Daily News Roundup
NOTABLE QUOTES
Julie Kelly contributor to American Greatness: Paul Hodgkins, facing an enemy he clearly underestimated, asked for mercy anyway. In a statement before sentencing, Hodgkins told the court “without a shadow of doubt, I am truly regretful for my actions and the way this country I love has been hurt.” He said he traveled to D.C. alone to “support a president I love.” Then he said the words Joe Biden’s Justice Department wanted to hear, words reminiscent of the sort of Soviet-style confessions beaten out of political dissidents the world over: “Joseph R. Biden is rightfully and respectfully the president of the United States.”
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg retired Army rebukes Gen. Mark Milley chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who reportedly said that the military would intervene if President Trump refused to step aside for President Biden: There’s a Uniform Code of Military Justice article, Article 94, which is actually mutiny and sedition. And look at that, and I said, you had violated your oath of office.”
Jen Psaki White House Press Secretary: “We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the surgeon general‘s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts who are popular with our audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content — so we are helping get trusted content out there.”
Kylee Zempel contributor to The Federalist: This push for censorship is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the same political stripe that ridiculously cried “fascism” for four years under Donald Trump is now taking concrete steps to suppress political opposition, one of the hallmarks of true fascism.
Gatestone Institute Staff weigh in on President Biden’s infrastructure bill: This proposal… amounts to “abolishing the suburbs” by making them more like cities. Apartment buildings…. could be built in the middle of any suburban neighborhood, and there is nothing you could do to stop it. A housing project could be built next door to your home. One-acre lots could be subdivided to cram in as many houses as possible.
Nathanael Blake contributor to The Federalist: Transgender advocates insist that kindergarteners and even toddlers are capable of committing to transition, and that everyone else must affirm this.
Tom Fitton Judicial Watch president: “These new documents show that politics and a pernicious Critical Race Theory approach infects VA decision-making on the allocation of health resources to veterans.”
Gordon Chang contributor to Gatestone Institute: China’s brand of communism, many forget, is inherently hostile to the private sector in general and foreigners in particular. The so-called “reform era”—the three decades following 1978 when Chinese leaders liberalized their economy and financial system and opened it to the world—is now over, and this hopeful period is beginning to look like an aberration in the history of Chinese communism.
Brent Smith contributor to WND: If America’s leftists/statists have their way, our nation will end up divided into two distinct tribes – the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
Adina Solomon for U.S. News: Until recently, people in the U.S. had two main choices for disposition of a body after death: burial or cremation. As the green burial movement has questioned the energy and resources required of these methods, another option has emerged: dissolving a body in water, or alkaline hydrolysis.
Alleigh Marre president of the Free to Learn organization:“We’re sinking lower and lower in worldwide rankings. We’re seeing activism instead of achievement in schools. 82% of parents we polled said they don’t want politics in the classroom; 71% want core subjects instead of ideology. And of that 71%, 66% self-identified as liberal. People want their kids prepared for the future, independent of politics.”
BEHIND THE DEEP STATE
Sundance: Attorney General Merrick Garland Provides Cover for Obama-Biden Surveillance, DOJ Now Barred from Investigating Intelligence Community Leaks to Journalists
Once you take a nuclear action on something corrupt, there is no return. The Obama-era weaponization of the intelligence apparatus for political purposes was one such nuclear action. That weaponization was an escalation of action that forever sealed the need to hide it. […] Today the AP is reporting that Attorney General Merrick Garland is barring any DOJ office from seizing the communication of any journalists. In essence Garland is providing cover for the prior and ongoing coordination of Intelligence Community leaks to media allies. Remember, the Intelligence Branch operates as a public-private partnership; part of that purpose requires an alignment with corrupt U.S. media.
Read more at The Conservative Treehouse.
Keating: Pence national security advisor: Milley comments on imagined Trump plot ‘seditious,’ if true
If remarks attributed to Gen. Mark Milley are true, the four-star chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff committed sedition, according to retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence during the Trump administration. […] “There’s a Uniform Code of Military Justice article, Article 94, which is actually mutiny and sedition. And look at that, and I said, you had violated your oath of office,” Kellogg said. […] “I was with the President on sixth January,” Kellogg said. “I was with the president for 1,461 days. He never did anything that I thought was egregious enough that even came close to supporting what Mark Milley said.”
Read more Just The News.
