Trump: An appreciation, on a momentous eve By Richard Kantro

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/trump_an_appreciation_on_a_momentous_eve.html

“My sober thoughts on election eve are these:  in neither party has any other officeholder — I won’t tar him with the politicians’ brush — ever been as steadfast, resolute, and uncompromising against the weasel ways of entrenched partisan interests, whose snarling creatures now bare tooth and claw, shrieking and slavering to keep their purloined ill-gotten carrion of advantage, tenure, power, and wealth.  Nor has one ever called them out for what they are — thieves, corrupt criminals, communists, haters, lunatics, and traitors — as he is doing now.”

At this a pivotal moment in human history, internal forces are trying to bring America to her knees.  Should this happen, we would suffer grievously, and she would lose her historical power to deter the world’s worst malefactors from acting out, or at least from prevailing in their worst predations.  But even worse, the world would lose its only true fire of freedom, which — often unseen, unacknowledged, unheralded, and even more often excoriated — keeps the world from plunging into barbarous darkness.

Consider this:  Over the past five years — since the moment Trump came down the escalator — the most miserable miscreants in politics and showbiz have execrated him with a malevolence and melodrama never seen in the quarter-millennium of our history:  a frothing mass psychosis.  Literally overnight, the former welcome-anywhere celebrity-builder-billionaire became public enemy No. 1 in the minds and in the dirty mouths of the disaffected, the ambitious, the incapable, the scheming, the jealous, the evil, the nefarious, the weak-minded, and the just plain warped.

No matter.  In the nearly four years since he assumed office, Trump’s brilliant administrative achievements ‑‑ yes, brilliant! — have undone bad regulation, bad law, bad border security, bad trade, a bad economy, a badly frayed military, bad national morale, and more.

Countering ‘You Ain’t Black’ with the Facts By Janet Levy

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

When comedienne Chelsea Handler noticed a pro-Trump tweet posted by her ex-flame 50 Cent, she became apoplectic and launched a bizarre social media crusade to change his mind.  Dripping condescension, she asked if he knew what his race was and insulted his intelligence, saying if he’s black he can’t vote Trump.  In an Instagram post, she addressed him “Hey f—–!,” offering to pay his taxes if he changed his mind on Trump.  And in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, she even dissolutely proffered renewed intimacy to 50 Cent: “I might be willing to go for another spin, if you know what I’m talking about.”

Her inability to accept that a black might support Trump is of a piece with presidential candidate Joe Biden’s comment to radio host Charlamagne tha God: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”  Like many liberals in the public sphere, Handler insists that American blacks should assert race über alles, and their candidate choice should be monolithic and unidimensional — Democratic, that is — based solely on loyalty to the color of their skin.

The false equation “black = Democratic” has long been taken for granted by the Democrats, who conflate blacks’ allegiance to their party with being true to their race.  American blacks who dare to break free of this shackling assumption end up facing the ostracism of “cancel culture.”  It’s an experience well known to black conservatives like Larry Elder, Candace Owens, Shelby Steele, and others.

George Soros’s Plan B If Biden Loses

https://townhall.com/columnists/frankwright/2020/11/01/george-soross-plan-b-if-biden-loses-n2579176?

Billionaire George Soros is spending big—$70 million at last report—to evict Donald Trump from the White House. The radical philanthropist vilifies Trump as nothing more than “an impostor and a con man and a would-be dictator.” He considers America’s 45th president a “danger to the world” who would like to establish a “mafia state” here at home.

Which is why Soros is determined to oust the president and push the “Big Guy”—aka Joe Biden—over the finish line in first place on Nov. 3. But what if Biden loses? Well, don’t expect Soros to give up and go home. 

George Soros has a plan B, and it’s already underway, insists Richard Poe, co-author with David Horowitz of The Shadow Party, an in-depth examination of Soros’ far-reaching influence. “George Soros is trying to steal the election,” Poe told D. James Kennedy Ministries, which produced the new, nationally aired documentary, Radical Billionaire: George Soros and the Scheme to Remake America. Poe claims Soros “has a whole crack team of experts, the top experts in the world…. And they are absolutely trying to steal this election.”

Soros is committed to Trump’s removal. He assured elites at Davos in 2018 that Trump is a “purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020, or even sooner.” That’s not an idle boast. Soros has an established record of driving leaders from power. Horowitz and Poe assert that “Soros’ Open Society Foundations have facilitated coups and rebellions in many countries, always ostensibly in the interests of ‘democratization.’”

Soros crowed in 2001 that his Open Society Foundations network has achieved “significant successes” in Slovakia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia where “civil society was mobilized to overturn … overcome, rather, an oppressive regime.” (see here at 22:25). Soros tried to catch himself, but “overturn” is correct.  That’s obvious from how Soros-financed forces were deployed in Yugoslavia and, later, Georgia to sweep rulers off the stage. 

