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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Friday, October 02, 2020
COVID Pays a Visit to Pennsylvania Avenue
by Tony Perkins: Most of us woke up this morning with a grim reminder: the coronavirus is still very much alive. President Trump's tweet that he and First Lady Melania have tested positive for COVID was another shock to the American system, as everyone bears down for the last months of a year that no one will be sorry to see go. The president, in his tweet to the nation, was optimistic, promising that we would all get through this "together." In what many are calling a hopeful sign, the news may be prompting a rare moment of civility, as even some of Trump's biggest detractors stopped to offer their support. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow posted, "God bless the president and first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery -- and for everyone infected everywhere. This virus is horrific and merciless. No one would wish its wrath on anyone."
Earlier today, FRC joined hands with partners around the nation, united in prayers of healing for our president, first lady, and all of those affected. "For all of the pain, gloom, and trouble of 2020," Jim Geraghty wrote, "perhaps this ominous news will bring us together." Let's hope so. If there's one thing Washington, D.C. could use, it's unity.
On the Hill, navigating the choppy waters of the virus relief bill has been -- until now -- a second-page story, taking a backseat to the Supreme Court vacancy, debates, and other election news. Now that the president's test is putting the pandemic back in the headlines, there's even more pressure for Congress to get something done that both sides can support. That's been next to impossible these last several days, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spend hours in back-and-forth talk on a deal that liberal Democrats don't seem interested in cutting.
Thursday, despite opposition from members of their own party, Pelosi put a $2.2 trillion package on the table with only one real goal: cramming as much extremism and unrelated agenda items in the bill as possible. The sham legislation, which was nothing but a messaging tool to her liberal base, was roundly panned by Democrats who couldn't believe that Pelosi won't negotiate in good faith on such an important issue. Representatives like Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) fumed to the press, insisting, "This is going nowhere, we know it's going nowhere. This is just a vote to make people feel good. I want to help people," she told Politico, "and that means sitting at the table and getting the [expletive] bill done."
Congressman Ben McAdams (D-Utah), another of the 18 Democrats to vote no, demanded that Pelosi grow up and work with the GOP. "Republicans have put forward a serious offer and I think leadership should stay at the table and get this across the finish line," he said. Others, like Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.), could only shake his head that all that seems to matter to his party leaders is sticking it to Donald Trump. "It's no secret that there are some people in my party that are secretly and surreptitiously saying, 'Oh, let's not do any deal whatsoever because we don't want the president to get credit for anything," he added. "That is as wrong as it gets. People are suffering right now ...And we have to be there for them as members of Congress and as patriots, not as partisans."
As for what's so objectionable in the bill, the real question is: what isn't? There's a $600 million cut to police funding from the May version, another redefinition of "sex" and gender, cash for illegal immigrants, increased access to marijuana, taxpayer-funded abortion, more anti-freedom hate crimes provisions, a financial attack on homeschooling families and religious schools, and an end-run on state voter ID laws and other election safeguards. And Democrats accuse Trump of not caring about coronavirus?
Based on this legislation, it's House leaders, not Republicans, who are insincere. Anyone who would take a deadly situation and use it to push a grab bag of liberal non-starters cares about campaigning -- not compromise. We're grateful for the White House's adamance that any agreement with Pelosi must be pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom.
In the meantime, we continue to pray for the protection and health of the Trump family and White House staff. You can join us, every Thursday at noon (ET) in our special prayer time with Michele Bachmann. For details, got to PrayVoteStand.org/pray.
-----------------------
Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.Tags:Tony Perkins, FRC, Family Research Family, COVID Pays a Visit to Pennsylvania Avenue, President Donald TrumpTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Trump Tests Positive, The Good The Bad The Ugly, Unemployment Falls Again
by Gary Bauer: Trump Tests Positive
As you know, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19. According to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the president is experiencing mild symptoms, but is working from the White House residence. White House physician Dr. Sean Conley tweeted that the president and first lady are both well.
News of their positive tests broke overnight, with the president confirming it himself just before 1:00 AM. Hours earlier it was reported that Hope Hicks, a top aide to the president, had tested positive. It is also being reported that RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel received a positive test on Wednesday, and Utah Senator Mike Lee has tested positive.
Vice President Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, have all tested negative.
United In Prayer
Please join members of the Trump campaign's interfaith coalition on Zoom this evening at 6:00 PM ET for a United in Prayer event for President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
Messages of support and well wishes poured in from world leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Joe and Jill Biden tweeted their prayers for swift recovery for the president and first lady. As did some of the president's harshest critics, including Rachel Maddow and actress Alyssa Milano.
Others, however, could barely contain their glee. The New York Times wishfully wondered whether Trump "should remain on the ballot at all." The Washington Post was downright morbid, posting back-to-back tweets that read:
"President Trump says he and his wife, Melania, have tested positive for coronavirus."
"Opinion: Imagine what it will be like to never have to think about Trump again."
To be clear, the opinion piece was totally unrelated to the president's diagnosis and the column had run earlier in the day. But I refuse to believe that the Twitter posts, just minutes apart at 1:30 in the morning, were accidental.
The tweets have since been removed, but whoever is responsible for the Post's Twitter feed should also be removed.
Hu Xijin, editor of one of communist China's leading propaganda outlets, issued a disgusting statement. Hu tweeted:
"President Trump and the first lady have paid the price for his gamble to play down the COVID-19. The news shows the severity of the US' pandemic situation. It will impose a negative impact on the image of Trump and the US, and may also negatively affect his reelection."
I have no doubt that Hu, like the New York Times and Washington Post, desperately hopes it negatively affects Trump's reelection. The fact that our left-wing anti-Trump media and China's communist mouthpieces are so similarly aligned speaks volumes.
On MSNBC this morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would pray more intensely for the president, but then she ripped his "brazen" behavior and suggested that his illness should be a "learning experience" for others.
Michael Moore went even further, writing that Trump is "an evil genius" who could be "lying about having COVID-19" to gain sympathy.
Of course, many other "tolerant progressives" were posting much worse. I won't waste your time by reprinting any of that. But I felt Italy's Matteo Salvini struck the right response:
"In Italy and in the world, whoever celebrates the illness of a man or a woman, whoever wishes the death of others, only confirms what he is: a soulless idiot. Hugs to Melania and Donald Trump."
Unemployment Falls Again
The last jobs report before the election was released this morning. More than 660,000 new jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate fell from 8.2% to 7.9%. As a reminder, the unemployment rate at the peak of the pandemic was 14.7% in April.
We have made tremendous progress, but there is still a long way to go to return to the historic low of 3.5% we had in February before the virus hit.
What Americans need to think about in the 32 days remaining before Election Day is which candidate has the best policies to keep the economy growing.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence have a demonstrated record of success. In 2018 median household income hit a record high. It did so again in 2019. The poverty rate fell to a record low, as did unemployment rates for blacks, Hispanics, Asians and women.
Unfortunately, we all remember the malaise days of the Obama/Biden era. And I guarantee that the Biden/Harris agenda of more lockdowns, massive tax increases, radical environmental regulations and socialist healthcare schemes will crush the economy.
The Next Debate
The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced that it is changing some of the rules for the remaining debates between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Here's something else the commission should change: the moderator.
