MEDIA Comments turned off

The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels. Glenn Greenwald *****

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-claims

“One can — and should — condemn the January 6 riot without inflating the threat it posed. And one can — and should — insist on both factual accuracy and sober restraint without standing accused of sympathy for the rioters.”

What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.

But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.

Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.

One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hong Kong Trial of Nine Pro-Democracy Activists Begins Martin Lee, newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai are among the veteran activists facing charges that carry possible prison sentences of up to five years

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-trial-of-nine-pro-democracy-activists-begins-11613481810

HONG KONG—Nine veteran pro-democracy activists appeared together in court Tuesday on charges related to the mass protests that rocked the city in 2019, in a trial that stands out for the number and prominence of the defendants facing prosecution.

They include 82-year-old pro-democracy campaigner Martin Lee, newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai and seven others who face charges of illegal assembly that carry possible sentences of up to five years in prison.

While the prosecution of Hong Kong’s opposition has become increasingly commonplace, the defendants in the trial beginning Tuesday are a Who’s Who of an earlier generation of activists who have been fighting for core issues like the rule of law and political participation since before the U.K. returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Mr. Lee is a U.K.-trained lawyer who co-founded the city’s first pro-democracy party and helped write Hong Kong’s foundational legal document, the 1990 Basic Law. Others charged include Margaret Ng, a 73-year-old barrister; Albert Ho, a 69-year-old lawyer and activist; Lee Cheuk-yan, a 64-year-old labor leader, and Leung Kwok-hung, also 64, a longtime politician and activist known as “Long Hair.”

Police arrested the group last April in coordinated early-morning raids that surprised many in the city, since those targeted were generally associated with peaceful activism and running for elected office—not the often bitter clashes between young protesters and the police. For many, the arrests signaled that authorities intended to go beyond prosecuting protesters who committed violence to crush the democracy movement itself.

 

The arrests came just weeks before Beijing announced its imposition of a national security law that would give mainland authorities wide latitude to enforce crimes such as sedition, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers. Today, peaceful marches are essentially banned, and even some slogans are considered illegal.

“This is a political retaliation on the part of the Chinese Communist Party,” Lee Cheuk-yan said of the trial. “Sadly now in Hong Kong, the law is being used as an instrument of political retaliation and suppression.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France’s Macron Wins National Assembly Backing for ‘Islamist Separatism’ Bill The proposed legislation heads to the French Senate amid criticism that it stigmatizes Muslims

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-macron-wins-national-assembly-backing-for-islamist-separatism-bill-11613501154

France’s National Assembly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to strengthen government oversight of mosques and religious schools and crack down on other practices—from online hate speech to forced marriage—that President Emmanuel Macron says are rooted in Islamist separatism.

The proposed legislation passed the National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, with a vote of 347-151, garnering support from lawmakers in Mr. Macron’s ranks as well as other centrist parties. It now heads to the Senate.

Mr. Macron and his supporters in Parliament have framed the bill as a response to the spread of “Islamist separatism,” which the president describes as an ideology that aims to build a parallel society in France where religious rules override civil laws. That ideology, the Macron government says, undermines the values of the French Republic—liberty, equality and fraternity—as well as laïcité, France’s strict separation of religion and state.

The proposed legislation requires religious associations and mosques to declare foreign funding of more than €10,000 ($12,000), and to sign a pledge to respect France’s republican values to receive state subsidies. The bill would also make it easier for the government to shut down mosques, associations and schools that are found criticizing republican values.

The proposed legislation would make it a criminal offense for anyone, in the name of ideology or religious extremism, to put pressure on civil servants and public-service providers to deviate from France’s secular values. Under its provisions, a man who refuses to allow a male doctor to examine his wife could face up to five years in jail and a fine of up to €75,000.

France’s conservative party Les Républicains voted against the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough. The vote split the National Assembly’s leftist opposition, with lawmakers from the Socialist Party deciding to abstain. Far-left lawmakers voted against the bill, saying it was an unnecessary measure that risked stigmatizing France’s Muslim population, one of the largest in Europe.

“No, it is not in Muslim places of worship that terrorist attacks are organized,” far-left lawmaker Alexis Corbière said on Tuesday, speaking at the National Assembly ahead of the vote. “This text will only fabricate a new halo of suspicion around all Muslim associations,” he added.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

As China’s Big Tech Hits America, Biden Signals Surrender by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17073/china-big-tech

There is no greater danger than that posed by Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest manufacturer of communications networking gear…. Huawei poses a mortal threat to the U.S. economy. Beijing has been using the company to steal data.

Huawei is Beijing’s “mechanism for spying, ” as Senator Marsha Blackburn told Fox News in July 2019.

