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ELECTIONS

The ‘Anonymous’ saga ended with a dud — a perfect example of the problem of Trump-era media By Steve Krakauer,

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/523692-the-anonymous-saga-ended-with-a-dud-a-perfect-example-of-the-problem-of

There will be many incidents from the past four years of the Trump era that will erode the public’s faith in the press to provide fair, accurate information — all the nonsense from the Russia collusion story, pings in Prague, the Steele dossier mess, false promises of what would be in the Mueller report and more. These will leave lasting, damaging marks.

But no story better exemplifies the core problem with the media’s anti-Trump instincts to elevate every crumb of a story to an 11 out of 10, only to be let down consistently for their exaggeration or outright falsehood, than the saga of “Anonymous.”

For those who don’t remember the drama that gripped Washington and the Acela media (located along Amtrak’s Acela rail corridor between D.C. and New York City), The New York Times published a column in September 2018 from someone identified as “Anonymous,” whom the Times described as a “senior official inside the Trump administration.” The column, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,’’ detailed the work that the author and others in the administration supposedly were doing to undermine President Trump’s agenda. 

Guesses of who the author was started flowing in. RealClearInvestigations thought it was Victoria Coates. Josh Campbell, a former FBI agent and current CNN contributor, thought it was Kirstjen Nielsen, based on her use of commas in her resignation letter. But most guesses on Twitter and throughout the media rose to higher ranks. Mike Pence? Nikki Haley? CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote, in retrospect, a spectacularly wrong column titled “13 people who might be the author of The New York Times op-ed.” His arguments included names such as Kellyanne Conway and John Kelly, then some of the top advisers to Trump, as well as “Javanka” and Melania Trump. Dripping with innuendo, it was sure to grab a ton of clicks from CNN’s audience and throughout the #Resistance mediasphere.

And then, this week, we got the big reveal. “Anonymous” was Miles Taylor — a name that is likely literally anonymous to you to begin with.

Winning! Winning! Winning! by Linda Goudsmit

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/24699/winning-winning-winning

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com  http://lindagoudsmit.com

We measure ourselves from the time we are children. “Johnny grew three inches!” “Susie got all As in school!”

We compare ourselves with others to measure our accomplishments. “Johnny is faster than Fred.” “Susie is smarter than Mary.”

We compete with each other for advancement. “Johnny won a gold medal in swimming!” “Susie got into Harvard!”

We measure, compare, and compete with others as we establish our own individual identities. We also measure, compare, and compete with ourselves as we establish our own internal sense of self. So, what is the problem?

Competence is the mother of self-esteem. It is the foundation of the meritocracy and source of the American dream. Theoretically, when we study and work hard we achieve competence, feel good about ourselves and are rewarded with advancement. Competition is an integral and important part of establishing an individual identity, a family identity, a community identity, and a national identity.

There are rules in every competition because fairness is the essential qualifying element for the meritocracy. Individuals compete. Teams compete. Families compete. Countries compete. When the rules for fair competition are broken, the entire merit system breaks down and the competition is replaced with a counterfeit performance that is presented as fair and legitimate.

The breakdown in American society is a breakdown of the merit system.

Biden Opposed the Pakistan Raid That Took Out Bin Laden, The Pakistan Lobby is One of His Biggest Donors Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/11/biden-opposed-pakistan-raid-took-out-bin-laden-daniel-greenfield/

Is the Indian-American community paying attention?

The Biden campaign, right before the election, finally released its list of biggest fundraisers. These are donors who have raised at least $100,000 for the Democrat candidate.

One of them is Ijaz Ahmad.

Ahmad is the head of the American-Pakistani Political Action Committee and Biden has been happy to offer them Islamist dog whistles.

Former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden has expressed concern over deteriorating situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) saying restrictions preventing peaceful protests or shutting down the internet, weakens democracy.

In an online meeting, with head of American-Pakistani Political Action Committee, Dr. Ijaz Ahmad along with prominent members of Muslim community, Joe Biden called upon Indian government to take all necessary steps to restore rights for all people of Kashmir.

He quoted a hadith from the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand’ If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.’

Twitter’s ‘Living’ Censorship The social-media firm finally unfreezes the New York Post after its story on Hunter Biden’s laptop files.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitters-living-censorship-11604263210?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

When social-media companies sanction political speech they don’t like, they always point to one policy or another that was supposedly violated. The truth is they are often making up the rules as they go.

Twitter admitted as much Friday when it finally agreed to unlock the New York Post’s account after freezing it on Oct. 14 as punishment for reporting on Hunter Biden’s business dealings that were exposed on his abandoned laptop computer.

“Our policies are living documents,” the company said in explaining its decision to stop blocking the newspaper. Initially, Twitter said the Post’s Biden story violated a policy against “content obtained without authorization.” That was absurd, as leaks of one kind or another are ubiquitous in modern political reporting.

Once that rationale collapsed, Twitter said it “decided to make changes to the policy,” and stopped preventing users from sharing the Post story. But it maintained that the story still violated the policy in effect at the time the Post tweeted it, so the newspaper’s account would remain locked until the offending tweets were deleted.

