Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Wednesday February 26, 2020
THE DAILY SIGNAL
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Feb 26, 2020
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Good morning from Washington, where the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine the breadth of Americans’ religious freedom. Only three Senate Democrats join Republicans in a failed attempt to protect abortion survivors. On the podcast, a GOP leader in Arizona talks border security. Plus: Chicago isn’t done with Jussie Smollett, and a former federal judge decries the left’s mob mentality. On this date in 1993, terrorists set off a bomb in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six, injuring over 1,000, and collapsing several steel-reinforced concrete floors. |
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THE EPOCH TIMES
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DAYBREAK
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POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: The crosstalk debate
Presented by
DRIVING THE DAY
[CROSSTALK] … There was a lot of it Tuesday night. Lots of interrupting, and shouting. Few moments worth clipping and saving. DRUDGE REPORT’S headline was “CBS MESSY.”
NYT’S JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS: “The forum plunged repeatedly into an unsightly spectacle of flailing hands and raised voices, and even outright chaos, with candidates talking over one another and the moderators struggling and failing at times to direct an orderly argument.” … MIKE GRYNBAUM of the Times: “Over two hours, the CBS moderating team — which featured [Gayle] King, the anchor Norah O’Donnell, and three other network journalists — struggled to keep control, calling for order as jawboning candidates talked over their questioners and each other.”
THE FIRST MENTION of the coronavirus — one of the biggest public health threats to the U.S. — came more than 80 minutes into the 120-minute debate. The conversation among television and political insiders Tuesday night during and after the debate was that this debate was a disaster. We’re not going to go that far — these are very difficult affairs to manage, and keep under control. But eek.
JOHN HARRIS COLUMN: “Democrats needed a good debate, but got a bad one”: “The snarling incoherence of the latest Democratic presidential debate Tuesday evening made it painfully hard to follow. But in its own way the encounter perfectly crystallized the twin strategic challenges facing the party.
“The first strategic challenge is the problem of the impassioned plurality represented by frontrunner Bernie Sanders taking control of the party. He is on the verge of succeeding in this goal even as ample evidence remains that he is out of step with a majority of Democrats on both ideology and on practical questions of how to win the 2020 election or to govern afterward.
“The evening was defined by peevish exchanges, raised voices, feeble attempts at humor, complaints about fairness in being allowed to speak, and extended passages of cross-talk in which moderators utterly lost control of the debate and it was impossible even to understand what was being said. The noise was hardly conducive to a sustained or intelligible argument about whether Sanders is the strongest nominee or the one most representative of the views and temper of the party.
“The evening offered limited opportunities—were these possibly enough?—for six Democrats not named Sanders to revive their candidacies with last-stand moments to emerge as the main alternative to the self-described democratic socialist for the balance of the nomination contest.” POLITICO
THE BERNIE ONSLAUGHT … AP’S JULIE PACE: “The pile-on indeed reflected the new reality of the Democratic race for the White House. Riding a wave of enthusiasm among young voters and the strength of an increasingly diverse coalition, Sanders has won two of the first three contests and effectively tied in the third. He’s competing aggressively in South Carolina, which votes Saturday, and could pull away from the field in the all-important delegate lead in next week’s Super Tuesday contests.
“For Sanders, this is new political terrain. He’s spent 40 years in politics as an agitator and an outsider. He’s run for office as an independent and is a loner on Capitol Hill. He prides himself on being ideologically rigid and has been willing to criticize Democratic leaders, including former President Barack Obama, for what he’s seen as politically expedient compromises.” AP
— WAPO’S DAN BALZ: “Sanders takes fire in an unruly debate that left no candidate truly enhanced”
BUT, BUT, BUT — RYAN LIZZA: “A Bernie slayer fails to emerge at Tuesday’s debate”
NATASHA KORECKI: “Biden finally shows up to the debate stage — just in time”
WAPO’S MICHAEL SCHERER: “Bloomberg improves from his last debate — but is it enough?”: “While falling short of the glossy image that appeared during the commercial breaks, Bloomberg succeeded in doing what he had failed to do a week earlier in Las Vegas. He delivered his messages — about his experience, his policy goals and his political focus — without a script in front of him, albeit with less polish, more stiffness and a far more stilted style of delivering a joke than his ads suggest. …
“It was an improvement by almost any measure over his debut a week earlier in Las Vegas, when he seemed to shrink from conflict, showed his nerves and spent long periods disengaged from the discussion onstage. This time he frequently raised his hand to demand more time, mostly filled the time he was allotted and pushed back aggressively against his rivals.”
DEFINE: ARREST … “How Biden’s Campaign Explains His ‘Arrest’ in South Africa,” by NYT’s Katie Glueck in Charleston: “But on Tuesday, Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager, said [Joe] Biden was referring to an episode in which he was separated from black colleagues in Johannesburg while on a congressional delegation trip to South Africa in the 1970s. It was the campaign’s first explanation to date — but one that still left many questions unanswered and did not square with Mr. Biden’s most recent remarks.
“‘He was separated from his party at the airport,’ Ms. Bedingfield said when pressed by reporters following Tuesday’s presidential debate here.
“When a reporter noted that being separated did not constitute an arrest, she repeated, ‘It was a separation. They, he was not allowed to go through the same door that the — the rest of the party he was with. Obviously, it was apartheid South Africa. There was a white door, there was a black door. He did not want to go through the white door and have the rest of the party go through the black door. He was separated. This was during a trip while they were there in Johannesburg.’”
WHERE THEY ARE: BIDEN will attend the National Action Network breakfast in North Charleston and an event in Georgetown, S.C., before his CNN town hall tonight. … BLOOMBERG will participate in a CNN town hall. … BUTTIGIEG is also attending the NAN breakfast. … KLOBUCHAR will be at the NAN breakfast. She also has a Charleston event at noon and a CNN town hall tonight.… SANDERS will be in Goldsboro, N.C., for a Poor People’s Campaign event. … WARREN will be at the NAN breakfast, and will attend events in Orangeburg and Charleston with John Legend. She has a CNN town hall tonight.
Good Wednesday morning.
WHY THE CORONAVIRUS IS SO DANGEROUS … ACTUALLY, AND POLITICALLY: The key during public health crises is trust. Do you trust that the administration is being honest with you, and can handle a virus that seems to be spiraling out of control, and putting American citizens like you at risk?
ON TUESDAY, YOU HAD PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP saying that the coronavirus was under control, while officials in the U.S. government were saying it was dangerous. Who do you trust, and when they make a move, how do you trust that what they’re doing is the right thing to do?
SCOOP — BEHIND THE SCENES: SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER led a discussion Tuesday about the coronavirus, and Democrats want to pressure the administration to do something — and quickly.
SCHUMER RAN THROUGH A POWERPOINT deck laying out how the president has cut back on global health funding and gotten rid of experts. Democrats believe — and Schumer laid out — that the federal government is not providing enough testing kits and masks in the case of a virus outbreak on U.S. soil.
HERE’S WHAT SCHUMER WANTS DEMOCRATS TO PUSH THE ADMINISTRATION ON: 1) ask the administration to appoint an independent global health czar to coordinate the response, 2) restore the CDC’s budget, which TRUMP’S administration is seeking to cut, 3) increase emergency spending for the crisis, 4) get testing kits for all 50 states and 5) make sure insurance plans cover the coronavirus.
TRUMP MOOD … WAPO’S JEFF STEIN and JOSH DAWSEY: “At least publicly, Trump has devoted the majority of his public statements to slamming Democrats or complaining about the criminal justice system. But he has not publicly engaged much about the coronavirus, other than to play down what he believes the impact will be on the United States. Privately, Trump has become furious about the stock market’s slide, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal details.
“While he has spent the past two days traveling in India, Trump has watched the stock market’s fall closely and believes extreme warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have spooked investors, the aides said. Some White House officials have been unhappy with how Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has handled the situation, they said.” WaPo
MARKETWATCH — WSJ: “Global Stocks Extend Losses as Virus Fears Deepen”
NAVARRO WATCH — “Break with China? Top Trump aide eyes an opening with coronavirus,” by Megan Cassella
INDIA WRAPS … WSJ’S MIKE BENDER in New Delhi: “The Taj Mahal, Folks Dancers, ‘Hey Jude’: Trump’s 36 Hours in India”
— “Death toll rises to 20 from Delhi riots during Trump trip,” by AP’s Sheikh Saaliq and Emily Schmall in New Delhi
THE PRESIDENT’S WEDNESDAY: The president and first lady Melania Trump will arrive at Joint Base Andrews at 6:30 a.m. They will head to the White House and arrive at 6:50 a.m.
PLAYBOOK READS
WILD STORY … DANIEL LIPPMAN and MERIDITH MCGRAW: “A new senior leader at the White House personnel office: A college senior”: “The White House has hired a college senior to be one of the top officials in its powerful Presidential Personnel Office, according to three administration officials familiar with the matter.
“James Bacon, 23, is acting as one of the right-hand men to new PPO director John McEntee, according to the officials. Bacon, a senior at George Washington University pursuing a bachelor’s degree, comes from the Department of Transportation, where he briefly worked in the policy shop. Prior to that role, while still taking classes, he worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he was a White House liaison, according to two other officials. At HUD, he distinguished himself as Secretary Ben Carson’s confidential assistant, according to two other administration officials.”
ONE MORE HAIL MARY — BURGESS EVERETT and JAMES ARKIN: “Schumer meets with Bullock as Montana filing deadline for Senate seat nears”
NATASHA BERTRAND and DANIEL LIPPMAN: “Trump tightens his grip on intelligence”: “President Donald Trump is tightening his grip on the intelligence community as part of a post-acquittal purge of career officials and political appointees deemed insufficiently loyal, and the abrupt firing of his last intel chief is only the tip of the iceberg, current and former intelligence officials say.
“Trump’s decision to replace acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire with a loyalist with no intelligence experience, Ric Grenell, shocked the national security world and has raised questions about who the president will nominate to serve in the post after Grenell’s ‘acting’ status expires next month. In India, Trump hinted that his decision would come soon.
“But it also revealed a deeper trend: namely, the steps Trump has taken to shield the public from intelligence that could be politically damaging for him, and keep the flow of information coming out of the agencies firmly under his control.” POLITICO
NYT’s CHARLIE SAVAGE: “N.S.A. Phone Program Cost $100 Million, but Produced Only Two Unique Leads”: “A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded only a single significant investigation, according to a newly declassified study.
“Moreover, only twice during that four-year period did the program generate unique information that the F.B.I. did not already possess, said the study, which was produced by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and briefed to Congress on Tuesday.” NYT
MEDIAWATCH — ANNA sat down with HARRIS FAULKNER of FOX NEWS in the latest “Women Rule” podcast. Faulkner talked about being the only woman of color to anchor an afternoon cable news show, what frustrates her about politics and how she handles having to fact-check guests in real time. Subscribe and listen
PLAYBOOKERS
Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.
SPOTTED: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Eric Bolling, George Pataki, Saul Anuzis, Sergio Gor and U.S. Ambassador to Morocco David Fischer separately all at the Trump hotel Tuesday night. … Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at Brasserie Liberté on Tuesday night.
TRANSITIONS — Norm Eisen is returning to Brookings. He worked on impeachment as a House Judiciary aide. … Ashley Lewis is now a VP on Edelman’s FinComms team. She previously was comms director at the Senate Banking Committee and is an Obama Ex-Im Bank alum. … Mike Horowitz has been named director of Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global affairs hub. He’s an Obama Pentagon alum. …
… Scooter Schaefer, director of digital marketing at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is joining the Conservative Partnership Institute to co-lead a new digital training program called the Revere Project. More from The Daily Caller … Natalie Johnson is now press secretary for Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). She previously was deputy press secretary for House GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Former McSally press secretary Amy Lawrence has moved up to comms director.
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme and former South Carolina governor, is 63. How he got his start: “I was 20 years old and a junior at Clemson University, majoring in microbiology, and I decided to run for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives representing my home area of Darlington County. My mother begged me not to get involved in politics because she thought it was dirty and corrupt. But I thought, as a young person at the time, that it was a chance to make a difference and shake things up. I still tell young people that they don’t have to wait, if they think they can make a difference they should go for it!” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is 62 … Kelley Gannon Russell … Washington Times’ Dave Boyer … Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is 66 … Sophie Willis … Fae Jencks … Corry Bliss, partner at FP1 Strategies … CBS News’ Arden Farhi … POLITICO’s Katie Ellsworth … Sarah Eppler … Carrie Meadows, COS to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) … Amanda Alpert Loveday … A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge America … Ashli Scott Palmer, partner at Peck Madigan Jones (h/t Mitchell Rivard) … Li Zhou … Ryan Martin … Courtney Paul, manager of public affairs at AdvaMed … Zara Haq … Clay Doherty … Jo Schopper … Jeff Abers is 64 …
… Will Mitchell, LD for Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), celebrating his first birthday as a new dad (h/t wife Sacha Haworth) … Ronald Lauder is 76 … Julie Miner, managing partner and CEO of J Strategies (h/t Ross Wallenstein) … Reuters’ Nicholas Brown is 35 … Adam Baer is 26 … Val Young … Marisel Morales … Alan Rosenblatt of Lake Research Partners … Bassima Alghussein … Tim Brant is 71 … Celia Meyer … Bruce Cohen … Eric Kleefeld … Peter Scheer … Samantha Lugo … Kathy Park … Jonathan Sporn … Sarah Budds, FSO at the State Department … Mark Gersh … Cathey Park … Ryan Falk … George Agurkis … Alana Newhouse
Follow us on Twitter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
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THE NATIONAL JOURNAL
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CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY
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THE BLAZE
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February 26, 2020 Trending now
Listen live to Blaze Radio Tune in to the next generation of talk radio, featuring original content from hosts like Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Stu Burguiere, Steve Deace and more!
One last thing …  Newly released body camera footage shows the moment a school resource officer arrests a sobbing 6-year-old girl in Orlando, Florida. The arrest took place in September, but footage of the incident was released this week, Newsweek reported. The Orlando Police Department fired former Officer Dennis Turner following the arrest of 6-year-old Kaia R … Read more
You might like … Got friends?
© 2020 Blaze Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive emails from Blaze Media. 8275 S. Eastern Ave, Ste 200-245 Las Vegas, Nevada, 89123, USA |
THE WASHINGTON POST MORNING HEADLINES
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THE HILL
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THE DISPATCH
The Morning Dispatch: Does GOP Surveillance Skepticism Threaten FISA Renewal?
Plus, did last night’s Democratic debate change anything?
| The Dispatch Staff | 6 hr | 3 |
Happy Wednesday! To quote the moderators at last night’s Democratic debate: “Thank you, senator—your time is up—thank you, sen—we’re movin—thank you, senat—we have a number of—thank you, senator—alright, thank you—I want to give—ok, thank you—please shut the—thank you, senator.”
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- The CDC is warning that the U.S. should brace for the likelihood of China’s coronavirus beginning to spread through America, with one official saying yesterday that “It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen.”
- Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to insist the prognosis is good: “We have contained this,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said. “I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”
- Olympics officials are warning that the 2020 summer games could be imperiled if the coronavirus is not brought under control in the next three months.
- Despite continued pleadings from Attorney General William Barr to stop weighing in on ongoing Department of Justice matters, President Trump resumed tweeting about Roger Stone’s criminal proceedings. Amy Jackson Berman, the judge presiding over Stone’s trial, issued a warning: “I need to state this clearly, that any attempt to invade the privacy of the jury is completely antithetical to our entire system of justice.”
- The Senate narrowly defeated Sen. Ben Sasse’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act for the second straight year yesterday. This time, 56 senators supported the bill, including three Democrats, four short of the number required to overcome the Senate filibuster. And 41 senators, all Democrats, were opposed.
- Bob Iger, CEO of Disney since 2005, is stepping down from the top job at the House of Mouse. He will remain the company’s executive chairman until 2021.
The Coming Intra-GOP Debate on FISA
Remember FISA-gate? Throughout the multiyear run of Robert Mueller’s election-meddling investigation, congressional Republicans wore themselves out protesting that the Russia probe that resulted in Mueller’s appointment had begun under dubious circumstances: in particular, that the FBI had relied heavily on the histrionic Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump campaign official Carter Page. These protests were largely vindicated last year, when an internal investigation led by DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found evidence of “serious performance failures” at the FBI, including, among other things, “17 significant errors or omissions” in the Page FISA application.
