ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Won’t Answer Court-Packing Question By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/biden-wont-answer-court-packing-question/

On an issue that could effectively create a revolution, the candidate is mum.

President Trump gets a lot of heat for his answers to questions. Much of the criticism is appropriate, some of it is mock outrage, but one way or the other, Trump does answer the questions.

In fact, he answers hundreds more questions than his opponent. COVID has been devastating for the country, but it’s been a boon for Joe Biden, who has undeniably lost a step or three and does not do well with sustained exposure. Since the former vice president is rarely made available for questioning, you’d think he would answer the questions that he faces on those few occasions. You’d also think that, when he declines to answer legitimate, important questions, that would be a big deal.But he doesn’t answer key questions. And his media friends calculate that if they give you the inside scoop on the amazingly deft political strategy behind not answering questions, you’ll be so wowed you won’t notice that the answers are what matter.

There is no bigger issue in the 2020 campaign than whether, if they take the White House and the Senate, Democrats would eliminate the filibuster. Expanding and packing the Supreme Court would be a direct result of this, and a radical one. But it is only one of a plethora of radical steps that would follow — expanding and packing the lower federal courts, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, single-payer healthcare, elements of the Green New Deal, a massive bailout for mismanaged blue states, breaking up and regulating into submission private businesses, hamstringing the nation’s police forces, gutting the Second Amendment, sweeping immigration amnesty, and so on.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DOJ Identifies NYC, Portland, Seattle as Violent Anarchist Jurisdictions in Move to Revoke Federal Funding By Debra Heine

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/21/doj-identifies-nyc-portland-seattle-as-violent-anarchist-jurisdictions-in-move-to-revoke-federal-funding/

The Department of Justice on Monday identified three cities—New York City, Portland, and Seattle—as jurisdictions that have permitted “violence and destruction of property,” thereby meeting President Trump’s criteria for withholding federal funding to those areas.

Earlier this month, the president issued a memorandum asking the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Barr to list the areas that “have permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract these criminal activities.”

Trump called the cities “anarchist jurisdictions” and asked the OMB to issue guidance to the heads of executive departments and agencies “restricting eligibility” and “disfavoring” them from federal funding.

“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities,” Trump wrote.

The DOJ noted that all three cities rejected federal law enforcement support amid skyrocketing increases in crime.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dear GOP Senate: Get This Right! Julie Kelly

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/21/dear-gop-senate-get-this-right/

The GOP Senate has been a big disappointment to the Republican base during Trump’s first term. Can they end with a bang and show they deserve to try again?

Dear Leader McConnell and Members of the Republican Senate:

As Jack Nicholson said in “Terms of Endearment,” you were just inches from a clean getaway.

Armed with a wholly unimpressive list of accomplishments from the past four years, with the exception of confirming hundreds of federal judges, you were prepared to return home to defend your paltry record with little more than the argument that the other side is much, much worse. Which, lucky for you, is true.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the campaign trail: Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. Reliable news outlets reported that in her final days, the Clinton-appointed Supreme Court justice dictated a statement to her granddaughter indicating she wanted the “new president” to appoint her replacement, the latest in a series of Trump-fixated dying requests. 

Fortunately, many constitutional scholars have assured us that no “Election Year Death-Bed Wish” provision exists. Nor does a “Feelings of Jeff Flake” clause or “MSNBC Meltdown” disclaimer. Subsequent case law does not affirm that the random rantings of bartenders-turned-congresspersons should in any way guide such a venerated process.

All of which means you have a big decision to make. And this could be the chance to redeem yourselves for a multitude of egregious mistakes made during Trump’s first term, conduct that many voters in the Republican base consider an unforgivable abdication of power.

Your success in defending the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh amid one of the most despicable character assassinations in modern political history notwithstanding, Senate Republicans have done nothing to confront the Left’s nonstop assault against the president, his family, his administration, and by default, his supporters.

