POLITICS Comments turned off

The upside of defeat It’s much easier to be a critic than a champion, particularly where attitudes towards politicians are concerned.

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-upside-of-defeat/

 In an op-ed in the New York Post on Saturday, Kyle Smith—conservative critic-at-large for National Review—offered U.S. President Donald Trump “a nickel’s worth of free advice” on how to “destroy [his] enemies” after he leaves the White House.

“All you have to do is stop talking,” Smith wrote, addressing the outgoing POTUS whom he has supported over the years against “Never Trumper” hysteria. Within six months, he said, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post would be bleeding financially and otherwise.
Indeed, he pointed out, since June 2015, when Trump made his famous ride down the escalator and announced his candidacy for president, “all of these news outlets’ business models have been built around the same strategy: Turning [his] words into their profits.” Yes, every tweet—each outrageous statement—has been pounced on by the press with glee.

“And if Trump, as a private citizen, should stop providing the media with 24/7 OMG moments, what then?” asked Smith.

It’s a rhetorical question that I answered three years ago—albeit in a far less witty and acerbic style than Smith’s—but from the opposite perspective. Though, like Smith, I pointed out that members of the anti-Trump camp were in a state of exhilaration every time their nemesis opened his mouth and provided them with fodder for their attacks, I explained why I was able to identify with them.

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

The re imagined police as servants of the left Carol Brown

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://admin.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/the_reimagined_police_as_servants_of_the_left.html

We back the blue, but will they back us?

Like most conservatives, I support the police and the vital role they serve in a civilized society.

But like many conservatives, watching them stand down on orders from blue state mayors during months of riots was jarring. (They even stood down during a Back the Blue rally in Denver when speakers were attacked.)

Many of us asked how the police could obey such orders and allow criminals to have free rein in our streets – criminals whose victims, I might add, included over 2,000 police officers.

Don’t police officers swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution? Well, yes, they do. In fact, that is their paramount responsibility.

Perhaps this year, it seems we witnessed the rule and not the exception. The rule being that most people, including the police, will be cowards in the face of tyrants.

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

A Pandemic of Misinformation The media’s politicization of Covid has proved deadly and puts Americans’ freedoms at risk. By Scott W. Atlas

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-pandemic-of-misinformation-11608570640?mod=djemalertNEWS

America has been paralyzed by death and fear for nearly a year, and the politicization of the pandemic has made things worse by adding misinformation and vitriol to the mix. With vaccines finally being administered, we should be entering a joyous phase. Instead we endure still more inflammatory rhetoric and media distortion.

Americans need to understand three realities. First, all 50 states independently directed and implemented their own pandemic policies. In every case, governors and local officials were responsible for on-the-ground choices—every business limit, school closing, shelter-in-place order and mask requirement. No policy on any of these issues was set by the federal government, except those involving federal property and employees.

Second, nearly all states used the same draconian policies that people now insist on hardening, even though the number of positive cases increased while people’s movements were constrained, business activities were strictly limited, and schools were closed. Governors in all but a few states—Florida and South Dakota are notable exceptions—imposed curfews, quarantines, directives on group gatherings, and mask mandates.

Mobility tracking verifies that people restricted their movement. Gallup and YouGov data show that 80% to 90% of Americans have been wearing masks since early August. Lockdown policies had baleful effects on local economies, families and children, and the virus spread anyway. If one advocates more lockdowns because of bad outcomes so far, why don’t the results of those lockdowns matter?

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

All Eyes on Congress as Lawmakers Vow to Oppose Electoral Votes

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/all-eyes-on-congress-as-lawmakers-vow-to-oppose

BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV AND ZACHARY STIEBER

President Donald Trump’s multilayered effort to challenge the results of the election is expected to culminate on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Electoral College vote count will almost surely be challenged by a group of Republican lawmakers who vow to block electors from seven states where allegations of voter fraud and misconduct have been raised.

The Republican presidential electors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico cast procedural votes for Trump on Dec. 14, creating dual slates of electors in Congress for the first time since 1960. This year, only the Democratic electors’ votes in the seven states come affirmed with certificates of ascertainment signed by state authorities and are on display on the website of the National Archives.

