the Trump administration brokered the deal, the real responsibility for making the deal possible falls on the increased militancy of Iran. Both Israel and the UAE realize the Iran is continuing to fund terrorist groups in the Middle East with the intention of ruling the region. Iran and Turkey would both like to reestablish the caliphate that was dissolved when the Ottoman Empire fell. Their only disagreement is who will rule the new caliphate. That is what this deal is really about. Nevertheless, it is a much needed step toward stability in the Middle East.

The Under-The-Radar War With China

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On August 6th, The Department of the Treasury posted a press release on the Internet.

This is a portion of that press release:

In response to President Trump’s June 4 Memorandum on Protecting United States Investors from Significant Risks from Chinese Companies, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) today released a report making five recommendations. These recommendations are designed to address risks to investors in U.S. financial markets posed by the Chinese government’s failure to allow audit firms that are registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to comply with U.S. securities laws and investor protection requirements.

“The PWG examined the risks to investors posed by the Chinese government’s failure to allow access. The PWG unanimously recommends that the Securities and Exchange Commission take steps to enhance the listing standards on U.S. exchanges for access to audit work papers, among other recommendations,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, Chairman of the PWG. “The recommendations outlined in the report will increase investor protection and level the playing field for all companies listed on U.S. exchanges. The United States is the premier jurisdiction in the world for raising capital, and we will not compromise on the core principles that underpin investor confidence in our capital markets.”

Basically what that says in that Chinese companies investing in the U.S. stock markets will be required to comply with the same auditing standards that American companies are required to comply with. That should be an obvious requirement, but has not been in the past. Actions have consequences.

On Monday The Epoch Times reported:

A rising number of Chinese companies are considering delisting from the U.S. stock exchanges as Washington increases its crackdown on foreign companies that fail to comply with U.S. audit standards.

Chinese online travel giant Ctrip is the latest company reportedly exploring going private. The company has held early-stage talks with a number of investors, including private equity firms and tech companies, about funding its delisting from Nasdaq, Reuters reported.

Chinese companies would rather leave U.S. stock markets than comply with the auditing requirements that American companies are subject to. That tells us all we need to know about the financial practices of Chinese companies.

Principles, Anyone?

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about what seems to be a change of heart on the part of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The article notes:

The payroll tax was cut in 2010, under President Obama’s leadership, and extended in 2011 and 2012.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supported the payroll tax cut under former President Barack Obama but opposes it under President Donald Trump.

In the absence of a stimulus deal in Congress, Trump authorized a payroll tax deferral by executive order on Saturday. The order instructs the Treasury Department to look at forgiving the deferred taxes.

Pelosi referred to the executive action as unconstitutional and argued that the payroll tax cut will harm Social Security and Medicare.

The article includes a statement from Speaker Pelosi in 2011:

In 2010, Obama signed a payroll tax reduction, and Congress extended the cut in 2011 and 2012. Pelosi supported the payroll tax cut at the time.

“Today is a victory for all Americans — for the security of our middle class, for the health of our seniors, and for economic growth and job creation. The American people spoke out clearly and, thanks to President Obama’s leadership, 160 million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut,” Pelosi said in a statement in 2011.

This is another example an action that the Democrats thought was wonderful when President Obama did it, but the Democrats think it is horrible when President Trump does it.

This Might Explain Some Of The Problems In Chicago

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

The article reports:

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has dropped over 25,000 felony cases, including charges of murder and the alleged hate crime hoax from former Empire star Jussie Smollett, according to an analysis released by the Chicago Tribune on Monday.

The article quotes the Chicago Tribune:

During Foxx’s first three years as the county’s top prosecutor, her office dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor, the Tribune found. For the last three years of Anita Alvarez’s tenure, the rate was 19.4%.

In all, a total of 25,183 people had their felony cases dismissed under Foxx through November 2019, up from 18,694 for a similar period under Alvarez.

[…]

For the three-year period analyzed, Foxx’s office dropped 8.1% of homicide cases, compared with 5.3% under Alvarez, the Tribune found. Under Foxx, the office dropped 9.5% of felony sex crime cases; the rate was 6.5% for Alvarez.

The article at Breitbart continues:

In a statement to the Tribune, Foxx, who is up for reelection in November, said of the figures: “It is always eye-opening to be able to look at our own data and compare it to my predecessor’s past. I can’t reconcile what her decision-making was, and how they chose to (dismiss) cases in the past. But I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime.”

If you are trying to make sense out of this, you might want to look at one of the contributors to Foxx’s reelection campaign.

