That Flake Biden Problem

Joe Biden’s flavors of the weak: Goodwin

By Michael Goodwin at New York Post:

April 17, 2021 | 9:03pm | UpdatedEnlarge Image

President Joe Biden speaks about Russia in the East Room of the White House in Washington on April 15, 2021.Andrew Harnik/AP

As Joe Biden nears the end of his first 100 days, we can attest to the truth of Yogi Berra’s dictum that “you can learn a lot by watching.” 

Americans have watched and learned that No. 46 set out to be the polar opposite of No. 45, and is succeeding wildly. From border enforcement to Iran to taxes and so much more, Biden is defining himself as the ultimate NeverTrumper. 

If Trump was for it, Biden is against it. Everything else is detail. 

Not surprisingly, the approach is proving to be popular with his own party and the left writ large. But there are exceptions, with a recent poll showing the president’s handling of the border crisis he created winning approval from just 29 percent of the country. Ouch. 

That was predictable, given the cruel realities of life in Central America and Biden’s thoughtless pander that he would be more welcoming than Trump. The human traffickers and cartels accepted the invitation and are getting rich thanks to Uncle Sap. 

But the pitfalls of a simple-minded presidency in a complex world are not limited to wrongheaded individual policies. 

One of those pitfalls involves the emerging personality of the presidency and the ways it is expressing its core to the country and world. The early evidence reveals that Biden is an extremely weak leader. 

In fact, he looks more and more like a follower. 

Some of this impression stems from the president’s halting gait and erratic speech patterns. He’s 78 and often appears to be 88. His decision to always wear a mask, despite being vaccinated and surrounded by others who are vaccinated, adds to the sense of frailty. 

But his weakness isn’t just about appearances, as a Friday incident shows. As soon as the White House said Biden would keep Trump’s cap on refugees at 15,000, Democrats and activists angrily reminded him he called the number cruel during the campaign and promised to raise it to 125,000. 

Within hours, the White House surrendered and reversed the decision. The president, officials said, would issue a new number next month. 

Chalk that up as a win for the mob and a lesson about who’s the boss. 

It’s not the only example of how Biden is following his party instead of leading it. His big initiatives are at odds with everything about his nearly 50 years in Washington. The combined $4 trillion COVID stimulus and infrastructure bills are so stuffed with progressive pork-barrel spending that Trump’s charge that Biden is a Trojan horse for the far left looks increasingly spot on. 

The president’s misleading claim that Georgia’s voting law is “Jim Crow on steroids” was sensationally inflammatory, as was his support for pulling baseball’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta. Presidents don’t usually back boycotts of a state, especially one that supported him in the election and sent two Dems to the Senate. 

Extreme wokeness is a form of weakness and, in Biden’s case, is not limited to domestic issues. His first moves in foreign relations are worrisome and dangerous. 

He is begging Iran to rejoin the nuclear deal that Trump scuttled and is so desperate to woo the mad mullahs that he is urging Israeli officials to stop criticizing Iran. According to the Jerusalem Post, Biden’s team fears Israeli chatter, including about the attack on Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facility, is making it more difficult to get the Iranians back to negotiations. 

So here we have a terrible policy idea compounded by cringing weakness. Oy. 

The other huge foreign-policy fronts are China and Russia, and a similar pattern is visible. So much so that I have this recurring sensation: One day we will wake up to learn China seized Taiwan and Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Thankfully, we’re not there yet, but Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are testing Biden. In both cases, he was caught off guard. 

In the first high-level meeting, a Chinese official publicly lectured US diplomats for nearly 20 minutes in a speech scheduled to last two minutes. Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s fumbling response, including an admission that “we make mistakes,” highlighted the difference between China’s self-confident, aggressive posture and America’s appeasing lack of conviction. 

Alas, the Chinese lecture about America’s problems was mild compared to a screed from Biden’s United Nations ambassador. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, was actually more vicious. 

“I have seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles,” she said. “It’s the white supremacy that led to the senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many other black Americans. 

“It’s the spike in hate crimes over the past three years — against Latino Americans, Sikh and Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans and immigrants. And it’s the bullying, discrimination, brutality and violence that Asian Americans face every day, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19.” 

It is an understatement to say Thomas-Greenfield is an odd choice to represent our nation at the UN. Turtle Bay already boils over with anti-Americanism and doesn’t need any help from the home team. 

