Displaying posts published in

November 2018

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

On Criminal Justice, Trump Embraces the Left’s Racism Rhetoric By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on November 17th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-act-trump-embraces-left-wing-racism-rhetoric/African Americans were not disproportionately prosecuted for crack.

President Trump has announced his support for a proposal to ease federal sentencing laws that proponents call the “FIRST STEP Act” — and that Senator Tom Cotton has tartly labeled the “jailbreak” bill. There may not be much time for debate, since the bill’s ideologically eclectic array of champions hope to ram it through the lame-duck session of Congress. For now, though, I want to focus on an absurd assertion the president made Wednesday afternoon, in remarks touting the proposal.

Trump stated that, among other things, FIRST STEP

rolls back some of the provisions of the Clinton crime law that disproportionately harmed the African-American community. And you all saw that and you all know that; everybody in this room knows that. It was very disproportionate and very unfair.

It was not disproportionate or unfair. The argument that it was, commonly made by race-obsessed Democrats, is rooted in the noxious “disparate impact” theory of racial discrimination and a misrepresentation of history.

At issue is the wide disparity between criminal penalties for crack cocaine and powder cocaine — known, respectively, in the ’80s and ’90s as “cocaine base” and “cocaine hydrochloride.” This policy did not begin with President Clinton. In 1986, President Reagan signed legislation prescribing prison sentences that were much more severe for crack, at a ratio of 100:1 (e.g., a five-year mandatory minimum prison term applied to offenses involving 500 grams of powder cocaine or 5 grams of crack).

Clinton-era crime legislation built on this foundation, enhancing the phenomenon critics call “mass incarceration” (and the rest of us call “felons who prey on society being held in prison”). President Clinton signed into law the “three strikes and you’re out” provision, requiring mandatory life sentences for career criminals who commit a “serious violent felony” after having previously been convicted of at least one other such crime, in addition to another crime (which could include drug felonies). Clinton, moreover, encouraged states to adopt federal “truth in sentencing” provisions that require the sentence served in prison to approximate the sentence imposed in court.

(By the way, you’ll be hearing more about “truth in sentencing” — its demise, that is — in connection with FIRST STEP. Proponents insist the bill is tough on crime, and to give that illusion, the proposal would return us to the fraudulent practice of having Congress enact hefty sentences that judges ostensibly impose in court — only to have prison authorities quietly slash them by half and more. FIRST STEP would pull this off through the application of “time credits” that prisoners earn by participation in “evidence-based recidivism reduction programming.”)

It is fair to contend that some Clinton (and Reagan) sentencing policies were unduly harsh — though doing so is Monday-morning quarterbacking applied to a crime environment very different from today’s. It is the job of legislators to adapt the law to changing circumstances. And we do have changed circumstances: Crime rates have been low for a long time, and policing methods have improved significantly. Certainly, we should hear out thoughtful FIRST STEP advocates, who maintain that we can keep crime low (and even further reduce it) while returning convicts to society more quickly. I don’t see it, but maybe “evidence-based recidivism reduction programming” really can prove itself over time.

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Dem Staffers in Florida Lawyer Up as Feds Pursue Voter Fraud Investigation By Rick Moran

By on November 17th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/dem-staffers-in-fl-lawyer-up-as-feds-pursue-voter-fraud-investigation/

Oh, you stupid Republican conspiracy theorists! What’s happening in the counting of ballots in Florida is perfectly normal — just earnest and honest people determined to count every vote and protect democracy.

Then why are they all hiring lawyers?

Politico:

The issue arose after state party staff sent voters forms that are intended to fix vote-by-mail ballots that had been initially rejected. Those forms, which are official state documents, were sent with altered dates, leading the Florida Department of State to turn over the paperwork to several U.S. attorneys and request an inquiry into the “irregularities.”

After saying earlier in the week that the state officials were trying “divert attention” away from the Department of State, which is part of Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, the Democrats on Friday took a different approach: They lawyered up.

“Upon receiving notice of the allegations that the form was incorrect, FDP took immediate steps, including hiring an independent investigator to review the issues at hand,” attorney Mark Herron said in a statement provided by a party spokeswoman. “As soon as we know the results of the investigation we will advise you.”

Yeah, we know. You’ll get back to us on that.

Under state law governing “fraudulent practices,” it’s a third-degree felony to “knowingly and willfully … make or use any false document, knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry” connected to the Department of State. While the fraud statute is not contained in the state’s election code, it relates to the 2018 election because the affidavit in question concerned the elections division, which falls under the Department of State.

The case was referred to investigators at the urging of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Scott, both of whom raised concerns about fraud in the election. Their suspicions, however, revolved around tens of thousands of ballots that had been cast in Broward County and, to date, the elections division, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a judge all say they’ve seen no credible evidence of fraud.

