Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Why Some Awards Mean Nothing

The New York Times and The Washington Post won Pulitzer Prizes for their great reporting of RussiaGate. When the story was proved to be false, they got to keep their awards. I wonder if after Liz Cheney is tried for destroying evidence and other crimes committed during her time on the January 6th Committee if she will get to keep her award.

On Thursday, The Epoch Times reported:

President Joe Biden has awarded 20 individuals the Presidential Citizens Medal, including two leaders of the disbanded Jan. 6 congressional panel—former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)—for “exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”

The Presidential Citizens Medal, created by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is the country’s second-highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is awarded to those who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”

“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House wrote in a statement. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

Considering the current mental state of President Biden, I wonder who actually made this decision. It certainly does nothing to further the idea of a rule of law that applies equally to everyone, and thus will further divide the country. That may actually be the goal.

For all of President Biden’s claims that he is engaging in a peaceful transition of power, his actions tell a very different story. When I examine the President’s actions since the November election, I see a man doing everything he can to put roadblocks in front of the incoming administration. The pettiness of this man and the people behind him never ceases to amaze me.

Even The Washington Post?

The election is over. At least we thought it was. However, Bob Casey, Jr., is trying to steal the Senate seat that has been awarded to Dave McCormick. Even the Washington Post has had enough of the Democrats ignoring the decisions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding legal votes.

Townhall reports:

The Washington Post’s left-leaning editorial board published a scathing article about Pennsylvania Democrats who voted to count invalid ballots during the Senate race recount between Bob Casey (D-PA) and his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick.

On Sunday, Townhall quoted The Washington Post:

“Democrats thumb their nose at the rule of law in Pennsylvania”

The mere attempt to defy judicial rulings is corrosive to democracy and invites similar behavior in future elections. Democrats would surely protest if a Republican commissioner made the same statement to justify tipping the scales for their party’s Senate nominee — and they would be right. Elections need rules established in advance of the voting, and those rules must be applied equally and consistently.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, by the way, includes five justices elected in partisan elections as Democrats and just two elected as Republicans. Even if that partisan balance were reversed, however, the court’s authority would be equally legitimate.

I don’t know what the solution is when one political party refuses to abide by a decision made by the Court regarding the rules of an election. It seems to me that the voters in Pennsylvania need to get new election officials. The judges got it right, the officials chose to ignore the judges.

UPDATE:

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the counting of ballots to stop immediately. We will see if the Democrats are ready to obey the law.

What Are You Willing To Believe?

On Tuesday, The Media Research Center posted an article about a recent statement by Heather Long, a columnist for The Washington Post.

The article reports:

Washington Post columnist Heather Long decided to gaslight voters one more time before they head to the polls to decide who will run the White House for the next four years. “As Election Day arrives, the data is clear: Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago,” read Long’s ridiculous opening paragraph for her Nov. 4 item. She must have realized the insanity of her claim because she then resorted to telling voters they were better off whether they knew it or not: “I understand many people aren’t feeling it because of the inflation hangover that has left prices noticeably higher than they were in 2020. But it’s important to step back and assess the full picture.” It’s as if Long is trying her hardest to channel her inner Paul Krugman. 

The article includes the following screenshot:

The article concludes:

Ah, but how about that sexy stock market, says Long! “The stock market has gained about 75 percent since Oct. 30, 2020. (A record share of Americans — nearly 60 percent of households — have money in the market],” she wrote with glee. Not so fast. As Heritage Foundation Senior Research Associate Alexander Frei noted in an Oct. 31 column, “Inflation is also making stock markets appear stronger than they really are and cutting into returns for everyone, including those with retirement accounts.” In other words, as prices rise, “even significant returns lose their purchasing power.” Frie argued that now “[m]ore money is required to buy the same goods and services, eroding the real value of one’s gains. As everything becomes more expensive, higher earnings or investment returns don’t stretch as far, making it harder to keep up with the true cost of living.”

But Long was adamant that “looking at the full picture shows that most Americans are better off financially than they were four years ago.” But a Sept. 25 analysis by the Financial Health Network determined that “the majority of Americans are not financially healthy, with expenses outpacing income, little wiggle room to protect against financial shocks, and diminished hope for the future.”

Long is clearly trying to attempt a pathetic, last-minute effort to smear as much lipstick on the pig of the Biden-Harris economy as she can before Election Day closes out. She even undercut herself by conceding that most of her points matter “little to voters. And I get it. They are focused on high prices.” Uh, duh? 

The economy is bad. If people vote their pocketbooks, President Trump wins.

The Hypocrisy Is Amazing

On Friday, BizPacReview reported that the paragon of unbiased reporting, The Washington Post, is alleging that Elon Musk illegally worked in the United States in the 1990’s and should be deported. I wish every ‘illegal immigrant’ who came to America worked as hard as Elon Musk.

The article reports:

Billionaire X owner Elon Musk has triggered the powers that be, so much so that they are now going after his American citizenship.

Legal experts claim that if Musk were to have lied on his immigration forms, he could have his citizenship stripped and be denaturalized. The Washington Post, which has had a leftist lean as of late, alleged he illegally worked in the United States in the 1990s. Their claims are allegedly backed up by “former business associates, court records and company documents,” and claim that when he was accepted to Stanford in 1995, Musk began working on a startup that would later be known as Zip2 instead of enrolling in classes.

The outlet further reported claims that one year later in 1996, investors addressed concerns about Musk and his brother Kimbal’s immigration status by hinging their funding agreement on the brothers obtaining legal licenses to work in the United States.

