Advertisement

It’s actually good that U.S. Attorney John Durham is still putting the finishing touches on his report on FISA abuse, as we’re going to need some focused post-convention time to take a look at it. There’s a story to be told, a very important story, and we should soon know a lot more about how the "Russia" hoax came together. In fact, one can get a “sneak peek” right now by looking at Kevin Clinesmith’s plea agreement and seeing how it relates to parts of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s internal report.

Thanks to Margot Cleveland at THE FEDERALIST for connecting more dots. She's done the tedious part; now we get to talk about it.

As you know, Kevin Clinesmith, who worked in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying evidence; the plea agreement was released last Wednesday. He admitted that he had added four critical words --- “was not a source” --- to an email from an “unidentified government agency” (let’s just say the CIA because we know it was) concerning Carter Page’s “operation contact” with that agency. One of the agents involved in Crossfire Hurricane had told him they wanted “something in writing” about it, so he altered the email and forwarded it to that agent. (While pleading guilty, he still claims it was not his “intent” to mislead. Trying to have it both ways.) This revised email cleared the way for the fourth FISA.

But wait --- there had already been an original FISA application and two renewals, and they hadn’t mentioned this. What’s the story there? Well, according to Clinesmith’s plea agreement, the CIA had provided “certain members of the Crossfire Hurricane team” with a memo indicating that Page had been approved as an “operation contact” for them from 2008 to 2013 and detailing information that Page had provided them about “his prior contacts with certain Russian officers.” But we know this information was not included in the first three FISAs. (The Horowitz report says so, and Clinesmith makes a point of it in his plea agreement.)

If I understand correctly, THIS is the “suspicious” contact with Russians that gave the Crossfire Hurricane team their reason (excuse) to accuse Page of being a Russian agent. But in truth, there was no reason to spy on him over this; he had already been debriefed by the CIA about it, and the CIA had informed "certain members" of the team of his relationship with them before the initial FISA application was made. The FBI just left it out of the applications.

To accomplish this, the Crossfire Hurricane team even left it out of the information given to the division that HELPS with FISA applications, and one member of the team, Stephen Somma –- more on him coming up –- gave them incorrect information when explicitly ASKED about Page’s relationship with the CIA. This key information about Page is one of the “17 substantial errors or omissions” in the FISAs that Horowitz attributed to the FBI.

So, now we need to know the identities of the “certain members of the Crossfire Hurricane team” who received the memo about Page from the CIA, because they are the ones who kept the information out of the application and first two renewals. In the IG report, one is identified as “Case Agent 1,” and that person was identified by THE NEW YORK TIMES as the aforementioned Stephen Somma, who happens to have been Stefan Halper’s FBI “handler” as well! So we’re likely to be hearing more about Mr. Somma.

Cleveland’s article has more detail on how Somma mischaracterized Page’s work in Russia, moving the dates of it years earlier so it became “beyond the scope” of the FISA application. Clever, these FBI agents.

The Horowitz report says Somma claimed “not to recall his state of knowledge” about Page’s history with the CIA. One has to wonder if his memory might improve while under questioning in Durham’s criminal investigation, under threat of perjury.

Cleveland –- who has a FANTASTIC memory –- remembers that Somma, as Case Agent #1, had expressed great interest early on in surveilling Carter Page. But according to the IG report, the Crossfire Hurricane team didn’t become aware of the “dossier” till September. Before then, only Steele’s “handler” and a few agents in the New York Field Office knew about it, starting in early July.

But guess where Somma was working in early July, before joining the Crossfire Hurricane team in August? The New York Field Office, where he was a special agent for counterintelligence with a focus on...Russia.

Cleveland goes into more detail on who else among the team might have known about Page’s CIA involvement and kept it out of the application. Joe Pientka is certainly a possibility.

But the big stinky cheese at the FBI at that time was Director Comey, and this is one slick dude when it comes to protecting himself. As you might recall, Comey slithered his way out of having to talk about classified material with IG Horowitz by refusing to have his security clearance reinstated. Smooth, huh? The memo sent to the FBI about Page’s CIA activities would have been classified, for sure, and without a security clearance, Comey couldn’t have been shown the memo or asked anything about it.

A criminal investigation is different, though. Maybe Durham can put the squeeze on the big cheese. And maybe we’ll finally learn the whole sordid story.

In breaking news Sunday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Maria Bartiromo on FOX News’ SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES that a newly declassified document proves the FBI used different standards in investigating Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Pardon me while I recover from the shock. Does anybody have some smelling salts?

The way Graham explained it, in March of 2015, one month before Hillary officially announced she was running for President, the FBI discovered a plot by “a foreign government” (not specified) to lobby her campaign and funnel millions of dollars illegally into her campaign. (Shock; need more smelling salts!) So they opened an investigation and applied for a FISA warrant against “a Clinton operative who was connected to the foreign government.”

The 7th floor at the FBI (the same 7th floor that later wanted the Flynn investigation kept open even though there was no evidence he’d broken the law) told investigators they couldn’t get a warrant unless they first defensively briefed the Clinton campaign. So the FBI actually did that –- they TOLD the Clinton campaign about what they had found. And they never did get the FISA warrant to do surveillance on the Clinton campaign. This is exactly how they should have handled any information they’d received about Russia trying to “meddle” and infiltrate the Trump campaign. It's simple: you go to the Trump campaign!

But note how differently Trump’s campaign was handled. The FBI opened multiple counterintelligence investigations against associates of the Trump campaign –- including George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Michael Flynn –- and chose not to tell Trump about their suspicions, even though that would normally be the thing to do and they could have done it during his intelligence briefing.

No, the briefing they gave candidate Trump was just about general threats, the same kind of intelligence they would have provided to anyone running for President. In fact, they even used that briefing as pretense to send an additional agent in, specifically to monitor the behavior of (translation: SPY ON) Flynn and Trump.

Graham said the comparison between these two situations showed “the ultimate double standard.”

According to this newly-released document, a special agent on the Clinton case wondered why they “had not received a clear answer as to why we are not being allowed to use one of the only tools available against a target (REDACTED) FISA collection –- in spite of clear justification.” Of course, we know the answer; they weren’t allowed to use “FISA collection” because, Hillary. And maybe in Hillary's case they really HAD clear justification. I don't think I'd need my smelling salts if I heard that.

Anyway, a year later, the FBI should have treated the Trump campaign with equal care, but we now know in great detail how they did handle it. Then, in January of 2017, after he was elected, the FBI field office investigating Flynn wanted to close that investigation, but Peter Strzok told them the “7th floor” wanted to keep it open. (That was the day before the big January 5 Oval Office meeting.) This couldn’t have been more different from the way the FBI had treated Hillary a year earlier.

We’re not even talking about the kid-glove treatment Hillary got during the “Mid-year Exam,” the FBI’s investigation of her use of a private email server for official State Department business. It shows that the FBI can do things by the book –- but that they threw the rules out the window when Trump entered the race.

America set the bar so low for Joe Biden’s speech Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, he ended up getting raves simply for standing on his mark and reading off a prompter for a mere 20 minutes. For Democrats, he also got raves for not being Trump, which is the greatest accomplishment of all.

As author James Lileks put it, Biden benefited from “the soft bigotry of Joe expectations.”

Since there was only one noteworthy flub –- he skipped over the word “not,” but everybody knew what he meant –- the conversation inevitably turned to whether or not Biden was actually speaking live. On Friday, even Rush Limbaugh discussed this, including whether or not the speech could have been edited, given that Biden was essentially motionless throughout, and Rush said he knew of a number of people “looking at it.”

Before getting into that discussion, let me say that just the fact we’re even speculating about it should tell us what’s “off” about this crazy year and the Biden ticket in particular. When Trump hits it out of the park (as he will, guaranteed) this week at the Republican Convention --- in the middle of a no-doubt grueling schedule --- no one is going to wonder if HE spoke live and in the moment, not for one second. Because that’s just him; what you see is what you get. His party is not going to be deceiving you about that. That is so refreshing in the world of politics. Anyway...

Though my background is not in computers –- far from it! –- I know technology exists to “fix” much of what might have needed to be fixed, but probably not in such a way that it wouldn’t be detected by experts who know what to look for. (Aside: we’re not far away from the horrifying day when this CAN be done undetectably.) So it’s very unlikely that this was done. No, if Biden’s campaign didn’t have total confidence in his ability to do the speech live, the best way around that would have been much simpler.

I do have a background in writing speeches for corporate executives and even coaching them on delivery and how to appear on camera. What they would have done: get Biden rested and ready, and then run through the whole speech a comfortable number of times with Biden in rehearsal, hitting “Record” on all the run-throughs. (Don’t tire him; at some point, the law of diminishing returns will apply.) Typically in a rehearsal, you'd record the run-throughs anyway, to be able to review the performance and give the “talent” (I use the term loosely) some notes before doing another take. Once you have a full take you like --- especially if you sense he’s getting tired --- just stop. Don’t wait for perfection; a minor flub or two makes this more believable, and in this case, that’s the most important thing. Use the take that best conveys the personal qualities you want to get across, as Democrats think the election turns on this.

After that, as long as you’re down to a TINY group of people who can be implicitly trusted not to leak, it’s only a matter of hitting the right button at the right time to send out the recording instead of going live. Then, while the video played, Biden and Jill would just be “bidin’” their time in that room until it was time to walk out with Kamala and her husband to wave at the cheering crowd. Or, Biden could even do it "for real," unaware that the speech going out was really a take from earlier in the day.

That’s what Lt. Columbo would suspect. Do NOT call me a conspiracy theorist; I am not saying they did this. I’m saying this is how it could have been done if they had serious concerns about Biden "going live." It’s tempting to think of this as their “insurance policy”; we know Democrats are fond of those.

Biden probably just read it live, as it wouldn’t take much for that, given that he had the words right in front of him. But, again, the fact that we’re even speculating tells us all we need to know about what is wrong with the 2020 Democratic ticket. Given the high stakes, we have no doubt that if they were sure they could get away with this without anyone being the wiser, they'd do it.

So the bigger issue is whether the speech itself met expectations. To preface that discussion, I’d say that even without the questions concerning his mind, much of Biden’s past political life would do much to set the bar for content just as low (unless, of course, it were to be plagiarized from other sources). This opinion piece from JUST THE NEWS offers a quick background.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/biden-has-history-controversies-involving-plagiarism-fabricated-stories

Gov. Huckabee has a commentary of his own today on the glaring lack of any specificity in Biden’s speech. He’s right --- this was vapid campaign talk, nothing but typical election-year platitudes. I have little to add, except that it occurs to me his speechwriter might have taken inspiration from a commercial currently being run in America by Italian coffee company Lavazza (which calls their ad a “global communication campaign”), featuring the voice of Charlie Chaplin from 1940.

The visuals are impossibly artistic and edgy, showing humanity at its most open, loving and --- importantly for leftists --- stylish. The words laud a borderless planet in which everyone gets along (as in the insipid John Lennon song “Imagine”). There's no word on how we’re going to create this beautiful world, except to “Unite!” Leftists just love flowery, uplifting speeches about mankind with no specifics.

The words Lavazza used are from Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film THE GREAT DICTATOR, a movie that rightfully savages Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

To his credit, Biden at least didn't plagiarize this.

It would be fun to create new visuals for the Lavazza ad that included shot after shot of leftist violence in Seattle, Portland and other American cities (which Biden never mentioned, incidentally). You know the images I mean: buildings burning and people being kicked in the head by radical leftist thugs demanding "justice." Oh, the humanity.

Now, I am a huge fan of Chaplin’s movies, but it should be noted that he was a far-leftist --- he grew up in dire, horrific poverty in England --- who became fabulously wealthy in capitalist America and eventually exited the U.S. to live in Switzerland. He claimed not to be a Communist, but here's an interesting piece on his Stalinist leanings.

We mustn’t forget that Russian Communist ruler Stalin was quite the dictator and mass-murderer himself. Clearly, one would have to be a dictator to have anywhere near the level of control it takes to remake society. Prospective Democrat voters might want to consider that.

Operation Legend

August 21, 2020

Attorney General Bill Barr announced that over 1,000 arrests have been made, 400 weapons seized and over 217 people charged with federal crimes in a crackdown on violent crime in major cities.

It’s part of Operation Legend, named after a four-year-old African-American child, LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he was sleeping in Kansas City, Missouri. Barr said, “LeGend is a symbol of the many hundreds of innocent lives that have been taken in the recent upsurge of crime in many of our urban areas. His life mattered and the lives of all of those victims matter. His name should be remembered and his senseless death, like those of all the other innocent victims in this recent surge, should be unacceptable to all Americans.”

It's not at all surprising to me that President Trump’s DOJ is doing more to uphold the principle that black lives matter – indeed, that all innocent lives matter and deserve protection – than all the violent agitators who are destroying black neighborhoods in the name of Black Lives Matter.

Ridiculous Claim

August 21, 2020

Since “Russian collusion” finally imploded, the Democrats’ new “Trump is rigging the election” hoax is a ridiculous claim that he’s gathering up all the mailboxes so Democrats won’t be able to mail in their ballots. If you’re dumb enough to believe that – or not to know that you can always mail a ballot at the post office, or just leave it in your own mailbox and the carrier will pick it up – then maybe you shouldn’t be voting at all.

Nancy Pelosi is trying hard to make a federal case out of it, but it’s so mind-bendingly stupid that not even the reliably liberal “fact-checking” sites can bring themselves to go along with it. For instance, here’s Politifact ruling that, no, a photo of a stack of mailboxes is NOT proof of “massive voter suppression.” It’s a photo of a company that refinishes old mailboxes for the Postal Service.

Politifact is so in the bag for the Dems that they had to stick into this story a line about Trump making a “false” claim that mail-in voting is rife with fraud (Okay, it’s rife with errors that give it a tremendous potential for fraud, is that precise enough? And of course, we all know voter fraud never happens. Oh, wait…)

But that still can’t balance out the sheer willful idiocy of this story. What’s next? “Hey, I found three stacks of crackers inside my Ritz box! It’s massive proof that Trump is trying to hide food from the poor!”

Probably shouldn’t even say that. Nancy will convene impeachment hearings.

79 Percent Say...

August 21, 2020

“But, the Narrative!...” The more Americans of all colors see the “peaceful protesters” burning, looting, rioting and assaulting, the more they’re supporting the police. A new survey by Heritage Action For America found that opposition to defunding the police has risen to 79 percent, with only 16 percent supporting it.

Even when presented with the soft-soap version of the issue that the Democrats are pushing (Do you agree that we need the police to enforce the rule of law or that we need to rethink policing and spend more of that money on social services, welfare programs and schools instead?), the pro-law-and-order side still came out ahead by 62-29%. And despite all the talk of early, overwhelming support for Black Lives Matter, the latest survey found that by 49-42%, Americans believe that the protests “have stopped being about racial injustice and have become violent riots by people who hate America and want to tear down our government and radically change American culture.”

Proving once again, as a great Republican President once observed, that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

DNC Day 3 Recap...

August 21, 2020

When I promised that we’d watch the news so you don’t have to, I wasn’t thinking about having to sit through four nights of the virtual Democratic convention. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, so we’ll hold our noses, prop open our eyes and press on.

If you’re interested, here’s the live stream of the entire 3-1/4 hours. I notice that it took them until night three to figure out to turn off the comments on YouTube. Too bad, that might have offered some entertainment value.

For the more entertaining recaps, check out the liveblogs by PJ Media and Townhall.com.

Last night was when the convention was supposed to hit its stride, with speeches by superstars Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech. Instead, we got the same small ideas, just mouthed by bigger names.

Conventions are supposed to fire up the base and get them enthused about backing the ticket and the Party. But have you seen any positive messages or fresh policy proposals AT ALL? All we hear about Joe Biden is that he’s a nice guy (which might be true if he’s not yelling at you that you’re a dog-faced pony soldier.) But I’m nicer, and none of these people endorsed me for President. I don’t really want a President who’ll be really nice to China. I think the mean tone is because they know what a new NBC poll found: that only 36% of Biden supporters support him because they want Biden. 58% percent do it because they hate Trump. It says “Love, Tolerance, Compassion” on the label, but the ingredients are hatred, frustration and resentment.

It’s no wonder Americans are tuning out in droves. Night two of the convention was slaughtered in the ratings by “America’s Got Talent,” which featured some yo-yo artists. Understandable: at least their yo-yo’s have some pizzazz. I wonder how many people on night one turned on Penn & Teller’s show because they saw “Fool Us” in the TV listings and assumed that was the Democratic Convention?

This is coming across as a convention of angry, bitter cranks, furious that they were voted out of power by all you dumb racist deplorables and even more enraged that Donald Trump is in the seat of power that should be theirs by divine right. I don’t even recognize America, the way they describe it: a dark, dystopian, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic wasteland where there may be “liberty and justice for all…someday,” as they rewrote the Pledge of Allegiance. I was reminded of Sally Field’s famous Oscar speech: “They hate us! They REALLY hate us!”

Not only is the dour negativity relentless, it’s also incredibly boring and predictable. I’m not even going to bother to recount Obama, Clinton or Harris’ speeches in detail. Just imagine what you think they were like.

You’re right.

Harris mostly dispensed unmemorable platitudes to make sure she didn’t tick off the moderates or the crazy leftists. Hillary did what she’s done for over three years now: snipe at the guy who beat her, remind us that she won the meaningless popular vote (by 3 million votes!), and hint darkly that some foreign influence was going to rig the election for Trump. She’s the Miss Havisham of politics, forever frozen in time on the day she was jilted at the altar.

And Obama was…Obama. Haughty, condescending, defensive, making vicious and underhanded political attacks on his successor while posing as if he were taking the high road. You know the routine. And just as predictably, the media wet their Depends over it.

Obama also implied that Trump, who has lost billions in net worth since entering politics and donates his entire salary, is only interested in enriching himself and his supporters. FYI: since leaving office, Obama has cashed in more than any other ex-President, including a $65 million book deal and a $50 million Netflix deal. Not that you could tell that by any generous donations made to his brother Joe’s campaign.

Republicans always say that you can tell what the Democrats are doing by what they accuse their opponents of doing, but never have they been so transparent about it. So far, we’ve had John Kerry telling us Trump has made a mess of foreign policy, Bill Clinton telling us Trump’s not behaving properly in the Oval Office, Andrew Cuomo telling us Trump botched the handling of COVID-19, Hillary Clinton telling us that Trump dehumanizes his political opponents (I’m sure she’s also worried that HE won’t accept the results of the election), and Barack (Operation Crossfire/rule by executive order/weaponize the IRS against the Tea Party) Obama telling us that Trump abuses Presidential power and doesn't observe the polite protocols of office (like not badmouthing your sitting successor?)

On the very same day Obama spoke, one of his former FBI employees pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence to get illegal FISA warrants to spy on a Trump campaign aide.

