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Ruth King

New FDRLST/Susquehanna Poll Shows Biden’s Approval Sliding To 36 Percent, Widespread Disapproval Of Critical Race Theory By Sean Davis

https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/10/new-fdrlst-susquehanna-poll-shows-bidens-approval-sliding-to-36-percent-widespread-disapproval-of-critical-race-theory/

President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are nose-diving, according to a new poll from The Federalist and Susquehanna Polling & Research.

The poll, which surveyed 800 likely voters nationwide from Nov. 1 through Nov. 9 of 2021, shows Biden’s overall approval rating slipping to just 36 percent, with disapproval at 52 percent. Biden’s approval rating among registered Democrats is just 70 percent, according to the poll, with one in five registered Democrats saying they did not approve of the job Biden is doing as president. Among voters who are registered as independents, only 29 percent said they approved of Biden’s job as president, while 50 percent said they did not approve of Biden.

The poll from The Federalist and Susquehanna also found widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s economic and immigration policies thus far. On immigration, only 23 percent of voters surveyed approved of Biden’s efforts to stop illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border, while 51 percent said they disapproved of Biden’s policies on immigration.

Similarly, 34 percent of voters said they approved of how Biden has handled economic policies, while 51 percent said they did not approve of the job he has done on the economy. When asked who they thought was most responsible for skyrocketing gas prices, a plurality of voters — 46 percent — said they blamed Biden and congressional Democrats. Only 7 percent blamed Republicans, while 43 percent blamed other economic factors.

What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know It? It is becoming increasingly clear that then President Obama was very much in on the effort to smear Donald Trump as colluding with Russia. Jack Cashill

https://spectator.org/what-did-obama-know-and-when-did-he-know-it-2/

In researching my 2020 book, Unmasking Obama, I focused on one question above all others: What did Barack Obama know about the plot to link Donald Trump to Russia and when he did he know it? Unlike the Watergate era, when all the insiders in government and media rushed to discover what Nixon knew, only the outsiders have dared to ask about Obama.

Major credit here goes to Rep. Devin Nunes and his chief investigator Kash Patel, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and most recently Special Counsel John Durham. For all their good efforts, however, this probe remains very much a work in progress.

That caution established, the answer to the question in the headline is becoming increasingly clear. The information contained in Durham’s recent indictment of Russian national Igor Danchenko, when coupled with the CIA notes declassified in October 2020 by Ratcliffe, leads directly to the White House. In the past week, these revelations have gotten a fair share of attention, at least on the right side of the blogosphere. They deserve it.

What has not gotten attention, however, is the specious counter-narrative that Obama and his allies have been quietly constructing for the last five years. Deconstructing this counter-narrative may not put Obama’s Praetorian guard in prison, but it should provide Watergate-level amusement for those of us who believe prison is where Obama’s people belong.

The Rosetta Stone of the counter-narrative may well be a comprehensive article in the Washington Post from June 2017. Perhaps more than any other bit of Trump era “journalism,” this article — complete with photos and flow charts — revealed the major media’s eagerness to enable the ongoing Democrat-Deep State disinformation campaign. A July 2017 update — “The Post’s new findings in Russia’s bold campaign to influence the U.S. election” — contained even more bogus charts and timelines.

Washington Post corrects, removes reporting that relied on discredited anti-Trump Steele dossier Paper ‘took the unusual step of correcting and removing large portions of two articles,’ in-house media reporter wrote Brian Flood

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-corrects-removes-reporting-steele-dossier

The Washington Post did something many other liberal outlets have failed to do and corrected previous reporting that relied on the discredited Steele dossier that accused former President Donald Trump of an extensive conspiracy with the Russians.

“The Washington Post on Friday took the unusual step of correcting and removing large portions of two articles, published in March 2017 and February 2019, that had identified a Belarusan American businessman as a key source of the ‘Steele dossier,’ a collection of largely unverified reports that claimed the Russian government had compromising information about then-candidate Donald Trump,” Post media reporter Paul Farhi wrote. 

“The newspaper’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, said The Post could no longer stand by the accuracy of those elements of the story. It had identified businessman Sergei Millian as ‘Source D,’ the unnamed figure who passed on the most salacious allegation in the dossier to its principal author, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele,” Farhi continued. 

