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We have a demented president who is corrupt and has a son who is a shill. We have an Administration run by an equally corrupt and unelected group of assorted military and intelligence gooks along with an FBI that will do anything they are told because they know they can get away with breaking laws.This is what America has come to be because the mass media is also corrupt, openly supports a single party and spills their ink protecting that party from being exposed.
There is nothing that can or will be done to right the ship short of a revolution. What happened January 6, and is happening at school board meetings, convinces me "we the people" have already lost the first round. Furthermore, if the states lose the ability to control their own elections, because they become federalized, then the battle is over and we will no longer live in a republic.
It took 240 plus years to create what we will have lost in less than 2 years. The keel of our sinking ship was laid when an empty suit named Obama became president, told us he wanted to transform America and voters climbed aboard because of white guilt.
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In addition to the above and other issues noted in previous memos, Soros money is another reason to be concerned because as murder rates jump law and order becomes impacted and eventually a stable society begins to unravel.
Billionaire progressive and globalist George Soros has influenced local elections and governments...
An Afghanistan population Grows In Wisconsin
Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.
By Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
The skies over Sparta have never been as busy as when the Biden administration decided to dispatch 13,000 Afghans, including at least one pedophile, to Wisconsin.
Sparta, a small town of less than ten thousand souls, whose claim to fame is being the “Bicycling Capital of America”, could only watch as a population of Afghans outnumbering its own population created a new Afghanistan on the premises of Fort McCoy.
None of the Afghans at Fort McCoy have a Special Immigrant Visa. Biden left the SIV visa holders behind in Afghanistan. The Afghans who have overrun the Wisconsin base are the ones whom the Taliban, for their own reasons, decided to allow through their checkpoints.
And they’re living up to the high cultural standards of the Taliban.
The problems began with the toilets. Then there were issues with the rice, the sexual abuse of young boys, and Afghans simply leaving on their own despite promises of taxpayer cash.
“Afghans were confused and upset by hygiene practices,” a Wall Street Journal article described. “Every toilet on base was Western style, with a seat and toilet paper. But a number of Afghans are accustomed to restrooms that allow them to squat so they don’t have to physically touch the toilet. It led to some cases of Afghans relieving themselves outside.”
This shouldn’t have surprised anyone after two decades in Afghanistan. But political correctness has mostly suppressed accounts of even the most basic facts about the beneficiaries of our great nation building project leaving Americans confused by the behavior of the new arrivals.
A Czech journal article from the Department of Military Hygiene noted that Afghan "people in rural areas were found to defecate almost everywhere according to convenience. It is important to observe that particularly the rural population does not know or does not use toilet paper."
More accurately, Islamic law is held by some authorities to ban the use of toilet paper.
“You should consider very carefully shaking hands during the contact with the local population,” the journal article warned. Unfortunately their local population is now our local population.
An account of the toilet practices of the defunct Afghan National Army described how our soldiers were forced to “share their toilet with the ANA, as they had been ordered to do by their commanding officers” to win their “hearts and minds”. Unfortunately “it was the custom of the ANA to wipe themselves with their hands, smear their excrement on the walls of the toilet, and rinse their hands in the sink, which left the sinks reeking.”
While great care is taken by Muslims to keep their clothes clean so that they are not “impure” during prayers, bathrooms can be left in a horrifying state because they’re already unclean.
Muslim tradition teaches that toilets are possessed by demons and as a result followers of the religion may be reluctant to make contact with them because they have been taught that “Satan plays with the backsides of the sons of Adam”. Islamic teachings encourage squat toilets and forbid men to urinate standing up because Mohammed “only ever used to urinate sitting down.”
At Kandahar Air Base, the toilets were segregated because, as an officer noted, “When they use our port-a-potties, they stand on the seats and it causes quite a mess. I think it's just a cultural thing." There are a lot of these cultural things. Many of them far worse than the toilets.
Although when dealing with a group where “90% of the population are infected by a parasitic disease” and which routinely goes around with fecal matters on its hands, it is an issue.
Democrats insist that 2-year-olds should wear masks, yet invite in a population that doesn’t understand the concepts of toilets, toilet paper, or disease transmission.
But the toilets were the least of the problems at Fort McCoy.
The Afghans, who had supposedly just been saved from death, didn’t like American food.
American rice was “swapped for basmati rice. New spices, hummus and dates were added to the chow hall’s menu” which was entirely Halal. Basmati rice is one of the most expensive varieties of rice available, but nothing was too good for the endlessly complaining arrivals.
While the Afghans were complaining to reporters about "hard rice", personnel at Fort McCoy were complaining about “multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families." This wasn’t too surprising since the child marriage in Afghanistan stands at 57%. Like the toilets, it’s a “cultural thing”.
While no action was taken on those cases, Bahrullah Noori, an Afghan refugee, was arrested for trying to undress a 14-year-old boy and behaving inappropriately with a 12-year-old boy.
Mohammad Haroon Imaad was also arrested after his wife accused him of choking her. He had also allegedly threatened to “send her back to Afghanistan where the Taliban could deal with her” and also told her “that nine women have been killed since getting to Fort McCoy and that she would be the tenth.” An estimated 87% of Afghani women face domestic violence.
Like the toilets and the child rape, choking women is just another Afghan cultural thing.
General Glen VanHerck however visited Fort McCoy and assured reporters that the enlightened Afghans were much more law-abiding than the racist Americans.
I've done some research and how that compares to populations across the United States," VanHerck declared. "For example, in six weeks in Operation Allies Welcome, in a population of 53,000, there have been eight reported cases of robbery and theft.”