Trump Has Torn the Mask Off the Liberal Media The press resents him because he exposes its bias.By Frank Pavone

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-has-torn-the-mask-off-the-liberal-media-11604266772?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Why does the media hate Donald Trump so much? There are all kinds of theories, but only one really makes sense: We are a country at odds over the most fundamental principles of ideology, economics, religion, race, culture, morality—even our own history. The media is on one side of that metaphorical war, and President Trump calls it out.

In this dispute the two sides have always been known to the participants, but the media doesn’t identify them publicly. A major part of the mainstream media’s strategy has been to preserve the perception of its neutrality and keep its role as hidden as possible. It has been criticized in the past for its liberal bias—by conservatives. But never by a sitting president with such effectiveness. (Richard Nixon mostly delegated the job to Vice President Spiro Agnew.) By treating the media for what it is—a belligerent in the culture war—Mr. Trump has done it irreparable damage.

The media is supposed to be a neutral participant. So, to a lesser extent, are Hollywood and academia. Hollywood’s job is to entertain us. The universities’ job is to educate us. The media’s job is to report the news to us. If there is indeed some kind of philosophical, theological and economic battle being waged for the soul of the country, Americans would certainly want to know if those responsible for filtering information to us are doing so in an objective fashion.

US Elections: The Unasked Questions by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16715/us-elections-unasked-questions

The initial success of America’s recent economic policy was based on three factors: a substantial tax cut, energy independence, and a more level playing field in foreign trade…. Will there be a high tax scenario at a time the economy is grappling with the crippling effect of Covid-19? Will he stop or curtail fracking and lose the status of number one global energy producer that the US has won for the first time since the 1960s?

Will the US re-join the so-called Paris Accord on climate change even though none of the remaining signatories has complied with it?

Will the US simply apologize and resume signing cheques for UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO) without insisting on reforms that most member nations regard as urgently needed?

Will the US dismantle the build-up of troops and materiel that has bolstered the allies in Central and Eastern Europe?

On strategic arms limitation schemes, will there be abandon recent demands to expand any agreement to include China or will he insist on a Cold War style check with Vladimir Putin? Will the US give the two fingers to Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi, instead, hug Nicolas Maduro as Obama did with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro?

On the Middle East, will the US simply revive the Obama “nuke deal” with the Islamic Republic in Iran, lift sanctions and help the mullahs feed the monsters they have created across the globe in the name of exporting revolution? Will the US resume smuggling crisp greenbacks to Tehran to help “the moderate faction” smile more tooth-fully while “the radical faction” massacres Iranian protesters in the streets?

Will the US stab long-term allies in the back in the hope of turning deadly foes into friends, as Obama tried to do with his infamous speech at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University?

As millions of Americans prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, joining the estimated 50 million who have already cast their ballots, they might take a few moments to ask themselves a simple question: What are we voting for?

A Hardcore Leftist Makes the Case for Trump By Anis Shivani

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/31/a-hardcore-leftist-makes-the-case-for-trump/

To eject Trump now would be to rejuvenate the neoliberal order at a time of showdown and to accord it the legitimacy it desperately needed after its failed response to the last economic collapse.

The dominant view on the Left is to press the urgency of voting Donald Trump out of office, claiming he is an existential threat to democracy, and then work with a Democratic administration to push for a more progressive agenda. Trump is to be seen as an unprecedented disaster, and we are asked to think of Joe Biden as a temporary measure, the lesser of two evils. 

But all of this seems to be driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of where we stand today as an empire, and what this might mean for the actual possibility of change in a populist direction. 

Behind the upset feelings caused by Trump’s “vulgar” rhetoric and style, the substance of his policies versus those of the Democrats goes unaddressed. What if Trump could be shown to be less destructive than the Democrats in every single policy dimension? On immigration, trade, inequality, surveillance, civil liberties, and even the environment, what if reelecting Trump actually would prove less harmful than returning a Democrat to the White House?

Such a case, in fact, can be made. Trump is the first president in modern American history not to start a war. It appears that he tried his best to unwind the existing wars, but faced unrelenting pressure from the deep state (let’s call it that, rather than the military-industrial complex, because it better captures the passionately symbiotic alliance that’s formed between all the liberal institutions and the war machine) against international retreat. 

A Momentous Choice Faces Us Today as in 1776 We should be under no illusions about the momentousness of the choice facing the country. Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/31/a-momentous-choice-faces-us-today-as-in-1776/

As the historian David Hackett Fischer shows in Washington’s Crossing, his magisterial study of the opening months of the Revolutionary War, by Christmas 1776 things were looking exceedingly grim for the colonists. The British army, the mightiest in the world, had taken over three colonies, including New York, and were threatening Philadelphia, seat of the fledgling American government. 