In February 2020, The Chicago Sun Times reported:

A political action committee founded by liberal billionaire philanthropist — and Donald Trump nemesis — George Soros kicked $2 million to a committee supporting Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in her re-election bid against three Democratic primary challengers.

A mega donor to Democrats and liberal causes, the hedge fund operator’s Democracy PAC transferred $2 million into the Illinois Justice and Public Safety PAC on Wednesday.

The justice and public safety PAC has so far spent $571,359.30 on mail, media and website production costs opposing Bill Conway, one of Foxx’s primary challengers.

George Soros is on a mission to undermine to government of America in order to further plans for a one-world government. He has funded the campaigns of a number of District Attorneys and State Attorneys General in order to do that. His campaign contributions were a major part of the Democrats’ takeover of the Virginia government in the last election. That takeover has brought restrictive gun laws and other problems. George Soros is an American citizen and can legally donate to campaigns both as an individual and through Political Actions Committees (PACs). I have no doubt he will continue to do so until Americans get wise to what he is attempting to do.

Actions Have Consequences

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported:

The Democrat-controlled Seattle City Council voted late on Monday to advance a highly controversial plan to defund the Seattle Police Department as violent crime and far-left riots have rocked the city in recent months.

The Seattle City Council voted to remove approximately $3 million from the Seattle Police Department’s budget…

…“The committee voted to move the bulk of its proposal forward during its 10 a.m. session, before giving its final approval Monday evening by a 7-1 margin,” MyNorthWest reported. “Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the lone “no” vote, while Debora Juarez — who was not present at Monday’s meetings — abstained. Sawant’s vote against the package was based around her belief that it didn’t go far enough in its reductions to SPD’s funding.”

Fox News reported at the start of the month that Seattle was one of several Democrat-controlled cities that had seen a recent spike in “shootings and murders.”

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported:

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best will be resigning on Wednesday morning, following the city council voting to defund the police amid massive unrest.

The news of Best’s resignation came one day after dozens of businesses were looted once again.

…Q13 reports, “the council on Monday approved proposals that would reduce the police department by up to 100 officers through layoffs and attrition. Chief Best was vocal in her oppostion to the cuts, which came after councilmembers pledged to redirect money from SPD to community programs amid calls from protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.”

The budget cut will slash nearly $4 million from the department’s annual budget — and the councilmembers promised to cut even more in 2021. The 7-1 vote faced objections from the city’s police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild.

It does not take a genius to predict that businesses and property owners will be leaving Seattle in the near future. Community programs have value, but unless you have some semblance of law and order in a city, people don’t want to live or operate businesses there.

This Explains A Lot

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about the members of the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel. It seems as if they have allowed their financial interests to interfere with the interests of the Americans who have contracted the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Members of the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel have financial ties to a company behind clinical trials of a drug to treat coronavirus, as well as to another large pharmaceutical company involved with developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the NIH, members of the panel include U.S. physicians, statisticians, and other experts who are developing treatment guidelines on COVID-19 “intended for healthcare providers.”

A total of eight panel members list a financial relationship with Gilead Sciences on the panel’s Financial Disclosure for Companies Related to COVID-19 Treatment or Diagnostics document: Judith Aberg, MD, Adaora Adimora, MD, Jason Baker, MD, Roger Bedimo, MD, Eric Daar, MD, David V. Glidden, PhD, Susanna Naggie, MD, and Pablo Tebas, MD.  

The U.S. has reportedly bought almost all of Gilead Sciences’ supply of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir. The company announced on June 1 the results of a phase 3 clinical trial of the drug in patients with moderate COVID-19.

On Monday, Gilead applied for FDA approval of remdesivir, which has been available for emergency use with patients hospitalized with severe cases of COVID-19.

The article notes:

Dr. William O’Neill, a cardiologist and Medical Director at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Mich., told Just the News contributor Sharyl Attkisson in an interview for her news program “Full Measure” that he is less impressed with remdesivir.

“There is a lot of hype for the drug,” said O’Neil, adding that he sees “no big benefit” to remdesivir after reading medical journal reports on it.  

This appears to be a blatant example of ‘follow the money’ resulting in Americans dying from the coronavirus because of pressure to block using hydroxychloroquine. It should be noted that remdesivir costs thousands of dollars for one pill and hydroxychloroquine costs less than a dollar for one pill. It’s sad to think that doctors would behave so badly, but it appears that they have.

Media Bias?

