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August 2018

Schweizer Exposes More Joe Biden Corruption — It’s ‘Going to be a Central Issue’ in 2020 By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/video/schweizer-exposes-more-joe-biden-corruption-its-going-to-be-a-central-issue-in-2020/

Rumors swirl that former Vice President Joe Biden will be a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Extremely early polls find strong support for him in his party. But investigative journalist and bestselling author Peter Schweizer has unearthed Biden’s history of corruption, and that will prove a major issue in the upcoming election.

“This is, I think, going to be a central issue” for 2020, Schweizer, best known for uncovering Hillary Clinton’s corruption but also the author of the new book “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” told Fox News’ Steve Hilton.

Schweizer’s book came out in March, but since then new evidence of the Biden family corruption has come to light. Schweizer told Hilton about a bank account unearthed in a New York conviction against Devon Hunter, a friend of the former vice president’s son, Hunter Biden.

“A bank account that Hunter Biden drew a lot of money from and that a lot of foreign entities put a lot of money into,” the author noted. “Just to give you an idea, over a 14-month period, from 2014 through early 2016, while Joe Biden is vice president of the United States, a Ukrainian company called Burisma — it’s controlled by a very corrupt oligarch — sends three million dollars into this account.”

The Progressive Twittersphere Turns Against Socialist It-Girl By Stephen Green

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/the-progressive-twittersphere-turns-against-socialist-it-girl/

Occasionally I like to take a dive in the deep end of progressive lunacy. That’s when I click over… not to Slate… not even to Salon… but to Jezebel.

The outrage du jour: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted something nice about John McCain after he died on Saturday.

Can you imagine?

From the headline, you might guess that you’re about to read a fair-minded examination of the unhinged response to Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet. It reads, “These 3,600 Comments Are None Too Pleased With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s John McCain Tweet.”

But of course this is Jezebel, so there’s going to be nothing fair-minded about it at all. Or even simply, uh, minded.

So what did AOC tweet to raise such a stink? Just that “John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled example of human decency and American service. As an intern, I learned a lot about the power of humanity in government through his deep friendship with Sen. Kennedy. He meant so much, to so many. My prayers are with his family.” It’s the kind of generic condolence sent by any decent human being, and it’s the first sign I’ve seen that the New York socialist might actually be one.

But that’s not good enough for Jezebel or 3,600 Twitter jerks. Although to be fair, the first bit of Whitney Kimball’s Jezebel tract tried really hard to at least appear even-handed. She wrote:

There’s a heaping pile of “wtfs” and trash GIFs in here, but the intermittent critiques mainly pinpoint her choice to praise McCain’s political record rather than offering a simple condolence. “I still support you, and I’m sure most of the people criticizing you also do as well, but it is disappointing for you to lay praise on such an awful man. You could have just sympathized for his family, said nothing etc.,” one follower tweeted. Others accuse her of pandering and drifting from her own hardline principles, while defenders and conservatives jumped in to attack the critics for vitriol.

America’s Crisis Is Three-Tiered Justice By Ned Ryun

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/27/americas-crisis-i

Last week brought to the fore a serious problem now threatening to undermine the very foundations of America’s constitutional republic: we no longer have equal application of justice under the law. The rule of law has become trifurcated, with a different application of the law depending upon one’s position in the political hierarchy.

First, there’s one application of the law for members of the powerful elite who have the right political connections. Here, the law is more a series of suggestions that might or might not be followed with almost no legal consequences for non-compliance.

Example A, of course, is Hillary Clinton. Many people have gone to jail for doing what she did, including members of our armed forces. Yet she paid no consequences for violating laws on the use of classified information on her unsecured and illegal private server. She played games, likely for personal gain, with our national security. Yet she and her enablers and co-conspirators like her aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin are apparently above the law, even escaping consequences for lying to federal agents.

There is also the case of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). Her erstwhile Pakistani IT staff, who also worked for dozens of Democratic members of the House, had a history of highly questionable behavior, with some even suggesting that they potentially were running a spy ring inside of Congress, accessing computers and uploading sensitive information to the cloud to be accessed by foreign powers. Not only did federal prosecutors refuse to pursue anything regarding those allegations, but just this week, as Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are having the book and the kitchen sink thrown at them over bank fraud, one of these staffers, Irwan Awan, got a slap on the wrist for a charge of bank fraud to which he pled guilty, will have no fines, and will serve no jail time. It seems likely that an investigation of these staffers would have turned up too much dirt on Democratic members of Congress.

A Crime Against Humanity Scott McKay

https://spectator.org/a-crime-against-humanity/

Last week at the New Criterion, conservative scholar James Piereson posed an interesting question, arguing the affirmative: is socialism a hate crime?

As is his custom, Piereson makes a solid case. His isn’t a complex argument — Piereson simply totals up the corpses thanks to the world’s chief practitioners of socialist governance in the 20thcentury, and concludes that anything which leads to the deaths of more than 110 million souls has to be a hate crime by the definition afforded us by the modern gatekeepers of the term.