The post added editor’s notes, amended headlines, removed sections identifying Millian as the source and deleted an accompanying video summarizing the article. 

“Source D, according to the dossier, alleged that Russian intelligence had learned that Trump had hired Russian prostitutes to defile a Moscow hotel room once occupied by President Obama and Michelle Obama and possessed a video recording of the incident,” Farhi wrote. “The allegation, which the dossier said was confirmed by a second person described only as ‘Source E,’ has never been substantiated.”

The Post’s correction came as other news outlets, including CNN and MSNBC, have been criticized for failing to adjust reporting after Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the Trump-Russia probe further discredited the already-shaky dossier. 

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: IS PAST PROLOGUE?

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Yogi Berra is alleged to have said: “Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.” Republicans were quick to conclude that Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia last week promises wins for Republicans in next year’s midterms. I hope they are right, but there is a lot of time between now and then. Such predictions can lull candidates into complacency.

However, the election may have put a stop – perhaps temporarily – to the leftward shift of the Democratic Party. Sanity was the winner in Virginia and a handful of other states, with derangement the loser. Even deep-blue New Jersey appeared to have second thoughts about their fall into leftist lunacy, though the heavily taxed state chose to stay with its spendthrift governor. In its aftermath, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, with the help of thirteen Republicans (from swing districts) and with six Congressional Democrats (including all four members of “The Squad”) voting no. Nevertheless, following Virginia’s election, progressives showed their colors: Michael Eric Dyson, a guest on MSNBC’s “Reidout,” called Virginia’s newly elected Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a “black voice for white supremacy.” Jemele Hill, a former host on ESPN, tweeted that Ms. Sears is a white supremacist.  New York’s Chuck Schumer and California’s Nancy Pelosi, ignoring Tuesday’s elections, assured Progressives they will pass the far-more-expensive “human infrastructure” legislation (Build Back Better) by Thanksgiving – a single bill whose all-in costs equals what total annual federal spending had been in 2014.

One lesson for Republicans is that the personal presence of Donald Trump may prove a hindrance, at least in blue and purple states. Mr. Trump alleged that without his endorsement Mr. Youngkin would have lost by fifteen points. My guess is that the reverse is true – if he had personally campaigned for him, Mr. Youngkin, would have lost by ten points. As President, Mr. Trump was victim of what probably was the largest political scandal in our nation’s history – the Clinton campaign-inspired Russian collusion story. As well, he was confronted with one of the worst pandemics to hit this nation. Yet he reduced regulatory red tape, increased economic activity at home, raised wages for black and minority workers, brought energy independence to the country, slowed illegal immigration, and, with the Abraham Accords, brought glimmers of peace to Israel and her Arab neighbors. But his narcissistic personality and polarizing ways accentuated the divide of an already ruptured nation. His policies were correct, His character was not.

Erdoğan’s Quest for a New Sharia-Based Alliance by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17889/turkey-erdogan-sharia-alliance

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist ambitions seem to be seeking an international role in post-U.S. Afghanistan in alliance with the Taliban, Qatar, Pakistan and Malaysia. The trouble is, Turkey, among the new sharia alliance in the making, is the only country with institutional ties to the Western world.

Biden has weakened himself and his country so badly that the superpower was reduced to the point of being blackmailed by NATO’s only Islamist member. Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has made it clear: “If the U.S. is to be in the Middle East, it must cooperate with Turkey.”

Afghanistan is not Erdoğan’s only pro-sharia ambition after the U.S. withdrawal… Turkey ramped up its drone attacks on Yazidis in Iraq’s Sinjar district….. “The Turkish drone strikes increasingly threaten to undercut refugee repatriation inside Iraq and create space for the Islamic State to regroup, as the most effective Kurdish groups fighting ISIS are Sinjar’s grassroots Kurdish and Yazidi militias,” warned Michael Rubin in the Washington Examiner.