C-SPAN's Steve Scully is currently scheduled to moderate the next presidential debate. But we're just learning that Scully worked on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign, for Sen. Ted Kennedy and he also interned for . . . Joe Biden!
In June of 2016 he posted a picture of himself with the former vice president at the "Biden Beach Bash." The same year, he also tweeted out an anti-Trump New York Times opinion piece entitled, "No, Not Trump, Not Ever."
If the Commission on Presidential Debates won't replace Scully with someone who hasn't interned for the Democrat presidential nominee, then I suggest it at least provide some balance by providing an additional moderator, perhaps a serious journalist like Brit Hume.
Meanwhile, the latest Investor's Business Daily poll, one of the most accurate polls, finds the race is statistically tied – 48.6% for Biden to 45.9% for Trump.
It is important to note that the poll was conducted after Tuesday night's debate, and it shows the race narrowing after previous IBD polls had Trump down six to eight points.
Standing With Israel
As many of you know, I am a strong supporter of the Jewish state of Israel and have dedicated much of my work in Washington to strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance, improving relations between Christians and Jews, and fighting the ancient evil of anti-Semitism.
So I am pleased to be included on the Israel Allies Foundation's list of Israel's Top 50 Christian Allies, along with many good friends including Pastor John Hagee, Reverend Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins and presidential advisor Pastor Paula White.
"Season of our Rejoicing!"
Carol and I wish all of our Jewish friends and supporters a blessed Sukkot as they celebrate God's providence.
----------------------- Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working FamiliesTags:Gary Bauer, Trump Tests Positive, The Good The Bad The Ugly, Unemployment Falls AgainTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Thomas D. Klingenstein: Trump versus Biden is the choice between a man who believes America is good and a man who is controlled by a movement that believes America is bad.
I do not think the Republican leaders are framing the election properly.
Nor are they doing a good job describing what’s at stake in this election.
This election is a contest between a man, Donald Trump, who believes America is good, and a man, Joe Biden, who is controlled by a movement that believes America is bad. Or to put this another way, between a man who wants to preserve the American way of life and a man who will end up destroying it.
Republican leaders are too focused on policy. This is not a policy election. This is a regime decision; a way of life election. One way of life, the traditional American way of life, is based on individual rights, rule of law, and a shared understanding of the common good.
Government’s role is to create the conditions for freedom to flourish.
The other way of life I call “multiculturalism” or “identity politics.”
his way of life assumes that society is made up of identity groups, all of which are oppressed by white males. Government’s role in this regime is to create equal income and power for each group.
As should be immediately apparent, achieving this kind of “outcome equality” requires a never-ending redistribution of wealth and power. This can only be achieved by a tyrannical form of government. This is to say, multiculturalism, which has taken over the Democratic Party, constitutes a revolutionary movement. I do not mean a metaphorical revolution. It is not like a revolution; it is a revolution, an attempt to overthrow the American Founding as President Trump said in his excellent Mt. Rushmore speech. Republicans should say the same thing. Republicans everywhere, at every level and at every opportunity.
In order to defend the American way of life, Republicans must disabuse the public of the notion that Black Lives Matter cares about black lives. To BLM Republicans might say something like: “absolutely, black lives matter. They just don’t matter to you. You don’t care about Mr. Floyd, the black businesses you have destroyed, or the blacks who are getting killed because you have forced the police to back off. These blacks are just abstractions to you. Their tragedies are just a prop for your agenda. You’re here for destruction. Not black lives, not any lives.”
And then Republicans must explain how the revolution works.
Specifically, they must explain that the revolution is being led, not by Black Lives Matter, but by the left-wing of the Democratic Party which has used the BLM riots to move farther and faster than it otherwise could have moved. The left-wing, let’s call it the “BLM wing,” has taken over the entire party. Most Democrats, though not themselves revolutionaries, go along. Joe Biden is one of the “go-along BLM-Democrats.”
Their policy agenda is clear: reparations, socialism, endless affirmative action, open borders, confiscation of guns, and so forth.
But the revolution goes deeper. BLM-Democrats understand that if they are to achieve their policy agenda then they must get us to change our values and principles and the way we understand ourselves. They must get us to believe that national borders and colorblindness are racist; that we are not one culture but many; and that the most important thing in our history—the thing around which all else pivots—is slavery. More extensively, they must get us to believe that we are unworthy—not just that we have sinned (which of course we have)—but that we are irredeemably sinful, or, in the language of today, “systemically racist.” And sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic etc. to boot. The BLM-Democrats (quite reasonably) assume that once Americans accept their guilt they will accept the BLM-Democratic policy agenda.
Republicans cannot let that happen. They must assert—loudly and often—“no, America is not racist.” Period. The American people need to hear what they know in their hearts: They are not racists. Americans also need to hear that America is “incredible,” to use President Trump’s adjective of choice. Republicans must remind the American people that, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, America has brought more freedom and more prosperity to more people than any country in the history of mankind.
In order to change American values and principles, the BLM-Democrats must destroy, or radically restructure, the institutions that teach these values: family, religion, education, and community life. We are engaged not in a policy war but in a culture war. This is where the real action is. Republicans are missing in action.
Republicans should use BLM, the riots, and the government’s response to the Coronavirus to show that the BLM-Democrats wish to destroy traditional marriage and religion, rewrite America’s past, further encroach into community life, and insist on even more affirmative action and the teaching of the America-is-evil narrative.
It should not be difficult to tie this radical agenda to the Democrats.
After all, the riots were never a popular uprising; rather, they were always the work of elite Democrats: That is, state and local Democratic officials who permitted, even egged on, the rioting; the Democratic media which looked the other way; Democrats’ largest contributors, major corporations and their leaders, who have given billions upon billions of dollars to BLM, and more recently, leading national Democrats who are, in effect, giving BLM permission to riot because President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat.
Republicans must make it clear that these are the “Biden riots.” For Biden too has embraced the agenda of the BLM wing of his party. Just listen to him. “Let’s be clear, transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time,” he said. A year ago, he may not have even heard of transgenderism.
Biden now regularly talks about “systemic” racism. On one occasion Biden said, though without evidence, there is “absolutely systemic racism in law enforcement [but] “it’s not just in law enforcement,” he continued, “it’s across the board. It’s in housing, it’s in education…It’s in everything we do.”
He is wrong on every count, but if indeed he believes that racism is in “everything we do,” that it is systemic, then, whether he realizes it or not, he is calling for the overthrow of the American way of life. I presume that is not his intent, but when the words that he is reading off his BLM teleprompter get translated into policy, that will be the consequence—the destruction of the American way of life.
There is nothing to fear from Biden says Biden: “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” No, he does not, but what he does look like is a sap, a puppet being played by his handlers, 13 of which, by the way, gave money to post bail for BLM rioters, some of them alleged murderers.
Also, Republicans should give more support than they do to President Trump’s efforts to beat back multiculturalism. Trump thinks our culture is “incredible” and that’s the way he wants to keep it, as evidenced by, among many other things, his recently issued executive orders banning the teaching of the America-is-evil narrative in administrative agencies and establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education.
I know Trump has many faults. I myself sometimes cringe listening to him. He is a braggart, often misinformed, petty, and more.
