Archive for the ‘video’ Category

Dan Crenshaw And Texas GOP Drop This Year’s Coolest Campaign Ad

Saturday, September 26th, 2020

This is that rare political ad you actually enjoy watching. Enjoy Texas reloaded.

Complete with Superhero Landing™!

And because I offer a full service blog, here are links for each of the candidates in the ad (in order of appearance):

  • Rep. Dan Crenshaw (Texas Second Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • Wesley Hunt (Texas Seventh Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • August Pfluger (Texas Eleventh Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • Beth Van Duyne (Texas Twenty-Fourth Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • Tony Gonzalez (Texas Twenty-Third Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • Genevieve Collins (Texas Thirty-Second Congressional District) (Twitter)
  • Hunter Biden Has Been A Very, Very Bad Boy

    Thursday, September 24th, 2020

    And, this time, I don’t mean the “got thrown out of the Navy for doing blow” or “got pegged by prostitutes” things.

    No, this time it’s all about his and his father’s ties to corrupt Ukrainian and Chinese business deals, since the senate report on his dealings there came out yesterday. (That’s the official PDF, but here’s a more copy-and-paste-friendly version via The Federalist.)

    On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, and the media described him as the “public face of the administration’s handling of Ukraine.” The next day, April 22, Archer joined the board of Burisma. Six days later, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma’s owner, Mykoloa Zlochevsky. Fifteen days later on May 13, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, with public reports showing Hunter and his firm being paid $50,000 to $166,000 per month (totaling more than $3 million over five years) for his and Archer’s board participation.

    Let ye who has not taken $3 million for working for Ukrainian oligarchs cast the first stone.

    Also, with a full name like “Mykola Vladislavovich Zlochevsky,” this Tom Lehrer song keeps coming to mind, since the scansion is so close:

    Snip.

    Moreover, this investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president’s son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch. And, as will be discussed in later sections, Hunter Biden was not the only Biden who cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Former Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyic (sic) George Kent and State Department official Amos Hochstein raised concerns.

    From the conclusion:

    The records acquired by the Committees show that Hunter Biden and his family were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe. Hunter Biden and Archer, in particular, formed significant and consistent financial relationships with the corrupt oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky during their time working for Burisma and their firms made millions of dollars from that association while Joe Biden was vice president and the public face of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden, received $3.5 million in a wire transfer from Elena Baturina, who allegedly received illegal construction contracts from her husband, the former mayor of Moscow. Moreover, Archer’s apparent receipt of money for a car from Kenges Rakishev of Kazakhstan while Vice President Biden was in Kyiv is especially concerning in light of the timing. And finally, Biden and Archer’s work with Chinese nationals connected to the Communist regime illustrate the deep financial connections that accelerated while his father was vice president and continued after he left office.

    Let he who has never received a $3.5 million wire transfer from the wife of the mayor of Moscow…

    Also, you know that bit up top where I said that this Hunter Biden scandal didn’t involve prostitutes? Yeah. Well, turns out it does:

    Records on file with the committee, the report says, “confirm that Hunter Biden sent thousands of dollars to individuals who have either: 1) been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; 2) an association with the adult entertainment industry; or 3) potential association with prostitution.”

    The report continued, detailing that some transactions were Russian- and Ukrainian-linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”

    Let ye who has never transferred money to an Eastern European sex trafficking ring…

    A few more tidbits:

  • Hunter Biden opened a bank account with Gongwen Dong to fund a $100,000 global spending spree with James Biden and Sara Biden. [I am trying to verify that the Gongwen Dong mentioned is the same Gongwen Dong who is CFO at Radiance Property Holdings Ltd. in Beijing. – LP]
  • Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow. [I believe the Ye Jianming in question is the founder and former Chairman of CEFC China Energy Company Limited (an energy and finance conglomerate) who has been in detention in China since 2018 on charges of bribery. -LP]
  • Let ye who has never opened a six-figure family slush fund with Communist Chinese officials…

    In addition highlighting these corrupt practices, the report highlights how Obama Administration officials knew about them, knew they were a problem, and swept them under the rug, even when they involved transfer of American military technology to communist China:

    The Chairmen’s investigation into potential conflicts of interest began in August 2019, with Chairman Grassley’s letter to the Department of Treasury regarding potential conflicts of interest with respect to Obama administration policy relating to the Henniges transaction. During the Obama administration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved a transaction that gave control over Henniges, an American maker of anti-vibration technologies with military applications, to a Chinese government-owned aviation company and a China-based investment firm with established ties to the Chinese government. One of the companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion-dollar private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in November 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government-linked firm Bohai Capital and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca was formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

    Evidently exporting American military technology to China was just a business opportunity to corrupt family members of high-ranking Obama Administration officials.

