Obama Leads the Big Whopper Sweepstakes at DNC’s Third Night

It’s an award he is no stranger to receiving after having previously been recognized for such gems as “If you like your doctor, you can keep him,” “The 80s called; they want their foreign policy back”—as well as his post-presidency boasts of having laid the groundwork for a historic economic boom and having maintained a “scandal free” administration.

But with other heavy-hitting gas-lighters like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi in contention, ex-President Barack Obama faced one of the greatest challenges in his highly privileged life while vying for Wednesday’s Biggest Whopper Award during the Democratic National Convention.

Two nights after Obama’s wife, Michelle, seemed reluctant to mention the former vice president and current Democrat presidential nominee by name, Barack put aside his long rumored contempt for his right-hand man, warmly referring to Biden as his “brother.”

“For eight years Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision,” he said, remembering to include mention of himself in the speech so as not to make it entirely about the nominee.

While the claim of their fraternal relations would likely be enough to trigger countless fact-checks in the left-wing press if the speaker were a Republican, that objectively false statement was likely intended to be a rhetorical flourish in Obama’s paean to democracy, delivered remotely from Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution.

The speech was laced with similar exaggerations, including one of the oft-repeated talking points about the post-office that Democrats have used during the DNC convention to deflect from their efforts to commit vote fraud via mail-in ballots.

Obama likewise falsely claimed that he and Biden had successfully managed the H1N1 swine flu and kept Ebola from reaching America, both of which overlooked significant details like the deaths of more than 1,000 children during the swine flu epidemic.

But objectively speaking none of the claims were more easily disproven than Obama’s declaration that “no public official—including the president—should use their office to enrich their supporters.”

In the context of his remarks, Obama’s comment underscored the pervasive cynicism of the American populace, suggesting that his successor, President Donald Trump, was engaged in such misconduct.

But, in fact, the remark might easily have been directed at Biden and many of the other speakers appearing at the DNC.

The shady dealings of many, including two of the night’s speakers—Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris—were exposed in conservative watchdog journalist Peter Schweizer‘s latest book, 2019’s Profiles in Corruption.

Biden’s abuse of power during the Obama administration included securing sweetheart business deals for his son Hunter, brother Frank and many others within his family.

Those deals took center-stage as Democrats attempted to weaponized Trump’s calls for Ukraine to investigate as part of their impeachment effort last year.

Hillary Clinton—the failed 2016 nominee who delivered, perhaps, the most bitter of the night’s anti-Trump diatribes—seemed to offer either a swipe at Biden or an acknowledgement of her own family cronyism in her speech also.

“The best testament to Joe is how he’s cared for his family,” she remarked.

Did Pocahontas Plagiarize Plot of the ‘Andy Griffith Show’?

On a night deliberately designed to put the focus on vice-presidential running-mate Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren went where even Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama himself feared to tread: upstaging the nominee.

Warren, who outlasted Harris in the recent presidential primaries, told a bizarre and largely self-serving story of her own experiences as a working mother who struggled with childcare.

“I get to be here tonight because of my Aunt Bee,” she said, while promoting a radical agenda that would include socialized, taxpayer-subsidized childcare.

“If you have a baby and don’t have an Aunt Bee, you’re on your own,” she continued.

The tale, however, sounded uncannily like the premise of the 60s-era sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show,” in which Frances Bavier portrayed the matronly character who comes to live with the widowed sheriff of Mayberry, NC, and help him raise his son, Opie (portrayed by a young Ron Howard).

“When I told Aunt Bee I was gonna quit my job, I thought my heart would break,” Warren said.

But the mysterious relative arrived the next day with “seven suitcases and a Pekinese named ‘Buddy’ and stayed for 16 years,” Warren claimed.

Immediately, some questioned the authenticity of Warren’s anecdote given the radical progressive’s propensity for whoppers.

Warren is best known, perhaps, for her debunked claim that she was a minority based on what DNA tests later proved to be a less-than-significant amount of Cherokee ancestry.

