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August 2020

Barr’s Dilemma: How to Get Politics Out of the Justice Department By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/08/24/barrs-dilemma-how-to-get-politics-out-of-the-justice-department/#slide-1

The Democrats’ case against the attorney general is wildly distorted

Attorney General William P. Barr has a dilemma: how to purge federal law enforcement of the politicization that has left its reputation in tatters, while simultaneously ensuring accountability in one of modern history’s most politically combustible criminal probes.

That probe, conducted at Barr’s direction by John Durham, the United States Attorney for Connecticut, is scrutinizing the origins and predication of what even the attorney general has taken to calling “Russiagate.” This is the “investigation of the investigators,” focusing on the Obama administration’s — in particular, the FBI’s — counterintelligence and criminal investigations into claimed suspicions of Trump “collusion” with Russia. Based on rank hearsay and speculation, much of it sourced to the Hillary Clinton campaign and since discredited, Obama officials developed a theory that Donald Trump had been complicit in the Kremlin’s hacking of Democratic Party emails. The Kremlin’s supposed goal was to snatch the 2016 presidential election from the heavily favored Hillary Clinton and force Trump, under threat of blackmail, to do Vladimir Putin’s bidding in the Oval Office.

Durham’s probe has drawn the rapt attention of our mercurial president, who, in familiar Trumpian understatement, describes the Obama gambit as “treason.” Ditto for the restive Trump base, which longs for the Democrats’ comeuppance after a three-year “witch hunt,” first by the FBI and then by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. With Election Day less than three months away, Barr has indicated that decisions about whether criminal charges should be filed are imminent.

Hidin’ Biden’s basement convention Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/hidin-biden-basement-mental-fitness-convention/

Not everyone appreciates the extent to which the Democrats pushing Joe Biden for president are students of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

For those of you who think low, let me say straight away that I am not thinking of Coleridge’s penchant for laudanum. No, I am thinking of that other goad to fantasy, Coleridge’s idea, articulated in his book Biographia Literaria (1817), of ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’. (But speaking of thinking low, if we enlarge our gaze to encompass Joe himself, we might also trespass upon the subject of plagiarism. Coleridge cribbed wantonly from the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling just as Joe did from Neil Kinnock and others. Indeed, Joe Biden’s relationship to the truth, especially the truth about his own achievements has always been tenuous.)

Coleridge thought that the human ability to withhold incredulity was an engine to defeat implausibility by marshaling the seductive blandishments of the imagination — more or less what Pooh-Bah had in mind when he spoke of mere ‘corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative’.

So what about Joe Biden’s ‘big right arm’, wither his ‘snickersnee’? It’s not surprising that Joe has decided to forgo the trip to Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention ‘due to coronavirus concerns’. Instead, he will address the convention, and presumably accept his party’s nomination, from his bunker (what some call his basement) in Delaware.

Never has a virus been so oversold I’d like to sign on with COVID’s agent. What a publicity budget Lionel Shriver

https://spectator.us/never-virus-been-oversold/

There’s nothing unprecedented about COVID-19 itself. The equally novel, equally infectious Asian flu of 1957 had commensurate fatalities in Britain: scaled up for today’s population, the equivalent of 42,000, while the UK’s (statistically flawed) COVID death total now stands at 46,000. Globally, the Asian flu was vastly more lethal, causing between two and four million deaths. The Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 also slew up to four million people worldwide, including 80,000 Britons. Yet in both instances, life went on.

What is unprecedented: never has a virus been so oversold. Why, I’d like to sign on with COVID’s agent. What a publicity budget.

In a recent Kekst CNC poll, British respondents estimated that nearly 7 percent of the UK population has died from the coronavirus. That would be 4.5 million people. Scots supposed that more than 10 percent of the UK population has died. That would be seven million people. Astonishingly, Americans believed that COVID has killed nine percent of their compatriots, or almost 30 million people! The real US total has indeed crossed the milestone of 150,000, but for pity’s sake, ‘only’ 20 million people died in World War One.

True, your average everyman and woman are not dab hands at statistics. Nevertheless, broadcast news has bludgeoned audiences daily with COVID death totals. And a citizenry ought to have some vague notion of their country’s population. So folks convinced that in five meagre months they’ve lost a tenth of their fellows — the literal meaning of the word ‘decimate’ — need only drop a digit to realize how absurdly their bloated estimate compares with familiar figures on the news. But then, the public is never good with zeroes — a failing which treasuries in deficit count on.

U.S. Adds 1.8 Million Jobs, Unemployment Drops to 10.2 Percent By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-adds-1-8m-jobs-unemployment-drops-to-10-2-percent/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped from 11.1 percent to 10.2 percent in July, beating economists’ predictions even as many states have paused or reversed their reopenings in light of coronavirus case spikes.

