RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/china-using-companies-twitter-interfere-election-daniel-greenfield/

Last year, Amazon was forced to shut down its marketplace business in the People’s Republic of China. Amazon’s defeat followed that of a long line of Big Tech players who had tried to make a go of it in China and failed miserably. China’s economy is built to boost domestic businesses and foreign exports, with some needed imports, by companies linked to the Communist Party.

And no matter how politically correct Amazon may try to be, it can never join that club.

But Amazon’s business in China isn’t done. To a large degree, Amazon’s business is China. Behind the smiling logo, the massive array of businesses covering everything from running the CIA’s cloud to spending $500 million to make a Lord of the Rings streaming series, are a bunch of grim offices, apartments, and warehouses in Chinese cities that make up its real business.

Three years ago, third-party sellers topped Amazon’s own sales. They now make up 58%. Who are they? If, like most Americans, you shop at the giant dot com retail monopoly, you’ve already waded through a stream of random shop names, fake misspelled reviews, and counterfeit products while searching for just about anything. What happened? China happened.

Between 40% to 48% of top third-party sellers on Amazon are operating out of China. The massive growth in Chinese third-party sellers has been fairly recent and transformative.

Supreme Court nomination hearings have gone from serene to savage, thanks largely to Joe Biden.

As head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the infamous Robert Bork hearings. His smearing of Bork for his original-intent judicial philosophy transformed hearings for Supreme Court nominees into bloody ideological battles. Henceforth, all conservative nominees were subjected to “Borking.”

Brutal to Bork from the start, Biden treated him not as a serious judge but as a stooge for what Biden called the “Reagan-Meese” agenda. Biden’s transparently unfair treatment of Bork was so bad even The Washington Post editorialized against Biden at the time:

While claiming that Judge Bork will have a full and fair hearing, Senator Joseph Biden this week has pledged to civil rights groups that he will lead the opposition to the confirmation. As the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, “Sentence first—Verdict Afterward.”

How can he possibly get a fair hearing from Biden, who has already cast himself as the role of prosecutor instead of a juror in the Judiciary Committee? If there is a strong, serious case to be argued against Judge Bork, why do so many Democrats seem unwilling to make it and afraid to listen to the other side?

In a forecast of what his own judiciary would look like, Biden opposed Bork not because he lacked the legal credentials to be on the court – Bork was considered one of the leading legal scholars in the country – but because Bork didn’t conform to Biden’s view of a good judge as a leftwing legislator from the bench.

Biden lectured Bork: “Will we retreat from our tradition of progress or will we move forward, continuing to expand and envelop the rights of individuals in a changing world which is bound to have an impact upon those individuals’ sense of who they are and what they can do?…In passing on this nomination to the Supreme Court, we must also pass judgment on whether or not your particular philosophy is an appropriate one at this time in history.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/what-trump-has-done-to-change-the-health-care-system-and-how-that-has-helped-battle-covid-19/

Deregulation and market forces are making care more available at lower cost.

Our health-care system is experiencing rapid, powerful change, far more consequential than is generally recognized. Although these changes are welcomed by many in the health-policy community (see our assessment a year ago), even those who applaud them have been surprised at their speed and impact.

What follows is a brief overview of what the Trump administration has done to reform the health-care system — in some cases, with the compliant help of Congress. The vision behind the Trump reforms can be found in Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition. This 124-page Health and Human Services document from 2018 argues that the most serious problems in health care arise because of government failure, not market failure.In pursuing its vision, the administration has aggressively pursued its options under current law. We now need Congress to make the revolution complete.

Virtual Medicine. The ability to deliver medical care remotely is growing by leaps and bounds. It promises to lower medical costs, increase quality, and reduce the time and travel cost of patient care. For example, most people in hospital emergency rooms don’t really need to be there. With a phone or a computer and an app or two, many of them could be examined and triaged in their own homes.

The benefits of telehealth have been known for a long time. Yet as we entered 2020, it was illegal (by act of Congress) for Medicare doctors to consult with their patients by phone or email, except in rare circumstances. Even non-Medicare patients were constrained. For example, it wasn’t clear if visual communication by Zoom or FaceTime satisfied the federal government’s privacy regulations. While some state governments were clearing away barriers, progress was incremental and uneven.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/aoc-house-progressives-pen-warning-to-biden-ove

WASHINGTON — Progressive House Democratic lawmakers fired a warning shot at a potential Joe Biden administration this week, signing a letter calling for corporate lobbyists and C-suite executives to be shut-out of his cabinet.