VanHerck neglected to Google the statistics for assaulting children and women. Or to note that this isn’t a measure of Afghans having lower crime rates than Americans, but a much lower willingness to report crimes to infidels who don’t resolve problems with the use of Islamic law.
"And how long are the Afghans going to be on U.S. military bases?" the FOX News correspondent asked.
"We're prepared to be here as long as we need to conduct this mission," VanHerck replied. "We'll be ready if we need to support through the winter months and into the spring."
If only there had been the same sort of commitment to getting Americans out of Afghanistan.
Forget the ‘Forever War’ and get ready for the ‘Forever Refugees’.
VanHerck claimed that the Afghans at Fort McCoy "are appreciative of our support and eager to begin their lives in America.”
They're so eager that they're just leaving.
Some 700 Afghans have left bases like McCoy despite promises of free taxpayer cash if they just stay and wait to be resettled. The deserting Afghans are upsetting the Biden administration, not because it’s concerned about potential terror threats from the refugees, but because it makes it harder for its refugee resettlement allies to cash in on every single Afghan. And it interferes with their plot to alter demographics in red states by resettling Afghans in the South.
Meanwhile Fort McCoy is near capacity. American soldiers are back to patrolling Afghan streets and trying to win their hearts and minds by asking them to use toilets and not to abuse their women and children. But the scenes of American soldiers trying to keep the peace among Afghans and communicate American values to them are no longer taking place in Kandahar, but in Wisconsin, and in other states with the misfortune of housing Afghans.
It’s almost as if we never actually withdrew from Afghanistan.
Americans are funding three Halal meals a day for tens of thousands of Afghans, our bases are full of mosques, our soldiers are trying to keep Afghans from killing and abusing each other, and we are on the hook for every dollar in welfare spending lavished on the Afghans while Americans struggle. As the Afghans leave Fort McCoy, the occupation of America will begin.
Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.
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I recently commented about Iran's improving drone program which is becoming a destabilizing threat in this region:
The world is waking up to Iran’s drone threat
Iran’s drone program, unlike its nuclear weapons program, is not secretive. The Islamic Republic openly brags about its drone capabilities.
Iranian drones are an emerging threat to the Middle East. In 2019, Iran used a combination of drones and cruise missiles to attack the giant Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, using precision strikes to send a message that Iran’s drones could not strike at will across the region and destabilize economies and countries.
Now Iran’s drones are again in the spotlight after reports at The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and other media. The WSJ article noted that Iran’s drones are reshaping the security situation in the region. It references the July attack on a tanker in the Gulf of Oman that killed two crew members. It also noted that Iran has trafficked drone technology to Hamas in Gaza. In its May war with Israel, Hamas used Iranian-style drones for the first time.
The Fox News report looks at reports by Iranian dissidents that Iran will use drones to destabilize the region. A third report at The National Interest notes that Iran might target the Al-Harir base in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region where US forces are allegedly present. The report also mentions Iranian attacks on dissident groups in the Kurdistan region. Iran has used drones to target US forces in Erbil and also to target dissidents.
Iran’s drone program, unlike its nuclear weapons program, is not secretive. The Islamic Republic openly brags about its drone capabilities. It highlights every new drone and makes outrageous claims about their capabilities. Iran has claimed that its drones can fly thousands of kilometers and the ability to arm some of them with missiles.
What we know is that Iranian drones can do precision attacks, pre-programmed using a set of coordinates. They can wreak havoc but they are not a weapon that wins wars. Iran’s drones can do things like attack military parades, airports, oil facilities and tankers. Tehran reportedly used a drone to target a CIA hangar at Erbil airport, according to The Washington Post in April. That means Iran’s real asset is its intelligence on where to attack. The drones themselves are interesting because they can be transported or assembled in different places.
A drone is pictured during a large-scale drone combat exercise of Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Semnan, Iran January 4, 2021. Picture taken January 4, 2021 (credit: IRANIAN ARMY/WANA/REUTERS)
FOR INSTANCE, Iran has based drones at T-4 base in Syria and used them to target Israel in February 2018 and May 2021. It has provided drone-making technology to the Houthis in Yemen, and have downed US drones and copied Israeli drones.
What this allows them to do is to both traffic technology and also to have plausible deniability about the use of the drones. This is because they can pretend that the drones being used to attack the US in Iraq – or tankers off the coast of Yemen, or to attack Israel from Syria and Iraq – may be drones flown by proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis or the Hashd al-Shaabi.
Although this gives Iran leverage in the region, it doesn’t give it a strategic win, but rather a way to tactically harass its enemies and then hide behind a smoke screen. This is the Iranian way of war these days and the drones are simply a symptom and a tactic they have adopted which extends their long arm. Iran already perfected the use of terror, extending its long arm to kill dissidents in Europe and attack US, Israeli, Jewish and other targets around the world. The drones are a new technology Iran is using in a specifically Iranian way: No other country uses drones like this.
Increased attention is now being put on the Iranian drones, indicating that Iran is no longer able to fly under the radar with these systems. The question that should be asked is what comes next for Iran’s plethora of drones. The drones come in family groups, such as the Ababil, Mohajer and Shahed classes. These range in capabilities from surveillance drones to those that can fly thousands of kilometers. Some of them are kamikaze drones while others return to base.
Iran has now sent large numbers to its allies in the region, from Gaza to Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It also seeks to export some abroad to places like Venezuela. It is also basing them at sea now, putting them on its regular and IRGC fast boats.