I did appreciate that Obama appeared from Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution and talked about the Constitution. But it would have been more persuasive if he’d ever shown any regard for the Constitution, and if the Democrats would say one word about their own followers who are currently ripping down and burning every monument to the American Revolution. They’ve also never mentioned China. Apparently, Donald Trump and climate change are the only threats they recognize.

That would include the threat of being shot in one of the cities they’ve run for decades. Last night’s show also included a lot of talk about gun control. They want to empty the prisons, open the borders, defund the police and take away law-abiding citizens' guns. There’s a winning combination! They also talked about the Parkland shooting while demanding that police be removed from schools. Do you know why so many children died there? Because it took the police so long to show up at the school.

I also wonder how well all the gun-grabbing talk is going over with their voters, considering that thanks to the rampant street violence they refuse to do anything about other than condone it, gun sales are up 95% over this time last year. And guess what’s driving those sales: first-time gun purchases by blacks and women who realize they can no longer count on the police to protect them in blue cities.

And if they’re going to tell constant lies, can’t they at least go to the trouble of thinking up some new ones instead of repeating the same dusty, debunked lies, like “children in cages,” “very fine people among the white supremacists” and “Trump called all Mexican immigrants animals”? I’m not even going to bother refuting those again; by now, anyone who hasn’t been in a coma since 2016 should know those are all bogus and why. But they just keep rolling them out, like a faded pop star sleepwalking through his greatest hits for the 10,000th time. Their only new song is the “Trump is responsible for the Chinese virus and the job losses caused by blue states shutting down businesses” shuffle, but the audience goes to the bathroom during that one.

In a nutshell (emphasis on “nut”), here’s what I’ve gotten out of this convention so far: We HATE Trump! Trump is the cause of all bad things in the universe! We hate people who voted for Trump! America is a really bad country, but maybe there’s hope for it someday if you let us run it. We see countless problems, but our only solution is “Put us back in power!” For instance, if we only had Congress and the White House, we could give everyone affordable health care.

Yeah, they had that from 2008-2010, and they gave us the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.) It cost people their family doctors and doubled and tripled their premiums. It was so unpopular, it cost them the House in the next election.

It’s ironic that Obama accused Trump of “not growing in the job,” when Trump came in as a complete outsider and political amateur, won the Presidency, and has racked up an impressive array of achievements, some by simply doing the opposite of what Obama did. It’s these people who seem to have learned nothing since they were thrown out of office. They’re long on resentment, but short on self-reflection. They’re like the cool kids who peaked in high school, still acting like Big Shots on Campus at the reunion when the rest of us have outgrown being impressed by them. All this convention is doing is reminding us of what a smart move we made when we moved on to something new. They’re forever stuck back in 2015, and demanding we make them prom king and queen again.

It’s funny that Bruce Springsteen appeared on night one of the convention, since he wrote a song that would be the perfect theme for this week, “Glory Days”:

“…Well, time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but

Boring stories of…

Glory days, yeah, they'll pass you by,

Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye,

Glory days, glory days, glory days…”

The Democrats’ virtual convention ended Thursday at nearly midnight, and never has the phrase, “Thank God it’s Friday,” held so much meaning. If you want to see the whole thing, you masochist, you, it’s here.

Here are the far more entertaining liveblogs of the highlights from PJ Media

And from Townhall.com

And here are five important takeaways from the final night:

I’m too burned out (and frankly, after four days of this dour, angry, bitter convention, just too weary and relieved it’s over) to go into detail about all of night four (although I will say they needed better joke writers.)

If you saw any of the first three nights, it was mostly more the same. Lots of Trump-bashing and gloom and doom about America, with hardly a word about China or the shocking violence in the streets of Democrat-run cities. So I’ll concentrate on the “big reveal”: Biden’s acceptance speech. There was a lot of buzz beforehand, not so much about what he would say but how he would say it, or if he would get through it at all. So here are the two most important points:

1. He did a surprisingly good job of presenting the speech. It was a long speech (maybe too long), but he presented it well with no major gaffes and without wandering off-topic or the stage. He was emotional, at times angry (maybe too angry), but controlled and professional. He definitely allayed any fears that he might not be able to perform at least the Presidential function of reading a speech off a Teleprompter. That sounds like a low bar to clear (although it was Obama's chief skill), but it’s not meant as an insult: a lot of people were genuinely concerned that he couldn’t clear it, and he obviously did. I’m sure a big sigh of relief could be heard in the control room and in every Democratic household in America.

2. The substance of the speech is where the many problems lay. It was a mess of contradictions of things we all have lived through and of everything his fellow Democrats have said over the past three nights. Probably the most stunning “What the...?!!” moment was Biden’s claim that when he heard Donald Trump say there were “very fine people” among the violent neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, “at that moment, I knew I had to run.” Problem: Trump never said that.

Trump said he was sure there were fine people on both sides of the debate about removing a statue of Robert E. Lee, but as for neo-Nazis and white nationalists, they should be “condemned totally.” The quote Biden cited as the motivating factor for his run has long been verified even by liberal “fact-checkers” as fake news. So does this mean he’ll pull an Emily Litella; say, “Never mind!”; and quit the race?

This was especially stunning, considering much of Biden’s speech was an attack on Trump for allegedly not caring about “facts.” Biden’s speech was also rife with other claims that are wildly at odds with known facts. For instance, he claimed that Trump’s tax cut only benefited the rich (most of the benefits went to the middle class)…that he will ensure equal pay for women (we already have laws requiring equal pay for women)…that he will create a good-paying job through government investment in rebuilding our infrastructure and creating green energy (we heard that from Obama; it cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and even Obama admitted there were no “shovel-ready” jobs)…and that he will help workers by strengthening unions (that’s code for passing a national version of the widely-hated California law that’s destroying the state’s gig economy, putting musicians out of work, and killing Uber and Lyft in the state.) He also backs doubling the minimum wage, which has cost jobs and shuttered small businesses everywhere it’s been instituted. Real facts: under Trump, wages were rising for the first time in years, and the gains were greater among the bottom half of earners than the top half. That is, until a Chinese virus and Democrat Governors shut down the economy.

Perhaps Biden’s most stunning claim was that he will be a fighter to end the outsourcing of American jobs. This was the major issue that got Trump elected. Trump is actually bringing back jobs after years of outsourcing under Obama/Biden and previous Administrations. Fact: Biden was one of the biggest boosters of job-exporting legislation. He supported and promoted NAFTA, which cost us at least 5 million jobs and 50,000 manufacturing plants, including a Chrysler plant in Delaware that he’d promised would increase hiring. He supported normalizing trade with China, which cost us 3.4 million jobs. And he was pushing Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership that would have sent even more of our jobs to Asia if Trump hadn’t killed it.

He claimed that Trump has done nothing about the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus except hope for some miracle to make it end (first time I’ve ever heard standard herd immunity described as a “miracle,” but okay.) Reminder: Biden criticized Trump for shutting off travel from China quickly, which was the most important factor in slowing the infection spread until we could prepare for it. Democrats predicted deadly shortages of ventilators and hospital rooms, which didn’t happen because of Trump’s actions; and a death toll of 2.2 million. Yes, there have been 170,000 deaths, which is horrible, but that’s the fault of China (and in large part, certain blue state Governors – two of whom were featured convention speakers - who insisted on putting coronavirus patients into nursing homes.) The US does not have the worst death toll in the world per capita, and we only have the largest number of deaths because we have a population of 320 million, and China is plainly lying about their death toll.

Biden claimed Trump does not listen to science. From Dr. Anthony Fauci: "The President has listened to what I have said... When I've made recommendations he's taken them. He's never countered or overridden me."

As for Biden’s bold plan to stop the virus – developing a test and forcing everyone to wear masks – there are already such tests (I drive down the street and see “Free COVID-19 tests” signs in front of every medical clinic), and he has no Constitutional authority to order everyone to wear masks. Also, five million people have NOT lost their health insurance. But a lot of people lost their policies when the Democrats passed Obamacare.

Biden claimed that kids suffer a “daily fear of being gunned down in school.” Putting aside that most kids aren’t even in school at the moment, thanks to teachers’ unions, school shootings are actually extremely rare. Although they might become less rare if Democrats defund the police and remove officers from schools. Right now, it’s far less dangerous to be in school than it is to venture into certain areas of any city that’s been run by Democrats for decades.

Biden claimed that he would not put up with foreign interference in our voting. Fact: Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and Obama and Biden did practically nothing. Well, they apparently did collude with some Russians to try to undermine the results of the election, but that’s another story.

Biden claimed that Trump will do away with the payroll tax, which will lead to cuts in Social Security. Fact: Trump has only called for a temporary suspension of the tax to help people get through the virus shutdowns. That would not affect Social Security, which has a $2.9 trillion surplus. Trump does want to do away with the tax permanently, but Congress would have to do that and arrange alternate funding.

Biden blamed Trump for this dark atmosphere of hate and negativity, even though it was the Democrats who started the “resistance” rhetoric the second Trump was elected, who have refused to accept his election, who attack him and his family 24/7/365, and who had just spent three and three-quarter nights relentlessly and hatefully bashing Trump, putting down America and its history, and painting anyone who opposes them as an angry, misinformed, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic xenophobe. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Biden say he wants to reach out and be the President of all Americans, considering how many of us are the white supremacist spawn of an oppressive, unjust nation that’s responsible for all the evils of the past 400 years. And I’m glad he says he wants to help even those who didn’t vote for him. However, he’s running on a platform that will absolutely devastate most of those people.

One thing I learned when debating Trump myself in 2016 is that he doesn’t attack people who don’t attack him first. I followed Reagan’s 11th commandment and didn’t attack my fellow Republicans, and Trump didn’t attack me. Even though I’ve had occasion to criticize some of his comments and policies, we remain on good terms (I just taped an interview with him at the White House that will air this weekend on “Huckabee” on TBN.) It seems to me that Democrats hate him with the searing heat of a thousand suns for two real reasons: they can’t get over that Hillary lost, and Trump refuses to be a “typical Republican” and just stand there and take their unfair attacks. They would have us believe that he’s another Hitler, but they’ve compared every Republican President or nominee to Hitler or the Nazis since Truman did it to Thomas E. Dewey (only Eisenhower escaped it, but that was because he actually defeated Hitler, so even the Democrats didn’t dare try it.)

Trump actually punches back when he’s attacked, and Republicans aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to be docile punching bags. That’s not Trump’s style, and frankly, it’s a big part of why the base supports him. They’re sick of being slandered as racists and fascists by people who really do act like racists and fascists. That’s where we got the term “crybullies.” Leftists love to attack others, but they cry “Bully” when anyone punches them back.

If today’s Democratic leaders really do care about all Americans and are willing to work across the aisle, then why is Nancy Pelosi citing ridiculous nonsense like the “Disappearing Mailbox Conspiracy” as a feeble excuse not to get back to work and pass extended coronavirus relief?

Speaking of Trump fighting back, here’s his response to Biden’s speech: "In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!"

It is telling that, as several commentators pointed out, Biden has been in national politics for nearly half a century, but the Convention was all about the huge things he’s going to do, with almost nothing said about what he’s actually accomplished in all the years before.

"’There's no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can't believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’” – Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

As I watch the nightly news from urban liberal warzones like Portland or force my eyeballs to stay open through the Democrats’ virtual convention, I keep thinking, “We’re through the looking glass, people!” And that’s not just an expression. I mean that, like Carroll's mad Red Queen, in order to be a Democrat in 2020, you are required to believe an unlimited number of impossible things. The Party’s embrace of "Alice In Wonderland" level madness inspired me to start making a list of these impossible things. To be a Democrat today, you have to believe…

1. That a pre-born human baby is not a human being deserving of protection from killing, and neither is a baby that was born 10 minutes ago if the mother decides she doesn’t want to keep it.

2. That capitalism, which has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and despair worldwide, is evil; but socialism, which has caused the oppression, impoverishment, starvation, and death of hundreds of millions of people over the past century, is the only hope of the future.

3. That the best solution for rioting, looting, arson, and violence in the streets is to defund the police.

4. That all the gains in the economy under Trump were really caused by Obama, but the worldwide economic crash following China’s unleashing of a pandemic was caused by Trump.

5. That Trump has a plan to rig the next election that involves making the Obama Administration remove thousands of mailboxes several years ago. Also, that the Post Office is removing little-used mailboxes in Oregon because the key to Trump’s reelection is for him to win Oregon.

6. And on that subject, that nobody ever complained about the US Post Office being slow, inefficient, and unreliable until Trump was elected.

7. That America is an oppressive, racist, white supremacist nation that’s the root of all evil in the world and its culture is inferior to that of other nations, including the many nations where people are willing to risk their lives just for the chance to come to America.

8. That Trump built “cages for children” on the border during the Obama Administration.

9. That viruses spread like wildfire at church services, but not at crowded protest rallies for leftwing causes. Also, viruses spread at bars that serve chips, but not at bars that serve sandwiches. Because “science!”

10. That people with male genitals are women just because they say they are, but people who say that actually having female genitals makes them women are intolerant, transphobic bigots.

11. Also, hospitals must be forced to give gynecological exams to “women” with male genitals, and taxpayers forced to pay for abortions for them.

12. Again on that subject, that someone born male who developed a muscular masculine physique before deciding he was a girl has no unfair physical advantage in sports over the much smaller teenage girl whose face (s)he is crushing into the wrestling mat.

13. That Trump botched the response to COVID-19 by xenophobically shutting down travel from China and crashing the economy with a shutdown, but Democrats would have prevented both the pandemic and the crash by not stopping travel from China and shutting down the economy sooner, harder and longer. Also, it’s absolutely impossible for Trump to keep people from crossing our border, but he could have kept a virus from crossing our border.

14. That an acceptable way to express how much you care about black lives is to burn black neighborhoods, loot black-owned businesses, and tear down statues of abolitionist leaders. Also, that all black lives matter except those of black cops, black Republicans, and black pre-born babies.

15. That free healthcare is a right, free college is a right, free food is a right, a guaranteed paycheck is a right, and citizenship for illegal immigrants is a right, but free speech and freedom of religion are not rights.

16. That the people who presided over the rise of ISIS, the Iraq and Afghan wars, a nuclear Iran and North Korea, and even Iran falling to the Mullahs in the first place, are trusted diplomatic professionals, while the man who crushed ISIS, dealt with Iran and North Korea, and crafted a historic Middle East peace agreement is a dangerous amateur who’s destroying our foreign policy.

17. That disproven rumors are evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to undermine a presidential election, but Democrats paying Russians for disproven rumors and using them as “evidence” to launch a Deep State coup is NOT collusion with Russia to undermine a presidential election.

18. That 2 + 2 only equals 4 because of white supremacy.

19. That there are 57 genders but only one acceptable political viewpoint.

20. That burning a flag is protected free speech, but objecting to someone burning a flag is not.

Okay, this could go on forever, so I’m going to stop at 20 and let you add to the list in the comments. Have fun, if that's not impossible these days...

A few good random observations on the Democratic convention from around the Internet:

From Thomas Sowell: “Barack Obama's political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have.”

From RedState.com’s Brad Slager: “This will be fun - long segments to come about the need to get people back to work, from the party that is arresting people for going back to work.”

From Matt Margolis: Barack Obama, who slams Trump’s character and lack of judgement, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a sex predator who preyed on underage boys.

From Steve Guest: “Biden: ‘When I think about climate change, I think about jobs.’ Biden’s ban on fracking alone would eliminate 19 MILLION jobs between 2021-2025 all while reducing our GDP by $7.1 TRILLION.”

From the Washington Post: "While the Obama administration deported 1.18 million people in his first three years, the number of deportations has been a little under 800,000 so far under Trump." And "DNC misleads by implying Trump called all immigrants 'animals.' He was talking about the animalistic MS-13 gang.” (Surprised that WaPo actually committed journalism.)

Elle Bufkin commented: “Democrats love to say no one is above the law when torching Trump. Meanwhile, they defund the police, advocate for the abolition of jails, and allow rioters and looters to go unpunished. Also, they reward illegal immigrants with sanctuary cities and hide them from the law while advocating for free health care for them.”

The GOP tweeted: “The ‘anemic’ economic recovery under the Obama/Biden Admin was the slowest since World War II. Under the Obama/Biden Admin, homeownership plummeted. In their final year, just 62.9% of homes were occupied by their owner, the lowest level in more than 50 years.”

From Julio Rosas: "Obama said the president shouldn't use troops as political props, right after the DNC did just that yesterday."

And after a DNC rep said you can see that women virtually run the Democratic Party, GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted, “A WOMAN ACTUALLY RUNS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave pretty much the convention speech that everyone expected, but there were two unusual side notes…

1. The subliminal messaging of arranging three children’s letter blocks in the elementary classroom background to spell out “BLM,” which not only tells us where the Dems are coming from but also why so many parents don’t want to put their kids back into public schools run by them…

2. In pushing for government child care, she recalled how her family was only saved because her Aunt Bee brought her suitcase and came to provide child care for her. This prompted some pundits to question if she’s stopped appropriating Native American heritage and started appropriating the plotline of “The Andy Griffith Show.” I won’t doubt her, since maybe she really does have an Aunt Bee. Just in case, I won’t ask her for her pickle recipe. But I will suggest that she stop letting Otis the town drunk write her economic proposals.

The new Franklin Templeton–Gallup Economics of Recovery Study found that many Americans are shockingly misinformed about the actual dangers of the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus. While it’s certainly a serious and potentially deadly disease that we should all take reasonable precautions to avoid, most people believe it’s much more deadly than it really is, and to the wrong people.

Here are the three main findings, direct from the report:

1. "On average, Americans believe that people aged 55 and older account for just over half of total COVID-19 deaths; the actual figure is 92%.

2. Americans believe that people aged 44 and younger account for about 30% of total deaths; the actual figure is 2.7%.

3. Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24 and younger by a factor of 50; and they think the risk for people aged 65 and older is half of what it actually is (40% vs 80%)."

As the study points out, we’ve known since this started six months ago that by far the greatest danger is to older people and those with comorbidities like obesity or diabetes. So what’s to blame for this stunningly high level of incorrect beliefs? Partly, it’s just paranoia over our own health, but the two most common factors among those who believe false information are…brace yourselves for a shock…political partisanship (i.e., identifying as a Democrat) and getting your information from social media. I know, you could knock me over with a feather!

If you are a Democrat who gets your information mostly from other Democrats on social media, then COVID-19 may be terrifying you -- but it's probably not your biggest problem. To see some of the many ways in which believing this false information is hurting people personally and the nation in general, check out the rest of the study at the link.

Tuesday’s virtual Democratic convention was set to focus on how Trump has totally messed up the brilliantly successful foreign policies crafted by Democrats like Hillary “Benghazi” Clinton and John “Logan Act” Kerry. Before you listen to them try to convince you that standing up to China, crushing ISIS, defending Israel, making our allies pay more for their own defense, dealing directly with North Korea's threats, renegotiating trade deals in America’s favor, arming Ukraine against Russia, cutting off funding for Iran’s terrorism and nuclear ambitions, and crafting a landmark Middle East peace agreement are all horrible blunders by the Bad Orange Man, take a look at this chart.