As for Russia, Putin’s rejection of Biden’s offer for a summit was a global-scale put-down. It was amateurish of Biden to pop the question in a phone call without knowing the answer. And what did he expect since he had just slapped sanctions on nearly 40 Russians and expelled 10 diplomats over alleged cyberintrusion and election interference? 

But Russia’s strongman didn’t just say nyet to a summit — he closed the entry to the Black Sea that two American warships were headed toward. Two destroyers, the USS Roosevelt and the USS Donald Cook, had been ordered there after fighting intensified between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. Russia also massed forces near the Ukraine border. 

“We have no desire to be in an escalating war with Russia,” a Biden aide told reporters to explain the ships’ retreat. 

Nobody wants war with Russia, but Putin, Xi and other autocrats have a nose for smelling weakness. Unfortunately, that’s the distinct odor they’re getting from Biden.

Welcome, Candace Owens!

MORE EPISODES

George Floyd at 6’6″ and 265 Pounds, a Noted Common Criminal, Refused to Be Arrested, CAUSED HIS OWN DEATH. But Dems NEED THEIR BLACK VOTES TO WIN, AND DEMS OWN OUR MN COURTS!

One guess as to how the Chauvin-Floyd trial might end

By Tim Jones at American Thinker:

The following are some basic facts established during the three-week trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.  Both sides have rested their cases, and Chauvin’s defense lawyer, Eric Nelson, is preparing his closing argument for Monday.

George Floyd said many times before he was put on the ground that he couldn’t breathe.  It was also established that Chauvin’s knee was not on Floyd’s throat, so that couldn’t have asphyxiated him.  Some of the time Chauvin was restraining Floyd, it was established that Chauvin actually had his knee on Floyd’s shoulder blade, where not all of his weight was on Floyd.  Rather, he shifted his weight around at times from his knee to his lower leg and foot.  Also, it was established that Chauvin’s knee restraint could not have stopped the blood flow in one of Floyd’s carotid arteries, and even if he did, blood would have continued flowing to the brain through the carotid artery on the other side of the neck. 

He had severe arteriosclerosis, AKA major artery blockage, that most likely triggered the heart attack that killed him from the methamphetamines, a hyper-stimulant, he had taken and the exertion of resisting arrest.  And he had three times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system.  Opioid overdose depresses the respiratory system, which would explain why he kept saying he couldn’t breathe.

Finally, it was also established that putting a knee to the neck of a person in the prone position was an authorized form of restraint by the Minneapolis Police Department at the time.  The only question is, was the length of time keeping Floyd in that restraint warranted?  A couple of witnesses for the prosecution said yes, and one for the defense said it was warranted.  Eric Nelson repeatedly brought out as well the danger police face when a suspect appears to be no longer resisting arrest but then snaps back into a highly aggressive mode, which explains why Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd until the ambulance arrived. 

Another contributing factor to Chauvin’s actions that Nelson brought out of multiple witnesses was the hostile crowd that was yelling and swearing at Chauvin during the nine-plus minutes of restraining Floyd.  Nelson also repeatedly got some of the witnesses for the prosecution to acknowledge that a hostile group of people acting in a threatening manner toward Chauvin made it that much more difficult for him, along with the other three cops, to keep the entire incident under control. 

Finally, a little bit of a wild card: On the last day of testimony, Nelson asked the forensic pathologist he put on the stand if inhaling carbon monoxide could have been a contributing factor in Floyd’s death, since he was lying near the exhaust pipe of a squad car that had been running the entire time.  The forensic pathologist for the defense said it could have been a contributing factor, but there wasn’t much evidence to back it up, so it doesn’t seem to make sense why Nelson went with this line of questioning.  It will be interesting to see if he brings it up in his closing argument.

This was definitely not a case of murder.  I’m thinking Chauvin will be convicted of manslaughter, AKA involuntary or negligent homicide.  Personally, I think he should be found not guilty of all charges, but because of the extremely high-profile nature of the trial, the jury will probably feel as though some kind of guilty verdict is necessary, especially because of the pressure to avoid igniting more rioting.

Nelson will most likely hammer his theme in his closing argument, as he did in his opening argument, that based on reason and common sense, examining all of the evidence will make the jury understand that the legal standard for a not guilty verdict — reasonable doubt — was well established during the trial.  Therefore, Nelson will say, they must acquit Chauvin of all charges brought against him: second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter.

