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January 2020

Michael Bloomberg is playing the race card By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/michael_bloomberg_is_playing_the_race_card.html

Mike Bloomberg is not your ordinary Leftist. Yes, he wants gun control, abortion on demand, birth control for school girls, government-controlled education, the end of the coal industry, open borders, and amnesty for illegal aliens — plus, he likes China’s repressive government.

On the other hand, Bloomberg supports strict drug laws (except for pot), opposes social promotion in schools and, in a most un-socialist way, is a fiscal conservative who dislikes high taxes.

Bloomberg can more accurately be described as a despot. A despot is a ruler with unlimited power, which seems to be Bloomberg’s dream. His goal is to micromanage every citizen’s life, right down to how Jewish kids get circumcised and how much salt people can eat. Many of his initiatives have less to do with ideology than with raw power (but always, of course, for the good of the little people).

One thing Bloomberg understands is that, if criminals can get away with little crimes, they’ll start committing bigger crimes until civil society breaks down. Exhibit A for this breakdown in America is San Francisco, followed by Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and every other Leftist-government city that believes it’s racist to police criminals in order to protect law-abiding citizens.

As New York’s mayor, Bloomberg strongly supported “stop-and-frisk,” a policy that allowed police to stop and search anyone they suspected was carrying illegal weapons or drugs. Whether because of racism or because minorities lag economically and therefore are in an economic class more prone to criminal activity, the New York police were stopping and frisking a lot of blacks.

Mitch McConnell promises a meritorious, well-run impeachment By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/mitch_mcconnell_promises_a_meritorious_wellrun_impeachment.html

In a court of law, a party on the receiving end of civil or criminal charges can move to dismiss those charges if he can prove that the charges do not state a case for which relief can be granted. This argument can be made either on the ground that the law does not recognize the claimed cause of action or criminal charge, or that the facts stated in the opening papers fail to meet the requirements for such a cause of action or criminal charge. The president’s opening papers show that his attorneys will argue that the Articles of Impeachment fail under both of these metrics.

For some time, however, Republicans have been concerned that the Senate will not allow the equivalent of a motion to dismiss. Instead, they’ve fretted that the Senate will give credibility to the fatally flawed Articles of Impeachment by allowing a full evidentiary trial. Even assuming Trump were to prevail in the impeachment proceedings, his opponents would still argue that the claims were valid enough to merit a full hearing.

If you ask Siri who the president of Israel is, she becomes anti-Semitic Barrett Wilson

https://www.thepostmillennial.com/if-you-ask-siri-who-the-president-of-isreal-is-she-

“Hey Siri, wtf?” That’s the question that started floating around the Twittersphere Saturday evening.

Numerous people discovered that if you asked your iPhone who the president of Israel is, it would respond with a highly problematic answer: Reuvin Rivlin is the “President of the Zionist occupation state.”

The New York Post‘s Karol Markowicz tried, and got the same answer:

Sky News’ Rita Panahi had the same result over in Australia:

Rita Panahi
✔@RitaPanahiThis is real. Wtaf @Apple

Pretty worrying that the biggest tech company in the world can be hacked by antisemites or perhaps it’s an inside job.

The Post Millennial asked anti-Semitism expert and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind for comment and he said, “Apple has serious explaining to do. Not only do they have to remove and replace this nasty politicized result, they have to deal with how such a result was ever published. We want answers.”

The Post Millennial reached out to Apple but has not heard back by the time of publication.

Another Of The “Stupidest Litigation” Contenders Dies — But Just Barely Francis Menton

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/16/another-dud-in-the-string-of-bombshells/

Among the many important initiatives of this website has been holding the competition for the Award for “Stupidest Litigation in the Country.” Nominees for the coveted Award have included the group of lawsuits brought by various cities and counties against major oil companies, seeking to hold those companies liable for prospective physical damage from things like sea level rise, alleged to result from fossil fuel emissions; and the lawsuit brought by New York’s Attorney General against Exxon claiming that Exxon defrauded its own investors by downplaying the risks of climate change to its business. Yet to many readers, the very first nominee for the Stupidest Litigation Award has always been the clear leading contender to win it. That nomination, made in December 2017, went to the litigation titled Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana v. United States. This is the case where a group of adolescents in the Pacific Northwest have sought an injunction to require the federal government to decree an end to all use of fossil fuels, in order to “save the planet.” Really, it’s hard to top that one for Stupid.

