Thursday, December 5, 2019

Joe Biden Manipulates Video/Audio of Laughter at Trump in Campaign Ad

    The Biden campaign recently released an ad mocking President Trump for the lack of respect shown to him by world leaders. The ad uses clips of Trump addressing the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2018. Trump boasts: “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” Someone in the crowd appears to laugh or react in some manner, and Trump responds directly to that individual with "so true." There is an awkward pause and as Trump smiles and as some laughter builds, he says, "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK," and the audience then laughs loudly and some applaud.


     The Biden ad, however, edits the sequence to make it appear as if the audience reacted with an outburst of laughter to Trump's original boast. Here is the original video of the event:

 

    Trump himself has come under fire for tweeting "doctored" video in the past, as well as for various photoshopped images.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

2010 Profile: Elizabeth Warren "Felt Stifled" By "Administrative Constraints" At Her 1970s Teaching Job

    Two weeks ago, The Script published an article regarding Elizabeth Warren's evolving story of how she came to leave her first teaching job almost 50 years ago. Further investigation by The Script since then has failed to uncover any pre-2014 versions of Warren's anecdote that include the current details about being fired by her principal for being "visibly pregnant," not an uncommon occurrence at the time. However, The Script has discovered two additional pre-2014 examples of Warren relating the story without those details.
    A 1350-word profile of Warren in The Oklahoman in 2010 included a reference to Warren's exit from teaching in the early 1970s, saying Warren "felt stifled by the administrative constraints of the New Jersey public school where she worked," and implied this influenced her decision to switch to law. The entire passage reads as follows:
She became a teacher to brain-injured children, but felt stifled by the administrative constraints of the New Jersey public school where she worked. During a Christmas visit to Oklahoma City, her former high school debate classmates urged her to attend law school.
    Reached by email, the author of the 2010 profile, Don Mecoy, indicated he no longer had the notes from his interview with Warren that might have shed more light on her remarks. The Warren campaign did not respond to The Script's request for comment on the 2010 statement.
    Three years after that profile and less than a year before the publication of her autobiography where Warren first spoke of the principal's role in her release from her teaching job, Warren gave a commencement address at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. In a passage of the speech that contained a theme of "I was sure I had my life all planned," Warren does not mention being fired for being pregnant, but rather sums up that phase of her life as "I taught in an elementary school. I thought I had my life all planned. Two years, one baby and one move later, I decided to go to law school." Here's the remark in full context:
No, I spent pretty much my whole career as a teacher. After I graduated from a commuter college – which back cost $50 a semester – I taught in an elementary school. I thought I had my life all planned. Two years, one baby and one move later, I decided to go to law school, thinking I could be a trial lawyer. I thought I had my life all planned. Three years and another baby and another move later, I became a law professor, teaching bankruptcy and eventually writing books on the economic issues facing middle class families—and I was sure I had my life all planned.
   The Warren story finally broke out of the right-leaning media after the Washington Free Beacon published 1970s school board documents regarding Warren's exit from teaching. Only then did the Warren campaign responded publicly, and then primarily through a CBS News interview. When asked why her telling of the story changed after 2014, the Warren campaign told CBS News: "After becoming a public figure I opened up more about different pieces in my life and this was one of them. I wrote about it in my book when I became a U.S. Senator."
    Warren has subsequently attempted to turn the controversy to her advantage by championing the cause of women who have suffered pregnancy discrimination by employers. Neither Warren nor her campaign, however, have presented any clear documentation that can confirm the specifics of a firing story that Warren apparently waited 43 years to begin sharing publicly.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Elizabeth Warren: Fired From Teaching Job For Being Pregnant, Or For Lacking Qualifications? Story Appears To Change

Editor's Note:
>Ed Morrissey of Hot Air found video of Warren's 2007 interview here. [added 10/7/19]
>Collin Anderson of the Washington Free Beacon found records of county records from the Riverdale Board of Education that directly contradict Warren's claims here. [added 10/7/19]
>Warren finally responded via CBS News on Monday, October 8, 5 days after this article was published. [added 10/8/19]
>Final note: Here's my editorial take on this issue.
---
Original article:

    During her presidential campaign, Elizabeth Warren often emphasizes education as well as equal opportunities for women in the workplace. Warren tells of her own experience as a young public school teacher, let go from a special needs teaching job by a male principal for being "visibly pregnant." This past May, Warren put it this way when discussing her early teaching career:
“I loved it, and I would probably still be doing it today but back in the day, before unions, the principal, by the time we got to the end of the first year, I was visibly pregnant,” she said. “And the principal did what principals did in those days: they wished you luck, showed you the door, and hired someone else for the job. And there went my dream.”
   In an interview twelve years ago, however, Warren told a markedly different version of the circumstances around her termination from her teaching job. (A writer for Jacobin Magazine, Meagan Day, first noted the interview on Tuesday on Twitter. Day is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and is a Bernie Sanders supporter.)
    At UC Berkeley in 2007 as part of a series called "Conversations with History," Warren was asked about her pursuit of a career helping special needs children. Her answer at the time made no mention of losing her job due to her pregnancy. Instead, she spoke of trying to further her education because she lacked some education courses that had required her to rely on an "emergency certificate" to teach that first year. While pursuing those courses, she said she realized, "I don't think this is going to work out for me." She and her husband then decided she would stay at home for the time being. Here is her full answer in context:
"I was married at nineteen and graduated from college after I'd married, and my first year post-graduation I worked in a public school system with the children with disabilities. I did that for a year, and then that summer I didn't have the education courses, so I was on an "emergency certificate," it was called. I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, "I don't think this is going to work out for me." I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking, "What am I going to do?" My husband's view of it was, "Stay home. We have children, we'll have more children, you'll love this." And I was very restless about it."
    Not only is the male principal missing from her answer, but instead of special-needs teaching being a "dream" that ended with being let go, she expressed great uncertainty about her future, specifically in regards to teaching.
    In contrast, this past April, Warren briefly alluded to the story while speaking at Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention, saying, "Teaching special needs kids is a calling. But I finished out the year visibly pregnant and didn’t get invited back. Those were the days."
    Warren told this version of the story again later in May 2019 at Laney College in Oakland, California. The Berkeley Daily Planet reported it this way:
"Warren’s demeanor when she spoke at Laney College on Friday was natural and unassuming as she recounted her early life and her career: teaching disadvantaged children, studying law, and teaching business and banking law at the university level. Getting fired from her job teaching children by a male principal for being visibly pregnant. Running for office; winning her Senate seat."
    More recently, Warren brought up her experience at the September 12th Democratic candidates debate. Warren said:
And I made it as a special needs teacher. I still remember that first year as a special needs teacher. I could tell you what those babies looked like. I had 4- to 6-year-olds. But at the end of that first year, I was visibly pregnant. And back in the day, that meant that the principal said to me — wished me luck and hired someone else for the job.
    The earliest version of Warren's story that includes the principal explicitly dismissing her appears to be in her autobiography "A Fighting Chance" in 2014. In October 2017, when Warren spoke at the National Women's Law Center, she used words similar to those she used in her book to describe what happened:
I can still remember the first day of school as a special needs teacher. The classroom all shined up and ready to go.  There were cheerful pictures that I'd hung on the wall.  The children were all ready for a new adventure.  I loved that job. I truly loved that job. 
But by the end of the school year, I was pretty obviously pregnant. The principal did what I think a lot of principals did back then - he wished me good luck, and he didn't ask me back for the next school year, and hired someone else for the job. 
I stayed home, and I tried desperately to be a good wife and mother, but I really wanted to do something more.  So, I came up with a plan to go back to school, and this time I found a law school that was nearby.
    Prior to 2014, three profiles of Warren in 2012 (as she began to rise in national prominence) that mention her special education teaching job do not include details of why that job ended.
    The Warren campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment on how Ms. Warren reconciles the disparate versions of her story.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Trump in 2011: National Debt 'Going to $22 Trillion', The Country Is 'Going Bad Really Fast', 'Cuts Aren't Enough'

    In 2011, Donald Trump addressed the agreement that then-President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress came to regarding the debt ceiling. Trump used the occasion to warn of the growing national debt, then at $15 trillion and, in his words, "going to $22 trillion." Ironically, the latest report from the US Treasury Department shows the total national debt under President Trump at $22,023,119,533,123.43. Monday, President Trump announced a budget deal with Congress that will reportedly increased federal spending by $320 billion, add $1 trillion per year to the debt, and suspends the debt ceiling until July 2021.

    Among Donald Trump's statements about the 2011 debt ceiling agreement:
"I kept hearing they were gonna cut four trillion, five trillion, maybe even more than that. They didn't -- they didn't get anywhere close. So this doesn't solve the problem and that's the big thing. It doesn't solve the problem."
"...the cuts aren't enough." 
"So this doesn't solve the problem and that's the big thing. It doesn't solve the problem. The country is going bad. It's going bad really fast and they didn't do the cutting that we needed." 
    Trump also addressed President Obama's strategy of pushing the debt ceiling issue past the 2012 elections, a move Trump saw as necessary because otherwise Obama "would lose the election in a landslide." The current deal bumps the debt ceiling issue past the 2020 elections.