It won’t be long until we know how this tragedy comes to an end.

Why ARE So Many of Today’s SAVAGES, BLACK, As in Black Lives Matter Violence?

 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at PowerLine:

FROM THE BIZARRE TWIN CITIES HELLWORLD (5)

A little while ago, a man carjacked a vehicle on a major road in a suburb adjacent to mine. Police gave chase, and he fired at them out of a window of the vehicle. With the police closing in, he rolled out of the moving car and ran onto an adjoining highway, trying to carjack a second vehicle. At some point he was shot by police officers:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=powerlineUS&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1383883073654190080&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2021%2F04%2Ffrom-the-bizarre-twin-cities-hellworld-5.php&sessionId=b2c32ac9d31aaacf672c94dab76b3a195cf83f2a&siteScreenName=powerlineUS&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=550px

The criminal was wounded but apparently alive at last word. The all-important question is, what is the race of the criminal? If he is black, like most carjackers, it means another week of riots. If he is white, no one cares. I can’t tell from the video, but it looks like he might be white. Let’s hope so.

Violent Cals’ Maxine Mouth Enters Minnesota….Threatens Jury to Vote Maxine Mouth…OR ELSE!

Maxine Waters blows into Minnesota –with bodyguards; warns jury to vote her way or else

By Monica Showalter at American Thinker:

You’d think Rep. Maxine Waters, a radical leftist, might feel among friends among the rioters and looters of Minnesota. On a tour of the riots, seems she wasn’t.

According to a tweet first spotted by Citizens Free Press:

Maxine Waters is wearing riot gear & surrounded by bodyguards at the “peaceful protest” in Brooklyn Center

pic.twitter.com/VJbB0XkULC

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) April 18, 2021

Bodyguards? As in ‘private police’? Were they actually private, or were they paid for in one way or another by some government fisk? Police for me, but not for thee? We thought she didn’t like the police and wanted them defunded. Seems she does, but just for the poorest communities. 

It’s kind of like her mansions in Los Angeles, actually, well away from the hoi polloi of mere voters in her congressional district, which is one of Los Angeles’s poorest. Hypocrisy has always come easy for Maxine.

It gets worse when one looks at the content of some her remarks. 

A trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is going on, and instead of letting the trial take its course and not attempting to tamper with the jury as it makes its decision based on the facts of the case, Waters is telling the jury how they’d better vote:

Maxine Waters calls for violence in the streets if Chauvin isn’t convicted of murder

11:14 PM · Apr 17, 202120843Share this Tweet

Which is classic jury-tampering, raising the possibility that Chauvin’s case is headed for a mistrial. Instead of allowing the courts to do their business and let the chips fall where they may, Waters is demanding a “guilty” verdict and vows that if there isn’t one, then the protests and riots are to continue. She’s still all in for “getting in their faces” as she’s said in an earlier context.

Her tour of the riot scene is nothing but a bid to race-bait, jury tamper, and foment unrest in the name of keeping the racial grievance-mongering going. She’s like a Sandalista, flying great distances in search of ‘revolution,’ while maintaining the safe haven of a wealthy home she can always fly back to after the damage is done. Laced with the hypocrisy of her own bodyguards, and the downright unethical, maybe illegal, bid to threaten a jury, it’s nothing short of contemptible.

It ought be a GOP campaign ad somewhere.

She was generally surrounded by an adoring press, which permitted her to carry through her ‘narrative’ denouncing conservatives and Republicans as Capitol rioters, but somehow, among this friendly crowd, with only the voice of a woman who was literally squawking ‘move! move!’ as Waters babbled, it didn’t seem though bodyguards were all that critically needed. She also had a double-mask on, which is probably appropriate for someone of her advanced age, but she wasn’t socially distancing. 

What Are the Fascists at The Guardian Up To THESE BIDEN DAYS?

