Month: May 2020

The far-left Politico admitted Tuesday that Democrats are “dreading” the idea of a fast economic boom as America reopens, which explains the anti-science push among many Democrat governors to extend their pointless coronavirus lockdowns.

Thanks to these lockdowns, some 40 million people are unemployed, some 40 million lives have been shattered; lines at food pantries seem to go on forever; countless small businesses are in danger of closing or already have… Nevertheless, what America’s oh-so compassionate Democrats dread most is a quick economic rebound that might undermine their grasping desire to hold on to and obtain power.

“The general election scenario that Democrats are dreading,” the Politico headline reads.

 And what is that scenario?

“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” a former economic adviser to Barack Obama told a bunch of bigwigs from both parties last month.

His name is Jason Furman and Politico says he “laid out a detailed case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive monthly employment numbers and GDP growth ever.”

Furman’s counterintuitive pitch has caused some Democrats, especially Obama alumni, around Washington to panic. “This is my big worry,” said a former Obama White House official who is still close to the former president. Asked about the level of concern among top party officials, he said, “It’s high — high, high, high, high.”

And top policy officials on the Biden campaign are preparing for a fall economic debate that might look very different than the one predicted at the start of the pandemic in March. “They are very much aware of this,” said an informal adviser.

What Furman already sees are signs of what’s known as a “V” recovery, as a opposed to a slower or gradual  recovery,  or a recovery that takes a while to get back to where we were before these stupid lockdowns began. Furman sees an economy that’s already unleashed.

Consumption and hiring started to tick up “in gross terms, not in net terms,” Furman said, describing the phenomenon as a “partial rebound.” The bounce back “can be very very fast, because people go back to their original job, they get called back from furlough, you put the lights back on in your business. Given how many people were furloughed and how many businesses were closed you can get a big jump out of that. It will look like a V.”

Furman’s argument is not that different from the one made by White House economic advisers and Trump, who have predicted an explosive third quarter, and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who said in late April that “the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.”

White House officials were thrilled to hear that some of their views have been endorsed by prominent Democrats.

While no one expects the second quarter numbers — the numbers that will tell us the GDP between April 1 and June 30 — to be anything but terrible, if we can come to our senses nationwide and get these absurd lockdowns behind us, the third quarter numbers (that will be released at the end of September) could show real growth. This would be good for the incumbent president, especially since that incumbent president has been predicting a “pent up” desire within the American people to get back to normal.

Good news for America and Americans would, of course, be terrible news for Joe Biden, who is desperate to strangle our economy with record high taxes and an obscene amount of regulations. Biden’s policies would hurt a flourishing economy, but they would kill a post-lockdown recovery in the same way the Obama-Biden economic policies of 2009 killed any hope of a real rebound after the 2008 economic crash. It’s no accident the Obama-Biden administration oversaw the worst “recovery” since the Great Depression. Their taxes, regulations, and constant threats of more, kept a boot firmly on the neck of our economy for eight long years.

Plus, no matter how much Biden might crybaby about Trump’s Twitter account, his golf game, and his violation of the establishment’s “precious norms,” the American people tend not to fire a president when the economy is humming — especially if we are coming out of a downturn.

But what does it say about Democrats that with nearly 40 million lives shattered, they “dread” a fast comeback for those 40 million people?

Obviously, that’s a rhetorical question, but it does answer the question as to why — and for no valid scientific or medical reasons, states run by Democrats are desperate to push these pointless lockdowns as far into next month as possible (especially in swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania). It is all about doing whatever damage they can to those third quarter GDP numbers, all about hurting those who cannot work from home — primarily the working class — because Orange Man Bad.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

Over 40 people were shot, ten fatally, over Memorial Weekend in gun-controlled Chicago. Local news reports the shootings and deaths came despite a stay-at-home order.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports an approximate number of shooting victims at 48, fatal and non-fatal combined.

On Sunday, Breitbart News reported four people were killed and 11 others injured in shootings in Chicago during the first 36 hours of Memorial Weekend alone.

The first two fatal shootings of the weekend were discovered around 8 p.m. on Friday. Police found “a 32-year-old male victim…shot to death inside a residence” and a 35-year-old who was shot to death in an unrelated attack at roughly the same time.

The carnage in Chicago occurred even though hundreds of “mediators” had been sent out into hot spots around the city, trying to reduce violence.

