Just A Reminder Of How Things Work

On Sunday, Miranda Devine posted an article at Hot Air that included a screenshot of a Tweet. The headline of the article is, “Nobody Was Ever Charged for the Antifa Attack on the White House.”

This is the Tweet:

Meanwhile, people who walked through the Capitol on January 6th after the police waved them in are rotting in jail almost four years later. Where are their Civil Rights? Does anyone in Congress really care about Civil Rights? Where are the courageous Congressmen speaking out against this?

A Tweet That Says It All

On November 5th, Hot Air shared the following Tweet:

Has the Department of State not heard the chants of “from the river to the sea”? Do they not understand what those chants are saying? Are they not aware that Hamas wants a one-state solution–a world without Israel?

The article at Hot Air includes the following quote:

[I do believe Hamas has made it very clear they’re on the “one state” team, and that state is NOT Israel. I have never seen such consistently malevolent, ignorant buffoons in such high places before. ~ Beege]

A two-state solution will not work. We also need to remember that before October 7th, there was a truce between Israel and the Gaza Strip. We have seen how well that worked out.

Unfortunately, we are faced with an evil we have not seen since Nazi Germany, and out only option is to destroy it.

When You Don’t Want To Admit The Problem, Change The Definition

America’s economy is not exactly humming along. Inflation is out of control, and continuing high gas prices are adding fuel to the fire. It hasn’t been a good economic year for most Americans. However, the Biden administration is doing everything it can to avoid saying that America is experiencing a recession. On Sunday, Red State posted an article about one way that the Biden administration is avoiding admitting that we are in a recession.

The article reports:

This coming July 28th, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis will release the second quarter GDP numbers, and all available signs point to a disastrous report. Current trackers have growth sitting at around -1.6 percent as of July 19th.

That means that according to the most traditional definition of a recession, the United States has already entered into one. US first quarter GDP came in at -1.6 percent, which combines with the second quarter drop to give the economy two straight quarters of negative growth. That is the technical definition of a recession. Further, the bond yield curve has recently inverted, something that has preceded every other recession in modern history.

What’s the White House to do with that devastating economic news dropping on their watch and as a result of their policies? Apparently, in a move that would make George Orwell cringe, they are going to simply redefine what it means to be in a recession.

The article includes the following Tweet:George Orwell would be proud.

The article continues:

I wonder if the “economists” cited by the White House in that statement are the same “economists” who said inflation would be temporary and transitory? That would make sense given how ridiculous it is to suggest that two straight quarters of negative growth combined with an inflationary boom and a yield curve inversion don’t qualify as a recession. After all, why be technical about something as important as analyzing the US economy when you can just have a panel of faceless economic advisors redefine the terms and proclaim that negative growth is actually a sign of strength.

Do they really think Americans are that stupid?

 

Much Needed Legislation

Being elected to Congress is a wonderful thing–the prestige, the recognition, joining a very select group of people, and seemingly the opportunity to increase your net worth significantly.

The following Tweet by ZeroHedge was tweeted on September 28, 2020:

Wow! An amazing increase in personal wealth that didn’t actually involve inventing or marketing a product! Unfortunately this is not an isolated example.

The article includes a few more examples from Business Insider:

Burr (North Carolina Senator Richard Burr), who endured a months-long federal investigation into his personal stock trades, last week reported making several recent stock sales along with his wife, Brooke Burr.

The Burrs sold up to $165,000 worth of stock in Enterprise Products Partners, a natural-gas and crude-oil pipeline company, between April 28 and April 30. The company’s stock price has remained effectively level since then.

Brooke Burr also reported selling up to $100,000 in MetLife Inc. floating-rate noncumulative preferred stock and up to $100,000 in US Bancorp depository preferred shares.

Burr, who wasn’t charged, made a flurry of stock sales on February 13, 2020, six days after cowriting an opinion article on FoxNews.com that sought to ease public concern over the threat COVID-19 posed to the US.

“Thankfully, the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration,” Burr wrote along with then-Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

But on February 27 of last year, Burr — then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — told a more dire story to a small, private luncheon gathering at Washington’s tony Capitol Hill Club.

