Notable
Words of encouragement from an enlightened one
Joe Biden: Hunter Biden Email Story ‘a Smear Campaign’
Sunday, in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden responded to reports his son Hunter used his position as vice president to leverage a “lucrative” deal with Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The New York Post has published leaks reportedly from the younger Biden’s laptop showing his business dealings overseas and more.
Biden pointed out that the intelligence community has “warned” that Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, whose lawyer was given the laptop allegedly containing the “confidential information,” was being “fed disinformation from the Russians.” He then shrugged off the story about his son as “a smear campaign.”
Host Norah O’Donnell asked Biden, “Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter’s computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?”
“From what I’ve read and know, the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that [Vladimir] Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden,” he stated. “And so, when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani, the president together, it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about.”
Biden concluded by asking of President Donald Trump, “What is he running on? What is he running on?”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/10/25/joe-biden-hunter-biden-email-story-a-smear-campaign/
Putin: Hunter Biden ‘made very good money’ in Ukraine, but Moscow isn’t aware of ‘anything criminal’ there
https://www.rt.com/russia/504542-putin-hunter-biden-money-ukraine/
Putin playing 5D to counter Biden???? Sure looks that way
Joe Biden’s Transition Chair Backs Proposal to Impose Term Limits on Supreme Court
Ted Kaufman, the leader of the presidential transition team for Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, has signed onto a letter backing term limits for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The letter, published late last week, backs a new bill introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-CA), to “democratize” the Court. The bill, H.R. 8424, the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act, was introduced after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when it became clear Republicans would be able to move ahead with replacing her on the Court before the election, creating a nominal 6-3 conservative majority. The supporters of the bill claim that they can impose term limits on the Court without a formal constitutional amendment.
The text of the letter states simply: “We are pleased that a formal legislative proposal to limit future justices to 18 years of high court service has been introduced and is advancing public discourse on court reform.”
Kaufman, 81, is identified in the letter as a legal scholar and former U.S. Senator from Delaware — not as the head of Biden’s transition team. However, he has already been acting in the role of Biden’s transition chief, speaking publicly to the press on behalf of the would-be president.
Democrats have become increasingly vocal about “packing the Court,” which means expanding the number of seats and filing the new vacancies with liberal judges.
Biden has dodged questions about whether he would pack the Court, but has voiced efforts for reform, and promised a formal answer on court-packing by Election Day.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/25/joe-bidens-transition-chair-backs-proposal-to-impose-term-limits-on-supreme-court/
Defund NPR: Man Plots to Kill Biden, NPR Omits From Story That He Was Bernie Bro With Books on Islam
We don’t really need yet another reason to defund NPR, but here’s a new one anyway. It reported on Friday that Alexander Hillel Treisman, a 19-year-old from North Carolina, was arrested when police investigating a report that his van was abandoned “looked into the van’s windows and saw an array of items: an AR-15 rifle, the box for a handgun, a canister of explosive material, and a box of ammunition, according to a court document. Police say they towed and searched the van, finding more than $500,000 in cash, drawings of swastikas and planes crashing into buildings, books on survival and bomb-making, and a half-dozen firearms.” Not surprisingly for one of the flagships of the hard Left’s propaganda machine, NPR left a few significant details out of its report.
The Daily Beast, of all people, fills in the blanks, reporting that Treisman’s van contained “books about survival, bomb making, improvised weapons, and Islam.” The books on survival and bomb-making made NPR’s report, but not the books on Islam. NPR seems to be following what has by now become standard establishment media practice: minimize, whitewash, or ignore outright any aspect of a news story that might make people think ill of the Left’s favored religion, Islam.
NPR also didn’t see fit to note that Treisman, who has not yet been charged for plotting against Biden but was charged early in October with possessing “a total of 1,248 videos and 6,721 images of child pornography content,” is not the “right-wing extremist” that many Twitter Leftists have assumed (and hoped) that he was. The first comment on The Huffington Post’s article is: “Another Trump-loving incel – complete with swastikas to boot. He bought the full MAGA package apparently. White House gift shop?” Another added: “The president is an inspiration to the next generation of domestic terrorists — ready to defend white supremacy to the death — nice work there Trumpers.”
But in reality, Treisman is not a Trumper, but one of the Left, a supporter of Bernie Sanders.
The HuffPo, like NPR, doesn’t bother to inform its readers about this at all. Other reliably Leftist “news” organs did mention it, but only in a manner that would ensure that as few people as possible actually saw it. Buried in the fifteenth paragraph of the Washington Post story on Treisman is the salient fact that this psychopath himself explained that he wanted to kill Biden in order to “save bernie [sic].” The Times of Israel waited sixteen paragraphs before it got around to mentioning this.
Treisman wrote on the Internet platform iFunny: “My hatred is for the complacent American people who will turn u in for their own satisfaction. But aside from former goals, my eyes on the future. If anything I have to save bernie.” Then he wondered on the same platform: “should I kill joe biden?”
These were not just idle words. According to NPR, “Treisman bought the AR-15 rifle in New Hampshire and then traveled to a Wendy’s restaurant within 4 miles of Biden’s home in Delaware, federal agents say. He allegedly wrote out a checklist that had as its last task: ‘execute.’”
