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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Okla. Woman Took Credit for Rescuing the Afghan Girls Robotics Team—and Many in the Media Fell for Her Lies By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/27/okla-woman-took-credit-for-rescuing-the-afghan-girls-robotics-team-and-many-in-the-media-fell-for-her-lies-n1473472

It’s a story of bravery, courage, pluck, grit, and luck. It’s also a story of self-promotion and media manipulation for personal gain.

When the all-girl Afghan robotics team escaped the clutches of the Taliban earlier this week, most people saw it as a big win for the good guys. These girls were prime targets of the Taliban’s wrath for daring to not only learn how to read and write but excel in a difficult and challenging scholastic endeavor.

An American woman from Oklahoma supposedly played a large part in the daring rescue that someone in Hollywood is going to make into a movie one day. But as it turns out, Allyson Reneau played barely any role at all in the girls’ rescue. Now, a lawyer for the girls’ sponsoring organization, Digital Citizen Fund, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reneau, calling for her to stop her self-aggrandizing efforts to put herself in the middle of a story she had little to do with.

Washington Post:

“Continuingly recycling old pictures with the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, many of whom are minors, as validation that you had anything to do with their immensely stressful and dangerous escape not only impacts the safety of the girls but it also significantly affects the safety of the members of the team who still remain in Afghanistan,” wrote Kim Motley, a lawyer for the group and a Digital Citizen Fund board member, in a letter sent to Reneau just after midnight Wednesday. “It is highly unfortunate that you would use such a tragically horrible situation … for what appears to be your own personal gain.”

A spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, which helped evacuate many Afghans, including the robotics team members, also accused Reneau of taking credit for a rescue she had little to do with — and lambasted the U.S. media for making her a “White savior.”

China Cancels Christmas for Americans by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17692/china-cancels-christmas

No, Madam Vice President, climate change has almost nothing to do with the ongoing [supply chain] disruptions. There are many factors, such as the long-term shift of manufacturing to East Asia. Moreover, there are short-term problems, the transport of empty containers being one of them.

Expect retail prices in America to go up. If you’re the shipping manager for Apple, you don’t really care because the additional costs for shipping, say, an iPhone are negligible. The added costs are not negligible, however, if you make larger items. “A 40-foot container can hold 20 sofas,” Jonathan Bass, CEO of home décor firm WhomHome, tells Gatestone. “The dramatic increase in rates — it can now cost $25,000 to ship a container across the Pacific to the East Coast — adds about $1,625 per sofa.” That increased cost puts this furniture item out-of-reach for most consumers.

Bass, a near-shoring advocate, has a fix: “Now, given shipping costs and other factors that are not temporary, it would be cheaper to makes sofas and other items in North America.”

Moving production would not only employ North Americans and bring prosperity back home, it would also mean that Americans would stop funding a hostile Chinese regime that, among other things, just labeled the U.S. an “enemy.”

Let us remember: Every single sofa that Americans buy from China gives its malicious regime the funds to grow biological weapons, dig missile silos, and develop even more means to kill Americans. So every sofa we build on this side of the Pacific helps defend the American republic.

Quick, someone call Santa. Christmas in America has been called off this year. Supply-chain disruptions in Asia mean no toys for the tots in December.

At least that’s what Vice President Kamala Harris suggested on her trip to Southeast Asia, and she is right. Shelves across America were bare earlier this year, and they will, in all probability, be bare again due to extraordinary supply-chain disruptions in China and throughout East Asia.

There is one solution that eliminates these disruptions and saves the planet. Harris did not mention it, and global elites just hate it.

COVID: The Surreal World of ‘Cases’ and Fear-Porn Distinguishing reality from fiction. Jack Kerwick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/covid-distinguishing-reality-fiction-jack-kerwick/

Since early on in 2020, particularly since March, the world has been incessantly besieged by politicians, career-bureaucrats, and media personalities who breathlessly frighten us with reports of, as President Trump would routinely refer to it, “the Plague”: SARS-CoV-2, a “novel” corona cold virus believed to be the cause of the disease, COVID-19. 

And, of course, because they just as breathlessly, and typically in the very same breath, have been going on about hospitalizations and deaths courtesy of this latest coronavirus, within the public imagination a COVID “case” has become synonymous with COVID sickness and death.

This is fiction.  It is fear-porn.  If only untold numbers of people who would probably know better in other areas of their lives would just slow down, catch a breath, and think, they just might be able to see this for themselves.

Perspective is sorely needed.  It is vitally needed to prevent the country we’ve known from being irretrievably lost to us.