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” Burr said, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR’s Tim Mak. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

The Justice Department’s investigation of Burr’s February 2020 stock trades, together valued at more than $1.7 million, centered on whether the senator made his trades based on insider information obtained during senators-only briefings about the COVID-19 threat.

Burr says he is not planning to run for reelection in 2022.

Business Insider also mentions Jim Inhofe:

An aviation enthusiast who announced his 2020 reelection bid by piloting a propeller plane upside down, Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma, has regularly made news over the years for close-call incidents while flying.

More recently, Inhofe sought to remedy another aircraft situation — this time on paper.

In a May 17 letter to the US Senate Secretary Julie Adams, Inhofe acknowledged understating the value of the assets — most notably, airplanes — held by The Padre Company LLC, a limited-liability company that the senator controls.

As of 2019, Inhofe’s LLC held three aircraft together valued at up to $1 million: a 1979 Grumman Tiger, a 1999 RV-8, and a 1979 Cessna 340. It also included real estate.

Inhofe wrote that his letter provided a “total reconciliation of the life of my assets” within The Padre Company LLC, which formed in 1999.

In short, Inhofe had not been previously factoring in the value of the real-estate property as part of his public disclosure of the LLC. Now he is, which is why the reported value of the LLC has increased.

“Ahead of filing his annual disclosures each year, Senator Inhofe discusses it with the Ethics Committee to maximize transparency and ensure he is adhering to the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it,” the spokesperson Leacy Burke told Insider. “Previously, it had been understood that these were considered personal properties and exempt, unreportable assets. This year, in the interest of greater transparency, he was encouraged to file the amendment and include them, as you can see he did.”

It pays to be in Congress, and an attempt to end the insider trading that seems to be rampant there is coming from a rather unlikely source.

Zero Hedge reports:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to end what is effectively legalized insider trading by members of Congress by barring them from trading individual stocks ever again.

Warren first attempted to push through similar legislation with the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act she introduced in 2018 and then again in 2020. Both bills unsurprisingly died in the Senate Finance Committee, which Warren sits on.

The renewed push comes as several members of Congress have come under recent scrutiny for profitable stock trades in recent months, according to Business Insider. The include Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and former Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia.

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.

 

When You Don’t Have The Evidence, Make It Up!

I haven’t written a lot about the impeachment farce currently going on in Washington because, frankly, I don’t think it is worth my time. It won’t change anyone’s mind or opinion about Donald Trump, and if the truth is told, it will probably damage the Democrat party. It seems as if the evidence the House Impeachment Managers have been presenting is not all accurate. Videos are edited, quotes are edited, and even Tweets are shown in a way that is misleading.

Just the News posted an article yesterday about one incident.

The article reports:

The author of a tweet introduced by Democrats at the Senate impeachment trial said Thursday her statement “we are bringing the Calvary” was a clear reference to a prayer vigil organized by churchgoers supporting Trump and not a call for military-like violence at the Capitol riot as portrayed by Rep. Eric Swalwell.

Jennifer Lynn Lawrence also said she believes the California Democrat and House impeachment manager falsified her tweet, adding a blue check mark to the version he introduced at the trial suggesting she was a verified Twitter user with more clout when in fact her Twitter account never had a blue check and has never been verified.

“I noticed when they put my tweet on the screen that all of a sudden my tweet had a blue checkmark next to it,” she said during an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “… This way, if he entered that into congressional testimony, it’s a verified account, and it has, it could be applicable in law. Secondly, he wanted to show that my Twitter account had more gravitas than it actually did. He wanted to show that the president was trying to use me to bring in the cavalry.”

The person who introduced the Tweet as evidence evidently was not up on his/her spelling:

Lawrence, a Christian conservative activist and former Breitbart writer, said her tweet on Jan. 3 carefully chose the religious word “Calvary” — which means a public display of Christ’s crucifixion — as a reference to a prayer vigil they were hosting in Washington, and Swalwell distorted it to convey she was organizing a military cavalry, which is spelled differently and means a military brigade on horses.

That seems like a significant distinction.

