Peter Schweizer on Joe Biden

Secret Empires: 

How the American Political Class 

Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends

(image credit: Washington Times)

Trent Baker had three paragraphs at Breitbart summarizing Peter Schweizer’s appearance on Mark Levin’s show last night:

Breitbart News senior contributor and Secret Empires author Peter Schweizer joined Life, Liberty & Levin Sunday on Fox News Channel to explain Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine connections.

Schweizer told host Mark Levin that the former vice president’s son was being paid by Ukraine despite not having expertise in the energy sector while Joe Biden was the “point-person” on former President Barack Obama’s administration in dealing with Ukraine.

“The key question here that nobody seems to want to ask in the media is: What was he being paid for? He wasn’t being paid for his expertise. What was he being paid for? And what were the Ukrainians expecting to get in return?” Schweizer stated. “I think when you overlay the financial payments with the fact that Joe Biden as point person on Obama administration policy to Ukraine was steering billions of dollars of Western money to Ukraine it becomes crystal clear exactly why they were paying him money. They wanted access and they wanted to influence Joe Biden. And Joe Biden has been around a long time here, and he had to know exactly why his son was being paid.”

Schweizer’s book Secret Empires is an excellent resource. If you are interested in his column-length reports, click here.

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Sarah Palin’s Lipstick

photo credit: American Thinker

Gordon Wysong at American Thinker vividly remembers Sarah Palin’s speech at the GOP convention in 2008. Mr. Wysong’s recollection will resonate with many Cleveland Tea Party readers:

The Democrats don’t have lousy Presidential nominee candidates merely because the good ones were keeping their powder dry.  A Black Swan candidate of 2008 is appreciably responsible for it, and no one seemed to notice.  When Sarah Palin became the focus of the hopes of committed conservatives, the swamp did everything in its power to destroy her.  Venal Republican operatives were so beset with personal jealousy, they were willing to crash the ship on the rocks to ensure against her ascendancy.

They won their battle, sadly.  But, a single line -- just one -- provided the foundation for conservatives.  Mrs. Palin told America “Do you know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?  Lipstick!”

In one succinct line she captured the commitment and determination of conservatives seeking to protect something they love.

Fast forward a year, and those same conservatives saw Obama trying to destroy that which they love and without hesitation, these conservatives jumped into a new political movement.  Bolstered by their belief that Sarah Palin was an everyday somebody like them, and infuriated by her maltreatment, they populated the ranks of the Tea Party.  They were determined to protect America. Within months, they were activists.

As I recall, Sarah ad-libbed the joke because for some reason (???), the teleprompter went down for a few moments. Mr. Wysong's full article is here.

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Life After Fox News

Paul Ryan cartoon from Cagle Comics at Utah Independent 

Yes, Fox is moving relentlessly leftward, and in our household, we click the “Mute” button during prime time viewing -- or turn the channel. Judi McLeod at Canada Free Press quotes Breitbart to begin her report:

. . . Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who currently sits on the board of Fox News Corp., and who, according to Vanity Fair, is reportedly urging Fox News to “decisively break” with President Donald Trump—news in the magazine’s report documenting the network’s “management bedlam”. (Tony Lee at Breitbart, Sept. 26, 2019)

Ryan, the longtime Trump antagonist, has reportedly been suggesting to Murdoch that “Fox should decisively break with the president” as Murdoch holds “strategy conversations with Fox executives and anchors about how Fox News should prepare for life after Trump.”

Downright laughable that while “strategy conversations” are taking place to decide how Fox News “should prepare for life after Trump” that legions in the unwashed masses are already preparing themselves for life after Fox News.

. . .

Full report is here. 

Related: While I find Mark Levin abrasive most of the time, he dials it down on his Sunday evening program on Fox. This Sunday, Peter Schweizer is the scheduled guest. Having read his books Clinton Cash, Extortion, and Secret Empires, I plan to tune in. Mr. Schweizer is the go-to source on the Joe Biden scandals.

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Heather MacDonald: False Testimony

Heather MacDonald recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee on alleged racial bias in law enforcement. It is not a pretty report (“False Testimony: Sworn statements at a recent congressional hearing on policing veered sharply from the truth; here are the facts”). Here’s her opening and closing paragraphs:

The anti-police narrative depends on suppression of facts, and the duplicity of anti-cop forces reached a shameless new high at a congressional hearing last week. Committee members should sanction the false testimony, given under oath, and publicly correct the record.

