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September 2020

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Remember When Hillary Said ‘Joe Biden Should Not Concede Under Any Circumstances’? By Matt Margolis

By on September 25th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/matt-margolis/2020/09/24/remember-when-hillary-said-joe-biden-should-not-concede-under-any-circumstances-n964501

Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused President Trump of being a dictator on Thursday after headlines alleged that he “refused” to commit to the peaceful transfer of power in the event that he loses the election.

“Trump’s refusal to commit to the peaceful transfer of power is the behavior of a desperate would-be dictator who’d cling to office even if it meant destroying our democracy,” she tweeted. “It’s pathetic. But because he is the president, we should take his threat seriously.”

Of course, as PJM’s Rick Moran noted, Trump never actually made the comment as the media has portrayed. “The media just wants to hear Trump repeat one more time that he won’t commit to ‘accepting’ the results of the election if it was fraudulent.” This sentiment isn’t much different than what Hillary Clinton herself said a month ago. Though what Hillary said might actually be worse because she said Joe Biden should not to concede the election “under any circumstances.”

“We have to have poll workers and I urge people who are able to be a poll worker. We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places, this is a big organizational challenge,” she said.

“But at least we know more about what they’re going to do. And Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Military Ballots Found in the Trash in Pennsylvania—All Were Trump Votes By Matt Margolis

By on September 25th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/matt-margolis/2020/09/24/military-ballots-found-in-the-trash-in-pennsylvania-all-were-trump-votes-n964614

Mail-in ballots from the military serving overseas were found in the trash in Pennsylvania. The ballots were discovered during an investigation into election issues in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. They were all votes for President Trump.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Pennsylvania released a statement on the situation on Thursday:

On Monday, September 21, 2020, at the request of Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis, the Office of the United States Attorney along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Scranton Resident Office, began an inquiry into reports of potential issues with a small number of mail-in ballots at the Luzerne County Board of Elections.

Since Monday, FBI personnel working together with the Pennsylvania State Police have conducted numerous interviews and recovered and reviewed certain physical evidence. Election officials in Luzerne County have been cooperative. At this point we can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded. Investigators have recovered nine ballots at this time. Some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters and some cannot. All nine ballots were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.

While nine ballots have been recovered, it is not clear how many were actually discarded.

This announcement comes on the heels of a report that three trays of mail, including absentee ballots, were discovered in a ditch in Wisconsin.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany addressed both these stories on Thursday.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Will Media Ever Ask About Biden’s Corrupt Deals As Vice President?

By on September 25th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/25/will-media-ever-ask-about-bidens-corrupt-deals-as-vice-president/

Joe Biden continues to duck appearances where he might have to make unscripted comments or answer even softball questions. But a new congressional report,  “Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns,” may change that in the upcoming debates: It asks, did Vice President Biden use his global political influence to help his son Hunter bag lucrative deals in Ukraine and China? Americans deserve an answer.

The GOP-led investigation charged that the Bidens’ efforts to cash in on Joe Biden’s clout became so flagrant that U.S. officials became alarmed at what they saw. It was “an ethical conflict of interest and flagged concerns about possible criminal activity ranging from bribery to sex trafficking,” according to investigative reporter John Solomon of the Just the News website.

Reporting over the years (mainly by conservative or nonpartisan web-based outlets) on Biden’s questionable and possibly illegal moves while in office to help Hunter line his pockets has solid evidence backing it up. The report, put together by the Senate Homeland and Government Affairs and Senate Finance committees, raises serious issues about the Bidens’ behavior. To wit:

Quid pro quo? Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Ukrainian energy exploration and production company Burisma in May 2014 and stepped down in April 2019, having been paid an estimated $50,000 a month for his services. Hunter Biden had virtually no expertise in the energy field and appears to have been given the post solely for his political connections.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Pompeo: Chinese Consulate in NYC Is Espionage Hub By Zachary Evans

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pompeo-chinese-consulate-in-nyc-is-espionage-hub/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the Chinese consulate in New York City is a center for espionage, in comments to the New York Post on Thursday.

Pompeo’s remarks came after the Justice Department charged an NYPD officer on Monday with spying for China. The officer, Baimadajie Angwang, is accused of arranging invitations for Chinese officials to NYPD events, in order to gain access to senior ranks of the NYPD.  Angwang is an ethnic Tibetan who also gathered information for China on Tibetans in the city.

The Justice Department alleged that Angwang was in contact with at least two consulate officials. Pompeo said there would likely be additional arrests of agents connected with the consulate.

