NC’s Dem Gov. Gives $445M to Big Corporations as Small Businesses Suffer Under Lockdown

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NC’s Dem Gov. Gives $445M to Big Corporations as Small Businesses Suffer Under Lockdown

(Kari Travis, Carolina Journal) Gov. Roy Cooper has promised $445 million state tax dollars to corporations so far in 2020.

At the same time, he’s kept a large swath of North Carolina’s small businesses closed under his COVID-19 orders.

It’s another example of the governor’s double standards and egregious misuse of taxpayer money, said Jon Sanders, director of regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation.

“I’m sorry. I can’t let that go,” he said. “That’s half a billion dollars of tax money pledged away in a year when Cooper has deliberately kept whole categories of businesses closed for over half a year, with no end in sight.”

Bars and private clubs have been shuttered since March, when the governor signed his first wave of executive orders amid panic over COVID-19. Movie and music theaters, too, remain closed. Gyms, bowling alleys, and other recreational businesses were recently allowed to reopen after months of closure and financial hardship. Restaurants, breweries, wineries, salons, and barber shops are still operating at half capacity.

Meanwhile, the rate of positive COVID-19 cases has dropped to 5%, the magical number Cooper has set — most recently — as one of his four benchmark goals for reopening the economy. Some counties are even starting to drop below that threshold. On Saturday, Sept. 26, Wake County reported 3.4% of residents’ coronavirus tests were positive. In Durham County, only 3.6% of tests were positive. Orange County came in lowest that day, with a 2% positive test rate.

But instead of opening things, Sanders said, the governor would rather dump more money toward “central planning and cronyism,” choosing winners and losers and leaving other parts of the economy to rot.

This is coming from a governor who claims he’s against big business, Sanders said. In 2019, Cooper opposed corporate tax cuts, vetoing a measure that would’ve saved local companies roughly $255.2 million this year. The governor simultaneously doled out $146 million in tax incentives to corporations of his choosing.

That was last year, when the economy was booming and the state’s workforce wasn’t facing an existential crisis, Sanders said. Now, when so many small businesses are at risk of bankruptcy and ruin, the governor has continued playing favorites.

“At several levels worse than last year, even,” Sanders said.

Earlier this month, the Democratic governor — along with Republican members of the General Assembly — announced an $18 million handout to the U.S. Golf Association for its decision to open official headquarters in Pinehurst. North Carolina will pay $3.6 million to USGA this fiscal year. To foot the bill, lawmakers pulled $3.5 million from the One North Carolina Fund — formerly dubbed “the governor’s walking around money” — and another $100,000 from the Job Development Investment Grant. JDIG is a Commerce Department “discretionary fund” giving money to companies that bring jobs to North Carolina.

The USGA deal is just one of 22 Cooper has undertaken this year. Cooper gave nearly $8.7 million to pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co., $3.3 million to financial services company Retirement Clearinghouse, and $2.4 million to bottling manufacturer Prime Beverage Group. That’s just to name a few.

Even Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, which already has a location in Tarboro, scored $500,000 in government giveaways this year. That company has promised to create 108 jobs as it expands food manufacturing.

Such government assistance always brings assurances of returns. New jobs. More local investments. But those numbers are just empty promises, Sanders said.

In the governor’s $3.3 million incentive deal with Retirement Clearinghouse, Cooper announced the company will spend $4.1 million to expand its corporate office in Charlotte. In turn, North Carolina estimates the company will grow the state’s GDP by more than $672 million.

That’s not math, that’s wishful thinking, Sanders said.

“This is economic alchemy, turning your hard-earned coin into dust.”

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of North Carolinians are foundering, trying to remain afloat while whole sectors of the economy remain closed or are limited by Cooper’s restrictions. Earlier this month, the governor’s office estimated that 169,500 hospitality workers remain unemployed. In March, restaurants, hotels, bars, and other recreational companies employed 535,800 people. More than half were laid off.

Click here to see a full list of Cooper’s grants…Original Source…

Brazil President Says Biden’s Amazon Comments ‘Disastrous’

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Brazil President Says Biden’s Amazon Comments ‘Disastrous’

(Associated Press) Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday attacked U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden for saying that the South American nation should suffer “significant economic consequences” if devastation of the Amazon rainforest continues.

Biden said during Tuesday’s debate with President Donald Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, that foreign countries should give Brazil $20 billion to stop Amazon deforestation, and that the country should face consequences if it fails.