America should be putting Huawei out of business, not supporting its efforts to injure U.S. allies, partners, and friends, not to mention America itself.

The problem with the Biden approach is that there is not a moment to lose. “Sadly, I fear that by the time the Biden team comes around to the fact that Trump was right about China, the United States will have given up its leverage and China will have moved far beyond the point in which American sanctions can reliably work. At that point, Chinese tech firms will have been so enmeshed in the world system, propagating new technology and products, that it will be nearly impossible to decouple, the ultimate objective of Trump-era sanctions against China.” — Brandon J. Weichert, tech analyst and author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, to Gatestone, February 2021.

On February 11, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to put on hold its review of the Trump-era ban on WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app.

This request came a day after the administration asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a similar hold on the case considering the Trump ban on the Chinese mobile video-sharing platform TikTok.

Lower U.S. courts had previously enjoined the enforcement of the Trump bans. WeChat users and TikTok had sued to block enforcement. Trump banned the apps because they were, he correctly contended, collecting “vast swaths” of data and censoring Americans.

The Justice Department’s motion in the TikTok case raised the possibility that the Biden administration, after its review of the situation, will drop the ban on the app. “A review of the prohibitions at issue here may narrow the issues presented or eliminate the need for this Court’s review entirely,” stated Casen Ross, a Justice Department lawyer.

TikTok’s threat to the U.S. goes well beyond the surreptitious collection of data and censorship, however. China has used the app’s algorithm to inflame American public opinion.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Another Deadly Decision by Cuomo: Ventilators Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/16/another-deadly-decision-by-cuomo-ventilators/

Hailed as a hero for months due to his theatrical handling of the crisis, Cuomo now is under long-delayed but well-deserved scrutiny for his incompetence and apparent cover-up of nursing home data.

The first political dogfight surrounding COVID-19 occurred last spring between President Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. At issue: the nation’s ventilator supply.

Alarmed by inaccurate scientific models warning the United States lacked a sufficient stockpile, Cuomo blamed the president for the alleged dearth of breathing machines. “I operate on the data and on the numbers and on the science,” Cuomo boasted March 27, as his state was under siege from the virus. “And every projection I have, from multiple sources, and these are worldwide health experts, say that we have to be prepared for an apex of . . . 40,000 ICU beds with ventilators.”

The president disputed Cuomo’s exaggerated demand. “I think their estimates are high,” Trump said in the duo’s escalating war of words.

Cuomo for weeks fixated on the need for more ventilators. Claiming a lack of ventilators was his “most significant challenge,” Cuomo’s state health department authorized the conversion of BiPAP machines into ventilators; New York, Cuomo warned on April 2, would run out of the machines within a week. He signed an executive order to seize ventilators from private hospitals and redistribute them to overwhelmed facilities. 

“Am I willing to (do this) to save a couple of hundred lives? You’re damn right I am,” Cuomo preened.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In Milwaukee, Biden dropped two giant lies By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/in_milwaukee_biden_dropped_two_giant_lies.html

In 1860, Americans elected Honest Abe Lincoln. In 2020, Americans theoretically elected one of the most prodigious and infamous liars in modern American history. Joe Biden has a sterling reputation for routine dishonesty. He’s plagiarized, slandered, and prevaricated his way through 48 years of politics, before which he was a known plagiarist as a student. During a CNN town hall in Wisconsin, Biden went into dishonesty overdrive, spewing two major lies.

I wrote here about Biden’s most recent lie. During the debate in Georgia alone, Biden lied to or misled Americans another 33 times. In 2008, McCain’s campaign was able to identify Biden’s 14 major lies during the vice-presidential debate. Then there are the self-aggrandizing lies Biden tells whenever he gets a mic in his face.

And of course, there are the lies and plagiarism that got Biden kicked out of the 1988 presidential race (as well as a bonus lie about the Civil Rights Movement). If Diogenes had ever run into Biden, he would have tossed his lamp into the nearest gutter, gone to a bar, and drunk himself to death out of sheer despair.

Tuesday was an especially rich day for Biden lies, because CNN hosted a “town hall” for him in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In that supportive environment, Biden was able to get away with two blatant lies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jason D. Hill Video: What Do White Americans Owe Black People? Shillman Fellow unveils the true nature — and dire consequences — of the reparations movement.

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/jason-d-hill-video-what-do-white-americans-owe-frontpagemagcom/

This video is brought to you by a Freedom Center-Glazov Gang collaboration on a new exclusive webinar series, Teach-Ins for the Twenty-First Century. Join us as some of the leading thinkers and pundits on the scene today discuss key issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing implications, confronting the Left, the jihad terror threat, and much, much more. And make sure to ask your own questions of our experts.