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The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will be held from August 7th-16th this year. It is interesting to contrast the media’s coverage of this rally with the coverage of the violent protests in various cities across the country.

Townhall posted an article on Saturday about the Sturgis Rally noting:

About a quarter-million motorcycle riders are expected to descend upon the town of Sturgis, South Dakota, taking part in the 10-day annual rally that kicked off on Friday. The rally is not a left-wing protest, so the media is criticizing attendees for not wearing facemasks and participating in a large gathering amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. 

The mainstream media and even medical officials have decided that the best way to avoid contracting the Wuhan coronavirus is to participate in left-wing protests. Crossing back and forth over the border between Mexico and the United States is seemingly another harmless exercise. But when a large gathering doesn’t fit into the media’s list of liberal-approved activities, the press castigates participants for venturing outside during the pandemic. 

As expected, all the usual suspects are running hit pieces about the rally being a superspreader event. The double standard at this point must be apparent to even the most casual of media consumers. 

While many in the town favored postponing the rally this year due to the Wuhan coronavirus, many others in town, including local business owners, were glad to see rallygoers arrive on schedule. 

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was among those supportive of the rally.

“I trusted my people, they trusted me, and South Dakota is in a good spot in our fight against COVID-19. The #Sturgis motorcycle rally starts this weekend, and we’re excited for visitors to see what our great state has to offer!” Gov. Noem tweeted on Thursday.

Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle earlier this week, Gov. Noem pointed out how the media wrongly predicted a large surge in coronavirus cases following President Trump’s rally at Mount Rushmore for the Fourth of July holiday.  

The article at Townhall concludes:

The 250,000 expected attendees will be around half the size of last year’s turnout. If it was 250,000 people riding into town on Vespas and calling to defund the police, the media would be praising them for their courage.

The New York Times has a different viewpoint (as expressed in an article August 7):

Save for a few hard-to-spot hand-sanitizer stations, it could have been any other major festival in pre-pandemic times.

“Screw Covid I went to Sturgis,” read a black T-shirt amid a sea of Harley Davidson and Trump 2020 outfits sported by the throng of people walking along Main Street. Their gear did not include face masks, and social distancing guidelines were completely ignored.

South Dakota is among several states that did not put in place a lockdown, and state officials have not required residents to wear masks, giving attendees who rode in from outside the state fewer restrictions than they may have had back home.

…Still, Nelson Horsley, 26, of Rapid City, S.D., said he expects there will be a rise in coronavirus cases in the area once the rally concludes next weekend. But he said he didn’t feel the need to wear a mask while walking around downtown Friday afternoon. He compared the virus to getting the seasonal flu.

“I haven’t seen anyone out here wear a mask so it kind of feels like it defeats the purpose,” he said, to wear a mask himself.

What if there isn’t a rise in coronavirus cases after the rally? What does that tell us about what we have been doing to end the virus?

The article at Townhall notes:

“Not only do we have one of the lowest death rates, we’ve got about 40 people in the hospital today statewide, our infection rates are low, our job losses are low, our economy is doing better than virtually any other state, and I think it’s a real testimony to what could have been possible in other states, but those governors just made the wrong decisions,” Noem told Ingraham.

Experience tells us that if there are even two cases of coronavirus as a result of this rally, they will be shouted about by the mainstream media. We need to pay attention to see what actually happens.

This Tells Us All We Need To Know About The Current State Of Education In America

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Many years ago, my husband and I took in a refugee from a communist country and her daughter to live with us until they were able to support themselves. The daughter was enrolled in the local public elementary school. The mother took her to the school to register her and was amazed at what happened next. The principal took the mother and daughter around the school, introduced them to some of the teachers, showed them the cafeteria, etc. The mother commented that in the country she had fled, you dropped your child off at the school and were never allowed inside. Sitting in on your child’s classroom is not an option in communist countries. She was amazed at the freedom of American parents. That was about twenty years ago. In many areas of the country, things have changed drastically.

Yesterday BizPacReview posted an article about a recent tweet from a school teacher at a school in Philadelphia.

The article reports:

Meet Matthew R. Kay, a teacher at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy who’s been accused of trying to indoctrinate his students in left-wing thought.

Kay came to the public’s attention Saturday when he posted viral tweets warning his followers that the virtual classrooms slated for this school season will allow “potential spectators,” including parents, to overhear what their kids are learning.

This, he warned his followers, might present a challenge for their so-called “equity/inclusion work,” i.e., their alleged indoctrination of schoolchildren.

