Friday, December 4, 2020

Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Used To Be Champions of Free Expression - Now, Not So Much

 Victor Davis Hanson   "A half-century ago, progressives used to push limitless free expression, blasting conservatives for their allegedly blinkered traditionalism. They boasted of obliterating once-normal boundaries in art, music and literature to allow nudity, profanity, sexuality and anti-American boilerplate.

"Now?

"The left is Victorian — increasingly puritanical, regressive and hypersensitive. Even totalitarian censorship and book-burning have weirdly become part of their by-any-means-necessary methods.

"University of California, Berkeley, professor Grace Lavery was so outraged by author Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” that she went beyond the usual calls to ban the book.

"Lavery advocated burning Shrier’s book." . .

“ 'I DO encourage followers to steal Abigail Shrier’s book and burn it on a pyre,” Lavery tweeted last month.

"Did the self-appointed liberal watchdog the American Civil Liberties Union step in to defend free expression?

"No. One ACLU official poured gas on the book-burning fire.

“ 'Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on,” tweeted Chase Strangio, the ACLU’s deputy director for transgender justice." . . .

You are looking into a bare, white room, its walls covered with empty book shelves. It reminds us of one of the darkest days of German intellectual history. On the 10th of May 1933 the main event of an organized burning of books took place on the Bebelplatz. Not only in Berlin, but also in many other German towns hordes of National Socialist students looted libraries.

Barack Obama Insults Every African-American Man Who Voted for Donald Trump

Michael Austin  "Former President Barack Obama thinks more black men voted for President Donald Trump this year because they’re “susceptible” to a “macho style” candidate.

"During an interview Tuesday with Peter Hamby, the host of Snapchat’s “Good Luck America,” Obama was asked why so many African-American men decided to vote for Trump in the 2020 election.

"The Democrat’s response was an incredibly simplistic analysis of his fellow black Americans, the type of stereotyping that the left would normally consider to be blatantly racist.

"According to a news release this week from the Republican National Committee, 12 percent of African-Americans voted for Trump this year, which is up from 8 percent in 2016 and the highest percentage for a GOP presidential candidate since 1996. He did particularly well among black men, with 19 percent backing him compared with 13 percent in 2016." . . .

Counting"every vote"...If this video isn't a smoking gun, then what is?

When Democrats chant "COUNT EVERY VOTE", see what they mean?

Does a surveillance video prove Georgia election fraud?  "Georgia’s Fulton County, the most populous in the state, claimed it needed to stop absentee ballot overnight on November 3-4 because of a burst pipe. That was a lie. There was no burst pipe, and the counting didn’t stop. At a hearing on Thursday, surveillance footage emerged showing that the ballots being secretly counted came from suitcases hidden under a table." . . .

. . . "Here’s what seems to have happened: In Fulton County, Georgia, the people who planned to add fake ballots to Biden’s vote count on election night had an overall good plan. First, announce that a burst pipe required everybody to vacate the building until morning and, second, count fake votes.

"The planners missed two details. First, they forgot to make sure the government’s documents supported the “burst pipe” narrative. Text messages emerged showing that nothing had burst. Instead, there was a quickly contained slow leak that didn’t even generate a work order.

"Second, they forgot that the State Farm Arena, where the counting took place, has surveillance cameras all over. On Wednesday, intrepid volunteers obtained the videos from the surveillance cameras in the room in which the count took place and, by doing so, may have discovered the election fraud smoking gun.

"In the video below, at a hearing about election fraud in Georgia on Thursday, a volunteer narrates the video showing surveillance footage of the same room from four different angles:"


. . . "Outside of Hollywood movies, plans this complex seldom work. There are simply too many moving parts and, therefore, too many opportunities for mistakes. Forgetting about the surveillance cameras was a mistake and it is to be hoped that every intelligent American who is not a partisan media hack – i.e., members of the public, politicians, and judges alike -- understands that we’re seeing something better than a smoking gun. In those surveillance videos, we’re actually watching in real time the gun being used to commit the biggest crime in American history."

'Smoking Gun' Video Produced During State Senate Election Fraud Hearing in Georgia Has People Talking   "We’ve been hearing a lot of testimony about voter fraud and irregularities.

"But today at the Georgia state senate hearing, people got a glimpse of voter fraud allegedly being carried out on the screen in front of them." . . .

