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Ruth King

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden Campaign Calls ‘a Lid’ on Sleepy Joe’s Media Appearances For the 8th Time This Month By Debra Heine

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/22/biden-campaign-calls-a-lid-on-sleepy-joes-media-appearances-for-the-8th-time-this-month/

For the eight time this month, the Biden campaign on Tuesday called “a lid” before noon, meaning the 77-year-old won’t be making any in-person campaign appearances for the rest of the day—42 days before the election.

The campaign’s announcement came at 9:22 a.m., according to Ed O’Keefe, the political correspondent for CBS News.

Jake Schneider, the Rapid Response deputy director of President Trump’s  campaign team mocked Biden for hiding out “in his basement” for the day instead of campaigning.

Meanwhile, Matt Whitlock, the senior advisor for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) called the Biden Campaign’s lack of transparency “incredible to see.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Erdoğan’s Soft Spot for Hamas by Burak Bekdil

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16449/turkey-erdogan-hamas

So far, Erdoğan’s fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.

Erdoğan seemingly loves to make such gatherings [with Hamas terrorist leaders] public to challenge the parts of the world that designate Hamas as a terrorist entity: the EU, Israel and the United States. There is also a message to his Turkish audience: I challenge the world powers, including America, and I remain untouchable.

“In overlooking these designations and thousands of its victims, who were injured and murdered by Hamas terrorists, Turkey is actively supporting it both financially and logistically.” — Spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Fox News, August 28, 2020.

In reality, it is equally possible that these developments might actually spur a two-state solution, by notifying the Palestinians that, as the Arab saying goes, “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.”

It is not only ideological and not only pragmatic: it is both: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comes from the ranks of militant Islamism for which the “Palestinian cause” is sacred and “as national as any other national matter.” His love for Hamas and his dedication to the “cause” are genuine. So is his pragmatism.

Erdoğan’s pro-Hamas (and anti-Israeli) fanaticism is one reason why Islamist Turks vote for him. So far, his fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mueller Team Corruption Contaminates Justice by Chris Farrell

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16525/mueller-investigation-corruption

Are we truly supposed to believe that all of these phones just happened to erase themselves?

You will remember that these very same attorneys and investigators sought to imprison George Papadopoulos for 20 years simply for switching cell phones and deactivating his Facebook account. The government argued that Papadopoulos knowingly committed obstruction per 18 US Code section 1519, with the intent of impeding or otherwise influencing a federal investigation.

The flagrant, outrageous abuse of record-keeping and phone communications requirements by the Mueller team is a prime avenue for further criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Attorney General Barr recently said there will be more indictments. Let’s hope so…. The only remedy is the rigorous prosecution of the offenders.

We now know the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation of the Trump-Russia “collusion” claims was a politically motivated hoax. The investigation dragged on for months. Despite increasingly hysterical Leftist speculation of criminal conspiracies and treason — not a single claim was ever made against the President. In the end, Robert Mueller appeared before Congress and seemed befuddled throughout his testimony — “Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

Consequently, it appears necessary that Mueller and his team need to be the subjects of a criminal investigation. Last week, responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, the Justice Department released heavily redacted documents showing that several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller’s team were “wiped” or disabled before they could be examined by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz during his office’s review of the special counsel’s investigation.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Andrew Cuomo’s Horrific Decisions By Kyle Smith

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/andrew-cuomo-horrific-decisions/

How New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of thousands.

O bservers of New York politics over the past several years understand that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s fanatical obsession with humiliating and overruling his fellow Democrat Bill de Blasio towers over every other consideration in the Empire State. Sometimes Cuomo’s habits come across as merely silly, as when he intervened in de Blasio’s decision to euthanize a deer found roaming around in Harlem. Sometimes Cuomo has slowed down de Blasio’s aggressive moves to the left. But when it came to the coronavirus, de Blasio was the first of the two to decide to take it seriously. As always, Cuomo could not allow de Blasio to seem to be ahead of him on any matter, so he reflexively opposed de Blasio’s suggestion to take serious steps to curb the spread of infection. Here at last New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of innocent bystanders, as surely as if Cuomo had been spraying bullets around in a gang beef. Rarely, however, do gangsters kill more than a few onlookers. Cuomo’s intransigence cost the New York area an extra 17,000 lives, according to one study.

Throughout January and February, far too many leaders at all levels downplayed the Wuhan virus, but by March 17, New York City’s mayor had seen enough. Schools had shut down the day before, and de Blasio said in a news conference that New Yorkers should prepare to “shelter in place” to slow the spread of the virus. The governor’s team immediately jumped in to tell de Blasio this idea sounded “crazy.” “Phones were ringing off the hook,” de Blasio’s then-press aide Freddi Goldstein told the Wall Street Journal in an exhaustive, damning tick-tock of Cuomo’s horrific decisions. Cuomo’s officers told Goldstein’s crew in City Hall that “de Blasio was scaring people. You have to walk it back. It’s not your call.”