I would like to point out that The Washington Post has never done anything that would negatively impact the citizenship of George Soros.

The article includes screenshots of a number of X responses to the idea of deporting Elon Musk. Here are a few:

X is so much fun now that it is not being censored!

The Last Straw

On Friday, Fox News reported that Hugh Hewitt has left The Washington Post. Hugh Hewitt is a conservative columnist who has written articles for The Washington Post for the past seven years. Last year he wrote 48 articles for the paper; this year he has written only 7.

The article reports the circumstances of his leaving:

Hewitt quit after a clip of him went viral earlier on Friday when he walked off the Washington Post’s online show, “First Look,” with liberal columnists Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus on its “Washington Post Live” platform. It came during a discussion of former President Trump’s rhetoric around election integrity.

“Does it seem like Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for contesting the election by complaining that cheating was taking place in Pennsylvania?” Capehart asked Marcus. “By suing Bucks County for alleged irregularities, and this is on top of his continual assertion that if he loses, it’s because of cheating.”

Marcus said Trump had been preparing to blame an election loss on cheating for months.

“No election can be fair in Donald Trump’s mind unless Donald Trump wins it,” Marcus said.

As Marcus went on, Hewitt tried to interject, but Capehart snapped, “Let Ruth finish, Hugh.”

“Well, I’ve just got to say, we’re news people, even though it’s the opinion section,” Hewitt said. “It’s got to be reported. Bucks County was reversed by the court and instructed to open up extra days because they violated the law and told people to go home. So that lawsuit was brought by the Republican National Committee, and it was successful. The Supreme Court ruled that Glenn Youngkin was successful.

“We are news people, even though we have opinions, and we have to report the whole story if we bring up part of the story,” Hewitt added. “So, yes, he’s upset about Bucks County, but he was right, and he won in court. That’s the story.”

After a brief pause, Capehart said, “I don’t appreciate being lectured about reporting when, Hugh, many times, you’ve come here saying lots of things that aren’t based in fact.”

Hewitt stood up and said, “I won’t come back, Jonathan. I’m done. I’m done. This is the most unfair election ad I’ve ever been a part of. You guys are working. That’s fine. I’m done.”

That’s how the major media works–by not mentioning that the Republicans had won both court cases, they spun the story to make President Trump look as if he were not justified in filing the lawsuits.

I have followed Hugh Hewitt for years and am glad that he had the integrity to stand up and leave.

Truth Mixed With Fiction From The Mainstream Media

On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article about how the inner circle of the Biden administration hid President Biden’s mental decline. That does lead one to wonder who exactly is running the country right now.

There are a few interesting comments in the article:

According to a Tuesday editorial discussing the octogenarian Democrat leader’s withdrawal from the 2024 race, the paper’s (Washington Post) editorial board confirmed that President Biden’s closest advisers “worked to conceal” his mental decline, a revelation that is sending shockwaves through political circles.

The piece, which primarily praised Biden for his “wisdom” and “profoundly selfless decision” to “surrender power” for the sake of the Democratic Party, noted that the president exhibited cognitive issues for a while, yet his close advisors kept the fact hidden from the public.

…“The 81-year-old had shown signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his decline,” it reads. “He and the country would have been better off if Mr. Biden had kept his implied promise from the 2020 campaign to be a ‘transitional’ figure, perhaps by bowing out after the Democrats’ surprisingly good showing in the 2022 midterm elections.” 

…Yet despite the admission, the piece still insists that Biden’s decision to “step aside” was “the toughest call he had to make in his decades in politics.”

The revelation aligns with a referenced Wall Street Journal report from June highlighting Biden’s struggles behind the scenes that was initially downplayed by the media.

I think it is generally public knowledge that President Biden did not resign as a candidate by choice. It is amazing that the people who claim to be saving democracy in America never gave the members of their party a chance to vote for their chosen candidate.

The article concludes:

Last month, a YouGov/Times survey revealed that most Americans believe  Vice President Kamala Harris was a “great deal involved” in the coverup of President Joe Biden’s health.

Meanwhile, Texas Republican Congressman Wesley Hunt called for “investigations” into the circumstances surrounding President Biden’s evident cognitive decline, warning that if White House staffers were aware of the president’s “debilitating” medical condition and intentionally hid it from the public, it would be “the biggest scandal in American political history.”

When was the last cabinet meeting?

Those Who Fail To Learn The Lessons Of History Are Doomed To Repeat Them

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has announced her economic plan to stem inflation. She has stated that her goal is to make life in America more affordable for everyone. Her intentions may be noble, but her knowledge of economics and human nature leaves a lot to be desired.

On Friday, Fox News reported:

A liberal economic columnist criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposal to control prices on food and groceries as “totally unworkable” and compared it to failed efforts by communist governments.

“It‘s not going to be markets, it‘s not going to be supply and demand that’s determining how much your grocery store charges you for milk or for eggs, it‘s going to be some bureaucrat in D.C., which seems like totally unworkable,” Catherine Rampell said on CNN on Friday.

Rampell, a columnist for the Washington Post and a CNN economics and political commentator, argued the plan was “bad” for various reasons, from practicality to effectiveness.

“Well, first of all, nobody can explain what price gouging means,” she said on CNN, saying the idea of “excessive” prices or profit margins is subjective and thus “very hard to pin down what this would actually mean.”