And yet, we are very lucky to have him. At any other time, he might well have been a bad president. But in these times—these revolutionary times—he is the best president we could have had. No other national Republican leader can hold a candle to President Trump. I am almost prepared to say that having him is Providential.
How else to explain that we find ourselves with this most unusual, most unpresidential man who has just the attributes most needed for this moment?
He has the indispensable attribute of a leader: courage. As a leader must, he goes where others are afraid to go. He has common sense, which means he generally wants to go to the right place. And he is a fighter.
Above all else, and above anyone else, Trump is committed to America. He is unreservedly, unquestionably pro-America. He feels no guilt for America’s past. He makes no apologies. He concedes nothing. And Trump has unlimited confidence in Americans. In this time of woke guilt and doubt, this is just what the doctor ordered.
If we want to save our way of life, then we should support him—unequivocally. I am. I am giving many times more than I would in a normal election cycle. This election is that important and President Trump is that good.
Remember, Trump versus Biden is the choice between a man who believes America is good and a man who is controlled by a movement that believes America is bad.
------------------------ Thomas D. Klingenstein is a principal in the investment firm of Cohen, Klingenstein, LLC and the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Claremont Institute. His articles are on numerous places.Tags:Thomas D. Klingenstein, A Man vs.The MovementTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Patrick Buchanan: He and his campaign need to tie Biden to the repellent elements of the Democratic Party and their radical agenda on remaking an America that the extreme left visibly detests, or to force Biden to repudiate those elements.
In their first debate, the president of the United States, challenged by the former vice president, performed poorly — even by his own estimation.
If memory serves, an instant poll showed that the American people, by 47-43, thought Walter Mondale had bested Ronald Reagan in the Louisville debate where the president made such gaffes as citing the high cost of the military’s “food and wardrobe.”
By week’s end, reflecting the press commentary, 80% of the country was of the view that Mondale had crushed Reagan.
Democrats were cheering Mondale as “The Louisville Slugger.”
Among Republicans, there was real alarm. Had The Gipper “lost it”?
The president blamed his staff for stuffing him like a pelican with facts that he spent much of the debate trying to regurgitate. This set the scene for the second debate in Kansas City where Henry Trewhitt of the Baltimore Sun put to Reagan the question raised by the first debate:
“Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for two or three weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest president in history. And some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?”
Reagan stepped into the pitch:
“Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt, and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth, and inexperience.”
Came then the kicker. “I might add, Mr. Trewhitt … that it was Seneca, or was it Cicero … that said, ‘If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.'”
“Fritz” Mondale joined in the laughter. The cloud that had hung over Reagan’s campaign since Louisville lifted. And we all knew it, even a media that wanted to see Reaganism repudiated.
Rereading Reagan’s reply of 36 years ago, one can see that it was not spontaneous, but a product of preparation. And the old actor knew how to deliver the lines. The age issue instantly vanished, and Reagan, weeks later, would sweep 49 states, losing only Mondale’s Minnesota.
Which brings us to that less courtly affair of Tuesday last.
It was a debacle, and, more crucially for Trump, a major lost opportunity. His objective going in was to leave 90 minutes later with several goals achieved.
First, show, by contrast with the Joe Biden on stage beside him, that he was the stronger, superior leader to handle the pandemic and economic crises of 2020, and the racial crisis that has erupted since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
Second, to let the country see itself that Biden was too weak — and too captive to the Bernie-AOC-BLM-antifa radicals — to deal with the crisis created by the criminal elements that have ravaged the cities of Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis.
Trump’s need was to show that while he may have lost the Mr. Nice Guy competition of 2020, in the situation we are in now, the nation needs a strong leader — not a good buddy.
What happened on that stage in Cleveland?
The insults, the interruptions, the name-calling and the yelling became the story of the debate, the “worst in presidential history,” a “dumpster fire” in which Trump, Biden and moderator Chris Wallace were all complicit, with Trump fingered as the instigator.
Millions of Americans likely walked away saying, “What a mess!” More difficult to imagine is that undecided or Trump-leaning voters would have come away saying, “That’s the leader we’ve been looking for.”
Trump has two debates left to achieve the goals he failed to achieve in Cleveland.
He and his campaign need to tie Biden to the repellent elements of the Democratic Party and their radical agenda on remaking an America that the extreme left visibly detests, or to force Biden to repudiate those elements.
Trump’s rallies continue to reflect the energy, enthusiasm and affection of his followers. But in four years, the rallies have not changed the math.
For Trump to rise into competitive range, Biden must fall, and Trump must appear the necessary and only alternative, even to folks who are not that fond of him.
Trump’s assignment in the next two debates: Link Biden to the people — and their agenda — in his coalition whom the national majority detests. Make Joe repudiate both. And let Biden’s performance expose his own inadequacies.
The presidency hinges upon whether Trump can succeed in this. And the next two presidential debates will likely give us the answer.
---------------------------------- Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, It’s Late, But There’s Still TimeTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
We're teaching our children to hate their country, and the results are disastrous.
by Douglas Andrews: James Madison, our nation’s fourth president, had a personal motto that he used to seal his correspondence: Veritas non verba magistri. Loosely translated, it means, “Think for yourself.” But this doesn’t quite do it justice. The more literal and more powerful translation is, “Truth, not the word of teachers.”
Madison, of course, was also the principal author of our Constitution. So it seems fitting that President Donald Trump would convene on Constitution Day, September 17, at the National Archives Museum, the White House Conference on American History — a subject that for years has been hostage to the word of leftist teachers.
The conference was hosted by Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn, and it included presentations by Dr. Ben Carson, Peter Wood, Wilfred McClay, and others, as well as remarks by President Trump, who took dead aim at the leftist lies our children are being taught about their country and its remarkable history. “Our mission,” he said, “is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.”
Clearly, this isn’t what our sons and daughters are being taught. Instead, they’re being taught that their country is oppressive, rapacious, imperialistic, and irredeemably racist. In short, they’re being taught to hate their country rather than love it. And who among our children will grow up to support and defend a nation that they’ve been taught to be ashamed of?
“The Left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies,” continued the president. “There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project. This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal, and prosperous nation in human history.”
President Trump saved some of his sharpest criticism for critical race theory, a Marxist doctrine that is running rampant through our colleges and universities. The president accurately points out its core teaching: “that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed.”
Perhaps the principle architect of this poisonous history is the late Howard Zinn, an America-hating communist and the author of A People’s History of the United States. First published in 1980 and since reprinted numerous times, Zinn’s book has sold more than 2.5 million copies and can be found in virtually every American school and public library. Is it a stretch to say that this single book has done more damage to the United States than any other work?
To paraphrase Madison, We need truth, not the word of teachers like Howard Zinn.
Mary Grabar, who spoke at the conference, is a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and the author of a long-overdue rebuke of Zinn’s scholarship titled, appropriately, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History that Turned a Generation against America. According to Grabar, Zinn “misrepresented sources, omitted critical information, falsified evidence, and plagiarized.” And he promoted communist revolution while denying his own ardent communism. And yet, according to the Zinn Education Project website, “Tens of thousands of teachers, in every state in the United States, access people’s history lessons from [our] website. An average of 20 to 30 more sign up every day.”