The House Judiciary Committee, now controlled by Democrats, had called a hearing to address a “series of deaths of unarmed African-American men while in police custody” as well as the “mistrust between police and marginalized communities.” Throughout the four-hour session, a photo array of blacks killed by the police played continuously on video screens around the room, interspersed with statistics allegedly proving that the police harbor lethal racist bias. Committee chairman Jerry Nadler claimed in his opening remarks that the “frequency of these killings and the absence of full accountability for those responsible send a message to members of the African American community that Black Lives Do Not Matter.” Nadler invoked the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, as examples of “police misconduct against African-Americans,” though Barack Obama’s Justice Department found no misconduct in the first case, and criminal charges against the Freddie Gray officers were dismissed either before or after trial.

. . .

The Republicans on the committee failed to push back against this narrative of systemic police bias, choosing instead to tell feel-good stories about “our brave men and women in uniform.” Such tales do little to rebut Black Lives Matter ideology, since both statements could be true:  individual officers display heroism, and policing is infected by “structural racism,” in Davis’s words. The only way to dislodge the “endemic racism” argument is to challenge its factual basis directly. I was the only witness at the hearing with the ability to do so, but the Republicans asked me not one question. This is not a matter of personal ego but rather of the public battle of ideas.

The Democratic committee members and their witnesses clearly laid out their agenda should they retake the White House and Senate: mandatory implicit-bias training for cops, a huge waste of money that could be spent instead on tactical and de-escalation training; mandatory racial-profiling data collection, which will be measured, misleadingly, against a population benchmark; racial quotas for police hiring, which require lowered standards; and more federal consent decrees for police departments, which cripple the ability of cops to engage in proactive policing and divert millions of dollars into the pockets of federal monitors. As inimical as these policy items are to effective policing, the narrative that drives them—that the police are a threat to black communities—is more dangerous still. That narrative rests on duplicity, as amply demonstrated at last week’s hearings. Republicans, who invoke patriotism on a regular basis, are doing the country no favors by ceding the criminal-justice narrative to the activists and race-baiters.

Her full report is here. Sad to say, GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee include Jim Jordan and Steve Chabot of Ohio; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Matt Gaetz of Florida; and Andy Biggs of Arizona. (E-mail links for Jordan and Chabot are embedded in case you would like to email them with the link to MacDonald's report.)

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Cleveland Tea Party Goes to Washington

Meeting Sen. Jim DeMint

Good news, bad news. . .

So there we were last Tuesday, sitting in the lobby of the Trump Old Post Office Hotel in DC, minding our own business, when who should walk by but Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Mark Meadows. I gave Rep. Jordan a thumbs-up, and they both stopped to shake hands with us and exchange pleasantries. Unfortunately, I missed the golden opportunity to ask Rep. Jordan a question that is probably on all our minds, and they carried on.

But then, who should I spy at the next table but former Senator Jim DeMint. So I went over and barged into his conversation. And I asked him point blank: will there be any indictments?  He responded that he had just had lunch with Reps. Jordan and Meadows and that they had discussed that very issue.  Sen. De Mint told me that they were guessing that some indictments would be coming down in 2 to 3 weeks, but that there would not be enough indictments. And he gave my husband a copy of his and Rachel Bovard’s new book, Conservative: Knowing What to Keep.  

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Ohio HB 6: keep it or repeal it

Is this mailer true or false?

The other day, I was asked to sign a petition to get a Repeal of Ohio HB 6 on the ballot. You may be asked also. Here’s one report from about a week ago posted at JD Supra:

. . . a group called “Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts” (OACB) has begun the process of placing a referendum on the November 2020 ballot to repeal the law. OACB took the initial required steps of submitting at least 1,000 signatures along with a summary of the proposed referendum to the Attorney General, and after revising and resubmitting the summary it was approved as of August 30, 2019, as “fair and truthful” with the necessary valid signatures as required by law. The petitioners must now submit 265,774 signatures of registered Ohio voters (from at least 44 of the 88 Ohio counties, with at least 3 percent of total voters from each of those counties) by October 21, 2019, to place the referendum on the November 2020 ballot. If OACB meets these requirements, HB 6 is stayed until Election Day 2020.