The article also notes:

“We’ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before; Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, et cetera. It leads to shortages, it leads to black markets, you know, plenty of uncertainty,” she said.

“And beyond that, the specific way this bill is written might actually increase prices because of some of the other language in it, things like requiring companies — public companies to disclose in their quarterly reports, their quarterly earnings reports, how they’re setting prices, which is a great way to help them collude, which normally we don’t want them to do,” she explained.

If you want to bring down inflation, the first thing you need to do is cut government spending and regulation. After that is done, open up America’s energy resources and loose the free market on all areas of our economy. The return to the free market will make economic success available to anyone who is willing to work for it. That should be everyone’s goal.

Milton Friedman is credited with saying, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Kamala Harris needs to consider that quote when planning her economic program.

About That Pesky First Amendment

The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Our Founding Fathers had enough faith in the American people to allow them to distinguish the fake news from the real news.  Evidently at least one of today’s newspapers does not share that view. Washington Post reporter Cleve Wootson asked an amazing question at Monday’s press conference with Karine Jean-Pierre.

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit quoted the question:

“One more, Elon Musk is slated to interview Trump tonight on X. I don’t know if the president is going to — feel free to say if he is or not — but I — I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It’s a — you know, it’s an America issue. What role does the White House or the President have any sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of inter — intervening in that. Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but you know it’s a wider thing, right?” Washington Post reporter Cleve Wootson asked Karine Jean-Pierre.

Karine Jean-Pierre went along with the far-left reporter and agreed that social media companies have the responsibility to shut down so-called misinformation.

Who determines misinformation? The Washington Post shared a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Russiagate. All of that reporting turned out to be false. Was that misinformation?

The article notes:

It’s all hands on deck right now to silence Trump ahead of his blockbuster interview with Elon Musk.

The globalist tyrants in control of the European Union sent a letter to Elon Musk on Monday demanding the X owner censor President Donald Trump during their interview tonight.

Why is the mainstream media so afraid to let President Trump speak?

Is This Necessary?

On Tuesday, The Washington Post posted an article about Hunter Biden’s upcoming trial for lying on a form he filled out the purchase a gun. Simply put, he stated that he was not using drugs at the time when he actually was. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this is a rather open-and-shut case. Either he was or he wasn’t. I realize that being the President’s son complicates things, but lady justice is supposed to be blind.

The article reports:

Hunter Biden, in a trial scheduled to get underway in two weeks, could face testimony from his ex-wife and his brother’s widow, with whom he became romantically involved, according to new filings from federal prosecutors that illustrate just how messy the seemingly simple court case could turn.

The filings from special counsel David Weiss provide a window into prosecutors’ plans and how they may reopen some of the most painful moments in the Biden family’s past, potentially embarrassing not only Hunter Biden but also a president whose political career has long been defined by a close-knit family that stuck together through difficult times.

In black and white, the court papers detail the depth of family members’ turmoil as they struggled to grapple with the death of President Biden’s oldest son, Beau, in 2015, and the drug and alcohol addiction of his younger son, Hunter. The family divisions were deepened when Hunter began a romance with Beau’s widow, Hallie.

I am sorry all this junk has to be introduced in the trial, but I suppose the prosecution has to make its case. It seems to me that Hunter would be better served by simply pleading guilty and accepting the consequences. I suspect he would be pardoned before he was sent to jail. That’s not exactly fair, but it would probably be less troublesome for the Biden campaign to pardon him than to revisit some of the things he has done.

The article concludes:

The recent court filing includes 75 pages of texts and emails that government prosecutors say they will use during the case.

But Hunter Biden publicly describes himself as a recovering addict and has not been shy about admitting his drug use.

“I’m a liar and a thief and a blamer and a user and I’m delusional and an addict unlike beyond and above all other addicts that you know and I’ve ruined every relationship I’ve ever cherished,” Hunter Biden wrote in a Nov. 3, 2018 message to Hallie Biden, according to the court filing.

A few weeks later, he conceded that he was struggling to escape his addiction while in his home state, apparently alluding to his long history, memories good and bad, and numerous connections there.

“What’s the worst place for me to be trying to stay clean?” he wrote. “Delaware.”

One can only hope that he is no longer the person he was in the past.

An Often Overlooked Fact

The mindless college students who are chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea” not only have no idea of the history behind those chants, they have no idea what living in a Palestinian state would look like. Many of these students have marched for gay rights and pride parades. Do they understand that in a Palestinian state (which would be a Muslim-Arab state), homosexuals are dropped off buildings with their hands tied behind their backs?

On Saturday, Townhall posted an article about a recent interview on CNN by Don Lemon. Mr. Lemon was interviewing the Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz.

The article reports:

Taylor, how do you reconcile the way marginalized groups fighting for what’s happening in Gaza, yet in Gaza, they would not have any freedom,” asked Lemon. 

“They don’t have any freedoms in Texas and Florida,” replied Lorenz, which was something Lemon wasn’t going to tolerate. 

“Taylor I’m a member of the LGBTQ community, if I go to Texas, they’re not going to throw me off a roof.”

The LGBTQ community may not be happy with their freedoms in America, but have they considered the consequences of their chosen lifestyle in other countries? For example, although homosexuality is legal in China and major cities can have thriving LGBTQ social scenes, same-sex marriage and adoption are not allowed and LGBTQ people are not legally protected against discrimination.

America is one of the freest nations in the world. Those protesting various aspects of American life need to spend some time in whatever country they are heralding. We should require every college student in America to spend a semester in a country ruled by Sharia Law followed by a semester in Israel. It might change their perspective.