She blamed the misunderstanding on her family for instilling in her the ways of the Indian to such great extent that she contributed to a Native American cookbook and self-identified herself as a person of color in order to gain advantages in her career as a lawyer and academic.

After being denounced by the Cherokee for her appropriation of their culture, Warren was required to apologize as one of the early stumbling blocks in her campaign.

Despite the embarrassment, DNC organizers elected to follow the sage advice of activism guru Saul Alinsky by pushing the negative through to the other side.

Earlier in the week, they invited her to join a virtual panel discussion as part of the convention’s Native American Caucus—a move met with much derision by her critics.

Warren’s name also has been floated for a likely Cabinet position, such as Treasury or Education secretary, in a prospective Biden administration.

But her erratic behavior, which included tweeting a video of herself chugging a beer on New Year’s Eve, has led some to be concerned that she might be unfit for the role.

Native Americans have historically faced substance-abuse problems and are three times more likely to die of an overdose than the general population.

NYTimes Journos Complain of Threats After Tucker Carlson Accuses of Attempted Doxing

Freelance photographer Tristan Spinski said he had to hide, lock himself in an upstairs room, and call the police after Fox News Host Tucker Carlson accused the photojournalist of attempting to dox him, The Guardian reported.

Carlson said on his July 20 broadcast that Spinski, a New York Times photojournalist, and Murray Carpenter, a New York Times reporter, were working on a story “about where my family and I live.”

His concerns came a few years after anarchists terrorized his family and vandalized his property, The Washington Post reported.

The New York Times “assured” Fox News that Spinski and Murray were not trying to dox Carlson but were trying to write a feature story about his “life in the state, where he spends several months each year,” The Washington Post reported.

Spinski said people came to his home in Maine at 9:57 p.m., less than an hour after Carlson’s show ends, to threaten him.

Spinski’s brother-in-law told the police that there was a “loud banging noise downstairs and some threats coming to the house recently just in the past hour,” according to the 911 transcript.

“We’re currently upstairs but they’re trying to break in downstairs,” he said.

Spinski’s brother-in-law said an unknown person a voicemail told him: “We know where you live, beware” and other “things of that nature.”

“Yeah, there was a definite … we can feel our house when someone is trying to get into it downstairs,” he said. “It was significant.”

Carpenter also said he was harassed after Carlson’s segment, The Washington Post reported.

The Lincoln County Commissioners office said it provided the 911 transcript, but it did not confirm that it was Spinski’s brother-in-law who made the call.

Spinski himself has not commented on the 911 call, but he said that he will no longer work on the story.

“I’m apolitical in my work, and this has politicised my role in some ways,” he said. “I can’t photo [sic] a story that I’m a part of, if that makes sense.”

Trump Lashes Out at Goodyear Over Pro-BLM, Anti-MAGA Policies

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(Headline USA) President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged people to boycott tires from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., tweeting that the Ohio-based company had “announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS.”

“Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!),” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s tweet followed a report from WIBW television station in Topeka, Kansas, based on an anonymous Goodyear employee’s screenshot that listed Black Lives Matter and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride messages as acceptable while politically affiliated slogans and material, including “MAGA Attire” and “Blue Lives Matter,” were listed as unacceptable.

The screenshot was described in the report as part of the company’s diversity training.

But Goodyear responded to Trump with a tweet of its own, saying that the company was the focus of a conversation that “created some misconceptions about our policies and our company. Goodyear has always wholeheartedly supported both equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so.”

The company didn’t specifically announce a ban, but said it had asked employees to refrain from workplace expressions involving political campaigning or “forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues issues.”

The policy appears to mirror that of the NBA, which allows players to display only certain social justice messages on their jerseys, mostly addressing alleged “systemic racism.”

Trump’s tweet immediately sent Goodyear’s stock downward.

The stock had lost about 3.8% percent of its value in mid-day trading.

