- American college student Otto Warmbier died less than a week after he was released by North Korea.
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Ben Domenech writes on “Globalism and Why We Hate Each Other”:
What’s concerning is the signs this corporate elite is now wielding power far more directly and at whim than our political elite. In America, the fundamental problem with the presence of this global elite has nothing to do with trade or property rights. It has to do with the power they wield without check or balance in an increasingly centralized tech-driven economy. Much has been written in recent years about the gridlock in Washington, but the masters of the tech economy have no such gridlock to face. The ability to impose values on the country, in exchange for promises of lower prices and vertical integration, is now arguably much greater than that of elected representatives. After all, Davos and Aspen don’t have a cloture rule.
In an economy that is increasingly driven by the global elite, will the values that have been central to our nation’s history exist in a meaningful sense? Or will they be discarded as inconvenient bugs, virulent viruses passed on from our ignorant forefathers that must be cured? Can free speech and religious liberty survive in an environment when our corporate leaders see honor in stamping out fake news and non-science based thinking?
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The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Wisconsin gerrymandering case. An appeals court ruled that the Republican-controlled legislature violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause and free speech when they drew the state’s districts.
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A Republican data analytics firm, Deep Root Analytics, left personal information and voter profile data on 198 million people on an open server.
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A think tank called Just Facts analyzed data from the 2008 election and concluded that as many as 5.7 million non-citizens voted.
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A Texas task force studying hydraulic fracturing concluded that fracking hasn’t contaminated groundwater in Texas and isn’t an earthquake hazard.
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The State Department released a report on the CIA’s involvement in Iran’s 1953 coup.
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Darren Osborne drove a van into a group of Muslims leaving a mosque in Finsbury Park, London. One person died at the scene, but it’s not clear if the death was the result of the attack.
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After the U.S. shot down a Syrian government Su–22, Russia stopped “de-conflicting” operations with the U.S. over Syrian airspace.
Tag: voter fraud
Links for 6-18-2017
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The seven missing sailors from the USS Fitzgerald were found dead in flooded compartments.
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A U.S. Navy F/A–18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian government Su–22 after the Syrian plane bombed Syrian Democratic Forces troops near Raqqa.
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Iran claims it fired medium range surface-to-surface missiles into ISIS positions in Syria in retaliation for two bombings in Tehran. The missiles have to traverse northern Iraq. You might recall that the Iranian government initially blamed Saudi Arabia for the two bombings.
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Lockheed Martin is closing a multi-year deal to sell 440 F–35s worth $37 billion to 11 countries, including the U.S.
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The Los Angeles Times profiled a special forces soldier turned aide worker who rescued an Iraqi toddler in Mosul while risking ISIS sniper fire.
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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman used a private email address to conduct official business as he and other attorneys general sued Exxon over climate change.
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An Ellis County, Texas constable was convicted of voter fraud. Tyron Davis helped nursing home residents apply for mail-in ballots without indicating that he assisted them, which is required by Texas law.
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Early election results indicate French President Emmanuel Macron’s party won a majority during today’s parliamentary election.
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The Afghan army captured Tora Bora from ISIS. Last week ISIS captured Tora Bora from the Taliban.
Links for 5-24-2017
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The Department of Health and Human Services issued a report stating that individual health insurance premiums more than doubled between 2013 and 2017. So much for President Obama’s promise that an average family’s health insurance premiums would decrease $2,500 a year under ObamaCare.
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The Congressional Budget Office released its score for TrumpCare and it qualifies for reconciliation in the Senate. The CBO scores for ObamaCare were completely divorced from reality and the Senate is going to re-write TrumpCare, so the debate you’ll see over this new CBO score is a waste of time.
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Shortly before it left office, the Obama administration informed the FISA court that more than 5% of NSA searches of Internet data on Americans violated the Fourth Amendment safeguards the administration promised to follow in 2011.
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The Philippine government released a transcript of a phone call between Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte where Trump told Duterte that he’s doing a “great job” with the drug problem in the Philippines. Duterte’s solution to the drug problem amounts to encouraging vigilantes to kill drug addicts, which is not the sort of thing you’d expect an American president to condone. Duterte just declared martial law in Mindanao to deal with the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, and hinted that he’s willing to expand that to the entire country.
