Saturday, August 31, 2019

Ex-Canadian PM apologizes for 'rooting' for Hurricane Dorian to hit Trump's Mar-a-Lago


By Dartunorro Clark | NBC News



Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell.Blair Gable / Reuters file

Campbell, the first and only female prime minister of Canada, was excoriated online for her remark.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell apologized Friday for posting a tweet "rooting" for Hurricane Dorian to hit President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort as the storm barrels toward the Florida coast.

"I have deleted my tweet about the hurricane & Mar a Lago and sincerely apologize to all it offended," Campbell said in a tweet. "It was intended as sarcasm-not a serious wish of harm. Throwaway lines get a life of their own on Twitter. I sh[oul]d know better. Mea culpa."

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I have deleted my tweet about the hurricane & Mar a Lago and sincerely apologize to all it offended. It was intended as sarcasm-not a serious wish of harm. Throwaway lines get a life of their own on Twitter. I shd know better. Mea culpa.

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On Wednesday, as it became clearer the storm could track toward Florida, Campbell tweeted: "I'm rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago."

Campbell, who served as first and only female prime minister in Canada for less than five months in 1993, was excoriated online for her remark, which some characterized as insensitive.

Eric Trump, the president's son, called Campbell "classless" in a tweet Friday morning.

"Our family is rooting for the safety of millions of homes, businesses, families and wonderful people in a great State of Florida. #Classless," he wrote.

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Our family is rooting for the safety of millions of homes, businesses, families and wonderful people in a great State of Florida. #Classless Former Canadian prime minister roots for Dorian to hit Mar-a-Lago https://nypost.com/2019/08/30/former-canadian-prime-minister-roots-for-dorian-to-hit-trumps-mar-a-lago/ …





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Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and ally of the president, called her joke "sick & twisted," pointing out that workers at the club could be hurt by the hurricane if it crosses that way.

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Sick & twisted-fmr Canadian PM wishes hurricane to hit Mar-A-Lago. @realDonaldTrump won't be there to get hurt, but many ppl, including service workers, families, etc would be hurt and property destroyed. Are liberals this hateful? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/30/ex-canadian-prime-minister-roots-dorian-hit-trump-mar-lago/2161886001/ …




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The National Hurricane Center placed the 126-room Mar-a-Lago mansion and grounds — built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in Palm Beach, Florida, in the 1920s — in the path of Dorian.

Dorian strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane Friday evening, the hurricane center said. As the storm approaches Florida on Sunday and Monday, it is expected to slow down and increase in size.

Dorian could be the first Category 4 or higher hurricane to make landfall on Florida's east coast since 1992, when Hurricane Andrew was blamed for 44 deaths in the state. Anything at Category 3 or above is considered a major hurricane.

Earlier this year, Campbell was also criticized for calling Trump an expletive in a tweet and for suggesting he was mentally ill.

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Nor should the Presidency! 




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Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News.

All The People Who Think They Are Better Than You Are Much, Much Worse


By Kurt Schlichter | Townhall.com


[Excerpts]

Now our liberal elite, backed up by the Fredocon whose awakening into wokeness perfectly coincides with their utter rejection by us conservatives, have decided that our entire history is based upon slavery. 

The New York Times is spearheading this latest "trash-the-rubes" initiative, fresh off its "RUSSIA! TREASON! COLLUSION! EMOLUMENTS!" humiliation.

They tried to shame us (many of us veterans of the Cold War) with allegations of partying with Putin. It didn’t work out so great, so why not pivot to morally undermining us for having slaves we didn’t have?


Apparently.

It’s not like the ruling caste has achievements to back up its arrogance. 

Our elite is a collection of pedestrian mediocrities who inherited our civilization from the people who actually created it and fought for it. Like every spoiled child who was handed free stuff by his doting mommy and daddy, our elite is resentful and obnoxious.

Elites don’t appreciate what it takes to build, feed, fuel and defend what we have – as a group, they didn’t do any of those things. 

No one appreciates what he didn’t work for and earn, and our alleged betters did not work for and earn the positions and prestige they hold at the heads of our institutions. They got where they are by just showing up, and by parroting hacky, politically correct dogma, not by actual achievement.

Look at what our universities are pumping out. Their elite graduates can’t read or write and they think history started in 1996. The only things the elites have ever created are evermore tiresome and weird gender identities.

A historical comparison:

Hello, I am Teddy Roosevelt. I was born wealthy, won the Medal of Honor, busted the trusts like this Facebook atrocity of which you speak, and I literally punched out a bear once.