The article concudes:

Lawrence’s account was backed up by a Christian church pastor, Brian Gibson, who was accompanying Lawrence and other activists on their trip to Washington at the time she wrote the tweet.

“I was sitting on the bus, and I saw Calvary come through,” Gibson told Just the News. “I went back to them, and specifically said, ‘Hey, guys, you spelt Calvary wrong, right?’ This is what I do for a living. I’m a preacher of the gospel. I’m a theology major, so that jumped off the page at me, and words matter, and I want them to be correct. And she said, ‘No pastor, I meant it. We meant to write Calvary like that. Because we were standing up for God, preaching the gospel. We have you ministers here that are going to be praying and leading people to Christ. And so that’s what that’s what we mean.”

Gibson, a religious freedom advocate, said he believes Swalwell badly served the trial, the country and Lawrence by falsely interpreting her meaning without checking,

“We’ve all learned a lesson in due diligence here, giving someone the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “And I think what we’re seeing, John, is a political witch hunt, where people have not crossed their t’s, dotted their i’s. And it’s the wrong way for some of our highest elected officials in the land to behave themselves. So I’m praying for Jennifer, I’m praying for everybody that has been put in harm’s way by this reckless behavior.”

I suspect the Swalwell was not the only Democrat who bought into the various lies included in the highly edited evidence brought forth in the trial.

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

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.

Bad Reporting Is One Of The Things That

Today The Gateway Pundit posted an article that illustrates how misquoting a person can create a totally false impression of the person and of what was said. The thing to keep in mind here is that the mainstream media attacks those who it considers to be a future threat to their narrative and their hold on power.

The article reports:

The far left media is making up completely fraudulent quotes now to smear the Republicans.

The Hill reported on Saturday that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem called the removal of Confederate statues was an effort to “discredit” our Founding Fathers.

This would be quite a quote if it was true.
But it’s not true.
It was completely made up to make the popular Republican governor and the Republican party look racist and stupid.

The tweet is still up over 24 hours later.

The article posts the actual quote:

Here are Governor Noem’s actual words:

“Across America these last several weeks, we have been witnessing a very troubling situation unfold. In real time, we are watching an organized, coordinated campaign to remove and eliminate all references to our nation’s founding and many other points in our history. The approach focuses exclusively on our forefathers’ flaws, but it fails to capitalize on the opportunity to learn from their virtues. Make no mistake, this is being done deliberately to discredit America’s founding principles by discrediting the individuals who formed them so that America can be remade into a different political image.”

As you can see, there is no reference to the Confederacy or the statues. This is a blatant attempt to stop the forward political progress of a woman who has served her state well, both in Congress and as Governor. This is the sort of reporting that divides rather than informs.

No Longer Fair And Balanced

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

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

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

Skewing The News Can Have Consequences

Bias in news reporting comes in a variety of ways. One way is to leave out critical parts of a story in order to give a totally misleading impression. Unfortunately the news media did that recently in a situation where someone died.

Townhall posted an article that illustrates how harmful and misleading media bias can be.

The article reports:

Media outlets and journalists on social media heavily pushed a story about a woman and her husband drinking fish tank cleaner because it contained chloroquine phosphate after President Trump had mentioned the medicinal version of chloroquine could be used to help treat COVID-19.

After drinking the cleaner, the couple began to feel sick and were rushed to the hospital, where her husband later died and she was put in intensive care. She told NBC News they drank it out of fear of contracting the coronavirus and had heard Trump talking about chloroquine to treat patients.

However, some of the reports and social media left out the fact the couple did not ingest the medicinal form of chloroquine that Trump had said could be used to help cure those infected with the Wuhan coronavirus.

Axios’ story about the incident completely left out the part about them ingesting fish tank cleaner. Their tweet for the original story has been deleted and an editor’s note was added to the story hours after it was first published.

…Journalists on Twitter often left out the part explaining the couple did not use the tablet form of chloroquine, racking up thousands of retweets and likes off of the false premise.

NBC News Correspondent Heidi Przybyla’s tweet about the story went viral, but she did not add the key detail until two hours later and at the very bottom of her thread, which has received far less attention.

