🤠 Thursday News Roundup 🐎

 

Below are some news and opinions that I thought were interesting while I was looking around this morning.  I hope you find them interesting too.

This is me so of course there are cartoons and some images. For me a day without them is just sad.

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Quote Of The Day:

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”  ~  Mark Twain

 

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Media Bad-Mouths the Economy — Just Like It Did in 1992

By Larry Elder

As it did in 1992, the anti-Republican media is covering Trump’s economy as negatively as possible while keeping a straight face. After all, unemployment is at historical lows, most Americans feel optimistic about their own economic future, and most credit Trump with the growing economy. Trump’s predecessor was the first president since 1949 to preside over an economic recovery without a single year averaging at least 3% gross domestic product growth.

But Democrats, the media and Trump-hating pundits seem almost giddy at the prospect of a recession.

Last year, multimillionaire comedian and HBO talk show host Bill Maher openly rooted for it: “Can I ask about the economy? Because this economy is going pretty well. … I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point. And by the way, I’m hoping for it. Because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy. So, please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts people, but it’s either root for a recession or you lose your democracy.” In August, Maher doubled down: “I’m just saying we can survive a recession. We’ve had 47 of them. We’ve had one every time there’s a Republican president!” said Maher. “They don’t last forever. You know what lasts forever? Wiping out species! … Yes, a recession would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump and these kinds of policies.”

After a less-than-expected number of jobs were created in August, many in the media spoke enthusiastically at the notion of a recession. Newsweek, for example, wrote, “The U.S. added just 130,000 jobs in August, falling short of economists’ expectations and stoking more fears of an impending recession.”

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the government’s official keeper of the business cycle, defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” Others, like economist Lee Ohanian of the University of California, Los Angeles, define a recession as at least two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. By either definition, the economy is not close to a recession.

But recently, The Washington Post eagerly noted: “Only one president since the Civil War has been reelected with a recession taking place in the two calendar years before facing voters a second time … William McKinley in 1900. Since then, all four presidents running for reelection who had such a recession lost: William Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.” Similarly, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer wrote, “A recession is what could keep Trump off the list of two-term presidents and relegate him to the one inhabited by Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.”

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CNN’s Psychotic 9/11 Take: White Right-Wingers Are the Real Terrorists

By Stephen Kruiser

It was a real race to the bottom between CNN and The New York Times on Wednesday to see which could have the most God-awful hot take on the eighteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I’m going to give the edge to the Times because its awfulness was presented as journalism, while CNN at least offered its idiocy as an opinion piece.

The Times will be dealt with in Thursday’s Morning Briefing. I’ll handle CNN here.

CNN senior political analyst John Avlon wrote an opinion piece that began well enough but then went off the rails:

And here’s a startling statistic: since the 9/11 attacks, right-wing terrorists have killed more people in America than jihadist terrorists, according to the  New America think tank.

There are some folks who, for their own political purposes, would like to keep the focus on one form of political violence over another.

The New America study cited is a bit problematic. It takes every white guy nut job who’s committed violence in the last eighteen years and lumps them into an amorphous ideological blob. Many were “reportedly” tied to this or that fringe group.

I’m not intending to trivialize any deaths, but the body count numbers cited in the study are 107 and 104. So, basically the same. The only big difference is that one side represents a disparate group of lunatics motivated by a variety of things, and the other all by the same thing. That means that the latter group is still by far the biggest danger.

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The Other 9/11 Anniversary: Four Killed in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012

By Mary Chastain

On 9/11 every year we remember those who perished at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists in New York, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania in 2001.

While we remember those lost ones we need to remember another terrorist attack that took place eleven years later in Benghazi, Libya. America lost four brave men, but could have lost a lot more if it was not for the military men who did not quit during a 13 hour gunfight with terrorists.

In 2012, the people of Libya rose up and overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi. This caused chaos as people raided Gaddafi’s massive military arms and weapons. Radical Islamic terrorist groups took advantage of this power vacuum, infiltrating the riots and causing more problems.

Ansar al-Sharia is one of those radical Islamic groups. This group attacked our people on September 11, 2012.

The attack began at 9:40 PM and lasted for 13 hours. America lost Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, US Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyron Woods.

I’ve found conflicting stories on the death of Stevens. After the militants exploded their way into the consulate they doused the area outside of the safe room with diesel fuel and set it alight. This forced Stevens, Smith, and bodyguard Scott Wickland to evacuate through windows. The three got separated since the diesel fuel formed a thick black smoke.

Wickland went back into the consulate four times to find Stevens and Smith, but did not find anyone.

Witnesses claim they saw Libyans drag Stevens out of the room and brought him to the hospital. Dr. Ziad Abu Zeid said he tried to resuscitate the ambassador for 45 minutes. Stevens died of smoke inhalation, the same way Smith died.