But just because a particular litigation is the leading contender for the Stupidest Litigation Award does not mean that no judge will grant victory to the plaintiffs. After all, the whole idea behind each of these Stupid Litigations is to offer some judge a thinly-veiled rationale to become a hero in the progressive movement by taking self-government away from the people and turning control over to the bureaucrats and experts. Which is why it is significant that yesterday, a three-judge panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Juliana case dismissed. Moreover, the nature of the dismissal is such that the case as a practical matter is unlikely to come back. The only remaining recourses for the plaintiffs are to the full Ninth Circuit (known as an en banc rehearing), and/or to the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither is likely to change this result.

“Uncommon Common Sense” by Sydney Williams

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

At some point in the mid 1950s I attended a party at Dr. Edwin Land’s summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I was fifteen and Dr. Land’s thirteen-year-old daughter was my girlfriend. I found myself listening to three or four learned men trying to define horse sense. There was no unanimity. Having grown up with horses, I knew they were not the most intelligent of animals, but I also knew they had enough sense to seek shelter when it rained and come to the barn when hungry for grain. They had (and have) common sense. Horse sense and common sense are born of the same mother, though I was too intimidated to say anything 65 years ago. Webster’s agrees. Horse sense is defined: “the ability to make good judgements.” W. C. Fields also agreed, when he said that “horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Besides providing a horse laugh, there is a lesson in that adage.

Coleridge was right. Wisdom is the exercise of common sense. Wisdom is rare, especially in politicians who choose political correctness (the world as they would like it to be, not as it is), identity politics (segregation over unity), and victimization (the passing of blame rather than the assuming of responsibility). Common sense bases judgements on empirical evidence, on “self-evident truths,” as Robert Curry wrote in his book Reclaiming Common Sense: Finding Truth in a Post-Truth World. Meanwhile, politicians appeal to emotions, not reason, for example getting attendees pumped at rallies, which common sense says is a reason not to allow early voting.

“Facts,” as John Adams is supposed to have said, “are stubborn things.”  Nobody in Washington seems to worry about deficit spending even in a period of economic growth, yet last year’s deficit of just under a trillion dollars is equal to $3,000 per person. The published national debt is an obligation of $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation. When one adds in the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, per person debt rises to $380,000. Facts tell us that our population is aging – that the number of workers is shrinking, while the number of retirees is expanding. Yet, the six candidates for President in last week’s debate in Iowa were interested only in programs that would add to the deficit, add to the national debt and add to unfunded liabilities. Even the Republican Party, the party supposedly of thrift seems to care little about running a fiscally responsible administration. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: “How did we get so stupid so soon?”

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: THE NYTIMES ENDORSES KLOBUCHAR AND WARREN

In a break with convention, the
editorial board has chosen to endorse two separate
Democratic candidates for president. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren

Another dud in the string of bombshells

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/16/another-dud-in-the-string-of-bombshells/

You have to pity the bombshell-shocked American citizen trying to take seriously all the “shocking,” “stunning” and “bombshell” news coming out of Washington these days.

It is a little maddening — though mostly amusing — watching Rachel Maddow and the breathless news wags on MSNBC and CNN contorting themselves during interviews with greasy “witnesses” to supposedly nefarious behavior in Ukraine as to why exactly what they are claiming is so important and damning.

Or, “bombshell!,” as they like to say. And, certainly, “impeachable!”

HINT: If it takes exhaustive and complicated explanations to pinpoint precisely why something is a “bombshell,” then it is not a “bombshell.” That is the point of a “bombshell.” It is so powerful that it does not need to come wrapped in complicated explanations.

But there is no rabbit hole these people will not venture down in pursuit of President Trump. There is no zany conspiracy theory they will not gulp down to keep the party going. And there is no arcane strip of federal code from centuries gone by that they won’t dust off to construct their rickety case for impeachment.

ust ask Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chairman and a newly ordained impeachment manager. He got thoroughly snookered by a couple of gonzo radio goofs pretending to be Ukrainians with naked pictures of Mr. Trump.

Of course, the raunchy pervert happily went along — anything to get his grubby little hands on nudie pictures of Mr. Trump. It really is astonishing that these people are taken seriously anywhere outside the peep-show booths that used to populate Times Square.