Displaying posts published in

December 2020

Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/senate-investigation-finds-obama-admin-knowingly-funded-al-qaeda-affiliate/

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.

The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat, the predecessor to Al-Qaeda controlled by Osama Bid Laden.

However, that ignorance was born from insufficient vetting practices, the report said.

“World Vision works to help people in need across the world, and that work is admirable,” Grassley said in a statement. “Though it may not have known that ISRA was on the sanctions list or that it was listed because of its affiliation with terrorism, it should have. Ignorance can’t suffice as an excuse. World Vision’s changes in vetting practices are a good first step, and I look forward to its continued progress.”

The investigation was sparked by a July 2018 National Review article in which Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, detailed MEF’s findings that the Obama administration had approved a “$200,000 grant of taxpayer money to ISRA.”

A Guide to Wokespeak By Victor Davis Hanson See note please

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-guide-to-wokespeak/

This is Victor Davis Hanson’s Last column for National Review…..rsk

W ith the rise of the Left inevitable over the next two years, the public should become acquainted with the Left’s strange language of Wokespeak. Failure to do so could result in job termination and career cancellation. It is certainly a fluid tongue. Words often change their meanings as the political context demands. And what was yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heterodoxy and tomorrow’s heresy. So here is some of the vocabulary of the woke lexicon.

“Anti-racism.” Espousing this generic compounded -ism is far preferable to accusing particular people of being “racists” — and then being expected to produce evidence of their concrete actions and words to prove such indictments.

Instead, one can pose as fighting for “anti-racism” and thereby imply that all those whom one opposes, disagrees with, or finds distasteful, de facto, must be for “racism.”

“Anti-racism” is a useful salvo for students, teachers, administrators, public employees, political appointees, and media personnel to use peremptorily: declare from the start that you are working for “anti-racism” and then anyone who disagrees with you therefore must be racist, or, antithetically, “pro-racism.”

Oddly, such Wokespeak “anti-” adjectives denote opposition to something that no one claims to be for. For each proclaimed “anti-racist,” “anti-imperialist,” or “anti-colonialist,” there is almost no one who wishes to be a “racist” or desires to be a “colonialist” or an “imperialist.” These villains mostly come to life only through the use of their “anti-” adjectives.

“Disparate Impact.” This word is becoming anachronistic — call it Wokespoke, if you will. In ancient labor-law usage, it often accompanied the now equally calcified term “disproportional representation.” But in 21st-century American Wokespeak, it is no longer necessarily unfair, illegal, or unethical that some racial, gender, or ethnic groups are “over”-represented in certain coveted admissions and hiring.

RUTHIE BLUM: DOCTORS AGAINST LOCKDOWNS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/doctors-against-lockdowns/

As the year winds down and a third near-standstill takes place, more than 100 Israeli medical experts took a welcome ax to conventional coronavirus wisdom.

 Even after Israel entered its third nationwide lockdown on Sunday afternoon, members of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee were still duking out the details. It wasn’t until Monday at noon that the current restrictions were approved by a vote of 8-7. And even those were altered somewhat.

Ironically, just as many Israelis flooded hair salons and malls ahead of the latest closure as they have been lining up to get vaccinated. But at least the latter is being carried out with startling efficiency. Indeed, Israel is leading the world in the number of vaccines distributed per capita.

The opposite applies to the former. As has been true since the coronavirus pandemic hit the shores of the Jewish state at the end of February, the public is still being made bonkers by the arbitrary nature of the rules. It’s no wonder, then, that people have been making up their own.

Why there is even a need for a third lockdown, particularly with the vaccination campaign underway—one that has run totally counter to polls a few weeks ago showing much of the population unwilling to be inoculated—is a question that naturally arises.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s answer, basically, is that there is a dangerous spike in the rate of COVID-19 infection, accompanied by a rise in the number of patients on ventilators and an increasing death toll. He and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein have been warning against complacency and urging the public to let the new combination of lockdown and vaccines work its magic.

