On Friday morning, President Joe Biden repeatedly fell up the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base and almost immediately, comparisons ensued as conservatives and Republicans recalled the liberal media’s wall-to-wall coverage of then-President Trump holding of a water glass and walking slowly down a ramp at the June 13, 2020 West Point commencement.
For CNN and MSNBC, the ordeal was treated like the 21st century’s Zapruder film. A NewsBusters analysis has found that CNN and MSNBC spent a heaping 50 minutes and 55 seconds (excluding teases) on June 15 reveling in the ordeal as a sign of Trump’s supposed mental and physical decline that had to be further investigated.
Excluding teases, CNN mentioned it on seven shows for a total of 22 minutes and 13 seconds. Never Trumper David Frum started it off on New Day when he said it was proof of his “physical decline,” which led co-host Alisyn Camerota to later helm a full segment that wonder if there was “something, possibly neurological” wrong with Trump
Dr. Sanjay Gupta repeatedly said he wasn’t going to speculate, but he did just that as he wondered if there’s “balance problems” or “numbness in his feet” because there’s “lots of unknowns” about Trump’s health. Later in the day, he called the ordeal part of a “concerning” pattern regarding his well-being.
The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman fueled the fire, hyping that “there are a lot of questions around the President’s physical fitness” that are entirely “legitimate.”
Inside Politics host John King touted it a few hours later, telling political correspondent Abby Phillip that Trump “looked a big shaky” in a sign of “balance issues,” leading Phillip to reply that Trump has lacked an “ability to sort of convey information accurately” and so it’s fair game to wonder.
Other offenders included Jim Acosta, Wolf Blitzer, Erin Burnett, and Kaitlan Collins, but the most hilarious character was none other than human meme Chris Cillizza, whom Brianna Keilar brought on so he could hawk his CNN.com piece“Why the Donald Trump-West Point ramp story actually matters.”
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But when it comes to Biden’s struggles, CNN and MSNBC both accepted his administration’s excuse that it was a particularly windy day in the Washington D.C. metro area. Because when their friends are in power, friends don’t hang friends out to dry with such a concerning narrative about the Commander-in-Chief.
It’s difficult to fall 3 times while going up a flight of steps. Managing to make your left shoulder blade hit the carpet in the process is rarely accomplished—even in a game of Twister. Biden has dementia but let’s wait for CNN to tell us this is just another adorable gaffe! https://t.co/lPqqAkECfj
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgie lashed out at Twitter after the popular social media company said that they had suspended her account “in error” on the same day that Democrats introduced a motion to expel her from Congress.
“We use a combination of technology and human review to enforce the Twitter Rules across the service,” said a spokesperson in a statement to CNBC.
“In this case, our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error,” the statement continued. “This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated.”
Greene, who apologized for previously supporting and spreading numerous conspiracy theories, had been temporarily suspended by the social media platform in January after she spread false claims about the results of the presidential election.
She demanded that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explain how it was that she was accidentally suspended on such an important day.
“I was just told @Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in ‘error,’ on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress. What a coincidence?” tweeted Greene.
I was just told @Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in “error,” on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress.
What a coincidence?
Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs.@jack which employee made the “error?”
After tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and rapper Snoop Dogg, the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which started as a joke, topped $10 billion in market value. WSJ looks at why online investors are pouring money into the meme-inspired virtual currency.
“One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom,” Paul said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) joined “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Friday to describe his tense exchange with Dr. Anthony Fauci during a congressional hearing earlier in the week.
During the Senate hearing, Paul had asked Fauci what the scientific justification was to wear two masks when one has already been vaccinated, even as new variants are supposedly appearing.
“There was no scientific evidence presented. There was Dr. Fauci’s opinion, his conjecture, that someday there might be a variant that escapes the control of the vaccine and becomes a pandemic and hospitalizes and kills people, but there’s no evidence that it has happened,” Paul told host Tucker Carlson. “He thinks it might happen, so you need to wear the mask until he is sure that things that might happen are not going to happen.”
“But see, the thing is Dr. Fauci is very blasé and unconcerned about liberty, but I think the burden should be on the government to prove it. If they want to dictate mine and your behavior, the burden is on them to present the evidence,” Paul said.
“So I said, is there evidence that some new variant, some new strain of COVID is now hospitalizing and killing hundreds or even thousands of people in the United States?” Paul continued. “And the evidence is zero. So I think the government when they tell you something like you should be six feet apart, or three feet apart — if they’re going to mandate this behavior that you can’t have anybody in the booth next to you in the restaurant when they mandate these behaviors, it’s incumbent upon them, the burden should be they have to show us the proof.”
Paul, a practicing physician, explained how nonsensical Fauci’s mask-wearing “theater” was when he was already vaccinated.
“There is no proof that when you’ve been vaccinated, or when you’ve gotten the disease naturally, that you are spreading it. If there were, it would be all over the news,” he said. “There are no news reports and no scientific studies saying that after vaccination, that there’s some sort of widespread contagion that people vaccinated are spreading the disease. It’s just not true.”