About all of those damn, scary case numbers that we can’t escape hearing about:  

It first needs to be noted that in the pre-Virus era, for a person to constitute a case of X meant that the person was sick and required medical attention, namely, hospitalization, for it. 

When it comes to this single disease, however, that criteria goes out the window.  A COVID case need only be someone who is either presumed to have contracted the virus or who has tested positive for it. 

To repeat: A person is a COVID case even if he or she has zero symptoms, is not infectious, and is never tested.

The CDC informs us that there are three types of COVID cases: suspect, probable, and confirmed.  The CDC counts only those that are probable and confirmed.   There is no “confirmatory laboratory evidence” for a probable case.

Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier is Leaving the Military After being removed from Space Force command for exposing Marxist-racist indoctrination. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/lt-col-matthew-lohmeier-leaving-military-lloyd-billingsley/

On September 1, Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier will leave the U.S. military. As the former Space Force commander told The Epoch Times, “I believe I’m able to continue serving my country outside of the service and out of uniform, perhaps in a better way than I was able to, given the circumstances, in uniform at the moment.” The departure invites a review of Lohmeier’s experience, and another with startling similarities.

A 2006 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a qualified F-15C  pilot, Lohmeier earned a master’s degree in military operational art and science and a master’s of philosophy in military strategy. In September of 2020, Lohmeier authored The Better Mind of Space, from Air University Press, views solely of the author but “cleared for public release and unlimited distribution.”

Lohmeier’s squadron operated the Defense Support Program and Space Based Infrared System satellites that detect launches and provide early warning. Lohmeier was representing the Space Force when President Trump held a video conference with military leaders, explaining that the Space Force is “very special to me, that new branch, because that was something that I felt was necessary.” For his part, Lt. Col. Lohmeier was also monitoring efforts to make the U.S. military weaker and more vulnerable.

The Space Force commander authored Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, which posed questions such as: “Is systemic racism a reality, or is much of our talk about race merely a rhetorical tool used to divide Americans? Why has the Defense Department suddenly shifted to a focus on extremism within the ranks? Is there really a white supremacy or white nationalist problem within our armed forces? Are the many Diversity and Inclusion trainings that are being conducted in our federal agencies helping solve these problems, or are they creating conflict where none previously existed? What is Marxism, and what does it have to do with all of this?”

As Lohmeier told Military.com, he was apprised of the option to have the book reviewed by the Pentagon prior to release but told it was not required. Lohmeier discussed Irresistible Revolution on the “Information Operation” podcast with L. Todd Wood. The critical race theory pushed by Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Lohmeier said, “will divide us. It will not unify us.”

What the polio vaccines can teach us about the COVID ones By Peter Skurkiss

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/what_the_polio_vaccines_can_teach_us_about_the_covid_ones.html

Prior to the 1950s, paralytic polio was a scourge. FDR was crippled from it in while in his 30s, the March of Dimes was started to combat it, and photos of rows and rows of children in iron lungs were common in the media. And from this situation, vaccines were developed to combat the disease.

Polio is caused by one of three types of poliovirus that can cause paralysis and death. In the 1950s, two vaccines were independently developed to combat it, one by Jonas Salk and the other Albert Sabin. Polio was eradicated, and today those vaccines are thought of as miracle drugs. But were they?

In the early 1950s, Salk was the first to come out with a vaccine. His was designed to treat all three polio viruses at once. His approach seemed basic enough. It was to grow polioviruses in the lab, kill them, and then inject healthy children with the dead viruses. The idea was that the dead viruses could not reproduce, so they could not harm the children. The children’s immune system, however, would detect the the injected viruses and produce effective antibodies against it, thus creating immunity against polio. .

Just prior to beginning mass inoculations, samples of the Salk vaccine were sent to to National Institutes of Health (NIH) for safety testing. 

There, when bacteriologist Dr. Bernice Eddy injected the vaccine into her monkeys, some of them fell down paralyzed. She concluded that the virus was not entirely dead as promised. Instead the virus was active and could reproduce in its host. Eddy sounded the alarm and presented her findings. A  debate ensured in the corridors of power. Advocates for caution were overruled. and the mass inoculation proceeded on schedule. 

The inoculation of children began in 1955. Within days, some injected children were coming down with polio. Some were even spreading the disease to family members. Subsequent investigations determined that the vaccine had caused 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis, and ten dead. Alton Ochsner, a professor of surgery at Tulane Medical School, was such a strong proponent of proceeding with the inoculation program that he gave vaccine injections to his grandchildren to prove it was safe. Sadly, Ochsner’s grandson died from polio a few months later, and his granddaughter contracted polio but survived. 