The drones sometimes behave more like cruise missiles, slamming into a target and self-destructing. That gives them plausible deniability and a kind of ability to strike through air defenses and radar by using potential swarm attacks of large numbers of drones. Iran has shown proficiency in getting around Saudi and US air defenses in some cases. Israel has used Iron Dome and missiles fired from aircraft and helicopters to shoot down the relatively slow drones.
THE FULL picture of what comes next has not emerged. After the 2019 attack, there were concerns that Iran had stumbled upon a kind of drone “Pearl Harbor” in the region and many air defense systems were updated to deal with drone threats. But there are not enough radar and air defense systems around the region to defend everything.
That is why the US, Saudis, Israel and others must concentrate on defending key strategic areas. For Israel, a small country, the challenge is not as great. But drones can strike at tankers and also natural gas sites. That means they can strike almost anywhere. In January, an article at Newsweek even warned that Iran had moved drones to Yemen that could strike as far as Eilat.
That threat has not fully emerged, but the recent reports indicate the region is taking the Iran drone threat seriously. Luckily for those who study this, Iran is not trying to hide its drones. It openly parades them by the dozens and its allies in Iraq also put them on trucks for military parade displays. Iran’s capabilities are known; the question is whether its adversaries will put in place enough missiles, radars and guns to down the drones in the future or predict where Iran’s next target may be.
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When Democrats started calling Trump a dictator, and the mass media jumped on it and fell in line, you should have known to think the opposite. When Hillary said Trump was in bed with Russia you should have known to think the opposite. This from The Secretary of State who arranged for Russia to purchase uranium and her husband to get an enormous speaking fee for their foundation from a Russian Organization.
Democrats are slick and have perfected the art of the political "bait and switch" tactic. They should never be trusted. Win at any price always motivates them and they will stop at nothing to accomplish their nefarious goals.President Biden... The Dictator?
President Joe Biden, January 26, 2021:
I have this strange notion, we are a democracy... if you can't get the votes... you can't [legislate] by executive order unless you're a dictator.
Despite this quote... Biden's signed 63 executive orders, 37 presidential memoranda, 122 proclamations, and 23 notices since Inauguration Day.
And if he hasn't been able to use these questionable tactics, he's found other workarounds.
For example, he recently instructed the Department of Labor to force employees around the country to get vaccinated.
(But did you know... immigrants illegally crossing from Mexico to the U.S. had no vaccine requirement?)
Many Americans are starting to catch on...
In fact, when asked by the Trafalgar Group whether Biden had the constitutional authority to force private businesses to require vaccine mandates for employees, 58.6% said no!
And roughly the same percent admit they're worried this could set a precedent a future president might abuse even worse.
Which is why one government insider is stepping forward with an urgent warning about what Biden's REALLY up to...
And the critical steps you need to take to protect yourself and your family today.
I urge you to check out this important warning immediately, right here.
Sincerely,
A.J. Wiederman
Senior Researcher, Stansberry Research
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Peggy Noonan finally awakes from reading her own Op Ed's which made her become an "Awoke."Progressives Hold the Capitol Captive
Biden turns out to be far less moderate than advertised, and voters aren’t liking what they see.
By Peggy Noonan
The U.S. Capitol seen through a security fence placed ahead of protests in Washington, Sept. 18.
Photo: The Washington Post via Getty Images
Washington
Our capital is greatly diminished compared with its old crackling pre-pandemic, pre-George Floyd self. It is quieter, less bustling, drabber. A lot of government employees are still working at home, and you can feel it in the air, the sense that the federal government is coming out of everyone’s dining room.
It was my first visit since January. Things look better than they did then, but Washington has grown worn and less authentically itself. The bronze statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, once brazenly heroic, has an air of retreat. There is a homeless encampment in a little copse of wood where Georgetown starts. Big buildings looked empty.
One place that seemed to retain its old mystique was the U.S. Senate, which still has the shine of the old marble and brass. The Facebook hearings were down the hall in the Russell Office Building, the press in full gaggle. Senators and staff were dressed as adults, suits and ties, heels and hose. I mentioned it to a staffer. “Yeah, today was like the old days,” he said.
Leaving my hotel one morning I saw security men hustle a man in a sharply cut suit into the back seat of a gleaming black SUV. He looked like a European diplomat. The world is still coming to Washington, still having its meetings, and making its calculations based in part on what it sees on the street.
Washington needs a new coat of paint. Stand up, feel your stature. “Remember who you are.” You are the capital of a great nation. Look like it, act like it.
We segue with the idea that Washington’s outer reality reflects its inner political life, where things are a murk, but not the usual one.
I’m not a huge respecter of polls (only snapshots, not a measure of greatness or consequence) but when polls put numbers on what you’re sensing you pay attention. And so the Quinnipiac poll this week on the president. Joe Biden had a 38% overall approval rating, with 53% disapproval. Those are Trump numbers. On the issue of the border, 23% approve of the job Mr. Biden is doing and 67% disapprove. The economy: 39% approve, 55% disapprove. Asked if the administration “has been competent in running the government,” 42% said yes and 55% no.
Democrats, this “I’m a big ol’ progressive and we’re rewriting spending and taxing along left-wing ideological priorities and isn’t this dynamic and exciting?” thing isn’t working. The whole “You think I’m Joe Biden but if you squint you can see I’m really Lyndon Johnson ” thing isn’t working. Ideological aggression isn’t working.
Mr. Biden is showing a lot of it. “Get out of the way,” he tells Republicans, on the debt limit. “If you don’t want to help save the country, get out of the way so you don’t destroy it.” He’s more rhetorically hostile to the unvaccinated than he is to the Taliban: “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.” His statement on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema being harassed in a ladies’ room by activists who hissed like the devil’s imps was wan and passive-aggressive: “I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody. . . . It’s part of the process.” It doesn’t happen to everybody and to announce it is part of the process is to make it part of the process. It was as if he were saying: Yeah, she’s got me mad. Hound her some more.