Changing The Vocabulary Doesn’t Make It Right

Yesterday, PJ Media posted an article about the new term for shoplifting.

The article reports:

Do you know what the problem with capitalism is? It doesn’t want to sell stuff to people. Calling it “a late-capitalism horror story,” the Washington Post’s Maura Judkis might have just written the stupidest possible piece about Blue America’s state-sponsored shoplifting craze. 

“America is a sticky-fingered nation built on stolen land,” Judkis scolded her readers on Friday to their self-loathing delight, “and its current moral panic is about shoplifting.”

Judkis tells the story of Washington’s Columbia Heights shoplifter-beloved CVS location, where by last week, there was “almost nothing left to steal… and that gives you an idea of which items have actual value.”

“The thieves don’t even bother” with blank CDs or greeting cards, we’re told without any surprise. “The good magazines like Vogue and GQ and Sports Illustrated are gone, but there are still a few copies of Traditional Home, some special issues of Life devoted to Willie Nelson, and a Woman’s World that declares: ‘Bye bye, jiggly fat!'” The soft drinks are gone, “but three gallon-sized jugs of Arizona green tea are still on the shelves on one recent visit.”

The good stuff — including Dawn dish soap, L’Oreal shampoo, MiraLax, Clairol root touch-up hair dye kits, DayQuil, NyQuil, diapers, Cetaphil, Neutrogena face wash — are all either behind Plexiglass, available only at the counter, or under lock and key. 

“Other shelves, stretching entire aisles, are totally empty.”

If you’ve been reading the news these last four years, you know that the Third World shopping experience is a familiar sight in cities like Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.

Yet Judkis insists that “the data is murky” whether or not America really has a shoplifting problem. But that misses the point, doesn’t it? America doesn’t have a shoplifting problem, but poorly policed neighborhoods in America’s Democrat-dominated blue cities do.

The article concludes:

Judkis did leave one question unanswered: where are those free-lance reparations specialists going to shoplift now that the local CVS has closed? I’d wager this month’s car payment that she’ll have a somewhat less understanding take if the O.C. shoplifting gangs ever come to Georgetown or Adams Morgan.

I’m reminded once again of Barack Obama aide Ben Rhodes’ blithe assessment of young reporters — the ones who cut their teeth covering politics during the Obama years. “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington,” he told New York Times Magazine in 2016. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

If You Believe This…

On Tuesday, PJ Media posted an article about a recent claim made by The Washington Post about the impact of illegal immigration on America’s economy. Of course The Washington Post did not call it illegal immigration–they simply called it ‘immigration.’

The article reports:

Then on Tuesday morning, I came across this headline in The Washington Post: “The economy is roaring. Immigration is a key reason.” 

I immediately wondered if I might be concussed. 

Upon further review, I had no head injuries, and I hadn’t touched a drop of booze since last Friday, so I was indeed reading the headline correctly. Sorry, Burger King, there’s a new Home of the Whopper. 

Last fall, I began reminding readers that the MSM Biden bias was going to have to be at least three times stronger than it was in 2020 to get the slurring idiot in the White House reelected. They created a fictional Joe Biden out of whole cloth back then. He’s become such a mess that they are now creating a fictional version of their fictional version. They aren’t even pretending that the real Joe Biden is right in front of our eyes. 

The cheerleading for the economy is to be expected. It’s a kitchen table issue that they hope they can hide somewhere in a cluttered pantry. Over at The New York Times, Paul Krugman writes an almost weekly column telling readers not to believe their lying household budgets and dwindling savings accounts. His most recent effort has a headline that almost rivals the one we’re discussing today: “Bidenomics Is Still Working Very Well.” 

The article includes this quote from The Washington Post article:

There isn’t much data on how many of the new immigrants in recent years were documented versus undocumented. But estimates from the Pew Research Center last fall showed that undocumented immigrants made up 22 percent of the total foreign-born U.S. population in 2021. That’s down compared to previous decades: Between 2007 and 2021, the undocumented population fell by 14 percent, Pew found. Meanwhile, the legal immigrant population grew by 29 percent.

The article at PJ Media notes:

The authors don’t mention the inconvenient fact that record numbers of people are crushing the border and have been for months. The numbers are so overwhelming that the government is scrambling to keep tabs on as many as they can by putting them up in hotels on the taxpayer’s dime. 

This immigration isn’t much of a boon to state and local economies. We continually cover stories here about the financial strain that the “immigrants” are placing on states and cities all over America, like this recent one that Catherine wrote

Even if, as the authors posit, the economy is “roaring,” because of the “immigrants,” it’s only in one area. The southern border crisis is dragging the economy down in many ways. The “Rah! Rah!” in this article is akin to celebrating a $5000 bonus check on the same day that your mechanic tells you that your car needs $7000 worth of work to get back on the road again. 

I wonder if anyone still believes The Washington Post.

The Whoppers Of 2023

On Thursday, The New York Post listed twelve of the most outrageous lies told by politicians and the media during 2023. Please follow the link to the article for the details, I will simply post the  list.

This is the list:

#1

“The Middle East . . . is quieter than it has been for decades.”

— National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Foreign Affairs, November/December (print edition)

#2

“We ended cancer as we know it.”

— President Biden, July 25

#3

“Age jokes can’t diminish Biden’s unrivaled experience and wisdom.”