Yo, my name is Kaden. I’m an otherkin-identifying, non-binary gendered, two-spirit from Brooklyn with a degree in Climate Change Ventriloquism from Yale. I’m not ashamed to cry when I see a MAGA hat because my mom says my feelings are important. Bernie is too patriarchal for me, so Beto 2020!

Here’s a question, and it’s a fair one. What has the ruling class done right in the last 20 years? 

Crickets.

We know what America achieved under the old ruling class. 

It beat the Nazis – the real Nazis, not the fake bugaboo “Nazis” that the left labels everyone on the right. It fought through the Depression. It trashed the Democrat’s Jim Crow regime. It designed the ’65 Mustang, created the Big Mac and put a man on the moon. It crushed the communists in the Cold War.

The old elite was not perfect, but at least you can point to some tics in the “WIN” column.

Not so with the coterie of "elites" running our institutions today. It’s all check marks under “LOSS.” Iraq. The Wall Street Meltdown. Obamacare. 

Do you see a lot of successes? Do you see any? Have I overlooked some tremendous victory this generation of our betters pulled off? I can’t think of any offhand. Gee, how about social media? Yeah, there’s progress.

We are actually losing ground. Our light bulbs don’t light anymore, our front-loading washing machines don’t wash anymore and our straws don’t straw anymore. Even our Star Wars movies today are exponentially crappier than the ones from 40 years ago. 

So, what’s just one great thing the magnificent, magical masterminds of our elite have pulled off since maybe 2000? 

Just one. 

One thing. 

Go.

Uh, today we’re now really aware of our [FILL IN THE BLANK WITH TODAY’S DESIGNATED VILLAIN GROUP] privilege?

That’s not a thing.

And even that nonsense only applies to us Normals. 

For all their newly-woke awareness of their privilege, have you ever once seen a single member of our alleged elite argue that, due to its privilege, the elite should give up some of its power? You and me, sure. 

We totally need to give up our freedom and our money too.  Have you ever seen a single policy prescription for one of the pseudo-crises the elite is constantly trying to pimp turn out to be that they stop being in charge, that they give up some their ill-gotten gains?

Please. They’re so concerned with global warming that they all have to take private jets to Davos to tell us we need to start biking to work.

Yet, with a track record unbroken by success and unmarred by anything like competence, our elite still offers us a laundry list of tasks it demands we Normals undertake. 

Astonishingly, it does so with a straight face.

And our elite can't back up its arrogance with some sort of history of accomplishments, beyond the level of, “Well, our generation of leaders is the very best us we can be!”

There’s a healthcare crisis. Our task is to give up our freedom and give up our money to the elite to solve it.

There’s a gun crisis. Our task is to give up our freedom and give up our money to the elite to solve it.

There’s a climate crisis. Our task is to give up our freedom and give up our money to the elite to solve it.

They created most of these problems in the first place. 

They whine about student loans, but who set up the college cash machine that is American academia? 

Our medical system is a wreck? Dudes, our medical system is Obamacare, and you’re the ones who stuffed it down our gullets!

In what way has our elite proven itself capable of doing anything right, much less overseeing our doctors, protecting our newly-disarmed citizenry and controlling the weather? 

What happens if the useless elite prevails? 

Well, find out in my action-packed yet hilarious novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People's RepublicIndian Country and Wildfire


Friday, August 30, 2019

Joe Biden Continues To Embarrass Himself Over Fake War Story Fiasco


By Matt Vespa


Source: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

Former Vice President Joe Biden is on the struggle bus. He’s ahead in the polls, yes. But he’s also become a gaffe machine. From not knowing which is his current location on the campaign trail to telling fake war stories, Joey has done it all in less than a week. We have a long way to go before Election Day 2020. And a frontrunner who can’t get simple things right has to have Democrats a bit uneasy. 

Biden is at the top of the heap because of his name recognition and this notion that he can attract white working-class voters. He can do that, but not with this Democratic Party. 

Biden will be forced to answer about abortion up until the moment of birth, health care for illegal aliens, and open borders. He will have to adopt or appear to be not hostile to those positions—all of which are unpopular. Even health care is a crapshoot now that Democrats appear to be totally fine with nuking private health insurance in their quest to adopt Medicare for All across the country, which will lead to the mother of all tax increases.