Everyone knows now that, after several more years of brutal fighting, the story had a happy ending, for the colonists and for the world. But in the winter of 1776, the war was almost lost. There is a reason that Washington’s Crossing is part of a series about “Pivotal Moments in American History.” Had the chips fallen just a little differently, had George Washington made different choices about whom to attack, and when and how, the revolution would have been suppressed in its infancy. 

Fischer emphasizes the place of choice in the drama of history. His book, he says toward the end, “is mainly about contingency, in the sense of people making choices, and choices making a difference in the world.” 

It is a pregnant detail that Donald Trump kicked off the first of his four rallies in Pennsylvania on Saturday with a stop at the site of Washington’s headquarters, now private property, for his fateful crossing of the Delaware River. It was, in comparison with most of Trump’s rallies, a small and subdued affair. (Though with about 500 people attending, it was huge by Joe Biden’s standards.) 

The president spoke for about 30 minutes, short for him though, again, garrulous by the standard Biden has set for himself. The talk was not his usual off-the-cuff, rev up the crowd spiel but a thoughtful summary of what is at stake in this election. Like Washington’s crossing in 1776, the presidency of Donald Trump is about contingency, about choices. In 2016, the American people voted to elect Donald Trump president of the United States. That choice tore the tattered bandage off the façade of the deep state. It revealed a suppurating wound beneath, a septic disaster the reality of which Americans had somehow concealed from themselves for decades. 

2020 Must Be a Trump Landslide, a Total Knock-Out Against the Unscrupulous Left By David Solway *****

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/10/31/2020-must-be-a-trump-landslide-a-total-knock-out-against-the-unscrupulous-left-n1112183

Voter fraud is a distinctively American problem with deep roots in the Democratic Party. One might say, twin roots, for a complementary radicle has sunk into a significant portion of the voting public who approve of the illegal manipulation of electoral results. And there is not the slightest doubt that the “week in ballot shenanigans” is upon us once again: ballot harvesting, voting rules changed overnight, ballot dumping, stolen ballots, extended voting, multiple voting, the attempt to count unpostmarked ballots, and so on. Indeed, every conceivable form of ballot tampering is par for the course, including the latest iteration of the grave robbing vote in Florida.

How this violation of voting legitimacy can be allowed to continue in the absence of strict electoral supervision in an arguably democratic nation boggles the mind. But as noted, a political constituency with controlling access to the levers of power, its legions of cronies and advocates, and a substantial segment of the franchise are perfectly fine with the flagrant perversion of professional honesty, electoral fairness, and personal morality.

Such practices are the stock-in-trade of the political Left at all levels of authority and sentiment, and explain why the Democrats may yet win an election they should reasonably lose by a crushing majority. This leads us to the speculation that there are really two opposing groups of political actors that are not wholly defined by political labels such as Democrat and Republican or liberal and conservative. Rather, there are those who believe that the end justifies the means and those who believe that the means cannot be polluted by a prior determination of engineered ends.

I Voted for Trump—and You Should, Too, Because the Republic Is at Stake By David P. Goldman

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2020/10/31/why-i-voted-for-trump-and-you-should-too-because-the-republic-is-at-stake-n1112201

EXCERPT

If you’re still on the fence, please consider the following.

First: There is a Deep State that abused the credibility of America’s Intelligence Community to overturn a free and fair presidential election. If you don’t believe me, listen to what left-liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald told Tucker Carlson last week. Greenwald brought out the Edward Snowden revelations about National Security Agency spying on American citizens. He has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. Deep State for years, and he now warns about a dirty alliance between the spooks and the progressive Left. The whole “Russia collusion” scandal was concocted out of thin air in order to bring down a presidency. If a handful of self-appointed officials in cahoots with the liberal elite can destroy a presidency, your democratic rights are toilet paper.

Second: The grudge that the Deep State bears against Trump arises from Trump’s opposition to “endless wars.” The people running our Intelligence Community got their jobs through endless wars, and a careful look at how the covert side of this war was conducted would ruin a lot of careers, and worse. When Trump dissented from the Bush-Romney-McCain wing of the party over the Iraq war, he became anathema. Trump’s position has the overwhelming support of the American people. I don’t care what you think of him: He stood down a mutiny by a cabal of spooks determined to thwart the will of the people as expressed in a fair election.

Third: Trump’s “America First” foreign policy achieved tangible results, bringing about a new set of peace deals in the Middle East that the establishment thought impossible. As I wrote earlier this month at The American Mind:

Some will argue that President Trump’s record of success is mixed, and that he might have handled some situations better. But three things should be clear from the past three years of governance. First, “America First” reflects a vision for U.S. foreign policy, not a retread of isolationism. Second, the vision has produced some tangible successes. And third, although the Trump Administration’s record in foreign policy is imperfect, it has real accomplishments to show, in marked contrast to the disastrous performance of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations.

I do not write as a Trump apologist, although I supported him in 2016 and support him in the current presidential race. In particular I have been critical of his approach to China. Nonetheless, Trump’s record is vastly superior to the “Blame America First” stance of his predecessor, and to the utopian interventionism of the preceding Republican president.