Why Ron DeSantis Is The Man To Lead The Great American Comeback By: Kyle Lamb

https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/10/why-ron-desantis-is-the-man-to-lead-the-great-american-comeback/

Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis will do for these United States what he has done for Florida and raise our expectations for the executive.

Even prior to arriving in Florida to work for the Office of Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2020, I was immediately struck by the bravery and conviction he exhibited during the early days of Covid. He stood on principle and fortified his position with data.

This endeared me to his causes. My own path to Florida began with studying and sharing Covid data online. In contradicting some of the federal government’s narratives, I endured a tsunami of smears from corporate media attempting to attack my credibility and qualifications for my job.

For saying things like masks didn’t stop respiratory viruses, lockdowns were destructive, and the virus may have come from a lab, I was ridiculed and vilified. In fact, some congressional Democrats tried to have me canceled after I accepted a position with the state.

Despite the onslaught, the DeSantis administration never budged. Going with the governor against Anthony Fauci was the correct decision.

Now, my path has diverged a bit. But my resolve has not.

A few months ago, I left the state office to join the Ron DeSantis for President campaign. It required little contemplation. You only commit to such an endeavor knowing it’s a finite journey that could be a roller coaster ride of emotion.

A revealing interview reminds us what a bizarre, fake person Obama was and is By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/a_revealing_interview_reminds_us_what_a_bizarre_fake_person_obama_was_and_is.html

In 2017, David Garrow’s carefully researched Obama biography, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, appeared to much less fanfare than it deserved.  The media undoubtedly downplayed it because it offered the truth behind many of Obama’s self-adulatory inventions, and Trump’s new presidency occupied everyone’s energy.  What makes the book newsworthy today is that David Samuels has interviewed Garrow and revisited narratives in the book, reminding everyone of the scary, power-obsessed nastiness behind Obama’s carefully built façade.

The interview on Tablet is long and worth every second it takes you to read it.  However, I’ve summarized below some of the highlights.

In Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his breakup with Sheila Miyoshi Jager, now a scholar known for her meticulous, honest research.  According to Obama, they broke up because after seeing a play by August Wilson, a black writer, Obama suddenly gained a black consciousness that Jager refused to recognize or understand.

However, Garrow, unlike other journalists in America, interviewed Jager for her side of the story.  It was quite different.

Image: Barack Obama. YouTube screen grab (cropped).

Jager said that they broke up because they went to see an exhibit about Adolf Eichman’s 1961 trial at the same time that Steve Cokely had accused Chicago’s Jewish doctors of giving black babies AIDS.  Jager, whose grandparents were honored as Righteous Gentiles for saving Jews during WWII, broke up with Obama because he refused to denounce anti-Semitism.  Considering Obama’s open hostility to Israel and later palling around with famous anti-Semites (e.g., Rev. Wright, Obama’s infamous and still hidden tape at a pro-PLO dinner, and Obama’s photo with Farrakhan), her version rings true.

Evil Never Takes a Holiday By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/evil_never_takes_a_holiday.html

Many good people whom I respect tell me that the Marxist left have already won and that there is no longer any point in fighting.  I disagree for many reasons, but I will list three: 

(1) History is simply saturated with pivotal moments that radically altered what otherwise appeared to be the course of destiny.  In fact, I would say that history is really written only when good men and women find their backs against the wall and realize that the only way to preserve their free will is to fight like hell and buck everything that stands against them.  Suffering has a tendency to focus the mind and strengthen resolve.  Character truly reveals itself only when it is tested.  I’ll take a spirited and courageous insurgency that knows why it is fighting over an army of automatons enfeebled by groupthink.

(2) When fighting evil, there are no half-measures.  There is no point when you kick back, light a cigarette, and say to yourself, “Dang, evil sure did get the best of me this time.”  Huh-uh.  You fight evil even if you find yourself hanging with fingertips from a cliff’s edge while the devil is smirking above and crushing your hand.  It doesn’t matter how compromised you feel; all you have to do is tell the devil to stick it where the sun don’t shine.  Your refusal to submit is your greatest weapon.  Others will find inspiration in your indefatigability and push ahead, too.  