Yet, before that all happens, we have to discuss this war story fiasco. The former VP told this anecdote at a campaign stop in New Hampshire this week—and it’s pretty much all false. Even The Washington Post couldn’t spin it [emphasis mine]:

Joe Biden painted a vivid scene for the 400 people packed into a college meeting hall. A four-star general had asked the then-vice president to travel to Konar province in Afghanistan, a dangerous foray into “godforsaken country” to recognize the remarkable heroism of a Navy captain.

Some told him it was too risky, but Biden said he brushed off their concerns.
“We can lose a vice president,” he said. “We can’t lose many more of these kids. Not a joke.”

The Navy captain, Biden recalled Friday night, had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire and retrieved the body of an American comrade, carrying him on his back. Now the general wanted Biden to pin a Silver Star on the American hero who, despite his bravery, felt like a failure.

“He said, ‘Sir, I don’t want the damn thing!’ ” Biden said, his jaw clenched and his voice rising to a shout. “ ‘Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!’”

The room was silent.

“This is the God’s truth,” Biden had said as he told the story. “My word as a Biden.”

Except almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect. Based on interviews with more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders and Biden campaign officials, it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.

What’s worse is that Biden pretty much doubled down on it, saying that the essence of this war story that never happened was true. Julio Rosas at The Washington Examiner has more[emphasis mine]:

Biden appears to have recalled inaccurately a 2011 awards ceremony in Afghanistan's Wardak province, when he pinned the Bronze Star on Army Staff Sgt. Chad Workman after Workman had attempted to save a friend from a burning vehicle.

"In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony," the Washington Post reported, adding he appears to have muddled three different stories into one.
Talking with the Post and Courier on Thursday, Biden said he did not read the Post's report.

I don’t understand what they’re talking about, but the central point is it was absolutely accurate what I said,” Biden said. “He refused the medal. I put it on him, he said, ‘Don’t do that to me, sir. He died. He died.’"

“There was one that relates to the forward-operating base in Afghanistan that I went to and a separate one where I went on the streets of Afghanistan where a young man pulled someone from a burning humvee,” Biden said.

Joe, it was false. It either happened or it didn’t—and it looks like this story didn’t happen. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also got into some hot water during his 2010 Senate race, where he said he served in Vietnam. He didn’t. 

Disgraced anchor Brian Williams, one of the founding fathers of fake news, also told some war stories about Iraq, one of which was a harrowing tale about being on a helicopter that was taken down by rocket-propelled grenade fire. That was a lie

Thursday, August 29, 2019

James Comey violated FBI policies with memos on Trump discussions, IG report says




The OIG concluded that Comey violated applicable policies in his FBI employment agreement by providing one of the unclassified memos that contained official FBI information to a friend with instructions to turn the information over to a reporter.

A scathing inspector general report released Thursday said that fired FBI Director James Comey violated bureau policies by drafting, leaking and retaining memos documenting private discussions with President Trump.

The Justice Department's official watchdog concluded that the memos Comey kept were, in fact, "official FBI records," and said Comey set a "dangerous example" with his actions.


"By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information," the report stated.

While the findings of the probe were forwarded to the DOJ, the department has declined prosecution, as Fox News reported earlier this month. But for Comey, who has cultivated the image of a by-the-book and irreproachable leader since his termination in 2017, the review shined a harsh light on his decisionmaking in the final, beleaguered weeks of his tenure at the head of the nation's top law enforcement agency.

The 83-page document outlined a series of violations, including that he broke FBI policies and the bureau's employment agreement "by providing one of the unclassified memos that contained official FBI information, including sensitive investigative information, to his friend with instructions for the friend to share the contents of the memo with a reporter."

Further, the IG determined that Comey kept copies of four memos (out of the total seven he drafted) in a personal safe at home after his removal as director -- and in doing so "violated FBI policies and his FBI Employment Agreement by failing to notify the FBI that he had retained them." The IG said Comey again violated the rules "by providing copies ... of the four memos he had kept in his home to his three private attorneys without FBI authorization," and by failing to alert the FBI once he learned one of the memos contained sections later deemed classified at the confidential level.


Comey's GOP critics slammed the former FBI boss in the wake of the report. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, called his actions "disgraceful."

The report repeatedly and pointedly alleged that Comey wrongly violated policies for personal reasons -- in this case, in order to spur a special counsel probe.

"[E]ven when these employees believe that their most strongly-held personal convictions might be served by an unauthorized disclosure, the FBI depends on them not to disclose sensitive information. Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility," the report said.

For his part, Comey zeroed in on a section that said he didn't leak classified material directly to the media -- and urged his critics to tell him "sorry we lied about you."