. . . "Her name is R "uby Freeman. And she made the mistake of advertising her purse on her desk the same night she was involved in voter fraud on a MASSIVE SCALE.  "Her T-shirt says “Lady Ruby” and her purse says, “LaRuby” which is her company. "This was not a very smart move.Her company is called “LaRuby’s Unique Treasures.”  It’s on her LinkedIn page!"


Accusations of racism begin in three...two...one...

Team Trump Says Video Is 'Smoking Gun' Evidence of Election Fraud, Ballot-Stuffing in Georgia  . . . "Stephen Fowler of NPR says that the man in the blue jacket that can be seen in the video is “an official monitor from the secretary of state’s office who was there watching the vote counting.” According to Fowler, “While some partisan monitors left, it wasn’t unsupervised.”

"But, according to Jacki Pick, an attorney working with Trump’s legal team, even though “two Republican field organizers had been sent” there to observe the vote counting, “At no time  were they permitted to observe in any meaningful way.”

"Pick explains that the four election workers remained behind and continued counting and tabulating “well into the night,” even though GOP workers said in sworn affidavits that a poll worker had declared at 10 p.m. that counting had concluded for the evening and would not resume until the following morning

"According to Pick, the poll workers that stayed behind continued “counting, unobserved, unsupervised, not in public view—as [Georgia] statute requires—until about 1:00 in the morning,” Pick said.

"GOP poll workers learned that counting continued from news crews." . . .


Weasel Zippers has this Twitter post

Biden Plans to Reenter Iran Nuclear Deal Without New Conditions, May Rollback Sanctions

 Legal Insurrection

"The New York Post: Biden’s negotiations with Iran “would involve the US lifting the President Trump-era sanctions.'”


"Joe Biden plans to reenter the Obama-era nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran if he takes office next month, he told the New York Times in an article published on Wednesday.

"Biden told the NYT that under his administration, “in consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile program.”

"He suggested a Democrat-run White House will also offer the lifting of sanctions on Tehran as part of the negotiations.

"President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and placed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

"The New York Post reported the comments made by the Democratic presidential candidate:..."



Confessions of a Clintonworld Exile

Doug Band worked alongside Bill Clinton every day for nearly two decades, first as a body man and then as one of the primary architects of his lucrative and often-fraught post-presidency. Then came a seismic falling out with accusations of self-dealing and soap-opera-level psychodrama. Now, for the first time since leaving Clinton’s orbit, Band goes on the record about his days in Clintonworld.
 Vanity Fair


. . . "Band’s breakup with Clinton remains a subject of fascination and fierce debate in the Clinton diaspora. Some view the split as a father-son story gone awry. Others see it as a cautionary tale. Band mastered the dark arts of self-dealing, power brokering, and conflict-of-interest navigation that made Clinton’s postpresidency seem, at times, like one big money grab. Like his mentor, he grew fabulously wealthy doing it. Band drew multiple salaries from Clinton’s office, the foundation, and CGI. He also had a side deal with Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies. Even his path out of Clintonworld charted directly through Clintonworld. Teneo was essentially an arm of the Clinton Foundation in its early years. Band converted foundation donors to Teneo clients and encouraged Teneo clients to donate to the foundation. With all the dollars flying back and forth, it looked to Band’s critics like Band was cashing in on his boss’s Rolodex. In 2018, Band and his family purchased a $20 million Manhattan town house that once belonged to David Rockefeller and are in the midst of a multiyear renovation. Last year, Band and his partners sold a majority stake of Teneo to private equity firm CVC Capital at a reported valuation of $700 million. . . .

. . . "Meanwhile, Bill’s erratic behavior during the 2008 Democratic primary torched his statesman image. “He dismantled everything we had done,” Band said. Bill took on the role of Hillary’s attack dog and went aggressively after Barack Obama. As the primary dragged on, Bill shouted at voters and reporters in a series of rope-line meltdowns. The spectacle of a former president denigrating America’s would-be first Black president went viral. Prominent Democrats called the outbursts “bizarre,” “ill-tempered,” and “ill-founded.” Al Sharpton said Bill needed to “shut up.' ” . . .

. . . "At the time, Band attributed Bill’s mistakes to aftereffects of his 2004 heart attack, rustiness from not having run a national campaign in over a decade, and a visceral dislike of Hillary’s opponent. “Obama drove him nuts,” Band said. Looking back, however, Band thinks Bill may have consciously or unconsciously not wanted Hillary to win. “He was used to it being all about him, and if she won, it would be all about her. That’s not how he lived his life for the four decades leading up to that election,” he said. “In her White House, he would be back under a microscope but without the benefit of being the one in charge.”  . . .

