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Joe Biden’s Me-Too Covid Plan A mask mandate aside, Trump is already doing what Joe recommends.

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-me-too-covid-plan-11598050972?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Joe Biden on Thursday issued an appeal to Americans who have grown tired during the pandemic of Donald Trump’s persona and behavior. The Democratic nominee is also promising a better virus strategy, which would be wonderful if he had one. But the virus plan he’s pushing is little different on the substance than what the Trump Administration is already doing.

President Trump’s biggest mistake in the pandemic has been his own shifting rhetorical leadership. He’s moved from public nonchalance to worst-case shutdowns back to overconfidence and in recent weeks more focused concern. He has suggested that triumph over the virus is just around the corner, which defies reality, while minimizing the disease’s severity. Democrats this week hammered his constant self-congratulation and seeming lack of empathy, which have hurt in particular with older voters.

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But Mr. Trump’s virus policy in practice has been better than his critics claim, and Mr. Biden isn’t offering better ideas. Start with testing. Mr. Biden promises to “develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately.” Great—the Food and Drug Administration in the past week has approved two new rapid tests that can be scaled up quickly.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Erdoğan Needs New Enemies by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16375/turkey-erdogan-new-enemies

All those Turkish-Greek tensions in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas bolster a century-long Turkish nostalgia to take back some of the Greek islands. Yeni Safak, a fiercely pro-Erdoğan newspaper, suggested that the Turkish military should invade 16 Greek islands.

“Discussion of wars and invading Greek islands is… a tactic used by the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to distract the Turkish population from the woeful economic situation.” — Greek City Times.

Erdoğan needs epic stories of military might against real or fabricated foreign enemies to tell an increasing number of grudging voters in the face of an ailing economy. That is bad news for the entire region.

Fearing a sharp decline in his approval rating, especially in view of a looming economic crisis, Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, appears to be chasing new wars with real or imaginary enemies.

Election data and research show that Turks have a tendency to unite behind their leader in times of crises or confrontation with foreign enemies. According to the Turkish pollster Metropoll, for example, Erdoğan’s approval rating peaked to 71.1% in December 2013, when he portrayed a slew of corruption allegations about him and his family as “a coup attempt.” In parliamentary elections in 2015, Erdoğan’s nationwide vote fell to 37.5% and his Justice and Development Party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Grievance Industrial Complex and Me Damien Richardson

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/08/the-grievance-industrial-complex-and-me/

EXCERPTS:

“Thirty years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall I am no longer a member of the working-class oppressed. Having failed as an economic system, Marxism has switched its focus to the cultural barricades of race, gender and general ‘otherness’. These days, as I am given to understand, I am now a member of the privileged white heterosexual elite.”

“When the Berlin Wall came down and the West appeared triumphant in defeating Communism, my academic colleagues and I, safe in the sanctuary of a taxpayer-funded university, remained unmoved and defiant. While studying Soviet politics, my lecturers never introduced us to dissidents and critics like Solzhenitsyn or Koestler. Even if they had, such warnings of state sanctioned brutality would have gone unheeded by the likes of me.

“Socialist ideology relies on subjective rationalisation and wilful blindness.

“Witnessing Marxist dogma’s switch to apportion privilege on the basis of race and sexual identity, rather than  the class struggle of yesteryear, led me to reconsider the legacy bequeathed to us by Western civilisation. So what did this former red-ragger conclude? It’s simple really: the source and mainspring of justice for all is and must always be equality before the law. We have seen the dystopian consequences of doing otherwise playing out on our TV screens as flames light American cities and innocent truck drivers are hauled from their rigs to be kicked senseless for the crime of being white.

“Resisting the temptation to assign guilt based on collective denunciations of class, race and/or gender protects us all from anarchy — an anarchy dangerously encouraged by the ideological underpinnings of the  grievance-industrial complex. Before we see America’s ordeal repeated here, our elected leaders really should do something about it. But they most likely won’t, more’s the pity.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet: Nothing To Worry About

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/21/greenlands-melting-ice-sheet-nothing-to-worry-about/

Even with a pandemic to exploit, the political left and its communications department, which most know as the mainstream media, still have time to sow fear about global warming. Now, they tell us, we have to worry about Greenland’s ice sheet because it’s reached the “point of no return.” Which makes a potent fear factor but fails to tell all of the story, which isn’t quite like the one the press wants to sell.

“The Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass at accelerated rates in the 21st century,” says a new research paper published in Nature’s Research Communications Earth & Environment, “making it the largest single contributor to rising sea levels.”

In a separate statement, we’re told that “nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.”

The report inspired such headlines as:

“The Greenland ice sheet is melting to a point of no return: study” — The Hill
“Greenland ice sheet lost a record 1m tonnes of ice per minute in 2019” — The Guardian

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Kamalot The nightmarish Biden-Harris ticket is the teachers’ unions’ “dream team.” By Larry Sand

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/21/kamalot/

“You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.” Referring to his wife Jill, presidential hopeful Joe Biden uttered those words at the virtual National Education Association convention in early July. He also expressed dissatisfaction with charter schools and said he wanted to triple funding for Title I schools, higher pay for educators, universal pre-kindergarten, etc.—all music to the ears of the teacher union faithful.

But as we all know, if elected, Biden will not be president for long. The man is firmly entrenched on Senility Street, and his legendary gaffes have turned positively daft. When Biden—willingly or otherwise—steps aside, the reins would then be in the hands of Vice President Kamala Harris.

