ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Arizona Senate Passes Bill Strengthening Its Investigative Powers Amid Maricopa County Vote Audit Dispute By Tom Ozimek

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/arizona-senate-passes-bill-strengthening-its-investigative-powers-amid-maricopa-county-vote-audit-dispute_3703145.html

The Arizona Senate passed a bill Thursday that would grant the Arizona legislature the authority to subpoena election records like ballots and tabulating equipment, and ignore any laws to the contrary.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 1408 on its third reading in the state’s upper chamber along a 16–14 party-line vote, with Republicans voting for and Democrats voting against.

The bill amends a portion of the Arizona statutes such that county election equipment, systems and records, and other information that is under the control of county personnel “may not be deemed privileged information, confidential information, or other information protected from disclosure.” It also subjects such records to a subpoena and stipulates that they “must be produced” and the legislature’s authority to conduct related probes “may not be infringed by any other law.”

The rule change is to be retroactive as of Dec. 31, 2019, meaning it would apply to records around the November election.

State Sen. Warren Petersen, a Republican, introduced the bill amid a battle between Republican Senate leaders and Maricopa County officials over the attempt by GOP senators to audit the 2020 election.

Republican lawmakers in the Arizona Senate have issued subpoenas to Maricopa County demanding that it turn over a range of election records, calling for a scanned ballot audit and a forensic audit of ballot tabulation equipment and software. But the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted against complying with the subpoenas, instead seeking judgment from a court about whether they have to comply. Arizona senators filed a countersuit, asking the court to enforce the subpoenas, which was subsequently dismissed.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Bari Weiss :Whistleblower at Smith College Resigns Over Racism Jodi Shaw made less in a year than the cost of tuition. She was offered a settlement, but turned it down. Here’s why.

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/whistleblower-at-smith-college-resigns?token=

We all know that something morally grotesque is swallowing liberal America. Almost no one wants to risk talking about it out loud.

Every day I get phone calls from anxious Americans complaining about an ideology that wants to pull all of us into the past.

I get calls from parents telling me about the damaging things being taught in schools: so-called antiracist programs that urge children to obsess on the color of their skin.

I get calls from people working in corporate America forced to go to trainings in which they learn that they carry collective, race-based guilt — or benefit from collective, race-based virtue.

I get calls from young people just launching their careers telling me that they feel they have no choice but to profess fealty to this ideology in order to keep their jobs.

Almost no one who calls me is willing to go public. And I understand why. To go public with what’s happening is to risk their jobs and their reputations.

But the hour is very late. It calls for courage. And courage has come in the form of a woman named Jodi Shaw.

Jodi Shaw was, until this afternoon, a staffer at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She made $45,000 a year — less than the yearly tuition at the school.

She is a divorced mother of two children. She is a lifelong liberal and an alumna of the college. And she has had a front-row seat to the illiberal, neo-racist ideology masquerading as progress.

In October 2020, after Shaw felt that she had exhausted all her internal options, she posted a video on YouTube, blowing the whistle on, what she says, is an atmosphere of racial discrimination at the school.

“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” she said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

It’s Official: The U.S. Has Rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement Katie Pavlich

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/02/19/its-official-the-us-has-rejoined-the-pairs-climate-accords-n2585004

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced Friday that the United States is officially back in the Paris Climate Accords. 

“On January 20, on his first day in office, President Biden signed the instrument to bring the United States back into the Paris Agreement. Per the terms of the Agreement, the United States officially becomes a Party again today,” Blinken released in a statement. “The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented framework for global action. We know because we helped design it and make it a reality. Its purpose is both simple and expansive: to help us all avoid catastrophic planetary warming and to build resilience around the world to the impacts from climate change we already see.”

“Now, as momentous as our joining the Agreement was in 2016 — and as momentous as our rejoining is today — what we do in the coming weeks, months, and years is even more important. You have seen and will continue to see us weaving climate change into our most important bilateral and multilateral conversations at all levels. In these conversations, we’re asking other leaders: how can we do more together?” he continued. 

President Donald Trump took the U.S. out of the agreement in 2017, saving taxpayers $3 billion, and still continued to cut emissions at rates higher than European countries who stayed in the accords. From Forbes: 

Yesterday, The United Nations released its Emissions Gap Report 2020, an annual assessment of contributions to greenhouse gas and carbon emissions. The report has some notable information amid an array of complicated projections that may or may not come true. It claims, for instance, that “despite a brief dip in carbon dioxide emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still heading for a temperature rise.” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Censored Hunter Biden Laptop Story Comes Back Around to Bite Twitter By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/02/19/censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story-comes-back-around-to-bite-twitter-n1426849

The former Delaware computer repair shop owner who gave Rudi Giuliani and the FBI emails alleged to be from Hunter Biden’s laptop has again sued Twitter for defamation. John Paul Mac Isaac claimed that Twitter defamed him by censoring a New York Post story over its alleged use of “hacked materials.” Due to Twitter’s suppression of the story, Americans branded Mac Isaac a hacker, costing him business opportunities and ultimately leading him to shut down his business, the lawsuit claims.

“Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not constitute hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer, first with the permission of its owner, Biden, and then, after Biden failed to retrieve the recovered data despite Plaintiff’s reuses, in accordance with the Mac Shop’s abandoned property police,” the lawsuit claims. “Plaintiff, as a direct result of Defendant Twitter’s actions and statements, is now widely considered a hacker.”

Mac Isaac filed a similar defamation lawsuit against Twitter late last year, seeking no less than $500 million in damages, but a judge at the Florida court in which he filed tossed the suit over lack of jurisdiction. The new lawsuit aims to address the jurisdiction issue, The Washington Examiner reported.

The new lawsuit claims defamation damages greater than $75,000 and demands that Twitter “make a public retraction of all false statements and to issue a public apology.”

Last October, The New York Post published a bombshell story that implicated then-candidate Joe Biden in his son Hunter’s notorious foreign business deals. Hunter Biden had notoriously cashed in on his father’s name with lucrative deals in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere — while Joe Biden spearheaded Obama administration policy in Ukraine and China.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

It’s official: U.S. back in the Paris climate club By Valerie Volcovici

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-usa/it-is-official-u-s-back-in-the-paris-climate-club-idUSKBN2AJ16T

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States officially rejoined the Paris climate agreement on Friday, reinvigorating the global fight against climate change as the Biden administration plans drastic emissions cuts over the next three decades.

Scientists and foreign diplomats have welcomed the U.S. return to the treaty, which became official here 30 days after President Joe Biden ordered the move on his first day in office.

Since nearly 200 countries signed the 2015 pact to prevent catastrophic climate change, the United States has been the only country to exit. Then-President Donald Trump took the step, claiming climate action would cost too much.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry took part in virtual events on Friday to mark the U.S. re-entry, including appearances with the ambassadors of the UK and Italy and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying the United States will try to make up for lost time due to Trump’s withdrawal.

“We feel an obligation to work overtime to try to make up the difference. We have a lot to do,” Kerry said at the event with the UK and Italian ambassadors.

Biden has promised to chart a path toward net-zero U.S. emissions by 2050. Scientists have said that goal is in line with what is needed, while also stressing that global emissions need to drop by half by 2030 to prevent the most devastating impacts of global warming.

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

54% of Voters Say Biden Is a ‘Puppet’ of the Left

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/54_o

Less than a month after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, most voters believe the Democrat is “a puppet of the radical left” and not the moderate “nice guy” he was portrayed as being during the election campaign.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters say they agree with this statement: “Joe Biden’s not the moderate nice guy that they made him out to be. He’s a puppet of the radical left.” Forty percent (40%) of voters disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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

Our Dire Future Under Biden Larry Alexander

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/our_dire_future_under_biden.html Our Dire Future Under Biden Larry Alexander

We are living in what seem to me to be terribly fraught times, times that are even more worrisome than those at the height of Cold War tensions, when we schoolchildren were drilled on what to do in case of a nuclear attack–an attack that was in fact highly unlikely to occur. Why do I say this? What are these overweening concerns?

Many relate to government policies. The Biden administration seems hell bent on reversing every Trump administration policy, even those policies that were quite successful.

On illegal immigration, which the Trump team managed to reduce significantly, team Biden seeks to make illegal entry easier and its legal consequences less of a deterrent. This will almost assuredly result in a significant influx of the unskilled, themselves infiltrated by gang members, cartel mules, parentless children, and perhaps even foreign terrorists.

Where the Trump administration managed to achieve energy independence, team Biden has now halted drilling on federal lands and offshore and has killed the Keystone pipeline — which won’t reduce the supply of oil coming into the U.S. but will require it to be transported via carbon-emitting trucks and trains. Insane! With respect to the climate, which saw carbon emissions decrease during the Trump years, team Biden has rejoined the Paris accord, which will have no effect on the world’s major polluters but will impose needless costs on Americans. (And why, if team Biden is really concerned with greenhouse gases, does it not push for nuclear power, which is clean and less an eyesore than wind farms and acres of solar panels?)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Critical Race Theory Is Coming to Your Suburban Community By Linda R. Killian

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/critical_race_theory_is_coming_to_your_suburban_community.html

Radicals pushing a Marxist and racist pedagogy called Critical Race Theory (CRT) have achieved their goal of destroying quality education in K-12 school systems in New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other large, progressive-controlled cities. But if suburban parents think they are safe from these depredations due to the existing quality of their school systems and parental involvement, they are wrong.  CRT has already quietly established residence in affluent suburban communities under the benign-sounding guise of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-S) under the aegis of state education departments, teachers’ unions and the burgeoning CRT industry.