Clearly, American history is under siege. And if we’re to rescue it, we should start by tossing Zinn’s rotten tome into the dumpster and picking up Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope, which Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, calls “an extraordinary new American history textbook [that] is unlike any text currently available.”
Kurtz continues, “Land of Hope is learned, inspiring, and honest. That combination may strike a generation of skeptical postmodernist historians and their progeny as implausible, but it’s not. The conviction that our core national narrative is false, while only its cynical debunking is true, is a prejudice like any other. To endure and flourish as a constitutional republic — respecting the fundamental liberties of our citizens and modeling all this for the world — is an accomplishment to be acknowledged and explained, every bit as much as America’s periodic failings and strife. McClay’s textbook does justice to all sides of the ledger, in a way that both informs and inspires.”
“If destruction be our lot,” said Abraham Lincoln, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
Lincoln uttered those words in 1838, 23 years before he became president. Dr. Ben Carson uttered them again during his remarks at the conference two weeks ago. But while Lincoln was speaking of slavery, he might just as well have been speaking of history. Then as now, no nation can long endure without the love and affection of its citizens. We’ve been teaching our children to revile these United States, and we need only look to our streets and our toppled statues to see the fruits of this folly.
------------------------ Douglas Andrews writes for The Patriot Post.Tags:Douglas Andrews, The Patriot Post, Reclaiming Our American HistoryTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Caroline Glick: The set-up at the Presidential debate Tuesday night was so predictable that it hurt to watch. Moderator Chris Wallace made no effort to hide where he was going. He noted that President Donald Trump had repeatedly demanded that his opponent, Democratic nominee and former vice president Joe Biden condemn Antifa, the violent leftist group behind much of the ongoing destruction of America’s cities. Wallace failed to note that Biden refused to condemn Antifa and instead claimed, crazily that the organization is “an idea” not a group.
Wallace then asked Trump “to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities.”
“Sure, I’m willing to do that,” Trump replied. He then added, “Almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing.”
Trump was right, of course. The rioting, looting, arson; the attacks on police, on business owners and on citizens sitting in their homes from Los Angeles to Kenosha to Washington, DC is the provenance of Antifa, BlackLivesMatter and related left-wing groups.
Then, going back to Wallace’s question, Trump added, “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”
That didn’t satisfy Wallace, (or Biden, who were tag-teaming the issue). The two demanded that Trump condemn.
Trump asked who specifically they wanted him to condemn. Wallace said, “White supremacists and militias.”
Biden — who wouldn’t condemn the leftist terrorists laying waste to America’s urban centers — said, “Proud Boys.”
So Trump, trying to resonate Wallace’s request that he tell them to “stand down,” said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
And the progressive media and Jewish progressive activists clapped their hands in glee. Here was the definitive proof that Trump is a white supremacist.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, television commentators all said his misstatement – “standby” instead of “stand down” — was proof positive that Trump was signaling to his Nazi guard that he wants them to take to the streets. The Jewish Democratic Council of America, which had just launched a commercial comparing Trump to Hitler pounced on his “standby” gaffe as proof they were right and Trump is the gravest danger to American Jews.
No one mentioned that Trump had condemned white supremacists twice in the same exchange or that Biden wouldn’t condemn the leftist rioters who – in addition to burning stores – have vandalized several synagogues since May, and reject the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Jewish progressives and Democrats have been playing this trick since the 2016 elections. In 2016, Trump was asked to disavow the endorsement he received from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grandmaster and he did, repeatedly.
But in one satellite interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, where Trump was having trouble hearing the questions, Trump gave a diffident response to the question. And Presto – Tapper, leftist Jewish activists and the Democrat party have used his cagey response as proof positive that Trump is a secret member of the KKK. The fact that he denounced Duke the day before the interview to a CNN reporter, denounced him again after his interview with Tapper and multiple times in the days and weeks and months and years that followed, was of no matter.
The same thing happened after the Charlottesville riots in August 2017 which pitted goons from Antifa against neo-Nazis. Trump held three press conferences where he condemned the neo-Nazis. In the third, he tried to differentiate between the rioters from Antifa and the neo-Nazis from demonstrators on both the left and the right who had come to Charlottesville to support and protest a decision by the Charlottesville city council to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a public park.
While condemning the neo-Nazis and their anarchist counterparts, Trump noted that there were “also very fine people on both sides.” And for that remark, which was nothing more than a statement of fact, Jewish progressives, Democrats, the media and Joe Biden continue to libel him as an anti-Semite and a racist.
The left’s denunciations of Trump as an anti-Semite have come at the same time that the Democrat Party’s hostility towards Israel and its supporters in America has become more pronounced with each passing day. Leftist anti-Semites have captured the party’s base and control the progressive grassroots. They have intimidated pro-Israel Democrats into near silence on Israel and have made hating Israel an electoral advantage in primary races.
The left’s rejection of Israel is now so overwhelming that last weekend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez cancelled her participation in a Peace Now memorial marking the 25th anniversary of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. Her move demonstrated that even Jewish progressives and an Israeli Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was killed for his efforts to appease the PLO are beyond the Pale for progressives today. Only Jews who reject Israel’s right to exist are acceptable among the smart set in the party.
The left’s embrace of anti-Semitism demonstrates that its hysterical claims that Trump loves Nazis is nothing more than projection. And this isn’t surprising.
Since 2016, the Democrats have repeatedly projected all of their prejudices, malicious actions and plans onto Trump and the Republicans.
Consider the issue of collusion with Russia. During the debate, Biden accused Trump of being “Putin’s poodle.” But just hours before, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee revealing that in July 2016, American intelligence agencies “obtained insight” into an analysis by Russian intelligence officers that claimed then Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “had approved a plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump which involved “tying [Trump] to Putin.”
Clinton’s campaign paid for the infamous Steele dossier alleging corrupt ties between Trump and the Kremlin. The dirt file was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Last week it came to light that Steele’s primary source for his file was investigated by the FBI as a Russian spy.
In other words, the collusion that Clinton and later the FBI, CIA, the Democrat Party, the media and a special prosecutor accused Trump of carrying out with the Kremlin was actually conducted by Clinton and her campaign with active assistance from the CIA, FBI, the media and the Democrat Party against Trump. In accusing Trump, they were describing their own actions.
The projection of Democratic plans onto the Republicans continues still today. Indeed, their campaign is organized around a new one.
In early August, senior Democrat operatives held a series of election simulations. In all of the scenarios tested, the only electoral outcome that the Democrats were willing to accept was a clear victory for Biden. All other outcomes, including a repeat of the 2016 election results where the Democrat candidate received more overall votes but Trump won in the electoral college were rejected by Democrat activists and political leaders alike. The “Biden” in the simulation refused to concede the race. Democrat governors pledged to reject their voters’ verdict and to send pro-Biden electors to the electoral college. Three Democrat-run states announced they were seceding from the United States. Democrat activists began rioting countrywide. In one scenario, the Pentagon sent troops to the White House to forcibly remove Trump from the premises.
The notable aspect of the scenarios was their familiarity. Aside from the fact that Clinton did concede the election four years ago and no one seceded from the union, all the other things happened. Democrats rioted and protested. Democrat lawmakers impeached Trump over nothing. For the past four years, Democrats at all levels have referred to themselves as “the resistance” rather than the opposition because they reject the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency.
