Displaying posts published in

March 2021

MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN Ratings Collapse Without Bad Orange Man By Jordan Davidson

By on March 24th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/23/cnn-ratings-collapse-without-bad-orange-man/

Since former President Donald Trump’s departure in January, CNN lost nearly 50 percent of its prime-time audience.

While Fox News only saw a 6 percent drop in ratings, other cable news outlets and corporate media publications also saw a significant decline in their viewership and readership after President Joe Biden’s inauguration. MSNBC was one of the many left-leaning networks that lost more than 20 percent of its audience. The Washington Post and New York Times also suffered “plummeting” website traffic.

“The Post, for example, saw the number of unique visitors fall 26 percent from January to February, and 7 percent from a year ago. The New York Times lost 17 percent compared with January and 16 percent over last February,” an analysis in the Post concluded. 

This drop in readers and viewers comes after corporate media outlets obsessed over Trump for four years, often pushing bogus narratives meant to hurt the president’s standing with Americans as well as his re-election chances. Trump predicted the recent decline of “fake news” readers and viewers as early as 2017.

“Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because, without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.” Trump proclaimed.

Leftist mouthpieces at CNN such as Brian Stelter and Jim Acosta were often quick to take aim at Trump when he was in office, spending much of their coverage on criticizing his administration and agenda.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who’s Actually Running This Thing? We have achieved what Buckley greatly feared: Not government by the first 2000 names in the Boston phonebook, but government by the faculty of Harvard. This is what an oligarchy looks like. By Dan Gelernter

By on March 24th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/23/whos-actually-running-this-thing/

We’ve seen the headlines: Biden holding migrant children in cages. Biden crafts plan to raise taxes. Biden does this, Biden does that. But who is actually doing it? 

No one believes that Biden is actually president. Forget for a moment the questions about the election itself, and focus on the man: Biden can’t speak coherently, can’t remember the names of his cabinet members, can’t be trusted to give a live press conference. He says he’s willing to take questions and they turn his feed off. So he’s not in charge. He’s not running the show. He’s not president. Who is?

The American press corps would like to think that it is they; which is why they’re willing to go along with the cover-up. They think they’re the ones running the country. And what exactly would be the difference between the current situation and an official government of the mainstream media? This administration promises to enact, as if by media direction, every single woke prescription and pipe dream. They couldn’t possibly do better if the New York Times editorial board were living in the White House. 

Hollywood thinks the same of our situation. As do the universities. This is great for all of them—it’s as though they are finally, collectively president of the United States. We have achieved what Buckley greatly feared: Not government by the first 2000 names in the Boston phonebook, but government by the faculty of Harvard. This is what an oligarchy looks like.

An oligarchy is an anti-liberal concept, when you use “liberal” in its classical sense as a philosophy of civil and economic liberty. But oligarchy is also the fondest dream of the modern Left—the social justice, cancel-culture, woke-crusading, anti-liberal Left. These people have never been pleased with the idea of individuals running their own lives. They don’t believe an average person has, frankly, the intelligence to choose his own doctor or take care of his neighbors or pick a school for his children or decide how to spend his own money. They certainly don’t believe the average person is intelligent enough to run the government. And by extension they don’t believe the average person is qualified to choose a national leader.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Mocking by U.S. Adversaries Shows Biden Admin Neither Feared Nor Respected Ben Weingarten

By on March 24th, 2021

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/mocking-by-us-adversaries-shows-biden?token

‘America is back’ insofar as we’re reverting to the Obama-era policy of appeasing our enemies, confronting our friends, and putting globalism rather than America first.

America’s worst adversaries are mocking, trolling and rebuffing the Joe Biden administration.

In so doing, they would seem to be delivering a clear message: They neither fear nor respect America under President Joe Biden’s leadership.

Consider what has transpired over just the last week, barely two months into Biden’s tenure.

During the first day of a highly anticipated meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, with the world watching, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) brass responded to criticism of China’s human rights violations from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan by shoving anti-American agitprop back into the faces of the senior representatives of a Biden administration that has already embraced a similar “1619 Project”-style narrative about America’s purported enduring evils.

