Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Wednesday June 30, 2021
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13.) AXIOS
Axios AM
🐪 Happy Wednesday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,238 words … 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu.
📱 Please join Axios’ Ina Fried today at 12:30 p.m. ET for a fast-paced virtual event on the Equality Act in Congress and the wave of anti-trans bills around the country. Register here.
Illustration: Megan Robinson/Axios
There are around 10 million unemployed Americans and over 9 million open jobs. But few people are scrambling for those jobs, Axios’ Erica Pandey writes.
- Only about 10% of job seekers say they’re actively and urgently looking for work, according to a new survey from the jobs site Indeed. Around 45% are passively looking for jobs, and another 30% plan to get a job in the near future but aren’t looking at all right now.
Workers without college degrees — who also tend to be in lower-wage jobs — give these reasons for delaying the job search:
- 25% are afraid of COVID, and are waiting for vaccination rates to climb before getting back to work.
- 20% say they have a financial cushion.
- 20% are staying home due to childcare responsibilities.
- 12% say their unemployment insurance is the reason they’re not rushing to get a job.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Fast-food franchises are frantically offering higher salaries and other perks to compete for food service workers, Axios’ Kim Hart writes.
- A McDonald’s in Arlington, Va., touted $500 sign-on bonuses.
- At an Orlando location of the Cuba Libre restaurant chain, candidates were offered $1,000 bonuses, with the option to be paid in bitcoin.
- Wendy’s is offering $100 signing bonuses, referral bonuses and same-day pay.
Chipotle increased average pay to $15 an hour, and is offering opportunities for managers that include potential six-figure salaries.
- A sign (above) at a Chipotle in San Francisco’s Financial District, spotted by Axios’ Kia Kokalitcheva, touted $20.50 an hour.
A makeshift memorial outside St. Joseph Catholic Church, near the tower. Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP
Less than three months before the Surfside condo collapsed, the president of its board wrote to residents that structural problems identified in a 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse,” and owners needed to pay at least $15.5 million to get them fixed, AP reports.
- The April 9 “Dear Neighbors” letter from Champlain Towers South Condominium president Jean Wodnicki hinted at an ongoing debate over the repairs — and a reluctance by some condo owners to pay.
- “A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now,” she wrote. “Indeed the observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse.”
Lots of residents were complaining about the cost. One owner, Nieves Aguero, said the assessment was the talk of the pool a week before the collapse: “Are you going to pay it? Are you going to refinance?”
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Call it a cooling reckoning: Dealing with all the heat caused by global warming is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions even more, Axios’ Ben Geman and Andrew Freedman write.
- Why it matters: The world is going to need a lot more air conditioning. A 2017 study found that 30% of the world’s population endures climate exceeding a deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, that could be 48%, even if drastic cuts are made in emissions — or 74% if they aren’t.
What’s next: “Building design, city design, cooling strategies all have to work to ensure the A/C doesn’t have to work so hard,” Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Axios.
President Biden orders ice cream in La Crosse, Wis., yesterday. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden plans “an executive order directing agencies to strengthen oversight of industries … dominated by a small number of companies,” The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription).
- Why it matters: It’s “a wide-ranging attempt to rein in big business power, ” directing “regulators of industries from airlines to agriculture to rethink their rule-making process to inject more competition.”
Armed men who oppose the Taliban stand yesterday at a check post in the Ghorband District, Parwan Province, Afghanistan. Photo: Omar Sobhani/Reuters
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan warned yesterday that the country is at serious risk of sliding into a chaotic civil war, citing the “rapid loss” of district centers each day to Taliban fighters taking advantage of the U.S. drawdown, the N.Y. Times reports (subscription).
- Why it matters: “The security situation is not good,” Gen. Austin Scott Miller told reporters at U.S. and NATO headquarters in Kabul, in what may have been the last public news conference delivered by an American four-star general in Afghanistan.
Miller said that while the U.S. withdrawal is going “very well” from a military standpoint, a multi-factional civil war is “certainly a path that can be visualized if it continues on the trajectory it’s on … That should be a concern for the world.”
The New York City Board of Elections made the embarrassing admission last night that 135,000 test ballots hadn’t been removed from its vote-counting system, and were mixed in with real votes in preliminary results of the city’s new ranked-choice voting system.
- Why it matters: As Fordham political science professor Christina Greer told the N.Y. Post, voter confidence “is at an all-time low and I’m not sure I want to ask how much lower it can go.”
Go deeper: Disarray in NYC vote count.
Screenshot: “Tucker Carlson Tonight”
The National Security Agency, which rarely talks about anything, issued an extremely unusual statement last night to rebut Tucker Carlson’s explosive claims that the Biden administration is “spying” on him in a conspiracy to take him off the air.
- Carlson then responded on his show, calling the statement a “paragraph of lies written purely for the benefit of the intel community’s lackeys at CNN and MSNBC” — while insisting that the NSA did not deny it has been reading his emails without his permission.
Photo: Annie Leibovitz for Vogue. Dress by Oscar de la Renta. Earrings by Tiffany & Co.
Dr. Jill Biden continues to teach at Northern Virginia Community College, as described in this Vogue cover profile by Jonathan Van Meter:
No one thought she could keep teaching. “I heard that all the time during the campaign,” she told me. “Like, ‘No. You’re not going to be able to teach as first lady.’ And I said, ‘Why not? You make things happen, right?'”
But as I traveled with Dr. Biden through much of April, I saw just how much time her day job took up: In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the entire retinue of staff, Secret Service, and press held at our hotel until well into the afternoon, when the motorcade finally hit the road for a nearly three-hour drive and a long evening of events in Arizona — because Dr. B was teaching her classes over Zoom.
Buffalo Chicken Doughscuits. Photo: Minnesota State Fair
Food offerings at the Minnesota State Fair, back Aug. 26 after a COVID hiatus, include the Buffalo Chicken Doughscuit (above) — a doughnut stuffed with shredded chicken, then drizzled with Buffalo sauce icing and bacon bits, Axios Twin Cities‘ Nick Halter writes. Also on the menu:
- The Spufull Puff by Potato Man & Sweety: Mashed sweet potatoes blended with sweetened cream cheese, wrapped in dough and fried.
- Herbivorous Butcher, the wildly popular meatless butcher in Minneapolis, will make its fair debut with a ChoriPop — meatless Chorizo dipped in corn-dog batter and fried.
- Fluffy’s Hand Cut Donuts will serve donuts topped with soft-serve ice cream.
What we’re not so sure about: The Blue Raspberry Blitzed, a “traditional hand pie filled with a raspberry, blueberry and apple blend infused with UV Blue Vodka and topped with cotton candy sugar.”
- Dig in: 27 new menu items for Minnesota State Fair.
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14.) THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON
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20.) CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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22.) THE HILL MORNING REPORT
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23.) THE HILL 12:30 REPORT
24.) ROLL CALL
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Morning Headlines
For the past year, Asian American and Pacific Islander staffers have been doing their jobs while also dealing with the emotional toll of a nationwide rise in discrimination. In dozens of recent interviews, current and former staffers described what it’s like for them to work for Congress. Read more…
For the second straight year, the House voted to remove the bust of the late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who authored the infamous Dred Scott decision that held Black people were not U.S. citizens, along with statues and busts of Confederates and white supremacists. The final vote on Tuesday was 285-120. Read more…
Biden’s infrastructure choice: Progressives or bipartisanship?
OPINION — Democrats in the bipartisan infrastructure group were left twisting in the wind when Joe Biden ran into the reality of an evenly divided Congress. Trying to meet the demands of progressives while giving cover to moderates Democrats need to hold their majorities will be a tall order for the president and congressional leaders. Read more…
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We couldn’t say ‘climate change’: Rep. Melanie Stansbury on her staffer days
A scientist-sociologist turned politician, Rep. Melanie Stansbury clocked eight years working on climate policy, first in the Obama White House and then on Capitol Hill. CQ Roll Call spoke with the New Mexico Democrat about how she dealt with climate deniers as a staffer — and what’s changed since then. Read more…
Ex-intern seeking House seat says facing gunfire cemented desire to serve
Daniel Hernandez had sworn off politics more than once on the day he ran into the gunfire aimed at his boss, Rep. Gabby Giffords, in January 2011. But instead of chasing him away for good, he said, that experience put Hernandez on the path that led him to launch a campaign last month for Arizona’s open 2nd District seat. Read more…
Lawmakers weigh in on proposals to change the Supreme Court
Several members of Congress wanted to make sure the White House commission on the Supreme Court heard their views ahead of Wednesday’s first public hearing on the debate over expanding the court beyond its current nine members, in addition to other potential overhauls. Read more…
House appropriators advance bill to boost Capitol Police funds, remove Confederate statues
The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved along party lines, 33-25, a $4.8 billion fiscal 2022 Legislative Branch spending bill that would expand Capitol Police funding in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “This is a good bill,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who chairs the Legislative Branch Subcommittee. Read more…
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25.) POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: Nutso in New York
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DRIVING THE DAY
POLITICO New York’s Joe Anuta and David Giambusso, in a story that posted at 11:31 p.m.: “Tallies released Tuesday afternoon indicated that KATHRYN GARCIA had come within 2.2 points of leading Democratic candidate ERIC ADAMS after ranked-choice tabulations were processed. But, shortly after the results were released, reporters and campaign staffers noticed there were roughly 135,000 more votes counted than those reported on election night.
“Three hours after releasing the numbers, the Board of Elections issued a statement acknowledging a ‘discrepancy’ and subsequently took down the totals from their website, but offered no clear explanation for what had happened. After 10 p.m. Tuesday, the board finally came clean with a statement: The ‘test’ ballots were never cleared out of the tabulation system and thus added the additional votes into the total, skewing the numbers. The board said that it has removed all of the erroneous ballots from the count and will re-run the results — though when the new rankings will be ready was still unclear.
“‘The Board apologizes for the error and has taken immediate [action] to ensure the most accurate up to date results are reported,’ the statement said.” (Flashback: “Inside Decades of Nepotism and Bungling at the N.Y.C. Elections Board,” NYT, October 2020)
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict): “Imagine the 2020 Iowa Caucus, except instead of a ritual w/ limited predictive value, what’s at stake is the mayoralty of the nation’s largest city. That’s not far off from where we are.”
JOE SAYS NO TO DOUBLE-DIPPING — The president said something really important the other day and nobody noticed.
At his press conference celebrating the bipartisan infrastructure deal, JOE BIDEN suggested there would be no coming back for seconds: When it comes to spending on basic physical infrastructure (for roads, bridges, public transportation, etc.), the bipartisan deal is it. There will be no using the parallel, Democrats-only reconciliation package to spend more on those things than Republicans agreed to.
Instead, Biden indicated, the reconciliation bill is exclusively for stuff that Democrats want but Republicans oppose — like spending for family care, climate change and health care.
This may seem like a minor point, but it has big implications. On the left, some progressives have argued that they would simply add to the reconciliation bill anything that wasn’t fully funded in the bipartisan bill. That’s not happening. Biden wanted $157 billion for electric vehicles. The bipartisan bill spends $15 billion. He wanted $100 billion for broadband, and he secured $65 billion. From the White House’s perspective, these issues are now resolved and the reconciliation bill can’t be used to take another crack at them.
We checked with the White House, and officials confirmed that this interpretation is correct.
On the right, some conservatives have argued that voting for the bipartisan deal is pointless because Democrats will simply take what they can get from Republicans on highway spending or airports and then get the rest in the reconciliation bill.
But what’s actually happening is that the bipartisan bill is serving as a brake on what Biden can spend on core infrastructure.
There’s more:
A few weeks ago the Senate passed a big bipartisan bill dealing with American competitiveness and China. It didn’t receive much attention, but that bill included a big chunk of change for Biden’s manufacturing and research & development proposals. So we asked the White House if the same rule applies to those items when it comes to the reconciliation bill. The answer: Yes.
Two big takeaways from all this:
1) Theoretically this should make the job of selling the infrastructure bill to Senate Republicans a lot easier.
2) There’s now a lot more clarity about what the White House will and won’t prioritize in the reconciliation bill. If you subtract the funding that Biden secured in the bipartisan infrastructure deal and the bipartisan China bill from what he originally proposed in those areas from his American Jobs Plan, it comes out to about $600 billion.
You can look at that number in a few different ways. If you’re a Republican who votes for both of those bills, you can argue you helped reduce the Biden spending spree by that much. If you’re a progressive, you might see that $600 billion as the cost of bipartisanship and perhaps too high a price to pay.
If you’re Biden, well, here’s what he said about it: “Neither side got everything they wanted in this deal, and that’s what it means to compromise. And it reflects something important: It reflects consensus. The heart of democracy requires consensus.”
For those keeping score, this all means that what’s left over from Biden’s American Jobs Plan and his American Families Plan to stuff into the reconciliation bill is about $3 trillion of spending. It would include money for clean energy tax credits, housing, home care, child care, education, paid leave and an expansion of the child tax credit.
That’s more than Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) wants to spend and less than what Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) wants, but it puts Biden exactly where he likes to be: in the middle.
SURVEY SAYS: On a related note, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows voters evenly split on whether the infrastructure plan should pay for just the basics, like roads and bridges, or go beyond that: Forty-two percent choose the former, and 41% support money for other services like family care.
On another major Democratic/White House initiative, voting rights, 81% of registered voters support showing proof of identification in order to vote in an election, including 72% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 92% of Republicans.
Important to note: Not every state that currently requires voter identification mandates a photo ID. For some, such as West Virginia, a utility bill suffices. Poll toplines … Crosstabs
Good Wednesday morning. Your video of the day was an easy call: 87-year-old CHUCK GRASSLEY vs. 44-year-old TOM COTTON … in a pushup contest. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri.
D.C. REAL ESTATE PORN: The single most expensive Washington, D.C. home listed for sale right now is the palatial Beaux Arts mansion owned by philanthropist — and friend of the Bidens — ADRIENNE ARSHT. The nine-bedroom Normanstone home purchased for $12.25 million in 2015 is going for $18.5 million now.
We were curious why Arsht, who regularly entertains D.C. elites at the 15,000-square-foot landmark, was selling the place. So we rang her up. Arsht is a well-known music lover, and she told us the problem was that her current crib couldn’t accommodate the kind of live music she enjoys.
“I need a very large room where you can seat a hundred guests for a performance by an orchestra,” she told us.
Fortunately she’s found just the right place, even if she will no longer officially be a Washingtonian. She recently purchased the Corby Mansion on Chevy Chase Circle. The Tudor Revival home built in 1893 for FRANCIS NEWLANDS, a senator from Nevada, was an absolute steal at $10 million. (Her negotiating secret? When the owner wouldn’t budge on the price, Arsht bought another place to prove she was willing to walk away from the deal. That home, a rare Georgetown estate, is now listed for $10.8 million.) But the most important part of Arsht’s new house is its enormous music room with a built-in Aeolian-Skinner organ. We don’t really know what that is, but Arsht assured us, “If you’re organ shopping, that’s the one that you want.”