It tracks the death toll and the amount of territory controlled by ISIS between 2013 and 2018. Note the trends under Obama and under Trump. It’s called “The Rise and Fall of ISIS,” so you can sort of guess the trends. Of course, it doesn’t include all the people tortured, wounded, disabled, enslaved and raped by terrorism’s “J.V. team,” as Obama famously called them. Those numbers are so large, I don’t know if they’ve ever been tabulated, but they would take a much bigger chart.

To sum up: No, I don’t want to return to the “good ol’ days” of Democrat-run foreign policy, thanks. I believe the blundering amateur is doing a far better job than the striped-pants diplomatic “professionals.”

One step forward, two steps back. In other words, Hillary skates again.

Just when we start to see progress on the Durham investigation, with FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleading guilty to falsifying a document about Carter Page (though he still ludicrously insists he didn’t “intend” to mislead), we learn that three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have unanimously reversed a lower court decision that Hillary Clinton would have to sit for a deposition over her use of a private email server for government work while she was Secretary of State.

Judicial Watch, as part of a FOIA lawsuit that dates from 2014 (!), had requested depositions from both Hillary and her then-attorney Cheryl Mills over the emails, and this request had been granted by Washington D.C. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth. The suit was initiated when Judicial Watch was trying to look into what happened during the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but expanded when they discovered in that investigation that then-Secretary of State Clinton was using her own private email server at that time. Surprise! In fact, if it hadn't been for that investigation, we might never have learned about her private server.

As it was, the questioning of Hillary would have been limited in scope, but now it won’t be happening at all. The decision didn’t change the lower court’s ruling on Mills, however.

The three-judge panel was made up of two Obama appointees and one appointed by George W. Bush. Judge Robert Wilkins (an Obama pick) wrote, “The mere suspicion of bad faith on the part of the government cannot be used as a dragnet to authorize voluminous discovery that is irrelevant to the remaining issues in a case.” Make of that what you will, but be sure and compare it to other situations, such as the use of a “dragnet” for the past four years to try to get Trump on something, anything, long after the original issue in the “Trump/Russia” investigation had been resolved.

Wilkins also said that Clinton shouldn’t have to sit for a deposition because she had already provided written answers in a separate case. At that time, she wrote that the reason she had used a private server was “for convenience.” Ah, well, that’s good enough for me! Why doesn't everyone in government just use their own servers? It would be so much easier.

As THE EPOCH TIMES reports, “Wilkins further noted that Congress, the FBI, and the State Department have also investigated Clinton’s email situation.” Ah, yes, we all know how thoroughly James Comey’s FBI investigated Hillary during her “Mid-Year Exam.” The State Department covered for their former Secretary; they said that even though they'd found nearly 600 security violations (!), they couldn’t find “persuasive evidence” of “systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.” As for Congress, that ship sailed in 2018; try getting Jerrold Nadler’s Judiciary Committee (or any other Democrat-led congressional committee) to do anything about Hillary Clinton’s emails and her blatant obstruction of justice and see how far you get.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said he is "disappointed" and called the decision “political.” He said it’s “contrary to longstanding precedent and undermines the Freedom of Information Act.” Indeed.

So it looks as though just because Hillary gave some lame written answers in another case, she doesn’t ever have to sit for questioning about her email server, not at all. And even though the court's decision didn’t include Cheryl Mills, whom they say has “other ways to appeal her deposition that were not available to Clinton,” my guess is that they’re referring to Mills’ ability to cite attorney-client privilege, which she will, of course, do. Gosh, Hillary, it’s so conveeeeenient to have an aide who is also your attorney (or at least was at the time) and can’t be questioned about anything you communicated to her.

This “mailbox” conspiracy theory is getting so crazy, and so many people actually believe the lies in the media, that we’re going to talk about it again today. It’s so ridiculous that Tucker Carlson, on Monday night, introduced his segment on it by saying, “Like cows taken by UFOs, or crop circles, mailboxes are disappearing mysteriously across this country. This is a big story, it may be more serious even than ‘Russia collusion,’ says Nancy Pelosi. No mailbox is safe tonight.”

It’s ridiculous, but extremely serious at the same time because, tragically, a lot of people do swallow it, and many in the media, major media and social media combined, are working overtime to make SURE those people and all their friends believe it. Facebook and Twitter are fine with this garbage. So, what is this insane story? It’s that the President of the United States is actually working to prevent the mail from delivering completed ballots by plotting to have official U.S. mailboxes in “blue” areas STOLEN.

During a “virtual” fundraiser from his basement on Friday, Joe Biden said that “they’re going around, literally, with tractor-trailers, picking up mailboxes! You ought to go online and check out what they’re doing in Oregon! I mean, it’s bizarre.”

It’s bizarre, all right. The whole made-up story. It’s been thoroughly debunked; in fact, we pretty much tore it to shreds in yesterday’s edition, so I don’t think we need go through the whole thing again.

The Post Office moves mailboxes all the time. As Tucker reported, the USPS inspector general reported in 2017 that the postal service had removed 14,000 mailboxes over the preceding 5 years (when Obama was President).

Last week, Trump didn’t give Democrats the $3.5 billion they wanted for the USPS to help process mail-in voting; in fact, that’s why the next “stimulus” bill is on hold. Democrats are furious; they crave universal mail-in voting, unlike sane and honest people who see the potential for rampant fraud and seismic mistakes. We’ve showed you numerous examples of huge voter fraud, such as one in Nevada that involved 200,000 mail-in votes.

Tucker wondered the same thing we did: in a “blue” state like Oregon, which Biden is going to win anyway, how does Trump gain by going around pulling up mailboxes there? But this doesn’t have to make any sense; logic is so old-school.

So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is actually bringing Congress back from summer vacation to deal with this fake emergency, saying the President is trying to “sabotage the election by manipulating the postal service.” She also tried to scare the elderly by claiming they may not get their Social Security checks in the mail. (Hasn’t she ever heard of Direct Deposit? That’s how it’s been done since 2013.)

A crowd of angry demonstrators got so worked up, they showed up at the Postmaster General’s HOUSE. And now, if (when!) Trump wins, many people will be pre-set to believe that he cheated to get re-elected --- by stealing mailboxes.

Yes, Trump is against widespread mail-in voting. That’s because he’s trying to SAVE the integrity of elections. To illustrate, let’s look at why, even under ideal circumstances (which we’ll never have), mail-in voting is just a bad idea.

"We already have absentee voting,” you might be thinking, “and that’s by mail. So why can’t we all just mail in our votes?” In case you don’t know (or have friends who could use a simple explanation), absentee voting and mail-in voting are very different. In mail-in voting, ballots are just mailed out to voters on the rolls, to whatever address they have for you, which means you may not even GET your ballot. Somebody else may get it and fill it out. Maybe they fill it out for someone who’s died. (Makes you wonder why the Democrats are so all-fired enthusiastic about it. Or maybe not.) With absentee voting, you apply for the ballot and it’s sent to you, registered to YOU. That is YOUR VOTE. Voting absentee is kind of like using registered mail as compared to just regular mail, which may or may not get to you and, even if it does and you reply, may not get to where it needs to go.

Now, which way of voting is more secure? Let’s say you won the Powerball Lottery and were going to receive $100 million (well, $60 million after taxes, ha). How would you claim your winnings? Would you just sign your ticket, put it in an envelope, mail it and cross your fingers? Or would you send it registered mail? Given just those two choices, I’d certainly opt for registered mail!

On the other hand, if at all possible, I’d go IN PERSON to deliver that ticket, show I.D. and claim my winnings (even if I had to wear a mask, keep my distance and use hand sanitizer). Likewise, going in person to cast your vote is still the best choice of all. It’s time to think of your vote as THAT valuable.

Bottom line: 1) Good gracious, Trump is not taking the mailboxes. 2) Mail-in voting BAD; absentee voting BETTER; in-person voting BEST.

So, if someone spews propaganda for two hours and nobody hears it, did they make a sound?

Last night, the Democrats officially kicked off their “virtual convention,” and the results were…underwhelming. I don’t think that’s a partisan reaction. If you’re a true masochist, here’s the entire thing that you can watch on YouTube (incidentally, it was a bad idea to allow people to post comments):

That live stream went on for over two hours. Michelle Obama alone talked for over 18 minutes. But even the Party’s lapdog media at NBC could only scrape up 5-1/2 minutes of “highlights.” (It was a bad idea to allow comments on this video, too.)

And if you want the most entertaining recap of the evening, go to PJ Media’s live-blog, scroll all the way to the bottom, and read back up toward the top.

Stephen Green of PJ Media nailed the problem, writing, “What the Dems are selling requires exuberant crowds of people who aren't thinking too clearly about the longterm. That's a very difficult sell to make when staring into a webcam, sitting in front of a green screen.” There’s also only so much entertainment value you can inject when your Hollywood leftist celebrities are beaming in to lecture us on our privilege from their $20 million gated mansions. Green also described it aptly as the "'Star Wars' Prequels of conventions: Badly-directed big-name actors shoved in front of green screens to recite horrible lines they aren't invested in at all."

Steve Guest caught a hilarious clip that perfectly summed up the audience reaction: CNN cut to a family representing “viewers at home,” and they all looked as if they were about to doze off and tumble off the couch until they obviously got an off-screen cue and snapped awake and started clapping.

Granted, it was always going to be hard to rev up the base when everyone was literally phoning it in (note to “Beto” O’Rourke: that’s what “literally” means. Trump is not “literally” tearing apart the fabric of America, unless he’s going around ripping the pockets off of everyone’s shirts.) I doubt that the GOP Convention will be as exciting as it normally would be, either, although I imagine Donald Trump will muster a lot more showmanship than this stink burger. Our resident pop culture historian Pat Reeder said it reminded him of midcentury movie director Sam Woods, who told his actors before every take, “Go out there and sell ‘em a load of clams.” He said he could not only see the intense sales effort but practically smell the clams through his computer monitor. He also wondered who would actually watch this, noting that he is paid to watch it, then adding, “But not enough.”

I wonder how many people did watch it, considering the platforms showing it were so split up. Bryan Preston, one of bloggers for PJ Media, noticed that 1250 people were viewing it on the game stream platform Twitch, while “a stream of a guy playing (the three-year-old game) Horizon Zero Dawn has more than 23,000 viewers.”

Some of the lowlights for me, in no particular order: At least they did start off by playing the National Anthem, but they had to tell viewers that they may stand or kneel, whichever is their preference… They also had a prayer, which is odd considering their long-running war on prayers at all other public gatherings, even to the point of booing an attempt to reinsert God’s name into their platform at the 2012 convention…Paying lip service to Black Lives Matter and defending all those “peaceful protesters” who are burning down Democrat-run cities, but showing no respect to the police who are being killed and injured when they try to stop the riots (then again, Biden learned how it goes over with the far-left wing when he says anything even mildly complimentary about police:

…Repeating with great passion several long-debunked lies, like claiming that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax”…And all the crazy conspiracy nuttery about how Trump is “dismantling” the Post Office (nobody ever complained about the Post Office before Trump was elected, and he’s obviously responsible for the 12,000+ mailboxes that were removed in the last five years of the Obama Administration)…

Here are a few moments worthy of more detail…

* Claiming that Joe Biden knows how to handle a pandemic because we all didn’t die of Ebola: Ebola was nothing like the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus. It was deadlier but much less contagious. H1N1 (swine flu), which hit during Obama’s term, was contagious, but not nearly as deadly. Good thing, since even one of Biden’s top health advisors admitted that Obama's response was so lacking that it was only by sheer luck that millions of Americans didn’t die. You know, like they predicted would happen under Trump, and when it didn’t, they blamed him for every death anyway.

We also know how Joe would have handled this pandemic, since he attacked Trump as a xenophobe after he shut off travel from China and Europe early on. He also blames Trump for the economic damage caused by the lockdowns, yet he and other Democrats think we should have locked down harder and sooner and stayed locked down longer. So judging by his own words, if Joe had been in charge, we would have had a lot more cases a lot sooner, and the economy would have suffered more and longer. If I’m wrong, then tell me what he would have done differently that would have made things better…Is that crickets I hear?

* Bringing in New York Gov. Mario Cuomo to talk about the coronavirus (which he called – and I am not making this up – the “European virus”) was not good strategery. Maybe they’re still living a few months in the past, when Cuomo’s handling of the virus was being hailed by the media as brilliant, back before people realized what actually happened. Another big lie told last night was that America has the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the world. But if New York State were a separate country, it would be #1 by a mile (1688 per million, nearly twice the per capita death rate as #2 Belgium.)

The only possible worse choice during the time of the coronavirus would have been the vastly unpopular and irrationally dictatorial Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer…Oh, wait, she was a speaker. She claimed that “science” will drive Biden’s fight against the coronavirus. You know, like science tells us that the virus spreads in churches, but not at protest rallies. And it only spreads at bars if they serve food less substantial than sandwiches. Science!!

* Presenting John Kasich as an example of a Republican who opposes Trump is like trying to convince us that someone is a bad guy because the bitter former co-worker he beat out for the top job says so. Bonus: Here’s Kasich in 2012 telling us that Biden is a big liar.

* My writers said of Michelle Obama’s speech that it was infuriating for its dishonesty, but they had to give whoever wrote it props for persuasive ability. They found it to be the best-crafted pack of lies, distortions, historical revisionism, and scaremongering of the entire evening, and that’s not meant as faint praise just because all the rest were so clumsy and obvious. Making the theme “going high” while repeatedly going low was quite ingenious speechcraft. However, they did notice that while she mentioned Joe Biden by name 14 times, two words never crossed her lips: “Kamala Harris.”

Of course, the mainstream media figures are in full-out worship mode. Rachel Maddow declared that at MSNBC, once Michelle started talking, “none of us breathed for 18 minutes." That would explain the brain death.

You know a political convention isn’t a hit when the most talked-about and memed moment was the astonishingly large wall of fireplace logs behind Bernie Sanders, which drew far more interest than his speech (and was less wooden). People were asking if it was fair that one man should have so much firewood? Shouldn’t it be redistributed to people who aren’t privileged to have so much firewood?!

Personally, my theory is that he’s hoarding firewood. He knows that if these people actually get elected, that will be the only fuel available to heat your house.

Update: It's been revealed that the reason Michelle Obama didn't mention Kamala Harris in her speech is that it was recorded before Biden picked Harris as his running mate. Does anyone else wonder if she would have endorsed Joe so heartily if she'd known it wasn't going to be her?

California Blackouts

August 19, 2020

Instapundit gives us a roundup of news and background on the state officials' warning in California that rolling blackouts could cut power to as many as 3.3 million homes.

This is the worst possible time, since many people are still working out of their houses and can’t return to an office with back-up generators, so businesses will not only be locked down, but shut down completely. A Reuters story on this blames the power shortage on an intense heatwave.

They’d like us to think that “climate change” is the reason, but much of Southern California was reclaimed from the desert and has always been hot in the summer (note that the last time blackouts were this bad was 19 years ago.) An intelligent state government would have taken into account the warm climate and the rising population and made plans to provide enough energy for everyone’s future needs.

Unfortunately, California hasn’t had an intelligent state government for decades. Instead, it’s had a one-party, leftist Utopian government with no regard for future consequences of their actions. They listened to radical environmentalists who considered it a victory to impose poorly thought-out eco-policies that made wildfires bigger and harder to put out and resulted in severe shortages of water and electricity. They celebrated when they shut down a power plant or blocked a new one, but did nothing to make up for the loss of energy, other than hoping that it would be magically offset by sunshine, windmills, rainbows and unicorn flatulence. These are the same “progressives” who inherited the Golden State and, even before COVID-19, managed to regress it to the Dark Ages of feudalism, homelessness, lawlessness, dangerous unsanitary conditions and ancient diseases like typhus. Sweltering in the dark with no electricity just seems like the next logical step in their long game plan to dismantle Western Civilization.

As the linked post points out, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom led the crusade against California’s last nuclear power plant, the cleanest and most effective form of non-CO2-producing energy. Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for an investigation into why the state is facing massive power blackouts. Might I suggest that he start by looking into the nearest mirror?

At least he’s finally admitting that “the transition away from fossil fuels has left California with a gap in the reliability of its energy system” and the state must reexamine its reliance on solar power and how that fits into its broader energy portfolio. Gee, who could have predicted that doing away with the only reliable sources of energy and replacing them with sources that couldn’t possibly meet the demand might result in shortages?

They say that trends start in California and spread east all across America. Let’s all hope and pray that’s not true! Because Californians are about to get a nasty preview of what America will be like if Joe Biden is elected, shuts down the fossil fuel industry and passes the “Green New Deal.”

Pew Polls Hispanic Voters

August 18, 2020

A new Pew Research Center survey proves that those white liberal arts majors who are burning down black neighborhoods while claiming to be championing black lives aren’t the only white liberals who presume to speak for minorities. There’s been a lot of pressure lately from the left, especially in the media, to use the term “Latinx” (or to be even more pretentious, “LatinX”) as a PC, gender-neutral term for all Hispanics. If you don’t use it, white liberals accuse you of being a bigot and disrespecting Latinx (sorry: “LatinX”) culture. But did anyone ask Hispanics what they think about this?

Well, the Pew Research Center finally did, and here are the results.

44% prefer the term “Hispanic.” 24% prefer Latino/Latina (did the people pushing the gender-neutral “LatinX” even consider that Spanish is a romance language, which means every noun has a gender?) 11% prefer to be identified by their specific native country. 5% prefer Chicano/Chicana. As for “Latinx,” less than 3% prefer that, and 23% have never heard of it.

In attempting to defend this neutering of one of our great romance languages, an immigration attorney writing in The Hill argued that the survey talked to too many older immigrants, when it’s young, American-born Hispanics who prefer “Latinx.” Which sounds like yet another example of a small group of “woke” liberals trying to impose their preferences on a large group of minority citizens. Sounds kind of racist, doesn't it? He also argued that since the survey had a margin of error of 5%, “Latinx” might be preferred by as many as 8%.

Three observations: 8% is still pretty darn few. Since 6% of Hispanic-Americans (God bless them) just prefer to be called “American,” with the margin of error, that could be as many as 11%, meaning that far more Hispanics prefer to be called “American” than “Latinx.” Finally, with 3% support and a margin of error of 5%, that could also mean that zero percent prefer “Latinx.” The fact that the left wants to impose an awkward, arbitrary term on an entire minority population, when it’s possible none of them actually want it, is a perfect example of the condescending sense of privilege our current class of “liberal activists” exhibit.

More Fake News

August 18, 2020

No, President Trump did NOT vow to “terminate Social Security.” He wants to help people struggling with the coronavirus lockdowns by not collecting the Social Security payroll tax for the rest of 2020, and he said he’d like to terminate that tax permanently. That would mean finding other funding sources, but he didn’t say he wanted to terminate people’s Social Security checks. And since the fund currently has a $2.9 trillion surplus, it can go for a while without collecting the tax.