The Guarantee Clause, The Electoral Count Act of 1887, The DNI Ratcliffe Report on Foreign Interference and VP Mike Pence

http://The Guarantee Clause, The Electoral Count Act of 1887, The DNI Ratcliffe Report on Foreign Interference and VP Mike Pence

Amid our national discussion and evidence of wide-spread mail-in ballot vote fraud; and considering the January 6th role of the Senate to certify the 2020 presidential election; and considering a report from Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is forthcoming with previous assertions of “foreign interference”; and considering five states are sending dual sets of electors; there has been some discussion about “The Guarantee Clause” within the constitution and how it might uniquely apply to 2020.

Here’s the discussion as best I can explain it:

[Article IV – Sec.4] The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

“The Guarantee Clause” – “At its core, the Guarantee Clause provides for majority rule. A republican government is one in which the people govern through elections. This is the constant refrain of the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton, for example, put it this way in The Federalist No. 57: “The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government.” [citation]  “The Clause requires the United States to prevent any state from imposing rule by monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, or permanent military rule, even through majority vote. Instead, governing by electoral processes is constitutionally required.”

Additionally, The Electoral Count Act or the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is a US federal law stating procedures for the counting of electoral votes by Congress following a presidential election. It was enacted in the aftermath of the disputed 1876 presidential election between Rutherford B Hayes and Samuel J Tilden. In that election, several states submitted competing slates of electors and a divided Congress was unable to resolve the deadlock. [citation]

Essentially, the Electoral Count Act (1887) requires states to complete their certification of electors to congress by a certain date.  The conversation prior to the November 2020 election surrounded whether the COVID pandemic would interfere with the deadlines for state elector certification given the massive numbers of ‘mail-in’ ballots; and whether the counting of them would break through the deadlines imposed by the Act.

A combination of The Guarantee Clause (constitution) and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (law), establishes the framework for some to argue a fraudulent 2020 election result can successfully be challenged during congressional certification on January 6, 2021.  Thus five state legislatures -under Republican control- have sent dual-sets of electors to congress: Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Let us be clear… There is little framework for this type of constitutional issue. This is  uncharted territory, and consequently there is no body of law or case study upon which to apply a historic reference.   However, that said, the issue of Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, producing a report about foreign election interference could be a fulcrum issue upon which “The Guarantee Clause” of the constitution may apply.

Trump ends Obama’s 12-year run as most admired man: Gallup By Zack Budryk

gallup

President Trump has ended former President Obama’s 12-year run as the most admired man in America, edging out his predecessor in the annual Gallup survey released Tuesday.

Eighteen percent of the survey’s respondents named Trump as their most admired man, compared to 15 percent who named Obama and 6 percent who named President-elect Joe Biden. Three percent named National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, while 2 percent chose Pope Francis.

Rounding out the top 10 were Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James and the Dalai Lama, all of whom received 1 percent.

The sitting U.S. president has been named the pollster’s most-admired man in 60 out of 74 years, including all eight years of Obama’s presidency and every year of George W. Bush’s presidency except for 2008. Trump had finished second to Obama in 2017 and 2018.

The 2020 rankings are the 10th time Trump has ranked among the top 10. Before entering the political sphere, he made the list in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 2011. Biden made only his second appearance in the top 10 after making the list in 2018.

Do Black Lives Really Matter? Latest New York City Crime Statistics Francis Menton

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=d0e0f34b6d

This has been the year of mass protests over the killings of unarmed black people by the police. Most of the protests were in explicit reaction to a small number of famous incidents. In March it was the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville; then in May, George Floyd in Minneapolis; and in June, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. The protests, often accompanied by violence and looting, continued through the summer and into the fall. The ubiquitous slogan was: Black Lives Matter.

Here in New York, both the state legislature and City government have reacted to the Black Lives Matter protests with a series of measures that have included exempting many crimes from bail requirements, and a reduction of about $1 billion (16%) in the budget of the City Police Department. These are the principal steps that supposedly will demonstrate that yes, black lives do, in fact, matter.

