This will be a blog worth following for a while. Michael Yon know insurgency.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus two:
As we’ve documented extensively here at RedState, liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is prone to pushing far-out conspiracy theories about Republicans, theories that were no doubt pulled from the murky pits of the leftist fever swamps he visits on those rare occasions he feels the need to venture out of the NYC bubble in which he currently resides.It is a case supporting The Atlantic Magazine assertion that we should abolish the Nobel Prize. In fairness, Dr Krugman has his in Econ, which puts that version in question also.For example, he has, without evidence, floated an absurd theory about how President Trump may have “gotten to the BLS” on reporting good job numbers during the pandemic. He’s also spun some fact-free tales about a supposed correlation between the Trump administration’s touting of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the Wuhan virus and past “right-wing medical quackery.”
Consumed with Trump Derangment Syndrome, his favorite conspiracy theory of all seems to be the one where he envisions Trump “stealing” the election. He’s written numerous Twitter threads detailing how he thinks things will play out, and a few columns about it, too.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Source is The New York Times, 28 September 2020.
It is all behind a paywall. How many paywalls can a middle class person afford? I have to prioritize, Lowell, Boston, WSJ. The Old Gray Lady is not one of them. That said, one of my Brothers sends me select article, to needle me.
How did their Lordships at The Times obtain this data? Are public officials vulnerable to having their private data released by Civil Servants who lack integrity? Is this the flip side of the actions of Ms Lois Lerner?
The good news out of this is that apparently there is no evidence of President Trump being linked to Russians in nefarious ways.
I guess there are no concerns about how former Vice President Biden made his millions on the salary of an elected official. Speaking fees?
Regards — Cliff
From The Boston Globe, by Reporter Akilah Johnson, 11 December 2017.
Here are the two key paragraphs:
The cities were selected because their diversity allowed researchers to disaggregate data among subgroups within broader racial categories. In Boston, the report said researchers focused on “multigenerational African Americans (referred here as US blacks), Caribbean blacks (including Haitians), Cape Verdeans (both black and white), Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.” A total of 403 people were surveyed.These numbers suggest strongly that some groups have failed ot achieve the American Dream. The why needs to be explored, but the existence of "Red Lining" for decades, is surely one of the factors. Real estate is how many Americans build up their family wealth. That option was closed to many, including many Blacks. That needs to be fixed. Reversed would be a good word. While the idea of "Reparations" (for Slavery) does nothing for me, the idea of correcting bad economic conditions has an appeal. We need to be helping individuals who have been trapped in poverty due to past discriminatory practices. Not to make them rich, but to put them on the launching pad to success.The household median net worth was $247,500 for whites; $8 for US blacks (the lowest of all five cities); $12,000 for Caribbean blacks; $3,020 for Puerto Ricans; and $0 for Dominicans (that’s not a typo either.) The sample size for Cape Verdeans was too small to calculate net worth, the report said.
First we need the statistics, so we understand the dimensions of the problem. Then we need Federal Assistance to help those who had been squeezed out to get in, a sort of new GI Bill.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus two:
A letter released Friday by Black Pentecostal and charismatic Christian leaders has decried criticisms of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s charismatic Catholicism, ahead of her possible appointment to the Supreme Court.Do the Democrats not understand the United States, or do they just see it through the eyes of Black Lives Matter and the Fascist ANTIFA?“Today we stand with, and speak in defense of, Judge Amy Coney Barrett,” the Sept. 25 letter said.
“As black Christians we will not stand by in silence as our sister in the faith is persecuted for the ‘political crime’ of her beliefs,” said the letter, which was signed by numerous clergy members, scholars, and religious leaders.
On the othger hand, this might just be the genius of Donald J Trump.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Fox News, by Reporter Brooke Singman, 25 September 2020.