Will America Hand Space Dominance to China? by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16718/space-dominance-china

Some believe the US space program should emphasize climate change research. If there is no overall increase in space spending, there will be less money for, among other things, defending American assets in space.

Brandon Weichert of The Weichert Report said in an interview with Gatestone that there might be a move to “staff the Space Force with people inimical to its mission.”

America is… in many respects behind Russia and China in the ability to fight “over great distances at tremendous speeds, ” as Space Force’s General John Raymond said in September.

Moreover, there are other policy proposals that would degrade America’s ability to defend itself…. Unfortunately, there are many who still believe America can come to agreement with China.

In space, almost everything has a dual purpose. Fisher, for instance, reports that China will put a laser on its upcoming space station for the announced purpose of eliminating space junk. Of course, such a laser is also capable of killing American satellites.

Other dual use items are Russia’s co-orbital “Space Stalkers.” In peacetime, they can be used to repair satellites. In wartime, Weichert says, “they can physically push U.S. satellites out of their orbits.” That would render America’s forces, and America itself, “deaf, dumb, and blind on land, at sea, in the air, and within cyberspace.”

In any event, neither Russia nor China honors agreements, especially arms control treaties.

China will be launching satellites almost every other week starting next March. In one instance the gap in next year’s frenetic schedule of launches will be only five days.

This year, through the end of September, China launched 29 satellites, more than any other nation. The U.S. was a close second with 27.

Beijing aims to widen its lead. Most observers worry that the Chinese regime is determined to get to the moon before U.S. astronauts return there, but another troublesome development is that China will quickly be filling up orbits with satellites.

Iran’s Mullahs are in Turmoil Thanks to America’s Current Policy by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16722/iran-mullahs-turmoil

Iran’s currency, the rial, lost more than half its value so far just in 2020.

Iran’s regime is currently running a $200 million budget deficit per week and it is estimated that if the pressure on Tehran continues, the deficit will hit roughly $10 billion by March 2021. This deficit will, in return, increase inflation and devalue the currency even further.

Iran’s militia groups are subsequently receiving less funding to pursue their terror activities. This shortfall may be why, for the first time in more than three decades, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, made a public statement asking people to donate money to his group.

Iran’s ruling mullahs desire to maintain the JCPOA. It not only provided their regime with many benefits including economic relief and global legitimacy; at the same time, it ignored Tehran’s military adventurism in the region, its ballistic missile program and its support for terror groups across the Middle East. Most importantly, the JCPOA also paved the way for Tehran ultimately to become a nuclear state.

The “maximum pressure” policy against Iran’s ruling mullahs is working and must absolutely continue.

The Iranian regime is in turmoil thanks to the “maximum pressure” policy implemented by US President Donald J. Trump against the ruling mullahs.

Iran’s currency, the rial, lost more than half its value so far just in 2020. That decline makes it one of the most worthless national currencies in the world. As of October 25, the rial traded on unofficial markets at 300,500 to the US dollar. The rate has pushed the Iranian authorities to agree on removing four zeros from its currency, which has gone into a virtual free-fall. Two years ago, one US dollar was worth nearly 30,000 rials.

Biden Flubs

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-flubs-his-way-through-elections-final-week/

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden labored through the final full week of his campaign, failing to recall the sex of Kamala Harris’s spouse, the name of the current president, and how to spell “respect.”

Biden Has Earned 11 Pinocchios From Fact-Checkers During Coronavirus Crisis (April 2020)

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-has-earned-11-pinocchios-from-fact-checkers-during-coronavirus-crisis/

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has been dinged several times by fact-checkers over claims he has made during the coronavirus crisis, including a total of 11 “Pinocchios” from the Washington Post.

Over the course of three weeks between March 13 and April 3, Biden was fact-checked five separate times for making false or misleading claims concerning the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.

A Washington Post fact check on March 13 awarded Biden four Pinocchios, the fact-checker’s most severe rating, for two manipulated videos the Biden campaign circulated.

Obsession: How the Media Keep Us Ignorant By Jeff Minick

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/obsession–how-the-media-keep-us-ignorant/

Many people of all political persuasions, including myself, find much of the mainstream news opinionated and biased. Negative media coverage of President Trump, for example, ran as high as 99 percent in May.

This slanted news does serious damage to our republic. It’s divisive, but it also causes ignorance. Two days ago, I met a man in his mid-30s who gave me a blank look when I mentioned the scandal surrounding Hunter Biden’s hard drive. When I asked another woman, a Democrat, what she thought about the possibility of Joe Biden having dementia, she had no idea what I meant.