    If we had a truly independent press corps, reporters would ask Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden about his son’s financial shenanigans at his very next press conference.

    I wouldn’t hold your breath…

    Joe Rogan: “Biden Has Dementia”

    Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

    “Rogan again? You must be feeling really lazy!”

    Short answer: Yes.

    But as usual, Rogan is interesting because he says what he actually thinks without caring about toning it down due to fear of condemnation from the Social Justice Warrior set. And he thinks (not without evidence) that Biden is suffering from dementia:

    He also says you shouldn’t base your political decisions on him, because he’s just a comedian. Yeah, but Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t interviewed Bret Weinstein and Ben Shapiro.

    I also wanted to use this space to point out that Rogan offered to moderate a four hour debate between President Trump and Biden, with just the three of them…and Trump accepted.

    I would watch every minute of that.

    Scenes From The Endtimes

    Thursday, September 10th, 2020

    Not to get all biblical on you, but have you checked out these scenes from the West Coast?

    And the pictures out of Oregon are just crazy:

    Why is it happening?

    Remind me which party has been managing forestry in those states again…

    Minneapolis: Cold Feet On Police Defunding?

    Wednesday, September 9th, 2020

    Remember how Minneapolis citizens were going to get to vote on whether to abolish their police department or not? It turns out that Minneapolis City Council is incompetent as well as insane. The Minneapolis Charter Commission voted against having the defund proposal on the ballot in November, mainly because the City Council didn’t provide a real plan for a post-police public safety:

    The current charter, which serves as the city’s constitution, requires Minneapolis to keep a police department with about three officers for every 5,000 residents.

    Before the City Council can remake policing, they must amend the charter.

    The City Council sought a charter amendment that would establish a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, which may or may not include law enforcement officers.

    Some members of the Charter Commission proposed their own amendment that would preserve the police department, but eliminate the current charter mandate to fund a specific number of officers. The commission rejected its own amendment while also extending their review of the City Council’s proposal.

    Charter Commission Chairman Barry Clegg said the commission was not given enough time to study the City Council’s proposal before their deadline to get it on the ballot.

    “The council came to us at the very last minute, and in fact, the council suspended its own rules to get in under the timeline,” Clegg said. “We said, ‘No, we’re going to do our job. Our job is to review this proposal, our job is to gather public input and that’s what we’re going to do.’”

    (Wait, “we’re going to divert all that sweet police money into the palms of my far left cronies” doesn’t count as a plan? Imagine my shock.)

    Now that same City Council is getting cold feet about their own insanity:

    The city council at the epicenter of the national unrest over policing and the death of George Floyd once promised to lead other cities to a police-free Utopia. Three months later, without any plans to accomplish it and with residents and investors balking at the prospect, the Minneapolis City Council’s abolition movement has “lost momentum,” the Star Tribune reports:

    The Minneapolis City Council’s resolve to end the city’s police department has lost momentum, the result of the failure to get the question before voters in November and council members’ diverging ideas on the role of sworn officers in the future.

    In the three months since nine council members pledged to end the department following George Floyd’s killing, the city has experienced a surge in violent crime, another night of unrest and blowback from residents who felt they had been left out of the initial conversations about change.

    Some council members have remained consistent in their statements about policing, while others have softened their rhetoric, saying now that they do envision officers as part of any revamping of public safety.

    So the vote to defund the police won’t actual defund the police, making the Minneapolis City Council, in addition to being insane and incompetent, a bunch of damn liars.

    Minneapolis was one of the cities hit with still more rioting after the Jacob Blake shooting, and parts of downtown remain boarded up:

    Hot Air further notes:

    Perhaps the voters in Minneapolis should be talking about getting rid of [City Council President Lisa] Bender and the rest of the city council. Even if some think abolishing the police is a good idea, Bender and her cohort are clearly incompetent at it. For the vast majority of the voters, however, the radical plan from Bender et al to leave them at the mercy of violent criminals without any hope of protection should be disqualifying.

    If any of these council members get re-elected, then Minneapolis deserves the impoverishment and collapse that will follow.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at PJMedia.)