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The USS Dewey sailed to within 12 miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, which is one of China’s artificially created islands. This was the first time the U.S. Navy conducted a “freedom of navigation operation” in an area claimed by China during the Trump administration.
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The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is paying Boeing $146 million to build a prototype spaceplane capable of delivering small satellites to orbit on a daily basis.
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Two poll workers in Harris County, Texas pleaded guilty to unlawfully casting a ballot for another person, a misdemeanor. They each served a day in jail.
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During California’s Democratic Party convention, an establishment candidate narrowly defeated a Bernie Sanders supporter in the election for state party chair. The losing candidate and her supporters are claiming there was vote fraud — in particular, the party didn’t check IDs as people voted. This is one of those rare occasions when Democrats are concerned about vote fraud.
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Target paid $18.5 million to settle state lawsuits over a 2013 hacking incident that compromised the credit and debit cards of more than 40 million customers. Target got off easy.
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Authorities in Tripoli, Libya arrested the father and younger brother of the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi. The younger brother reportedly confessed that he knew about the Manchester plot and that he considers himself a member of ISIS. Authorities in the U.K. discovered bomb-making materials in Salman Abedi’s home. Another report claims Salman Abedi had ties to al Qaeda.
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The Syrian army claims they killed ISIS’ military commander in Syria, Abu Musab al-Masri.
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Bellingcat produced a catalog of ISIS drone bombs and where to find them.
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Sir Roger Moore passed away at age 89, and there’s a tremendous story about him circulating on social media that you should read.
Links for 5-23-2017
- The Manchester attack was a suicide bombing by Salman Abedi, the 22 year old son of Libyan refugees. Abedi was known to British authorities as a potential terrorist; it appears that authorities arrested Adebi’s older brother after the attack. Twenty-two people died, including an eight year old girl, Saffie-Rose Roussos. The British government raised the terrorist threat level to “critical” for the first time in 10 years, apparently due to the threat of another attack.
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The Trump administration is considering a plan to train 17,000 new members of Afghanistan’s special forces. That would double the size of that force, and would require sending more American special forces troops to Afghanistan to train them.
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American special forces troops raided an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula compound in central Yemen and killed seven fighters.
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Up to 74% of the Marine Corps’ fleet of F/A–18 fighters aren’t fit to fly.
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Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are partnering with Japanese companies to develop improved missile defense radars. Raytheon is working with Mitsubishi Electric and Lockheed is working with Fujitsu.
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John Daniel Davidson writes that Donald Trump overestimates the Palestinians’ desire for peace:
The uncomfortable reality is that for Palestinian leaders, the incentives for concluding peace with Israel pale in comparison to the rewards for maintaining tension, allowing sporadic violence, and advancing the “Israeli occupation” narrative. After all, that’s how they retain their hold on power—and making concessions to Israel as part of a real peace process would be a sure-fire way to lose it.
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The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler, accusing the company of cheating on diesel engine emissions tests. Fiat Chrysler denies any wrongdoing.
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Donald Trump’s budget includes a provision to sell half of the country’s strategic oil reserve. The reserve currently contains of 688 million barrels of crude oil.
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PJ Media published a two part interview with former Senator Tom Coburn, who has a new book entitled Smashing the DC Monopoly: Using Article V to Restore Freedom and Stop Runaway Government.
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The Pakistani family that’s under investigation for stealing equipment and data from the House of Representatives while they worked as IT contractors have been selling their assets in the U.S., and at least one of them reportedly returned to Pakistan. Charges still haven’t been filed, and some people are wondering if that’s because they’re blackmailing House members with the stolen data.
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A Dallas County, Texas whistleblower secretly recorded a former Democrat Party precinct chair describing how an illegal vote harvesting scheme works, including bribing a county elections department employee. Texas doesn’t require mail-in ballots to be authenticated, and until it does there’s no defense against schemes like this.
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Carrier plans to lay off 632 people at its Indianapolis factory and move the jobs to Mexico.
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India’s army attacked Pakistani army outposts in Kashmir. India claims they did this in response to Pakistani infiltration across the border.
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An Indian Air Force Su–30 went missing near the India-China border.
