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Colonel Alexander Vindman's Revenge

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During last year’s impeachment process directed against President Donald Trump, Congress obtained testimony from a parade of witnesses to or participants in what was inevitably being referred to as UkraineGate. It centered around an investigation into whether Trump inappropriately sought a political quid pro quo from Ukrainian leaders in exchange for a military assistance package.

The prepared opening statement by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, described as the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council (NSC), provided some insights into how decision making at the NSC actually works. Vindman was born to a Jewish family in Ukraine but emigrated to the United States at age three. He was commissioned as an army infantry officer in 1998 and served in some capacity in Iraq from 2004-5, where he was wounded by a roadside bomb and received a purple heart. Vindman, who speaks both Ukrainian and Russian fluently, has filled a number of diplomatic and military positions in government dealing with Eastern Europe, to include a key role in Pentagon planning on how to deal with Russia.

Vindman, Ukrainian both by birth and culturally, clearly was a major player in articulating and managing US policy towards that country, but at that time it was sometimes noted that he did not really understand what his role on the NSC should have been. As more than likely the US government’s sole genuine Ukrainian expert, he should have become a good source for consideration of viable options that the United States might exercise vis-à-vis its relationship with Ukraine, and, by extension, regarding Moscow’s involvement with Kiev. But that is not how his statement before congress, which advocated for a specific policy, read. Rather than providing expert advice, Vindman was concerned chiefly because arming Ukraine was not proceeding quickly enough to suit him, an extremely risky policy which had already created serious problems with a much more important Russia.
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Victory? WHO Official Calls Lockdowns 'Ghastly Global Catastrophe'

A senior official at the World Health Organization has come out strongly against the official position of his own organization, arguing over the weekend that lockdown policies are "catastrophic" and cause more harm than they solve. The scorched earth these policies have left behind are now producing more poverty and deaths than the virus. Also today, blockbuster new peer-reviewed medical journal article demonstrates that school closures are killing more kids than Covid. And California Governor Newsome begs people to stay after he's made California a living hell. Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Lockdowns Have Killed What’s Left of the United Nations’ Credibility

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Distrust of the United Nations is a feeling that transcends political ideologies. Even many who view the UN as an essential institution gripe about the composition of its councils and its mounting listlessness over the last few decades. From charges of appeasement to accusations of moral relativism and beyond, the UN is regularly decried as an ineffectual circus of multinational bureaucrats, purposely or unwittingly promoting the interests of a global elite and undermining the sovereignty of nations. Conspiracy theorists, rarely inclined to subtlety, see it as a Trojan horse for a New World Order, paving the way for a supranational world government.

Nevertheless, many of those complaints (and some of those suspicions, at least circumstantially) are justified. Despite its foundational goal of “maintain[ing] international peace and security” the UN has clung to an increasingly desultory role since its formation after World War II, adding mostly ineffective missions along the way. 

Although the monitoring of human rights has been a part of the US mission since its founding, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up in 1948; during the 1980s it began picking up steam. With the adoption of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, that focus was formalized and infrastructure (a High Commissioner, with an office and staff) added.
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ANTIFA Is Compiling Lists Of 'Fascist' Businesses For Yelp's New 'Racist Behavior Alerts'

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It was less than 48 hours ago that we pointed out that "review" website Yelp was getting into the business of social justice by saying it would append a "Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert" to any businesses page where a company had been accused of racism.

"The b.s. never ends," said Donald Trump Jr., in response to the idea. "What are the odds this isn't insanely abused?" he followed up asking on Friday.

Well, Don, we think we have an answer for you: the odds look pretty long. That's because just 2 days after Yelp's announcement, ANTIFA has already starting compiling the names of businesses that it wants to submit to Yelp and put out of business.

As if throwing rocks through their windows and stealing from them wasn't enough.

The list is being prepared by the same ANTIFA group is that "responsible for organizing the violent Portland riots," according to the Post Millennial. In fact, Tweets from the group compiling the data suggests that ANTIFA members submit "non-friendly" businesses, "AKA any company that's hanging blue lives garbage in their store or anything else that's anti the BLM movement".
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Can the Fed End Racism?