D.C. real estate experts may recall that these aren’t Arsht’s only recent transactions. In 2016 she sold her previous Beaux Arts mansion to WILBUR ROSS, DONALD TRUMP’S Commerce secretary, for $12 million. (She bought it in 2010 for $8.2 million, so it worked out well.)
Arsht, who is 79, is a longtime friend of Biden, so the new place may become a hub of administration socializing. “My parents were the first to endorse him when he ran for the Senate at age 29,” she said. “And he often refers to that.”
But why, we wondered, does she move so much?
“I finished what I set out to do in those other homes, and I like change,” she said. “Because if you don’t like change, wait until you try irrelevance.”
BIDEN’S WEDNESDAY:
— 9:50 a.m.: The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief.
— 11 a.m.: Biden and VP KAMALA HARRIS will convene their event focused on drought, heat and wildfires in the West, delivering remarks and bringing together Cabinet officials, governors and people from the private sector.
HARRIS’ WEDNESDAY: In addition to the climate event, Harris will speak and lead the U.S. delegation to the Generation Equality Forum at 9:35 a.m.
Press secretary JEN PSAKI will brief at 1 p.m. along with EPA Administrator MICHAEL REGAN.
THE HOUSE will meet at noon. THE SENATE is out.
PLAYBOOK READS
KAMALA WATCH
PALACE INTRIGUE — “Several longtime Kamala Harris associates shut out as VP’s chief of staff keeps tight control over access,” by CNBC’s Brian Schwartz: “[A]s [TINA] FLOURNOY, who built a tough reputation while working for former President BILL CLINTON, exerts her power as a gatekeeper to the vice president, several of Harris’ allies outside the federal government are struggling to get their calls returned after years of regularly being in touch with her …
“A person familiar with Flournoy’s handling of incoming communication with these associates says she sometimes starts a conversation asking, ‘What is it that you want from the vice president?’ If the person wants to just say hello and have a brief conversation, Flournoy says that time will come at future private events. If a person wants to speak to Harris about where she stands on policy, Flournoy will, at times, say they can’t speak to the vice president about policy and will make an introduction to one of her policy advisors.”
KAMALA’S CONUNDRUM — Christina Greer, an editor at TheGrio and political scientist at Fordham University, penned a compelling op-ed taking stock of the VP’s political predicament: tasked by Biden with fixing some of the nation’s most intractable problems, facing constant barbs from the right and with no natural constituency on the left. “Ms. Harris, at this point, can’t seem to win for trying,” Greer writes in the NYT. “She is a historic yet inexperienced vice president who is taking on work that can easily backfire as so many people sit in judgment, with critics sniping (especially right-wing commentators) and allies spinning (like with official statements about ‘success’).
“And all the while, the clock is ticking. Most political observers think that if Mr. Biden decides not to run for re-election in 2024 (when he will be 81), Ms. Harris most definitely will. He had to know that in choosing her as his vice president, he was making her his heir apparent. But based on how things look now, her work as his No. 2 could end up being baggage more than a boon. Mr. Biden and his team aren’t giving her chances to get some wins and more experience on her ledger. Rather, it’s the hardest of the hard stuff.”
CONGRESS
FIGHTING WORDS FROM MURKOWSKI — “Murkowski has the moxie to take on Trump. Will she?” by Burgess Everett: “LISA MURKOWSKI has an ice-cold review of the Donald Trump-backed conservative who’s vowing to topple her in Alaska’s Senate race next year. ‘It doesn’t surprise me. The president has said, you know, that he’s gonna endorse anybody that has a pulse,’ the Alaska Republican said of GOP challenger, KELLY TSHIBAKA. ‘This, apparently, is somebody with a pulse.’
“That blunt assessment of Tshibaka reflects Murkowski’s combination of confidence and wariness ahead of what’s shaping up as an unpleasant midterm campaign for her. She’s the only GOP incumbent senator to earn Trump’s ire this year after voting to convict him in his second impeachment trial, a move that got her censured by her state party. He has vowed to campaign against her in person. Most of her colleagues believe she’s leaning toward seeking a fourth term, given her fundraising and private remarks to them as well as donors. Murkowski, however, is quiet about her plans.”
FORGET WHAT THE INVITATION SAYS — “Rep. Gosar denies knowledge of fundraiser with group that promotes white-nationalist ideas despite invitation for the event,” by WaPo’s Marianna Sotomayor: “[Rep. PAUL] GOSAR (R-Ariz.) has previously attended events with [NICK] FUENTES and appeared to defend the fundraiser in a tweet Monday night when he wrote: ‘Not sure why anyone is freaking out. I’ll say this: there are millions of Gen Z, Y and X conservatives. They believe in America First. They will not agree 100% on every issue. No group does. We will not let the left dictate our strategy, alliances and efforts. Ignore the left.’ But on Tuesday Gosar denied any knowledge of the fundraiser when asked about the invitation featuring a photo of him with Fuentes.”
MEANWHILE, POLICE REFORM IS STUCK … “Tensions rise in policing talks as negotiations hit a delicate phase,” by CNN’s Jessica Dean and Manu Raju: “High-stakes talks over a major revamp of policing laws are at a precarious state, with influential law enforcement groups divided, lawmakers struggling to bridge a gap on long-standing sticking points and skepticism among many congressional Republicans about the need for legislation at a time of rising crime in the United States.
“The complicated dynamic comes at a crucial time: After blowing past two deadlines, lawmakers say they need to make a decision by August on whether they can reach a deal or pull the plug. And now it’s anyone’s guess whether a deal can be reached, a sharp shift from just weeks ago … [Rep. KAREN] BASS confirmed on Tuesday that the hot-button issue of qualified immunity — protections given to police officers in civil court — remains unresolved.”
— “Rep. Hakeem Jeffries says police organizations are trying to ‘torpedo’ George Floyd reform bill,” by The Grio’s April Ryan
VIOLENCE WATCH
HEADS UP — “DHS Intel bulletin warns of risks as attack anniversaries near,” by Betsy Woodruff Swan: “It’s the second time in two weeks that DHS has raised concerns about violence connected to conspiracy theories and domestic extremism.”
— RELATED & SCARY: “‘Right-Wing Death Squad’: Active-Duty Marine Plotted to Bomb DNC, Murder Black People, Feds Say,” by The Daily Beast’s Justin Rohrlich: “An active-duty U.S. Marine came under federal investigation for allegedly plotting with at least two others to assassinate minorities, drug users, and employees of the Democratic National Committee with explosives, rocket launchers, and automatic rifles.
“That’s according to a newly unsealed FBI search warrant affidavit obtained by The Daily Beast, which indicates USMC Private First Class TRAVIS OWENS and his partners in the unrealized murder plot were influenced by TIMOTHY MCVEIGH … The document also states that one of the suspects had links to the Atomwaffen Division … The investigation began in late August 2019.” The affidavit
POLITICS CORNER
YIKES — “Josh Mandel’s staff quit campaign because of toxic work environment created by staffer in relationship with Mandel, sources say,” by The Columbus Dispatch’s Laura Bischoff and Haley BeMiller: “At least two of the three fundraisers who quit JOSH MANDEL’S U.S. Senate campaign in recent months did so because of a toxic work environment created by RACHEL WILSON, the campaign finance director, said two sources close to the situation.
“Wilson cussed out her subordinates, often demanded 12-hour workdays, berated them in front of others and called them names, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution and career damage. … Texts exchanged among Mandel campaign staff and reviewed by USA TODAY Network Ohio reporters confirm that [campaign manager SCOTT] GUTHRIE and Mandel knew of Wilson’s behavior but did not intervene.”
2022 WATCH — On “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” on Tuesday, Trump said former football player HERSCHEL WALKER will run against Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK for Georgia’s Senate seat in 2022. “He told me he’s going to, and I think he will,” Trump said. The full interview
CLYBURN INTERVENTION — “No. 3 House Democrat Steps Into Ohio Race to Head Off a Sanders Acolyte,” by NYT’s Jonathan Weisman: “In a rare intervention into a party primary, [House Majority Whip JIM] CLYBURN, a veteran lawmaker and the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, endorsed SHONTEL BROWN, [NINA] TURNER’S leading opponent.
“He said his decision to back Ms. Brown, the chairwoman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, was not about Mr. Sanders, or even Ms. Turner, who remains the favorite before the contest on Aug. 3 in the heavily Democratic district. But he took a swipe at what he called the ‘sloganeering’ of the party’s left flank, which has risen to power with calls for ‘Medicare for all,’ and to ‘abolish ICE’ and ‘defund the police.’”
AMERICA AND THE WORLD
PROBLEMS AHEAD — “Security in Afghanistan Is Decaying, U.S. General Says as Forces Leave,” by NYT’s Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt: “The commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan warned on Tuesday that the country could be on a path to chaotic civil war as American and other international troops prepare to leave in the coming weeks.
“His assessment, in a rare news conference at the headquarters of U.S. and NATO command in Kabul, will likely be one of the last publicly delivered by an American four-star general in Afghanistan, where recent events have included a Taliban offensive that has seized around 100 district centers, left dozens of civilians wounded and killed, and displaced thousands more. ‘Civil war is certainly a path that can be visualized if it continues on the trajectory it’s on,’ the commander, Gen. AUSTIN S. MILLER, told reporters during the news conference.”
FROM THE BIDEN CENTER TO THE BIDEN ADMIN — Der Spiegel’s René Pfister reported Tuesday that AMY GUTMANN, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, will be tapped as U.S. ambassador to Germany.
PLAYBOOKERS
POTUS’ BENEFACTORS ARE NOT HAPPY — “The Biden Donors Fight Back,” via Teddy Schleifer’s new newsletter, The Stratosphere: “[W]hile bundlers do like to complain, bundling is not easy work, and the unspoken promise of low-stakes political appointments is the grease that makes the big-money machine run. An ambassadorship is like the goodie bag that newlyweds give their guests in exchange for schlepping to the ceremony. Tokens of appreciation matter. Or as one Biden bundler summarized the relationship to me: ‘People need to be thanked more.’ …
“Cutting out the perks of fundraising, whether it’s a V.I.P. badge at a nominating convention or an appointment to an exotic country, could make some donors less likely to participate in the process, despite bipartisan, highfalutin’ rhetoric about fundraising being a labor of love. That’s a concern that some Biden bundlers tell me they hold. Over time, according to a Biden official, the White House expects about 30 percent of its ambassadors to be political appointees — that would be more or less in line with the average before Trump, who gave away 44 percent to his friends.”
SPOTTED: Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Kennedy dining (separately, as you’d expect) at Porto in Boston on Tuesday evening. Markey was there celebrating his wife’s birthday.
SPOTTED at a get-together in City Center on Tuesday night to celebrate Chip Kahn’s 20th anniversary at the Federation of American Hospitals (as well as longtime executive assistant Johanna Pasquier), which included M&Ms with their faces on them: Jeff Cohen, Katie Wise, Jayne Chambers, Patrick Velliky, Claudia Salzberg and Alyssa Keefe.
SPOTTED at an event Tuesday night hosted by Data for Progress at Roofers Union: Jim Kessler, Eli Zupnick, Adam Jentleson, Kristen Orthman, Evan Brown, Sahil Kapur, Sam Brody and Joel Payne.
STAFFING UP — DHS has added Meira Bernstein as deputy assistant secretary for media operations and Jamie Lawrence as deputy assistant secretary for the Private Sector Office (Office of Public Engagement). Bernstein previously was director of state comms on the Biden campaign, and is a Maggie Hassan and Claire McCaskill alum. Lawrence most recently led IBM’s corporate social responsibility work on the West Coast, and is a Biden alum.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Joy Drucker is joining the Stimson Center as VP of external affairs and advancement. She previously was at Drucker & Associates and is a former deputy assistant secretary of State. Rachel Stohl will become VP of research programs, and Victoria Holt will leave her VP role at Stimson (though remain a distinguished fellow) to head the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth.
TRANSITIONS — Mark Patterson, general counsel for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is leaving his post. He’s a longtime D.C. hand who’s worked for Perkins Coie, the Obama Treasury, Tom Daschle and more. No word yet on next steps, but our tipster says likely “some summer downtime in Rehoboth Beach.” … Former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy is joining Pallas Ventures as a managing director. … Chasseny Lewis is now chief of staff for Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). She most recently was director of U.S. public policy at Credit Suisse. …
… Natalie Edelstein will be deputy comms director for Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). She most recently has been comms director for Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). … Cris Turner will join Google’s public policy team as VP of GAPP consumer products. He most recently was VP and head of global government and public affairs at Micron. … Morgan Gress Johnson is joining Invariant’s comms practice. She most recently was an associate and chief of staff for the Washington office of Brunswick Group.
ENGAGED — Samuel Lau, director of federal advocacy comms at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Oren Bumgarner, a senior research scientist at Metron Inc., got engaged last week on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. They currently live in Arlington, Va. Pic
— Alex Howard, comms director at the McKeon Group, and Talia Orencel, program associate at Panagora Group, got engaged on the Appalachian Trail on Memorial Day weekend, with a surprise engagement party he planned at the Woodrow Wilson House in Kalorama. Pic … Another pic
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Ashley Gold, a technology reporter at Axios and a POLITICO alum, and Eli Glazier, a bicycle and pedestrian planner at the Montgomery-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission, welcomed Clara Gold Glazier on Friday. Pic … Another pic
— Nick Bush, chief of staff for the 15th Congressional District of Ohio office, and Julie Goldfarb Bush, director of U.S. government civilian business at Palantir Technologies, welcomed Cassidy Clarke “C.C.” Bush on June 17. She came in at 7 lbs, 7 oz and 20 inches. Pic, via @annmariegphoto … Another pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The Atlantic’s David Frum … Robyn Shapiro … Kyle Plotkin of Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) office … Ward Carroll … Adam Kennedy of CRC Advisors … Dan Leistikow … Kara Adame of MetLife … Zack Christenson … Dan Judy of North Star Opinion Research … Norm Sterzenbach … Paul Cheung of the Knight Foundation … Rachel Gorlin … Advoc8’s John Legittino … Andy Reynolds … Ken Callahan … former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) … former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen
Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.
Follow us on Twitter
26.) AMERICAN MINUTE
27.) CAFFEINATED THOUGHTS
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28.) CONSERVATIVE DAILY NEWS
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29.) PJ MEDIA
The Morning Briefing: Democrats’ Cop-Hating ‘Defund the Police’ Failure Is Complete
Top O’ the Briefing
Democrats Hate Cops and It’s Killing People
Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. I’d rather go bowling than make pastries.