Shortly after the simulation was held, Clinton advised Biden not to concede the race. A group of Democrat former generals sent a warning letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff noting that they are duty bound to uphold the Constitution which means ensuring that the election results are fulfilled.
All of these actions point to a basic fact. As was the case in 2016 and ever since, if Trump wins the election, the Democrats will refuse to accept the results. Their activists will riot and their leadership will plot to overturn the election results. They expect the army to physically remove Trump from office.
Then there is the issue of mail-in voting. In April, former president Barack Obama published a series of tweets promoting voting by mail. In large part due to Obama’s intervention, mail-in voting has become the signature cause for Democrats in this electoral cycle. Nearly 40 percent of votes are expected to be mailed in – an all-time record.
There are many problems with this. As Thomas Edsall reported in the New York Times, over the past two years, on average 6.4 percent of mail-in ballots have been deemed invalid everywhere they were used.
Earlier this week, 100,000 ballots sent to voters in New York City were invalidated.
Shoddy ballots are only one problem. There is also vote fraud. Mail-in ballots invite voter fraud, ballot harvesting and illegal disposal. Over the past two weeks, as the number of ballots being mailed in has steeply risen, reports have surfaced of postal workers dumping ballots. Investigative reporting organization Project Veritas this week exposed a massive ballot harvesting scheme carried out in Minnesota’s Somali community by allies of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
And this brings us to Democrat projection. Since the impeachment hearings last January, Democrat lawmakers and aligned media have been pushing the claim that Trump will refuse to accept the election results if he loses. Just as Trump is repeatedly asked whether he condemns white supremacists, he and his campaign advisors have been asked repeatedly by reporters whether he intends to concede if the results of the election are not in his favor. At Tuesday’s debate, Wallace continued the practice. He asked the candidates to pledge to accept the election results.
Biden quickly agreed. Trump refused to play the sucker’s game.
The President noted that the Democrats still haven’t accepted the results of the 2016 elections and tried to oust him from power through false allegations of collusion with Russia that Clinton invented while working with Russia. He also pointed out the ease with which mail-in votes can be, and allegedly already are being falsified by Democrats.
It is impossible to know how the election will pan out or when, if ever, the true results will be known. What is clear however is that if you want to understand who the Democrats are and what they are doing, all you need to do is look at what they are accusing Trump and his colleagues of being and of doing.
------------------------ Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of Israel Hayom and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit CarolineGlick.com.Tags:Caroline Glic, Democrats, Politics of ProjectionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:Odd Couple, Never Trumpers, blinded by hate, rather team up with, socialist / communist agenda, than see Trump, remain as presidentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Bill Donohue: The Democrats, as every survey shows, is the party of secularists, some of whom are Christian bashers. Tagged with being anything but religion-friendly, Democrats have resorted to “God talk” to woo voters. The latest to do so is Kamala Harris.
After the presidential debate, Harris was interviewed by Jake Tapper of CNN. After Tapper lied about President Trump—saying he refused to denounce white supremacists (when Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was prepared to condemn them, Trump answered, “Sure, I’m prepared to do it”)—Harris was asked to share her thoughts. “The president of the United States in the year of our Lord, 2020, refuses to condemn white supremacists.” (All references to this expression are my italics.)
Forget that Harris also misrepresented what Trump said (the president told Wallace “I’m willing to do anything—I want to see peace”), the issue for the Catholic League is her “God talk.” Is there anything wrong with such language? Not if it is sincere.
There is no record of Harris ever using such language before she became a senator and a presidential hopeful a few years ago. For example, in her seven years as District Attorney in San Francisco (2004-2011), and her six years as Attorney General of California (2011-2017), there is not a single media report of her saying in the year of our Lord when talking to reporters.
The first time she used that line was in June 2017. Harris was asked about the speculation surrounding her run for the White House. “Listen, 2020 is in how many years? We are in the year of our Lord 2017.”
Her next invocation of this line was reported by the New York Times on September 10, 2019. When asked to comment on criminal reform, she said, “But hey, if you’ve got, in the year of our Lord 2019, all the major candidates running for president of the United States” pushing for these reforms, that is a good thing.
On November 20, 2019, Harris appeared on MSNBC to discuss equal pay for women. “We passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, but fast forward to the year of our Lord 2019….” On June 8, 2020, at a news conference on crime, Harris said “just last week in the year of our Lord 2020….”
How can we be sure that this is a game and not a sincere expression of her religiosity? On the 4th of July 2019, when the issue of racial integration came up, Harris was criticized by former Obama operative David Axelrod for changing her position. Here is what Axelrod was told. “The debate [Democratic primary debate] was about opposing busing in 1970. It is now 40 years later in the year of our Lord 2019.”
It was not Harris who said that. It was her communications director, Lily Adams. She is lily white, the granddaughter of Texas Democrat Ann Richards. This certainly suggests that in the year of our Lord is a line right out of the Harris campaign’s playbook.
Harris’ father is Christian and her mother is Hindu. Her husband is Jewish. When they got married only Harris’ mother’s religion was acknowledged: her husband wore a floral garland around his neck honoring her Hindu upbringing.
More important are Harris’ positions on religious liberty. She opposed the Hobby Lobby high court ruling affirming the religious liberty of Christian-owned businessmen not to pay for birth control in their healthcare plans. She backed the Health and Human Services mandate that sought to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plan. She backs legislation that would weaken the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Harris is no friend of religious liberty. Her recent decision to exclaim in the year of our Lord, which has been conveniently picked up by her staff, is a ploy designed to appeal to unassuming Christian voters impressed by “God talk.” As the old adage says, actions speak louder than words, and on this score, Harris fails to convince.
--------------------- Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.Tags:Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Harris Perfects, "God Talk"To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Black Lives Matter Leaders Support Violent Riots, Biden Won’t Condemn Them
by Daniel Greenfield: After the recent toll Biden has said meaningless things like "we condemn the violence", and "I condemn this violence unequivocally" as if violence were an independent entity. Condemning violence, like condemning war, is either pacifism or evasion. Since Biden isn’t a pacifist, he’s evading.
Violence is a concept. You don’t condemn a concept: you condemn its perpetrators.
The Democrats embraced Black Lives Matter, they even fundraised on behalf of the rioters and looters. Senator Kamala Harris tweeted out a link to the Minnesota Freedom Fund which bailed out rioters and looters, and Jaleel Stallings, who was accused of shooting at police officers.
According to police officers, Stallings had crouched near a car during the riots and opened fire on them. He faced two counts of attempted second-degree murder and the bail fund backed by Kamala Harris and several Biden staffers still bailed out the alleged wannabe cop-killer.
Once Biden goes into details, then his condemnation of “violence” actually turns out to be a condemnation of cops and conservatives. Or, as he put it, “I have condemned all forms of violence – police violence, lawless violence and violence perpetrated by extreme, right-wing militia groups.”
When he condemns “violence”, he really means he’s condemning the police.
The closest that Biden comes to condemning the violence by Black Lives Matter, a racist domestic terrorist group which has devastated entire cities, is condemning the “lawless”. And he does it so vaguely as not to offend BLM and its supporters while giving the shopkeepers whose lifetime of work, his supporters burned to the ground, the false impression he stands with them.
