“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” —George Washington (1790)
IN TODAY’S DIGEST
Thomas Gallatin
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has alerted the U.S. government that a months-long cyberattack compromised at least four federal agencies. The agencies known to have been compromised include the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, and the Treasury. The hack is believed to have been initiated this past spring via malware code that targeted SolarWinds software, which is widely used across the federal government. The prime suspect is the Russian government because the hack has all the calling cards of APT29, a group with direct links to Russian intelligence.
This massive cyberattack is reminiscent of the Chinese hack on the Office of Personnel Management back in 2015, when the personal information of more than 20 million federal employees was compromised.
CISA, the agency responsible for monitoring and protecting U.S. government agencies against cyberattacks, explained that its primary system designed to detect such hacks, dubbed Einstein, failed to identify the breach. That was due to a myriad of factors, including the sophistication of the hack, which expertly exploited known and unknown weakness within the federal network using novel U.S. IP addresses that had not previously been associated with foreign actors or criminal activity.
The scope of the hack and the number of agencies compromised are still being uncovered, though it’s clear that this was a major breach with ramifications yet to be fully appreciated. The Washington Post says that the Texas-based software developer SolarWinds “reported that nearly 18,000 of its customers may have been affected worldwide.”
Why does this ultimately matter? Well, beyond national security implications, especially at the Pentagon and DHS, it goes to the issue of trustworthiness. The recently fired head of CISA, Christopher Krebs, infamously declared last month that the 2020 U.S. election “was the most secure election ever.” He was fired by President Donald Trump on November 17. Does anyone really believe him, especially now?
Douglas Andrews
To no one’s surprise, Joe Biden and his team are drafting new ethics rules in preparation for the presidency.
No doubt he wants to return to those scandal-free days of “the most ethical administration in history” — you know, the one that crushed private citizens, bribed Iran, lied about Benghazi, and spied on individual journalists, entire news organizations, and even its successor in the White House. Yeah, that one.
As The Washington Post reports — and with a straight face, no less — “Biden is preparing to step back into the Oval Office with radically different expectations about how he will handle the relationship between his official power and his family’s private interests. After President [Donald] Trump’s years of mixing family with governing and an election that highlighted the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter, the president-elect has promised to keep his family from being hired into his administration, to prohibit family entanglements with ‘any foreign operation’ and to go even further.”
“Too late!” says Xi Jinping.
If ever an incoming administration were beholden to a hostile foreign power, it’s this one. And the ChiComs are no doubt licking their chops. Whereas President Trump dropped the gloves and went at it tooth-and-nail with China, significantly weakening its stature among civilized nations, Biden has been an apologist, a truckling, a pussycat.
As even a Democrat organ like the Post concedes, “The potential family conflicts, both with Biden and his top White House advisers, are more extensive than the Obama White House confronted. Biden’s son Hunter is facing a federal investigation over taxes paid on a business venture in China, which also included Biden’s brother, James Biden, a situation that is certain to test the president-elect’s promise to let the Justice Department operate independently of his personal interests.”
About those “radically different expectations” of which the Post speaks, Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff has a question: “Different than what?”
“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict,” says Scranton Joe.
“That’s easy for Biden to say now,” Mirengoff notes. “He and his family have already enriched themselves beyond their wildest dream by trading off of Joe’s influence and position as vice president. But you never know. A guy like Hunter Biden will always want to eat. So many strip club VIP lounges, so little time.”
Given the recent revelations of Biden family corruption, is it any wonder that President Trump is seriously considering the appointment of a special counsel to investigate them?
National Review’s Andy McCarthy, for one, thinks it’s a good idea. He writes, “[Outgoing] Attorney General Bill Barr has already appointed a special counsel for the Russiagate probe, and the argument for such an appointment is even stronger here, where at issue is an investigation of the incoming president’s son under circumstances where the incoming president’s own conduct is involved [emphasis added].”
Always remember: This is about Joe, not Hunter.
But in addition to ensuring that we’d get to the bottom of Hunter Biden’s dirty dealing, we think a special counsel would make a lovely parting gift.
Regardless, Biden’s promise to turn over a new leaf is a radical departure from his family’s money-grubbing, influence-peddling, China-cheering activities of the past four years. “China is going to eat our lunch?” he famously asked at a 2019 rally in Iowa.
Wait for it. Waaaaaait for it…
“Come on, man!”