“What Fauci won’t tell you is that he is telling you a noble lie,” Paul added. “He’s lying to you because he doesn’t think we’re smart enough to make decisions.”
“One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom,” he said. “They need to study and scientific proof to show us why we shouldn’t have freedom. I shouldn’t have to prove that I want to be free and I want to be left alone in order to breathe the air.”
‘This new platform is going to be big, drawing tens of millions of people’
Former President Donald Trump will return to social media in a few months, but it won’t be on an existing platform. Trump will instead create “his own platform” that will “completely redefine the game,” according to one of his top aides.
In Trump’s final month as president, Twitter permanently banned him for tweets that were deemed as “incitement of violence” in relation to the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building by Trump supporters. Trump was then suspended from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and Shopify.
Trump has been relatively quiet since he was banished from the largest social media platforms. What few communications Trump has delivered since Jan. 20 have been statements released through his “Office of the Former President” in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Jason Miller, a former spokesman and senior adviser for Trump’s campaign, teased how and when the 45th president would return to social media. Speaking to Fox News’ “Media Buzz,” Miller proclaimed that Trump will return to social media on his own platform.
“I do think we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform,” Miller teased. “This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.”
“It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” Miller told host Howard Kurtz.
Miller did not provide specifics as to the new social media platform or even the name of the project, but he said that Trump has been holding “a lot of high-powered meetings” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Miller added that “numerous companies” have approached Trump regarding the potential venture.
“This new platform is going to be big,” Miller proclaimed. “Everyone wants him and he’s going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform.”
Based on social media comments, the early favorite for the name of Trump’s social media platform is “Trumpet.”
BREAKING: Trump Senior Adviser @JasonMillerinDC says President Trump will likely return to social media in 2-3 months on his own social media platform that will “completely redefine the game” pic.twitter.com/IZCT6ryqFw
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden is under investigation for unspecified allegations and is on leave from his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, according to a statement from the college’s board of trustees.
Rev. Kevin O’Brien allegedly “exhibited behaviors in adult settings, consisting primarily of conversations, which may be inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries,” according to the statement by John M. Sobrato, the board chairman.
O’Brien gave the service at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, one of the most prominent Catholic churches in Washington, in January for Biden, who is the nation’s second Catholic president, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, their families and elected officials before the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.
O’Brien also presided over services for Biden’s inaugurations as vice president.
The priest has known Biden’s family for about 15 years, according to the university. O’Brien was then serving at Georgetown University, another Jesuit college. O’Brien has been president of Santa Clara University since July 2019.
Sobrato’s statement, posted Monday to the university’s website, did not specify the allegations against O’Brien but said the trustees “support those who came forward to share their accounts.”
Sobrato said that while O’Brien is on leave, the priest will be cooperating with the independent investigation, with conclusions to be shared with the Santa Clara University Board of Trustees. O’Brien didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tracey Primrose, spokeswoman for the Jesuits West Province, which is overseeing the investigation, did not elaborate on the investigations to The Mercury News.
“Jesuits are held to a professional code of conduct, and the Province investigates allegations that may violate or compromise established boundaries,” Primrose told the newspaper.
Primrose did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment Thursday night.
O’Brien joined the Society of Jesus in 1996, according to the university, and was ordained to the priesthood in 2006.
Located in Silicon Valley, the Jesuit institution has an annual undergraduate enrollment of roughly 5,500 students. Ranked as one of the top 25 schools for undergraduate teaching nationwide, the private university has a million-dollar endowment and counts California Govs. Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown among its alumni.
Former President Donald Trump mocked President Joe Biden on Friday for having fallen while climbing the stairs to Air Force One.
“I watched as Joe Biden went up the stairs today … and I said, ‘I didn’t lose to him,’ which we didn’t lose to him,” Trump said in video depicting him at a podium at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Almost 75 million votes and probably a lot more than that.”
WATCH:
Former President Trump responds to President #BidenFall
“I watch as Joe Biden went up the stairs today and I said ‘I didn’t lose to him,’ which we didn’t lose to him. Almost 75 million votes and probably a lot more than that”
(Crux) ROME – In attempting to solve any problem, one might face two very different challenges. The first is when almost no one else even recognizes there is a problem, and, when they’re told, they remain skeptical. The other is when people know there’s a problem, but don’t quite understand its scope and details.
The former challenge, naturally, is by far the more daunting.
According to the most recent survey by Aid to the Church in Need, when it comes to American Catholic attitudes about anti-persecution around the world, the landscape has shifted – Catholics in the U.S. now appreciate there’s a severe persecution of Christians around the world, even if they still come up a little short in terms of mastery of the fine points.
Let’s begin with the key background.
Anti-Christian persecution is one of the most dramatic human rights scourges of our time. Though statistics vary widely, the low-end estimate for the number of new Christian martyrs every year in the early 21st century is around 6,000 to 7,000, while the highest-end accounting puts it at 100,000. That works out to somewhere between one Christian killed for the faith every hour, to one every five minutes. Whatever the actual number, it’s a death toll of staggering proportions.
Beyond fatalities, watchdog groups estimate that 200 million Christians around the world are at risk, facing daily threats of harassment, physical assault, arrest, imprisonment and torture.