Biden’s toothless condemnations of “violence” are a meaningless cowardly evasion of moral responsibility. He’ll even occasionally condemn “looting or destroying property or burning churches” without naming who’s going around looting, destroying, and burning churches.
Burning churches is a bad thing. But not so bad that Biden will name the church burners. And when Biden fails to condemn Black Lives Matter, he supports its violent riots.
Even while the media falsely claims that the riots are peaceful, the hate group’s co-founders, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, have not been asked to condemn it. On the rare occasions when they’ve been asked about it, they’re deflected or dismissed the violence.
Ask BLM’s co-founders about the hate group’s violent riots and they’ll typically reframe the question by dismissing it as a mere issue of property and claim that they value life more. That’s despite the fact that hundreds of first responders and civilians have been wounded in the riots.
Speaking at a Penn State virtual event, Cullors described rioters as "expressing righteous rage" and suggested that society needs to avoid situations where "people feel like they have to be so desperate that they disrupt people’s businesses.” Not only didn’t the Black Lives Matter co-founder condemn her movement’s violence, she justified it, while denouncing capitalism.
Cullors, who has in the past been paid $10,000 to appear at virtual college events, is represented by CAA, the top talent agency in the country which was accused of complicity in Harvey Weinstein’s abuses, and whose clients include Tom Cruise and Robert De Niro.
She’s also the author of “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir”, with an introduction by Angela Davis, a domestic terrorist who endorsed Biden, and an opening quote from Assata Shakur, a black nationalist cop-killer listed by the FBI as a most wanted terrorist.
That quote from the fugitive cop killer, "It is our duty to fight for our freedom" has become a BLM chant It appears in Shakur’s biography just after she indirectly mentions the shootout that killed Trooper Werner Foerster and hails the “guerrillas” of her Black Liberation Army terrorist group.
The phrase just before the chant is, “We must gain our liberation by any means necessary”.
After the chant is a dedication to, among other black nationalist terrorists, Mark Essex, a racist killer who opened fire on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans killing, among others, a honeymooning couple. Betty Steagall was shot in the back of her head while embracing her murdered husband. Essex left a Black Liberation flag lying near the corpses of the doctor and his wife.
This is not the chant of a peaceful movement, but of a violently racist terrorist organization. And it’s been utilized by Democrats, including the Arizona Senate Democrat caucus.
“I just don’t equate the loss of life and the loss of property,” Alicia Garza, another BLM co-founder, replied, when asked about the violence. “We want to value our love of people over property.”
Not only did Garza fail to condemn the violence, she reduced it to a question of property, while reframing the violent riots as a love of people over property. Property, like violence, is an abstraction, a way to avoid confronting what happens when people are terrorized, when the small shop they’ve poured their life and dreams into goes up in flames, while BLM’s founders get tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to condemn capitalism and defend the looting.
When the National Guard was sent to Baltimore, Garza complained that the soldiers were “standing between Black people and access to resources, they are protecting property”.
"I’ll be really honest: I’m not really concerned about broken glass," Opal Tometi, the third BLM co-founder, argued. "Property can be replaced, people cannot."
Not only do all of Black Lives Matter’ co-founders find ways to justify the violent riots, but some local chapters, which have more control, have been more direct about supporting the violence.
After the massive outbreak of looting in Chicago, Black Lives Matter Chicago issued a press release describing looters as protesters, and claimed that the products in the stores were "hoarded" wealth. The official press release ranted that "black lives are and always will be more important than downtown corporations" and claimed that, "when protesters attack high-end retail stores that are owned by the wealthy and service the wealthy, that is not 'our' city."
Black Lives Matter Chicago organizer Ariel Atkins called the looting, “reparations", claimed that, “winning has come through riots,” and declared, "I will support the looters."
“Anything they want to take, take it,” she said.
Hawk Newsome, the Greater New York Chair of BLM, refused to condemn looting and instead claimed that America is based on looting.
“People just manifested it in different ways. Some people there just raised their fists and said 'I stand with the masses.' Other people were there to destroy things,” Newsome had said earlier of the Minneapolis BLM riots.
Melina Abdullah, the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles, whose chapter has collaborated with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, had its rally lead to multiple attacks on Jewish synagogues and businesses complete with antisemitic chants and graffiti.
Before the rioting began, her daughter, and the co-founder of the BLM Youth Vanguard, ranted, “I know you want to tear some s___ up... if you want to set some corporations on fire, you know what? I don’t care about Target burning. I don’t care that capitalism burns. I don’t care that white people in their f____ office buildings are upset."
Abdullah, like her hate group’s co-founders, dismissed the rioting. “The looting is not as violent as the police violence that is the source of the protesting. Focusing on broken windows is a deliberate decision.”
Much like Kristalnacht.
The media has repeatedly mischaracterized Black Lives Matter riots as “mostly peaceful” as long as there is a prologue during which the racists at the rally chant slogans before the violence begins. This is a fundamental distortion of the truth. A peaceful march ends peacefully. A violent rally ends violently.
A mostly peaceful march is really a violent riot.
Would you go out and meet someone if they told you it would be a mostly peaceful encounter?
A peaceful event has to be peaceful all the time. Or it’s violent. A mostly peaceful event is like a mostly non-toxic toothpaste, a mostly safe ladder, or a mostly solid bridge. Mostly counts when it comes to statistics, not when it comes to harm and danger. Most serial killers were mostly peaceful. They spent less than 1% of their time hunting and killing their victims.
That’s not what peaceful means. Like Biden’s condemnations of violence, it’s an evasion.
Nobody in the media bothers to ask or discuss whether the Black Lives Matter philosophy and ideology is peaceful. That’s because there’s a large body of evidence that shows it isn’t. Instead the media nods along as BLM leaders pull the same tired old trick of reframing their movement’s violence as an affirmation of the value of black lives and reduce their victims to “property”.
Black Lives Matter violence springs directly from the violent ideology of black nationalism. The movement’s leaders make no secret of drawing their inspiration from domestic terrorists like Assata Shakur and Angela Davis. Democrats and their media choose to ignore these facts.
After the poll numbers turned against both Black Lives Matter violence and the movement, Joe Biden began condemning the violence, as if it exists apart from its perpetrators, without condemning the violent movement whose rioters were carrying out the violence.
Anyone can condemn an abstract evil. The challenge is condemning the perpetrators.
Joe Biden refuses to condemn Black Lives Matter. He can’t. They’re part of his base. While Americans are increasingly turning against the racist hate group, Democrats still back it. After months of rioting, support for Black Lives Matter has dropped 12% among Americans, but only 4% among Democrats, 92% of whom still support the violent black nationalist movement.
And so Joe’s trying to have it both ways. He’s condemning the violence while allying with the violent. He won’t disavow BLM or his endorsement from Angela Davis, while claiming to oppose violence. He’s refusing to condemn the perpetrators, while condemning the outcome.
That’s as worthless as his career and his candidacy.
If you support the violent, you support the violence. If your campaign and your veep help fund bail for a group bailing out rioters and an attempted cop-killer, you can’t claim, as Biden does, to oppose violence “across the board”. Until Biden publicly breaks with the Black Lives Matter movement and condemns its violence by name, he’s complicit in every burned store, every wounded cop, every terrorized child, every lost job, and every broken American city.