The claim that Trump wants to terminate Social Security is being promoted by a partisan group called Social Security Works, but there is zero truth to it. Even USA Today sided with Trump on this.

This phony claim is as reliable an indicator that an election is nearing as falling leaves are a harbinger of autumn. I’ve been on this planet for six-and-a-half decades, and not an election has gone by in all that time that Democrats haven’t claimed Republicans want to take away grandma’s Social Security check. Yet over my entire lifetime, Social Security checks have never failed to go out, even during government shutdowns, or been reduced, and now I’m old enough to collect one myself.

75th Anniversary of V-J Day

August 18, 2020

Saturday was a landmark anniversary: the 75th anniversary of V-J Day (Victory over Japan.) There’s some dispute about the actual date: Japan surrendered on August 15th, but because of the time difference, that was August 14th in the US. And September 2nd is officially referred to as V-J day because that’s when Japan signed the surrender document, ending World War II. But whichever day you prefer, it must be remembered and commemorated, especially this year. The number of living veterans of the war in the Pacific is dwindling; and this year, because of the coronavirus, public events were not as large or widespread as these heroes deserved, and their advanced ages meant that most couldn’t leave their homes to be honored.

We must remember V-J Day not only for the sacrifices and heroism of our military, but also to ensure that the conditions and actions that led to the horrors of World War II never happen again. Today, there is a vast coordinated effort to erase and rewrite the history of the United States, and to cast this great nation’s heritage as nothing but racism, oppression, and colonialism. That is a scurrilous lie. Yes, there are dark passages, but no other nation in history has ever strived so hard, or sacrificed more blood and treasure, to advance justice and free people from bondage, both here and around the world. In the 1940s, the United States and the Allied coalition literally saved the world. And having defeated the most dangerous foe of all time, we didn’t act as conquerors or colonizers. We left only enough troops to oversee the rebuilding and keep the peace, while most of our military came home, shed their uniforms, and went on with their lives.

At that link is a story about some of the veterans of the Pacific campaign who are still with us 75 years later. But I noticed that the writer has also internalized, perhaps unwittingly, some of the attempts to rewrite history to cast America in a negative light. The article describes the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the point where “nuclear weapons were first -- and so far, solely -- used in anger…”

There’s no question that those bombings were horrific in their destruction and loss of life, and they certainly carried a sobering lesson that we should avoid ever using those weapons again. But it’s flat wrong to assert that they were “used in anger.” They were used in war, which is a very different thing.

It was a war we didn’t start or seek; Japan thrust it on us with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even after Germany surrendered, Japan’s military leaders refused to stop fighting, and they still had a 2-million-man military to defend their homeland. A D-Day-like invasion of Japan was predicted to cost at least a million casualties. Truman faced one of the most difficult choices of any President in history: use the awesome power of a nuclear weapon – which wasn’t even fully understood at the time – or keep fighting island by island, door to door, for who knows how long or at what cost of lives on both sides. Here’s some more background on what he was facing.

Far from being made in anger, that was one of the most agonizing and carefully considered Presidential decisions ever made. Historians can argue forever about whether it was the right decision, but they don’t have the lives of millions of people hanging on the outcome of their debate, as Truman did.

Finally, as we salute American heroes of World War II on the 75th anniversary of V-J Day, here are some photos from commemorative events that were held in Great Britain and Japan.

Do you wonder how a bunch of young Americans who not that long ago were bright-eyed children eager to learn have become a mob of angry, violent leftist radicals who hate their own nation, history and culture? They were taught to be that way in our schools when parents weren’t paying attention. Here’s an article by a former schoolteacher who explains precisely how it happens:

You can add this anti-American indoctrination to a growing list of reasons why many parents are coming up with creative alternatives to putting their kids back in public school -- and the teachers’ unions, with their threats of strikes and ridiculous political demands that have nothing to do with virus safety are just accelerating that process. It's no wonder that some teachers are reportedly worried about giving online classes for fear parents will listen in and discover what their kids are being told.

At this link, the National Review takes a look at some of the proliferating alternatives to public school, from “hybrid homeschooling” to “pandemic pods.”

And here’s another chilling incentive for parents: a 2015 survey by the Nehemiah Institute found that 90 percent of church-going Christian teens who attended public schools abandoned their faith to embrace a secular worldview. That’s no surprise when you read what the former teacher said about how he was encouraged to read kids stories from all different cultures around the world, until he tried to read them a story from the Bible and was shut down immediately.

Perhaps the best piece of advice in this article is that “every church should start a school.”

From Diane H:

Please don't get too political!!! You have stood out as a commentator because of your fairness and honesty. I am so sick of politics driving everything in this country. Please just present the facts. I'm tired of seeing Democrats just involved in painting the Republicans black. And I'm getting just as tired of Republicans bending over backwards to paint the Democrats in as bad a light as possible. PLEASE don't make this your game too. This is being written in response to many of your columns recently not particularly this one. I know it's a war but Republicans are doing their part in escalating it.

From the Gov:

Thanks for writing, Diane, and I'm sorry to hear you feel I've been less than completely fair and honest in recent days. I think the best way to counter false arguments is with as much fairness and honesty as there can possibly be. Right now, the voting public is being deluged with false arguments and wrong information –- even the so-called “fact-checkers” are tainted by politics. And, yes, that does get wearying.

Let me assure you, I am still trying my best to be fair in my comments and 100 percent honest and accurate when presenting the facts. Unlike just about every major media outlet, which typically gets fooled by jumping on every anti-Trump story out there, I haven’t had to retract stories in my newsletter as “fake news.” We try to make sure that every story we bring you is the real deal.

If my tone seems more strident lately, and if politics appears to be “driving everything in this country,” it can’t be helped right now. This is happening because we’re in the last few months of one of the most significant fights for power that our country has ever seen, possibly even more so than when Hillary was running in 2016 (and that’s saying a lot). It’s perfectly fair and honest for me to say that the Democrat Party is now openly controlled by far-left socialists who seek to destroy everything America was built on. Just look at their list of demands. Or ask their leadership to denounce even violent pro-communist groups such as Antifa and BLM; they won’t do it. This really is so serious that it’s impossible not to be political, and, yes, even partisan. When I say Democrats absolutely cannot be allowed to win this one, I am not playing a “game” or merely “painting” them as villains.

Just turning on the news and seeing what is going on in our major cities, and in government from Congress all the way down to some city councils, is disgusting and horrifying. To observe that is not to “paint the Democrats in a bad light.” Why should I “bend over backwards,” as you put it, to paint them in a bad light when they are doing a spectacular job of it all by themselves? I’m not bending any which way at all, just being honest about what I see and what I think it means for the country if it comes to pass.

Diana, this is not "my game." So much is at stake, it’s impossible not to be political now. And what’s happening is real. For some, especially those centered in Washington, DC, and paid handsomely to play it, politics IS a game –- some see it as a blood sport –- but, trust me, this is all real. What’s happening in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and coming soon to a city near you...IT’S REAL. It affects people’s lives; sometimes it ends people’s lives. What I say about it is opinion, of course, but my opinion is based on fact, which I give you as well.

My staff and I are working hard, swimming through this toxic environment to give you the information you need. Much of it isn’t being widely reported but is true nonetheless. We are dismayed by how utterly misinformed many Americans are going to be when they cast their vote. The media have worked overtime to present one side, and, given what we know to be true on a variety of issues, we usually have to turn them off before our heads explode. No, we don’t want to be the “Republican” counterpart to what we see on the Democrat side. We do take the higher ground, in that we want you to know what's really going on.

You say you know this is a war. Please understand that we are not the aggressors in this war; it is being waged against us and America as a nation. FIGHTING BACK IS NOT THE SAME AS ESCALATION. The left will not stop; if we don’t fight back and end up losing this, we'll essentially be run over, along with our values and our cherished rights. We will lose such basic rights as freedom of speech, self-defense (along with defunded police departments), worship, property, and equal justice under the law, which is already pretty shaky as it is. We will have open borders and packed courts. History will continue to be torn down and rewritten. We will have essentially one-party rule and no compromise. “Equality of opportunity” will be twisted into “equality of outcome” for racial groups. There will be little we can do to stop full-term and even just-born infants from being killed or allowed to die untended. And the bureaucracy that abused its power to spy on Americans and create the fake “Russia” story will go unpunished and be free to continue violating the rights of those they don't like.

This is all extremely important, and politics will decide it. It’s not a game –- we have to fight back. If you don’t like politics, you’ll just have to wait it out. And that, Diane, is my fair and honest assessment!

Our prayers and condolences to President Trump and the Trump family on the death of the President’s younger brother, Robert Trump. He died Saturday night at the age of 71 in a New York hospital after becoming seriously ill.

President Trump released a statement calling Robert not only his brother but his best friend, adding, “He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”

This would be the point in most conservative news sources where they would tell you of the horrible comments made by leftists, both in the real media and on social media. They want attention and trending hashtags. I’m not going to reward them with any of that. What they need instead is a long timeout in their rooms, staring at themselves in the mirror and wondering how they ever allowed an obsession with politics to wither their souls and erase their human decency.

From law professor/blogger Ann Althouse, on Joe Biden’s speech and his first tweet after announcing Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Prof. Althouse was appalled by Biden’s attempts to stir up racial division and hatred with his description of what happened in Charlottesville, but also with his attempt, yet again, to claim that President Trump said there were “very fine people” on the side of the racist white nationalists.

Both Biden and Harris claim that “character is on the ballot.” Yet they’re trying to scare black people into thinking Republicans want to lynch them, and (ironically, since his defenders are trying to use the “Trump is a liar” narrative as an excuse for Joe to weasel out of debating him) kicking off their campaign by repeating a scurrilous, slanderous and thoroughly debunked lie.

Even CNN’s Jake Tapper admitted that Trump was talking about people on both sides of the debate over removing Confederate monuments. When the interviewer asked if he meant the white nationalists, he seemed incredulous that anyone would ask such a stupid question and said of course not, neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be “condemned totally.”

As Prof. Althouse points out, Biden piously declared that "’No president of the United States of America has ever said anything like that.’ Well, now, that is true. Because Trump didn't say it.”

She recalls that when Biden first repeated that inflammatory, debunked lie about Trump over a year ago, she wrote this: "If Biden does not come forward and retract [a video relying on the Charlottesville hoax] and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified. He does not have the character or brain power to be President." Yet, she adds, over a year later, he’s “doubled down on the lie” and is “making it the centerpiece of his campaign!” At this point, she said, “I can't imagine what Biden could do to win my confidence.”

I can’t, either. But I can assure Joe that plagiarizing Ronald Reagan won’t do it.

Surprise Announcement

August 15, 2020

Thursday, President Trump made the surprise announcement that a major peace deal had been negotiated between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. A joint statement from Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed said they have “agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.” The statement said that the diplomatic breakthrough was at “the request of President Trump,” and that Israel will “suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.”

This peace deal, with its immediate agreement and promise of more, is a huge achievement for Trump, and proof of how much work has been going on behind the scenes while the media obsessed endlessly over the same “gotcha” stories. It’s also a major blow to Iran, which (with Trump’s help) is increasingly isolating itself from its neighbors and making it clear to Arab nations which is the wiser choice: aligning with Israel and the US or with the crazy, threatening crank next door.

I’ll be talking about this more this weekend on “Huckabee” on TBN with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, so be sure to tune in.

Cartoonist Scott Adams was prescient when he tweeted that twisting this into a negative was going to take all of CNN’s disinformation talent. Some “journalists” attempted to dismiss the historic deal as just an election year stunt or claimed that Trump was angling for a Nobel Peace Prize (we know those only go to people who accomplish really great things, like when Obama…uh…well, I’ll have to get back to you on that one.) Mostly, though, they simply ignored the landmark peace agreement. After all, it’s not like people tune in CNN or MSNBC to get actual news.

But perhaps the most ludicrous response came from Joe Biden (or far more likely, his handlers.) He (they) released a statement praising Israel and the UAE but not even mentioning Trump. Instead, Biden hilariously tried to claim credit for the agreement as an outgrowth of the Middle East diplomatic efforts of the Obama-Biden Administration.

In case you forgot: Under Obama, ISIS grew like cancer across the Middle East, killing, torturing, raping and enslaving countless people. Meanwhile, Iran received $1.7 billion from the US ($400 million of it delivered in cash), which they could use to fund terrorism, their nuclear ambitions, or you know, whatever. They didn’t even have to stop chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in parliament every day. Obama and Biden enriched Iran, and Trump isolated Iran. Obama and Biden oversaw growing war, anarchy, terrorism and chaos in the Middle East. Trump crushed ISIS and brokered a historic Arab-Israeli peace deal. And Biden wants credit for it. It is to laugh.

Thanks to Instapundit for rounding up some good comments on the deal that were far more lucid than Biden’s (which isn’t hard.) I particularly liked the graphic at the end, comparing all the wars under all Presidents of the past 40 years.

Again, guess which one has a Nobel Peace Prize. And can you guess what is his #1 distinction in the area of Presidents and wars?

You know that President Trump’s Israel-UAE peace agreement is a major, unqualified triumph when even Thomas Friedman at the New York Times has to admit that, yes, it is a “huge breakthrough,” a “breath of fresh air” and “a geopolitical earthquake.” And he’s even forced to give Trump and Jared Kushner credit for sticking with the effort. (Starting the countdown clock to the Times firing Friedman...now!)

Of course, he couldn’t choke this out without some requisite Netanyahu-bashing and claiming that Joe Biden is somehow a winner in this deal because “if he succeeds Trump, (he) will not have to worry about the thorny issue of annexation, and he should have a much stronger pro-American alliance in the region to work with.” Yeah, he’s really lucky that he would inherit such a strong, stable Mideast position from Trump instead of the unholy mess that Trump inherited from his immediate predecessor

In other words, if Biden wins, we’ll all be losers. He’ll probably do to the Middle East peace that Trump created what Bill DeBlasio did to the successful New York City that Rudy Giuliani created. And it will fall apart even faster.

From the economy to America's cities to foreign policy, that seems to be the theme of this year’s elections: “Hey, remember how awful things were when the Democrats ran them? Let’s go back to that!”

After a misleading story about a police shooting in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood sparked rioting and looting, some BLM protesters showed up at the police station in Englewood. But they were gone within an hour because residents confronted them and kicked them out.

One resident told the protesters, “If you ain’t from Englewood, get the (BLEEP) out of here!” He later told reporters, “We are tired of Englewood getting a black eye. Those people were opportunists…We refuse to let anybody (come) to Englewood and tear Englewood apart.”

And here’s the part of the story the mainstream media definitely won’t cover: Englewood’s population is 94% black. And they don’t even want BLM in their neighborhood. So why is everyone acting as if BLM speaks for the entire black population of America?

Political Books

August 14, 2020

One of the hallmarks of the Trump era has been the muckraking, back-stabbing “tell-all” book. I hate even to sully my eyeballs with this garbage, but I have no choice: I “read the news so you won’t have to,” even if it means having to research opportunistic, money-grubbing dreck that’s completely at odds with known facts.

For instance, I told you what was in Mary Trump’s recent book trashing her Uncle, the President, even though it was mostly debunked rumors (the SAT story) or second-hand hearsay from relatives who held a grudge over not inheriting enough money and who hadn’t seen The Donald in years. Naturally, that didn’t dissuade the media from giving the author tons of free publicity.

Well, this fall, we’re reportedly going to see a book that’s unflattering to Joe Biden – not a political book critiquing his policies, but a dirt-digging expose book that promises some stunning personal revelations. I don’t like even talking about stuff like this, but I have to tell you it’s coming because the media is likely to bury it deeper than nuclear waste. This book is by someone who potentially has an ax to grind, but unquestionably does know things that few other people would. The author is Jill Biden’s ex-husband, Bill Stephenson.

The National File has an exclusive preview. The splashiest and most unsavory claim is that the entire story of how Joe and Jill met on a blind date was fabricated, and they actually had known each other far longer. Stephenson alleges that he divorced Jill when he discovered she and Joe were having an affair after Joe backed into another car while driving the Corvette that Bill had given his wife (and Biden even welched on paying the $650 in damages he caused.)

But there are stunning non-personal claims as well. Stephenson was an early supporter of Biden’s political career, and he alleges that before Joe’s first Senate run, he gave $3,000 to Joe’s brother Frank to bribe a local Teamsters’ boss to make sure a newspaper that endorsed his opponent wasn’t delivered for three days, until after the polls closed. He also claims that shortly after the divorce, “Frank Biden approached Stevenson and suggested that he get out of town because he was now a liability to Joe Biden’s political career.”

Is all of this true? I have no idea. I do know that if it were about Trump, it would be front-page news, true or not. The National File has reporters already working on verifying some of the claims. But it is coming out -- unless someone manages to kill it. If so, then that will be a story in its own right. If nothing else, when you consider it alongside Joe’s long, known history of plagiarism, self-aggrandizement and outright whoppers

…it renders even more laughable the excuse by rabid anti-Trumpers like Bill Kristol that Joe Biden shouldn’t lower himself to debate someone who’s told so many lies.

If (when!) Joe Biden’s campaign manages to weasel out of any debate appearances with President Trump, Trump's campaign should just buy some prime airtime, put him next to an empty chair (or maybe a cardboard cut-out of Biden), and have him give the opening statement he might have made in a real debate (but significantly longer, since Joe's not there). Here's what I wish he would say:

PRESIDENT TRUMP:

"My fellow Americans, I love my country –- I love America, with all my heart. I always have. And I feel really bad right now, because millions of Americans, just because they don’t like ME –- don’t like my style, don’t like my tweets, don’t like things they think I’ve said (most of which are twisted-up versions that convey something I never intended) –- are ready to vote for anybody but me. Anybody. I mean……..ANYBODY. That’s what “never-Trumper” means, after all; I know that. And THAT means, right now, this country is in big trouble.

“Because they don’t like ME, some Americans might unwittingly put into power a radical political machine that will decimate their most basic freedoms, with ruthless, violent tactics and a long list of demands that will change America into something unrecognizable, probably forever. (Some of this has been a long time coming, but because the virus hit, they’re jumping on the crisis as a way to take control quickly.)

"Because they don’t like ME, some Americans might unwittingly offer inroads to groups that literally want to destroy American cities --- that are ALREADY destroying American cities, GREAT American cities.

“Because they don’t like ME, some in our government abused our own justice system to try to bring me down, and if they get away with what they did, mark my word, they’ll do it again to the next leader they don’t like. They went so far as to accuse me, with no evidence at all except for what was falsified, of working as an agent of Russia. It was crazy –- 2020 will go down in history as “the year America went crazy.” Who needs Russia to interfere in our elections when we’ve got our own bureaucracy to do it, as well as various outside influences with virtually limitless resources, pouring money into radical leftist anti-American groups?