Employers added 1.8 million jobs in July, according to the Labor Department’s Friday jobs report, a significant slowing down from the 4.8 million jobs created in June, which was the highest recorded. While the economy has recovered 42 percent of the 22 million jobs it lost during the pandemic over the past three months, there are still 10.6 million more unemployed Americans today than there were in February

Economists had expected unemployment to drop to 10.5 percent and for the economy to have added 1.6 million jobs in July, according to a survey by Refinitiv. 

 

“While these numbers are a bit better than forecast, there still isn’t much to be upbeat about from this jobs report,” Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group, told Fox Business. “Re-openings have been rolling backwards, weekly jobless claims are continuing to pile up and we’re still operating from a huge deficit compared to the beginning of the year.”

Five More Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Susan Rice By Fred Fleitz

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/five-more-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-susan-rice/

Ineptitude is the theme that runs throughout her diplomatic and national-security career.

Joe Biden is reportedly considering Barack Obama’s former national-security adviser Susan Rice to be his running mate. National Review’s Jim Geraghty recently told us “20 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Susan Rice.”

I worked with Rice during the Clinton administration and have five more things the public needs to know.

1. Rice was obsessed with U.N. peacekeeping to solve world conflicts. Rice was a key architect of a disastrous Clinton-administration policy — Presidential Decision Directive 25. PDD-25, as the document was called, sought to implement “assertive multilateralism” to address all global conflicts with U.N. peacekeepers. This concept, the brainchild of Rice’s mentor Madeleine Albright, former ambassador to the United Nations, rested on the assumption that due to the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and U.N. peacekeepers could be used to address global conflicts instead of U.S. troops. PDD-25 was so radical that at one point an early draft advocated giving the U.N. the ability to tax international phone calls to pay for new peacekeeping missions. Assertive multilateralism was a spectacular failure since it led to the deployment of lightly armed, often poorly disciplined U.N. peacekeepers in war zones such as Bosnia, Haiti, Liberia, and Somalia, where many were killed or taken hostage.

2. Rice disliked hearing opposing views. As part of my duties as a CIA analyst covering U.N. issues, I briefed Susan Rice on classified and unclassified information related to her job. It was clear that she was not interested in — and objected to — hearing intelligence that contradicted her personal views. She and her NSC boss Richard Clarke were determined to ram through PDD-25 and tried to silence officers from other government agencies (including myself) who expressed skepticism about deploying U.N. peacekeepers to war zones and civil wars. Rice also made clear to me that she did not want to hear about U.N. waste and corruption. During the one occasion when I tried to brief her on an incident of serious U.N. corruption, she cut me off by saying, “Do you know how much a B-1 bomber costs?” Her point was she did not care how much money the U.N. wasted because she believed the U.S. government wasted more.

Trump Signs Executive Order to Reduce US Reliance on China for Medicine By Emel Akan

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-signs-executive-order-to-reduce-us-rel

In response to supply disruptions caused by the pandemic, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 in Clyde, Ohio, to ensure that essential medicines, medical supplies, and equipment are made in the United States.

Speaking at Whirlpool Corporation’s manufacturing facility in northwest Ohio, Trump said, “We’ll end reliance on China just like we did with the washers and dryers.”

“As we celebrate Whirlpool’s 109-year legacy of American Manufacturing excellence, today I want to lay out my vision to bring millions more jobs and thousands more factories back to American shores, where they belong.”

In 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on imported washers to help domestic manufacturers such as Whirlpool, a Michigan-based manufacturer.

As a result of the tariffs, Trump said Whirlpool’s nine factories across the country have thrived.

“During the course of the next four years, we will bring our pharmaceutical and medical supply chains home,” Trump said. “We cannot rely on China and other nations across the globe.”

Bill de Blasio Confesses to Violating NYC Permit Process to Paint Black Lives Matter Mural By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/06/bill-de-blasio-confesses-to-violating-nyc-permit-process-to-paint-black-lives-matter-mural/

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-N.Y.) was forced to admit that his administration ignored the usual rules and processes for acquiring a public art permit to paint the now-infamous “Black Lives Matter” mural on 5th Avenue, according to the Daily Caller.

The city of New York was sued by the group Women for America First, who claim that their application to paint a mural was denied. De Blasio, in a transcript posted to the city government’s website addressing that denied request, claimed that “we haven’t said no to people. We’ve said, if you want to apply, you can apply, but there’s a process.”

However, in making the decision to paint the controversial mural on the street right in front of Trump Tower, de Blasio said that they circumvented the usual permit application process because the mural, in his mind, “transcends all normal realities because we are in a moment of history where this has to be said and done.” He even admitted that the “normal process continues for anyone who wants to apply.”

