Daily Shaarli
September 27, 2020
Lanny Davis is a long time Democratic political operative, Clintonista and lawyer.
So he’s a good window into the Democratic thought.
But doesn’t his letter/tweet thread tell you everything about what they think of you if you live in a red state?
The Illinois GOP picked a losing argument to make which had nothing to do with Jacobsen. //
The difference in Pennsylvania was that the Plaintiffs there challenged the MANNER in which Gov. Wolf exercised his authority under police powers to curtail liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court examined the justifications and evidence which Gov. Wolf claimed supported the liberty restrictions in his Orders, and Judge Stickman found them to be insufficient.
The Illinois GOP did not ask the Court to do that — the Illinois GOP asked for an Injunction before any evidence was gathered on the subject of why/how Gov. Pritzker arrived at his decisions to impose lockdown conditions in the manner in which he did.
California will phase out the sale of all gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 in a bid to lead the U.S. in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging the state's drivers to switch to electric cars.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday that amounts to the most aggressive clean-car policy in the United States. Although it bans the sale of new gas cars and trucks after the 15-year deadline, it will still allow such vehicles to be owned and sold on the used-car market. ///
Where will they get all that electricity? They already don't have enough!!
Can you imagine trying to to flee wildfires and you haven't been able to charge up your car because the electricity was of due to wildfires?
Some new information has surfaced in the Jacob Blake case and it gives us a glimpse into the defense of the officer’s actions on the day of the incident that resulted in Blake’s hospitalization. According to his lawyer, Officer Rusten Sheskey told investigators that his actions weren’t only motivated by safeguarding his own life, but that he was also trying to defend the children involved.
Reporter: how are you going to make everyone hold hands and sing Kumbayah?
Becton: I’m not going to.
Reporter: aren’t you concerned about all the really bad thoughts out there?
Becton: No. I can’t change what you believe but I can damn sure modify your behavior.
It had an elegant simplicity that has stuck with me ever since. You can’t waste your time trying to change what people think. You need to focus on what you can change, which is behavior. When Becton left VII Corps in 1981, he left a combat-ready organization that, though it still had problems, had largely vanquished the racial divisions that had made it nearly combat ineffective.
I think the people questioning Trump’s sincerity have to ask themselves three questions. First, do the Democrats act on their promises to Black America, or are they pandering? Second, if the Democrats are pandering, how is Trump’s pander more offensive? And third, if Trump delivers on his promises, even if they are a pander, are the results less valid?
Let’s take, for instance, sentencing reform. Assuming sentencing reform is just a pander, the questions that must be answered by those carping are a) were federal sentencing procedures changed, and b) are the people released from long prison sentences under the reforms actually out of prison?
We, on the right, have gone through the same thing with President Trump and abortion. Is President Trump, in his heart, pro-life? I really have no way of answering that? Are his pro-life rhetoric and acts a pander, or do they represent an actual conversion? Again, I have no way of knowing. Putting that aside, though, I can look at his actions. He has put overtly pro-life judges on the bench. He is the first president to ever speak at a March for Life. He’s defunded Planned Parenthood and defended the Mexico City rule. He’s signed an executive order that attempts to protect the lives of children who’ve survived abortion.
I hope he’s had a spiritual conversion because we should always pray for the salvation of all souls, but do I set up night worrying about it? No. I do not doubt that George W. Bush was, deep down, pro-life. I also know that Donald Trump has done more for the cause of life in less than four years than Bush, who I admired, did in eight.
My advice to the people worrying about pandering is that they are concerned with the wrong issue. There is no way they can ever truly know the answer to that question and it is not important. They should have precisely two concerns. Does Trump deliver on his promise, and is the initiative executed in good faith, that is, is it resourced and managed properly?
I don’t care about what you believe. I do care about your actions.
The reason the plan to fill Ginsburg’s seat was announced the same night as her death was never a mystery: The president explained several times over the last week that the new justice’s nomination and confirmation needed to happen in the same amount of time Barack Obama allowed the nation to mourn before even naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 because Trump needs her to weigh in on any election-related controversy on his behalf. As he put it to reporters on Monday: “We need nine justices,” he said. “You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending.” He explained that because of his (farcical, proofless) claim that mail-in ballots will be a source of rampant fraud, this ninth justice must be seated before an election challenge is mounted. That pronouncement came just prior to his claim that he could not commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election. Again: The reason a ninth justice is needed to be seated in advance of the election in which voting is already taking place is to decide whatever lawsuit is coming in his favor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, on Saturday Trump did not overtly ask Barrett to rule in his favor next month while detailing her biography on the White House lawn.
Trump has similarly announced on multiple occasions that he needs this vacant seat filled because Roe v. Wade cannot be allowed to stand and that any nominee of his would “automatically” overturn it. Indeed, several GOP senators are on the record saying they would refuse to vote for Judge Barrett unless she openly promises to do so.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) informed the secret surveillance court that the Bureau did not disclose the fact that it has investigated a primary source for the Steele dossier as a Russian agent.
Graham published the memo he sent to the court, indicating that Igor Danchenko was being investigated by the FBI beginning in 2009. The document also pointed out that the Bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane team, which was tasked with looking into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, already knew about the prior investigation of Danchenko but neglected to disclose it in the application to spy on former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page.
Former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier full of damaging information about then-candidate Donald Trump, used Danchenko as his primary source for the document, which has by now been almost entirely discredited. The Daily Caller reported that the Senator “formally notified James Boasberg, the judge presiding over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) about the information in a letter on Thursday.”