“Because they don’t like ME, some Americans ignore all that I did --- before the virus arrived from China to at least temporarily undo much of it --- to bring the economy back like gangbusters after years of weak semi-recovery. They ignore the incredible benefit that came out of that to hard-working Americans, men and women, of all races, in all walks of life.

“Because they don’t like ME, some Americans even ignore the legitimate work of some doctors and researchers because they think it’s more important to believe I’m wrong. And they forget that I was the one to stop incoming travel from China and Europe, which likely saved thousands of American lives, when my opponents ridiculed that.

“Because they don’t like ME, some Americans paint me as someone I don’t even know. Really, I don’t even recognize myself from what they say. If I met that person, I wouldn’t like him, either! They’ve said I only care about myself, when that is such a lie. I know, I know, it’s just politics. Say whatever you need to, right? (Like Kamala, she knows all about that.) But those of you who don’t like me need to understand: the object of your hatred is a phantom, something made up. My own style –- which can be misinterpreted, I know –- may have helped fixate that in your mind, as I’m obviously not a slick politician, but it’s still false.

“I don’t care a whole lot about that part of it, because I knew when I got into politics that it would be rough. I got into it anyway because I love my country and had a beautiful vision of what we could do. I kind of expected the lies from the politicians, but the media –- you have a lot to answer for. Because YOU don’t like me, you have become a shameful propaganda machine for my opponents. You are to journalism what potted meat is to chateaubriand. And it doesn’t seem to matter to you how this might damage our country in the long run. You just wanted Americans to hate me.

“And now, because you did your job and some of them DO hate me, they may be on the verge of putting into power a group of people, those on the far left, who don’t know what in hell they are doing. I mean, they don’t. We can all see they don’t, unless pure anarchy really is what they want. They’ve shown they can’t run cities. They can’t run states. They won’t enforce the law. They’ll gladly take away your police AND your means to defend yourself.

And everywhere they look, they see racism that in most cases isn’t even there, except in their own minds. They don’t understand that in our country, in just the past several decades, most hearts and minds have changed drastically about race, which is fantastic. And it was only going to get better. It’s as if for some reason they weren’t comfortable with that and wanted to do something, quite deliberately, to make it worse again. I wonder why that is?

These people don’t care about law and order. They don’t care about your personal freedom. They don’t care about learning from history; they want to rewrite it to fit their own agenda, which is to tear down the results of hundreds of years of hard work and incredible advancement.

“Now, simply because some Americans don’t like ME, America is in jeopardy of losing everything that makes it...America. I want you to be aware of this when you cast your vote. PLEASE don’t put our beloved country into the hands of people who are set on destroying its very foundation, and I am not exaggerating, not one bit. I love this country. I’ve showed you the kinds of things I can do for this country, to make it better for all. We’ll get through this virus, and you know I’m the one who needs to be in charge of the vibrant recovery we’ll need afterwards.

So I’m asking for your vote. Remember, it has to be a landslide vote that can be counted right away because so many people will be mailing in their ballots –- vote in person! –-and it has be decisive to save this country from even more chaos. More is at stake now than almost ever before in the history of our country, and I know you realize that. Thank you with all my heart, and God bless America.

Good Labor News

August 14, 2020

How about a little (relatively) good economic news? The Labor Department reported today that 963,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, the first time since March and the beginning of the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus lockdowns that they’ve fallen below 1 million.

While that’s better than economists predicted and a hopeful sign that the economy is starting to recover, there are still tens of millions of Americans collecting unemployment, more than during the Great Recession of 2009. But then, there are still state and city governments forcing businesses to stay shut down, sometimes for the most irrational of reasons (does the virus really spread in bars that serve only pretzels but not in bars with a sandwich menu?)

At least the drop is a positive indicator that the economic plunge was an artificial, government-imposed anchor dropped on what was (and fundamentally, still is) a very strong economy. Democrats are trying desperately to blame Trump for it and claim that only Joe Biden can revive it. But I believe Americans are smart enough to remember that Obama/Biden were entrusted with getting us out of the Great Recession of 2009. Their policies mostly managed to keep some of the worst parts of it going until 2017. If history is any guide, voters will have to decide whether they want to weather the economic downturn only until the virus goes away or until Biden (or Harris) leaves office.

Daniel Greenfield at Frontpage magazine takes a long, deep look into the Democratic Party’s ongoing purge of Jewish people.

Jewish Americans are one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal voting blocs. Republicans often wonder why they keep supporting Democrats, when the Party has turned so hostile toward Israel in recent years, and seems to have more sympathy for Palestinian terrorists who launch rockets into Israel than for the Israelis they hit.

Many analysts have tried to explain the solid Jewish support by saying that American liberal Jews tend to be Jewish in heritage only, and are more loyal to “progressive” politics than to Israel or the Jewish religion. Their avatar is Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn Jew who is openly atheist and socialist. These voters don’t care that Donald Trump is a great ally of Israel; they feel more loyalty to the New York Times editorial page and couldn’t imagine voting for anyone other than the Democrats.

But as Greenfield makes clear, the current Democratic Party isn’t just “tough” on Israel or “sympathetic” to the Palestinians. The far-left “progressive/Democratic socialists” who are quickly taking over the Party are openly hostile to all Jews and are systematically purging them from the Party, and the establishment is going along with it. Just as radicals like AOC and Ilhan Omar got into office by targeting incumbents in safe blue districts, they’re also using gerrymandering to ensure that Jews, even in heavily Jewish areas, are broken up so they no longer comprise a majority in their districts, to deny them representation.

As Greenfield observes, New York City has the largest Jewish population in America, yet in the 117th Congress, the number of Jewish New York Representatives will have dwindled to only two. Many Jewish residents will be “represented” by radical secular leftists who are openly hostile to Israel, support groups that are murdering Jews, and are indifferent to their Jewish constituents. This isn’t true in other heavily Jewish areas such as Florida, but as the Party moves left and continues the winnowing, it soon will be.

If you’re justifiably concerned about the rising anti-Semitism in the Party (and not just from fringe voices: Omar just won her primary easily and with full support of the Party apparatus and Nancy Pelosi), you need to read this. And if you are a Jewish voter who thinks only the Democrats can be trusted, then you really need to read this.

There are two new books out about the Trump Administration, one by a former White House insider and the other co-written by a black political activist. But before you brace yourself for whatever mud the authors have agreed to peddle for a fat advance, you should know these are not the kind of back-stabbing books we’ve come to expect.

The first is by former Trump Director of Oval Office Operations, Madeleine Westerhout, and it’s called “Off the Record: My Dream Job at the White House, How I Lost It, and What I Learned.” She has some harsh words, but not for Trump. Westerhout saves her criticism for the media, and with good cause. After a dinner at Trump’s golf resort in New Jersey, she had a few drinks with some reporters she thought were her friends and who assured her their conversation was off-the-record. She made some catty jokes about Trump’s daughter Tiffany’s weight and his relationship with his daughters. Of course, the “off the record” comments were immediately reported, and she was quickly invited to resign. She now believes they reported those stories just because they hate Trump so much and want to hurt him in any way they can. She learned the hard way not to trust the media.

Westerhout says her comments weren’t true and it “broke her heart” to hurt Trump and his family. But she has talked to him on the phone twice since and he forgave her, which she says “just goes to show how gracious he is.” In fact, she was surprised to discover that he was nothing like what she expected. And she was hardly a Trump sycophant.

Until she went to work for him, all she knew about him was the horrible things she’d heard in the media, so she hadn’t even voted for him in 2016 (although she stresses that she did not vote for Hillary.) She was surprised to discover that he was nothing like how he had been painted. She says he’s actually a kind and friendly boss, he reads constantly, works very hard, relies heavily on female aides and is very warm toward friends, family and staffers.

Westerhout said one of her goals with her book is to counter the relentless false negative stories about Trump. I wish her luck, although I suspect that’s like trying to put out the Chicago Fire with a flyswatter.

The other new book is called “Coming Home: How Black Americans Will Re-elect Trump.” It’s by African-American conservative political activist Vernon Robinson III and Bruce Eberle of the Eberle Associates political fundraising firm.

They tell a similar story of not supporting Trump at first and only voting for him because he had to be better than Hillary Clinton (Note: he is also much better than Joe Biden.) But they came around after seeing him keep his promises about governing like a real conservative with his judicial appointments, peace through strength, cutting of regulations and more, as well as forcing new trade deals, making our allies pay more for their defense, strengthening border security and other measures that put Americans first.

But the thing that’s unusual about this book is its theory that Trump will win reelection because he’ll get a higher percentage of the black vote than any Republican in a century. Two reasons: he’s actually doing things to help black Americans (sentencing reform, job creation, rising wages, opportunity zones, protecting their churches) and unlike most Republicans, he’s actively appealing to them for their votes and not just letting the Democrats’ false claims that he’s a “racist” define him.

I don’t know if that will win him enough black votes to tip the election, although the Democrats wouldn’t have to lose that many for it to sink them. That’s why they viciously attack any black person who dares to oppose them (i.e., if you don’t vote for Biden, “you ain’t black.”) I know it can be done because when I was Governor of Arkansas, I reached out to the black community, listened to their concerns and worked with them to try to solve some problems. They were skeptical at first (they’d grown up hearing a lot of anti-Republican propaganda), but they eventually realized I was sincere. I’m proud to say that I won reelection with the highest percentage of the black vote of any Arkansas Governor since Reconstruction. But of course, I didn’t have a national media churning out a 24/7/365 river of poison accusing me of being a racist. That’s a lot to have to overcome.

November’s election will present a stark choice for African-Americans. Republicans offer proven policies that make them safer, freer and more prosperous. Democrats offer policies that have failed black communities for decades and are currently making life exponentially worse for them. But they’ve resorted to tokenism by adding a black VP candidate and they’re ramping up the false accusations of racism. I think that the choice is pretty clear. I hope enough black voters agree.

Election Recap

August 13, 2020

Here's a wrap-up and analysis of Tuesday’s primary election results by Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor Doug Schoen.

As he notes, the big story is the wins by anti-establishment candidates on both the left and right, a problem for leaders of both parties, but worse for the Democrats. This widens even further the great divide between the shell-shocked voters whom Biden will have to feed "moderate" baloney to convince them the party hasn’t gone crazy and the wild-eyed leftist nutjobs who are actually getting elected in blue cities and states and turning them into Third World countries (he’ll also need to win over the voters who actually voted for that!)

Also, deeply depressing but hardly unexpected, voters in Minnesota gave a big win to Rep. Ilhan Omar over her better-funded, equally “progressive” but not stunningly corrupt, anti-American and anti-Semitic challenger. It’s further proof that once Democrats get into a seat of power, no matter how awful they may be, removing them from it is like trying to pry off a deer tick.

I’ve made it pretty clear what I think about Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy and, now, the choice of Kamala Harris for the #2 slot. In case there’s any doubt, check out my monologue as guest host on Wednesday’s INGRAHAM ANGLE.

In fact, keep watching after that, for an examination of her candidacy with guests Sara Carter and former California Rep. Darrell Issa, who shared with Harris quite a number of years of service in the California delegation.”

Sara Carter pointed out that Biden himself has intimated that, considering his age, Harris would be the one to end up running the country. And she would do it by bringing a radical agenda, Carter rightly said, pointing out what a “chameleon” she is. “She transforms herself whenever she wants, into whatever she wants.”

Just one example: Harris has actually brought up, with Don Lemon on CNN, the issue of prison inmates being able to vote. Well, I guess some would consider that fair to all the small-time dope smokers (I think about 1500) she put in prison for breaking minor drug laws when she herself has admittedly smoked marijuana.

The Green New Deal, open borders, everything on the radical left’s extensive wish list: she’s for it.

Since Issa had worked with her so long, even back when she was attorney general of California, I asked him what, specifically, about a Kamala Harris vice presidency would keep him up at night. “The fact that the President might need to be replaced,” he said. She made great speeches as the attorney general, he said, but then was “completely hopeless” in that role.

She was so bad, he went on to say, that when she ran “as a progressive” for the Senate, he endorsed and campaigned for her DEMOCRAT opponent. That was “not an easy thing to do for a seated Republican congressman,” he said, “but the fact was, we had a moderate Democrat in Loretta Sanchez by comparison.” The far-left Democrats prevailed, though, and Harris went on to the Senate.

"She will change what she says she stands for,” he said, “at the drop of a coin. But at the end of the day, this is somebody owned by the ‘progressive’ left.” He pointed out that right now, she’s backing away from some of her actions that might be perceived as pro-law and order, but “if that’s gone, she has nothing.”

We also talked about what House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said Wednesday on CNN, that the country really is moving to the left and is exactly where Biden and Harris are. Consensus: OH, NO IT ISN’T.

We really are at a crossroads, and I believe most Americans understand this.

Issa cited a statistic we’ve mentioned here: that surveys show at least 80 percent of Americans want law and order; they want to restore the law and have the same or greater police presence in their neighborhoods. That includes black neighborhoods. (Of course, this is where Harris will play “chameleon” and tout her so-called law-and-order credentials. It’s bunko.)

Be sure and watch the rest of the show if you haven’t seen it, for a great segment with Democrat pollster Doug Schoen about “warning signs” within the Democrat Party concerning the success of “The Squad” in their primary vote. The far left –- the activist, “progressive” wing –- has been quite successful, he says. But they support “policies that are out of step with the broader American electorate.” He would advise Democrats not to campaign so hard on confiscation of weapons, etc. (I didn't have time to ask him, but would that really fool anyone? I think at this point we're all wise to them and know they’d do just that, given half a chance.)

Later I discussed something with Rudy Giuliani that you might not have heard: Harris’s claim, in June of 2019, that if she were in the White House, the Justice Department would pursue “criminal charges” against President Trump. She told NPR, “I believe that they would have no choice and that they should, yes.”

Recall that Attorney General Bill Barr has made it clear he’s against using the DOJ as a political weapon and has refrained from going after Obama and Biden personally. Obviously, that would be out the window if Harris came to power. “We would be a banana republic,” Rudy told me Wednesday night. He proceeded to go into her record as a prosecutor; it’s shocking to see the extent to which she selectively applied justice and screwed up big cases. She went after “the little people,” he said. “...She is mean, and she is an incompetent lawyer, and she was an incompetent DA.”

As I said later in the show, Harris “comes into this with more baggage than Delta Airlines on Thanksgiving weekend.” Open those bags, expose her radical views on the issues and her past incompetence, and it’s clear: we do not want this person anywhere NEAR the seat of power.

In the Washington Examiner, Hannah Cox writes that she would love to celebrate a woman of color being picked for a veep running mate, but...

“Kamala Harris’s career ascension was built with the bricks of injustice, misfortune, and the corruption of the prison industrial complex...In between advocating for harsher penalties (including some truly bonkers repercussions for truancy), privacy violations like familial DNA searches, and civil asset forfeiture, Harris even found time to block new DNA evidence from being tested for a potentially innocent death-row inmate, Kevin Cooper. It should not go without comment that California’s justice system is one of the biggest hot messes in the country, highlighting the fact that Harris’s policies were both punitive and unsuccessful at producing better public safety outcomes. They also greatly harmed communities of color.”

On the other hand, one of the liberal news sites hailed Harris as the “most progressive” Attorney General California ever had.

If you’re wondering how someone can be that “progressive” and yet turn her state into a “hot mess” of injustice with policies that punished innocent people, violated civil rights, reduced safety and “greatly harmed communities of color,” then you haven’t been paying much attention to what “progressivism” really means these days.

As if the mainstream media needed any help deciding how to treat Democrats with kid gloves, party operatives have actually sent a memo to media organizations telling them how and how not to cover Kamala Harris. As Tammy Bruce says in a must-read op-ed in the WASHINGTON TIMES, “the fact that they expected this partisan missive to be accepted and adhered to by media entities tells you all you need to know about the problem with today’s legacy media.”

The Democrats are wrapping their demands in identity politics. “The implication of the memo,” Bruce writes, “is that any critical coverage of her deemed unfair (and all would be deemed so) will be declared racist and/or sexist.” For extra emphasis, it even manages to work in the name of George Floyd.

Oh, and they just want to be “helpful.” It’s “challenging” this year to cover “a Black or Brown woman candidate.” (THEY capitalized those words; I’m sticking with the old stylebook, thank you.) So to “help” journalists, they say, “we intend to collectively and individually monitor coverage and we will call out those we believe take the country backwards with sexist and/or racist coverage. As we enter another historic moment, WE WILL BE WATCHING YOU.” (Emphasis mine.)

Among the women signing on to this travesty are Obama and Clinton operatives such as Valerie Jarrett.

Quite masterfully, Bruce makes the case that it’s this very letter and the assumptions behind it that are sexist, as they presume that a woman needs special treatment. It’s that idea that is disgusting. I don’t know if they plan to “monitor” opinion sites such as this one, but if they do, I’ll tell them right now that their warnings and demands will have precisely no effect on anything we say or don’t say about Kamala Harris, who essentially is running for the office of President, not VP, right now. As a candidate, she will be treated like anyone else of any race or gender running for such high office. And that means no kid gloves.

Though it’s generally not my style to put things this way, in this case I will: they can take their memo filled with implicit threats and shove it.

Who Hires Who

August 13, 2020

Among the many dusty political clichés that no longer apply is the idea that the Republicans are the party of “the rich” and Democrats are for “the common man” (or woman or whichever one of the 57+ genders you identify with.) That should have been set to rest long ago by all the big bucks pouring into Dem coffers from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley; the Party’s efforts to continue letting illegal immigration destroy the jobs and wages of low-skilled workers; their laws that crush small businesses and independent contractors; and Party leaders like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi with their Marie Antoinette-like attitudes toward all the lower class “deplorables.”

But here’s yet another scientifically-verified example, and thanks to Instapundit for finding this on Twitter. The study was from last year, but it’s even more timely now.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers discovered that when hiring top campaign workers, Democratic Presidential campaigns disproportionately hire people from the same small handful of elite private and Ivy League Schools, while Republicans tend to hire people who attended state public universities all across America.

The top three schools for Republican campaign hires are UT-Austin, Ohio State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Others in the top 20 include the University of Alabama, Brigham Young in Utah and Missouri State. Overall, 20% of Democrat hires come from just seven schools: Harvard, Stanford, NYU, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Columbia and Yale. Sixteen percent of Hillary Clinton's 2016 staffers came from just four of those schools. So we can also add "The Democrats represent diversity" to the outdated cliche list.

I’m sure the Dems would say that just shows that they hire the “best and the brightest.” But that’s only because they define “best and brightest” as “people who went to the same expensive schools I did in the same parts of the country and got indoctrinated with the same lefist dogma by the same liberal professors.” It could help explain why they seem to be so out of touch with most Americans, and as Hillary and Mike Bloomberg let slip, look down with scorn and condescension on anyone who doesn’t have an Ivy League degree and a white collar job. It doesn't take a degree from Hah-vahd to know how well that goes over with blue collar voters.

Moral: this is not your father’s Democratic Party anymore, even if they are running your grandfather for President.