Here is the lede plus three:
An FBI official who served on Robert Mueller’s team said he believed the special counsel’s prosecution of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was part of an attitude to “get Trump,” and that he did not wish to pursue a Trump-Russia collusion investigation as it was “not there" and considered it to be a "dead end."In another thread someone wrote:FBI agent William J. Barnett made the comments during an interview on Sept. 17 at the Justice Department, before Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen, who was tapped by Attorney General Bill Barr to review the case against Flynn. Jensen has joined U.S. Attorney John Durham’s team in his review of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. Those comments have surfaced in new government documents.
Fox News reviewed Barnett’s FBI 302, which was filed by the U.S. government early Friday as part of the Flynn case.
Barnett, during his interview, detailed his work at the FBI, and his assignment to the bureau’s original cases against Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Barnett said the Flynn investigation was assigned the code name “Crossfire Razor,” which was part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation — the bureau’s code name for the original Trump-Russia probe.
Oh, quit going on about acceptance of the 2016 result. Every has yielded to the result; the Dems just don’t like it. What do you care? He’s been doing everything a president is constitutionally able to do and more.Here is my response:
I think it is the time lapse problem here. If everyone had agreed after the Inauguration it would have been OK with me. But, things continued after the Inauguration. DOJ Career people seemed to just carry on. Jim Comey was unable to walk away. I wonder about the role of Sally Yates, or DNC Apparatchiks. There were FBI guys who took out extra liability insurance.
Lawyer and Author Sidney Powell just got a “302” that indicates that even after the election they kept after the “Trump Team” in a less than professional way. FBI Agent William Barnett talked of “Lack of integrity on the part of the Bob Mueller Team.” Where is Inspector Lewis Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr) when you need him?
So, yes, I would like it to all go away. I especially don’t want to see it reach into the Oval Office. That would blight the process for a long time. But, the story keeps dripping out, drop by drop. And, because the Judiciary wouldn’t let LTG Michael Flynn walk away they just keep it going.
In early this year we had an Impeachment on flimsy grounds, so Ms Pelosi hadn’t yet given up in the first part of this year. Then Judge Emett Sullivan, a hero to me for his handling of the Ted Stevens case, stopped DOJ from dropping chargers against LTG Flynn. I was very disappointed.
Now we are in the political silly season again and we are back to Trump being illegitimate. Sure, he is President and gets to sign legislation and appoint Ambassadors, but the Dems have become cranky again. Everything is off the table. (Or is it Nothing is off the table?) Please tell me Rep Gerry Nadler is not running again.
But, in closing, one wonders, in the back of the mind, if Judge Emmet Sullivan has keep the Michael Flynn thing going because he wants to smoke out these sub-rosa activities that tainted the “peaceful transfer of power”. Maybe he is a hero this time also.
Hat tip to News Reader Elizabeth MacDowell.
Regards — Cliff
From The Old Gray Lady, by Columnist Thomas B. Edsall, 23 Sepotember 2020.
Here is the lede plus five:
There are at least five reasons Joe Biden’s consistent lead over Donald Trump does not guarantee him a lock on the White House.Since we are all free to identify as we please, I identify with the "déclassé base". The Dems have been putting us down since before the "Bitter Clingers" comment.First, there are indications that Trump’s base of support — whites without college degrees — is more energized and committed to voting this year than key Democratic constituencies. And there is also evidence that polling does not reflect this.
Second, Latinos, who are key to the outcome in several crucial states — Arizona and Florida, for example — have shown less support for Biden than for past Democratic nominees. Many Hispanic voters seem resistant to any campaign that defines them broadly as “people of color.”
Third, absentee voting is expected to be higher among Democrats than Republicans, subjecting their ballots to a greater risk of rejection, a fate more common to mailed-in votes than to in-person voting.
Fourth, the generic Democratic-Republican vote (“Would you be more willing to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate for Congress?”) through early July favored Democrats by more than 10 points, but has since narrowed to 6 points.
Fifth, the debates will test Biden’s ability to withstand three 90-minute battles against an opponent known for brutal personal attacks.
If Michael Moore is worried the puppet masters apparatchiks at DNC Hq should be worried.
