Wednesday, October 7, 2020

BREAKING: Joe Biden is the Subject of Federal Criminal Investigation Into His Role in Spygate and Activities in Ukraine

 

Article by Cristina Laila in The Gateway Pundit

BREAKING: Joe Biden is the Subject of Federal Criminal Investigation Into His Role in Spygate and Activities in Ukraine

Joe Biden is now the subject of an active federal criminal investigation into his role in the CI probe directed at Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Recall, Joe Biden was in a January 5, 2017 secret Oval Office meeting discussing General Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak with Obama, Yates, Comey, Rice and Brennan and 7 days later he sought to unmask Flynn.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden sought to unmask General Flynn on January 12, 2017 — the same day David Ignatius published his WaPo article about Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The criminal investigation into Biden also includes his actives in the Ukraine.

 “Ukrainian witnesses are cooperating,” says Paul Sperry.


 House investigators on Tuesday joined the Senate in asking the FBI to look into the Biden’s criminal history.

 

 President Trump on Wednesday accused Biden, Hillary and Obama of leading a “treasonous plot” and said Biden shouldn’t even be allowed to run for president.


Last week the Senate released a report on the Bidens and notably Hunter Biden’s actions while his dad was Obama’s Vice President.  FOX News reported:

“I look at Hunter Biden today, where he stole millions of dollars, stole millions,” Trump claimed. “His father should leave the campaign because his father was in on it.”

He added: “His father knew everything.”

The president was referring to an interim report released by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees on their months-long joint investigation into the younger Biden’s role on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, as well as his alleged “extensive and complex financial transactions.” According to the report, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, “received $3.5 million in a wire transfer” from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of the Russian capital.

Will the ‘active investigation’ be used to hide documents?

 

 

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-joe-biden-subject-federal-criminal-investigation-role-spygate-activities-ukraine/  



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Christopher Wray Holds Press Conference to Project Confidence in Corrupt FBI No One Trusts

 

Article by Megan Fox in PJMedia

Christopher Wray Holds Press Conference to Project Confidence in Corrupt FBI No One Trusts

The FBI held a press conference on Wednesday to announce the indictment of the ISIS hostage-taking cell called “The Beatles” (for their British accents) who brutally murdered several American hostages. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey have been indicted for the murders of Americans overseas.

“Combatting terrorism remains the United States’ top priority,” said Director Christopher Wray. Then he went on and on lauding the FBI for its work in nabbing the terrorists. Well, that’s nice and we’re all happy for the victims’ families, but there’s an elephant in the room. Wray needs to explain why he is refusing to hand over unredacted documents related to Crossfire Hurricane. The American people need to see who messed with our election in 2016 (and it wasn’t the Russians).

It’s awfully convenient that this press conference is timed precisely at the moment the FBI is under the most pressure to explain what role they had in the operation to take down President Trump and his allies through illegal spying, using fabricated FISA warrants, in what looks like a coordinated coup attempt, possibly led by Hillary Clinton.

Christopher Wray and FBI Under Fire for Excessive Redactions and Slow-Walking Release of Declassified Docs

While we are all glad terrorists are going to pay for killing Americans, this press conference wasn’t necessary to get that information to the public when a press release would have done the same faster. This is about putting the FBI in front of America and pretending like they aren’t totally corrupt and dangerous to our republic.

I don’t appreciate the CYA strategy that Wray is using here, do you? Where are the documents, Wray? Why are they all blacked out? Why are you actively disobeying the president’s order and keeping this information from the people? While Wray blathers about this wonderful “American justice” that the terrorists will face, we are all still waiting for justice to fall on the FBI actors who conspired to tank a presidential nominee through election interference, illegal spying, using foreign spies to set up a political trap, and helping the Democrat candidate to spread lies about her opponent. We want those people to face justice. Lisa Page, Peter Strozk, James Comey, and now Wray, among others, are the ones who should face the American justice system.

Not one member of the media, including Fox News, asked Director Wray about his role in the hideously over-redacted documents. It figures.

If no one goes down for Crossfire Hurricane, there is no justice. No amount of terror arrests are going to make us feel any better about it.

You can see the press conference here: 

 


 https://pjmedia.com/columns/megan-fox/2020/10/07/christopher-wray-holds-press-conference-to-project-confidence-in-corrupt-fbi-no-one-trusts-n1016590




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Trump, Atlas: Time to Face Down Coronavirus Fear

It’s increasingly likely the election will be a referendum on Coronavirus and its after-effects, which means Trump’s new tack is a risky, but necessary, one.