Fox 32 reported “a coalition of organizations is sending 370 community-based mediators to 72 locations across 12 neighborhoods in hopes of tamping down Memorial Day weekend gun violence.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

The amount of obloquy heaped upon religious congregations that insist on exercising their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion is, quite frankly, one of the most baffling aspects of the coronavirus lockdown to this writer.

In New York City, for instance, millennials and other social drinkers are gathering outside bars — many without masks — sipping their “takeaway” drinks and mingling in a way that doesn’t exactly evince social distancing. In response, New York City launched the “Take Out, Don’t Hang Out” campaign, according to Gothamist — a pleasant, hands-off way of dealing with the problem.

When religious congregations said they might continue meeting in person earlier in the spring, however, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio actually threatened to shutter those congregations permanently. Apparently, NYC skipped right over the “Pray, Don’t Stay” campaign. More’s the pity, because the slogan just suggests itself.

Dealing with churches, synagogues and mosques almost exclusively with the heavy hand of the law isn’t exactly a good look, particularly given the First Amendment protections afforded to religious congregations. Already, a ban on in-person church gatherings in Kentucky has been struck down by a federal court, a clear sign that perhaps state and local jurisdictions should tread carefully when it comes to faith.

Don’t tell that to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her city’s law enforcement, which allegedly tried to shut down a Baptist church service with armed police in a manner the pastor described as “like the Soviet styled KGB.”

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It’s worth noting there’s some question as to how much Chicago police interfered with services at two separate churches in recent weeks.

The most serious allegation comes from Cornerstone Baptist Church in the Woodlawn area of South Chicago.

According to a letter from Pastor Courtney Lewis, Chicago sent three squad cars with armed policemen to interrupt their service this past Sunday.

“Like the Soviet styled KGB they knocked on our locked doors; the only thing she hasn’t done ‘yet’ is beat the doors down and arrest our members,” Lewis wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch.

“Thankfully our doors were locked as a normal safety precaution we take each service to protect our members from the escalating gun violence in Chicago.

“Mayor Lightfoot is defiant of the US Constitution and our freedom to worship.”

It’s not just Lightfoot, it’s worth noting.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker introduced a five-phase plan for reopening Illinois which wouldn’t allow large gatherings — including church services of more than 50 people — until “a vaccine or highly effective treatment [is] widely available or” there is “the elimination of any new cases over a sustained period.”

Given the timelines experts have given, that target could be at least a year off. That didn’t fly with churches in the Chicago area; according to the Hyde Park Herald, several churches have announced their intention to reopen.

RELATED: Never Forget That These States Banned Religious Gatherings but Kept the Liquor Flowing

Lightfoot said she would “rather be in conversation than conflict,” although she also said the city would be issuing citations to any church that held in-person services in violation of the lockdown. Work that one out for yourself.

In the case of Cornerstone Baptist Church, the Hyde Park Herald reported the congregation’s May 17 service went off without interference from the fuzz. However, in the Albany Park neighborhood, Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church had “no parking” signs in front of it that were put up by the city.

This Sunday, however, things allegedly took a turn at Cornerstone Baptist.

According to Lewis’ letter, there were “45 attendees” at the church, far more than are currently allowed under the state’s ban on religious gatherings of more than 10 people.

Lewis told conservative radio host Todd Starnes that an usher spotted the police and took pictures of them.

Meanwhile, here’s a small sample of where the media stands on the issue from a May 11 headline in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Lightfoot hopes to educate defiant church into compliance, avoiding mass arrests.”

“We’re not gonna send in the police to arrest parishioners. People are exercising their faith, and I understand that,” she said.

Her idea of education may not match yours, however.

The Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church faced fines of up to $1,500 for holding three in-person services , according to a May 17 article from Block Club Chicago. This, of course, is in addition to the “no-parking” signs.

The optics of harassing two minority congregations — one black and one Romanian — apparently isn’t a problem for Lightfoot or anyone else in the city. Nor, apparently, is the attention and resources being used on two small congregations that, from all appearances, have implemented social distancing best practices.

Now, is this wise? I’m in no position to judge.

Most congregations, including my own, have moved to online services for the time being. I’m no epidemiologist, but common sense tells me it’s a safer alternative.

However, that’s not the point. For Lewis, keeping his church open is a matter of religious obligation — an obligation protected by the Bill of Rights.

“We are trying to follow the laws of man as much as reasonably possible but when the laws of man conflict with the laws of God I as a pastor have a duty to follow the laws of God,” he wrote in his letter.

“We will not be intimidated by this overhanded government bully but we are requesting the assistance of our president and our justice department in correcting the grave miscarriage of the law.”

And as for the danger?

