NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Post-Trump Honeymoon He’s riding the end of the pandemic to pass a radical agenda.

Posted By on April 28th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-post-trump-honeymoon-11619564017?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

When President Biden addresses Congress Wednesday evening, he won’t salute his predecessor but he should. Donald Trump’s raucous Presidency has let the Democrat sell a radical agenda in the soothing tones of a return to normal, while the vaccine project known as Operation Warp Speed has teed up the end of the pandemic and an economic revival. This is the main story of Mr. Biden’s first 100 days.

***

Mr. Biden won the White House as the anti-Trump, and he has continued to benefit from that persona in his first months. Half the country is relieved merely to have a President who isn’t constantly brawling on TV in their living rooms. Whether by design, or necessity due to his reduced capacities, the decision to husband Mr. Biden’s public appearances has been shrewd. He’s the calm after the four-year Trump storm.

The Democrat has also been lucky in timing, as he took the oath of office as the Covid-19 vaccines were coming online. The White House pretense that it inherited a Covid mess is nonsense. The vaccine production was pre-planned. While some state rollouts were bumpy when there was more vaccine demand than supply, the main job of the Administration was to accelerate the distribution that was already underway.

The same goes for the economy, which has been growing since last July, and its acceleration was inevitable as people returned to normal commercial and social life. As New York, Michigan and California have followed the leadership of Texas and Florida in lifting their lockdowns, the inevitable post-pandemic boom has arrived. The same would have happened if Mr. Trump had won.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What is malignant normality and why should you care? Diane Bederman

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://dianebederman.com/what-is-malignant-normality-and-why-should-you-ca

Whoever thought it possible that one day an American theology professor, Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, whose mission is to serve as a catalyst for healing, justice, and reconciliation would write this prayer to God to help her:

“I want to stop caring about them (white people), individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist.”

This is possible because the Progressive left is shaming, shunning, cancelling, and silencing anyone who does not agree with their views on critical race theory, white privilege, their new definition of family.

We have been down this road, before.

The world watched as Germany  morphed from a country renowned for its Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, with authors like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe into one taken over by Hitler. Citizens of all classes followed the orders of Adolph Hitler, snitching on neighbours, turning in Jews, murdering Jews for being different as well as standing by while mentally and physically disabled people were taken away. How was this possible?

The answer may be malignant normality: the way average people—most of us—drift or slide or shuffle or stumble into moral corruption. Malignant normality thrives by silencing opposition and promoting submission to the new value system.

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, most famous as the author of The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide  suggests we are socialized into “malignant normality.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

“They Sent a Team of 100 Lawyers to Stop It Because They Know What the Result -Will Be” – President Trump Slams Democrats in Latest Statement on AZ Audit By Jim Hoft

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/sent-team-100-lawyers-stop-know-resul

President Trump released a new statement on Tuesday on the ongoing Arizona forensic audit of the 2020 Maricopa County election.

President Trump slammed Democrats over the continued efforts to shut down the forensic audit.

Trump says Democrats KNOW what the result of the audit will be – which explains their actions to stop it!

The Radical Left Democrat Party has gone absolutely INSANE in fighting the Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, right now taking place in the Great State of Arizona. They sent a team of over 100 lawyers to try and stop it because they know what the result of the Arizona Senate sponsored audit will be—and it won’t be good for the Dems. The audit is independently run, with no advantage to either side, but the Democrats don’t want to hear anything about it because they know that they lost Arizona, and other scam election States, in a LANDSLIDE. They also know that the Arizona State Legislature approved virtually none of their many election requests, which is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The people of Arizona are very angry, as are the people of our Country. If we can’t have free and fair elections, we don’t have a Country. The audit must continue. America deserves the TRUTH!

MEDIA Comments turned off

NPR Issues Outlandish Disclaimer About the Columbus Shooting That Summarizes Contemporary Journalism Brad Slager

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://townhall.com/columnists/bradslager/2021/04/27/as-the-press-butchers-the-columbus-shooting-npr-issues-outlandish-disclaimer-that-summarizes-contemporary-journalism-n2588559

The shooting by police of Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus Ohio as she was engaged in the act of attempted murder has brought out all of the worst in our media complex. False claims, narrative-pushing reports, misinformation, and emotional activism have all been prevalent. The miscarriage of journalistic ethics has been stark then, as it appeared the press had reached its nadir last week, in stepped National Public Radio to dig themselves in even deeper.

Bodycam footage shows Ma’Khia inches from sending a long-bladed knife into a potential victim just as she was shot, after refusing police orders. The mainstream media has been all over the map in their coverage of the shooting, with very few ever accurate. The Daily Beast did little in the way of investigating, relying solely on a family member of Bryant for details. MSNBC guest Ben Crump claimed that Bryant was unarmed when she was shot. Huffington Post gave a video synopsis that seems to indicate a knife mystically materializing near the fallen Bryant. 