— The Hill, Dec. 11

#4

“Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say

— The New York Times, Oct. 17

#5

“Let’s always take a moment to also see what we have achieved thus far, while we clearly see the moment that we are presently in. So we have achieved a lot.”

— VP Kamala Harris, June 23

#6

“In the Hanukkah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding. No one thought they would survive.”

— Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Dec. 11

#7

“Floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink.”

— The Washington Post, July 13

#8

“We have seen the effectiveness of our approach [to the border].”

— Homeland Security boss Alejandro Mayorkas, May 10 

#9

“We have been [in Israel] for more than 1.5 million years.”

— Palestinian National Council President Rawhi Fattouh, May 22

#10

“There would be no climate crisis if there was no racism.”

— Jane Fonda, May 27

#11

“People Are Getting Real Heated Over a Gas Stove Ban That Isn’t Even Happening.”

— The New Republic, Jan. 12

#12

“Biden is extremely well-liked.”

— MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski, Feb. 10

Reality is merely a state of mind.

 

The Cover Story Never Made Sense

In September 2022, the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines were blown up. The mainstream media claimed that the Russians had blown them up. This never made any sense–it was a source of income for Russia. There was speculation in some media outlets that in fact the United States was responsible (the claim was that the United States was the only country with the technology to blow up the pipeline). Well, it looks as if the truth might have stumbled out.

On Saturday, Fox News reported:

A former senior Ukrainian official was the coordinator of the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines, the Washington Post reported, citing Ukrainian officials and European sources, and in conjunction with German periodical Der Spiegel.

Roman Chervinsky, a former commander of one of the Ukrainian special forces units, was the “coordinator of the Nord Stream operation” and managed a six-person team that carried out the devastating multibillion-dollar infrastructure attack in September 2022, according to the report.

The outlet said Chervinsky and the group of six people rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines. 

Chervinsky did not act alone and did not plan the operation, but was obeying the orders of high-ranking officers who ultimately answered to Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, Valery Zaluzhny, the Post said, citing people familiar with his role.

That makes sense. Blowing up the pipelines was one way to limit Russia’s income from fossil fuel revenue.

The article also notes:

In February, Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, alleged that U.S. Navy divers laid bombs that destroyed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under a direct order from President Joe Biden. 

The Seymour Hersh article reminds us that even Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists don’t always get the story right. The article makes no comment on who might have encouraged Ukraine to blow up the pipelines, so it is possible that the United States bears part of the responsibility.

The Political Spectrum Has Significantly Shifted

Our Founding Fathers had a very different political spectrum than the one commonly referred to by the media. Today’s media has a spectrum of right wing (conservative extremism) and left wing (what they endorse). Our Founding Fathers had a different political spectrum–it had anarchy at one end and tyranny at the other end. Their goal was to create a government midway between the two. Today the tyranny of the left wing goes mostly ignored (lawfare against political opponents, suppression of free speech, censoring information, etc.). but any standard held by a conservative is regarded as a threat to our democracy (we are a republic–not a democracy).

On Saturday, Newsbusters posted an article that illustrates how ridiculous our media has become.

The article reports:

Washington Post associate editor and New York Times columnist freaked out on Friday’s PBS NewsHour at the news that Republicans selected Mike Johnson to be the new Speaker of the House by portraying him as a “far-right” religious extremist out to impose “Christian nationalism” on the country.

Noting Johnson’s relative obscurity, Capehart (Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post) predicted, “And the more information we find out about him and the more information the American people find out about him, the more I think they’re going to be uncomfortable, from his pushing for a national abortion ban, to introducing legislation for a federal so-called Don’t Say Gay Bill, his comments on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.”

Just for the record, as a Christian, I do not support a national abortion ban. Legally, a national abortion ban would be no different than Roe v. Wade–it would be unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment.

The article concludes:

Brooks (David Brooks, writer for The New York Times), again declining to live up to his billing as Brooks and Capehart’s conservative half, agreed with his liberal colleague, “You know, for me, the bad news about Johnson is the wing of the evangelical world he emerges from.”

Elaborating, Brooks explained, “And so, for example, one of the people he’s praised is a pseudo-historian named David Barton. And Barton has been — has a powerful bloc in a subculture of the evangelical world that has been arguing, falsely, that our founders never believed in separation of church and state, that Thomas Jefferson was an ardent Christian who wanted to make this a Christian nation.”

One doesn’t have to defend the anti-historical view that Jefferson, who cut portions out of the Bible he didn’t like, was an ardent Christian to defend the larger point. As for Johnson, Brooks proclaimed, “he is coming from a world where Christian nationalism is very much in the air. And so that’s got to be concerning if he’s coming from this world.”

Nobody who freaks out about “Christian nationalism” ever seeks to define it. Is it just being pro-life or forbidding elementary school teachers to talk about sexual orientation and gender ideology as Capehart mentioned earlier? Mostly, it is just a phrase people like Brooks throw out to scare voters.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., would not have been welcome in today’s Democrat party–he would be considered radically conservative!

At Least Apologize When You Get It Wrong

Recently a parking lot in the Gaza Strip was hit by a missile. The latest reports say that possibly a few hundred people died. Any death is horrible, but there is a definite difference between hundreds and thousands. It has also been proven that the missile was a misfire of a Hamas missile fired from Gaza. Generally speaking, that is the current reporting of the incident now that the investigation has concluded. However, don’t expect those in the media who initially rushed to judgement claiming hundreds of casualties and blaming Israel to keep up with the actual facts.