Thirty-nine members, including “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley and incoming Bronx congressman Jamaal Bowman signed the letter which was delivered to Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell on Friday morning and obtained by Politico.

The letter calls on both parties to ban C-suite level corporate executives and corporate lobbyists from holding Senate-confirmed positions such as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or Secretary of Defense.

However, one signee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), said the letter was meant to serve as a warning to Democratic nominee Joe Biden as he considers potential candidates with the presidential election just 19 days away.

It comes as the septuagenarian candidate faces pressure from inside his own party to move further left.

“It’s not addressed to Biden, but there’s an understanding that he’d be in charge and be the person making nominations,” Grijalva told the publication.

The letter calls on party leaders to shun President Trump’s decision to install former executives into some of the top posts of his administration.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/joe-bidens-polling-lead-slips-in-wake-of-post-report

Joe Biden’s polling edge over President Trump eroded this week amid The Post’s scandalous revelations about his son Hunter’s foreign dealings — but the Democratic candidate still maintains a substantial lead.

The IBD/TIPP national tracking poll, released Saturday, puts Biden at 50 percent in the head-to head matchup, with Trump at 43 percent. The 7-point advantage is well outside the survey’s 3 percent margin of error.

But the poll of 1,009 likely voters saw Biden’s support slip by just over 2 percentage points since Monday — and found an increase of just under 1 percent for the incumbent.

The IBD/TIPP survey found strength for Biden among independent voters, who split their support between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, but now back the challenger by a 9-percent margin.

The results also hinted at the possibility of a substantial number of “shy Trump” voters in the electorate: while 47 percent of respondents said they believe that their neighbors are Trump voters, only 36 of them say they are surrounded by Biden backers.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/10/come-the-moment-come-the-man/

Trump haters are most prevalent in the United States but they are everywhere, including in our midst. Troy Bramston was at again the other day in my morning Australian newspaper, the price of which has just risen by 17 percent. A case of getting less for more. “Biden in the White House would be good for us,” is its title. Aptly pedestrian for both the article and the writer.

Of course, Biden in the White House would be a disaster for Western civilisation and the Free World but, never mind, apparently, he “aligns better with the Morrison government’s international priorities.” What follows from Bramston is tendentious tripe and not fit to print. Like his Washington correspondent colleague, Cameron Stewart, his anti-Trump bias is regularly on tiresome show. But, let’s face it, Trump haters are a dime a dozen throughout the Australia media. More disconcerting is the way the hateful hacks have poisoned the opinions of ordinary people.

Best to regularly make a little list of the Donald’s dreadful deeds during what Bramston calls “Trump’s disastrous presidency.”

# He’s led the US into no new wars

# He’s routed ISIS (remember them?)

# He’s rebuilt the US military (you know, the military we depend upon)

# He’s stood up against China’s rapacious trade policies

# He’s forced NATO countries to front up more for their own defence

# He’s relocated the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (long promised, never delivered until Trump) and recognised the Golan heights as being part of Israel (a must-have for Israel’s defence)

# He’s brokered peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (Nobel Peace Prize 2021?)

# He’s curbed illegal immigration, including with a wall (OK, the Mexicans didn’t pay for it)

# He’s replaced NAFTA with an improved trade deal with Mexico and Canada

# He reduced regulations and taxes, producing US energy independence and, before COVID hit, the lowest Black and Hispanic unemployment on record; combined with an upsurge in real wage growth

# He’s brought back manufacturing jobs when Obama and those in the know said it couldn’t be done

# He’s promoted and signed the First Step Act to lessen the over-incarceration of black offenders

# He’s established business opportunity zones in the inner cities to help minorities escape despair

# He’s supported school choice and charter schools for disadvantaged children

# He’s promoted and signed a bill to provide permanent funding for traditionally black colleges.

# He’s appointed objective federal judges and Supreme Court justices to defend the constitution, as distinct from politically motivated activists.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/17/they-are-ready-this-time-but-so-are-we/

If Donald Trump wins handily on November 3 but the Democrats refuse to acknowledge defeat, do not expect their opponents to go gently into that good night.

At some point in these pages, I have had occasion to quote both Walter Scott’s famous admonitory couplet (from his narrative poem Marmion): 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

And this excellent completion by J. R. Pope (“A Word of Encouragement”):

But when we’ve practiced for a while,

How vastly we improve our style!

Both main chapters of the anti-Trump fraternity—the to-the-manor-born aristocracy of left-wing political operatives who oppose Republicans reflexively and the life-peers, so to speak, of the NeverTrump gaggle, who just hate Donald Trump—have been practicing assiduously since at least 2016. 