Nancy Pelosi’s disdain for the Squad is not a good look for a leader

Arwa Mahdawi at the Guardian

A new book records the House speaker making yet more disparaging remarks about congressional progressives

Nancy Pelosi greets Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Who is more representative: the multimillionaire speaker or the congresswoman still paying off her student debt? Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Don’t underestimate the Squad

Nancy Pelosi has never exactly been subtle about her disdain for the left-leaning wing of the Democratic party. The House speaker once scoffed that a “glass of water” could have won congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s seat; she condescendingly described the Green New Deal as the “green dream, or whatever they call it”; she dismissed the ever-growing Squad as “like, five people”. Now some imaginative new insults have come out. Pelosi once mocked the Squad’s “purity politics” using a baby voice, according to a new book by Susan Page, Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.

“Some people come [to Congress] … to pose for holy pictures,” Pelosi told Page while discussing the Squad in a 2019 interview. Page writes that Pelosi then: “changed her voice and mimicked a child trying to make a solemn show of piety. ‘See how perfect I am and how pure?’”

“When you come in, cross that door, take that oath, you have to be oriented toward results,” Pelosi continued, apparently referring to AOC. “Have confidence in what you believe in, have humility to listen to somebody else, because you’re not a one-person show.”

It’s a little bizarre to describe Ocasio-Cortez as a “one-person show” when she’s part of something that’s called the Squad. While AOC gets a huge amount of media coverage, she doesn’t hog the mic, she shares it. During her short political career, she, along with the other members of the Squad, have worked incredibly hard to amplify the sorts of voices that don’t usually get heard. Instead of pulling up the ladder behind them, they’ve worked to dismantle the barriers that stop regular people from entering politics. In 2019, for example, the Squad spoke out against the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) policy of prioritizing incumbent Democrats. This has always been an unofficial policy but, in 2019, the DCCC announced they would blacklist any political vendors that worked with challengers in Democratic primaries. That’s a big deal because it helps enshrine the status quo. It helps to keep the same sort of people in power.

“If the DCCC enacts this policy … we risk undermining an entire universe of potential candidates and vendors – especially women and people of color – whose ideas, energy, and innovation need a place in our party,” Ayanna Pressley tweeted at the time. She explained that she wouldn’t be airing all this on Twitter if people in the DCCC had listened to the Squad’s concerns. “When a candidate takes the risk to run, Democrats should not be in the practice of creating litmus tests or roadblocks that have a chilling effect on new candidates.”

As well as speaking out against the blacklist policy – which the DCCC eventually dropped – the Squad launched a fundraising committee to raise money for progressive candidates. How on earth does this constitute a “one-person show”?

Pelosi may wax lyrical about the importance of listening to others, but it’s worth noting that the US government is still very much a one-type-of-person show. The majority of lawmakers in Congress are millionaires, for example. Far too many are also related to each other or former politicians. One study found that sons of senators have an 8,500 times higher chance of becoming a senator than an average American male. I don’t want to diminish Pelosi’s achievements at all, but she herself is part of a political dynasty: her dad was a congressman and a three-term mayor of Baltimore. The government may be full of people who call themselves representatives – but they mostly represent an elite sliver of the United States. If we want government to work for the people then it’s imperative that we don’t have the 1% legislating for the 99%. It’s easy to dismiss social justice as “purity politics” when, like Pelosi, you have a net worth of $114m.

However, things like a living wage and student debt forgiveness aren’t purity politics when they’re a part of your daily life – they’re existential. AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are still paying back student loans; Cori Bush has experienced homelessness. We need more politicians like this. We need more politicians who understand how the system has failed people; not more politicians who have always benefited from the system.

Pelosi has had an impressive career, but publicly demeaning the Squad really isn’t a good look. True leadership isn’t just about knowing how to leverage the power you have, it’s about knowing when to step back and cede power to a new generation.

Australian navy battles twerking scandal

Eyebrows were raised and pearls were clutched this week over an “inappropriate” twerking performance by a dance troupe to launch a new naval vessel. The dancers are now accusing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of deceptively editing their routine and sexualizing them. While the whole thing is pretty gross, here are a few rather more important Australian scandals to worry about: war crimes in Afghanistan; a rape allegation by a government staffer; Australia’s chief of the defence force telling young cadets not to go out alone while “attractive” if they don’t want to be assaulted.

France toughens age of consent laws

Until now France has stood apart from most western countries by not having statutory rape laws. After a number of high-profile child sexual abuse cases, some of which involved incest, that’s changing: the French parliament has adopted legislation that characterizes sex with a child under the age of 15 as rape.

The only people arrested after a 13-year-old Venezuelan girl was raped? The women who helped her

An enraging story by the New York Times.