The Brazilian leader has insisted on economic development of the region, drawing condemnation from environmentalists, climate activists and foreign leaders who say the forest is an important carbon sink and must remain standing to achieve climate change goals.

“The greed that some countries have over the Amazon is a reality,” Bolsonaro said on Twitter. “But the confirmation by someone who is fighting for the command of his country clearly signals that he wants to give up a cordial and profitable coexistence.”

Bolsonaro has repeatedly accused unnamed imperialist forces of trying to take over the Amazon, which harkens back to the stance of the 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Bolsonaro also labeled Biden’s comments as “regrettable,” as well as “disastrous and gratuitous.” While Bolsonaro’s original tweets correctly named the Democratic candidate, the English translation provided by his office referred to “Mr. John Biden.”

“What some have not yet understood is that Brazil has changed,” Bolsonaro said. “Its president, unlike left-wing presidents of the past, does not accept bribes, criminal land demarcations or coward threats toward our territorial and economic integrity. Our sovereignty is non-negotiable.”

During Tuesday’s debate, Biden said Brazil’s rainforests are being torn down.

“I would be gathering up and making sure we had the countries of the world coming up with $20 billion, and say, ‘Here’s $20 billion, stop tearing down the forest. And if you don’t then you’re gonna have significant economic consequences.’”

Preliminary official data published on Aug. 7 indicated that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region over the past 12 months could be at a 14-year high. The Brazilian Amazon lost 9,205 square kilometers (3,554 square miles) of vegetation in the 12 months ending in July, according to data from the country’s space agency.

Maurício Santoro, a professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said the statements show that “Bolsonaro’s relationship is with Trump, not with the U.S..” He said the international isolation around Brazil’s leader could deepen if Biden wins the election.

“If Brazil wants to keep a good relationship with a Biden administration it will have to make many concessions in the environmental area, beef up the enforcement on deforestation, wildfires issues, and show that it is taking the criticism seriously,” Santoro said.

Vitoria Saddi, an economy professor at Insper university in Sao Paulo, said Bolsonaro should be worried about Biden’s threat.

“The U.S. already does that (impose sanctions) against China for a lack of environmental surveillance. The problems of the Amazon are even bigger,” she said.

Earlier on Tuesday Brazil’s environment minister Ricardo Salles used Twitter to express doubt about Biden’s pledge.

“Only one question: those $20 billion of aid from Biden, is that per year?” Salles asked, adding that amount is “40 times bigger than the Amazon fund” sponsored mainly by European nations.

Under international pressure for action against fires in the Amazon, Bolsonaro put the army in charge in May. But The Associated Press found the operation dubbed as “Green Brazil 2” has had little effect and prosecution of rainforest destruction by ranchers, farmers and miners has almost halted.

But Biden’s pledge also rankled some local critics of Bolsonaro, such as bank teller Fernando Campanati, 40, underscoring the sense of wounded sovereignty many Brazilians feel.

“Why can’t First World countries control their carbon emissions? We are paying the price for industrialized countries,” said Campanati, who has no favorite in the American presidential elections. “(The Amazon) is an internal affair.”

Biden to Trump: ‘Will You Shut Up, Man?’

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Biden to Trump: ‘Will You Shut Up, Man?’

During the first segment of Tuesday’s presidential debate, President Donald Trump came out of the gate with a clear strategy to exasperate and overwhelm his Democrat rival, Joe Biden.

The freewheeling exchange began on the Supreme Court, but it quickly spun off into discussions of healthcare and ad hominem attacks from each of the two candidates.

After Biden attempted to recite a deflection about his position on court packing, Trump continued to goad him for a direct answer.

“Whatever position I take on that that’ll become the issue,” Biden said. “The issue is…”

“Are you gonna pack the court?” Trump repeatedly asked.

“Will you shut up, man?” Biden told the president.

While the moderator, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, tried to assert himself, he often failed to rein in the mercurial Trump or to fully challenge Biden’s frequent dodges on policy specifics.

As Trump mused, it felt like he was debating Wallace during some of the exchanges.

Biden, for his part, seemed to be the less charismatic of the two figures by far, but sought, as he has, to chart a contrasting path by depicting Trump’s style as chaotic.

“Like almost everything else he talks about, he does not have a plan,” Biden attempted to confront Trump regarding his efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Nonetheless, the two weeks Biden was said to have spent preparing for the debate seemed to fly out the window as he was kept on defensive during much of the 90 minute session.

Having faced few direct challenges from the media, Biden was often left flustered by the barrage of challenges to his record.