Check that. It’s not that you failed because saying you failed would suggest that you even tried to defend the president of your own party. In too many instances, Senate Republicans acted as accomplices in the Left’s reckless anti-Trump crusade.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anyone Notice That The Trump Recovery Is Doing Much Better Than Expected?

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/22/anyone-notice-that-the-trump-recovery-is-doing-much-better-than-expected/

A news report out on Monday said that 83% of companies in the S&P 500 beat expectations for earnings in the second quarter of the year, the first time that’s happened in more than a decade.

That’s been a common refrain over the past several months, as the economic recovery from the COVID-19 shutdowns has repeatedly outperformed what the “experts” expected. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

“US economy added 1.8m jobs in July, beating expectations”
“Jobs Numbers in July Beat Expectations for Third Straight Month”
“Corporate Earnings Beat Analysts’ Lowered Expectations”
“US consumer sentiment hit a 6-month high in September, beating economist forecasts”
“U.S. new home sales beat expectations in July”

In some cases, the difference between what economists were predicting at the start of the pandemic and what’s actually occurred is stark.

Take the forecasts for unemployment.

In March, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis projected the unemployment rate would top 32%.

That same month, Goldman Sachs said the unemployment rate will peak at around 15% later in the year.

A May survey of economists by FiveThirtyEight.com found that the median forecast for the May unemployment rate was 20%.

Even White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett predicted April’s unemployment rate would be 16-17%.

What actually happened?

The unemployment rate peaked in April at 14.7%, then dropped to 13.3% in May.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The One and Only Enduring Palestinian Vision Dreaming of the destruction of the Jewish state. Joseph Puder

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/absence-palestinian-leadership-vision-joseph-puder/

James Zogby of the Zogby Research Service (ZRS) is not known to be a friend of Israel. In fact, he serves as an effective spokesperson for the Palestinians. An Arab-Palestinian himself, Zogby has been a harsh critic of Israel. Yet, in an opinion piece in Cairo’s Ahramonline (the online version of Egypt’s major outlet Al-Ahram, September 7, 2020) Zogby expressed disappointment with the Palestinian leadership lack of vision.  He expressed it in his piece titled Absent But Needed: A Palestinian Vision.

Zogby pointed out that, “what had gone wrong with the Palestinian cause then (and now) is “visionless leadership.” He elaborated, that they (the leadership) “Lost their spark and their way after repeated costly setbacks: Black September in Jordan, their use of horrific acts of terror against innocents, their expulsion from Beirut in 1982, and their foolish embrace of Saddam in 1990.” The latter actions were decisions Yasser Arafat took in provoking an Israeli response to repeated terror attacks by Palestinians commanded by Arafat, including the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to London, which led to the First Lebanon War.

It was Arafat’s decision in 1990 to support Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator, brutal invasion of Kuwait. As a result of Arafat’s action, the Kuwaiti government expelled half a million Palestinians who lived in the oil rich sheikdom. What Zogby failed to mention was the fact that Arafat once again provoked the Second intifada which killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians and brought destruction and economic ruin to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat, who gave Hamas a ‘green light,’ to execute suicide bombing against Israeli civilian targets was in total violation of the Oslo Accords. He hoped that it would weaken and demoralize Israel, then Israel would fall apart once the Palestinians launched a full-scale armed struggle.

Zogby suggested that more recently, the vehement reaction in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority leadership to the Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal, “By focusing their wrath on the recent UAE-Israel accord, the Palestinian leaders missed the mark. The UAE’s move to normalize in order to stop annexation is not the cause of Palestinian woes; it is a symptom of the state of affairs that has for too long plagued the noble cause of justice for the long-oppressed Palestinian people.” Clearly, the Palestinians have once again missed an opportunity to be part of a positive development brought about by the Trump administration’s “Peace of the Century” deal. It might not have satisfied all of the Palestinian aspirations, including the disappearance of the Jewish state, but it would have given the Palestinian people an economic stake that would have improved their lives, and that of their children.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Trump Changed the World By defying conventional wisdom on the Middle East and China, he reshaped both political parties. Matthew Continetti

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/how-trump-changed-world-matthew-continetti/

On Sept. 16 the editorial board of the New York Times did the impossible. It said something nice about President Trump. “The normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is, on the face of it, a good and beneficial development,” the editors wrote. They even went so far as to say that the “Trump administration deserves credit for brokering it.” I had to read that sentence twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps the world really is ending.

Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe—Iran—they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.

Just as remarkable as the deal itself is the bipartisan applause that greeted it in the United States. No one needs reminding that domestic politics is polarized and paranoid. Each party is convinced that the other one will extinguish democracy at the first opportunity. The past three presidencies have been jarringly discontinuous in style, temperament, and policy. But the same Democrats who sometimes appear eager to remove Donald Trump from office by any means necessary treated this foreign policy accomplishment with equanimity and acquiescence. “It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “a Biden-Harris administration will build on these steps.” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware told Jewish Insider that the agreement is “a very positive thing.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Canada: New Conservative Party Leader Being Coerced by Islamic Groups Courting a hope of the Muslim vote. Christine Douglass-Williams

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/canada-courting-hope-muslim-votenew-conservative-christine-douglass-williams/

The official opposition to Islamo-pandering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government is the Conservative Party of Canada, which has a new leader, Erin O’Toole. He’s already being pressured by two questionable Muslim lobby groups: the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) and the National Council of Canadian Muslims (formerly CAIR-CAN, with historic ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations–an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism funding case in American history, the Holy Land Foundation Trial)  

Sharaf Sharafeldin, Executive Director of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), threatened O’Toole that he will lose the Muslim vote if he does not kowtow to their demands. Sharafeldin stated:

Muslims who share conservative values—ranging from fiscal responsibility to compassionate social policy—voted Liberal for the first time. Stephen Harper introduced Canada to “fear and smear” politics, while simultaneously threatening religious freedoms, particularly of Canadian Muslims. The 2019 election was equally concerning, with Andrew Scheer allowing candidates who had expressed anti-Muslim views to run.

This is untrue. If anything, Andrew Scheer shut down reasonable discourse regarding jihad violence in order to appease agenda-driven Muslims, but evidently he didn’t do enough. For example, Scheer made headlines when he threw the Tory MP Michael Cooper out of a Commons committee hearing involving “online hate” after Cooper’s confrontation with a Muslim witness who had become provocative.

Also, THIS VIDEO surfaced, featuring Andrew Scheer cornered, intimidated and pandering to an Israel-hating imam who sanctions wife-beating.

Sharafeldin also spreads propaganda about Stephen Harper, who as Prime Minister, was very much committed to human rights and equality of rights for all, as opposed to special treatment for one group over another. Harper also demonstrated a commitment to religious freedom when he installed Canada’s Office of Religious Freedoms in the Foreign Affairs Department — in recognition of persecuted minorities everywhere. The Trudeau Liberals shut down this office almost immediately after Trudeau was elected in 2015. Harper’s problem as far as the MAC is concerned was that he was not an Islamo-panderer, prone to being bullied.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Minneapolis’ Guilty Whites Think BLM Lawn Signs Will Save Them When the Mob Comes They couldn’t be more wrong. Katie Hopkins

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/minneapolis-guilty-whites-think-blm-lawn-signs-katie-hopkins/

It’s a strange time to be staying in Downtown Minneapolis.

This apartment block on 5th and 7th is all but empty. There are long corridors of fresh paint and new-smelling carpets and a reception area with fancy furniture and free coffee all set to welcome people, except the people never came.

If I lacked purpose, I could go for days without seeing a soul, and even chance meetings near elevators or stairwells make people scurry away like frightened rats.

No one comes here anymore.