The uproar over the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis made one thing abundantly and terrifyingly clear: Coronavirus hysteria is here to stay—and there are signs it might be getting worse seven months after we first confronted the unknown disease.

Rather than accept that nearly all the early advice dispensed by self-proclaimed “experts” was not just wrong but resulted in devastating consequences that will impact the country for years to come, lots of Americans—including the entire news industry and leaders of both political parties—are endorsing more punitive government decrees to “stop” a virus that poses almost no serious health threat to the overwhelming majority of Americans.

People are fixated on masks; the president of the United States isn’t allowed to take a brief ride in an SUV with people trained to take a bullet on his behalf without enduring widespread condemnation for “risking the lives of others” even though everyone wore a mask and other protective gear. Most of Monday night’s town hall meeting with Joe Biden revolved around mask use.

Panic rules daily life at the same time we have fewer reasons to panic. Recent data crunched by the Centers for Disease Control confirms that nearly everyone under the age of 70 who contracts the disease recovers; 95 percent of adults over 70 recover, too. Most sufferers report mild symptoms; overly-sensitive tests give false positives for people showing no symptoms at all. Hospitals are not overflowing with COVID patients and, with few exceptions, never were.

But the paranoia is so baked in that it seems unlikely the country will emerge from this constant state of fear anytime soon. How can we regain our senses and return to normal life while accepting that this virus is not unlike other serious viruses that we’ve handled in the past without tanking the economy, surrendering to house arrest, or running around screaming about face coverings?

The president, thankfully, emerged from his brief convalescence with a new fighting spirit. “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life,” the president tweeted Monday morning when he announced he would be headed home from Walter Reed Medical Center. “We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge.” In a video taped at the White House Monday evening, the president underscored his have-no-fear message. “I learned so much about coronavirus. And one thing that’s for certain, don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna beat it.”

It appears that Trump’s new COVID advisors are having an impact. In August, the president appointed Dr. Scott Atlas, a critic of lockdowns and our one-size-fits-all remedy to cure the virus; Atlas, 65, is a much-needed antidote to the attention-hungry, flip-flopping Anthony Fauci, who refuses to exit the media’s adoring spotlight or entertain any opposing viewpoint.

I talked to Dr. Scott Atlas on Monday afternoon, shortly after the president announced he would be leaving the hospital and getting back to work, which prompted yet another round of convulsions from the cult of Trump haters who simply cannot get a grip on reality.

“The president isn’t going to hide from the public or the press,” Atlas told me. “He wants to go to work. He wants to see Americans and he wants to interact with others. He won’t hide in the basement or frozen in fear behind a mask.” (Atlas also has been advising Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who lifted restrictions on bars and restaurants on September 25 in his pursuit to normalize his state’s economy.)

Contrary to Joe Biden’s frequent accusation that the president won’t “listen” to the scientists, Atlas said that “narrative could not be more wrong. There is a difference of opinion in the scientific community. There is no monopoly on knowledge.” 

Atlas named several top scientists, including noted epidemiologists, who refute the efficacy and humanity of lockdowns, especially school closings. Dr. John Ioannidis, who like Atlas is associated with Stanford University, wrote a prescient article in March 2020 forewarning the “fiasco” of extended lockdowns. (Ioannidis’ explanatory video that same month was removed from YouTube for violating the site’s terms of service, which meant the professor of medicine and epidemiology at one of the world’s premier universities dared to hold an opinion outside mainstream thinking at the time.)

Other experts such as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta are partnering with Atlas to use science and logic in hopes of deprogramming a largely brainwashed public. The trio this week issued a statement, called the Great Barrington Declaration, aimed at promoting “focused protection” that would safeguard high-risk populations while encouraging life to return to normal as quickly as possible. “As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the declaration states. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.” Thousands of experts and members of the public have signed the petition so far.

The United States is the only country in the world, Atlas said, with this level of hysteria over reopening schools. “We are sacrificing our children. We are eliminating socialization and group activities. It’s harming low-income families most because the lockdown is the luxury of the rich.”

Atlas doesn’t argue with the initial response to the virus. The attempt to prevent hospital overcrowding and buy time to prepare the health system was “appropriate,” Atlas said. But the medical and scientific community knows much more about the virus now. “It isn’t March or April, it’s October. We can’t continue to just believe people we thought had the whole story at first.”

