‘She is like literally like not aware of like literally much of like anything…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., claimed the coronavirus is exposing Americans’ “straight up racism.”
“Honestly, it sounds almost so silly to say, but there’s a lot of restaurants that are feeling the pain of racism,” she said during an Instagram Live video, “where people are literally not patroning [sic] Chinese restaurants. They’re not patroning Asian restaurants because of just straight-up racism around the coronavirus.”
Ocasio-Cortez says people are not eating at Chinese and Asian restaurants right now because they are “just straight up” racist about the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/egtpRDEDhO
This is like an SNL parody. She is like literally like not aware of like literally much of like anything, like not even fact there’s like literally no word “patroning”and she like is literally clueless as to what like racism literally means. And she is in Congress. Literally! https://t.co/uBqlaoFhmL
This isn’t the first time liberals have linked the coronavirus to alleged racism. Democrats attacked Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., this week for referring to the virus as “the Wuhan virus,” accusing him of encouraging xenophobic behavior.
Conservatives, however, pointed out that several diseases have been associated with the region in which they originated.
A few examples include: Swine flu, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, Spanish flu, etc.
Gosar responded to the “astoundingly ignorant” attacks and blasted Democrats for hypocritically smearing Republicans as racists when most media outlets have similarly referred to the coronavirus as the Wuhan virus.
Just astoundingly ignorant to have all major media refer to it as #WuhanVirus for months but somehow, today, you’ve decided that’s #racist. If you think this virus cares about your race you probably work for or watch MSNBC. Wuhan Virus. Wuhan Virus. Wuhan Virus. https://t.co/xOLD9XE8BT
‘The activities of Confucius Institutes are inherently political in nature and intended to influence U.S. policy and public opinion…’
Protestors oppose the Chinese propagandist Confucius Institutes/IMAGE: Michael Mahonen via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, issued a warning to the 77 colleges and universities that still house Chinese-controlled Confucius Institutes, urging them to recognize “the risks” these institutes pose to “both your institution and our national security.”
The intelligence community has concluded that the Chinese government actively tries to use Confucius Institutes to spread communist propaganda and misinformation, Grassley said. He encouraged the schools to meet with FBI officials and seek additional information.
“Based upon information gathered from unclassified briefings, we know that Confucius Institutes are an arm of the Chinese Government and are overseen by the Office of Chinese Language International (Hanban), which is part of the Chinese Ministry of Education,” he wrote.
Grassley said the office comprised members from 12 state ministries including the country’s propaganda outlets.
“Confucius Institutes are also reportedly funded by the United Front Work Department, a Chinese Government agency that coordinates foreign influence operations,” he continued. “The activities of Confucius Institutes are inherently political in nature and intended to influence U.S. policy and public opinion.”
Moreover, Grassley explained, the Chinese government “has taken serious steps toward stealing our intellectual property from taxpayer-funded research projects.” This attempted theft should be the private sector’s concern just as much as the government’s, he said.
As this political manipulation has become apparent over the past few years, many schools have decided to rid themselves of Confucius Institutes.
The University of Chicago was the first to close its institute in 2014; since then, 31 colleges have closed their Confucius Institutes, according to the National Association of Scholars.
Despite that progress, dozens of public and private universities still host a Confucius Institute. Grassley urged these schools to reconsider given the “interference or influence that could result in damage to or the of American intellectual property.”
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) CNN’s Jim Acosta claimed President Donald Trump’s Oval Office address on his administration’s coronavirus strategy “smacked of xenophobia.”
“I think we should point out, at one point during the address the president referred to the coronavirus as a ‘foreign virus,’” Acosta told Chris Cuomo, according to Town Hall.
“Now, why the president would go as far as to describe it as a foreign virus?” he continued. “That is something we’ll also be asking questions about.”
Acosta then suggested White House adviser Stephen Miller intentionally included racist language in Trump’s speech.
“But it should be pointed out that Stephen Miller, who is an immigration hard-liner, who advises the president, is one of his top domestic policy advisers and speechwriters, was a driving force in writing this speech,” Acosta continued. “And I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind of term in this speech.”
The coronavirus originated in China’s Wuhan region, but liberals have widely denounced those who refer to it as anything but COVID-19.
Democrats attacked Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for calling it the “Wuhan virus,” even though multiple media outlets have also referred to it as the Wuhan virus, and now Acosta is arguing the word “foreign” is xenophobic.
The Media Research Center compiled a video that showed CNN and other network news outlets using the terms.