When one has been active in and writing about American politics as long as I have — especially as an avowed partisan — one puts together quite the list of reasons to not trust the other side. When I first got involved in political activism, I wasn’t as given to sweeping generalizations as I am now.
That’s on the Democrats, not on me.
While there are many big issues that the Democrats have been very wrong about for many years, they have gotten really, really wrong about almost everything since the beginning of the Obama era. That, for me, is when I stopped finding much to agree with them about. Emboldened by a thoroughly corrupt media who aids and abets the alt-reality the Dems live in, they’ve gotten progressively (pun most definitely intended) worse in recent years.
Of all of the big, awful ideas to come from the Democrats recently, the defund the police movement was perhaps the worst.
His High Holiness the Lightbringer Barack Obama firmly established the Democrats as the political party of cop haters when he perpetuated the lie about Michael Brown that gave us the Ferguson riots in 2014.
That set the stage for 2020 when the George Floyd riots ignited the fire in the hearts of Democrats to defund all the police.
As Democrat-run cities threw in with thugs like Black Lives Matter and antifa while turning on law enforcement, cops decided they’d had enough.
Relevant: Reality Hits Hard—Lib Cities Move to ‘Re-fund the Police’
For months now, we’ve seen the predictable results of the defund the police movement. A fourth-grader could have foreseen what would have happened. Fewer cops, more crime. It’s called “The Minneapolis Effect.”
There have been numerous stories for months now proving just how wrong the Democrats have been about defund the police but they’ve been flooding the news in the past few weeks. In the past few days, the Puppet Biden administration has been insisting that sane people have gotten reality all wrong for a year and it’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are on the defund side of things.
You can’t make this stuff up.
New York City was one of the first of the Big Blues that rushed to defund the police. Surprise! Our own VodkaPundit came up with a brilliant line, writing that Hizzoner de Blasio just performed the “Triple-Lindy of Flip-Flops” when saying he now wanted to flood the streets with police. Too bad he made so many of them leave the profession.
Bryan has another story about the African-American police chief of a very blue city going off on the extreme lunacy of his city’s defund the police fervor.
It goes on and on.
The Democrats’ lust to condemn all police because of the actions of very few — and because Obama told them to hate cops — has led to murder, rapes, and robberies. While all of that very real violence is going on, the psychotic lefties are insisting that the real threat to America is a few weirdos who went apes**t on January 6th, 2021, and may or may not have been Trump supporters.
Democrats are wrong about everything.
That’s important to remember.
Another Pitch From the Big Tech Battleground
Big Tech is still busy trying to shut up any voices who aren’t participating in the prevailing commie orthodoxy, in case you missed it. Tyler had a story yesterday about anti-antifa journalist Andy Ngo having his podcast banned by SoundCloud:
SoundCloud has de-platformed Andy Ngo, editor-in-chief at The Post Millennial and an intrepid reporter on antifa. The tech platform removed Ngo’s podcast — creatively titled “Things You Should Ngo” — “on the grounds of being dedicated to violating” the site’s rules, The Post Millennial reported.
This is happening across all major online media and social media platforms. Here at PJ Media, we have been getting absolutely walloped by Facebook ever since the drooling puppet began occupying the Oval Office.
As I mentioned last week — and will be mentioning more frequently — our best way to combat these creeps is through our VIP subscription program. Facebook and the other sites can’t do anything to us on the other side of the ad-free paywall. We have a lot of fun there too. Every Thursday, VodkaPundit, Bryan Preston, and I do a live video chat called “Five O’Clock Somewhere.” We get together, enjoy some day drinking and chat with our VIP friends for a few hours. I already do two podcasts a week and this week Kevin Downey Jr. and I will be debuting “Unwoke With Kevin and Kruiser,” which could be insane.
Our VIP Gold subscribers get ad-free access to the premium content at ALL of the Townhall Media sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, HotAir, Bearing Arms, and Twitchy). That includes podcasts, columns, and live chats from the likes of Kurt Schlichter, Katie Pavlich, Larry O’Connor, Kira Davis, and Ed Morrissey. WE ARE HAVING A BLAST.
We had a lot of new subscribers last week and the party just keeps on getting bigger. Try us out for a while, I promise you’ll love it. I appreciate you all indulging these pitches from me. Again, I really like my job and the VIP program means I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder to see which Big Tech freak show is trying to cancel me.
You kids are the best.
Everything Isn’t Awful
PJ Media
Another Democrat Caught Working For The Chinese, and He Wants Your Vote
VodkaPundit: Flood the Zone with Police: Desperate De Blasio Performs the Triple-Lindy of Flip-Flops
Jill Biden Makes the Cover of ‘Vogue’ in a Dress Reminiscent of My Grandmother’s Drapes
Daily Dose of Downey: No Charges Against Trump (Again), Crackhead Artist Hunter Biden’s New Scam
Woke Leftists Look to the Cosmos and Find . . . Racism, of Course!
LOL. Don’t Look Now, But Another Lefty CNN Show Is Circling the Drain
Tree Huggers Surround White House, No Unarmed Protesters Shot This Time
WATCH: Oakland Police Chief RIPS City Council for Defunding Police Budget
Fireworks for Woke Me, But Not for Conservative Thee on July 4
Vice Advice: Cigar Review, Wherefore Art Thou Romeo and Juliet? My Humidor
Muslim Cleric Dies After Being Castrated by One of His Wives for Planning to Marry Again
He caves a lot. Manchin Hints He Could Vote for a Democrat-Only Infrastructure Bill
Supreme Court Rules Natural Gas Company Has Right to Seize NJ Land for Pipeline
Virginia PTA Moves to Dissolve Parent Group After CRT Opponents Won a Majority
Rush Limbaugh Predicted This: Brave NFL Comes Out as Gay for Pride Month
Climate Activists See a Glorious Opportunity Amid Pacific Northwest Heat Wave
Egypt Seizes Ancient Christian Monastery’s Land, Bulldozes Church
If the Woke Revolution Cancels Truth Itself, What Then?
Stossel: The Right to Bear Arms
Townhall Mothership
Pathological Liars Alert. White House: Biden Ran and Won on Funding the Police
Townhall On the Ground: This Is What Kamala Harris Avoided Seeing at the Border
Johns Hopkins Doctor Blasts Delta Variant ‘Fearmongering,’ Calls More Masking ‘Overkill’
Refreshing. New Tennessee Law Fights Crime Without Targeting Legal Gun Owners
Cam&Co. Has Change The Ref Lost The Plot?
Attempt At Banning Gun Sales From Home Now Headed To Court
Steve Scalise Makes Things Uncomfortable for Nancy Pelosi as ‘Defund the Police’ Debate Is Revived
Recall Gavin Newsom: CA Leg Passes a Law to Manipulate the Recall Election Timing
Media Gets Stomped Into Next Week When They Go After DeSantis Yet Again on Building Collapse
Chinese Military May Have Taken Over Wuhan Lab in 2019 per GOP Head of China Task Force
Boris Johnson on reopening: Look, we’re going to have to learn to live with COVID at some point
How China used US techniques to engineer bat viruses in unsafe conditions
FIRE on the debate over Critical Race Theory in schools
VIP
Kruiser’s (Almost) Daily Distraction: My Dream of Being a Beer Blogger Won’t Go Away
Will Biden Use the Delta Variant to Restore COVID Restrictions?
Here’s Where America Ranks in Public Trust of Media
Yes, We Should Take Tucker Carlson’s Spying Claims Seriously. Here’s Why.
GOLD You Can Never Suck Up Enough
Around the Interwebz
New York Comedy Festival Returns In November After Skipped Year
The implosion of multiculturalism
Hong Kong: How life has changed under the national security law
‘Gender transition’ regret deserves a voice, says former patient
6 Common Misconceptions About Flying
Bee Me
The Kruiser Kabana
Kabana Gallery
Kabana Random
Kabana Tunes
I’m thinking of installing a life in my living room.
For media inquiries, please contact communications@pjmedia.com.
PJ Media senior columnist and associate editor Stephen Kruiser is a professional stand-up comic, writer, and recovering political activist who edits and writes PJ’s Morning Briefing, aka The Greatest Political Newsletter in America. His latest book, Straight Outta Feelings, is a humorous exploration of how the 2016 election made him enjoy politics more than he ever had before. When not being a reclusive writer, Kruiser has had the honor of entertaining U.S. troops all over the world. Follow on: Gab, Parler, MeWe
30.) WHITE HOUSE DOSSIER
31.) THE DISPATCH
The Morning Dispatch: Biden’s Fast Judicial Start
Plus: Israel’s new government takes first diplomatic steps.
| The Dispatch Staff | 9 min ago | 3 |
Happy Wednesday! The Milwaukee fans on staff were going to stage a mutiny if we didn’t acknowledge that the Brewers have won seven games in a row and are five games ahead of the Cubs in the NL Central, so this is us acknowledging that the Brewers have won seven games in a row and are five games ahead of the Cubs in the NL Central.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- A U.S. base in northeast Syria was attacked by “multiple rockets” on Monday—hours after the United States conducted a series of airstrikes in the region—according to Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve. Marotto said American forces responded with “counter-battery fire at rocket launching positions and on Hellfire from a UAV which resulted in one enemy wounded in action.” There were no casualties on the U.S. side.
- South Africa’s Constitutional Court served former President Jacob Zuma with a 15-month prison sentence on Tuesday for contempt of court after Zuma refused to appear before a government-appointed commission looking into corruption that allegedly took place during his presidency. Zuma—who now has five days to turn himself in—is accused of awarding inflated government contracts to individuals and companies in exchange for favors.
- New Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid inaugurated the country’s embassy in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, marking an Israeli cabinet minister’s first trip to the UAE since the two countries normalized relations last fall. “Israel wants peace with all its neighbors,” Lapid said. “We aren’t going anywhere. The Middle East is our home.”
- A massive heat wave is sweeping the Pacific Northwest, with temperatures in Washington and Oregon reaching as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit, causing some roads to buckle and power cables to melt. BuzzFeed News reports that more than 1,100 people have been hospitalized in recent days with heat-related illnesses.
- The counting of the vote in New York City’s mayoral Democratic primary descended into chaos on Tuesday after the city’s board of elections announced it had accidentally tabulated 135,000 sample ballots that had been used to test voting software from official systems.
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from the Alabama Association of Realtors to overturn the Centers for Disease Control’s eviction moratorium, which was recently extended through the end of July. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three Democratic-appointed justices in voting to uphold the moratorium. Kavanaugh wrote that while he agrees the CDC “exceeded its existing statutory authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium,” letting the moratorium expire July 31 as planned will allow for an “orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds.”
- The United States confirmed 11,306 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, with 1.4 percent of the 804,579 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 322 deaths were attributed to the virus on Tuesday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 604,436. According to the CDC, 11,837 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Meanwhile, 738,476 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered yesterday, with 179,940,202 Americans having now received at least one dose.
A New Slate of Judges
Last Thursday, the Biden administration succeeded in confirming its seventh federal judge: Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, a nominee to the 7th Circuit court of Appeals. While seven confirmations may not seem like a lot, this is actually the fastest rate at which a president has filled judicial vacancies since Richard Nixon.
At this point in their respective presidencies, Donald Trump had confirmed two lifetime federal judges (one of whom was Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch), Obama zero, George W. Bush zero, Bill Clinton zero, George H.W. Bush four, Ronald Reagan zero, and Jimmy Carter four.
And Biden isn’t slowing down. CNN’s Phil Mattingly reported this morning that Biden is preparing to announce the nominations of another wave of federal judges today, including two circuit court nominees.
The Biden administration’s efforts to rapidly fill judicial vacancies reflect increased pressure from left-wing legal advocacy groups to respond to Republicans’ organizing efforts around the judiciary. Trump filled 234 lifetime federal court seats during his single term in office, a faster pace than that set by Obama, Bush, or Clinton. Under the leadership of then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate moved quickly to approve many of Trump’s appointees. As of January 2021, 28 percent of active federal judges were chosen by Trump.
But in a speech last week on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer got his revenge. “For all the focus that the Republican leader put on judges during the previous administration, the Senate only confirmed one—one district or circuit judge—before July 4 in the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency,” he said. “With the confirmations this week, the Senate will have confirmed more district and circuit court judges to the federal bench in the first six months of President Biden’s first year than any other administration in 50 years.”
Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told The Dispatch that Democrats have learned from experience the importance of having a queue of judicial nominees at the ready.
Out With the Old, In With the New
It’s been a busy week for Israel’s new government. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party, spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi Monday for the first time since taking office. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who organized the successful effort to oust former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, traveled to the United Arab Emirates to christen the Gulf’s first Israeli Embassy.
Meanwhile, outgoing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited Washington, D.C., this week to bid his American counterpart adieu. In an Oval Office reunion reported to have exceeded its designated time slot, Biden examined the future of Jerusalem with one of the most respected voices of its past.
According to a White House readout of the meeting, the two touched on subjects including humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, efforts to secure a “lasting peace” with West Bank and Gaza Strip leadership, and concerns over Iranian nuclear proliferation and support for regional terror. “The leaders discussed the importance of enhancing efforts to strengthen moderate voices and promote the cause of coexistence while weakening extremists who advocate for hatred and violence,” the statement read.
“Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch,” President Biden declared Monday, affirming important common ground with Israel. But per reports following the meeting, the two leaders remain far apart in their visions for maintaining their shared goal.
Worth Your Time
- Writing in The Atlantic, James Jeffrey and Dennis Ross argue that pretty much any conflict plaguing the Middle East nowadays can be traced back to Iran’s “destabilizing role in the region.” The pair anticipate a return to the Iran nuclear deal in some form this year, but argue that far more needs to be done to contain the threat Iran poses to the region. “Although we are convinced of the value of containing Iran’s nuclear program, that is not enough. The administration will also need to counter what will almost certainly be Iran’s escalating efforts in the region: With the sanctions relief that will result from returning to compliance with the JCPOA, Tehran’s troublemaking resources will increase,” they write.
- New York Times economics correspondent Neil Irwin is out with an important piece for understanding the post-pandemic economy: Markets work, but it’ll take time for global supply chains to reach their new equilibrium. “Decisions made early in the pandemic are having long-lasting consequences in fulfilling demand that is surging with Americans’ loaded wallets,” he writes. “Now, there are higher prices for base materials like steel and aluminum. There are suppliers being forced to raise wages sharply to keep assembly lines operating. There are semiconductor manufacturers stretched too thin to provide enough computer chips to make as many cars as consumers wish to buy. There have even been shortages of resin, needed in the plastics that are part of a car, caused by Texas winter storms this year. And adding to it all, there are logjams of shipping capacity for materials imported from overseas.”