Worse yet was The Washington Post, with its coverage of the event — posted after the police video had been released the night prior. Police said at a late news conference on Tuesday that the girl had threatened two others with a knife before the shooting. Uh, no WaPo  — police showed that she threatened the others. The knife is clear, in her hand, as she is lunging at another girl. Despite these obvious visuals the gaslighting continued, as the outlet also told the magical knife tale. Playing segments of body camera video that showed the victim lunging toward someone in a driveway before an officer fired four shots. A knife is visible in the driveway next to the girl as police perform CPR on her.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The Air Force Is About To Lower Its Already Low Standards . By John Venable

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/04/27/the_air_force_is_about_to_lower_its_already_low_standards_774596.html

Air Force standards for flight training and promotions have been on a downward spiral since the Cold War ended in 1991. Incredibly, the service’s senior leaders are about to accelerate that dive. 

Before we explore these latest moves and their repercussions, let’s take a minute to revisit the journey that brought the Air Force to where it is today.  

During the 1980s, the U.S. faced a potential conflict with the Soviet Union. Soviet air-to-air capabilities and surface-to-air missile systems presented a formidable threat.  The U.S. Air Force, therefore, designed standards and a training pipeline that prepared pilots to excel in that environment. That pipeline incrementally stepped their skill levels by presenting an ever-growing number of tasks and increasingly complex systems and missions they were expected to master. 

Training is expensive, but those costs rise steeply after flight school, making it the most economical point to screen out poor performers.  Student failures at every level beyond becoming more and more burdensome; however, the costliest failures take place, not in training but in the unforgiving environment of combat. There, mission success and the lives of others rely on the faculties and the confidence of our pilots. 

To ensure mission success, screening at all levels was intense.  The washout rate for flight school in the 1980s was high—just three out of every four students got their wings. And the demand for proficiency elevated with every level of training beyond.  A few more washed out of fighter lead-in training, front-line fighter training, and even Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun).

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

A Fitting Coda to John Kerry’s Career Editors

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-fitting-coda-to-john-kerrys-career/91489/

The claim by Iran’s foreign minister that Secretary of State Kerry squealed to him about Israeli covert operations in Syria is not, considering the source, necessarily credible. Mohammad Javad Zarif is too oleaginous and wily — and hostile. Then again, too, Mr. Zarif’s allegation is susceptible to such a shocking interpretation that Mr. Kerry and President Biden at least owe their countrymen a full explanation.

The story comes from what the New York Times calls a “leaked audiotape.” It is, the Times reports, of a conversation last month between Mr. Zarif and an economist and ally, Saeed Leylaz. The tape, the Times says, was leaked to a London-based news channel, Iran International, which shared it with the Times. The Times reckons the tape was not meant for publication — or, at least, Mr. Zarif says as much on the audio.

The Times focuses on the glimpse the tape provides into the “behind-the-scenes power struggles of Iranian leaders.” Mr. Zarif complains that the Revolutionary Guards Corps “call the shots,” as the Times summarizes his remarks, “overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice.” The Times notes that in “one extraordinary moment” Mr. Zarif “departed from the reverential official line” on Qassim Suleimani.

Suleimani was the Iranian general whom America, in January 2020, slew with a drone. The Trump administration had caught Suleimani traveling in violation of U.N. sanctions. His vast operations had claimed hundreds of American lives. The Iranians are apparently flabbergasted or infuriated at Mr. Zarif’s remarks about the general. The Times reports that Iran’s foreign ministry isn’t disputing the authenticity of the recording.

Instead, it says the foreign ministry in Tehran is questioning the motive for the leak. The Times quotes a spokesman for the ministry as calling it “unethical politics” and says, as the Times put it, “the portion of the audio released did not represent the full scope of Mr. Zarif’s comments about his respect and love for General Suleimani.” Then again, too, Mr. Zarif’s remarks about the military undermine the entire Iran deal.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

They Shouldn’t Have Died; That Doesn’t Make Them Innocent Jane Menton

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-4-26-they-shouldnt-have-died-that

Two weeks ago, Daunte Wright’s death sparked another round of protests and calls to defund/abolish the police. A week later, Derek Chauvin’s trial resulting in a guilty verdict has given the U.S. a reprieve from another round of violent riots. Both of these outcomes could have been anticipated: every time a black civilian dies in an encounter with the police, the conversation immediately becomes about police brutality and police reform. I agree there are many things we could do to reform policing in this country — I have discussed a few possibilities here and here. But while excessive policing is a problem, there are two other aspects to the BLM conversation that are ignored by the mainstream: we will always need some policing and law enforcement to protect civilians from criminal behavior, and many of the recent victims who have been held up as martyrs of the BLM movement had been engaged in criminal behavior. 

Daunte Wright had a warrant out for his arrest for carrying an illegal firearm and attempted armed robbery. George Floyd had served several stints in prison. Both men had been accused of armed robbery, attempted in one case and executed in the other. Their final encounters with the police were for non-violent infractions, but their histories of criminal behavior tell a different story. Those histories also indicate that future run-ins with the police were not unlikely.

Ma’khia Bryant, a 16 year old girl shot dead by police in Columbus, Ohio, had been trying to stab another woman. 13 year old Adam Toledo had been firing a handgun in the middle of the night when police were called to the scene. Jacob Blake, left paralyzed from the waist down after an encounter with the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was attempting to kidnap his children from their mother, who had been awarded custody. In these scenarios, police intervention was warranted.  