“If you have been to work, to the grocery store, to any other business that has been open, then you should attend [church]. The church building will be no less safe than any of those places,” Lewis wrote in a separate letter to parishioners earlier this month.

“A week ago, I went to Walgreens with my daughter and I saw that 109 people are allowed in the store at a time. I think we will have a few less than that in the building.”

He summed it up a bit more neatly for Starnes: “All we are seeking is the same consideration and trust that is being tendered toward the liquor stores, abortion clinics and Walmart.”

And that’s the thing: Neither liquor stores nor Walmart are protected under the Constitution. It’s right up front in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Yes, these are trying times — but if churches are practicing social distancing guidelines, Chicago officialdom doesn’t need to be harassing them.

That’ll likely put them in public conflict with the Trump administration, if not legal conflict with the Justice Department. The president has made clear that he believes religious congregations have the right to reopen and the DOJ has openly sided with congregations pursuing legal action against states and local jurisdictions.

“I call on governors to allow our churches and places of worship to open right now,” the president said in remarks at the White House Friday.

“These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united,” he added. “The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue and to their mosque.”

Lewis’ claims, it’s worth noting, have yet to be fully corroborated. What’s clear, though, is that Chicago is engaged in a problematic pattern of targeting churches without regard for the constitutional protections afford them.

They’re far from the only jurisdiction doing so, but the reports seem to indicate they’re one of the most aggressive. Given federal court precedent and the Trump administration’s focus on protecting the right to worship freely, however, that could change very quickly.

In other words, maybe sticking with a “Pray, Don’t Stay” campaign might have been a better alternative for Mayor Lightfoot and the city of Chicago. It’s slightly too late for that now, though.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

So much for China spreading good will in the wake of inflicting the coronavirus on the restof us. 

Foreign policy experts of the Washington swamp consensus have been spreading the typical line that China in its post-coronavirus persona, is going to be magnanimous, showering gifts – masks, loans, and free stuff – and stepping up its international presence in global institutions, such as the World Health organization, in the hopes maybe making us all forget where that virus started in the first place.  It’s all about soft power in the Chinese wheelhouse.

Here’s a view from a Council on Foreign Relations swamper which ran in the Washington Post just three days ago:

Beijing sees the crisis as a chance to acquire more global leadership just as the United States abdicates it, a notion that worries some observers. In some ways, this could be good: Beijing has played a relatively positive role on climate change, for instance. But in many areas, like Internet governance, China is seeking to promote a closed, authoritarian model, one that could help keep repressive regimes in power. And a more powerful Beijing might further dominate its neighbors, making parts of Southeast Asia a potential U.S.-China flash point.

Might? That’s some expert they have there. Here’s what China really had in mind:

An Indian patrol party was detained and later released by Chinese forces after a scuffle between the two sides in Ladakh earlier this week, sources have told NDTV amid rising tensions between the two countries along the Line of Actual Control. The situation was finally defused after a border meeting of commanders from both sides.

The Indian forces have briefed the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), detailing the entire sequence of events that took place on near the Pangong lake.

They not only invaded someone else’s country, they took its soldiers hostage? This is the doing of a belligerent. And everyone can see it.

There’s also this:

Chinese plans to impose national security laws on Hong Kong could see mainland intelligence agencies set up bases there, raising fears of direct law enforcement and what the United States branded a “death knell” for the city’s autonomy.

Communist Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of the legislation that critics see as a turning point for the former British colony, which enjoys many freedoms, including an independent legal system and right to protest, not allowed on the mainland.

Hong Kongers are calling it the death of Hong Kong, the “final nail” in coffin for Hong Kong’s autonomy. China has treaty obligations dating from its 1997 handover from Britain to maintain Hong Kong in its current form for 50 years. Less than halfway into it, they’ve decided to break the treaty, sending a message to everyone in the region that they don’t keep treaties and don’t care if Hong Kongers don’t like it. They’ve even gotten mouthy about it to the U.S. today after the U.S. protested China’s arrest of 180 peaceful Hong Kong protestors:

“Some political forces in the U.S. are hijacking the China-U.S. relations and pushing our two countries toward a ‘new Cold War’,” said China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “This dangerous attempt to turn back the wheel of history will undo the fruits of decades of long cooperation between the two peoples.”

Cold war? These guys sound interested in a hot war, and in that slimy way of theirs are trying to lull us into thinking it will be merely ‘cold.’ Based on their huge upswing in spying activity, the cold war started years ago.