As for Blacks and Latinos, if you and your mates are doing OK now, or recently, then Donald Trump's "What do you have to lose?" makes some sense. And, I suspect, Blacks and Hispanics are not a single package, but rather two cultural groups, competing for attention and power. Are they additive, or are they competitors for a somewhat restricted set of rewards from Congress?
There is the fact that DJT wields the Saul Alinsky "Rules" better than the Democrats. Look at the SCOTUS vacancy. The President had the perfect reaction to RBG's passing. Then, no nominee named until after internment. And potential nominees who will put Senator Harris in an awkward corner, during Committee Hearings.
If COVID-19 is the key, then New York and New Jersey and Connecticut will be in the Trump Camp. Those states, allowed to do it their way, have done it poorly.
Then, there is the media. They discredit themselves daily. I understand The Old Gray Lady is now backing away from their claims re the 1619 Project.
The Columnist seemed to downplay education as an issue, but I think Winnie the Flu has made it an important issue, especially as kids go back to school, or not.
And, finally, there is "Finally, there are many Americans who do not believe that Donald Trump, or the modern Republican Party, will allow a fair election.". With Democratic Party states allowing "Mail In" ballots, and extra days to count and ballot harvesting, you think Republicans are sanguine? No, we are not. After one election a poll worker told us my Absentee Ballot was allowed, my Wife's not. Mailed the same day, at the same Post Office. In our Commonwealth the SecState distinguishes between Absentee and Mail In. You need a Philadelphia Lawyer to get an Absentee ballot. Mail In? No sweat. I will skip over write in campaigns.
Aside from that, no strong opinions.
Regards — Cliff
Here is a quote from the article, which they lifted from Rolling Stone. the lede plus one:
Reporter: Win, lose or draw in this election. Will you commit, here today, for a peaceful transferal of power after the election? There’s been rioting in many cities across this country. Would you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?Who was that reporter? Not readily available information. I even checked the White House "Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing" for yesterday listed only "Q".Trump: Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster and —
Reporter: But people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power?
The wording is not the same as some of the headlines, for example, the headline at Rolling Stone. I think the President answered the question properly. However, he didn't anticipate the question being twisted and that is on him.
On the other hand, the Reporter was acting more like an gent provocateur. Shame on him.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus one:
Media outlets far and wide made much of the fact that the Amish held a parade, complete with horses and buggies, to show their support for President Trump in a small Ohio town over the weekend.If President Trump wins it will be at the retail level, block by block.The parade did happen, but most of the reports on the event were, shall we say, overblown. That said, the idea that the Amish, who traditionally eschew voting for national political candidates, could turn out for Trump on Election Day is worth exploring.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
from The Foundation for Economic Education, by Mr Jon Miltimore, 21 September 2020.
Here is the key paragraph:
News agencies and NIFC were simply ignoring all data prior to 1960. When this data is included, one sees 2017’s record setting fires burned about one fifth of the acreage of fires in 1930 and 1931. These were peak years, but they were not exactly anomalies, Lomborg pointed out. The entire data set, a quarter century of figures that comes from the official record of the United States, shows the yearly average between 1926 and 1952 was several times higher than the peaks of today.the numbers are charted in the article.
So, if folks aren't honest about forest fires, what else are they not being honest about?
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus two:
In response to the Wuhan coronavirus, New Mexico has limited the capacity at which schools are allowed to operate. Public schools are permitted to operate at 50 percent of capacity. Private schools are allowed to operate only at 25 percent.I wonder what is the local New Mexico politics involved here. Is this the result of Public School Teachers Unions trying to cut back on the competition? Otherwise it doesn't make much sense.Given this severe limitation on its ability to operate, one academy decided not to open, but instead to rely on instruction online. The father of a student at that school filed a lawsuit alleging that New Mexico violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by using one rule for public schools and another for private ones.
Today, the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the case. It argues that under Supreme Court law, parents’ educational choices for their children are a fundamental constitutional right, and that New Mexico has no grounds for abridging that right by adopting stricter rules for private schools than for public schools.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From The Federalist, by Mrs Joy Pullmann, 5 November 2018.