This alleged indoctrination includes discussions that “encourage vulnerability,” address “gender/sexuality” and “destabiliz[e] a kid’s racism or homophobia or transphobia.”

Kay further suggested that he’s always taught his students that “what happens here stays here,” but that virtual classrooms will prevent this.

Mr. Kay, I would like to remind you that parents are supposed to be the ones raising their children–that is not your job. Your job is to teach them the academic skills they need to function successfully in our society. If they learn compassion, empathy, and respect for all people, that is a good thing, but theoretically their parents are supposed to be teaching that–it is not your job.

The article includes a few tweets of people who responded to Mr. Kay’s tweet:

However, not everyone had a problem with Mr. Kay’s idea of excluding parents:

“Parents are dangerous.” Wow. Where have we gone?

The article concludes:

Moreover, the fact that Kay and those like him want to hide what’s happening in these so-called “safe spaces” makes it seem as if indoctrination is involved.

The good news is that at least parents are now aware of what’s happening in classrooms across the country. Whether or not they choose to respond by taking some sort of action is up to them.

Before the November election, do some research into your School Board candidates.  Your vote could make the difference between your children being educated and your children being indoctrinated.

This Is Not A Political Story–I Just Couldn’t Resist Posting It

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This article is from September 2019. It is posted at southernthing.com . The article relates the story of a Texas judge attempting to remove a raccoon from his house.

The article tells the saga:

A Texas judge recently had a show-down with a clever raccoon squatting in his house, and, lucky for us, the hilarious saga between the unlikely adversaries unfolded on social media.

Judge Matthew Wright, of Falls County, Texas, first shared a request for help after he found the pesky critter in his home around 5 a.m. on Monday. Wright said he had prepared a trap for the raccoon, but instead they both ended up napping. Sometimes, you got to know when to retreat, y’all.

Around 3 p.m. on Monday, Wright updated his followers, saying that the two had ” reached a tactical impasse” and there were hopes the raccoon would mosey his way into one of the set traps for food on his own. As you might guess, that is not what happened.

At 6:15 p.m., Wright shared another post, saying he had decided to take action and catch the little guy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough and the raccoon scurried up a curtain where he proceeded to taunt the judge.

Alas, the judge realized what he needed to do to finally capture the beast. When you’re dealing with a Texas raccoon, you got to use Texas bait. So, naturally, he loaded the traps with queso and tamales.

After a nearly 20-hour stand-off, Judge Wright shared his final update to inform everyone the raccoon had fell for it, saying “authorities have captured Rosebud’s Most Wanted. He will serve 20 – 30 (minutes) then be released with conditions not to enter illegally again.”

I guess if you’re going to get caught anyway, might as well do it with a belly full of queso and tamales.

You have to admit, the raccoon looks comfortable!

This Is Really NOT A Good Idea

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Living in New York City is not cheap, but it is supposed to be glamorous. If you look at realtor.com, you can find a 500 or 600 square foot apartment for about $2500 a month. Then on top of that you pay city, state, and federal income tax. It’s a pretty pricey place to live. At those prices, you expect a few benefits. Many buildings have doormen. You are close to restaurants and entertainment. Central Park is beautiful. The museums are great. But New York City is changing. Crime is up. The homeless population is up. Many areas of the city are simply not appealing because of changes in the law that make peeing in the street not a crime. One partial answer to this is a return to the ‘broken windows’ policy of Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately Mayor De Blasio is heading in the other direction.

The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article on Friday reporting the following:

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday revealed a plan to buy properties around the city and turn them into permanent affordable housing, after moving more than 10,000 homeless people into hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic and shaming rich residents who have left the city as ‘fair weather friends’. 

At a press conference on Friday, he did not say which type of buildings the city had its eye on and the city is refusing to give more details, citing ‘privacy concerns’.  

De Blasio only said there was an ‘opportunity to get creative’ now when it came to finding housing for New York’s homeless. 

It presents a stark scenario for landlords or building owners who may be struggling to collect rent from current tenants, many of whom – both commercial and residential – have absconded.  

The homeless-in-hotels scheme set up by de Blasio is one of many components to an escalating downward change in the city.

Before the Mayor gets too wrapped up in the homeless-in-hotels idea, he might want to look at a recent Fox News article detailing a similar program in San Francisco.

The article at Fox News notes:

Police arrested two adults accused of operating a low level meth lab at a San Francisco hotel designated as a safe shelter for people on quarantine, at risk for COVID-19, or without housing.

