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Twisting the Truth about Tinseltown At the leftist Times, an absurd whitewash of leftist Hollywood. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/twisting-truth-about-tinseltown-bruce-bawer/

If you happened to take a look at the New York Times website a few days ago – specifically, on June 2 – you’d have found the usual daily mix of predictable left-wing claptrap. One article smeared the Proud Boys as a “violent” gang of “far-right nationalist[s]”; another lamented the verdict in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial because it afforded the unacceptable spectacle of “a woman brought low,” while yet another asserted that Depp won “[b]ecause he’s a man.” Meanwhile the travel section pretended that Paris (a “City of Light” nowadays only when Muslim gangs are setting cars and churches ablaze) is still the romantic locale of Gigi and Funny Face, and the op-ed page offered an essay headlined “Inflation Should Make Us All Vegetarians” and an argument that the main problem with the “capable, decent men and women” who make up the Biden administration is that they’re insufficiently eager to make nice with China.

But the day’s most ludicrous piece of agitprop was an essay in which Times film critic A. O. Scott actually tried to make the case that Hollywood isn’t left-wing. Yes, he admitted, the film industry is “a hub of Democratic Party fund-raising and activism” – but, hey, there are also plenty of “suspected conservatives” in La La Land (he didn’t pause to ponder why they’re only “suspected”), and in any case, he suggested, it all evens out, because during the era of the “Red Scare” Hollywood conservatives subjected liberals to “blacklisting and betrayal.” Um, no. Here’s the real story: through much of the 1930s and 40s, the writing and acting branches in Hollywood were dominated by ruthless, card-carrying Stalinists like Dalton Trumbo, who sought to use their power to propagandize for Communism; it was they, not conservatives, who aimed to crush the liberals in their midst; and it was they, not liberals, who were later targeted by the HUAC hearings. “Betrayal”? It was these Stalinists, enemies of their country and tools of the Kremlin, who were the traitors.

HISTORY Comments turned off

Remembering the Boys of Pointe du Hoc By Paul Krause

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/remembering_the_boys_of_point_du_hoc_.html

“Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

Eisenhower’s speech, on the eve of the greatest military campaign for freedom in human history, was matched only by the speech of President Ronald Reagan in 1984 on the fortieth anniversary of that event. “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.” D-Day remains one of the greatest manifestations of the American, and human, spirit of liberty and courage ever known.

We are told that America stands at a crossroad. America has always been standing at crossroads. And time and again America has weathered the storm and come back stronger and freer than before. While it is easy to despair, we must remember what propelled the spirit of freedom and progress — true freedom and progress — into the new dawn despite the surrounding darkness.

What Eisenhower and Reagan’s speeches have in common is a thread going back to our Founding Fathers and the very spirit that birthed America.

In his inaugural address, George Washington said, “I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Pete Buttigieg’s tour de force of fatuousness, dishonesty, and backdoor socialism By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/pete_buttigiegs_tour_de_force_of_fatuousness_dishonesty_and_backdoor_socialism.html

“In other words, everything Buttigieg said was dishonest or dangerous. He is a perfect representative of the Biden administration.”

Pete Buttigieg took questions on Sunday from George Stephanopoulos. This little man with the carefully tweezed eyebrows, sleazy 5:00 shadow, Alfred E. Neuman mien, and orator’s voice hid behind fatuous, hackneyed political babble even as he discretely revealed the hardcore totalitarianism that drives him and, indeed, drives the entire Biden administration. In many ways, Buttigieg is like a Stepford politician. There’s something eerily unreal about the man as, no matter the question, he responds with administration talking points rather than substantive information.

Stephanopoulos opened by speaking about Jamie Dimon’s warning that America is facing an economic “hurricane” (a word Stephanopoulos carefully avoided using), as well as Larry Summers’s concerns about a recession, and then asked if Americans need to brace for an economic storm. Buttigieg answered with blather.

He boasted about the swift, red-hot, wildly fast economic growth in the first year of the Biden administration—which was in fact a weak return to work by Americans who had been locked out of their jobs for over a year—but then conceded that we won’t be seeing that “growth” this year. He wants us to know, though, “that this administration takes seriously” people’s fears. The Fed will do its job and Congress will do its job and the supply chain will be stronger. And more blah-blah and some yadda-yadda.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poll: Nearly Three-Quarters of Americans Disapprove of Biden’s Handling of Inflation By Caroline Downey

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-nearly-three-quarters-of-americans-disapprove-of-bidens-handling-of-inflation/

Over 70 percent of Americans disapprove of President Biden’s handling of soaring inflation and gas prices, indicating that economic security remains a high priority for the voting population.

As of June 3-4, 71 percent said they are unsatisfied with Biden’s efforts to curb inflation and 72 percent said the same for gas prices specifically, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday. Meanwhile, 28 percent say they are content with Biden’s management of the inflation crisis.