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DOJ IG "found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media." I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a “sorry we lied about you” would be nice.

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The inspector general's separate, broader review of potential intelligence community surveillance abuses remains ongoing. Earlier this month, it emerged that IG Michael Horowitz had referred Comey's case to the DOJ for a possible criminal prosecution, but that lawyers opted against bringing charges -- with one source telling Fox News it "wasn't a close call."

Comey admitted to Congress during testimony in June 2017 that, after he was fired, he purposefully leaked several memos through an intermediary to ensure that a special counsel would be appointed. Comey specifically leaked his memos to a friend, Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman, who now serves as Comey's legal counsel. Richman ultimately leaked the contents of the memo to The New York Times.

The media firestorm that followed the leak proved a watershed moment that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment.

"Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure," the inspector general report stated. "What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome."

The inspector general report revealed that former FBI agent Peter Strzok spoke to Richman after Comey admitted sharing his memos. Strzok, according to the report, urged Richman to "please preserve" anything Comey had given him. Richman told the inspector general that after his initial conversation with Strzok, he had multiple conversations with members of the FBI about the "mechanics" and "logistical complexities" of retrieving Comey's memos from his computer.

By June 13, 2017, FBI agents went to Richman's home in New York to remove his desktop computer and returned it only after they took steps "to permanently remove" the memos from it. According to the report, the FBI agents also assisted Richman in deleting the text message with photographs of Comey's memo--specifically "memo 4"--from his cell phone.

Public outrage centered on the news that Comey wrote in one of his memos that Trump had told him, "I hope you can let this go," amid reports that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied to the FBI and senior White House officials about his contacts with Russia's government.

'Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees.'

Flynn later pleaded guilty to one count of lying to FBI agents in the White House.

Although Comey said he wrote the memos so that they would not contain classified information, two of his memos--memos "1" and "3"--contained information later classified at the "SECRET" level. Memos "2" and "7" contained small amounts of information classified at the "CONFIDENTIAL" level. The FBI designated memos "4, 5, and 6" remained unclassified--"For Official Use Only."

Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, denied that sharing the memos with his legal team constituted a leak of classified information. Instead, he compared the process to keeping “a diary.”

“I didn’t consider it part of an FBI file,” Comey told Fox News' Bret Baier last year, referring to the memos. “It was my personal aide-memoire…I always thought of it as mine."

According to the report, Comey reviewed his memos on the back porch of his home on June 7, 2017, after the FBI provided them to him. His first reaction was that some of the classification markings seemed "reasonable" and some seemed "overly conservative." Comey took issue with the classification markings on "memo 2," noting that he "did not see how release of that [information] damages the security of the United States."

Despite Comey's comments last year claiming that he considered his memos "personal," the inspector general's report stated that: "As Comey well knew, classified information is never considered personal property; rather, it is the property of the U.S. government."

Comey's memos included a slew of other secretive information, including the "code name and true identity" of a confidential source, according to a court-ordered filing by the Justice Department earlier this year.

Comey meticulously outlined "foreign intelligence information obtained from and through" the key human source, "information about whether the FBI initiated coverage through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on a particular individual," relevant "sources and methods" used in the FBI's investigation, as well as "information concerning the President's foreign policy decisionmaking," according to the DOJ.

All of that information is "currently and properly classified," the DOJ said.
Horowitz first publicly confirmed last year that his office was investigating Comey for his handling of classified information related to the memos.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Educating Poor Kids: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Gives Up on Minority Kids


By Jason L. Riley | The Wall Street Journal


PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mayor de Blasio may identify as a progressive champion of the underprivileged, but the reality is that he’s blocking the surest path to the middle class by relegating the city’s poor to inferior schools.

To say that many liberal elites have all but given up on educating low-income minorities might seem like an overstatement. But when you consider the state of public education in our inner cities, and the priorities of those in charge, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion.

After Labor Day, New York City’s 1.1 million public school students will return to the classroom. The majority of them can’t do basic reading or math, according to state standardized test results released last week. And the numbers get even more depressing when broken down by race and ethnicity.

Black and Hispanic students make up 67% of the system, while whites and Asians are about 15% and 16%, respectively. Only 28% of black students passed the math exam, versus 33% of Hispanics, 67% of whites and 74% of Asians. On the English exam, the passage rates were 68% for Asians, 67% for whites, 37% for Hispanics and 35% for blacks.