Greenwald: Nancy and Paul Pelosi Making Millions in Stock Trades in Companies She Actively Regulates
The Speaker, already one of the richest members in Congress, has become far richer through investment maneuvers in Big Tech, as she privately chats with their CEOs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the sixth-richest member of Congress, according to the most recent financial disclosure statements filed in 2019. As the California Democrat has risen through party ranks and obtained more and more political power, her personal wealth has risen right along with it. Pelosi “has seen her wealth increase to nearly $115 million from $41 million in 2004,” reports the transparency non-profit group Open Secrets. Even by the standards of wealth that define that legislative body — “more than half of those in Congress are millionaires” — the wealth and lifestyle of the long-time liberal politician and most powerful lawmaker in Washington are lavish. And ever since ascending to the top spot in the House, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, keep getting richer and richer. Much of their added wealth is due to extremely lucrative and “lucky” decisions about when to buy and sell stocks and options in the very industries and companies over which Pelosi, as House Speaker, exercises enormous and direct influence.
Read more at Glenn Greenwald.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Taft: Who’s Paid to Shill for Big Tech? A New Online Tool ‘Outs’ Who’s Getting Bezos Billions, Zuck Bucks, and @Jack Cash
And Big Tech is spreading that money around. Slathering, really. Lots of cream cheese on that bagel. As The Federalist points out, last year Facebook and Amazon spent more money on formal lobbying than did the nation’s largest defense contractors, who are kept in yachts and private jets thanks to lobbying their buddies at the Pentagon. The online tool is called “Big Tech Funding” and is made by a group called American Principles. It uses an extension for Google Chrome (heh), aggregates funding information that is available to the public but buried deeply on websites, and spits out “who’s getting what from whom” instantaneously. It puts out the information so that when you check on a group on Twitter, for example, the left-wing Center for American Progress, started by Clinton crony John Podesta, you find that Facebook really likes this group. The head of American Principles, John Schweppe, says the issue is more important than source-checking. He believes that colleges, universities, professors, and think tanks launder the money and the ideas of the tech moguls, giving their viewpoints the veneer of legitimacy, as he told Fox News. […] The Federalist reports that this laundering of money and ideas using universities and think tanks can yield head-shaking results.
Read more at PJ Media.
2020 ELECTION
Jenkins: 10 Reasons to Question the Election
It’s frustrating to hear people on the Right, including some who should know better, claim there’s “no evidence” of significant, possibly outcome-changing fraud in the last presidential election — even as the forensic audit in Arizona uncovers multiple discrepancies. Clearly, they’re confusing “evidence” with “proof.” No, there may not be absolute, incontrovertible proof of election fraud — yet. But there is plenty of evidence, good reasons a rational person might question the outcome. Here are ten that come to mind, in no particular order: Eyewitness testimony. Since November 3, hundreds of people have come forward to report that they personally witnessed various irregularities in the vote-counting process: ballots run through tabulating machines multiple times; “pristine” mail-in ballots; ballots that appeared to have been printed on different paper or filled out by machines — the list goes on. Two questions come to mind. First, what would these witnesses stand to gain by making knowingly false claims? Many submitted actual affidavits, subjecting themselves to potential legal liability. Second, could that many people simply be mistaken? It seems unlikely. Our own eyes. Actually, the eyewitness testimony confirms what many of us have since seen for ourselves, via security camera footage: cases of ballots being pulled out from under tables in Fulton County, Georgia, right after observers were told to go home for the night. Vans pulling up to TCF Center in Detroit, with dozens of boxes unloaded in the dead of night. We also saw, live on television, huge, sudden jumps in vote totals for Biden, in some cases accompanied by corresponding drops in Trump’s totals. Are there innocent, plausible explanations? Perhaps. But I have yet to hear any. Mostly, we’re just told, “Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.” Statistical anomalies. Some of the most persuasive evidence comes from mathematicians . . .
Read more at American Thinker.
Hoft: “We Don’t Have to Live with a Fraudulent Election” – Legal Scholar John Eastman Says State Legislature Has Authority to Replace Electors due to Fraudulent Results
Eastmen told Steve Bannon: “We can point to Section 2 of Title 3 of the United States Code that says when a state has had an election and has failed to make a choice on the day that was prescribed by law, meaning the choice that was made, the assumption is it was fraudulently given because of the illegal votes, the electors can be made on a subsequent date in such manner as the legislature in some state may direct.”
Read more/Watch the 4:21 minute interview at The Gateway Pundit.