After all, the evidence for its malignant effects is obvious to anyone with sufficient curiosity to look at the historical record. The socialist movement has been responsible for the murder, imprisonment, and torture of many millions, and perhaps hundreds of millions, of innocent people during its heyday in the twentieth century. That history of murder and tyranny continues on a smaller scale today in the handful of countries living under the misfortune of socialism — for example, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and (more recently) Venezuela.

How do socialists escape the indictment that, in view of the historical record, they are purveyors of tyranny and mass murder? Many deny that Stalin, Mao, and the others were true socialists and, indeed, that socialism has never really been tried — a manifest absurdity. Senator Sanders and others claim that they are for something called “democratic socialism,” a popular and peaceful version of the doctrine, but that’s what Lenin, Mao, and Castro said until they seized power and immediately began to sing a different tune. Democracy and diversity are what they say when out of power; tyranny and authoritarianism are what they practice once in power. That is the tried-and-true technique of all socialist movements.

US Aid, Palestinian Wakaha by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12918/us-aid-palestinians

It is clear that the Palestinian boycott of the US administration did not include receiving funds from the Americans.

The Palestinians are entitled to voice their anger at the US. However, if they are so fed up with the US that they are even boycotting US administration officials, why are they demanding that the Americans continue to supply them with hundreds of millions of dollars each year?

The Palestinians are trying to blackmail the US by claiming, absurdly, that the recent US decisions jeopardize the two-state solution and prospects for peace in the Middle East. These are the very Palestinians, however, who have refused to resume peace talks with Israel for the past four years, since long before Trump was elected as president.

The question of Palestinian responsiveness is once again on display as Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior officials in Ramallah step up their verbal attacks on the US administration after its decision to cut $200 million in American financial aid to the Palestinians.

Abbas and the PA leadership are again behaving like spoiled, angry children whose candy has been taken away from them, hurling abuse at the Trump administration. Recall that earlier this year, Abbas called US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman a “son of a dog.”

For the past 9 months, the Palestinian leaders have been waging a massive and unprecedented campaign of incitement and abuse against Trump and his administration. This campaign began immediately after Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, and the campaign is continuing to this day as a reply to the US decision to slash $200 million from the American financial aid to the Palestinians.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING :A Republican Underdog Fights for a Senate Seat in Wisconsin By Alexandra DeSanctis

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/leah-vukmir-wisconsin-republican-senate-candidate-underdog/

https://leahvukmir.com/-Leah Vukmir is a nurse, military mom, and conservative with a proven record of reform.

Leah Vukmir just survived one of the toughest GOP primaries of the cycle. Now, she’s aiming to upset incumbent Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin in November.

Don’t count Leah Vukmir out yet.

While many political observers have written off the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin as unwinnable for the GOP, Vukmir, a Republican state senator, has already pulled off a big victory in a tight primary earlier this month — and she intends to give incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin a real challenge between now and November.

Vukmir, a Wisconsin state senator since 2010, has already weathered one of the toughest Republican primaries this cycle, defeating Marine Corps veteran Kevin Nicholson for the GOP nod last Tuesday.

President Trump, who eked out a marginal victory in Wisconsin in November 2016, declined to endorse either of the primary candidates. That left Nicholson — a businessman and former Democrat who billed himself as a political outsider in the mold of Trump — to build the core of his support from conservative groups outside the state. Heavy hitters such as the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, and Tea Party Patriots backed him enthusiastically, and his fundraising numbers showed it.

Trying to Bring Down a President With Scandals No One Cares About Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271153/trying-bring-down-president-scandals-no-one-cares-daniel-greenfield

The left has a problem.

The echo chamber and message discipline has never been this coordinated outside the USSR. The enlistment of elements of the Obama police state on the surveillance and prosecution side, not to mention the able assistance of the judiciary, has been unprecedented.

We’ve seen abuses like these locally in Wisconsin and Texas, but never nationally.

There’s just one problem. All that adds up to is a bunch of scandals that no one outside the left cares about.

After a week that saw President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman convicted on eight counts of fraud and his former lawyer plead guilty to felony campaign finance charges, the president’s job approval rating remains virtually unchanged, new polling from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal shows.

The polls show that many people have generally accepted the media’s version of events. It just doesn’t really move the dial because no one really cares. The entire Russia story is a bizarre conspiracy theory that no one outside the bubble really believes or cares about.

The media’s ten thousand Mueller pieces to most people come off like their cousin who can’t stop explaining to them that fire can’t melt steel.

Conspiracy theories are deeply compelling to conspiracy theorists. Deeply offensive to their opponents. But boring to most other people.

And then there’s Stormy Daniels. No one cares. And if the economy stays solid, no one is going to support impeaching the President of the United States over something no one is shocked by or cares very much about. The Democrats are about to go where Republicans have gone before.