Sadly, these racial gaps in academic achievement have persisted for decades, and they are a main source of racial inequality in America. Want to help someone avoid poverty or addiction or incarceration? An education goes a long way. 

The irony is that the same social-justice advocates who obsess over inequality also spurn reforms, such as public charter schools, that help close black-white differences in learning. “City charter schools, now teaching roughly 10% of the city’s student population, markedly outperformed traditional public schools again” on the state tests, reported the New York Post. Fifty-seven percent of charter-school test takers passed the state English exam, and 63% passed the math portion.

Moreover, the highest scores in the state, for the third year in a row, came from Success Academy, a New York City-based charter-school network, where the passage rates for math and English were an astounding 99% and 90%, respectively. Even more impressive is that these charter students are mostly low-income blacks and Hispanics, not middle-class Asians and whites.

If the primary goal were student achievement, Democratic politicians like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio would allow these successful school models to proliferate. But the mayor is far more interested in placating his political benefactors, the powerful teachers unions, which oppose charter schools because they don’t control them. 

To the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and their thousands of state and local affiliates, public education is more about jobs than about kids. Reforms that marginalize or circumvent union members are rejected, regardless of whether they benefit students. Mr. de Blasio may identify as a progressive champion of the underprivileged, but that’s lip service. The reality is that he’s blocking the surest path to the middle class for the city’s poor by relegating them to inferior schools.

Opponents of school reform insist that a lack of funding is a major problem, but education spending has increased for decades without significant improvements in outcomes. Per pupil spending in places like Baltimore and Washington is among the highest in the nation, but you’d never know that based on test scores. In New York’s poorer neighborhoods, school spending is significantly higher than the citywide average, which in turn is well above the national average.

The claim that racism explains the learning gap also can’t withstand scrutiny, but that hasn’t stopped liberals from making school desegregation a priority. In fact, some of the best public schools in the country are high-performing charter schools with large percentages of black and brown students. That doesn’t mean segregated schools are desirable or that they lead to academic success, but at the very least it does suggest that black children don’t need white classmates before they can learn how to multiply fractions or diagram sentences.

Nevertheless, the left’s ideological obsession with racial balance in the classroom continues. Mr. de Blasio is currently preoccupied with trying to phase out gifted-and-talented programs because they are populated with too many white and Asian students. This is an extension of his beef with the city’s elite public high schools, which admit kids based on a standardized exam. 

It’s worth noting that even the New York Times has questioned the mayor’s reasoning and the possible fallout. “He risks alienating tens of thousands of mostly white and Asian families whose children are enrolled in the gifted programs and selective schools,” the paper wrote this week. “If a substantial number of those families leave the system, it would be even more difficult to achieve integration.”

You’d think that the main objective of the inequality-obsessed would be to help more minorities meet high academic standards, but Mr. de Blasio and his fellow progressives would rather eliminate the standards altogether. I’d call that giving up on minority kids. What would you call it?


Tuesday, August 27, 2019

What Socialism Means For Average People


Obamas Strike Blow for Economic Justice, Donate Millions in Exchange for Massive Beachfront Estate


By Andrew Stiles


The Obamas are buying a Martha's Vineyard estate from Boston Celtics owner


The former president conquers 'wealth anxiety.'

Celebrity authors Barack and Michelle Obama are striking a blow for social, economic, and climate justice, vowing to donate an undisclosed eight-figure sum to Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck in exchange for his massive beachfront estate on Martha's Vineyard, the luxury island vacation spot popular with Northeastern elites, boat-shoed bon vivants, and other rich freaks who use "summer" as a verb and donate to Pete Buttigieg.


The 29-acre property, which includes a 7,000-square-foot main house with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and two guest wings, is listed at $14.85 million—well within the Obamas' price range after signing a "high eight-figure" production deal with Netflix, in addition to a joint book deal reportedly worth $65 million. There's also an outdoor pool and fireplace, balcony jacuzzi, chef's kitchen, and a private boathouse.

The former president, who once scolded Wall Street executives by saying, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money," is potentially suffering from wealth anxiety, which could explain why he has decided to give so much money to such a worthy cause.


The purchase has not yet been finalized, but barring any unforeseen setbacks, the Obamas will soon become the proud owners of their third mansion, in addition to properties in Chicago and Washington, D.C. "There's only so big a house you can have," Barack Obama said in 2018.


Obama once claimed his election marked "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow." The decision to buy a property so close to the water is perhaps a subtle vote of confidence in President Donald Trump's efforts to combat climate change.