    The Five on Trump’s Critical Race Theory Ban

    Tuesday, September 8th, 2020

    Gutfield and company give President Donald Trump credit for defunding the poison:

    The Hotfoot Serenades

    Sunday, September 6th, 2020

    So an antifa moron managed to set another antifa moron’s feet on fire with a Molotov cocktail in Portland.

    And the meme video remixes are epic.

    And, inevitably:

    Alas, no one seems to have done a remix to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire.” Somebody should get on that…

    .50 BMG vs. Lock

    Sunday, September 6th, 2020

    You may be aware of the lock-picking lawyer, the anonymous attorney with a very active YouTube channel where he demonstrates his extensive lock-picking skills. Very rare is the lock he can’t defeat in under three minutes.

    In the videos below, the lock-picking layer and mentor Bosnianbill go out to the firing range to bring sheer firepower to bear on two very sturdy locks.

    First they went after the Squire SS80CS, a five-pound hardened steel lock, with everything from .223 to 7.62 NATO armor-piercing. (Plus .300 Blackout, which I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone shoot before.)

    Then the go after that lock’s big brother, the SS100CS, which weights twice as much, with a .50 BMG.

    It lasts a surprisingly long time.

    They didn’t go after with a Roufuss round, but at $65 a round, that would hardly be a cost-effective solution anyway.

    A look at the lock itself:

    An End To Wokeness?

    Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

    I’m working on a Big Think piece on Social Justice, and while I ratchet all those parts into place, here’s James Lindsay, founder of New Discourses, on Joe Rogan, and how he sees the competing claims of ultimate victimhood finally derailing the Social Justice Warrior crusade:

    He also mentions how California is trying to bring back legal racial discrimination. For Social Justice.

    As a spoiler for the Big Think piece: At least one New Discourses piece will figure prominently in it…

    BidenWatch for August 31, 2020

    Monday, August 31st, 2020

    Biden’s phony-baloney polls are running behind Hillary’s phony-baloney polls of four years ago, more China policy weakness, more anti-police rhetoric, and Slow Joe comes in many days and dollars short denouncing the antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riots. It’s this week’s BidenWatch!

  • “Biden Is Under-Performing Hillary Clinton in Battleground States She Lost.”

    On election day, Hillary Clinton polled 6.5 points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin in the Real Clear Politics average (an aggregate of polls). Trump ended up winning the state by 0.7 points. Biden currently leads by 3.5 points in Wisconsin in the RCP.

    The story is the same in North Carolina and Michigan. In North Carolina Trump lead Hillary by only 0.8 points on election day but ended up winning by 3.6. Biden is tied with Trump currently in the polls. In Michigan, Clinton lead by 3.6 points on election day, but Trump won by 0.3. Biden currently leads by 2.6 points.

    Or more accurately, “supposedly leads.”

    If we measure Hillary’s polling averages as of August 26th instead of election day, as the National Review’s David Harysanyi notes: Biden is +5.5 in Pennsylvania today [the 26th]. Hillary was +9.2 the same day in 2016. Florida is the only battleground state where Biden (+3.7) is outperforming Clinton (+2.7).

  • More on the same theme:

  • This Is How Biden Loses:

    In mid-August, a Pew Research Center poll found that the issue of violent crime ranks fifth in importance to registered voters—behind the economy, health care, the Supreme Court, and the pandemic, but ahead of foreign policy, guns, race, immigration, and climate change. The poll found a large partisan gap on the issue: three-quarters of Trump voters rated violent crime “very important,” second behind only the economy. Nonetheless, nearly half of Biden voters also rated it “very important.” Other polls show that, over the summer, Biden has lost some of the support he gained among older white Americans in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic.

    With some exceptions, the media have been reluctant to shine a bright light on the summer’s violence—both the riots and the concurrent spike in violence. The New York Times ignored or downplayed the subject for weeks. One of its first major articles appeared in mid-August, under the headline “In the Wake of Covid-19 Lockdowns, a Troubling Surge in Homicides.” The piece argued that the crime surge had to do with the end of the lockdown that coincided with the beginning of summer, citing the skepticism of criminologists that “the increase is tied to any pullback by the police in response to criticism or defunding efforts,” and pointing to economic disruption and the spread of despair. But it also offered a different explanation, contradicting the thesis: “Police officials in several cities have said the protests have diverted officers from crime-fighting duty or emboldened criminals.”