About Last Night
If you were hoping that a smaller Democratic debate stage would allow for a more substantive policy debate among the adults in the room, last night’s affair was a disappointment. After Bernie Sanders solidified his place as the definitive frontrunner for the nomination in the wake of his double-digit win in Nevada last Saturday, the six other candidates clearly believed this was their last opportunity to make their case before South Carolina on Saturday and the delegate tsunami on Tuesday when 14 states—including Texas and California—cast their ballots.
This Morning Dispatcher watched the debate with a senior Obama campaign official from 2008 and 2012 who has donated to Sanders this cycle. As he put it, “nobody turned in an A performance.” From a broader perspective on the race, he added, “I am surprised that candidates haven’t been making the case for Democratic leadership up to this point,” he said, “compared to 2008 and 2012, it just hasn’t been very hopeful, it’s been very dark.” But at the end of the night, he’s still supporting Sanders because “he’s the only candidate who has both the grassroots campaign organization and endless small dollar money machine, which you need to win against Trump.”
Worth Your Time
- In recent weeks, we’ve spent a good amount of time covering the increasingly thorny diplomatic situation surrounding the coming global switch to 5G technology, with the accompanying fears that China is in a position not only to win the switch economically, but also to dramatically increase its own global surveillance powers by building out much of the world’s 5G infrastructure themselves. This week, Politico released a huge suite of 5G-related articles, many of which are fascinating. Of particular note is their global survey of different countries’ citizens, which illuminated stark differences between how Americans view tradeoffs between privacy and security and how much of the rest of the world views them. Only 21 percent of U.S. consumers said they would accept lower privacy standards in exchange for superfast internet speeds; in China, India, and Brazil, that number was north of 60 percent. Meanwhile, only 7 percent of Americans polled said they believed private companies would be good stewards of their personal data—compared to 35 percent in China and 65 percent in India. Read up on these and more fascinating results from the survey here.
- Up top, we mentioned Sen. Sasse’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. His speech on the Senate floor today in support of the bill is well worth watching. “The piece of legislation we’re voting on today … is not about abortion,” Sasse said. “The bill we’re voting on doesn’t change anyone’s access to abortion. It doesn’t have anything to do with Roe v. Wade. It is about babies who are already born.”
Presented Without Comment
Toeing the Company Line
- Jonah does a deep dive (we think he was wearing scuba gear as he wrote) on Edward Bellamy’s influential 1888 science fiction work, Looking Backward, that launched a 19th century nationalism movement and later is credited by some with influencing the New Deal.
- When it comes to college, everyone focuses on access and affordability for students. But for many instructors, research is their primary mission. Frederick Hess and Brendal Bell look at how guidelines for federal funding have made the process more complicated than ever.
- Jonah welcomed Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng to The Remnantto discuss their new book, Sinking in the Swamp, the state of Washington D.C. grifting, and so much more. Check it out here!
- In David’s latest French Press(🔒 available to members only), he dissects the Supreme Court’s decision to grant review in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, and what it could mean for religious freedom. A brief excerpt is below; check out the full newsletter here!
In Fulton, the city took punitive action against Catholic Social Services (CSS) and refused to place any foster children with couples endorsed by CSS. The city took action because, as it stated in its initial petition to the Supreme Court, CSS “cannot provide written endorsements for same-sex couples which contradict its religious teachings on marriage.”
The issue was not that CSS prevented any gay couple from becoming foster parents. Gay families can work through different institutions, and—in fact, as the petition states—“not a single same-sex couple approached CSS about becoming a foster parent between its opening in 1917 and the start of this case in 2018.”
So, if gay couples were fostering through different institutions, what caused the city to act? Allegedly it did so only after learning about CSS’s policy through a “newspaper article,” not through any formal complaint. The city then stopped placing children with any family CSS endorsed. According to the petitioners, “This means that even though no same-sex couples had asked to work with the Catholic Church, the foster families that actually chose to work with the Church cannot welcome new children into their homes at a time when Philadelphia has an admittedly ‘urgent’ need for more foster parents.”
- Jonah welcomed Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng to The Remnant to discuss their new book, Sinking in the Swamp, the state of Washington D.C. grifting, and so much more. Check it out here!
Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).
Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter included a viral tweet from Joel Fischer showing Harvey Weinstein leaving a courthouse without a walker after having made use of one in recent months. It turns out, the video in that tweet was taken in 2018, not earlier this week.
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Top posts
AXIOS
Good Wednesday morning. It’s Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
- Today’s Smart Brevity™ count: 1,397 words … 5 minutes.
U.S. public-health officials’ warnings about the coronavirus are increasingly urgent, with one top CDC official asking the public yesterday “to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad,” Axios health care editor Sam Baker writes.
- Reality check: While other administration officials, including President Trump, were more subdued in their assessments, the virus spreads quickly, and has already spread to many countries, making it likely to start spreading here, too.
Where it stands: Cases are now piling up across Asia and into the Middle East, where it’s also spreading locally, even from people who weren’t exposed in China.
- As the virus spreads and as American travelers can encounter it in more places, the risk of a pandemic rises.
- So far, though, there are only about 50 confirmed cases of coronavirus inside the U.S., and most of those people were exposed to the virus abroad.
You don’t need to start panicking about the virus.
- The best ways to avoid getting the coronavirus are the same things you’d do to avoid getting the flu: Wash your hands, and stay away from work, school or other crowded places if you’re sick.
- If a pandemic does begin in the U.S., some businesses may want to embrace telework; schools may ultimately need to cancel classes; and local governments may want to reschedule large events, the CDC’s Nancy Messonnier said.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
The coronavirus has already forced millions to work from home in China, and as the outbreak goes global, remote work could become a vital public health strategy, Bryan Walsh writes in his Axios Future newsletter, which returns today.
- Why it matters: Businesses should be ready to “replace in-person meetings with video or telephone conferences and can increase teleworking options,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, spokesperson for the CDC’s coronavirus response, told reporters.
What’s happening: The videoconferencing company Zoom has been one of the few stocks to rise even as fears about the coronavirus pull down the market.
- In China, Alibaba’s collaboration platform DingTalk became the most-downloaded free iOS app in the country in early February.
- In Hong Kong, where classes are suspended until at least March 2, schools are experimenting with creating an interactive educational experience for homebound students using Zoom, according to the South China Morning Post.
📱 Sign up for Bryan Walsh’s debut issue of Axios Future, out this afternoon.
A new urgency permeated the performance of nearly every Democrat during the South Carolina debate last night, as Bernie Sanders threatens to run away with an insurmountable delegate lead after Super Tuesday, six days from now.
- Mike Bloomberg had a better outing than his first debate, steadying him as he heads into the Tuesday contests that will determine his viability.
Our top takeaways, narrated by Axios’ Zach Basu:
1. The usually reticent Joe Biden, who has vowed to win Saturday’s South Carolina primary, barked at moderators for cutting into his time.
- And he took aim at Sanders, Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, who has poured millions into ads in South Carolina.
2. Pete Buttigieg spoke pointedly about racial justice and policing, an issue that he said he approaches “with humility.”
- He was the first in several debates to acknowledge the all-white field: “I’m conscious of the fact that there are seven white people on this stage talking about racial justice.”
3. Elizabeth Warren, who saw a bump in national polling after her breakout debate performance last week, clearly saw her critical treatment of Bloomberg as her best shot to save her campaign.
- “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him,” Warren argued.
4. Establishment Democrats have been sounding the alarm about how a ticket led by Sanders, a democratic socialist, will affect down-ballot races in the moderate districts that helped Democrats take the House in 2018. That concern manifested on the debate stage for the first time.
- Bloomberg said: “Donald Trump and the House and the Senate and some of the state houses will all go red, and then between gerrymandering and appointing judges for the next 20 or 30 years we’re going to live with this catastrophe.”
5. The dominant attack line against Sanders this week from Republicans — and even some Democrats — was his praise for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s literacy program.
- The senator didn’t disavow the comments, arguing it is possible to condemn authoritarianism while acknowledging good things those governments may have done.
Between the lines: The coronavirus; the humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib, Syria; and President Trump and the rule of law — all massive global storylines — received little to no attention at the debate.
🗞️ P.S. … The Boston Globe endorsed Warren, calling her “a leader with the qualifications, the track record, and the tenacity to … advance a progressive agenda.”
Southern rural areas have seen the highest levels of business deaths since the Great Recession, with African American communities bearing the brunt of economic decline, Axios’ Kim Hart, author of Axios Cities, writes from a new report by the progressive Center for American Progress.
- Small businesses in the South and rural middle America have been battered by growing consolidation in the agriculture industry, leading to communities being dominated by a single company.
Some pockets of rural America are seeing business growth, even though it pales in comparison to larger cities:
- Graying America communities are generally recreation-dependent. These communities are located in large states such as Florida, Texas and California.
- Many Hispanic centers are mining-dependent, especially in the oil and gas industry.
- Mormon enclaves in Utah have large youth populations and less population loss than other rural communities.
Wall Street’s two-day coronavirus crash is a wake-up call for Silicon Valley, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes from the Bay Area.
- Tech has been booming for so long the industry barely remembers what a down market feels like — and most companies are ill-prepared for one.
A coronavirus-triggered recession could affect tech in unexpected ways.
- The industry is highly dependent on international collaboration, cross-border supply chains and global consumer demand, all of which are threatened by the prospect of a pandemic.
- But a shelter-in-place mentality could prove a boon to videoconferencing, e-commerce, and other tech-driven trends that let lives go on with less direct human contact.
A market retreat could also reshape the inside-the-Beltway critique of Big Tech.
- Arguments for tough new regulations based on the industry’s power might look different in a world where tech giants’ stock had been battered and their spending cut, on everything from lobbying to acquisitions.
- 20 years ago, a new wave of companies (including Google, founded 1998, Salesforce, founded 1999, and Facebook, founded 2004) germinated while the giants of the era froze in place or withered.
Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images
In a move that shocked the media industry, Bob Iger said yesterday that he would step down from his role as CEO of the Walt Disney Company after leading the entertainment giant to unprecedented success during his 15-year run, Axios media trends expert Sara Fischer writes.
- Why it matters: Iger is credited with having successfully led Disney through a series of risky but highly successful acquisitions that not only solidified the company’s entertainment dominance, but also reshaped the entire media landscape.
During his tenure, Disney successfully turned around its animation and studio businesses — and added huge names like Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox to its portfolio.
- It also launched its foray into the streaming era through the creation of Netflix rival, Disney+.
Pro-Trump super PAC America First Action is preparing to unleash a series of targeted, swing-state attacks on the Democrats most likely to face President Trump after Super Tuesday, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports.
- The group has been tracking favorable/unfavorable ratings for Dem candidates in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania — on the theory that if Trump wins each of these six states he would win re-election.
- The spending isn’t expected to begin until it’s clearer who the Democratic nominee will be, whether that’s after Super Tuesday or in July at the Democratic National Convention.
The attacks will be targeted to specific audiences in each state, based on rich data gathered beginning last August. The super PAC has pulled together about 500 pages of research on four of the five candidates, with about 300 pages on Buttigieg, given his shorter record.
- The onslaught will come in the form of high-dollar digital and TV ad buys and mailers, one of the people familiar with the strategy said.
This is the original artwork for a “Flash Gordon” comic strip published in 1934.
- The pencil-and-ink drawing by Alex Raymond will be auctioned March 31, AP reports.
Why it matters: The series quickly grew in influence, spawning movies and inspiring later science-fiction hits.
- “Flash Gordon” was commissioned as a competitor to the Buck Rogers series.
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ARRA NEWS SERVICE
ARRA News Service (in this message: 17 new items) |
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- Will African Americans abandon Biden for Bernie?
- Democrats’ Abortion Extremism Accelerates
- NeverSanders?
- 9th Circuit: Trump Administration Stripping Funding From Abortion Clinics Is Constitutional
- Perspective on Coronavirus
- Draining The Swamp, Good News, Fighting Pro-Abortion Extremism
- National Debt Isn’t $23 Trillion, It’s $122 Trillion, Group Says
- Bernie Sanders Doubles Down On Castro Comments By Defending Communist China
- Will JFK’s Party Become Sanders’ Party?
- Natural Gas Is Crushing Wind and Solar Power
- ‘Berning’ Down the House . . .
- Religious Ideals
- The Mandela Effect
- A Two-Year Terror Campaign Against One Small GOP Office
- A Trump Victory Is Not Guaranteed
- Bernie Sanders’ Road to Serfdom … And Corruption
- Dick Morris : Potential Bloomberg-Clinton Conspiracy To Shaft Bernie
| Will African Americans abandon Biden for Bernie?