After Acosta’s rant, Trump dismissed a question from him at a White House press briefing on Thursday.
“That’s CNN,” Trump responded. “Fake news.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta: “What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?”
‘There are things that Trump does that they agree with, unquestionably…’
Bernie Sanders / IMAGE: The Young Turks via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As the Democratic primary comes into focus, President Donald Trump’s campaign has set its sights on disaffected supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“They are not traditional, dyed-in-the wool Democrats, and therefore if the Trump people can make them mad at the Democratic Party, then they’re not liable to come out and vote, or they’re liable to come out and vote for the other guy,” Fran Coombs, managing editor at Rasmussen Reports told Just the News.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the longtime front-runner whose campaign had all but been written off after the first few primaries, surged ahead in the most recent rounds as traditional Democratic voters sought to play it safe.
While buoyed by South Carolina and other Southern states, Biden’s lead, which now stands around 150 delegates, was capped off by surprise routes in places like Michigan, where Sanders had hoped to establish momentum.
The election drama is still far from over, with Sanders promising a vigorous debate against the oft-befuddled Biden on Sunday and coronavirus panic introducing a new x-factor.
However, Trump now sees the opportunity to woo anti-establishment liberals who find the machine politics of the Democratic National Committee and the party’s elitist order a greater affront to democracy than the status quo.
“Bernie complained all along that he was getting the shaft from the establishment, much like the establishment tried to do to Trump,” Coombs said.
As reported by Just the News, one analysis conducted by University of Massachusetts-Amherst professor Brian Schaffner had determined that 12 percent of Sanders primary voters in 2016 wound up being crossover Trump voters.
Nationally, among those we can validate as voting in a prez primary and the general election, 12% of Bernie Sanders voters voted for Trump
Commenters to Schaffner’s Twitter thread pointed out the obvious: that many of those were likely protest votes against then-candidate Hillary Clinton, who colluded with the DNC to freeze out the Sanders campaign.
Even so, Coombs said that their lingering resentment still festered with the latest disappointment.
“Whether Bernie would have gotten the [2016] nomination, who knows?” said Coombs. “But there’s a pretty compelling case that the Clinton campaign pulled strings to make sure that Hillary won. I think it’s smart for Trump and the Republicans to bring that up and pound on it.”
Another possibility in 2016 was that undeclared Republican backers had supported Sanders in the primary to sow chaos in the Democratic primary.
Doing so in the 2020 primary might have backfired. Although Biden typically has been cast by media allies as the greater threat to Trump, his waning cognitive functions, along with a raft of skeletons and scandals, pose considerable liability.
As Just the News observed, that likely will result in intense scrutiny being placed on Biden’s running-mate selection, something he has floated from early on in his campaign, signaling the wish for a woman, a minority or both.
Democrats seemed to be backpedaling now, with former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel opining in the Wall Street Journal that such a move may not be necessary to appease his left-wing backers.
“Among Democrats, demographics are not destiny—they are informative, not determinative,” wrote Emmanuel, who appeared to advocate that Biden tack right to court his own crossover voters.
Just the News noted recent speculation from pundits like Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano that one option might be former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who challenged Trump in the 2016 GOP primary before becoming a fierce critic.
The dynamics of pitting the iconoclastic incumbent against two figures from the political establishment would, at the very least, make for a compelling general election race.
Although Trump has been framed as the figurehead of the GOP, the rabid opposition from NeverTrump critics like Kasich underscores the way he has broken rank with the party’s traditional platform and, effectively, helped to reinvent Republicanism.
“If you go back and look at [George W.] Bush taking us into the Iraq War, the right and the left, the Pat Buchanan conservatives, the ‘paleo-conservatives,’ were dead set against the invasion,” Coombs said. “‘We’re a lousy empire, we shouldn’t go in,’ and they were in complete agreement with the ‘Mother Jones’ crowd on the left.”
Interestingly, Trump—who considered a 2000 run against Bush as the Reform Party candidate before Buchanan ultimately secured the nomination—was among those criticizing the last Republican office-holder.
In that regard, Biden (despite radically shifting many of his positions to the Left) may be more aligned with Bush and Trump more aligned with Bush’s detractors, marking a complete 180-degree political shift.
Coombs questioned, however, whether progressive radicals would be quick to cast off their allegiances, and their disdain for the current president.
“There are things that Trump does that they agree with, unquestionably,” she said. “Whether they can overcome ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ and vote for the guy, that’s another story.”