“I hate to raise my voice… ” Wallace interjected meekly and monotonously in an unintentionally comical moment during a heated exchange over Biden’s favorable treatment of China.

The rapid-fire approach prevented either candidate from offering a detailed response on any one issue, but most of the answers already seemed to be culled from the candidates’ past statements and stump speeches.

Few if any policy positions seemed to warrant a need for greater clarity or elaboration.

On the issue of race relations, for instance, Biden once again repeated an abject falsehood claiming that white supremacists had emerged from fields during a protest at the University of Virginia’s Rotunda.

However, Charlottesville is a mid-size city with no rural areas in the immediate vicinity of the school’s historic grounds. The only fields nearby are those used for playing sports.

“Close your eyes you remember what those people looked like coming out of the fields carrying torches,” Biden claimed, using the same wording used during his speech at the Democratic National Convention. “This is a president who has used everything as a dogwhistle.”

Biden went on to take Trump’s words out of context in an oft-repeated trope claiming Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly 2017 clash — a lie that Wallace used as part of one of his own questions. In fact, Trump had just finished condemning the bad actors on both the radical Right and Left when he made the remark.

Trump used the occasion not to correct the record on Biden’s embellishment but to attack the former vice president’s own shaky record with the black community, including his past statements calling them “super predators.”

He charged Biden also with having become beholden to leftist radicals to the point that he was now afraid to even mention “law and order.”

“If you say those words you’re gonna lose all of your radical supporters,” Trump told him.

Biden rebuffed Trump’s characterization when confronted about his capitulation to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s socialized healthcare plan.

“The party is me right now,” he said. “I am the Democratic party right now. The platform of the Democratic party is what I in fact approved of.”

However, he quickly took off the mantle of party leader when asked by Wallace why he had not stepped in to ask state and local officials in Portland to end the months of violent race riots.

“I don’t hold public office now,” he insisted. “I am a former vice president. I’ve made it clear in my public statements that the violence should be prosecuted…”

Trump wisely knew when to step away from challenging Biden, as when he allowed him to ramble on dryly about a hollow environmental plan.

While the details seemed lost even to Biden himself, Trump scored the take-home points by emphasizing its excessive cost—$100 trillion, according to the president—and getting Biden himself to accidentally state his support for the Green New Deal.

“The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward,” Biden began before being asked by Wallace to clarify.

“I support the Biden plan that I put forward,” he said vaguely. “The Biden plan, which is different than the Green New Deal.”

Biden also seemed to get tangled in his own rhetoric while avoiding a response on the Senate’s recently released Burisma report, which he emphatically insisted, without evidence, had been “discredited.”

The report implicated Biden’s son Hunter and other members of the Biden family in major ethical conflicts involving foreign nations while he was serving as vice president during the Obama administration.

Biden attempted to shift topics and attack Trump on the military, but it sounded instead as if he were confusing his two sons, Hunter and Beau.

At another point he tried to find common cause with at-home viewers by claiming Trump’s attacks on his family’s corrupt business deals were a distraction.

“We wanna talk about families and ethics? I don’t wanna do that,” Biden said.

As with everything in the highly charged political climate, the winner likely will be in the eye of the beholder.

Trump succeeded, as he did with Hillary Clinton four years ago, in scratching the itch that his outraged GOP constituency feels toward Biden’s ability to coast on softball questions and face little accountability.

At the same time, the low expectations placed on Biden that he might become disoriented and fully incoherent failed to come to fruition largely due to Trump’s domineering approach.

Although Biden did not receive the breaks at 30-minute intervals he had requested earlier in the day, he was rarely called upon to perform for an extended amount of time, and Trump’s eagerness to interrupt him likely reinforced the qualities that Biden’s own supporters were looking for him to demonstrate.

Nonetheless, he showed that he also could be just as feisty as Trump when it came to personal attacks, calling Trump a “clown” and questioning his intelligence.

“And a lot of people are gonna die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot quicker,” Biden said of the coronavirus response.

“Did you just use the word smart?” Trump said, tearing into more Biden’s false statements, in which he claimed to have graduated at the top of his class and started his college career at a historically black university.

“Don’t ever use the word smart with me,” Trump said.

For Moderator Chris Wallace, Debate was Runaway Train

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For Moderator Chris Wallace, Debate was Runaway Train

(Headline USA) For much of the opening presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace looked like a man trying to stop a runaway train with his bare hands.

The contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was chaotic from start to finish. With interruptions and interjections, Trump threw his Democratic opponent off stride. Pleas, increasingly frustrated and loud, were the only tools Wallace had at his disposal to try to maintain control.

