ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Forget fancy language. Trump’s re-election is all about killer instinct. By Jay Latimer

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/forget_fancy_language_trumps_reelection_is_all_about_killer_instinct.html

How do you fight an obvious election fraud?  It’s a matter of political will.  Who has the strongest killer instinct?

That’s really what it all comes down to.  Never mind the fancy legal arguments; don’t bother learning the tortuous logic of constitutional law.  This is a rough-and-tumble battle, a street fight.

The forces arrayed against Trump and his supporters are awesome, possibly insurmountable.  The various mainstream media are telling everyone that the election is over, and that anyone saying otherwise is indulging in baseless conspiracy theories.  Silicon Valley has been aggressively censoring any news item or video that purports to show that fraud actually did occur.

Then you have the Storm Troopers, the Black Lives Matter and Antifa crowd, who threaten to doxx and intimidate anyone willing to stand up to the Narrative.  At least one whistleblower is already in the hospital.  Who wants to be next?

Trump’s lawyers are under unbelievable pressure from the media and are being threatened by other lawyers with disbarment for the simple act of representing the president of the United States.  Imagine that!

And the government officials charged with ensuring that the elections are fair?  They’re in on the steal!  In many cases, it appears that the election officials are the ones who conducted the fraud.  They’re part of the scheme, so of course they will swear that nothing was amiss.

Try calling the cops?  The FBI, when called to “investigate” a truck full of ballots driven across state lines, focuses instead on the whistleblower, a truck-driver who had the guts and temerity to come forward.  They couldn’t care less about the illegal voting; they want to threaten and intimidate the whistleblower.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Lancing the Lancet’s global-warming pustule By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/05/lancing-the-lancets-global-warming-pustule/
“With respect, The Lancet should study more science and economics, however unfashionable, and peddle less totalitarian politics, however fashionable and profitable – and deadly.”

The Lancet, once a respected medico-scientific journal and now just another me-too mouthpiece for theusual suspects, ran an editorial this week on climate change – on which subject it has neither expertise nor a missio canonica to pronounce. Here is a letter to the editor in response:

Sir, – Your notion of a “climate crisis” (editorial, December 2), though fashionable among the classe politique, is misplaced. That notion sprang from an elementary error of physics perpetrated in the 1980s by climate scientists who had borrowed feedback formulism from control theory, another branch of physics, without quite understanding it. Interdisciplinary compartmentalization delayed its identification until now.

After correcting the error, anthropogenic global warming will be only one-third of current midrange projections, well within natural variability and net-beneficial to life and health. CO2 fertilization (for CO2 is plant food) has assisted in steadily increasing crop yields – this year’s global harvest has set yet another record – and in improving drought resistance (Hao et al., 2014) and greening the planet.

Your suggestion that warmer worldwide weather has caused net loss of life, particularly among the world’s fast-declining population of poor people, is fashionable but misplaced. Cold is a bigger killer than warmth. Research conducted three years ago for the European Commission found that, for this reason, even if there were 5.4 C° global warming from 2020-2080, there would be 100,000 more Europeans than with no warming at all.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

America Tests Positive For A Raging Mental Health Pandemic

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/12/08/america-tests-positive-for-a-raging-mental-health-pandemic/

While public officials are busy cracking down on freedom using a viral pandemic as their justification, another pandemic comes chopping and reaping, this one caused by the extreme measures that have produced no beneficial results. Both the elected and unelected who have brought this on need to be held accountable.

“Americans’ Mental Health Ratings Sink to New Low,” says the headline of a report from a recent Gallup poll.

“Americans’ latest assessment of their mental health is worse than it has been at any point in the last two decades. Seventy-six percent of U.S. adults rate their mental health positively,” that is, “excellent/good,” while 85% did in 2019. Those who said their mental health or emotional well-being is “excellent” fell from 43% to 34%.

The poll was conducted between Nov. 5 and Nov. 19, before, we must point out, before holiday-spoiling lockdowns were ramped up in much of the country.

In what we would classify as almost an understatement, Gallup said the decline in mental health is “undoubtedly influenced by the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to profoundly disrupt people’s lives.” Yes, it might “also reflect views of the election and the state of race relations.” But we’ve had elections – just four years ago the political left fell into a deep funk over the results – and race relation troubles before. Never have we had our liberties sacked as they have been since March.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Another General at Defense? Lloyd Austin’s record and views are more important than his race.

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-general-at-defense-11607470114?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Joe Biden has picked retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to be his Defense Secretary, and anyone skimming the coverage might believe the most important recommendation is his race. But Senators interested more in substance than identity politics have plenty to think about.

Gen. Austin, 67, served the country well during his four-decade career in the Army. As commander of U.S. forces in Iraq from 2010-11, he oversaw America’s retreat from the country. The general wanted to keep tens of thousands of American forces, which is to his credit. Less defensible is his failure to anticipate the full withdrawal that Barack Obama ordered and prepare adequately, which led to a hasty exit. Mr. Biden, who worked with Gen. Austin during the Obama Administration, might be most attracted to him as a loyal lieutenant.