The most blatant example of journalistic malpractice was found in a tweet by Axios and the response by Jennifer Rubin:

Understand as you read this that the political left would love to see President Trump’s daily coronavirus updates go away. Why? Because when the President talks to the people directly, Americans see a man handling the situation as well as could be expected. The media spin rooms try to spin what was said, but if people see it for themselves, the spin has less impact.

Please follow the link to the article at Townhall. It shows a number of tweets attempting to blame President Trump for the death of the man who drank fish tank cleaner. While the man’s death is a tragedy, no one told him to drink fish tank cleaner. It was a really dumb thing to do. However, the reporting of this tragedy is only one example of how irresponsible our mainstream media has become.

Really?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a recent comment by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE).

The article reports:

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said on Tuesday during MSNBC’s impeachment coverage that “hypothetically,” President Donald Trump could be impeached for a “hateful, racist position” that he tweets about.

Host Chuck Todd said, “I have to say, one of the logic things I don’t understand when I hear people making declarations about ‘this is not an impeachable offense.’ Correct me if I’m wrong, the impeachable offense is whatever a majority the House says it is, and if you get ousted, it’s whatever two-thirds of the Senate says?”

Representative Coons continued:

He continued, “It is a political process, Chuck. You’re right that we don’t have detailed documentary evidence of what the Founders meant by high crimes and misdemeanors. We have some history from the United Kingdom, where they used that term in impeachment over a long period of time. Understanding this is the Constitutional mechanism for removing the president, I find it hard to believe that it has to be a specifically plead federal crime.”

He continued, “If, for example, the president of the United States just chose to move to his golf resort in Scotland for two years and not come back, not return calls, not be the president, don’t you think we could impeach him and remove him for dereliction of duty, even though there’s no specific crime?”

He added, “If the president hypothetically were to start adopting some hateful, racist position and tweeting and saying things that violated all of our values and were offensive to every American and didn’t specifically commit a crime, couldn’t we remove him in that instance?”

Our Founding Fathers are not turning over in their graves–they are spinning. Hasn’t this man read the Constitution? Aren’t the Democrats the party who had a Senate Majority Leader who was a leader in his local Ku Klux Klan?

I really can’t believe that the Democrats are so willing to undo a legitimate election when the next election is merely nine and a half months away.

Letting A Lie Stand

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about a lie told by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She has made a number of anti-Semitic statements during her short term in Congress.

The article reports:

Yesterday Tlaib retweeted the claim that a “herd of violent Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and murdered” a seven-year-old Palestinian boy. The original tweet was accompanied by a video that showed an Israeli rescue team recovering the body of the boy from a cistern.

The article concludes:

The whole thing was a hoax, made up out of whole cloth. (Not the death of the boy, which was real, but the assertion that he was murdered by Israeli “settlers.”) The tweet by the Palestinian politician, Hanan Ashrawi, has now been deleted, as has Tlaib’s retweet. But Tlaib’s deletion was silent, with no explanation or apology, or any attempt to correct the misinformation that she had spread to tens of thousands on Twitter.

What happened is obvious. Like many people, Tlaib believes anything that tends to confirm her pre-existing bigotry. There is no need to investigate or verify the facts when an opportunity to smear Jews is at hand.

Anyone can make a mistake and believe something that isn’t true. However, Congresswoman Tlaib owed the people who follow her on Twitter and explanation of why her tweet was deleted and a correction to the story. Kidnapping and murder is generally not something that Israelis do to children. Unfortunately the Palestinians who Tlaib supports have a history of killing innocent people–both Israeli and American–citizens of Israel and tourists. The Representative needs to check her facts more carefully.

Some Presidential Candidates Don’t Understand Economics

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about a recent tweet by Elizabeth Warren.

This is the tweet:

The article includes the following quote from an article posted at The Heartland Institute website on September 19, 2018:

A 2015 Harvard Business School/Boston Consulting Group study estimates fracking supported 2.7 million jobs in 2014, with the potential to grow to 3.8 million jobs by 2030. Similarly, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) prepared a report for the American Petroleum Institute that estimates the oil and natural gas industries supported 10.3 million jobs in 2015, an increase of about 500,00 compared to 2011.  The RAND Corporation projects the industries will support an additional 1.9 million jobs by 2035.  By the same year, a 2012 IHS Markit study estimates fracking will have created 3.5 million jobs. 