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ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Won’t Answer Court-Packing Question By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/biden-wont-answer-court-packing-question/

On an issue that could effectively create a revolution, the candidate is mum.

President Trump gets a lot of heat for his answers to questions. Much of the criticism is appropriate, some of it is mock outrage, but one way or the other, Trump does answer the questions.

In fact, he answers hundreds more questions than his opponent. COVID has been devastating for the country, but it’s been a boon for Joe Biden, who has undeniably lost a step or three and does not do well with sustained exposure. Since the former vice president is rarely made available for questioning, you’d think he would answer the questions that he faces on those few occasions. You’d also think that, when he declines to answer legitimate, important questions, that would be a big deal.But he doesn’t answer key questions. And his media friends calculate that if they give you the inside scoop on the amazingly deft political strategy behind not answering questions, you’ll be so wowed you won’t notice that the answers are what matter.

There is no bigger issue in the 2020 campaign than whether, if they take the White House and the Senate, Democrats would eliminate the filibuster. Expanding and packing the Supreme Court would be a direct result of this, and a radical one. But it is only one of a plethora of radical steps that would follow — expanding and packing the lower federal courts, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, single-payer healthcare, elements of the Green New Deal, a massive bailout for mismanaged blue states, breaking up and regulating into submission private businesses, hamstringing the nation’s police forces, gutting the Second Amendment, sweeping immigration amnesty, and so on.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DOJ Identifies NYC, Portland, Seattle as Violent Anarchist Jurisdictions in Move to Revoke Federal Funding By Debra Heine

By on September 22nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/21/doj-identifies-nyc-portland-seattle-as-violent-anarchist-jurisdictions-in-move-to-revoke-federal-funding/

The Department of Justice on Monday identified three cities—New York City, Portland, and Seattle—as jurisdictions that have permitted “violence and destruction of property,” thereby meeting President Trump’s criteria for withholding federal funding to those areas.

Earlier this month, the president issued a memorandum asking the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Barr to list the areas that “have permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract these criminal activities.”

Trump called the cities “anarchist jurisdictions” and asked the OMB to issue guidance to the heads of executive departments and agencies “restricting eligibility” and “disfavoring” them from federal funding.

“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities,” Trump wrote.

The DOJ noted that all three cities rejected federal law enforcement support amid skyrocketing increases in crime.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dear GOP Senate: Get This Right! Julie Kelly

By on September 22nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/21/dear-gop-senate-get-this-right/

The GOP Senate has been a big disappointment to the Republican base during Trump’s first term. Can they end with a bang and show they deserve to try again?

Dear Leader McConnell and Members of the Republican Senate:

As Jack Nicholson said in “Terms of Endearment,” you were just inches from a clean getaway.

Armed with a wholly unimpressive list of accomplishments from the past four years, with the exception of confirming hundreds of federal judges, you were prepared to return home to defend your paltry record with little more than the argument that the other side is much, much worse. Which, lucky for you, is true.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the campaign trail: Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. Reliable news outlets reported that in her final days, the Clinton-appointed Supreme Court justice dictated a statement to her granddaughter indicating she wanted the “new president” to appoint her replacement, the latest in a series of Trump-fixated dying requests. 

Fortunately, many constitutional scholars have assured us that no “Election Year Death-Bed Wish” provision exists. Nor does a “Feelings of Jeff Flake” clause or “MSNBC Meltdown” disclaimer. Subsequent case law does not affirm that the random rantings of bartenders-turned-congresspersons should in any way guide such a venerated process.

All of which means you have a big decision to make. And this could be the chance to redeem yourselves for a multitude of egregious mistakes made during Trump’s first term, conduct that many voters in the Republican base consider an unforgivable abdication of power.

Your success in defending the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh amid one of the most despicable character assassinations in modern political history notwithstanding, Senate Republicans have done nothing to confront the Left’s nonstop assault against the president, his family, his administration, and by default, his supporters.

Check that. It’s not that you failed because saying you failed would suggest that you even tried to defend the president of your own party. In too many instances, Senate Republicans acted as accomplices in the Left’s reckless anti-Trump crusade.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anyone Notice That The Trump Recovery Is Doing Much Better Than Expected?