Apparently, Treisman lost his nerve, as he made no attempt on Biden’s life and returned to North Carolina, where he was living at the time. But he had already done quite enough to be of tremendous service to the establishment media. As another Huffington Post commenter wrote: “Fox nation look in the mirror!”
Actually, if anyone should look in the mirror, it is the supporters of Bernie Sanders and other hard-Leftists whose hateful rhetoric and refusal to condemn antifa violence has created a climate in which the likes of Alexander Treisman can think they’re doing something heroic by plotting to murder a corrupt machine politician who is slightly less Leftist than his hero.
But most of those who are imagining a MAGA hat on Treisman today don’t even know he was actually one of their own, because their trusted media outlets such as NPR and the Huffington Post will bury that information or not bother to tell them at all. By such propagandistic delusions, the modern Left is energized.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/10/25/defund-npr-man-plots-to-kill-biden-npr-omits-from-story-that-he-was-bernie-bro-with-books-on-islam-n1086190
NO THANKS
Air Force Selects BAE Systems To Design Combat Drone For Skyborg Program
The Air Force, under the Skyborg program, has awarded defense firm BAE Systems with a contract of up to $400 million to develop a "digital design" for a fully autonomous drone that will fly with the service's stealth fighters.
The aim is for BAE to produce a low-cost autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle that will fly with manned stealth fighters to increase air combat power.
Ehtisham Siddiqui, vice president and general manager of Controls and Avionics Solutions at BAE Systems, said the "need to generate combat power faster than our adversaries is critical to address near-peer threats."
Siddiqui said, "this award will accelerate the development and deployment of manned-unmanned teaming technologies to give the U.S. Air Force a decisive edge in the battlespace."
The robotic wingmen for manned aircraft will be designed with BAE Systems' autonomous systems. The drone will be outfitted with advanced sensors and other high-tech, likely classified, payloads. Paternering, an autonomous combat drone with a manned stealth fighter jet, could be game-changing on the modern battlefield to defend against emerging threats.
Currently, the Air Force has awarded nine defense firms for competing in the service's autonomous Skyborg drone wingman program. Flushed with cash, the service is purchasing as many prototypes as possible, with testing currently underway.
Air Force envisions the winning defense firm to produce a drone that can conduct at least 15 different mission sets. We noted not too long ago that an operational capability timeline for the drone could be around 2023.
In August, a Boeing-made wingman drone was spotted in Australia.
And maybe the 2005 American military science fiction action film "Stealth" accurately predicted combat drones were to become human pilots new "wingman."
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/air-force-selects-bae-systems-design-combat-drone-skyborg-program
Hunter Biden Ex-Biz Associate Was Livid Over $5MM Side-Deal With Chinese: Texts
Former Biden business associate-turned-whistleblower, Tony Bobulinski, was absolutely livid after learning that the Bidens received an alleged $5 million interest-free loan from a now-bankrupt Chinese energy company following the release of a damning Senate report.
"You can imagine my shock when reading the report yesterday put out by the Senate committee. The fact that you and HB were lying to Rob, James and I while accepting $5 MM from Cefc is infuriating," wrote Bobulinski to Jim Biden. (Via the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross):
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hunter-biden-ex-biz-partner-was-livid-over-5mm-side-deal-chinese-texts
Confirmed influenza cases hit rock-bottom, puzzling infectious disease experts
Experts say a variety of factors — from social distancing to mask usage — might be in play; data suggest more complicated picture.
Even as worries persist over increasing COVID-19 cases in the United States, cases of another virus — influenza — have plummeted relative to their number a year ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's FluView influenza tracker lists an influenza-positive test percentage of 0.3% for week 42 of 2020 — a total of 33 positive tests out of 10,809 specimens. That's down sharply from 2.4% during the same week last year.
Visits to healthcare providers for "influenza-like illnesses" during week 42 were also down this year from the last, though not as sharply: This week that rate was 1.2% of all such visits, while last year it was 1.7%.
Sharp drops in influenza have also been observed elsewhere throughout the world over the past several months. World Health Organization global flu surveillance shows a severe dropoff in flu cases starting in early April; whereas in past years flu cases are sustained at a steady plateau over the mid-year months — driven by the Southern Hemisphere's flu season — WHO observation has cases more or less disappearing from April onwards.
"Globally, influenza activity remained at lower levels than expected for this time of the year," the WHO wrote earlier this month, "though increased detections were reported in some countries."
"In the temperate zones of the southern hemisphere," the organization continued, "the influenza season remained low or below baseline. Despite continued or even increased testing for influenza in some countries in the southern hemisphere, very few influenza detections were reported."
COVID measures may have played a role, though country-level data complicates things
Some experts have, perhaps unsurprisingly, cited the still-ongoing lockdowns, mitigation measures, mask mandates and social distancing orders as possible explanations for reduced flu rates worldwide.
https://justthenews.com/nation/confirmed-influenza-cases-hit-rock-bottom-amid-rising-covid-numbers