This is not the sound of bring-us-together; it’s not forbearance and grace. The tone is off in the White House, and the strategy on the Hill is off. I don’t think they understand who their progressives are.
People compare the progressives to the tea party and the Freedom Caucus, which drove successive Republican House speakers mad, but that’s not right, they’re not alike. The tea party and Freedom Caucus weren’t about getting something done, they were about portraying a mood: conservative resistance. They made a great show of fighting those compromised lackeys in the GOP leadership, but they never got anything done. They didn’t have a serious legislative strategy. They threw snares and did cable TV hits.
The progressives are serious. They are ideologues. They know what they want; they have serious legislative aims and worked-through strategies; they are socialists and mean to change America in its fundamentals.
They are not the usual politician driven by traditional exigencies, the usual “I need this” of politics. They are playing a different game.
And I think this has not been fully understood. You look at the infrastructure bill and how they are stopping it. You say, “They wouldn’t thwart the speaker in the culminating achievement of her political career.” They would. “They wouldn’t humiliate their new president in his first year, on his signal domestic effort, as his poll numbers wobble.” But they would.
I don’t understand why the speaker and the White House didn’t play hardball, put the infrastructure bill on the floor and get it passed with moderate Democrats, Republicans, and some frightened progressives who’d cave because they didn’t want to face the 2022 election after tanking it.
The infrastructure isn’t solely a Democratic drama. It affects the whole country. It got 19 Republican votes when it passed the Senate. Lawmakers want to say it made our roads and bridges stronger, our electrical grid fortified. Both parties could and should pass it. And the president would still get credit: “My God, something big got passed, he brought us together.” It was crazy to put this bill’s future in the hands of AOC and friends.
Democratic leaders are letting progressives push them around. Mr. Biden may want to create LBJ-sized history but he lacks LBJ’s electoral mandate and his tactical brutality. Would LBJ have allowed a caucus within his caucus to keep him from passing a popular, bipartisan bill that would have won him greatly needed praise? I don’t think so. He didn’t just know how to count, he knew how to kill.
The president and the speaker look as if they’re caught in the same dynamic that has seized almost every major institution in American life, including mainstream journalism and corporations. Progressives, who trend young, are pushing around moderates, who tend to be older. They’ve pushed to change the mission of the institution, to make it more woke, more reflective of the ideology of racial and gender identity, of social-justice wars. The older professionals, mostly longtime liberals, disagree with the progressives yet steadily lose. The progressive are winning, the institutions changing.
Are people seeing some of this same dynamic in Congress, with the young progressives knocking off the more moderate liberals? A lot of American voters who feel pushed around by the same forces might be seeing the parallels. And not liking what they see.
It is now almost a year since the election. America saw Joe Biden as a moderate liberal who, as his party went left, and its center went left, also went left, as a practical pol would. But not that far.
Or maybe that far. Maybe he was more to the left than he always let people think, more ferocious in his aims than he portrayed. I suspect America is coming to see this. And not liking it. Thus the polls.
And:
The reason Youngkin is doing well is because he is a practical businessman and has chosen to run on issues as Kim points out and that is unusual because most conservatives and Republicans mire themselves down in statistics and extraneous information that puts voters to sleep:
The reason Youngkin is doing well is because he is a practical businessman and has chosen to run on issues as Kim points out and that is unusual because most conservatives and Republicans mire themselves down in statistics and extraneous information that puts voters to sleep:
As for McAuliffe, if he wants to tell parents they have no authority over their children then he should go down in flames along with Dr. Spock.
How to Beat the Trump Card
Glenn Youngkin has turned the Virginia governor’s race into a real contest.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Every Democratic playbook for five years has featured the same bolded, all-caps word: Trump. The Virginia governor’s race is now showing the limits of that strategy. The left can’t expect to win simply by playing the Trump card—especially when Republicans are running on issues.
Donald Trump is the reason the media months ago dismissed Virginia’s off-year election. The swing state had issues with Mr. Trump, going by five points for Hillary Clinton and 10 for Joe Biden —inspiring pundits to recategorize it solidly “blue.” Democrat Terry McAuliffe was a known quantity, a former governor. Republican Glenn Youngkin was an unknown business executive running in a state whose suburban population had fled the GOP in droves.
For months, Mr. McAuliffe has run a campaign focused singularly on Mr. Trump. In every speech, ad, fundraiser and interview, he morphs Mr. Youngkin into the former president. His opponent is an “extremist Trump Republican,” who espouses “Donald Trump’s dangerous election conspiracy theories,” and who “like Donald Trump . . . refuses to take coronavirus seriously.” He’s “bought and paid for by Donald Trump” and uses “Trump talking points” and does the “bidding” of Mr. Trump and those who “fawn all over Donald Trump.” Mr. McAuliffe even refers to his opponent as “Trumpkin.”
Yet Mr. Youngkin continues to rise, and this week’s Emerson poll put the race to Nov. 2 in a dead heat. Democrats are panicking, and Mr. McAuliffe is scrambling to attack Youngkin policies directly, rather than the semi-retired dude in Mar-a-Lago.
So what gives? Some of it is the growing unpopularity of Joe Biden and Washington Democrats. But a lot of the credit goes to a Youngkin campaign that has refused to be pigeonholed and has kept voters focused on the issues, not the past.