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California Judges Gone Wild

Protecting cop killers, illegals and terrorists.

By Lloyd Billingsley

On September 28 near Modesto, California, Dutch Hollow Farms will open a memorial for Ronil “Ron” Singh, the legal immigrant from Fiji who came to America to become a police officer. Singh’s wife and child will be the first to enter the massive maze bearing the officer’s image. Those paying tribute have good cause to track the path of the man charged with killing him.

On December 26, 2018, one day after Christmas, Singh pulled over a suspected drunk driver. He pulled a gun and shot the officer. The shooter fled and seven other illegals aided his flight before police apprehended him in Bakersfield. The accused shooter called himself Gustavo Perez Arriaga, one of his many aliases, but later claimed his real name was Pablo Virgen Mendoza. The gang-affiliated illegal had two previous DUI arrests.

His case is being handled by Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Cordova, a former public defender appointed as a judge in 2003 by Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat recalled that year in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger. On January 2, Cordova suspended the proceedings against the accused cop killer on the grounds that his mental competency had come into question, a dubious claim but predictable tactic by the defense.

Cordova is also handling the cases of five illegals arrested for helping Mendoza flee. The judge complained that having all five in court at one time would be “unwieldy,” a claim even more dubious than the mental competency of the accused cop killer. To the surprise of no one, he was  indeed competent, and in May Cordova set the preliminary hearing for December 10, nearly a year after the murder of Ronil Singh. His many supporters have good cause to wonder whether Cordova will reprise his role as a public defender with the accused illegal.

Last month, California’s First District Court of Appeals, packed with Jerry Brown appointees, reversed the gun conviction of Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate, a previously deported criminal illegally present in the United States. In what amounted to a show trial, Garcia-Zarate was acquitted of murder in the July 1, 2015 shooting of Kate Steinle, 32, on a San Francisco pier. Despite the reversal of the gun charge, the illegal did in fact discharge the weapon that killed Steinle.

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Fake News, Fake Polls – CNN Edition

By Brian C. Joondeph

It’s been a tough few weeks for CNN. Who knew pushing fake news could be so challenging?

First, they tried to turn President Trump into a rube for suggesting that Alabama could be in the path of Hurricane Dorian. It turns out that CNN suggested the same thing, a few days before Trump did, warning Alabama to “be on the lookout”.

Then came the fiction that Trump outed a Russian informant. Instead the reality was that the decision on any outing or exfiltration occurred before Trump became president. We know whose watch this occurred on, but CNN chose to instead blame the current president.

Now it’s an opinion poll. CNN’s story of the week is, ”6 in 10 say Trump does not deserve a second term.” Well, that settles it. If CNN says so, it must be true. Get ready for President Beto or Pete.

Remember how they said endlessly that Trump colluded with Putin and the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. And how Trump would soon be frog marched from the White House, if the gaggle of psychiatrists declaring Trump insane didn’t get rid of him first via the 25^th Amendment.

CNN told us Stormy Daniels would be the Trump slayer. Or was it Omarosa? Or Michael Cohen? Or Megan Rapinoe? I’ve lost track. Michael Avenatti was the perfect candidate in the eyes of Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s show with the most fraudulent name, “Reliable Sources.”

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Illinois Supreme Court selects chief justice married to indicted Chicago Alderman at center of huge federal probe into political corruption

By Thomas Lifson

There is jaw-dropping indifference to the appearance of corruption in Springfield, Illinois.  It’s hard to figure out what was on the minds of the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court when they chose Anne Burke to be chief justice for the next three years. Illinois voters elect their supreme court justices to ten-year terms on partisan ballots. Once elected, justices face a yes-or-vote every ten years, so maybe they feel so secure in their state’s deep blue status that they can flaunt the appearance of corruption with no consequences. But for anyone concerned about the legitimacy, the court enjoys in the public mind, it is an odd choice of leadership.  Illinois Policy explains why:

As Chicago’s longest serving alderman faces prison time, his spouse will become the state’s most powerful judge.

The state’s high court justices on Sept. 10 elected Justice Anne Burke to chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, succeeding former Chief Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier. (snip)

Burke’s rise to chief justice comes while her husband, 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke, faces a 14-count indictment on federal corruption charges. In January, federal prosecutors accused the alderman of attempting to extort the owners of a Burger King franchise in his ward by withholding a remodeling permit in order to pressure them to hire his private law firm to handle their property tax appeals.

Ald. Burke stepped down from his private law practice in August, after City Council voted unanimously to approve Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s ethics reform package, which included stricter restrictions on local leaders engaging in conflicts of interest.