On Thursday, PJ Media posted the following Tweet by The Washington Post:

The article at PJ Media reports:

What we’ve known since at least early yesterday is that a Hamas rocket misfired in a parking lot, killing a few unfortunate civilians. But there was no Israeli missile strike, no blown-up hospital, and no 500 dead civilians.

As of this 9 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, WaPo has yet to retract or correct Adam Taylor’s story.

Even Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib — two noted Hamas apologists — have been smart enough to keep their mouths shut in the hours since Hamas’s original claims were debunked. It makes you wonder how some young WaPo reporter, still filled with ideals about reporting the truth at any cost, must feel about their employer. It makes you wonder if young reporters like that still exist.

The first casualty of war is truth. We need to remember that in the coming days.

About That Climate Change Thing…

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about the deadly summer heat Americans experience in the summer.

The article reports:

“Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather hazard,” is the first claim in this Washington Post piece warning about the deadly summer heat — and it is almost certainly false.

First off, the only reason “extreme” temperature kills more people than other weather hazards is that deaths from weather have plummeted over the century, even as doomsday climate warnings about heat, hurricanes, tornados, floods, and droughts have spiked. Extreme weather accounts for only about 0.1 death for every 100,000 people in the United States each year. The Post should be celebrating the fact that humans have never been less threatened by the climate.

The Post warns that 30 million people in the U.S. may be “exposed” to dangerous heat “today.” That’s a lot of people, even considering nearly all of them live in the southernmost spots in the country and it’s the middle of the summer. The Post counts anyone exposed to heat over 90 degrees as being in some level of danger. Fortunately, most Americans enjoy the luxury and health benefits of air-conditioning, one of the great innovations of the past century.

Nowhere in the piece, however, do the authors tell us exactly how many Americans have perished from the oppressive heat. Anyway, it’s around 700 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — if you liberally count heat as both the “underlying” and/or “contributing” causes. It is about 400 people when heat is the underlying cause. And that’s terrible. But, also, it’s around 3,600 fewer people than those who drown every year.

The article also notes:

And most of those deaths, despite the Post’s claim, are from the cold, which is far more lethal. I come to this information via a Washington Post piece that ran this very winter, which noted that for “every death linked to heat, nine are tied to cold.” That piece relied on a peer-reviewed Lancet study. Another peer-reviewed study in The BMJ found that “cold weather is associated with nearly 20 times more deaths than hot weather.” Other studies have come to the same conclusion.

During extreme heat, you have the option of filling up the bathtub and sitting in it until you cool down. During cold weather, if you lose power and have no way to heat your house, it will be a matter of hours before you either have to leave your home or find some way to keep your family warm.

Come, Mister Tally Man, Tally Me Banana

We have officially reached banana republic status.

Townhall reported the following today:

According to The Washington Post’s reporting on court papers filed Tuesday morning, Hunter Biden has reached a “tentative agreement” to “plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail.”

This sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden would still require validation by a federal judge at such time Hunter appears in court to enter his plea.

According to the Washington Post:

The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the agreement that are not yet public. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed.

Additionally, Biden plans to admit to illegally possessing a weapon following his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he expects to be entered in a diversion program, a less punitive form of sentence typically applied to people with substance abuse problems. In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people said.

Has anyone questioned where Hunter Biden got the money that the $1.2 million taxes were owed on? Does anyone doubt that they money would never have been paid were it not for the public pressure surrounding this case?

The Hill reported today:

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) vowed on Tuesday to continue investigating Hunter Biden, despite his “sweetheart plea deal” reached with federal prosecutors.

“These charges against Hunter Biden and sweetheart plea deal have no impact on the Oversight Committee’s investigation,” Comer said in a statement. “We will not rest until the full extent of President Biden’s involvement in the family’s schemes are revealed.”

 

Sometimes The Contrast Is Amazing

On Wednesday, The Federalist noted:

According to the contemporary left, it’s “authoritarian” for local elected officials to curate school library collections but fine for a powerful centralized federal government to issue an edict compelling a major industry to produce a product and then force hundreds of millions of people to buy it.

Lately, the federal government seems to believe that it can control the tiniest details of the lives of Americans. Covid was a glaring example of this–you can’t work in certain places unless you have an untested vaccine, you can’t go to church, but you can go to a casino, children can’t attend school, etc. Well, the federal government got away with all those unconstitutional acts, so it’s going to try more. Hang on to your car–they are coming for it if it’s not electric.

The article reports:

President Biden is set to “transform” and “remake” the entire auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks”— notes the Washington Post, as if dictating the output of a major industry is within the governing purview of the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing draconian emissions limits for vehicles, ensuring that 67 percent of all new passenger cars and trucks produced within nine years will be electric. This is state coercion. It is undemocratic. We are not governed; we are managed.

In fascist economies, a powerful centralized state — often led by a demagogue who plays on the nationalistic impulses of people — controls both manufacturing and commerce and dictates prices and wages for the “common good.” Any unpatriotic excessive profits are captured by the state. All economic activity must meet state approval. And crony, rent-seeking companies are willing participants. Now, I’m not saying we already live in a fascist economic state. I’m just saying the Democratic Party economic platform sounds like it wishes we were.