A former Carlyle Group executive and a political outsider, Mr. Youngkin quit his job last year and jumped into the race over worries his home state is “stalling out.” Younger couples are leaving; businesses aren’t arriving. The streets are more dangerous, the schools less effective.
The McAuliffe strategy has been to try to force Mr. Youngkin to choose between the state’s southern working-class Trump voters, and Northern Virginia’s anti-Trump suburbs. But in an interview at a hotel here, Mr. Youngkin—energetic and affable—explains that he never saw it as a “balancing act” or even a choice he had to make. “Sometimes candidates chase issues, but here the issues I care about—what got me into this—are the issues Virginia cares about. And they bring people together.”
Thus Mr. Youngkin’s kitchen-table campaign focuses on questions that keep Virginians up at night—the high cost of living, rising crime, failing schools, faltering economic growth. Mr. Youngkin wants to stem the exodus of residents by repealing the state grocery tax, suspending a recent gas-tax hike, requiring voter approval for property-tax hikes, and doubling the standard deduction on state income taxes. He’d divert part of this year’s $2.6 billion surplus to these goals, and part to the state’s rainy-day fund, while also directing dollars to public safety, schools and jobs.
He’s particularly focused on Virginia’s dismal job-creation rate. The state produced only 44,000 net new jobs in the eight years ending in July (North Carolina: 407,000), and Motley Fool ranks it the 49th-best state to start a business. Mr. Youngkin wants to reform state capital-formation and banking regulations, direct money to create site-ready business lots, and jumpstart worker training. His vow to protect Virginia’s right-to-work status is also finding an audience. Mr. McAuliffe won’t make that promise, while top Democrats in the state legislature say repeal is among their priorities.
Mr. Youngkin’s strongest issue—including with minority communities—is schools. Standards, critical race theory, excessive lockdowns, competitive admissions and school choice have become flashpoints for suburban parents. The Republican is first and foremost promising to keep schools open—“the learning loss is simply cataclysmic,” he says. But he also promises 20 new charter schools in a state that remains one of the nation’s school-choice laggards. Mr. McAuliffe gave him an enormous assist in their last debate, when he riled families even more by throwing in with teachers unions to declare: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Mr. McAuliffe keeps laboring to stoke Trump divides, but Mr. Youngkin has largely bridged them. Mr. McAuliffe accuses him of buying into Trump election-fraud theories. Mr. Youngkin acknowledges that “Joe Biden was legitimately elected our president,” but also says Virginia should cast a fresh eye on its election rules. He’s brushed off Mr. McAuliffe’s claims he’s a pro-life extremist, saying that while he didn’t support Texas’s controversial “heartbeat” law, he would sign a bill that limited abortions past around 20 weeks, with exceptions. He’s encouraged Virginians to get vaccinated, even as he’s rejected unpopular Biden-McAuliffe proposals for mandates.
It’s Mr. McAuliffe who is increasingly worried about ties to a president. The Democratic candidate has distanced himself from Mr. Biden, acknowledging the president is “unpopular” in Virginia and that Washington Democrats are causing him “headwinds.”
Democrats are banking that Mr. Trump will continue to divide the other party. But Virginia is a reminder there’s a stronger uniting principle, one that Mr. Youngkin sums up: “Losing stinks,” he says. “Folks understand that we are 0-13 in statewide wins since Bob McDonnell, ” the Republican who won the governorship in 2009. “In the runup to my primary, the party came together—the Forever Trumpers, the Never Trumpers, the tea party, the single-issue folks. They understand that if we don’t have a competitive GOP, Richmond belongs to Democrats, and Virginia is lost to these policies.
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Partisan , radicals and Democrats have been trying to sell the Jan 6 , "March on the Capitol" as an insurrection. It was anything but however, the mass media loves to sell drama because it helps pay their bloated salaries as they shill for their party.
Continuing to beat a horse named Trump eventually wears thin
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Polarizing the Jan. 6 Justice System
A judge’s political remarks at sentencing hurt the rule of law.
By The Editorial Board
Federal judges have significant discretion in handing down sentences, but in politically charged cases it’s important that they don’t give the impression that criminal defendants are being treated differently because of their politics.
Deliberately or not, that’s what federal Judge Tanya Chutkan did this week in a sentencing hearing for a defendant who pleaded guilty to “parading, demonstrating, or picketing” in the Capitol without authorization during the Jan. 6 riot.
The prosecutor recommended that Matthew Mazzocco serve three months of home confinement for the misdemeanor charge. Judge Chutkan imposed a 45-day jail sentence. Judges have the authority to depart upward from prosecutors’ recommendations and occasionally do—the charge Mr. Mazzocco pleaded guilty to can carry up to six months in jail.
Yet Judge Chutkan’s commentary during sentencing suggested that her decision was influenced by the politics of Jan. 6 lawbreakers. She gratuitously invoked the summer Black Lives Matter protests and riots, favorably comparing them to the events of Jan. 6: “People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man—some of those protests became violent,” the judge said at the sentencing hearing, according to ABC News.
She added that “to compare the actions of people protesting mostly peacefully for civil rights to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores the very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”
The defendant in this case, according to the FBI statement of facts, “is seen and heard on the video telling others not to take or destroy anything.” He copped to a misdemeanor picketing charge, not to attempting to overthrow the government. Judge Chutkan’s soliloquy implies that he deserves a more severe punishment than those who did the same thing in service of a political cause she favors.
The length of one defendant’s misdemeanor jail term isn’t of grave national importance. But the legitimacy of the justice system is. A revisionist campaign is underway on the right to dismiss or even support the Jan. 6 riot. If judges let politics influence their sentencing, that campaign will be bolstered and the rule of law will be harmed.