Those people—Atlas didn’t name names but I will—include Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and Dr. Robert Redfield, the hapless head of the Centers for Disease Control. Fauci is taking shots at Atlas in the press, referring to him as an “outlier.”

Beltway insiders, on the other hand, are attempting to smear Atlas by distorting his view on herd immunity, a scientific concept that up until a few months ago was universally accepted as truth. Suddenly the term is presented in the media in scare quotes as if it’s the latest Republican-fueled conspiracy theory. “Denying herd immunity is like denying gravity,” Atlas told me. “But there is no policy recommendation, none, that cites herd immunity as a strategy.”

Democrats have planned to leverage the twin crises of COVID-19 and the economic shutdowns to win in November. Biden’s message, not surprisingly, is all over the place, at once condemning the president for not doing enough to stop the spread then condemning the president for the economic and societal consequences of the lockdown that was intended to stop the spread.

Polls consistently show low approval ratings for the president on his handling of the disease; most respondents believe Biden would do a better job even though his plans do not differ from the president’s. Biden continues to flip-flop on a national mask mandate but has publicly said he would authorize another economic lockdown.

It’s increasingly likely the election will be a referendum on Coronavirus and its after-effects, which means Trump’s new tack is a risky, but necessary, one.

Someone needs to push back forcefully on this destructive course with reason, compassion, and yes, science. The president needs to explain that he will lead us back to the life we abruptly left behind in March. “What we’ve seen is the arrogance of the elite in a highly charged political climate,” Atlas said. “Leaders have to make decisions that make sense that take into account the impact of their policies.”

“We need to save lives and get America back to work.”

Indeed.


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No Matter What Sickness You Have, Please Keep Your Germs At Home



Most social difficulties in life should be solved with simple politeness and consideration. One of the most basic ways we function together as a society is by caring about each other, working together as families and communities. As we slide into cold and flu season, it’s time to remind everyone that it’s most polite and sociable to keep yourself and your family home when you’re sick with something contagious.

It’s been a long-standing point of confusion for me that so many people go out in public when sick. I don’t mean allergies or a sinus infection, or something you’ve seen a doctor about and it’s clearly non-contagious. I’m referring to the people who come into their crowded office with a recent fever or vomiting. 

Stop it. Sharing might be caring, but no one wants your stomach bug. I’m also baffled by the people who dose their children up on Tylenol or Motrin to bring down a fever, then send them off to school or group activities. You’re spreading sickness, with no way to control how many other people you’ll infect or how seriously it could affect them.

I understand it’s hard to miss work. It’s complicated lining up childcare, especially childcare that can handle sick little ones. It’s no fun missing out on fun events, family celebrations, or special days. Sickness comes at inconvenient times, at least in my experience, and often worsens over evenings and weekends.

But as hard as it is for you to deal with the fallout of being sick if you avoid staying home while ill it just passes the illness on to other families and forces them to make the same hard decisions and struggle to balance their lives.

Dragging yourself or your children out when you’re unwell isn’t a heroic service to the community but the exact opposite. It’s inconsiderate. It’s also possibly part of the reason your family got sick in the first place—other families with illnesses not staying home. 

Talking about this issue recently with friends, we discussed a very serious side of going in public with illnesses that can be mild for most people: inadvertently infecting a family with an at-risk member. An inconvenience for many people can quickly become a tragedy for a family with a loved one undergoing chemo, or with an organ transplant, or a limited immune system. Suddenly that bothersome fever is no longer just an annoyance, but a scary and dangerous situation.

So many of us live with loved ones who are valuable and immensely important parts of our families and can’t weather colds and flu as well as others. Keeping sickness out of our homes, as much as possible, is an important way we show our love for them.

My feelings about keeping your germs at home aren’t new. I’m not unsympathetic to how long it can take for illness to work its way through families with multiple children, either. I have four kids, and when they were younger many times one got sick and passed it to the next, and we missed more than a week of normal life. I understand it’s hard. I’m not minimizing that.

But what I am asking is that we start considering each other. My first responsibility is absolutely to my family. I expect you to take care of your family as your first priority, too. And staying home when sick is part of taking care of your own family. 

