Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on Sunday broke down Meet the Press host Nicolle Wallace’s claim that President Donald Trump used a ceremony held at Arlington National Cemetery, in remembrance of the 13 American service members killed at Abbey Gate, to take campaign photos.
“He didn’t take campaign photos there,” Cotton said when Wallace accused the former president of inappropriately using military grave sites for campaign purposes. “These families — Gold Star families — whose children died due to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s incompetence, invited him to the cemetery, and they asked him to take those photos.”
Cotton noted that the Gold Star families also invited President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to the cemetery to meet with them, to no avail.
“Joe Biden was sitting on a beach,” he said. “Kamala Harris was sitting at her mansion in Washington, D.C. She was four miles away — ten minutes. She could’ve gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn’t. She never has spoken with them or taken a meeting with them. It is because of her and Joe Biden’s incompetence that those 13 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.”
An unnamed source told reporters in recent days that a Trump-campaign staffer “verbally abused and pushed” a cemetery official after being told that only authorized cemetery photographers were allowed to take photos or video in the area. Trump-campaign spokesman Steven Cheung denied reports of an altercation and said a private photographer had received permission to work on the site.
The families of those service members killed at Abbey Gate — Marine Corps Lance Corporal David Espinoza, Marine Corps Sergeant Nicole Gee, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Darin Taylor Hoover, Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, Marine Corps Corporal Hunter Lopez, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Dylan R. Merola, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, Marine Corps Corporal Daegan William-Tyeler Page, Marine Corps Sergeant Johanny Rosario, Marine Corps Corporal Humberto Sanchez, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, and Navy Hospital Corpsman Max Soviak — have long felt disrespected by the current president and his refusal to meet with them.
After Harris issued a statement condemning Trump’s appearance as an episode in which he “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” severalfamilymembersrecordedvideosaddressedtothe vice president. The loved ones of those 13 men and women noted that neither Biden nor Harris has said their names in the three years since the Abbey Gate bombing.
Few conservatives have been treated worse in the press than the former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. While the mainstream media despises all Republicans, they have an especially disturbing vitriol for conservative women. This has made the unapologetically right-wing Palin their perfect target for years.
Thankfully, Palin has never been one to take this lying down. In one instance, she sued The New York Times for a 2017 editorial that falsely claimed that her campaign had encouraged the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords.
Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff dismissed this lawsuit in February 2022. He did so after allowing the jurors to finish deliberating and give a verdict, which ultimately was in favor of the New York Times.
On Wednesday, however, Palin scored a huge victory in court when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned both that dismissal and the verdict.
From Fox News: “We have no difficulty concluding that an average jury’s verdict would be affected if several jurors knew that the judge had already ruled for one of the parties on the very claims the jurors were charged with deciding,” 2nd Circuit Judge John Walker Jr. said regarding the dismissal.
“We think a jury’s verdict reached with the knowledge of the judge’s already-announced disposition of the case will rarely be untainted, no matter what the jurors say upon subsequent inquiry,” Walker said, addressing claims from jurors that the dismissal and subsequent notifications did not affect their decision.
The court noted several other issues with how Palin’s lawsuit was handled, including restrictions on her claim that editorial page editor James Bennet allowed the unsubstantiated claims against her to politically aid his brother, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado.
Huge Victory For Palin And Conservatives Everywhere
This is a huge win for Palin, who has been a punching bag for the media ever since the late Arizona Senator John McCain named her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential election. Her lawyers celebrated the ruling as “a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public in general.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times whined that the ruling was “disappointing.” However, there’s really nothing they can do about it. Much to the liberal publication’s dismay, it seems that Palin will be getting her day in court to defend herself against the lies they shamefully told about her.
It’s time for more conservatives to start fighting back against the lies the media spreads about them. The left has gained so much control over the mainstream media that they have become confident that they can use publications to spread blatant lies with no consequences. Palin knows better than most just how damaging these lies can be, both personally and professionally.
The New York Times was once a publication that could be trusted by both sides of the aisle. Sadly, it has devolved into little more than a propaganda tool for the left. That’s why we can only hope that Palin’s lawsuit against this publication is a massive success.