Reaction to Kamala Harris

August 13, 2020

Here’s a handy list of four things to know about Sen. Kamala Harris, the VP running mate picked by Joe Biden, or whoever picks Joe Biden’s running mates for him these days.

And just to be helpful, here is my pick for the best serious social media comment on Harris.

David Daleiden, who was charged with felonies in California for exposing Planned Parenthood’s body parts business, tweeted, “Kamala Harris is the greatest threat to civil rights our country has ever seen. I know because she had my home raided for speaking the truth about her political patrons at Planned Parenthood.”

…And the second best

…My pick for the most surprising criticism of Harris: some African-American activists are furious that she’s being called “African-American” when she’s actually of Indian and Jamaican heritage:

…And for the funniest, this uncredited Facebook post that claims Stacey Abrams has declared herself Biden’s real running mate and wants to know the procedure for demanding a VP nomination recount.

The Uncle Scrooge of News

August 13, 2020

Slate.com is to news websites what Disney’s “Uncle Scrooge” comic books are to financial news, so I normally ignore it completely. But this week, they posted a lengthy article by William Saletan on how Trump made every wrong decision about the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus and is personally responsible for it spreading (contagious viruses never spread until Trump was elected) and every American death from it (deadly viruses never killed anyone until Trump, etc.) In other words, the usual Slate horse flop.

But this one is getting shared and “liked” a lot in the Twittersphere, so the BookwormRoom blog decided to go through it with a lice comb and give it a thorough refutation, complete with many links to back up the facts. It’s well worth a read, even if you haven’t read the Saletan original (which I wouldn’t recommend.) You might find yourself having to answer some of the same false assertions that are in it, from friends, co-workers or social media contacts who think they’re well-informed because they read Slate, so you might as well be ready.

Also, it’s fun to read. Here’s the second paragraph:

“So is Saletan right? Or is he an intellectually dishonest piece of human garbage whose work is just par for the course in the progressive sewer of ‘fake news?’”

Read the rest and it will become obvious which of those two possibilities the author eventually chooses.

We’ve been looking at Kamala Harris from our own perspective as conservative Trump supporters. But what about those folks on the far left, the so-called “base” of the Democrat Party? Harris has THE MOST liberal record in the Senate of anybody there –- just to the left of Bernie Sanders; I am not kidding –- so you’d think they’d be thrilled with this choice. Think again.

As reported by Matt Vespa at TOWNHALL, leftist reporter Michael Tracey communicated in a series of tweets his utter disdain for this VP pick. Apologies in advance for a little rough language, but it does drive home what he thinks of her.

Vespa’s report reminds us what a major train wreck Harris’s presidential campaign was, leading to her departure from the race even before they had the primary vote in her own home state of California. That's how bad it was.

The tweets from Tracey reveal the problem not only with Harris herself but (perhaps inadvertently) with the entire Democrat Party. Tracey wrote: “Kamala’s past as a hardline prosecutor doesn’t endear her to left-wing voters, and her most recent embrace of an Extremely Online activist rhetorical style doesn’t endear her to “Law and Order” voters. So she’s in a weird political “no man’s land.” Who’s her natural constituency?”

In other words, no matter which way she goes, she alienates a major segment of Democrat voters. I would add that the Biden campaign's thinking may be that Democrats detest Trump so much that they won’t much care. That might be correct, even though what they hate is a wildly distorted abomination, an evil fictional creation, not Trump the real person. The media have done quite an effective job of demonizing him.

For Kamala, all of this is just posturing, anyway, a balancing act to use until the polls close on Election Day. How she “defines herself” during the campaign has little to do with how she’d use power if she really got it, or to whom she would be beholden.

Tracey praised Tulsi Gabbard’s evisceration of Harris at one of the debates, calling the points she made “100 percent substantive and informed by Tulsi’s sincere beliefs on criminal justice policy.” In contrast, he described Kamala’s response as “smearing her [Tulsi] with unrelated nonsense.” As I recall, that’s pretty much how it went down.

We all know who walked away the winner of that contest: Tulsi. If they were going to pick a far-leftist --- Tulsi definitely is one --- who doesn’t shy away from a fight and can beat-down even an experienced prosecuting attorney like Kamala, the congresswoman from Hawaii might have been more of a crowd-pleaser. Then again, she barely registered among Democrats during the primaries.

Anyway, Tracey's anti-Kamala tweets get more and more scathing as you scroll down. Keep in mind that he’s from the far left of the party; it makes perfect sense that one of his criticisms is this: “After all was said and done the Democratic Party donors and professional class got pretty much exactly what it wanted.” And he is right about that --- not just about Harris, but about the strange gap within the current Democrat Party, a gap that perhaps no prospective VP candidate would have been able to bridge.

Hypocrisy In Full View

August 12, 2020

According to MSNBC, women’s groups are already mobilizing to fight any sexist or racist attacks on Joe Biden’s choice for Vice President Kamala Harris. Just like they did for Sarah Palin. Oh, wait…

I notice they’re already trying to blunt that reminder of their hypocrisy with the “Well, but…” rationale. Apparently, since they didn’t like Sarah Palin’s political views, it was okay to launch the classic sexist attack of questioning her unqualifications (even though she was the only one of the four – Obama, McCain and Biden – who had been a business owner and chief executive of a town and a state), to attack her family and to denigrate her with the most obscene sexist slurs for women. You know, just like it’s also okay to do that to Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump, who is actually leading an international project to help empower women in business.

If they really want to stop racist attacks on people because of their political views, they should start with the guy at the top of their ticket, who recently told black conservatives that if they don’t vote for him, then “you ain’t black.”

Healthy Again

August 12, 2020

Back in April, Democratic New York City councilman Paul Vallone reported that he’d contracted COVID-19 and suffered mild symptoms. But over the weekend, he revealed to the New York Post that he was actually severely ill and panicking because he suffers from sarcoidosis, an auto-immune disease that attacks his lungs and that left him with little immune system. He couldn’t breathe and was so weak, he couldn’t get out of bed. He said, “I needed something to stay alive.”

His doctor gave him hydroxychloroquine and a standard antibacterial Z-pack. Luckily, his pharmacist was able to provide it without having an anti-Trump politician or reporter block him from doing his job. Vallone told the Post that “within two to three days, I was able to breathe. Within a week, I was back on my feet.”

For all the grief President Trump has taken for allegedly spreading “dangerous misinformation” by simply saying that he’d heard good things about HCL and it might be worth trying, Vallone is grateful to him for speaking up when nobody knew of any treatment. He said, “At that time, there was only fear and panic; he offered hope in a possible treatment when there was none. With my sarcoidosis and then my COVID symptoms, it basically saved me. For that, my family will always be thankful.“

I’m glad he’s healthy again, and if it costs him his Democratic Party membership card to credit Trump and thank him, then that’s a small, small price to pay.

Must Read: Why Choose Trump

August 12, 2020

I am often challenged as to how a practicing Christian believer and former pastor can support Donald Trump with his many character flaws. First of all, it’s not my place to judge someone else’s character. I’ve also never made it a secret that I find some of the President's language, tweets and behavior to be less reverent than I would like. But God has not sent us any perfect people in the past 2,000 years. When choosing a President, you have to consider more than whether you approve of someone’s personality and temperament. You have to consider what that person will do for (or to) America and the world.

When I look at how President Trump has defended life, religious liberty and Israel, and how he has worked so hard to restore American strength, protect the innocent, end terrorism, and create jobs and rising wages for all Americans – and I compare that to the far-left, job-killing, tax-raising, government-bloating, free speech-destroying, student-indoctrinating, religion-crushing, gender-confusing, crime-condoning, border-erasing, abortion-at-all-stages agenda of the Democrats – it is simply no contest.

Wayne Grudem is a Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona, and it’s obvious that he's heard similar arguments about how he can reconcile being an Evangelical Christian with supporting Trump. He’s written a response that is lengthy, but it’s incredibly thoughtful, well-reasoned and persuasive.

I strongly urge you to read it, bookmark it and share it with everyone you can. There are enough Christians in American that if we would just go to the polls and vote for candidates who support our values, there would be a permanent end to the government’s war on people of faith.

There’s only one change I would suggest to Prof. Grudem’s case. When he says today’s Democratic Party would “allow abortion up to the moment of birth,” I would add, “and well beyond.”

AOC Is Shocked...

August 12, 2020

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims to be “shocked” to have received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding News Analysis: Editorial and Opinion” for her part in producing a seven-minute art film promoting her horrendous “Green New Deal.” I am also shocked. Not that she was nominated, but that she’s shocked that she was.

Take a look at the other nominees. They include debunked conspiracy monger Rachel Maddow, Jorge Ramos, CNN and the New York Times. Not a single conservative commentator in the lot. Not even one of those who uncovered the truth about the Russian collusion hoax that the others promulgated for three years.

The Emmy Awards push liberal politics with their nominations and awards, they even push them from the stage during the show, and they’ve pushed so much of the audience away that last year’s show drew the lowest ratings in history.

So, yes, of course, AOC got an Emmy nomination. I’m just shocked that she hasn’t already won an Emmy for her Twitter videos of her making dinner in her apartment.

Judge Jeanine Pirro said something interesting about Joe Biden and #2 pick Kamala Harris in her appearance on Tuesday’s HANNITY TV show. It was almost a throwaway line as people were talking over each other, but it was this: “I mean, American people, we can sense who’s authentic and who isn’t, and you know what? The longer this goes on...the more I believe Joe Biden isn’t even gonna be on the ticket in the end. Because I can’t believe he picked this woman.”

In fact, former Obama adviser David Axelrod doesn’t think she WAS Biden’s choice.

She did get all of 2 percent of Democrat support when she was running for the nomination. But if former Vice President Joe Biden somehow does make it to Election Day without self-destructing with some monstrous, indefensible gaffe –- that’s a big unknown, a little less than three months out –- and actually (shudder) wins the election, his Vice President will very soon become President of the United States. I think everyone, at some level of consciousness, knows this. In fact, it might be about the only thing on which Democrats and Republicans can agree, though Democrats won’t admit it publicly.

At his Tuesday White House press briefing shortly after the announcement, Trump came right out of the gate with his opinion, saying Harris is “the meanest, the most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.” Coming from him, with the way he’s been treated, that’s saying a lot.

Trump said that in regard to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, also saying that he “thought it was terrible for her and...terrible for our nation.”

The President was right. It was also terrible for the #MeToo movement, which was used for political purposes by Harris and others who were desperate to keep Kavanaugh off the bench. Harris might not ever admit it or even realize it, but the way those hearings were conducted actually set women in the workplace BACK, as it made men terrified of even taking a business meeting with a female colleague. This is true even if Harris personally managed to advance her own political career and end up on the presidential ticket as a result, in part, of her moment in the sun.

Oh, and speaking of #MeToo, Harris said in 2019 that she believed the women who complained about Joe Biden’s weird behavior with them, all that hair-sniffing and otherwise getting all kissy and hands-y.

One of them, former congressional aide Amy Lappos, after describing the creepy way Biden physically handled her, said, “There’s absolutely a line of decency. Crossing that line is not grandfatherly. It’s not cultural. It’s not affection. It’s sexism or misogyny.”

In April of last year, when Harris was asked about the various women’s claims, she said she “believes them and respects their being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.” Well, yay all you women for coming forward! Kamala believes you, but that doesn’t mean she won’t do what she can to help the man who did these things become President and to proudly serve beside him, however sexist or misogynistic he may be!

One suggestion: if she’s going to stand beside him, she might want to switch to some cheap store-brand shampoo and quit using that expensive stuff that smells so good…

Recall that at the time this topic was in the news, THE INTERCEPT had obtained a 1993 transcript of Tara Reade’s mother calling in to an episode of LARRY KING LIVE (which, incidentally, was called “Washington: the Cruelest City on Earth”) about her daughter’s problems with “a prominent U.S. senator.” As you’ll recall, Reade came forward with extremely serious accusations against then-Sen. Biden. Harris hasn’t commented specifically on Reade’s story, but I doubt she’s been put on the spot, either, or will be, at least by the mainstream media. (Seriously, do you think the media are going to hit her with a “gotcha” question now?) I won’t go into detail here about what she says Biden did to her, but if you don’t know and would like to, the details are here.

Imagine if some Republican man –- say, a U.S. senator –- had been accused of doing something THIS SERIOUS to an UNDERLING while he was IN OFFICE, and Kamala Harris were questioning him about it with the cameras rolling. Think how utterly ruthless she would be. That's because it’s not about women; it’s about politics. If the accused is a political enemy, you know she’ll treat him as guilty until proven innocent, because you’ve seen her do that with Kavanaugh. (She’s even attacked him since.) If it’s Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, she sets the accusations aside and becomes his running mate.

She’s not the only one to put political power above all. It’s what Democrats do. THE DAILY CALLER contacted 24 Democrat senators, including Harris, to ask if they would even consider the allegations by Reade. Their offices were given 24 hours to respond, and not one of them returned the call.

Mollie Hemingway made the case on Tuesday that Biden “messed up” when he picked Harris. She’s not someone who will help get back any of those voters lost in 2016, Hemingway said. Instead, he picked “a far-left California Democrat.” I haven’t even addressed the issues here –- much more in the coming days –- but yesterday I linked to a piece that listed the “package” we’d be getting from Biden and the Democrats. (Scroll down to point #10 to compare “packages.”) Harris backs it all, 100 percent. Taken as a whole, this is scary, scary stuff, I dare say for most Americans.

Finally, look who tweeted enthusiastic congratulations to Harris on Tuesday. Yes, it’s the son of George Soros.

A lot can happen between now and Election Day. Judge Pirro is right when she says Biden might not even be the nominee by then. If he’s not, does that mean Kamala Harris advances to the top spot? No, the DNC gets to pick, and I'll bet they already have, "just in case." As the Magic 8 Ball says, “ASK AGAIN LATER.”

Scary moment

August 12, 2020

Scary moment at the White House Monday, as President Trump started a press conference, then was immediately escorted out by the Secret Service. Trump soon returned and explained that shots had been fired near the White House, but not on the grounds. Someone had confronted a Secret Service agent, and there was a reported exchange of fire. Both the assailant and the officer were taken to the hospital but their injuries are not life-threatening. A big Huck’s Hero salute to that Secret Service agent.

The group behind “Occupy Wall Street” is planning a 50-day “siege” of the White House until Election Day, and threatening to fill Lafayette Square with tens of thousands of Antifa-type anti-capitalist radicals hashtagging “#revolution” at each other on their Apple iPhones. If they are as smelly and lawless as the previous OWS losers, it could be an excellent incentive to drive Trump voters to the polls. In the meantime, I’m glad to see that the Secret Service is on the job and ready and willing to take whatever measures are necessary to protect the President, his family and the White House.

"Reparations"

August 12, 2020

Attention, all the cowed corporations that alienated your customers by rushing to shower money and praise on “Black Lives Matter” in hopes of being spared the “racist” label and targeted for "canceling." That turned out to be like feeding your friends to a tiger in hopes that it would devour you last.

Over the weekend, rioters in Chicago caused at least $60 million in damage and injured 13 police officers. There were reporters of a fleet of cars and a U-Haul truck going around as part of an organized plan to loot as many stores as possible on Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile shopping district. The stores included Apple, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Macy’s, Best Buy, Nordstrom and a Tesla dealership. Here’s video of a woman yelling the George Floyd protester mantra, “I can’t breathe!” as she searches through a luxury store for a device to remove security tags from designer clothing.

And how did BLM repay its virtue-signaling corporate benefactors? They’re rallying in defense of the 100 people arrested and claiming that looting their stores is just a form of “reparations.” As one BLM organizer put it:

“I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats. That makes sure that person has clothes. That is reparations. Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance.”

I don't know why they even have to defend the looters, since I can't imagine Chicago's liberal officials would prosecute them anyway.

This is all so jaw-droppingly bad that the mainstream media have their work cut out for them trying to convince Americans that they should vote in November to turn the entire nation over to the same people who are running New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Seattle and Portland. So they’ve reverted to their favorite ploy: the now-clichéd “Republicans pounce” angle. That’s where they try to make the story not about the actual bad news for Democrats but about how unfair it is that Republicans are pointing out the bad news for Democrats.

I’ll give you this link to Politico, although I hate to provide them any clicks for such a reprehensible piece of propaganda.

The thrust of this bilge is that “facing (a) bleak November,” desperate Republicans are “stoking fear by trying to redefine the Black Lives Matter movement as a radical leftist mob looking to sabotage the white, suburban lifestyle.” You see, we’re stoking racism and fear by trying to mischaracterize all the rioting, looting, lawless Marxists as rioting, looting, lawless Marxists. But they claim it’s not working because polls show high support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

This really isn’t that difficult to understand, unless you’re willfully trying to obscure the issue. I don’t know anyone who would disagree that black people’s lives matter. That doesn’t mean supporting the defunding of police or standing back and allowing criminals and anarchists to terrorize entire cities. You can have the former without the latter, but not if you hand power over to Democrats. They can't tell the difference so they're not willing to risk doing anything to stop the violence and lawlessness, which they have now proven beyond any doubt. Politico can blow smoke all day, but I can't believe that voters are dumb enough to go to the polls to demand that all of America be fundamentally transformed into Portland.

Monday, the Seattle City Council defied thousands of citizens who turned out Sunday to back the police (so much for listening to protesters) and voted to slash the budget of the Police Department. All but one voted in favor, and that’s only because she didn’t think they cut the police budget enough. It was a decision so idiotic and destructive that even Mayor Jenny “The CHOP zone is a new ‘summer of love’” Durkan urged them not to do it.

Within hours of the vote, Police Chief Carmen Best emailed them her resignation. For the record, she’s black, and the City Council cares so much about black people that they’d already slashed her salary and sided with protesters who threatened her home (neighbors turned out and defended it.) Now, as Best pointed out, their cuts will mean layoffs of about 100 cops, likely the most recent hires, who are largely minority officers protecting black neighborhoods. Thanks, “progressives!” Although I expect there will be no need to lay off police since so many of them will also likely be handing in their resignations and getting the heck out of town, just like business owners and law-abiding taxpayers.

Best ended her resignation with a message to her fellow police officers that she looks forward to “seeing how this department moves forward through the process of re-envisioning public safety. I relish the work that will be done by all of you.” Translation: “Goodbye, good luck, and may God have mercy on your souls.”

For some reason, this vote reminds me of something George Burns once said. When he worked with his wife Gracie Allen, they did what was usually called a “Dumb Dora” act. But he had to explain to new writers that normal “dumb” jokes didn’t work for Gracie. She had to say things that weren’t simply dumb, but they had to be SO dumb in such a cockeyed way that they’d sort of make sense to somebody who was totally coo-coo. Watching the Seattle City Council react to violence in the streets and a 525% leap in crime by voting to slash the police budget (because if there are no police to arrest criminals the crime numbers will plummet) makes me wish George and Gracie were still around so that the Seattle City Council could go work as their writing staff and stop destroying a once-great city.