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Ross Rants:
Forecasting the next sustained move for the market is now total fog. Delta is clearly going away quickly, so reopening will happen as predicted. However, there is again a chance they will pass tax increases, although it is impossible to know. My White House source still says $2 Tr will be the deal, but I can't get an answer if that is really still $5.5 trillion with the ten year term reduced to 3 years to make it appear like $2Tr. There is no way at all the radicals will ever agree to $2 trillion real numbers, so we will see what Manchin does. He is giving mixed messages and Sinema says nothing. Earnings in Q4 should be much better, but where inflation goes from here is unclear. (see below re China shipping prices). Oil is still headed up, and that means energy is headed up, and that means more inflation. Fixing the supply chain and labor issues will take many months into 2022, so there is little chance for any real decline in inflation before sometime in 2022 if then.
There will not be a debt default. This is all ridiculous political theater. Wall St is being foolish paying any attention to this clown show.
It is unclear where Congress goes from here. Pelosi sees her legacy destroyed, and will fight ruthlessly to get it back. She lost face. The Dems will lie, manipulate numbers, and do whatever to make it appear they have conceded to the moderates at $2 Trillion, when the fact is they are just playing games claiming programs end in 3 or 5 years or less, so they can falsely claim the cost is a couple of trillion less. Moderates will try to decide is it better to reject the radicals now and be primaried, and have to deal with getting pounded by them now, or do they risk losing in November by voting with the squad now. Will Manchin and Sinema and the nine moderates revolt because they were lied to by Pelosi about voting by September 27. Unlikely. Will Manchin and Sinema hold tough, or will they let the radicals manipulate the numbers and make it appear the cost is closer to $1.5 when it is still actually closer to $5 Tr. Manchin is wavering even though polls show his constituents are massively against the bill. Lots of unknowns right now, but my opinion is there will be either no deal, or what is made to cosmetically appear as a smaller $2 Trillion deal which is what my White House source has said from day one would be the number, which makes it clear this whole thing has been a charade to now appear as a compromise.
Manchin has been clear, he is in no hurry, and he is against creating a worse welfare state situation. The radicals feel greatly empowered now, so they are unlikely to be in any mood to concede anything other than cosmetics, and very they are likely to push even harder for their far left spend and tax. They think what was in the original bill is far from sufficient, so they will not concede any of this. It will be very ugly, and is an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic party. If there is no infrastructure bill, the Dems lose big in November. In my view there is some chance a massive spend and tax bill will pass that looks like it is small but really is not, and almost no chance a true skinny bill passes because the radicals will not change their mind and vote for it after they feel they just won. Biden is irrelevant, but he made matters worse by siding with the radicals. By claiming the programs only last 3 years so they cost less will be the ultimate fraud, and not likely to get Manchin and Sinema to a yes. If any private company manipulated their numbers as the Dems are doing they would go to jail for investor fraud. Instead the MSM is OK with it when the squad does it. It is not the make believe number that is the real issue. It is what massive entitlement and social cultural changes the legislation would mean. They just talk numbers to cover up and deflect the media from the real issues.
If the bill does die, it should be a positive for stocks, at least in the short term, as there will be no cap gains or corporate tax increases. There will also not be the massive spend that would materially increase inflation. Longer term inflation and huge budget deficits remain no matter what Congress does, and that will eventually take down the market as rates rise, and as margins get squeezed by inflation. There is a school of opinion that failure to pass the bills will be bad for stocks because the lack of all that spend will keep GDP growth much more limited. I think that is stupid thinking because it ignores the inflation and tax impacts of the bills. However the market does stupid things regularly, so it is possible no bill could send the market down.
We could have the worst of all worlds which would be, the bill passes, taxes go up, inflation roars, and a real left winger becomes Fed chair. If all that happens, the market will go down, or it should since all of those things will be very bad for the economy and the nation. Biden is really a far left believer. October is going to be very volatile in the market so be cautious.
Due to the power shortages in China, factories have been ordered to reduce production. The unforeseen consequence is that there is less to ship. Result, container freight rates are suddenly dropping fast in the spot market as shippers are suddenly sitting with containers with no use for them. So far the declines are not huge, but prices are dropping quickly. This will mean a much lower growth for China in Q4, but much better chance they will be able to reduce the backup in LA and Long Beach, and shipping costs will drop for retailers. How much, how fast is very unclear right now, but it is an sudden unexpected change. In Vietnam 70% of factories have been shut down due to Covid. They are starting back to work, but ramping back up to full production will take a couple of months. There will be empty shelves for some items for Christmas. Shop now. This factory reduction also means emerging market countries that supply commodities will now have slower growth than forecast. It also means the supply shortages could get worse quickly and inflation will likely go higher. None of this does anything to fix the shortage of drivers and warehouse workers here.
Oil is now around $80, and maybe going higher, all due to the US cutting back production. If we did not have the anti-fossil fuel clamp down, the US and Canada would be producing all out and prices would be far lower, and the US and we would be back to energy independence. The climate change advocates never consider the consequences of their actions on economic costs.
The big city urban office markets continue to suffer while secondary cities are doing well. Austin, Boise, Daytona, Miami, Provo are a few with occupancy and rent growth. Industrial is doing very well, and supply cannot meet demand. Industrial vacancy is 4.6% vs 12.4% for office. In Q2 industrial added 113 mill. Sq ft, and 518 million in the 12 months ended June 30.
The big mortgage refi movement is over. Rates are now rising and new applications are already dropping. The combo of higher rates and very high home prices is likely now to mean a real slowdown in house sales over the next few months if rates continue to rise as expected. This will not materially impact many retirement areas of FL where many deals are done for all cash. House prices will now start to top out.