The call came in about a strong chemical odor coming from a hotel room and officers responded to the Civic Center Motor Inn about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The U.K. Daily Mail also notes:

Many of New York’s wealthy residents fled months ago – taking their disposable income and their tax dollars with them – and there are fears they may never come back.

Crime is on the up but de Blasio has stripped the police force of $1billion in response to Black Lives Matter protests.

Some retailers and restaurants have been forced to close permanently and those who are hanging on face continuously changing and difficult rules, like having to sell ‘substantial’ amounts of food to customers to avoid crowds gathering.

De Blasio and Cuomo are enforcing checkpoints to stop tourists from 35 COVID hotspot states from entering the city without quarantining for 14 days too.

Earlier this year, it emerged that 139 struggling hotels are taking in homeless people to avoid deathly COVID-19 breakouts in shelters. The effort is being mostly paid for by FEMA, but 25 percent of it is coming from the city’s shrinking budget. It brings some cash to the struggling hotels which were decimated by the pandemic. 

Through the program, they take $175 per person, per night which – with more than 13,000 homeless currently being housed in hotels – is more than $2.275million, according to anonymous city sources who have been quoted since May. 

Please follow the link to the article at the U.K; Daily Mail for further details on the Mayor’s idea.

I suspect in the very near future, you will be able to buy a condo or rent an apartment in New York City at bargain-basement prices.

This Is Really Not Surprising

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about Bernie Sanders’ plan for healthcare for everyone.

The article reports:

Bernie Sanders is proposing a new wealth tax on billionaires called the ‘Make Billionaires Pay’ act.

He wants to tax wealth they have generated during the Coronavirus pandemic, to fund healthcare for all Americans for one year.

Only for one year?

The article includes some information from CNBC:

Sen. Sanders proposes one-time tax that would cost Bezos $42.8 billion, Musk $27.5 billion

Top tech leaders and other billionaires would be forced to hand over billions of dollars in wealth they’ve gained during the coronavirus pandemic under a new bill introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

The “Make Billionaires Pay Act” would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021. The funds would be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-care expenses for all Americans for a year. As of Aug. 5, the bill would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March 18, according to a press release. If passed, the bill would tax billionaires on wealth accumulated through the end of the year, however.

Under the bill, tech and other business titans who have seen their wealth shoot up during the pandemic would take huge charges. Amazon and Walmart, for example, have both seen their stocks grow as Americans increasingly relied on their services during stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.

Does anyone remember that Bernie Sanders wanted to tax all millionaires until he became one? The thing to remember here is that billionaires have tax accountants who know how to move money around so that it is not taxable. What happens next is that the program that the tax on billionaires is supposed to fund goes into effect and does not have the money to fund it. At that point, the ‘little people’ like us have to pick up the slack in taxes to pay for the program because we don’t have tax accountants that know how to move money around to avoid taxes. Eventually the middle class pays for all tax increases aimed at the rich. Bernie Sanders and his friends need to study the Laffer Curve. The Bernie Sanders plan is a surefire way to get corporations and their executives to move money overseas (just after President Trump has managed to bring a lot of that money back into America).

 

 

Getting The Job Done–Even When You Have To Do It Alone

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One America News reported yesterday that President Trump has signed four executive orders designed to alleviate some of the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus.

The article reports:

On Saturday, he signed a payroll tax initiative, which will defer payroll tax to those making less than $100,000 a year until the end of 2020.

…The president has renewed supplemental unemployment benefits at $400 a week. This new amount came in just below the previous $600 extra, which Americans were receiving before the enhance benefits expired earlier this month.

…He also provided assistance to renters by imposing a partial moratorium on evictions and suspended mandatory student loan payments through the end of the year.

…The president has expressed he had to step in because Democrats in Congress have not stepped up to the plate.

“Democrats have refused these offers,” said President Trump. “What they really want is bailout money for states that are run by Democrat governors and mayors, which have been run very badly for many, many years.”

This is a stroke of genius. The bill that the House of Representatives put forth included a lot of things that have nothing to do with the coronavirus, and they refused to negotiate on anything less. We don’t need national mail-in voting–we stand in line at the grocery store, at Home Depot, and at WalMart almost every day. We don’t need to bail out badly-run states–they need to clean up their own budgets first (and Washington also needs to do some serious spending reduction).

The Democrats are unhappy. They might take this to court, but if they do, they will be fighting a President who signed an executive order to help Americans while Congress could not come to agreement on doing anything. Even if they won in court, they would lose in the court of public opinion, and the election is less than three months away.

This was a brilliant move on the part of the President.