In recent days and weeks the NYPD has released some data as to violent crime in the City as we near the end of 2020. How’s it going? The answer is, it’s an unmitigated disaster, particularly for black and Hispanic crime victims.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Ben Chapman has a piece with the headline “New York City’s Shooting Surge Hits Black and Hispanic Communities Hardest.” (probably behind pay wall). Chapman reports that, according to the latest data from the NYPD through December 20, the number of shooting incidents in New York City has more than doubled in just the last year, comparing 2020 to 2019:

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 20, the city recorded 1,824 shooting victims, up nearly 104% from 896 during the same period a year earlier, according to NYPD data.  The number of shootings increased to 1,493 for the year so far, compared with 754 for the same time in 2019, the data showed.

A Student Mob Took Over Bryn Mawr. The College Said Thank You written by Minnie Doe

https://quillette.com/2020/12/27/a-student-mob-took-over-bryn-mawr-the-college-said-thank-you/

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality, while making it easier for them to part with them.
     ~Vaclav Havel

Last week marked the end of a chaotic semester at Bryn Mawr College, a small women’s liberal arts college located outside Philadelphia. During the final weeks, Bryn Mawr students, including my own child, scrambled to pick up the pieces following a student “strike” that exacerbated the serious preexisting disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. For a period of three weeks, few regular classes were held, activities were suspended, and student life (such as it was) became marked by the same toxic spirit of racism that the strikers claimed to oppose.

Bryn Mawr is affiliated with nearby Haverford College, whose parallel meltdown in November was documented recently by Quillette. These two selective and well-funded schools are part of a so-called Bi-Co arrangement, which allows students to participate in joint classes and activities. Both share a similarly progressive commitment to such causes as diversity, equity, and inclusion. And students at both schools generally are well-steeped in doctrines of intersectionality, “white fragility,” anti-racism, and all the rest. Yet following the police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia, activists at Haverford and Bryn Mawr embraced the dubious claim that their extremely progressive campuses were actually contaminated by a dangerous climate of racism that (quite literally) threatened the survival of black students. In many cases, the ire was directed not only at administrators and non-ideologically-compliant faculty, but also at any student suspected of not supporting the strikers’ apocalyptic rhetoric, dramatic postures, and inflated demands. Anyone who sought to attend class, go to the dining hall, or even turn in schoolwork was denounced as a “scab,” and often faced acts of bullying.

As the parent of a Bryn Mawr student (and the parent of a Bryn Mawr alumna), I found this profoundly unsettling. I kept expecting that, at some point, the administration would take decisive steps to restore order on campus (where, as at Haverford, in-person learning was supposed to be occurring, under COVID-19 testing and social-distancing protocols). But that never happened. Instead, a small group of largely unidentified students effectively shut down the campus—not because their views attracted majority support (only about a quarter of the student body seemed to really be on board, from what I could tell), but because the administration simply never pushed back.

What Big Tech Didn’t Want You To See On The Federalist In 2020 Google, Facebook, and Twitter ultimately don’t want you to see anything from The Federalist. They also hope you don’t notice. By Joy Pullman

https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/29/what-big-tech-didnt-want-you-to-see-on-the-federalist-in-2020/

Leftist media has skewed U.S. politics for decades, but Big Tech’s amplified influence over global discourse and governments is new. While Congress passed no legislation related to this political and national security emergency, we the people were held captive in lockdowns during a major election while crucial public information was filtered, hidden, and surveilled by unaccountable companies with no allegiance to the United States and obvious disdain for hundreds of millions of its inhabitants.

This is a huge social problem. Regaining our freedom to speak and to share and compare information may be the first task towards redressing our grievances against those who claim to govern us. For how can consent of the governed be truly granted when the people’s ability to inform their consent is manipulated? It cannot.