    Video of Trump's August 2011 remarks:






    A full transcript of the video is found here:





    The text from that transcript is reproduced below.

    "The debt ceiling deal that we've all been watching over the last three or four weeks and it has been a mess. You do have to give everybody credit for working hard no matter what side you're on. Now I happen to be on the side of people that would not have approved the deal. The reason I wouldn't have approved it is two things. Number one, it doesn't address the Bush tax cuts. So what's gonna happen in a short period of time, taxes are gonna be raised, we don't want taxes raised. It's bad for the country to raise the taxes. So it doesn't address the Bush tax cut. I believe they raise automatically, although nobody's been able to tell me that with great assurance. The other thing and almost more importantly, it gets -- Obama passed the election because the next big issue won't come up until after the election. And I can't believe the Republicans agree to that. I will say this Obama's only point, the only thing I saw him very strong on was the fact that he had to go past the election because he knew if this mess happened before the election, he would lose the election in a landslide, he probably or possibly will lose it anyway, although who knows with the mistakes the Republicans make. But he wanted that to go past the election and he got his wish. I don't like that. I don't think they had to do it. I think that's a real real real mistake. So those are two points, but the other point is the cuts aren't enough. I mean we owe fifteen trillion dollars in a very short period of time, fifteen trillion, nobody ever heard of the word trillion three years ago. Now we owe $15 trillion going to $22 trillion and they didn't cut enough. I kept hearing they were gonna cut four trillion, five trillion, maybe even more than that. They didn't -- they didn't get anywhere close. So this doesn't solve the problem and that's the big thing. It doesn't solve the problem. The country is going bad. It's going bad really fast and they didn't do the cutting that we needed."

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Obama Administration Used A Second "Former Internment Camp" For Migrant Children In 2014

    The Trump administration's decision to use the Fort Sill military base in Oklahoma as an emergency shelter for migrant children triggered a flood of stories drawing attention to Fort Sill's history as one of several dozen locations where the US government interned Americans of Japanese descent and others deemed as possible security risks during World War 2. Time Magazine appears to have kicked off the trend with a story posted Tuesday evening entitled "Trump Administration to Hold Migrant Children at Base That Served as WWII Japanese Internment Camp." (The Associated Press had run an earlier story on Fort Sill without a "Japanese internment camp" reference in the article.)
     Notably, however, the Obama administration also used Fort Sill in 2014 to temporarily house migrant children, but research indicates not a single news organization, advocacy group, or politician noted Fort Sill's history as an internment camp at the time. And, as it turns out, Fort Sill was not the only former internment camp location utilized by the Obama administration.
    In addition to Fort Sill, the Obama administration used Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to house migrant children apprehended at the southern border. An official Air Force website reported on June 11, 2014, that the base had been told to "establish an emergency shelter to house up to nearly 1,200 unaccompanied migrant children." 
    According to the National Park Service website, in 1942 "[s]ome Japanese Hawaiians and about 40 Issei from Fort Missoula were held at Fort Sam Houston along with 300 Alaskan Eskimos." The Kooskia Internment Camp Project at the University of Idaho reports as many as "1,000; Japanese, German, Italian, and other aliens" were held at Fort Sam Houston. Further, a State of Texas website says: "The internment camp at Fort Sam Houston (San Antonio) opened in late February 1942. The confinement site’s first internees were Japanese, German, and Italian enemy aliens living in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi."


    Oklahoma Republicans in 2014 opposed the use of Fort Sill to house the migrant children, arguing that the use distracted from the military mission of the base. No 2014 contemporaneous news articles or statements by politicians either for or against the actions of the Obama administration mention either Fort Sill's or Fort Sam Houston's former status as World War 2 internment camps.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Planned Parenthood on Answering Children About Babies: "Answer Honestly... 'A Baby Grows In A Mother’s Belly'"