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:16 PM PST  by Star Parker: Democrats appear to be walking the same walk that Republicans walked in 2016. They want something new and completely different. Former Vice President Joe Biden must be in shock that he is taking a far back seat to a 78-year old socialist who recently had a heart attack. He may not even be able to rely on black voters, whom he assumed would be there for him. According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are running neck and neck with black voters in the upcoming South Carolina primary, where 60% of Democrat voters are African American. Influential Congressional Black Caucus member and House majority whip James Clyburn of South Carolina was circumspect on “Meet the Press” when Chuck Todd pressed him regarding an endorsement of Biden. We get a hint on what voters are feeling by looking at Gallup polling on whether voters are satisfied or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Gallup has been asking this question since 1979. The average over the entire period, from February 1979 to January 2020, has been 37% expressing satisfaction with the direction of the nation. Good news for President Donald Trump is that the figure recently jumped to 41%, the first time since July 2005 that it is over 40%. The average for former President Ronald Reagan’s second term, 1985 through 1988, was 54%. The average for former President Barack Obama’s two terms was 24%. It shows why Biden has been such a flop. Although Obama had high personal ratings with the American public, the public’s sense of the state of the nation under his stewardship provides a far different picture. Taking voters, certainly black voters, for granted just isn’t going to work anymore. Americans sense that there has been something very wrong in the country, and they want very clear answers from candidates on what they think is wrong and how they plan to fix it. We’re just not going to get by anymore as half-free and half-socialist. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, we’re going to become all one or all the other. I discuss this in depth in my new book, “Necessary Noise.” In 2016, Republicans went out of the mainstream and picked Donald Trump to clean up the Washington swamp. Democrats went for the establishment candidate and lost. Now Democrats want to move left from the murky middle as Republicans move right. Polling of black voters shows they feel that the country is unfair and that more government is needed to fix this. According to Gallup, 70% of blacks feel the country is divided into “haves” and “have-nots,” and 57% of blacks self-identify as “have-not.” In polling by the Pew Research Center, 66% of blacks say economic inequality is a major problem in the country today. And 74% of blacks, compared with 48% of whites, say “government should do more to solve problems.” Regarding government-run health care, Bernie Sanders’ flagship, 66% of black Democrats, per Gallup, express preference for a government-run system. Bernie Sanders is serving it all up, clear as day for all to see. Turn your whole life over to the government. So in November, Americans may have a clear and stark choice. Blacks will have a chance to decide whether being free or living under government dictate is the best way to deal with the opportunity problem they perceive. Truth is that blacks have been living disproportionately under government dictate since the 1970s. And today, average black household wealth is one-tenth average white household wealth. Apparently, many African Americans feel that this gap persists because we don’t have enough government in our lives, rather than too much. It looks like bye-bye, Biden. Americans want vision and leadership. Now the question is whether we look to freedom or the other way. Tags: Star Parker, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, CURE, race, elections, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, democrats, To 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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| Democrats’ Abortion Extremism Accelerates
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:06 PM PST  Democrats Have Gone To Extremes On Abortion, Calling For A Sweeping ‘Constitutional Right’ To Abortion At Any Stage Of Pregnancy SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “… a woman has a right to decide what is her choice with her doctor before that moment before the child is born.” (“Schumer: ‘A Woman Has A Right To Decide What Is Her Choice…Before That Moment Before The Child Is Born,’” CNSNews.com, 4/9/2019) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): “Abortion is health care. When we pass Medicare for All, we will be guaranteeing a woman’s right to control her own body by covering comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion.” (Sen. Sanders, @BernieSanders, Twitter, 5/15/2019) SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): “Access to safe, legal abortion is a constitutional RIGHT. Full stop.” (Sen. Warren, @ewarren, Twitter, 5/15/2019) FORMER MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN): “It’s past time to end the assault on reproductive freedom in our country. As president, I will act to safeguard the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion and related care. And together, we will #StopTheBans.” (Former Mayor Buttigieg, @PeteButtigieg, Twitter, 10/29/2019)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): “Reproductive rights are not just protected by the Constitution of the United States but must be guaranteed in every state. This is a direct attack on women’s health.” (Sen. Harris, @KamalaHarris, Twitter, 5/28/2019) “Presidential hopeful and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker told BuzzFeed News Wednesday that if he becomes president, he wants Congress to pass a law that would make abortion legal nationwide, no matter what the Supreme Court decides.” (“Cory Booker Vows To Make Roe V. Wade The Law Of The Land As President,” BuzzFeed News, 5/15/2019) SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): “We should codify Roe v. Wade into law. That’s what we should do.” (“Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar And Booker Talk Abortion Rights At Debate,” The New York Times, 11/21/2019) SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): “I believe access to abortion is a constitutionally protected right, and I’m not afraid to follow through and guarantee it with the power of the federal government. With the threat level this high in so many states, I don’t think women can afford anything less.” (Sen. Gillibrand, “Why I Went To The Frontlines Of The Assault On Abortion Rights—And What I’ll Do About It,” Medium, 5/16/2019)
“For years, the Hyde Amendment represented a rare point of bipartisan consensus on abortion in Congress, with lawmakers from both parties agreeing that taxpayer money should not be used to fund abortions, with some exceptions.” (Time, 6/07/2019) “Congress passed the first iteration of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, just a few years after Roe v. Wade, attaching it to Medicaid appropriations…. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the amendment in 1980.” (“What Is The Hyde Amendment?,” CBS News, 6/07/2019)
(“Ban On Abortion Funding Stays In House Bill As 2020 Democrats Promise Repeal,” NPR, 6/13/2019)“[T]he amendment that restricts government funding for most abortions has been preserved by Democrats for decades — including with votes from some of the presidential hopefuls now decrying it.” (“Hyde Amendment, Abortion Debate Haunt 2020 Democrats,” The Associated Press, 6/07/2019) HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): “I do not think it is good public policy, and I wish we never had a Hyde Amendment, but it is the law of the land right now.” (“Ban On Abortion Funding Stays In House Bill As 2020 Democrats Promise Repeal,” NPR, 6/13/2019) FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: “I can’t justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and their ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right. If I believe healthcare is a right as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s zip code… For many years as a U.S. senator, I have supported the Hyde amendment as many, many others have because there was sufficient monies and circumstances where women were able to exercise that right, women of color, poor women, women were not able to have access, and it was not under attack … as it is now. But circumstances have changed.” (“Joe Biden Reverses Stance On Hyde Amendment,” ABC News, 6/6/2019) “Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Wednesday the decades-old Hyde Amendment shouldn’t be law … Warren has called to end the Hyde Amendment and co-sponsors legislation to overturn the ban.” (“Warren: Hyde Amendment Should Not Be American Law,” The Hill, 6/05/2019)
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA), Senate HELP Committee Ranking Member: “[Repealing the Hyde Amendment] would help address the unacceptable reality that far too many women, particularly low-income women, young women, women of color, and those who live in rural areas, have the constitutional right to safe, legal abortion in name only—not in practice. I believe that as the Trump Administration and its allies work as hard as they can to take away access to abortion in our country and move women backward, we need to do even more to lay out our vision for ensuring every woman—regardless of how she is insured, her zip code, or her income—can make the decisions that are right for her.” (Sen. Murray, Press Release, 3/13/2019) SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): “All women – regardless of their income level or type of health insurance – are deserving of the fundamental right to access the health care they need, including abortion. Unfortunately, for far too many women in this country, that care is out of reach because of cost. The Hyde Amendment, like so many other barriers erected to restrict access to abortion, unequally and disproportionately affects low-income women, women of color, young women, and immigrants. Repealing the Hyde Amendment is a necessary step forward to ensuring all women can equally access their constitutionally-protected right to abortion care.” (Sen. Hirono, Press Release, 3/13/2019) GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): “The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. …This is why legislators, most of whom are men, by the way, shouldn’t be telling a woman what she should and shouldn’t be doing with her body. … We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions.” (“Virginia Gov. Northam On Road Projects, Teacher Pay, Shutdown Impact, More,” WTOP, 1/30/2019)
“As states across the US pass laws restricting access to abortion, Illinois passed legislation declaring a pregnant person has a ‘fundamental right’ to terminate their pregnancy and stating that a ‘fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights.’ The new legislation, passed Friday, repeals a 1975 state law that required spousal consent, waiting periods, placed restrictions on abortion facilities, and outlined procedures for pursuing criminal charges against abortion providers. The bill also rolls back some state restrictions on late-term abortions by repealing Illinois’ Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Chicago Tribune reported. Many provisions in the two newly negated laws had not been enforced due to court injunctions, according to the paper.” (“Illinois Affirms The “Fundamental Right” To Abortion By Passing A New Bill,” Vox, 6/1/2019) “New York state enacted one of the nation’s strongest protections for abortion rights Tuesday, a move that state leaders say was needed to safeguard those rights should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade… Known as the Reproductive Health Act, the measure replaces a 1970 state abortion law that was passed three years before Roe legalized abortion nationwide. It codifies many abortion rights laid out in Roe and other court rulings, including a provision permitting late-term abortions when a woman’s health is endangered. The previous law, which was in conflict with Roe and other subsequent abortion rulings, only permitted abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy if a woman’s life was at risk.” (“NY Enacts New Protections For Abortion Rights,” The Associated Press, 1/22/2019)
Tags: Democrats’ Abortion Extremism, Accelerates To 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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| NeverSanders?
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 05:37 PM PST
by Victor Davis Hanson: Almost everything the Democratic Left said about Donald Trump causing a Republican Party implosion proved untrue—and yet is proving true this year of the Democrats. Trump’s agenda, for the most part, was Reaganesque, with a few important exceptions—closing the border and enforcing immigration law, getting tough with China’s unfair trade policies, restoring assembly and manufacturing jobs to the hollowed-out interior, avoiding optional wars abroad, and trying to drain the proverbial federal swamp of its careerist bureaucrats and revolving-door apparatchiks. Those wrinkles from the Republican agenda, in fact, were consistent with traditional conservative values, and thus even among establishment and mainstream Republicans still polled well enough. That reality later was empowered by Trump’s effort to keep his campaign promises, by an economy at near-record employment, and by foreign policy recalibrations that are starting to win grudging, if unspoken, bipartisan support on China, given news coverage of the Hong Kong crackdown, the reeducation camps, the coronavirus debacle, and the Orwellian surveillance state apparat. Even before Trump’s governance, the NeverTrump Right was emasculated, largely because its pundits and politicians could offer no alternative party agenda superior to Trump’s. Moreover, they had spent much of their lives advocating most of the very policies Trump was advancing, and increasingly was getting results. Nor before or after the election could they ever convince Republicans that Trump’s crassness and uncouth tweets were quite unlike the White House crudity of past presidents (e.g., Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton) rather than in part attributable to the Internet/social media age and the new tabloid media. All those facts explain why Trump in 2016 received nearly 90 percent of the Republican vote, at par with, or better than, previous Republican nominees. Polling suggests that in 2020 Trump will do as well with Republican voters, or even better than four years ago. Instead, the rump that is left of the NeverTrump Right, more and more, is sustained by the Left, which finds them either useful idiot panelists on cable news, or eager website panhandlers of left-wing tech largess—always on the condition they write ever more contorted anti-Trump tirades. In sum, for all the talk in 2016 of Trump destroying the Republican Party, he has learned how to unite it in a way unfathomable to his critics. Politicos concede that calling China to account, working to revitalize the industrial heartland, ending illegal immigration, and curbing the administrative state are becoming mainstream Republican tenets. 2020 is Not Quite 2016 2020 Sanders is their presumed 2016 Trump, at least as mainstream Democrats see it. Bernie is a supposed destructive outsider who loathes the party establishment and has a fervent base that is oblivious to their candidate’s inconsistencies and prior embarrassing associations and rhetoric—and doesn’t give a damn whether he takes down the party in the 2020 election on his singular, narcissistic crusade to become president. Yet unlike Sanders’ radical redistributionism, Trump’s tweaking of the Republican agenda eventually achieved unity, and brought Reagan Democrats, Perot voters, Tea-party activists, and blue-collar voter drop-outs back into the party without losing the Republican mainstream. In contrast, Sanders’s promises to end fracking, implement the radical Green New Deal, institute a 70-90 percent top income tax rate along with a wealth tax, reparations, an open border and blanket amnesties, Medicare for all, and radical loosening of voter eligibility seem unlikely to unite Democrats in quite the same way. Little of that appeals to suburban voters and independents, and will not win them into the Democratic Party—but it will lose Sanders 10-20 percent of registered Democrats who will stay home or furtively vote Trump. Top of the Ticket Sanders? Oddly, Sanders’s rivals on the debate stage never really hit the presumptive leader where he is most vulnerable: his reprehensible past empathy for the genocidal Soviet Union, and his praise of communist dictatorships such as those in Nicaragua and Cuba. Then there remains the embarrassing paradox of a die-hard socialist redistributionist eager to cash in on his political career—to the extent of setting up his wife as an in-house, well-paid consultant (with her past failed career as wheeler-dealer small college president who bankrupted her institution and for a while won the attention of the FBI), while becoming a millionaire with three homes. Mention that, as Bloomberg did in the recent debate, and Bernie becomes livid, in a fashion that appears dangerous for a septuagenarian who recently survived a heart attack. Will there arise a Democratic NeverSanders movement if Bernie wins the nomination? It depends. The Democratic fear and loathing of Sanders exceed that of Republicans for Trump in 2016. But whereas the alternative four years ago for NeverTrump Republicans was Hillary Clinton—with all the orthodox respectability and bipartisan bureaucratic schmoozing that Clinton sought to convey—would-be NeverSanders Democrats either would be actively or implicitly helping Donald J. Trump. Would a Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Joe Manchin prefer the hated Donald Trump or good ol’ radical socialist Bernie Sanders with his calls for wealth taxes, 90 percent tax rates, wars against billionaires, a foreign policy far to the left of Barack Obama’s and socialization of the medical system? We can see glimpses of the NeverSanders Left dilemma in the confusion of the current NeverTrump right. For most of the primary season, they more or less praised Joe Biden, the front-runner and assumed likely nominee who ultimately supposedly would govern in the fashion of Bill Clinton, and thus was clearly preferable to the despised Trump. But now? Most are going silent on the question of 2016, given the embarrassment that the logical dividend of hating Trump in 2020 is the election of America’s first socialist, whose agenda makes his spiritual predecessors Eugene Debs and Huey Long seem tame in comparison. Will NeverTrumpers resurrect the third-party wannabe Evan McMullen or finally convince David French to run? Will they sit out the election? Any NeverTrump “conservative” who voted for Sanders would be revealed as a rank opportunist or an unhinged obsessive-compulsive Trump hater, given the strange odyssey from establishment Beltway conservative to socialist nihilist. So Sanders as the nominee has the unique ability of destroying the Democratic Party. In 1964, Rockefeller Republicans jumped to LBJ, after the tumultuous Goldwater takeover of the party. George McGovern in 1972 helped accelerate the neoconservative transformation of Democrats into Republicans. Reagan Democrats abandoned Mondale in 1984. For a half-century until the election of Barack Obama in 2008—a result of the anemic McCain campaign, the 2008 financial meltdown, the incumbent Bush’s sub-30 percent popularity, the unpopular Iraq War, and the idea of America’s first African-American president—Democrats did not win the popular vote in presidential elections unless their nominees had a southern accent—LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore—and, with it, reassuring proof of centrism. Northern losing liberals like Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry apparently confirmed a too leftward drift of the party. In sum, if Sanders wins, the silent NeverSanders Democrats will become more numerous than were the loud impotent NeverTrump Republicans. And they need not vote Trump, but instead simply stay home or find a third-party or renegade Democrat to rally around to ensure Trump’s reelection. Note that Trump was not only more consistent with his party’s values than Sanders, but more representative of the views of American voters in general. One might object that Trump is crude and off-putting and thus cancels out the appeal of his record. But is Bernie pleasant and measured? His policy nostrums are frightening. He cannot take criticism, but becomes gruff and animated. And he is a different sort of septuagenarian than is Trump, who has a sense of humor and can be self-deprecating. Get-off-my-grass Bernie, like most true-believers and fellow travelers of mandated government redistribution, is serious 24/7. He never really addresses criticism, and his fallback position on any issue is always another predictable socialist bromide, a frown and two frail arms flailing in the air. Again, Sanders the person gives the Sanders agenda no boost. All that can be said of Sanders is that he is authentically socialist in a way that candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren are only so occasionally and opportunistically. In 2020 if Sanders is the Democratic nominee, the NeverSanders movement will be far larger, far wealthier, far more influential—even as it is likely far quieter—than were the vociferous but anemic NeverTrumpers of 2016. Tags: Victor Davis Hanson, NeverSanders? To 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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| 9th Circuit: Trump Administration Stripping Funding From Abortion Clinics Is Constitutional
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:55 PM PST  by Mary Margaret Olohan: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue stripping federal funding from clinics that offer abortions. The court upheld the Trump administration’s June 2019 declaration that taxpayer-funded clinics must stop referring women for abortions or be stripped of their Title X funding. Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote Monday’s majority opinion, stating that “there is no ‘gag’ on [nondirective] abortion counseling.” The Department of Health and Human Services followed the decision in June by alerting clinics that it would enforce the administration’s ban. Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X federal family planning program, thereby forgoing about $60 million a year, in August 2019 rather than comply with this decision.
