RELATED: At London's Daily Mail, "'I want you to run... I happen to think you won't be running... you're a great President': Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney botches apology to Biden for saying he won't be on 2024 ticket in very awkward interview."
Thursday, August 4, 2022
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis, Tearing Us Apart
At Amazon, Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.
John Eastman Was Always Looking for Election Fraud, and Looking to Get Paid
I've met this guy, years ago at the David Horowitz retreat at the Terranea, on the Palos Verdes pennisula.
He's not as he first appears, not be a long (money) shot.
At the New York Times, "Trump Lawyer Proposed Challenging Georgia Senate Elections in Search of Fraud":
SCOOP: John Eastman sent an email to Giuliani two weeks after Jan. 6 arguing they should sue in Georgia to keep searching for the fraud his email acknowledged they had failed to find - and also sought $270k in payments @lukebroadwater https://t.co/z88H3qqUef
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 4, 2022
On the day of President Biden’s inauguration, John Eastman suggested looking for voting irregularities in Georgia — and asked for help being paid the $270,000 he billed the Trump campaign. John Eastman, the conservative lawyer whose plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 election failed in spectacular fashion on Jan. 6, 2021, sent an email two weeks later arguing that pro-Trump forces should sue to keep searching for the supposed election fraud he acknowledged they had failed to find. On Jan. 20, 2021, hours after President Biden’s inauguration, Mr. Eastman emailed Rudolph W. Giuliani, former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, proposing that they challenge the outcome of the runoff elections in Georgia for two Senate seats that had been won on Jan. 5 by Democrats. “A lot of us have now staked our reputations on the claims of election fraud, and this would be a way to gather proof,” Mr. Eastman wrote in the previously undisclosed email, which also went to others, including a top Trump campaign adviser. “If we get proof of fraud on Jan. 5, it will likely also demonstrate the fraud on Nov. 3, thereby vindicating President Trump’s claims and serving as a strong bulwark against Senate impeachment trial.” The email, which was reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who worked on the Trump campaign at the time, is the latest evidence that even some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters knew they had not proven their baseless claims of widespread voting fraud — but wanted to continue their efforts to delegitimize the outcome even after Mr. Biden had taken office. Mr. Eastman’s message also underscored that he had not taken on the work of keeping Mr. Trump in office just out of conviction: He asked for Mr. Giuliani’s help in collecting on a $270,000 invoice he had sent the Trump campaign the previous day for his legal services. The charges included $10,000 a day for eight days of work in January 2021, including the two days before Jan. 6 when Mr. Eastman and Mr. Trump, during meetings in the Oval Office, sought unsuccessfully to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to go along with the plan to block congressional certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. (Mr. Eastman appears never to have been paid.) A lawyer for Mr. Eastman did not respond to a request for comment...
Kizer Cormorant Pocket Knife
This thing's a beauty, at Amazon, Kizer Cormorant Pocket Knife, S35VN Steel Folding Knives, Green Micarta Handle EDC Knife, Ki4562E3.
Also, the old reliable, Buck Knives 119 Special Fixed Blade Hunting Knife, 6" 420HC Blade, Black Phenolic Handle with Leather Sheath.
Vin Scully, 1927-2022
I can't add anything better than what all the other heartbroken folks have said. Major League Baseball lost a monumental soul, and all of America too.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Vin Scully, forever the voice of the Dodgers, dies at 94" and "The Dodgers lost their voice when Vin Scully died. Angelenos lost a family member."
At the video segment, his last day in the announcers booth at Dodgers Stadium, October 2nd, 2016, and his comments on socialism below:
Vin Scully tells the story of what made him fall in love with the game of baseball 💙
— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) August 3, 2022
pic.twitter.com/7whI1dBTqg
Vin Scully on socialism. pic.twitter.com/oaNC7vhsZW
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 3, 2022
San Clemente Considers Creating 'Abortion Free Zone'
Beautiful city. Classic California beach town. I was just down there over the weekend shopping at Beach Town Books.
Didn't see any pro-aborts protesting, however.
At the Los Angeles Times, "This Orange County city to consider banning abortions, becoming ‘sanctuary for life’."
This City Council in Southern California is considering a resolution that would make it an abortion-free zone.https://t.co/dPQJR6ysHI
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 3, 2022
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
Will Bunch, After the Ivory Tower
Out today, from Will Bunch, at Amazon, After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics―and How to Fix It.