The article concludes:

“I want to let everybody know that this EPA is committed to protecting the health and well-being of every single person on this planet,” the EPA’s Michael Regan explained when announcing the edicts. No one is safer in an EV than a gas-powered vehicle. The authoritarian’s justification for economic control is almost always “safety.” But the entire “safety” claim is tethered to the perpetually disproven theory that our society can’t safely — and relatively cheaply — adapt to slight changes in climate. If the state can regulate “greenhouse gases” as an existential threat, it has the unfettered power to regulate virtually the entire economy. This is why politicians treat every hurricane, tornado, and flood as an apocalyptic event. But in almost every quantifiable way, the climate is less dangerous to mankind now than it has ever been. And the more they try to scare us, the less people care.

So let the Chinese communists worry about keeping their population “safe.” Let’s keep this one innovative, open, and free.

Elections matter, and the 2024 presidential election REALLY matters.

Changing The Numbers By Redefining The Terms

On Monday, Issues & Insights posted an article explaining how the Biden administration can claim to have cut the number of illegal border crossings simply by changing the definition of the words.

The article reports:

The Biden administration’s bulletin board, also known as the Washington Post, featured an article last week headlined: “Biden takes heat for border measures, but illegal crossings are down.”

Various other news outlets echoed this theme, using terms such as “plunged” and “plummeted,” to describe what is, in fact, a record-high number of illegal crossings in both January and February.

How did the administration pull off this “plunge”?

Basically, by narrowing the focus and by redefining what counts as an illegal border crossing.

This is the new way to do things:

“The Biden administration has started using its port parole program shell game to feign ‘lawfulness’ and distract from the true numbers of illegal aliens entering the U.S. each month,” reports the Daily Signal.

Joe Biden started this parole program for Venezuelans, and in January expanded it to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. People from those nations can get into the country – without a visa – if they show up at a port of entry and agree to some minimal rules under a supposed two-year parole.

“The administration has directed would-be illegal aliens of numerous nationalities to use the CBP One app to make an appointment at a port of entry, where they will be paroled into the country,” the Daily Signal explains.

The Customs and Border Patrol reports that illegal crossings by people from those four countries fell from 84,190 in December to 2,050 during February.”

Well, no kidding. Why cross illegally when you can tap an app and get into the country without having to follow the rules to enter legally?

“The administration calls this process a ‘lawful pathway,’ but mass paroling tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens through the ports make neither the process, nor the aliens using it, lawful,” notes the Daily Signal.

There is no way the number of people crossing our border every day can be assimilated. They won’t be able to grasp the concept of America quickly enough to become good citizens. The Biden administration’s border policies are truly a threat to the survival of America as we know it.

When Cooler Heads Don’t Prevail

On Wednesday, Red State posted an article about the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The Red State article heavily quotes an article from The Washington Post.

The Washington Post reports:

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute, one of several previously unreported clashes in a tense tug of war between two arms of the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue a criminal investigation of a former president. The FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on Aug. 8, recovering more than 100 classified items, among them a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

First of all, I question the list The Washington Post is providing. Has that information ever been made public?

Red State notes:

The FBI was criticized by both sides during those debacles—Hillary almost had a coronary in 2016 over then-FBI Director James Comey’s handling of her illegal server which contained classified information. Yet, her home was never raided, and she never faced charges. It doesn’t take a partisan to point out that there seem to be two systems of justice at play here.

The article at Red State concludes:

As we all know, the FBI’s concerns fell on deaf ears, and the raid went ahead as planned. The fact that there was such internal division within the DOJ shows that the surprise offensive was always politicized and heavy-handed. Merrick Garland has repeatedly shown in his term that he values politics over justice, and he will continue to act that way till he’s called to account.

There are currently two systems of justice in America. I am not sure how much longer that will last before it becomes a major problem.

Is Anyone Really Surprised?

On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about the August 8 raid the Trump estate at Mar-a-Lago. It has become more obvious that the Democrats were hoping to find something that would end the support for President Trump. Well, aside from using the Department of Justice for political purposes, the Democrats have been left with egg of their faces.

The article quotes The Washington Post. The headline in The Washington Post article is:

Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive on classified papers

Seems a bit snarky to me. If you had been President, wouldn’t you save mementos of significant things that had happened during your presidency or things that you were proud of accomplishing?

The article at The Washington Post states:

Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

As part of the investigation, federal authorities reviewed the classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club, looking to see if the types of information contained in them pointed to any kind of pattern or similarities, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.

PJ Media notes:

Not only did the FBI not find any nuclear bomb codes, but they also found no evidence that Trump was looking to “leverage, sell or use the government secrets.”

So Trump wasn’t selling nuclear secrets on Craigslist after all. Who knew? Everyone. And that likely includes the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Needless to say, WaPo couldn’t just admit the “Trump has nuclear secrets for sale” flapdoodle was the latest Hail Mary pass to send Trump to prison and that it proved to be another flaccid member of the “get Trump” orgy. They threw the idea in near the very end that they still might come up with something juicy:

PJ Media concludes:

In other words, the “Trump is selling nuclear secrets” lie is over. He kept a few tchotchkes from his four years serving as the greatest president in recent history. The nerve!

Please forward this article to your liberal sister harpy-in-law and her blue-haired, trans-pansexual, gelding lady-boyfriend who clung like sad, tragic barnacles to the embarrassing lie that Trump was trying to sell nuclear missiles to the Kaiser — or whatever it is they needed to believe.

Even if this information is shouted from the rooftops, there will be people who will hang on to the lie as if it were true. Trump derangement syndrome is real. The thing people need to understand is that if President Trump is not the candidate in 2024, there will be a new derangement syndrome attached to whomever the Republican candidate is (if he is not part of the uni-party). It really isn’t about Trump. It’s about destroying any threat to the uni-party in Washington.