Here is the lede plus three:
It’s been about nine years since the Obama administration lured states into adopting Common Core sight unseen, with promises it would improve student achievement. Like President Obama’s other big promises — “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” — this one’s been proven a scam.I am in agreement with the Author Neither Common Core, nor Leave No Chiled Behind, has given our public education an upward thrust.“If you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and assessments; if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the classroom; if you turn around failing schools — your state can win a Race to the Top grant that will not only help students outcompete workers around the world, but let them fulfill their God-given potential,” President Obama said in July 2009.
He went on to state his faith that Common Core — at that point unwritten — would “not only make America’s entire education system the envy of the world, but we will launch a Race to the Top that will prepare every child, everywhere in America, for the challenges of the 21st century.” Race to the Top was a $4 billion money pot inside the 2009 stimulus that helped bribe states into Common Core.
So here we are, nine years later. Common Core has been officially rolled out into U.S. public and even many private schools for at least three to five years now. Are American children increasingly prepared for the “the challenges of the 21st century”? We’re actually seeing the opposite. They’re increasingly less prepared. And there’s mounting evidence that Common Core deserves some of the blame.
For thoe who think this is strictly on the schools, I don't agree. An important factors is parents and their impact on their children. Parents are an important factor in their children's perserverencer in school, and their children's success. Improvementd in education will require more than fixing eduction. It will require fixing our social services system.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus two:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.Let us have some time of mourning and reflection before we fall into fighting over this now vacant seat.The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington surrounded by family. She was 87.
"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice."
May she rest in peace, and condolences to her family.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus one:
Are they trying to get Minnesota to flip to Trump?Then the Blog goes on to mention setting up a George Floyd autonomous zone in Minneapolis and actions in Portland.Because with news like this, one wonders:
It does cause one to wonder what is going through the minds of the Democratic Party Pooh Bahs. Does the Biden-Harris Camp have an opinion?
Hat tip to the .
Regards — Cliff
The Abstract:
On September 17, 2020, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report entitled Subminimum Wages: Impact on the Civil Rights of People with Disabilities. This Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal by Commissioner Gail L. Heriot was a part of that report.As this is about a legal issue, I will just say Res ipsa loquitur.The Commission concluded that Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act somehow violates the rights of individuals with Down Syndrome or similar intellectual or developmental disabilities, because it allows them to take certain specially regulated jobs at less than minimum wage.
Commissioner Heriot dissented from the Commission’s conclusion. According to her dissent, Section 14(c) provides such individuals with jobs that they would not otherwise have; eliminating 14(c) programs will mean fewer jobs. The parents of these individuals understand this. That’s why the Commission was deluged by them with comments supporting 14(c) programs. The Commission largely ignored those comments.
Keywords: Minimum Wage, Subminimum Wage, Down syndrome, Fair Labor Standards Act, Commission On Civil Rights, Section 14(c).
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus three:
When President Trump reportedly belittled American war dead as “losers” and “suckers,” they said nothing. When he alleged that the Pentagon seeks perpetual war to benefit US defense contractors, they did not confront him.Yes, we recently saw a list of 235 General and Flag Officers, all retired, publically advocating for reelection of President Trump. I recognized two as classmates from the Air Force Academy and one a classmade from Army War College. I also say a couple of previous commanders.Rarely in American history has the president been more critical of his military leadership, yet the nation’s active-duty commanders have refused to challenge him publicly, even as many Americans clamor for them to do so. Instead, they have remained silent, adhering to an unwritten code to keep their policy and political opinions to themselves.
“Speaking out is a personal decision, and I prefer to keep my damn mouth shut. That came from the guys I grew up under,” said Peter Aylward, a retired Army major general and Melrose native who served 35 years in the military.
“When you take the uniform off, you don’t want to put the folks coming up behind you in jeopardy at all, and make the civilian leadership feel those officers are being politicized,” Aylward said. “I wouldn’t comment publicly on what’s going on right now.”