The president and several third parties are pursuing legal challenges in six of the seven states, including several cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuits allege that millions of votes—enough to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential race—were illegally cast, processed, or counted. Actions by the courts in any of the cases over the next two weeks would impact how the electors from the disputed states are counted during the joint session of Congress.

Rule as they may, the courts can’t dictate how each member of Congress should vote. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the first congressman to say he will lodge a challenge when the votes are counted, told The Epoch Times that it’s up to individual citizens to demand that their representatives take a stand and support the challenges.

“The only thing that will get the congressmen and senators to do what is right for our country on this issue of voter fraud and election theft is active participation by American citizens who want honest and accurate elections. Now, can American citizens actively participate? Very simply, they have to call their congressmen and their senators and demand that they support this effort to protect our election system from fraud and illegal conduct,” Brooks told The Epoch Times on Dec. 21.

“And the way in which our congressmen and senators do that is by rejecting the Electoral College votes of those states who have such badly flawed election systems as to render the reported election results unreliable and inaccurate.”

President Donald Trump turned up the heat on the event by calling on his supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6 for a protest.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Sen. Hawley Perfectly Explains Why You Should Never Feel Bad About Questioning the Election By Matt Margolis

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/12/21/sen-hawley-perfectly-explains-why-you-should-never-feel-bad-about-questioning-the-election-n1222277

As Trump voters hold out hope for a miracle—that the Supreme Court will intervene and acknowledge the mountain of evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election and do something about it—each day that passes seems to make that hope seem further from the realm of possibility. Should Joe Biden be inaugurated in January, millions of people will not recognize him as being legitimately elected.

The media will mock them, but they have every right to question the results, and therefore the legitimacy of Joe Biden.

Today, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) summed up perfectly why the media and those who dismiss these legitimate questions about the integrity of our elections are wrong.

Hawley said he’d just spoken with a group of 30 of his constituents, and there was universal concern about what happened in the election.

“Every single one of them—every one of them— told me that they felt disenfranchised, that their votes didn’t matter, that the election had been rigged,” Hawley explained. “These are normal, reasonable people—these are not crazy people […] who by the way have been involved in politics. They’ve won, they’ve lost. They’ve seen it all. These are normal folks living normal lives who firmly believe that they have been disenfranchised.”

“And to listen to the mainstream press and quite a few voices in this building tell them after four years of nonstop Russia hoax […] that, being told the last election was fake, and that Donald Trump wasn’t really elected, and that Russia intervened, after four years that now these same people are told ‘you just sit down and shut up. If you have any concerns about election integrity you’re a nut case, you should shut up,’” he added.

“Well, I tell you what,” Hawley continued. “74 million Americans are not going to shut up. And telling them that their views don’t matter and that their concerns don’t matter and they should just be quiet is not a recipe for success in this country. It’s not a recipe for the unity that I hear now the other side is suddenly so interested in, after years—YEARS—of trying to delegitimize President Donald Trump.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF “CASABLANCA”

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

This classic was actually filmed in Hollywood- not Morocco.
Everybody Comes to Rick’s is an American play that was bought  but unproduced by Warner Brothers.
It was adapted for film as Casablanca (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison in 1940, prior to the United States’ entry into World War II, the play was anti-Nazi and pro-French Resistance. The film became an American classic, highly successful and ranked by many as the greatest film ever made. 
 
Casablanca was directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid.
 
Screenplay by: Julius J. Epstein; Philip G. Epst…
Produced by: Hal B. Wallis

 
Music “As Time Goes By” – Music and lyrics BY Herman Hupfeld in 1931

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Right Diversity Approach Maximizing equality of opportunity is the only way to avoid lowering standards. Andrew I. Fillat Henry I. Miller

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.city-journal.org/diversity-equality-of-opportunity

NASDAQ recently proposed new diversity requirements for the corporate boards of companies listed on the exchange. “Successful companies must cultivate diversity to fuel innovation and to thrive in today’s era of ongoing environmental, social and economic change,” said TechNet president and CEO Linda Moore in support of the proposal. The NASDAQ proposal arbitrarily determines that a minimum of two directors must be female, minority, or LGBT. The criteria are not linked in any meaningful way to the demographic profile of society; they merely reflect the do-gooder biases of NASDAQ executives and influencers.