--------------------------- Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.Tags:Daniel Greenfield, @Sultanknish, Black Lives Matter Leaders, Support Violent Riots, Biden Won’t Condemn Them To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
BREAKING: Russia Believed Clinton Was Planning Anti-Trump Collusion Campaign In 2016, And U.S. Officials Knew It
This increased the likelihood that the Clinton operation — and the FBI investigation that relied on Clinton-funded opposition research — was tainted by deliberate Russian disinformation. by Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway: Not only were Russian officials aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset, top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe disclosed to congressional officials on Tuesday. Before they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, intelligence agencies learned that Russia knew of Clinton’s plans to tarnish Trump with the collusion smear.
At one point, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials that Russia assessed Hillary Clinton had approved a plan on July 26, 2016, “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to Brennan’s handwritten notes.
Fired former FBI Director James Comey and fired former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok were even sent an investigative referral on September 7, 2016, regarding Russia’s alleged knowledge of Clinton’s plans to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian agent, Ratcliffe wrote. Rather than investigate at the time whether Russian intelligence had infiltrated the Clinton operation’s anti-Trump campaign and sowed Russian disinformation within it, the FBI instead used unverified gossip from a suspected Russian agent to obtain federal warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
There is no evidence the FBI ever investigated the Clinton campaign’s documented use of Russian agents and intelligence assets to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, raising questions of whether the top federal law enforcement agency may have itself interfered in the election by using its powers to arbitrarily target the campaign of the outgoing administration’s political enemy.
In a letter provided on Tuesday afternoon to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ratcliffe wrote that Russian intelligence officials knew about Clinton’s plan to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by “tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”
“In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin,” Ratcliffe wrote in his summary of U.S. intelligence findings.
On September 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence authorities “forwarded an investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding ‘U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server,'” Ratcliffe noted.
Brennan personally briefed President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials about Clinton’s campaign plan and Russian knowledge of it. Just five days after the date on which the Russians believed Clinton had personally authorized the collusion smear against Trump, the FBI formally opened its anti-Trump collusion investigation, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
That investigation relied heavily on a dossier of anti-Trump allegations compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, a Democrat opposition research firm that had been hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to manufacture and spread claims that Trump was secretly working on behalf of Putin.
At the time, both Steele and Fusion GPS were simultaneously working on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. In his infamous dossier, which has been thoroughly discredited and debunked since it was published in early 2017, Steele relied heavily on a single source for the most salacious and explosive allegations against Trump.
Dubbed the dossier’s “Primary Sub-Source,” that individual was responsible for laundering the false claim that Trump had personally hired prostitutes to defile a Moscow Ritz Carlton bed that had previously hosted Obama and his wife, Michelle. The sub-source claimed, without evidence, that Russian intelligence authorities had obtained video of the incident and were using it to blackmail Trump to do Putin’s bidding. No evidence exists that the alleged incident occurred or that video of it exists.
The identity of that sub-source — Russian national Igor Danchenko — was publicly confirmed in late July 2020 after FBI summaries of his conversations with the FBI in early 2017 were declassified and publicly released. According to the FBI summaries, Danchenko claimed that he merely viewed the allegations as drunken gossip and unsubstantiated rumors and never meant for them to be shared as viable intelligence. New documents declassified and provided to Congress last week show that U.S. authorities suspected Danchenko of being deeply connected to Russian intelligence.
In fact, the FBI had previously investigated Danchenko to determine whether he was a formal Russian intelligence agent and had characterized him as a potential threat to national security. According to the declassified summary of previous federal investigations of Danchenko, the federal probe lasted nearly two years and included allegations from Americans who had interacted with Danchenko that he might be a Russian spy. The investigation against Danchenko was eventually closed by the FBI, but only because he had left the country and was presumed to be back on foreign soil in Russia.
Danchenko’s claims against Trump, as retold by Steele in his dossier, were used as a primary basis for federal spy warrants against Carter Page, a former Trump campaign affiliate whom the federal government spied on for a year as part of the FBI’s collusion investigation. The federal spy court that reviews and approved those warrants were never informed that the source of the allegations against Page and Trump was a suspected Russian intelligence agent who had previously been targeted by the FBI.
Ratcliffe wrote that the intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of [Russia’s] allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.” However, the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee did contract with Fusion GPS for its Steele dossiers, which were disseminated to friendly media outlets and U.S. agencies.
Clinton personally pushed the Russia collusion claims on multiple occasions. Following her surprising defeat, she immediately pivoted to a campaign of blaming Russia for election meddling with Trump’s assistance. Within the last few weeks, Clinton has repeated her claim that Trump stole the election from her with Russia’s help.
While Comey, Strzok, and other Obama-era FBI officials have claimed that the investigation of Trump was legally predicated, U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the propriety of the entire Crossfire Hurricane operation, has publicly stated, based on evidence he has obtained, that he does not necessarily believe that to be the case.
----------------------------- Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway write for The Federalist.Tags:Sean Davis, Mollie Hemingway, Russia Believed Clinton, Was Planning, Anti-Trump Collusion Campaign, In 2016, U.S. Officials Knew ItTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The Unscientific Attacks on the Science of Dr. Scott Atlas
. . . Critics of the distinguished White House coronavirus adviser don’t have a leg to stand on. by Victor Davis Hanson: The news media until recently had rarely criticized the medical advice of experts — especially those who worked for federal bureaucracies, international organizations, or elite universities.
Yet the much-praised Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, has demonstrably weakened the effort to fight COVID-19.
During the critical initial weeks of the virus’s spread, Tedros parroted Chinese propaganda. He falsely assured a complacent world that the virus was probably not transmissible between humans and did not warrant travel bans. The fact that Tedros was the first WHO director not to have a medical degree was seldom cited by the media.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is known to the public for his past advocacy of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act. Although he now advises 77-year-old presidential candidate Joe Biden, Emanuel once wrote an article for The Atlantic titled “Why I hope to die at 75,” contending that life after age 75 is, and should be, mostly over — now an eerie idea in a time of a pandemic that targets the elderly.
Emanuel has often weighed in on the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes in overly pessimistic fashion by suggesting that some acquired collective immunity and a viable vaccine were not likely to come soon.
Yet Emanuel also has been largely exempt from media criticism. No reporters have questioned his epidemiological expertise despite his background as an oncologist specializing in breast cancer.
The esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has given conflicting advice on the use of masks, quarantining, and the methods of viral transmission. Yet such inconsistency is either ignored or chalked up by the media to the usual learning curve of dealing with a new epidemic.
So why — other than politics — is there now a concerted media attack on Dr. Scott Atlas, an adviser to the Trump administration on COVID-19 policy?
Atlas has had a distinguished career as one of world’s top neuroradiologists. He has become a national expert on public-health policy, especially in the cost-benefit analysis of government programs.
After COVID-19 arrived in the U.S., Atlas consistently warned that government must follow science, not politics, in doing the least amount of harm to its people. He has reminded us that those under 65 rarely die from COVID-19, and that those infected who are younger than 20 usually do not show any serious symptoms.