‘He turns everything into what he thinks is a political benefit for himself, and he’s actually imploding in the process…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As President Donald Trump announced in his Wednesday address from the Oval Office a 30-day travel ban on European countries where the coronavirus has spread rapidly, the president’s attackers reflexively sought to spin it into a liability.
Taking an emergency such as the #Coronavirus epidemic as another opportunity to wage his personal war against #China and the #EU … that says everything!
However, many faced a dilemma whether to bash the president for xenophobia or bash him for failing to take the pandemic outbreak seriously.
During testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, widely cited pandemic authority Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, commended Trump for trying to curb travel from infected regions, as Summit News reported.
Donald Trump / PHOTO: Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines
“Whenever you look at the history of outbreaks, what you see now in an uncontained way … we keep getting people coming into the country that are travel-related,” Fauci said.
“We will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now,” he continued. “How much worse they get will depend on our ability to do two things: To contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country.”
Yet, as the virus reached U.S. shores and turned from slow-burning concern to widespread alarm, House Democrats doubled-down on their NO BAN Act legislation, intended as a legislative last resort after open-border activists failed to achieve the desired outcome through the Supreme Court.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee gave the go-ahead for HR-2214, which would seek to negate three executive orders from Trump that empowered government agencies to ban travel from certain countries.
The House act originally was introduced last April by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., along with 63 cosponsors. Its latest version saw the addition of 156 others, bringing the total to 219 cosponsors. All are Democrats.
While most signed on prior to the virus’s outbreak, some, such as Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., shrugged off the threat by signing on as recently as last week.
As Summit News reported, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders also made clear in a recent town-hall gathering that he opposed at travel ban.
Trump’s planned 30-day ban, announced on Wednesday evening, was—expectedly—panned by some leaders in Europe.
“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots,” Trump said. “As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe”.
Several EU members, however, have also initiated their own travel bans now. The Week flashed a bold headline declaring that “The entire country of Norway is ‘shutting down.'”
Meanwhile, the Left struggled to strike the right tone between jubilation over a long-awaited economic downturn and brow-furrowing concern.
Some—including Democratic front-runner Joe Biden—sought, without evidence, to claim that Trump’s reaction to the health threat, in seeking to avoid widespread panic, was based solely on his desire to politicize the crisis and protect the economy.
Biden said that Trump should “just be quiet” about it and let experts handle the matter.
In an exclusive interview with @Lawrence, former Vice President @JoeBiden reacts to Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and the market turmoil. Watch the full interview Monday at 10pm ET on @MSNBC. pic.twitter.com/IUOiUWPDKW
“I think there’s no confidence in the president in anything he says or does,” Biden told MSNBC’s Last Word. “He turns everything into what he thinks is a political benefit for himself, and he’s actually imploding in the process. But there’s a lot of innocent bystanders being badly hurt.”
Likewise, frequent Trump critic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who had recently tried to ply Trump with sweet nothings over the initial coronavirus response, saw his opening to resume attacks on Trump Wednesday, complaining that the federal bureaucracy had gotten in the way and that New York would begin its own testing.
““They underestimated the challenge,” said Cuomo, who himself had downplayed the threat last week. “Now, who and how and why, I don’t know.”
Cuomo also announced a plan to have prisoners manufacture a proprietary brand of New York hand sanitizer that would rival price-gouging companies like Purell.
‘No health threat specific to the defendant has been identified…’
Hunter Biden/IMAGE: ABC News via YouTube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Hunter Biden has reportedly reached a settlement with Alexis Lunden Roberts, the former stripper whose child he fathered, after refusing to appear before an Arkansas court for his child support deposition.
Biden and Roberts reached a “global, final settlement,” according to court papers. The details of the settlement have not been made public, according to Page Six.
Biden’s lawyers tried to delay the case, citing concerns about the coronavirus and his wife’s pregnancy.
“Defendant requests continuance of the hearing as he is unavailable to attend due to his wife’s due date in 2 and a half weeks or less and risks involved with travel,” Biden’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
“Setting aside personal endangerment, Defendant reasonably believes that such travel unnecessarily exposes his wife and unborn child to this virus. California, in particular, has been the site of numerous reported cases of exposure.”
Circuit Judge Holly Meyer, however, rejected Biden’s repeated requests and ordered Biden to appear before her court.
“[Biden] can come by plane, train, or automobile but life and work will and should continue in our communities and courts,” Meyer wrote in a ruling late Tuesday. “No health threat specific to the defendant has been identified.”