Since Broward was one of the original counties targeted by Democrats to “cure” absentee ballots by using an altered form, investigators are obviously not looking very hard to find any fraud.

The issue was discussed in a number of internal party emails that have since become public, including one from Democratic staffer Jennifer Kim, who explained “the voters must print the form and sign it by hand.”

After sending the statement from Heron Friday, Caroline Rowland, the party’s communication director, did not respond to questions about whether Kim had been fired. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

3000 Votes ‘Disappear’ From Florida Recount Tally By Rick Moran

By on November 17th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/3000-votes-disappear-from-florida-recount-tally/

The New York Times is reporting that a discrepancy of 3000 ballots exists between the number of votes originally reported and the tally after the recount was finished on Friday.

Does it surprise anyone that the counties with the largest discrepancy are Democratic counties?

The discrepancy in votes is especially pronounced in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Here are some highlights from the Times report:

None of the discrepancies would be enough to affect the outcome of the three statewide and three local elections that are still waiting for a winner to be called. But they come as at least three Florida counties — two of them Democratic strongholds whose results could be decisive — have reported problems counting their shares of the more than 8.1 million ballots cast across the state.

In one of the most serious cases, Palm Beach County found “dozens of precincts missing a significant number” of votes during the machine recount, according to the supervisor of elections, Susan Bucher, causing the county to conclude that entire boxes of ballots may not have been counted.

Wow. Just wow.

How’s this for absolute stupidity?

Ms. Bucher blamed an overheated and outdated ballot-scanning machine. But the manufacturer of the high-speed scanner used in Palm Beach said its technicians had witnessed Palm Beach County elections workers, apparently worried that one of the machines was running too fast, jam a paper clip into the scanner’s “enter” button in an effort to slow it down. That, in turn, caused a short circuit that cut off the power, a company spokeswoman said.

Bucher should pitch a sitcom to network execs. They wouldn’t even need a laugh track.

The difference in Broward County was 0.29 percent — higher than the margin between the candidates in both the Senate and agriculture commissioner’s races.

“This is a big deal,” said E. John Sebes, founder of Open Source Election Technology, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that promotes accuracy and security in the vote-counting process. “If you have an election margin of 0.21 percent and a variance of 0.12 percent, the variance of your machine count is half the margin you are trying to correct. That’s kooky.”CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Cheating: Apparent ‘Organized Fraud’ By Florida Democrats Must Be Fully Investigated by Guy Benson

By on November 17th, 2018

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2018/11/16/its-over-recounts-show-rick-scott-gaining-votes-despite-democrats-malfeasance-and-incompetence-n2536075?

We’re a week-and-a-half past election day, and Florida Democrats are still refusing to concede the gubernatorial and Senate races they’ve almost certainly lost. Because the GOP’s victory margins were quite thin, mandatory recounts were triggered — but those margins are still large enough (roughly 34,000 and 13,000 in the governor and Senate contests, respectively) that the outcomes are not in doubt. Following the required machine recounts, apparent newly-elected Senator Rick Scott actually gained a few dozen votes, while apparent Governor-elect Ron DeSantis lost a total of…one vote. Via an Orlando Sentinel reporter:
Gray Rohrer@GrayRohrer

Machine recount totals out for three races. By my count, Scott’s lead in US Senate grew by 41 votes; DeSantis’ lead for governor dropped by 1 vote; Fried’s lead for agriculture commission fell by 19 votes

In reality, Scott should have gained hundreds of additional votes, but two Democratic counties — Broward and Hillsborough — missed their submission deadlines, thus reverting back to their previous, less accurate (and less Scott-favorable) counts:

✔@harrisalexc

HOLD UP. Broward just said they were actually 2 minutes late so their first total will count, *not* the recount. Also the discrepancy of 2,040 votes was due to a “comingling of ballots,” said Joseph D’Alessandro

It looks like Broward will seek to use the updated tally baseline to resolve its final number, after the hand recount takes place. Palm Beach County, another Democratic stronghold, missed its deadline, too. A cynic might say that it almost looked as if they were trying to do so. A judge rejected Democrats’ extension requests. All of this comes on the heels of a shocking story about apparent coordinated voter fraud machinations from Florida Democrats. There must be a full investigation into this:

A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline. The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties completed a required recount in three top races. But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline. One Palm Beach Democratic activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sweden: What ‘Humanitarian Superpower’? by Judith Bergman

By on November 17th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13264/sweden-orphan-deportation

Self-proclaimed “humanitarian superpower” Sweden, with its pride in upholding “human rights,” decided to take a 6-year old boy, who lost his mother, away from his grandparents and deport him to an orphanage in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Sweden refuses to deport the worst criminals and terrorists if there is the tiniest perceived risk that they might be harmed in the country to which they would be sent.

