ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Law Firm Withdraws From Representing Boockvar in Trump Campaign’s Pennsylvania Lawsuit By Tom Ozimek

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/law-firm-withdraws-from-representing-boockvar-in-trump-campaigns-pennsylvania-lawsuit_3588253.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-11-21-1

Law firm Kirkland & Ellis has requested withdrawal from representing Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar in a lawsuit brought forward by the Trump campaign, with Kramer Levin attorney Barry Berke stepping in as a substitute.

Kirkland & Ellis attorneys made the request in a notice of substitution of counsel filed on Nov. 20 (pdf), noting that Boockvar would be represented by law firm Kramer Levin, Myers Brier & Kelly, and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, until the end of legal proceedings.

This is not the first time Berke is to confront President Donald Trump’s legal team, with the National Law Journal reporting that Berke served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee as it built its impeachment case against Trump.

The move to switch legal representation comes after Linda Kerns, a lawyer leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to dispute the election results in Pennsylvania, complained to a federal court that she received an abusive voicemail from a Kirkland & Ellis attorney, with Kerns saying the message “by any measure falls afoul of standards of professional conduct.”

In a response, Kirkland lawyer Daniel Donovan said he thought the call was “discourteous and not appropriate” but disagreed with how Kerns had described it.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

There is evidence, actually Rudy Giuliani gave examples of voter fraud during his presser at RNC HQ Amber Athey

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://spectator.us/evidence-actually-rudy-giuliani-voter-fraud/

Call me crazy for taking the man with hair dye dripping down his cheeks seriously, but I think it would be unfair to dismiss Rudy Giuliani. Amusingly shambolic he may be. That doesn’t mean he is wrong.

The media has been claiming since the election ended that President Trump’s claims of voter fraud are ‘baseless’ and ‘without evidence’. That just is not true. The President’s lawyer gave examples of it during today’s press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington DC. But everyone is too busy mocking him to pay attention.

I tried to listen to what Giuliani actually said and not what he looked like or the characterization of him by the rest of the media. The cameras started feverishly clicking the first time he wiped the sweat from his face, all but guaranteeing that would be the focus of the presser.

Giuliani did in fact present evidence of voter fraud today but many people simply didn’t want to hear it. He cited multiple Americans, one by name, who have signed sworn affidavits stating that they witness some type of fraud, whether it was pro-Trump ballots being thrown out without cause, ballots being backdated to before the election, poll workers being told not to ask voters for identification, and more.
As Giuliani helpfully pointed out, affidavits are considered ‘evidence’ in a court case. Whether you agree or disagree with them is a different question. And it’s reasonable that not all of the people who signed their names would be willing to go public. If you want to hear more of the evidence that was presented, just watch the first hour or so of the press conference.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Plot Against Sidney: Roger L. Simon

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-plot-against-sidney_3587698.html

Lee Smith wrote an explosive narrative of the Russia collusion hoax in the number one best-seller “The Plot Against the President” that became a hit documentary film.

Someone should now write “The Plot Against Sidney,” because Trump and General Michael Flynn attorney Sidney Powell is currently in the crosshairs and then some.

And the attacks are coming not just, predictably, from the left, but from people you would think would be her natural allies.

Tucker Carlson, until recently literally king of cable news, called Ms. Powell out for being unresponsive and repeatedly failing to produce evidence of her claims about Dominion and Smartmatic computer systems and software on his Fox show.

Respected conservative columnist Byron York asserted about Thursday’s Giuliani/Powell/Ellis press conference in his daily email:

“But Powell did not prove it. She did not even allege with any specificity what she believes actually happened in the election. Powell said the Venezuelan software has the ‘ability to flip votes’ and can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President [sic] Biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system, and that’s what caused them to have to shut down in the states they shut down in.”

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: WHERE ARE THE “CONSERVATIVE” PUBLICATIONS?

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

On February 15,2016 National Review had a “Never Trump” issue
Conservatives against Trump By NR Staff February 15, 2016 5:00 AM https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/02/15/conservatives-against-trump/

Have they reverted to that form?  Here is a sample of today’s online edition.

Trump’s Ugly Exit By Rich Lowry

Americans Deserve the Truth, Even If It’s Unpleasant   Jim Geraghty Declares that the Trump campaign is a “big con.”

‘The Dumbest Coup’ Kevin D. Williamson

Trump’s Disgraceful Gambit The Editors

The Insanity Oath Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Trump Elector Strategy That Dare Not Speak Its Name Dan McLaughlin.