“On human rights, we hope that the United States will do better,” tsk-tsked top CCP diplomat Yang Jiechi. He added: “The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated” and “they did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter.”

CCP officials similarly spewed invective in a bid to portray not China, but America, as a bullying and coercive hegemon-wannabe, seeking to impose its values on others.

On the eve of the meeting, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai needled with the question, “Will the U.S. be a responsible stakeholder in global affairs?”—an allusion to the query leaders of the U.S. foreign policy establishment had been asking of China since at least 2005.

Nearly contemporaneous with the Anchorage debacle, and after being called a “killer” by President Joe Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded that “it takes one to know one” and, without a hint of subtlety, challenged the president to a debate. Putin added, “I wish you [President Biden] health. I say that without any irony or joke.” The subtext was clear: Putin was questioning Biden’s mental acuity and fitness.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Alexei Navalny: “Prepared to Lose Everything” by Jiri Valenta and Leni Friedman Valenta

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17203/alexei-navalny

“I think that the ban of Donald Trump on Twitter is an unacceptable act of censorship… Don’t tell me he was banned for violating Twitter rules. I get death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone ….” — Alexei Navalny, Twitter, November 9, 2020.

Among the people who have Twitter accounts are cold-blooded murderers (Putin or Maduro) and liars and thieves (Medvedev)… Of course, Twitter is a private company, but we have seen many examples in Russian and China of such private companies becoming the state’s best friends and the enablers when it comes to censorship. — Alexei Navalny, Twitter, November 9, 2020.

“If you replace ‘Trump’ with ‘Navalny’ in today’s discussion, you will get an 80% accurate Kremlin’s answer as to why my name can’t be mentioned on Russian TV and I shouldn’t be allowed to participate in any elections.” — Alexei Navalny, Twitter, November 9, 2020.

“This precedent will be exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world. In Russia as well. Every time when they need to silence someone, they will say: ‘this is just common practice, even Trump got blocked on Twitter’.” — Alexei Navalny, Twitter, November 9, 2020.

“The election is a straightforward and competitive process. You can participate in it, you can appeal against the results, they’re being monitored by millions of people. The ban on Twitter is a decision of people we don’t know in accordance with a procedure we don’t know…” . — Alexei Navalny, Twitter, November 9, 2020.

“This [imprisonment] is happening to intimidate large numbers of people. They’re imprisoning one person to frighten millions. This isn’t a demonstration of strength — it’s a show of weakness.” — Alexei Navalny, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, February 3, 2021.

The near-murder of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny by the nerve-agent novichok last August, his return to Moscow in January, and the resultant protests attended by tens of thousands of citizens in more than a hundred Russian cities, raise the question of how long the Russian people will continue to tolerate President Vladimir Putin’s repressive acts against political enemies and rivals.

The crowds were rallying in support of Navalny after his return to Moscow on January17, 2021 from medical treatment in Germany, some in temperatures of -60 degrees Fahrenheit. The police, attacking the protestors with batons, arrested more than 3,300 people.

While recuperating in Germany, Navalny, aided by an investigative organization, filmed himself calling Konstantin Kudryatsev, a toxins expert in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Using a disguised telephone number, Navalny posed as an aide to the chairman of Russia’s Security Council. He asked Kudryatsev for the details of his poisoning. In the 49-minute conversation that followed, Kudryatsev divulged full details of the poisoning, including how the novichok poison had been placed in Navalny’s underpants in a hotel in Tomsk.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Media companies bill is bait and switch to strangle conservative outlets By Ken Blackwell

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/media_companies_bill_is_bait_and_switch_to_strangle_conservative_outlets.html

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JPCA) is a bait-and-switch attempt that claims to help conservative news sources but would instead purge them from the marketplace of ideas.  Congress should reject it for the freedom-killer it is.

JCPA would give media companies — broadcast and print — an exemption from federal antitrust laws, so they can operate in a coordinated fashion to negotiate prices that social media companies like Facebook would have to pay them to carry their content.  It would ensure that these tech billionaires would have to direct some of their riches into content providers.