As I walked back from NoGo Minneapolis yesterday, a man rose from his little group of thieves to follow me as I passed, putting a scarf across his face as he approached to take whatever I had. He was different from other men in other cities who have done the same, and knew in a heartbeat my reactions mattered in this moment, if I was to walk away unharmed. This man had nothing to lose.

The streets are eerily empty too. Its like the day after some kind of apocalypse where shocked survivors venture out to find water, only to quickly scurry away, hugging the outline of buildings in the shadows with their faces down to the curb.

Minneapolis is lost.

Lost people want to believe in something, anything. They need to in order to endure another day.

Some think they can find it in the bottom of a bottle — their sadness never quenched. Many here put their faith in drugs; the stained pants and vomit splashes on the t-shirt of the man who passes me when I go to find food makes me less sure I want any after all.

These lost souls explain George Floyd too. Not just his death from fentanyl and drug abuse, but the cult-like worship of his name after he died. The half-dead lifted him up to give themselves something to believe in. Abandoned by all others, they raised up George Floyd and prayed to him instead. At least he was somehow one of them, failing right alongside them in this festering sewer of a place.

I walked to 38th and Chicago to spend time at the streets his disciples have turned into the “State of George Floyd.” Barricaded for two blocks in either direction, filled with the stuff of protest and vigil, these streets have become a kind of church to these people — albeit in the open air and carpeted with asphalt and stickiness. The pews are made from old sofas, peppered with holes from a thousand cigarettes, marooned in a place where gas used to pump and incomes were made.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Amateur Jared Kushner vs. Pro John Kerry By Eugene Veklerov

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/amateur_jared_kushner_vs_pro_john_kerry.html

Donald Trump has outsourced his Middle East policy to his son-in-law Jared Kushner. At best, it would be a waste of time, as Kushner had no experience in foreign policy. At worst, he will use this opportunity to line his own pockets.

That was one of the many lines of attacks waged by the mainstream media on President Trump. Why is amateur Kushner in the White House at all, they asked indignantly? Then something unexpected happened: 

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced peace deals with Israel. This good news for the world was bad news for the media. The news was reported, well, kind of, but no one acknowledged that miserable failure of the media’s gloomy predictions.

Here is how John Kerry, a seasoned professional, lectured his audience in a professorial tone of voice in 2016:

“There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world,” Kerry began at a speaking engagement. “I want to make that very clear with all of you. I’ve heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, ‘Well, the Arab world is in a different place now. We just have to reach out to them. We can work some things with the Arab world and we’ll deal with the Palestinians.’ No. No, no, and no.”

He continued, “I can tell you that, reaffirmed within the last week because I’ve talked to the leaders of the Arab community, there will be no advanced and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality.”

Apparently, Kushner did not receive Kerry’s memo, and borrowing from “Star Trek,” he boldly went where no man has gone before. Those who “have not gone there before” included other experienced Secretaries of State, such as Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton. It took amateur Kushner to succeed and that was a bitter pill for CNN and the Washington Post to swallow.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard is back, positioning herself as last sane Democrat By Monica Showalter

Posted By on September 22nd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/tulsi_gabbard_is_back_positioning_herself_as_last_sane_democrat.html

Tulsi Gabbard is back, looking splendid as ever.

And she’s got a cause any sane voter interested in free and fair elections can support, sponsoring a bipartisan bill targeting the odious practice of ballot-harvesting.  The Hawaii representative’s bill, co-sponsored with Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, calls for a withholding of federal funds for states that refuse to ban the practice, where sleazy political operatives target vulnerable voters in their homes and “helpfully” collect their ballots for them, doing what they need to do with make sure the vote goes in the direction of their party with the broken chain of custody before turning the ballots in.  It’s a fount of potential voter fraud. 

It’s a striking move, because Democrats are all in favor of the practice, given that wherever it is practiced legally, it has benefited them.

In 2018, ballot-harvesting mysteriously flipped historically red Orange County, California entirely blue, days after the election, as ballot-harvesters kept “finding” ballots and turning them in, until they got the result they wanted.