The Left's Assault on the Middle Class (VIDEO)
Here's Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of, Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, for the Rising on the Hill TV:
Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster Antitrust Case Goes to Court
Opening arguments were held yesterday.
The attorney for Penguin Random House, Daniel Petrocelli, is a freakin' firecracker.
At the New York Times, "The trial to decide whether the publishing giant may buy Simon & Schuster is a test of the Biden administration’s push to expand antitrust enforcement."
And at Vanity Fair, "The Antitrust Showdown to Determine Simon & Schuster's Fate Is About to Begin":
Jonathan Karp is rallying the troops at S&S as its suitor, Penguin Random House, heads to trial Monday against Biden’s Justice Department. The witness list is a who’s who of publishing bosses, power agents, and authors—including Stephen King—with a $2 billion deal on the line. On Monday, as lawyers for Penguin Random House and the Department of Justice were sharpening their sabres ahead of the antitrust duel of the summer, CEO Jonathan Karp fired off an email to his approximately 1,500 employees at Simon & Schuster, the nearly century-old publishing house that Karp has lorded over for the past two years. The fate of Simon & Schuster—whose catalog stretches from the classics of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, to the mass-market gold mines of Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark, to the recent political blockbusters of Bob Woodward and Mary Trump—has hung in the balance since the publisher was put on the block in March 2020 by its parent company, now called Paramount Global, which arose from the tortured recombination of Viacom and CBS, whose focus on mounting an offensive in the streaming wars leaves little room to manage a comparatively antiquated book-publishing business. Almost nine months after the sale was announced, Bertelsmann’s PRH bested Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins with a $2.18 billion bid for S&S, a proposed mash-up that would turn the Big Five publishers into the Big Four. However, the Champagne toasts turned out to be premature: Last November, Joe Biden’s merger-averse DOJ sued to block the deal, citing concerns that it would give the world’s largest book publisher “unprecedented control” over the industry, resulting in “lower advances for authors and ultimately fewer books and less variety for consumers,” a string of claims that PRH characterizes as ludicrous. S&S has been in limbo ever since—a discontinued operation as far as Paramount Global’s earnings releases are concerned, and yet still bereft of its suitor’s embrace. Which brings us back to Karp’s memo, a sort of pep talk to counteract the lingering uncertainty. “As I’ve told you before, I am hopeful that Simon & Schuster will become part of Penguin Random House,” wrote Karp, a 58-year-old former reporter and theater buff who rose up to become one of the most powerful and highly regarded figures in the publishing industry. “I spent 16 years at Random House, and I know their culture is a lot like ours—wholeheartedly devoted to books and deeply committed to its employees and authors. Penguin Random House’s parent company, Bertelsmann, has been in the book business since 1835 and shares Penguin Random House’s profound commitment to improve public readership. I strongly believe that Penguin Random House will be an excellent steward of Simon & Schuster’s legacy, and that we, and our authors, will benefit greatly from becoming a part of this superb publishing company.” The fate of S&S will soon be decided one way or another, with PRH and the DOJ gearing up to face off in court. The bench trial is set to begin Monday, adjudicated by Judge Florence Pan at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Three weeks have been allocated for the trial, which is slated to run from August 1 to August 19. The attorneys will then have until September 7 to submit any additional briefings to the court, and Pan is expected to rule sometime in November. The witness list is stacked with A-listers from the publishing world, including executives from S&S and PRH, as well as top literary agents and authors. Karp and Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle are both due to be called, as are King (for the government), Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch (ditto), and power agents Andrew Wylie (whose client roster includes Vanity Fair), Gail Ross, Joy Harris, and Elyse Cheney. (Those agents and a few others are notably being called by the defense.) The array of potential witnesses includes PRH honcho Andy Ward and the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling author Charles Duhigg. “During the trial, our ability to comment on the testimony and proceedings will be limited,” Karp told his staff. “We will keep you informed of further developments when we have news that we can share.” PRH buying S&S is a small deal in the grand scheme of things, but the merger is being closely watched insofar as it reflects the Biden administration’s push to stem corporate consolidation. It also has obvious implications for the already much-consolidated publishing space, where there’s skepticism about creating another behemoth in an industry that has been upended by Amazon. As one big shot editor told me when the lawsuit was first announced, “I don’t know anyone who would think this is a great thing to happen.” Both sides filed their pretrial briefs last Friday...