There is a difference between overcriminalization and excessive policing on the one hand, and situations where there is a threat of violence and the police are called to protect innocent civilians on the other. As a society, we need to be able to distinguish between the two. Instead we are creating a dichotomy in which the police are always wrong. Over time, this will result in more leeway for criminal behavior and less protection for law-abiding citizens. Meanwhile, with the public poised to distrust the police, odds increase that people will be more likely to resist arrest, and that fraught encounters with the police are more likely to turn violent.

MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN’s New “Reporter,” Natasha Bertrand, is a Deranged Conspiracy Theorist and Scandal-Plagued CIA Propagandist Glenn Greenwald

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/cnns-new-reporter-natasha-bertrand?token=e

In the U.S. corporate media, the surest way to advance is to loyally spread lies and deceit from the U.S. security state. Bertrand is just the latest example.

The most important axiom for understanding how the U.S. corporate media functions is that there is never accountability for those who serve as propagandists for the U.S. security state. The opposite is true: the more aggressively and recklessly you spread CIA narratives or pro-war manipulation, the more rewarded you will be in that world.

The classic case is Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote one of the most deceitful and destructive articles of his generation: a lengthy New Yorker article in May, 2002 — right as the propagandistic groundwork for the invasion of Iraq was being laid — that claimed Saddam Hussein had formed an alliance with Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. In February, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, NPR host Robert Siegel devoted a long segment to this claim. When he asked Goldberg “a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” Goldberg replied: “He is one of several men who might personify a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.”

Needless to say, nothing could generate hatred for someone among the American population — just nine months away from the 9/11 attack — more than associating them with bin Laden. Five months after Goldberg’s New Yorker article, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of military force to impose regime change on Iraq; ten months later, the U.S. invaded Iraq; and by September, 2003, close to 70% of Americans believed the lie that Saddam had personally participated in the 9/11 attack.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Fears a Society that Hates Itself? Lionel Shriver

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://spectator.us/topic/fears-society-hates-itself-race/

In my teens, criticizing the implacable edifice of the United States felt like kicking a tank in bedroom slippers. Richard Nixon’s ‘silent majority’ was patriotic. Railing about my country’s disgraceful historical underbelly — slavery, the Native American genocide — seemed edgy.

Fast-forward, and in the west trashing your own country has become a central preoccupation of the ruling class. University administrators, corporate board members and media pundits compete with one another over who can denounce their disgusting society with more fervor. Shame, or what passes for it, is the new ostentation. America’s own President decries his country’s ‘systemic racism’. Far more than singing along with ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at a football game or (God forbid) ‘Rule, Britannia’ at the Proms, joining the chorus proclaiming the odiousness of America or Britain has become downright conformist — one reason why pooping all over the land of my birth ceased long ago to be any fun.

Now self-loathing has gone mainstream, the government-commissioned April report attesting the UK is not ‘institutionally racist’ is what qualifies as genuinely edgy; its assertion that, rather, Britain should act as a model for other white-majority countries is what qualifies as genuinely brave. For sure enough, its lead author, the head of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, drew comparison to Goebbels. On Twitter, a Labour MP equated the commissioners with cross-burners in the Ku Klux Klan. On the Guardian’s front page, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence decried the report’s heretical conclusions as giving ‘racists the green light’. On Channel 4 News, a former Met police superintendent slammed the document as having ‘set back racial equality for decades’ (now, that’s one powerful pile of paper). So over-the-top, so foam-at-the-mouth, so eye-bulgingly hypertensive was the immediate response to the ‘gaslighting’ report that the exhibition was almost comical.

Related Stories

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sen. Rick Scott: Dear Woke Corporate America, beware of the backlash that’s coming It turns out that power doe corrupt, and you have become corrupt By Senator Rick Scott (R-FL)

Posted By on April 27th, 2021

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/sen-rick-scott-work-corporate-america-backlash

Dear Woke Corporate America,

I hope you are all having fun with your virtue signaling. I hope you are enjoying trying to one-up each other and showing how woke you can be, all the while believing that you are more sophisticated and morally superior to the hard-working people of this country.

You must have loved the accolades from your elitist, left-wing peers when you took the MLB All-Star Game from Georgia. What a fun day for you on Twitter. Congratulations.

Never mind that you have destroyed working people’s jobs and hurt people who haven’t worked since COVID-19 took a member of their family or destroyed their small business.

You get texts from your elitist friends praising you for your courageous stand when you support “mostly peaceful” movements that loot small businesses, set fire to government buildings, and take the lives of innocent people.

You think that makes you morally superior to the people in what you call “flyover country.”

But you are lying. You are lying to Americans, lying to each other, and lying to yourselves. You know that everything you have said about the election reforms in Georgia being racist is a lie. 

You know that the Georgia law actually expands early voting and does nothing to suppress or curtail the voting rights of anyone. And yes, the Georgia law requires an ID to vote. Well, so does Delta Airlines, and so does Major League Baseball in order to pick up tickets.