We all heal best with rest and time to recuperate. None of us get better quicker from illnesses of any sort by going out in public, going to school, or sitting through a workday. Pushing through illness doesn’t help us in the short or long term, and it doesn’t teach our kids any great lessons about care for their bodies or communities.

It’s not a benefit to the world to venture out when you’re sick. Stay home. Keep your feverish kids home. Have some really nice soup. But don’t come out and share your germs, because the rest of your community doesn’t need them.

Sharing your contagious illness with the rest of the world really isn’t doing any of us any favors, and it’s not helping those in your own home, either. Consider those around you who are more vulnerable, and just stay home. Get well.

And then come back out. The world will be there waiting for you.


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Memorable Ursula Andress ‘Dr.No’ bikini could fetch $500,000 at auction

 

October 7, 2020

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – James Bond fans may have to wait until next year for the next 007 adventure movie, but those with deep pockets next month can get their hands on some of the most famous items from the previous movies.

The ivory colored bikini worn by Ursula Andress in “Dr. No” – the first Bond movie – is up for auction in Los Angeles with an estimated price of up to $500,000, auctioneers Profiles in History said on Wednesday.

Andress, who played beachcomber Honey Ryder in the 1962 film and was the first Bond girl, was pictured emerging dripping from the ocean in the bikini, holding a seashell and with a scabbard belted to her hips.

“It is regarded as the most famous bikini in the world,” said Brian Chanes, head of acquisitions at Profiles in History.

“It’s one of the most memorable scenes in the entire Bond franchise,” he said. “It helped bikinis become more mainstream and it started the whole Bond girl phenomenon.”

Andress herself first sold the bikini at a London auction in 2001.

Other items include Roger Moore’s monogrammed pajama ensemble from “Live and Let Die” (estimated at $10,000 – $15,000); the gray signature jacket worn by villain Ernst Blofeld in “Diamonds are Forever” ($20,000 – $30,0000); and Jane Seymour’s emerald psychic cape and headdress from “Live and Let Die” ($60,000 – $80,000)

 

 

“Things from the Bond franchise are relatively rare especially the further you go back in time,” said Chanes, saying he expected bidders to come from around the world. “With Bond especially it’s very much an international crowd.”

The auction will take place online and in Los Angeles on Nov 12-13. The next Bond movie, “No Time to Die,” was last week pushed back from November to an April release in movie theaters.

 

https://www.oann.com/memorable-ursula-andress-dr-no-bikini-could-fetch-500000-at-auction/ 

 


 

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USPIS launches operation to protect U.S. veterans from mail scams


 

 

 

 The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is ramping up efforts to combat scams targeting veterans. One America's Christina Bobb has more on the initiative.

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Islamic State 'Beatles' charged in US over hostages' deaths

 Two ex-British alleged Islamic State (IS) suspects have been charged in the US with terrorism offences over the killing of four American hostages.

 

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are accused of belonging to an IS cell dubbed "The Beatles" involved in kidnappings in Iraq and Syria.

The pair are being held in FBI custody and will appear in a US federal court in Virginia later.

The men, previously in US military custody in Iraq, deny the charges.

US Assistant Attorney General John Demers told a press conference the charges were "the result of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice" for the four Americans who died - James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

Addressing the families of the victims, he said: "Although we cannot bring back your children, we will do all that we can do: obtain justice for them, for you, and for all Americans."

He added: "These men will now be brought before a United States court to face justice for the depraved acts alleged against them in the indictment."

The charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison

 

 

The pair are alleged to have been members of an IS gang - nicknamed by hostages after the 1960s pop group due to their British accents - which was responsible for the death of hostages in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The victims - who included American journalists and UK and US aid workers - were beheaded and their deaths filmed and broadcast on social media.

Kotey and Elsheikh, from west London, were previously stripped of their UK nationality.

The charges they face are:

  • Conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death
  • Hostage taking resulting in death
  • Conspiracy to murder United States citizens outside of the United States
  • Conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists - hostage taking and murder - resulting in death
  • Conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation resulting in death

 

 

FBI director Christopher Wray told the US press conference: "We mourn not only our American victims but also the British victims David Haines and Alan Henning, and victims of all nations who suffered unimaginable cruelty at the hands of Isis."

The IS group's alleged ringleader, Mohammed Emwazi, known as "Jihadi John" died in a drone strike in 2016.

Referring to his death, Mr Demers said he had "faced a different kind of American resolve - the mighty reach of our military, which successfully targeted him in an air strike several years ago".