Officials in the consulate are “engaged in activities where they’re crossing the line from normal diplomacy to the kinds of things that would be more akin to what spies are doing,” Pompeo told the Post.

In addition to the New York consulate, Pompeo warned that China’s spying efforts may extend to its United Nations personnel.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

When Conventional Wisdom Gets Downright Dangerous By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/when-conventional-wisdom-gets-downright-dangerous/?utm_source=

T he problem with conventional wisdom is not that it is always wrong. The rub is that the majority of “experts” unthinkingly and habitually mouth its validity until they ensure that it becomes static, unchanging, and immune from reexamination and dissent — an intolerant religious orthodoxy that finally become dangerous.

The recent Middle East breakthroughs are a perfect example. Both the Obama and Trump administrations sought quite different ways of navigating through the nearly 75-year-old “Middle East problem,” usually framed as the Israeli–“Palestinian” question.

Obama, in radical fashion, sought to empower and elevate Iran. The so-called Iran deal, the dropping of sanctions, the nocturnal infusions of cash, the exemptions for clear violations of the deal’s protocols, the nefarious work of Hezbollah — all that and more was excused on the theory that a growing Persian Shiite Iranian nexus from Tehran to the Mediterranean was inevitable and would “balance” both Israel and the so-called moderate Sunni Arab states. That realignment might prevent a Middle East war and end the leverage of America’s former Arab allies and Israel over us.

What destroyed the fantasy was not just its sheer idiocy — ensuring that a revolutionary, anti-Western theocracy would soon get nuclear weapons and become “moderate” while empowering its terrorist minions in their destructive agendas in Syria, Lebanon, and the Gulf states, as well as Europe and Latin America.

Instead, we see the futility of embracing Iran in its corollary — the old saw that the Palestinians were still central to the Obama administration’s gambit. That is, an empowered Iran, as the self-described revolutionary and chief patron of the Palestinians, would use its new clout to pressure Israel to offer concessions to the Palestinians, without any corresponding recognition of the Jewish state or reduction in Palestinians’ anti-Zionist bellicosity.

The Arab world then would be forced to rival Iran to regain its anti-Israel credentials, further bolstering the power-broking ability of the much-courted Palestinians. Eventually, Israel would concede and usher in a defiant and completely autonomous West Bank nation. Palestine Inc. would then reciprocate Israeli magnanimity by concluding peace with the Jewish state now confined within its 1967 borders. And so Middle East peace would reign.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Civilization Requires Collective Common Sense By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/coronavirus-policing-wildfires-effective-response-requires-collective-common-sense/#slide-1

Experts, not commonsense citizens, have been failing America.

Without common sense in government, civilization cannot continue.

After the summer protests and rioting in many large cities, activists demanded a defunding, or at least radical pullbacks, of the police. So-called crime experts often concurred. So some city governments ignored public warnings and diminished their police presence despite a sharp rise in crime in many cities. Looting and arson were often ignored.

If you call 911 in a large American city, there is no guarantee that anyone will answer promptly and send out police to aid the endangered. So gun sales have soared. Some people who never before owned weapons, or who even opposed the use of firearms, are now terrified to remain unarmed. Self-protection often outweighs abstract ideology.

According to a recent Gallup poll, most black Americans favor maintaining or increasing police presence. Often, city officials who support cutting back on law enforcement still expect their own homes and property to be constantly policed. The same is often true of activist elites who live far from the inner city.

Large swaths of the American West are now charred by out-of-control wildfires. Some governors and many federal bureaucrats blame the conflagrations on climate change. But those who actually live within forests, or on mountains and foothills, that are historically vulnerable to wildfires know that the epic droughts of 2013–15 killed or dried out millions of acres of trees and vegetation.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

How to Take Back American History By Stanley Kurtz

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-to-take-back-american-history/

Our schools have buried the glory and beauty of America’s story under a mountain of misplaced guilt and tendentious ideology. Yes, there are faults in our story — the stain of slavery above all. Yet the weight and significance of our tale lay in the striving to overcome our failings. American history is, in part, the chronicle of our attempts to more perfectly realize the principles of liberty and equality that inspired our founding. There is a way for America’s schools to grasp this truth and again impart an honest and confident pride in our story. That path emerged last week when President Trump spoke at the National Archives. Yet the full significance of the education strategy laid out by the president has been missed.