    Planned Parenthood is the country's de facto mouthpiece and leading advocate for unrestricted access to abortion from conception to just before birth. So it is rather jarring that the recommended answer for parents who wish "to answer honestly" their child's question "Where do babies come from?" is "A baby grows in a mother’s belly..." [Note: Katie Yoder first reported on this in December 2018 at National Review online which I discovered after running across this material on Planned Parenthood's website.]
    While Planned Parenthood is best known as an abortion provider, the organization itself tends to downplay that aspect of its services as a relatively small 3.4%. In addition to its other health services, Planned Parenthood also styles itself as an authoritative source for education about sex and pregnancy. The very first menu on the organization's website banner is "Learn" with submenus on various aspects of "sexual and reproductive health."
    In addition to abortion, cancer, birth control, and other health topics, the website devotes an entire section to helping parents educate their children about "sex, puberty & relationships." While Planned Parenthood makes what it considers age-appropriate distinctions in the level of detail shared with children, honesty and openness is stressed ("open and factual discussions") from the youngest ages up through older teens. The materials shuns euphemisms and discourages calling body parts anything other than their accurate anatomical names.
    When it comes to pregnancy, however, Planned Parenthood reverts back to a more traditional description that conflicts with the usual public characterization of an unborn child as just "part of a woman's body." In the section for ages 5-8 entitled "How do I talk with my elementary school aged child about pregnancy and reproduction?", there is no suggestion that what is inside the mother is anything other than a baby. Emphasis has been added to the excerpts here:
If a 5 year old asks, “Where do babies come from?” you can say, “A baby grows in a mother’s belly and comes out of her vagina.” That may be all it takes to satisfy their curiosity. 
If they ask, “How does the baby get in the mother’s belly?” you can answer while still being age-appropriate — you don’t necessarily need to describe all the details of penis-in-vagina sex. For example, you can say “Most women have tiny eggs in a special part of their belly. Most men have very tiny seeds, called sperm. Sometimes, when two grownups have sex together, one grownup’s penis goes into the other’s vagina. They can make a baby if a seed and egg meet. Do you have any other questions about that?” 
As children get older, you can fold in more detail: “Sometimes during sex between 2 grownups, sperm comes out of the penis, swims up through the vagina and into the uterus, looking for an egg. If the sperm and egg meet up, it can start to grow into a baby. The baby grows in the uterus for 9 months, and then comes out through the vagina or a small cut in the stomach.”
...
As always, simple is key: you can say things like, “There are medicines people can take if they don’t want to have a baby right now,” or “There are things people can use that stop sperm from getting to an egg, so a baby can’t happen.” As they get older, you can be more specific about how birth control works to avoid pregnancy (and sometimes STDs) from sex.
    By the time children reach age 9-13, advice to parents moves away dramatically from talk of "babies" and more towards discussions of sex, STD's, and pregnancy "options." And while Planned Parenthood now suggests telling pre-teens, "This is also a good opportunity to provide basic factual information — like that legal abortion is very safe and common," there is no mention of the fate of the "baby... in a mother's belly" and how parents should navigate through what is sure to be a difficult and thorny question from their child, "But what about the baby in the mom's belly?"

Monday, May 6, 2019

Linda Sarsour at 2015 Farrakhan's 'Justice Or Else' Rally: "I'm Tired of People Asking What The 'Else' Is"

    In 2015, Linda Sarsour, self-described civil-rights activist and "every Islamophobe’s worst nightmare" spoke at Louis Farrakhan's "Justice or Else" rally in Washington DC on the 20th anniversary of Farrakhan's Million Man March.
    Referencing the title of the rally, Sarsour said, "I'm tired of people asking us what the 'else' is. You would not have to ask that question if we already had justice." The video of Sarsour's speech is available on C-Span [1:42:18].


    Sarsour, a founder of the Women's March, was introduced by Tamika Mallory, also a founder of the Women's March and the emcee of the Justice or Else event, and was preceded by Rep. Danny Davis, a Farrakhan supporter who continues to serve in Congress, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's longtime pastor with whom Obama publicly split during Obama's 2008 run for president.
























   During her speech, Sarsour said:
We are one, sisters and brothers, and our liberation is bound up together. The same people who justify the massacre of Palestinian people and called it collateral damage are the same people who justify the murder of black young men and women. The same people who want to deport millions of undocumented immigrants are the same people who hate Muslims and want to take our right to worship freely in this country. That common enemy, sisters and brothers, is white supremacy. Let's call it what it is. We're not here to make people feel comfortable. I'm tired of people asking us what the 'else' is. You would not have to ask that question if we already had justice. We are angry, sisters and brothers. [emphasis added]
    Farrakhan himself has never been explicit about the 'else' either, but in an interview leading up to the rally, he gave some hints:
 A prescription for us is, those who kill us and seem to get away with it, we cannot allow it to continue. We must rise up and kill those who kill us outside of the law of justice and when they feel death like we feel death, when they feel pain at the burying of their dead like we feel it, then maybe we can sit down to a table and act like civilized people. [emphasis added]
   Sarsour herself made some remarks more recently regarding violence versus non-violence in the context the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
I am trained in kingian non-violence. I choose non-violence as a powerful means to change. BUT i don’t have to choose or justify violence to understand where it comes from when oppressed people see no way out. We have to be critical thinkers, advocate & present solutions.
    Sarsour continued:
Until we see both the Palestinian and Israeli people as equals than we will continue to see this cycle of violence. Don’t act surprised. Demand justice for Palestinians & let’s begin discussing peace. There’ll be no peace without justice.