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October 2020

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The Hunter Emails By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-hunter-emails-report/

According to a 2015 email, then–vice president Joe Biden met with a top executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, $50,000 a month to sit on its board. Earlier, the Burisma executive had asked Hunter to use his influence to quell Ukrainian government officials who were trying to extort the company. Months later, Vice President Biden coerced the Ukrainian government into firing a prosecutor who says he was gearing up an investigation of Burisma.

The evidence that Vice President Biden gave access to the company that was paying his son is disputed. It comes from emails stored on the hard drive of a laptop computer that appears to be Hunter Biden’s. The emails were disclosed in a report by the New York Post.

The Post was alerted to the hard drive’s existence by Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. The paper received a copy of the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. A Biden spokesman claims that, according to Biden’s official schedule, he never met with the Burisma official. Obviously, that does not prove that the meeting did not happen, any more than the email, by itself and without more authentication, proves beyond a doubt that it did happen.

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Twitter and Facebook’s Shameful Repression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden Story

By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/twitter-and-facebooks-shameful-repression-of-the-new-york-posts-hunter-biden-story/

This morning, Andy Stone, Facebook’s policy communications manager (and, per his bio, a former staffer for Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the House Majority PAC), announced that the social-media giant would begin “reducing” the “distribution” of a New York Post investigation into emails purporting that Joe Biden met with a top executive from the Ukrainian natural-gas firm Burisma Holdings at the behest of his son Hunter Biden.

Bad idea.

In one of the emails reported by the Post, a Burisma executive named Vadym Pozharskyi thanks Hunter for inviting him to Washington to meet with the vice president in 2015.

If the Post report is to be believed, the Biden-Burisma meeting occurred less than a year before the vice president pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor investigating the company that was paying Hunter $50,000 per month for his alleged expertise. That is, by any journalistic standard, newsworthy.

Instead of simply asking pertinent questions, or debunking the Post’s reporting, a media blackout was initiated. A number of well-known journalists warned colleagues and their sizable social-media audiences not to share the story.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Merriam-Webster Changes Definition of ‘Sexual Preference’ Seemingly Overnight By Matt Margolis

By on October 14th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/10/14/merriam-webster-changes-definition-of-sexual-preference-seemingly-overnight-n1051219

On Tuesday, Judge Amy Coney Barrett told Senator Dianne Feinstein that she “never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.” Senator Mazie Hirono, in addition to asking Judge Barrett if she’s sexually assaulted anyone before, harped on Barrett’s use of the phrase, claiming it to be outdated and offensive.

The liberal media quickly pounced on Barrett’s use of the allegedly offensive term. As of this writing, there are now over 20,000 news stories about it.

While we expect Democrats and the liberal media to accuse Barrett of bigotry for using this longstanding innocent term (while also ignoring Democrats’ repeated use of it in the recent past) what is actually quite disappointing is to see the way Merriam-Webster, which has been publishing dictionaries since the 1800s, sprung to action to give credence to these attacks by literally redefining the term, seemingly overnight.

If you visit their website and search for the definition of “preference,” at the very bottom of the definition it reads “5. offensive, see usage paragraph below : ORIENTATION sense 2b // sexual preference,” and claims “The term preference as used to refer to sexual orientation is widely considered offensive in its implied suggestion that a person can choose who they are sexually or romantically attracted to.”

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Will Amazon Suppress the True Michael Brown Story? Jason L. Riley

By on October 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-amazon-suppress-the-true-michael-brown-story-11602628176?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

August was the sixth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, the black teenager who was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The incident, and the nationwide coverage it attracted, marked the beginning of a period of mass protests against police, which culminated (let’s hope) after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis this May.

The fashionable explanation for what happened to Brown, Floyd and others—such as Freddie Gray in 2015 and Philando Castile in 2016—is so-called systemic racism. The activist left and the mainstream media insist that law enforcement targeted these men because they were black—and that if they weren’t black, they would still be alive. The truth is more complicated and less politically correct, and it’s the subject of an engrossing new documentary that is scheduled to premiere Oct. 16.

The film, titled “What Killed Michael Brown?,” is written and narrated by the noted race scholar Shelby Steele and directed by his son, Eli Steele. Readers of these pages probably know the elder Mr. Steele through his best-selling books and occasional Journal op-eds. But earlier in his career, Mr. Steele also won acclaim for his work in television. In 1990 he co-wrote and produced “Seven Days in Bensonhurst,” an Emmy-winning documentary about Yusef Hawkins, the black teenager from Brooklyn who was fatally shot in 1989 after he and some friends were attacked by a white mob.