Louis DeBroux
Recently, The Wall Street Journal published an essay by its executive Washington editor, Gerald Seib, on the increasing polarization and rancor in our nation’s politics, which results in an inability to find common ground and resolve the serious issues impacting millions of Americans. However, as Seib notes, many Americans are turning to state and local government, private industry, and individuals to innovate and overcome. That’s a very good thing.
For example, in the explosive and violent aftermath of the death of George Floyd, Kansas City (MO) Mayor Quinton Lucas found a simple solution for his city to the complex and emotion-driven problem of tensions between police and citizens. He removed a needless barrier to citizens’ ability to file complaints against police officers by doing away with a notarization requirement. It was the simplest of acts, but it let the community know their concerns were being heard, and that alone reduced friction.
In Sisters, Oregon, local woman Amy Burgstahler wanted to avoid the riots over policing seen in nearby Portland, so she cofounded Citizens4Community, a forum for residents to talk directly to local police officers. Burgstahler’s goal was not to drive policy but understanding. “It was awesome,” she said of the first online meeting. “People were, like, ‘Wow, I’m feeling more at ease.’ … It was never our goal to send a specific message. Our goal was to let people talk.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) points to another example in his home state, where a young black teenager beat a local policer officer in the head with a skateboard during a heated protest. Rather than allow passions and violence to escalate, the police officer, Raymon Washington, agreed to meet with the young man. That meeting turned into a friendship, and Officer Washington now regularly visits with the young man and his family, attends his football games, and has become his mentor.
As Rubio correctly notes, “That police officer and what he’s doing is 50 times more impactful than any law that you could pass.”
Regarding another often contentious issue — abortion — private citizens and pro-life Christian ministries across the nation have taken significant steps to provide solutions to one of the primary drivers of abortion: namely, women who feel they don’t have the means or resources to care for a child.
In Fredericksburg, Virginia, Kathleen Wilson cofounded Mary’s Shelter, a nonprofit crisis pregnancy center that provides housing for pregnant women seeking an alternative to abortion. The program, which started as a single basement apartment for a single pregnant woman in 2005, now has six homes providing shelter for up to 16 women and their families. In the 15 years since it was founded, Mary’s Shelter has helped more than 300 mothers in crisis.
In Duluth, Minnesota, local leaders started “Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project,” which set ground rules for participating in public debates on local issues in a way that lets everyone be heard on controversial issues without becoming contentious. The program has been replicated in more than 100 communities across America.
During this year’s COVID-19 pandemic, the wisdom of government-mandated shutdowns of schools reached a boiling point in many states, yet Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan devised a solution that cooled the temperature of the debate: He let counties decide for themselves when to reopen and under what circumstances. Even better, regardless of the decision of each county, Hogan declared private schools could also determine for themselves whether to reopen.
Ironically, at a time of unprecedented expansion of federal power that dictates every aspect of our lives, the American people are engaging in a brilliant display of organized chaos at an individual and local level, coming up with innovative solutions to complex problems, even as national leaders are mired in gridlock, rancor, and recriminations.
Which is exactly what our Founding Fathers wanted (the innovation, not the rancor).
Because government is force, our Founders understood the need to control that force, allowing government to do only those things the people could not do for themselves. And when government is empowered to act, it should do so at the most local level possible in order to be most accountable to the people it serves.
Article I, Section 8 delegated a very limited set of powers to the federal government, giving it primacy in the execution of those powers, but denying it any other powers. All other powers are reserved to the states, or to the people, at least in theory.
Federal power is often a zero-sum game, creating winners and losers, because it is a one-size-fits-all proposition. If I get my way you don’t get yours. It stifles innovation and crushes individual liberties. It makes neighbors enemies instead of friends, allies, and partners in community success.
The bottom line is that when people are free to choose and free to innovate, individual liberty is protected and problems are solved in positive, proactive ways. Society benefits and national unity is nurtured.
It seems like the Founding Fathers had it figured out pretty well.
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Nate Jackson
One of President Donald Trump’s many achievements is the way he shifted the demographics of the country’s electorate with his unique appeal. There are three key demographics that, for the last half-century or so, have been particularly tough for Republicans: blacks, Hispanics, and blue-collar workers. Trump made inroads with all three groups for a lot of overlapping reasons. And he gained among minorities while being slandered as a “racist” almost daily by the mainstream media. In many ways, this shift IS the Trump legacy.