A 2016 Chamber of Commerce study projects that if the fracking revolution of the previous decade had not occurred, 4.3 million jobs would not have been created, the U.S. economy would be $500 billion smaller and residential natural gas prices would be 28 percent higher. 

There is also the matter of national security. America now has the freedom to choose its friends without worrying whether or not our oil supply will be cut off. Some of us remember the 1970’s gas lines and high price of gasoline.

The world economy (that includes America) is currently based on fossil fuels. Countries who can supply reasonable priced energy attract manufacturing and businesses which create jobs. The end the production of fossil fuel and fracking in America is to reduce America to the status of a third-world (or lower) country.

This Sounds Like A Logical Complaint Until You Look At The Actual Facts

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about something Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently retweeted. The original tweet was supposed to point out a problem with voter ID laws. Instead, when you looked at the actual facts, the policy in place makes sense.

This is the tweet:

In order to get a concealed carry permit in Texas, you have to be a legal resident of Texas. In order to get a student ID in Texas, you don’t have to be a resident of Texas or an American citizen. When the facts are considered, the policy makes sense.

Now They’re Coming After Bacon

On Sunday, PJMedia posted an article with the following headline, “Harvard Climate Loon: Keto Dieters Are Killing the Planet Because Bacon and Butter or Something.”

The interesting thing about the article is that it contains two contradicting tweets:

What’s a person to do? Note the comment by Dr. Wrigley, “…puts power with those who own the food.” It makes me wonder if all the emphasis on eating plants and not meat might have something to do with power and control.

What You Are Not Supposed To See

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article with the following headline, “Twitter Suspends Mitch McConnell Campaign Account for Sharing Death Threats Against Mitch McConnell…”

Now why do you suppose they did that? If the threats had been against a Democrat, would the account have been suspended? No–The tweet would have simply highlighted as an example of the actions of violent right wing extremists.

The article reports:

Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm is a political activist who has met with numerous high profile politicians, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, to advance the identity politics of her movement.

Ms. Chanelle Helm posted video to her Facebook page showing a protest Monday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s house. Ms. Helm was proud.

Ms. Helm was shouting: “just stab the motherf—er in the heart.”  F*ck yo neck, b*tch. Murder Turtle! Murder Turtle! … F*ck yo thoughts and prayers … F*ck you, f*ck yo wife, f*ck everything you stand for.”

To highlight the hypocrisy of the radical leftists, several social media and twitter accounts began sharing the video of Ms. Helm’s call to violence; including the twitter account of Mitch McConnell.

In response to the video showing how violent Ms. Chanelle Helm is, and bringing forth the transparency of sunlight upon the group’s objectives, Twitter began demanding the videos and tweets must be removed.  Failure to remove the video results in the twitter account being suspended from the platform.  Twitter suspended Mitch McConnell’s account.

The article concludes:

The same simpatico relationship exists with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and a host of social media platforms. The events in/around Sanford, FL (2012); Ferguson, MO (2014) and Baltimore Maryland (2015), were not just purposeful; they were quite financially lucrative for the identity network. After all, they learned at the knee of the master:

The question to ask is, “Who gains by pitting one group of people against another?” If we are fighting each other, we are noticing that our Washington politicians go to Washington as members of the middle class and quickly become millionaires. As long as they can keep us fighting among ourselves and not noticing what they are doing, they can continue their corruption.

Doxing Is Illegal

A website called Subliminal Ridge posted the following about doxing in 2012:

Doxing is always illegal, whether it is done against a federal employee, a state employee, or a regular person. There are federal and state laws that specifically address doxing government employees. With regular citizens, doxing falls under various state criminal laws, such as stalking, cyberstalking, harassment, threats, and other such laws, depending on the state. Since these doxing threats and activities are made on the internet, the law of any state may be invoked, though most often an investigator will look to the state in which the person making the threat is located, if this is known, or the state in which the victim is situated. A state prosecutor can only prosecute violations of the laws of his or her own state, and of acts that extend into their state. When acts are on the internet, they extend into all the states.