(Sharpiegate) Conradson: BUSTED: Maricopa County Elections Official DEMANDED Pens Before the Elections And SHARPIES On Election Day
We learned on Wednesday that the Arizona audit discovered ballots were printed incorrectly and on thin paper stock that allows for ink bleed-throughs. […] “We NEED to use markers on Election Day,” she writes. Why did they only use markers on Election Day? Trump supporters voted in overwhelming numbers on Election Day, in person, due to the concerns about mail-in ballot fraud. It looks like they took the necessary measures to suppress these votes as well.
Read more at The Gateway Pundit.
Conradson: Crooked Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Pushed “Virtual Voter Registration” by Telephone
Last September, Corrupt Secretary of State Katie Hobbs fought tooth and nail for a voter registration hotline. Many saw this as a way to allow for telephone voter fraud. The radical leftist also wanted to allow for video-conferenced “special elections boards” to aid disabled voters. […] Election boards in Maricopa County helped 10 voters cast ballots virtually during the August primary, said Diana Solorio, a spokesman for Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat. This public split was not over a bipartisan election measure. This law was intended to make it easier to cheat. […] This also allowed voters to register after the October 5th deadline, which was later pushed back to October 23 by the Democrat-led Federal District Court for the District of Arizona.
Read more at The Gateway Pundit.
Hoft: Intelligence Captain Seth Keshel: Trump Margin of Victory in Michigan was 7.5 Percentage Points
Earlier today Steve Bannon invited Professor David K. Clements from New Mexico State University and retired Army intelligence captain and former baseball analyst Seth Keshel to discuss their latest analysis on the 2020 election. Seth Keshel droppeed a BOMB on the War Room. According to Seth, President Trump won Pennsylvania by 6-8% in 2020. Later today Seth Keshel released his Michigan election numbers.
Read more at The Gateway Pundit.
Cleveland: Georgia Voting Official Makes Excuses For Residents Who Illegally Voted in 2020
As the Georgia secretary of state’s office continues to investigate evidence that indicates more than 10,300 Georgians may have illegally voted in the November 2020 election, on Friday the office’s chief operating officer reportedly defended voters for violating state election law. “The reality is these are normal, everyday Georgians who are just trying to exercise their right to vote in a very weird year,” Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling reportedly told Atlanta’s WSB-TV, when confronted with an admission from one voter that he had moved more than 30 days before the general election but cast his vote in the county in which he no longer lived.
Read more at The Federalist.
SECOND AMENDMENT
Wisniewski: Crucial Components in the Creation of Successful 2nd Amendment “Sanctuary” States
Unless we are clear in our distinction between Nullification and Anti-Commandeering, we risk dooming the movement just when it’s beginning to gain steam. Recently, Joel Osterhoudt of Reason published an interesting piece recognizing the rise in Second Amendment “sanctuary” states and cities across the nation. As Osterhoudt rightly recognizes, this movement largely relies on the model established by the immigration and marijuana sanctuaries that arose in progressive cities and states in response to the Trump Administration. But in recognizing this important revelation in protecting individual rights, the article confuses two very distinct concepts—Anti-Commandeering and Nullification. This isn’t just a mere academic dispute over legal terms created by and litigated in our legal system. The distinction is the difference between winning and losing. And while these states have placed themselves in a position to win, this confusion puts them in danger of losing—whether that be in a courtroom or the court of public opinion.
Read more at Legal Insurrection.
Lott, Jr.: Despite What Biden Says, Guns Factor in Only a Small Percentage of Violent Crimes
In response to sharp increases in violent crime, President Biden stressed again last week that his administration is focused on “stemming the flow of firearms used to commit violent crimes.” But critics warn that this “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – about 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. Although firearms were used in about 74% of homicides in 2019, they comprise less than 9% of violent crimes in America. The vast majority of violent offenses – including robberies, rapes and other sex crimes – almost always involve other weapons or no weapons at all.
Read more at Real Clear Investigations.
THE DEMOCRAT LED WAR ON AMERICA’S CHILDREN
LTP: Eighth-Grade Final Exam from 1895
Remember when our grandparents, great-grandparents, and such stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895? (LOOK CLOSELY… THAT’S EIGHTEEN NINETY FIVE). This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, KS, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS, and reprinted by the Salina Journal. 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS -1895 Grammar (Time Limit – one hour) Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no Modifications. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of lie, play and run. Define Case, Illustrate each Case. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar. Arithmetic (Time Limit – 1.25 hours) . . . U.S. History (Time Limit – 45 minutes) . . . Orthography (Time Limit – one hour) . . . Geography (Time Limit – one hour) . . . Also notice that the exam took six hours to complete.
