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September 2020

MEDIA Comments turned off

AG Barr Rips National Media as a ‘Collection of Liars’ Over Riot Coverage Katie Pavlich

By on September 13th, 2020

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/09/11/exclusive-ag-barr-rips-national-media-as-a-collection-of-liars-over-riot-coverage-n2576070

Wrapping up a three-day tour in Chicago, Phoenix and Cleveland Friday, Attorney General Bill Barr took on the media during an exclusive interview with Townhall.

“They’re basically a collection of liars. Most of the mainstream media. They’re a collection of liars and they know exactly what they’re doing. A perfect example of that were the riots. Right on the street it was clear as day what was going on, anyone observing it, reporters observing it, it could not have escaped their attention that this was orchestrated violence by a hardened group of street fighting radicals and they kept on excluding from their coverage all the video of this and reporting otherwise and they were doing that for partisan reasons, and they were lying to the American people. It wasn’t until they were caught red-handed after essentially weeks of this lie that they even started feeling less timid,” Barr said on the flight back to Washington Friday afternoon.

“The press has dropped, in my view – and I’m talking about the national mainstream media – has dropped any pretense of professional objectivity and are political actors, highly partisan who try to shape what they’re reporting to achieve a political purpose and support a political narrative that has nothing to do with the truth. They’re very mendacious about it,” he continued. “It’s very destructive to our Republic; it’s very destructive to the Democratic system to have that, especially being so monolithic. It’s contributing to a lot of the intensity and partisanship.”

For months major news networks have portrayed riots across the country as “peaceful protests.” CNN ran a chyron of a reporter standing in front of a burning Kenosha business that read, “Fiery but mostly peaceful protest.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Europe Divided and Unfree written by Brian Stewart

By on September 12th, 2020

https://quillette.com/2020/09/03/a-europe-divided-and-unfree/

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has believed it is more resilient than it is, and less vulnerable. It has indulged the conceit that it will never again find itself at daggers drawn with its Russian neighbor. In the European imagination, post-communist Russia posed no threat, a convenient interpretation that remained intact even after the rise of the KGB’s mafia state and the projection of Moscow’s imperial designs on its “near abroad.” At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin spoke of a “unipolar world”—meaning one dominated by the United States—that would prove “pernicious not only for all those within this system but also for the sovereign itself.” America’s “hyper use of force,” declared the Russian president, was “plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.”

At the time, with an unpopular Republican president at the helm in Washington—unpopular, that is, in Europe, though also in America—Europeans extended a generous reception to Putin’s remarks. Many Europeans retained their traditional skepticism of American power and remained committed to the idea of a “different” European foreign policy, though few bothered to explain what that might entail. Sovereignty was the all-consuming interest in Europe in those days, and with US soldiers garrisoned en masse across the broader Middle East, European officials detected more danger in American unilateralism than unchecked jihadism, let alone Russian revanchism. More than a decade later—after Russian aggression dismembered Georgia and Ukraine, and a bloody foray into the Levant, and now the prospect of Russian aid for the Belarusian dictatorship—they might wish to reconsider.

Of course, Europe was then and is now highly skeptical of any use of force as well as the notion of permanent conflict. It is no longer the Europe of Napoleon and Bismarck, much less that of Plato and Thucydides. Instead, as Robert Kagan pointed out in his ingenious 2003 work Of Paradise and Power, it is the Europe of Immanuel Kant. Traumatized by the hideous experiences of the 20th century, Europeans have adopted a postmodern and posthistorical view that military force is unnecessary—immoral, even—in a world where problems ought to be resolved through the ambit of law. Thus Europe has tended to look on America’s abidingly muscular approach in world affairs with bitter incomprehension. Until very recently, Americans have hailed from Mars while Europeans—at least since launching the European Union—have resided on Venus.

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ELECTIONS, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Stacey Abrams’s Delusions of Grandeur By John Loftus

By on September 12th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/movie-review-all-in-stacey-abrams/

A new documentary focusing on Abrams mixes real history with modern myths.

Voter suppression has become a national talking point,” a narrator says in the new Amazon documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy.

Indeed, it has. As November 3 fast approaches, conversations are boiling on the issues of voter suppression, mail-in voting (and its pitfalls), poll access in a pandemic, and voter fraud. But the national talking point of voter suppression is, at the end of the day, just a hip talking point. And it also is a myth. It has also become a very convenient, useful, and savvy excuse for Stacey Abrams’s loss in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. All In: The Fight for Democracy, though sharply filmed, well crafted, and quite creative in its use of animation, ultimately peddles myth and delusions of grandeur.The documentary mixes history, political science, and memoir. It is entertaining at times, but also alarming. It revisits the United States’ bloody, racist past via photographs, newsreel footage, and clips of D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. It is horrific, and to be clear, this section isn’t myth. The alarming, mythical aspects are the documentary’s flirting with the “1619” interpretation of the Constitution; its full-bodied embrace of identity politics; and its creators’ genuine belief that certain states’ voting laws in 2020 are Jim Crow 2.0.