He was asked by reporters whether the death penalty was not being sought solely because the UK government had made it a requirement in return for their co-operation.

"The attorney general decided that we should provide the death penalty assurance in order to get the British evidence and see that justice could be done more expeditiously than if we had to continue to litigate this issue in the courts in the United Kingdom," he said.

"The decision was to try to keep the option (of seeking the death penalty) open at first but ultimately that didn't work."

Last month the UK sent evidence to the US following assurances the two men would not face the death penalty.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54449482 

 


 

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It's time to lift the veil on George Soros

 

Article by Frank Wright in World Net Daily
 

It's time to lift the veil on George Soros

Anyone who throws stones at billionaire atheist George Soros can expect to be shunned or censored by his protectors in the media. Just ask top Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

A veteran journalist, Kass blasted Soros for bankrolling the election of soft-on-crime prosecutors. His snowflake Tribune colleagues accused him of publishing an "odious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" and demanded an apology. But Kass refused to grovel, pointing out he was only repeating widely reported facts.

Gingrich charged on Fox News Channel that the "number one problem" behind riots and looting in big cities is "George-Soros-elected, left-wing, anti-police, pro-criminal district attorneys." That triggered a Fox host who interjected, "I'm not sure we need to bring George Soros into this."

"OK, so it's verboten?" asked a surprised Gingrich. Five painful seconds of silence followed.

Despite media censors, the truth is that George Soros is bringing chaos to American cities. He's using his millions to purchase district attorneys who refuse to prosecute low-level crimes and practice revolving-door-justice – releasing offenders back into the community with no-cash bail and lenient sentences.

In 2017, the Hungarian-born hedge-fund mogul spent $1.7 million to elect social justice warrior Larry Krasner as Philadelphia's district attorney. Krasner smiled on election night as supporters chanted, "No good cops in a racist system!" and "F–- the FOP!" (the Fraternal Order of Police).

Crime has since soared in Philadelphia. U.S. Attorney William McSwain hammered Krasner recently for creating a "culture of lawlessness." McSwain charged that "the staggering homicide and shooting rates in Philadelphia are proof that the district attorney's radical experiment has failed."

In Los Angeles, Soros is waging war on law and order by giving $1 million, so far, to make George Gascon L.A. County's next district attorney. As San Francisco D.A., Gascon helped make his city a haven for the homeless and increasingly unlivable. He refused to prosecute camping on city sidewalks, public urination, soliciting sex and other crimes.

And in violence-riddled Chicago, Soros has spent $2 million this year to help keep State's Attorney Kim Foxx in office. Under her watch, violent crime in Chicago is way up, with 290 murders and 1,480 shootings in the first seven months of 2020.

But funding progressive prosecutors is just the tip of the Soros iceberg. The 90-year-old radical is spending billions on a laundry list of liberal causes including abortion, LGBT activism, open borders, euthanasia, legalization of prostitution and drugs, judicial "reform," gun control, defunding police, climate alarmism, erosion of U.S. support for Israel, and more.

Soros funnels his largesse through his Open Society Foundations which spends $1 billion annually and is active in 120 nations. Every year, OSF brags, it gives "thousands of grants to groups and individuals who promote our values."

In 2018 alone, Soros poured $708 million into American politics, according to Capital Research Center President Scott Walter. The money, Walter writes, "went into politicized groups like Planned Parenthood, to fight for abortion; the Brennan Center, to tear down voter ID laws; and to all-purpose left-of-center powerhouses like the ACLU and John Podesta's Center for American Progress."

By comparison, Walter notes, the total combined revenue in 2017 and 2018 of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee was $502 million.

Soros is also targeting his arch-nemesis, Donald Trump, for defeat in November, spending $52 million through June of this year to elect Joe Biden and other Democrats.

Soros rails at Trump, calling him a "con man," a "would-be dictator" and "the ultimate narcissist." The "fate of the world" Soros insists, hinges on the defeat of Trump, whom Soros likens to brutal North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un.

With his vast wealth and destructive agenda, Soros is one of the most dangerously influential people in America today. And that's especially true because of Soros' self-admitted "messianic fantasies."

How's this for a jaw-dropping admission: "It is a sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything. But I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out."