“Please let him speak, Mr. President,” Wallace tried more than once.

The Fox News host pointed out he was the moderator, that he was the one to ask questions, that he hated to raise his voice but would. He reminded the president that his campaign had agreed to the ground rules.

For much of the time, it was futile.

“Chris Wallace’s debate performance tonight is a great reminder that kindergarten teachers are underpaid,” liberal “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah tweeted in the midst of the 90-minute encounter.

There was near unanimous disgust from anti-Trump, legacy media commentators after the debate was over. Some, like CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, wondered openly if the two remaining scheduled debates between the two men would actually happen. CBS ran an instant poll of viewers and found 69% considered it annoying and just 17% found it informative.

Twitter — constantly misread as representative of the country at large — was ablaze with complaints that Wallace had lost control, while some defenders wondered whether there was really anything he could do.

“Chris Wallace did not act as a moderator, Donald Trump did not act as a debater,” said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace — no relation. “Donald Trump was the abuser and Chris Wallace was among the abused.”

Wallace tried to ask pointed questions — with a clear slant coming from a liberal perspective, leaving Trump to ask questions about Biden scandals because the “Fox News Sunday” host refused to do so. He effectively asked Trump three times whether he accepted climate change, while a softball asked Biden whether his proposals to help the environment would hurt the economy. He asked Trump why his administration sought to end racial sensitivity training — without delving into the “critical race theory” behind it all — in government, and questioned Biden about whether he should be using his influence to stop violence in a city like Portland, Oregon.

It often appeared Wallace was trying to bail Biden out after being cornered on scandals involving his son Hunter and regarding an attempted coup against the Trump presidency during the 2016 campaign and the following transition from the Obama administration. And at other times Trump was debating Wallace more than Biden.

Despite the preparation, Wallace sometimes seemed to give up. At one point he told Trump he was going to ask a question about race, “but if you want to answer something else, you can.”

He would occasionally cut short answers or discussions that had a chance of being productive because he simply wanted to end the bickering and move on.

Wallace said before the debate that he would not take on a role of fact-checker and held to that. But that left both candidates accusing the other of lying several times and the viewer without any recourse to tell who was telling the truth.

“It’s been an interesting hour and a half,” he said at the end.

Leftist liberal media figures hated it. NBC News veteran Andrea Mitchell called the debate a disgrace. NBC’s Chuck Todd called it a train wreck. CNN’s Jake Tapper called it “a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck.”

“Trump’s strategy tonight was to interrupt, to try to steamroll not only his opponent but also the moderator who was unable to keep control of the two candidates,” said CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell. “I think the question we’re all asking tonight is, ‘Can we really have two more of these?’”

That seems to be narrative the mainstream media will spin for the coming weeks to protect their preferred candidate, Biden.

Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume described Trump as a “bucking bronco.” He said it was the type of performance that would appeal to the president’s fans, but he didn’t know whether it would expand his support.

“If strength was what you were looking for, maybe you’d see him as the winner,” Hume said.

Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” is the only one of the three moderators with experience in a general election presidential debate, and he had drawn wide praise for handling the third contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. The other two scheduled moderators — Kristen Welker of NBC News and C-SPAN host Steve Scully — have never done it before.

Even before the night was through, there was talk about whether moderators should have the authority to cut off the microphone of one candidate while the other is talking, a potential landmine that will have supporters questioning if it can be done fairly.

“It takes a lion tamer in a debate with Donald Trump, and you needed 10 lion tamers tonight,” said ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “I think Chris Wallace tried. I think at some point you just have to stop it. It was not a presidential debate. It was mud wrestling.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

California Prosecutor: Driver Tried to Kill Trump Supporters

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California Prosecutor: Driver Tried to Kill Trump Supporters

(Headline USA) The organizer of a Southern California rally against police brutality and racism was charged with attempted murder Tuesday for driving her car into counterprotesters and running over a woman’s head.

Tatiana Turner deliberately drove into a crowd of President Donald Trump‘s supporters with the intent to kill the woman and also seriously injured a man who broke his leg, Orange County prosecutors said.

“She positioned her vehicle to be used as a backup weapon and she used that vehicle as a deadly weapon, willing to injure and kill those who stood in her way,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.

A defense lawyer said Turner tried unsuccessfully to get help from deputies Saturday in Yorba Linda after her group was overwhelmed by a hostile crowd.