Fit to Print? UNC's Settlement with Nikole Hannah-Jones is Bad News
Great piece from Phil Magness, for the James G. Martin Center, "A reporter who hasn’t dreamt of one day writing for the New York Times is a rare bird..."
Jessica Simpson Daisy Dukes
Oh this woman is my tormenter.
At Us Magazine, "Jessica Simpson Wears Daisy Dukes, Shows Off Her Toned Legs in New Pic.
Monday, August 1, 2022
Last Conviction in Salem Witch Trials Is Cleared 329 Years Later
Amazing story.
At the New York Times, "The exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last person whose name was not officially cleared, came from the efforts of an eighth-grade civics teacher and her students":
Elizabeth Johnson Jr. is — officially — not a witch. Until last week, the Andover, Mass., woman, who confessed to practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, was the only remaining person convicted during the trials whose name had not been cleared. Though she was sentenced to death in 1693, after she and more than 20 members of her extended family faced similar allegations, she was granted a reprieve and avoided the death sentence. The exoneration came on Thursday, 329 years after her conviction, tucked inside a $53 billion state budget signed by Gov. Charlie Baker. It was the product of a three-year lobbying effort by a civics teacher and her eighth-grade class, along with a state senator who helped champion the cause. “I’m excited and relieved,” Carrie LaPierre, the teacher at North Andover Middle School, said in an interview on Saturday, “but also disappointed I didn’t get to talk to the kids about it,” as they are on summer vacation. “It’s been such a huge project,” Ms. LaPierre added. “We called her E.J.J., all the kids and I. She just became one of our world, in a sense.” Only the broad contours of Ms. Johnson’s life are known. She was 22 years old when accused, may have had a mental disability and never married or had children, which were factors that could make a woman a target in the trials, Ms. LaPierre said. The governor of Massachusetts at the time granted Ms. Johnson a reprieve from death, and she died in 1747 at the age of 77. But unlike others convicted at the trials, Ms. Johnson did not have any known descendants who could fight to clear her name. Previous efforts to exonerate people convicted of witchcraft overlooked Ms. Johnson, perhaps because of administrative confusion, historians said: Her mother, who had the same name, was also convicted but was exonerated earlier. The effort to clear Ms. Johnson’s name was a dream project for the eighth-grade civics class, Ms. LaPierre said. It allowed her to teach students about research methods, including the use of primary sources; the process by which a bill becomes a law; and ways to contact state lawmakers. The project also taught students the value of persistence: After an intensive letter-writing campaign, the bill to exonerate Ms. Johnson was essentially dead. As the students turned their efforts to lobbying the governor for a pardon, their state senator, Diana DiZoglio, added an amendment to the budget bill, reviving the exoneration effort. “These students have set an incredible example of the power of advocacy and speaking up for others who don’t have a voice,” Ms. DiZoglio, a Democrat whose district includes North Andover, said in an interview. At least 172 people from Salem and surrounding towns, which include what is now North Andover, were accused of witchcraft in 1692 as part of an inquisition by the Puritans that was rooted in paranoia, according to historians. Emerson W. Baker, a history professor at Salem State University and the author of “A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience,” said there were many reasons innocent people would confess to witchcraft. Many wanted to avoid being tortured, or even believed that perhaps they might in fact be a witch and just didn’t know it, the result of a pressure campaign by religious ministers and even family members. “At what point does she say,” Mr. Baker asked, “‘For the good of the community, I probably should confess? I don’t think I’m a witch, but maybe I had some bad thoughts and I shouldn’t have had them.’” It would have been a logical thought process for a society that widely believed in the existence of witches, he said. Another common reason for confessions, Professor Baker said, was for survival. It became clear by the summer of 1692 that those who pleaded not guilty were quickly tried, convicted and hanged while those who pleaded guilty seemed to escape that gruesome fate...
U.S. Says Drone Strike Killed al Qaeda Leader Ayman al Zawahiri (VIDEO)
I watched President Biden's address live this afternoon, now available at the video below.