"The Switch"

August 12, 2020

Over the years, I’ve often imagined that somewhere in Washington, maybe hidden under the Capitol dome, there’s a big switch, like the one in the lab in Frankenstein movies. Whenever the Party in power in the White House changes over, someone throws that switch, and immediately, all the standards change to the exact opposite of whatever they’ve been for the previous four to eight years.

Just a few of many examples: Under Democrats, the homeless problem disappears from the news. (Switch!) This uncompassionate Republican President is entirely to blame for the homeless population, even though they were there before he ever got the job…Bush was a “war criminal” for ordering bombing in the Middle East. (Switch!) Obama could order drone strikes that would kill dozens of innocent people and nobody cared…Obama built illegal immigrant detention centers on the border. Democrats yawned. (Switch!) Trump puts children in CAGES!...Obama weaponized government agencies against his political opposition and hey, they had it coming. (Switch!) Trump made a phone call and mentioned the guy who might be running against him in two years. IMPEACH HIM!!

The greatest example may be Hillary Clinton sucking up to Vladimir Putin, then (Switch!) becoming the biggest Russia hawk since Joe McCarthy after losing the election. Democrats who’d spent decades as Russia apologists suddenly started snarkily calling Trump voters “Ivan” and blaming Hillary’s loss on Russian skulduggery instead of her horrible record, awful personality and open contempt for the American people. What made this the ultimate metaphor for the changing double standard is that before the switch, Hillary once brandished a red “Reset” button prop to kowtow to Russia – an actual, physical “switch!”

I bring all this up because we have a new example of “The Switch” that rivals even Hillary’s “switch” from Putin sycophant to 1950’s style Russkie baiter. Throughout the Obama Administration, on my radio and TV shows, I chronicled Obama’s habit of legislating via executive order. Few in the Democratic Party or the media seemed to care, and even Republicans declined to challenge him, beyond public complaining. As one of Obama’s aides put it, “Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Pretty cool.”

Except it wasn’t cool: it was plainly unconstitutional. Duties like making immigration law or ratifying treaties are specifically reserved for the people's elected representatives in Congress. Then Trump was elected, and (Switch!) suddenly, the President had no power to issue executive orders. Every EO was challenged in court. He dosen’t even have the power to rescind an Obama executive order (DACA) that Obama repeatedly admitted he had no power to create before he did it anyway.

And then came this weekend’s executive orders to extend coronavirus relief when Congress deadlocked (remember, Obama justified his DACA order by claiming that if Congress wouldn’t act, he had to.) And what was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reaction? She was fine with Obama's end-runs around Congress, but now, she’s threatening a legal challenge because Trump's orders are “Absurdly unconstitutional!” (FYI: Trump had the DOJ vet his orders and determine that they are constitutional under the President’s power to allocate relief funds in the case of natural disasters.)

So (Switch!) now, the Constitution that was ignored for eight years suddenly must be followed to the letter, according to Nancy Pelosi. How long do you think it will take for the switch to be flipped back the other way if Joe Biden is (shudder!) elected President? Considering that he’s vowed to reverse Trump’s protections of First Amendment religious liberties in his first week in office, I think we all know the answer to that.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin –- hey, that rhymes –- has just subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s investigation into the origins of the “Russia” probe.

The subpoena, issued Monday, requires Wray to turn over “any and all” documents related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. Johnson said he issued it because “transparency in government is essential and...the American people have waited too long for the truth.” No kidding.

The FBI has said they would cooperate.

But over the weekend, Lindsay Graham accused Wray’s FBI of deliberately misleading the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018. (Graham chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.) They essentially stuck to their (fake) story and told the same lies about the Steele “dossier” to the Senate that they had told the FISA court in their application to spy on Carter Page, testifying they “had no reason” to distrust the dossier or its sources. Heck, we know they’d been aware for at least a year that the dossier was unverified political oppo research and that Steele’s sub-sources had disavowed it.

Why would the FBI keep lying? So they could keep investigating Trump, of course, and also to keep the focus off what they themselves had done.

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley has been following the media’s “pattern of willful blindness” about the FBI’s apparent falsification of evidence and subsequent lies. The transcript of that 2018 hearing Sen. Graham referenced has been declassified, and, in Turley’s words, “It is hard to read the document...and not conclude that the FBI misled the Congress on the subject.”

The FBI told Congress that the primary sub-source “did not cite any significant concerns with the way his reporting was characterized in the dossier to the extent he could identify it.”

But we know from the declassified transcript that the sub-source, in his 2017 interview that took place over three days, had expressed very significant concerns. He’d said he had “no idea” where some of the information in the dossier that was attributed to him had come from. Some he'd specifically denied giving Steele. What he told Steele had not been meant seriously; he’d just repeated some stories told in jest after a few drinks.

Though Steele’s allegations were discredited by early 2017, the FBI kept right on using them. Even Peter Strzok had said there was no evidence of any members of Trump’s campaign being in collusion with Russians. Didn’t matter.

The media were obsessed with the “Russia” story, but not in finding out whether it was true or not. To them, it WAS true. As Turley said, “the media spent years exploring every possible claim of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, which was found to be baseless.”

But they’re conspicuously silent now on the exposure of the FBI’s dishonesty. The “Trump/Russia” story has been going on for so long that even many Republicans have forgotten how serious it was for Obama’s administration to spy on the presidential campaign of the opposing party. Watergate started with the attempted bugging of one office, that of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The firestorm over that was so great, it ended up toppling an entire administration. Where have Woodward and Bernstein been this time? We sure won’t find their equivalent at the WASHINGTON POST.

WAPO’s most recent contribution to this area of investigation was a laughable op-ed written by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal accusing Sen. Johnson of “perpetuating Russian disinformation in the U.S. Senate.” Thanks, WaPo! (The piece is behind a paywall, but here’s a link to Sen. Johnson’s refutation.)

Even when it was confirmed that the FBI had used its intel briefing with the new President to SPY ON HIM and his new national security adviser, Michael Flynn, the media refused to pay attention. What they did was imply a kind of (to use the cringeworthy new expression) “new normal” in which it’s not even noteworthy for the FBI to target the President, as long as it’s Trump. Why he’s a Russian agent! NATURALLY, they’re investigating him!

And now, as Turley sees it, “The problem is that there seems a virtual news blackout on the new evidence being declassified. After using tanker loads of ink on the unfounded collusion theories, the media seems unwilling to use a drop of ink on the evidence of misconduct in pursuing that investigation.”

The media have been, and continue to be, complicit. A couple of weeks ago, another of Turley’s columns (four stars –- highly recommended) detailed some of the media’s most blatant coverage lapses, including George Stephanopoulos’ avoidance of a huge breakthrough that seriously undermined the credibility of the dossier: the identity of Steele’s sub-source, who lived not in Russia but America and had worked for Hillary ally Strobe Talbott at the Brookings Institute. Anybody watching ABC News that Sunday would have remained blissfully unaware of any problem with Steele’s claims about Trump. Let’s call this what it is: lying by omission.

FOX News will continue its coverage, of course. And here’s some good news: in the latest TV ratings, FOX News is up, rated higher than any other news source, in fact, and not just on cable. It beat all the broadcast news, too. Even so, it’s going to take the release of the Durham report –- and, especially, some well-deserved arrests –- to create any real stir, and even then, be prepared for it to be downplayed. This has taken so long, they’ll just feign boredom and say it’s “old news,” even though it’s the biggest political scandal of our lives.

We’re sad to report that veteran character actor Wilfred Brimley died last week in Utah at 85 from several ongoing medical issues.

Instantly recognizable by his gruff voice and iconic walrus mustache, Brimley played many roles in movies and TV over the years, from “The Waltons” to “Seinfeld,” and from menacing villains in films like “The Firm” to crusty but loveable grandpas in movies like “The Natural” and “Cocoon.” He was famous as a commercial pitchman for Quaker Oats and for PSAs for diabetes (or as he called it, “die-a-beetus.”) He was also active on social media, interacting with fans and poking fun at his image, such as suggesting his pro wrestler name might be “The Under-Quaker” or the “DIE-a-BEASTUS.”

Here’s a bit of surprising trivia: like Cliff “Charley Weaver” Arquette, Brimley began playing old coots when he was still relatively young and aged into the part. Brace yourself: when he played the retired grandpa in “Cocoon” in 1985, Brimley was 51. As a blogger friend of mine noted, Tom “Still Doing His Own Insane Stunts” Cruise is 58.

A Political Masterstroke

August 11, 2020

Over the weekend, President Trump issued four executive orders to help Americans cope with continuing COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus lockdowns. They provide relief from student loan payments and help in avoiding eviction for inability to pay rent and mortgages, a payroll tax deferral through 2020 for employers and workers earning less than $100,000 a year, and an extension of expanded unemployment pay at $400 a week extra, a compromise between the $200 Senate Republicans wanted and the $600 House Democrats wanted.

Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi viciously attacked Trump, accusing him of everything from not doing enough or really doing anything at all to violating the Constitution by legislating through executive orders (reminder: these same people fought tooth and nail defending the DACA program that Obama created by executive order after repeatedly admitting he had no Constitutional authority to do so, and that’s just one of numerous examples of his legislating via EO’s, such as the Iran nuclear deal.) And as if it matters anymore whether executive orders are Constitutional (I guess it only matters when the President is a Republican), here’s a Twitter thread by a law professor who doesn’t support Trump or agree with the orders, but who explains why they are constitutional.

I suspect Pelosi and company are really spitting blood because they know Trump has boxed them in big time. Senate Republicans have been trying to get the House Democrats to work with them and pass a relief extension bill, but the Democrats dragged this out as long as possible, making ridiculous partisan demands that had nothing to do with emergency aid, like instituting mail-in voting or abolishing voter ID. If Americans suffered while they fiddled, that was a feature not a bug. Most people can understand that if they'd really cared and worked hard enough, even the math-challenged House Democrats could have arrived at $400 as a compromise between $200 and $600 (well, maybe not AOC.)

Blue state politicians have shut down their economies endlessly because China released a virus on the world, and Democrats are trying to blame Trump for everything from the resulting economic damage to the virus itself. He’s now stepped in and done their job for them yet again, helping Americans and in the same four strokes of his signature, highlighting how the Dems put politics ahead of helping Americans. Whether you agree with the orders or not, they were a political masterstroke. And at least when Trump did something politically advantageous, it helped Americans rather than hurting them.

Constitutional Rights For Me, But Not For Thee: The city of Dallas, which was perfectly okay with allowing mass anti-police demonstrations, shut down a planned convention by the conservative group Young Americans for Liberty just three days before it was set to begin, citing the spike in coronavirus cases (and I wonder what caused that?)

Politicians claimed it was the hotel’s decision, but that hotel is run by the city. Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who was scheduled to speak at the event, called it “surprising, coming from Texas.” But unfortunately, the left has made big inroads in Texas, at least in urban areas. The major cities are all run not just by Democrats but by far-left “progressives” (recall the similar situation in Houston, which allowed mass protests but canceled the state GOP convention.)

I don’t know if this is because even Texas allowed leftists to take over schools and indoctrinate children, or if so many people fled blue states but brought the policies with them that they fled from. But you can certainly see the results. Not just in the blatant partisanship and disregard for First Amendment rights, but also in the spiraling crime. US cities are disproportionately run by Democrats, so it’s hardly surprising that murder is up in 36 of our 50 largest cities. But it might surprise you to learn that at #1, with a 64% increase in murders in one year, was Austin, Texas.

But when you realize how liberal the “Keep Austin Weird” government of the Lone Star State’s bluest city is, then maybe it’s not so surprising after all.

I always urge people not to pay attention to any polls this far out. But since the media are pointing to polls with Biden in the lead to practically declare him President already (and poor Joe might believe it), I think it’s only fair to use this poll to pour a little castor oil into their Kool-Aid.

A stunning daily tracking survey last week by Rasmussen Reports found that President Trump’s approval rating has risen to 51% (at this point in his first term, Obama was at 44%.) But that’s not the most jaw-dropping part. Trump’s approval rating is 49% among whites, 48% among blacks and 63% among other non-white minorities. How is this possible with all the bad news he’s dealing with, like the coronavirus, the economic shutdown and the riots?

I’m sure the media will dismiss this as an outlier, and maybe it is. They’ll claim that Rasmussen is unreliable, even though it was one of the most accurate polls in 2016. And it would not be wise for Republicans to put too much faith in it. Still…maybe this poll is picking up early trends that tend to form as people start paying more attention to the election. Maybe it’s different from the other polls because they are just so inaccurate. This is a poll of likely voters, not “adults” or “registered voters” or “whoever was actually willing to answer the phone,” like those pro-Biden polls.

Or maybe people just aren’t swallowing the efforts by the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) to blame Trump for a virus unleashed by China or for far-left radicals burning down Democrat-run cities. Maybe they see through all that and realize that Trump was creating record jobs and rising wages for all races before the coronavirus hit, and that he’s far more likely to get the economy running again than the people who kept it sputtering for eight years under Obama, and now insist that China isn’t a threat and we need to keep everything shut down even longer.

Or maybe minorities realize that Trump has done more for them in three years than the Democrats have in decades; that Democrats have let their neighborhoods burn and shielded the arsonists and gangsters while taking away their police protection; and that the only argument they have to keep voting for them is that they’ll call you a racist or say you “ain't really black” if you don’t.

Or maybe the poll is entirely wrong, and there’s nothing to see here. I hope the Democrats believe that, and I hope that Republicans just keep working toward the election as if they believe that.

Too much involvement now?!?

August 11, 2020

Remember when the big complaint from teachers was that parents weren’t involved enough in what their kids were doing in school? Well, for some teachers, the biggest problem with holding online classes is their fear that parents might be watching and find out just what they’re indoctrinating our kids with.

A Philadelphia teacher let the cat out of the bag by tweeting that “We’ll never be quite sure who is overhearing the discourse,” and that if parents hear what their kids are being told, it will ruin the “safe space” and “what happens here stays here” environment. He wrote that while “damage can come from the left, too,” his main concern is “conservative parents”: “If we are engaged in the messy work of destabilizing a kid’s racism or homophobia or transphobia – how much do we want their classmates’ parents piling on?”

This sparked so much furious backlash that the teacher made his Twitter account private, but not before the comments had been captured. You can see them at the link, along with one from another teacher who agreed that “parents are dangerous.”

As several of the commenters pointed out, the idea of an adult trying to seal children off and tell them things that they shouldn’t let their parents know about is intensely creepy and a giant alarm bell. In this case, the child abuse it signals is mental abuse. This teacher works at the Science Leadership Academy. How about teaching the kids’ science instead of indoctrinating them into leftist identity group/victimology dogma?

The pandemic has been a terrible curse, but at least it’s opening parents’ eyes to what their kids are being "taught" and why they come home from school spouting leftist propaganda that sounds like their homework assignment was to memorize Bernie Sanders’ presidential platform. No wonder so many parents say they’ve decided to keep on home-schooling. This story confirms the wisdom of that decision.

Rep. James Clyburn declared, “I feel very strongly that (Trump) is Mussolini, Putin and Hitler.”

Note that he said this openly, with no fear of reprisals, on CNN, a national TV network that condemns everything Trump does and says 24/7/365 with no fear of reprisals – just like what would happen under Mussolini, Putin or Hitler!

The big question isn’t “Does anyone actually listen to these people?” It’s “Do these people even listen to themselves?”

If anyone does listen, they might notice that Clyburn’s “reasons” why Trump is a dictator – that he won’t support the peaceful transfer of power, doesn’t plan on having fair elections, and hopes to create an emergency as an argument for his party to be in power – describe precisely what his own party has been doing since Election Night, 2016. And even earlier, if you count Obama’s illegal plot to weaponize the intelligence agencies to spy on the political opposition and frame them as enemy agents. You know, like Stalin would have.

Weekend Must-Read: This article at the Bookworm Room blog makes some very thought-provoking points about the similarities of the elections of 1920 and 2020.

One hundred years ago, voters were exhausted and traumatized by years of a foreign war (World War I), reeling from a deadly pandemic (Spanish flu) and rattled by a series of bomb attacks by socialists and anarchists all across America. Sound familiar? They elected Republican Warren G. Harding with over 60% of the Electoral College vote because he promised “a return to normalcy.”

The article suggests that Trump should run on the promise to “Make America Normal Again” (MANA?) That is, to bring back law and order, end riots, get the economy up and running again, make our schools teach kids instead of indoctrinating them, and stop pitting Americans against each other into warring identity group camps. He had made great headway on a lot of those things, including re-establishing border security, American leadership and national sovereignty, even though the Democrats fought all his efforts tooth and nail. They think that to regain power, it’s in their interests to attack and undermine everything normal, from law and order to free enterprise and capitalism to patriotism and American pride to basic biology, the scientific method and objective truth, so that people don’t know their own history and can’t even tell what their gender is.

If you think that’s an exaggeration, it’s not. It’s actually a school of leftist “thought” that’s been around for a long time, and encompasses such arcane concepts as “critical theory,” “postmodernism” and “intersectionality.” Over the past few decades, this crackpot of poison stew has been carefully spoon-fed to young people to erode the nation’s foundations, which is what we’re experiencing right now. There’s more explanation and history of this in the linked article. It’s all coming to a head in 2020, and ironically considering the times, the mask is off. I think most Americans didn’t notice it sneaking up on us, but now that it’s yelling in our faces, we don’t like what we see. We want “normal” back.

The only problem is that Joe Biden is already running on a promise to return America to normalcy. Considering that the Obama/Biden Administration tried to cover up all its failures, like its anemic economy and sluggish job growth, by assuring us that this was “the new normal,” I question whether his side even knows what “normal” means. Their version of “normal” is like the brain Igor picked out in “Young Frankenstein”: “Abby Normal.”

But to Biden and those around him, their idea of “normal” is them running everything. Even if means destroying American history, race relations, the economy, and the basic facts of life, economics and science, things will be “normal” again according to them because we’ll have a President who doesn’t send out mean tweets.

On this show I’ve not hidden my contempt for what masquerades as “journalism” in our country today. There are very few true reporters and journalists. There are legions of highly partisan, biased, and utterly dishonest hacks who serve up their very pointed political patter instead of the truth. But don’t take my word for it.

Bari Weiss is a former opinion editor at the New York Times who abruptly resigned a couple of weeks ago with these scathing words: “A new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.”

Her entire exit letter was a stinging rebuke to the elitist snobs who run the NY Times, but it’s apparent they don’t care. They live in their own version of La-La Land.

Just this week, Ariana Pekary had all she could take at MSNBC saying “July 24th was my last day at MSNBC. I don’t know what I’m going to do next exactly but I simply couldn’t stay there anymore.” My colleagues are very smart people with good intentions. The problem is the job itself. It forces skilled journalists to make bad decisions on a daily basis.”