In the memo, Graham wrote, “This letter, and the attached summary, details what appear to be further failures on the part of the FBI to fully inform the court of all of the facts related to the probable cause determination for the Carter Page FISA applications.”
That anyone could overlook the manifest good done by Coney Barrett in adopting these kids, and in not aborting her own son who she knew would be born with Downs Syndrome, in favor of trying to cast her as a racist shows just how evil the philosophy of Critical Race Theory is. It is anti-civilization in that it reduces humanity to your physical characteristics. It is anti-Christian in that it denies the common humanity we all share.
President Trump was right to start the process of eradicating it from the universe of federal agencies and contractors. Other echelons of government would be well served to do the same.
With 3,650,780 seats available on scheduled flights between Barcelona El Prat and Madrid Barajas in 2019, this route between Spain’s two most populous cities is Europe’s busiest by a margin of almost 500,000. Second in the list is Turkey’s Izmir-Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen, with 3,171,479 seats, with the third busiest (3,041,975) linking Izmir and Istanbul Atatürk.
The above figure represents 10,000 seats available on scheduled flights every day. The route, known as the ‘Puente Aéreo’ (Air Bridge), is served by Spanish flag carrier Iberia, as well as the country’s second and third largest airlines, low-cost carrier Vueling and Air Europa. Flights are scheduled to take around an hour and a half. However, the airlines have more to compete with than just each other.
Since its opening in February 2008, the 386-mile Madrid–Barcelona high-speed rail line has added an extra dynamic to this competitive corridor. Journeys along this line, whose trains are capable of 333 km/h (207mph), take just two and a half hours.
This represents a strong alternative, particularly for city center to city center journeys.
The president of the European Council does not usually make news when addressing the UN General Assembly. In fact, the current occupant of the post, Charles Michel might be used to giving UN addresses that attract minimal attention. He is, after all, a former prime minister of Belgium.
However, today was different. Michel told the world that the European Union has made its choice in the emerging strategic contest between the United States and China:
Since I became President of the European Council, I have often been asked a question that is both simple and brutal: “In the new rivalry between the United States and China, which side is the European Union on?” My answer is the following…
We are deeply connected with the United States. We share ideals, values and a mutual affection that have been strengthened through the trials of history. They remain embodied today in a vital transatlantic alliance. This does not prevent us from occasionally having divergent approaches or interests.
We do not share the values on which the political and economic system in China is based. And we will not stop promoting respect for universal human rights. Including those of minorities such as the Uighurs. Or in Hong Kong, where international commitments guaranteeing the rule of law and democracy are being questioned.
Michel’s remarks might sound like a statement of the obvious, but the speech is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it’s actually not that obvious. It dispenses with a rhetorical trick used by top European politicians in the early years of the Trump administration. It was commonplace to hear certain leaders, such as Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, refer, in a single breath, to the United States, China, and Russia as global challenges to be surmounted. //
That said, it’s also worth considering that China’s coronavirus-era misconduct has become an enormous factor in European diplomacy, too. U.S. popularity in Europe ebbs and flows with each administration — Republican presidents aren’t really admired on the continent. But the Chinese Communist Party has done much to help the Trump administration convince its European counterparts to take a stand on everything from 5G to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
There is a difference between Democrat and conservative Republican governance. Democrats, inherently statists, are all about control. Their deepest desire is to exert control over every aspect of a citizen’s life. We’ve seen some of the extremes in Democrat-dominated New York City, which forbids the sale of large fountain drinks.
Sometimes that nattering, Karen-like impulse to rule over the most minor things can be fatal. City ordinances against selling “loosies,” single cigarettes, often brought from out of state in an attempt to avoid the absurd New York State and city taxes., force police officers to waste time on minor offenses. Back in July 2014, New York City police encountered Eric Garner selling loosies. In the struggle that ensued, Garner died from asphyxiation. The officers were not indicted. The point here is not the actions of the officers, which have been well addressed elsewhere. It’s that excessive government — nanny stating — was the precursor to that confrontation and untimely death. //
In New York, more than 5,800 nursing home residents have died in connection to COVID-19, the most in the country.
On March 25, New York officials ordered nursing homes to admit infected patients, if medically stable. Then, as deaths mounted inside the facilities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo reversed the policy on May 10 under pressure from advocates and relatives.
In contrast, Florida, which never ordered nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients, reported 1043 nursing home resident deaths as of May 22, despite having more of the elderly care facilities than New York.
DansDeals shares that one of its readers wanted to fly to Tel Aviv from Newark after Yom Kippur ended. The Day of Atonement is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. //
Notably, on the US’ East Coast, the holy event runs from approximately 18:43 on Sunday, September 27th until 19:23 on Monday, September 28th. Moreover, airlines can’t fly to or from Israel during Yom Kippur. //
The airline’s flight in the evening from Newark to Tel Aviv used to take off at 22:50. However, this time was amended to 20:05 due to the pandemic, which caused scheduling changes that are in place until October 23rd. //
Subsequently, DansDeals reader Miriam W wrote to United CEO Scott Kirby and executive chairman Oscar Munoz asking if their airline could return to the 22:50 departure to allow passengers that are observing Yom Kippur to have time to make the trip. It wouldn’t be possible to do so with the revised time. In the past, she had taken the 22:50 flight. //
Wendy, an employee in United’s offices, phoned Miriam and thanked her for the message. She said that the carrier had addressed her request and would be changing the schedule during its weekly updates. Therefore, last Saturday, it was revealed that United’s flight to Tel Aviv from Newark had been updated to 22:50.