(3) Even if you think things are irreversibly bad, apathy guarantees that they will get only worse.  There will be a time in the future when you are being forcefully herded onto a train car headed for who knows where, and you will think to yourself, “If only I had resisted earlier…”  Now ask yourself, “What would I be willing to do today to avoid that train car tomorrow?”  If fighting back is never going to get any easier, then that makes today the best day to begin kicking and screaming against what’s already barreling down the track.  Your future self will thank you.

I also disagree that it is too late to win.  There is a reason the permanent Deep State now resorts to sham trials, censorship, and political persecution: it no longer has the time to pretend to respect free speech or the rule of law.  A century of slow but steady marching toward a Marxist technocratic super-state has given way to overt public harassment, coercion, and easily recognizable propaganda.  The left’s deceptive veil has been lifted, and tyranny now has a face in all those politicians who openly support punishing dissent and constructing a modern-day Ministry of (dis)Information.  

The Fake Climate Consensus By John Stossel

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2023/08/09/the-fake-climate-consensus-n1717386

We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus.”

“It’s a manufactured consensus,” says climate scientist Judith Curry in my new video. She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune.”

She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change.

Media loved her when she published a study that seemed to show a dramatic increase in hurricane intensity.

“We found that the percent of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had doubled,” says Curry. “This was picked up by the media,” and then climate alarmists realized, “Oh, here is the way to do it. Tie extreme weather events to global warming!”

“So, this hysteria is your fault!” I tell her.

“Not really,” she smiles. “They would have picked up on it anyways.”

But Curry’s “more intense” hurricanes gave them fuel.

“I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists and I was treated like a rock star,” Curry recounts. “Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”

Scared Jurors, Intimidation: Reporter Andy Ngo’s Case Against Antifa Shows How Desperately Lost Portland Is By Victoria Taft

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/08/09/scared-jurors-intimidation-reporter-andy-ngos-case-against-antifa-shows-how-desperately-lost-portland-is-n1717494

Journalist Andy Ngo was chased, beaten, and chased again when he burst into a downtown Portland, Ore., hotel in May 2021 to get away from his black-bloc-clad Antifa attackers. “They’re trying to kill me,” he told the understandably frightened hotel workers. It wasn’t the first time he’d been attacked by the notorious Portland terrorist gang. If Portland’s criminal justice system wouldn’t stop these guys, Ngo figured, he’d sue them for $1 million.

On Tuesday, a Portland jury decided that two key alleged Antifa conspirators whose cases went to trial were not civilly liable for Ngo’s injuries, both physical and otherwise. The trial was marred by intimidation tactics — not just from the attackers but from their attorney who declared to the unidentified jury members, “I am Antifa” and “I will remember each one of your faces.” We’re talking Godfather stuff here.

Before you dismiss this as “Hey, you signed up for this, Portland, you voted in these knuckleheads who gave Antifa a wide berth,” let’s consider what this case means.

I sat in a Multnomah County courtroom in the trial of another journalist who was beaten by Antifa members and who pulled a pistol to fend off a second attack in 2016. Not a shot was fired, the second attack was thwarted, and instead of prosecuting his attackers, woke politicians went after Mike Strickland for showing his gun. He went to jail. His attackers were never pursued. In fact, they were never identified in court or by any of the undercover cops that had infiltrated the protest crowd that day.

The cops didn’t bother to help Strickland, either. While in the courtroom at his trial, I was threatened by Antifa allies. I also later received death threats that the Portland Police dismissed as no big deal.

Liz Peek: Here’s how Biden, Trump exit the 2024 race

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-biden-trump-exit-2024-race

What a mess. 

The United States of America, the greatest country in the world, looks set to field one candidate for president in 2024 who faces possible impeachment and is trying to put his opponent in jail and another who has now been indicted by three different prosecutors and who continues to deny the results of the last election.

