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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Voter-Suppression Myth By Erick Erickson

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/07/27/the-voter-suppression-myth/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=

Democrats manufacture the alleged problem, and then the media amplify it

Both parties engage in mythmaking to justify defeats or amplify wins. Since 2016, media dominated by the Left and sympathetic to the Democrats have pushed myths as justification for failure. Russia stole the 2016 election. It could not be that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate beaten by a man not very well liked outside a core group of supporters. It had to be theft.

Grievance increasingly fuels the American political landscape. Republicans fundraise off toppled statues. Democrats fundraise off Donald Trump possibly beating their candidate. After 2018, grievance combined with progressive white guilt has given rise to more mythology. Now, it is not just the president collaborating with Vladimir Putin to steal elections. It is also Republicans suppressing the votes of minorities. The Democrats are not only manufacturing the mythology but using a playbook to create problems they can then blame on Republicans as proof of their claims.

In 2018, the national media fawned over Beto O’Rourke in Texas. His supposedly Kennedyesque looks and propensity for F-bombs gave him an absolute pass on being both a white man who drove a Hispanic Democrat from office in a primary and one who attempted to flee the scene of a wreck he caused while drunk. The media wanted nothing to do with those stories because he was trying to take out a Hispanic officeholder named “Ted Cruz.”

Guess What? We Need More Police in Urban Neighborhoods, Arresting More People By Rich Lowry

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/law-enforcement-shootings-other-crimes-spike-in-poorest-neighborhoods-when-cops-pull-back/

Shootings and other crimes spike in the poorest neighborhoods when cops pull back.

New York City needs more arrests. More arrests in the subways. More arrests in housing projects. More drug arrests. More arrests of gang members.

And it isn’t alone.

If there’s one lesson from the unrest and anti-police agitation in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, it’s that poor minorities living in distressed neighborhoods pay the highest price — in fear and in blood — when the cops retreat and the worst elements feel emboldened.

The spikes in shootings in cities around the country haven’t taken place in high-end neighborhoods, not in Billionaire’s Row in Manhattan, not in Buckhead in Atlanta, not in Forest Glen in Chicago.

No, they blight the most marginal neighborhoods and make everyday life a hazard for people who have no option but to live in a tough place. The last couple of months should have made it obvious that what these people have to fear most is not the cops or white supremacy but the violent, vengeful, and heedless young men in their midst.

Portland Police Association office set on fire amid protests By Rebecca Klar

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/508025-portland-police-association-office-set-on-fire-amid-protests

The Portland, Ore., Police Association office was set on fire Saturday night amid protests throughout the city, police said in a statement Sunday. 

Around 10:45 p.m. people broke into the Portland Police Association office and ignited a fire “within a few moments.” Police declared the situation a riot, according to the statement. 

Several people in the crowd were arrested and officers were able to distinguish the fire, police said. Portland Police did not use any CS gas, according to the statement. 

Tear gas was deployed, The Associated Press reported citing pictures and videos from the scene, but the newswire noted it was not necessarily CS gas. 

Police said groups scattered into the neighborhood, with a large number people regrouped near North Interstate Avenue and North Lombard Street. As officers moved the crowd to the south on North Interstate Avenue, people in the crowds “threw rocks, gopher gassers, and launched paint filled balloons at officers,” injuring some officers, police said. 

12 officers injured, businesses and precincts damaged during protest in Seattle

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/12-officers-injured-businesses-precincts-damaged-during-protest-seattle/BGPRGI37RJFNFECJBOHQEL6ZIE/

Twelve officers were injured, businesses and police precincts were damaged and two arrests were made during a protest that turned destructive in Seattle on Sunday.

According to police, the protest began around 10:30 a.m. as a peaceful demonstration calling for the abolition of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, at Westlake Park.

Around 1:30 p.m., police said a secondary group of demonstrators joined in and were seen carrying baseball bats.

Police said the group marched south on 5th Avenue toward the Seattle Police Department headquarters and damaged businesses on the way.

The group damaged the old federal courthouse building, graffitied the SPD headquarters and graffitied and broke windows at the Municipal Court building, police said.