“Today’s ruling is a vindication of President Trump’s pro-life policies and a victory for the American people,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement, adding that abortion is not family planning and that “a strong majority of Americans” oppose taxpayer-funded abortions. “President Trump’s Protect Life Rule honors their will and the plain language of the Title X statute by stopping the funneling of Title X taxpayer dollars to the abortion industry, without reducing family planning funding by a dime,” Dannenfelser added. “We thank President Trump and HHS Secretary [Alex] Azar for their strong pro-life leadership and look forward to the end of further frivolous litigation by the abortion lobby.” Americans United for Life President and CEO Catherine Glenn Foster said in a statement that AUL is “grateful that the court of appeals has seen through the false cries of the abortion industry and upheld a rule that protects women’s health as well as taxpayer’s consciences.” “We look forward to the implementation of the rule in a way that ensures that no public funding is ever used for elective abortions,” Foster said. Other organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, protested the ruling. “The rule prohibits family planning clinics—which previously served as the source of health care for more than four million low-income people every year—from providing Title X patients with referrals for abortion care and imposes other onerous requirements that have resulted in the widespread loss of critical Title X providers,” the ACLU said in a press release. ACLU senior staff attorney Ruth Harlow noted that the ACLU is “deeply disappointed” at the decision. “We are looking at any further options to rescue the Title X program and to restore the critical care it has provided to marginalized patients for almost five decades,” Harlow said in a statement. Tags: Mary Margaret Olohan, The Daily Caller, The Daily signal, 9th Circuit, Trump Administration, Stripping Funding, From Abortion Clinics, Is Constitutional To 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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| Perspective on Coronavirus
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:23 PM PST . . . The death toll is rising, creating panic and market trouble around the globe.
 by Nate Jackson: As you may have heard, there is global panic about bird flu swine flu ebola coronavirus (COVID-19). We don’t say that to minimize the danger or the very real death toll. In fact, Mark Alexander recently wrote (and has since added updates) about exactly how seriously we should take this outbreak and what people should be prepared to do about it. We do say it to put things in perspective amidst the epidemic of media panic. To date, there have been more than 2,700 deaths from coronavirus, though 94% of them have been in China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak began. More than 80,000 cases have been confirmed in more than 30 countries, and there have been dozens of deaths (total) in Iran, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Italy, and France. The virus is spreading and serious; it has a long incubation period and may be mutating, but, so far, the mortality rate remains at about 3%. The World Health Organization has not yet declared coronavirus a pandemic. The economic impact is huge. China alone accounts for roughly a third of global trade, so with many of its factories shut down and a big decline in container traffic, the rest of the world is feeling the pain. The Wall Street Journal warns, “Some economists are predicting that the epidemic could cause China’s GDP to shrink up to 10% year-over-year in the first quarter.” That’s astounding, and if that happens it will impact the United States greatly. The Journal’s Walter Russell Mead wrote earlier this month, “Given the accumulated costs of decades of state-driven lending, massive malfeasance by local officials in cahoots with local banks, a towering property bubble, and vast industrial overcapacity, China is as ripe as a country can be for a massive economic correction. Even a small initial shock could lead to a massive bonfire of the vanities as all the false values, inflated expectations and misallocated assets implode.” (Chinese officials ejected three Journal reporters after that article because they argued its headline, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” is racist.) One major effect of coronavirus for millions of Americans already is the stock market, which dropped 1,000 points (3.5%) Monday on coronavirus fears. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 2% for the year. “The second-largest economy in the world [China] is completely shut down. People aren’t totally pricing that in,” said Larry Benedict, CEO of The Opportunistic Trader, who forecasts a 10% to 15% correction in stocks. “It seems like there’s much more to come.” The Trump administration has requested Congress authorize $2.5 billion in emergency funding to fight any outbreak here, and it has already taken actions to monitor travel and protect American citizens. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded that President Donald Trump’s request is “long overdue and completely inadequate.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer complained that Trump is “asleep at the wheel.” Evidently, Trump Derangement Syndrome is also still a threat. Tags: Perspective on Coronavirus, Nate Jackson, The Patriot Post To 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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| Draining The Swamp, Good News, Fighting Pro-Abortion Extremism
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:34 PM PST
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Draining The Swamp Of course, hysterical Washington reporters are putting the worst possible spin on this, describing it as a “purge.” But every president has the right to determine the staff and personnel who serve the administration and oversee the implementation of his agenda. Only in the fevered brows of the leftist media is the Deep State “resistance” immune from the lawful exercise of President Trump’s authority. And I’m pleased to report that the president was unapologetic about efforts to root out bad actors. Referring back to the impeachment sham and the so-called “whistleblower,” Trump told reporters, “We want to have people [who] are good for the country, [who] are loyal to our country, because that was a disgraceful situation.” Government workers are certainly free to disagree with the president. That is their right. And they are also free to resign if they feel unable to carry out his policies. But they have absolutely no right to “resist” or frustrate his agenda by substituting their policy judgments or political desires over those of the duly-elected president. That’s exactly what Col. Vindman and the “whistleblower” did in order to trigger the entire disgraceful impeachment sham. It’s sad that three years into his administration, the president is still fighting with the bureaucracy. But Trump campaigned on the promise to drain the DC swamp, and he’s keeping that promise. Good News Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Trump Administration rule that prohibited health centers funded with your tax dollars from promoting abortion or referring clients to abortion providers. The court ruled 7-to-4 that the Trump Administration rule was similar to one issued by the Reagan Administration and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1988. As you know, the 9th Circuit has long been a bastion of left-wing activism. But thanks to President Trump’s conservative judges, that is rapidly coming to an end. And the left is freaking out. In addition, the Supreme Court cleared the way late last week for the Trump Administration to begin enforcing a rule denying permanent legal status to immigrants who become “public charges” or dependent on taxpayer-funded benefits. The rule is a long-standing but rarely enforced law meant to ensure that immigrants who come to the United States won’t become a burden on taxpayers, and President Trump was right to instruct the government to enforce it. Predictably, the left went ballistic and sued to block its enforcement. Last week’s ruling marked the second time that the Supreme Court had to intervene to remove a lower court injunction against the “public charge” rule. Trump Fires Back Of course, the justices have strong opinions and do disagree. The late, great Antonin Scalia was well-known for his blistering dissents. But for Sotomayor to suggest that Republican-appointed justices were biased in favor of the Trump Administration was a shocking breach of decorum. Moreover, Sotomayor largely ignored a growing problem that Justice Neil Gorusch and Attorney General William Barr have repeatedly criticized — the historic abuse of nationwide injunctions issued by left-wing judges to thwart this president’s agenda. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this morning to discuss this very problem. Sen. Ted Cruz addressed Sotomayor’s dissent, saying: “I read it a little bit like an arsonist complaining about the noise from the fire trucks. . . If you look to the facts of what’s happening with nationwide injunctions, I think it will explain why the Department of Justice has had to ask the Supreme Court to intervene over and over again.” A typical Republican administration would have been embarrassed by Sotomayor’s criticism and would have dodged liberal media attempts to shame the administration. Trump hit back. He blasted Sotomayor’s dissent as “inappropriate,” and rightly called out the court’s leading leftists. He suggested that Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse themselves from cases involving the administration because they are the ones who are biased. Kudos to President Trump for fighting back! The radical left has had a stranglehold over our courts for far too long. Liberal judges have imposed radical policies on the American people that could not pass at the ballot box. President Trump and Vice President Pence understand this, and that is why they have made judicial nominations a top priority. They also know that elections have consequences, and everything we care about is at stake this November. Fighting Pro-Abortion Extremism One bill, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, would ban late-term abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Another bill by Sen. Ben Sasse seeks to ensure that babies who are born alive after botched abortions are guaranteed access to emergency medical care. This morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pleaded with Democrats to allow senators to debate these bills. McConnell noted that the vast majority of the American people recognize that late-term abortions are cruel and extreme. Sadly, the radical left refuses to recognize the humanity of unborn babies in the womb at any stage of pregnancy. Here are some excerpts of Sen. McConnell’s remarks. “Today, every senator will be able to take a clear moral stand. . . There are only seven nations left in the world where an unborn child can be killed by elective abortion after 20 weeks, and the United States of America is one of them. . . “The American people don’t seem to think that’s what we need. One recent survey found that 70 percent of all Americans believe that . . . elective abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy. . . “If there is a persuasive and principled case why America should remain on the radical international fringe on this subject, let us hear it. Let us have this debate. Few Americans agree with that radical position, but let us have the debate. “If my Democratic colleagues block the Senate from even proceeding to debate this legislation later today, the message they send will be chilling and clear: The radical demands of the far-left will drown out common sense and the views of most Americans. “The same goes for Senator Sasse’s legislation, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. . . The Kentuckians I speak with cannot comprehend why this would be some hotly-debated proposition. . . We’ll see whether even something this simple and this morally straightforward is a bridge too far for the far left.” Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Draining The Swamp, Good News, Fighting Pro-Abortion Extremism To 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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| National Debt Isn’t $23 Trillion, It’s $122 Trillion, Group Says
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:16 PM PST  by Mark Tapscott, The Epoch Times: America’s current national debt stands at roughly $23.3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Debt to the Penny” website, which is so precise that visitors can pick a specific date in the recent past—say Jan. 1, 2000—and get the exact amount on that day: $5,776,091,314,225.33. While based on those figures, the national debt has more than quadrupled in that time frame, it’s actually much worse than that, according to calculations by Bill Bergman. “This calculation highlights some of the pitfalls and perils of false precision,” Bergman, the director of research for the Chicago-based nonprofit advocacy group Truth in Accounting (TIA), told The Epoch Times. “The U.S. government does not include the unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare under current law. These massive negative positions are so high that Truth in Accounting believes the ‘true’ national debt runs north of $100 trillion.” Because future obligations aren’t included in current-year accounting, a government budget can technically be “balanced” when, in truth, it’s anything but. That’s because those unfunded obligations under Social Security and Medicare are benefits the government has promised to pay future beneficiaries, but for which there currently exists no dedicated funding. The yawning gap between the Treasury Department’s calculation of the national debt and TIA’s reflects how the federal government keeps its books. “How does the U.S. government justify not counting these obligations as debts? The reasoning has been that the government controls the law, and can change it at any time,” Bergman said. “We at TIA don’t believe sound accounting allows for this degree of discretion. As long as current law is current law, the government should record these debts, and behave accordingly.” But that’s not all. Bergman said that “a true national debt running almost five times as high as the reported debt may suggest deception is at work,” but federal accounting “also calls Social Security and Medicare ‘entitlement’ programs, and [for annual budgeting purposes] calls entitlement expenditures ‘mandatory’ spending.’” In other words, officials can spend less now and save the difference, raise taxes now for future spending, or hope the economy keeps growing and generates added revenues and budget surpluses down the road. Federal officials know these options well, and they even allude to them on the annual Social Security statement that future beneficiaries get in the mail: “Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time.” The annual trustees for Social Security and Medicare also issue annual reports that acknowledge the spiraling benefits and project the years when each system will be unable to pay promised benefits based on current assets if Congress continues to ignore the problem. The problem of misleading accounting isn’t unique to the federal government; it’s widespread at the state and local levels as well, according to TIA President Sheila Weinberg. “While governments’ consolidated or government-wide statements are prepared on an accrual basis, the general and other budgeted funds statements are prepared using the ‘modified accrual basis,’ which loosely resembles the cash basis. These two sets of books lead to misleading and contradictory financial information,” Weinberg recently told The Epoch Times. Neither set of books includes the unfunded obligations. “Of course, government officials often point to the financial data from the fund statements, which leave out long-term liabilities and all the expenses incurred, because these statements make their financial conditions and budgets look better,” she said. Weinberg pointed to New York City under former Democratic presidential aspirant Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying: “For fiscal year 2018, New York City claimed a $4.6 billion surplus, but that was achieved by not including $4.9 billions of earned and incurred compensation costs related to retiree health care benefits. “New York City used some of its $4.6 billion surplus for additional spending, even though its pension plans were unfunded by $51 billion and the city needs $106 billion to pay for retiree health care benefits that have already been earned. The city’s government-wide statements reported a $3.2 deficit for the year.” The problem at the state and local levels is that officials rely on standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), a private entity established in 1984. “The board is made up of mostly current or former government officials and others who may have a vested interest in the standards they set,” Weinberg said. “GASB is currently deliberating about changing the standard that requires these two sets of books, but is leaning toward maintaining the status quo.” Tags: Mark Tapscott, The Epoch Times, National Debt To 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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| Bernie Sanders Doubles Down On Castro Comments By Defending Communist China
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:54 PM PST  by Scott Morefield: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders doubled down on his Sunday comments praising former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s “massive literacy program” during a Monday night CNN town hall, then attempted to bolster his logic by claiming that Communist China took “more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history.” “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad,” Sanders told “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?” “They’re attacking your comment as absolutely unacceptable, singing the praises of a murderous tyrant,” said Cuomo. “When Castro first came to power … you know what he did?” Sanders asked. “He initiated a major literacy program. There was a lot of folks in Cuba at that point who were illiterate. And he formed a literacy brigade that went out and helped people learn to write. I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing.” “I have been extremely consistent and critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world including Cuba, including Nicaragua, including Saudi Arabia, including China, including Russia,” he continued. “I happen to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism. But you know, you can take China as another example. China is an authoritarian country becoming more and more authoritarian. But can anyone deny, I mean the facts are clear, that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history. Do I get criticized because I say that? That’s the truth. So that is a fact. End of discussion.” Cuomo pushed back by wondering why one would give a dictator like Castro “a pat on the back for anything.” “Truth is truth, all right?” Sanders responded before claiming that the members of Congress who disagree “just so happen to be supporting other candidates.” Sanders told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball last August that, though China is authoritarian, “they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization, so they’ve done a lot of things for their people.” Tags: Bernie Sanders, Doubles Down, On Castro Comments, By Defending, Communist China To 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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| Will JFK’s Party Become Sanders’ Party?
