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Muslim Beheads Man on French Street, and Here We Go Again Once again we get the same mind-numbing denial and willful ignorance we always see after jihad attacks. Robert Spencer

Posted By on October 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/muslim-beheads-man-french-street-and-here-we-go-robert-spencer/

It happened again on Friday: a Muslim migrant from Chechnya, screaming “Allahu akbar,” beheaded a schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, on a street in a Paris suburb for the crime of showing cartoons of Muhammad to his students. The response to this gruesome jihad murder has been as predictable, and dreary, and drearily predictable, as one might expect.

In response to the murder, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “This battle is ours and it is existential. They will not pass. Obscurantism and the violence that goes with it will not win. They will not divide us. That’s what they seek and we must stand together.”

This sounds great on the first hearing. That’s the idea. But in reality, “They will not divide us” is a statement that is designed to reassure Muslims in France. Macron is saying that he will do nothing to “divide” the supposedly happily united French people. What would “divide” them? Well, something like scrutinizing the Islamic death penalty for blasphemy and challenging Muslim leaders in France to repudiate it explicitly and declare their support for the freedom of speech, and to demonstrate their sincerity by instituting programs in mosques and Islamic schools in France to teach against Sharia blasphemy laws and emphasize the importance of the freedom of speech. That would “divide us.” Macron is saying it won’t happen, as expected.

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The Biden Emails Prove Impeachment Was A Sham The New York Post story shows once and for all that Trump’s impeachment was all based on a lie.By David Marcus

Posted By on October 19th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/17/the-biden-emails-prove-impeachment-was-a-sham/

Remember January? I know it feels like several lifetimes ago, the before times of life as we used to know it. But think back to the biggest story of those chilly days. It wasn’t the Chinese virus slowly spreading to our shores or the Democratic presidential primary. No, it was the impeachment of the president of the United States. This week’s bombshell New York Post story on Hunter Biden now shows what many of us suspected: The impeachment was a ridiculous sham.

The basis for the impeachment, for those whose recollections are understandably shaky, was that President Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to launch investigations into the energy company Burisma for the purely political purpose of hurting Joe Biden. Central to that allegation was the argument that Trump and the United States had no legitimate interest in seeing Burisma investigated. If the trove of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop are accurate, and they have not been disputed, then this argument falls to pieces.

Pam Bondi, working for the Trump defense team, said this back during the national ordeal about the Democratic House managers’ constant attempts to call allegations against the Bidens “baseless”:

In their trial memorandum, the House managers describe this as baseless. Now, why did they say that? Why did they invoke Biden or Burisma over 400 times? The reason they needed to do that is because they’re here saying that the president must be impeached and removed from office for raising a concern. And that’s why we have to talk about this today. They say ‘sham.’ They say ‘baseless.’ They say this because if it’s OK for someone to say, ‘Hey, you know what? Maybe there’s something here worth raising,’ then their case crumbles.

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Joe Biden, the father of ‘Borking’ By George Neumayr,

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

Supreme Court nomination hearings have gone from serene to savage, thanks largely to Joe Biden.

As head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the infamous Robert Bork hearings. His smearing of Bork for his original-intent judicial philosophy transformed hearings for Supreme Court nominees into bloody ideological battles. Henceforth, all conservative nominees were subjected to “Borking.”

Brutal to Bork from the start, Biden treated him not as a serious judge but as a stooge for what Biden called the “Reagan-Meese” agenda. Biden’s transparently unfair treatment of Bork was so bad even The Washington Post editorialized against Biden at the time:

While claiming that Judge Bork will have a full and fair hearing, Senator Joseph Biden this week has pledged to civil rights groups that he will lead the opposition to the confirmation. As the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, “Sentence first—Verdict Afterward.”

How can he possibly get a fair hearing from Biden, who has already cast himself as the role of prosecutor instead of a juror in the Judiciary Committee? If there is a strong, serious case to be argued against Judge Bork, why do so many Democrats seem unwilling to make it and afraid to listen to the other side?

In a forecast of what his own judiciary would look like, Biden opposed Bork not because he lacked the legal credentials to be on the court – Bork was considered one of the leading legal scholars in the country – but because Bork didn’t conform to Biden’s view of a good judge as a leftwing legislator from the bench.

Biden lectured Bork: “Will we retreat from our tradition of progress or will we move forward, continuing to expand and envelop the rights of individuals in a changing world which is bound to have an impact upon those individuals’ sense of who they are and what they can do?…In passing on this nomination to the Supreme Court, we must also pass judgment on whether or not your particular philosophy is an appropriate one at this time in history.”

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Restitution, reparations and sins of the fathers Diane Bederman

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://dianebederman.com/restitution-reparations-and-sins-of-the-fathers/

Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin. (Deut 24: 16)

Deuteronomy refers to human justice as administered in a court of law. How can mere mortals decide the extent to which one person’s crime was induced by the influence of others? Clearly the judicial process must limit itself to the observable facts. The person who committed the crime is guilty. Those who may have shaped his character are not.