Goodyear has a more than 120-year history in Ohio, a battleground state in the presidential election.

Most of its competition is headquartered outside the United States.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, tweeted that “It’s absolutely despicable that the President would call for a boycott of an American company, based in Akron, that employs thousands of U.S. workers.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Social Media Censors Links, Searches for Second ‘Plandemic’ Documentary

Social media giants on Tuesday expanded their censorship of skeptical perspectives on the coronavirus by blocking links and search results.

Facebook and Twitter are preventing users from clicking on links that navigate to London Real’s Digital Freedom Platform, which is called freedomplatform.tv, according to Reclaim The Net.

Users will receive this warning: “This URL goes against our Community Standards on spam.”

The top of the website features an advertisement for Plandemic: Indoctornation, a follow-up to the documentary Plandemic, which featured research scientist Dr. Judy Mikovits.

She appears for a second interview about the coronavirus.

Technology and social media corporations engaged in a similar censorship for the original Plandemic documentary.

Notably, social media corporations also censored the Frontline Doctors and the California doctors who questioned the response to the coronavirus.

Producer Mikki Willis created both documentaries.

The documentary explores the operations of the Global Monitoring Preparedness Board, a group within the World Health Organization.

The board members include:

  • Dr. Chris Elias, President of Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
  • Dr. George F. Guo, the Director-General for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

The video also discusses a recommendation, found on page 10 of the “Annual report on global preparedness for health emergencies,” that there be “training and simulation exercises” for a global pandemic by September 2020.

“The United Nations (including WHO) conducts at least two system-wide training and simulation exercises, including one for covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Instragram and TikTok have banned searches for the word “plandemic.”

When users search the phrase on these platforms, their search engines fraudulently respond that they yield “no results,” Reclaim The Net reported.

TikTok informs users: “This phrase may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.”

Instagram has blocked “recent posts” with “plandemic” but is allowing top posts, which often come from unreliable news sources such as USA Today, The Hill, and CNN.

Both Facebook and Twitter allow searches for “plandemic,” but the first result on both platforms is a state-approved link.

Facebook leads users to the “COVID-19 Information Center,” where they instruct people to remain “6 feet…from others” and to cover their “mouth and nose in public with a cloth face covering.”

The next results come from corporate media news agencies that label the documentary a “conspiracy theory.”

Twitter tells users to “Know the Facts” and provides a link to website and Twitter page for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Twitter, users have the option to follow links to freedomplatform.tv, but they will receive an ominous warning message before doing so: “Warning: This link may be unsafe.”

Since social media platforms oftentimes provide the portal through which average internet users access other websites and news sources, Facebook and Twitter’s decisions to block domain addresses represents a significant escalation in online censorship.

Elizabeth Warren Mercilessly Mocked for Hosting DNC Native American Caucus Meeting

The Democratic National convention asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to speak at its Native American Caucus meeting, even though she was blasted by the American Indian community just last year for claiming to be of Cherokee heritage.

For years, Warren claimed to be Native American when she was not.

Then in 2018, she famously revealed a DNA test that proved she is a scant 1/1024th Native American.

Multiple tribal communities criticized her for appropriating their culture in an attempt to score political points.

But the DNC didn’t think twice before asking Warren to publicly address the party’s Native American caucus on Tuesday.

Warren pledged to the Native American Caucus that presidential candidate Joe Biden will “listen” and “stand with Indian Country.”

She then accused President Trump has betrayed the Native American community, even though she was the one widely criticized by Native Americans — not Trump.

As soon as Warren began speaking, the live chat room was flooded with users mocking Warren’s claim to Native American ancestry.

Many referred to Warren as “Pocahontas,” and others referenced “1/1024.”

The chat room became so overwhelmed with these comments that DNC users had to shut it down.

Warren has tried to pretend like the DNA test debacle never happened, scrubbing all tweets, videos, and webpages from her sites that mentioned it, according to Fox News.

She also apologized to the Native American community for making a “mistake.”

