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March 2020

POLITICS Comments turned off

The anybody-but-Bernie comeback Ryan Cooper

By on March 5th, 2020

https://theweek.com/authors/ryan-cooper

VERY important issue which so far the MSM has treated as a 3rd rail -dementia…..DPS

For decades, the cliché about American political parties has gone that “Republicans fall in line, while Democrats fall in love.” But for a significant portion of today’s Democratic electorate, that is not the case. Joe Biden’s campaign came back from the brink of death on Super Tuesday, on the winds of a sudden burst of coordinated support from the Democratic establishment. At time of writing he was projected to have won Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee, and was running close in Maine.

In the South Carolina primary last weekend, exit polls showed that Biden won a smashing victory primarily thanks to one person: House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the most powerful Democrat in the state, who endorsed Biden just days before the primary. After that win, both Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out and endorsed Biden, as did his former opponent Beto O’Rourke and several other Democratic officials.

But this flash coronation wasn’t because Biden convinced his competitors that he had the best policies or the best temperament to take on Donald Trump. There is one reason and one reason alone the establishment has rallied around Biden: He is not Bernie Sanders.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boris Johnson, Disraeli Has His Eye On Your ‘New Dawn’ So Does Our Brexit Diarist By Stephen MacLean

By on March 5th, 2020

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/brexit-mr-johnson-disraeli-has-his-eye-on-your/91038/

Boris Johnson, in his latest riposte to Brussels, is the man who won the heart of Brexiteers. This is the Prime Minister who tells the European Union that, unless significant progress is made quickly toward reaching a trade deal, then Britain will spend its time until December 31 focusing on its global trade agenda, relegating its future relationship with Europe to a footnote.

This Boris is in stark contrast to his predecessor, Theresa May. She enters the history books as having been too willing to bow to Brussels bureaucrats, at the expense of Britons and despite a referendum that called for the contrary. The new, post-Brexit Boris is also tacking differently than pre-Brexit Boris, who stirred up unrest among Brexiteers for seemingly going limp on full British independence.

Now, per the London Sun, the Prime Minister, with a ruling majority in Parliament, is feeling his oats. Boris’s “radical reshaping” reminds one of Sixtus V. Cardinal Montalto accedes to the Chair of Peter in 1585 as a “caretaker” pope — infirm and hunchbacked, clearly not long for this world. Yet no sooner is he elected than he throws away his cane, stands bolt-upright, and cries: “Now I am Cæsar.”

The Prime Minister’s renewed vigor thus cheers Brexiteers intent on full independence. This, though, was not Boris’s only volte-face. Students of Benjamin Disraeli have seen in BoJo not a little of that wily Victorian statesman. Both leaders captured the popular appeal and exude a joyous political élan. No less significant, a reputation as a “chancer” clings to them.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Super Tuesday Primaries Put GOP Closer To Reclaiming House Majority By Tristan Justice

By on March 4th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/04/super-tuesday-primaries-put-gop-closer-to-reclaiming-house-majority/

TEXAS- DISTRICT 12- KAY GRANGER, DISTRICT 32 GENEVIEVE COLLINS, DISTRICT 24 BETH VAN DUYNE

 DISTRICT 7 HOUSTON- WESLEY HUNT

House Republicans had a good night on Tuesday, where a powerful incumbent fended off a well-funded primary challenger, and the party picked up one African-American and several women candidates to challenge Democrats this fall.

In Texas, Congresswoman Kay Granger who leads the House Appropriations Committee came out on top in a primary challenge from local conservative activist Chris Putnam in the state’s 12th district. Putnam accused Granger of not being far enough aligned with President Donald Trump, despite having Trump’s endorsement.

The bitter race attracted a considerable amount of outside spending, with the conservative Club For Growth sweeping in to oust Granger while the House GOP leadership’s super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund spent more than $1.3 million to protect Granger.

The incumbent congresswoman ultimately defeated Putnam with 58 percent of the vote to Putnam’s 42.

Elsewhere, House Republicans secured nominations for key recruits in their efforts to elect more women and minorities.