The Globle Writer doesn't have the historic perspective, where we find it best if Generals (and Admirals) play the role of good public servant, remaining publically silent, and if they reach their limit, resign. It does not help the Republic to do well for senior military officers to be offering up their own opinions on issues of national interest.
I wish the 235 had all held their counsel, but this is America and we are all citizens.
Regards — Cliff
From The New York Times, by Reporter Jonah Engel Bromwich, 14 August 2020.
Here is the lede plus four:
I made a promise to myself. Having had the privilege of appearing on “The Daily,” and having used that privilege to discuss “cancel culture” over the course of not one, but two episodes, I would not write about the phrase ever again.I take the Writer's point. For someone to be fired because of a tweet storm seems a little unfair. And the actions suggest a "Zero Defects" approach to life. Sadly, we are dealing with humans and there are always defects, mistakes. Defects can be reducted by having people pay more attention to what they are doing. We should work on that. But, we need a little humanity and humility.Then I got an email from a colleague who kindly asked me if I would write this newsletter.
If you listened to the episodes, you know that I started thinking about the phrase “cancel culture” in 2018. That year, the word “canceled,” which had originally circulated as a joke on Black Twitter, began to be used more widely to describe a dynamic frequently playing out on social media. A person would say or do something that was offensive to others, and those people would call out the offender.
Lisa Nakamura, a professor I talked to then, called it a “cultural boycott” — an agreement not to amplify, signal-boost or give money to the person who’s been canceled. In some cases, as the phenomenon developed, “cancellation” could turn punitive, even causing some offenders to be fired from their jobs.
People tend to see cancellation as either wholly good — there are new consequences for saying or doing racist, bigoted or otherwise untenable things — or wholly bad, in that people can lose their reputations and in some cases their jobs, all because a mob has taken undue offense to a clumsy or out-of-context remark. Personally, I think it’s best viewed not as either positive or negative, but as something else: a new development in the way that power works — a development brought about by social media.
Pointing out mistakes, errors, slips, is fine. However, it should not automatically trip the guillotine.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Judicial Watch, 1 September 2020. A Press Release.
Here is the lede plus one:
Judicial Watch announced today that it received 372 pages of records from the U.S. Department of State that confirm prior Judicial Watch reporting that the Ukraine Embassy under then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch monitored, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020”, and George Soros.This kind of thing can't help but cause some of us to be cynical about the operation of Government. If we can't count on them to follow the rules, why should we trust them to make the rule?The documents list the targeted persons as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul, Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma.
The deeper issue is whether we can trust our legislators when they seem to ignore these violations of our civil rights.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Five Thirty Eight Blog, by Analysts Elena Mejia and Geoffrey Skelley, 26 August 2020.
Here is the lede:
From one presidential election to the next, the battleground states that make — or break — the election remain largely the same. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t gradual (and sometimes, not so gradual) shifts underway. We zoomed in on how 16 battleground states have voted relative to the country as a whole since 2000 — or how much more Republican or Democratic they are relative to the nation1 — and we found an electoral map undergoing a series of changes, some steady and others abrupt.Charts follow.
It is interesting to find that American do change their minds. That suggests that there are voters out there who are thinking, who are evaluating the political landscape.
That is good news.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus four:
JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania — Ken Miller walked into one of the four storefronts on the right flank of the Richland Shopping Center, asked if this was where he could change his voter registration, sat down with a purpose, and began to fill out the form.I know, or knew, Johnstown, and Cambria County. Yes, it was Democrat when I knew it. Four years ago about this time we drove through the area and the county to the south, and there were a lot of Trump signs and pickup trucks. And Reporter Salena Zito was reporting a vibe that the Mainsztream Media seemed to be missing.“It is time to go,” he said, flatly, as he checked his Pennsylvania driver’s license number to place on the form.