President Trump’s remarks were delivered at the White House Conference on American History. So far, news out of that event has highlighted the president’s intention to appoint a 1776 Commission to forward patriotic education in our nation’s schools. That is only a part of the picture, however. The fuller story emerges when you attend to the conference that preceded the president’s address, and to an important yet overlooked moment in his remarks.

The White House Conference on American History helped to introduce a new solution to the decline of history education in this country. American Achievement Testing (AAT), a new non-profit company, has formed an alliance with the historian Wilfred McClay, whose extraordinary new American history textbook, Land of Hope, is unlike any text currently available. In partnership with the National Association of Scholars (NAS), AAT recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), to design instructional materials for K–12 U.S. history courses, with Land of Hope as their core text. Theodor Rebarber, CEO of AAT, Wilfred McClay, author of Land of Hope, and Peter Wood, president of NAS, all spoke at the White House Conference on American history, as did Jordan Adams, who supervises history instruction at the system of charter schools associated with Hillsdale College, where Land of Hope is used as a text. (Other presentations less directly related to AAT’s project are well worth watching.) President Trump touted the NEH grant during his speech and asked Rebarber, McClay, and Wood to stand and be recognized. (You can see a video of the conference, with talks by Wood, McClay, Rebarber, Adams, and others here, and video of the president’s remarks here.) AAT’s U.S. history course materials — and the way they will be adopted — hold the key to the president’s new education reform plans.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How CIA’s Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary By Paul Sperry,

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/09/24/secret_report_how_cias_brennan_overruled_dissenting_analysts_who_thought_russia_favored_hillary_125315.html

Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan’s take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan’s role in drafting the document.

The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of the report — known as the “Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)” — just two weeks before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his presidency. Democrats and national media have cited the report to suggest Russia influenced the 2016 outcome and warn that Putin is likely meddling again to reelect Trump.

The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the “collusion” probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why New York City Is In Trouble – 114,041 Public Employees With $100,000+ Paychecks Cost Taxpayers $14.6 Billion Adam Andrzejewski

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/09/24/why-new-york-city-is-i

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants a $12 billion coronavirus bailout from the American taxpayer. So, our auditors dug into how the city spent their budget in 2019. 

We found 114,000 highly compensated city employees who made more than $100,000 last year. 

For comparison, all Texas local and state governments employ 78,000 six-figure earners. All Florida governments employ 50,000 six-figure earners.

Today, our investigation is an Editors’ Pick at Forbes. Here are just a few of our findings:

Skyrocketing payroll — in 2016, there were 76,000 six-figure earners. Today, there are 114,000. 
The fire department fired a whistleblower and then settled for $800,000 last year. 
The mayor’s wife, who serves as a “volunteer,” has a staff of 14 employees costing taxpayers $2 million per year. 
50,000 six-figure educators — whose students underperform in national math and reading tests.
The NYC Human Rights Commission — dedicated to stopping discrimination — doesn’t pay their student interns! 

New York City is a mess. Literally. 

Despite a $32 million war-on-rats campaign. The rats are winning. Our auditors found that complaints of rats spotted on city street spiked 38-percent last year! 

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Amid coronavirus, this year’s Yom Kippur is another kind of war Ruthie Blum

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/amid-coronavirus-this-years-yom-kippur-is-another-kind-of-war-643482

Most of the country is focused on the current battle against the COVID-19 pandemic – or, rather, on the fever-pitch fighting within the government about how to curb the alarming rise in morbidity.
For the first time in decades, the Israeli press is not devoting the lead-up to the Day of Atonement with stories about and lessons learned from the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

Instead, the bulk of the news and accompanying analysis is focused on the current battle against the COVID-19 pandemic – or, rather, on the fever-pitch fighting within the government about how to curb the alarming rise in morbidity and fatality rates.
Unlike other issues at the root of major rifts between politicians and the sectors that they supposedly represent, however, this one seems to have no clear camps. And, as Israelis are used to having actual enemies to confront – either with swords or pens – the debate over coronavirus closures has been causing great confusion. 

Indeed, though by this point there is wide consensus that the situation is dire, there has been little agreement, even among medical professionals, on how to reverse the worrisome trend. To make matters even more complicated, the same experts and lawmakers have shifted their positions. 

Much of the public responded to the flip-flops and arbitrary directives by ignoring them completely or by looking for loopholes. This triggered others to feel like patsies and follow suit.

Finally, after days of deliberations – following a semi-lockdown during the past week that was barely enforced – the coronavirus cabinet decided on a complete nationwide lockdown, to begin Friday and last at least until the end of the Jewish holidays in October.

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