Caveat: Ballot harvesting and bulk-mail balloting skewed a lot of things in the 2020 election, so, as always, keep that in mind with any discussion of results.
Call us crazy, but it’s almost like the color of someone’s skin or the amount of money they earn doesn’t automatically determine their political interests. In fact, most humans simply want jobs to provide for their families, economic security, and a culture and country they feel they belong in. Democrats win votes by dividing people along those lines and fomenting hate. Trump won them by bringing voters into the big tent. He continuously spoke to blacks, Latinos, and blue-collar workers in kitchen-table terms.
For blacks, Trump had the guts to ask for their votes in 2016, essentially asking, What do you have to lose? He continued to court the black vote in 2020. And why not? What president in recent memory had actually done more for blacks?
Trump advocated school choice (which Democrats and their teacher-union backers hate) and increased funding for historically black colleges and universities. He pushed through significant criminal justice reform, which in large part undid the over-incarceration effects of legislation written by the 1990s version of Senator Joe Biden. President Trump advocated economic-empowerment zones and the “Platinum Plan,” which were just part of the policy agenda specifically designed to increase black employment. Prior to the pandemic, Trump’s presidency saw the lowest black unemployment on record.
That resulted in winning the votes of 9% of black women and 19% of black men — 12% overall, and a big improvement from his 8% showing in 2016. To put it in perspective, however, that’s not a historic achievement. While Trump did improve upon his own showing four years ago and upon that of Mitt Romney and John McCain (who ran against an incredibly popular black man), he only matched Bob Dole in 1996 (12%) and he fell short of the black vote (as a percentage) won by Ronald Reagan (14% in 1980), Gerald Ford (17% in 1976), and Richard Nixon (15% in 1968).
Hispanics have not been nearly as one-sided for Democrats as blacks, but Republicans still struggle to reach Latinos. Surely the “racist” wall-builder Trump, who “wants to keep out all the Mexicans,” wouldn’t gain among Hispanics, would he? Yes, he would. Heck, Trump even carried Zapata County, Texas, which is on the Mexican border and may be the most heavily Hispanic county in the nation.
As it turns out, being Hispanic doesn’t mean automatically and unthinkingly demanding open borders, as Democrats now seem to think. It also doesn’t mean you’re automatically a ward of the state, as Democrats seem to think.
Hispanics have families and want jobs to provide for them. The ones who went to the trouble of emigrating legally (or who have been here for generations) don’t want to compete for those jobs with low-wage illegals, regardless of their nation of origin. They have that in common with blacks.
Our Louis DeBroux wrote in January, “By assuming Hispanics will always vote Democrat and are driven primarily by immigration, Democrats are making little effort to understand the other issues that are important to Hispanic voters. Those include good jobs, a decent education for their children, the rising cost of college, affordable housing for their families, etc.”
A lot of Hispanics from nations like Cuba or Venezuela are terrified of Democrat socialism. They’ve seen it before, and it’s why they fled their home countries. You don’t board a makeshift raft and cross an ocean only to vote for the same policies you fled.
Trump’s pitch was simple: He was far preferable to the alternative. “Joe Biden has spent 47 years betraying the Hispanic American community totally,” he said, “sending their jobs to China, raising taxes on their families and small businesses, making their communities less safe, attacking their values, and trapping their children in failing government schools.” Trump worked to do the opposite of every one of those things, and an increasing number of Hispanics rewarded him with their votes — 47% of Hispanics in Texas went for Trump, for example, and according to Bloomberg, “he took 61% of Miami-Dade’s 482 majority-Latino precincts, up from 26% of them in 2016.” Nationwide, Trump won 32% of the Latino vote, up from 28% in 2016. That’s not the best ever for a Republican, as Ronald Reagan won 37% and 34%, respectively, and George W. Bush netted 35% and 34%, respectively. But, again, Trump saw improvement over recent Republican presidential performance.
Non-whites overall? Trump got 26% of their votes. Only George W. Bush outperformed that in 2004 with 28%.
Interestingly, however, according to Breitbart, Trump lost ground with whites: “President Donald Trump won 64 percent of white people who did not graduate from college in the 2020 election — which is down from his 70 percent share of those voters in 2016.” And he lost “roughly 4.5 million votes” among the “white/college-grad” segment.
Worst white supremacist president ever.