Directors Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés imply that the origins of the supposed voter-suppression crisis of 2020 lie not in racist practice alone. Rather, it begins with the very wording of the Constitution and its malicious drafters, who sought to forever exclude blacks, minorities, and women from fully participating in democratic elections. For Garbus, Cortés, and Abrams, the constitutional well is poisoned. This is a misleading view. Of course there were times throughout American history when whites — most notably, members of the Ku Klux Klan — actively barred minorities from voting in local elections. They instilled fear into black communities through lynching, and set up cruel, tautological literacy tests to vet potential voters. Women wouldn’t vote until the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. But the American founding and the Founding document are nearly perfect, if imperfectly applied across the centuries. No other country in the history of the world began with such a revolutionary piece of paper, based on such revolutionary ideas. In 2020, more freedom and prosperity have been attained by all races, creeds, sexes, genders, etc. Fill in your identity group of choice, and they will be protected by the Constitution.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

What Bahrain’s deal with Israel really means Trump is bringing major changes to the Middle East Charles Lipson

By on September 12th, 2020

https://spectator.us/bahrain-israel-peace-deal-trump-middle-east-iran/

On September 15, representatives from the oil-rich Kingdom of Bahrain will meet Israeli leaders at the White House to sign a historic peace deal. It will normalize relations between the Muslim state and the Jewish one, not long after the United Arab Emirates concluded a similar pact. Expect more such ‘normalization deals’. They supplement other White House initiatives, such as the deal it brokered between Serbia and Kosovo, which includes both countries establishing closer relations with Israel.

The deals are significant for several reasons. First, they represent a common regional front against the Iranian threat, which has been developing beneath the surface for some time. Their public expression sends a stronger signal to Iran and opens the door to greater cooperation between Arab states and Israel, the region’s most developed economy and the leader in advanced military technology.

These deals also signal that Arab-Muslim regimes are less concerned with domestic, Islamist opposition to their outreach to Israel. Equally important, they show that the Palestinian Authority no longer holds a veto over fellow Muslims’ relations with Israel. We saw another sign of Palestinian weakness last week when the Arab League refused to condemn the UAE for its accord with Israel.

What changed to prompt these deals? The answer is not a greater threat from Iran. The danger from the mullahs is no higher now than it was in 2005, 2010, or 2015. Iran’s Sunni neighbors and Israel have all been threatened by Tehran’s expansionism, aggressive religious ideology, and support for terrorist movements for years. Yet, until recently, Israel was the only country seeking normalization with its Arab neighbors. What finally convinced the Arab states to come to the table was actually a shift in US policy.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Democrats’ Destroy-Trump Efforts Almost Comical By Joan Swirsky

By on September 12th, 2020

https://canadafreepress.com/article/democrats-destroy-trump-efforts-almost-comical

For the past 50 or more years, the Democrat Party––always leftwing but today both viciously anti-American and virulently anti-Semitic––has worked tirelessly to inflict its worldview on everyone in America.

By stealthily infiltrating our media, our schools (from pre-school to universities), and since Obama our Intelligence Services and Military, it has sought to convince our electorate that high taxes, open borders, sanctuary cities, shipping manufacturing jobs to foreign countries, post-birth infanticide, and total government control from cradle to grave are good––and that the U.S. Constitution, capitalism, high employment, law and order, indeed patriotism are bad.

No one has spelled out the devolution of the Democrat Party and the key players responsible for its demise more comprehensively than writer Shari Goodman––read her entire article here!

WORSE THAN COVID-19

Since the election of 2016, when business mogul Donald J. Trump outsmarted 20 Republican opponents, all career politicians, and trounced Hillary in the Electoral College to win the presidency, Democrats seem to have contracted a mutating virus a thousand times worse than Covid-19.

The anti-Trump symptoms are identical in all of those “tolerant” Regressives: 

·         Shout down opposing views.

·         Spew insults and epithets.

·         Create falsehoods and pretend they’re true.

·         Support the domestic anarchists and terrorists of Black Lives Matter and Antifa and the vast destruction they’ve sown for the last four months.

·         Vow to vote for a seriously cognitively compromised candidate and a running mate who accused him of both racism and sexism.

Almost comical!

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden: From No Campaign to Faux Campaign J.T. Young

By on September 12th, 2020

https://spectator.org/biden-campaign-2020/

Biden has gone from no campaigning to faux campaigning. Over the last two weeks, America has gotten a good look at the Biden campaign’s strategy and tactics for the race’s homestretch. They intend to focus primarily on race, while minimizing direct exposure and maximizing their indirect exposure through advertising.

President Trump’s law-and-order offensive and polling rebound explain why Biden is abandoning his virtual campaign for at least a vestigial one.

On September 4, Rasmussen’s job approval daily tracking poll showed Trump with a 52 percent approval rating. This matched his 2020 high, last hit on February 27, following his Senate impeachment trial acquittal and before coronavirus lockdowns. It is also 4 percentage points better than Obama had on the same date in 2012. With Biden’s poll leads already shrinking, Rasmussen’s results showed Trump could have further upside too.