No matter your politics, this is not a healthy state of affairs. People on both sides of the aisle will be mostly voting out of anger and hatred in 2024 and not because they admire their candidate. Polling shows the public has a historically low opinion of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Democrats are consumed – yes, nearly deranged – by hatred of Donald Trump, even though our country prospered under his leadership. Republicans are equally furious that the former president has been falsely accused on bogus charges for years, and now faces what many consider politically-driven prosecutions.  

Is there a way out of this predicament? Perhaps.

When playing golf, players occasionally enjoy a “good-good” moment. Both have arrived on the green, perhaps four feet from the hole. Neither is in contention to win the contest, both are tired and instead of requiring each other to make the remaining putt, they declare “good-good.” They give each other that last putt and walk off the green happy. 

For the good of the country, that’s what we need from Joe Biden and Donald Trump: a “good-good” moment. What would that look like?

Anthony Fauci Defended NIH Culture Of Secrecy – The $325M Third-Party Royalty Complex. Now We Know More Details. Adam Andrzejewsk

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/anthony-fauci-defended-nih-culture?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Big-Pharma, Chinese and Russian companies, and nefarious characters from around the world all benefited by licensing tech developed at the National Institutes of Health and paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Newly released NIH documents show conclusively that statements made during congressional hearings to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) by then-NIH leaders Anthony Fauci and Lawrence Tabak were misleading, if not outright false, regarding third-party royalties paid before, during, and after the pandemic.

Tabak, then-acting director of the National Institutes of Health, and Fauci, then-director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, both claimed before Congress that they could not release the names of the companies paying NIH third party royalties.

Last week, however, our OpenTheBooks lawsuit based on our Freedom of Information Act request caused NIH to release new documents.

The newly released documents reveal – for the first time – the names of companies that paid NIH scientists $325 million in third party royalties from 56,000 transactions between September 2009 and October 2020.

Our OpenTheBooks oversight reporting — which led to three congressional hearings during 2022 regarding NIH’s secret third party royalty payments — is available here for review.

Here are some key findings from the new disclosures:

In U.S. Senate hearings during 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to disclose the companies who licensed his “inventions” and paid his third-party royalties. Finally, now, we know the companies paying him. They are listed below.

Chinese government-owned pharmaceutical companies, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), paid the National Institutes of Health (NIH) third-party royalties to license technologies developed on the U.S. taxpayer dime. One such company neighbors the Wuhan Institute of Virology, collaborates with the lab, and even paid a royalty to Douglas Lowy, a multiple term acting director at the National Cancer Institute, a sub-institute of NIH.

Russian animal vaccine maker – which was allegedly a front for a Soviet bio-weapons lab – licensed inventions and paid royalties to NIH for tech developed with taxpayer dollars.

Purdue Pharma – the makers of the highly addictive and frequently abused OxyContin (oxycodone) – licensed tech developed with public funds and paid royalties to NIH – even after the company pleaded guilty to federal crimes relating to opioids.

Long-serving former NIH director, Francis Collins, received third party royalties on his inventions from four companies that themselves received nearly $50 million in federal contracts and grants since 2008.

During the pandemic, the American people started to worry that Big Government was too close to Big Pharma. Now, because of our oversight investigation at OpenTheBooks.com, we know just how close they are: NIH spends billions on the industry and now we know the industry sends millions back to NIH and its scientists.

Why is US sending 3,000 Navy, Marines force to Persian Gulf? The Pentagon has not yet specified the Marines’ role in deterring Iran from interfering with commercial shipping and threatening neighboring Arab states. Jared Szuba

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/08/why-us-sending-3000-navy-marines-force-persian-gulf

A contingent of more than 3,000 US Navy personnel and Marines sailed into the Suez Canal on Sunday as the Biden administration weighs options to deter Iran from seizing commercial tanker ships in the Persian Gulf region.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with sailors and Marines of an Amphibious Ready Group led by the USS Bataan and accompanied by the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall, will provide “greater flexibility and maritime capability” to the United States’ Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, the Navy announced today.