    After the 2016 election, the Times admitted that it had somehow missed the story, and it earnestly set about at self-correction. Like many other outlets, the paper sent reporters to talk to Americans who had put Trump in the White House. It was a new beat, almost a foreign bureau—heartland reporting—but that focus soon faded as the president’s daily depredations consumed the media’s attention. This election year, news organizations grown more activist might miss the story again, this time on principle—as they avoid stories that don’t support their preferred narrative. Trump supporters are hoping for it.

    I think I speak for all Trump supporters when I say hat we want a news media that honestly and fairly reports the news. But that ship sailed a long, long time ago. (What was the last Republican President who got unbiased reporting in the media? Eisenhower?) But I do agree that the MSM’s unsuccessful attempts to enforce preference falsification turns out to be a major advantage for Republicans.

    (Hat tip: Chuck DeVore.)

  • Speaking of Chuck DeVore, he has a piece on how well President Trump is doing when it comes to foreign policy, how bad Biden’s foreign policy record has been, and how weak Biden is on China:

    Biden’s lifetime of foreign policy miscues include:

    • Opposing Ronald Reagan’s military buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative
    • Voting to invade Iraq in 2002, saying in 2003, “I voted to go into Iraq, and I’d vote to do it again.”
    • Early support for the 1999 bombing of Serbia which pushed Serbs to back the authoritarian leader there while stifling the nascent pro-democracy movement.
    • Criticism of President Trump’s authorization to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the man responsible for paying bounties to the Taliban for the killing of American troops in Afghanistan.
    • Advising President Obama to wait for more information before approving the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011—advice, that if acted upon, might have led to bin Laden’s escape.

    Reviewing Biden’s campaign statements and materials for clues on his foreign policy proposals suggests a Biden administration would major on the minors. In a sprawling 4,444-word essay entitled, “Why America Must Lead Again,” Biden sets out his vision. He mentions China 13 times:

    • Suggesting U.S. tech giants shouldn’t be aiding China’s repression.
    • Claiming his foreign policy will help the middle class “…win the competition for the future against China or anyone else… (author’s italics).”
    • Saying “There is no reason we should be falling behind China or anyone else (author’s italics) when it comes to clean energy, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, 5G, high-speed rail, or the race to end cancer as we know it.”
    • That, “The United States, not China, should be leading…” with new trade deals.
    • Admitting that “The United States does need to get tough with China…” or else China will “…keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property,” with the best way to address the challenge being to “…build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change, nonproliferation, and global health security.”
    • Working with “…China, to advance our shared objective of a denuclearized North Korea…”
    • Ensuring that “the rules of the digital age (aren’t) written by China and Russia.”
    • And working with China on climate change.

    Absent is any mention by Biden of China’s massive military build up of modern missiles, ships, aircraft, and space systems and its growing willingness to use that military power against virtually all neighboring nations. It’s as if, by closing one’s eyes to the threat, one can wish the dragon away.

    So while the People’s Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party is methodically preparing for a military conquest of the free island of Taiwan, to slice off more Himalayan territory from India, to take islands from Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia (all while holding the U.S. military at bay with an increasing array of long range missiles), Biden stresses the importance of climate change and getting the Chinese to use less coal.

    President Trump is paying attention to the true nature of the existential threat from communist China, while Joe Biden focuses on lesser irritants from an earlier era.

  • More on the same theme:

    The Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Joe Biden is “dangerous” when it comes to offshoring American jobs and because of his past relationship issues with China, and the United States needs a tough president like Donald Trump to stand up against the country’s bullying behavior, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Friday.

    “The problem with Joe Biden is he has a record, 44-year record,” Navarro said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “In 2001, he voted to allow China into the World Trade Organization. That created a tsunami of offshoring, where we lost over 70,000 factories and 5 million manufacturing jobs. This also happened on his watch when he was vice president.”

    Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to “bully this country into submission through threats on Huawei and medical supplies,” Navarro said.

    “What we learned from this pandemic is we need to bring home our supply chains and manufacturing, not just for our essential medicines or medical supplies like masks or medical equipment like ventilators but for everything,” Navarro said. “China is bullying Australia right now for daring to question how that virus was created. Australia wants to do an investigation of China about where the virus came from. The next thing you know China is punishing Australia and New Zealand. It is a bully.”

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • No post-convention bump for Biden. “Getting no boost after a convention has happened only a few times in modern Democrat Party history. By John Kerry in 2004 and George McGovern in 1972. Kerry ended up losing to George W. Bush and McGovern got thrashed by Nixon in an historic landslide beaten only in scale by Presidents FDR and Ronald Reagan.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “C-SPAN Had So Many Democrats Calling In Support For Trump That They Had To Change Their Protocol“:

    C-SPAN changed their open phone line labels after an overwhelming number of Democratic viewers called on Wednesday night proclaiming their support for President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.