And that's not a random remark. Say what you will about George Soros, he thinks big. Here's a sampling of his grandiose ambitions:

  • "My goal is to be the conscience of the world."
  • "Many people have messianic visions. The difference is, I've actually lived out my visions."
  • "The arc of history doesn't follow its own course. It needs to be bent. I am really engaged in trying to bend it in the right direction."

But former leftist David Horowitz warns that what Soros really wants is to "make America a one-party state and to silence people like myself." At present, Soros and his allies have plenty of help from some in the media who censor inquiries into what Soros himself calls his "political philanthropy."

Yet it's ludicrous to suppress and censor discussion of Soros when he's such a huge player on the American political scene. George Soros and his radical agenda is a story America needs to know. Which is why D. James Kennedy Ministries just aired on nationwide television the new documentary, "Billionaire Radical: George Soros and the Scheme to Remake America."

It's fallen to us, as a Christian media ministry, to do the media's job for them. To watch, click here.

 

https://www.wnd.com/2020/10/time-lift-veil-george-soros/ 


 


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To All Those Who ‘Vote For the Man, Not the party’



I vote for the man (or woman), not the party” is what millions of Americans say and what, in fact, many do. It is intended as a noble sentiment: “I am not one of those Americans who votes blindly by party; I measure each candidate and then decide which one to vote for.”

If there were ever a time when this was a noble sentiment, it would have been when Republicans and Democrats shared basic moral and American values and differed only on what policies would lead to the two parties’ shared goals.

For example, though they never ran against each other, one might argue that the differences between the Democrat John Kennedy and his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, were not particularly great. But that was very rare. The fact is that, since the inception of the Republican Party, which was founded to counter the Democratic Party’s defense of slavery, there has almost never been a time when the philosophical differences between the parties were not great.

And since slavery, there has never been a time when the two major parties differed as much as they do today. Therefore, the notion that one should vote “for the individual, not the party” has never made less sense. It would be as if someone in the mid-1800s had said, “I strongly oppose slavery, but the Democratic candidate is a much finer and more likeable individual than the Republican candidate.”

Fine Democrats who defended slavery did as much harm to blacks and to America as disreputable Democrats. And elected officials vote with their party more often than in principled opposition to it, however fine they may be as individuals.

Nevertheless, a great number of Americans still vote for “the individual.”

The most obvious examples are Republican “Never Trumpers.” They say that they would vote for any Republican except Donald Trump because they find his character so objectionable.

My friend, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, is one prominent example. He believes in a strong American defense, supported Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from Barack Obama’s agreement with Iran, credits Trump with the Israeli peace agreements with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, saluted Trump’s moving of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and presumably supports other Trump policies, such as the president’s extraordinary success with regard to the American economy prior to the lockdowns that crushed the economy.

Yet, he so loathes the president that he will vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

He and many other Americans (we will soon know how many) who support the president’s Republican policies will vote for the party that stands for almost everything they oppose because they will “vote for the man, not the party.”

I find nothing admirable in this position — morally or rationally. At this time in American history, to care more about an individual candidate than the party is to support the unraveling of America. It is so irrational as to be incredible.

Voting for any Democrat — whether for mayor, district attorney, state legislature, state governor, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate or president — is to vote for someone who will enable the left to destroy America as we know it. (That is their wording, not only mine.) The Democratic Party was once largely liberal. But today, it is left, and the left readily acknowledges it wishes to “transform” America, which means to destroy America as we have known it.

To vote for any Democrat is to vote for the party that believes America is “systemically racist,” that it is rotten to the core, vile from its inception (in 1619, they claim, not 1776).

To vote for any Democrat is to vote for the party that will renew the Obama agreement with one of America’s and the civilized world’s greatest enemies, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is to vote for undoing every economic policy that led America to its greatest economic boom in memory.

It is to vote for Kamala Harris, the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate, for vice president (and, given Biden’s age and health, perhaps soon president).

It is to vote for the party that wants to allow millions more illegal immigrants into America and grant them benefits heretofore reserved for Americans. Democrats don’t use the words “open borders,” but they support this country-wrecking policy.

It is to vote for the party that supports the Green New Deal, or something very close to it, which will further ruin an economy already in ruins from Democrat-supported lockdowns.

It is to vote for the party that seeks to nationalize American health care (“Medicare for All”).

It is to vote for the party whose mayors, governors and district attorneys allow violent riots and seek to “defund” police, a policy even most blacks oppose.

It is to vote for the party that supports the unprecedented suppression of free speech by Big Tech and universities.

