Displaying posts published in

August 2020

Joe Biden’s Orwellian Rewrite of History The willingness to distort the past is one of the Left’s most important weapons for instituting tyranny. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/joe-bidens-orwellian-rewrite-history-bruce-thornton/

In an apocryphal story about Christopher Columbus, the great explorer was insulted at a banquet by a man who said that discovering America was no big deal, since if Columbus hadn’t done it, somebody else would have. Columbus said nothing, but asked for an egg. He then challenged the banqueteers to make the egg stand on end. After several fruitless efforts, Columbus tapped the small end of the egg on the table, flattening it so it would stand up. His point was obvious: after the difficult deed is done, everybody knows how to do it.

This tale came to mind last week when Joe Biden tried to claim some credit for Trump’s brokering of a groundbreaking deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that normalizes relations between the two countries. Biden’s effort didn’t impress anyone beyond the NeverTrump diehards and their stenographers in the mainstream media. But it is another example of how the history of the Obama years is being rewritten to lend some glamor and excitement to a party with no policy ideas other than failed socialist magical thinking.

More important, that willingness to distort the past is one of the left’s most important weapons for instituting tyranny.

Biden’s statement was so specious one might attribute it to his obvious cognitive decline. “I personally,” Biden said, “spent time with leaders of both Israel and UAE during our administration building the case for cooperation and broader engagement and the benefits it could deliver to both nations.” But every vice-president “personally” spends time superficially discussing all sorts of issues with foreign leaders. Most of these are photo-ops that generate banal statements like “cooperation and broader engagement” that are forgotten by the next news cycle.

A significant, meaningful discussion, on the other hand, leads to significant action and results. For example, take Biden’s colloquy with the president of Ukraine. In March of 2016, as Biden later boasted, the Veep threatened Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would not honor $1 billion in loan guarantees unless the prosecutor looking into Burisma Holdings, suspected of corruption, was fired. As Biden gleefully related later about threatening Poroshenko, “‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”

A Fake DNC Convention Ends With Real Nastiness The democracy is fake, but the hate is real. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/fake-dnc-convention-ends-real-nastiness-daniel-greenfield/

On the last night of the imaginary DNC convention taking place inside an editing room, the Democrats decided that the best way to win over independent voters was to bring in the least talented member of the Seinfeld cast to make jokes about Mike Pence’s name.

Why? It distracts from Joe Biden doesn’t it.

The joke here is positively Seinfeldian. Julia Louis Dreyfuss plays shallow, self-involved, and petty characters because she’s shallow, petty, and self-involved. The Democrats attack Trump as an unserious reality show host who confuses social media with leadership, and then debut a failed convention dominated by celebrities and badly written jokes aimed at social media.

“I’m proud to be a nasty, nasty woman,” Julia Louis Dreyfuss gloated.

It’s not just her own aspiration, but that of the party that invited her. The Democrats want to play at being serious, principled folks bringing the country together, but they’re proud to be nasty.

“I will draw on the best of us, not the worst of us,” Joe Biden claimed, accepting his nomination after a convention filled with conspiracy theories about mailboxes, smears, and cheap shots.

That promise is coming from a politician who spent his career insulting voters, calling them fat and stupid, whose family is notorious for profiting from his political office, who palled around with segregationists and sexual predators, but whom three nights of celebrities and fellow hacks from across the political swamp spectrum now insist is really a kind, decent, and loveable man.

Biden’s transformation after 47 years of nastiness is just as convincing as that of his party.

5 Things to Know About Night 4 of the Democratic National Convention By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/08/21/5-things-to-know-about-night-4-of-the-democratic-national-convention-n818980

Whew! That was torture. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) finally concluded on Thursday. We at PJ Media subjected ourselves to this Gaslighting America Telethon so you wouldn’t have to. Check out our liveblogs from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and follow our coverage tomorrow.

Without further ado, here’s a recap of the fourth and final night.

1. Was Joe Biden’s speech racist?

Democratic nominee Joe Biden delivered his acceptance speech at the end of the night, and his speech focused on the theme of choosing “light” over “darkness.” According to the logic of woke cancel culture, that theme seems rather suspect. Here’s a selection of quotes:

The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.

Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness. …

For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege. …

May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation.

Biden even said, “Light is more powerful than dark.”

Biden’s speech managed to be simultaneously vapid and disgraceful By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/bidens_speech_managed_to_be_simultaneously_vapid_and_disgraceful.html

A weary sounding Joe Biden, who periodically managed to flog himself into a weak and shrill rage, delivered a singularly awful acceptance speech. When it wasn’t hackneyed, he plagiarized ideas and policies from President Trump and made boasts that were inconsistent with his 48 years in politics, whether as a Senator or a Vice President. The worst thing about it, though, was that he repeated a vicious, and unforgivable, slander about Trump. 