Gen. Austin was promoted to Commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) in 2013 and held the job for three years as Islamic State rampaged across Iraq and Syria. His role in the failed program to train Syrian rebels deserves attention, as does the military’s apparent surprise at the fall of Mosul and swift rise of ISIS in 2014. His spokesman denied it, but Gen. Austin reportedly told the White House that ISIS was only “a flash in the pan.”

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Covid and the New Age of Censorship It doesn’t promote public health when media and tech companies stifle scientific debate. By Alex Berenson

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-and-the-new-age-of-censorship-11607381415?mod=djemalertNEWS

Information has never been more plentiful or easier to distribute. Yet we are sliding into a new age of censorship and suppression, encouraged by technology giants and traditional media companies. As someone who’s been falsely characterized as a coronavirus “denier,” I have seen this crisis firsthand.

Since June, Amazon has twice tried to suppress self-published booklets I have written about Covid-19 and the response to it. These booklets don’t contain conspiracy theories. Like the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, I simply believe many measures to control the coronavirus have been damaging, counterproductive and unsupported by science.

Amazon has said earlier that “as a bookseller, we believe that providing access to the written word is important, including books that some may find objectionable.” The company sells “Mein Kampf” and “The Anarchist’s Cookbook.” But when it comes to Covid, Amazon has a different standard. At least half a dozen other authors have emailed me that their books have been pulled. Amazon won’t disclose how many, or other details about how it picks books to censor.

Google-owned YouTube censors even more aggressively. The company disclosed in October that it had pulled more than 200,000 videos about the epidemic—including one from Scott Atlas, a physician who was advising President Trump. Facebook has not only censored videos and attached warning labels or “fact checks” to news articles, but removed groups that oppose lockdowns and other restrictions.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Michigan House Chairman Tells Dominion CEO to Appear or Be Subpoenaed By Zachary Stieber

Posted By on December 9th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-house-chairman-tells-dominion-ceo-to-appear-or-be-subpoenaed_3609633.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-08-3

A Michigan lawmaker leading the investigation into the 2020 election threatened Dominion Voting Systems CEO with a subpoena if he doesn’t appear before his committee voluntarily.

State Rep. Matt Hall, a Republican who chairs the Michigan House Oversight Committee, said in a Dec. 7 letter obtained by The Epoch Times that he sent a missive last month asking Dominion CEO John Poulos to testify before the committee.

“I have not received an answer to my request. I am writing again to request your appearance before the House Oversight Committee so that we can further investigate Dominion’s role in the election,” Hall wrote to Poulos in the new letter.

The representative said there have been a number of claims and accusations regarding Dominion’s software and the results of the election and that Poulos could help lawmakers and voters better understand the election software.

If Poulos cannot make it in person, testimony via Zoom would serve.

“If Dominion chooses to ignore this second request to come before the committee I am prepared to seek legislative subpoena power to compel your appearance before the House Oversight Committee,” Hall wrote. “I am hopeful that it would not come to this.”

Dominion didn’t respond to a request for comment.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump Can’t Allow Democrats to Enjoy One Minute of Biden ‘Victory’ By Stephen Kruiser

Posted By on December 8th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2020/12/08/the-morning-briefing-trump-cant-allow-democrats-to-enjoy-one-minute-of-biden-victory-n1196761

The Trump Georgia rally that we discussed in yesterday’s Briefing got me thinking a lot about not just this past election, but the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential contest. Normally I try to not to think too far ahead when it comes to these things because they go on long enough anyway. After the arduous year and campaign we were all subjected to it would be nice to not think about politics at all, but hey, I’ve got work to do here.

As I have written on a couple of occasions, I think the Republicans are in a fantastic position here, despite the royal screwing in the presidential contest. The party is set up to have a monumentally epic run at taking over the House in two years. And the Jill Biden Edith Wilson 2.0 presidency has a real good shot at being a one-term affair. Seriously, you look at what a train wreck Biden is right now and think about all of the behind-the-scenes fighting that will be going on to control him and there is a lot to look forward to here from the opposition.

President Trump is running out of legal options to contest the election but there is still a lot of fight left in his legal team. They continue to put up a united front and vow to uncover every spurious ballot cast. I don’t pretend to know anything about election law so I haven’t weighed in on that a lot.

I do know optics, however. The Democrats and their flying monkeys in the media are still rending their garments over the fact that Trump and the faithful will not go quietly into Inauguration Day, which you all know I’m a fan of. Watching them flail throughout what should be their extended moment of triumph is rather delightful. I didn’t used to be this mean-spirited about politics but after what they did for the last for years I find myself a bit bereft of any charitable feelings for the Dems.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Feminist’s Gambit: A Skeptical Take on Netflix’s ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ By David Solway

Posted By on December 8th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/12/07/the-feminists-gambit-a-skeptical-take-on-netflixs-the-queen-gambit-n1196739

At one time Chess was the reigning passion of my life, amounting almost to an obsession. I regularly visited the chess clubs in Old Montreal and played scrappy games with strangers on linoleum “boards” with chintzy plastic pieces. In time I acquired an extensive library of chess books and fell in love with opening theory, which I studied assiduously. I had a chess table built for me, bought a set of lovely hand-carved rosewood pieces, set about analyzing the games of the masters, and played as often as I could with friends, students and chess buffs. 