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:16 PM PST  by Patrick Buchanan: Bloomberg can probably buy enough votes to win some states. But would the other Democratic candidates, who have fought for a year, stand aside to yield the field so this ex-Republican oligarch can save their party from Sanders? Why should they? And where is the evidence that Bloomberg can beat Sanders? Or beat Trump? Sen. Bernie Sanders may be on the cusp of both capturing the Democratic nomination and transforming his party as dramatically as President Donald Trump captured and remade the Republican Party. After his sweep of the Nevada caucuses, following popular vote victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has the enthusiasm and the momentum, as the crucial battles loom in South Carolina on Saturday and Super Tuesday on March 3. The next eight days could decide it all. And what is between now and next Tuesday that might interrupt Sanders’ triumphal march to the nomination in Milwaukee? One possible pitfall is tonight’s debate in South Carolina. Sanders will be taking constant fire as a socialist whose nomination could end in a rout in November, the loss of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House and the forfeit of any chance of recapturing the Senate. Yet Sanders has often been attacked along these lines, to little avail. He’s shown himself capable of defending his positions, and attacks on Sanders may simply expose his opponents’ own political desperation. “Buchanan,” Richard Nixon once instructed me after I went to work for him in 1966, “Whenever you hear of a coalition forming up to ‘Stop X,’ be sure to put your money on X.” Nixon recalled the Cleveland governors conference after Barry Goldwater defeated Nelson Rockefeller in the California primary. There, on the Cuyahoga River, Govs. Rockefeller, George Romney and Bill Scranton colluded absurdly to derail the Goldwater express. A second event is the anticipated endorsement of Biden by Rep. Jim Clyburn, the most influential black politician in South Carolina, who warns that nominating a socialist like Sanders invites electoral disaster. Yet Clyburn’s endorsement could be a mixed blessing. With it, Biden becomes the favorite in the primary where 60% of the vote is African American. If Biden cannot beat Sanders there, in his firewall state, with Clyburn behind him, where does Biden win? Biden faces another problem: Billionaire Tom Steyer has pumped millions into South Carolina, hired black leaders and pledged to support reparations for slavery. Polls show Steyer with rising support among black voters who might otherwise have stood by Biden. For Biden, South Carolina is do-or-die. If he wins here, he is revived. Yet, still, he lacks the broad and deep support Sanders has and the funds Michael Bloomberg has to be competitive in all 14 states holding primaries March 3, including the megastates of Texas and California. Sanders is predicting victories in both and has been gaining in the polls on Sen. Elizabeth Warren even in Massachusetts, her home state, which also holds its primary on Super Tuesday. The basic question: With Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Steyer and Klobuchar — none of whom has beaten Sanders in the popular vote anywhere, and all competing in South Carolina and Super Tuesday three days later — who beats a surging Sanders? When and where do they beat him? Bloomberg can probably buy enough votes to win some states. But would the other Democratic candidates, who have fought for a year, stand aside to yield the field so this ex-Republican oligarch can save their party from Sanders? Why should they? And where is the evidence that Bloomberg can beat Sanders? Or beat Trump? Bloomberg’s first debate raises questions of what, besides his $60 billion, qualifies him to be on the stage or in the race. The Democratic establishment worries that if the “moderates” in the race do not start falling on their swords, dropping out, and joining behind a single candidate — Biden, Buttigieg or Bloomberg — to challenge Sanders, they will lose the nomination to Sanders and the election to Trump. The establishment is right to worry. While Sanders’ chances of becoming president are slim, the odds he wins the nomination and reshapes the party are good and have been improving weekly. What model does socialist Sanders have in mind for the Democratic Party? Something like the British Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn. “Medicare for All.” Abolition of private health insurance. War on Wall Street. The Green New Deal. Free college tuition. Forgiveness of all student debt. Open borders. Supreme Court justices committed to Roe v. Wade. Welfare for undocumented migrants. A doubling of the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Winston Churchill once observed: “Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is — the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” Sanders sees free market capitalism as a fat goose that lays golden eggs and can be hectored, squeezed and beaten into producing lots more. And those most widely receptive to his message — are the young. Welcome to the Party of JFK as reconceived by Bernie Sanders. Tags: Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Will JFK’s Party, Become Sanders’ Party To 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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| Natural Gas Is Crushing Wind and Solar Power
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:07 PM PST
by Stephen Moore: The U.S. Energy Information Administration just announced some spectacular news that should be banner headlines across the country: The price of natural gas has fallen to its lowest February level in 20 years. The data shows that natural gas prices fell to $1.77 per million British thermal units. In inflation-adjusted terms, the price of gas has plunged by some 80% since its high of $13.60 12 years ago. The price is down 90% since 2005, when prices hit nearly $20. (Quick: Can you think of anything else that now costs one-tenth of what it did 15 years ago?) The Energy Information Administration also reports that U.S. natural gas production has hit an all-time high this year. The shale oil and gas revolution keeps rolling on — but no one is talking about it. This boom in production has affected the economy of every state, from Ohio and Pennsylvania to Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and the Dakotas. By the way, oil prices have also fallen considerably, bringing gas prices at the pump to nearly $2 a gallon in some states. Prices are so low now that the drillers aren’t making any money and are starting to shut down wells. They are victims of their own success. Today’s bargain-basement prices are partly due to moderate temperatures on the East Coast this winter, but this has been a long-term trend of cheaper and cheaper energy. America is now the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and we are exporting more throughout the world than at any previous time in our history. It’s hard to believe that a decade ago, we were importing natural gas. Thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling technologies that keep getting more and more efficient, we now have hundreds of years of supply of this fuel. This spectacular tumble in natural gas prices has been a multibillion-dollar godsend to consumers, homeowners, manufacturers and other businesses. Just last week, a major Texas utility announced it would be sending homeowners cash-back checks because electricity and home heating costs are falling so rapidly. Expect more to do the same in the coming months. Meanwhile, the United States continues to reduce its carbon emissions into the atmosphere at a faster pace than virtually any other country in the world. This is because natural gas is not just cheap. It is one of the cleanest ways to produce scalable and dependable electric power for a nation of 329 million people. We don’t need brownouts in America as we saw in California, and natural gas is an excellent way to make sure the lights don’t go out. It would be hard to find anything NOT to like about this great American success story. We’ve achieved energy independence; reliable and inexhaustible supply; low prices; reduced power of the Middle East, Russia and other OPEC nations; and cleaner air than at any other time in at least a century. Yet liberal environmentalists are grousing about this good news. A recent Bloomberg news story exclaims in its headline: “Cheap Gas Imperils Climate Fight by Undercutting Wind and Solar.” “Gas is such a bargain that it’s being viewed less as a bridge fossil fuel, driving the world away from dirtier coal toward a clean-energy future,” the story tells us, “and more as a hurdle that could slow the trip down. Some forecasters are predicting prices will stay low for years, making it tough for states, cities and utilities to achieve their goals of being zero-carbon in power production by 2050 or earlier.” Ravina Advani, head of renewable energy at BNP Paribas, complained: “The fact that there’s an abundance of it makes the move to complete decarbonization much harder … (Gas is) reliable, and it’s cheap.” And that is bad news, why, exactly? It’s like saying a cure for the coronavirus is bad for hospitals and doctors. Maybe it is high time we admit we have found, for now, the great energy source of the next few decades and celebrate that America is endowed with a vital resource that is abundant and affordable — just like our best-in-the-world farmland. The left talks about eradicating “poverty,” but “energy poverty” is a primary source of deprivation around the world. Now, there is an obvious solution: Natural gas could easily be the primary source of power production for the world as a whole, slashing costs for the poor everywhere on the planet, from sub-Saharan Africa to Bangladesh. Instead, politicians and government bureaucrats around the world are trying to force-feed the world expensive, unreliable and unscalable wind and solar power. The African Development Bank, for example, is only financing “green energy” projects, not coal or natural gas. It is substituting a cheap form of clean energy for a costly “green” alternative. Why? In the U.S., this foolishness is happening every day as the federal government, in addition to state governments, is massively subsidizing wind and solar power — even though they are, in most places, only niche sources of fuel. With more than $100 billion spent already, less than 10% of our energy comes from the wind and the sun, with most of the other 90% coming from good old-fashioned fossil fuels. For all the talk about the falling costs of solar and wind power — and yes, they are falling — without billions of dollars of cash subsidies and tax breaks for the “renewable” energy sector, along with mandates requiring utilities to buy the power at any cost, wind and solar energy would be hopelessly expensive in most areas of the country. As a result, they would quickly surrender market share to natural gas and clean coal. (Don’t look now, but coal prices are falling, too.) It’s time to get smart about energy and climate change and throw asunder taxpayer subsidies doled out to all forms of energy production. Let the market, not politicians and environmental groups, choose the safest, cheapest and most reliable energy source. Everyone is making a big bet on battery-operated cars and trucks. But who’s to say that trucks and buses fueled by natural gas won’t be the wave of the future? No one knows what makes the most sense or where the future will lead us. Nuclear power has great promise. But for now, the markets are shouting out for natural gas on a grander scale. Fifteen years ago, no one would have thought we would have a superabundance of this wonder-fuel today. But we do. No one is more surprised than politicians. Why do we let them keep betting the farm on the wrong horse? Tags: Stephen Moore, Steve Moore, Rasmussen Reports, Natural Gas, Crushing, Wind and Solar Power To 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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| ‘Berning’ Down the House . . .
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:59 PM PST . . . The Democrat can best be described as total chaos with an array of extremist adding to the dumpster Fire.
Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, ‘Berning’ Down the House, Democrat, total chaos, with an array of extremist, adding to the, dumpster Fire To 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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| Religious Ideals
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:49 PM PST
by Kerby Anderson: There was a time in the past when political leaders of both parties talked about the importance of religion in the founding of this country. Terry Jeffrey found a speech by an urban northeastern Democrat that illustrated this so well. The candidate proclaimed that “a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action.” He argued that the nation’s greatest leaders understood the “essential religious idea” of our founding. “Our earliest legislation was inspired by this deep religious sense,” he explained. “Our first leader, Washington, was inspired by this deep religious sense” and “Lincoln was inspired by this deep religious sense,” he continued. Then his speech turned to a warning. He sensed that the very principles on which the nation was founded were being attacked. He warned that “these basic religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism: at home in the cynical philosophy of many of our intellectuals, abroad in the doctrine of collectivism, which sets up the twin pillars of atheism and materialism as the official philosophical establishment of the State.” Near the end of his speech, he said “we cannot assume that the struggle is ended. It is never-ending. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It was the price yesterday. It is the price today, and it will ever be the price.” This was a rousing speech about liberty and religious ideals delivered by an urban northeastern Democrat who also warned that we face a struggle from secular materialistic enemies here and abroad. How did this candidate do after giving such a speech? He was first elected to Congress and later elected to the US Senate. Fourteen years later, he was elected president of the United States. His name was John F. Kennedy. His speech back then wasn’t that controversial. It was even prophetic. But I doubt it would be permitted in today’s Democrat party. Tags: Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Religious Ideals, John F. Kennedy To 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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| The Mandela Effect
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:41 PM PST  by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: People have been known to plagiarize college term papers. Even a few political speeches have been surreptitiously copied and brazenly re-orated without proper attribution. But you can’t plagiarize getting arrested, can you? Not really. What you can do is lie about being arrested — just make it up out of whole cloth. That may be what former Vice-President and once-upon-a-time Democratic Party presidential front-runner Joe Biden has been doing in recent days “as he confronts challenging political headwinds,” following fourth and fifth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively — though he came in (a distant) second in Nevada over the weekend. “I had the great honor of meeting [Nelson Mandela],” Biden told a South Carolina crowd last week. “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see [Mandela] on Robbens Island.” “No, I was never arrested,” U.N. Ambassador at that time, Andrew Young, now 87, told The New York Times, “and I don’t think he was, either.” Back in 1977, Mr. Biden was Senator Biden from Delaware. Methinks the arrest of a U.S. Senator by a foreign government might spark at least a single news story. Be informed: “A check of available news accounts by The New York Times turned up no references to an arrest.” The Times also notes that Biden “did not mention it in his 2007 memoir when writing about a 1970s trip to South Africa.” Plagiarism sunk Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign. This time out, the politician’s gaffes, bouts of bizarre truculence and age-related physical failings have hampered his quest. Add to all that, now, the apparent fact that Joe can’t even get arrested. This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. N.B. The upshot of the Biden candidacy may amount to nothing more than an increased interest in “the Mandela Effect.” Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, The Mandela Effect To 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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| A Two-Year Terror Campaign Against One Small GOP Office
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:27 PM PST  by Daniel Greenfield: Early Saturday morning, a bearded perpetrator in a hooded jacket, wearing gloves, smashed the glass door and windows of the Humboldt Republican headquarters with rocks. He poured an unknown liquid into the storefront office before escaping on a bike into the streets of Eureka in the pre-dawn hours. There was one obvious clue. The bike had a giant BERNIE sticker on it. When police caught up to the alleged perpetrator, Michael Valls attempted to escape on his bike, then he tried throwing the bike at the cops, and, when he was finally taken into custody, gave authorities a false name. But police caught him with the Trump flag that he had stolen from the vandalized office. The Bernie Sanders supporter was charged with burglary, felony vandalism, attempted arson, resisting arrest, and providing a false name. The chemical liquid he had poured inside the office turned out to be flammable. Bail was set at only $25,000, and Valls was out of prison by Sunday. It is California after all. And in an atmosphere of rising radical violence, maybe this story wouldn’t be so extraordinary. But this wasn’t the first time that this happened to the Humboldt GOP HQ. It was the sixth time. Not in a decade, but in only two years. The small hole in the wall office on 5th Street in Eureka, unprepossessing tan walls, blue framed windows and single door, could just as easily be the bar next door or the burger place across the street. Aside from its narrow “Republican Headquarters” sign, it could just as easily be mistaken for a small business. The 300 block of 5th Street with a Starbucks and Wells Fargo, adjacent to two motels and an AV shop, seems like an unlikely place for a pitched battle between radical leftism and the national norms. But that’s exactly what the extended campaign against the modest storefront with its “Republicans Register Here” notice and Trump signage on a street in this small 27,000 population city represents. The small office with its American flag fan banners, a few tables and a bookcase is on the front line of a new war between radical leftist extremists and remaining conservatives in a formerly conservative area. The windows of the office had been previously smashed in April of last year, before the release of the Mueller report. Like this latest attack, that assault had happened late at night over the weekend. After smashing through the windows with rocks, the “Make America Great Again” sticker was replaced with a “Keep America Green” sticker from the Sierra Club. Nothing says environmentalism like vandalism. Eureka lefties justified the attack because the office has large cardboard cutouts of Reagan and Trump. In March 2019, a window had been smashed. In August of 2018, the office was vandalized again, leaving behind signs reading, “Fake President Impeach + Indite”, “45 = Lies House of Lies”, and “Guantanamo and Torture x 20 Years 45 and all supporters.” A “Make America Great Again” sign had been crossed out and the elephant on the “Republican Headquarters” sign had been defaced. A month earlier, President Trump had nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The windows of the Humboldt Republican Headquarters have been broken three times in two years. They’ve been covered with plywood so often that it’s become a familiar sight. And while this latest incident was the most severe, previous episodes of vandalism had marred the windows, defaced signs, and tried to cause as much damage as possible with whatever the leftist vandals had at hand. This latest attack is expected to cost thousands of dollars in repairs. Previous acts of leftist vandalism had cost in the $700 range. And despite the leftist signs, the Eureka Police Department dismissed it as “random vandalism”. “The local police say, ‘Oh, it’s random vandalism,’ except it’s happened five times to us and nobody else,” Humboldt County GOP Chairman John Schutt said. “This is the 5th time in two years and on prior occasions I have been told these are random acts of vandalism. Interesting the Democrat Office has not had any ‘random acts of vandalism'”, the Humboldt GOP noted last year. There’s nothing random about 6 attacks on a Republican office either carried out by identifiable lefties, leaving behind leftist signage, or specifically defacing Republican signage. That’s as deliberate as it gets. But Humboldt County, once a Republican area, had swung leftward. And the HQ has become a symbol of everything that the new radical population hates. During the Kavanaugh debate, lefty protesters had gathered outside the small office with signs like, “Party of the Predators” and “Stop Rapeublicans”. The lefty protesters targeted the office even though it had nothing to do with Kavanaugh and had already been vandalized two months earlier. When local lefties can’t get to D.C. marches, they target the Humboldt County HQ. That’s where opponents of the Bill of Rights appear toting signs like “Massacre Mitch” and “Republicans: Shame on you!” Reagan was the last Republican to win Humboldt County which has passed its own sanctuary measure. And Eureka, with its large homeless population and regular anti-Trump protests, leans lefty. The Humboldt County Republican headquarters has faced a uniquely sustained assault on its existence. It is not the only Republican office to be targeted for vandalism and harassment, but the persistence of the attacks and the general disregard of the authorities, is unique and revelatory. This is the first time an arrest has been made despite the presence of surveillance equipment and attackers who leave handwriting samples. And the one man arrested for this latest incident is already back on the street. “This is about your friends and neighbors and coworkers and people you live with here. It’s just sad that we can’t exercise our First Amendment rights in peace,” Schutt noted back in 2018. “There is not one member of my party here that would go down and do this down the street at the Democrat office.” The Humboldt County Democrats enjoy an all-glass office on 4th Street. If there were a random violence problem, somebody would have taken a rock to it by now. That’s because there’s nothing random here. The sustained assault on the Humboldt County Republican headquarters is not the work of one man, but of a culture of intolerance and hatred. It can be summed up by the Bernie sticker on the bike that the vandal threw at law enforcement as he was trying to make his getaway from the scene of the crime. In 2017, James Hodgkinson, another Bernie Sanders supporter, came to a Republican charity baseball game with a list of the names of Freedom Caucus members and opened fire. The FBI coverup of that attack, which falsely claimed that it was a spontaneous act with no motive, has yet to be investigated. Like the “random vandalism” in Eureka, the assassination of Republicans was also treated as random. Civil wars begin in small ways. They’re born out of intolerance. A refusal to coexist. A failure to enforce the law. To punish violence against people different than the ones who hold political power. In recent weeks, Project Veritas Action has released videos of Sanders staffers threatening violence before and after a possible victory. The media has maintained a tight ban on covering these videos. In Jacksonville, Florida, earlier this month, Gregory Timm drove a truck into a Republican voter registration tent to take a stand against President Trump. It is no coincidence that the attacks on the Humboldt County Republican headquarters are linked to Trump’s victory. Or that they’ve been excused by some local lefties because the GOP HQ dared to have Trump material on the premises. There is nothing random or isolated about the reality that the Democrats have become radicalized. Radicalism doesn’t just mean the embrace of increasingly extreme policies from denying basic biology to taking away everyone’s health insurance to demanding open borders and suppressing free speech. There is no meaningful separation between extreme policies and extreme tactics. Anyone willing to take away your rights is also willing to put a rock through your window. That’s what we’re seeing in Eureka. And across America. Tags: Daniel Greenfield, Sultanknish, Two-Year Terror Campaign, Against One, Small GOP Office To 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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| A Trump Victory Is Not Guaranteed