Afghan women fear the return of the Taliban

After 20 years, the US is finally getting out of Afghanistan. Taliban control is greater than at any point in the past two decades and violence against women is surging. And yet the US has always insisted they’re meddling in Afghanistan to fight for the rights and dignity of women.

The week in periodarchy

I regret to inform you that an all-male startup has created “period gloves” called Pinky Gloves. These are pink gloves which let you dispose of tampons in a “sanitary” manner. As doctor and author Jennifer Gunter lamented: “Every day there is another useless product for the vagina.”

Big corporations are “now deploying woke ideology the way intelligence agencies do: as a disguise.”

How corporations conspire with Democrats to hoard power at the public’s expense

By Glenn H. Reynolds at the New York Post:

Voters wait in line to cast their vote in Georgia in January.

Georgians adopted voter-integrity measures supported by a large majority of Americans, that are in the mainstream of state regulation and in fact are less stringent than the rules in Delaware, President Joe Biden’s home state, and New York. By more than a 2-1 margin, Americans think such rules are not unfair or discriminatory.

Nonetheless, these measures have produced an unprecedented effort by large corporations to interfere in the workings of a democratic government. Major League Baseball moved its All-Star Game out of (majority-black) Atlanta to (majority-white) Denver in protest. Coca-Cola’s president weighed in against the changes. And in a statement organized by Kenneth Chenault, former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, hundreds of CEOs voiced opposition. Why?

A cynic would say Georgia is a crucial red state the Democrats managed — barely — to flip blue in 2020 by adopting unorthodox voting measures and the mega-corporations who’ve thrown their lot in with the Democratic Party want to make sure Democrats hold it in 2024. They’d like to ensure similar measures apply across America because they make it easier for Democratic voters — living and dead — to cast votes without identification and without even showing up at the polls, producing a structural advantage for Democrats.

As always, this is defended in the name of racial equality. But as usual, that’s just a smokescreen for power.

Don’t ask me, listen to what lefty independent journalist Glenn Greenwald has to say: Big corporations, he writes, are “now deploying woke ideology the way intelligence agencies do: as a disguise.” They run sweatshops and depend on slave labor abroad — many playing footsie with the Chinese government, which is committing genocide against its Uighur population even as many are subjected to forced labor — but they talk “social justice” at home because it helps distract people.

And their interference with politics is dangerous, Greenwald notes: “When giant corporations use their unparalleled economic power to override that process — by forcing state and local governments to rescind or reject laws they would otherwise support due to fear of corporate punishment — then the system, by definition, far more resembles an oligarchy than a democracy.”

Well, oligarchy’s their goal, pretty much. And the tech media are their handmaidens, censoring (truthful) stories from this paper on Hunter Biden’s laptop, the possible lab origins of the Wuhan coronavirus and, most recently, the multiple mansion purchases by Black Lives Matter co-founder (and avowed Marxist) Patrisse Khan-Cullors, which Facebook blocked on spurious “privacy” grounds.

With the news media having become a leftist monoculture and with tech companies censoring “hate speech” — i.e., speech that cuts against their preferred narrative — the voting booth is one of the few outlets the public has to advance its interests and beliefs. The goal of the Democratic Party, and its allied corporations, is to dilute the power of the voting booth so that it no longer poses a threat to their ambitions.

They do this, as always, by pretending the general population forms a reservoir of bigotry that must be controlled and suppressed. Thus, anything that advances their goals of suppressing the opposition is described as some form of “anti-racism.”

Yet as polls show, American voters don’t think voter ID is wrong or discriminatory. The goal of these CEOs is to make sure that what American voters think doesn’t matter.

This is not a civil-rights movement in the traditional sense. It is a case of the party in power directing a corporate conspiracy against its political opposition.

So how to respond? Boycotts are fine, but the people running these corporations care more about the opinion of their social peers than about the fortunes of their companies. But they do care about their own quality of life.

The left would make it personal: Go after them on social media. Write letters to the editor. Show up at shareholder meetings and make a scene. Get friendly legislators to investigate their companies’ actions. The tiniest bit of personal discomfort affects these people more than millions of dollars taken from their companies’ bottom lines.

Leftists have known this for years. Will the right take a lesson from them?