Presented Without Comment
Also Presented Without Comment
“In the months since former President Donald Trump left office, media companies’ readership numbers are plunging — and publishers that rely on partisan, ideological warfare have taken an especially big hit.” 
Toeing the Company Line
- Haley is going to be taking a few months off her congressional reporting, but never fear—Uphill is in good hands. In yesterday’s edition, Harvest and Ryan gauge Congress’ openness to a global minimum tax and dive into House Republicans’ moves on climate policy.
- David took a look at the latest Supreme Court term in Tuesday’s French Press(🔒), arguing that the body has been “an island of classical liberal calm in the midst of a raging partisan and populist storm.” Even in cases touching explosive cultural issues, Supreme Court majorities, he writes, have successfully navigated a middle path. “They have extended nondiscrimination protections in secular spaces, blocked targeted discrimination against people of faith, and expanded the autonomy and liberty of religious organizations.”
- In yesterday’s Sweep, Sarah offered silver linings for both Democrats and Republicans as we head into midterm season, and weighed in on the growing descriptive uselessness of the word “conservative.” Stick around for Chris Stirewalt’s take on the politics of infrastructure. “It’s still clear that there are more Democratic incumbents in clear need of a bipartisan win than Republicans,” he concludes.
Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Ryan Brown (@RyanP_Brown), Harvest Prude (@HarvestPrude), Tripp Grebe (@tripper_grebe), Emma Rogers (@emw_96), Price St. Clair (@PriceStClair1), Jonathan Chew (@JonathanChew19), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).
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32.) LEGAL INSURRECTION
33.) THE DAILY WIRE
34.) DESERET NEWS
35.) BRIGHT
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36.) AMERICAN THINKER
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37.) LARRY J. SABATO’S CRYSTAL BALL
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Youngkin’s barrage tests efficacy of early adsPart of the reason that Glenn Youngkin was an appealing candidate to Virginia Republicans was his ability to pump his own considerable personal largesse into his gubernatorial campaign. He has not disappointed: Youngkin. a former co-CEO of investment firm the Carlyle Group. is currently dominating the Virginia airwaves while the Democratic nominee, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, is largely holding back. Mark Murray of NBC News noted earlier this week that the result has been a Youngkin edge of 40 to 1 on advertising since the start of the general election campaign (McAuliffe easily won his party’s nomination on June 8, setting up the McAuliffe vs. Youngkin battle). Murray, citing numbers from Adimpact, wrote that Youngkin has spent more than $2.2 million on ads since early June, including more than $1.5 million in the expensive Washington DC media market, while McAuliffe has spent only $55,000 so far (all on digital). McAuliffe did spend nearly $6 million during the primary, leaving nothing to chance against an overmatched, splintered field of rivals. McAuliffe is a prodigious fundraiser in his own right, but it seems very likely that he will be outspent by Youngkin overall. One other thing to remember is that the Republican Governors Association usually has more money than its counterpart, the Democratic Governors Association, which means that Republicans could have an edge in outside money in this race as well depending on how both sides decide to allocate their resources. But what is the value of Youngkin’s early ad-spending? On this, one might find a disagreement between some political operatives and some political scientists. There are some operatives who believe that early ad spending can help define a candidate positively and protect them from negative attacks later on. A recent, anecdotal example of this we have heard from professionals on both sides is the campaign of now-Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Sinema did not have to worry about her primary in 2018, so she spent the months leading up to Arizona’s August primary bolstering her image while her opponent, Martha McSally (R), had to tack to the right in her own primary, which she ended up winning convincingly but which she could not take for granted. By the time the November campaign started in force, Sinema had positively presented herself to Arizonans, arguably taking some bite out of Republican ads that sought to portray her as radical. Youngkin is effectively trying to do the same thing in his general election advertising; one recent spot shows him talking to small groups about how party labels don’t matter in everyday life. These ads aren’t particularly memorable, but the message is clear: Youngkin is pitching himself as a centrist, just like Sinema did. Once the negative ad wars engage, McAuliffe and Democrats surely will argue that Youngkin, who was supportive of Donald Trump during the gubernatorial primary season and emphasized the importance of so-called election integrity, is more conservative than his advertising suggests. Youngkin’s campaign will hope the investment now protects him later. However, there is some political science research that indicates any effect from early campaign ads is fleeting. A new paper by John Sides, Lynn Vavreck, and Christopher Warshaw on advertising in thousands of races ranging from presidential races to down-ballot elected statewide offices from 2000 to 2018 found that to the extent an advertising edge has an effect, that effect is greater closer to the actual election. “Advertising before Labor Day does not appear to affect election outcomes,” they write. On the other hand, the same paper does indicate that an advertising advantage is more meaningful in non-presidential races. So if Youngkin can maintain an edge — obviously, such an advantage will be way smaller than what he has currently — that may pay some dividends down the stretch. Youngkin’s early spending edge reminds us in some ways of the 2010 California gubernatorial race, in which a free-spending former CEO, Meg Whitman (R), ran against a former governor, Jerry Brown (D). This Virginia race also features a wealthy former business leader versus a former governor. Whitman spent an astounding $177 million to Brown’s $36 million, but Brown ended up winning by 13 points. Despite Whitman’s huge overall edge, Brown was able to largely keep pace with Whitman in television advertising in the final four weeks of the campaign — in other words, closer to Election Day, when advertising is likely more important, as noted by the study cited above. Of course, California even back then was a markedly bluer state than Virginia is now, although going into that election, Republicans had won eight of the last 12 gubernatorial races there (including the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003). In any event, Youngkin’s ad-spending edge merits watching. The Crystal Ball has consistently rated Virginia’s gubernatorial race as Leans Democratic. Had Republicans nominated a fringy candidate in its early May nominating process, such as very conservative state Sen. Amanda Chase (R), we would have considered pushing the race to Likely or even Safe Democratic. But Youngkin is a credible nominee, if also an unproven one. As of now, we would still rather be McAuliffe in this race, but it wouldn’t surprise us at all if this race ended up being similar to McAuliffe’s initial 2.5-point victory in 2013, or if Youngkin won outright. If Youngkin does spring an upset, the seeds of his victory may have been planted in June, although it’s also an open question as to whether his ad spending now will matter later. First impressions of Colorado’s map draftLast week, Colorado became the first state of the post-2020 redistricting cycle to release an official draft of a congressional map. Like several other western states, Colorado’s redistricting process is now controlled by an independent commission. At a June 23 teleconference, commissioners stressed that the proposed map will not be the final product; over the coming months, they’ll be accepting input from the public. Moreover, the commission drew its districts based on unofficial population estimates — the Census Bureau will not even be releasing the official numbers until later this summer. So, more than anything else, the proposed Colorado map will be a starting point for discussion — but it still merits a detailed look. Colorado’s recent population gains have made its redistricting process more consequential this cycle: it was one of the fewer-than expected states that gained representation after the most recent round of reapportionment. Next year, it will send eight members to the House, up from the current seven. On Map 1, the left images show the current map, while the images on the right are the proposed new version. The maps are colored by 2020 presidential partisanship (this handy interactive tool from Garrett Herrin has other partisan data). Map 1: Current vs proposed Colorado maps In Republican-held districts, the commission made some new aesthetic choices. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R, CO-3), who has become something of a lightning rod for Democratic criticism, retains a Western Slope-based district. Under the draft map, though, a handful of counties in south-central Colorado are shifted into Rep. Ken Buck’s (R, CO-4) district. Pueblo County, the most populous of this bunch, has been in a western-based version of 3rd District since the 1980 round of redistricting. The counties that were shifted from CO-3 to CO-4 have high Hispanic populations, but are, electorally, a mixed bag: Pueblo, for instance, is a rare Obama-Trump-Biden county while Alamosa was Colorado’s sole Clinton-to-Trump county. As an aside, Armin Thomas, at Elections Daily, has covered this politically unique area extensively. Perhaps counterintuitively, even as the state added a district, both districts 3 and 4 became even more geographically vast — on the proposed map, they combine to account for about 93% of the state’s land area, compared just under 85% for the current map. While this doesn’t radically alter the partisanship of the districts (though Boebert gets a slight boost, which could matter if her race ends up being competitive), this type of expansion could be a trend in other states: as these rural districts have seen relatively slow population growth, they’ll necessarily have to expand. But not all Republican-held seats are getting larger. CO-5 has included Colorado Springs, one of the more conservative cities in the country, ever since Colorado was awarded a fifth seat, after the 1970 census. Because of the city’s robust growth, CO-5 is now entirely contained within El Paso County. Though there are some promising longer-term trends for Democrats in the area — in 2020, Trump’s margin in El Paso County was cut in half, shrinking to 11% from 22% — this version of CO-5 should be a firm GOP seat for at least a few more cycles. The commission suggested that the new 8th District was drawn with the Hispanic community in mind. The proposed CO-8 is a northern Denver-area district — it includes fast-growing suburbs like Arvada and Westminster, then reaches upward towards Greeley. Notably, CO-8 is 29.9% Hispanic by composition, a higher share than any other urban district on the map. Still, the adjacent CO-1 has only a slightly lower Hispanic share, 28.6% — if the commission was trying to ensure a Hispanic candidate is elected, CO-8 could have easily added some Denver precincts. Either way, in statewide elections, the new CO-8 would track slightly leftward of Colorado as a whole: Biden took 56.5% there, compared to 55.4% overall. So in other words, we’d expect Democrats to take this seat. While the placement of the new CO-8 was certainly something that was on the minds of political observers, the proposed CO-7 may be the district that gets the most attention. In fact, of the current seven seats, CO-7 has the least overlap between the present version and the proposed draft: both iterations include suburban cities in Jefferson County, but CO-7 completely drops its holdings in Adams County, while picking up much of Douglas County, a GOP-leaning county south of Denver. These trades cut Biden’s margin in CO-7 from 23% down to about 10%, making the new seat more Republican than Colorado as a whole. In addition to taking on a fairly new — and more competitive — seat, Rep. Earl Perlmutter (D, CO-7) only barely lives within the borders of his proposed seat. If Republicans end up winning a Colorado district outside the three that they currently hold, the obvious target would be the new 7th, though longer-terms trends suggest that the seat is drifting Democratic. Map 2 considers the aggregate vote between Jefferson and Douglas counties — the draft CO-7 covers substantial portions of both counties, while Map 2 considers them in their entirety. Map 2: Jefferson and Douglas Counties, 2008 and 2020 Republicans had more success in the Jefferson/Douglas pair in the cycles between 2008 and 2020, but the trend has been clear. Though Trump carried the duo in 2016 by two percentage points, it represented a decline from the 52%-46% vote Mitt Romney received in 2012. At a more granular level, Highlands Ranch, the most populous community in Douglas County, is also illustrative of how some formerly-deep red parts of this area have moved. Thirteen years ago, McCain won 55%-44% there — in 2020, Biden carried this wealthy community 52%-47%. While Gardner won Highlands Ranch, his 2.5% margin was considerably lower than McCain’s. Ironically, the commission-drawn CO-7 is very similar to a version of CO-6 that Republicans tried to enact after the 2000 round of redistricting. When the governor and legislature couldn’t agree on a plan in 2001, courts stepped in and enacted a map. After the 2002 elections, though, Republicans won full control of state government, and tried to push a more partisan redistricting plan. Though the Republican plan was ultimately struck down based on state law, it featured a version of CO-6 that mainly consisted of Jefferson and Douglas counties. Of course, almost 20 years ago, such a district would have been strongly Republican — it speaks to how much the area has changed that, to win a comparable seat today, Republicans would probably need a quality recruit, a modicum of suburban reversion, a favorable national environment, or all three. While the districts will probably change over the next few months, as the draft is updated, from a purely partisan perspective, the map seems to be a fair reflection of Colorado as a whole: Democrats would be favored in four districts, Republicans in three, while the final district (CO-7) is increasingly leaning blue, but would not be out of reach for Republicans if enough factors fall into place. |
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| UVA Center for Politics Announces 2021 Class of 22nd Century Scholars Students will gain public sector work experience and engage in real world international diplomacy; UVA alumni will serve as career mentors |
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The University of Virginia Center for Politics in partnership with the Miller Center, Weldon Cooper Center/Sorensen Institute, Democracy Initiative, and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy have selected 50 students for the second annual 22nd Century Scholars scholarship program set to launch July 1 and continue through Aug. 6. The 22nd Century Scholars (open to rising second, third, and fourth-year students at UVA and UVA Wise) were selected by application and will participate in a multi-faceted summer internship with the participating partners. The program is designed to be an immersive learning opportunity where students gain public-sector work experience; participate in public event planning; generate political and historical research; assist with television documentary production; and receive personalized career counseling through the UVA Career Center. In addition, and new to the program this year, all Scholars will participate in the Center for Politics’ Global Perspectives on Democracy program and engage in real time, real world international diplomacy by serving as “host peers” for a U.S. Department of State-sponsored delegation of students in Iraq during the final two weeks of the program. Each Scholar will receive a $2,000 stipend as part of the program, and will work individually and collectively on some of the biggest public-sector issues facing the country and the world today. At the start of the program, each student will also be paired with University alumni, including CBS News Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, broadcaster and former UVA and NFL football player Tiki Barber, former Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs, and many others, who will serve as career mentors to the students throughout the five-week internship and then monthly for the coming year. “The challenges our next generation of public servants will face are incredibly daunting — the rise of autocracy around the globe, extremism, climate change, technology risks, and resource scarcity. I’m excited to work with the future leaders that will step up to face these challenges and protect our democracy,” said Krebs. Roark Corson, a 22nd Century Scholar from last summer, has been mentored by Erik Hirsch, the vice chairman of Hamilton Lane and an expert in the private equity industry. “After the internship, I have kept up with my mentor, and he has been an incredible asset. He’s helped me with my resume, cover letters, interview skills, and other job-related areas. We share an interest in politics, and our discussions about world events are always fascinating and enjoyable. The mentorship aspect of the 22nd Century Scholar Program is absolutely invaluable,” Corson said. Corson has joined the U.S. Department of State to intern at the Wuhan Consulate in China this summer. Students selected for this year’s 22nd Century Scholars program are:
“This innovative program is in keeping with the University of Virginia’s long history of developing leaders in government and politics,” said Larry J. Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics. “And I’m delighted that so many of our exceptional University alumni have stepped forward to serve as mentors to these students. This not only bolsters the students’ understanding of what it means to be a public servant, but it also strengthens UVA’s intergenerational connections.” The 22nd Century Scholars Program is made possible through funding from the Jefferson Trust, the Larry J. Sabato Foundation, and the Peter and Eaddo Kiernan Foundation with additional support from Sonja Hoel Perkins, McGuireWoods Consulting, Michael Greenwald, Larry Schack and Katie Shaw, Erik Hirsch, and many other generous donors. NOW AVAILABLE: A Return to Normalcy? Our Book on the 2020 Election
Crystal Ball readers can also buy the book directly from the publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, and receive a 30% discount using the code RLFANDF30. Edited by Crystal Ball editors Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and J. Miles Coleman, A Return to Normalcy? brings together what Booklist calls a “stellar coterie of reporters, pundits, and scholars” to “parse the 2020 election via a data-driven set of analytics displayed in useful charts and graphs, drawing conclusions that will satisfy hard-core political junkies and provide a solid foundation for everyone looking ahead to 2022 and 2024.” Read the fine printLearn more about the Crystal Ball and find out how to contact us here. Sign up to receive Crystal Ball e-mails like this one delivered straight to your inbox. Use caution with Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and remember: “He who lives by the Crystal Ball ends up eating ground glass!” |
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| © Copyright by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia |
Larry J. Sabato
UVA Center for Politics
PO Box 400806
Charlottesville, VA 22904
38.) THE BLAZE
39.) THE FEDERALIST
40.) REUTERS
41.) NOQ REPORT
42.) ARRA NEWS SERVICE
ARRA News Service (in this message: 9 new items) |
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- A BLM Supporter Tried to Kill a Police Officer: That’s the Terrorist Threat We’re Not Discussing
- The Fear of and Reverence for the “Hoop Snake” Part Two:
- Left Tries a Veteran Move on Abortion Pills
- Deal Or No Deal, Harris Hits The Border, A Better CRT
- Obama and the Broken Nation He Made Come Of Age
- Dying To Vote
- Charles Murray’s Two Uncomfortable Truths and His Not Bad Advice
- The Return of ‘Law and Order’
- American Anti-Semitism, Israeli Paralysis
| A BLM Supporter Tried to Kill a Police Officer: That’s the Terrorist Threat We’re Not Discussing
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 03:40 PM PDT
 by Daniel Greenfield : Briana Sykes spent over a year broadcasting the racist hate of the Black Lives Matter movement. Last year, she reposted a message from Senator Bernie Sanders, promoted by BLM activist Shaun King, stirring up anger over false claims about Breonna Taylor, who was killed when her drug dealer boyfriend opened fire on police. “Our criminal justice system is racist,” the Sanders smear of the police falsely claimed. Shortly afterward she posted an anti-police cartoon distributed by the Black Berner Coalition. Briana promoted a Black Lives Matter “economic boycott” and the claim that BLM rioters were “compelled to burn s___ down” because they’re an “oppressed group”. Over the summer, the same account linked to Briana Sykes spread disinformation that the Trump administration had “literally killed hundreds of protesters in front of the White House”. The #DCBlackout hoax was spread by pro-BLM accounts. It was not clear who was behind a seeming attempt at inciting violence, but researchers suspect it was an enemy government. And then after over a year of hate and Bernie Sanders memes, Briana Sykes tried to murder a police officer at a Juneteenth parade in Flint, Michigan. According to authorities, Briana drove up to a police officer and opened fire on him. The officer shot back, wounding the 19-year-old woman. While the officer wasn’t hit, according to a black eyewitness, he “fell to the ground crying because… he didn’t want to do whatever he had to do.” A fellow officer, black, is seen assisting him on the video. Cell phone video appears to show that the unnamed white officer was still trying to give her a chance to surrender, shouting, “Show me your hands!” Risking his life to avoid another police shooting didn’t pay off. It happened anyway. The local BLM chapter’s social media responded to the shooting with hate and incitement. “We have been inculcated to accept Native Black people being MURDERED at the hands of “PROTECT AND SERVE”!“ one poster shrieked. “WE ARE NOT IGNORANT! We also call for first degree murder charges and that this killer cop’s pension be forfeited!” Briana Sykes died at the hospital and now authorities are trying to figure out her motive. But the motive is all over her social media which is littered with BLM anti-police hate. Some of that hate intersects with Bernie Sanders material. The two vectors of radicalization are clear and outside the new domestic terrorism guidelines drawn up by the Biden Administration. Senate Democrats, led by Senator Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, had already pressured the FBI to stop monitoring black nationalist hate groups.“So, you no longer use the term Black Identity Extremism,” Booker had grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray. “That’s great news.” It was terrible news for local police and the Jewish community in Jersey City which came under attack by two black nationalist terrorists. But the new Biden domestic terrorism guidelines compound the problem that may have led to the mass shooting at a Jewish supermarket by separating out white nationalists while classifying black nationalists as “anti-government”. The Biden terrorism guidelines describe Micah X. Johnson, the black nationalist activist who murdered 5 white Dallas police officers, as an anti-government extremist. Johnson was one of a number of BLM supporters who killed or tried to kill police officers. Briana Sykes is just the latest. And while Democrat House members have celebrated Capitol Police personnel, they’ve shown no interest in the hundreds of police officers wounded in their BLM race riots. That’s because the Democrat establishment is deeply entangled with the racist hate group. In Flint, the scene of the latest BLM terrorist attack, Mayor Sheldon Neeley had created a Black Lives Matter Advisory Council for the local police and had joined the hate group’s local rallies. Chief Phil Hart had forced Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation training on the police. Pandering to the black nationalist pro-crime hate group backfired in Flint, as it did everywhere else, with a 32% increase in murders while non-fatal shootings doubled. By the time the Juneteenth parade arrived there wasn’t much to celebrate in Flint. Just more killing. What role did the promotion of Black Lives Matter by Flint Democrats play in the radicalization of Briana Sykes? And what impact did the Bernie Sanders fanbase, who have become notorious for promoting disinformation and extremist material, have on her state of mind? In 2017, James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders supporter, opened fire on Republicans at a charity baseball game in D.C. The FBI covered up the terrorist attack by falsely claiming that Hodgkinson had been trying to commit suicide and had not been targeting anyone despite his possession of a target list and a conversation in which he specifically sought out Republicans. Hodgkinson, like Briana Sykes, had spent a lot of time spreading hate on Facebook. He had even belonged to a group named, “Terminate the Republican Party”. It’s likely that this latest shooting by a radicalized Bernie Sanders supporter will be treated the same way. But even while the Biden administration defines Trump supporters as terrorists, the Bernie Sanders base and Black Lives Matter remind us who the real terrorists are. What made Briana Sykes open fire on a police officer? The answer is right in front of us. Democrats and their media are inciting violence against the police. It can’t come as a surprise when someone takes their big lie that police officers are racist killers and acts on it. Briana Sykes was an ordinary product of her environment. She spent her time online listening to music celebrating violence and imbibing political propaganda demonizing the police. We don’t know exactly what went through her mind, but after being told for years that police officers plot to kill black people, she might have decided that any officer she saw was coming to kill her. While the media has demanded that Facebook and other social media platforms censor conservatives, it has shown no interest in shutting down the kind of leftist disinformation that may have radicalized Hodgkinson and Sykes. That’s because it’s their disinformation. Briana’s death will only feed the cycle of extremism as BLM supporters use her death to transform her into a martyr to their racist cause. Like any terrorist organization, the death of its own people fuels the BLM momentum. Every black person killed in a confrontation with a police officer incites more violence and more payouts. The ugly reality of Briana’s death is that she died trying to murder a police officer so that the Democrats who ruined her city and state can rig more elections, and so that BLM leaders can buy more mansions. Tags: Daniel Greenfield, A BLM Supporter, Tried to Kill a Police Officer, That’s the Terrorist Threat, We’re Not DiscussingTo 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 Fear of and Reverence for the “Hoop Snake” Part Two:
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 03:19 PM PDT
by Victor Davis Hanson: For the next week after that warning about hoop snakes on the prowl as veritable animal unicyclists, I looked hourly for hoop snakes—shovel in hand—but never found a single one or even their bike-tire like trails. Yet Joe Caron said he had grown up on the reservation and saw them hooping in packs a lot. (I have a confession to make: Until 21, I remember this childhood incident as just folk ignorance—or maybe a wild pun on us? But one day in graduate school while reading about the Gnostics, I came across the ouroboros or “mouth biter,” a mythical Greek snake creature (borrowed from the Egyptians) that alchemists and Gnostic philosophers adopted as iconic, likely because of its transcendent “circle of life” message of the tail ending at and consumed by the head, or a reminder of death and rebirth. And I silently apologized to the long-dead Joe the moment I saw that his mythologies were one with the ancients). So, Joe taught me a lot of things, although he rarely said more than a few phrases at a time—and that made his advice all the more listened to. “Wear long sleeves, boys, in the heat. It will cool you down when you think it makes you hotter.” And “Wear a scarf for the sweat. You never know when you need it.” Once he got the mail as we worked the vineyard near his mailbox, and he put the letters inside his hat and continued down the row without a thought. As I wrote, we had another worker from the Azores, a master tractor driver and mechanic who lived next to us too, Carlos Silva. Carlos went often on a mean drunk. As a philosopher of sorts, he was occasionally cruel in his assessments. And every time I saw Carlos, I said to him “Well, Joe said.” And he would belly laugh and would say, “Well, Joe’s a simple, stupid man, a fool that Joe Caron is.” And he chuckled at the effect of his slanders of our hero Joe. Snitch that I was, I would always tell my grandfather on Carlos. But he’d say only, “Well, Carlos’s a master tractor driver and he can take apart the old Oliver tractor blindfolded. And Joe’s a saint but can’t do that. So, they’re different, just different.” Joe warned us about eagles and even hawks that snatch people (as I wrote earlier of our childhood fears). He warned me not to enter the eucalyptus wilds nearby (as I wrote as well), and said, “If you ever get lost in there, yell out and I’ll hear you from home.” Joe told me of contests under the vines between black widows and mud daubers. I told him black widows were the most dangerous things in the world and would kill us all with one brief bite (we saw dozens as we picked each row). And I remember he said, “Well, listen, Mr. Vic. A good blue mud wasp will kill ‘em every time. They just drag them widows into their mud holes on the stumps. Pile-em in. When they’re done eating them up, just a bunch of legs, all’s left.” After that on Joe’s advice, I never smashed another mud dauber but did open up their mud holes looking for spider legs. His uniform was khaki pants, khaki long sleeve shirt, straw hat, a blue or red scarf around his neck, and ankle-high thick leather boots. As I grew older, Joe slowed down and we got stronger. So, then he trailed rather than led us down the row. When I told my mom about working with Joe, she seemed somehow redeemed about the occasional putdowns from college friends that she had graduated from Stanford law school and yet gone right back into genteel poverty in a tiny house with three kids and my dad. I think what she saw on the coast had worried her, and she wanted us to grow up as she had, not just with empathy for, but with friendship as equals with, the hard men of the earth. I think it was in my last year in high school, the county came out, inspected Joe’s house, declared it “substandard” and then told my grandfather to move Joe and his elderly and infirm wife out. Joe had lived there rent-free as part of the job. We later remodeled it, and my dad lived there until he died. Odd thing is that Joe’s house was far better than the current ramshackle trailers, the tents, and the shacks that in the dozens mark the same avenue today. These shacks are mostly rented to illegal aliens, who, along with their landlords, are strangely exempt from the sort of rules and regulations that 50 years ago shut down Joe’s house. Ah, progress! Anytime, I have faced real adversity, I think I can somehow get through because at 5, 6, and onto 16, I worked with Joe Caron and thought him a model, and even learned to take the good in men like Carlos Silva and ignore the bad. The 1950s and 1960s are now fading shadows of memories, or as Hesiod would say, thoughts only of “work on work on top of work” from sunrise to sunset. My grandfather would say “Meet Joe with your weed shovels in the old vineyard between the ponds at 7 AM.” We would lag out at 7:30 and Joe was already covered with sweat from starting at 6 AM. He’d say only with a smile, “Now with you boys out here, we will get done before the heat and then we can all house up in the afternoon.” I can remember his smile that day. He was missing two teeth on one side and three on the bottom. I still think we were blessed that my mother and grandfather made sure we were raised amid the likes of Joe Caron, Carlos Silva, and the childhood gardens of hoop-snakes and the epic fights between black widows and mud daubers that all taught me in so many strange ways that it was what a man, any man of any color or of age or of education, could do, and not what he said or others said or thought he could do, that mattered. And we came to see later on that Joe Caron alone, with nothing but his ethos, was a saint, and so many others we met along the way with everything but an ethos were sinners. Tags: Victor Davis Hanson, The Fear of and Reverence, for the “Hoop Snake”, Part TwoTo 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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| Left Tries a Veteran Move on Abortion Pills
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 03:04 PM PDT