And at the Wall Street Journal, "First known U.S. counterrorism operation in Afghanistan since exit last year targeted a private residence in Afghan capital":
WASHINGTON—The White House said Monday that a U.S. missile launched from a drone in Afghanistan killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, a founding member of the jihadist movement and one of the key strategists behind an international campaign of terror that culminated in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. The U.S. strike targeted a safe house in a residential area in central Kabul on Sunday morning, in what was the first known counterrorism operation in the country since U.S. forces withdrew last year. The Biden administration said the Taliban was aware that al Zawahiri was hiding in Kabul, the clearest display of the continuing alliance between al Qaeda and the group now ruling Afghanistan. Speaking from the White House balcony on Monday, President Biden announced the strike, describing al Zawahiri as a terror leader who for decades “was the mastermind behind the attacks against Americans.” Those attacks included the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens of others and 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and injured more than 4,500. Al Zawahiri, 71, was an Egyptian national and longtime deputy of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. In the lead up to 9/11, Zawahiri was the most important of bin Laden’s advisers as they planned the hijackings. He was also instrumental in shaping how the terror group used the 2001 attacks to gain members, often through propaganda letters and videos. Mr. Biden during his eight-minute address said he approved the “carefully planned” operation a week ago “after being advised conditions were optimal.” “The United States did not seek its war on terror. You came to us. We answered with the same principles and resolve that has shaped us for generations upon generation to protect the innocent and defend liberty,” Mr. Biden said. The Taliban seized power during America’s final weeks in the country after two decades of war. The group has publicly pledged to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a haven for terrorist organizations, and claims that it seeks peaceful relations with all countries. The revelation that al Qaeda’s leader and family moved to a safe house in one of the most affluent parts of Kabul soon after the Taliban returned to power undermines those claims. A senior Biden administration official said Zawahiri was killed by two U.S. Hellfire missiles fired from a drone as he stood on the balcony of the safe house in downtown Kabul. “Senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul,” the official said. Pentagon officials said they had no knowledge of the strike and the senior Biden administration official declined to specify which U.S. agency was responsible, suggesting it was a CIA operation. The CIA declined to comment. The strike is a badly needed victory for the Biden administration after the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal last summer that helped return the Taliban’s most conservative factions to power. The White House said no civilian casualties resulted from the strike just after 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. There was no known response from al Qaeda. The Taliban condemned the attack, calling it a violation of international law and the agreement it signed with the U.S. in 2020 that set the terms of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Such actions are repetitions of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against U.S., Afghanistan and the region’s interests,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesman. The last U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan one year ago killed 10 civilian members of an Afghan family in the final week of U.S. presence in the country. The casualties included seven children. The operation was initially described as successful. The U.S. later admitted that the target was a mistake. The U.S. intelligence community has “high confidence” that the dead individual is Zawahiri, the official said. The president was first briefed on plans for a strike on July 1 in the White House Situation Room by advisers including CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Christine Abizaid, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, the Biden official said. Mr. Biden made the decision to order the strike at a July 25 meeting with top advisers at which all the participants recommended going forward with it, the official said. The official said that for several years, U.S. intelligence agencies had been aware of a network of individuals that supported the al Qaeda leader. Intelligence agencies tracked several members of Zawahiri’s family, including his wife and children, as they moved to Kabul. The United States then got confirmation that Zawahiri himself was in Kabul. In early April, that intelligence was briefed to deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer and White House homeland security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then later to national security adviser Jake Sullivan and the president, the official said. As with the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. spy agencies built a replica of the house where Zawahiri was staying, and brought it to meetings with Mr. Biden and his aides, the official said. Specialists used the model to confirm that Zawahiri could be killed in a missile strike without collapsing the entire structure and killing civilians, including members of his family. After the strike, Haqqani Taliban members sought to cover up the fact that Zawahiri had taken shelter there by moving Zawahiri’s family to another location, according to the administration official. “The safe house used by Zawahiri is now empty,” the official said. Under the terms of the agreement signed with the Trump administration in February 2020, the Taliban vowed to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a haven for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to plan attacks against the U.S. and its allies. But the Taliban didn’t explicitly commit to continuing operations to target the group or to break ties with them. The United Nations has since reported that the Taliban and al Qaeda remain closely connected...U.S. Says Drone Strike Killed al Qaeda Leader Ayman al Zawahiri
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