 Misinformation was spread that doxing is legal. I am not sure how or why anyone fell for that misinformation. Surely, people must understand instinctively, even if they were misled about the law, that if they are threatening someone or putting them at risk, or tormenting or harassing the other on the internet, that this must be illegal. Common sense would tell you that bullying or jeopardizing another would be illegal in some way. So yes, doxing is illegal, no matter who the target.

Meanwhile The Hill reports:

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) on Wednesday was pressed by MSNBC’s Willie Geist after he used his Twitter account earlier in the week to identify a number of people who had made the maximum allowable donations to President Trump‘s campaign.

Geist said that the Trump donors “are undoubtedly already being harassed online or perhaps face-to-face in some cases” because of Castro’s actions. 

Castro, the brother of 2020 Democratic hopeful Julián Castro and chairman of his campaign, faced pushback on Tuesday from a number of conservatives for sharing the list of names. He said he published the names because he hopes that people “will think twice about contributing to [Trump’s] campaign.”

“What I hope is that this has started a conversation about what exactly Donald Trump is doing with these people’s money,” Joaquin Castro explained. “And I hope donors in San Antonio and donors throughout the country, unless you support the white nationalism and the racism that Donald Trump is paying for and fueling, then I hope that you, as a person of good conscience, will think twice about contributing to his campaign.”

The article concludes:

Geist pushed back again later, pointing to Castro’s comments that President Trump’s rhetoric has led to violence.

“If you agree rhetoric can lead to incitement, even if it triggers one person to do something terrible, does it give you any pause to put these names out in public?” Geist asked.

“Well, Willie, they’re already public, they’re already out there,” Castro responded.

“There are 11 retirees and one homemaker who are not public,” Geist noted.

“And this was already circulating. I shared it, so I didn’t create the graphic,” Castro replied.

“Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Brzezinski defended Castro earlier in the interview, with the latter arguing that Castro was only “reframing” public information.

“If you’re proud of funding President Trump, you need to understand that that will be public information. And all you’re doing is trying to explain what it is in terms of the policies or the morals that you are funding,” Brzezinski said.

Geist is also the anchor “Sunday Today with Willie Geist.”

You can’t draw a straight line from anything President Trump has said to violence. If any one of the people Castro listed are harassed or bullied, Castro is directly responsible. Mr. Casto, you need to be charged with a crime.

Censorship Run Amok

On Friday, Newsbusters reported that Twitter had recently labeled a tweet by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott as “sensitive” and covered it up. The tweet was hardly controversial.

The article reports:

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott met with Twitter officials on July 15 to discuss why his tweet about the U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, was covered up by Twitter. His original tweet, which retweeted a video, said, “I’ve always loved watching the Blue Angels. They inspire the precision and power that makes the U.S. military the mightiest in the history of the world.” Both this tweet, and the video, were covered as “sensitive” by Twitter.

Users had to click through the “sensitive” filter in order to see the tweet.

Abbott later tweeted, “Multiple reports say Twitter categorized my Blue Angels post as sensitive. Just another way Twitter is erecting challenges for conservatives and for American institutions.”

After the meeting, Abbott announced, “We are working on solutions to ensure posts are seen.”

However, the consequences might be severe. Abbott mentioned that “Greater regulation of Twitter is on the table.”

The only thing that could even remotely be considered sensitive about a Blue Angels video is the pictures taken from inside the plane. The maneuvers those pilots go through are worse than the wildest roller coaster! At any rate, this is another example of overreaching censorship in a place where censorship should not even be allowed.

When The Truth Arrives, Will The Public Believe It?

The mainstream media hates the phrase ‘fake news,’ but the problem is that it often applies to what they report. Even if the news is not fake, it can be distorted in a way that leaves a totally false impression. Yesterday Breitbart reported one such example.

CNN’s Jim Acosta tweeted the following:

Well, that’s a little misleading.

The article further reports:

As Breitbart News’ John Binder reported, foreign nationals seeking asylum in the U.S. evade immediate deportation after claiming credible fear in 88 percent of cases, according to the Department of Justice. Yet, only 50 percent of the foreign nationals who evade immediate deportation by claiming credible fear end up filing for asylum status following there released into the country.