But that’s a Big Boys’ game, where the major players could decide whom to let into their club.  Smaller outlets would be left out in the cold, and the market would suffer.

This is because almost all of the Big Boys are liberal.  For print, there are the New York Times and the Washington Post.  For video content providers, you have the networks, CNN, and MSNBC.  The twin star performers owned by News Corp — Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal — are some of the only ones to the right of the 50-yard line.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

North Korea Fires First Missiles During Biden Presidency U.S. says Kim regime launched short-range missiles, protesting joint American-South Korean military exercises

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-military-carries-out-unusual-activities-near-border-11616508652?mod=world_major_1_pos1

North Korea launched several short-range missiles over the weekend, U.S. and South Korean officials said, in a show of defiance against President Biden and his administration that was widely expected after joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

The weekend launches caused no damage and are being viewed more as a symbolic show of strength than one intended to inflict damage or hit any specific targets, according to two U.S. officials.

U.S. officials declined to provide details about the short-range missile launches or even how many were launched. The launches aren’t covered by the United Nations Security Council resolutions that govern such activity, and they were on the “low end” of routine activity from the North Koreans, two senior administration officials said.

President Biden said he didn’t consider the launch a provocation.

“According to the Defense Department, it’s business as usual,” he said at the White House. “There is no new wrinkle in what they did.”

A senior U.S. official said Pyongyang “has a clear menu of provocations when it wants to send a message,” and “what took place last weekend is falling on the low end of that spectrum.”

On Wednesday, Seoul’s military said North Korea had fired two projectiles that appeared to be cruise missiles. The Sunday-morning launches occurred about 30 miles west of Pyongyang, the military said.

South Korean defense officials said the previous day that they were monitoring unusual activity by North Korea’s military in a sector close to the South Korean border. It wasn’t the same area where the suspected missile launches took place.

North Korea frequently fired off short-range missiles even as negotiations between leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump’s administration inched on. At the time, Mr. Trump and his administration maintained that the short-range missiles didn’t violate the terms laid out in his discussions with Pyongyang, which failed to yield an accord. CBS News earlier reported the missile launches.

The Biden administration is nearing the end of a review of its policy with North Korea, the senior administration officials said. Next week, national-security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to meet in person in Washington with counterparts from South Korea and Japan to discuss the U.S. posture with regard to North Korea, the officials said. It follows visits by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who traveled to Tokyo and Seoul last week.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Before the Shooting Who is Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa? By James Freeman

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/before-the-shooting-11616538752?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

There’s a contemporary political compulsion to immediately inject a horrific shooting into ongoing debates about types of weapons and the terms for acquiring them. But before legislating a response, lawmakers should spend some time trying to figure out why Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa allegedly murdered 10 people on Monday at a Boulder, Colo. supermarket.

CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Blake Ellis and Amir Vera report:

Alissa, whose family emigrated from Syria, may have been suffering from mental illness, according to his 34-year-old brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa.
The brother told CNN on Tuesday that in high school bullies made fun of Alissa’s name and for being Muslim and that may have contributed to him becoming “anti-social.”
Alissa had become increasingly “paranoid” around 2014, believing he was being followed and chased, according to his brother. At one point, the young man covered the camera on his computer with duct tape so he could not be seen, said the brother, who lives with Alissa…
“We kept a close eye on him when he was in high school. He would say, ‘Someone is chasing me, someone is investigating me.’ And we’re like, ‘Come on man. There’s nothing.’ … He was just closing into himself,” the brother added.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Democrats Give Their Iowa Game Away Their lawyer says the House should ignore state law to steal a House seat.

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-give-their-iowa-game-away-11616538412?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

“Democrats are using every legal trick in an effort to claw back a House seat. But in the process they may finally awaken Republicans from their political slumber to see what is happening in Iowa. This is a power grab, pure and simple, and Republicans should be shouting about it to everyone in Iowa and beyond.”

Now here’s some lawyering that may turn out to be too clever by half.