The guilt of previous generations would not be attached to them.

So how did we devolve into blaming the people of today, for the sins of their fathers, and then suggest reparations from generations far removed from the event?

A movement supporting reparations as a way to make amends for the atrocities of slavery and to reduce the persistent wealth gap is gaining momentum. One hundred and forty-two members of Congress support H.R. 40, the bill to study reparations. William Darity, professor of public policy at Duke University  and his wife, Kirsten Mullen, made the most comprehensive case for a reparations program in their latest book “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.” They argue a meaningful program to eliminate the existing Black-White wealth gap requires an allocation of between $10 trillion and $12 trillion, or about $800,000 to each eligible Black household.

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China Threatens to Detain U.S. Citizens over Prosecutions of Researchers Linked to Chinese Military By Zachary Evans

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-threatens-to-detain-u-s-citizens-over-prosecutions-of-researchers-linked-to-chinese-military/

China is threatening to detain U.S. citizens in response to Justice Department prosecutions of researchers linked to the Chinese military, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The Justice Department has indicted several Chinese researchers who worked in the U.S., accusing them of attempting to conceal their connections with the People’s Liberation Army. U.S. intelligence officials believe that a small number of Chinese researchers have been involved in gathering intelligence for the P.L.A. When the State Department ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, the department also ordered China to remove all P.L.A.–connected researchers from the U.S., the Journal reported in August.

Chinese diplomats have been issuing warnings to their American counterparts that if the Justice Department continues its prosecutions of P.L.A.–linked researchers, U.S. citizens in China could run into legal troubles, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. China began issuing the threats after the U.S. arrests of those researchers.

The State Department issued a level-3 travel advisory in September for Americans planning to visit China. A level-3 advisory is the agency’s second-highest travel advisory, and is implemented “due to serious risks to safety and security” of travelers.

 

“The [Chinese] government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including by carrying out arbitrary and wrongful detentions and through the use of exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries without due process of law,” the State Department’s warning states. “U.S. citizens traveling or residing in [China] or Hong Kong, may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime.”

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What Trump Has Done to Change Health Care and How It’s Helped Battle COVID-19 By John C. Goodman & Marie Fishpaw

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/what-trump-has-done-to-change-the-health-care-system-and-how-that-has-helped-battle-covid-19/

Deregulation and market forces are making care more available at lower cost.

Our health-care system is experiencing rapid, powerful change, far more consequential than is generally recognized. Although these changes are welcomed by many in the health-policy community (see our assessment a year ago), even those who applaud them have been surprised at their speed and impact.

What follows is a brief overview of what the Trump administration has done to reform the health-care system — in some cases, with the compliant help of Congress. The vision behind the Trump reforms can be found in Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition. This 124-page Health and Human Services document from 2018 argues that the most serious problems in health care arise because of government failure, not market failure.In pursuing its vision, the administration has aggressively pursued its options under current law. We now need Congress to make the revolution complete.

Virtual Medicine. The ability to deliver medical care remotely is growing by leaps and bounds. It promises to lower medical costs, increase quality, and reduce the time and travel cost of patient care. For example, most people in hospital emergency rooms don’t really need to be there. With a phone or a computer and an app or two, many of them could be examined and triaged in their own homes.

The benefits of telehealth have been known for a long time. Yet as we entered 2020, it was illegal (by act of Congress) for Medicare doctors to consult with their patients by phone or email, except in rare circumstances. Even non-Medicare patients were constrained. For example, it wasn’t clear if visual communication by Zoom or FaceTime satisfied the federal government’s privacy regulations. While some state governments were clearing away barriers, progress was incremental and uneven.

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AOC, House progressives pen warning to Biden over cabinet picks By Ebony Bowden

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/aoc-house-progressives-pen-warning-to-biden-ove

WASHINGTON — Progressive House Democratic lawmakers fired a warning shot at a potential Joe Biden administration this week, signing a letter calling for corporate lobbyists and C-suite executives to be shut-out of his cabinet.

Thirty-nine members, including “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley and incoming Bronx congressman Jamaal Bowman signed the letter which was delivered to Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell on Friday morning and obtained by Politico.

The letter calls on both parties to ban C-suite level corporate executives and corporate lobbyists from holding Senate-confirmed positions such as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or Secretary of Defense.

However, one signee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), said the letter was meant to serve as a warning to Democratic nominee Joe Biden as he considers potential candidates with the presidential election just 19 days away.

It comes as the septuagenarian candidate faces pressure from inside his own party to move further left.

“It’s not addressed to Biden, but there’s an understanding that he’d be in charge and be the person making nominations,” Grijalva told the publication.

The letter calls on party leaders to shun President Trump’s decision to install former executives into some of the top posts of his administration.