Blue-collar workers of any race — the hourly workers at your local grocery store, the servers at your local restaurant, the factory workers who made your car — have traditionally voted Democrat. Beginning at least with FDR’s “New Deal,” it was Democrats who were perceived to be “for the little guy,” who pushed for higher wages and better benefits. Somewhere along the line, however, Democrats forgot that and began pushing for speech codes, race (bait) training, and gender confusion in the workplace, and then shut down the country, costing many of those workers their jobs.
It was Barack Obama who called us “bitter clingers,” Hillary Clinton who dubbed us “deplorables,” and Joe Biden who derided the “chumps” voting for Trump. Leftist elitist contempt for the average American has only increased over the years, and, by golly, the average American noticed.
As our Douglas Andrews aptly put it, “Democrats are now the elites, the paternalists, the Chardonnay-sippers, the theater-goers, the media darlings, the foundation favorites, the advanced-degree types, and the party preferred by Wall Street. Republicans, on the other hand, have welcomed in the workers, the grinders, the hog butchers, the middle-managers, the guys and gals in the field and on the shop floor. The Republican Party is diverse, but the common thread is Patriotism. We love our country, and we don’t apologize for it.”
Lisa Lerer of The New York Times looked at blue-collar workers and found some “striking” results: “Of the 265 counties most dominated by blue-collar workers — areas where at least 40 percent of employed adults have jobs in construction, the service industry or other nonprofessional fields — Mr. Biden won just 15.” In other words, Ole Scranton Joe underperformed among this cohort, and if he can’t win among these voters, what Democrat can?
Indeed, Donald Trump, the blue-collar billionaire, set about to get government out of our way by lowering taxes and reducing regulation. He battled the media over its gross bias, effectively revealing their tarnished reputation forever with the “fake news” moniker. He challenged the condescension from coastal elites and put a stop to divisive swamp-think like Critical Race Theory training in federal agencies. He undid bathroom mandates and rejected speech codes. In other words, he fought the same culture battles your average, er, Joe is out there fighting in the heartland.
As George Hawley and Richard Hanania write at National Review, “Cultural concerns, not economic interests or policy preferences, were the real dividing line in 2016, and remain so today.”
To sum it all up, what Trump accomplished was to significantly broaden the base of the GOP. If other Republicans can learn the right lessons from that, even Trump’s loss will provide a template for future victories.
Douglas Andrews
Six weeks out, the landscape is littered with electoral casualties: Donald Trump, the 74 million Americans who voted for him, mail-in balloting, even the very notion of Election Day.
But the most consequential casualty of all is our confidence in the system; our confidence that all legally cast votes will be counted and that all illegally cast votes will be flagged and rejected.
It’s gone. Kaput.
Democrats, we suppose, still have confidence in the system. But that’s only because their guy won. And because they count the ballots in the big cities. And because they don’t have to let those pesky Republican observers anywhere near them when they’re doing the counting. They can bully, they can intimidate, they can play the race card. They can do anything they want in Philly, in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in Atlanta. So, if you’re a Democrat, what’s not to like?
But if you’re a Republican, a conservative, or an independent, you ought to be concerned. Because your guy might never win another presidential election. After all, Trump won with 63 million votes in 2016. And though he got 74 million votes this time around, his utterly uninspiring opponent somehow got 81 million votes. Nothing like this has ever happened before, not in the history of our republic.
American elections have, all of a sudden, become really complicated. Really really complicated. And if Democrats have their way, they’re going to stay complicated. After all, the harder it is to understand a system, the easier it is for experts to rig that system.
Take the voting “irregularity” in Antrim County, Michigan. As the Washington Examiner reported back on November 5, “Trump won Antrim County over Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton 62% to 33% in 2016, a gap of about 4,000 votes. But on Wednesday morning, results out of Antrim County showed Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden leading the county by more than 3,000 votes with 98% of the results in.”
Fraud, right? Not so fast, they told us. Michigan Secretary of State and Dominion Voting Systems water-carrier Jocelyn Benson helpfully informs us that it’s an “isolated user error” that “does not affect election results” and “has no impact on other counties or states.”
Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos insisted in Michigan testimony that any problems were the result of “human error,” not technology malfunction or design.
If that weren’t reassuring enough, the Dominion website tells us that “disinformation is dangerous and threatens democracy.” Furthermore, the company tell us to “Get the facts” because it’s “setting the record straight.”
Whew. For a minute, there, we thought maybe something was amiss, and maybe Joe Biden didn’t get those 81 million votes on the up-and-up. Who’s this Russell Ramsland guy anyway, and what does he know about voting systems and cyber security?