Miller did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016; he didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, either. He said he is a retired insurance manager and does not like what he sees coming from the party he has been a part of his adult life. “I just get tired of the game-playing that the Democrats are doing. Everything's just so disgusting today. Something has to change. Well, something's going to change,” he said.
“I'm afraid something's going to break out here, and I'm pretty sure it will," he said. He said he's concerned what happened to patrons having dinner at an outside cafe in Pittsburgh when protesters swarmed them will find its way here and other bucolic settings across the country. “I am tired of what I am seeing.”
Miller is not alone. For the first time that anyone could remember, Cambria County is no longer dominated by Democratic voter registrations. They lost that dominance quietly on Labor Day weekend when Pennsylvania Department of State registration numbers showed Republicans having 37,951 registrations and Democrats holding 37,826.
These are the deplorbles of Mrs Clinton's campaign of 2016. The sense is that they are not quite real Americans. I wonder what that means in the event of a Joe Biden? Does it mean that a Biden Administration will suppress these kinds of people, these American Citizens?.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Politico, by Kyle Cheney, 11 September 2020.
Here is the lede plus three:
Senate Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson is asking a Justice Department watchdog to probe recently revealed documents that suggest members of special counsel Robert Mueller's team wiped records from their official phones.It takes ten (10) bad passcode enries to wipe the phone. Folks who have these kinds of problems should not be on panels doing investigations for the United States Government. Surely you wouldn't wish for any of them to be your lawyer.Records released by the Justice Department this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request suggest top Mueller aides erased the information from at least 15 phones, citing forgotten passwords, physical damage and missing hardware.
"These reports are troubling and raise concerns about record retention and transparency," Johnson wrote in a letter to DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz. "Therefore, I respectfully request that your office open an investigation into this matter to determine what, why, and how information was wiped, whether any wrongdoing occurred, and who these devices belonged to."
Johnson is asking Horowitz to send answers by Sept. 18, as the senator winds down a related investigation of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation — the probe of the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Russians, which morphed into Mueller's probe in mid-2017. He's also asking whether Horowitz may be able to retrieve messages from the phones.
I don't wish to drag my Daughter, the Statistician, into this, but the likelihood this wasn't deliberate destruction of records is vanishingly small. Not as small as the possibility the Mainstream Media will go after the story, but small enough that no such equivalent event is likely in any other stretch of the universe. >.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus one:
Last month a judge ruled that Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the NY Times could go to trial. Because she is a public figure, Palin still has a tough road ahead of her. She has to prove that the Times wasn’t just sloppy but is guilty of actual malice or, at a minimum, “reckless disregard” for the truth. That won’t be easy but the judge in the case did agree it’s not impossible because the Times’ work, in particular that of now-former editor James Bennet on this piece was spectacularly awful.I nhope Ms Sarah Palin wins and wins the appeal, all the way to the Supreme Court.Today Columbia Journalism Review published the most detailed breakdown I’ve seen of how that terrible editorial got published in the first place. I’m going to skip over most of the preliminaries here and assume you’re already familiar with the backstory involving Sarah Palin’s Facebook map and the 2011 Tucson shooting by a deranged man named Jared Lee Loughner. All you really need to know is that, despite a lot of media outrage directed at Palin at the time, there has never been even a shred of evidence that Loughner had ever seen her Facebook map or that he cared one way or the other about Palin. His politics, so far as they are coherent at all, appear to have leaned to the left.
All of this seemed to be a long settled-issue until the Times needed to put out an editorial about the shooting of some Republicans by a deranged Bernie Sanders fan in 2017.