Here’s a short list of Biden’s platitudes: Trump is darkness. I am light. FDR was a great president. Help young people by ending Trump’s darkness. America is racist. More darkness, more light.

You must judge Trump’s entire presidency by looking at the six months of the Wuhan virus and its damage to the economy (damage wrought, though he doesn’t say it, by Democrat politicians).

America had the worst virus outbreak in the world. (That’s not true, by the way, but it is true that Democrat policies, especially regarding nursing homes, made it horrifically worse than it should have been.) Trump will kill the economy. Trump will take people’s insurance.

Wasn’t Obama great? Trump isn’t great.

Aiming Low for Trump By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-nomination-speech-vague-no-policy-specifics/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=second

If there is one overwhelming message from the Democratic convention and Joe Biden’s acceptance speech, it’s that Democrats want to make this election about two things: Donald Trump’s personality (which was an asset to them in 2016, but not enough to win the election) and how Donald Trump has done his job as president. Barack Obama hit these themes last night, and so did Joe Biden tonight. These are, of course, entirely fair game in a presidential election. But the omissions were noticeable. Biden’s discussion of policy issues tonight was purposely vague, a far cry from detailing his agenda, and he offered very few criticisms of Republican policies or proposals. For a guy who has spent years in the trenches of the judicial-confirmation wars, he was strikingly quiet on the courts and the issues they control — he did not mention the courts once. He left to his running mate the latest promise of legislation by executive fiat:

HERUT MOURNS THE LOSS OF HELEN FREEDMAN

Herut Mourns The Loss Of Pro-Israel Activist Leader Helen Freedman

For Immediate Release  

Herut North America and World Herut mourn the loss of pro-Israel activist leader Helen Freedman Z”L the longtime executive director of the New York based Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI) organization.

“The need for the ideas of the great Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky has perhaps never been greater in the US in the last 50 years than now,” said Karma Feinstein Cohen, the Executive Director of Herut North America. “And we will be forever thankful for the over two decades of work Helen Freedman put into making sure that there was a public Manhattan memorial for Jabotinsky each year presided over by the wonderful leadership of the late Herbert Zweibon, of AFSI, and the late David Krakow, of the Nordau Circle, the Jabotinsky Order. Helen brought amazing speakers to New York each year for the memorial and throughout the year.”

Karma Feinstein Cohen is a World Zionist Organization (WZO) representative on the Board of Directors of the “Council to Perpetuate the Memory of Ze’ev Jabotinsky” in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.

“Recently when Helen had AFSI join the American Zionist Movement as an affiliated organization, as the leader of a longtime constituent member of AZM, I was overjoyed,” said Feinstein Cohen. “AFSI’s commitment to Jabotinsky’s ideals is a cornerstone of its foundation and the Jabotinsky voice has always needed more representation in the various leadership organizations within the American Jewish community.”

“It is hard to forget Helen Freedman’s protests against the Wye River summit in 1998 when Benjamin Netanyahu did so much to appease Yasser Arafat and Helen’s equally strong, principled stand against the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza,” said Moshe Phillips, the National Director of Herut North America. “Helen, I am sure, would have been just as outspoken in her criticism of Netanyahu halting the plans to assume sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as part of this new UAE agreement.”

“Helen Freedman was committed to the Jewish families in Judea and Samaria,” continued Phillips. “Whether it was Helen’s letters to the editor, tours to Israel, frequent street protests with hand-printed signs and her other trademarked activism, she never stopped showing her concern for Israelis in the heartland of Israel. It was my unique pleasure to serve on the board of directors of Americans For A Safe Israel with Helen and watch her at work. Recently AFSI updated its website and logo and Helen was there every step of the way. Helen was AFSI’s longest serving executive director. She held the position for nearly half of its 50 year existence and we pray to see the organization flourish in her memory.”

“To Helen’s family, loved ones, and comrades, we say: May Hashem console you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem,” said Karma Feinstein Cohen. “Helen will be missed and will be remembered.”

Herut is an international grassroots movement for Zionist pride and education and is dedicated to the ideals of pre-World War Two Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky. More information about Herut can be found at www.HerutNA.org

The Bannon Indictment By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/the-bannon-indictment/

If there are convictions, the potential penalties are severe.

NR’s Zachary Evans has reported on the Justice Department’s indictment of former Trump campaign manager and White House adviser Steve Bannon, along with three codefendants — Brian Kolfage, an Air Force vet who became a triple-amputee serving in the Iraq War; Andrew Badolato, a longtime Bannon associate; and Timothy Shea, who helped Kolfage establish “We Build the Wall,” the campaign said to be at the center of the alleged fraud scheme.