Read the rest of the JD Supra report with some analysis here. The ads and mailers about this controversial legislation are confusing – especially the claim that

China’s Communist regime could gain control of Ohio’s electricity grid if voters repeal House Bill 6

Both sides are spending a ton of money, the media is making a lot of money, and Cleveland.com concluded its editorial on the subject as follows:

The aggressive tactics and scaremongering by those who want to deny Ohioans a statewide vote on HB 6 must stop.  Now.  Chinese business loans don’t threaten Ohio. But demagogic campaigning unquestionably does.

Yes, but if the Editorial Board of cleveland.com is in favor of something, I am usually against it. Still, I found the comments section somewhat helpful. And I expect the campaigning will only increase over the next few weeks.

I’ve read through five or six other reports/analyses, pro and con, of the repeal vs enacting HB 6, and I confess I am still not clear as to which side has the better argument. This may be an instance when neither HB6 nor its repeal is good for Ohio. At any rate, I'll post again if I find a more accessible analysis.

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Sen. Portman votes to obstruct again

cartoon by Michael Ramirez

  

Sean Moran at Breitbart reports:

Senate Passes Democrat Motion
to End Border Wall National Emergency

Senate Democrats passed Wednesday a motion to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border.

The Senate passed S.J. Res. 54, 54-41, which would terminate President Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border. The resolution was created by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Sen. Collins said the bill is not about “whether you’re for or against a border wall.” The Maine senator, who is up for a tough reelection fight in 2020, claimed that she has “consistently supported” funding for physical barriers on the southern border.

However, Congress has failed to provide significant funding to help secure America’s southern border by building a border wall. With Congress’ failure to provide funding, President Trump declared a national emergency to build the border wall, which diverted military funding so that the president can build a wall along the southern border.

The Republicans that voted for the resolution to end the national emergency to build a border wall are Sens. Collins, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH).

. . .

Congressional Democrats failed to pass the resolution to override Trump’s national emergency in March, which failed to override the president’s veto.

This latest attempt will probably also fail despite the RINOs and the media’s best efforts.

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Ultimate dumpster fire

Tom Stiglich cartoon at Townhall

Four Health Care Whoppers

Betsy McCaughey's analysis of Democrat candidates' proposed healthcare "plans" is at Real Clear Politics:

When it comes to health care, Democrats are selling snake oil. Americans are grappling with rising medical costs. But if they fall for the phony solutions the left is offering, they'll pay with exorbitant taxes and shorter lives.

Whopper 1: Obamacare is affordable. Joe Biden's running a television ad in Iowa pledging to stand by Obamacare because "every American deserves affordable health care." Iowans aren't going to buy that. They're not hayseeds.

Truth: In Iowa, 90% of Obamacare customers who paid their own way in 2014 have dropped their coverage. Obamacare is affordable only if you qualify for a subsidy. Middle-class people who earn too much to get taxpayer-funded help can't afford to stay enrolled. They "have taken it on the chin," reports Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Why is the number of uninsured in America suddenly rising again? Blame Obamacare for pricing the middle class out of insurance.

. . .

Pols are scapegoating drug companies and insurance companies. Here's what they're not telling you: Medical costs in the United States are rising just as fast in other developed countries. Major culprits are the obesity epidemic and inactive lifestyles, not America's capitalist health system.

Health costs are a top issue in the 2020 election, and every candidate has a "plan." These plans are mere shell games, shifting the costs from one group of people to another. No one wins but the pols.

For all 4 Whoppers, click here.

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Lloyd Marcus and the Tea Party

Lloyd Marcus is the “Unhyphenated American” who performed at the 2009 Taxpayer March on DC and now contributes regularly to the American Thinker blog. Here’s an excerpt from a recent column:

The recording session for my "Trump Train 2020" song could not have gone better.  If you remember, my music producer is based in Baltimore.  I asked him to gather singers to form a choir for the recording of the song.  He reported back to me that all the singers he knows do not support Trump or are passionately against him.  This prompted me to launch a clarion call for pro-America/pro-Trump singers.  The response was tremendous.