See the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, KS, USA
Insanity, American Academy of Pediatrics Pushes Masks for All Children Over 2-Years Old Returning to School or Daycare
It appears the ideologues who installed Biden recognize they are forever bound to their dependency on COVID-19 as a tool to retain control. […] The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is now recommending that all children over 2-years-old must wear masks next school year regardless of vaccination status. Students over age 2 and staff should wear face masks regardless of coronavirus vaccination status as “a significant portion of the student population is not yet eligible for vaccines.” (read more) A reasonable person might think that with all the evidence showing incredible psychological harm to young people who are becoming increasingly isolated, the AAP would halt their participation in the propaganda. Alas, the opposite is true. This is abusive behavior now.
Read more at The Conservative Treehouse.
Blake: The Transgender Industry Is Culling Tomboys Out Of Existence
Sometimes transgender propaganda is too honest for its own good. For example, Loudoun Now, a weekly newspaper in Virginia’s Loudoun County, just ran a horrifying story encouraging gender dysphoria in children. The piece focuses on seven-year-old Sophia, now pretending to be a boy named Max, and her mother Emily (the unnamed father is almost entirely absent from the article). It was meant to boost transgender ideology in an area that has become a battleground over transgenderism and critical race theory in schools, but it inadvertently reveals several ugly truths about the trans-kids movement. First, this story shows that the transgender movement is coming for very young children, starting in preschool if not sooner. Transgender advocates insist that kindergarteners and even toddlers are capable of committing to transition, and that everyone else must affirm this. Instead of waiting to see what shakes out as children develop, trans advocates demand that children be immediately transitioned socially (new names, new clothes, new pronouns, new bathrooms, etc.), followed by medical transition beginning before puberty.
Read more at The Federalist.
CHINA: AMERICA’S MORTAL ENEMY
Pompeo: Our Broken Engagement with China
In July the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary with familiar totalitarian pageantry: displays of military hardware, cheering red-scarved youth, and a nationwide crackdown on dissidents to ensure “political security.” The cult of personality that CCP general secretary Xi Jinping has assiduously built for himself was also on full display, as the unelected supreme leader of China delivered a speech wearing a drab tunic commonly referred to as a “Mao suit.” The symbolism Xi was trying to convey to the Chinese people with his garb was obvious: I am equal in significance to Chairman Mao as a leader. To the rest of the world, the message in Xi’s speech was just as overt: Any foreign force that attempts to “bully, oppress, or subjugate” China “will certainly be battered and bloodied in collision with the Great Wall of Steel built by 1.4 billion Chinese people.” Some might dismiss these words as pure rhetoric, but we must take them seriously. Xi’s actions since taking power match his language — and then some.
Read more at National Review.
Winters: Chinese Communist Tech Attempts To Buy US Army Simulation Developer.
Tencent – a tech firm flagged as a “tool” of the Chinese Communist Party – is attempting to buy a German game developer used by Western countries to conduct military simulations. The tech company, which counts former Obama campaign directors as lobbyists and Biden White House members as investors, is reportedly offering over $350 million for the company Crytek. First revealed by the German newspaper Bild, the potential acquisition has led to “fear that the Chinese want to use the “CryEngine” developed by Crytek to produce war simulation programs for the Chinese army.”
Read more at The National Pulse.
Chang: China Preparing to Expropriate Foreign-Held Tech Shares
“What do investors need to understand, for those investors that are thinking maybe I want to dip my toe in investing in Chinese companies?” asked Maria Bartiromo on July 14, during her Fox Business show, “Mornings with Maria.” The answer is that Beijing is on the road to expropriating the shares held by foreigners in China’s tech companies. The complicated financial structures these companies have used to attract foreign investment are questionable under Chinese law and give Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, an excuse now to begin a confiscation campaign. We begin with Beijing’s stunning regulatory attacks on DiDi Global. The company’s shares started trading on June 30 on the Big Board, where it raised $4.4 billion in an initial public offering. Two days later, China’s Cyberspace Administration halted downloads of DiDi Global’s popular ride-hailing app, DiDi Chuxing.
Read more at Gatestone Institute.
BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING FOREIGN POLICY
Toameh: Arabs Warn Biden: The War on Terrorism is not Over
As the United States prepares to complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan by August 31, 2021, a growing number of Arabs are worried that the American move will not only bring the Taliban back to power there, but also lead to the re-emergence of other Islamist terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS). The Arabs are saying that the Americans are mistaken if they think that the war on terrorism will end with the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan. They are warning the US that it will pay a heavy price for allowing Afghanistan to fall into the hands of terrorist groups. They are also saying that they see no difference between the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and how these groups openly cooperate with each other. […] Adib warned that the US will pay the price for its exit from Afghanistan. “The cost of the withdrawal will be greater and more dangerous for America and the entire world,” he said. “Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are preparing to establish a state whose features will be close to those of ISIS. The threat of ISIS is still there and its cells are still spread everywhere.”