How We Know Dominion Voting Machines Didn’t Affect the Election Outcome By John McCormack

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Sidney Powell explains some of the evidence she has, says it would be criminal for her not to come forward with it – The Right Scoop

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://therightscoop.com/listen-sidney-powell-explains-some-of-the-evidence-she-has-says-it-would-be-criminal-for-her-not-to-come-forward-with-it

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

US Urgently Needs to Challenge China’s Chokehold on Rare Earth Materials by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16754/china-rare-earth-materials

The Chinese Communist Party’s near monopoly on most of these 17 rare earth materials (REM) is by now a US national security vulnerability of enormous strategic importance…. China’s October 13 decision to curtail the export of these vitally needed rare earth materials should serve as an urgent warning to the U.S. to begin developing an independent supply chain of these materials.

The Defense Department has not acted with the sense of urgency demanded by the president…. Consequently, if US-China relations plummet to the point where conflict appears imminent, America’s military would be disadvantaged should the Chinese decide to sever exports of REM to the US market.

The US would do well… by quickly decoupling its economy from dependency on China for rare earth materials — and if possible, from everything else.

One of China’s most significant advantages in the race to dominate future hi-tech industrial production, among just about everything else, is its chokehold on “rare earth materials” (REM). These are materials — and the raw minerals from which they are extracted and processed — vital to the manufacture, for instance, of advanced weapons, fossil-free alternative energy systems, communication devices, computer products, and microelectronic networks.

It is an area in which China has already established dominance . The Chinese Communist Party’s near monopoly on most of these 17 rare earth materials is by now a US national security vulnerability of enormous strategic importance. China’s October 13 decision to curtail the export of these vitally needed rare earth materials should serve as an urgent warning to the US to seriously begin developing an independent supply chain of these materials.

ELECTIONS, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Pragmatic Arabs to Biden: Don’t Do an ‘Obama’ and Coddle the Middle East’s Worst Actors By P. David Hornik

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/p-david-hornik/2020/11/20/pragmatic-arabs-to-biden-dont-do-an-obama-and-coddle-the-middle-easts-worst-actors-n1161433

The prospect of a Biden presidency worries not only Israel but also its declared and more tacit allies among Arab states.

And the worries don’t only concern Biden taking a soft line toward Iran like his old boss Barack Obama, but also toward the Muslim Brotherhood — the Egyptian-based Islamist outfit whose fortunately brief takeover of Egypt (2012-2013) the Obama administration encouraged and empowered.

“In a clear message…to a possible US administration under Joe Biden,” Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reports, “Saudi Arabia and Egypt have warned against supporting the Muslim Brotherhood organization.”

Saudi Arabia’s Council of Religious Scholars, its highest religious body, issued a statement — widely seen as a message to Biden — in which it described the Brotherhood as

a deviant group that undermines coexistence within nations, stirs up sedition, violence and terrorism and pursues its partisan goals in an attempt to seize more power for itself under the cover of religion. The history of the organization is one of evil, strife, extremism and terrorism.

That appeal to Biden was echoed by Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, a religious advisory body, which called the Brotherhood a “terrorist” organization that “seeks to divide societies and spread chaos and incite citizens to riot and engage in violence.”

The Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has been the breeding ground for Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and a host of other Islamist terror groups. It favors the overthrow of pragmatic Arab regimes and, ultimately, a worldwide caliphate imposing sharia law on hapless humanity.

The Arab Weekly reports that the Brotherhood is “hopeful” and “very enthused” about a Biden presidency, while also citing analysts who see that reaction as overblown.

In 2012, as Brotherhood-led sedition jeopardized Egypt’s pragmatic Mubarak government, Obama called for an “orderly transition” to “democracy” in Egypt — a statement widely viewed as a demand for Mubarak’s overthrow by the Brotherhood, which was indeed what transpired. After it transpired, the Obama administration boosted Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi’s regime by selling

EDUCATION, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden Ain’t for the Kids On education issues, trouble looms if Biden becomes president. by Larry Sand

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/20/biden-aint-for-the-kids/

At the risk of stating the obvious, the country’s political future is murky. If Joe Biden withstands the onslaught of ballot fraud challenges and becomes POTUS 46, it’s anyone’s guess as to how he will govern. Or for how long. As a dementia-riddled man with no cures for the ailment on the horizon, his decisions will most likely be made by a cadre of handlers, advisors and cabinet members. And in the not-too-distant future, he will likely cede the reins to Vice-President Kamala Harris. But for now, I will briefly examine the educational direction Biden plans to take, and it ain’t pretty.