Trump’s approval ratings reflect general public perceptions of the economy. Every hysterical media story has had a very little impact, whether it’s border kiddies or the Russia conspiracy theories.

How do you bring down a president with a scandal no one cares about?

Media Justifies Ethnic Cleansing With Fake Stats About South African Farmers FACT CHECK: 72% of South Africa’s land is not owned by white farmers.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271126/media-justifies-ethnic-cleansing-fake-stats-about-daniel-greenfield

After President Trump tweeted about the mistreatment of white farmers in South Africa, the media rushed out stories justifying the ANC regime’s plans to ethnically cleanse white farmers by seizing land without compensation. These stories invariably contained a popular fake statistic abused by racists.

Bloomberg pretended to conduct a fact check by accusing Trump of misleading the public and claimed that, a “land audit released in February showed that whites own 72 percent of the land.”

“Land reform is a highly divisive issue in South Africa, where white residents, who make up 8 percent of the population, own 72 percent of land, according to official figures,” the New York Times observed.

“Whites own 72 percent of the 37 million hectares held by individuals,” the Washington Post contended.

The hedging isn’t hard to spot.

Is it 72% of the land or 72% of the land owned by individuals? There’s a huge difference. A sizable amount of South Africa’s land is actually owned by the government. That is, it’s owned by the ANC. Quite a lot of it is held by assorted organizations, including the tribal authorities of black South Africans.

For example, the Ingonyama Trust, controlled by the Zulu king, has 3 million hectares of land. The ANC’s decision to seize the king’s land has made fewer headlines, but has been even more explosive.

John McCain’s Failed Second Act Nothing can tarnish the glory of McCain’s first act, but democratic politics is about what comes next. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271155/john-mccains-failed-second-act-bruce-thornton

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s dictum about no second acts in American life is only partially true. There are second acts, but those that fail to live up to the promise of the first are far more interesting. An assessment of John McCain’s political career suggests that the Senator from Arizona squandered the immense capital of his five and a half years of bravery and integrity while a captive in Viet Nam.

McCain’s earlier career reminds one of George Armstrong Custer, another “maverick” whose reckless audacity won him plaudits during the Civil War, but ended in failure at the Little Big Horn. McCain was an indifferent student at the Naval Academy, and at times a careless pilot. During flight training he dumped a jet in Corpus Christi Bay, and while flying too low in Spain took out some power lines. At this point he seems to have been, like several Kennedys, a typical feckless scion of a storied American family whose elite connections mitigated his questionable behavior.

But McCain redeemed himself with his heroism during his captivity in Viet Nam. Regularly tortured and abused, enduring disease and solitary confinement, he turned down an offer to be released ahead of other captives who had been there longer. He ended his first act as an iconic American hero, tough in the face of brutal treatment, and committed to the very American sense of fair play that eschewed exploiting for his own gain his father’s status as head of the U.S. Pacific Command. Finally released in 1973, McCain was poised, like many other celebrated military veterans in American history, for a political career likely to end in the White House.

Europe Takes a Second Look at Conscription The Continent needs better preparation for disaster of all kinds, as well as more soldiers. By Elisabeth Braw

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-takes-a-second-look-at-conscription-1535311309

Conscription is back. After the Cold War, most European countries suspended mandatory military service, but now they’re rediscovering the institution that added muscle to the armed forces and some measure of social cohesion. The practice is often more a burden than an aid to the military. But with natural disasters and other emergencies increasing, what we really need is citizen resilience training.

“I can promise you one thing: We’ll have to discuss the issue of military service and national service very intensively again,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, secretary-general of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said in a video message released earlier this month. That sentence unleashed this summer’s biggest debate in Germany.

The government suspended conscription seven years ago. In its final years, only about one-third of young Germans performed military service, about one-third chose civilian national service, and the remaining third were not called up or signed up as professional soldiers—Germany’s post-Cold War armed forces simply didn’t need that many soldiers. But with the armed forces—the Bundeswehr—now struggling to recruit professional soldiers, Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s suggestion is not surprising. Sweden has reinstated selective conscription to beef up its active-duty forces, as has Lithuania. Norway has expanded the selective draft to women, while French President Emmanuel Macron is planning a new form of mandatory national service that includes a civilian and a military segment.

These initiatives are laudable, but only the best-executed conscription models generate substantial military value. “People fill the conscription concept with all kinds of problems they want to solve: integration, unruly youths, teaching young people rules,” noted Annika Nordgren Christensen, a Swedish former member of Parliament who wrote the report that led to the selective draft, told me. “But what really matters is its military value.” Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s proposal is essentially an updated, co-ed return to Germany’s previous model; young men and women would be required to serve in the Bundeswehr or in a civil-society organization such as a fire brigade or an assisted-living facility. CONTINUE AT SITE