Saturday, September 7, 2019, singers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and Florida trekked to Blue House Productions recording studio in Silver Spring, Maryland to record the "Trump Train 2020" song by Lloyd Marcus.

The singers were an enthusiastic, racially diverse choir ranging from age 14 to the mid-70s.  It was thrilling to have teenagers who have not drunk fake news media's anti-Trump Kool-Aid performing on the recording.  Everyone was happy, upbeat, and excited about contributing to the re-election of our president, keeping America great!

Despite the singers being strangers meeting for the first time, the recording session felt like a family reunion.  Everyone was of one accord.

I posted this not because of the Trump Train, but because those last two sentences describe exactly the same reaction I felt at my first Tea Party meeting back in 2009. 

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Democratic Party has gone rogue

A.F. Branco cartoon credit: Communities Digital News and Legal Insurrection

Karin McQuillan at American Greatness considers the lurch to the far left in the Democrat party. She concludes:

. . .All the Democrats have pledged to destroy America’s energy industry. Many have pledged to outlaw private health insurance. All have pledged to open our borders to all. None of them respect the Bill of Rights. 

This is all so bizarre in American terms it seems impossible. It is not only possible—it’s here. 

Campus culture, after eight long years of Obama’s interference, has come of voting age. They live in a hive-mind social media society, policed by mobbing, with censored sources of information. Through blacklisting, they have monopolistic control of our schools, colleges, media, and the high-tech corporate giants. They have won hearts and minds. It’s easy to do when those who don’t go along are destroyed. They enforce the diktats of their ideology ruthlessly. That’s their American dream.

Politics is very emotional for Democrats. They don’t care about jobs and national security, the two basic duties of the president. According to the Democrat primary, the fate of the world is at stake with the climate change crisis. Minorities’ existence is under threat by Republican “white supremacism.” They don’t want prosperity if it means some people—the hardest working, smartest, luckiest, most entrepreneurial, most self-sacrificing—can earn fabulous wealth. They see differences between people as unfair. They want sameness. They want to be given things, not to earn them.

There is no returning the hard Left to a harmless fringe. Their voters do not test their ideas or their policies by debate. They demonize Republican ideas instead of engaging with them. Far worse, they totally ignore real-world results. America’s success under President Trump, based on freedom for individuals, property rights, and free enterprise, only makes them angrier. 

These voters live in a subculture that tolerates no differing opinions. They are righteously determined to impose their values on the rest of us. 

This Democratic Party has gone rogue.

The entire article is here. Recommended.

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If Facebook can suspend Benjamin Netanyahu . . .

image credit: medium.com

Today is Constitution Day in America. In Israel, it is Election Day. Pamela Geller links to the Jewish Press report:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook chatbot was suspended on Tuesday, on elections day, after it published polling results.

Publishing polling results in the days prior to elections day is illegal in Israel.

“We work with election committees around the world to help maintain the purity of elections. Our policy specifically states that developers are required to comply with all applicable laws in the country where their app is available. Therefore, we have suspended the bot activity in violation of local law until the polls close,” Facebook stated.

Netanyahu accused Facebook of buckling to left-wing pressure.

Ms. Geller introduced this report with:

President Trump and the GOP better pay attention, this is a testing ground for the real show, your re-election.

So in Israel, it's against the law to publish polling results before the election. If memory serves, before the 2016 US election, the news outlets were wall-to-wall poll results. Facebook will merely need another reason.

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More YouTube censorship, now of RSBN

Sundance has multiple links for viewers who would like to watch President Trump’s rally this evening in New Mexico:

Tonight President Trump is holding a massive campaign rally in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.  According to local media people from across the state have been lining up for hours to attend the event.

The anticipated start time for President Trump is 9:00pm ET / 7:00pm MT with pre-rally speakers and events ongoing.  

But that is not the headline news. This is:

[**Note** YouTube has blocked RSBN from livestreaming the Trump rallies; so we are providing multiple alternate links below].

Repeat: YouTube is blocking Right Side Broadcasting Network from live-streaming President Trump’s speech. Be very afraid.

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Are you on Facebook?