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:16 PM PST
by Mario Murillo Ministries: A Democrat can win the Presidency simply because you are assuming they can’t win. Trump can lose simply because you believe his victory is guaranteed. Back in November of 2018 many voices were guaranteeing a Republican victory that would see a majority in the House of Representatives. We were hearing prophetic words. We were told that the momentum of Trump’s victory would ensure a Republican victory in the midterm elections. There was a giddy air of overconfidence, but I had a sinking feeling. Here is what I wrote on October 30th :“75% of pastors have not taken a stand in their pulpits on the midterm elections. Think of that. With the highest stakes ever—and the Christian vote essential for victory—they have not talked about this election. It will take a miracle for Republicans to keep the House of Representatives. It should never have come to this. The Christian bloc should have won easily. Tens of millions of Christians had the power to vote the Left out of office.” Then I said this, “If Nancy Pelosi returns, as they predict she will, the Democrats will instantly seize the Russia investigation. They will move to impeach Trump and will even go after Kavanaugh. Expect a torrent of subpoenas and gridlock.” I even posted this picture with the blog.  Factor number one: Bible illiteracy. American Christians simply do not know the Word of God. It has been absent from the pulpits of our most popular churches. We are paying a steep price for betraying the Holy Spirit in favor of human marketing. Prominent voices have been telling young preachers to avoid teaching the Biblical truths of one-man-one-woman marriage and the sanctity of human life. You would be stunned if you knew how many Christians see nothing wrong with abortion, same sex marriage, or socialism. Many Christians have believed the lie that Jesus was a socialist! This is why millions of people—who claimed to be Christians—voted for Democrats in the midterm elections. In some urban centers as many as 90% of so-called Christians voted for a Democrat, even though the platform of the Democrat Party embraces atheism and abortion. The young people in our churches are the most deeply affected by ignorance of the Bible. Maybe it’s a lethal combination of wanting to be liked by their peers and the brutal ‘cancel-culture’ that is prevalent among youth, whereby anyone who disagrees with the Left is permanently boycotted.  All prophecies require action. All words from God carry a counter-balancing act of obedience. Even the promise to “heal their land” contains several conditions: “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) When Daniel counted the years mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, he saw it was time for Jeremiah’s prophecy to be fulfilled. Daniel knew that God would be faithful to His word, and that the children of Israel would be leaving their exile in Babylon and returning to their homes. His immediate reaction was to give up food, pray, and repent. “In the first year of (the) reign (of Darius), I Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession…” (Daniel 9:2-4) Daniel understood that promises carry conditions. So, what is the proper course of action right now? Do not underestimate the power of Satan to use a Democrat to fool America right out of existence. Do not insult the miracle God has provided, by assuming that all Trump needs to do is bide his time and he will automatically win.  These blogs were never my idea! I am under an edict from God, and I have felt a spike in my urgency in just the last few hours. Some have accused me of always issuing warnings. But here is what Paul said, “Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:31) We must repent of assuming we don’t have hard work ahead of us. We must repent of foolishly ignoring signs of coming deception and criminal acts against us from the Left. We must repent of preaching that does not marshal unity and resolve. The infighting and opposing camps of the American body of Christ are a grave threat to freedom. Every pastor must roar from the pulpit and call on the millions of Americans to realize that this goes way beyond Donald Trump—that many Democrats, especially Bernie and his followers have demonstrated a willingness to start violent revolution. We must realize that in the face of their hatred and demonic agenda, we are simply not ready to take the appropriate action. We are in a spiritual war, facing a determined enemy, yet many believers are acting as if we cannot possibly lose. Some even criticize those who say it is possible for Trump to lose, as if that takes away from God’s promise. That’s crazy! Of course we need to vote, but this goes much, much deeper. We need to hear from God and present to America a compelling case for our Constitution, the rule of law, and the tradition of Faith in Christ. If you don’t know your Bible, it is no wonder you don’t know what to do. If you are assuming prophetic promises are fulfilled without good old fashioned hard work and boldness, you are wrong. Pray about it. And then obey the Holy Spirit. We must be united if we are to save this nation! Tags: Mario Murillo, Ministries, A Trump Victory, Is Not Guaranteed, assuming prophetic promises, are fulfilled, without good old fashioned, hard work and boldness, you are wrong To 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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| Bernie Sanders’ Road to Serfdom … And Corruption
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:41 AM PST  by John Merline, I & I Editorial: Front-runner Bernie Sanders portrays himself as the antidote to corruption in Washington. But his own policies guarantee it will vastly increase. “We will transform our political system by rejecting the influence of big corporate money,” Sanders said when he released his sweeping anti-corruption plan last fall. It includes such things as bans on lobbying, mandatory taxpayer financing of elections and a constitutional amendment restricting free speech. But at the same time, Sanders’ spending spree would more than double the size of the federal government. He’s proposed free health care, free college, free daycare, guaranteed jobs, a “green new deal.” When we added up the proposals he’d made, it came to almost $6 trillion in new spending each year. That was as of last August. Sanders has added to his spending plans since then. Sanders would more than double the size of the federal government when it comes to spending. On Monday, he released some details on where he’d get the money, which include gargantuan tax hikes on everyone, including the middle class. There’s no telling what he’d do to expand the federal government’s regulatory state, but his ambitions there seem limitless. The result would be to strip Americans of many of the freedoms we currently enjoy in the name of “fairness,” while turning millions into wards of the state. His policies would also explode the amount of corruption in this country, no matter how many new rules he tries to impose on lobbyists or how many free speech rights he takes away from campaign contributors. If there’s one thing that should be clear to clean government zealots, it’s that the bigger the government, the greater the corruption. As we noted recently, there are a number of studies making this connection. One found that the size of government “does indeed have a strong positive influence on corruption.” Harvard law professor Matthew Stephenson looked at several others and found that “Within the U.S., when controlling for a number of other economic and demographic factors, states with larger public sectors seem to have higher corruption.” We also pointed out that there is a nearly exact correlation between spending by the federal government and spending by lobbyists. (See the chart below.)  You simply can’t have more spending without generating more lobbying, for the simple reason that the bigger the government, the bigger the return for lobbyists who win government favors. Conversely, the more economic freedom a country enjoys, the less corruption exists. Writing in Forbes, Alejandro Chafuen plotted countries in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, which measures 180 countries across several measures of economic freedom, from labor laws, tax rates, trade, property rights, national debt, and so on. Chafuen then did the same with Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, which ranks countries based on “perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.” Chafuen found that the correlation between freedom and corruption is “strong and significant.” The greater the economic freedom, the lower the corruption. Less economic freedom – the kind that Sanders is eager to impose in the U.S. – the greater the corruption. “Economic freedom is a major deterrent to corruption,” says Chafuen, who has been studying this relationship for decades. “Based on the study results over the last 25 years, I feel confident concluding that leaders who fight corruption with more regulations rather than with true economic freedom are comparable to those who want to fight fires with gasoline: purposefully ignorant or willful accomplices.” Writing in Forbes, Alejandro Chafuen plotted countries in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, which measures 180 countries across several measures of economic freedom, from labor laws, tax rates, trade, property rights, national debt, and so on. Chafuen then did the same with Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, which ranks countries based on “perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.” Chafuen found that the correlation between freedom and corruption is “strong and significant.” The greater the economic freedom, the lower the corruption. Less economic freedom – the kind that Sanders is eager to impose in the U.S. – the greater the corruption. “Economic freedom is a major deterrent to corruption,” says Chafuen, who has been studying this relationship for decades. “Based on the study results over the last 25 years, I feel confident concluding that leaders who fight corruption with more regulations rather than with true economic freedom are comparable to those who want to fight fires with gasoline: purposefully ignorant or willful accomplices.” Sanders should know this connection exists from personal experience. As Peter Schweizer details in his new book – “Profiles in Corruption” – Sanders has been using his position as a “public servant” to funnel money to his family and friends. “There are various ways taxpayer money, school money, other things that have flowed to the family and have made the Sanders family very, very wealthy,” he told Fox News. The Heritage index meanwhile, shows a direct correlation between economic freedom and prosperity. “The ideals of economic freedom are strongly associated with healthier societies, cleaner environments, greater per capita wealth, human development, democracy, and poverty elimination,” the report says. In other words, everything that Sanders says he wants to achieve would be undermined by his socialist policies. There would be less prosperity, more poverty, a worse environment, less democracy … and far more corruption. Don’t believe so? Take a trip to Venezuela and see for yourself. Tags: John Merline, I & I Editorial, Bernie Sanders, Road to Serfdom, And Corruption To 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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| Dick Morris : Potential Bloomberg-Clinton Conspiracy To Shaft Bernie
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:30 AM PST
by Dick Morris: Is there a conspiracy between former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton to stop Bernie Sanders? I’m beginning to smell a rat! Here’s how it would work: After Bloomberg’s disastrous debate performance on Wednesday, he has no realistic chance at winning the nomination by amassing primary victories. Nor does Joe Biden after his shellackings in Iowa and New Hampshire. But they do have a good shot of denying Sanders a first ballot majority if they both stay in the race and Bloomberg’s checks continue to flow. And, if Warren, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar stay in the race, winning smaller vote shares, so much the better. It is, after all, very hard for a candidate facing five opponents in a race decided through proportional representation to win a majority. Decades of coalition governments in Italy, for example, attest to the near impossibility of pulling off the trick. The problem is that if the establishment succeeds in deadlocking the convention, it still lack a decent candidate. Numerically, Bloomberg and Biden have sustained such critical wounds that they can’t win the nomination. And, substantively, Biden has shown himself unable to hold front runner status while Bloomberg is not ready for television, let alone prime time. Buttigieg, Warren and Klobuchar lack the appeal to be a compromise candidate. But the Democratic Party establishment is determined to stop Bernie Sanders and you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Enter Hillary Clinton at the convention, the establishment’s last hope. With proportional representation, its likely that even if Sanders wins all of the primaries on and after Super Tuesday, he will still only get about 40 percent of the delegates. Give Biden and Warren about 15 percent each and Klobuchar and Buttigieg about 15 percent between them and you have accounted for 85 percent of the delegates. Here’s where Bloomberg comes in. He can’t win any primaries, but, with a massive ad buy, there are enough uninformed voters to give him the remaining 15 percent. These might be folks who never see any of the debates and are just voting for the guy whose ads they see. Call them the “Wheel of Fortune” crowd. So if Mini Mike stays in the race, along with Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, it is very unlikely that Sanders can get to 50 percent. After Bernie is stopped on the first ballot, party rules permit the super delegates to vote their personal preferences. (On the first ballot, they must vote in proportion to the votes of the primary voters in their home states.). Sanders won’t win many of them but Hillary could. Then, one by one, the others drop out — seeing no path to victory — and Hillary emerges as the candidate. Karl Marx wrote that history always repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce: Hillary’s first race was in 2008, repeated as “tragedy” in 2016 and perhaps as farce in 2020. Democratic leaders are likely realistic about Hillary’s chances of victory, but will argue that she is likely to avoid the kind of wipeout they fear Sanders would face. Impelling their panic is the likelihood of losing Congress with Sanders as their standard bearer. Not only would they probably lose the House, but the Republicans might even expand their Senate majority to close to 60 seats. The GOP would probably hold its marginal seats in North Carolina, Colorado, and Arizona while recapturing its Alabama seat. Whether its Sanders or Hillary on top of the ticket, that outcome is likely. But, beyond that, they might score takeaways in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia and even Illinois. This explanation probably accounts for Hillary’s silence during recent weeks, her virulent criticism of Bernie Sanders before that, Bill’s disappearance from the planet Earth, and the rumors of a VP slot back before Bloomberg imploded. The establishment is just desperate enough to pull off such a coup against its own voters. The unknown in this scenario is Elizabeth Warren. Having revived her candidacy by an outstanding prosecution of Bloomberg in Wednesday’s debate, she stands to pick up a good number of delegates — possibly enough to put Sanders over 50 percent. Will she stick with her leftist base and give the nomination to Bernie or hold out and make a Hillary nomination possible? If events do actually follow the pattern this column suggests, the results for the Democratic Party will be nothing short of catastrophic. The loss of the 2020 elections will be the least of its problems. If the establishment seeks to deny Sanders the nomination after he wins almost all the primaries, the party will face an all-out civil war. The party of the left will permanently alienate the left and lose its very soul. God knows what the future of the party would be. We can only hope, for the sake of our democracy, that it will be an example of what Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.” But surely, it will destroy the Democratic Party. Tags: Dick Morris, Commentary, DickMorris, The Western Journal, Potential Bloomberg-Clinton Conspiracy, To Shaft Bernie To 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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NOQ NEWS SERVICE
NOQ Report Daily |
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- Ingraham: Despicable Democrats are doing ‘coronavirus campaigning’
- Pete Buttigieg debated for Super Tuesday, not South Carolina
- Bernie Sanders believes the DNC stacked the audience against him
- Gaffemaster: Joe Biden claims 150 million people have been killed with guns since 2007
- Will Amy Klobuchar stay in for Super Tuesday?
- What was up with Mike Bloomberg’s ‘naked cowboy’ comment?
- Mike Bloomberg on past elections: ‘I bought’ them
- Elizabeth Warren: ‘The core of the Democratic Party do not trust’ Mike Bloomberg
- With asymptomatic spreading, we are not prepared for the coronavirus
- Cast your vote for CANDIDATE Z
| Ingraham: Despicable Democrats are doing ‘coronavirus campaigning’
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:27 AM PST One of the great strength of our nation over the decades has been our unity in times of crisis. Even when there was great political contention, we have always put aside our ideological differences in order to pull this nation back from the brink of disaster. 9/11 is the obvious recent example, but we can look back to Pearl Harbor, World War I, and even the Spanish Flu of 1918 to see situations in which politics-as-usual was superseded by patriotism. Such times are gone, at least with the modern Democratic Party. Trump Derangement Syndrome has taken such a firm grip on millions of Americans that there are those in the media and the opposition party who actual root for disaster and reduced prosperity. One only needs look at the recent politicization of the coronavirus epidemic to see examples of leftists quietly, subtly rooting for things to get worse in America. Why? Because they so badly want to defeat President Trump in November they’d actually view it as a positive if the the United States lost containment of the virus. After watching last night’s debate, one can almost sympathize with the desperation that drives their hideous thoughts as they secretly root for the virus to damage the economy and even harm or kill Americans. It was the biggest debacle we’ve seen at a debate since the 2020 campaign began, and that’s saying a lot. Not only were the candidates ripping into each other like adolescent siblings fighting for attention, but they also failed to deliver substantive policy points in any of their exchanges. It was such a sad display that even left-leaning political analysts at POLITICO had to shake their heads collectively. Democrats feel they are stuck with what Fox News host Laura Ingraham called “coronavirus campaigning.” With so much trouble hitting President Trump on anything real over the past four years, they’re attempting to take advantage of the potential risks associated with the deadly disease as it seems almost certain it’s going to get very bad in the United States. The left is practically giddy at the disastrous consequences of the coronavirus ravaging the United States whether it’s the administration’s fault or not. Don’t get me wrong. As our EIC noted yesterday, the White House’s response has been far too muted for what we’re actually facing. But to campaign against President Trump by invoking the coronavirus is a lowbrow technique, even for Democrats. Lives will be at stake if the coronavirus continues to spread. It hasn’t reached the level of the regular flu in its death toll, but it has the potential to be the next Spanish Flu if the right steps are not taken. Today, before it becomes a full-blown pandemic sweeping across the United States, we must unify as a nation. Democrats can’t be so ambitious that they’d intentionally let things get worse. We need to fight this as a nation now before a Wuhan pops up here. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Ingraham: Despicable Democrats are doing ‘coronavirus campaigning’ appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Pete Buttigieg debated for Super Tuesday, not South Carolina
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:51 PM PST Last night’s debate ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina primary was loaded with plenty of pandering to the Black vote. It makes sense. African-Americans make up 60% of the state’s Democratic voter base. But one candidate stood out for not really making a play at all for South Carolina. Pete Buttigieg’s answers were only loosely directed at South Carolina voters. It’s not that he didn’t mention South Carolina. At one point, he noted that he trained in the state. But even when he mentioned the home of the next primary, it was only as a backdrop to deliver his message to the Super Tuesday crowd who will be voting three days after South Carolina. But he shouldn’t dismiss the state. He needs a symbolic win there, even if that means coming in fourth. Buttigieg, who has outperformed his expectations in all three previous contests, needs to come out of South Carolina with enough votes to give him a glimmer of hope of securing some of the Black vote. Otherwise, his strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire followed by his decent performance in Nevada will not be enough to shake the stigma surrounding his campaign. He won’t get many delegates, if any, in South Carolina. But if he finishes in fourth place at or near double-digits, then he’s still a player. Currently, he has almost no chance of catching the three frontrunners in the state—Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Tom Steyer—but as long as he can defeat Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, his campaign and more importantly the media will consider it a non-loss. If he bombs, the headlines going into Super Tuesday will show that he’s not resonating at all with Black voters. That would be enough to scare some who are considering voting for him on Super Tuesday. No Democratic candidate can win without at least a decent amount of support from African-Americans. Buttigieg is no exception. As odd as it may sound when discussing the candidate with the second most candidates currently, an abysmal fifth or sixth place finish in South Carolina could sink Buttigieg’s chances of scoring big on Super Tuesday. He may be toast. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Pete Buttigieg debated for Super Tuesday, not South Carolina appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Bernie Sanders believes the DNC stacked the audience against him
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:12 PM PST For the first time in any of the ten debates, Bernie Sanders was the recipient of multiple boos. He was booed the first few times he blamed billionaires for all of the nation’s woes, a common mantra that he invokes with, well, everything. He was booed when he attacked Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg. There were hints of boos sprinkled towards him throughout the night. When asked in a post-debate interview why he seemed to be arguing with the crowd itself at one point, he blamed the DNC and its $1750 ticket prices for floor seating. “So to get a ticket to the debate, you have to be fairly wealthy. Most working people that I know don’t spend $1700 to get a ticket to a debate, and that’s problematic. But, you know, people… that’s what the DNC did.”
It’s true that if his numbers are accurate, the people on the floor were less likely to be Sanders supporters since his base is made up of socialism-loving radical progressives, many of whom are not wealthy enough to drop $1750 for a ticket to an event that will be on live television. But there may be more to his conspiracy theory than he knows. The DNC barely pretends that they’d prefer any of the candidates other than Sanders. They’re rumored to have unleashed powerful Democrats to convince other candidates to drop out so billionaire Mike Bloomberg can have a clear path to stopping Sanders from winning the nomination outright while also being positioned to “unite” the party at a contested convention. It would not be unfathomable for the DNC to have actually planted pro-Bloomberg shills or anti-Sanders patsies in the audience to spark boos. As I noted on Twitter, there was even talk that perhaps Bloomberg is the one who planted booing audience members.
If Bernie Sanders can get his base to parrot his conspiracy theory, then some of the perceived damage to his campaign from the boos can be mitigated, possibly even giving him yet another victim card to play. Either way, the DNC is garbage. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Bernie Sanders believes the DNC stacked the audience against him appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Gaffemaster: Joe Biden claims 150 million people have been killed with guns since 2007
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:20 PM PST There are gaffes, and then there are Joe Biden gaffes, a category that almost no one can match. Tonight at the Democratic debate he made the extraordinary claim that half the U.S. population has died of gun violence since 2007. While that was an unfathomable fail in it’s own right, none other than former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe made the even more extraordinary claim in 2017 that that the United States loses “93 million Americans a day to gun violence.” This points up the danger for the liberty grabber left in simply making things up on the fly to instill fear to get people to give up their freedom. At some point in time, the numbers become ridiculous and rightfully destroy the credibility of left’s national socialist movement. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Gaffemaster: Joe Biden claims 150 million people have been killed with guns since 2007 appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Will Amy Klobuchar stay in for Super Tuesday?
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:51 PM PST Before the Democratic debate Tuesday night, Amy Klobuchar was having trouble getting her name out in South Carolina, let alone convincing Democrats to vote for her. The debate itself did nothing to help her case other than present her, as she’s been doing all along, as a sensible alternative to the radicals and hotheads running for the nomination. Klobuchar needed a huge spark to get back into the race. Her surprising third-place finish in New Hampshire is a distant memory, especially after finishing an embarrassing 6th in Nevada. Unfortunately, South Carolina doesn’t give her much hope as she’s currently polling in 6th place again, barely above Tulsi Gabbard who has not been a factor in any of the races so far. But the best news for Klobuchar is that she has prospects for Super Tuesday, including her home state of Minnesota. If she sneaks out of South Carolina with anything other than a 7th place finish, she’ll point to next Tuesday as the day her campaign really begins. Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but a loss to Gabbard on Saturday will get her headlines she simply doesn’t need right now. Assuming she doesn’t finish dead-last, she’ll still be limping in with no momentum and no bump from the debate. Chances are pretty good that she’ll try to make some sort of news before Tuesday in hopes of getting her name out there, but it’s probably too little, too late for the Senator. Her prospects have slipped away. While Amy Klobuchar will likely stay in the race through Super Tuesday, it’s almost certain she’ll plan on bowing out in her home state of Minnesota that night or the next day. Mike Bloomberg wants her to leave sooner. If she does, it’s at his behest. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Will Amy Klobuchar stay in for Super Tuesday? appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| What was up with Mike Bloomberg’s ‘naked cowboy’ comment?
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 06:37 PM PST When asked about whether Mike Bloomberg would bring the same policies to the rest of the country that he tried to bring to New York City as Mayor, he said, “I think what’s right for New York City isn’t necessarily right for all the other cities, otherwise you’d have a naked cowboy in every city.” It was an odd statement… to anyone who’s not familiar with the Naked Cowboy of Times Square fame. The street performer is known for walking around with nothing but a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a guitar, and underwear. Robert John Burck has been performing for tips since the late 1990s in Los Angeles before staking his claim on the streets of New York.
The funny part about being invoked at the Democratic Debate is that he’s a conservative. In 2010, he announced he would run as a Tea Party candidate for president in 2012. Even funnier is that this CBS News debate has a history with him. He filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against CBS in February 2011, saying the network’s use of a ‘Naked Cowboy’-like figure in an ad for a television show demeaned his image with its “drunk and sexually charged” portrayal. Bloomberg has gone from trying to sound like the best candidate to getting sound bites. That’s probably the best strategy considering how bad he as at actually debating. This will be replayed by the news channels, but will it help him win? American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post What was up with Mike Bloomberg’s ‘naked cowboy’ comment? appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Mike Bloomberg on past elections: ‘I bought’ them
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 06:05 PM PST During the Democratic Debate, Mike Bloomberg was defending his record of supporting Democrats with lots and lots of money. He even acknowledged he “bought” them before correcting himself, saying “I got them.” But we all know the truth. Bloomberg is in the process of trying to win the nomination by purchasing delegates. This is the setup by the DNC. It’s the unfortunate reality of the state of the Democratic Party that one of the two likely nominees is literally trying to buy his way into the hearts of Americans.
The one thing Bloomberg needed from this debate was to prove he can actually debate. His last and only other debate performance was historically bad. I mean, it was abysmal. What’s worse is that it started off worse than it finished, meaning the bulk of people who watched part of the debate likely caught him sounding like a petty, defensive, unprepared candidate who really didn’t need to be on the stage. Tonight’s performance is going to get him some kudos from mainstream media as so many of them are dead-set on stopping Bernie Sanders from being the candidate. But the reality is his performance has been mediocre at best. He’s trying to play the victim card, which is always hard for any old, white, straight, cisgender rich man whose name isn’t Bernie. Bloomberg isn’t on the South Carolina ballot, but all of his eggs are in next week’s Super Tuesday contest. This debate was his last opportunity other than through his massive ad spending to reach the people. Thus far, he hasn’t done that. The funniest thing in modern election history is if the “woke” Democratic Party allows an old, straight, cisgender, rich white man literally buy the nomination. Nothing in the Democratic Debate is changing this hilarious path their party is on. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Mike Bloomberg on past elections: ‘I bought’ them appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Elizabeth Warren: ‘The core of the Democratic Party do not trust’ Mike Bloomberg
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 05:34 PM PST Elizabeth Warren went back to what worked for her during the last debate, going after Mike Bloomberg for not being a progressive. This time, she focused on his past support for Republican candidates like Lindsey Graham. She even called him out for accusations of discrimination, including the allegation that he said “kill it” to a woman who told him she was pregnant. She also went after him over his lack of transparency and his unwillingness to release all of the women bound by non-disclosure agreements. He has released three so far. There were dozens. The reality that nobody in the campaign would acknowledge openly is that Elizabeth Warren needs an outright miracle to become relevant again. Even after her impressive debate performance before the Nevada caucus, she still only managed to another fourth-place finish that got her zero delegates. Currently, she’s polling in a tie with Pete Buttigieg for fourth place in Nevada. A shocking third-place finish might be what’s necessary to rejuvenate her campaign. Super Tuesday will either be the new beginning or the end of her campaign. It all depends on whether she can win her home state of Massachusetts. As unfathomable as it seemed just a few months ago, she’s vulnerable there. Bernie Sanders seems to be consolidating the far-left vote which makes up the bulk of her previous support. Even as she veers towards the center to play as a part-time moderate, it seems like the strategy has failed her. She was doing better when she was trying to out-Bernie Bernie. It’s even conceivable that she could drop out after a poor finish in Nevada as Sanders supporters (plus some of hers) will say she’s helping the Establishment Democrats by staying in the race. They may be right. But there’s also the possibility that her base is not convinced Sanders is the natural alternative to Warren since they deviate even in their shared policies like Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. Sanders may be a bit too far to the left for many of her remaining supporters. Elizabeth Warren is probably right. Mike Bloomberg has a major challenge, especially considering he’s the least “woke” candidate on the stage. But he thinks he can buy his way into the nomination and into the hearts of progressives. We’ll probably find out. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post Elizabeth Warren: ‘The core of the Democratic Party do not trust’ Mike Bloomberg appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| With asymptomatic spreading, we are not prepared for the coronavirus
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:31 PM PST For the first time in many months, I have a complaint about the Trump administration. Technically, it’s a complaint against nearly everyone in Washington DC as well as at the state government level since everyone should be acting as if the coronavirus is the biggest threat facing this nation and the world right now. But just as credit for our great economy and strong standing in the world start at the top, so too do mistakes such as the passive reaction to the coronavirus. Most seem to be focused on preventing panic. But the best way to prevent panic is to take steps BEFORE the spread of the disease will make us panic. As far as we’re being told, such steps have not been taken. Perhaps they’re in the works. Perhaps preparations to shut down, well, everything, are already being planned with contingencies for both the economic hit as well as the strain it will cause to our healthcare system. The problem with the coronavirus that too few are “panicking” about is the fact that it spreads through contact with asymptomatic people. Someone who has the virus can be unwittingly spreading it to anyone they are near because as far as they’re concerned, they aren’t sick. They don’t feel sick. They’re breathing, eating, sleeping, and walking around with no indications they’re contagious. That’s what makes this outbreak so different from anything this world has faced in the modern era. None of us can know when we’re part of the problem until we’ve already exacerbated it. The naysayers condemning us “alarmists” are misguided. Perhaps they’re Trump supporters worried about what a real scare in the United States will do to the economy. It will be bad. Perhaps they’re climate change activists who don’t want their thunder stolen by an actual problem; I’ve had two people attack me with lines like “oh, sure, you’re scared of the coronavirus but you’ll dismiss the climate crisis as a hoax.” I’d speculate that most are simply self-proclaimed optimists who are simply hoping for the best. Regardless of the reasons, there’s a distinct need for Americans to be worried now so they can prove the “alarmists” wrong later. I’d love nothing more than to be absolutely wrong about this. But the notion that we shouldn’t be concerned or that there’s no reason to take steps that might interrupt the day-to-day affairs of our lives is dangerous. We need to act now. At the government level, that means getting as many people tested as possible. Doctors should have tests ready to administer to everyone who comes to they’re office. All medical professionals should be taking preventative measures like wearing masks (I know, they’re not very effective, but they’re something) and having 100% sterilization protocols between patients. Schools in areas with known infections should start testing kids. It all sounds terribly expensive and obnoxiously inconvenient. I sincerely hope it turns out the disease never becomes a major issue in the United States and I get called out for being paranoid. That would be the best-case scenario. I’ll happily take that hit to my credibility if it means we were spared the consequences of our muted actions. Americans should be doing these things immediately:
Many are concerned the coronavirus scare will hurt the economy, as it’s already showing signs of doing. They’ll blame alarmists. Some even say it could get pinned on President Trump if it gets very bad here. But to those who are concerned about a souring economy hurting the President’s chances of reelection, know this: A temporary setback followed by an election-time rebound of the stock market will not hurt his chances nearly as much as an insufficient reaction to the coronavirus if it officially becomes a pandemic. In fact, if much of the rest of the world is hit, as is currently happening, and the United States is mostly spared thanks in part to actions by the government, it will be a feather in President Trump’s cap. If we set politics aside—hard, I know—we’ll realize that neither our healthcare system nor our economy are prepared for the coronavirus. But there’s hope that we can dodge the bullet if we, as a nation, take it seriously immediately. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.The post With asymptomatic spreading, we are not prepared for the coronavirus appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Cast your vote for CANDIDATE Z
Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:36 AM PST If you’ve read my serialized STAR TREK novel on NOQ Report over the last several weeks, you’ve probably realized that I dabble in writing fiction from time to time. Actually, I’ve been cranking out the novels since I was sixteen–not very good ones back in those days, mind you, but they did put me on the path to publication with my sci-fi thrillers HAMMERJACK and PRODIGAL, plus the culmination of a lifelong dream when Pocket Books editor Marco Palmieri hired me to write a Borg story for his TREK anthology SEVEN DEADLY SINS. Well, now I’m back with a brand-new thriller, CANDIDATE Z–and it’s a roller coaster ride for sure! Just in case you need further convincing, allow me to quote the blurb for you: Once the leader of an elite team of cyber-crime investigators, Hunter Lambert was among the FBI’s best and brightest—until unspeakable tragedy left her career and life in ruins. Now she works as a private security consultant, hiring her skills out to the highest bidder while seeking out clues in secret to expose the conspiracy that led to her downfall. After a high-profile assignment goes sideways with deadly consequences, Hunter is approached by a shadowy figure with an intriguing offer: Find out who’s trying to kill him, and he’ll use his vast resources to help her get justice once and for all. The job won’t be easy, though. That’s because the client is Brad Zorne—a Silicon Valley billionaire with a list of enemies both long and powerful. Making matters even more dangerous, Zorne isn’t just running for his life. He’s also running for President of the United States. Action, adventure, high stakes and high tech–plus an election that could forever alter the destiny of the United States! If that sounds a tad more interesting than the Democrat primary, then I invite you to join Hunter Lambert as she unravels a mystery with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing all the way until the end. But hold on, because election season is about to get deadly. Keep on reading for an exciting sample from… CANDIDATE Z(Click here to order from Amazon) Finding the water trucks was easy. All Hunter had to do was follow the fire. A high-rise inferno, it spat embers a hundred feet into the arid atmosphere, casting a ruddy pall that hovered over the entirety of Center Camp like the afterglow of from a nuclear blast. As Hunter rounded the line of vehicles, the fullness of it came into her view: the Burning Man, a conflagration from base to apex, flames assuming human form and features even as they voraciously consumed both. Behind that, the makeshift temple Hunter had seen while flying in also burned spectacularly, the combined heat from the two structures rolling across the hard desert floor in waves. Even at this distance, the hot wind came on like a blast furnace, leaving Hunter amazed at how anyone could stand to get any closer—and yet there they were, gathered around it in ritual poses, thousands of bodies silhouetted against the orange light. A justifiable target, ripe for destruction. Hunter picked up her pace, walking along the line of trucks while her eyes eagerly searched the shadows for movement. At first she found nothing—not even a single member of the fire crew on standby, ready to drive in and battle the blaze should it get out of control. Hunter guessed that all of them had left to join the fun, confident they could run back and man the hoses if anything went wrong, never contemplating the kind of trouble she feared. That was something for the security goons to worry about—assuming they hadn’t taken off for the party themselves. So far, Hunter hadn’t spotted any of them. Only a hint of motion near the back of one truck. It happened at the periphery of her vision as she slipped past—nothing more than a blur, really, which in the shimmering heat and murky half-light could have been nothing at all. But it made Hunter freeze in her tracks, her pulse quickening as she leaned back to take another look, her breathing forced but controlled as she tried to remain at one with the dark. “Merkel?” she called out. “Is that you?” Beats echoed through the passages between the trucks, but beneath that lay a only heavy silence. Hunter remained still, focusing intently on that silence, filtering the ambient noises out one by one and listening for any disturbance. When she heard it, the origin of the sound seemed obvious: metal on metal, in harried contact, done in reaction to her voice. She had startled someone, and now that someone tried to conceal his presence. So what the hell are you supposed to do now? Something foolish—no doubts about that. Hunter eased herself into the narrow space, one step in front of the other, even though she had no idea how she would confront any danger she might find. Unarmed, she proceeded as if she held a weapon in her hands, her back up against the hard metal of the truck’s tank and her eyes trained forward. Inch by inch, she gradually made her way to the back of the truck, stopping at the very end. There, Hunter listened intently for any other sound that might tell her if someone lay in wait—but she heard nothing. Either nobody was there, or somebody waited for her to make a move. Get out of here, Lambert, she told herself. Bring back some guys with guns. But by then, whatever was about to happen would have happened. Screw it, she thought, and pounced. She hoped that in the dark she would appear armed, at least long enough to scare whoever might be there—but Hunter found only an empty patch of ground, cracked from the desert heat and torn up by tire tracks. Looking down, she also noticed a dark patch beneath the