    “I’m a longtime Democrat, born and raised … After watching tonight … I have made up my mind. I am definitely gonna vote for Donald Trump,” said one of the many voters who dialed in.

    Before the Republican National Convention, C-SPAN’s open phone lines were labeled as open for “Democrats,” “Republicans,” and “Other” viewers to call into and share their opinions on-air. After Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, however, C-SPAN received an influx of callers who identified as Democrat but said they would be voting for Trump in November.

    Due to the increasing nature of these calls, the network adjusted the phone lines to encompass those who “Support Trump,” “Support Biden,” and “Support Others.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • The RNC destroyed Biden’s basement campaign. Also: conservatives dominate Facebook’s top ten links list? I had no idea. But look at this:

    Ben Shapiro is doing the work of thousands!

  • Is Joe Biden for or against defunding the police? Yes:

    We should begin with Joe Biden who said he would redirect budgeted police money to non-police areas. That’s right. Biden made that statement on July 8, when he replied, “Yes, absolutely” to an interviewer who asked him, “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?”

    But this defunding of the police, or “redirecting” as Biden spins it, contradicts a June 8 statement by his campaign claiming that Biden “does not believe that police should be defunded.”

    When that contradiction and doublespeak raised eyebrows, Biden then reversed on both prior positions, claiming he would give more money to the police to handle the “god-awful problems” they face in the line of duty. Talk about a pandering, wishy-washy politician who will say anything to get elected. Can anyone believe Biden now?

  • “Police group leader calls Biden-Harris ‘most radical anti-police ticket in history.'”

    The president of the top lobbying group representing police and law enforcement officers tore into Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, calling them the “most radical anti-police ticket in history.”

    Michael McHale, the president of the National Association of Police Organizations, decried what he described as a rash of violence against police officers in recent months and railed against “failed” elected officials in cities such as Minneapolis, New York and Chicago who he said had made “the conscious decision not to support law enforcement.”

    Biden, he said, would follow their lead.

    “Joe Biden has turned his candidacy over to the far-left, anti-law enforcement radicals,” he said. “And as a senator, Kamala Harris pushed to further restrict police, cut their training, and make our American communities and streets even more dangerous than they are.”

  • Nor are they attempting to lower the rhetoric:

  • Biden finally denounces all the antifa/#BlackLivesMatter violence and rioting, many days and dollars too late:

  • Biden and Harris want to monkey with your 401Ks. I don’t know a single person who contributes to a 401K who goes “You know what the problem is? I’m just saving too much in taxes!”
  • Now Nancy Pelosi is saying Biden shouldn’t debate Trump.
  • Speaking of Slow Joe, here he confuses Jacob Blake with Kyle Rittenhouse:

    Plus he doubled-down on the “very fine people” hoax yet again.

  • Know all that “Trump won’t conceded if he loses” rhetoric from the left? Still more projection: “Hillary Clinton: Biden should not concede under any circumstances.”
  • Nothing says you’ll fight for black people quite like being endorsed by white supremacist Richard Spencer. Hey, the MSM insisted on linking this loon to the Republican Party for four years, so it’s only fair Republicans return the favor.
  • Who watches the watchmen? “‘Factcheckers’ Keep Lying about Biden’s Abortion Position.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.”)
  • Slow Joe update:

  • Heh:

  • Noted for the record: “Joe Biden to visit Southwestern Pennsylvania Monday; location, details not announced.” My experience has been that most presidential campaigns announce a time and place for a candidate’s appearance well more than a day in advance.
  • Good question:

  • The new pieties:

  • Lyin Joe:

    

  • Michael Moore thinks President Trump is going to win again. He was right about this in 2016 as well. “The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states— but not Michigan. Sound familiar?”
  • Speaking of Michigan: Trump 47, Biden 45. It’s almost like the working class is never returning to the Democrat Party. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Epic comeback:

    

  • Boom:

  • Heh:

  • Heh 3:

  • “Biden: ‘My Doc Says I Don’t Have Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Or Alzheimer’s.'”
  • Also, I note for the record that no notable Kamala Harris links made their way across my desktop this week. I wasn’t trying to exclude them, but after the DNC was over, it seemed like the media universe at large just sort of lost interest in her. She generates a palpable lack of excitement.

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