But there is a threat to an informed citizenry as great as prejudicial reporting: negligence. The MSM not only keeps us in the dark by their bigotry and their deliberate omission of certain stories, but also by their inability to broaden their reporting.

Since January, the media has focused continually on the pandemic sweeping the globe. They’ve battered us with statistics, with terrible stories of nursing home deaths, and with arrests made when a church or business opened, news seasoned with the opinions of “experts.”

The Black Lives Matter Movement with its protests and riots occasionally nudged aside the pandemic as worthy of reporting, but generally coronavirus remained front and center in the headlines. The nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court dominated the news for a few days, and with the election season, those who watch televised news find themselves now in a storm of opinions, polls, and speculations.

Meanwhile, this hurricane of headlines has swept away events taking place around the world.

Bidenomics’ Shock Taxes

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/11/02/bidenomics-is-a-tax-nightmare/

“Yet another thing to consider as you cast your ballot: America will be a much poorer place under tax-heavy Bidenomics than under Trumponomics. Choose wisely. And don’t say you weren’t warned.”

Facing perhaps their important election ever, Americans have much to worry about: Urban riots and political violence, a loss of respect for our basic constitutional rights and American institutions, and the spate of socialist-inspired radical policy proposals from the Biden campaign. Here’s one more thing: the ruinous taxes you’ll have to pay for the left’s socialist wish-list if Joe Biden wins.

A recent study by a group of highly regarded economists at the Hoover Institution, including two former members of the Council of Economic Advisers, found that the full panoply of Biden’s policy proposals — Medicare for All, big tax hikes on the wealthy and the working poor, the massively expensive Green New Deal, and thousands of impending regulations — would have devastating consequences for the U.S. economy.

Why? Not only would they destroy the economy’s current renewed momentum, but they would require enormous tax increases on all Americans, businesses and individuals alike. It would hit the U.S. economy with its largest tax shock ever, and take it down.

Douglas Murray: An Outsider’s Perspective on America’s Racial Discontent

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/11/16/white-supremacy-in-a-magic-lantern/?utm_source=

An outsider’s perspective on America’s racial discontent

For several years I have marveled at, and become worried by, the depiction of America that has been playing around the world. Despite being a lifelong admirer of this country, I’ve not been in America for a couple of years, and during that time even I have occasionally wondered whether my image of America might have been wrong all along. Might the country have been — or become — what its detractors both internal and external say it is? Now I have had a month traveling around the United States, and I feel as though I may have come to a better understanding of a problem that afflicts this country. Perhaps an outsider might share a modest insight?

The problem first clarified during a conversation in New York with several people, two of whom happened to be comedians. Looking forward to shooting the breeze, I found myself instead marveling at the forensic detail in which everyone was going over the death of Breonna Taylor. Why were we talking about this so furiously? Why were comedians discussing ballistics reports? Why did everybody — whatever his viewpoint — need to have this much knowledge? And the obvious truth dawned on me that in this era every single detail of every single wrongdoing or alleged wrongdoing on the part of America matters, because the focus of light on America today operates in the manner of a magic-lantern projector. The light shining on this country today is so great that it does not just illuminate — it magnifies. Shift the tiniest detail in the picture and the image projected is monstrously altered.

Over recent years I have watched a very particular image of America projected onto the wall of the world and worried about it as much as any other friend of America. For it is an image of a society riven by many conflicts, just one of which (but worst of all) is the racism problem from which America is said to suffer. It is hard to exaggerate how starkly this is perceived by the rest of the world. While Americans argue over and eventually litigate every police interaction gone wrong, the rest of the world sees only one vast blown-up version of the problem.

Pittsburgh Paper Backs Trump in First Republican Presidential Endorsement Since 1972 By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pittsburgh-paper-backs-trump-in-first-republican-presidential-endorsement-since-1972/?utm_source=

““I am worried about Pennsylvania,” Democratic strategist Neil Oxman told the Washington Post on Saturday. Oxman said it was possible that Trump voters “will come out just a little bit stronger than our base.”

A Pittsburgh, Pa., newspaper has backed Donald Trump just days before the general election in the paper’s first endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate since 1972.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette released its endorsement on Saturday, just before the general elections are set to take place. President Trump flipped Pennsylvania red during the 2016 elections, and the state’s fracking industry has become a major campaign issue, with Trump accusing Joe Biden of aiming to downsize the industry.

“We share the embarrassment of millions of Americans who are disturbed by the president’s unpresidential manners and character — his rudeness and put-downs and bragging and bending of the truth,” the Post-Gazette editors wrote. “But we believe Mr. Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year.”