By on September 22nd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/22/anyone-notice-that-the-trump-recovery-is-doing-much-better-than-expected/

A news report out on Monday said that 83% of companies in the S&P 500 beat expectations for earnings in the second quarter of the year, the first time that’s happened in more than a decade.

That’s been a common refrain over the past several months, as the economic recovery from the COVID-19 shutdowns has repeatedly outperformed what the “experts” expected. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

“US economy added 1.8m jobs in July, beating expectations”
“Jobs Numbers in July Beat Expectations for Third Straight Month”
“Corporate Earnings Beat Analysts’ Lowered Expectations”
“US consumer sentiment hit a 6-month high in September, beating economist forecasts”
“U.S. new home sales beat expectations in July”

In some cases, the difference between what economists were predicting at the start of the pandemic and what’s actually occurred is stark.

Take the forecasts for unemployment.

In March, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis projected the unemployment rate would top 32%.

That same month, Goldman Sachs said the unemployment rate will peak at around 15% later in the year.

A May survey of economists by FiveThirtyEight.com found that the median forecast for the May unemployment rate was 20%.

Even White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett predicted April’s unemployment rate would be 16-17%.

What actually happened?

The unemployment rate peaked in April at 14.7%, then dropped to 13.3% in May.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The One and Only Enduring Palestinian Vision Dreaming of the destruction of the Jewish state. Joseph Puder

By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/absence-palestinian-leadership-vision-joseph-puder/

James Zogby of the Zogby Research Service (ZRS) is not known to be a friend of Israel. In fact, he serves as an effective spokesperson for the Palestinians. An Arab-Palestinian himself, Zogby has been a harsh critic of Israel. Yet, in an opinion piece in Cairo’s Ahramonline (the online version of Egypt’s major outlet Al-Ahram, September 7, 2020) Zogby expressed disappointment with the Palestinian leadership lack of vision.  He expressed it in his piece titled Absent But Needed: A Palestinian Vision.

Zogby pointed out that, “what had gone wrong with the Palestinian cause then (and now) is “visionless leadership.” He elaborated, that they (the leadership) “Lost their spark and their way after repeated costly setbacks: Black September in Jordan, their use of horrific acts of terror against innocents, their expulsion from Beirut in 1982, and their foolish embrace of Saddam in 1990.” The latter actions were decisions Yasser Arafat took in provoking an Israeli response to repeated terror attacks by Palestinians commanded by Arafat, including the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to London, which led to the First Lebanon War.

It was Arafat’s decision in 1990 to support Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator, brutal invasion of Kuwait. As a result of Arafat’s action, the Kuwaiti government expelled half a million Palestinians who lived in the oil rich sheikdom. What Zogby failed to mention was the fact that Arafat once again provoked the Second intifada which killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians and brought destruction and economic ruin to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat, who gave Hamas a ‘green light,’ to execute suicide bombing against Israeli civilian targets was in total violation of the Oslo Accords. He hoped that it would weaken and demoralize Israel, then Israel would fall apart once the Palestinians launched a full-scale armed struggle.

Zogby suggested that more recently, the vehement reaction in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority leadership to the Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal, “By focusing their wrath on the recent UAE-Israel accord, the Palestinian leaders missed the mark. The UAE’s move to normalize in order to stop annexation is not the cause of Palestinian woes; it is a symptom of the state of affairs that has for too long plagued the noble cause of justice for the long-oppressed Palestinian people.” Clearly, the Palestinians have once again missed an opportunity to be part of a positive development brought about by the Trump administration’s “Peace of the Century” deal. It might not have satisfied all of the Palestinian aspirations, including the disappearance of the Jewish state, but it would have given the Palestinian people an economic stake that would have improved their lives, and that of their children.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Trump Changed the World By defying conventional wisdom on the Middle East and China, he reshaped both political parties. Matthew Continetti

By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/how-trump-changed-world-matthew-continetti/

On Sept. 16 the editorial board of the New York Times did the impossible. It said something nice about President Trump. “The normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is, on the face of it, a good and beneficial development,” the editors wrote. They even went so far as to say that the “Trump administration deserves credit for brokering it.” I had to read that sentence twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps the world really is ending.

Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe—Iran—they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.

Just as remarkable as the deal itself is the bipartisan applause that greeted it in the United States. No one needs reminding that domestic politics is polarized and paranoid. Each party is convinced that the other one will extinguish democracy at the first opportunity. The past three presidencies have been jarringly discontinuous in style, temperament, and policy. But the same Democrats who sometimes appear eager to remove Donald Trump from office by any means necessary treated this foreign policy accomplishment with equanimity and acquiescence. “It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “a Biden-Harris administration will build on these steps.” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware told Jewish Insider that the agreement is “a very positive thing.”

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