Anarchy Now Extends to ‘Jail Support’ Activists Who Vandalize, Defecate Around County Lock-Ups

For three months, a group of protesters advocating for criminal-justice reform has been occupying the space outside a Charlotte-area jail pretending to be volunteers—all with the support of the county sheriff.

But now, after seeing issues like defecation and fornication spiral out of hand, Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden is beginning to backpedal on his support for the George Floyd-inspired group, which claims to be “volunteers” offering resources to those leaving detention.

“I support them but not what it has turned out to be,” McFadden said during an emergency meeting of the Mecklenburg County Commissioners, according to WCNC.

“I do not support what jail support has been turned into now and hijacked to be,” he added.

The group is an offshoot of Charlotte Uprising, which organized and led several Black Lives Matter-influenced protests and race riots in the city’s Uptown district.

During a June protest, only a few weeks after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis triggered nationwide race riots, Charlotte deputies arrested 43 jail support protesters engaged in a disruptive sit-in, according to WBTV.

The group later claimed that they had done nothing to warrant the crackdown.

In addition to the unwanted bodily functions, the protesters have bullied sheriff’s deputies during shift changes and have vandalized the building, McFadden admitted.

The problem mirrors those plaguing blue-state “sanctuary” cities nationwide. The familiar pattern has played out in the headlines in cities like New York, Chicago, Portland and Seattle.

In each case, a liberal mayor and governing body have insisted that local law-enforcement stand down in what they have dubbed “peaceful protests.”

Inevitably, the results have been less than desirable, leading to violence and bloodshed, as well as looting and vandalism in many of the cities.

As witnesses like journalist Andy Ngo have testified before Congress, in many cases organized domestic terrorist groups like Antifa have used otherwise benign protesters as cover to wage a sort of urban guerilla warfare against the government.

Oftentimes, the mainstream media have acted as complicit accomplices.

Similar to Charlotte’s “jail support” group, a group was encamped for several weeks outside New York City’s Police Plaza, as romanticized by a New Yorker magazine writer who embedded with them overnight.

Writer Masha Gessen waxed sentimental about her own days as a 20something anarchist rioter in the article, saying the movement, organized via the encrypted phone app Signal, “smelled like a long-ago college party: cigarette smoke and cheap cologne” but with the addition of hand sanitizer.

President Donald Trump has, in cases like Portland, dispatched federal Homeland Security officers but has maintained that doing so is a last resort, only to protect official federal interests and property.

McFadden, however, a former homicide detective and reality TV star, came into office on a platform of defying federal immigration enforcement and has continued to butt heads with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the GOP-led state legislature.

Last year, the North Carolina General Assembly sought to pass a bill that would force local sheriffs to comply with state and federal officials or else require that they resign their posts.

However, the bill was vetoed by Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper.

Cindy McCain Gives Support to Biden at Democratic Convention

Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., praised Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, touting his “unlikely friendship” with her late husband.

Cindy McCain said that Biden and her late husband formed a bond when they were younger.

Biden was a new senator and John McCain a Senate liaison assigned to be a military aide for Biden on a trip overseas.

The two became friends, according to Cindy McCain, and later modeled a “style of legislating and leadership that you don’t find much anymore,” she said.

The McCains have supported Biden’s candidacy for several months, and have been hostile towards President Trump for years.

The McCains’ daughter, Meghan McCain, recently called Trump a “totalitarian” and claimed he would use the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to implement “draconian” policies.

And a couple of years ago, the McCain family did not invite Trump to the late senator’s funeral, prompting Trump to complain that the McCains were insufficiently grateful to him for the White House’s contributions to the memorial services.

Cindy McCain is not the only Republican to support Biden recently.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich also spoke at the Democratic National Convention, as did Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State underreported former President George W. Bush.

Meghan McCain, the alleged token conservative on “The View,” also signaled she will vote for Biden.

Cindy McCain, however, has refrained from formally endorsing Biden.