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Arrests continue in Turkey: “Turkish authorities have issued detention orders for 33 people at the telecommunications watchdog and 36 people at the capital markets watchdog, broadcaster CNN Turk reported on Tuesday.” These people are allegedly associated with Fethullah Gulen.
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South Korean troops fired at what was probably a drone crossing over the border from North Korea.
Links for 5-19-2017
- James Downton argues there’s a slow motion coup d’etat in progress, led by the administrative state and the media:
Unlike the coup d’etat that sees a military or popular figure lead a minority resistance or majority force into power over the legitimate government, this coup d’etat is leaderless and exposes some of the deepest fissures in our system of government. This coup d’etat represents not the rule of one man or even many, but by the multitude of our elites.
Later:
Complicit with the authoritarian nature of the administrative state is factions within the United States intelligence community both inside and outside the White House. They have engaged in a campaign of selective leaks and plots to undermine the president of the United States and weave a media narrative of Russian influence, conspiracy, and now obstruction of justice. With their media allies, they have leaked information and intelligence that — while lacking any actual criminal element — has allowed a narrative to arise that casts a dark shadow over the White House and those who live and work in it.
- Matthew Continetti writes that the country is on the verge of a nervous breakdown:
The most successful presidents don’t sweat the small stuff. They focus on one or two or three things they want to accomplish, laws they want to pass, initiatives they want to launch, countries they want to invade. Details are left to underlings. The president is there to uphold the integrity of the office, attend ceremonial functions, use the bully pulpit when he can, and decide on matters of personnel and national security. Recently, though, it has seemed as if the small stuff is the only thing Donald Trump sweats. Negative coverage, personal slights, how one performs onscreen, the light fixtures and flat-screen televisions in the residence—this is what animates him, what captures his attention.
Presidents sell agendas: supply-side economics and missile defense, the war on drugs and Desert Storm, the budget and crime bills and welfare reform, the tax cut and prescription drug bills and No Child Left Behind, the stimulus and Dodd-Frank and Obamacare. Trump sells himself. What happens in Washington these days isn’t politics. It’s brand extension. Which is why the Russia probe agitates him so. Not only because it’s an investigation into email hacks and lobbying and tax records, but also because it’s an attempt to discredit his brand, to subvert his reputation as a winner.
- Former FBI Director James Comey will publicly testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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The Trump administration formally notified Congress that it’s renegotiating NAFTA. Over the next 90 days the administration and Congress are supposed to set objectives for revising NAFTA.
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Donald Trump nominated Callista Gingrich as ambassador to the Vatican.
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Another video of Turkish President Erdogan’s bodyguards assaulting protesters outside the Turkish embassy appears to show Erdogan instructing a goon to start the attack. The Turkish ambassador was summoned to the State Department for a lecture, but it’s not clear if there will be any further consequences. Meanwhile Turkey is calling for the Trump administration to fire Brett McGurk, who represents the U.S. to “friendly” forces in Syria. In that capacity, McGurk met members of the YPG in Syria on May 17.
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American planes bombed a convoy of pro-Assad militias as they approached a base in Syria where American special forces soldiers operate.
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The House of Representatives hasn’t sent its TrumpCare bill to the Senate because they voted on it before the Congressional Budget Office scored it. If the CBO score shows that the TrumpCare bill doesn’t save at least $2 billion, it won’t qualify for reconciliation in the Senate and the House will have to vote on a revised bill.
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The FCC took the first steps to undo its net neutrality rules.
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New data from the interstate voter registration crosscheck program indicates 7.2 million Americans are registered to vote in two states.
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Planned Parenthood will close six clinics in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Planned Parenthood will also close four facilities in Iowa after the state cut the group’s funding.
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A Freedom of Information Act request revealed a close working relationship between Planned Parenthood and the California Attorney General’s office.
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Anthony Weiner pleaded guilty to sexting with a 15-year-old, and his wife Huma Abedin filed for divorce.
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The Guardian published a story on Portsmouth, Ohio’s drug problems:
On my first night in town, a beat-up car parks next to me, positioned in the darkness cast by my van. The passenger, a middle-aged woman, injects the driver in the neck. He stays still, head tilted to expose a vein, as she works the needle in, while two young boys play in the back seat.
Done, they pull away as I try to fool myself into thinking I didn’t see what I saw.