Turner saw people with guns and feared for her life when she got into her car that was blocked by Trump supporters, attorney Ludlow Creary II claimed. He said she was trying to get away and didn’t intend to hit anyone.

“There were actions that caused her to become fearful for her life and that’s when she accelerated,” Creary said.

Turner, 40, made her first appearance in court remotely from the jail and was ordered held on $1 million bail. A not guilty plea was entered on her behalf by her lawyer.

The felony complaint said Turner had the “specific intent to kill” the woman who was run over.

The victim has not been named.

Authorities said she was hospitalized with major injuries and expected to survive.

Turner, who has a felony record for drug sales and domestic violence, is also charged with six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, including one count for causing great bodily injury, mayhem, and two counts of the use of pepper spray by a felon.

Turner’s group, Urban Organizers Coalition, claimed they had planned a peaceful march Saturday at the Yorba Linda Library, about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

But they were quickly outnumbered and threatened by the other group, Creary claimed.

The DA, however, referred to Turner’s group as “professional militant organizers.”

Turner was seen in videos waving a baton and spraying what appeared to be pepper spray earlier in the protest.

Some members of her group had helmets and riot shields.

Creary said the charges were excessive.

“In my opinion, it’s a message to activists that go to OC,” Creary said. “They want to let them know that they’re going to push to the full extent of the law against activists. Again, it’s part of the hostile environment.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Intel Chief: Obama Admin KNEW of Hillary’s Plan to Smear Trump w/ Russia Scandal

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Intel Chief: Obama Admin KNEW of Hillary’s Plan to Smear Trump w/ Russia Scandal

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday released a bombshell of a letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe suggesting that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to smear Trump on Russia in July 2016—and both Russian and US intelligence were aware of it.

Ratcliffe’s newly declassified dispatches come a day ahead of a highly anticipated hearing with former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Graham chairs.

In the letter summarizing the release, Ratcliffe said that in July 2016, shortly after the Democratic National Committee announced its servers had been breached, US intelligence officials obtained a Russian intel analysis saying Clinton had approved the smear campaign linking Trump to Putin.

By mid-July, stories questioning Trump’s loyalties had appeared in the Washington Post and New York magazine.

That same month, the Clinton campaign also commissioned ex-British spy Christopher Steele via the Fusion GPS opposition research firm to generate reports that relied on questionable sources who were likely Russian agents.

On July 31 of that year, the FBI officially launched its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, based at least partially on the information presented in the Steele reports.

Ratcliffe said it was impossible to determine whether the Russian analysis that the US intercepted was genuine or also part of the disinformation campaign it had undertaken.

“The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication,” he wrote.

But regardless of what the Russians may have known or what role they played in assisting the Clinton campaign, Ratcliffe noted that then-CIA Director John Brennan had acknowledged taking the information to the highest level.

“According to his handwritten notes … Brennan subsequently briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials on the intelligence, including the ‘alleged approval by Hillary Clinton … to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.'”

Although the letter does not specify at what point Obama was briefed or what actions he took in response, publicly he took little action prior to the November election other than to issue Russia a stern, generalized warning about interference.

However, Ratcliffe did reveal that the matter was referred for investigation to the FBI in early September.

It does not indicate whether Comey or lead investigator Peter Strzok chose to pursue any leads in the Clinton smear campaign, which intelligence formally indicated was “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.”

While prospects remain uncertain whether the Justice Department’s Durham investigation into the Russia hoax will conclude before the November election, Graham has taken matters into his own hands by pushing forward with the latest Senate Judiciary inquiry.

He also has pressed Ratcliffe and Attorney General William Barr to expedite the declassification process and make as much available as possible to the public.

That has resulted in several substantial revelations, such as the disclosure last week that Steele’s primary sub-source was likely a Russian agent and questions over whether the Mueller team that investigated Trump’s alleged Russia ties had illegally wiped their phones.

“Additional declassification and public disclosure of related intelligence remains under consideration,” Ratcliffe said; “however, the IC welcomes the opportunity to provide a classified briefing with further detail at your convenience.”

SELLERS: Handicapping the ‘October Surprise,’ March Madness-Style

Ben Sellers
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SELLERS: Handicapping the ‘October Surprise,’ March Madness-Style

In the year where every week seems to bring a new surprise, trying to guess what October has in store for the upcoming election may bring more spine-tingling chills than the recently cancelled Halloween.

Over a span of two weeks in September, we saw:

To the extent that an October surprise can be planned or anticipated, below is a March Madness-style bracket that you can use to place your bets at home.