Back then, and for some years following, the forces arrayed against Trump were formidable but complaisant. First, everyone knew that Hillary was going to win, so although Trump was thoroughly disreputable, he was also eminently ignorable since he could never win the election. 

When, by some drastic failure of the electorate, Trump did win, the complacency was only partially modified by the ensuing shock, followed soon after by rage. Robert Mueller would get him, good and hard, and as the dawn raids, indictments, and jail sentences piled up, many confident predictions floated up about the imminent demise of the Trump Administration. 

As victory continued to elude the anti-Trump forces, they gradually lost their complacency. The preposterous impeachment trial ginned up by the Democrats to punish Trump for talking on the telephone to the Ukrainian president was probably never intended to destroy Trump so much as hobble him in advance of the 2020 election. But the impeachment trial did reveal the incontinent fanaticism of the Left, their willingness to say anything, to do anything, to get their way. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/looking_on_the_bright_side_15_reasons_the_polls_may_be_wrong.html

When people ask me to predict whether Trump or Biden will win the election, I like to say that I don’t predict elections; I just worry about them. However, as a worrier, I’m always on the lookout for signs that will ease my worries. With the election only 17 days away, there are a surprising number of signs that Biden’s allegedly spectacular polling lead is illusory.

Before beginning this post about identifying positive trends, it’s important to remember that the polls – both state-by-state and national – are still showing Biden in the lead. Here’s a screengrab from Real Clear Polls with that information:

That’s the bad news. Here is the more cheering information:

1. The Biden campaign, which used the Wuhan virus as an excuse not to have any ground game, is suddenly sending volunteers to do door-to-door canvassing in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada. You don’t do that if you’re confident you’ll win.2. Obama is hitting the campaign trail for Biden. That’s a sure sign of insecurity.

3. Biden’s campaign manager admitted that the pro-Biden polls are inflated.

4. Since the revelations about Hunter Biden hit the news, an IBD/TIPP poll shows that Biden’s support dropped by slightly over two percentage points, while Trump’s support rose by almost .6 percent.

5. There’s an interesting trend in voting by mail (“VBM”), a concept that Democrats were confident would benefit them. Unexpected numbers of Republicans are using VBM. The initial VBM numbers hugely favored Democrats and undoubtedly will continue to favor them. However, the number of Democrat VBM numbers is stagnant, while the number of Republican VBMs continues to rise.

6. Larry O’Connor has an interesting theory about why the polls are completely wrong, even though they’re now tapping the more reliable “likely voter” metric (as opposed to the “registered voter” metric). You should read his article, but here’s the gist:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/cultural_amnesia_and_american_survival.html

Clive James’s 2007 book titled Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts is a collection of artists and thinkers.  They are largely concerned with responses to “threats against freedom, mostly in the 20th century.”

As I leaf through it, I am astonished at the echoes of my own qualms as this country stands on the precipice of either remaining free or not.  I see Democrats and leftists invoking Nazism to describe conservatives in America, and I am reminded of Jean-François Revel’s words that “one insults the memory of the victims of Nazism if one uses them to bury the memory of the victims of communism.”  As leftists carelessly invoke Nazis to label “deplorables,” they totally disregard the evil of communism. 

Instead, the left and Democrats work assiduously to transform America into a socialist/communist country notwithstanding the millions who perished in communist countries and who continue to suffer even today.  It is vital to recall that in only ten years, Venezuela was irrevocably destroyed by socialism.  Yet Venezuela was once richer than China and Japan, and its currency was second only to the United States.  Moreover, Venezuela had an excellent health system.  No longer!

Moreover, Khmer Rouge (1975–1979) torturers had Western apologists in their corner who patently ignored the hideous torture, and as a result, “of 17,000 people who were interrogated in the S-21 camp in Phnom Penh, 16,994 died in agony.”  

While we are thankfully not at the level of the aforementioned groups, each time a picture of the Portland destruction and the people who gleefully beat and murder innocent people is shown, one is hard pressed not to see Brown Shirts operating with total license in Oregon.

Terry Gilliam, film director, is one of the artists featured in Cultural Amnesia.  His film Brazil is considered “one of the greatest political films,” wherein the “torture surgery contributes one of the most brain-curdling of the film’s many disturbing themes.”  He writes about “how the author of a state that rules by terror can detach himself from the brute facts.”  Whether it was Juan Perón or Hitler or the Soviet system or the Japanese army of the 20th century, the “organs” of power “were always, at the brute force level, staffed by otherwise unemployable dimwits.”