Thirty-seven percent said they approve of the president’s handling of the economic recovery following the Covid-19 downturn, although that number represents a sharp drop of 16 percent from July 2021, when 53 percent approved of Biden’s performance on economic recovery.

Fifty-one percent of respondents reported that inflation and the economy will be “extremely important” in influencing their voting behavior in the 2022 midterm elections. Asked to rank key issues in terms of personal importance issues inflation and the economy received the highest percentages for “extremely important,” beating out the Ukraine conflict, the pandemic, and abortion.

Twenty-one percent of respondents said that inflation would be the “single most important issue” impacting their midterm vote, while 19 percent said the same of the economy, making those issues the top two highest rated in terms of importance, respectively. The poll surveyed a nationally collected sample of 542 adults from June 3 to June 4.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Is Public Input On Science And Technology Policy Worthwhile? Henry I. Miller

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/06/is-public-input-on-science-and-technology-policy-worthwhile/

In the throes of a pandemic that won’t quit, many Americans are anxious, but not only about COVID-19; they’re also fearful about vaccines, chemicals, and even (non-existent) “chemtrails,” to name just a few. Inexplicably, even after more than a million U.S. deaths from COVID-19, the U.S. population remains under-vaccinated and under-boosted. While California has gotten more than 70% of its population fully vaccinated, a large number of states – including Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Wyoming, Indiana – have barely reached 50%, in spite of exhortations by political leaders and medical professionals.

According to Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, we’re witnessing the “death of expertise”: “a Google-driven, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers – in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.” 

The pandemic has brought armchair epidemiologists and infectious disease experts out in droves, and especially with policies in flux, this is not a trivial problem. It confounds policymakers and regulators who feel compelled to seek non-expert input on decisions, wasting time and taxpayers’ money, and making them increasingly reluctant to contravene even uninformed, misguided vox populi.

Science is not democratic. The citizenry does not get to vote on whether a whale is a mammal or a fish, or on the boiling point of water; legislatures cannot repeal the laws of nature, although legislators in Indiana once tried to redefine the mathematical constant pi.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Americans Pretty Much Disgusted With The Big Media: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/06/americans-pretty-much-disgusted-with-the-big-media-ii-tipp-poll/

Among major American institutions, the media have had a particularly rough ride over the past year. Public trust in the media’s integrity and performance has soured significantly in recent months, with big media credibility continuing to sink, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The most recent data come from our May online nationwide poll of 1,320 adults, taken from May 4-6. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 points.

Each month since March of 2021, poll respondents have been asked the following two questions:

“Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the traditional or established news media (Example: Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”
“Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the alternative news media (Example: New York Post, Washington Times, NewsMax, The Daily Caller, RealClearPolitics, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”

For the more mainstream “established” media in the first question, the poll shows how poorly in the public’s esteem the news outlets are: Only 37% of those who responded said they had either “a lot of trust” (15%) or “quite a bit of trust” (22%) in the media.

Meanwhile, 56% said they either had “little trust” (28%) or “no trust at all” (28%), for an overall negative trust reading of -19 points. An abysmal reading given the central informational role the media play in our daily lives.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dems May Be Ensuring Their Own Destruction With Latest Moves by Jan. 6 Cmte Jonathan Turley

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/04/jonathan-turley-dems-may-be-ensuring-their-own-destruction-with-latest-moves-by-jan-6-cmte-n574748?

Democrats know that they’re about to get wiped big time come the midterms, and they’re desperately searching for something that will turn the tide, whether it’s maximizing the leftist reaction to the leak from SCOTUS about the abortion case or trying to demonize Republicans over gun control. But none of that has changed the basic trend toward Republicans sweeping the field in November.

 

The only thing they have left is the thing they’ve been planning for a while: using the Jan. 6 Committee hearings to smear the Republicans. The committee has no Republican appointees on it, so it’s already compromised. But they have been trying to go scorched earth, demanding people testify and give up their private communications in the hopes they will find something in their desperate fishing expedition.

They’ve subpoenaed people, including their former colleague Mark Meadows, and even held people in contempt and pursued an indictment against people when they refused to go along with the political farce, like Peter Navarro. Instead of having Peter Navarro, a Trump adviser, simply arrange to surrender, as one might do for something like a contempt charge, they had him arrested and cuffed at an airport — for maximum embarrassment and Democratic PR. That’s how law enforcement is now being used — to hurt the Democrats’ political opponents.

Between this and the failure to hold the Democrats themselves accountable for all their bad acts, that’s leading the country to a very bad place. They’re doing this, despite the evidence that Americans have moved on from the three-hour riot, that they are much more concerned about how Joe Biden and the Democrats are hurting their wallets with their bad policies. But the Democrats are still hoping that they can spin new disclosures that will help their cause.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary’s Role in the Russia Smear The Sussmann trial provides more evidence that she personally directed the effort. By Douglas Schoen and Andrew Stein

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-role-in-the-russia-smear-michael-sussmann-acquit-alfa-bank-donald-trump-11654439905?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The acquittal of former Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann—charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while acting on behalf of her 2016 campaign—leaves major questions unanswered about Mrs. Clinton’s role in her campaign’s effort to tie Donald Trump to Russia. It also provides new evidence that she personally directed the effort.