Soon it seemed I was doing little else. Montreal had become a mecca for chess tournaments, provincial, interzonal and international, which I devotedly attended. It was at the Tournament of Stars, sponsored by Quebec’s major French newspaper La Presse, that I met grandmaster Robert Hübner, then ranked sixth in the world. We became close friends over the years. Robert would visit me in Montreal and twice he spent summers with my family on the Greek island of Alonissos, where he would prepare for various international matches. As a friendly test and on a whim, I once asked Robert to set up the pieces as they were on the 18th move in the 27th game of the Alekhine-Capablanca 1927 World Championship match in Buenos Aires. It took him only a few seconds to reproduce the formation. 

By that time chess had become the center of my life. Though I never played in formal competitions, Robert assigned me a hypothetical rating of 1700, which falls into the FIDE Class B category. Eventually I came to understand chess as one of the great metaphors for life and published a book of poems, Chess Pieces, in which each chess piece, the various rules and the major opening gambits, stood allegorically for some aspect of human relationships.

Though many years have passed, my fascination with the game has never entirely waned. Thus, when Netflix featured the pseudo-biopic The Queen’s Gambit, based on the Walter Tevis novel of that title, which appears to have ignited a chess boom across the country, I couldn’t help binge-watching the career and exploits of chess prodigy Beth Harmon—Tevis’ “tribute to brainy women,” as he told The New York Times. The series (like the book) was quite mesmerizing—a gripping narrative of a young girl surmounting childhood trauma to reach the pinnacle of the chess world, with excellent production values, and snatches of games cloned from the manuals—which many commentators have fulsomely praised. And yet I found myself naggingly dissatisfied with the affair. Too much detracted from the aura of authenticity which the series aspired to.

To begin with, although there have been (and are) amazing women chess players, they were always few in number. This was not because they were held back by the “Patriarchy.” In the Soviet Union, Israel, and other nations, they were coddled and subsidized, but never reached the status of the very top world-class male grandmasters. The closest any woman ever came to winning an Open World Championship was the extraordinary Judit Polgar of Hungary, who finished last of eight participants in the 2005 San Luis Invitational, losing to Veselin Topalov, though she was playing White. 

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

China honeytrap spy targeted Eric Swalwell as her useful fool By Monica Showalter

Posted By on December 8th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/china_honeytrap_spy_chose_eric_swalwell_as_her_targetted_useful_fool.html

Rep. Eric Swalwell is famous for yelling about Russian influence with outrageous claims against President Trump, even calling for a ‘presidential crimes commission,’ but based on a year-long investigation from Axios, he’s the one who has some spy problems, and they ought to be embarrassing at least. He was China’s idea of the perfect fool.

According to a year-long investigation from Axios:

A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation.

…and…

The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage.

Through campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, Fang was able to gain proximity to political power, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and one former elected official.
Even though U.S. officials do not believe Fang received or passed on classified information, the case “was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up” in the intelligence network, a current senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Private but unclassified information about government officials — such as their habits, preferences, schedules, social networks, and even rumors about them — is a form of political intelligence. Collecting such information is a key part of what foreign intelligence agencies do.

Among the most significant targets of Fang’s efforts was Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

That’s So Fauci: Failing Up While Botching Science And Undermining U.S. Allies By Joy Pullmann

Posted By on December 8th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/08/thats-so-fauci-failing-up-while-botching-science-and-undermining-u-s-allies/

Fauci reversed himself on the safety of the COVID vaccines, apologizing for making false statements about U.S. allies’ work with the Trump administration to save countless lives through cutting-edge medical research.

Joe Biden likes Dr. Anthony Fauci’s lockdown advice so much, he has tapped him for chief medical advisor. Biden also plans to keep Fauci on his COVID advisory board despite Democrats spending 2020 insisting President Trump’s COVID guidance, although clearly influenced by Fauci, contradicted science and hurt the nation.

That same day, Fauci reversed himself on the safety of the COVID vaccines being developed, apologizing for making false statements about U.S. allies’ work in partnership with the Trump administration to save countless lives through cutting-edge medical research.

Axios reported: “‘I have a great deal of confidence in what the U.K. does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint,’ Dr Fauci told the BBC on Thursday after saying earlier in the day that U.K. regulators ‘rushed’ their approval of the vaccine” for COVID from Pfizer-BioNTech. The day before, the United Kingdom had become the first nation to grant emergency approval to one of three reportedly highly effective vaccines that have been developed in conjunction with massive U.S. taxpayer spending and government effort.

“In the United States, there is such a considerable amount of tension of pushing back on the credibility, on the safety and on the efficacy that if we in the United States had done it as quickly as the U.K. did — and that’s no judgement on the way the U.K. did it — …there likely would have been pushback,” Fauci word-saladed in his apology over the “misunderstanding” he created by criticizing the United Kingdom’s efforts to end the pandemic faster.

“If you go quickly and you do it superficially, people are not going to want to get vaccinated,” Fauci told Fox News. “We have the gold standard of a regulatory approach with the FDA.”