Liz Cheney Was A Primary Culprit of Spreading Fake News On Russian Bounties, To Undermine Trump

As the story of Russian bounties on U.S. troops gained traction in the press, Liz Cheney seized the opportunity to undermine her own party.

By Tristan Justice at the Federalist:

U.S. intelligence agencies debunked on Thursday what was treated as blockbuster election-year reporting last summer of an anonymously sourced story in The New York Times claiming the Kremlin placed bounties on American troops in Afghanistan.

President Donald Trump, went the tale, deliberately downplayed the aggression to appease Russia and accelerate the timeline to withdraw U.S. forces. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, currently number three in House leadership, was a primary purveyor of the fake news.

“The United States intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and perhaps earlier,” a senior administration official said, according to the readout of a call with reporters in the Daily Beast.

Officials said their conclusion of “low to moderate confidence” in the story, which effectively means it’s at best unproven and potentially false, came “in part because it relies on detainee reporting,” an often unreliable source of intelligence on which to base such explosive claims.

As the story picked up traction in the corporate press, however, Cheney appeared to sense a prime opportunity to capitalize on what was treated as a scandal, to not only undermine Trump, but also justify a prolonged military presence in the region while the administration took steps to pull out. Neither to Cheney, nor legacy media, appeared to hesitate due to the claims’ poor sourcing.

The viral public post below generated a series of news stories in major publications including Axios and The Hill, and was cited in dozens of others while catching airtime on national networks as an admonishment to the president of her own party.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=JusticeTristan&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1277200077724037122&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2021%2F04%2F16%2Fliz-cheney-was-a-primary-culprit-of-spreading-fake-news-on-russian-bounties-to-undermine-trump%2F&sessionId=f9fb8e4837dbd3b849419fb5be37e269a5cf7950&siteScreenName=FDRLST&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=550px

Two days later, Politico, in an article titled, “Cheney takes on Trump,” wrote, “in her latest rebuke of Trump, Cheney openly questioned whether the president was aware of reports that the Russians offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops and demanded the administration take a more aggressive posture toward the Kremlin.”

Cheney was persistent in pushing the story, much to the frustration of colleagues and even allies on Capitol Hill as she continued an inner-party crusade against the president in an election year from her position as House conference chair.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=JusticeTristan&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1285666068388872198&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2021%2F04%2F16%2Fliz-cheney-was-a-primary-culprit-of-spreading-fake-news-on-russian-bounties-to-undermine-trump%2F&sessionId=f9fb8e4837dbd3b849419fb5be37e269a5cf7950&siteScreenName=FDRLST&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=550px

On June 29, Cheney released a joint statement with Texas Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry perpetuating the claims U.S. intelligence eventually conceded were a fake news story after Trump left office.

“After today’s briefing with senior White House officials, we remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces. It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan,” they wrote. “We anticipate further briefings on this issue in the coming days.”

Cheney also pursued an ulterior motive to advance an interventionist foreign policy by amplifying the story alongside Democrats, as chronicled here by Glenn Greenwald in the Intercept. The at-large Wyoming congresswoman capitalized on the report of Russian bounties to sponsor an amendment with Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow to prevent the White House from reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan to below 8,000, action the Trump administration was actively preparing to finalize.

The legislation didn’t pass, and the president ultimately followed through on the troop draw-down post-election. This earned him endless scorn in the same press that celebrated President Joe Biden when the Democrat commander-in-chief announced this week all troops would leave the war-torn country after two decades.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=JusticeTristan&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1278093456271794177&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2021%2F04%2F16%2Fliz-cheney-was-a-primary-culprit-of-spreading-fake-news-on-russian-bounties-to-undermine-trump%2F&sessionId=f9fb8e4837dbd3b849419fb5be37e269a5cf7950&siteScreenName=FDRLST&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=550pxhttps://50ffc6bec35779621f32d087e89014cf.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Cheney’s office did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment on whether she now regrets fueling a narrative now debunked.

Cheney, who also angered colleagues when she undermined the conference she chairs with her support for Trump’s second impeachment in January, now faces a primary in her home state after she survived a House Republican referendum on her position in leadership. Since the vote, an emboldened Cheney has escalated her attempts to spark a GOP civil war by purging the party of Trumpism toreturn to the Bush-era Republicanism of a decade ago.