In spite of sharp criticism from Sweden’s highest government agencies, the Swedish government defied Swedish law to allow 9,000 mainly undocumented Afghan men, whose asylum applications were rejected, to study in high school alongside Swedish adolescents.

As early as 2001, a news report by newspaper Dagen showed that Christian asylum seekers had their applications rejected in Sweden far more frequently than Muslim asylum seekers.

In October, Sweden, which apparently likes to see itself as a “humanitarian superpower,” decided to expel and deport a 6-year old boy to the Ukraine. The boy had been technically orphaned when his mother died and his father, who lives in the Ukraine, formally renounced custody of his child in a Ukrainian court. The boy, Denis, has no other relatives in the Ukraine and would therefore have to go straight to an orphanage.

In 2015, Denis’s mother brought him from the Ukraine to Sweden — where his mother’s parents were already living. She applied for a residence permit for herself and her son, but it was rejected, for reasons apparently still undisclosed. News outlets do not seem to have been digging into why her original request was rejected. The Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) decided to deport Denis, even though he is living with his maternal grandparents, who have applied to adopt the child.

Denis “has not given probable cause that he will not be suitably taken care of upon [his] return to Ukraine” wrote the migration authority in its decision. They also mystifyingly referred to the decision as being “in the child’s best interest”.

That the boy is technically an orphan and that his grandparents, with whom he lives in Sweden, have begun adoption proceedings, is not enough to stop the deportation, said Karin Fährlin, unit head at Migrationsverket.

“This is a matter of… a boy who is a Ukrainian citizen, and then it is primarily family, or the father, or Ukrainian authorities who must answer for this child. That’s the reason [for the deportation]”, she said.

The decision to deport Denis, after it became known to the public in Sweden, caused an enormous scandal. More than 60,000 Swedes signed a protest against the deportation on Facebook and several celebrities and politicians expressed their revulsion over the decision. “His mother just died. He has no father. He is six years old and cannot stay with his grandparents in Sweden but will be deported to a Ukrainian orphanage. This is inhuman and disgusting,” wrote one TV personality, Jessica Almenäs.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Menace of Western Masochism By Mytheos Holt

By on November 17th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/16/the-menace-of-

“The enemies of Western civilization fear nationalism, and do their best to prop up soppy pathological altruists like Macron….”

There is an old joke that if you look up French military victories on Google, it says nothing can be found, and asks “Did you mean French military defeats?” Back when Google was an accurate search engine, the result would be imaginable. Given, however, that looking up “American inventors” on Google now produces a parade of nobodies apparently selected only on the basis of their skin color, one imagines Google probably has found a way to turn Hitler’s destruction of the Maginot Line into the French merely advancing in an alternative direction. Which is to say, the wrong direction.

That is as good a description of French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent speech at the World War I centennial, and of the tendency he exemplifies, as any I can think of in Western thought: advancing in the wrong direction.

The quote that everyone has seized on from Macron’s otherwise tedious and workmanlike speech has since been reproduced on Macron’s Twitter feed:

It is worth noting, as a matter of academic interest, that a literal translation of the original quote does not say that nationalism is merely a betrayal of patriotism: it says, instead, that “nationalisme en est la trahison,” i.e., “nationalism is treason.”

No doubt Bill Kristol will sue Macron for stealing his lines.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Double Standards Galore in the Attorney General Fracas By John C. Eastman

By on November 17th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/17/double-

So let me get this straight. In his November 8 New York Times op-ed (“Trump’s Appointment of the Acting Attorney General Is Unconstitutional,” co-authored by George Conway), Neal Katyal writes that President Trump’s designation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general is unconstitutional because the office of attorney general is a “principal office,” which can only be filled by someone who has been confirmed by the Senate. That would be the same Neal Katyal who served as acting solicitor general, also a Senate-confirmed position. And the same Neal Katyal whose boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, had served as acting attorney general at the end of the Clinton Administration and in the early days of the George W. Bush Administration. And the same Neal Katyal who served in an administration that closed out with another acting attorney general, Sally Yates, who acted like an embedded enemy within the Trump Administration until she was finally fired by the president for refusing to defend the president’s travel ban executive order—she claimed that there was no plausible defense for it, even though the policy was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

The double standard is so palpable as to be laughable.