That is a direct quote from the article. The editor missed the fact the last few words should read, “following their release into the country.”

The tweet by Jim Acosta leaves you with a very unfavorable opinion of President Trump and his view on immigration. I strongly suspect that is by design. This is the kind of poison the mainstream media has spewed against President Trump for the last two-plus years. My question is this–if it turns out that the Russia investigation was in fact a failed coup (which I believe it was), are Americans going to be willing to face the truth after hearing two-plus years of hate speech and misreporting against President Trump.

 

There Is Something Upside Down About The Charges Made Here

CNS News posted an article today about  a recent comment by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The article reports what Speaker Pelosi said in a statement issued Sunday:

“Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video” of Rep. Omar’s comment.”

This is the full statement:

“Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces.

“The President’s words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video.”

So what is this disrespectful and dangerous video? It is simply a video of Congresswoman Omar stating that “CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) was founded after 9/11 because they realized that some people did something.”

So wait a minute. I am missing something here. First of all, CAIR was founded in 1994–not after 9/11. Second of all, how is showing a video of a person making a speech disrespectful and dangerous? The Congresswoman has stood by her words–she has not apologized for them or backed down in any way. Why is the video disrespectful and dangerous when it simply shows Congresswoman Omar making a speech? If the video is not edited in any way (no one is arguing that it was altered), whose speech is dangerous–the one saying the words or the one reporting the words? Is the problem with the speaker or the one reporting the speech?

Follow The Example Of The People With The Money Who Have A Choice

Today John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about Mick Jagger’s recent heart surgery. I was never really a Rolling Stones fan, but the Beatles aren’t there anymore. At any rate, the article includes the following Tweet from Mick Jagger:

That’s great news, but there is more to the story. Mick Jagger just underwent a successful transcatheter aortic valve replacement (in New York City). Wait a minute–if socialized medicine is so great, what is he doing in New York City? No long wait and up-to-date care. There is still enough of the free market left in American medicine that medical procedures are up-to-date and relatively easy to obtain.

The article explains:

I think it was Robert Conquest who said that everyone is a conservative about what he knows best. Likewise, the more you really care, the less wedded you are to liberal shibboleths. I need heart surgery? Goodbye, NHS. Some years ago, there was a woman who was a member of Canada’s Parliament. She was a fierce opponent of private medical care on the ground that the people should share health risks equally. Then she came down with a rare form of cancer. She was on the next airplane to the U.S.

The Rolling Stones have always had a good appreciation of the virtues of free enterprise. John Phelan, the British economist who works for my organization, likes to quote Keith Richards:

The whole business thing is predicated a lot on the tax laws…It’s why we rehearse in Canada and not in the U.S. A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all.

Further proving that a conservative is simply a liberal who has been mugged and that tax policies have consequences.

The Power Of Energy Independence

America is now energy independent. We now export oil and natural gas. This gives us some degree of leverage against what used to be the monopoly held by OPEC (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). Yesterday Townhall posted an article that illustrates the influence America now wields because of its energy independence.

The article reports:

In the midst of the oil price spike scare, President Donald Trump warned the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Monday to “take it easy” on raising the price of oil.

This is the tweet:

So what were the consequences of this tweet?

The article reports:

Since this morning, the price of crude oil dropped by more than a dollar per barrel in just an hour. Bloomberg reported today that New York saw a 2.7 percent decrease in oil prices, which is the lowest drop in two weeks.

“Analysts attributed the price rise to improving trade talks between the U.S. and China, unrest in Nigeria and Venezuela, Libya’s refusal to restart production in the El Sharara oil field and continued efforts to curtail supplies by OPEC and Russia,” according to The Daily Caller.

When you don’t have to depend on OPEC for oil to keep your economy going, you have much more power to negotiate oil prices.

Why We Need The Alternative Media

Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article today about some of the fiction recently written by the mainstream media.

The following tweet is included in the article:

It’s amazing how the story changes to fit the current narrative. If you are a consumer of news, this should make you very upset–a large portion of American voters are reading this nonsense and believing it.