She said back in April that Biden is “a wonderful man and a dear friend of the McCain family. However, I have no intention of getting involved in presidential politics.”

Other self-proclaimed Republicans did not hesitate to endorse Biden wholeheartedly.

“I’m a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country,” Kasich said. “That’s why I’ve chosen to appear at this convention. In normal times, something like this would probably never happen, but these are not normal times.”

Portland Rioters Set Fire to County Gov’t Building

(Headline USA) Rioters in Portland broke out the windows of a county government building, sprayed lighter fluid inside and set a fire in a demonstration that started Tuesday night and ended Wednesday morning with clashes with police, officials said.

The fire at the Multnomah Building damaged the county government’s office of community involvement, where Oregon‘s first gay marriage took place and where protective gear has been distributed to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, said Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury.

“This is the heart of our County, where people in our community come to get married, get their passports, and celebrate their cultural traditions and diversity,” she said in a statement.

Violent demonstrations have gripped Oregon’s biggest city for more than two months following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in the process of police trying to control him while he resisted arrest.

Participants have repeatedly broken into the offices of a police union headquarters building miles and last month clashed for weeks with federal agents dispatched to protect a U.S. courthouse targeted by rioters.

Portland officers late Tuesday declared a riot outside the county building after a crowd of about 200 thugs started fires in dumpsters, used rocks to smash first floor windows and tossed burning material inside that set the fire that set off fire alarms and the building’s sprinkler system, police said in a statement early Wednesday.

The riot declaration allows officers to use crowd control methods such as tear gas or flash bang devices. Police said in their statement that some unspecified “crowd control munitions” were used to disperse the crowd but that officers did not use tear gas.

Two rioters were arrested and one police officer suffered minor injuries in scuffles as police broke up the demonstration, the statement said. A photo distributed by police showed one window of the building spray painted with a bull’s eye and the words “Aim Here.”

The fire damaged the lobby where Oregon’s first gay marriage happened in 2004, Kafoury said.

She asked residents to support the community involvement office, adding that “there is grave injustice in our world and there is a violent and tragic history of oppression in our County. I am committed to transformational change.”

“In such a difficult, uncertain time, our community needs all of us to work together,” Kafoury added.

Police on Tuesday also identified a suspect accused of punching and kicking a man to the ground after he crashed his pickup truck on a sidewalk near ongoing demonstrations.

Authorities received a report Sunday night of thugs chasing a truck a few blocks from the downtown federal courthouse. The driver crashed and was then assaulted, authorities said.

Authorities are trying to track down the suspect, Marquise Love, 25, police said in a statement. The victim of the assault has been released from a hospital and is recovering.

A social media account apparently connected to Love has been disabled and efforts to locate him for comment were not immediately successful.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

The Gold and Silver Dam Breaketh

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(David H. Smith, Money Metals News Service) Ask precious metals‘ holders and chart technicians what in the last 6-8 weeks stands out in their mind and they will point to the breakout of gold and silver above areas which had contained them for almost a decade.

Gold rocketed without pause to $2,070. Silver, though still well below record nominal dollar highs, sliced through $26, which was supposed to be a lid on prices until next year.

A litany of “price pullers” we’ve long discussed in our essays – government deficit spending, lagging metals’ production vs. exploding demand, and an almost complete absence of big discoveries have all played a part.

But these are relative symptoms. I believe that several new and hard to quantify root causes are set to become critical drivers in their own right.

The interplay of these new factors means that all bets are off in terms of how high, how violently up and down, and how vigorously the rest of this secular gold and silver bull run – over at least the next several years, will play out.

As Dorothy tells her dog Toto in The Wizard of Oz, after riding the tornado and landing with a bump… “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

What follows are two “finishing touches” to this uber-bull narrative. The third element – a “capstone event” – took place in early August.

Combined with the “volcanic tremors” discussed above, these volatile elements should soon lead to “a pyroclastic explosion” in the price of gold, silver and the miners which produce them.