In regards to Biden’s wife’s pregnancy, Meyer ruled that “this fact was well known to all” when the hearing date was set, and that Biden’s wife doesn’t need to appear at the deposition anyway.
Biden had also failed to hand over the necessary financial documents ahead of the deposition, but it appears his lawyers did so this week in order to reach a settlement with Roberts.
“The parties have reached a compromised settlement to resolve all remaining issues and will be submitting a final order to the Court for approval,” Biden’s lawyer, Brett Langdon, said in a statement.
If Meyer approves the settlement, Biden will not need to appear before court, which would help him and his father, Joe Biden, who is running for president, avoid media scrutiny.
‘On reflection Defendant’s more recent travel and long work hours now appear to be more related to his affair with Rep. Omar…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., announced on Instagram that she has remarried, this time to the political consultant with whom she was allegedly having an affair.
“From partners in politics to life partners, so blessed,” Omar captioned the photo.
While Omar didn’t directly identify her new husband, users were quick to realize that the man appears to be Tim Mynett, 55, her chief fundraiser who allegedly left his wife last year for Omar.
Both Mynett and Omar denied the allegations, but a little under a year later, the two are married.
Omar has funneled more than $370,000 to Mynett’s consulting firm over the course of her political career, according to the New York Post.
Even after news of their affair broke, Omar continued to pay Mynett $146,712 in payments.
Because Mynett was legally considered a contractor for her campaign, these payments should be scrutinized, said Beth Mynett, the ex-wife of Omar’s new husband.
“On reflection Defendant’s more recent travel and long work hours now appear to be more related to his affair with Rep. Omar than with his actual work commitments, averaging 12 days per month away from home over the past year,” Beth Mynett wrote in her divorce filings.
‘While Joe Biden cont to do very well with older Americans, especially those over 65, our campaign continues to win the vast majority of the votes of younger people…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Public alarm over the potential spread of the coronavirus could breathe new life into Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s dying campaign.
In his speech following Tuesday’s primary defeat in Michigan and several other states that helped give former Vice President Joe Biden a more decisive primary lead, Sanders seemed to admit that it would take a forcemajeure to put him back into contention.
“While our campaign has won the ideological debate, we are losing the debate over electability,” Sanders admitted while pledging to soldier on into Sunday’s two-person debate in Arizona.
Lucky for him, such an act of God seemed to arrive that very same day as coronavirus panic went from a slow and wary burn to a full-fledged hysteria.
Cued by an upgraded designation from the World Health Organization, schools immediately began seeking alternative means to finish off their semesters and major sporting events proceeded to react—most notably with the cancellation the entire NBA season.
The number of confirmed U.S. cases hadn’t yet reached 1,200 and the death toll, somewhere between 30 and 40—most of them occurring in a single Washington State nursing home.
Yet, the virus’s easy transmission, lack of cure and higher-than-desired mortality rate (around 3 percent) particularly in older adults, made concerns over an outbreak valid reason to exert vigilance.
Not surprisingly, the leftist media and partisans like Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York sought to make hay of the disease with cheap-shot attacks speculating it would do political and economic damage to President Donald Trump.
Oddly, most ignored the more immediate way that the spread—of both germs and panic—could impact politics: by keeping older voters away from the polls in states like New York that have yet to vote in the primaries.
“We are winning the generational debate,” Sanders pointed out in his speech Wednesday. “While Joe Biden cont to do very well with older Americans, especially those over 65, our campaign continues to win the vast majority of the votes of younger people.”
That, he said, included not only college-age voters, but also older Millennials in their 30s and even some 40something Gen-Xers who might whittle away at Biden’s Boomer firewall.
Biden leads Sanders by just over 150 delegates at the moment, but that could all change next Tuesday, when 577 more delegates are up for play in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
None of the states, on their face, seem like easy wins for the far-left progressive. Arizona’s immigration issues may play a significant role, although many of those affected by it do not have voting rights.
In Florida, anti-Castro refugees may work against Sanders, who has expressed his admiration for the late Cuban dictator.
Heavy union influences could come to bear in Illinois, much as they did in Michigan, with some bristling at the socialized health-care proposals’ threat to diminish hard-fought union health benefits and other labor perks that establishment Democrats have long embraced.
Ohio’s more conservative bent has kept the Buckeye State unpredictable in the general election, but likely to play it safe in the primaries.
However, paired with older voters deciding to practice “social distancing” by avoiding public places, the states could see an uptick in younger voters as those attending colleges are sent home to the states in which they are registered.