And hot war? Yes, there’s something of the prelude already. China claimed it ‘expelled’ a U.S. Navy vessel from the South China Sea on May 2. Whatever the facts of that, it’s remembered that less than a month earlier, a U.S. Navy captain was unwisely telling the press about the presence of coronavirus on his ship, alerting the Chinese to U.S. vulnerabilities. That seems to have excited them.

They’ve continued to cover up their role in the spread of the coronavirus around the world, they’ve lied about its details, they’ve attempted to blame it on Europe and on visiting U.S. servicemen, and they’ve been caught doing some suspicious activities that appear to have been a bid to spread COVID-19 into the White House, as well as steal vaccine development secrets from American pharmaceutical countries.

China was supposed to be contrite about the coronavirus, assuming it wanted to rejoin the world economy as before. Instead, it only used the crisis as a means of finding ways to come out ahead, its goal to supplant the U.S. as the world’s premier superpower. But instead of holding their heads down in shame for showering the world with the coronavirus, China’s communist rulers are showing that their idea of ‘contrition’ is aggression, abuse, and ugliness. The worse they do, the uglier they get.

This is no normal country. This is China with the coronavirus mask off and it’s a snarling wild beast, raring to start a war.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain

 

So much for China spreading good will in the wake of inflicting the coronavirus on the restof us. 

Foreign policy experts of the Washington swamp consensus have been spreading the typical line that China in its post-coronavirus persona, is going to be magnanimous, showering gifts – masks, loans, and free stuff – and stepping up its international presence in global institutions, such as the World Health organization, in the hopes maybe making us all forget where that virus started in the first place.  It’s all about soft power in the Chinese wheelhouse.

Here’s a view from a Council on Foreign Relations swamper which ran in the Washington Post just three days ago:

Beijing sees the crisis as a chance to acquire more global leadership just as the United States abdicates it, a notion that worries some observers. In some ways, this could be good: Beijing has played a relatively positive role on climate change, for instance. But in many areas, like Internet governance, China is seeking to promote a closed, authoritarian model, one that could help keep repressive regimes in power. And a more powerful Beijing might further dominate its neighbors, making parts of Southeast Asia a potential U.S.-China flash point.

Might? That’s some expert they have there. Here’s what China really had in mind:

An Indian patrol party was detained and later released by Chinese forces after a scuffle between the two sides in Ladakh earlier this week, sources have told NDTV amid rising tensions between the two countries along the Line of Actual Control. The situation was finally defused after a border meeting of commanders from both sides.

The Indian forces have briefed the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), detailing the entire sequence of events that took place on near the Pangong lake.

They not only invaded someone else’s country, they took its soldiers hostage? This is the doing of a belligerent. And everyone can see it.

There’s also this:

Chinese plans to impose national security laws on Hong Kong could see mainland intelligence agencies set up bases there, raising fears of direct law enforcement and what the United States branded a “death knell” for the city’s autonomy.

Communist Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of the legislation that critics see as a turning point for the former British colony, which enjoys many freedoms, including an independent legal system and right to protest, not allowed on the mainland.

Hong Kongers are calling it the death of Hong Kong, the “final nail” in coffin for Hong Kong’s autonomy. China has treaty obligations dating from its 1997 handover from Britain to maintain Hong Kong in its current form for 50 years. Less than halfway into it, they’ve decided to break the treaty, sending a message to everyone in the region that they don’t keep treaties and don’t care if Hong Kongers don’t like it. They’ve even gotten mouthy about it to the U.S. today after the U.S. protested China’s arrest of 180 peaceful Hong Kong protestors:

“Some political forces in the U.S. are hijacking the China-U.S. relations and pushing our two countries toward a ‘new Cold War’,” said China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “This dangerous attempt to turn back the wheel of history will undo the fruits of decades of long cooperation between the two peoples.”

Cold war? These guys sound interested in a hot war, and in that slimy way of theirs are trying to lull us into thinking it will be merely ‘cold.’ Based on their huge upswing in spying activity, the cold war started years ago.

And hot war? Yes, there’s something of the prelude already. China claimed it ‘expelled’ a U.S. Navy vessel from the South China Sea on May 2. Whatever the facts of that, it’s remembered that less than a month earlier, a U.S. Navy captain was unwisely telling the press about the presence of coronavirus on his ship, alerting the Chinese to U.S. vulnerabilities. That seems to have excited them.

They’ve continued to cover up their role in the spread of the coronavirus around the world, they’ve lied about its details, they’ve attempted to blame it on Europe and on visiting U.S. servicemen, and they’ve been caught doing some suspicious activities that appear to have been a bid to spread COVID-19 into the White House, as well as steal vaccine development secrets from American pharmaceutical countries.