  • COVID Cure vs. Stock Market Crash

Coronavirus
Coronavirus / IMAGE: KHOU 11 via YouTube

Trump already has hinted at the possibility of a coronavirus vaccine being ready before Election Day, which Democrats have pre-emptively rejected as a dangerous political ploy. Nonetheless, it would be the game-changer, promising to return us to the pre-March boom-time optimism when our biggest worry was Ukraine.

Conversely, there could be a repeat of the 2008 race, in which the stock market bottomed out mere weeks before Barack Obama defeated John McCain. Some speculate that Obama’s inevitability caused the underlying crash in consumer confidence. Others wonder if mega-billionaires like George Soros didn’t exert their influence to nudge the US economy in the wrong direction.

  • Biden Drops Out vs. Trump Impeached (Again)?

Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama / IMAGE: When We All Vote

Is Democrat hopeful Joe Biden’s dementia real, or is it all an act? Regardless, he could be setting the stage for a surprise exit before or after Nov. 3.

A Michelle Obama bait-and-switch, for example, would allow her to avoid the hassle of campaigning against President Donald Trump while enjoying the perks.

But why would Biden agree to such an arrangement? Dirt would be the obvious answer, if the accounts of his former Secret Service detail are to be trusted.

Meanwhile, Democrat prosecutors in New York have long been fishing for dirt against  Trump on matters including his taxes and campaign expenditures.

And the Left may attempt other lines of attack, such as finding a new scandal to indict someone close to the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even refused to rule out the possibility of another impeachment as one of the ‘arrows’ in her quiver to forestall a Supreme Court confirmation.

  • Iran War / Assassination Attempt vs. Mass Shooter

Gun sales
IMAGE: CBS Evening News via Youtube

As the killing of Qassem Soleimani during the throes of Trump’s impeachment proved, the “wag the dog” strategy can be an effective way to redirect the news cycle. On the downside, Iran has vowed vengeance and may seek to strike before the election if doing so would hurt Trump’s campaign.

While a terrorist act could create a “rally” effect for Trump, any sort of a mass shooting—even a false-flag operation—would normally play to the Left’s anti-gun rhetoric.

However, the ongoing violence from riots and the extra vigilance due to COVID lockdowns both reduce the odds that a normally cataclysmic massacre would stir lasting public outrage.

  • Stormy Daniels vs. Tara Reade

Joe Biden and Stephanie Carter
Joe Biden poses with Stephanie Carter. / IMAGE: Wochit News via YouTube

Much to the chagrin of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s scandalous “Hollywood Access” tape didn’t move the dial last election. But the residual effects of the MeToo movement could help resurrect decades-old accusations on either side in the coming election.

Assuredly, we haven’t heard the last of the long-brewing allegations that Trump paid off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy bunny Karen McDougal during the 2016 race, a charge that New York prosecutors are continuing to pursue.

But Republicans may get their own court victory if Judicial Watch‘s pending case against the University of Delaware reveals anything more about Biden’s alleged assault on Tara Reade or other women who may have complained about his uncomfortable advances.

Meanwhile, the case against Jeffrey Epstein‘s alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, could serve up another wild card in the sex-scandal category—one that could break for or against either Trump or his Democrat adversaries, depending on the allegations.

  • Durham Bombshell vs. Trump Pee Tape

John Durham/PHOTO: Justice Department

The slow drips of the Durham investigation into the FBI’s Russia hoax have been building up to something. But whether it will conclude in time for the election remains to be seen. FBI Director James Comey‘s Senate Judiciary testimony on Wednesday could be the beginning or the end of the saga, depending on what else is hiding in those classified files.

But what if it were all true? If there really were Russian kompromat on Trump, as the Steele dossier alleged—including the notorious tape of the future president receiving a “golden shower” from Moscow prostitutes—then it would certainly surface at some point in the coming month.

  • Amy Coney Barrett vs. John Roberts

Amy Coney Barrett
Amy Coney Barrett / IMAGE: CBS News via YouTube

Sen. Lindsey Graham has said Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett‘s confirmation hearing will begin in mid-October and is expected to last three to four days. But we all know how that goes. This high-stakes game could be the crowning legacy of Trump’s first term. But Democrats will doubtless pull out all the stops, yet again, to prevent it.

Barrett’s addition to the court would relieve pressure on aging Justice Clarence Thomas, 72, to retire before Democrats regained power. But Chief Justice John Roberts, who has made abundantly clear he is no Trump fan, could throw a wrench in the works with an early exit.