Accordingly, Atlas has urged the states to focus more resources on the most vulnerable — those over 65, who account for the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths — and allow younger Americans to reenter schools and the workforce with appropriate caution.
Atlas has also warned that the available test data on COVID-19’s infectiousness, spread, and morbidity must be handled with care, given that those who feel sick are more likely to get tested. He argues that those with some natural protection from the virus, either through antibodies from an asymptotic past infection or through T-cells, may be a far larger group than previously thought.
But most importantly, Atlas has warned that government must be careful not to endanger Americans with Draconian lockdowns that curtail needed medical examinations, procedures, and treatments.
Just as dangerous as the disease may be quarantine-related spikes in mental illness, substance abuse, child and spousal abuse, and depression from lost livelihoods. Children may be suffering irreparable harm from being locked down and kept out of school.
Atlas has shown that these policy choices unfortunately entail bad options and even worse ones, rather than good choices and even better alternatives. He has not played down the dangers of COVID-19 but rather has reminded us to look at scientific data that often belie media sensationalism.
Atlas has shown that these policy choices unfortunately entail bad options and even worse ones, rather than good choices and even better alternatives. He has not played down the dangers of COVID-19 but rather has reminded us to look at scientific data that often belie media sensationalism.
Many in the media, some of his former colleagues at Stanford Medical School, and some other Stanford faculty members have claimed that Atlas — a colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution — has acted unprofessionally. They allege that he has downplayed the lethality of the virus, implying that he is aiding the administration’s efforts to ease out of the quarantine.
Yet few if any of these complainants have cited supporting evidence, either from what Atlas has written or said. Often the accusations turn puerile, suggesting that Atlas can’t be a public-health expert because he was originally a neuroradiologist.
In fact, rarely reported is that many members of the Stanford community are honored by its medical school’s receiving global acclaim for its diversity of expert scientific opinion on the virus.
Nobel Prize–winning biophysicist Michael Levitt of Stanford, along with several stellar Stanford epidemiologists, have been praised worldwide for their careful critiques of often-media-generated misconceptions — especially on the overreliance on COVID-19 positive-test data to calibrate viral prevalence and morbidly.
How ironic that some critics fault Atlas for not following science, but they do so in a fashion that is completely . . . well, unscientific.
--------------------------- Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. H/T National Review.Tags:Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, The Unscientific Attacks, Science of Dr. Scott AtlasTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Breonna Taylor Case: Black Kentucky Attorney General Called ‘Sellout,’ Compared to Slavemaster
by Larry Elder: Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, declined to bring murder charges against the three white officers involved in the tragic shooting of Louisville’s Breonna Taylor, a Black woman.
Contrary to the public assertion made by a Taylor family lawyer, Cameron, who is Black, said the Louisville police did not go to the wrong address when executing a search warrant. Nor was Taylor shot and killed in her bed, as also publicly asserted by the family lawyer. Ben Crump, a spokesman and defense attorney for the Taylor family, falsely claimed the police went to the wrong address. And in a statement full of inaccuracies, Crump, who negotiated a $12 million settlement with Louisville, said, “Taylor and her boyfriend were asleep in their apartment when Louisville Police burst into the home without warning using a battering ram, in search of a suspect who was already in their custody.”
Cameron carefully, methodically and with sensitivity to the Taylor family reviewed the evidence and explained why the law and facts did not warrant murder charges, however massive the intensity of the public’s passion for charges. Cameron said: “Evidence shows that officers both knocked and announced their presence at the apartment. The officers’ statements about their announcement are corroborated by an independent witness who was near, in a proximity to Apartment 4. … When officers were unable to get anyone to answer or open the door to apartment four, the decision was made to breach the door.” A man inside the apartment fired, striking an officer, and the officers returned fire, killing Taylor.
The anger over Cameron’s decision was fierce, ugly and personal. At a press conference arranged by the Taylor family attorney, Tamika Mallory, co-founder of the Women’s March, said: “I thought about the ships that went into Fort Monroe and Jamestown with our people on them over 400 years ago and how there were also Black men on those ships that were responsible for bringing our people over here.”
“Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery and helped white men to capture our people, to abuse them, and to traffic them while our women were raped, while our men were raped by savages.”
Sophia A. Nelson, who often appears as a pundit on CNN, tweeted: “Uncle Tom. Step & fetch Negro. The end.”
But perhaps the viciousness award goes to retired Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey, who said: “Let me say this as a Black woman: He does not speak for Black folks. He’s skin-folk, but he is not kinfolk. And so just like he thinks they can’t speak for Kentucky because he’s up there with a Black face, he does not speak for all of us. This was not a tragedy. This was a murder. He should be ashamed of himself.”
Cameron is also being attacked because he is not only a Black Republican but also a Black Republican who spoke passionately at the Republican National Convention in support of President Donald Trump. About the opposition to him because he is a Black Republican, Cameron once tweeted: “Yesterday, a liberal attorney said I should stop eating ‘coon flakes’ in a Courier Journal interview. I am a proud lifelong Republican, part of a diverse KY GOP ticket, and yes I support Donald Trump. It’s time to stop telling black Americans what we’re allowed to believe.”
Women’s March co-founder Mallory and Dorsey are exactly why I produced the documentary “Uncle Tom,” which addresses the attacks against Black conservatives for the crime of thinking differently. The film, now available on iTunes, Amazon Prime and Roku, has received a 9.4 rating on IMDb and a 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Uncle Tom” asks simple questions: Are Blacks free to think for themselves? Black conservatives support low taxes, strong borders, choice in public schools. They want to reevaluate the welfare state on the grounds that it destabilizes the American family, no matter the race. Can a Black conservative advocate for school choice and debate its merit without being dismissed as a Black conservative “sellout” for supporting choice? Are Blacks allowed to hold conservative views without being eviscerated by the Mallorys and the Dorseys as self-loathers, coconuts, Oreos, “Uncle Toms” and other names unfit for family consumption?
The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, who is Black, once admitted, “The left, as a rule, does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement.” Well, the Black left doesn’t believe that there is such a thing called thoughtful disagreement — at least not thoughtful disagreement with a Black conservative.
“Uncle Tom” does not tell viewers what to think. The film says Blacks are free to think for themselves. We would be happy to provide copies of “Uncle Tom” for Mallory and Dorsey.
------------------- Larry Elder (@larryelder) is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host, an American lawyer, writer and radio and television personality who is also known as the "Sage From South Central." To find out more about Larry Elder, visit his website at LarryElder.com for list of other articles.Tags:Larry Elder, Breonna Taylor Case, Black Kentucky Attorney General, Called ‘Sellout,’ Compared to SlavemasterTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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by Tony Perkins: Most of us woke up this morning with a grim reminder: the coronavirus is still very much alive. President Trump's tweet that he and First Lady Melania have tested positive for COVID was another shock to the American system, as everyone bears down for the last months of a year that no one will be sorry to see go. The president, in his tweet to the nation, was optimistic, promising that we would all get through this "together." In what many are calling a hopeful sign, the news may be prompting a rare moment of civility, as even some of Trump's biggest detractors stopped to offer their support. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow posted, "God bless the president and first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery -- and for everyone infected everywhere. This virus is horrific and merciless. No one would wish its wrath on anyone." 