Plenty, as it turns out. Ramsland has a Harvard MBA, he’s worked with NASA and MIT, and his company, Allied Security Operations Group, specializes in cyber security and forensic analysis, and has staff from the Pentagon, DHS, CIA, and Secret Service. So he and his company seem properly credentialed to have conducted an audit of Antrim County’s Dominion Voting equipment. Ramsland, though, is also a former Republican congressional candidate, and he seems to have gotten out over his skis with some of his earlier analysis. According to the Detroit Free Press, “Ramsland claims that Detroit saw a turnout of 139.29%. The city’s official results show that turnout in the city was actually 50.88% of registered voters.”
That’s a heck of a discrepancy. Who’s right? And how do we know? This brings us back to the question of confidence and how the Left has systematically destroyed it — because, after all, the Left destroys everything.
Mass mail-in balloting? Whose awful idea was that? The very thing that the rest of the civilized world has done away with due to the potential for fraud? Yep, it was enthusiastically embraced by the party of Biden. Look for Democrats to zealously defend it going forward. Look, too, for any voting-reform efforts led by Republicans to be met with fierce resistance. Stricter voter ID laws? An end to early voting? Tighter eligibility requirements and better signature verification processes for mail-in and absentee ballots? A fully transparent vote-counting process? Criminal consequences for election officials who restrict the access of vote-counting observers? Look for Democrats and their media lickspittles to label efforts like these as “undemocratic” and “racist” and “nothing more than an effort to suppress the vote.”
Our electoral system is straight-up broken. And in its broken state, it favors the Democrats. If we don’t find a way to reform it — a way to eliminate even the potential for fraud — we’re likely looking at a long stay in the presidential wilderness. As conservative commentator Mark Levin put it, “You can’t say, ‘We’ll fight them next time.’ There will be no next time; this has to be the time.”
Thomas Gallatin
Former Democrat presidential candidate and outgoing congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has recently drawn the ire of Democrats and leftists not just for defending girls’ sports but for daring to stand up for justice and the rights of the most vulnerable.
Gabbard recently introduced H.R. 8923, a bill to update the U.S. criminal code to “ensure a health care practitioner exercises the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.” The bill was similar to one introduced by House Republicans earlier this year that was rejected by Democrats, who have increasingly become the party of abortion absolutists.
Demonstrating just how absolutist the Left has become on the issue of abortion, Gabbard was castigated on social media. One of the most prominent arguments against Gabbard’s bill is the assertion that there is simply no need for such a law because it’s rare that babies are born alive from botched abortions. As Imani Gandy, editor at Rewire, claimed, “You seem to be under the impression that born alive is a thing. It is not. Shame on you. I don’t know what your problem is but you’re turning out to be a real right wing s—t heel.”
Yet abortion advocates have a leftist Democrat to thank for highlighting the issue. Remember the shocking comments made by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam last year, when he essentially argued in favor of infanticide? “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” Northam said. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Gabbard has also received praise and support for her stance. Franklin Graham, for example, weighed in by commending her for taking a stand for justice. “Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii is getting attacked by the left for being bold enough to do the right thing. She introduced a bill to protect babies who survive abortions and are born alive. How could any sane person be against that?” Graham wrote, adding, “But the progressive left is shocked that anyone — especially a Democrat — would dare to come against them. Thank you Tulsi Gabbard. I believe there are millions of Democrats across the country who agree, and I hope they will stand with her and let her know. I’ve always liked Tulsi because she’s got guts!”
The reaction from leftist Democrats to Gabbard’s bill serves to expose just why Democrats lost so badly in down-ballot races this election. As political consultant Jacob Lupfer contends, “If House Democrats elected in the 2018 ‘blue wave’ had been allowed to support humane legislation like the born-alive bill, the party wouldn’t have fared so disastrously in 2020 House races. … This is why Republicans win. Literally no one other than abortion interest-group elites thinks doctors should kill babies after botched abortions.”
We commend Gabbard for daring to stand against her party’s radical left. However, with her looming departure, Democrats have lost yet another sane voice as they march toward being a party only of leftist extremists.
Roger Helle
For 25 years my family lived in Georgia. Granted, we were barely Georgians, living on the TN/GA state line. While we worked in Chattanooga, Georgia was our home. Eighteen months ago, after we retired (from a paycheck), we sold our home, downsized, and moved to Chattanooga.