The likelihood of legal challenges to the election results means the court could be forced—as it did in 2000—to resolve the final outcome, casting another blow to its legitimacy for the losing side. Having already presided over an impeachment and been the deciding vote in many landmark cases that betrayed his liberal tendencies, a burned-out Roberts could choose to walk away once his influence as a swing vote has been mooted.

  • N-Word Scandal vs. George Floyd Acquittal

George Floyd memorial
A 20-foot mural of George Floyd / IMAGE: CBS Evening News

Biden’s racist gaffes may come at a considerable cost among minorities, where only a small percentage of defections could ruin Democrat prospects. Trump has continued to build on these in-roads, pushing for even more initiatives that should resonate with black voters disaffected by Black Lives Matter‘s hijacking of the civil rights movement.

But should scandalous racial comments surface, all bets are off. For some time, comedian Tom Arnold was on a mission to uncover rumored tapes of Trump using the n-word. Then, the case suddenly went cold. Did Arnold find what he was seeking?

Even more likely to reignite racial tensions would be a development in the George Floyd case similar to that which occurred recently in the Breonna Taylor case. Although radical Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison could not be more different than Kentucky’s Daniel Cameron, rioters would likely fail to make the distinction if the officers involved in Floyd’s death received an acquittal—despite there being a strong case for one.

  • New Lockdowns vs. Caravans Resume

Mail-in ballot
A voter in Oregon sends in an absentee ballot via mail. / IMAGE: Politico via YouTube

It’s no coincidence that the Obamas have emphasized the importance of voting early. With Democrats having largely succeeded in the suspicious efforts to relax mail-in voting rules during the pandemic, a media-hyped resurgence of the virus could throw in-person voting on Election Day into complete turmoil.

However, if Democrat swing-state governors were to shut down the polls, it would be an ironic twist since they, themselves, have long countered election-integrity measures with complaints over voter access.

On the other hand, pandemic lockdowns have helped the Trump administration curb the immigration threat that once dominated headlines. If a vaccine were to emerge, left-wing activists could reignite the immigration debate by organizing another caravan of desperate, virus-infected migrants making impassioned pleas for access to free US healthcare.

Mueller Makes Rare Public Statement Rebuffing Ex-Top Deputy over Book Claims

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Mueller Makes Rare Public Statement Rebuffing Ex-Top Deputy over Book Claims

(Headline USA) Former special counsel Robert Mueller pushed back Tuesday against criticism from one of the top prosecutors on the Russia investigation team that the team was not as aggressive as it should have been in probing connections between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

The rare public rebuke from Mueller, his first since his July 2019 congressional testimony, follows reports on a book by Andrew Weissmann, due out Tuesday.

Weissmann has remained a source of controversy since serving as one of Mueller’s top deputies.

The partisan operative has become a regular Trump critic on left-wing cable news broadcasts. But after agreeing to headline a Biden fundraiser earlier this year, he was forced to back out over ethical and legal concerns.

Mueller did not specifically mention the book in his statement but stood steadfast behind the decisions that he made as special council on how to run the investigation, which ultimately found no evidence that Trump had colluded with Russian operatives.

“It is not surprising that members of the Special Counsel’s Office did not always agree, but it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information,” Mueller said in the statement.

“The office’s mission was to follow the facts and to act with integrity. That is what we did, knowing that our work would be scrutinized from all sides,” he added in the statement.

Although Mueller’s report suggested that the president had sought to actively interfere with the probe at times, the fact that there was no underlying crime involved, along with longstanding Justice Department policy, led Mueller to punt a decision to recommend obstruction charges in the politically sensitive matter.

Trump frequently denounced Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” led by power-hungry partisan Democrats.

“When important decisions had to be made, I made them. I did so as I have always done, without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences,” Mueller said in his statement. “I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”

Some reasonable speculation exists that Weissmann, himself, may soon be angling for a pardon if he is implicated in criminal conduct by the Justice Department’s Durham investigation.

Declassified documents recently revealed that more than 20 members of Mueller’s team either acknowledged wiping their phones or turned in phones with nothing on them.

Both Mueller’s and Weissmann’s phones were empty, while two staffers under Weissmann’s supervision claimed to have accidentally wiped theirs by submitting the wrong password information too many times.

The book by Weissmann, “Where Law Ends,” is the first insider account of the Mueller team’s investigation published by a former prosecutor who was part of it.