China was supposed to be contrite about the coronavirus, assuming it wanted to rejoin the world economy as before. Instead, it only used the crisis as a means of finding ways to come out ahead, its goal to supplant the U.S. as the world’s premier superpower. But instead of holding their heads down in shame for showering the world with the coronavirus, China’s communist rulers are showing that their idea of ‘contrition’ is aggression, abuse, and ugliness. The worse they do, the uglier they get.

This is no normal country. This is China with the coronavirus mask off and it’s a snarling wild beast, raring to start a war.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain

 

As a former Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino has seen sides of Washington that are familiar to few Americans.

As a conservative commentator and author of a book about President Donald Trump’s battles with “the swamp,” he’s read and written more than most about the president’s seemingly endless struggles against the power centers entrenched in the federal government.

So when he all but guarantees prosecutions will be coming out of the tangled morass of what Trump calls “Obamagate” — the Obama administration’s attempts to kneecap the Trump presidency in its earliest days — it’s worth paying attention.

And Bongino did just that in an appearance Monday on “Fox & Friends.”

During the interview, Bongino acknowledged the difficulties of predicting the future of any prosecution activity in the politically charged atmosphere of the capital, but said at least two are probably inevitable.

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Check it out here:

My appearance on Fox covering President Trump versus the Swamp. Who’s winning? 👇🏻 https://t.co/oHoZSRHOdV

— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) May 25, 2020

The first, he said, was the FBI lawyer who put together a warrant application the bureau sought from the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to put Trump campaign aide Carter Page under surveillance.

As a Justice Department Inspector General’s report released in December showed, the FBI’s application omitted the information that Page had acted worked for U.S. government agency (probably the CIA) to make its weak case that Page might have been an operative for the Russian government.

The second was the government source that leaked the contents of a Dec. 29, 2016, conversation between Michael Flynn, Trump’s then-incoming national security advisor, and Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States.

That leak, published in a Jan. 12, 2017, Washington Post piece by Post columnist David Ignatius, was the public spark of events that led to Flynn’s ouster from the Trump White House on Feb. 13, 2017, less than a month into Trump’s presidency.

Flynn’s prosecution on a charge of lying to the FBI followed, and the contorted case is still engulfing Washington in controversy.

There are too many characters in the plot to name at this point, but Bongino said at least a couple of them should be fearing the reach of justice.

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“There are two specifically everyone should focus on … The FBI lawyer who manipulated the email about Carter Page to make it appear he was a Russian asset when, in fact, he was a U.S. asset working against the Russians, how he stays out of prison or prosecution is beyond me,” Bongino said.

“If he’s not prosecuted, I would be stunned.

“And secondly, whoever leaked the contents of General Flynn’s phone call with the Russian ambassador — the phone call he was prosecuted for maliciously — whoever leaked that to David Ignatius of the Washington Post unquestionably committed a federal felony.

“How that person, and they have to know who it is at this point … that person, how he stays out of prison, I would be astonished,” Bongino said.

“This case would be meaningless if they get off scot-free.”

Will there ever be any real legal price to pay for those involved?

That’s the question every Trump supporter wants answered — and it should be a question everyone who cares about justice in this country wants answered, regardless of politics.

Democrats, of course, will never concede an inch of credit to Trump’s administration, and liberal media outlets have invested too much time and professional face in promulgating the endless “Russia collusion” hoax to come clean at this point.

But the operation that aimed to strangle the Trump administration in its crib – which Trump has branded “Obamagate” — is becoming clearer by the day.

The legal and judicial assault against Flynn is continuing, in all its disgraceful details.

But the fact that, as the Washington Examiner reported last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ordered Flynn’s judge to explain his handling of the case likely bodes well for Flynn.

The declassification of “unmasking” requests related to Flynn’s dealings with Kislyak have shown the Obama administration – including then-Vice President Joe Biden and Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough – up to its ears in “Obamagate” activities.

The entire country has watched as the media pushed the “Russia collusion” hoax for the first two years of Trump’s presidency. It watched as the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives under the cynical leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the loathsome Rep. Adam Schiff dragged the White House through a sham impeachment trial.

Now, the country – focused as it is on a global health crisis – has the opportunity to watch the schemes being unraveled.

Dan Bongino has likely been following the story as close as anyone in the country, and probably knows well how tricky predictions can be in this game.

So when he makes one, it’s worth paying attention.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.