Read more at Gatestone Institute.
BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING AMERICA
Cyberhacks: What does China have on Biden?
Now we see some even more disruptive hacking from China, the massive hack on the Microsoft Exchange email server software on Feb. 24, which opened the gates to hackers of all sorts getting into 30,000 U.S. businesses to steal passwords and conduct ransomware operations. What’s Joe Biden’s response? In a word, nothing. It puzzled even the Associated Press: . . . […] Well, unless there’s something we don’t know, the Russian one isn’t finished, either. But the Russkis got it in the teeth, and the Chicoms got off with a stern warning. Here’s how bad it was: . . . […] It’s strange indeed that the Bidenites even revealed the China involvement in the hack. Two reasons spring to mind as for why it was done. One, U.S. allies already seems to have let the cat out of the bag. According to AP:. . . Two is that the fingerprints of the China state on the hack were a heckuva lot stronger than they were elsewhere, according to the AP report — Microsoft, for one, pinned it on them, and wouldn’t they know? There was other evidence in the report, too. What we have here is actual cyber warfare targeting U.S. institutions. It’s quite likely the Russians are doing it, but it’s absolutely certain that the ChiComs are doing it, both with the same aim: . . .
Read more at American Thinker.
Strack: White House Says Nothing ‘Off The Table’ When It Comes To Using Big Tech To Silence Dissent
After admitting that government officials are flagging what they deem “misinformation” to Facebook for censorship, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is exploring options to exercise more control over social media platforms. […] Psaki’s claims that the White House is “helping get trusted content out there” depends entirely on what the White House defines as “trusted content.”
Read more at The Federalist.
Zempel: Democrats’ Definition Of ‘Misinformation’ Is Whatever Hurts Then Politically Today
What’s going on here isn’t really an attempt to save Americans from disease. It’s a desperate attempt by the ruling class to save their own rear ends from information that threatens their ideological goals. Democrats at the helm of the executive and legislative branches aren’t looking to squash so-called misinformation because it’s the only way to keep people from dying (which still wouldn’t justify their authoritarianism, by the way). Biden, Psaki, and their friends in Congress and Silicon Valley are working to snuff out their opponents’ speech because not only do they think it will help them politically, as it likely did in the 2020 election, but because they believe they can get away with it — again, as they did in the 2020 election.
Read more at The Federalist.
Gatestone Institute Staff: Dangerous Infrastructure Bill: Flooding America’s Suburbs with High-Density Housing Projects
Gatestone Institute: President Joe Biden’s “infrastructure” proposal says that money granted to towns and counties will come with a condition: eliminating “prohibitions on multifamily housing” and zoning restrictions such as “minimum lot sizes.” This proposal, it has been said, amounts to “abolishing the suburbs” by making them more like cities. Rosiak: Yes. Apartment buildings as well as duplexes — essentially carving up suburban homes into multiple apartment units — could be built in the middle of any suburban neighborhood, and there is nothing you could do to stop it. A housing project could be built next door to your home. One-acre lots could be subdivided to cram in as many houses as possible. If you bought into a neighborhood of one-acre lots and enjoy a bit of privacy, your neighbor could soon be able to sell his acre to a real estate developer who could put eight buildings on it.
GI: What is the purpose of this? Rosiak: . . .
Read more at Gatestone Institute.
OTHER NEWS
Sadler: CDC reports over 93,000 overdose deaths in 2020, highest rate in U.S. history
New provisional data released by the CDC Wednesday indicates that more than 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses during 2020 amid unprecedented lockdowns, job losses, and delayed medical care. The number is the highest recorded in American history. According to the CDC, an estimated 93,331 Americans died of drug overdoses between January and December 2020, compared with roughly 72,000 reported last year, an increase of almost 30 percent. As reported by Breitbart, the data translate to 256 deaths a day, or 11 deaths every hour. […] The CDC found a “concerning acceleration” of overdose deaths spiking between March 2020 and May 2020 when lockdowns, layoffs, social-distancing requirements, and other restrictions began to be imposed throughout the U.S. “This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher told the Associated Press (AP).
Read more at Life Site News.
