NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

As Whitmer Plays the Victim, the Justice Department Moves to Conceal More Evidence It appears that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and possibly one of her top advisors, were accomplices, not innocents, in a “foiled” kidnapping plot. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/11/as-whitmer-plays-the-victim-the-justice-department-moves-to-conceal-more-evidence/

No one in national politics plays the role of victim better than Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

In a fawning 3,700-word puff piece published by the Washington Post over the weekend, reporter Ruby Cramer told the embattled governor’s self-described tale of woe: Whitmer isn’t really an ambitious political climber—the daughter of well-connected and wealthy parents, she started running for office in her 20s and was elected to the Michigan legislature at age 29—but rather a misunderstood and underappreciated champion of the people targeted because of her sex, looks, anti-Trump stance, lockdown orders, and pro-abortion views, among other unjustified reasons for “right-wing” derision. 

That’s Whitmer’s story, anyway.

Interviewed at the official governor’s summer residence in Mackinac Island, Whitmer and her daughters detailed the horrors of growing up in Clarence Thomas’ America while enjoying a taxpayer-funded getaway. “I live on a college campus,” Whitmer’s oldest daughter, Sherry, told Cramer. (Both daughters attend the prestigious University of Michigan.) “There are people out there who would force me into conceiving. It’s a scary thought.” She then admitted she really doesn’t have to worry about an unwanted pregnancy since she is a lesbian.

But the FBI-concocted plot to abduct and assassinate Whitmer remains a source of great angst for the governor even though she knew about it weeks, if not months, before the “kidnappers” were arrested. At some point during the summer of 2020, Whitmer told her family “there was going to be a story coming out soon about ‘some people plotting to kidnap and kill me.’” That disclosure, according to Whitmer, happened a few months after an anti-lockdown protest at the Lansing Capitol building in late April 2020.

From there, Whitmer’s recollection of the timeline gets fuzzy, if not revelatory. “When the kidnapping plot was announced, it was summer. And people were blowing up your phone, right?” Whitmer asked her daughters during the interview. “Yeah,” replied her daughter, Sydney.

Except that’s not what happened. Law enforcement made the arrests on October 7, 2020—fall, not summer. Whitmer for her part was ready to go the next day with a distraught video message blaming Donald Trump for inciting right-wing “militias” to attack her. The shocking news produced wall-to-wall negative headlines for Trump as millions of Americans were voting for president; Joe Biden took full advantage of the FBI’s latest gift to the Democratic Party, ranting from the campaign trail about Trump’s “dog whistles” to extremist groups.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The ‘Social Justice Factory’ and Biden’s Title IX Regulations The onerous new guidelines and their hazardous consequences. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/social-justice-factory-and-bidens-title-ix-richard-l-cravatts/

In June, the Biden administration’s Department of Education rolled out new Title IX guidelines related to how schools must address sexual discrimination and widening the areas of personal interaction and who would be protected under the new rules.

The new language goes beyond sexual interaction and harassment germane to existing Title IX statutes and has broadened the types of incidents and various individuals who would now be protected.

In fact, the 701-page Biden Title IX regulations “Clarify the Department’s view of the scope of Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination, including related to a hostile environment under the recipient’s education program or activity, as well as discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity [emphasis added].”

The real question is not whether or not individuals who identify as belonging to the opposite gender from which they were born are correct in identifying as such. That is certainly their right. The problem for universities—and the students and faculty who are part of those communities—is whether one person’s gender dysphoria, sexual preference, or attitudes about gender and sexuality in general can, or should, compel others to not only agree with a biologically impossible reality, but to treat the transgender person with special deference or be punished for not admitting belief in something that is counterfactual, against religious beliefs, or transparently false.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Hochul’s Messianic Delusions Obey her orders on guns and vaccinations — or you’re a sinner. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/hochuls-messianic-delusions-matthew-vadum/

New York’s bizarro governor, radical Democrat Kathy Hochul, whose party just rammed totalitarian anti-gun laws through the state legislature in Albany, seems to thinks she’s Jesus Christ.

Is this characterization of Hochul hyperbole? Decide for yourself.

In a wildly under-reported public sermon last year, Hochul zealously denounced the unvaccinated, accusing them of defying God’s will. The unvaccinated people she vilified are her own constituents. They have good reasons, religious or medical or otherwise, for avoiding the various vaccines, all of which have been shown to have serious side effects. The fact they reject the vaccines should not be her concern, but that would not be in keeping with leftist public health dogma, so their heresy must be punished.

America is supposed to be about freedom of choice, but that’s not the way fanatics like Hochul see things. This left-wing theocrat says she is entitled to be followed by “apostles” to spread the false gospel of public health charlatans, monomaniacal epidemiologists, corrupt statistical modelers, and their self-righteous enablers in the government and the media.