Being married to a “controversial” (let’s call him that because he hasn’t been convicted of anything) figure at the center of a huge federal corruption probe isn’t Chief Justice Burke’s sole problem that ought to weigh on the minds of her colleagues:

Justice Anne Burke saddled the Illinois Supreme Court with Chicago’s political baggage in January 2018 when she and Ed Burke held a fundraiser at their home in support of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s unsuccessful mayoral bid. Ald. Ed Burke’s extortion charge the following year involved the allegation that he coerced the Burger King franchise owners to contribute to Preckwinkle’s campaign, pressuring the then-candidate to distance herself from the alderman and return the $116,000 raised at the event.

In January 2019, Preckwinkle told the Chicago Tribune that it was Anne Burke – not her husband – who arranged the fundraiser, despite Ed Burke’s name appearing on the event invitation. But the Illinois Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits judges from endorsing or raising funds for political candidates. Political consultant Jeffrey Orr – the son of former Cook County Clerk David Orr – filed a complaint against Anne Burke alleging judicial misconduct. The Illinois Judiciary Inquiry Board in April cleared Burke of any wrongdoing without explanation.

A prima facie violation of ethics rules cleared without explanation by an official body reeks of the stink we associate with Illinois politics. And yet the other justices overlooked it.

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Ocasio-Cortez is stunned by former ICE official berating her for ‘appalling’ hatred against immigration officers

“If you don’t like it legislate!”

By Carlos Garcia

Former ICE official Thomas Homan berated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for advocating that the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement be abolished, and she was stunned by his statement.

The interaction occurred at the end of his testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

“I am proud of the agency and ICE and what we don’t want to talk about is nearly 90 percent of everybody ICE arrested for immigration violations either have a criminal history or a pending criminal charges when they are found meaning they were found in a county jail which most likely means they are more than a choir boy,” said Homan.

“So to miss message what the work the men and women of ICE do is, I find appalling that a member of Congress would throw that out there like that,” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez interrupted Homan and attempted to cut short his testimony but he ignored her and continued.

“In my 34 years I have never seen such hate toward law enforcement agency in my life that you want to abolish them rather than do your job and legislate,” he added.

“Mr. Homan your time is expired,” she said.

“If you don’t like it legislate!” he concluded.

Homan has frequently countered criticism by members of Congress against ICE by reminding them that the agency merely enforces the laws that Congress passes, and that if they don’t like it, they should pass new laws.

 

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Supreme Court Allows Broad Enforcement of Asylum Limits

By Breitbart News

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing nationwide enforcement of a new Trump administration rule that prevents most Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States.

The justices’ order late Wednesday temporarily undoes a lower-court ruling that had blocked the new asylum policy in some states along the southern border. The policy is meant to deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without seeking protection there.

Most people crossing the southern border are Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty. They are largely ineligible under the new rule, as are asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and South America who arrive regularly at the southern border.

The shift reverses decades of U.S. policy. The administration has said that it wants to close the gap between an initial asylum screening that most people pass and a final decision on asylum that most people do not win.

“BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!” Trump tweeted.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the high-court’s order. “Once again, the Executive Branch has issued a rule that seeks to upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution,” Sotomayor wrote.

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Americans Who Can’t Agree on Anything Agree Our Media Sucks

By Stephen Green

We Americans are a fractious bunch, so much so that it’s nearly impossible to get as many as half of us to agree on who should be president. Most elections, you can’t get half of us to agree that we should just show up and vote. We demand a bare minimum of 31 flavors from our ice cream shops, and the endlessly proliferating frozen yogurt places are evidence that we can’t even agree to have ice cream. If 57 channels seemed like a lot when Bruce Springsteen was singing about them almost 30 years ago, that number seems quaint given what you can find to watch tonight just on Netflix. If you want to start a serious argument with your fellow Americans, you can do so on Twitter by saying nothing more offensive than “I like pie.”

Just to hammer my point home a little harder, Jeep offers 11 different trim levels — Laredo, Upland, Altitude, Limited, Limited X, Trailhawk, Overland, High Altitude, Summit, SRT, and Trackhawk — for the Grand Cherokee alone, each with seemingly unlimited options. What do all those trim names mean? I don’t know, but surely there’s something for almost anyone. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Upland buyers and the Overland buyers got into fistfights over which trim was truly superior. Start chanting “Up not Over! Up not Over!” and maybe get a riot going.

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Study Finds Media Is Losing The ‘Fake News’ War Badly

Almost every American “troubled” by the lack of ethics in the media

By James Barrett

Donald Trump’s war with the “fake news media” has only ramped up over the course of his presidency, while mainstream news outlets have become more overtly partisan, as infamously acknowledged by the New York Times executive editor admitting that the paper “built our newsroom” to cover one story — the Robert Mueller-debunked “collusion” conspiracy theory — for Trump’s first two years in office. But do Americans agree that the “fake news media” is a problem?