The mural, which was partially painted by de Blasio himself and professional race-baiter Al Sharpton for a photo-op, has since become the site of numerous heated confrontations between conservative demonstrators and far-left agitators. Several activists have performed acts of civil disobedience by throwing paint on the mural.

Raising Muslim Kids as Foot-Soldiers Zeal for an impending Caliphate. Radhika Singh

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/raising-muslim-kids-foot-soldiers-radhika-singh/

Just as the crowd of recovered Covid-19 patients takes a position for a picture, as victors who defeated the virus, a six-year-old among them jumps in joy, sloganeering, “Hum Modi ko Marenge.” It translates as, “We will kill Modi.”

Narendra Modi is the sitting Prime Minister of India. He was elected democratically in 2014, and again, in 2019. Being the non-conventional Prime Minister who didn’t emerge from the leftist coterie and didn’t pander to Islamists in the name of secularism, Modi was never a favorite of the liberals. His sentiments toward Muslims was no secret either. In the past six years, the silent majority learned to live with their elected chief being disparaged by the self-declared flagbearers of morality, who, claiming higher moral ground, had wished death upon the Prime Minister multiple times.

Up came a case that was a little different, though not unexpected. A six-year-old Muslim child’s entire family had tested positive for Covid-19 and were linked with the group Tabligi Jamaat that acted as super-spreaders in the initial stages of the pandemic in India.

After the members of this Muslim family were discharged from Index Hospital in Indore, India, they lined up for a photo-op. Since having recovered, they have become a success story. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and political leaders joined the family to congratulate them on their recovery.

China’s Genocide Machine in Xinjiang by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16306/china-genocide-xinjiang

Crimes against humanity that meet the UN definition of genocide are being inflicted by Chinese troops on their Turkic Uyghur minority in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Charges include torture, forced sterilization and hair shaved from inmates and made into commercial products. Last month, US Customs seized 13 tons of human hair and other “beauty products” worth approximately $800,000 “from Uighurs in camps.”

The most detailed description of the brutalities visited upon the Uyghurs by Han Chinese thugs was revealed by U.S.-based lawyer and Uyghur activist Nury Turkel, who claimed that Uyghur detainees in China have had fingernails pulled out, were subjected to electric shocks, and were sexually assaulted.

Uyghurs, many of whom were CCP regulars and members of Xinjiang’s intellectual elite, were once tolerated, but now are no longer trusted. Some, like the former President of Xinjiang University Tashpolat Tiyip, have been arrested and accused of being “two faced” betrayers of China. Many Uyghurs have been plucked from their families and forced to work in prison-like factories where they are becoming part of Xinjiang’s growing urban manufacturing class, producing items for companies that are suppliers for “international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo.”

The Chinese Communist Party’s chairman, Xi Jinping, and his colleagues on the ruling Politburo, have, it seems, decided on the final solution for China’s ethnic Uyghur Muslims. All who have seen the internet drone footage in Xinjiang of hundreds of blindfolded, male prisoners, sitting in silence, hands tied behind their back while ringed by Gestapo-like guards must shudder at the similarity in China of masses of prisoners being marched off to concentration camps.

Crimes against humanity that meet the UN definition of genocide are being inflicted by Chinese troops on their Turkic Uyghur minority in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Charges include torture, forced sterilization and hair shaved from inmates and made into commercial products. Last month, US Customs seized 13 tons of human hair and other “beauty products” worth approximately $800,000 “from Uighurs in camps.”

The Perils of Pretending a War is Something Else Time to end the charade. David Horowitz

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/perils-pretending-war-something-else-david-horowitz/

If you haven’t noticed yet, our political life is rapidly descending into a series of charades with the potential for catastrophe. In case you think that a “charade” is just a parlor game, here is a dictionary definition: “an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance.” The peril created by false appearances in the current political climate is blindness in the face of the evil that threatens us.

Is there a person of sound mind in the entire country – Democrat or Republican – who thinks Joe Biden is mentally up to the job of leading a deeply divided nation, coping with a pandemic and facing threats from nuclear enemies like Russia and China, or terrorist regimes like Iran? Daily now, we are watching an already impaired individual, closeted in a basement, mentally deteriorating in front of our eyes, with a national election only three months away. And not one national figure is shouting “WTF?! What are the consequences for our country if we continue this charade?”

The mere fact that Biden’s candidacy to be commander-in-chief is supported by a major political party, whose leaders are appear before TV cameras daily reassuring voters his candidacy is normal – the mere fact of this absurdity should alarm every decent American who cares about our future. The reassurance by Democrats and their pundits – without a single objector – that Biden has the knowledge, experience and yah-da-da to stand up to the destructive leftists he is now allied with, or to defend the nation against its enemies or to lead us through all the crises we facet, is even scarier than the extreme policies – open borders for instance – that he has already endorsed.