In Houston-area 7th district, conservative African-American Army veteran Wesley Hunt captured the nomination to challenge incumbent freshman Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher who flipped the seat just two years earlier. Both the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rank the seat as “leaning Democratic,” making for a competitive race this fall with Hunt’s nomination to reclaim the seat.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

REPUBLICAN DARRELL ISSA IS BACK AND RUNNING FOR CONGRESS CALIFORNIA DISTRICT 50

By on March 4th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/are-you-ready-for-congressman-darrell-issa-again-californians-appear-to-say-yes/

It looks like Darrell Issa is back. Though votes are still being counted as of publication, Issa looks to have a solid second-place finish in Southern California’s Congressional District 50 on Super Tuesday. A win means Issa makes it to the general election in California’s “jungle primary.”

Issa came in second to Democrat Ammar-Campa Najjar in a field of five candidates, three Republicans and two Democrats, in California’s contested Congressional District 50, vacated by disgraced Congressman Duncan Hunter, who pleaded guilty to one count of campaign fund misuse. Hunter will be sentenced later this month.

Issa, the former congressman from California’s 49th Congressional District, announced his retirement before the 2018 election. That district was partially in Orange County and one of several that saw a sweep by Democrats in one of the last conservative bastions in the state.

Issa says he was no longer a match for the 49th district and also was asked by the Trump White House to serve as director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The Senate never took up his nomination. Issa says he took himself out of the running for the job and jumped into the CD 50 race. Hunter’s father, the venerable former Congressman Duncan L. Hunter, endorsed Issa as did Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, who did commercials for Issa.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Freeman Dyson: Humanist and Climate-Change Heretic By Robert Bryce

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/freeman-dyson-humanist-and-climate-change-heretic/

The death of physicist Freeman Dyson on February 28 has been noted by many publications, all of which highlighted his many contributions to science. Dyson, 96, was, without doubt, a genius. He was a polymath whose interests included mathematics, number theory, biology, physics, nuclear energy, space travel, weaponry, and arms control.

While all of those accomplishments are important, Dyson’s view of climate change — or rather, his view on carbon dioxide, economic development, and what he called “the humanist ethic” — also helped spark a new type of environmentalism, one that rejects the idea that carbon dioxide is the supreme villain.

Dyson was a skeptic on the issue of catastrophic climate change, a fact that was prominently noted in the obituaries published in the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Post called it his “apostasy on global warming.” It went on, saying that while Dyson did not “deny the Earth was warming,” he broke ranks because he didn’t believe “global warming is particularly dangerous.” That view, the Post said, “is not shared by the overwhelming majority of scientists.”  The Times said Dyson “confounded the scientific establishment by dismissing the consensus about the perils of man-made climate change.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Pentagon Linguist Charged with Exposing U.S. Spies to Hezbollah By Zachary Evans

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pentagon-linguist-charged-with-exposing-us-spies-to-hezbollah/

A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq.

The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables detailing information the human sources provided to the United States government,” read an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

DOJ Battle Against Chinese Communist Infiltration Reaches Historic Scale By Ivan Pentchoukov

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/doj-battle-against-chinese-communist-infiltration-reaches-historic-scale_3260176.html

The Justice Department (DOJ) campaign to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s multifaceted onslaught on U.S. interests has ramped up to an unprecedented level, according to government officials and documents.

As of last month, the FBI was conducting roughly 1,000 investigations into China’s attempted theft of trade secrets, just one of many fronts in the communist regime’s wide-ranging campaign against the United States. Every FBI field office was working on trade secrets theft cases involving China with potential victims spanning almost every sector and industry, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

With the DOJ and the FBI under relentless partisan fire over politically charged domestic investigations dating back to the 2016 presidential election, the initiative to counteract the offensive by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up to a historic scale while going largely unnoticed. According to a review of DOJ press releases, the department has brought more indictments related to Chinese infiltration since 2019 than during the entire eight years of the Obama administration.

“We believe that no country poses a greater threat than communist China,” John Brown, an assistant director at the FBI, said during a Feb. 6 conference. “From our vantage point the United States has not faced a similar threat like this since the Soviet Union and the Cold War.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

COVID-19 Isn’t As Deadly As We Think Don’t hoard masks and food. Figure out how to help seniors and the immunosuppressed stay healthy.Jeremy Samuel Faust

By on March 4th, 2020

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

There are many compelling reasons to conclude that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not nearly as deadly as is currently feared. But COVID-19 panic has set in nonetheless. You can’t find hand sanitizer in stores, and N95 face masks are being sold online for exorbitant prices, never mind that neither is the best way to protect against the virus (yes, just wash your hands). The public is behaving as if this epidemic is the next Spanish flu, which is frankly understandable given that initial reports have staked COVID-19 mortality at about 2–3 percent, quite similar to the 1918 pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.

Allow me to be the bearer of good news. These frightening numbers are unlikely to hold. The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest. Even some lower estimates, such as the 1 percent death rate recently mentioned by the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, likely substantially overstate the case.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the numbers are inflated. In past epidemics, initial CFRs were floridly exaggerated. For example, in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic some early estimates were 10 times greater than the eventual CFR, of 1.28 percent. Epidemiologists think and quibble in terms of numerators and denominators—which patients were included when fractional estimates were calculated, which weren’t, were those decisions valid—and the results change a lot as a result. We are already seeing this. In the early days of the crisis in Wuhan, China, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface. New reports from the World Health Organization that estimate the global death rate of COVID-19 to be 3.4 percent, higher than previously believed, is not cause for further panic. This number is subject to the same usual forces that we would normally expect to inaccurately embellish death rate statistics early in an epidemic. If anything, it underscores just how early we are in this.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Chief Justice John Roberts heading down collision course with himself By Jonathan Turley

By on March 4th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/485687-chief-justice-john-roberts-heading-down-collision-course-with-himself

One of my favorite stories about Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is from one of his train trips to Washington. Holmes forgot his ticket but the train conductor reassured him, “Do not worry about your ticket. We all know who you are. When you get to your destination, you can find it and just mail it to us.” Holmes responded, “My dear man, the problem is not my ticket. The problem is, where am I going?”

Chief Justice John Roberts may have the same uncertainty this week as he finds himself on track to two decisions that will define him and the court. Once heralded as a reliable conservative, Roberts became the swing vote with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Now conservatives are unsure if Roberts will deliver or deflect a coup de grâce with decisions on ObamaCare and abortion. In both cases, he will grapple with his previous views that would push him to vote for decisions with sweeping impacts. For a chief justice who gets sticker shock at such moments, Roberts may find himself evading his prior self in shaping the future court.

Affordable Care Act

The Supreme Court earlier this week accepted an appeal from various states that are controlled by Democrats who seek the reversal of lower courts striking down the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, Roberts saved ObamaCare as the fifth vote in the case of National Federation of Independent Business v. Kathleen Sebelius. In my view, it was one of his weakest opinions as chief justice.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

RASHIDA’ S FRIEND, SENATE TO INVESTIGATE HUNTER BIDEN BURISMA TIES

By on March 4th, 2020

Rashida Tlaib’s Friend Hosts Anti-Semitic Hate Rally in DC

https://clarionproject.org/rashida-tlaibs-friend-hosts-anti-semitic-hate-rally-in-dc-aipac

A close friend of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib hosted an anti-Semitic hate rally in Washington, D.C. opposite the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Abbas Hamideh, Tlaib’s pal and the organizer of the event, is one of the founders of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, an anti-Israel group that regularly vilifies Israel and opposes its right to exist. Al-Awda was the host of Sunday’s anti-Semitic hate rally.

Hamideh regularly praises Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah. He also claims Jews have no history in Israel and that the Jews should “go back to Brooklyn.”

Following her swearing-in ceremony in Detroit, Congresswoman Tlaib hosted a private dinner for close friends and family. Hamideh was one of her guests.

Senate Panel Prepares To Issue First Subpoenas In Burisma, Hunter Biden Investigation

http://stupidfrogs.org/articles/senate_panel_prepares_to_issue_first_subpoenas_in_buris

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is preparing to issue a number of initial subpoenas in the panel’s probe into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian oil and gas company that once employed Hunter Biden as a member of its board of directors, and the organization at the center of a Democratic effort to impeach President Donald Trump.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to members of the Committee late Sunday, according to The Hill, declaring his “intention to schedule a business meeting to consider a committee subpoena.”

That subpoena would reportedly go to Andrii Telizhenko, an individual who worked for Blue Star Strategies, a consulting organization that represented Burisma after it was accused of corruption, per the Daily Caller.

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