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Joe Biden’s polling lead slips in wake of Post report on Hunter By Mary Kay Linge

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/joe-bidens-polling-lead-slips-in-wake-of-post-report

Joe Biden’s polling edge over President Trump eroded this week amid The Post’s scandalous revelations about his son Hunter’s foreign dealings — but the Democratic candidate still maintains a substantial lead.

The IBD/TIPP national tracking poll, released Saturday, puts Biden at 50 percent in the head-to head matchup, with Trump at 43 percent. The 7-point advantage is well outside the survey’s 3 percent margin of error.

But the poll of 1,009 likely voters saw Biden’s support slip by just over 2 percentage points since Monday — and found an increase of just under 1 percent for the incumbent.

The IBD/TIPP survey found strength for Biden among independent voters, who split their support between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, but now back the challenger by a 9-percent margin.

The results also hinted at the possibility of a substantial number of “shy Trump” voters in the electorate: while 47 percent of respondents said they believe that their neighbors are Trump voters, only 36 of them say they are surrounded by Biden backers.

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Fear and loathing in the Biden Crime Family by Howie Carr

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

http://www.bostonherald.com/2020/10/17/howie-carr-fear-and-loathing-in-the-biden-crime-family/

“I have no response.

That was Dementia Joe Biden’s response Friday when he was finally asked about the devastating expose of his son Hunter’s emails and so much more.

Those revelations included the crack-addled Hunter whining to one of his daughters that he has to pay 50% of all the cash he collects to “Pop,” and that as part of a shady Chinese deal, the so-called “remuneration package” would include “10 held by H for the Big Guy.”

“I have no response,” the Big Guy told a CBS reporter. “It’s another smear campaign, right up your alley.”

But he didn’t deny it. Biden — or more precisely, his keepers — haven’t disputed the veracity of the Biden Crime Family documents, or that they are from Hunter’s laptop. They were obtained legally, after an “inebriated” Hunter abandoned the computer at a repair shop, according to the New York Post.

The usual alt-left suspects — the AP, NBC “News,” Rep. Adam Schiff — went through the tired motions of trying to blame it all on, who else, the Russians. But seriously, how many times can these hacks cry wolf, even to Wolf Blitzer?

Dementia Joe’s keepers have always understood that Hunter was capable of getting Pop into this kind of a jam. That’s how far gone Hunter Biden is.

Which is why last year they commissioned one of their Democrat stenographers with a press pass to try to inoculate the campaign. The Bidens ordered up a sob story about Hunter in one of their party organs called The New Yorker.

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Come the Moment, Come the Man Peter Smith

Posted By on October 18th, 2020

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/10/come-the-moment-come-the-man/

Trump haters are most prevalent in the United States but they are everywhere, including in our midst. Troy Bramston was at again the other day in my morning Australian newspaper, the price of which has just risen by 17 percent. A case of getting less for more. “Biden in the White House would be good for us,” is its title. Aptly pedestrian for both the article and the writer.

Of course, Biden in the White House would be a disaster for Western civilisation and the Free World but, never mind, apparently, he “aligns better with the Morrison government’s international priorities.” What follows from Bramston is tendentious tripe and not fit to print. Like his Washington correspondent colleague, Cameron Stewart, his anti-Trump bias is regularly on tiresome show. But, let’s face it, Trump haters are a dime a dozen throughout the Australia media. More disconcerting is the way the hateful hacks have poisoned the opinions of ordinary people.

Best to regularly make a little list of the Donald’s dreadful deeds during what Bramston calls “Trump’s disastrous presidency.”

# He’s led the US into no new wars

# He’s routed ISIS (remember them?)

# He’s rebuilt the US military (you know, the military we depend upon)

# He’s stood up against China’s rapacious trade policies

# He’s forced NATO countries to front up more for their own defence

# He’s relocated the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (long promised, never delivered until Trump) and recognised the Golan heights as being part of Israel (a must-have for Israel’s defence)

# He’s brokered peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (Nobel Peace Prize 2021?)

# He’s curbed illegal immigration, including with a wall (OK, the Mexicans didn’t pay for it)

# He’s replaced NAFTA with an improved trade deal with Mexico and Canada

# He reduced regulations and taxes, producing US energy independence and, before COVID hit, the lowest Black and Hispanic unemployment on record; combined with an upsurge in real wage growth

# He’s brought back manufacturing jobs when Obama and those in the know said it couldn’t be done

# He’s promoted and signed the First Step Act to lessen the over-incarceration of black offenders

# He’s established business opportunity zones in the inner cities to help minorities escape despair

# He’s supported school choice and charter schools for disadvantaged children

# He’s promoted and signed a bill to provide permanent funding for traditionally black colleges.

# He’s appointed objective federal judges and Supreme Court justices to defend the constitution, as distinct from politically motivated activists.