The indictment unsealed today elucidates that a great deal of investigative scutwork went into this case, chiefly by the U.S. postal inspectors and prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Indeed, the investigation was plainly in gear last autumn: The indictment says that in October 2019, the defendants were tipped off by a financial institution that they were under investigation. The wire-fraud and money-laundering charges were a long time coming, and the postal inspectors appear to have meticulously traced the proceeds through numerous bank accounts, real-estate parcels, and at least one vehicle. These are itemized in the indictment’s forfeiture allegations, which are in addition to the significant imprisonment and staggering fines that could result in the event of convictions.

Kalamity Kamala a Calamity for America By Joan Swirsky 

https://canadafreepress.com/article/kalamity-kamala-a-calamity-for-america

Kamala won’t be Biden’s VP. Biden will be Kamala’s president only if she gets up in a good enough mood to give him permission. 

Calamity Jane was a frontier heroine in the mid-19th century who during an uprising in 1872, saved a Captain Egan from certain death, whereupon he told her: “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.” 

This is in stark contrast to Kalamity Kamala of 21st century America, who would accelerate the downfall of our Democratic Republic in the unlikely event of a Biden-Kalamity win on November 3rd. 

Why? Because Biden and Kalamity are promising to resurrect the failed policies of the Obama years, and inflict even more damage on America the Beautiful. 

According to author and television host Mark Levin, although the media are rushing to portray California’s junior senator as a moderate, nothing could be further from the truth. 

She is the “most extremist radical politician ever to run for high office” in the U.S.A., Levin states, even “farther left than 97% of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate,” even “left of avowed Marxist Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.”

Biden: A Diminished Trojan Horse With an Army of Marxist Transformers Inside By Mark Ellis,

https://pjmedia.com/columns/mark-ellis/2020/08/20/a-diminished-trojan-horse-with-an-army-of-marxist-transformers-inside-n816315

Some conservative pundits and strategists have opined that it may not be prudent for President Trump and the Republicans to make too big a deal about Joe Biden’s cognitive challenges. If pro-Trump opposition goes all in on terms like dementia, senility, or, as President Trump defines Biden’s mental condition, “not all there,” they risk setting the expectation bar so low that all Biden has to do is stay afloat during the presidential debates and at whatever politically organic (not wholly-orchestrated) campaign appearances he might make.

The case was made that if Trump and his surrogates condition voters to expect a doddering, rambling, and often incoherent candidate, Biden can beat the expectation game by simply mouthing pre-approved answers to most conceivable questions and sticking to the script.

On the eve of his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, it is generally understood on both sides of the aisle that the “Biden’s okay, he’s just being Joe” narrative is kaput.  Everybody knows that, sadly, the former VP is not quite hitting on all cylinders. What we have here is a rickety old Trojan Horse the left hopes to wheel back through the gates of governance.

What to do with that?

Biden was not even able to successfully get through wife Jill’s remarks on night two of the convention. What should have been a poignant moment for the Dem ticket served only as another reminder about Mr. Biden’s seeming inability to deliver off-the-cuff the most patent campaign fluff.

Sen. Hawley Questions ‘White Privilege’ Training at US Nuclear Lab By Petr Svab

https://www.theepochtimes.com/gop-senator-questions-white-privilege-trainings-at-fed-funded-nuclear-lab_3468911.html

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is seeking an explanation as to why the United States’ leading nuclear safety laboratory spent taxpayer dollars to lecture its staff about “white privilege.”

In an Aug. 13 letter (pdf) to the Department of Energy (DOE), the largest funder of the lab, Hawley called for “a comprehensive review of its procedures and practices to ensure that taxpayers are no longer required to fund such divisive and ineffective trainings.”

Hawley was referring to a series of training sessions that Sandia National Laboratories paid for at a Santa Fe, New Mexico, resort, where Sandia’s white male executives were sent last year to learn about their “white privilege” and the supposed harmfulness of their “white male culture.”

Leaked materials from the sessions were published earlier this month by Christopher Rufo, head of the Center on Wealth and Poverty at the Discovery Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.

“Employees must expose the ‘roots of white male culture,’ which consists of ‘rugged individualism,’ ‘a can-do attitude,’ ‘hard work,’ and ‘striving towards success’—which sound good, but are in fact ‘devastating’ to women and POCs [people of color],” he said, citing the materials in an Aug. 12 tweet.

“Taxpayers funded this? At a resort?” Hawley responded on Twitter on the day of sending his letter.

Sandia, which is responsible for the safety of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, is run by Honeywell, but is wholly government-funded. It has received more than $3.7 billion in federal dollars this year, Hawley said.