Where Are The Mainstream Media Reports On This?

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the attack on Gen. Don Bolduc who is running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.

The article reports:

The establishment media have ignored the physical attack against Republican New Hampshire candidate Gen. Don Bolduc.

The three top establishment newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, all failed to report the physical attack on Gen. Bolduc that occurred moments before Wednesday’s debate with Democrat Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

…On Wednesday, police arrested 37-year-old Joseph Hart of Greenville, Rhode Island, for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct after he took a swing at Gen. Bolduc.

…The attack is still under investigation by police.

Kate Constantini, Bolduc for Senate spokeswoman, told Breitbart News Wednesday night there is no space for political violence. “As the General said on stage tonight, it’s time to lower the temperature of the political discourse in this country,” she stated.

Yet the establishment media have remained silent about the attack and Bolduc’s call for peaceful discourse, instead preferring to report on the attack against Paul Pelosi, which was carried out by an illegal alien.

The article concludes:

The establishment media’s bias was also on display during Wednesday’s debate. The WMUR ABC debate moderators failed to mention the attack before or during the debate.

Conversely, the moderators asked the candidates about the rise in violence against politicians, referencing the January 6 and attack against Paul Pelosi, failing to mention an attack that occurred just minutes before the debate against the Republican candidate.

I guess some violence is more important than others. If you rely on the mainstream media for your news, you are probably uninformed.

Delta Owns An Oil Refinery!?!?

On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the current energy problems in America (and worldwide).

The article quotes The Washington Post:

The country is down to 25 days of diesel supply with stockpiles at their lowest level for this time of year in records going back to 1993. In the Northeast, where more people burn fuel for home heating than anywhere else in the country, inventories are a third of their typical levels heading into winter. National Economic Council Director Brian Deese called the levels “unacceptably low.” By late October, diesel prices had risen for more than two weeks to 50% above where they were a year ago.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Biden administration has leased fewer acres for oil-and-gas drilling offshore and on federal land than any other administration in its early stages dating back to the end of World War II, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

The article includes the following chart:

The article at Hot Air reports:

Where does Delta come into all this, after the commodities and doom and gloom lecture? That’s kind of interesting, too. At the top of the post, where I linked to those three PA refineries being closed in 2012? One of them was the Trainer facility, and it was given an EPA reprieve, of all things. CONOCO-Phillips still wanted to unload it, and Delta Airlines bought it as a hedge against oil prices and jet fuel shortages. They lost their butt owning it for years – as a small refinery fighting the EPA mandates tooth and nail didn’t help – and repeatedly tried to unload it, but, HEY! There’s been a sudden turnaround. Things are looking rosy and they are looking prescient. From April:

Delta will see a benefit of 20 cents per gallon of jet fuel from its refinery, which acts as a hedge against the spike in fuel. In particular, the refinery supplies fuel for Delta’s York operations, but Chief Financial Officer Daniel Janki said Monroe Energy’s output acts as a 40-50 percent fuel hedge across Delta’s network. In the first quarter, the refinery knocked about 7 cents off each gallon of jet fuel Delta consumed.

When Delta first bought the Trainer, Pa., refinery from Conoco Philips — now Philips 66 — in 2012, analyst opinions were mixed. Some argued it was a stroke of genius on the airline’s part, while others said it was too far afield from Delta’s core operations to make sense for an airline with no experience in selling or marketing petroleum products. The years since have been up and down for the refinery but now, with oil prices spiraling up in the wake of the Ukraine war, the refinery is proving its worth.

The refinery generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter, compared with $48 million in the same quarter in 2019, Delta said in its first-quarter results. About 80 percent of its output is diesel and gasoline, prices of which have surged. “Our Monroe refinery provides a unique benefit, acting as a partial hedge to elevated cracks,” Janki said. “This is especially true with New York Harbor Jet cracks, where our production at Monroe provides 100 percent offset.”

It really is time to rediscover American energy independence!

 

Is Anyone Surprised?

When the CHIPS Act passed, the Biden administration said that it would lead to “more than $1 million construction jobs alone over the next 6 years building semiconductor factories in America.” On Friday, Townhall posted an article detailing the actual facts.

The article reports:

After signing the CHIPS Act into law earlier this month, which aims to increase domestic chip production, President Biden claimed it would lead to “more than $1 million construction jobs alone over the next 6 years building semiconductor factories in America.” It turns out, that figure is completely wrong.

A White House official said it was a “mix up,” but this number was not something Biden said off-script. He said it in official remarks while signing the bill, then tweeted the statement from his official Twitter account.

Does anyone believe President Biden has control over his Twitter account? That is a scary thought!

The article quotes The Washington Post:

When we dug into the report, moreover, we could not find any reference to 1 million construction jobs being created. Instead, the report predicted such an investment — roughly equivalent to the Chips Act — would create “an average of 185,000 temporary jobs annually throughout the U.S. economy from 2021 to 2026.”

Six times 185,000 adds up to more than 1 million. But note that these are not all construction jobs. In fact, few are construction jobs.

“The statement about 1 million construction jobs is not accurate,” said Sarah Ravi, a spokeswoman for the association. She directed us to a chart in the report that indicated that a $50 billion investment would create an additional 6,200 construction jobs. (The Washington Post)

The Washington Post gave the claim “four Pinocchios.” It was not a slip-up–it was made up to make the bill look good.