The attacks on Sinema and Manchin are being financed by Soros. He is also financing other far left efforts to defund the police, and to elect far left candidates. He is not even an American. This behavior is right out of the university culture of shut down anyone who does not adhere to the far left ideology, and any form of shutting it down is allowed. Biden has now said this is OK. The radicals who threatened to kill Rand Paul were not charged, but parents are threatened to be if they loudly object to CRT and gender propaganda.
The resignation of two Fed governors is a bad thing since both were hawks and were for limiting Fed stimulus. Powell still has not been reappointed, and that is very worrisome. It means Biden is thinking of replacing him with a real left wing woman. That will be a very bad thing for the market and for banks. It is possible the Fed will not taper in November as expected depending on what happens in Congress, and if Powell is not reappointed soon. The Fed is being politicized with pressure for racial and climate mandates, and demands for far more bank regulation. I never realized Yellen is really a political animal, and is very supportive of the liberal views on bank regulation, IRS collecting detailed data on individuals having $600 in a bank account, and the very radical appointment to Comptroller. Mnuchin ignored Trump, and did what he believed was right, and Trump left him alone because Mnuchin made him look good.
Inflation=too much money chasing too few products, and eventually workers demand higher wages to keep up, and that just feeds stagflation as productivity does not offset the increased wages. The other major issue is there is a serious shortage of energy in China and the EU. China has forced factories to cut production to save energy. More shortages, more inflation. More coal fired power plants. The EU has similar problems. In the EU they are putting in price controls on energy. Price controls inevitably cause a reduction in investment that would have created more supply. In the end it leads to even worse outcomes than high prices which would eventually mitigate as the market demand will shrink due to high prices, and investment in new supply will occur, and finally they meet and prices drop. It just takes time and politicians do not like to suffer the pain. There is no way inflation is transitory now. The Fed and other central banks got it wrong, and are already too late to take actions to taper and mitigate demand. Inflation will be a major issue in 2022.
Larry Fink of Black Rock is heavily pushing investing in China. We do not need American money going into China. The liberals never learn. Fink has become a very left wrecking ball even though his wealth is derived from the center of capitalism, of which he is a main player. Hypocrisy has no limits.
The holidays are coming soon, and Delta is receding rapidly meaning more spending will happen. However, there will be shortages and high prices and that will not be good for the Dems in 2022. By Fauci saying maybe there will be very limited Christmas celebration just shows how disconnected from reality he really is. US cases were down another 17% last week after down 28% the week before. Over 80% of total population has at least one shot or natural immunity. 6.8% of the total population are under 5 and cannot get a shot so essentially 87% or more have had a shot or natural immunity, or are babies not so susceptible. 800,000 more shots are being given per day, but that includes boosters. The mandates are forcing a lot more to get shots. I am sticking with my late October forecast that Delta will be mostly gone away, and life will be much more back to normal by month end. With the new Merck pill, the disease will no longer be a reason for shut downs or restrictions. Thanksgiving should be a normal holiday.
The DOJ is now going to try to stop parents from raising objections at school board meetings through threats of legal action. While nobody should threaten officials with violence, expressing outrage at CRT and other curricula is perfectly fine. Dealing with local threats is a local police issue, not DOJ. It seems OK to harass Sinema, and conservative professors, but not for parents to object to what is being taught in school. 1984 has come alive. Merrick Garland has been a disappointment as he is going along with a lot of this type of ideological suppression, and has reinstituted clamp downs on cops similar to what Obama and Holder did. This is the federal government again using intimidation to try to shut down dissent.
Kerry claims Biden was "not aware" of the Australia nuke sub deal, so he says let's move on. Here was a major geopolitical event that fractured US relations with the EU and Biden "was not aware of it"!!! On top of Afghanistan where he falsely claims the could not recall that the generals told him not to pull out, it raises the question is he unaware of everything, or are they just lying again, which seems to be what they continually do.
In IL, in two recent cases, no charges were filed where gangbangers murdered someone with prosecutors claiming it was "mutual combat" which supposedly made it OK to commit murder. And they wonder why violent crime is out of control. I do not understand how prosecutors can come to work each day and do this, nor why cops even bother to arrest anyone if this is the outcome
Playboy this month has a flaming gay male on the cover. What has the country sunk to. This may be the ultimate insanity of the woke left.
And:
Furthermore, Biden's one size fits all Covid doctrine is crippling an economy that is positioned to grow and recover. The private sector is adding jobs while government and corporate type employment is stymied.
Having never worked in the private sector it is understandable Biden does not know s--- from Shinola and his Obama holdover handlers are economic lunatics
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When CRT does not work try "equity."
Critical Race Theory’s new disguise
A rebranded campaign for 'equity' is just as divisive
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Does “critical race theory” (CRT) really exist? Not according to Ralph Northam, the Governor of Virginia. CRT, he recently told The New York Times, “is a dog whistle that the Republicans are using to frighten people. What I’m interested in is equity.”
But rather than convince anyone about the non-existence of CRT, his comments merely confirmed something else: namely, CRT’s remarkable ability to shape-shift into whatever form its advocates choose. For Northam, CRT might not exist — but that’s only because it has undergone a rebranding.
Indeed, while many on the Right have obsessed over the rise of CRT in the past year, a different abbreviation has quickly become entrenched in America’s schools and colleges: “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI).