Erdoğan’s Islamist, neo-Ottoman ambitions are now taking a pro-sharia turn. That is bad news for the region to Turkey’s south and east. Worse, it is a slow-fuse time bomb for the West.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s lamentable decision to unilaterally withdraw from Afghanistan is paving the way for the emergence of a new sharia-based alliance, including NATO member Turkey — theoretically a Western ally. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist ambitions appear to be seeking an international role in post-U.S. Afghanistan in alliance with the Taliban, Qatar, Pakistan and Malaysia. The trouble is, Turkey, among the new sharia alliance in the making, is the only country with institutional ties to the West.

Democrats Are Profoundly Committed to Criminal Justice Reform — For Everyone But Their Enemies Principles of rehabilitative justice, reform of the carceral state, and liberalized criminal justice evaporate when Democrats demand harsh prison for their political adversaries. Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-are-profoundly-committed?token=e

The 2020 protest movement that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha became one of the most sustained and consequential in modern U.S. history. Though there seems to be a somewhat bizarre effort underway by its advocates to insist that this movement accomplished nothing — why are some claiming that radical cultural and political changes are happening? — it is demonstrably true that, as intended, the movement transformed discourse and policy around multiple issues from race, to policing, to gender identity, to the teaching of history, and fostered an ongoing effort for still-greater changes.

The issues raised by that movement were varied and often shifting: though it was catalyzed by the claim that the U.S. is swamped with racist police brutality as illustrated by the Floyd and Blake cases, it quickly metastasized into other areas far removed from those two cases. White Antifa members clashed with Black protesters over the attempt to steer or broaden the movement away from a narrow focus on racist police brutality into one devoted to generalized insurrectionary anarchy. One of the largest and most densely packed gatherings was a spontaneous march, at the height of the COVID pandemic, in Brooklyn, where ten thousand people paid homage to the importance of “black trans lives,” a cause whose relationship to the Floyd and Blake cases was tenuous at best. Institutional changes regarding gender identity were quickly adopted by the corporations and security state institutions that lent their support, however cynically, to this growing movement.

‘The FBI is tipping off the NYT about its raids’: Lawyer for Project Veritas boss James O’Keefe suggests feds are breaking the law by handing privileged legal communications to Times journalists for ‘hit piece’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10193997/Lawyer-representing-Project-Veritas-boss-James-OKeefe-suggests-feds-leaked-legal-memos.html

An attorney for the founder of Project Veritas has accused the Department of Justice of tipping off the New York Times about recent raids on current and former employees, while suggesting federal prosecutors may have also leaked the group’s legal communications.

Project Veritas, the conservative activist group founded by James O’Keefe, has come under federal scrutiny in relation to the alleged theft of the diary of President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley, which the group considered publishing but never did.

The FBI conducted raids at O’Keefe’s New York home and those of others connected to Project Veritas, seizing O’Keefe’s cell phone among other items.

On Thursday, the New York Times published a report based on memos from the group’s lawyer, revealing his legal advice on the group’s use of false identities and undercover filming, tactics that are eschewed by most modern journalists.

O’Keefe’s attorney Harmeet Dhillon in an interview on Thursday night slammed the report as a ‘hit piece’ and questioned whether the DOJ had leaked the legal memos to the Times, an extraordinary and possibly illegal step.

‘I can’t say how the New York Times got this information, but they got it in a way that is illegal and unethical,’ Dhillon told Fox News.

Selective Media Mutes Coverage of Violent Attack Against Interior Department By Julio Rivera

https://pjmedia.com/columns/julio-rivera/2021/11/11/selective-media-mutes-coverage-of-violent-attack-against-interior-department-n1531826

It seems like ever since January 6th of this year, after the unfortunate protests against the certification of last November’s presidential election, all some media outlets have wanted to talk about is, well, January 6th.

On Democratically controlled Capitol Hill, we’ve already seen the formation of a select committee that is more interested in the effort to “investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex” than in examining the series of events that caused many Americans to feel that the election results were deserving of additional scrutiny.

Members of this so-called “January 6th committee” are now reportedly working on potential legislation to modify the 134-year-old Electoral Count Act, in what they claim is an effort to ensure that a losing party can never subvert the results of a presidential election, while clearly ignoring the volumes of evidence displaying the rampant irregularities associated with the last election.

So, while this political theater continues to play out, one recent event that invoked similar imagery and disorder to January 6th continues to completely fly under the radar — the siege against the Interior Department by climate change activists just weeks ago. 