The idea for an editorial on the Arlington shooting came from [Elizabeth] Williamson, a Washington-based edit-page writer who had previously reported in the US and abroad for The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. A few hours after the bullets flew, according to her deposition, she sent an email to colleagues with the subject line, “Are we writing on the congressional shooting?” An editor responded, “Can’t see it yet, but keep looking. A nutcase who hates Republicans???”Already it’s clear that this is shaping up to be an editorial about political violence and it looks like someone on the left is responsible.For the next few hours, Williamson and other edit-page staff researched motives for the shooting. Mid-afternoon, [James] Bennet contributed to an email string: “Did we ever write anything connecting … the Giffords shooting to some kind of incitement?” A colleague offered up a 2011 column in which Frank Rich mentioned Palin’s map but noted that “we have no idea” if Loughner had seen it before the shooting, adding, “nor does it matter.”Hours before the editorial was published, Bennet is already casting about for a way to compare the shooting at the baseball diamond to the one in Tucson years earlier. Critically, he’s not sure if there’s a connection. A little before 5 pm Williamson submits a draft of the editorial. Here’s what it said about Palin and the map:Just as in 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a nine-year-old girl, Mr. Hodgkinson’s rage was nurtured in a vile political climate. Then, it was the pro-gun right being criticized: in the weeks before the shooting Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.
We need to stop this partisan character assassination by the press.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From PJ Media, by Opinionator Stephen Kruiser, 10 September 2020.
Here is the lede plus one:
As has been pointed out by many of us recently, the Democrats really aren’t behaving as if their presidential candidate had a substantial lead in the polls.I have to say, I think thzt Stephen Kruiser was a bit over the top with his headline. I don't think that Representative Adam Schiff is Clinically Deranged. Rather, he is a Democrat, under the thumb of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And they are both from Coastal California, along with Representative Maxine Waters.Yes, the polls have been tightening, but the Dems have been in a sort of flop-sweat panic mode since the Republican National Convention ended. There is, of course, the fact that every public appearance by der Bidengaffer since then has been hovering in the neighborhood of “unmitigated disaster.”
The Democrats do seem to be trying to get to their October surprises early this year. That reeks of desperation.
Speaking of reeking, California’s little impeachment pitbull Adam Schiff is back. Guess what, kids? He’s got another whistleblower!
That said, the idea of another set of dishonest impeachment hearings fills me with dread. More dishonesty doesn't help bring us together. It makes the media look like fools. This is a terrible ay to run the Government.
The whole thing is based on the idea that the Department of Homeland Security is suppressing the truth, from the Intelligence Community, about who is meddling in US Elections. Hint: Everyone. And how long has this been going on? Hint: For longer than you have been alive. If you aren't also worried about China and Iran and North Korea you aren't paying attention.
Yes, there is a Whistleblower involved. Whistleblowers are not necessarily bad people. In fact there is a role in our system of Government for Whistleblowers.
The biggest external interference in the Presidential Election of 2016 was the Steele Dossier. It was a fabrication of lies, fouisted off on the American Public, by folks like the Brookings Institution and the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Thanks to former British Intelligence Officer Christopher Steele.
At the article, linked above, you can find a link to the Fox News article. For those of you who prefer CNN as a source, there is this link.
The CNN piece says, among other things, that "White supremacy is 'most lethal threat' to the US, DHS draft assessment says". I am not convinced that the biggest threat facing us is domestic, "right wing" white supremacy. The piece, by Ms Geneva Sands, wanders over to accusing President Trump of race baiting. This seems to be a meme being pushed by CNN and the Media in general.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus three:
A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he’s been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades.The President is not wrong to be concerned about possible fraud with Mail In voting. Worse, just bureaucratic incompetence, overwhelmed by a system that is unfamiliar.Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020 elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.
But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.
“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a difference,” the tipster said. “It could be enough to flip states.”
This is not a good point in our history to try out a new system of voting.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
And. on 6 September 2020, New Yorker. Writer Jelani Cobb wrote Our Long, Forgotten History of Election-Related Violence. He worked in the "Trump never leaving office" meme.
From the Powerline article, here is the lede plus two:
One of the Democrats’ more lunatic themes is their insistence that if President Trump loses the election, he likely will refuse to leave office, in effect staging a coup. Most recently the claim was made by Bernie Sanders.
Here is the lede plus six:
Katherine Rooks remembers when she first learned that a punctuation mark could wield a lot of power.Who knew?The Denver-based writer had sent her high school-aged son a text message about logistics — coming home from school.