Hosted by Anni Cyrus, producer of The Glazov Gang and Founder of Live Up To Freedom.

This new webinar features Dr. Jason D. Hill, a professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Dr. Hill focuses on What Do White Americans Owe Black People?, analyzing how The reparations movement is unethical and an inverse form of racism.

Don’t miss it!

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Tucker Carlson Video: Biden Releases Illegals Into U.S. Without Testing for Coronavirus What could possibly go right?

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/tucker-carlson-video-biden-releases-illegals-us-frontpage-editors/

In this video from Tucker Carlson Tonight posted at Dan Bongino’s Rumble website, host Carlson addresses how the Biden administration is putting the country at risk by allowing illegal aliens into the United States without any kind of COVID-19 testing. Don’t miss this shocking short video below:

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What the Dems’ Prospects Are Without Donald Trump Can the Republicans show some steel and fend off Democrat tyranny? Bruce Thornton

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/what-dems-prospects-are-without-donald-trump-bruce-thornton/

Like last year’s Congress, the new 116th failed ignominiously to get Donald Trump convicted of their impeachment charge. Some federal court investigations into Trump’s businesses are still ongoing, but it’s likely, though not certain, that Trump will become less and less useful for distracting voters from the Democrats’ sharp turn to the left both on domestic and foreign policy.

If the Dems fail to hold on to power as they did in 2016, history will have a lot of suspects to investigate in order to explain their inability to attract voters without the bogey of Donald Trump and a fortuitous pandemic. But if they succeed, then we will have turned a dangerous corner on the road to dismantling the Constitution’s structure of ordered liberty and unalienable rights.

Start with Biden himself. We can pass over his obvious cognitive impairments and endless gaffes. He overcame those campaign-ending deficits because the party, with a compliant media, marketed him as an old-school centrist who could neutralize the toxic socialist Bernie Sanders.  Upon election he indulged the dull clichés “working together,” “healing the wounds,” and “no blue America, no red America.” But the House negated that rhetoric with an even more preposterous article of impeachment that charged the president with “insurrection,” based mainly on creatively editing the footage of his speech at the Ellipse, and taking literally a “fight” metaphor that Trump’s lawyers used video clips to showed numerous Democrats repeatedly using over the past four years.

So much for “healing.” But worse has been Biden’s flurry of executive orders that make down- payments on the Green New Deal disaster dear to the party’s socialist wing. On foreign policy, he has stacked his administration with old retreads from the “rules-based” global order that has failed serially since World War II, and which blew the opportunity presented when the Soviet Union imploded in 1991. This means returning to the creaking global diplomacy institutions that favor summits, conferences, photo-ops and empty threats. Hence Biden is undoing the necessary corrections made by Trump in order to make it clear to our rivals and allies alike that the U.S. is putting our own national security and interest ahead of the mythic “new world order.”

BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Bill Gates’s Climate Hysteria By David Harsanyi

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/bill-gatess-climate-hysteria/

In a recent interview, he relies on fearmongering, cherry-picking, and dire predictions to make his climate-change agenda appear more palatable.

T his past Sunday, Bill Gates (net worth, $133 billion) and Anderson Cooper ($110 million) got together on 60 Minutes to discuss the numerous sacrifices Americans will be expected to make to avert an imminent climate catastrophe.

First, we should refrain from referring to these sorts of conversations as “journalism,” since Cooper never challenges any of Gates’s wild predictions nor displays even a hint of professional skepticism regarding the subject matter. Cooper simply cues up the next talking point like a host of an in-house corporate video.

Gates, who has a new book out called “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” told Cooper that he believes that climate change “is the toughest challenge humanity has ever faced,” and wealthy nations — not China or India, one assumes — must get to zero carbon emissions by 2050 or the world is basically kaput. Not 40 percent. Not five. Zero. Elsewhere in the interview, Gates called for a nationalistic “all-out effort, you know, like a world war, but it’s us against greenhouse gases.”

Americans use over 20 million barrels of petroleum products every day — now more abundant and easier to extract than ever before — so, unless some completely new technology emerges, it will take a fascistic technocracy to win this conflict. Now, I don’t use “fascistic” lightly here. Nor am I suggesting that Gates envisions goose-stepping Gestapo agents banging on your door every time you set the air conditioner below 75 degrees. And, anyway, what kind of monster would own an air conditioner with an extinction-level threat hanging over humanity? He does, however, envision the state dictating virtually every decision made by industry that relates to carbon emissions — which is to say the entire economy. If there is a more precise phrase that describes a state-controlled economy that directs both private and public ownership over the means of production during wartime, I will be happy to use it.