It is to vote for the party that insists that men menstruate and that biological men must be allowed to compete against biological women in sports, no matter how often the biological men defeat them.

It is to vote for the party with the only anti-Semites, not to mention Israel-haters, in Congress.

It is to vote for the party that, for the first time in American history, openly identifies with socialism more than with capitalism.

It is to vote for the party that Big Pharma, big corporations and radical teachers unions support.

All because many Americans like their Democratic candidate for a Senate seat (as in Arizona) or the Democratic candidate for president more than the Republican candidate. They do not appreciate a likeable Democrat will do as much harm to our country as any other Democrat.


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The Fight for Free Speech

 

 

Article by Walter E. Williams in The Daily Signal

 

The Fight for Free Speech

The violence, looting, and mayhem that this nation has seen over the last several months has much of its roots in academia, where leftist faculty teach immature young people all manner of nonsense that contradicts commonsense and the principles of liberty.

Chief among their lessons is a need to attack free speech in the form of prohibitions against so-called hate speech and microaggressions.

Here are examples of microaggressions: “You are a credit to your race.” “Wow! How did you become so good in math?” “There is only one race, the human race.” “I’m not racist. I have several black friends.” “As a woman, I know what you go through as a racial minority.”

It is a tragic state of affairs when free speech and inquiry require protection at institutions of higher learning. Indeed, freedom in the marketplace of ideas has made the United States, as well as other Western nations, a leader in virtually every area of human endeavor.

A monopoly of ideas is just as dangerous as a monopoly in political power or a monopoly in the production of goods and services.

We might ask what is the true test of a person’s commitment to free speech?

The true test does not come when he permits people to say those things he deems acceptable. The true test comes when he permits people to say those things that he deems offensive. The identical principle applies to freedom of association; its true test comes when someone permits others to voluntarily associate in ways that he deems offensive.

While free speech has been under attack, we are beginning to see some pushback. More than 12,000 professors, free speech leaders, and conservative-leaning organization leaders have signed “The Philadelphia Statement.”

The 845-word document says in part:

Similarly, colleges, and universities are imposing speech regulations to make students ‘safe,’ not from physical harm, but from challenges to campus orthodoxy. These policies and regulations assume that we as citizens are unable to think for ourselves and to make independent judgments. Instead of teaching us to engage, they foster conformism (‘groupthink’) and train us to respond to intellectual challenges with one or another form of censorship. A society that lacks comity and allows people to be shamed or intimidated into self-censorship of their ideas and considered judgments will not survive for long. As Americans, we desire a flourishing, open marketplace of ideas, knowing that it is the fairest and most effective way to separate falsehood from truth. Accordingly, dissenting and unpopular voices—be they of the left or the right—must be afforded the opportunity to be heard. They have often guided our society toward more just positions, which is why Frederick Douglass said freedom of speech is the ‘great moral renovator of society and government.’

The recognition of the intellectual elite attacking free speech is not new. In a 1991 speech, Yale University President Benno Schmidt warned:

The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.

Tyrants everywhere, from the Nazis to the communists, started out supporting free speech rights. Why? Because speech is important for the realization of leftist goals of command and control. People must be propagandized, proselytized, and convinced.

Once leftists have gained power, as they have in most of our colleges and universities, free speech becomes a liability. It challenges their ideas and agenda and must be suppressed.

Attacks on free speech to accommodate multiculturalism and diversity are really attacks on Western values, which are superior to all others. The indispensable achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights, the idea that individuals have certain inalienable rights that are not granted by government. Governments exist to protect these inalienable rights.

It took until the 17th century for that idea to arise and mostly through the works of English philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. And now the 21st-century campus leftists are trying to suppress these inalienable rights.

 

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/07/the-fight-for-free-speech/


 


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Senators Press FBI To Stop Stonewalling Crossfire Hurricane Investigation Subpoenas



Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ron Johnson and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Charles Grassley wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday requesting that he produce all of the information “relating to several unanswered or incomplete responses to ongoing oversight” by various Senate committees by Oct. 6.

The letter comes as the Russian collusion hoax meant to indict President Donald Trump peddled by Democrats and the mainstream media continues to crumble. 

In the letter, the senators reprimand the FBI director for his agency’s three specific failures to provide already requested and subpoenaed information, including documents and messages to their committees beginning in April related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. This evidence, the letter explains, has “remained hidden for too long,” especially since “public interest in these records is significant.”