Biden’s campaign had gone on Spring Break and never returned. In an August 31 piece, the New York Times delicately explained that “the coronavirus shuttered the campaign trail in March” to describe Biden’s public absence. The reality is that as soon as Biden had secured the nomination, he ceased making public appearances to avoid the gaffes that had plagued him at rallies and with the press.

The tightening race has produced increasing Democrat anxiety. As the New York Times again reported, “Some Democrats worry that Mr. Biden has not been public enough in laying out his own views. Concerned allies have been on the phone with Mr. Biden’s team in recent days urging him to get out more.” And by “more,” they meant “some.”

So last week the Biden camp unveiled a different approach from that of the last six months. To counter President Trump’s momentum from his law-and-order attacks, Biden made speeches, attended a listening session, met the press, and unleashed his biggest ad buy.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump has a plan for any post-election insurrection Andrea Widburg

By on September 12th, 2020

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/trump_has_a_plan_for_any_postelection_insurrection.html

Last week, I predicted that if Trump has a clear victory on November 3, any uprisings after the election will be of short duration because Trump will have a clear path to end them.  On Thursday, Trump confirmed that this is what he intends to do.

My post came about because I was thinking about the Democrats’ threat that, if the election result is anything but an overwhelming victory for Biden, they will take to the streets in orgies of violence.  They are also threatening to overthrow the usual processes of the Electoral College by sending Democrat party electors even if the state has broken for Trump on election day.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Never-Trumpers Need A Lesson In Basic Math

By on September 12th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/11/never-trumpers-need-a-lesson-in-basic-math/

In his op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Walter Olson defends his decision to not vote for Trump four years ago by saying he will double-dog not vote for him this year.

Like every other never-Trumper, the reason is almost entirely personal.

“No modern president has shown so little care for or grasp of how government works … his conduct fell short of what Americans should expect … the lack of impulse control, the vindictive meanness of spirit, the Niagara of lies,” Olson writes.

He hoped Trump would, once in the White House, “put away childish things … and banish his internal Falstaff.” But alas, Olson writes, “Mr. Trump didn’t change. He won’t change now.”

Let’s leave aside the tenuous claim that Trump’s conduct disqualifies him. Compared to what? Bill Clinton’s Oval Office assignations with an intern? Barack Obama’s repeated attempts to bypass the Constitution to get his leftist policies enacted, or use the IRS and the FBI to hamper political opponents? And never mind about the illegal wars, mass internments, spying on political opponents, and other violations committed by past presidents.

Let’s even concede that Olson and other never-Trumpers are right that Trump has debased the office with his mean tweets, loose grasp of facts, and inappropriate off-the-cuff remarks.

So what?

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Systemic Racism? Think Again. By David Solway

By on September 12th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/09/11/systemic-racism-think-again-n920545

The funny thing about the word “systemic” is that it more often than not has no referent—that is, it often refers to nothing concrete or observable, but is essentially an expression of unverifiable belief or, in the case of assumed racism or “critical race theory,” a “social justice” delusion. There are systemic realities, of course, but racism in the U.S.—or in my country, Canada—is not one of them.

When noted black writer, lawyer, and columnist Larry Elder challenged his interviewer Dave Rubin, who assumed the existence of that evanescent something called “systemic racism,” Rubin was unable to come up with a single example of this apparent social evil. There are, of course, empirical examples of racism against blacks, but also against browns, reds, whites, and everything in between. This is a human reality that cannot be expunged—though it can be mitigated. However, despite the spread of BLM riots and protests across the country, there is nothing systemically racist about the United States.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, America has become one of the most racially tolerant nations in the world. A country in which blacks are materially represented in the national community as actors, sports figures, journalists, broadcasters, police chiefs, surgeons, notable scholars, academics, poets, novelists, university presidents, corporate executives, municipal mayors, state governors, members of Congress and Supreme Court justices, including a black president, two black attorneys general and two black White House chiefs of staff, is not a racist country. The notion of “systemic racism” is a powerful revolutionary motivator, a handy slogan bandied about by race baiters and “social justice” agitators, but it is nothing less than a monumental canard. There is no such thing.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Republicans demand answers on Mueller team wiping phones, suggest ‘anticipatory obstruction of justice’ Congressional Republicans call the purported accidental ‘wiping’ an ‘amazing coincidence’

By on September 12th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-demand-answers-on-muellers-team-wiping-phones

Congressional Republicans demanded answers on Friday as to whether there “was a widespread intentional effort” to wipe the mobile devices of multiple people on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Russia probe, and suggested this could amount to “anticipatory obstruction of justice.”

The calls come after newly released records from the Justice Department showed that at least several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller’s team were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion or other reasons—all before the Justice Department inspector general’s office could review the devices.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, penned a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, pressing for details on what actions were taken to recover material deleted from the mobile devices assigned to Mueller’s team.

“It appears that Special Counsel Mueller’s team may have deleted federal records that could be key to better understanding their decision-making process as they pursued their investigation and wrote their report,” Grassley wrote. “Indeed, many officials apparently deleted the records after the DOJ Inspector General began his inquiry into how the Department mishandled Crossfire Hurricane.”

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