For example, in 2018, the New York State Board of Regents engaged the New York University/Steinhardt Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools to develop a “framework for culturally-responsive-sustaining education. As a result of the Regents’ adoption of the resulting guidance document, students and parents in the affluent suburbs in Westchester County, which is immediately north of New York City, are being subjected to efforts to perform “equity audits”, “cultural proficiency training” and culturally responsive educational programs.

While the language of CR-S may seem benign at first sight, these programs are based on CRT, an ideology that seeks educational “equity” by uprooting the biases between the oppressors (white, privileged students) and the oppressed (non-white students). The New York State Department of Education gave its blessing to these efforts in its guidance document, available on the state’s website, which has the starting point that our current educational system has failed the diverse needs of children

New York’s guideline makes no bones about the alleged culprits of performance inequities and where this is headed. “A complex system of biases and structural inequities is at play, deeply rooted in our country’s history, culture and institutions. This system of inequity – which routinely confers advantage and disadvantage based on linguistic background, gender, skin color and other characteristics – must be clearly understood, directly challenged and fundamentally transformed.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

ONE WEEK IN “PROGRESSIVE” AMERICA-CAROLINE GLICK

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

http://carolineglick.com/one-week-in-progressive-america/

The Democrats had a lousy week. It began with former President Donald Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

Trump’s acquittal was a major blow to the Democrats. It isn’t that anyone believed Trump would be convicted. Whether Republicans love or hate the former president, the fact is that it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former officeholder. And for that reason alone, there was no chance that more than a smattering of Republicans would support the move.

But once their farcical trial ended, public focus moved to the Democrats – who now control both houses of Congress and the White House. True, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already planning to drag Trump back to center stage with her “January 6 Truth Commission.” But that won’t happen for several months. And in the meantime, for the first time in five years, the Democrats find themselves, and their actions, the focus of public attention.

The first casualties of the scrutiny have been the Democrat governors of the most populous Democrat-run states in the Union – Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California.

After a nearly a year in which Cuomo was lavished with adulation for his leadership of the coronavirus pandemic in New York; upheld as the future of the Democratic Party; touted as a possible candidate for Attorney General; and even won an Emmy for his press conferences, the truth has caught up with “America’s governor.”

Last March, as the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in New York hospitals mounted and fears that hospitals would be overwhelmed rose, Trump ordered the Army to set up a field hospital at the Javits Center and sent the Navy’s USS Comfort floating hospital to New York harbor. Not wanting to give any credit to Trump, Cuomo ordered nursing homes to take in COVID-19 patients from hospitals. The result was disastrous. COVID-19 spread like wildfire among the most vulnerable population and thousands of elderly New Yorkers died.

Republicans and conservative journalists long pointed out that Cuomo’s move was lethally misguided. But protected by the media, Cuomo indignantly denied the allegations.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Palestinians: EU Facilitating Hamas Victory by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17055/eu-hamas-elections

It is important to note that Israel did not stop the Palestinians in the past from holding presidential and parliamentary elections in 1996, 2005 and 2006.

Israel did not even stop Arab residents of Jerusalem from running in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election as candidates for Hamas, the Islamist movement that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and seeks to replace it with an Islamic state.

Hamas ran under the slogan “Islam is the solution” and promised to end corruption and bring good governance to the Palestinians… [and] also promised voters that it would resort to an “armed struggle” against Israel.

[W]hen Hamas participated in the 2006 election, which was also encouraged by the EU, the Islamist movement was still on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations. The EU, however, did not try to stop the terrorist organization from running in that election.

The Quartet members should have set the conditions before, not after the election. They had every right to do so: the Hamas-led government was expecting the international community to continue providing financial aid to the Palestinians.

The Hamas-led government that was formed after the 2006 election was boycotted by the EU and most of the international community. Why? Because Hamas, in their eyes, is a terrorist organization. If so, why did the EU and other Western countries not object to Hamas’s participation in the elections before the vote? Did Hamas become a terrorist organization only after it won the election?

The EU and other international parties perfectly well see that Hamas will run in upcoming election and again promise Palestinians to continue the “armed struggle’ against Israel. They can perfectly well hear Hamas saying that its goal is to “liberate Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” It seems that Hamas’s goal — finishing what Hitler started, annihilating the Jews — is precisely what the EU and the international community secretly, or unconsciously, want.

Facing pressure from the European Union, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last month set dates for holding general elections for the first time in 15 years.

The EU was quick to welcome Abbas’s decision to hold elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, the presidency and the PLO National Council.