National Geographic defines my metaphor as,

“… a dense, fast-moving flow of solidified lava pieces, volcanic ash, and hot gases… extremely hot, burning anything in its path…Pyroclastic flows often occur in two parts. Along the ground, lava and pieces of rock flow downhill. Above this, a thick cloud of ash forms over the fast-moving flow. (It) can transform the landscape drastically in a short period of time.”

M + R +WB = P.O.R.

#1, The “M” Factor: Millennials, the cohort born between 1980 and 2000 are today’s largest generation – bigger than the record-sized Baby Boomers. Their sheer numbers will have an outsized impact on the markets. One investment approach that a fair number are taking is…

#2, The “R” Factor: Robinhood.com is a “no-commission” trading site that allows trading from relatively small accounts. Millennials are flocking to it in droves.

Robinhood.com
Courtesy Robinhood.com

There’s even a related site that tracks how many Robinhood investors hold a given stock. Interestingly, not just Tesla and Apple, but also gold and silver mining picks are showing up on this screen. And you can bet your bottom fiat dollar that they’re buying physical metal too!

#3, The “WB” Factor: Warren Buffett is arguably the most successful investor alive today. During the “early days” a friend of mine bought just 4 shares of Berkshire Hathaway and lived off the increased value and splits for the rest of his life! Though Buffett’s late father was a proponent of gold as money, he has himself been a naysayer for many years.

One of Buffett’s many comments was that “Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or some place. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility.”

However, after having sold off his airline holdings and much of his bank stock position this spring, he decided to buy $560 million dollars of Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD), the world’s second largest gold miner!

The implications of this monumental philosophical turnaround will be massive, far-reaching, and enduring.

Here’s what “Plunger,” the resident Market Historian at Rambus1.com (one of the very best technical analysis sites I know of and to which I am a paid subscriber) has to say:

This is the ultimate green light for the sector, it has now been legitimized in the canyons of Wall Street. Whereas before, asset managers feared getting fired for owning gold stocks, they will now fear getting fired for NOT owning gold stocks because of Warren’s action. The gold bull market now sits at the cusp of the publics’ point of recognition (POR).

I cannot overemphasize how significant this is.

BuffetT has been the dam, holding back the great flood of investment dollars into the gold bull market. As long as Buffett steered clear, the lemming institutional money managers would avoid the sector as well. The dam broke on Friday afternoon after the market closed when Berkshire’s 13f filing was publicly released revealing he had bought about $500m of Barrick last quarter. He’s now given tacit permission that the average investor needs to own some gold stocks. Don’t think people won’t notice.

This sector was always going to be an asymmetric trade once the third leg of the secular rise got underway, even as the shakeout of the last nine years was brutal and unforgiving.

Sadly now, a number of those who had held on are washing out, and have been selling their physical metal at break-even levels, or for “a tidy profit.”

I understand their motivation from the dark times and false starts, but they might want to take a second look.

If this scenario sounds logical, there’s no dishonor in getting back in, even at a higher price. And if you’re still fence-sitting about at least getting a reasonable amount (by your definition) of hold-in hand gold and silver, that last train sure looks to be heading out of the station.

Personally, I’m willing to accept the risk that goes with taking action because sometimes it can be even more risky not acting. I’ve gone through the last 9 years with the bear nipping at my heels just like you have. But I’m still showing up.

Whether the next impulse G/S leg above $2,100 and $30 respectively gets underway tomorrow, in October, or next year is irrelevant to me.

Top-tier investor Rick Rule has a motto that resonates. He says, “You’ve gone through the pain, now get ready for the gain!”…Original Source

David H. Smith is Senior Analyst for TheMorganReport.com, a regular contributor to MoneyMetals.com as well as the LODE Cryptographic Silver Monetary System Project. He has investigated precious metals’ mines and exploration sites in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, China, Canada and the U.S. He shares resource sector observations with readers, the media, and North American investment conference attendees.