In July 2016, John Brennan, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefed President Obama that Mrs. Clinton gave “approval” for a “proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up scandal and claiming interference by the Russian security service,” according to Mr. Brennan’s notes from the meeting, which were obtained by Fox News.

During Mr. Sussmann’s trial, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified that he and other top aides decided to feed the press a story in October 2016 about the now-disproven allegations of secret ties between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. Importantly, Mr. Mook said that Mrs. Clinton was aware of, and approved of, this plan. “We discussed it with Hillary,” Mr. Mook testified. “She agreed with the decision.”

When the campaign leaked the unverified story, Clinton aide Jake Sullivan—now President Biden’s national security adviser, and perhaps the foreign-policy adviser to whom Mr. Brennan referred—issued a statement indicating that a probe could be imminent: “We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.” Mrs. Clinton tweeted out Mr. Sullivan’s statement.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The White House Keeps Stoking Covid Fears Covid is ‘a far greater threat to kids than the flu is,’ Ashish Jha claims, citing a flawed study. By Jay Bhattacharya

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-white-house-keeps-stoking-covid-fears-ashish-jha-kids-flu-schooling-11654459689?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Dr. Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford and a founding fellow at the Academy for Science and Freedom.

“I’ve been a huge advocate of keeping schools fully open to in person education since October of 2020,” Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid response coordinator, tweeted last week. “Still am.” So why is Dr. Jha engaged in scare-mongering about the danger of Covid to children?

In a May 30 tweet, Dr. Jha asserted that Covid is “a far greater threat to kids than the flu is.” He linked to an article by Harvard Medical School instructor Jeremy Faust, which claims that Covid killed more than 600 children in 2021, whereas the flu kills “an average” of only 120 children annually. But Dr. Faust’s data are severely skewed, for three reasons.

First, while flu is seldom tested, everyone admitted to a hospital for any reason gets a Covid test. Between October 2018 and September 2019, 1.4 million flu tests were reported to public-health and clinical labs. As of May 31, 2022, there had been 897 million PCR tests for Covid.

Second, evidence from audits of death certificates found that 35% of all pediatric deaths in 2020 “had co-occurring diagnosis codes that could not be plausibly categorized as either a chain-of-event or significant contributing condition,” according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Put another way, in at least 35% of pediatric “Covid deaths,” Covid couldn’t have been the cause.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

SOS: Is The Pentagon Losing the U.S. to China? by Judith Bergman

Posted By on June 6th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18512/pentagon-losing-to-china

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion.” — Nicolas Chaillan, former first Chief Software Officer for the Air Force, who resigned in protest over the Pentagon’s slow pace of technological development, citing China’s fast advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and general capabilities in cybersecurity, Financial Times, October 10, 2021

“By the time the Government manages to produce something, it’s too often obsolete.” — Preston Dunlap, the Pentagon’s first Chief Architect Officer, responsible for promoting technological innovation at the Pentagon, who also resigned, labelling the Pentagon “the world’s largest bureaucracy;” The Japan Times, April 19, 2022.

“Our lack of adopting these [commercial innovations] quickly creates an asymmetric disadvantage if our adversaries adopt them more rapidly… These differences are extremely relevant for conflicts we may face in the next decade where our adversaries effectively employ commercial technologies. For example, when U.S. troops were stationed in Iraq, ISIS sent small drones, which can be purchased on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, with grenades to kill American soldiers in Mosul… The DoD must add new capabilities like these in 1-2 years rather than 1-2 decades.” — Michael Brown, Director of the Defense Innovation Unit at the Pentagon, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 6, 2022.

“[In the PRC and Russia], private companies… work together closely with their militaries to gain experience with new technologies and concepts. From drone swarming to anti-satellite weapons programs, Russia and the PRC have studied our capabilities carefully and are rapidly modernizing its own military capabilities with a priority both on asymmetry designed to neutralize U.S. overmatch and accessing innovations in its commercial sector… Imagine how well our forces will defend against PLA swarms of drones if we have not experimented with this concept,” — Michael Brown, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 6, 2022.

“The current sequential process lags commercial product cycles and delivers technology several generations behind which would be the equivalent of supplying flip-phones and fax machines to our warfighters today…” — Michael Brown, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 6, 2022.

Last July, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William J. Burns, said that China is “the single biggest geopolitical challenge that the United States faces far out into the 21st century” and that “the main arena for competition and rivalry with China” is technology.

The Pentagon has been facing massive criticism for being unable properly, if at all, to meet that very technological challenge. “The U.S. government is not prepared to defend the United States in the coming artificial intelligence (AI) era,” the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence warned in March 2021, while also saying that China was on its way to become the world’s top AI superpower.