America Is Being Held Hostage a Progressive Left That Represent 6% of the Electorate By Stacey Lennox

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/11/11/america-is-being-held-hostage-a-progressive-left-that-represent-6-of-the-electorate-n1531975

The radical left has taken over the culture. From racialized and sexualized curriculum in K-12 to the American Medical Association policing the language of its members to ensure that it is “inclusive,” the ideologies from the university sociology department are being shoved down America’s throat. You are not supposed to believe your own lying eyes, and a person’s lived experience supersedes all objective data. Now, the word “woke” is problematic, even though the progressives coined it.

If you violate the ever-changing rules of the woke coalition, you can lose your social media account, your reputation, and even your job. They govern what you can watch, how movies get cast, and who wins the awards. Even comedians, who are supposed to touch the third rail, are subjected to the wrath of their offense. Words are violence, and violence is speech. Men can be women and shut up bigots.

These narratives are so overwhelming that one may assume that a large portion of the population shares them. However, a new Pew Research study debunks that idea. So the next time you are sitting in a corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion training session, remember that only 6% of the population thinks this way. Pew Research refers to them as the Progressive Left. According to the study results:

Progressive Left are more liberal than the three other Democratic-oriented groups on many issues. For example, while majorities in all four of these groups favor a bigger government providing more services, Progressive Left are most likely to express this view. When asked a follow-up question about how much bigger the government should be, 63% of Progressive Left say government services should “greatly expand” from current levels – a far higher share than any other group.

Their liberal outlook is not limited to issues related to the size and scope of government. Their views on race and racial equality also distinguish them from other typology groups: Sizable majorities say White people benefit from societal advantages that Black people do not have and that most U.S. institutions need to be completely rebuilt to ensure equal rights for all Americans regardless of race or ethnicity.

‘Unprecedented’ Capitol Protest Sets New Precedents The Constitution, along with every foundational precedent, can be subverted on the premise that January 6 was “unprecedented.”  By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/11/unprecedented-capitol-protest-sets-new-precedents/

Unprecedented: It is the word most often applied to the events at the Capitol on January 6.

In his remarks that afternoon, as the chaos was still ongoing, Joe Biden warned that “our democracy is under unprecedented attack.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Attorney General Merrick Garland, and leaders of both political parties also describe the four-hour mostly nonviolent disturbance at the Capitol complex as something without precedent. 

“On January 6, 2021, the world witnessed a violent and unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Vice President, Members of Congress, and the democratic process,” wrote Republican and Democratic senators in a joint committee report released earlier this year.

“We mourn the deaths of the two Capitol policemen and others connected to these unprecedented events,” the nation’s top military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, said in a January 13 statement. (We now know that those two officers did not die as a result of the protest.)

The national news media also flaunts the word with ease and frequency, historical context and common sense be damned. One federal prosecutor who handled the Oklahoma City bombing case, which resulted in the murder of 168 innocent people including 15 children under the age of five, told the New York Times in April that “the Capitol attack was, thankfully, an unprecedented event.”

Joe Biden’s Justice Department argues for unusually harsh sentences on the basis that “the crimes . . . committed on January 6 are unprecedented.” Therefore, the government routinely claims in sentencing motions, judges should ignore precedent for similar offenses. “These crimes defy statutorily appropriate comparisons to conduct in other cases that occurred before January 6, 2021,” one prosecutor wrote in August.

Long delays in the discovery process are blamed on the “unprecedented” volume of evidence, which includes tens of thousands of hours of video footage and hundreds of thousands of FBI documents. Ditto for delayed trial dates; foot-dragging on discovery renders many defense lawyers unable to prepare for trial. Judges repeatedly cite the “unprecedented” nature of the Capitol protest and massive trove of evidence as an excuse to stall trial dates until the middle of 2022.

New Norms

Portraying January 6 as “unprecedented” is not an accident; it justifies extra-constitutional, judicial, and legislative action under the guise that nothing like this has ever happened before and that language will rationalize future measures to make sure it never happens again. Nothing is off the table as the Biden regime, Beltway judges, and the media seek to avenge an “unprecedented” protest in a government building where the only people killed were Trump supporters, including at least one by a federal police officer.