In April, the Senate “requested all intelligence records, foreign or domestic, received or reviewed by the Crossfire Hurricane team, as well as all FBI records about those intelligence products.” The senators say the FBI ignored the request, which acknowledged the faults of the Steele dossier on which the surveillance of Trump was supposedly based, and instead pointed the Senate to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The requested and subpoenaed documents, the letter notes, would provide helpful insight into Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s divulgence to Congress in late September that Russian officials were “aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset” and “top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans.”

Secondly, the letter deduces that while the FBI relinquished select “text or Lync messages” to and from former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to Congress, the messages remain vague. While the chairmen note that the appendix of the inspector general’s report contains the context necessary to decode these messages, that particular section remains classified.

“In order to fully understand the meaning and context behind the aforementioned McCabe texts, as well as others, it is necessary for the Committees to possess and review all text messages relating to these matters,” the letter states. “For that reason, on September 24, 2020, our respective staff requested that the FBI produce all text and Lync messages involving members of the Crossfire Hurricane team.  The recent public disclosures show that the FBI has already collected and reviewed at least some subset of these records.  Accordingly, we ask that you produce those sets of records to us immediately.”

Lastly, the letter specifically requests “expedited consideration” of the fact that McCabe’s “unclassified text or Lync messages ” which are currently only available “in a reading room” be given up directly to those congressional committees that sought them.


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Critical thinking in an age of 'feelings'

 

Article by Jack Newkirk in The American Thinker

Critical thinking in an age of 'feelings'

The COVID Internment, the rise of Mask Empire, and the normalization of Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence have clarified in spades that critical thinking, as opposed to mindless emoting, is more necessary than ever.

It is misleading to suggest that feelings or emotions are of no consequence.  The difference between the critical thinking and feeling is that whatever feelings a person experiences at any given moment are no substitute for clear, honest, and authentic thinking.

Feelings in and of themselves, divorced from reason and the sensitivity to contextual considerations, undermine the God-endowed dignity of the human person by diverting the mind away from truth.

Just because a person feels this or that most definitely does not mean, as the feelers among us assume, that their feelings are infallible.  Feelings can be based upon a warped understanding of reality.

It is critical thinking that is a selfless activity, for the engagement of critical thinking is a mode of self-transcendence.  If human beings possess an inviolable dignity, it is because they are made in the image of the God Who created them.  And if they are made in God's image, then this is because humans, unlike plants and animals, possess two faculties that distinguish them from the rest of living things on Earth: reason and will.  Yet even if one is put off by talk of God, one will still grant that, fundamentally, humans are persons because of their ability to think, to reason.

Intrinsic to thinking are canons of logic and rationality that are of no one's choosing and that aren't in the least impacted by one's subjective emotions.  The critical thinker seeks to trade in a universally human currency.  Moreover, because critical thinking, like the language in which it occurs, is always, inescapably, interpersonal, the critical thinker seeks to make of others joint enterprisers in the search for truth.

The feelers, on the other hand, can't get beyond themselves.  Far from welcoming discourse with others, they are conversation-killers; they render intellectual intercourse with other human beings impossible.

In the Age of the Great UnReason, critical thinking is as necessary as it has ever been.  But it is hard.  The costs — lost relationships, being on the outs with the herd — are considerable.  Most will not rise to the occasion.  But the rewards are great: by engaging higher capacities, critical thinkers emancipate themselves from their animal nature; affirm their dignity and that of those with whom they enter into dialogue; and acquire such virtues as good faith, analytical prowess, humility, honesty, civility, and courage. 

Hannah Arendt famously noted that it wasn't the stupidity of Adolph Eichmann that led to his monstrous actions.  Eichmann wasn't stupid.  Rather, the architect of the Holocaust suffered from "a curious, but quite authentic, inability to think." 

This phenomenon, she made a point of arguing, was hardly limited to Eichmann, the Nazis, and their sympathizers.  It is endemic.  It is also connected to moral character in that those who can't think beyond memes, bumper stickers, clichés, and the conventional wisdom are that much more susceptible than the critical thinker to conform, to go along to get along.

They are that much more prone to become complicit in all manner of evil.

If Arendt were alive today, in 2020, in the Age of the Great UnReason and the COVID Scare, she would undoubtedly regard her thesis as having been vindicated in spades.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/critical_thinking_in_an_age_of_feelings.html





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