This fiasco has become known as the Cutter incident.  It’s named after the manufacturer of the vaccine. The vaccine was recalled and retested for safety, but the damage had already been done in the mind of the public. Let’s continue onto the second version of the polio vaccine, the Sabin.  

Heads Up, Jew-Haters! Don’t Take This Medicine! By Joan Swirsky *****

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/heads_up_jewhaters_dont_take_this_medicine.html

Maybe I don’t frequent the right journals, internet sites, TV shows, or radio stations, because all I’ve seen and read and heard since the 1960s is that the Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” — you know, those perpetual “victims” who have received literally billions — maybe trillions — in “aid” from America — have become famous for a few things only:

Building tunnels in which to store arms and bombs to kill Jews,
Launching balloons of fire into Israel to kill Jews,
Spreading lies and calumny through the craven mass and social media to vilify Jews,
Conducting “honor killings” of their teenage daughters,

What I’ve never seen or read or heard is that the Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” have done one single solitary thing to benefit mankind.  Their singular obsession has been to annihilate the Big Satan, America, and the Little Satan, Israel.

Let’s Talk Numbers

Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world, with 2.4 billion and 1.9 billion adherents, respectively — literally half the people on our Earth of about 7.8 billion.

In stark contrast, Judaism comprises 15 million people, about eight million in Israel, about six million in the United States, and about one million scattered throughout the world.

How ‘Informed Consent’ Became ‘Coercion of the Uninformed’ By William Sullivan

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/coog30gmailcom_how_informed_consent_became_coercion_of_the_uninformed.html

There must be a lot of money to be made in peddling medical treatments and prescription drugs to Americans, or else there’d be no way the advertisements pitching these treatments and drugs to the public could be so plentiful.  But you may have noticed a feature of those ads that is conspicuously absent in the public pitch for COVID-19 vaccines.

Let’s consider that commercial (or any of the hundreds exactly like it) entreating you to get vaxxed as a means to “get back to life,” showing happy images of travel passports, college, family meals, and visiting grandparents.  But, we’re assured, “it’s okay to have questions,” like “how were the vaccines tested?” and “why should I get vaccinated?” 

How were they tested?  “In rigorous clinical trials among adults of diverse backgrounds,” we’re assured.  Oh, well that’s a relief. 

Why should I get vaccinated?  Because “protecting yourself also helps protect the people around you.”  You don’t say?  Hadn’t heard that.

“Back to life?” the commercial ends.  “It’s up to you.”

There are two things that the average American might notice here. 

The first is that this commercial, just like every COVID vaccine pitch ever created, treats us, the skeptical-yet-potential consumer, like a child being persuaded by a desperate parent to believe that Santa really showed up on Christmas Eve.  “I saw him on the Santa Tracker app.  Honest!”

The Shame of the Never Trumpers : Kurt Schlichter

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/26/the-shame-of-the-never-trumpers-n2594643

This is on them, those brave and bold MSNBCNN warriors who sold out the conservatives who once took their cruises until Trump exposed the grift; these True Conservatives™ then proceeded to help elect Grandpa Badfinger pseudo-president. Well, at least they are consistent – when they were nominally conservative, the GOP squishes they backed led us to disaster, and the Dem libs they back now are doing the same.

The Conservative, Inc., crew are the smart guys. The moral guys. The experts of expertise. Just ask them. The Never Trumpers are the adults in the room, even if adults aren’t the North American Man-Boy Lincoln Project’s usual target demo. 

This Afghanistan disaster, this utter abomination that will lead to tens of thousands of deaths of foreigners who trusted America, the humiliation of our country – country first, right guys? – and a possible hostage crisis to boot that will require us to thaw out and redeploy Ted Koppel, is on them.

But it’s not completely on them. Let’s face it, they don’t have that much influence anymore. Their purpose is solely to pretend that there is a conservative constituency for leftism. No one points to these doofuses and says, “Yeah, let’s harken back to the glory days when these geniuses were managing America’s decline – that was much better.” They failed then, and they are failing now, and when the Silicon Valley suckers funding these turncoat losers wise up and turn off the cash spigot, no one will listen to them at all.

It’s funny – you look at a toad like Bill Kristol and you wonder what bothers him most – the fact that a bunch of conservatives despise him, or the fact that most modern conservatives couldn’t pick him out of a line-up with LTC Bratwurst, Ana Navarro, and Brian Stelter, who is a potato.