Who knew in less than two years that the eyes of the nation would be on Georgia? Who knew a runoff race for TWO Senate seats at the same time could hold the future of our country? I know, some will say that’s hyperbole. They want us to believe that so we won’t bother to show up. And therein lies our dilemma.
While I can no longer vote in Georgia legally (that didn’t seem important during the presidential election, but I digress), I can encourage all my friends who do live there to turn out for the runoff on January 5. I can support both candidates with my prayers and financial support. We don’t have the option to do “nothing.”
Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue are not perfect. There are no perfect candidates because there are no perfect people. But these two are conservative voices that have supported life over unlimited abortion. They support both First and Second Amendment rights, much to the dismay of the Left. The two Democrat candidates are far left of Georgia values and American values. To not show up and vote will allow leftists to determine the agenda to the point where we may not recognize this country if they’re not stopped.
It’s funny how candidates like Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are tight-lipped about issues they proudly stood behind during their earlier campaigns. Now they’re hoping the media will bury their comments so they can hide their radical views. Both are heartily endorsed by Governor Stacey Abrams (okay, she’s not really the governor; just don’t tell her she lost two years ago). That should make every Patriot take notice.
New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said, “Now we take Georgia, and then we change the world.” Okay, he meant to say “change the country,” but never doubt the Left’s ambitions. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said if they could win both seats in Georgia, they would no longer have to “negotiate” with Republicans. If that doesn’t cause your blood to turn cold, you don’t realize how radical the Left’s agenda really is.
That agenda includes the Green New Deal, gun control, and a pathway to citizenship for illegals already here (20 million plus?), which will create a rush on the border by millions more illegals. Leftists plan to pack the Supreme Court, give Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, statehood (thus adding four more leftist senators), and change election laws to allow ballots counted without identification needed. I know, I’m preaching to the choir here.
The Left has been telling us for four years that the Russians hacked the 2016 election to elect Donald Trump. Now it wants us to believe 2020 was the most honest and secure election EVER! I know, there are hundreds of eyewitnesses who have filed sworn affidavits under the penalty of perjury (unlike the accusers against Trump, who were all anonymous), but the media says “nothing to see here.” Georgia is the red line in the sand.
Pray, give, and if you live in Georgia, vote! Our future depends on it.
Something to pray about?
Jordan Candler
Top of the Fold
- Top Republican believes Eric Swalwell not the only lawmaker compromised by Chinese spies (Examiner)
According to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, “When you listen to what John Ratcliffe was revealing, and when you listen to Director Wray, that they’re opening up a new investigation on China’s spying every 10 hours, you would think that other members of Congress could be a target. … This was a long-term process identifying somebody. The Chinese are very long-term thinking, very strategic, very smart, and very effective. … Who knows who else they kind of groomed for your ever-growing powerful positions?”
Election Debrief
Georgia Runoff
- Joe Biden butchers Jon Ossoff’s name at Georgia rally (Fox News)
- Linda Sarsour, who was too radical for Joe Biden, to campaign in Georgia (Fox News) | Sarsour and Rashida Tlaib join effort to get Muslims to the polls (National Review)
- Raphael Warnock praised the Nation of Islam as “important” in 2013 speech (Fox News)
- Law enforcement officials warn Warnock and Ossoff will undermine police (Free Beacon)
Hunter Biden
- Trump asking about special prosecutor for Hunter Biden (AP) | Hunter investigation: Overt and primed for a special counsel (Andrew C. McCarthy)
Government & Politics
- Department of Energy rolls back efficiency standards for showerheads, washers, and dryers (The Hill)
“We will never have another president brave enough to do a simple thing like make shower faucets usable. Our family uses decades-old shower heads so that we can actually take a normal shower. This was just regulators telling people what to do. Is there honestly a shortage of water?” —Keith Koffler
Leftmedia
- CNN and MSNBC fret over post-Trump future (NY Times) | CNN and MSNBC helped defeat Trump, but that means they’re about to run out of programming (Washington Examiner)
Health
- Vaccine produced by Moderna is “highly effective,” FDA says (Disrn)
- FDA approves first over-the-counter home coronavirus test (Fox News)
Impressively, “The test has boasted a 96% accuracy rating in positive samples taken from symptomatic people, and 100% of negative samples in individuals with symptoms. In people without symptoms, the test correctly identified 91% of positive samples, and 96% of negative samples.”