“We are not through this pandemic. I wished we were,” Hochul said September 26, 2021, at the Christian Cultural Center in New York City.

The Unvaccinated As Sinners

“But I prayed a lot to God during this time. And you know what? God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers, he made them come up with a vaccine that is from God to us. And we must say thank you, God, thank you. And I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say I’m vaccinated,” she said.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Global Warming Golden Goose By Norman Rogers

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/the_global_warming_golden_goose_.html

Climate science was an obscure and unimportant corner of academia until the professors lucked out with global warming.  The global warming idea apparently struck a spark with the government and media establishments and caught fire.  Money and influence flooded from Washington to academia. 

In his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against the scientific-technological elite being dependent upon government grants. Eisenhower feared that the elite would use their influence and expertise to warp public policy for their own benefit. That is exactly what is happening. Global warming is only one of many current scientific frauds that enhance the welfare of the scientists and bureaucrats promoting the frauds.

Since World War II, the increasing flow of big money from Washington has contributed to a gradual change in the character of research universities. Money became more important than science. Administrators who were focused on money and power grew in number and became dominant. This change in character was documented in an important essay by the MIT scientist Richard Lindzen.

Global warming provided the professors and academic administrators with a junk science golden goose. They were determined to stop anyone from killing the goose. 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The global warming fraud revealed in one graph By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/the_global_warming_fraud_revealed_in_one_graph.html

““Misrepresentation, exaggeration, cherry picking or outright lying pretty much covers all the so-called evidence marshalled in support of the theory of imminent catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2.”

Two highly distinguished emeritus professors – William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus of Princeton and Richard Lindzen, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus of MIT – have called out the corruption of science in the global warming/climate change fraud.

Their emeritus status is vital in giving them the freedom to speak frankly, because they are not dependent on a continuing flow of research grants to fund their work. Ever since the alarm was raised that global warming was an existential threat, billions of dollars a year has flowed to scientists willing to support the alarmist position, and thereby keep the money flowing. Were the threat to be acknowledged to be illusory, that money flow would stop and there would be a lot of unemployed climate scientists.

They recently filed a 28-page statement with the SEC, which is contemplating a proposed rule “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors,” laying out the reasons why the warmist alarm is unjustified.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dissent In WI Ballot Drop Box Victory Highlights Much Bigger Issue: Our Top Jurists Don’t Care About Election Integrity By: Margot Cleveland

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/11/dissent-in-wi-ballot-drop-box-victory-highlights-much-bigger-issue-our-top-jurists-dont-care-about-election-integrity/

Many of the top jurists in our country care no more about election integrity than the Democrat politicians trying to sell the myth that the 2020 election was spectacularly safe and error-free.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday held that state election officials’ use of some 500-plus drop boxes during the 2020 general election violated Wisconsin law.

While the court’s decision represents a (partial, as we will soon see) victory for election integrity, the split 4-3 decision and the substance of the dissent reveal that having a fair electoral process no longer “transcends any individual partisan interest” — something less than two decades ago Jimmy Carter touted as a universal truth in the bipartisan Commission on Election Reform report “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.”

In Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, the court declared that the Wisconsin Elections Commission, or “WEC,” had illegally authorized election officials to use ballot drop boxes. The high court further held the WEC exceeded its statutory authority when it declared that voters could hand off their ballots to third parties rather than personally deliver their own ballots to election officials. The WEC had authorized ballot drop boxes and third-party ballot delivery in two documents issued in 2020, one in the spring before the primary election and the second before the November 2020 general election. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

New York Times says Biden’s age is an ‘uncomfortable issue’ for White House, Democrats in stunning report NYT alleges staff ‘quietly watch out’ for Biden and closely monitor him during his trips to Delaware By Joseph A. Wulfsohn

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-biden-age-uncomfortable-issue-white-house-democrats-stunning-report?intcmp=tw_fnc

The New York Times published a stunning report about President Biden’s age and how it’s becoming an “uncomfortable issue” for the White House and the Democratic Party. 

The headline of the report on Saturday declared that 79-year-old Biden is “testing the boundaries of age and the presidency,” first highlighting how his upcoming trip to the Middle East was initially tacked onto his recent trip to Europe with one anonymous official calling it “crazy” if the president had done a 10-day trip overseas, those aides tell the Times there were “political and diplomatic” reasons behind separating the trip into two. 

“But the reality is that managing the schedule of the oldest president in American history presents distinct challenges,” Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote. “And as Mr. Biden insists he plans to run for a second term, his age has increasingly become an uncomfortable issue for him, his team and his party.”

Baker recapped from Biden’s European trip how he needed guidance from another world leader to look at the cameras for a photo-op and how now-outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson answered a question on behalf of the president, who didn’t hear a reporter shouting a question about Ukraine. 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

There’s No Despot So Tyrannical As A Green Politician

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/07/12/theres-no-despot-so-tyrannical-as-a-green-politician/

“Of course petty tyrannies can quickly and easily grow into totalitarianism. The step from “public servant” to green tyrant is shorter than most of us would think.”