You need to understand who these guys are. They are unaccomplished footnote people, whether it’s “Is a hot dog a sandwich or a taco?” dilemma pundit Jonah Goldberg (whose been coasting off his one good book for years), or drag queen story time advocate David French – whose name we once could have made fun of by citing the Gallic stereotype of military ineptness, except it turns out the frogs are courageously going out into Kabul to sweep up their citizens while the demented muppet the Ahoy Crew voted for has ordered our American forces to sit tight. 

They are co-owners of this fiasco. They wanted Biden. It was imperative to saving the Republic, or something, we were solemnly informed. Those mean tweets, those damnable mean tweets – we needed the calming, soothing normality of a steady statesman and got a senile cone-licker-in-chief instead.

If these guys weren’t wrong, they’d be nothing.

Anarchy in Portland Political leaders yawn as left and right battle with guns in the streets.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/anarchy-in-portland-oregon-ted-wheeler-chuck-lovell-11630014195?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Cities that tolerate political violence invite more of it. Portland, Ore., has failed to learn this lesson, and it’s a miracle no one was killed amid recent clashes. On Sunday Antifa adherents squared off against demonstrators affiliated with the far right Proud Boys. Bloody confrontations have become routine in Portland, but this one was even more harrowing than usual. Social-media video appears to show participants exchanging gunfire, and Police Chief Chuck Lovell said one person was apprehended for firing a weapon.

“We are trying our best,” Mr. Lovell added, describing how “our critical staffing shortage, as well as legal restrictions, impacts our response.” Daryl Turner, executive director of the Portland Police Association, says police funding has been slashed by more than $25 million since George Floyd’s murder, and some 150 officers have resigned or retired since June 2020. That includes 50 officers who served on a crowd-control unit.

Mr. Lovell said the on day of the riot police responded to a fatal crash, a shooting that injured five people, and street racing that shut down the Fremont Bridge, among other crimes. Portland has seen 61 homicides this year, up from 32 in all of 2019.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, federal courts and Oregon lawmakers have severely restricted when police can use less-lethal force, even amid riots. Mr. Lovell said last week that the public “should not expect to see police officers standing in the middle of the crowd trying to keep people apart.”

The mayor still doesn’t get it. In a statement Monday he said the “Portland Police Bureau and I mitigated confrontation” and “minimized the impact of the weekend’s events to Portlanders.” He bragged that the “violence was contained to the groups of people who chose to engage in violence toward each other. The community at large was not harmed and the broader public was protected. Property damage was minimal.”

Message: Anarchy is tolerable as long as you’re merely shooting at each other. The chaos will continue until the city’s political leaders muster the will to stop it.

Why Do Media Fact Checkers Keep Ignoring This Biden Big Lie?

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/26/why-do-media-fact-checkers-keep-ignoring-this-big-lie-of-bidens/

At a press briefing on Tuesday that was ostensibly about the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden opened his remarks by touting the $3.5 trillion spending disaster that Democrats are trying to ram through in Washington. Biden has spun a web of lies to defend both.

“Today, the House of Representatives has taken a significant step toward making a historic investment that’s going to transform America, cut taxes for working families, and position the American economy for long-term – long-term growth,” he began.

That phrase – “transform America” – ought to scare Americans. After all, what exactly does Biden want to transform the world’s biggest, most prosperous, most free nation into? An inflation-riddled, welfare-dependent, socialist basket case? That’s what the $3.5 trillion plan, which includes a massive expansion in federal entitlements and government meddling, is trying to achieve.

Then Biden went on to repeat the biggest of his Big Lies about the economy, one that media fact-checkers – too exhausted, apparently, from years spent fact-checking every utterance of President Donald Trump’s –  keep missing.

“When I became president,” he said, “it was clear that we had to confront an immediate economic crisis – the most significant recession we’ve had since the Depression, or at least since Johnson.”

Biden knows that’s not true. Reporters covering the White House ought to know that’s not true. The public deserves to know that it is a bald-faced lie.

‘Immediate economic crisis’?

As we now know, the “immediate economic crisis” Biden supposedly inherited had ended nine months before he took office. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the official judge of when recessions begin and end, says that the COVID recession ended in April. That’s April of 2020. After that date, Trump passed two huge economic stimulus bills, cleared away regulations, and spurred the amazingly fast development of three COVID vaccines.

In short, there was no crisis when Biden took office, much less an immediate one. Saying anything else is lying to the public.

Most significant recession since the Depression?