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Except For Locked-Down Blue States, America’s Economic Recovery From COVID-19 Is Amazingly Strong By Tom Blumer

By on October 14th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/except-for-locked-down-blue-states-americas-economic-recovery-from-covid-19-is-amazingly-strong/

The nation’s corporate media have mostly downplayed or ignored the U.S. economy’s remarkable performance following the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year. They have completely ignored how pandemic-related economic restrictions in many states have prevented the ongoing recovery from being even stronger.

In just five months, the unemployment rate has fallen by 45 percent from its April peak of 14.7 percent, and the economy has also regained just over half of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. This is a far better performance than most economists expected. Media outlets far and wide, and even the Congressional Budget Office, originally predicted that it would take ten years for the economy to fully recover.

The government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) told us on Oct. 2 that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in September was 7.9 percent (down from 8.4 percent in August), and that the economy added 661,000 jobs during the month.

Both CNBC and the Associated Press emphasized that September’s job additions were a sharp drop from the nearly 1.5 million jobs added in August. Both outlets failed to tell readers how volatile government hiring affected these results.

In August, 1.02 million jobs were added in the private sector while government employment increased by 467,000. September saw an increase of 877,000 jobs in the private sector and 216,000 jobs lost in government, primarily in local education. Coming in just 14 percent lower than August, September’s private-sector result was hardly the major “loss of momentum” CNBC and the AP claimed.

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Legacy Media Fall Silent On Bombshell Report Showing Joe Biden Lied About Knowledge Of Son’s Foreign Business By Tristan Justice

By on October 14th, 2020

http://Legacy Media Fall Silent On Bombshell Report Showing Joe Biden Lied About Knowledge Of Son’s Foreign Business By Tristan Justice

Any time a legacy paper drops what they call a “bombshell” report on President Donald Trump, one can safely bet it will end up on the front page of every outlet immediately upon publication.

It happened with the Woodward tapes, where the Watergate journalist uncovered comments the president had been making for months. It happened with a report in the Atlantic, where the magazine published a hit piece based solely on anonymous sources making claims only to be contradicted by more than a dozen current and former White House staff, including fired National Security Advisor John Bolton. And it happened with every minor new detail to emerge in the mainstream media’s Russiagate narrative seeking to indict the president as a Russian agent.

When the New York Post dropped an actual bombshell report on Wednesday morning however, exposing that 2020 Democratic presidential nominee repeatedly lied about what he knew of his son’s potentially criminal overseas business activity, legacy outlets so eager to publish incriminating content on the Trump White House have gone silent.

Emails obtained by the Post show correspondence between Hunter Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, a Ukrainian advisor to Biden’s energy firm Burisma show that contrary to Joe Biden’s claims that he never talked business with his son “or with anyone else,” the vice president at the time was indeed introduced to Pozharskyi by Hunter. Hunter Biden was raking in upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation for serving on the board of Burisma while his father served as the “public face” of White House policy towards Ukraine.

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In Minneapolis, Rage And Fear Have Hobbled A Great American City By John Daniel Davidson

By on October 14th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/in-minneapolis-rage-and-fear-have-hobbled-a-great-american-city/

The one-two punch of riots over George Floyd’s death and shutdowns over the pandemic have taken a terrible toll on the City of Lakes.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The intersection in south Minneapolis where George Floyd died in police custody on May 25 has become a quasi-religious shrine. It is a shrine not just to Floyd, who is honored here as if he were a saint or a martyr, but to the political power of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ascendency of the radical left in this city.

The intersection and the neighborhood around it have been “occupied” for months now. To get to the memorial—or “George Square,” as it’s now called—you must approach on foot. For a block in every direction, the streets are closed to traffic, barricaded by concrete roadblocks and makeshift chevaux de frise. Behind the roadblocks, plywood shields are stacked up next to a tent and an outhouse.

A young man in a pink sweater and green hair greets me as I approach. He informs me that it is Indigenous Peoples Day (formerly Columbus Day), and that there is a healing circle for indigenous peoples underway at the intersection next to the memorial. I am not allowed to take pictures of them, he says. By what authority he orders me not to take pictures, he doesn’t say. So I take pictures.

The memorial itself is a 15-foot black fist erected in the middle of the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, festooned roundabout with flowers and signs and graffiti and flags. Every conceivable surface, from the streets and sidewalks and light poles to the buildings and bus shelters and the abandoned Speedway gas station on the corner, is covered in graffiti and posters and overlapping murals.