Key Takeaways:
A federal court reinstates Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.
The NYT falsely claimed that Palin’s campaign encouraged the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords.
More conservatives need to fight back against the lies spread by mainstream media outlets.
U.S. governmemt mistakenly sends $293 million to Taliban: what led to the goof-up?
New Delhi: A recent report from the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed a a major goof-up with US aid in Afghanistan. The report indicated that since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops in 2021, the US State Department might have inadvertently directed at least $293 million to the Taliban.
The SIGAR report exposed major goof-up in the US Department of State’s compliance with counterterrorism vetting requirements for its aid programmes in Afghanistan. The audit, covering the period from March 1, 2022, to November 30, 2022, scrutinized five State bureaus managing active awards in the region: Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA), Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA/PPD), Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour (DRL), and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
According to SIGAR, PM/WRA, PRM, and SCA/PPD met the requirements set out in the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) and other counterterrorism vetting guidelines. These bureaus provided thorough risk assessments and complete documentation, demonstrating adherence to State’s vetting protocols.
In contrast, DRL and INL faced serious issues with their documentation. DRL was able to provide adequate vetting documentation for only three out of seven awards, leaving four awards unverified. Similarly, INL presented proper documentation for just three of 22 awards. This lack of adequate records means SIGAR could not confirm whether these bureaus complied with State’s vetting requirements for the majority of their programmes.
Related video: ‘America Accidentally Transfer $239 Million to Taliban’ | Uncovering Truth Behind the Viral Claim (Oneindia (Video))
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‘America Accidentally Transfer $239 Million to Taliban’ | Uncovering Truth Behind the Viral Claim
“State officials acknowledged that not all bureaus complied with document retention requirements,” the SIGAR report said.
The audit highlights a critical failure in meeting federal and internal documentation standards, jeopardising oversight and increasing risks of misuse. Specifically, State was unable to confirm compliance for awards totalling at least $293 million. This raises concerns that funds might be inadvertently channelled to organisations linked to the Taliban.
This $239 million figure is different from $7 billion in military equipment, such as Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters, left behind by US forces, which is now likely in the possession of the Taliban.
SIGAR had called on the Secretary of State to take immediate corrective action to ensure full adherence to vetting and documentation requirements. State officials have acknowledged these shortcomings and pledged to address the issues to enhance compliance and safeguard taxpayer funds.
Time for new leadership in the TEACHERS UNION. She has been in bed with the Democrats so long that it is time to buy some new sheets since the linens are worn out.
On June 21, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new appointments to its Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. Among them was Randi Weingarten, who, when not retweeting liberal op-eds and political endorsements dozens of times a day, leads the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). In her new government “advisory” post, Weingarten will now advise the DHS on scholarship funding and research opportunities, school safety, and career development for the DHS workforce of the future.
Among deans, superintendents, and law enforcement officials, Weingarten stands out as perhaps the most baffling appointment given her recent professional track record. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Weingarten battled to keep schools closed, acting as a consultant for the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Since then, she has done nothing but obfuscate and mislead about her role in keeping children out of classrooms to keep the shifting political winds ever at her back.
In an April hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Weingarten claimed that “we [the AFT] spent every day from February on trying to get schools open…,” This echoed previous comments she had made, among other places, in a 2021 speech to AFT membership. In the same April hearing, she also said that the CDC consulted the AFT on guidelines for reopening schools, but that the CDC was not influenced by the AFT in their decisions to prevent full reopening in February of 2021.
Unfortunately, the truth about her stance on school closures seems to be quite the opposite. In tweets throughout 2020, she repeatedly lauded school closings, such as those in downstate New York that October, stating “I agree, @AndyPallotta! ‘Erring on the side of caution means closing school buildings when there is serious risk of spreading COVID-19, and we believe the state is taking the right steps by seeking to close schools in these hotspots.’@nysut.” Earlier in 2020, she labeled Trump-era plans to re-open school doors in the fall as “cruel” and “reckless.” She even went so far as to suggest the AFT go on strike if teachers were told to do their jobs in person.
Weingarten’s statements about AFT’s involvement with the CDC are no closer to reality. In multiple emails from February 2021, Weingarten’s staff demanded that the CDC include triggers in their guidelines which would shut down schools again if COVID numbers rose. The government provided copies of CDC guidelines and sought input from AFT before their publication. The CDC incorporated those edits into their final product. This access to, and influence on, CDC decision-making was undoubtedly reinforced by direct phone calls from Weingarten to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Despite their repeated requests, these transcripts have still not been provided to Congress.
Perhaps amnesia explains Weingarten’s revisionist history of her terrible policies. But regardless of the source or motivation for her misstatements, the question remains as to what exactly in her dismal record qualifies Weingarten to advise DHS on academic policy and school safety. The American people deserve an answer. The House Oversight or Homeland Security Committee ought to ask the question.
The U.S. Education Department has released the first in a series of school surveys intended to provide a national view of learning during the pandemic. It reveals that the percentage of students who are still attending school virtually may be higher than previously understood.
As of January and early February of this year, 43% of elementary students and 48% of middle school students in the survey remained fully remote. And the survey found large differences by race: 68% of Asian, 58% of Black and 56% of Hispanic fourth graders were learning entirely remotely, while just 27% of White students were.
Conversely, nearly half of white fourth-graders were learning full-time in person, compared with just 15% of Asian, 28% of Black and 33% of Hispanic fourth-graders. The remainder had hybrid schedules.
This disparity may be partly driven by where students live. City schools, the survey found, are less likely than rural schools to offer full-time, in-person classes. Full-time, in-person schooling dominated in the South and the Midwest, and was much less common in the West and Northeast.
The racial and ethnic gaps may also be driven in part by which families are choosing to stay remote, even where some in-person learning is offered. Three out of 4 districts around the country were offering some in-person learning as of January, the report says, with full-time, in person learning more common than hybrid schedules.
The Education Department created the survey in response to an executive action signed by President Biden on his first full day in office. To obtain results quickly, researchers used the existing infrastructure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the testing program also known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”
More than a year after schools around the country first switched to virtual learning, this is the first attempt at federal data collection on the progress of school reopening. Although the Trump administration pushed for school reopening, it made no such efforts. “I’m not sure there’s a role at the department to collect and compile that research,” former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said last October.
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This survey covers a nationally representative sample of around 7,000 schools, half of which were educating fourth-graders and the other half educating eighth-graders (those being grades included in The Nation’s Report Card testing).
New results will be reported monthly through at least July. The results are intended to provide context for The Nation’s Report Card in 2022, and state tests, which the Biden administration is requiring this year.
The survey is also intended to pinpoint inequities. For example, among the other key findings: More than 4 in 10 districts said they were giving priority to students with disabilities for in-person instruction. Yet in practice, 38% of elementary students with disabilities remained remote, compared with 43% overall. Many families of students with disabilities have said that their children receive limited benefit from virtual learning.
Finally, this pilot survey asked how many hours of live video instruction students were receiving when learning remotely. The majority of schools said they are offering more than three hours per day. But 10% of eighth-graders, and 5% of fourth-graders, are getting no live instruction at all when learning remotely. They may be working on other activities such as homework packets, or software, or watching pre-recorded lessons.
The response rate to this nationally representative survey varied around the country and was lowest in the Northeast. Notably, out of 27 large urban districts targeted in the survey, 16 declined to participate.
Previously, NPR has been citing school reopening data provided by an organization called Burbio. Burbio scrapes school district websites to find out whether school is being offered hybrid, full-time or all-virtual. Their data set — 1,200 school districts representing 35,000 schools and nearly half of the U.S. school population, is larger than that covered in this federal survey.
MSNBC’s the Rev. Al Sharpton speaks with Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, about JD Vance’s attacks on teachers and “childless women.
Related video: ‘America Accidentally Transfer $239 Million to Taliban’ | Uncovering Truth Behind the Viral Claim (Oneindia (Video))
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