Of course, Christians must be concerned about the violation of anyone’s human rights, not just their own, and it’s not as if Christian blood is somehow more valuable than that of Jews, or Buddhists, or anyone else. The point is rather that Christians are suffering on a larger scale, in part because they’re simply more numerous and more exposed than other vulnerable constituencies.
Yet for years, Christians in the West, including Catholics, seemed largely unaware of that carnage. In part, that may be because most Christians in the affluent West have never personally experienced persecution; in part, it may be because claims of “anti-Christian persecution” in the West sometimes seem political and therefore largely unthreatening, like when a judge rules that a public facility such as a county courthouse can’t have a nativity set – annoying, sure, but hardly life or death.
In such a context, it can be challenging for Westerners to grasp that other Christians literally take their lives in their hands every time they go to church, or, for that matter, just walk the street. Whatever the explanation, I can report that when I published my book The Global War on Christians in 2013, the most common question I got from interviewers and people in the pews was, “What war?”
Wednesdays release of the Aid to the Church in Need survey would seem to suggest that’s finally changing.
ACN is a papally-sponsored foundation supporting persecuted Christians around the world, and this is the fourth year it’s conducted a national survey of American Catholics. The poll was carried out by McLaughlin and Associates, a well-connected Republican polling company that did a fair bit of work for the Trump campaign, but this isn’t really a case in which political bias matters much.
Over the first three years, the survey found a consistent but gradual, meaning small, increase in the percentage of American Catholics saying anti-Christian persecution is either “somewhat severe” or “very severe,” but this past year marked a dramatic spike in awareness. In the early 2020 poll, 41 percent of American Catholics described the persecution as “very severe,” but that number jumped to 57 percent in the new survey conducted Feb. 19-26. Combined with the 38 percent who said “somewhat severe,” that leaves only 5 percent of American Catholics in denial.
Granted, the poll also found that most American Catholics aren’t aware that 1,000 primarily Christian under-age girls were abducted and threatened with forcible conversion to Islam in Pakistan last year; that in China, Mass-goers are subject to digital surveillance; that in Nigeria, nearly 3,500 Christians were killed for their faith in 2020; and that in North Korea, being a Christian can carry the death penalty.
Still, the striking increase in American Catholics recognizing the global lay of the land is something to celebrate.
In terms of how to explain it, it’s worth noting that the poll was conducted in the run-up to Pope Francis’s March 5-8 trip to Iraq, which shone a spotlight on the horrors suffered by Iraqi Christians during the period of ISIS occupation of the northern part of the country between 2014 and 2017.
Beyond that, an ACN spokesman suggested a series of factors behind the increase awareness.
More coverage of anti-Christian persecution in the Catholic and Christian media.
Wider coverage of dramatic developments in countries such as Nigeria, where Boko Haram and ISIS West Africa Province remain active, and India, with growing and even deadly hostility toward Christians on the part of extremist Hindus.
Jihadists roaming the Sahel, and awareness of developments in Mozambique.
The Pope speaking out more.
The U.S. bishops’ stepped-up attention to international religious freedom issues.
Whatever the explanation, the fact that U.S. Catholics now seem to clearly perceive the nature of the threat is a significant achievement. No small share of credit must go to organizations such as ACN, which have gone to great lengths to spread the word.
The $64,000 question, of course, is: Now that we know, what are we willing to do?
That’s a question to which one hopes the best minds in American Catholicism will devote some share of their energy and attention, because not only is there a clear humanitarian case for doing do, but it would also seem a basic entry requirement for membership in a global family faith with more than two-thirds of its members today living outside the West, facing circumstances and challenges that most of us can scarcely imagine.
Whatever the case, one thing is clear from the most recent ACN: If American Catholicism fails to mobilize its considerable resources on behalf of suffering Christians around the world, ignorance is no longer an acceptable excuse.
Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that provisions in the sweeping climate bill from top House Democrats would stifle the plastics industry.
One late addition to the nearly 1,000-page piece of legislation, known as the CLEAN Future Act, is meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution emitted from the petrochemical facilities that produce plastics or the raw materials used to make plastics.
Most significantly, the bill would impose a temporary pause on air pollution permits needed for approval of new plastics production facilities.
The legislation also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new greenhouse gas and air pollution controls for these facilities within three years, including requiring plastics production plants to use zero-emissions power and improve emissions monitoring.
The EPA regulations must also require any permit for a plastics production facility to be accompanied by an “environmental justice assessment,” which would include consulting with the people who live in the region where the facility would be located, according to the bill.
Several Republicans, during a legislative hearing on the bill Thursday, argued it would dampen the plastics industry at a time when the pandemic exposed a need for more plastic materials for personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves.
Rep. David McKinley, a West Virginia Republican, asked whether the Democrats’ bill would preclude the opening of new facilities such as an under-construction ethane cracker plant being built by Shell near Pittsburgh or a similar plant planned for eastern Ohio.
“Yes, I believe that language would jeopardize future investment into those types of facilities,” said Kevin Sunday, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, in response to McKinley’s question.