“It’s very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren’t the party of white supremacy,” she said at the Reagan Institute in February, detailing the pre-planned events at the Capitol in January as broadly representative of the GOP. “You certainly saw antisemitism. You saw the symbols of Holocaust denial. … You saw a Confederate flag being carried through the rotunda. We, as Republicans in particular, have a duty and an obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection.”

The remarks were carried by the corporate press as forceful comments from an invigorated congresswoman pledging to reclaim the party by joining leftists in their rhetoric to paint the GOP as riddled with white supremacy.

While Cheney feuds with her own party, the congresswoman with a coveted role in leadership has shown little interest in standing up for party colleagues who face egregious conduct from a hostile press as the new normal. On Sunday, Cheney appeared on CBS, the same network that carried out a hit piece on Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that drew bipartisan disdain, and said nothing of its defamatory smear against the governor.Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.Photo AP Archive / YouTube

Marxist Fascists Rule Black Lives Matter…

BLM co-founder: I practice Marxism by getting rich and supporting my family

ALLAHPUNDIT  at HotAir:

No joke. This is her actual explanation for why buying up properties around L.A., including a “mini-compound” in Topanga Canyon, isn’t inconsistent with Marxism: “I see my money as not my own. I see it as my family’s money as well.”

If Marxism means making bank and sharing the riches with your kids and siblings, then you know what? I guess I’m okay with Marxism.

As Marx himself said, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to whether they’re kin to a politburo member and have their eye on a four-bedroom.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1382874774695600129&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2021%2F04%2F16%2Fblm-co-founder-i-practice-marxism-by-getting-rich-and-supporting-my-family-n383744&sessionId=b74dac80d0d6e044dc1c62609afa70e7f3f871b9&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=550px

As others have noted today about this clip, it really is in keeping with socialism as it’s actually practiced for its leaders to get rich while the proles struggle. Cullors is a good Marxist after all.

Alex Griswold is right too that her swelling bank account isn’t her only betrayal of what she allegedly stands for. This statement, which has since been scrubbed from BLM’s website, got lots of attention last year:

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

That last sentence is often cited by critics in truncated form — “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure” — to suggest that BLM is against nuclear families in all circumstances. That’s not what they said in context; their point was that the nuclear family shouldn’t be society’s only template for family organization. But … it does seem to be Cullors’s template, right? If she’s all about viewing the wider community as an “extended family” then close relatives shouldn’t be privileged beneficiaries of her largesse. Spread that wealth around, comrade. Disrupt the western nuclear family structure by treating a friend’s kid to a condo somewhere.
She was asked in this same interview about why BLM isn’t handing out money to people who need it and was unapologetic, of course:
She responded to claims that Black Lives Matter should distribute funds to the black community by noting that while the was sympathetic, the organization was not a “charity” and was not the government.
“I do understand why people expect that from us,” she said, “But I think it’s important that people recognize there are other places they can also get grants. There are other places they can also get resources. And, most importantly, our target should be the United States government. Our target should be calling on Congress to pass reparations.”

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need — unless there are “other places they can also get resources,” in which case go bother those people. BLM isn’t giving up its gravy train for anything as trivial as helping members of the black community.
By the way, if you’re a Facebook user and you missed the initial reporting on Cullors’s L.A. real-estate binge, there’s a reason for that. The New York Post’s original story about it was suppressed:
On Thursday, Facebook decided its users should not be able to share a New York Post article about the property buying habits of one of the founders of Black Lives Matter…
Our article features some pictures of the properties she bought, but includes no addresses, in fact doesn’t even say the city in some cases. Our reporter compiled the information from public records…
This decision is so arbitrary as to be laughable. Does Facebook know how many newspapers, magazine and websites highlight the real estate purchases of the rich and famous? The next time People magazine covers Kim Kardashian’s latest mansion purchase, will it violate any community standards? How about running a picture of the resort Ted Cruz is staying at?
According to Facebook, the Post report amounted to doxxing, a violation of the site’s rules. But as other reporters noted last night, tons of stories about famous people routinely supply clues about where they live. Gossip rags sometimes run photos of celebrities’ homes and identify the city:

Special rules for woke activists. That should have been Cullors’s actual explanation for why she felt no pressure to reconcile her Marxism with extensive property ownership. And since she knows she’ll face no consequences from supporters for it, it kind of is.