National Security
- U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it. (Washington Post)
Business & Economy
- EU announces sweeping new rules that could force breakups and hefty fines for Big Tech (CNBC)
Not a lot good has happened in 2020, but it’s incredibly nice to see progress being made to dismantle Big Tech. The key word being progress. A lot of work remains to be done to adequately address these monopolies. As Glenn Reynolds posits, “The U.S. needs to do more on the antitrust front too.” But at least the groundswell is growing.
Cancel Culture
- San Francisco to rename elementary school — because of something Dianne Feinstein did in 1984 (Free Beacon)
Even worse, this is the type of stuff you might expect in the book 1984.
- Meanwhile, San Francisco committee wants to remove Abraham Lincoln’s name from high school (Fox News)
Annals of the “Social Justice” Caliphate
- Human Rights Campaign wants Christian schools to abandon beliefs or lose accreditation (Daily Signal)
- New York City seeks to bar police from any interaction with homeless (Hot Air)
Religious Liberty
- Supreme Court rules in favor of Colorado church, bars state from restricting worship (Daily Caller)
Second Amendment
- Louisiana homeowner shoots four invaders, killing two (Disrn)
Stranger Than Fiction
- Chicago Public Schools hiring new workers … to supervise students in classrooms where teachers are remote (Chicago Sun Times)
- Cops respond after text autocorrects “swabbed” to “stabbed” (NY Post)
Around the World
- Boko Haram claims abduction of hundreds of students in northern Nigeria (AP)
- Over 570,000 Uighurs forced to pick cotton in China (AFP)
Non Compos Mentis
- Disney World was digitally adding masks to photos of visitors and they look terrible (Not the Bee)
Need a Change of Pants
- Watch this guy walk right up to a bear without noticing it (Not the Bee)
American Spirit
- Pennsylvania man breaks unofficial Chick-fil-A record with 132 days of consecutive meals (Fox News)
Honestly, I would shatter the record myself if my wallet allowed for it.
Closing Arguments
- Policy: Militarizing the police doesn’t reduce crime (FEE)
- Policy: Taxing workers for staying home: A policy rooted in envy (FEE)
- Humor: Cleveland Indians change name to “Cleveland Genderless Sports Players With No Discernable Racial Features or Specific Ethnic Background” (Babylon Bee)
For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit Headline Report.
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Georgia Reloaded — This amazing new Dan Crenshaw ad will get conservative voters in the Peach State fired up.
Trump Proves Media Wrong. Again. — A COVID vaccine is already being distributed, much to the Leftmedia’s chagrin.
Gavin Newsom Exposed — Jason Siler explains how the California governor doesn’t fight for the little guy.
Hypocrisy: ‘Biden Is Legitimate’ vs. ‘Trump Is Illegitimate’ — Remember when the people telling us to accept the results didn’t accept the results?
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.
Insight: “Crony capitalism is a perversion of capitalism. Crony socialism is a feature of socialism.” —James Winters Jr.
Political futures: “No matter which party gains control, the party inevitably believes that people like it better than the other guys’ party. And when you think that way, you inevitably believe you can spend wildly on your vocal base’s wish list or expand government with no check on power. Many people vote a party into power because they are mad or want to punish the other party. In short, they don’t like you more. They just like the other team less, and they will just as gladly vote you out in the next election cycle. This is exactly what happened to Democrats in congressional elections this year. It is impossible to imagine how we can shake loose from either of these patterns.” —Salena Zito
For the record: “I argued that it’s not offensive to use Indians as sports mascots if it’s not offensive to use the Irish, and was immediately informed by many leftists that the comparison doesn’t work because the Irish haven’t been persecuted. These people are monumentally ignorant. Amazing.” —Matt Walsh
A trip down memory lane: “[The Nation of Islam’s] voice has been important even for the development of black theology. Because it was the black Muslims who challenged black preachers and said, ‘You’re promulgating … the white man’s religion. And that’s a slave religion. You’re telling people to focus on Heaven. Meanwhile, they’re catching hell.’” —Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Raphael Warnock in 2013
Alternate universe: “Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact.” —Joe Biden
Alpha jackass: “In the primary, people would mock [Biden], like, ‘You think you can work with Republicans?’ I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of f—ers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that.” —incoming White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon
And last… “Jill Biden is not a doctor, no. Maybe in the same sense Dr. Pepper is.” —Tucker Carlson
For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.
For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.
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