After Biden announced his choice of running mate, the National Education Association referred to the duo as the “Dream Team” and posted “6 reasons educators are excited about Kamala Harris.” It’s all the usual stuff—increasing K-12 funding, defaming current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, asserting that “vouchers divert public school funding,” etc. Yup, all the gooey twaddle that does nothing at all for kids, but does get the NEA elite and their flock really excited.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Children playing with dynamite By Edward Thal

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/children_playing_with_dynamite.html

These grim children of the Marxist gods do not perceive the danger that lies along the path they have chosen

The Antifa and BLM rioters doing their best to destroy leftist cities ruled by confused idealists are the outward manifestation of a more dangerous impulse threatening to destroy all of America.

It is an impulse to self-deification that motivates the rioters and their enablers to see themselves as righteous crusaders saving the world. They insist that the rest of us conform to their lofty worldview, but they are like children playing with idealistic dynamite, oblivious to its destructive power while they earnestly fumble with matches to light the fuse.

We have seen them at play on a big stage this week where they gathered to applaud candidates for president and vice-president whose ideology will rule us all forever, if they have their way. It has been a theatre of the absurd where crackpot notions and perverse solutions for the real and imagined ills of America are presented in solemn tones by equally crackpot and perverse demigods who are deadly serious in their intentions to bend everything and everyone to their collective will.   

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

PRESIDENT PELOSI?

Posted By on August 22nd, 2020

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/president-pelosi/91232/

President Trump’s warning to a conservative gathering that before this election is resolved the person who could next emerge as President is Nancy Pelosi, well, it’s a startling point. It’s not entirely idle, though. The Constitution, and legislation it grants the Congress the power to pass, both envision a situation where the Speaker could automatically become president at 12:01 p.m. o’clock on January 20.

Neither Mr. Trump, as we understand him, nor we are saying such an event is likely. Just possible. Were it to come to pass, though, it would be completely — to the degree that there is such a constitutional concept — kosher. That’s because of the 20th Amendment. It says that the “terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January,” no ifs, ands, or buts.

It also says that the terms of the Senators and Congressmen end at noon on January 3. That means the 116th Congress ends and the 117th begins 17 days before Mr. Trump’s term is up. That gives the Representatives House time to choose its Speaker. It’s likely — not certain, we suppose — to be Mrs. Pelosi, making her next in line for the presidency after Vice President Pence.

The 20th Amendment also particularizes what happens if certain complications arise. If either the President or President-elect shall have died, say, the Vice President elect “shall become President.” Then it says what happens “if a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

SHAY HAWKINS (R) FOR CONGRESS OHIO-DISTRICT 6

Posted By on August 21st, 2020

https://www.hawkinsforohio.com/

https://townhall.com/columnists/gabriellahoffman/2020/08/21/entrepreneur-shay-hawkins-hopes-to-take-conservative-message-to-columbus-n2574792

Entrepreneur Shay Hawkins Hopes to Take Conservative Message to Columbus-Gabriella Hoffman

Shafron “Shay” Hawkins is a candidate running to serve in Ohio’s House of Representatives.

As the Republican nominee for Ohio’s 6th House District, a district surrounding Cleveland, Shay hopes to flip it from blue to red this November.

And he could very well pull it off.

After going viral for this tweet, Shay spoke to me about his candidacy and why he’s optimistic about his chances this fall.

A Bona Fide Conservative with an Inspiring Life Story

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

ALEK SKARLATOS (R) FOR CONGRESS OREGON DISTRICT 4

Posted By on August 21st, 2020

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/08/21/alek-skarlatos-campaign-ad-n2574826

https://www.alekfororegon.com/issues/

Alek Skarlatos Campaign Ad Hearkens Back to His Train Heroics Cortney O’Brien

Alek Skarlatos is a hero. He was one of three young men who happened to be on the right train at the right time in Paris in 2015. He and his friends Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, who all had military experience, managed to subdue a terrorist who had plotted to shoot and kill passengers, saving countless lives.

Now, Skarlatos wants to bring his fighting spirit to Congress. He’s running as a Republican in Oregon’s 4th congressional district against Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio. On Friday the 27-year-old unveiled a new ad and his campaign theme, “Fight for the American Way of Life.”

The ad brilliantly depicts Skarlatos sitting on a train that is en route while his narration plays.

“We can feel it,” Skarlatos begins. “America is in danger.” 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A Recap Of The Democratic National Convention’s Most Insane Moments By Tristan Justice

Posted By on August 21st, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/21/a-recap-of-the-democratic-national-conventions-most-insane-moments/

Democrats wrapped up their party convention Thursday night having officially coronated former Vice President Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential nominee with California Sen. Kamala Harris riding on the ticket months after she ambushed Biden as a racist.

After nominating the farthest-left presidential ticket in history with a more than $10 trillion platform spearheading the left’s 21st-century woke revolution, Democrats have 74 days to make their case to the nation before judgment day on Nov. 3.

If the last four days featuring eight hours of an “Orange Man Bad” infomercial in prime time were any preview of the campaign ahead, Democrats are pinning their message on pursuing the total transformation of American society into an exhaustively woke socialist utopia with a faux-moderate Biden as their Trojan horse.

The DNC was a circus, but a boring one at that. While the four nights of prime-time coverage featured Bill Clinton as the party’s moral compass, John Kerry as a legendary Middle East peacemaker, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a coronavirus miracle worker, the convention still operated on a full-day calendar streaming live panels of party activists speaking with prominent politicians.

Here’s a rundown of some of this week’s most notable moments that legacy media won’t cover.