What that means: The Pentagon has remained mum on specifically how it intends to employ the Marines, but their arrival is part of a wider buildup of US forces in the region which defense officials described as a response to Iran’s renewed attempts to seize commercial tankers.

The deployment brings additional aircraft, helicopters and amphibious landing craft to join a dozen US F-35s, as well as F-16 and A-10 aircraft and Navy guided-missile destroyers that have already arrived in the region in recent weeks and months to ramp up joint patrols in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has escalated its attempts to seize commercial ships in Gulf waterways in recent months following the US Justice Department’s confiscation of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, the Suez Rajan, carrying Iranian fuel to China in April. An Iranian navy vessel opened fire on a Chevron-chartered tanker in international waters off the coast of Oman last month after the civilian ship refused orders to stop.

Iran’s navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have harassed or seized control of at least 20 commercial shipping tankers in the region over the past two years, according to the US 5th Fleet’s numbers.

Iran’s moves have further driven a wedge into the United States’ strategic ties with Gulf states, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates look to reduce their dependency on Washington for defense.

“It’s drawn Gulf states closer to Iran,” one American official told Al-Monitor last week. “It sends a signal to regional partners that in the absence of US forces, the US is not serious about security.”

Al-Monitor reported last week that senior Defense Department officials have been putting the finishing touches on proposals for wider legal authorities in coordination with the White House to enable the military to intervene more directly to prevent Iran’s seizures of commercial tankers.

Welcome To Biden’s Grand Illusion Of Prosperity

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/10/welcome-to-bidens-grand-illusion-of-prosperity/

‘You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity, too.”

That was then-Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen back in 1988 arguing that the Reagan boom was a myth because it was bought and paid for with deficit spending, then running about $200 billion a year. 

What would Bentsen say today about an economy that – instead of blasting ahead at more than 4% a year at it was in 1988 – is barely eking out gains and appears headed to a downturn … despite the fact that President Joe Biden is writing $200 billion in hot checks every two months. 

We know what Biden and his legions of sycophants in the “independent” media would say. The economy is doing great thanks to “Bidenomics.”

“The economy is growing and we’re lowering costs for families. That’s Bidenomics at work,” Biden said after the latest GDP numbers came out, which showed the economy growing 2.4% in the second quarter of this year. “This progress wasn’t inevitable or accidental — it is Bidenomics in action, growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down.”

One week later, Fitch downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.

The lower rating, Fitch said, “reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’-rated peers.”

Fiscal deterioration over the next three years and a high and growing debt burden? Is this “Bidenomics in action”?

Look at the numbers and you see why Fitch is worried.

Dems’ ‘Science Denier’ Accusation Is Old, Wrong, and Pathetic By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/08/08/dems-science-denier-accusation-is-old-wrong-and-pathetic-n1717244

The Democrats have long fancied themselves to be the party of science. They also fancy themselves the party of youth and diversity but are currently championing an 80-year-old white guy for a second term as president of the United States.

What Democrats are known for, to those of us who don’t lap up their propaganda, is a chronic lack of self-awareness, about both themselves as people and their ideology. Pretty much everything that they believe to be true about Republicans and Democrats bears no resemblance to reality. They repeat the lies about themselves until those lies not only become true for them, but also become part of the Democratic origin story.

One of the most enduring myths that Democrats believe — especially here in the 21st century — is that they’re all elite intellectuals, while all Republicans and conservatives are knuckle-dragging rubes. Even when Republicans like Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, or Ron DeSantis present the kind of higher education bona fides that usually send them into a mindless orgiastic frenzy around one another, they find reasons to be dismissive. Mustn’t allow for the possibility of intellectuals from outside the unquestioning hive mind, after all.

Of all the lies that the Democrats tell themselves, the “party of science” nonsense ranks second only to “the government always knows best.”

We’ll get to how wrong they were about all things COVID in a moment. Even before that, Democrats had essentially abandoned biology which, I just checked, is still a science. According to them, human embryos aren’t really human, there are 42,000,000 genders, and now men can get pregnant. That’s not merely denying science, that’s rejecting it altogether.