National Museum of African American History apologizes for chart listing attributes of ‘whiteness’ after criticism from Donald Trump Jr and the conservative media

https://news.yahoo.com/national-museum-african-american-history-113916415.html

The National Museum for African American History and Culture removed a chart listing “whiteness” attributes after receiving criticism from Donald Trump Jr and conservative media.

The chart listed “hard work,” “respecting authority,” and “objective, rational linear thinking” as some of the attributes of “white dominant culture, or whiteness.”

Donald Trump Jr. criticized the graphic earlier this week, tweeting: “These aren’t ‘white’ values. They’re American values that built the world’s greatest civilization. They help you succeed here, no matter your color.”

Museum officials issued an apology on Thursday, saying they “need these types of frank and respectful interchanges as we as a country grapple with how we talk about race and its impact on our lives.” 

The Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington DC has removed an online chart listing “hard work” and “rational linear thinking” as attributes of white culture after criticism from Donald Trump Jr. and the conservative media.

The Stone Commute Highlighted Democrats’ Hypocrisy––But Now They’re Waking Up By Joan Swirsky

https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-stone-commute-highlighted-democrats-hypocrisybut-now-theyre-waking-up

“Two-thirds of battleground state voters who chose Trump in 2016 but selected Democrats in the midterms say they will return to the president”

“Trump Spares Stone from Imprisonment, Sparking Howls of Amnesiac Democrats” was the colorful headline of a recent Wall St. Journal piece by journalist, author and former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, Andrew C. McCarthy.

The “Stone” in the headline referred to Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump who was sentenced to 40 months in prison two years ago for lying to Congress, among other counts, during the failed fiasco of the Mueller investigation into the non-existent collusion of then-candidate Trump with Russian operatives to rig the 2016 election in his favor. 

GLARING HYPOCRISY

Stone, now 67, was arrested in a predawn raid on his home by a heavily armed SWAT team, a saga that was “coincidentally” caught by a CNN camera crew who just happened to be parked outside his home at 4 a.m. Imagine that.

According to Jan Wolfe from Reuters, Stone had connections to the WikiLeaks website, which released damaging emails about Trump’s election rival Hillary Clinton. Uh oh…can’t have those damning e-mails released. Hence the sadistically harsh sentence––the original recommendation was seven-to-nine years––and the brouhaha about Stone’s commutation.

Of course, the leftwing media were “outraged,” “shocked,” “appalled” at President Trump’s miscarriage of justice, although interestingly the president didn’t issue a full pardon, so the felony conviction of Mr. Stone still stands, as does his appeal. 

But you would think, as reported by investigative journalist Mark Hyman, that he had just pardoned two-dozen FALN Puerto-Rican terrorists who murdered at least 24 people. 

Or commuted the 58-year sentence of far-left terrorist Susan Rosenberg after only 16 years. It is so consistent with her hate-America mindset that today, Rosenberg is a member of the board of directors for the left-wing group that handles the donations made to the Marxist-front organization, Black Lives Matter (BLM). 

Nancy Pelosi calls federal law enforcement officers ‘stormtroopers’ By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/nancy_pelosi_calls_federal_law_enforcement_officers_stormtroopers.html

As always, she’s ignorant about the law, wrong about the facts, and in love with leftist violence.

Democrat-run Portland has given complete license to Black Lives Matter and Antifa, allowing increasingly violent protests that cause tens of millions of dollars in damage. When the mob eventually began to attack federal property and stated their intention to overthrow the U.S. system, the Department of Homeland Security sent in Customs and Border Patrol officers to arrest people violating the law. Antifa and the mob called what was happening “fascist.” It was to be expected that Portland’s mayor would echo this, but it’s disgusting that Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in America, would also call CBP officers “stormtroopers.”

Monica Showalter has already described the violence and destruction on Portland’s streets, as well as the way the Portland mayor and Oregon (both Democrats) nastily refused to accept Trump’s offer of federal police aid, so I won’t repeat that here. It’s sufficient to say the violence is escalating:

Fact Check: Do Black People Suffer Disproportionately From Police Brutality? James D. Agresti

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/18/fact-check-do-black-people-suffer-disproportionately-from-police-brutality/

A recent New York Times article by Jeremy W. Peters claims it is a “fact” “that black people suffer disproportionately from police brutality.” He also asserts that President Trump’s rejection of this accusation is “racially inflammatory” and “racially divisive.” On the contrary, comprehensive facts show that this allegation against police is false. Furthermore, this deception has stoked racial divides and driven people to despise and even murder police officers.

In an interview with CBS News that is slated to air in full tonight, reporter Catherine Herridge asked Trump, “Why are African-Americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?” He responded that this is a “terrible question” and that “more white people” are killed by police than black people.

CBS News, the New York Times, and many other media outlets are criticizing Trump’s response because blacks are a much smaller portion of the U.S. population than whites. Thus, the odds of being killed by police are higher for each black person than each white person. This frequent argument is highly misleading because it omits facts that are vital to this issue. As detailed in a 2018 paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science:

“The most common means of testing for racial disparity in police use of deadly force is to compare the odds of being fatally shot for blacks to the odds of being fatally shot for whites.”
That logic is flawed because it relies upon the false assumption that white and black people commit life-threatening crimes at the same rates.
The rational way to analyze this issue is to compare the odds of being fatally shot to each race’s “involvement in those situations where the police may be more likely to use deadly force.”
Based on four different national datasets on “murder/nonnegligent manslaughter, violent crime, and weapons violations,” “in nearly every case, whites were either more likely to be fatally shot by police or police showed no significant disparity in either direction.”

The ‘Fatal Conceit’ of Dr. Fauci Let Anthony Fauci pontificate on cable news and pose for glossy photoshoots. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has a country to rescue. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/17/the-fatal-conceit-of-dr-fauci/

More than four months after abruptly saying goodbye to the daily life we once knew, Americans still live in a surreal and virus-induced dystopia. Summer, essentially, has been canceled: no big family weddings, no trips abroad, no open public beaches and pools, no baseball. Tens of millions remain out of work while small businesses close up shop, permanently altering the landscape of big cities and small towns across the country. Mini Gestapo populated by once-friendly neighbors police face coverings and six feet of separation.

Power-grabbing, attention-addicted governors hog local news cameras each day under the guise of “Coronavirus Update!” to riff about their keen abilities to fight a virus or spew invective at Donald Trump or issue another decree to inflict further misery upon their willing subjects.

As school children and their parents anxiously check email boxes for any update about the fall semester and working parents with small children are scrambling to develop backup plans for online learning, Democrats are pushing hard to keep kids and teachers at home—at least until Election Day.

One person, however, seems to be basking in the chaos and confusion: Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. After toiling in relative obscurity at that position for more than 35 years, Fauci is earning the sort of rock star treatment that legitimate rock stars dream about—or at least pay big bucks to an A-list publicist to produce.

But Fauci, thanks to U.S. taxpayers, is getting a free ride on the media’s nonstop publicity train. This week, Fauci graces the cover of InStyle, a fashion magazine that has yet to feature one of the most stylish First Ladies of all time, Melania Trump.

Seated poolside at his D.C.-area home, Fauci, 79, dons a pair of dark shades—needed, presumably, to shield him from the glare of the spotlight he craves. The good doctor, as the headline for the puff piece describes him, and his wife were interviewed by their friend, NBC News anchor Norah O’Donnell. It’s standard Beltway fare—a mix of mutual admiration, deep reflections about their power over the little people, and cheeky personal anecdotes about how many languages they speak and how many books they read while the world burns.

Fatal Motorcycle Crash Listed as COVID-19 Death in Florida By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/07/17/fatal-motorcycle-crash-listed-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-n658267

A young Florida resident who died in a motorcycle accident is included in the state’s official COVID-19 death count, a state official reveals.

FOX 35 News in Orlando discovered this after asking Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino about two young COVID-19 patients in their twenties who died, and whether they had any preexisting conditions that contributed to their deaths.

“The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident,” Pino said.

Despite this shocking answer, Pino was not aware of this person’s data being removed from the state tally when asked.

“I don’t think so. I have to double-check,” Pino answered. “We were arguing, discussing, or trying to argue with the state. Not because of the numbers — it’s 100…it doesn’t make any difference if it’s 99 — but the fact that the individual didn’t die from COVID-19…died in the crash.”

Despite this, Pino then speculated that COVID-19 could have been a contributing factor to the fatal accident.

“But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that one.”