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A tearful lesson of 2016: Polls don’t matter if people don’t vote By Steve Israel

By on October 14th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/520792-a-tearful-lesson-of-2016-polls-dont-matter-if-people-dont-vote

Steve Israel represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives over eight terms and was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. He is now the director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University.

Ask a well-placed Democrat about Joe Biden’s likelihood of victory in 19 days and you will notice a glimmer of hope tempered by a post-traumatic wince from 2016. Here is my story:

That election night, at about 7 p.m., I strode onstage for a speech at the New York Times, and committed one of the worst punditry blunders of my career. With absolute certitude and no room for error, I proclaimed to an audience of several hundred that Hilary Clinton would be elected president within hours. My co-panelist, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), agreed but, as I recall, smartly qualified his forecast with the added words, “I believe.” 

Me? I didn’t simply believe, I knew. I mean, didn’t everybody? Didn’t you? The election was over. Done. In the bag. It had been drilled into us in the newspapers, on television, in most national polling and in those glittering fundraising bubbles on the Upper West Side and Beverly Hills.

An hour later I arrived at the Javits Center in Manhattan to celebrate with the soon-to-be-Madam-President-elect. I had flashy VIP credentials around my neck and a mini-entourage in tow. We descended a long escalator to the press center, where a multitude of reporters were already polishing their “Clinton Wins” stories. Just as I stepped off the escalator, a friend from a national newspaper approached and asked, “What’s going wrong in southern Florida?”

I had just campaigned for Clinton in southern Florida, so I thought I had a certain expertise about its voting trends. So important was my surrogacy that I was assigned to whip up mostly Jewish retirees in sprawling condo developments with none other than “Bowzer” from the doo-wop group Sha Na Na. (Sha Na Na, by the way, was big in the ’70s — and we were assigned to get-out-the-vote for people in their 80s.) Still, we were well-received and Clinton’s message resonated. (Well, maybe Bowser’s reprise of “Get a Job” resonated more, but there was no reason to doubt a crushing Clinton victory.)

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Cuba, China, Russia All Elected to UN Human Rights Council — Yes, Really by Rick Moran

By on October 14th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/10/14/cuba-china-russia-all-elected-to-un-human-rights-council-yes-really-n1049404

It isn’t just that the UN’s Human Rights Council is the most hypocritical international organization in the world. They are fully aware of their political biases against Israel and the United States and never miss an excuse to bash either one of them for “human rights abuses.”

But they’re oblivious to the mockery they make of the human rights cause by electing the most oppressive, authoritarian, murderous regimes on the planet.

The United Nations has elected Cuba, China, and Russia, to sit on the Human Rights Council — where they will issue statements of condemnation, recommend sanctions, and supposedly defend the lives of the truly oppressed.

That’s right — Cuba, China, and Russia will sit in judgment on the human rights records of the rest of the world.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Fox News:

Cuba, China and Russia on Tuesday were elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council — a move that the U.S. branded a “mockery” of the body’s intended purpose and as proof that Washington was right to leave the council in 2018.

The three countries, all with a history of authoritarianism and human rights abuses, were elected by the U.N. General Assembly, along with countries including Bolivia, France, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Senegal, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom.

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Judge Barrett embodies the Hebrew Bible’s requisites for a righteous judge:By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

By on October 14th, 2020

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/oct/10/judge-barrett-bibles-requisite-righteous-judge/

With the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, the nation is once again embroiled in its recurring conflict over what judicial approach should animate our courts. 

Judge Barrett exemplifies the originalist approach, which dominated most of American history, where the U.S. Constitution’s text and its original meaning and intent determine outcomes. Those on the left, advocates of a judicial activism rooted in the era of FDR, continually push for justices who view the Constitution more as an expedient to maneuver toward a liberal social and political agenda, a malleable, “living” document submissive to their vision of how society should look and operate.

Because the Bible produced many of the themes and structure found later in the Constitution, and our Founders saw in it a model for a constitutional society, it may be worthwhile to observe what it says about judges and jurisprudence. The Bible clearly enunciates a conservative, originalist approach to justice.

In Leviticus 19:15, Scripture declares that a judge must not social engineer decisions. “You shall not be unrighteous in judgment, neither in favor of the poor or the mighty.” Righteousness is applying the law, not implementing one’s own political or social activism of what should be. In the Rose Garden last week, Judge Barrett affirmed that biblical principle. When speaking earlier at a different occasion, Judge Barrett, a conservative protegee of Justice Antonin Scalia, affirmed: “I totally reject the proposition that the end justifies the means or that a judge should decide the law or twist it in any way to match the judge’s convictions”.

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