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House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren have introduced the Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act. This legislation directs the Federal Reserve to eliminate racial disparities in income, employment, wealth, and access to credit. Eliminating racial disparities in access to credit is code for forcing banks and other financial institutions to approve loans based on the applicants’ race, instead of based on their income and credit history.
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The Second Act Will Be Worse Than the First: Lockdowns Are Not the Answer

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In the first presidential “debate” (I use that word creatively), Joe Biden hinted that he would order a national lockdown in order to “defeat” the covid-19 virus, and there certainly seems to be a consensus in the media and among political elites that if there is another “outbreak” of covid, then the “shelter in place” order will be the law of the land.

Many businesses certainly are making plans for such an order, this time not wanting to be caught unprepared as they were last March:
Grocery stores and food companies are preparing for a possible surge in sales amid a new rise in Covid-19 cases and the impending holiday rush.

Supermarkets are stockpiling groceries and storing them early to prepare for the fall and winter months, when some health experts warn the country could see another widespread outbreak of virus cases and new restrictions. Food companies are accelerating production of their most popular items, and leaders across the industry are saying they won't be caught unprepared in the face of another pandemic surge.
One hardly can blame business owners and managers for wanting to be ahead of the curve, as progressive governments at all levels have been merciless to businesses and employees, driving thousands of firms into bankruptcy and leaving millions of people unemployed. Furthermore, given the overt hostility that progressives have toward private enterprise in the first place, politicians will take shortages and empty shelves as “proof” that private enterprise is in league with the devil to subvert the social order and act accordingly to punish these miscreants.
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Two Types of Terror in Michigan

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#StopTrumpsTerror is one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter, with more than 90,000 tweets. Yesterday, the FBI announced the arrest of six people yesterday in a plot (perhaps government-hatched) to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for treason for destroying the state’s economy with the lockdowns she imposed. Seven other individuals were arrested and charged with violating Michigan’s anti-terrorism law.
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Thought Control American Style: The Social Justice Warriors Will Destroy Our Basic Freedoms

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Once upon a time it was possible to rely on much of the mainstream media to report on developments more or less objectively, relegating opinion pieces to the editorial page. But that was a long time ago. I remember moving to Washington back in 1976 after many years of New York Times and International Herald Tribune readership, when both those papers still possessed editorial integrity. My first experience of the Washington Post had my head spinning, wondering how front-page stories that allegedly reported the “news” could sink to the level of including editorialized comments from start to finish to place the story in context.

Today, Washington Post style reporting has become the norm and the New York Times, if anything, might possibly be the worst exponent of news that is actually largely unsubstantiated or at best “anonymous” opinion. In the past few weeks, stories about the often-violent social unrest that continues in numerous states have virtually disappeared from sight because the mainstream media has its version of reality, that the demonstrations are legitimate protest that seek to correct “systemic racism.” Likewise, counter-demonstrators are reflexively described as “white supremacists” so they can be dismissed as unreformable racists. Videos of rampaging mobs looting, burning and destroying while also beating and even killed innocent citizens who are trying to protect themselves and their property are not shown or written about to any real extent because such actions are being carried out by the groups that the mainstream media and its political enablers favor.

The hatred of Donald Trump, which certainly to some extent is legitimate if only due to his ignorance and boorishness, has driven a feeding frenzy by the moderate-to liberal media which has made them blind to their own faults. The recent expose by the New York Times on Donald Trump’s taxes might well be considered a new low, with blaring headlines declaring that the president is a tax avoider. It was a theme rapidly picked up and promoted by much of the remainder of the television and print media as well as “public radio” stations like NPR.
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Can California Be Saved from Its Politicians?

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It's hard to choose one image, or juxtaposition of images, that best sums up the state of California at the end of summer, 2020.

Is it the eight-year-old girl's birthday party being broken up by a long line of police officers, or the lone paddleboarder arrested out in the ocean for violating social-distancing orders? While only two months later, violent mobs tore through Los Angeles, obstructing traffic, destroying businesses and burning buildings?

Is it Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claiming that she was "set up" when she went to have her hair done at a salon—an activity she has complicit in prohibiting for ordinary citizens—or some of Governor Newsom's wineries remaining open while wineries and other businesses outside of Napa were ordered closed over Fourth of July weekend?

Or is it the "let them eat caketweets from the woman who was instrumental in helping wipe out out the livelihoods of freelancers and other independent contractors across California, or perhaps the comical attempts by a puppet politician for the pharmaceutical industry to portray those who oppose the forced vaccination of their children as "violent?"
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