A new study of the public’s confidence in the media found that nearly all Americans — over 95% — are troubled about the current state of the media. While many likely wouldn’t go so far as to label the media the “enemy of the peope,” a majority were indeed very concerned about the prevalance of “fake news,” the reporting of “gossip” rather than fact, “Left-wing” and “Right-wing” agendas steering reports, outright “hit pieces” and “gotcha journalism,” and the prevalence of “celebrity opinons” and “lying spokespeople.”

Boutique PR firm Bospar released its Ethics in Media study this week ahead of a panel the firm is hosting in San Francisco next week. The study, conducted with Propeller Insights, surveyed 1,010 American adults. The results were eye-opening. Over 95% of the respondents said they were “troubled by the current state of media.”

And things aren’t looking up in most Americans’ eyes. The study found that two-thirds (67%) believe that ethics in journalism will only get worse heading into the 2020 election cycle.

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The Fool in the Vatican

By William Marshall

I never thought I would refer to a Pope as a fool, but it has come to that. If in so doing my fellow Catholics condemn me as somehow blaspheming against the Mother Church or God, so be it. But after reading Francis X. Rocca’s article in the September 11 edition of the Wall Street Journal, which has the pontiff saying that it would be “an honor that [conservative Catholic] Americans attack me,” for not standing up for traditional Catholic teachings on marriage, sexuality and bioethics, while instead opining on climate change and migration, I can’t hold my tongue.

Dear God, give me strength.

The photo the Journal chose to accompany Rocca’s piece is very fitting. It depicts Pope Francis gesticulating with his left hand with a moronic grin, raised eyebrows and wild eyes, which just screams “I’m in so over my head, you have no idea!”

The article’s title, “Pope Francis Doesn’t Fear Schism”, pretty much sums up how benighted is this man in the Vatican. While he ventures into waters in which he has no expertise, like “man-made climate change,” he is making fundamental changes to Catholic doctrine where he presumably does have some expertise, that is sowing confusion and turmoil among tradition-minded Catholics.

One of Pope Francis’s most egregious moves was elevating a known homosexual pederast, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, from the disgraced obscurity to which Pope Benedict had consigned him back to lofty heights within the Church, as one of Francis’s top advisors, despite Pope Francis being forewarned of McCarrick’s perversions. The mind reels. Eventually, thankfully, Pope Francis removed McCarrick following a public uproar and Cardinal McCarrick, now Mr. McCarrick, was finally defrocked.

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Sidney Powell’s Latest Motion In Michael Flynn’s Case Is A Russiagate Bombshell

Lawyer Sidney Powell’s bigger plan is to expose the breadth and depth of SpyGate and how flaying Michael Flynn lay at the heart of the soft coup attempt

By Margot Cleveland

On Wednesday, the previously sealed Motion to Compel filed against federal prosecutors in the Michael Flynn case was made public with only minor redactions. Just the day before, during a hearing before federal judge Emmet Sullivan, Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, had highlighted some of the evidence prosecutors withheld from her defense team. Yesterday’s filing expanded exponentially on the areas of evidence Powell seeks and lays bare Powell’s bigger plan moving forward: to expose the breadth and depth of SpyGate and how flaying Flynn lay at the heart of the soft coup attempt.

In her Motion to Compel, Powell catalogued 40 categories of evidence the government has refused to turn over. She seeks a court order requiring federal prosecutors to provide the withheld evidence under Brady and its progeny. Brady and its offshoots require prosecutors to disclose material exculpatory and impeachment evidence to the defense team. And, as Judge Sullivan made clear during Tuesday’s hearing, that duty exists even though Flynn had already pleaded guilty and even though he had agreed that the government would not be required to provide him with further evidence.

Powell, though, must still establish that the evidence sought is Brady material. Judge Sullivan seemed skeptical of the relevance of some of the evidence Powell mentioned and how it bore on Flynn’s guilt for the offense of conviction, namely lying to FBI agents. But Powell parried well, noting, for instance, that evidence concerning the texts exchanged between former FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ lawyer Lisa Page were impeachment evidence.

In another exchange, Powell stressed that recently disclosed evidence showed the government had concluded that Flynn was not a Russian or Turkish agent, and, in fact that Flynn had briefed the government before meeting with Turkish officials. That evidence was relevant to sentencing, Powell argued, because it negates prosecutors’ claim that they had foregone a FARA violation charge against Flynn. “That’s a good point,” Judge Sullivan concurred.

Powell will have a chance in her reply brief to detail how each piece of evidence sought is either exculpatory or serves as impeachment evidence. Here there’s an interesting twist: Powell seems poised to also argue that the 40 pieces of evidence requested are exculpatory (and thus Brady material), because they will show that “the entire prosecution should be dismissed for egregious government misconduct and long-time suppression of Brady material.”

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  That’s it for now. Enjoy your day.

This is an open thread.