It’s a piece of legislation that passed last year without a peep of opposition: the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act. At the time, most Republicans didn’t know that the proposal would have forced taxpayers to fund abortifacients. This time around, in 2021, our legislative team wasn’t fooled. When the text of the bill came out, the Democrats banked on it being uncontroversial. And maybe it would have been if the alarm weren’t sounded that the Veterans Administration was going to force Americans to pay for drugs that might end an innocent life. Expecting no opposition, the Left tried to fast-track the bill, rushing it through on what’s called suspension — where there’d be very little debate. Together with Freshman Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), FRC started raising the issue in Republican offices, explaining that the legislation would offer pills like Plan B and ella to our female veterans — drugs that, by the FDA’s own admission, can and do end pregnancies. Suddenly, other pro-life members started engaging — stopping the bill in its tracks. So many Republicans got involved that a debate started raging on the House floor. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) called FRC out by name, blaming us for slamming on the brakes. “Last week, this bill was defeated on suspension calendar, when the Family Research Council mobilized efforts with my colleagues in the Freedom Caucus who suggested that the bill pushed a ‘harmful ideology.'” Undeterred, Democrats brought it up again — only this time through the regular process. FRC threatened to score the bill and began educating Members about what the Left was trying to do. Rep Chip Roy (R-Texas) started tweeting about the bill, urging his colleagues to get educated about what the legislation would actually do. “Momentarily, even as Republicans are rightly pounding the lectern about protecting the Hyde Amendment and stopping taxpayer funding for abortions, some will inexplicably vote in favor of taxpayer funding for Plan B through the VA. It’s unconscionable on the merits — and politically even more absurd — to hide behind the fact Obamacare set the terms for funding potential abortifacients in the name of birth control. I oppose it,” he insisted, “as should all those who champion the pro-life cause.” By the end of the Thursday, H.R. 239 — which would had almost unanimous support in 2020 — lost the backing of a whopping 188 Republicans. Newspapers like the Hill were amazed at how many members peeled off the bill, leaving “only 26 Republicans voting with all Democrats in support.” Because of the pro-life commitment in the House, a proposal that would have normally passed with a yawn became a focal point of contention — helping to expose the Left’s plan to slip its extreme abortion agenda into almost every piece of legislation. The bill may have passed, but more Republicans will be on guard for these sneak attacks in the future. That same day, Thursday, conservatives also put the Democrats on their toes over a bill that would have pushed the envelope on gender politics. The LGBTQ Business Equal Credit Enforcement and Investment Act passed the House by a vote of 252 to 176, a margin which almost certainly would have been greater if real conservatives like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) hadn’t stood up to the Left’s attempts to pass radical legislation under procedures usually reserved for “noncontroversial” bills. As FRC pointed out before the vote, this bill redefines “sex” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity” and ignores the biological realities of men and women. This type of transgender activism will lead to the diminishment of programs like the Small Business Administration’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership that helps women entrepreneurs and is undermined by men who want to identify as women. While the 33 Republicans who voted for this is 33 too many, there are still a number who are willing to stand up to the Left, and we salute them. Not every loss is a defeat. We should all be grateful for the growing number of proud pro-life, pro-family conservatives representing our values every day. They don’t always win, but they’re laying the groundwork for a day when the unborn will. Tags: Tony Perkins, FRC, Family Research Council, Left Tries a Veteran Move on Abortion Pills 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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| Deal Or No Deal, Harris Hits The Border, A Better CRT
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 02:50 PM PDT  by Gary Bauer: Deal Or No Deal But the bigger news was that a bipartisan group of ten so-called “centrist” senators, including Senators Cassidy (R-LA), Collins (R-ME), Murkowski (R-AK), Portman (R-OH) and Romney (R-UT), emerged from the White House yesterday saying they had reached an agreement in principle with President Biden on an infrastructure bill. The cost is somewhere around $1 trillion – a lot less than the $4, $5 or even $6 trillion Biden initially demanded, and most of it would go to actual infrastructure – roads, bridges, etc. Many Americans probably applauded because they want the parties in Washington to work together. I’ve been uneasy from the very beginning of these negotiations. I’ve been here a long time, and too many times I’ve seen Republicans leave the negotiating table without their pants, totally clueless that they’ve been robbed. (Senator Lindsey Graham put it a bit more bluntly.) Sure enough, less than two hours later, Biden said that he wouldn’t sign the bipartisan infrastructure deal without the other $5 trillion. In other words, Biden is refusing to give up anything, meaning Republican negotiators didn’t actually gain anything. A second bill with trillions in spending and tax hikes will be rammed through using the reconciliation process, meaning the Democrats only need 50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said what happened yesterday was “best described as a tale of two press conferences,” going from optimism to pessimism in a short period of time. McConnell said that Biden was demanding Republicans do what they will not do, which is raise taxes on the American people. By the way, some progressives weren’t happy either with this “compromise.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned it as – wait for it – racist. Her delusional attack on this bipartisan infrastructure deal is a perfect example of critical race theory in operation. It demands that EVERYTHING, including roads and bridges, be seen through the lens of race. Harris Hits The Border Harris may have thought she was going to a politically safe space, but she was greeted by Americans fed up with the open southern border. She also snapped at a Fox News reporter who asked why she waited so long to make her first trip to the border. Harris insisted, “It’s not my first trip, I’ve been to the border many times.” Apparently, Harris still hasn’t learned anything from her disastrous interview with Lester Holt. Every Republican has been screaming about the failure of the Biden/Harris Administration to secure the border. Every Republican and even some Democrats have been demanding that “Border Czar” Harris visit the border and see the crisis she and Joe Biden created. They’ve been demanding that the effective Trump policies be kept in place so that this chaos can be controlled. But the unfortunate truth is that Biden and Harris have ignored the border, and they will continue to ignore it. Massive illegal immigration isn’t a crisis to them. It’s a strategy. The left is all in on open borders. The only reason she is going to the border today is because Donald Trump will be there next week, and because the polling on immigration is becoming a crisis for the Democrat Party. For all the left’s mockery of Trump, and for all the handwringing by the GOP consulting class, there is only one 2024 presidential possibility as of now who scares the left, and that’s Donald J. Trump. With all the problems Trump had in 2020, he still received 11 million more votes than he did four years before. Whoever the GOP nominates, they must start out with every vote Trump got and then some. While I like several possible contenders, I’m not convinced that any of them can turn out Trump’s base. And if we can’t do that, the left wins. A Better CRT Critical race theory has been nurtured in the Marxist hothouses of our university campuses for years. But now it’s taking root in our public elementary, middle and high schools. It has nothing to do with racial reconciliation and tolerance. It must be stopped before it does any more damage to our children. But there’s another CRT that I can guarantee will bring racial reconciliation and true tolerance. Let’s call it Christian race theory or CRT. Christian race theory wasn’t created by man. It begins in Genesis when God made man and woman in His image. Regardless of race, we all have dignity, value and worth precisely because we’re made in the image of God. The Christian pastor, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., said that race should be insignificant. He wasn’t for black power or white power. He was for human power. He wanted everyone to be judged by the moral content of their character, not the color of their skin. His niece, Dr. Alveda King, has said to me many times, “There’s no race but the human race.” So, the answer to racial bigotry is in our Bible. Unfortunately, Christianity was kicked out of our schools. And as we’re finding out, anti-Christian Marxist theories have filled the void after the Bible and prayer were eliminated. Let’s get Marxist race theory out of our schools, and put Christian race theory in the hearts of our children. Election Interference Clarke, perhaps Joe Biden’s most extreme appointment, previously led the legal fight against Georgia’s commonsense election laws. Now she’s continuing that fight at her new and far more powerful perch at the Justice Department. Good News
Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Deal Or No Deal, Harris Hits The Border, A Better CRTTo 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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| Obama and the Broken Nation He Made Come Of Age
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 03:23 PM PDT A generation doesn’t remember life before the crises he created.
 by Daniel Greenfield: Barack Obama turns 60 over the summer. The AARP cover with Barry posing next to a basketball and a shelf of bestselling non-fiction books he hasn’t read can’t be too far away.Once the symbol of youthful hipness, the former boss of Hope and Change now lectures “young people” on what they should be doing. His legacy is being carried forward by 78-year-old Biden and the 81-year-old Pelosi. That’s above the average age of 80 of the House Dem leadership.The average age of the Biden cabinet is two years older than President Trump’s cabinet.
The gerontocratic technocracy uses AOC as its younger foil, but she’s been a stalking horse for Bernie Sanders who will hit the big 80 in the fall. The big donors behind the American Left are even older with George Soros due to hit 90 the same month Obama gets to 60. The even bigger reservoirs of cash flowing into the leftist machine are coming from the foundations of men who were born in the 19th century like Henry Ford, John D. MacArthur, and John D. Rockefeller. That’s about right for a 19th century ideology whose followers keep trying to make it look young. Youthful leftism is anarchic. It’s CHAZ, BLM, and Antifa. It’s open air heroin markets, smashed store windows, and political assassinations. Turning that anarchy into collectivism requires hysterical propaganda and rallies that appear anarchic, but are actually tightly controlled, ideas that seem edgy, but are actually the work of men who were born during the age of the steam. If you think Bernie’s old, Karl Marx celebrated his 203rd birthday in May. Obama’s policies have aged as badly as Marx, Biden, or their front man. But instead of moderating as they grow older, they only grow more radical. Obama equivocated on gay marriage, while Biden entirely erases the existence of women by calling them “birthing people”. Obama covertly weaponized the government against conservatives, while Biden is doing it openly. Everything from election rigging through H.R.1 to indoctrinating every government employee with critical race theory is happening more openly and blatantly under Biden. Youthful leftist revolutions break the system while leftist gerentocrats impose the tyranny. Making tyranny look like freedom requires hefty doses of chaos and outrage that make it appear that the system is being broken when it’s actually being built up. Or as George Orwell wrote in 1984, “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” The revolution is the thing it’s revolting against. The end of history keeps arriving only to vanish like a mirage when the youth reach for it. “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” Obama told his followers. Two years later, he privately snapped, “What does he think I’m supposed to do? Put on my f—— Aquaman gear and swim down there myself with a wrench?” Thirteen years have passed and if the planet has begun to heal, Democrats won’t admit it. The moment of epochal change can never be allowed to arrive because it would interrupt the permanent crisis. Salvation is always here and also always out of reach. But there’s always a new generation available to be fooled again because they know the past doesn’t matter. History is radically revised every generation not just for what it teaches, but for what it doesn’t. A revisionist history work like the 1619 Project doesn’t just impose a radical new racist history, it displaces the past. Another revisionist history will come along to displace the 1619 Project because manufacturing history churn is vital to destroying any continuity with the past. All the academic lenses being swapped one for the other like a mad ophthalmologist leaves a new generation with a lot of theories, but no clue that they’re being indoctrinated into a lost cause. The Left has no new ideas. Like Hollywood, it makes old ideas seem new by rebooting them, by making them appear hip and trendy, and by destroying a meaningful connection with the past. And that way audiences don’t realize they’re just seeing the same movie remade over again. What might be creative bankruptcy in a movie theater is a more seriously sisyphean problem described by Churchill as, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” But how does a new generation learn from a past that isn’t allowed to exist on its own terms? Demonizing the past is a convenient way of obscuring it. The only thing students are taught about the past is that it was a horrible time, its people backward, its customs savage, its learning wicked, its institutions racist, and its ideas horrifying. In postmodern history, the past exists only as a cautionary tale gleaned for historical struggles that fit into the new narrative. History is an incomplete present whose revolutions were never fully fulfilled. It’s a revolutionary story of a world ruled by villains until they were overthrown by the forces of good. And this revolution against history must continue until all of the past is negated by the present. The destruction of statues and burning of books forces ‘presentism’ for the past to conform to the dogmas of the moment. The biggest problem with the past isn’t that it’s politically incorrect, but that it’s repeating itself. The Black Lives Matter movement transparently harkens back to the 70s. So do most of the radical social impulses in which the Left cloaks its real power agenda. The revolutionary chaos is doomed to fail again, but each oscillation breaks the country more. The social activism is window dressing. A proper Marxist regime has little use for militant minorities, feminism, gay rights, police defunding, transgender bathrooms, pipeline protests, abortion, or any of the other issues the radicals have been using to waste our time. If you doubt that, go look at how many of any of the above you can find in China, Cuba, or North Korea. The Russian Futurists vowed to throw the art and literature of the past overboard from the “steamship of modernity”. But the Bolsheviks were not looking for disruptive art and when the revolution arrived, modern art was tossed overboard and the former revolutionaries settled down to producing socialist realism and recreating the art of the past for the Soviet Union. After a brief permissive period, the Soviet Union criminalized homosexuality and insisted on traditional marriages and roles for women. Those feminists who resisted were soon shown their place with one of the more notorious free love figures being forcibly married off by Lenin. The dictatorship had eclipsed the revolution and the past was quickly rewritten all over again. As Obama approaches his sixtieth birthday, the age at which Khrushchev struggled for control of the USSR and Mao launched his Great Leap Forward, two events that would require a good deal of historical editing, our American past is already being rewritten. Only those who are at least in their thirties will remember that there wasn’t a racial crisis before Barack Obama. And there hadn’t been such a crisis for a generation before he took power. Our racial crisis is not a legacy of 1619, but of 2008. Obama’s victory was not a revolution against a crisis, but the revolution that created the crisis. To a new generation, the racial crisis is a permanent feature of life. They have always lived under the crisis and expect to always live under it. That is why critical race theory and white privilege rants have become so pervasive. Without a generation coming of age in a world shaped by the toxic idea that all white people are evil and all minorities are victims, no one outside academic circles would have willingly accepted them. And if that generation seems all too easy to radicalize into supporting the most insane policies, that’s because it grew up in a world defined by the hysteria of manufactured crises. The world as they know it is doomed by melting ice caps, the rich getting richer, and the genocide of black people at the hands of the police. Every radical program is backed by a sense of urgent crisis which is killing people and destroying the future. They can’t imagine a present without the crisis and don’t remember ever living in a world not defined by crisis. As Obama gets closer to his AARP cover, a generation lives in the world that he made. Like Obama, his radical political movement speaks endlessly about the past, but has no actual past. Its past is always being reinvented and retold through new narratives, but with no facts. The Obama revolution has come and gone. We have skipped past it to the Soviet Union of Chernenko and Andropov, of gerontocrats building the tyranny with the beams of revolution. The decline is everywhere as the theories fail, the factories close, and the stores stand empty. The youth are being rallied to cheer for the revolutionary tyranny of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer who are promising a new era in history no one believes in anymore. Since the election their cause is no longer free college, it’s federalizing elections through H.R.1. Federalizing elections, eliminating the filibuster, and packing the Supreme Court are compelling issues in Washington D.C., but the regime plotting new coups has little to say to the ordinary people facing high prices for gas and bread. Land, Bread, and Peace has given way to a race for total power over the country as the revolution of Hope, Crisis and Change comes of age. There’s no change without crisis, and without hope, there’s only hate. Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, Obama, Broken Nation, He Made Come Of AgeTo 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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| Dying To Vote
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 02:00 PM PDT Democrats fail to pass their “Fool the People Act” that would have federalized elections nationally.
 Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Dying to VoteTo 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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| Charles Murray’s Two Uncomfortable Truths and His Not Bad Advice
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 01:50 PM PDT
Murray’s 1994 book “The Bell Curve,” co-authored with Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein, evoked furious and undeserved denunciation. It will be interesting to see whether there is a similar reaction to his latest and much shorter book, “Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America.” His first truth is that “American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different means and distributions of cognitive abilities.” Murray makes mincemeat of arguments against IQ tests and shows that they’re highly correlated with achievement in schools and in later life. Asians have the highest average scores, followed by Whites, Latinos and Blacks. Murray’s second truth is that “American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different rates of violent crime.” Murray deftly extrapolates from the best available crime rates and shows that average violent crime rates are far above average among Blacks, somewhat above average among Latinos, somewhat below average among Whites and almost negligible among Asians. For many Americans, these are uncomfortable (I have often used the word “unhappy”) truths. Blacks are about eight times more likely than Whites (I use Murray’s capitalization practice) to commit violent crimes. And I feel a twinge of discomfort in the below-average cognitive ability scores of some of my ancestral ethnicities. Conventional media and academic elites routinely suppress these truths, apparently for fear that ordinary Americans would take them as a warrant for racial discrimination against individuals. To that argument, I reply, as I did in National Review in 1994 and in a Washington Examiner blog post in 2013, that ordinary Americans know better. “They have learned, from school, from work, from everyday life, that there is wider variation within each measured group than between measured groups.” They understand that averages don’t reliably describe individuals, “that it is irrational to discriminate according to race or religion or ethnic group, and that it is rational to judge individuals on their own merits.” Voters who knew that Blacks on average score lower on tests had no difficulty seeing that Barack Obama had the above-average intelligence required for the presidency. Group differences don’t undermine the case against racial discrimination. They undermine the case for racial quotas and preferences made by advocates of identity politics, who make the absurd argument that in a fair society, all groups would be represented in all categories in exactly identical proportions. Those in need of facing the reality of Charles Murray’s two truths are not ordinary Americans, but elites — the corporate leaders, gentry liberal voters and human resources department lifers who cling desperately to the identity politics of Black Lives Matter organizers and the critical race theory hucksters. They see individuals as inescapably defined by the groups in which they’re born, and they argue that any statistical disparity is evidence of a systemic racism that can never be eradicated but must constantly be denounced. The result is the replacement of merit by racial quotas and preferences and the de-policing of high-crime areas and the nonprosecution of crimes until statistical differences disappear. We’re seeing these processes in operation already. The sharp rise in violent crime since George Floyd’s death in May 2020 has ended about 2,000 additional Black lives. And the unprecedented increase in violent crime results in many more disadvantaged Black and Latino neighborhoods where, as Murray points out, high crime has made “many policy solutions inherently unrealistic.” Murray’ own solutions may seem similarly unrealistic: Eliminate all racial quotas and preferences and their odious enforcement apparatuses, and reverse the increasingly unpopular de-policing policies imposed in so many cities during the past 13 months. But as Murray warns the elites and others who resist facing reality and acknowledging his two truths about race in America, the alternative could be more fearsome: the spread of identity politics to the 60% of Americans defined as White. “If working-class and middle-class Whites adopt identity politics, disaster follows.” To prevent that, he urges liberals to embrace explicitly, and conservatives not claim a monopoly of, what he calls “the American creed” — the idea that people are “the equals of anyone else — equal before the law and possessing the same inherent dignity as anyone else,” to be “judged on who they were as individuals, not by what social class they came from or how they worshipped God.” Not bad advice. Tags: >Michael Barone, Charles Murray’s, Two Uncomfortable Truths, and His Not Bad AdviceTo 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 Return of ‘Law and Order’
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 01:31 PM PDT
How did Adams beat the elite? Said The New York Times: Adams built “an old-school political coalition that united Black and Latino voters,” and was “able to persuade working-class people, largely outside Manhattan, that he was the best candidate to make the city safe from crime.” Adams’ anti-crime and pro-cop campaign carried four of New York City’s five boroughs, including Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional district in Queens. He lost only Manhattan, though, under the ranked-voting system New York uses, his victory may not be confirmed for a week. Wednesday, President Joe Biden went before a White House podium to outline his program for dealing with the plague of shootings, killings and murders that have marked and marred the five months of his presidency. What does all this tell us? “Law and order,” the issue that arose in the ’60s to tear apart President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Coalition, is back. And the emotional anti-cop wave after the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis a year ago, manifest in the “Defund the Police!” demand of Black Lives Matter, has receded. America is saying: We don’t want rogue cops, but we do want more cops in our neighborhoods and our communities to stop the shootings that are terrorizing, wounding, maiming and killing us. Driven by the publicized surge in shootings and killings in America’s cities, the issue is gaining the ascendancy it had in the mid-1960s. A “mass shooting” is a term used for a crime where four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter. By that definition, mass shootings have become a common occurrence in America, with a count of some 300 thus far in 2021. Before the 1960s, perhaps the most notorious mass shooting was still the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, where seven enemies of Al Capone were lined up against a wall in a Chicago garage and executed in cold blood. Last weekend, 52 people were shot in Chicago, seven fatally. Monday produced seven more shooting deaths. Biden recognizes the political danger. He is old enough to recall what the law-and-order issue did to his party in 1968. That year, George Wallace, running as a third-party candidate, took 13% of the presidential vote. Four years later, in 1972, the year Biden was elected senator, the Alabama governor was the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination when he was shot by a would-be assassin in a Laurel, Maryland, shopping center. The Democratic nominee that year, Sen. George McGovern, a man of the progressive left, lost 49 states to President Richard Nixon. Sen. Joe Biden helped to write the crime bill of 1994, which many liberals now fault for contributing to a massive increase in incarcerations. But, today, as president, Biden is facing a similar and serious crime crisis and cannot be unaware of its political potency. The Democratic Party’s dilemma: Its progressive wing believes defunding and re-imagining police work to protect people of color from abuse by rogue cops is the first priority. Eric Adams’ vote in liberal New York, however, suggests that a higher priority for Blacks and Hispanics is public safety and the disarming and removal of the armed thugs and the street gangs who imperil it. In the shooting galleries that some inner-city neighborhoods have become, “Defunding the Police!” amounts to social insanity. “Nowhere,” says Bill Bratton, former New York police commissioner, “do you see recognition that there are some people who cause incredible harm to the community and who unfortunately need to be in jail.” To secure the safety of poor communities, several elements have always been needed: police to prevent crimes and arrest the criminals who commit them, prosecutors who will put them away, and prison cells to house them. This was the formula that broke the back of the long crime wave that began in the 1960s — and ended in the anti-crime movement that produced Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York. In the early 1960s, like today, the elite and our major media declared “law and order” to be a “code word” for racism. But the departure of millions of working-class voters from the Democratic Party of Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, and its move to the party of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, testified that Middle Americans believed in safe streets and would reward leaders who would keep them safe — with more cops. Biden spoke Wednesday as though the inner-city menace was the guns with which people are being shot, not the criminals using them. But some of the folks helping to produce record gun sales today are Black folks who know who and what the threats to their families really are. Gun control is not crime control, and it is crime that is the enemy. Tags: Patrick J. Buchanan, The Return of ‘Law and Order’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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| American Anti-Semitism, Israeli Paralysis
Posted: 29 Jun 2021 01:11 PM PDT  by Caroline Glick: It seems that a day doesn’t go by without another report of yet another outrageous attack by leftists against Jews in America. This week, a food truck in Philadelphia was barred from participating in an ethnic street food festival in Philadelphia because it sells Israeli street food and is owned by an Israeli Jew. The lesbian parade in Chicago published an advertisement of the event that showed a woman standing on a car burning the American and Israeli flags. According to community data, during last month’s mini-war, Operation Guardian of the Walls, American Jews suffered 193 violent attacks. Another 17,000 verbal online assaults were tallied by the Anti-Defamation League. The violent attacks didn’t end when Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire. Normally, the government of Israel would have something useful to say or do about these devastating developments. But tragically, all signs indicate that the new Lapid-Bennett government is constitutionally incapable of contending with the problem of Jew hatred in America. On the surface, the opposite should be the case. Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid holds practical control over all aspects of the government due to his leadership of the leftist bloc which constitutes 75 percent of the coalition. And Lapid should be a natural partner for US Jewry. Like most American Jews, Lapid has long identified with the Democrats and liberal streams of Judaism. On his first day in office, Lapid said that rebuilding Israel’s ties with the Democrats and American Jews were his top goals. With those priorities, Lapid ostensibly ought to be well positioned for the fight. But there are two immovable obstacles that will prevent him from achieving anything useful. The first obstacle is the Democrat Party, and the second is Lapid’s coalition. The way to understand the problem with the Democrat Party is to look at the organization that was founded two years ago to stem the rise of the Red-Green alliance of progressives within the party. That organization, the Democratic Majority for Israel was founded by Lapid’s pollster and political guru Mark Melman. Melman founded the DMFI in response to the election of the so-called “squad” of hard leftists to Congress in 2018 and in the face of the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders position as the frontrunner in the Democrat presidential primaries ahead of the 2020 elections. The DMFI’s first political effort was an ad campaign against Sanders during the Iowa presidential caucuses. Given his intimate ties to Melman, unsurprisingly, Lapid’s first meeting with American Jews as Foreign Minister was a was a video conference with the DMFI on Monday. And on the face of things, given his goals, Lapid’s choice was reasonable. The problem is that the DMFI is incapable of delivering the goods. Melman claims rightly that the majority of Democrats still support Israel. Unfortunately, the minority of Israel haters – and barely disguised Jew haters – are the dominant force in the party. And the majority that opposes them are unwilling to confront them in any significant way. Melman and the DMFI for their part, while willing to fight a little, are also unwilling to take the gloves off in their efforts to rein in the anti-Israel, (and increasingly anti-Jewish) forces in their party. This bleak state of affairs was driven home earlier this month when Cong. Ilhan Omar compared Israel and the US to Hamas and the Taliban. Despite the outcry her outrageous statement provoked, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to condemn or censure Omar. Instead, Pelosi praised Omar for issuing a clarification – not an apology – for her remarks. The storm of protest against Omar’s obscene remarks included a letter of condemnation signed by twelve Jewish Democrat lawmakers. Rather than side with their Jewish colleagues, Omar’s supporters and fellow Israel haters led by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez attacked the Jewish lawmakers and their supporters as racists for criticizing Omar, a “Muslim woman of color.” And big boss Pelosi sided with Omar and her comrades in the Red-Green alliance against the Jews. As Politico summarized the responses to the latest Omar outrage, “Democrats are showing they’re increasingly comfortable backing her up, particularly as she hammers the Israeli government in ways that buck long-held bipartisan traditions in Washington. That friendlier posture toward Omar indicates that her party’s shift on America’s role in the Middle East was more than just a short-term fixture of the recent 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.” In other words, Melman is right that the problem is the rise of the Red-Green alliance in the Democrat Party. But he doesn’t have the power – or frankly the means – to defeat them. Lapid is right that it is important for Israel to have good ties to the Democrats and the American Jews. But Israel doesn’t have the ability to change political reality. Lapid’s strategy for securing and strengthening Israel-US ties cannot work because it is predicated on an untrue assumption – that the problems with the Democrats owe to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s identification with the Republicans. Netanyahu was castigated as a “Republican” because the Democrats wanted a justification for their unwillingness to stand up to the likes of Omar and Ocasio Cortez – and Barack Obama before them. Now that Netanyahu is out of office and Lapid the “Democrat” is in charge, the Democrats are still unwilling to stand up to them. And so, as Politico noted, their power continues to grow. Netanyahu found that the best way to secure and expand US support for Israel was to work with people who are actually capable of achieving the goal. The man who has done the most in this area is Pastor John Hagee. Hagee founded and leads Christians United For Israel, the largest, and most politically powerful pro-Israel organization in the US But in the same speech where Lapid made rebuilding ties with Democrats and the liberal Jewish establishment in the US his top goals in office, he also made outreach to the Evangelicals a second-tier priority. In his words, “The fact that we are supported by Evangelical groups and others in the US is important and a heartwarming. But world Jewry are more than our allies. They are our family.” And this brings us to the second obstacle that will block the Lapid-Bennett government from acting effectively against the growing anti-Semitism in the US emanating from the Red-Green alliance. While 12 Jewish Democrat lawmakers were willing to sign a letter condemning Omar, other Jewish Democrat lawmakers supported Omar against their Jewish colleagues. Just as former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had Jewish groups that were dedicated to acting as fig leaves to cover his anti-Semitism, so progressive Jewish groups and leaders serve as fig leaves for Omar, Sanders and their comrades. Some, like Bending the Arc and IfNotNow do so by joining them in their delegitimization of Israel’s right to exist. Others, like Anti-Defamation League leader Jonathan Greenblatt, do so by refusing to call them out by name for their anti-Semitism and by going to great lengths to underreport and hide the breadth and depth and danger of leftist anti-Semitism and its direct relation to the demonization of Israel. The Lapid-Bennett government has a bare majority in the Knesset of just 61 seats. If any of its coalition members jump ship, the government falls. As a consequence, the anti-Zionist, Islamist Ra’am Party exercises effective veto power over all government activities. Likewise, the post-Zionist Meretz Party that does not support maintaining Israel’s Jewish identity can undermine any effort that Lapid seeks to undertake to fight leftist anti-Semitism in the US. Tuesday, Meretz MK Mossi Raz co-sponsored a conference at the Knesset with Joint Arab List MK Aida Toma Sliman. The conference ran under the headline, “Between Occupation and Apartheid.” Among the harsh condemnations that members of Knesset from various parties issued against the conference, one lawmaker noted that holding a conference of this sort at the Knesset gives aid and comfort to the anti-Semitic BDS operatives in the US who work to silence Jewish American Israel supporters on college campuses and throughout the public life. The allegation that Israel is an apartheid state is a deliberate anti-Semitic blood libel. Its purpose is to deny the moral justification for Jewish self-determination by castigating the very concept of Jewish nationhood as a form of racist oppression and Jews as racist oppressors. It was invented by the Soviets and made its first appearance at a UN conference in 1965. The high-water mark for the allegation in its first iteration came in 1975 with the passage of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 which defined Zionism as a form of racism. Then US ambassador, former Democrat senator Daniel Moynihan gave an extraordinary speech attacking the resolution and so set the stage for its bipartisan rejection and eventual abrogation 15 years later through the efforts of the Bush administration. Israel’s UN ambassador Chaim Herzog famously tore up the resolution in a dramatic speech that entered the pantheon of great moments in Israeli diplomatic history. For nine years, the concept of Zionism as racism wasted away in the dustbin of history. It was exhumed by members of the Red-Green alliance in 2000. Since then, it made a slow but steady comeback and today it is far more powerful than it was in 1975. During last month’s war, Democrat lawmakers took to the podium in the House gallery and one by one castigated Israel as an Apartheid state. And no Jewish lawmakers dared to condemn any of the slanderers by name. Pelosi certainly didn’t. And this week, a member of the Lapid-Bennett coalition co-sponsored a conference at the Knesset that supported the anti-Semitic slander. Lapid, (and of course, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett) is completely powerless before this affront to the country and the Jewish people. As is the case with Ra’am, if either takes action against Raz their government will fall. Many Jewish Americans report living in a state of shell shock. For the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, their organizational and intellectual leaders fed them a steady diet of Trump hate. They were told that all of the anti-Semitism emanated from Trump’s supporters and that Trump – the greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House, and the grandfather of Jewish grandchildren was a Jew hater. Even though the vast majority of anti-Semitic activity on campuses emanated from the left and a large portion of anti-Semitic violence was carried out by black and Arab Americans, the Jewish leaders told American Jews that the danger emanated from the political right and would dissipate once the Democrats were back in power. And here, Trump is gone, the “good guys” are back in power and the good guys are backing anti-Semites in Congress and doing nothing against the anti-Semites on the streets attacking Jews because the anti-Semites are Democrats. And now, rather than stand with these Jews, under the Lapid-Bennett Democrat-friendly government, Israel is just as incapable of helping as Melman is. Then again, at least Melman doesn’t need to J-Street or Jewish Voice for Peace to support him. Lapid and Bennett cannot rule without Mossi Raz. Tags: Carolyn Glick, American Anti-Semitism, Israeli ParalysisTo 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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43.) REDSTATE
44.) WORLD NET DAILY
45.) CONSERVATIVE BRIEF
46.) BIZPAC REVIEW
47.) ABC
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48.) NBC MORNING RUNDOWN
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
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Good morning, NBC News readers.