To regain our self-governance, then, we all need to develop new habits of information-gathering and -sharing. As a tiny part of and precursor to more of that effort, here is an accounting of Federalist work that Google, Facebook, and Twitter tried to keep people from seeing in 2020.

You will notice it fits the pattern of big tech censorship that big tech claims isn’t censorship: it all goes one way politically. All of it also comprises election-meddling by effectively promoting misinformation and disinformation on key voting issues.

Just Plain Hiding the News They Can’t Use

Trump’s gambit By Larry Brandes

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/trumps_gambit.html

I have some very liberal friends who are absolutely giddy about Joe Biden’s potential presidency. Truth be told, they don’t love Biden and among themselves, behind closed doors and shuttered windows, in the dead of night, they quietly whisper that Biden has exceeded his expiration date. They know. Unfortunately, they have been conditioned by the media for four years to hate Trump with a white hot passion and now rejoice that he and his annoying tweets will soon be gone with the wind. 

The perfect storm of their hatred for Trump and malicious election fraud combined to give Sleepy Joe more votes than even Obama could muster.  That is some impressive cheating.  The church bells are ringing-evil Trump will be replaced and they don’t really care who is sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office on Jan. 21, 2021. The Democrats would have nominated Barabbas if it helped them facilitate the expulsion of Trump.   

Actually, I am profoundly sad for Joe.  At his advanced age and obviously suffering declining cognitive skills, Joe should be sitting on a beach in Hawaii, under an umbrella drinking a Pina Colada and enjoying the final chapter of his life.  Instead, the Democrats and the media dragged Joe across the finish line and think that he will occupy the Oval Office in January.  I think that their endgame is flawed because Trump’s king is still on the board and the game isn’t over.

Across America, seventy-four million, God-fearing, gun-loving, Bible-reading, deplorables are praying for a miracle.  At this point, a Deus ex machina (an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation) is what is desperately needed to save our Republic.  As Bonnie Tyler so eloquently sang, “Where have all the good men gone and where are all the Gods?” 

The good men at the FBI and DOJ were suspiciously AWOL, the Supremes took a hard pass, and even Bill Barr, Trump’s deputy sheriff, left his tin star on the Resolute desk with a post-it note that probably read, “Things are getting real. I didn’t sign up for this.”  

The evil creatures lurking in the shadows plotting to destroy America are now fighting for their political lives. These cowardly trolls hiding in the fetid Washington swamp have vowed to destroy our president and subsequently our nation by any means available. 

2020 Election: I’m not mad, I’m furious By Suburban Lawyer

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/2020_election_im_not_mad_im_furious.html

I am not mad about the massive election fraud. I am furious with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns. This Republic cannot long endure if its electoral system is thoroughly discredited by the widespread, and successful fraudulent schemes of big-city political machines in six swing states. It’s all out there in plain sight, no matter how hard the DemMedia tries to hide it.

Within a week after the election, the alarm was sounded. Larry Correia, novelist and retired accountant, asked on his website for a response from auditors and anti-fraud veterans to this question: “In your entire career, have you ever seen a case that threw up this many flags that DID NOT turn out to be fraud?” Over 50 people responded. All of them said with this many flags it was always fraud. 

The obvious response to these flags should have been for Republicans at the state level in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to immediately seize the evidence to forestall a cover-up. Ballots and voting machines in eight big cities should have been seized by investigators and forensically examined by anti-fraud experts.

The only forensic audit of the Dominion Voting Systems was held in Antrim County, Michigan. The report found the machines were spitting out 68% of ballots as “in error” so that an “adjudication system” could reassign them to a candidate, chosen by a computer algorithm or by a human somewhere in the world connected (locally or remotely) to the system. Contrary to lies from Dominion, the voting machines were connected to the Internet. A whistleblower in Michigan testified to that in a legislative hearing. Read the report. That was just one of many ways Dominion cheated the system.

How can anyone ignore how vote counting was stopped in the middle of the night? In Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada officials mysteriously quit counting after midnight. Once that only happened in Cook County, Illinois. Now it’s all over the country.