It’s not just on Facebook. But here is how Michael Muldowney’s experience on FB ended up:

Is this where the liberals are headed?  Facts and reason are irrelevant?  They want what they want, and reality and the rest of us be damned?  We either kowtow to the liberal-Marxist-progressive-socialist-Democrat agenda or become non-persons?  Down the memory hole?  Have they lost the ability to engage as responsible participants in the civil society?  If one side throws a tantrum and refuses to act as normal adults, how can our nation continue to function?

Good question. Read the rest at American Thinker here.

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Debate 3

ABC photo via Conservative Treehouse

I was traveling yesterday and not able to watch the 3rd Democrat debate in Houston. Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media didn’t watch much of it either, but he had a better reason:

Heaven save us from these deranged progressive statists.

I didn't watch all of Round 3, I went back to my old ways and let Twitter and my PJ Media colleagues watch it for me. Doing that gives me a good way to assess which candidates are resonating and who's getting the most favorable buzz.

I did, however, tune in every now and then, immediately regretting the decision each time. Each time I did, I saw a different candidate explain why the federal government needed to intervene in my life in order to make it "better." Suffice it to say that I was not moved by the sales pitch.

My reactions will follow, but for those of you who want to skip ahead to the links, my friend Kira Davis summed it up fairly well:

Ok, just to catch you up...@TheDemocrats want to give free education, housing and healthcare to ex-felons and illegal immigrants and forcibly remove the legally, peacefully purchased firearms of millions of law-abiding citizens. Inspired yet? #DemDebate

The rest of the report is here. And it won’t chew up your entire evening.

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Patriot Day

Today is Patriot Day. Laurie Edwards Tate at Communities Digital News reports:

When New York City’s Twin Towers were attacked on September 11, 2001, America was forever transformed, and Patriot Day became a day of remembrance. Americans across the country tragically lost their unshakable belief that acts of foreign war and terror could not occur on American soil. 

As approximately 3,000 Americans died, while visions of burning buildings and people jumping to their deaths proliferated on the TV news, the country came together.  for a brief moment in time in a unified voice screaming in disbelief, shock, mourning, outrage and resolve to move forward together.

Full article is here.

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7 hours wasted

Did anyone watch the 7-hour Townhall on CNN with Democrat candidates campaigning on the subject of climate change? I didn't think so. Here is what you missed:

Ramirez cartoon via Townhall

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Chuckle of the day

Via Power Line:

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The American Dream or the Socialist Dream

In any election season, voters on all sides of the debates begin to tune out. Too much hollering, grandstanding, and lying. Ted Noel at American Thinker has some useful ideas about cutting through the noise:

When Left and right both say they want to promote "the American Dream," it's obvious that they aren't talking about the same thing.  So let's condense it.The American Dream is the idea that "You can bust your butt to make a better life, and not have it stolen by anyone, not even the government." 

The historical truth of this is self-evident.  People braved treacherous ocean crossings in barely seaworthy ships so they could scratch out an existence in a new land threatened by multitudes of unknown dangers.  This continued throughout our western expansion.  Now that we have subdued the physical threats faced by our pioneers, our uninformed progeny regard simple differences of opinion as worthy of the same response as marauding Apaches.  They march for "free everything" in the name of "socialism," while completely misunderstanding the following: 

The Socialist Dream is the idea that the government should steal the work of those who busted their butts to give it to those who won't get off their own.These sound bites are short enough for anyone who works for a living to comprehend them, even in the middle of the noise of life.  But we must go a bit farther.  When the Left calls the president a "Nazi," we should remind them that "Nazi" is short for "National Socialist."  When leftists scream for socialism, they are the Nazis.  And yes, Hitler's economics were socialist, and American Democrats were cheerleaders for Hitler.  Even John F. Kennedy was a fan of Hitler prior to World War II.

Mr. Noel's column is here.

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Good news. Michelle Malkin sanctuary city tour

Image credit: Regnery Publishing

Timothy Meads at Townhall reports:

Conservative author and powerhouse of a woman, Michelle Malkin, has announced a national U.S. Border & Sanctuary City Tour this fall. Malkin, author of the upcoming book Open Borders Inc.: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction, is "marching right into the belly of the beast to blow the whistle on the dark money groups and individuals funding America’s illegal immigration crisis."  

Malkin will travel to 18 cities that defy federal immigration policy, exposing businesses as well as Republican and Democratic officials who endanger American lives with reckless sanctuary city policies and illegal immigration employment. Certain local ordinances enacted by elected "leaders" forbid police and other public servants from cooperating with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.For example, many of these jurisdictions refuse to honor ICE detainer requests, and willingly release violators of American immigration law despite requests that local police hold these individuals until they can be taken into custody by federal authorities.

Full report is here.

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Steyn on blacklists, et al

Mark Steyn's column of Tuesday is my link of the day, and his subjects are the double standards and great divide between liberals and conservatives -- through the recent posturing by the TV stars of Will and Grace. A brief excerpt:

  

These days, alas, "Will & Grace" is all will and little grace, both of its stars leading the way in Hollywood's ever more naked enforcement of what is, if not yet a one-party state, certainly a one-party culture. The other day both of its eponymous stars, Eric McCormack and Debra Messing, demanded that The Hollywood Reporter release the names of all those attending a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Trump so that, in McCormack's words, "the rest of us can be clear about who we don't wanna work with". Hollywood stars have principles, you know: it's one thing to work with known sex predators, but quite another to work with a fellow who votes for the other party in a two-party system.

After announcing their plans for a new blacklist, Debra Messing (whom I enjoyed in the flop show "Smash") went further and agreed with an Alabama pastor that black Trump supporters are mentally ill. Personally, I am reluctant to pronounce on mental-health issues in a world where The New York Times will report straight-faced the claims of distinguished scientists to have "ridden on the back of an invisible bear conjured by an osha root" and American Airlines will let you board with a horse as your emotional support animal. By contrast, Miss Messing has no qualms about a wealthy white woman rebuking blacks for declining to vote as she instructs. Perhaps, for her next intervention, she'll be recommending mass institutionalization with compulsory sterilization.

Full column is here.

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Prager U. VS YouTube [Updated]

Last week, John Hinderaker at PowerLine had an update on Prager U’s legal battles against YouTube’s and Google’s censorship of its educational videos:

For several years, YouTube has suppressed Prager U’s videos by “restricting” them, which makes them invisible to viewers who are using the restricted mode, as is the case in many school environments, and by not allowing them to be monetized. After multiple appeals of YouTube’s discriminatory decisions, Prager U sued YouTube and Google in federal court, alleging violations of the First Amendment and the Lanham Act (the federal law that governs advertising in interstate commerce), as well as several causes of action under California law. The district court judge granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the federal counts, and Prager U appealed. That appeal was argued on Tuesday before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

That YouTube has engaged in viewpoint discrimination to the detriment of Prager U is indisputable. That YouTube does this because its employees disapprove of conservatism is obvious. But YouTube and Google are private companies, and the First Amendment applies only to government. (“Congress shall make no law…”) The U.S. Supreme Court has articulated a narrow exception where the First Amendment can apply to private entities if they “exercise powers traditionally exclusively reserved to the State.” Prager U faces an obvious hurdle, in that hosting videos is not a traditional governmental function.

Mr. Hinderaker is not all that optimistic in a speedy remedy:

Prager U may yet win its case, which is in its early innings. Perhaps the 9th Circuit will hold that Prager’s First Amendment and Lanham Act claims state a claim, and give it a green light to pursue discovery. Perhaps Prager U will prevail on its state law causes of action, although I assume that California’s judiciary is securely in the hands of the Democratic Party, which generally is not in favor of free speech. But for the foreseeable future, the Left’s control over the principal means of public communication will remain a huge advantage.

The full article is here.

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Happy Labor Day

image credit: vacuum engineering

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Cleveland Air Show tribute: Doolittle raider

photo credit: pat j dooley photography

This World War II Air Force B-25B medium bomber was in the Cleveland Air Show this weekend. As it was flown by the crowds, the announcer paid tribute to Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle’s co-pilot, Richard E. Cole, born in Dayton, Ohio.  Earlier this year, Cole passed away at age 103; he was the last survivor of the Doolittle raids on Tokyo. From Wikipedia: 

The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid (Saturday 18 April 1942), was an air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. It demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned, led by, and named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces.

Sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. (from Wikipedia)

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