The first troubling sign came when the Biden-Sanders Task Force was created before Biden became the Democrats’ candidate. This motley crew included former National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a proud socialist. This spend-happy, anti-school choice group advised Democrats to triple current Title I funding for disadvantaged students, “fully fund” the federal law for students with disabilities and kill the popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

All the above and so much more is now on the table. His Secretary of Education could very well be one of the aforementioned union leaders, replacing Betsy DeVos, who bore no love for the unions and top-down D.C. decision making. I doubt Weingarten will be the one, as she would have to give up two-thirds of her $600,000 a year salary, and what amounts to a job for life to accept the position. Eskelsen García, on the other hand, was termed out as NEA boss earlier this year and is now a free agent. The position could also to go Elizabeth Warren, who as a former Harvard professor with progressive cred, would fit the bill as the anti-Betsy. But any of the three candidates (and anyone else) would have to get the blessing of the (probably Republican) Senate.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Elite Schools Are the Most Problematic on Speech:By Samuel J. Abrams

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/20/elite-schools-are-the-most-problematic-on-speech/

Northwestern University is in the midst of significant protests and violence surrounding the “NU Community Not Cops” movement, which intends to march every day until the school abolishes its university police. University president Morton Schapiro has condemned the violent student activity, which has disrupted businesses and local neighborhoods, defaced property, and violated laws and university standards. Students have “moved well past legitimate forms of free speech,” Schapiro says, rightly.

This is no isolated incident, however. Disruptions and violent incidents often appear to be more common at elite schools – not just Northwestern but others such as USC, UC Berkeley, Middlebury College, and Claremont McKenna College, to name a few.

Thanks to the new 2020 College Free Speech Rankings from RealClearEducation, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and research firm College Pulse, empirical evidence confirms this suspicion. The rankings are based on the largest study of student attitudes about speech to date, sampling some 20,000 students. It turns out that students enrolled in the country’s most elite schools are appreciably more willing to shut down speech and expression with which they disagree than the overwhelming majority of college students at non-elite schools.

These tendencies appear to have some correlation with general political views. Almost three-quarters (71%) of those students in the most prestigious universities (the top ten schools, based on U.S. News rankings) identify as liberal, with only 15% calling themselves conservative. The numbers look notably different as school ranking levels decline.

At schools ranked between 50 and 99 on the U.S. News scale, 51% of students are liberal, compared to 26% conservative. Conservative students are much harder to find at Harvard, in other words, than at the University of Minnesota. Forcomparison, 28% of Americans in general presently identify as conservative.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Sidney Powell claps back at Tucker Carlson By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on November 21st, 2020

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

You have to decide whether to believe the Fox News personality or the lawyer who fought the federal government on General Flynn’s behalf — and won.

After Trump’s legal dream team held a press conference to give an overview of the allegations about massive election fraud, the media, from CNN down to Fox went on the attack. Even Tucker Carlson attacked Sidney Powell for allegedly failing to produce evidence supporting her claims against Dominion. By Friday, Powell explained why she didn’t appear on Tucker’s show — and what she said didn’t reflect well on everyone’s favorite conservative analyst.

As always with all the news nowadays, there’s a back story here: Ever since Rupert Murdoch retired, and his left-leaning sons took over, Fox News has systematically and incrementally been recasting itself as CNN-lite. It kept the big-name conservatives front and center but, in the background, it began to tweak here and there.

Quisling Paul Ryan, a NeverTrumper, joined the Board. Donna Brazile, who helped Hillary cheat during the 2016 campaign, got added to the line-up. Newt Gingrich was censored when he tried to mention how George Soros buys left-wing prosecutors.

And then, on election night, Fox announced, all evidence to the contrary, the Biden had won Arizona. At the same time, it refused to call Florida, Ohio, and Texas for Trump, even though there was no way Biden could win in those states.

Within days, roughly 40% of Fox News’s conservative audience had abandoned it. However, the audience remained loyal to Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, all three of whom seemed to retain their position as conservative stalwarts who were not accepting the Associated Press’s claim that Biden had won. (The entire Democrat infrastructure, from the party itself to Big Tech to the media, seems under the impression that the Founders inserted a clause in the Constitution holding that, when AP calls the election, it’s a done deal.)