Reports of unrest over environmental policies from the Netherlands and Sri Lanka are much more than novelty news. What is happening in both spots is a lesson that has to be learned quickly. If not, there’s deep trouble ahead.

Dutch farmers, whose history of crop yields puts them among the most productive in the world, continue to protest rules that limit their use of nitrogen, a nutrient in commercial fertilizers that converts to nitrous oxide, which is feared as a greenhouse gas. Officials expected them to cut use 50% nationally, which means in some regions, the reductions will be as high as 95%.

The crippled farmers, their survival under attack, are, as they should be, revolting.

“Imagine if you’re a fifth-generation farmer, living on your land, making a living, being part of the local community” and suddenly there is “basically no future, no future for farming, but also no future for the economic, social, cultural fabric of the countryside,” ​​Wytse Sonnema of the Netherlands Agriculture and Horticulture Organization told the Australian media.

“There’s a broad sense of frustration, of anger, even despair amongst farmers at the moment.” 

But political officials don’t care about the effects of their tyranny. They’re too dedicated to demonstrating before the world their great green cred.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Chinese Communist Cells in Western Firms? Xi Jinping has pressed for measures giving party apparatchiks more power over foreign companies. By Dennis Kwok and Sam Goodman

Posted By on July 12th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/communist-cells-in-western-firms-business-investment-returns-xi-jinping-11657552354?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The legal and regulatory risk of doing business in China may be about to get a lot higher. The China Securities Regulatory Commission is implementing changes to its rules governing publicly offered securities investment funds. These rules include requiring foreign-owned fund managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity to create Communist Party cells when operating in China.

Many foreign investors have assumed these rules would apply only to Chinese businesses and state-owned enterprises. China analysts, however, have been warning since 2018 that these laws could soon apply to foreign-owned companies operating through Chinese joint ventures. Since 2016, Xi Jinping has pushed for state-run companies and subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies to establish cells through the provisions of the Chinese Communist Party’s Articles of Association.

In September 2020, the General Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee issued the “Opinion on Strengthening the United Front Work of the Private Economy in the New Era,” which called on the nation’s United Front Work Departments to strengthen their involvement in corporate governance. In response, the European Chamber of Commerce in China cautioned that the strengthening of the role of party cells would “have a considerable impact on business sentiment, and could lead foreign companies to reconsider future and even current investments in China.”

Western financial firms piled into China anyway, attracted by the prospect of high returns and advised by Chinese contacts that engagement with the Communist Party is the price of doing business. Since 2018, foreign businessmen have reported being approached by the party about the establishment of party cells. The secrecy of the United Front Work Department makes it impossible to establish how many such cells exist. In January 2021, HSBC executive Noel Quinn was unable to confirm to the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee that the bank had no party cells in its branches in Hong Kong and the mainland.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our New Antoinettes  These humanitarian rich feel just terrible about the sins of America, but not terrible enough to sacrifice any element of their privileged lifestyles—the just deserts they feel for being so righteous. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 11th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/10/our-new-antoinettes/

Marie Antoinette, the beheaded wife of the beheaded French Bourbon King Charles Louis XVI, did not really say “Let them cake.”

But in the short time that the French Revolution became utterly unhinged, toxic, and nihilistic, she became nonetheless iconic as an out-of-touch elite who had lived in a make-believe world at Versailles, without a clue (or care?) about the ordeal of the masses.

Rather than worry about the drudgery of the French peasant, Marie dressed up as one. And she roamed about in her idyllic faux peasant “farm” at the Hameau de la Reine, near the palace at Versailles.

Apparently, during these brief rustic interludes, Marie felt that the more she might act out a sort of aristocratic peasant life, the more she could find simplicity and escape the drama of court life, but without the real-life, crushing poverty of the poor.

The modern left-wing elite are becoming our version of Antoinettes. Thirty-eight-year-old Mark Zuckerberg is worth over $60 billion. But he enjoys T-shirts, jeans, and apparent simplicity in his many landed estates. He is so worried about the wrong voting tendencies of the clueless middle classes that he poured nearly $420 million of dark money from his vast fortune into the 2020 election—de facto absorbing the work of key precinct registrars—to ensure the “right” result for the unthinking multitudes.

Americans, almost uniquely among modern nations, mostly do not envy, much less despise the rich. But there is a certain sort of privilege that they do not like: the sanctimonious and hypercritical rich whose rhetoric is at odds with their own lifestyles and the methods by which they inherited or made vast sums. And they especially are turned off by those who exude open disdain for the clinger/deplorable/dregs class—to paraphrase the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden nomenclature.