She then quoted an anonymous “successful and insightful TV veteran” who said: “We are a cancer and there is no cure… But if you could find a cure, it would change the world.” Remember, that’s from someone who worked inside the belly of the beast of MSNBC, where there is not even a pretense of objectivity, fairness, or balance.

And then there is the curious case of April Ryan, who actually has White House press credentials and pretends to be a reporter, but who just this week, crossed a line that historically precluded real reporters from being so blatantly biased. While flapping her jaws on CNN, she talked with joy about her dream of a Joe Biden inaugural day and said about President Trump: “If Joe Biden is now going to be the 46th President of the United States, it will be him being inaugurated and watching police and armed forces trying to pull Trump out of the White House. I cannot wait for that split-screen.”

The person who ought to be pulled forcefully out of the White House is April Ryan, who hateful and bitter resentment of President Trump and those around him was so intense and personal that she once stepped over a really big line—she questioned whether my daughter, the former press secretary to President Trump had actually baked a pecan pie for Thanksgiving. April Ryan clearly was ignorant of how uncouth it is to ever question a Southern lady as to whether she made her own pie. Where I come from and where my daughter was raised, that’s just not done by civilized people. Questioning the origin of a homemade pie is like questioning the legitimacy of a person’s birth. But even as Ms. Ryan made the outrageous statement, not a single soul on CNN challenged her blatantly biased broadside.

These are examples just in the past few days that reveal that information fed to you by the mainstream media is unreliable. And it worries me for more than the outcome of the election but worries me for the very existence of our country. But these revelations come with a warning, that journalism as we once knew it, has died, and has been replaced with a kind of zombie reporting that is more the work of demolition to truth than gathering information for a free people so they make up their own minds.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s hometown newspaper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, just endorsed her Democratic primary challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux. That’s not really surprising: they didn’t endorse her in her previous primary or election, either; even a paper that liberal has some standards. And Melton-Meaux is just about as far left as Omar in most regards. Besides, newspaper endorsements don’t really mean much these days. So why even link to this story?

Just because it’s instructive to see how gingerly the editors handled Omar’s outrageously inappropriate behavior. Imagine that President Trump, or any Republican at all, had spouted anti-Semitic hate speech so vile that her Party had to pass an anti-bigotry resolution just to paper over it. Would the Star-Tribune diplomatically describe that as her having made “remarks on Israel widely regarded as anti-Semitic…”? Or how about if a Republican official had engaged in anti-American rhetoric, been accused of bigamy and immigration fraud, and shoveled more than $1.6 million of campaign funds to her current husband’s (?) consulting firm? What are the odds that the paper would sum all that up by saying that the Republican’s term had been “marred by missteps” and “campaign finance issues”?

I haven’t seen such soft-pedaling since the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered a mink bicycle.

My friend (and you can’t imagine how proud I am to be able to say that) Dr. Alveda King had some choice words for the way former President Obama exploited Rep. John Lewis’ funeral to promote false historical narratives and score political points.

And as long we’re correcting Obama’s historical falsehoods, it’s worth pointing out that there’s only one politician currently active in the top level of politics who repeatedly praised George Wallace and other segregationists, and that’s Joe Biden.

Of course, you could say that was another time and he was just trying to get along with colleagues, although that’s not what it always seemed to be. But that would require looking at history in context, and since today’s Democrats hate that, I wouldn’t want to impose any context on them.

There has been a lot of criticism of the crass politicization of Rep. Lewis’ funeral, but there’s also another controversy discussed on social media that has gone largely unreported by the mainstream media. That is how Democratic politicians are telling other Americans that they can’t go to churches, or have indoor gatherings of more than 10 people, or even attend their own relatives’ or spiritual leaders’ funerals…but when one of their own colleagues died, there was a big, indoor church funeral and they exempted themselves from all the rules they imposed on others.

Here are a few of the commentaries on who deserves a big funeral (Rep. Lewis, George Floyd, etc.) and who doesn’t (your dad.)

Also as noted there, Georgia, where the Lewis funeral took place, is on DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s list of states which anyone returning from must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine. She declared the funeral to be a government function, and those are “essential,” so those funeral guests were exempt. I hope the virus recognized that they’re VIPs and showed proper deference in not infecting them.

It will be interesting to see if Democratic officials declare Herman Cain’s funeral “essential,” or if it will be considered not “essential,” like those of all your relatives who died in nursing homes in blue states. And who may needlessly continue to do so in some blue states.

We’ve always said there would be a few previously-obscure names suddenly providing a whole new avenue of investigation and insight into "Crossfire Hurricane." As of Sunday, the name “Steven Schrage” is one of those. And, yes, he HAS talked with U.S. Attorney John Durham, and says he told Durham a couple of weeks ago that he now feels he must go public.

He has put together a first installment, called “The spies who hijacked America,” intended as a “preview” of what he’ll tell over the next several weeks. For when you have time later --- it’s extremely long but undoubtedly a MUST-READ --- here’s the link.

Schrage’s Ph.D. supervisor was Stefan Halper, whom we know was also an FBI confidential human source (SPY) known as “the Walrus.” Schrage decided to come forward ahead of the full Michael Flynn hearing because he felt the various investigations into Flynn's case had not progressed as they should have. In other words, he’s concerned about how long it’s taking.

"So, I think there’s a lot of people trying to cover the tracks of what happened to start this thing,” he told Maria Bartiromo on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES, and I think that’s why it’s so critical that we get to the bottom of it.” Sad to say, he includes "quite a few Republicans” in that group.

"This shouldn’t be political, about Democrats and Republicans,” he said he told Durham. “This is about officials undermining our democracy, and it needs to be known long before the election.”

Schrage is in a position to shed light on the targeting of Carter Page, which ignited the FBI’s “Trump/Russia” investigation. Page first met Stefan Halper at an overseas conference at Cambridge University in July, 2016. It was three months later that the FBI, after accusing Page in its FISA application of being a Russian agent, got a warrant to spy on him. (As we've noted, this warrant gave them a window into Trump's campaign and even to Trump himself, as it allowed them to go BACK IN TIME through Page’s communications to pick up other people connected to him.)

Schrage is the person who introduced Page to Halper while Page was at Cambridge for the conference

He was then working for Halper as part of his Ph.D. candidacy at Cambridge; he told Maria he had “a long background working on crime and terrorism with the White House and Congress” and had started work on this Ph.D. years earlier at Harvard. He was looking at presidential campaigns from the standpoint of the risks to national security but “had no idea that it would blow up into this.”

Looks to me as though he found a whole new risk to national security --- not one posed by a foreign country infiltrating a campaign, but by our own FBI. He might have a whole new topic for his dissertation now!

Anyway, he said it was when Halper and Christopher Steele’s former MI-6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove (you know that name if you’ve read Lee Smith’s book THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT) crossed paths with Page that Halper zeroed in. “At that point,” Schrage said, Halper “seemed to really focus on Page...isolate him, and kind of ingratiate himself with the Trump campaign, in ways that seemed like a real turning point.” To Schrage’s “surprise,” the Trump campaign started being characterized as a national security threat, and that narrative “took off.”

Schrage described the way Page ended up at Cambridge talking to Halper as “a comedy of errors rivaling ‘Dumb and Dumber.’” Ironically, because Schrage had “a Republican background,” he'd wanted the conference to be “balanced,” he said. If they were going to include, say, Madeleine Albright, they should also have a Trump representative.

(Not to inject any confusion here, but in 2019, Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, included Schrage in the suspicious group of individuals who should be investigated for their roles in getting Page to Cambridge Don't know if that has changed, but here's the story.)

Here’s another example of suspicion being cast onto Schrage.

Anyway, Schrage told Bartiromo they were looking for someone specifically to represent the Trump campaign, and that role sort of “fell into his [Page’s] lap," adding he didn’t think Halper even knew Page was coming “until I emailed him.”

To put this into a timeline, a few weeks previously, Christopher Steele had been hired by Fusion GPS.

Maria asked Schrage about Halper’s work in 2016 for the Office of Net Assessments (ONA), which paid him six-figure sums ostensibly for four reports on Russia and China, and how the timing of one big payment seemed to correspond with the start of wiretapping Page. Schrage said he’d never heard of such massive payments for that type of work “in an academic setting.”

He also thought it odd that after Page was smeared as a Russian agent, Halper thanked him profusely for introducing them. Then, in 2018, Schrage heard about the massive payments Halper got while Page was being surveilled, and it made sense.

"All these tentacles” lead back to the same little group, he said: Steele, Halper, Halper’s handler at the FBI. Significantly, no one at the Senate has subpoenaed these people, in four years.

This apparently is one reason why he feels REPUBLICANS have a role in protecting them. “How are we at a point so close to the election, and with Flynn’s hearing coming up, that no one has called these people and gotten to the bottom of this?”

Schrage, who recorded his conversations with Halper routinely as part of his studies, has a recording from January 10, 2017, five days after the infamous Oval Office meeting about Flynn and two days before the WASHINGTON POST leak about Flynn being investigated for Logan Act violations. (Halper and one of his students both had WAPO connections.) Schrage had previously told Halper that Flynn was extremely close with President-elect Trump. Even so, Halper seemed to know...somehow...that Flynn would be gone soon.

Halper: “If you go to the NSC, you have to consider very carefully if you feel it’s appropriate for you to work for Flynn. I don’t think Flynn’s going to be around long. That’s just my guess. The way these things work, you inevitably find yourself at odds with someone...probably lots of people. And...when people [who] oppose you are looking for ways of exerting pressure, they go to people that they know you’re at odds with. And that’s how it builds and then eventually you get squeezed pretty hard.”

He continues: “But Flynn’s reaction to that is to blow up and get angry...I mean, I don’t know where he goes from there. But that is his reaction. That’s why he’s so unsuitable.”

It seems to me that one reason Schrage might go public now is that he knows the Durham report is bad and wants to make sure he's not implicated by anyone in the scheme to use Page. But even if he did come forward out of self-interest, he has a detailed story to tell, with more coming soon.

Self-Censoring Skyrockets

August 10, 2020

Big corporations aren’t the only ones who are caving to very loud leftist activists. A recent study found that Americans are “self-censoring” far more than they did in the past (I wonder if it’s even worse than this, but they were afraid to tell the truth to the survey-takers?) They call this the “Spiral of Silence.”

Interestingly, the fear of expressing your honest opinions affected Republicans, Democrats and Moderates fairly equally. What accounted for the rise was urbanites and the highly “educated” (quotation marks mine – I no longer consider a college degree to automatically denote being truly educated.)

The authors of the linked article claim that “the evidence suggests that those Americans who have little education and live in the hinterland actually feel most free to speak their minds. Perhaps they have simply never been taught that it is wise to keep their mouths shut.” I couldn’t disagree more: I think that people outside of urban areas are more likely to be taught to be polite and not force their views on others. I doubt that many of the Antifa radicals screaming racial epithets and Marxist bilge into the faces of black cops were raised in small towns in the South.

But they do get right that the fear of reprisals for speaking your mind is not due to government oppression (no matter what liberals say about Trump being a “dictator”), but fear of judgment by their social peers. After enough negative reinforcement, they say a view held by as many as a quarter of a social group may stop being expressed at all. I would argue that due to fear of the “cancel culture,” views held by up to 80 percent of Americans have stopped being expressed.

And I agree with them on this point:

“That is why high levels of self-censorship should be treated as an ominous warning sign. They signal the development of a culture of orthodoxy that is animated by a false sense of certainty about what is true and what is false—and a proud intolerance of those who might dare to voice an opinion that conflicts with the mainstream.”

My only objection is that “mainstream” has now been defined as “far-left.” I don’t recall an election where we all agreed that leftist opinions were the only correct ones worthy of being expressed. The Founders gave us free speech so that all views could be heard, trusting posterity to have the common sense to reject bad ideas and embrace good ideas. This is why the left has tried to redefine speech they disagree with as “violence” that must be banned. Because they can’t call it what it really is: “Arguments we don’t have a good answer for.”

From our “Stop The World, I Wanna Get Off” Desk: Five protesters in Seattle filed a federal lawsuit claiming that having to buy expensive protective gear like gas masks deprives poorer people of their First Amendment rights, so taxpayers should have to pick up the tab for them to buy equipment to protect them from the police responding to their actions.

Pretty sure there’s no right to riot in the First Amendment, but if this lawsuit is successful, expect bank robbers to sue to make taxpayers pay for their bullets and office stationery to write hold-up notes. After all, bank robbers have a right to make a living, don’t they?

Fox News’ Shannon Bream suggested that it would make more sense for peaceful protesters to sue the violent rioters who have made it dangerous to attend a protest by attacking police and forcing them to respond with force and tear gas.

In fact, it might be possible that all these street fights will soon be moving into the courts. BLM and other protest groups have been filing lawsuits against authorities, but some legal experts note that because of the hundreds of millions of dollars showered on BLM by terrified corporations, they’re now a ripe deep-pockets target for lawsuits by people such as business owners harmed by the protests/riots and those who think their First Amendment rights are being squashed by BLM and its supporters.

It could all end up proving the old adage that no matter who gets into a fight, the only real winners will be the lawyers.

Trump's Comments Reviewed

August 9, 2020

Sometimes I feel as if it’s become my job by default to explain jokes to liberals who have completely lost their senses of humor since Trump’s election.

Among a number of things in that Axios interview that were taken out of context was President Trump’s comment about Ghislaine Maxwell, wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s former lover and alleged fellow human trafficker who was recently placed in a New York jail cell. Trump said he knew nothing about the case personally, but “I wish her well, whatever it is.”

The media leaped on that as “Trump’s shocking support for Ghislaine Maxwell.” Those of us not suffering from TDS took it as a sarcastic joke, a reference to the skepticism about Epstein “committing suicide” once he was locked away in a New York jail cell. We assumed he meant, “I wish her well in staying alive.” But liberals are no longer able to write or recognize a joke, so they took it literally (as when they thought Trump was literally inviting Russians to hack into Hillary’s email devices that had already been taken offline, Bleachbitted and smashed with hammers.) As Peter Theil observed, Trump supporters take him seriously but not literally, while the media take him literally, but not seriously.

Maybe if they ever looked at a conservative news or commentary site, they would know that one of the top-selling T-shirts for several weeks now has been one that reads, “Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t commit suicide.”

And FYI to the media: Trump was on record years ago as slamming Epstein as a creep, while it was heroes of yours like Bill Clinton who were actually hanging out with him. I haven’t talked much about this because it’s so unsavory that I’d like to see more hard evidence and witness testimony first. But most media outlets don’t have such high standards, yet they’ve been so silent about the recently released documents connecting Epstein to Clinton that even Bill Maher is calling them out.

Doctors are now speaking up to report their own successes in treating COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine, zinc and the antibiotic Zithromax, and more international studies are indicating that it is effective. So is the rising evidence in its favor actually causing Trump haters to ratchet up their opposition to it, with social media sites banning even actual doctors relating their personal findings as “dangerous misinformation”? Would someone actually hate Trump so much that they would discourage the use of a drug that might save lives if admitting that it worked might make Trump look correct?

Matt Margolis at PJ Media makes that case.

It is hard to believe that anyone would be so twisted as to prioritize political advantage over protecting human life. But then, we just had the mayor of Portland lecture rioters not to try to murder people by burning down a building with human beings locked inside because Trump might use the footage in his campaign commercials.

I wonder, has anyone done a test to see if hydroxychloroquine might be effective in treating Trump Derangement Syndrome?

You would think that the idea of a city doing away with its police force would be idiotic enough just on the face of it that no sane person would actually suggest it. But if you think beyond the surface inanity, there are also further negative consequences that advocates haven’t even considered. Here’s one of them.

City dwellers don’t like to think about this, but they are heavily dependent on us rubes outside the city to create all the products they consume, like food, and to deliver them into their barren concrete jungles. Trucking companies aren’t too thrilled about the idea of sending expensive trucks loaded with valuable merchandise into cities where the police have allowed armed gangs to take over the streets. Just because the people were foolish enough to elect politicians who left them at the mercy of criminals, that doesn’t mean trucking companies outside the cities have to risk their drivers' lives, trucks and merchandise to keep them afloat.

As the trucking company owner at the link says, any states that defund the police, truckers will avoid for safety reasons. He estimates that the food chain will collapse, the people will run out of food, and there will be complete chaos within 72 hours. Then again, in places with no police, there may already be so much chaos that they won’t even notice more.

President Trump issued some important executive orders Thursday, all aimed at China.

Two of the orders were to ban transactions with the popular video-sharing app TikTok and the social media app WeChat in 45 days. Their parent companies are the Chinese-owned ByteDance and Tencent Holdings. Both orders warn that the apps automatically capture “vast swaths of information” from users, amounting to actions that threaten “to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.” According to an internal document obtained by the Epoch Times, TikTok's parent ByteDance employs at least 138 members of the Chinese Communist Party, many in high managerial positions. To paraphrase comic Yakov Smirnoff, in communist China, video app watches YOU.

And in another long-overdue move, Trump issued an order designed to ensure that essential medicines, medical supplies and equipment are made in the United States. The order has several components to persuade manufacturers to move plants back to the US from China and to keep that move from raising prices for consumers. We never should’ve relied on China for all our medicines and medical supply needs, but COVID-19 brought home the urgent need for a change. You can read more about that EO here.

The Worms Are Turning

August 8, 2020

And the great turning continues, as liberal institutions that went all-in on supporting lawlessness and anarchy realize it’s going over with voters like a punch bowl full of manure. First, the mayor of Portland – PORTLAND! – admitted that people who throw incendiary devices into occupied buildings with the intention of murdering the people inside are not “peaceful protesters” (I’m sure that was a difficult concession for him to make.)

And now, the New York Times (!) has actually printed an in-depth article about the living hell inflicted on the people whose businesses were inside CHOP, the area of Seattle that the mayor turned over to violent leftist, Antifa anarchists, some armed, and tried to pass off as the new “summer of love.” Those businesses are suing the city for the massive costs inflicted upon them when officials failed to do their most basic duty of protecting public safety and private property. None of this is news to you, of course, but for the Times to suddenly wake up to reality is massive.

(The Times is behind a paywall, so I’m linking to a lengthy excerpt at Instapundit. There’s a link there to the full story if you are a Times subscriber. I also wanted you to see the comment by Instapundit founder, Prof. Glenn Reynolds, that all this abrupt backpedaling away from supporting rioters by leftwing politicians and media suggests that the Democrats’ internal polling on this issue must be truly awful.)

Between this lawsuit and others like it in similar blue cities, Nick Sandmann’s lawsuits against the media outlets that slandered him, all the lawsuits against leftist college administrators who denied students due process and First Amendment rights, and the countersuit the NRA just filed against New York’s Attorney General…

…it appears that conservatives have learned from the lawfare that liberals have been waging and are turning the left’s favorite weapon against them. It might even be more effective than expected, thanks to all the Trump judicial appointees who actually respect the Constitution -- one of the top reasons why it's so important not to believe any johnny-come-lately "law and order" rhetoric from the left and instead to reelect Trump.