To be fair, Katyal’s own position as acting solicitor general can be distinguished. The solicitor general’s office is arguably an inferior office, which means that the Constitution only requires Senate confirmation as the default position. Congress can, by law, vest the appointment of inferior officers in the president alone or in the head of the department. But that is not the case with either Eric Holder’s or Sally Yates’s appointments as acting attorney general. Either their appointments were also unconstitutional—and I don’t recall Conway or Katyal ever arguing that—or Whitaker’s temporary designation as acting attorney general until a successor can be named is equally valid. Conway and Katyal’s implicit attempts to distinguish those cases fall far short of persuasive.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Bells Toll for Theresa May . . . or Brexit? By Christopher Gage

By on November 17th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/17/the-bells

If I had one British pound for each time I was convinced of Prime Minister Theresa May’s end, I could purchase premium tickets to an Evening with Bill and Hillary Clinton. That abject cultural wreck dutifully has been cancelled. Though, the evening with Bill and Hillary stutters on.

Theresa May will go down as the most consequential prime minister in recent British history. For all the wrong reasons.

Yet, at the time of writing, May remains in office, not in power, as the once-ruthless Conservative party sharpens its pencils to the pitter-patter drip-feed of no-confidence letters. The slow death of Theresa May drips and drips and drips.

She is the Tinder date that just won’t leave. It was nice. Thanks for the Rioja. But I have work now. Please hail an Uber. I’ll pay.

But Theresa is in it for the wedding bells. After her Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigned on Thursday morning, he was followed soon by another cabinet member, Esther McVey.

May didn’t take the brutal hint. Instead, just hours later, she told the nation she would resist any vote of confidence: “Am I going to see this through? Yes.”

This is despite arch-Euroskeptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, head of the influential European Research Group, handing in his own letter of no-confidence, and imploring his 80-plus lawmakers to do the same. So far, 20 Conservatives have publicly demanded she go.

Math doesn’t lie. May already relies on the minor Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her minority government. Without the ERG, her Brexit deal won’t get through parliament. May will be fortunate to get through the weekend.

Mogg’s letter to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee—a political murder squad—could force a leadership challenge, if the required 15 percent of the Parliamentary party—48 letters from lawmakers—hits the mat. A political death panel could convene next week.

Not only is she now opposed by most of her own party, but twice as many British people oppose her deal than support it. The Uber is beeping outside. Theresa just wants to chat. Theresa isn’t leaving.

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Ocasio-Cortez turning into a nightmare for Congressional Dems By Thomas Lifson

By on November 17th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/ocasiocortez_turning_into_a_nightmare_for_congressional_dems.html

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is claiming that she is being discriminated against by House Democrats, implying racism. It turns out that she not only brings lots of media attention, she also carries a truckload of attitude.

James Barrett of the Daily Wire:

The nation’s youngest congresswoman has also been sounding the alarm over racism and sexism she suggests she’s already experienced on Capitol Hill.

Conservative Arthur Schwartz thinks she is lying:

This can easily be sorted out. But the victimology of her demand that “Next time try believing women + people of color when they talk about their experiences being a woman or person of color” is a shot across the bow of Nancy Pelosi and the entire House leadership.

She is signaling her willingness to Mau-Mau anyone who offends her even in the most trivial way. With all the attention the media loves to lavish on her, she is able to make endless trouble, and threaten the broad strategy of the Democratic Party: serve the interests of billionaires by garnering the votes of minorities and the poor with appeals to identity politics and free stuff/

The Daily Wire has a telling photograph of Ocasio-Cortez standing apart from a group of other Representatives. Click here to see it.

Boy, I bet that Nancy Pelosi sure misses Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the House Democratic Caucus that was defeated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the primary in a majority-minority Congressional district in New York City.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

U.S. House Republicans to Subpoena James Comey, Loretta Lynch By Debra Heine

By on November 17th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/u-s-house-republicans-to-subpoena-james-comey-loretta-lynch/

In the final weeks of their majority, House Republicans plan to interview two key witnesses as part of a joint committee investigation into the FBI’s investigations of the Trump campaign and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) is preparing to subpoena former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for closed-door depositions on Nov. 29 and Dec. 5 respectively, according to the AP.

The subpoenas are part of an investigation by two GOP-led committees into decisions made by the department during the 2016 election, when Democrat Hillary Clinton was cleared in a probe into her email use and Justice officials launched an investigation into Trump’s campaign and Russia. Both Comey and Lynch were in power during that time.

Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform panels have argued that Justice officials were conspiring against Trump’s election, and they have interviewed multiple current and former Justice officials behind closed doors in an effort to prove their case.

It’s unclear if Comey and Lynch will appear, but Comey has indicated in the past that he would be willing to testify at an open hearing.

He again conveyed his willingness to appear in a tweet Friday evening:

“House Republicans can ask me anything they want but I want the American people to watch, so let’s have a public hearing,” he said. “Truth is best served by transparency. Let me know when is convenient,” he said.

Continue reading →