truck’s bumper, where a small pool of liquid expanded and filled the tiny crevices that surrounded it. She traced the source to a release valve on the back of the tank, which slowly dripped into the dirt. More ominously, the chain on the valve cap still swung—as if someone had just jammed it on in a hurry But where did you go? Crouching down, Hunter dipped a finger into the liquid and then raised it to her nose. Since this was a fire truck, there should have only been water—but as the intense smell of hydrocarbons filled her nostrils, she knew in an instant the real contents of the tank. Gasoline. “Oh my God,” she whispered. And then heard the click of a pistol cocking behind her head. Hunter closed her eyes, raising her hands slowly. Her heartbeat doubled over the course of two seconds, then slowed down a little when she realized her brains weren’t going to get blown through her forehead—at least not yet. “I’m unarmed,” she said, without looking back. “Get up.” A man’s voice. Heavy accent, non-English speaker—the same inflections as Faisal Noor, but with none of the confidence and bravado. Hunter processed all of this, trying to generate a profile that would help her get out of this alive, but the man was nervous—scared even—and the odds of him pulling the trigger only increased. “Get up!” More commanding this time, but forced. Trying to assert a control he didn’t have. So Hunter did as she was told. Rising to her feet slowly, she deliberately cringed. Helpless. At his mercy. That’s how she wanted him to see her. And it was easy, because that was how she felt. But he’s not in control. You are. Hunter turned around. She widened her eyes, wanting to make sure he saw them, but never looked directly into his. The man held a pistol on her—a 9mm CZ P-10 C with a long suppressor—his aim dead-to-rights but wavering. He stood on the shorter side, five foot nine at best, his diminutive size emphasized by the ill-fitting private security uniform he wore. The name stitched on the pocket said Merkel, but the face was a poor match. Dark skin, even darker eyes, the familial resemblance to Faisal Noor was unmistakable—a cousin perhaps. A newly-minted soldier of Allah. “Who are you?” he demanded. Hunter noticed a bloodstain on the collar of his uniform. Not his blood—probably Merkel’s. Which meant that he had already killed. Whatever she did, she now knew there wasn’t any talking her way out of it. “I’m with the Park Service,” she lied. “What are you doing?” “Environmental inspection,” she lied again. “Seriously though, I was just on my way to the party when I thought I heard something—” “Does anybody know you’re here?” The money question. Hunter knew what would happen next if she answered no. “I, uh—” she stammered. He jammed the pistol in her face. “Does anybody KNOW?” “My—my boss!” she blurted. “He’s, uh. . .he’s expecting me to report in a couple of minutes.” The gunman clenched his jaw as his eyes darted back and forth, rage and confusion battling it out for supremacy. He didn’t know what to do—though it wouldn’t take long for him to figure out that the safest course was to kill her. Keep him distracted, Lambert. Keep him in doubt. “What are you going to do?” she asked, subtly asserting calm. “That truck is full of gas. Were you planning to drive it through the crowd and into the Burning Man?” “Shut up,” the gunman said—but quietly, not looking at her as he spoke. His mind was elsewhere, his head shaking ever so slightly as Hunter read the questions going through his mind: Proceed with the attack or call it off? Kill her now or take her hostage? Neither Allah nor his family would look kindly upon his death should he fail in his mission. “That would kill a lot of people,” Hunter pressed. “Part of you knows that’s wrong. I can see it in your eyes.” “Shut UP!” he repeated—assuring himself, reasserting himself. Failing himself—so badly that he didn’t even notice how Hunter had taken a step toward him. “No matter what you’ve done, it’s not too late,” she prodded. “This doesn’t have to go any farther. It can stop right now. You have the power to do that.” But the gunman barely heard her. He was now talking to himself, muttering under his breath in Arabic. The same words, over and over again, a droning mantra. A prayer. She was losing him. “It’s all in your hands,” Hunter said. “My life. Your life. Everyone’s life.” One more step. That much closer. But close enough? It would have to be. The gunman wouldn’t allow another. Finishing his prayer, he looked her straight in the eyes and leveled his pistol between them. And Hunter looked over his shoulder, to the help that hadn’t arrived. “Oh thank God you’re here—” she began. Her feint made the gunman flinch. He turned his head slightly in that direction, his aim moving with it. With the business end of the CZ suddenly pointed away, Hunter lunged. Her right hand locked around the wrist of his shooting hand and forced it up toward the sky, where the gunman fired a round before he realized what had happened. Her left hand, meanwhile, clenched into a fist, which she brought to bear with all the might she could muster—right in the middle of his face. Bone crunched. Blood exploded. And both of them went down. The gunman landed flat on his back, knocking the breath from his lungs and eliciting a load groan. Hunter, meanwhile, landed hard on his chest. He gasped and convulsed as he tried to breathe, the pistol flying out of his hand and tumbling into the darkness. Hunter immediately scrambled after the weapon on hands and knees, the gunman clawing after her and grabbing her by the ankle. He tried to pull her back, which earned him a swift kick in the head, forcing him to let go as he unleashed a slew of curses in her direction. From that point on, Hunter didn’t look back. She stumbled to her feet and ran to where the CZ might have landed, knowing that her survival—and the survival of so many others—depended on finding it. There! Right there! Gunmetal black against salt flat white: the CZ lay on the open ground only a few feet ahead. Hunter dove for the weapon, falling short and sliding the rest of the way, acrid flecks of dust striking her eyes and poisoning her vision—though the memory of where the pistol lay had been burned into her frontal lobe like battle trauma. Hunter clutched at the pistol and grabbed it, her finger finding the trigger. She rolled over on her back, pointing the CZ in the direction of her pursuer. He bore down on her with menacing speed, fueled by anger and adrenaline, his slight frame magnified to hulking proportions in the hellish firelight. Hunter didn’t even try to tell the man to stop, because even if he heard her he wouldn’t have cared. Right now all we wanted to do was wrap his hands around her neck, and make her pay the price for the blood she had drawn first. She pulled the trigger. It could have been once, twice, or more times than that—she couldn’t tell. Half-blind, Hunter only knew that one of the shots hit, because it stopped her attacker in mid-step and spun him around. He cried out in pain and clutched his left shoulder, sagging but not falling. And this time, Hunter screamed until her throat could have burst. “FREEZE!” But her attacker couldn’t even contemplate that. His prayers had sealed the deal with his God, with no promise of return. Staggering, stumbling at first, he broke into a run in the opposite direction—away from Hunter, back toward the trucks. Toward the Burning Man. “Dammit,” Hunter seethed. Untangling her arms and legs, she got back on her feet and wiped her eyes, catching sight of the man just before he disappeared between two of the tankers. It didn’t appear as if he was making a break for the gasoline truck—it would take too long to start and get in gear, and by then Hunter would be serving up a second bullet to finish what the first had started. That could only mean that he was headed for Center Camp, to use the last weapon he had left at his disposal—a weapon he hadn’t wanted to waste on Hunter. A weapon that could only be used once. Hunter sprinted after him. She darted between the same two trucks, taking the same pathway into the open and toward the perimeter around Center Camp. She reacquired him there, as he jumped the ropes outside the fire zone and barely cleared them. Hunter could tell he was hurting. Each step was slower than the previous one, his balance shot from having to hold his wounded arm, spurting blood under pressure from his racing heart—and still he lumbered on. Hunter closed the distance quickly as he plowed into the crowd, shoving them aside to the sound of their protests and swearing, but the man paid them no heed. He was a virus now, inserting himself deep into where he could inflict the most damage, and once he had gone far enough… “Get out!” Hunter screamed at them as she ran. “Get out of the way!” She waved the pistol around to drive the point home. It had the intended effect, kicking off a frenzy that split the crowd down the middle, creating a passage for her and opening a dead zone around the man she chased. With him exposed again, Hunter leveled the CZ in his direction and drew a bead on center mass—right in the middle of his back. This time, at this range, a double-tap would not miss. The man must have sensed it also, because he stopped cold, turned to face her—and threw his head back to roar in the most primal display of rage she had ever seen. “NOBODY MOVE!!!” As he spoke the words, the man tore his jacket open. Underneath, a collection of plastique blocks had been sewn into the pockets of a canvas vest, wires protruding from them and snaking around his waist to where they all linked up with flashing a red LED. It didn’t take an expert to recognize the device—because when the people of the crowd saw it, every single one of them obeyed his command. Including Hunter. She held the gun on him while he held up a trigger switch, his thumb hovering over the button that would detonate the suicide belt. The resulting explosion would be a lot smaller than if the man had succeeded in his plan to set himself off while driving the gasoline truck through Center Camp—but there was still enough explosive to kill dozens and maim countless others. A dark consolation prize, his for the taking. He smiled, teeth caked black with blood. “Don’t—” she began. “ALLAHU AKBAR!” he finished. And pressed the button on the dying echoes of his cry. The post Cast your vote for CANDIDATE Z appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
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February 26 2020
On the menu today: Both the Democratic and Republican Parties need to recognize the disaster that is the debate setup this cycle and plan accordingly for next time. |
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“Makes an original and compelling case for nationalism . . . A fascinating, erudite—and much-needed—defense of a hallowed idea unfairly under current attack.” — Victor Davis Hanson
Episode 4: Gray Matter Anatomy 
Bloomberg Claims Russia… 
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‘It’s a New Day in Mississippi’ as 8 Elected State Officials Announce Party Switch, Join GOP
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Morning Headlines
GOP lawmakers and campaign committees have jittered with excitement over the prospect of Sen. Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic presidential nomination and dragging down-ballot Democrats to their doom, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stayed true to form, prevaricating and lowering expectations. Read More…
With South Carolina and Super Tuesday looming, and the potential of a second term for President Donald Trump staring the party in the face, seven Democratic candidates didn’t miss an opportunity to attack each other during the debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on Tuesday night. Read More…
Will Democrats end up with a platform or a plank?
OPINION — Normally, party platforms don’t really affect elections. But if an avowed socialist is heading the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket, a more centrist platform may be the only lifeboat available for down-ballot Democrats running in places where moderate views and independent voters matter. Read More…
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Surveillance standoff ahead as attorney general seeks ‘clean’ reauthorization
With less than three weeks left before three key surveillance authorities expire, Congress is barreling toward another standoff over an extension. March 15 will bring the expiration of the three provisions, headlined by Section 215 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Read More…
Stronger cigarette warnings likely to renew legal challenges
By mid-March, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to require cigarette packs to carry stark images depicting the health consequences of smoking, but legal challenges are likely to slow the rule from taking effect more than a decade after Congress first called for it. Read More…
Trump’s EPA readies rollback of industry-backed pollution rule
Despite bipartisan objection and industry pushback, the Trump administration is expected to soon weaken rules meant to limit mercury and other toxic emissions from oil- and coal-fired power plants across the nation. Read More…
The waste problem continues to weigh down nuclear power
President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget proposal does not include funding for licensing of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository, an abrupt reversal of his administration’s policy. Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus says the president is using Yucca to drum up Republican votes in the 2020 elections. Read More…
Who champions judicial nominees from Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico?
What kind of voice do places like Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have on who sits on the federal benches in their communities? An informal but substantial one, it turns out. Read More…
King cake makes the Hill rounds on Fat Tuesday
Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday) is synonymous with purple beaded necklaces, gold feathered masks and krewes parading the streets. Fat chance of finding any of that on Capitol Hill. Instead, some lawmakers marked the day by flashing their king cakes online, courtesy of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise. Read More…
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“I think I would make a better president than Bernie.”
The event will focus on mobilizing black churches to get out the vote this year.
The result could spell trouble for Biden.
“You need passion, and what Bernie showed so far is that he’s got a lot of passion in his campaign.”
“It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when and how many people will be infected.”
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From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann FIRST READ: In Round 10, Sanders finally gets treated like the frontrunner Well, Bernie Sanders finally got the frontrunner treatment at last night’s Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C.
 AP Photo/Patrick Semansky He took incoming from Pete Buttigieg: “If you think the last four years has been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, imagine spending the better part of 2020 with Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump.”
Joe Biden didn’t hold back, either: “Bernie voted five times against the Brady Bill… He said we should primary Barack Obama.”
Michael Bloomberg leaned hard into the Russia angle: “Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States. And that’s why Russia is helping you get elected, so you will lose to him.”
Elizabeth Warren even made her most pointed debate attack yet on Sanders (though it still wasn’t as forceful as the way she tried to fillet Bloomberg): “We need a president who is going to dig in, do the hard work, and actually get it done. Progressives have got one shot. And we need to spend it with a leader who will get something done.”
And that was all in just the first few minutes of what was easily the angriest and most combative Democratic debate yet.
As a whole, the debate was a negative for the Democratic Party – the shouting, the interrupting, the constant hand-raising, the bickering with moderators.
The question we have – just three days before South Carolina’s primary and six days before Super Tuesday – is whether the pile-on Sanders worked to stop his momentum.
Or whether it was too late.
TWEET OF THE DAY: LOUD NOISES! 
DATA DOWNLOAD: And the number of the day is … 33. Thirty-three.
That’s the number of times that Democratic candidates on stage at the debate last night attacked Bernie Sanders, according to an NBC News debate tracker.
And it’s nearly double the amount of incoming attacks experienced by any other candidate.
The candidate under fire the most often after Sanders was Michael Bloomberg, who took at least 17 rhetorical hits, according to the tracker.
Trump to hold news conference on the coronavirus At publication time this morning, President Trump tweeted that he will be holding a news conference at 6:00 pm ET on the coronavirus.
It comes after the Dow has dropped nearly 2,000 points in two days on world-wide concerns about the virus.
And it comes after the Trump administration has sent mixed messages – with Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow saying the coronavirus has been contained, versus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s top official on respiratory illnesses telling the public to be prepared for it to spread inside the United States.
2020 VISION: Clyburn makes his endorsement Today’s the day that House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., makes his presidential endorsement.
NBC’s Craig Melvin has already reported that Clyburn will endorse Biden.
Politico has more: “The planned endorsement is expected three days ahead of the state’s Saturday primary, giving Biden an important boost in a state that will likely determine the fate of his candidacy. Clyburn, the highest ranking African American in Congress, has long been close with Biden and has been open about his affinity for the former vice president during the Democratic primary.”
On the campaign trail today: Almost of the activity is in South Carolina after last night’s debate: The major candidates start their morning attending a breakfast with Al Sharpton… Joe Biden stumps in North Charleston, Georgetown and Charleston… Bernie Sanders hits Charleston, Myrtle Beach (where he holds a rally) and Goldsboro… Pete Buttigieg heads to Florida after his event with Al Sharpton… Amy Klobuchar spends her day in Charleston and does a CNN town hall in the evening… Tom Steyer is in Georgetown and Myrtle Beach… And Mike Bloomberg holds a CNN town hall in Charleston.
Dispatches from NBC’s campaign reporters: MSNBC Road Warrior Ali Vitali spoke with Elizabeth Warren after the debate about why she finally felt comfortable going after Bernie Sanders on stage:
VITALI: You said it tonight that you’d think you’d make a better president than Bernie Sanders, why did it take you so long to make such an explicit comment?
WARREN: Look, I think that tonight there were a lot of attacks about the kind of country we are and the kind of nominee we need. And I saw two things tonight and wanted to make this point, the first is our party is a progressive party and progressive ideas are popular. That means we can’t have a nominee who’s on that stage who’s nibbling around the edges of big problems. But the second part of it is we not only need a nominee who has unshakable values, we need someone who actually can get something done. And I have a track record for doing that. Look at it this way, progressives are going to have one chance to make transformative change and that means we better have a leader who knows how to make it happen.
THE LID: Back to the future Don’t miss the pod from yesterday, when we asked what you might think if a mysterious soothsayer had told you the current state of the 2020 race exactly one year ago.
ICYMI: News clips you shouldn’t miss Intelligence officials are worried that their analysis on Russian election interference is being weaponized by both parties, writes NBC’s Ken Dilanian.
NBC’s Sahil Kapur offers a look at how each of the 2020 candidates performed in last night’s debate. (And if you missed the debate, you can watch the highlights in five minutes here.)
Even though Sanders took the most incoming attacks, it’s an open question whether any of them stuck.
What’s the deal with getting tickets to a Democratic debate?
Bloomberg improved on his first debate performance, but it may not be enough to change his trajectory.
Things are getting pretty testy over the administration’s handling of the coronavirus response.
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