This morning we take a deep dive into a legal loophole that has left Native American women vulnerable to abuse. Plus, the Biden administration is coming under increasing pressure to help a former Saudi intelligence chief credited with saving American lives. And in New York City, confusion reigns in the mayoral race.
Here’s what we’re watching this Wednesday morning.
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For nearly half a century, tribal nations have lacked the authority to prosecute people who are not members of a tribe — even though, according to the Department of Justice, those non-Native Americans are responsible for most of the violent crimes in Indian Country.
It’s a festering legal problem that experts say affects all Native Americans but has been particularly catastrophic for victims of domestic and sexual violence, contributing to an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States.
Now, on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that affirmed tribes’ law enforcement authority, and with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act currently before Congress, there is growing momentum to fix the legal loophole that non-Native American criminals have exploited for decades.
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Wednesday’s top stories
By Raf Sanchez and Ken Dilanian | Read more
Former intelligence officials say Mohammed bin Nayef played a crucial role in thwarting attacks on Americans as Saudi’s intel boss. But now he’s being held and allegedly mistreated by authorities connected to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman — and the Biden administration is coming under pressure to help him.
By Dartunorro Clark | Read more
A Board of Elections error in the tabulation of the early results in New York City’s ranked-choice Democratic mayoral primary has thrown the race into uncertainty, prompting officials to remove preliminary numbers from the elections website hours after posting them.
By Elisha Fieldstadt and Doha Madani | Read more
“The concrete deterioration is accelerating,” the Champlain Towers South Board president wrote in April to residents. The letter included a dire warning that new damage that had been identified “would begin to multiply exponentially.”
OPINION
By Luisita Lopez Torregrosa | Read more
The Lone Star State is cementing its standing as the loudest, biggest and arguably baddest voice of the Trumpist right.
By Josh Lederman | Read more
As the White House seeks to put a spotlight on the growing threats of wildfires and heat waves exacerbated by climate change, an official said the administration is working to ensure that firefighters are “fairly paid for the grueling and risky work” they do.
BETTER
By Ronnie Koenig | Read more
Hydrating, no-cook foods are the order of the day when temperatures soar.
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Also in the news …
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How TomboyX, Human Nation, Wildfang and other brands help break down the notion of “menswear” and “womenswear” in favor of more gender-fluid designs.
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One fun thing
Arkansas police officer L.C. “Buckshot” Smith recently enjoyed some well-deserved praise.
After serving nearly 60 years in the small town of Camden, Arkansas, his 92nd birthday was honored with community-wide celebrations.
Believed to be Arkansas’ oldest cop, he still walks his usual beat and says he has no plans to slow down anytime soon. “I hope I live a long time and continue to help people,” he told NBC News.
Watch a video about “Buckshot” here.
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49.) NBC FIRST READ
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From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann
FIRST READ: New York’s election debacle gives an opening to 2020 deniers
In these polarized and conspiracy-fueled times, election administrators have one job: to get their counts right.
That didn’t happen in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, which had already increased its degree of difficulty by using ranked-choice voting (for the first time) in a multi-candidate field.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
First, election counters last week released the initial preference results from early and day-of voters (though, importantly, not from more than 100,000 late-arriving absentee voters), which showed frontrunner Eric Adams at about 32 percent, Maya Wiley at 22 percent, Kathryn Garcia at 20 percent and Andrew Yang at 12 percent. (All mind you, before ranked-choice voting kicks in.)
Then yesterday afternoon, New York City election officials released the ranked-choice results – though minus those 100,000-plus absentee ballots: Adams 51 percent, Garcia 49 percent. (It all raised the question: What will happen when those absentee ballots get tallied?)
And then came the big mistake: It turns out that those ranked-choice results included 135,000 TEST ballots, prompting election officials to remove the released numbers from their website.
What. A. Mess.
And the confusion, chaos and lack of transparency all gave an opening to the conspiracy theorists and election-deniers.
Like the former president.
“Just like in the 2020 Presidential Election, it was announced overnight in New York City that vast irregularities and mistakes were made and that Eric Adams, despite an almost insurmountable lead, may not win the race,” Donald Trump said in a statement this morning. “The fact is, based on what has happened, nobody will ever know who really won.”
Fact is, we know who won the 2020 presidential election.
But the other fact is, what happened in New York only made everyone’s jobs harder.
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TWEET OF THE DAY: American Horror Story
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All my friends are going to be strangers
Speaking of the former president, before he attacked New York City’s elections officials, he was going after former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr (for saying there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election).
And the attack on Barr is a reminder of all of the former Trump officials – including in the highest positions of U.S. government – that the former president has criticized.
He’s blasted the Early Backers (like Jeff Sessions and even Michael Cohen).
He went after the Grown-Ups who were supposed to serve as guardrails in his administration (Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson).
And he attacked the GOP Establishment figures who latched on to his wagon (Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, Bill Barr).
These figures were straight out of that Meatloaf song: They’d do anything for Trump’s love – but they wouldn’t do THAT.
And by not doing THAT, they still earned the former president’s ire.
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House set to vote on select committee to investigate Jan. 6 attack
The U.S. House today will vote on creating a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol – after the U.S. Senate blocked the creation of an independent commission.
“The select committee will have 13 members, 5 of whom will be chosen by [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi in consultation with Republican leader Kevin McCarthy. Democrats have been pushing for a probe of the attack on the Capitol, while many Republicans have argued the process would become overly politicized,” per NBC News.
The chair of the panel will have subpoena power.
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Data Download: The numbers you need to know today
285 to 120: The House vote to remove Confederate statues from public display in the Capitol.
67: The number of House Republicans who voted FOR removing those Confederate statues.
120: The number of House Republicans who voted AGAINST the bill.
Up to 50: The number of National Guard troops that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says she will deployto the southern border, funded by a “private donation” from a GOP megadonor.
$15 an hour: The new wage for federal firefighters after a raise from the Biden administration.
33,790,231: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, per the most recent data from NBC News and health officials. (That’s 12,025 more than yesterday morning.)
607,891: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far, per the most recent data from NBC News. (That’s 384 more than yesterday morning.)
325,152,847: The number of vaccine doses administered in the U.S.
42.8 percent: The share of all Americans who are fully vaccinated, per NBC News.
57.2 percent: The share of all American adults over 18 who are fully vaccinated, per CDC.
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ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world?
The Supreme Court won’t stand in the way of a federal moratorium on evictions, which is due to expire in July.
Mitch McConnell wants to block the president’s agenda, but he also says Biden is the Democratic president he’d most want to be stuck with on a desert island.
NBC’s Henry Gomez checks in with the Ohio Senate race.
Trump says Herschel Walker is in for Georgia Senate (but Walker says he still hasn’t made a final decision).
Is Paul Gosar planning to attend a fundraiser with white nationalists this week or not?
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55.) REALCLEARPOLITICS MORNING NOTE
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57.) CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY
58.) BERNARD GOLDBERG
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61.) HOT AIR
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62.) 1440 DAILY DIGEST
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64.) NATIONAL REVIEW
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TODAY’S MORNING JOLT WITH JIM GERAGHTY
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June 30 2021
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Episode 179: A State in Need of… 
Majority of San Francisco… 
19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY, 10036, USA
65.) POLITICAL WIRE
66.) RASMUSSEN REPORTS
67.) ZEROHEDGE
68.) GATEWAY PUNDIT
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71.) DAILY INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
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74.) THE POST MILLENIAL
75.) BLACKLISTED NEWS
76.) THE DAILY DOT
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78.) NATURAL NEWS
79.) POLITICHICKS
80.) BLACKPRESSUSA
81.) THE WESTERN JOURNAL
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82.) CNN
 Wednesday 06.30.21 Gas prices are at a nearly seven-year high going into this holiday weekend — that is, if you can find any gas at all. Some stations are running dry because of rising demand and a shortage of tank truck drivers. Get Up to Speed and On With Your Day.   Condo collapse
It’s been nearly a week since a Miami-area condo building partially collapsed, and two burning questions remain: How could this happen, and why is it taking so long to find victims in the destruction? Falling and shifting debris, the sheer volume of wreckage and other dangers like intermittent fires and weather events are slowing down rescue efforts. So far, 12 people have been confirmed dead and 149 are unaccounted for. Residents of the Surfside condo said they regularly complained that construction on a neighboring building would cause their units to shake, and at least one resident expressed concern that construction was affecting the building’s structure. Another lawsuit has now been filed against the Champlain Towers South condominium association on behalf of a group of residents, claiming the association failed to maintain the building in a safe condition.
Coronavirus
It’s already clear the US is going to miss the White House target to get 70% of the adult US population at least partially vaccinated by July 4, but here’s where the numbers stand: 16 states have reached the goal. Sixteen states have also fully vaccinated more than half of their residents. Four states have recorded less than half of adults with at least one dose. About 847,000 vaccine doses are being administered per day. Meanwhile, the Delta variant now accounts for 26% of coronavirus cases in the US; you’ll recall, just weeks ago, that proportion was more around 10%. Dr. Anthony Fauci now warns there could soon be “two Americas” — one where most people are vaccinated and another where low vaccination rates could lead to spikes in cases.
Policing bill
A major policing law overhaul is in jeopardy as lawmakers and law enforcement groups remain divided over what the wide-reaching legislation should look like. Last week, bipartisan negotiators for the bill said they’d reached an agreement on its general framework, but the hot-button issue of qualified immunity — protections given to police officers in civil court — remains unresolved. Additionally, some law enforcement groups have outright said they’d be resistant to any major changes. After blowing past two deadlines, Congressional lawmakers say they need to make a decision by August as to whether they can agree on a bill or drop the prospect entirely.
Heat wave
More than 230 deaths have been reported in British Columbia since Friday amid the historic heat wave gripping the Pacific Northwest. That’s a huge increase over a typical four-day period, and authorities are working to figure out how many of the deaths are heat-related. In the US Northwest, at least 60 deaths have been reported. Emergency room visits are also up: In Washington, at least 676 people visited emergency departments for heat-related symptoms from Friday to Sunday, and that was before peak heat hit the state. A major concern amid the record temperatures is how unprepared people in the region are for extreme heat. Seattle and Portland rank first and third, respectively, among cities with the highest proportion of households without air conditioning.
Tigray
Rebel forces in the war-torn Ethiopian region of Tigray have rejected a ceasefire offer from the central government a day after the Tigrayan forces retook the regional capital Mekelle. The recapture of the city and the retreat of Ethiopian government troops mark a stunning turn in the devastating eight-month civil war. The Ethiopian military has been in control of much of Tigray since November, when it launched a major assault on the region with the support of Eritrean soldiers and local ethnic militias in an effort to remove the region’s ruling political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Since then, the conflict has devolved into protracted violence that has left thousands dead, forced millions to flee and fueled famine and unrest across the region.
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People are talking about these. Read up. Join in. Starbucks is selling special drinks through Instagram and Facebook
DSW can’t find enough workers. It hopes self-checkout can fill the void
Fireworks will be in short supply this year. Prepare to pay more
‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ will head to Broadway in November
Microsoft Office is getting a major redesign
117 That’s how many people have been arrested under Hong Kong’s controversial national security law as of Sunday, just a few days shy of the law’s one-year anniversary. When the law was established, Chinese and Hong Kong leaders said it would not diminish freedoms in the semi-autonomous city. But a year on, many critics feel like their worst fears have been confirmed. 
I never said that I hated the country, never said that. All I said was I respect my people enough to not stand or acknowledge something that disrespects them. I love my people — point-blank, period.
US hammer thrower Gwen Berry, responding to criticism for turning away from the US flag while on the podium during the Olympic trials. Berry said she feels like she was set up and wasn’t clear on when the anthem would be played.
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83.) THE DAILY CALLER
84.) POWERLINE
85.) THE POLITICAL INSIDER – WAKE UP EDITION
86.) THE PATRIOT POST
87.) DECISION DESK HQ
88.) DIGG
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89.) THE POLITICAL INSIDER – LUNCH BREAK
90.) CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE
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91.) USA TODAY
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92.) THE DAILY BEAST
93.) ABSOLUTE NEWS
94.) SHARYL ATTKISSON
95.) RIGHTWING.ORG
96.) NOT THE BEE
97.) US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
98.) NEWSMAX
99.) MARK LEVIN
June 29, 2021
On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, Do propagandists dressed up as tenured professors care about humanity and the crime wave that is sweeping the nation? The democrat party has unleashed an inhumane crime wave. The Marxist left displays a strikingly high degree of inhumanity primarily from cities run by Democrats with largely minority populations suffering at the hands of other minorities from the Democrat Party. These policies are especially hard on African Americans and despite the media lies hundreds of innocent Black people have been slaughtered by other Blacks and phony scholars like Ibram X. Kendi make millions on their lies and propaganda about oppression, and all of this is done with protection from the left within the media. Yet somehow, they still want to “re-imagine” their local police forces to gut them from within so these communities will suffer even more with less police protection. Then, school choice is ignored because the same Democrats that claim to care for communities of color actually prevent the educational advancement of the very same communities because of their own relentless pursuit for political power. The Democrat Party is incapable of doing what is right and putting an end to this crime wave. Later, Americans need to non-violently, peacefully rise up as activists to take back the nation. The media has effectively become a modern-day bullhorn for the leftist mob. Punks on the left are destroying the Democrat Party on their way to destroying the nation.
THIS IS FROM:
Rumble
Flashback: Democrats Called For Defunding Cops, Not GOP
NBC 6
‘The Building is Gone’: First Response to Surfside Collapse Heard in Fire Rescue Radio Calls
Fox News
Energy Sec. Granholm on Miami condo collapse: ‘We don’t know’ if climate change was cause
The Blaze
Horowitz: Republicans should trap Biden with legislation instituting tough sentencing on gun felons
Wall St Journal
The School That Wasn’t There
Written and edited by Richard Sementa
The podcast for this show can be streamed or downloaded from the Audio Rewind page.
Image used with permission of Getty Images / Scott Olson
100.) WOLF DAILY
101.) THE GELLER REPORT
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102.) CNS
103.) DAN BONGINO
104.) INDEPENDENT SENTINEL
105.) DC CLOTHESLINE
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106.) ARTICLE V LEGISLATORS’ CAUCUS
107.) UNCOVER DC
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108.) STARS & STRIPES
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109.) SONS OF LIBERTY
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110.) BECKER NEWS
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