The proposal, does, however, raise interesting questions about the broader implications of diversity. Whether diversity is valuable to a business—or for that matter, to a student body, university faculty, or knitting circle—depends greatly on the circumstances. Diversity may indeed serve a socially beneficial purpose by elevating underrepresented identity groups, or it may be just good PR, but other personal characteristics—intelligence, experience, qualifications—are usually more relevant to a job. At school, diversity can have educational value by exposing students and teachers to people from a wide variety of backgrounds. In government, diversity addresses concerns, judicious or not, about “fair” representation. The point is that the context matters.

Equality of opportunity could achieve most diversity goals, if the pools of candidates representing various identity groups had comparable qualifications. They seldom do, however, which has led to many forms of affirmative action. Such programs are typically zero-sum because they involve allocating a scarce resource, and in practice they typically end up as exercises in political power and greasing the squeakiest wheels.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

My Say: “Doctor” Jill Biden could use the old German titles

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

Poor Jill Biden, so caricatured by the media is just another woman looking for relevance.  If her husband were president, the now now antiquated German custom of addressing married women and widows by their husbands’ or deceased husbands’ titles could be recycled. And instead of “frau doktor” she could be called “Frau President” and that beats “doctor’ and “Flotus”  by a mile…..rsk

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why the US Needs to Help Morocco by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16869/help-morocco

Morocco’s General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST) announced last month that the Moroccan authorities have dismantled 207 terrorist cells since 2002.

As for Morocco… it is the Islamists, and not Israel, who have “corrupted the minds of Moroccans, sowed the seeds of discord among them, brought Moroccan education to the brink of bankruptcy and legitimized ignorance.” — Ahmed Assid, professor of philosophy and activist, kifache.com, December 15, 2020.

“The rhetoric of hostility and the threat of throwing the Jews into the sea won Israel widespread international sympathy. The Palestinians have missed many opportunities, and they have been chasing the illusions given to them by the [Arab] regimes…” — Sa’id Al-Kahal, a secular Moroccan author, hespress.com, January 23, 2020.

If the new US administration wants peace in the region to hold, it needs to maintain pressure on the mullahs in Tehran and not return to the policy of appeasement. Failure to do so would facilitate the mission of the Islamists to destabilize the Middle East, and especially the courageous countries that are finally opting for peace.

Will Morocco face Islamist terror attacks after its decision to normalize its relations with Israel? Iran and its Islamists proxies in Morocco, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip have condemned the Israel-Morocco normalization deal as a “betrayal of Islam,” a move that could lead to a wave of terror attacks by various Islamist groups, particularly Islamic State (ISIS).

Now that Morocco has decided to make peace with Israel, ISIS and other terrorist groups are likely to increase their plans to thwart the agreement by launching terror attacks in the country.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard Rips CDC Bureaucrats for ‘Immoral’ Vaccine Strategy Katie Pavlich

Posted By on December 22nd, 2020

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/12/21/tulsi-gabbard-rips-cdc-for-absurd-vaccine-prioritization-strategy-n2581909

Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is ripping Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials for prioritizing the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine for 100 million “essential workers” ahead of elderly populations.

“Heartless, arrogant, unelected CDC bureaucrats have decided that the lives of elderly Americans just don’t count. For months the CDC has been telling us that the elderly are the most vulnerable,” she said in a post on Twitter. “But now, they are recommending a 100 million so-called ‘essential workers,’ which means healthy people working at everything from liquor stores to telephone companies, that they can get the vaccine before our grandparents can. That members of Congress like me can get the vaccine before at risk seniors can. People like my aunt, who is imprisoned in her own home because of the danger that if she catches the disease, she could die.”

“This is immoral and bad health policy,” Gabbard continued.

The CDC’s own data and presentations about vaccine prioritization show elderly populations are the most at risk for death. Yet, “experts” are rejecting that science because “racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented.”