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The U.S. imposed sanctions on members of Venezuela’s Supreme Court as punishment for trying to annul the country’s opposition-led Congress.
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Bloomberg published a photo essay documenting 44 days and nights of protests in Venezuela.
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Brazil’s Supreme Court released plea bargain testimony that claims President Michel Temer accepted bribes totaling $4.6 million from a meatpacking company. The same testimony claims former presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff also accepted bribes.
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Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for the owner and three employees of opposition newspaper Sozcu, claiming they committed crimes on behalf of Fethullah Gulen.
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British police say they’ll still arrest Julian Assange if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy in London even though Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into a rape allegation against him.
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Marine Le Pen plans to run for the French parliament. The elections are next month.
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Two Chinese Su–30 fighters intercepted an American WC–135 Constant Phoenix aircraft over the East China Sea. The WC–135 is the U.S. Air Force’s “nuclear sniffer” aircraft.
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Four Chinese Coast Guard ships sailed into Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands.
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China’s new Z–19E attack helicopter made its first flight. China intends to sell the helicopter to foreign governments.
Links for 5-14-2017
- The latest North Korean missile test flew to an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers. If the missile had been launched for maximum distance, it would have covered 4,500 kilometers, putting Guam within reach. North Korea claims the missile is designed to carry a nuclear warhead.
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Kevin Williamson points out that in the midst of a crisis involving North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons, we don’t have ambassadors to China, South Korea, or Japan because the Trump administration has been slow to fill these and other slots at the State Department:
Salutary inaction often is the best medicine in government. We could close the Small Business Administration tomorrow, and the republic would stand. I am pleased that Betsy DeVos is the secretary of education, and I hope she is the last one. By all means, shutter the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Federal Consumer Information Center, fire the employees, burn the records, knock down the buildings, and salt the earth, until nothing is left of them but sad stories.
But let’s have an ambassador in China.
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In the wake of Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity,” some Democrats are changing their mantra that voter fraud doesn’t exist to an admission that people are illegally registered to vote, accompanied by an assertion that these people don’t actually vote.
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A Kentucky appellate court ruled that a T-shirt shop owner has First Amendment rights, and that he can’t be forced to print messages with which he disagrees.
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A group of tribal, political, and military leaders is planning the secession of southern Yemen. Yemen was unified in 1994 when northern forces defeated the south. After two years of civil war, some people see an opportunity to split the country again.
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Venezuela is trying at least some protesters before military tribunals.
Links for 5-11-2017
- Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity.” The chair and vice-chair are Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, respectively. Election results in Dallas County, Texas are delayed thanks to credible allegations of mail-in ballot fraud; there are also allegations of vote harvesting.
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George Soros is funding a new campaign targeting companies that may benefit from Trump administration policies: “The campaign, known as ‘Corporate Backers of Hate,’ targets nine companies: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, IBM, BlackRock, Uber, and Blackstone.”
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Former Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) was convicted on 18 counts of wire fraud and tax evasion related to a charity she operated.
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Health insurance company Aetna plans to exit all ObamaCare exchanges in 2018.
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Someone at New York University accidentally leaked information about an advanced code-breaking supercomputer to the internet. The computer was a joint development between NYU, IBM, and the Department of Defense.
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So far 60 Middlebury College students have been punished for the fracas that erupted when Charles Murray delivered a speech on campus. Some students are under criminal investigation for assaulting professor Allison Stanger.
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Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked wants the U.S. to tell the Palestinian Authority to stop paying terrorists to attack Israelis and Americans. This would seem to be an obvious thing to do, and yet…
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The U.S. and Russia renewed their agreement dealing with military air traffic over Syria. The scheme started in 2015 but Russia canceled it last month after the Trump administration fired cruise missiles into a Syrian air base.
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The Lebanese parliament’s term ends on June 20, and Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and Maronite Christians are arguing over the election law that dictates the government’s structure:
Lebanon’s once-dominant Maronite Christians are at the heart of the dispute. Maronite leaders say the law used to hold the last election gives Muslims too much say over which Christian MPs get elected.
The main Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) founded by President Michel Aoun, wants a law that redraws constituencies so that more of the Christian seats are decided exclusively by Christian voters.
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Ben Shapiro for PragerU: “Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings”:
