News and Headlines: In The News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion.
In The News:
45 law enforcement officers shot, 11 fatally, in first two months of 2021: national police group
At least 45 law enforcement officers have been shot in the line of duty, with nearly a dozen being fatally wounded, in the first two months of 2021, according to recently released national police union statistics.
The National Fraternal Order of Police announced the startling figures on Monday, also noting that 13 law enforcement officers were injured in 10 “ambush attacks.”
The statistics are likely to change. Just Monday, a Georgia deputy with the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office succumbed to injuries he suffered when he was shot in his vehicle during a police pursuit, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Reporter Charlie LeDuff to sue Michigan Gov. Whitmer over nursing home coronavirus data
Longtime reporter Charlie LeDuff announced on Twitter that he and the Mackinac Center, a Michigan-based free market think tank, are “preparing a lawsuit” against the Democratic governor.
LeDuff – who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his work with the New York Times – said Whitmer “refuses to turn over COVID death data and accurate nursing home numbers to the public.”
“The public has a right to know. Above all, the public has a need to know. We shut down the entire economy, we interrupted our children’s lives, all in the name of protecting the most vulnerable. We now know this was the institutionalized elderly. If we could not protect them, at the very least we deserve an explanation from Madam Governor,” LeDuff told Fox News in an email on Monday.
“If there’s something more to it than that, let’s say gross incompetence or gross negligence or gross press conferences designed to cover the facts, then she needs to answer for it. As I’ve always said, the power lies with the people, not the political parties,” he added.
Watchdog: U.S. Wasted $2 Billion on ‘Unused or Abandoned’ Projects in Afghanistan
SIGAR regularly traces the use of American funding in the country, monitoring facilities and other assets built with American money and judging the projects based on their usefulness to the area in which they were built.
SIGAR reports regularly find extensive financial waste in the country, including American expenditures on unusable buildings, entertainment venues, or misuse of funds that have ended up helping opium cultivation.
The latest report, completed February 24 but surfacing in Afghan media Monday, studied about $7.8 billion in American money spent in Afghanistan.
“Of the nearly $7.8 billion in capital assets reviewed in its prior reports, SIGAR identified about $2.4 billion in assets that were unused or abandoned, had not been used for their intended purposes, had deteriorated, or were destroyed,” the report read.
EXCLUSIVE: Human Smugglers in Mexico Kidnap Teen from Bus Headed to Texas Border
Because the victim is considered a minor by Mexican law, officials blacked out his name in the report provided to Breitbart Texas. The report does not explain if kidnappers took the teenager by force or if he was approached by a human smuggler offering to get him into Texas.
The unknown individuals took the teenager to a stash house in Portal de Lincoln in the nearby suburb of Garcia where they held him for ransom.
For several days the gunmen held the teen while demanding $30,000 USD from his father who had settled in California. The teen’s father was only able to get $5,000 that he wired to the account provided to him by the kidnappers.
After the kidnappers learned they were not able to obtain more funds from the teen’s family, they left him in a city street.
Obamas to Produce All-Muslim Podcast for Ramadan
The Obama have “announced a new season of their Higher Ground podcast called “Tell Them, I Am,” which will feature a collection of narratives from Muslim voices.”
The host of the podcast, Misha Euceph, explained: “The stories are universal and the guests are all Muslim.
The ultimate goal is for people to feel something, for them to fall in love with the people they’re listening to without ever thinking about who they are and what they look like.”
Processing of asylum seekers expands at US-Mexico border
A week after the U.S. government began processing those with active cases made to wait in Mexico during the Trump administration at a border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego, the process expanded this week to the Matamoros-Brownsville crossing and Friday to Ciudad Juarez-El Paso.
A camp of migrants on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros was a particular priority for the Biden administration and Mexico.
It holds about 750 people now, but the city is dangerous and camp residents were hard hit by frigid winter weather that affected Texas and northern Mexico this month.
Video: US military releases video showing Iran missile attacks on US troops at Al Asad airbase
The video, taken from drone overhead, shows the different positions of U.S. forces and aircraft on Jan. 8, 2020 at the moment 11 ballistic missiles began striking the American targets at the joint U.S.-Iraqi Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq where 2,000 U.S. troops were based.
The first strikes destroyed six air maintenance facility structures, according to the video. The second strike location destroyed more air maintenance facilities, in addition to personnel offices and living areas. More air maintenance facilities and personnel areas were destroyed at other locations.
The video was released one day after appearing on a 60 Minutes special, which included interviews with troops on the ground during the attack – and videos taken from troops themselves during the attack.
Gavin Newsom Ignores His Own COVID Shutdown Rules AGAIN at California Restaurant
Local authoritarians have shut down Fresno restaurants due to being in a Gavin Newsom-approved “purple” COVID zone. This means that not only can you not be inside a restaurant, but if you want to retrieve your take-out order, you have to wait outside. And you’d better be wearing a mask – or else.
Most kids aren’t in school because the state claims “there is widespread COVID-19 transmission in the county and nearly all businesses have to keep indoor operations closed or severely limited.”
But there was Gavin Newsom over the weekend next to a table of food and hanging out inside – also illegal – with actor and comedian George Lopez for about an hour doing what looked to be a PR stunt.
As celebrity chef and restaurant owner Andrew Gruel noted, food was served inside to those gathered, which could get a restaurant closed down in Fresno.
Cleaning Coal | Full Measure
Today’s modern coal plants are not your daddy’s coal plants.
And we recently found out about a unique engineering contest being held to make them even cleaner.
We’re off to northeast Wyoming near the town of Gillette.
Texas Electricity Firm Files for Bankruptcy Citing $1.8 Billion in Claims From Grid Operator
Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc, which supplies electricity to more than 660,000 consumers across the state, is one of dozens of providers facing enormous charges stemming from a severe cold snap last month.
The fallout threatens utilities and power marketers, which collectively face billions of dollars in blackout-related charges, executives said.
The state’s grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), on Friday said $2.1 billion in initial bills went unpaid, underscoring the financial stress on utilities and power marketers.
More providers likely will reject the bills in coming days, executives said.
CA teachers union president who led school closure charge seen dropping daughter off at in-person preschool
“Meet Matt Meyer. White man with dreads and president of the local teachers’ union,” the group wrote in a tweet on Saturday along with video footage of Meyer.
“He’s been saying it is unsafe for *your kid* to be back at school, all the while dropping his kid off at private school.”
Meyer told Fox News in a statement that the video, which blurred out his child’s face, was “very inappropriate” and an intrusion of his child’s privacy. He added that there were “no public options for kids her age.”
Politics:
Top Biden adviser Richmond suggests White House will move on reparations without Congress
(Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images)
White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond says it’s “doable” for the Biden administration to make first-term progress on racial equality, while Congress studies reparations for slavery.
“We have to start breaking down systemic racism and barriers that have held people of color back and especially African-Americans,” Richmond said in an Axios interview aired Sunday on HBO.
Though Richmond thinks the commission will pass reparations-related legislation, he wants Biden to start acting now, citing an executive order the president released Jan. 26 that focuses on includes prison and housing reform.
“We don’t want to wait on a study,” he said. “We’re going to start acting now.”
Virginia legislature votes to legalize marijuana
Virginia lawmakers passed compromise legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in both chambers of the legislature.
Under this legislation, the possession, consumption, growth and sale of recreational marijuana would become legal by 2024. The legislation will go to Gov. Ralph Northam’s desk, who has advocated for legalizing recreational marijuana.
Lawmakers passed the bill in the Senate and House of Delegates after lawmakers from both sides struck an agreement after differing on approach. Although Senate Democrats sought to legalize possession as early as July, the compromise legislation does not legalize it until after the sale is legal.
Michigan Republicans: $1.9 trillion stimulus package ‘riddled with political handouts’ not related to COVID-19 pandemic
Over the weekend, the U.S. House passed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that seeks to hand billions of taxpayer dollars to Michigan.
Members of Michigan’s Republican delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives argue the measure is full of non-COVID-19-related liberal “pork” projects.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Jackson, pointed out that only 9% of the $1.9 trillion focuses on COVID-19 public health measures.
“In reality, this bloated $1.9 trillion bill is riddled with political handouts that have little or nothing to do with combating the virus,” Walberg said in a statement.
“It is simply indefensible that this legislation devotes billions of dollars to extraneous provisions—foreign assistance programs, a subway in Speaker Pelosi’s district, a bridge in Senator Schumer’s state, and much more. Up to this point, Congress has already allocated more than $4 trillion in COVID relief, and $1 trillion of that has yet to be spent.”
The bill seeks to spend billions to bail out retirees in multi-employer pension plans, including the Central States Pension Plan covering Michigan Teamsters retirees which will become insolvent in four years, even though that’s debt preexisting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ron DeSantis Unveils Sweeping Statewide Effort to Address Chinese, Foreign Influence
The CCP, DeSantis said, has made a mission of their global expansion of power to steal intellectual property from businesses, government, and academic institutions “all to further fuel their global objectives.” He then stressed the importance of providing strategic safeguards addressing concerns of the CCP, and other foreign powers, influencing the government, as well as academia and the economy.
That starts with what DeSantis described as one of the CCP’s “primary targets”: The education system. He briefly touched on the Chinese theft of American research, adding that the U.S. must “eliminate any tolerance of clandestine foreign influence in our schools.”
State agencies, state universities, public schools, and local governments must “never use tax dollars to establish language and culture programs with foreign governments that place the interest of those governments ahead of our own interests,” DeSantis said, mentioning CCP-funded Confucius institutes, specifically.
Progressive group launches ad comparing Supreme Court justices to segregationists
The progressive judicial group Demand Justice is hitting the airwaves to urge Congress to pass voting rights legislation named for the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). And it’s doing so by comparing some of thecurrent justices on the Supreme Court to Jim Crow-era segregationists.
Demand Justice is airing the ad in the Washington, D.C., market starting Tuesday, the same day the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two Arizona voting rights cases that progressives fear will further undermine the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“John Lewis marched and bled so the Voting Rights Act could become law,” the ad’s narrator says. “But now [Chief Justice] John Roberts and his Supreme Court are set to destroy his legacy.”
“In 1965, opponents of voting rights swung clubs on a bridge in Selma,” the narrator continues. “Today, they sit on the highest court.”
Supreme Court could put new limits on voting rights lawsuits
The justices are taking up a case about Arizona restrictions on ballot collection and another policy that penalizes voters who cast ballots in the wrong precinct.
The high court’s consideration comes as Republican officials in the state and around the country have proposed more than 150 measures, following last year’s elections, to restrict voting access that civil rights groups say would disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic voters.
A broad Supreme Court ruling would make it harder to fight those efforts in court.
Arguments are set for Tuesday via telephone, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden meeting with Mexico president amid efforts to roll back Trump immigration policies
The meeting, which is expected to take place virtually Monday, is set to focus on how the United States and Mexico can cooperate on economic and national security issues, as well as combatting the coronavirus pandemic.
López Obrador is reportedly expected to propose a new Bracero-style immigrant labor program to Biden, which could bring 600,000 to 800,000 Mexican and Central American immigrants a year to work legally in the United States.
The Biden administration official told the Associated Press that the meeting would enable Biden to begin to institutionalize the relationship with Mexico, in a swipe at former President Trump, whose administration’s relationship with Mexico involved the threat of tariffs, a crackdown on migration and his efforts to construct a border wall along the U.S. southern border.
Stephen Miller: Biden created a humanitarian crisis at border, made US less secure
Former Trump senior adviser for policy Stephen Miller blasts President Biden’s ‘systematic effort to dismantle and destroy every single lawful tool and authority’ used to protect America from illegal immigration.
Trump puts end to rumors of new political party, talks life without Twitter
President Donald Trump sits down for a one on one interview with Steve Hilton on ‘The Next Revolution’.
World News:
Iran rejects U.S., EU calls for talks over nuclear deal
The European Union had proposed an informal meeting between the U.S., Iran, and the EU.
“Considering the recent actions and statements by the United States and three European powers, Iran does not consider this the time to hold an informal meeting with these countries,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Sunday.
Khatibzadeh argued the new administration has acted no differently than the previous one when it came to dealing with Iran.
“The Biden administration has not set aside Trump’s maximum pressure policy, nor has it announced its commitments,” he said.
IAEA Chief Says Iran Nuclear Inspections Should Not Be ‘Bargaining Chip’
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog says the agency’s inspection work in Iran cannot become a “bargaining chip” in talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers.
“The inspection work of the IAEA must be preserved…[and] should not be put in the middle of a negotiating table as a bargaining chip,” International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi told a press conference on March 1 at the start of the agency’s quarterly board of governors meeting in Vienna.
Last week, Tehran began restricting some international inspections in a move aimed at putting further pressure on the United States and other parties to the nuclear agreement to get Washington to lift U.S. sanctions on Iran.
However, under a temporary deal worked out during a trip to Tehran by Grossi, some access was preserved.
Grossi on March 1 described the suspension of the inspections as a “huge loss.”
Chinese Military to Hold Month-Long Drill in Occupied South China Sea
Monday, in a move Chinese social media framed as a message to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
The state-run Global Times newspaper announced the month-long military drills in the sea on Sunday and framed them as a message to Washington, more than one to Manila or Hanoi. The Chinese military will ban all non-PLA ships from entering the territory used for the drill for the entire month of March.
Perhaps in response to China’s announcement, Taiwan — a sovereign state that China claims illegally as a rogue province — announced live-fire exercises in the South China Sea on Monday.
Focus Taiwan noted that the country had enhanced its military exercises and increased the presence of its Coast Guard in disputed territory in response to growing numbers of illegal Chinese aircraft excursions into Taiwanese airspace since the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Father and son extradited to Japan over Carlos Ghosn escape
An American father and son wanted for helping the former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn escape Japan in a box were handed over to Japanese custody on Monday, ending a months-long battle to stay in the US.
Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, failed to convince US officials and courts to block extradition to Japan, where they will be tried on charges that they smuggled Ghosn out of the country in 2019 while the former auto titan was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges.
The Massachusetts men, held at a suburban Boston jail since their arrest in May, were handed over early on Monday, said one of their attorneys, Paul Kelly.
Their lawyers had argued the accusations do not fit the law Japan wants to try them under and that they will be treated unfairly and subjected to “mental and physical torture”.
Damascus’ outskirts bombed; Israel accuses Iran over freighter attack – TV7 Israel News 01.03.21
1) Unidentified aircraft launched a salvo of missiles towards the southern outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, causing extensive damage to a number of installations.
2) Israeli officials blame Iran for an attack on an Israeli-owned freighter that was struck while crossing the Gulf of Oman, en-route to Singapore.
3) Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen fire ballistic-missiles and suicide drones toward Saudi Arabia.
Katie Hopkins – A MESSAGE FOR THE BRITISH CHANCELLOR RISHI SUNAK
Commentary/Opinion:
You created this economic mess with the lockdown hoax.
Don’t expect the hard working self-employed to fix it.
Go after those who have profited at our expense.
Commentary/Opinion:
Addiction & Recovery: Things Fell Apart (Pt. 1) | Jordan Peterson | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, about giving life advice while struggling with his recovery, major depression, finding balance between order and chaos, his past struggles with alcohol, how to let go of resentment, how to take responsibility for your life, how to deal with trauma that haunts you and how to ensure a healthy relationship. Jordan begins by discussing the past two years and his addiction recovery.
He describes the severe depression that runs in his family.
He discusses the toll the chronic stress of constant controversy and attacks by the mainstream media have taken on him.
He acknowledges the odd position he finds himself in as someone who gives advice while his own life has come apart.
What Is Identity Socialism?
There’s a new socialism in town. Its foundations are more cultural than economic.
Dinesh D’Souza explains this major development in leftist thinking and its impact on your life.
The old socialism, the kind Karl Marx dreamed up, was all about the working class, the sort of blue-collar worker who, ironically, voted for President Trump.
But today’s socialist couldn’t care less about the guy in the hardhat. He had his chance at revolution and blew it. Today’s socialist is all about race, gender, and transgender rights. Class is an afterthought.
Military Strategy | Full Measure
From Afghanistan to Iraq, a lot of military observers say America can’t seem to win wars even though we have the most powerful Army on the planet.
A new book examines why. It’s called “The 11th Hour in 2020 America: How America’s Foreign Policy Got Jacked Up And How The Next Administration Can Fix It.”
I recently spoke with the author, Former Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis. I began by asking about a controversy in 2012 when he went public with a report that claimed the surge of U.S. troops in Afghanistan wasn’t a success.