Sanders also seemed ready to capitalize on one of Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities, as Trump already has begun to do, by zeroing in on his growing indications of befuddlement and possible dementia.
“On Sunday, I very much look forward to the debate in Arizona,” he said, putting the front-runner on notice that he would be well prepared and ready to hammer home his progressive agenda to draw contrasts between the two.
The reactions to the coronavirus likely provide a template for Sanders to follow in pushing his Medicare for All plan, while possibly raising criticism over the responses of the Obama administration during a series of pandemic crises that included H1N1 (swine) flu, Ebola and Zika panics.
“This crisis—this absurd healthcare system—is becoming more and more obvious to the American people as we face the challenge of the coronavirus,” Sanders said Wednesday, previewing his line of attack.
But even more likely is that Sanders will include heavy emphasis on his youth and young-adult-friendly policies—including free college tuition—to drive up his base support at the polls.
“Today, I say to the Democratic establishment: in order to win in the future, you need to win the voters who represent the future of our country, and you must speak to the issues of concern to them,” Sanders said on Wednesday. “You cannot simply be satisfied by winning the votes of people who are older.”
‘Our country is a great country. It can withstand one term of the current occupant of the White House. It cannot withstand two…’
Nancy Pelosi/Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC)
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed President Donald Trump’s reelection threatens “civilization as we know it.”
“This election is a very important election,” she told attendees at Northeastern University’s Women Who Empower Summit in Boston this week, according to the Boston Globe.
“In my view, civilization as we know it is at stake,” she continued. “It’s about everything. It’s about America.”
This isn’t the first time Pelosi has used hyperbolic language in reference to the 2020 election. Back in December, she said the 2020 presidential election is about “civilization as we know it today,” adding that she doesn’t even want to “contemplate” the possibility of Trump being elected.
And in 2014, Pelosi claimed “civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if Republicans win the Senate.”
This week in Boston, Pelosi said she fears Trump has “permanently scarred” the U.S.
The Bill of Rights is “under siege,” she claimed, and Trump officials often display “disloyalty to the Constitution.”
“Our country is a great country. It can withstand one term of the current occupant of the White House. It cannot withstand two,” she said. “Just look at his policies and his lack of respect for the office which he holds and what that means for our country.”
Then, mimicking House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff‘s impeachment monologue, Pelosi declared: “I say to my Republican friends—and I do have them—‘Take back your party. This is not who you are.’”
The Trump administration isn’t like any other Republican government she’s worked with, Pelosi explained. With both the Bush presidents, for example, Pelosi said she “disagreed on issues, but you believed in governance.”
This present administration … they don’t believe in science, and they don’t believe in governance. They don’t know and they don’t want to know so they don’t have to do anything about it,” she claimed.
‘Setting aside personal endangerment, Defendant reasonably believes that such travel unnecessarily exposes his wife and unborn child to this virus…’
Hunter Biden / IMAGE: ABC News via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Hunter Biden is refusing to travel to Arkansas and appear before court for a child-support deposition this week, citing concerns about the coronavirus and his pregnant wife’s upcoming due date.
“Defendant requests continuance of the hearing as he is unavailable to attend due to his wife’s due date in 2 and a half weeks or less and risks involved with travel,” Biden’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Circuit Judge Holly Meyer ordered Biden to appear before her court “unless his hair is on fire.” His lawyers, however, have attempted to push back the date of the deposition several times, and now they are using the coronavirus as yet another excuse.
“It is unsafe for the Defendant to travel, as travel restrictions have been implemented both domestically and internationally, particularly on airlines, due to the Coronavirus,” the court filing states.
“Setting aside personal endangerment, Defendant reasonably believes that such travel unnecessarily exposes his wife and unborn child to this virus,” it continued. “California, in particular, has been the site of numerous reported cases of exposure.”
Biden also failed to hand over the necessary financial documents ahead of the deposition. In response, Alexis Lunden Roberts, a former stripper and the mother of his child, asked Meyer to hold him in contempt of court.
“[T]he defendant continues to act as though he has no respect for this Court, its orders, the legal process in this state, or the needs of his child for support,” reads the motion filed by Roberts’s lawyers.
Meyer made it clear last month that Biden is running out of excuses.
“It’s not good enough for him to just say, ‘I’m not available.’ That’s not good enough. I need to know why he’s not available or where he is or what could possibly be more important than what’s going on in this case,” she told Biden’s lawyers. “And again, the only information I have is that your client’s not employed right now, so it’s not a work excuse. So what is it?”