Weissmann did not immediately respond to the statement on Twitter.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Leftist Buffoon Sacha Baron Cohen to Release Anti-GOP ‘Borat’ Sequel Before Election

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Leftist Buffoon Sacha Baron Cohen to Release Anti-GOP ‘Borat’ Sequel Before Election

With only a few weeks until the US election, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is poised to release a highly-anticipated sequel to his acclaimed—and controversial—movie Borat on Oct. 23, and it may contain a few nasty October surprises for Republicans.

The groundbreaking 2006 comedy mixed in cutting-edge social commentary by luring unwitting participants into awkward, madcap situations.

Cohen originated the character of Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh journalist, on his series “Da Ali G Show.”

The film, directed by Larry Charles, grossed $262 million worldwide and was nominated for best adapted screenplay at the Academy Awards.

Its brilliance lay in his anonymity and in the emphasis placed on capturing the unscripted bystander reactions to the escalating absurdity that the filmmakers had engineered.

But his flash-in-the-pan success quickly faded after the film’s success resulted in a newfound celebrity and loss of anonymity for Cohen.

With his ambush gimmick becoming an oft-imitated art-form, he was forced to rely upon increasingly contrived scenarios.

Cohen’s work has also taken on an increasingly malicious and partisan tenor, with a short-lived HBO talk-show targeting conservative figures and setting them up for ridicule.

Some, such as former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, reported that Cohen had outright misled and manipulated them while taking their statements out of context.

Former Alabama Judge Roy Moore, who lost a Senate bid amid innuendo about his relationship with an underage girl, sued Cohen for defamation after he attempted to use a device that would measure pedophilia.

The same appears to be true of his forthcoming Borat sequel, which is slated to go direct to Amazon prior to the Nov. 3 election.

The streaming giant confirmed Tuesday that it has acquired worldwide rights to the film.

It’s reportedly titled: “Borat: Gift of Pornographic Monkey to Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence to Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan.”

Reports have steadily accumulated about the project throughout the summer as it was filmed in secret during the pandemic.

In early July, Rudy Giuliani called the police on Cohen after an interview in which Cohen emerged in character.

Giuliani told Page Six: “This guy comes running in wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit. It was a pink bikini, with lace.”

In June, Cohen appeared at a far-right rally in Olympia, Washington, posing as a sponsor of the event. He led the crowd in a racially charged singalong, although many indicated afterward that they were immediately suspicious and uncomfortable with it.

Unlike the spontaneity he is known for, Cohen’s producers reportedly organized the entire event and paid for it.

What also remains to be seen is whether Cohen’s controversial and non-politically correct brand of humor still resonates in an era where #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have made many of his former topics verboten.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Timing of Biden’s Latest Tax Release Rings of Coordinated Media Attack

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Timing of Biden’s Latest Tax Release Rings of Coordinated Media Attack

(Headline USA) Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, released more of their personal tax returns on Tuesday, just days after a New York Times attack smeared President Donald Trump with a leak of his tax records, which it may have obtained illicitly.

The Bidens’ returns show the couple paid almost $300,000 in federal taxes in 2019, including almost $288,000 in personal income tax. The Bidens reported taxable income of $944,737.

The Times reported that Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he was elected president, and again in 2017, his first year in office.

It claimed he paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the 15 years before that.

However, the White House has disputed the information, saying it was both incomplete and misinterpreted the complicated financial structure surrounding his many real-estate holdings and investments.

Trump, who has cited an audit as the reason for not releasing the tax records himself, called the reports “fake news.”

Biden and Trump are set to meet Tuesday night in Cleveland for their first presidential debate, and Trump’s taxes are sure to come up.

The timing of the release raised questions as to whether the Times had collaborated with Biden’s campaign.

Conservative strategist and author Jerome Corsi hinted that even well-known Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace—who is set to moderate Tuesday’s debate, might also have given Biden favorable treatment by providing him in advance with the debate questions.

“He’s being prepared on the exact questions he’s being asked,” Corsi said during an interview on talk-radio station KXEL.

Biden already had released two decades’ worth of his tax returns, in addition to the federal financial disclosures required of him when he was a senator and vice president.

However, some have questioned his records due to the surprising amount he paid during his four decades as a career public-servant.

The Trump campaign released a list of 17 key questions that it wanted Biden to answer during Tuesday’s debate. Some homed in on the questionable business deals that the former vice president and his family made with foreign governments.

A Senate report last week confirmed that the presence of Biden’s son Hunter on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma likely undermined US policy.

Pro-Russia newspapers in the former Soviet satellite openly mocked Biden for stepping in to force the firing of a prosecutor who was investigating the corruption.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

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