Democratic litigator Marc Elias on Monday submitted his latest brief on behalf of defeated congressional candidate Rita Hart. He wants the House of Representatives to overturn the election in Iowa’s 2nd district, which Ms. Hart lost by six votes to GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. But rather than asserting that if state election law is strictly followed his client would win, Mr. Elias tells House Democrats that they may need to bend the law to reach their desired outcome.

His brief responds to questions from the Committee on House Administration. In the first response, on procedures the committee should use in adjudicating the election challenge, Mr. Elias says “the Committee ‘is certainly not bound to’ follow state law.” The quote is from a 1985 case when the House overturned an Indiana election to seat the Democrat.

That sentence wasn’t a slip. Mr. Elias adds that “when voter intent can be determined but a ballot is not, for one reason or another, in strict conformity with state law,” it should be counted. He urges the Committee to “exercise its discretion to depart from Iowa law, and adopt counting rules that ‘disenfranchise the smallest possible number of voters.’”

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Africa Why Nigerian Schoolchildren Keep Getting Kidnapped: A Brutal Business Model That Pays Criminal gangs are earning millions of dollars by taking schoolchildren hostage, sometimes cooperating with Boko Haram, further destabilizing countries in the region By Joe Parkinson and Gbenga Akingbule

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kidnapping-schoolchildren-in-nigeria-becomes-big-business-11616511947?mod=hp_lead_pos5

KADUNA, Nigeria—The kidnap for ransom business is booming across northern Nigeria, and schoolchildren are its hottest commodity.

Just before midnight on March 11 gunmen barged into a school around 300 yards from a military training college in Kaduna state and seized dozens of students from their dormitories. It took less than 12 hours for the captors to issue a now familiar demand, through a grainy video posted on Facebook.

“They want 500 million Naira,” said one of the terrified hostages from the Federal College of Forestry, sitting shirtless in a forest clearing, a sum equal to around $1 million. Masked men wielding Kalashnikovs paced among the 39 students—mostly young women—then began to hit them with bullwhips.

“Our life is in danger,” a woman screamed. “Just give them what they want.”

On March 13, the Nigerian army foiled an attempt to kidnap 300 more students at a boarding school less than 50 miles away. The following day, children were among a group of 11 people abducted from the town of Suleja, in Nigeria’s Niger state.

This was just one weekend in what has become a routine and brutal business in Africa’s most populous country. Since December, heavily armed criminal gangs have abducted and ransomed more than 800 schoolchildren, rocking Nigeria and drawing calls for urgent action from the U.S. government, the European Union and Pope Francis. Hundreds of school campuses have been closed across four states for fear of more attacks, leaving close to 15 million Nigerian children out of school—more than any other country in the world.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Garland-Wray Axis Exploits January 6 to Criminalize Dissent “We are facing a far more dangerous period than we did in Oklahoma City.” Lloyd Billingsley

By on March 24th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/far-more-dangerous-period-lloyd-billingsley/

“Under Joe Biden, by contrast, the FBI mounts massive raids against people not charged with any violent crime. The president’s lawyer Merrick Garland gives full support. This partisan sophist vows to protect the DOJ, not the constitutional rights of the people. If anybody thought Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray are out to criminalize dissent it would be hard to blame them. As Garland says, we are facing a more dangerous period now.”

“I certainly agree that we are facing a more dangerous period than we did in Oklahoma City at that time,” said Biden Attorney General pick Merrick Garland in his Senate confirmation hearing. The reference was to the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people.

Garland supervised the prosecution of the bomber, Timothy McVeigh. On the other hand, according to remarks Garland made before confirmation as U.S. Attorney General, that deadly bombing would not even qualify as an act of terrorism.

According to Garland, nationwide BLM-Antifa violence does not qualify as terrorism because it took place at night. So if Timothy McVeigh had detonated his bomb at midnight, he too would have escaped the domestic terrorist tag. So much for the great legal mind all attorneys general are supposed to display.

For Garland, job one will be prosecution of those involved in the “heinous attack” of January 6, in which no bombs were detonated and the only people with guns were the police. One cop gunned down Air Force veteran and Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, but Garland appears unconcerned about that police shooting.

Continue reading →