"I could tell from his response that he was agitated all of a sudden in our thread. And when he came home, he walked in the door and he came over and he said, 'What did you mean by this?'"
Rooks was confused. How could an innocuous text message send confusion?
"And so we looked at the text together and I said, 'Well, I meant, see you later, or something. I don't remember exactly what it said.' And he said, 'But you ended with a period! I thought you were really angry!'"
Rooks wasn't angry, and she explained to her son that, well, periods are how you end a sentence.
But in text messaging — at least for younger adults — periods do more than just end a sentence: they also can set a tone.
If the "full stop" punctuation can cause such anxiety, one wonders what an exclamation point might do. Or one of the colons.
I still don't know when to put punctuation inside or outside a quote mark, so this new wrinkle has me totally flumoxed.
But remember, it is NPR, who told us Looting was OK.
Regards — Cliff
From the Albany, New York, newspaper The Times Union, by Reporter Brendan J. Lyons, 2 September 2020.
Here is the lede plus four:
Antoinette T. Bacon, an associate deputy attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, has been named acting U.S. attorney for New York's Northern District, according to multiple sources briefed on the matter.And here is the DOJ Press Announcement. The Press Release, from Thursday, 3 September 2020, was titled "ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM P. BARR ANNOUNCES THE DESIGNATION OF ANTOINETTE T. BACON AS ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK".Bacon will become the first female U.S. attorney in the district, which encompasses 32 counties stretching from Kingston to the Canadian border and west to Syracuse.
She was at the federal courthouse in Albany on Wednesday afternoon as her predecessor in the position, Grant C. Jaquith, was sworn into his new post as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims. U.S. District Chief Judge Glenn T. Suddaby swore in Jaquith during the brief ceremony.
Jaquith, who led the Northern District office beginning in July 2017, will serve a 15-year term as one of the seven judges on the veterans' court. President Donald J. Trump nominated Jaquith, a former Army colonel, for the judgeship a year ago.
According to her professional biography, Bacon, who is from Cleveland, Ohio, is the Justice Department's national elder justice coordinator and previously served as the national white collar crime coordinator at the executive office for U.S. attorneys.
Here are the first three paragraphs of the Press Release:
Attorney General William P. Barr announced today that Antoinette T. Bacon has been designated as the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(3). Bacon will replace U.S. Attorney Grant C. Jaquith, who announced his resignation upon his appointment as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.The area Ms Antoinette Bacon worked previously was, as noted, elder abuse. Notwithstanding the fact that the Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is a blowhard on the issue of the elderly, it is an area that badly needs to be looked into in New York, particularly with regard to Winnie the Flu. I am not expecting revelations to come flowing out, but rather, the kind of slow, careful, investigations the Barr Department of Justice is known for.“I am pleased that the President has designated Toni Bacon as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York,” said Attorney General William P. Barr. “Her contributions to the initiatives she oversaw while working for the Office of the Deputy Attorney General are a testament to her relentless commitment to protect and serve all Americans. I know the Northern District will find Toni to be an exceptional prosecutor and dedicated leader.”
Good luck to the ordinary Citizens of New York.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus one:
Judicial Watch announced today that it received 372 pages of records from the U.S. Department of State that confirm prior Judicial Watch reporting that the Ukraine Embassy under then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch monitored, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020”, and George Soros.This is a blot on the record of the Department of State. We, as Citizens, should expect better from those who are representing us overseas. Now I have even more questions about what was going on in the Ukraine.The documents list the targeted persons as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul, Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma.
The emails show that Yovanovitch was aware of the social media monitoring program.
Additionally, a State Department contractor warned his colleagues that their monitoring of private citizens was potentially in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
“These new documents confirm Deep State officials at the Ukraine Embassy seemed to set up an enemies list to help illicitly monitor and report on the social media postings of President Trump’s family and lawyer, as well as journalists,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The State Department hid these smoking gun documents for months.”
Regards — Cliff