Full article here

Via Clinton gang insider spills sleazy secrets, savages Chelsea

But keep in mind that omerta still governs many of the more central schemers in the Clinton machine, because they made peace with the Obama Machine, and now have or aspire to insider roles in what they assume will be a Biden presidency. People like John Podesta and Rahm Emanuel. I suspect most of them will go to their graves before they tell the truth.

Ilhan Omar Connected Cash-For-Ballots Voter Fraud Scheme Corrupts Elections:...

...'These Here Are All Absentee Ballots...Look...My Car Is Full..." 'Money Is The King Of Everything' Ballot Harvester Liban Mohamed

    Project Veritas

    Minneapolis Somali Community Insider: “It’s an Open Secret” … “She [Ilhan Omar] Will Do Anything That She Can Do To Get Elected and She [Omar] Has Hundreds of People on The Streets Doing That.”

     [Minneapolis--Sept. 27, 2020] Project Veritas investigators revealed a ballot harvesting scheme here involving clan and political allies and associates of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) in the first of a series of reports. . . . 

    . . . "Jamal, as part of his participation in the investigation, interviewed a Somali-American who functions as a ballot harvester his community. In the interview, the harvester described how he was paid to vote in the Aug. 11 special election and primary, along with a Project Veritas undercover journalist.

    "The harvester said Somali-American vote-buying operatives from the Omar machine came to his apartment building to oversee the voter filling out the paperwork.

    "Omar operatives request the ballots and fill them out for the voters, he said.

    "“They come to us. They came to our homes. They said: ‘This year, you will vote for Ilhan,’” he said. “They said: ‘We will make the absentee ballots. We will fill out the forms for you and when you get them back, we will again fill it out and send it.”

    " 'There was no need to go to the voting site, because the Omar operatives told him: “You stay home and you will not go to the place.”.

    "After the ballots are signed and documented the harvester said he got paid." . . .




    If the Elections are Stolen, the Biden Nightmare Begins

    But Kamala runs the administration’s marquee initiative herself.  The “Eradication of White Racism and Privilege Now” aims not just at reeducating whites -- and recalcitrant blacks, like Candace Owens and Larry Elder -- but making them take a knee and take a seat in the back of whatever bus that comes along.  

    J. Robert Smith  "Immersed as we are in President Trump’s efforts to wrest victory from a sinister collection of fraudsters, we’re understandably sparing little time to consider what happens if addled Joe Biden’s handlers get away with stealing the elections.  These Democrat hacks, malignant leftists, BLM grifters, Antifa spoiled brats, D.C. lifers, traitorous RINOs, Big Tech plutocrats, and MSM propagandists, all suffering a variety of conceits, are convinced they’re pulling off the biggest heist in their wretched existences.  Maybe a new Leni Riefenstahl will be found in Biden’s press pool to immortalize the feat

    . . . 

    "Should Biden’s handlers take hold of the levers of power in the executive branch, all bets are off.  These assorted swamp creatures know they’ll have 48 months to cement their grip on the federal government and begin the Great Reset.  They’ll rule by executive order, if necessary, and dare the federal courts and the GOP Senate -- if Republicans hold the Senate -- to stop them.  If Democrats brazenly steal the presidency, why wouldn’t that embolden them to try to steal the rest?     

    "A Biden/Harris presidency could be the most conflict-ridden and destructive four years in the nation’s history, save for the Civil War.  This time, though, we wouldn’t have our Lincoln in the White House, Donald J. Trump.  Instead, it would be as if a slave states sympathizing Democrat won in 1860 (lucky for the republic that Dominion and Smartmatic voting systems weren’t around then).  

    Or imagine something other than open conflict.  Let’s imagine the wretchedness of a Biden/Harris presidency as a dystopia.  Let’s create our own version of It’s a Wonderful Life,  commencing from the plot twist when George Bailey wants to end his life and Clarence the Angel grants his wish.  Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville, a bleak, joyless town full of recognizable faces, but whose expressions are filled with tensions, resentments, and fear.  By default, Biden gets to play the wheelchair-bound Mr. Potter.  But Kamala Harris really wants the role.     


    How Republicans can protect national security from Joe Biden  "Joe Biden is our media-declared president-elect.  His ostensible win is terrible news for our national security.  A President Biden would lead to more foreign conflicts and more appeasement to China.  That's why it's critical that, over the next two months, President Donald Trump and Republicans implement policies that mitigate the threat he can pose to our peace and security." . . .