Part of its purpose appears to be to sow confusion among opponents of CRT. It has certainly riled the conservative Heritage Foundation. In its recent guide on “How to identify Critical Race Theory”, it warns of a “new tactic” deployed by the movement’s defenders: they “now deny that the curricula and training programs in question form part of CRT, insisting that the ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)’ programs of trainers such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo are distinct from the academic work of professors such as Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, and other CRT architects”.
Certainly, regardless of which trendy three-letter term you prefer to describe the latest iteration of America’s obsession with race, the goal in each case is the same: to shift away from meritocracy in favour of an equality of outcome system.
But implementing a grievance model into our youth education curriculum will not fix the problems it purports to solve. There is, after all, a dearth of evidence suggesting that DEI programmes advance diversity, equity or inclusion. In fact, if DEI programmes in schools have similar results as DEI corporate training, they might be not only ineffective, but potentially harmful.
This shift is due to the clear failure of affirmative action policies. First introduced more than 50 years ago, they were intended to create equal opportunities for a black community said to be held back by the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Suffice it to say that they failed. Today, only 26% of black American’s have a Bachelor’s degree, 10% lower than the national average. More than half of black households earn less than $50,000 annually, and the labour force participation rate for black men is 3.3% lower than for white men; it has actually shrunk by 11.6% since the early 1970’s. Only four CEOs from Fortune 500 companies are black.
Instead of providing opportunities for black students, affirmative action threw many students into the deep-end of schools where they lacked the educational foundation to succeed. Frequently, as Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr have observed, they were mismatched: “Large racial preferences backfire[d] against many, and perhaps, most recipients, to the point that they learn less… usually get much lower grades, rank toward the bottom of the class, and far more often drop out.”
But rather than recognise the failure of this approach, its proponents have chosen to double down. Without analysing why affirmative action failed to produce equal opportunity for black students, and without trying to identify solutions that would be more impactful, those interested in CRT and DEI only wish to manipulate the system further.
Instead of focusing on ways to lift black students up as individuals with agency, ability and choice, they believe the system must reorient itself to produce the desired outcome, starting with kindergarten. It is dependent on the magnification of barriers and tension between racial groups — something which I suspect is psychologically damaging to both white and black students.
For white students, the blame of slavery and Jim Crow laws are laid at their feet. Bari Weiss recently revealed a number of shocking cases of how this manifests itself in schools, but one in particular caught my eye: “A Fieldston student says that students are often told ‘if you are white and male, you are second in line to speak.’ This is considered a normal and necessary redistribution of power.” But it is far from “normal” or “necessary”. Putting the atrocious sins of America’s past on the shoulders of children and teenagers is a form of child abuse.
For black children, the situation is no better. Students are being taught that it is the system, not their own effort and abilities, that will determine their future in life. This discourages hard work, motivation, ambition and aspiration. It also breeds distrust and hostility towards white teachers, further truncating their abilities to learn and progress in school. As Ian Rowe points out, “the narrative that white people ‘hold the power’ conveys a wrongheaded notion of white superiority and creates an illusion of black dependency on white largesse”.
And in the schools themselves, this often leads to physical segregation. Paul Rossi, a former teacher at Grace Church High School in New York, recently described how “racially segregated sessions” were “commonplace” at his school. Down in Atlanta, meanwhile, last month a concerned mother filed a lawsuit alleging that black students at Mary Lin Elementary School were being assigned to only two of the six second-grade classes.
But “you can’t treat one group of students based on race differently than other groups”, as her attorney eloquently put it. After all, any ideology that separates people due to their immutable characteristics will not lift up minority students, but drag society down into neo-segregation. Indeed, it’s hardly surprising that students today seem more anxious, scared and lacking in confidence than any previous generation for which we have data.
Nevertheless, the grievance model methods are spreading through American schools like wildfire. Take Ralph Northam’s state of Virginia, which is implementing the “Road Map to Equity”, which suggests that making equity is more important to education than academics. Perhaps that’s why Virginia legislators passed a bill this year that requires all educators to “complete instruction or training in cultural competency and with an endorsement in history and social sciences to complete instruction in African American history”.
Rather than push race to the foreground of education, anti-racists would do better to cultivate a learning environment for students where the focus is on being kind and respectful. Real diversity and inclusion are more likely to flourish when students are taught to help their fellow classmates — rather than view them through a crudely racialised prism.
Last week, I spoke to Katharine Birbalsingh, the Headmistress of the remarkable Michaela Community School, which serves families from disadvantaged backgrounds and achieves incredible results. When I asked Katharine what their secret was, she told me: “We’re very traditional. We believe in things like belonging. We believe in personal responsibility in a sense of duty to your family, to your community.”
And that is what it comes down to. All children and students want to belong. But demonising white students and re-segregating black students does the very opposite: it divides far more than it unites.
A focus on personal responsibility also goes a long way, both for students and for those looking to help. When watching some of the Virginia Department of Education webinars on equity earlier this week, I heard no mention of empowering or helping individual black children. The conversations revolved around “personal reflection” and “doing the work”, with little explanation of what this means in real life. There was no mention of tutoring, mentoring or guiding struggling students.
If we are going to have an honest conversation about elevating black students, we must throw out buzzwords such as “equity” and start talking about practical solutions. There is, after all, a genuine appetite for this: a recent Pew report found that 76% of Americans said that “racial and ethnic diversity is good for the country”.
And that will only be achieved by encouraging community service and involvement, and requiring teachers to focus on respect and academic rigour within their classrooms. What we must not do, however, is outsource education to a three-letter abbreviation, be it CRT or DEI. They are shallow, short-sighted and performative — and, most importantly, will do nothing to improve the futures of our children
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The American Ruling Class Reaches Its Inflection Point
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Hey Merrick! Parents are Not 'Terrorists'
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