Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
March 11, 2021
Good morning
Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
Day 49: Half the nation worried Biden not ‘physically and mentally up to the job’ . . . It doesn’t take much for the nation’s voters to become concerned that President Biden, the oldest new chief executive at 78 years old, might not be up for the job.
The latest proof: His resistance to holding a full-blown press conference now 49 days into his presidency has half the country worried. In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey of likely voters, 50% said they are not confident that “Joe Biden is physically and mentally up to the job of being president of the United States.” Another 48% have confidence in Biden, though only 34% were “very confident” that he was up to the job. Driving that was Biden’s refusal to meet with reporters.
He has had some interactions with the small pool of reporters, but his sometimes awkward speaking style has led to criticism. And the White House has recently cut short his appearances. Washington Examiner
Jen Psaki gets snippy when asked if Biden will give regular press conferences . . . White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked, admittedly inartfully, a simple question about whether President Biden would do regular press conferences. The answer was sarcastic and condescending, referring instead to what she claims are “40 Q&As” that President Biden has done. White House Dossier
In US, 1 in 4 adults have gotten their first vax dose . . . One in four adults in the US have now received their first shot of the coronavirus vaccine, Andy Slavitt, the senior adviser to President Biden’s coronavirus response team, announced on Wednesday. More than 95.7 million COVID-19 doses have been administered in the country since inoculation efforts began in mid-December. Over 62.4 million people or 18.8 percent of the
population have gotten at least one vaccine shot, while 32.9 million people or 9.9 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC data. New York Post
Lockdowns 'single worst public health mistake' in last 100 years: Doctor . . . A professor of medicine at Stanford University declared Monday that the COVID-19 lockdowns will be remembered as the country’s “single worst public health mistake” in the last 100 years. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Newsweek that the physical and psychological damage the ongoing lockdowns are causing to kids and adults is “catastrophic.” “I stand behind
my comment that the lockdowns are the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years,” he said. “We will be counting the catastrophic health and psychological harms, imposed on nearly every poor person on the face of the earth, for a generation. Washington Times
Feds lift COVID restrictions on nursing homes . . . The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services lifted most restrictions on visits to nursing homes Wednesday. “Facilities should allow responsible indoor visitation at all times and for all residents, regardless of vaccination status of the resident, or visitor, unless certain scenarios arise that would limit visitation,” CMS said in its announcement. Visitation would
be limited for unvaccinated residents of a facility if fewer than 70% of residents at that facility have been vaccinated and the COVID-19 positivity rate in the county is 10% or higher. Residents with confirmed COVID-19 infection or who are in quarantine would also be restricted from seeing visitors. Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been hit hard by the pandemic. Washington Examiner
|
|
Biden White House admits its policies drive illegal immigration surge . . . Southern Border Coordinator Roberta Jacobson said Wednesday that it was not a “coincidence” border crossing attempts spiked after President Biden took office. Asked if surges at the border could be linked to Biden’s undoing of Trump-era border policies, Jacobson said: “We’ve seen surges before. Surges tend to respond to hope, and there was significant hope
for a more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand. “There was a hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand, so I don’t know if I would call that a coincidence,” said Jacobson, who spoke during the daily White House briefing. White House Dossier
Peter Doocy Presses Psaki For Laughing At Question On Border Crisis . . . Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pushed back on White House press secretary Jen Psaki when she laughed at one of his questions. Doocy asked about the CDC recommendations regarding reopening schools and managing migrant detention facilities during Wednesday’s briefing, noting that while the detention facilities were being opened to full
capacity, many schools still were not. Psaki immediately pushed back on Doocy’s point, asking whether he had a specific school to hold up as an example, noting that to reopen, the CDC had said there were a series of mitigation efforts that needed to be implemented before schools could safely open. “The CDC is saying, ‘Schools, you can be at — every school can be at full capacity,’ as you know —” Doocy protested. Daily Caller
House Passes Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Package . . . The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the updated version of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. The vote was 220-211, with all Democrats voting for the bill except for Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and all Republicans voting against it. The House passed a version of the bill late last month, followed by the Senate on March 4. The upper
chamber removed the $15 federal minimum wage hike and changed other provisions, such as decreasing weekly supplemental unemployment aid by $100 to $300 a week. No Republicans supported the package in either vote. Epoch Times
Biden’s COVID-19 Plan: Force Taxpayers to Pay for Abortions . . . Back in 1994, a worried Delaware taxpayer sent a message to his senator. “Please don’t force me to pay for abortions against my conscience,” he said. Joe Biden sent an unambiguous response. “I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate: those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for
them,” he wrote. “[T]he government,” Biden said, “should not tell those with strong convictions against abortion, such as you and I, that we must pay for them.” Today, President Biden is demanding that Americans “with strong convictions against abortion” must pay for them with their tax dollars. Daily
Signal
Senate votes to confirm Garland as attorney general . . . The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Merrick Garland to be President Biden’s attorney general, a U-turn from a 2016 stalemate that kept him stuck in Senate limbo. Senators voted 70-30 on Garland’s nomination to lead the Justice Department, easily topping the 50 votes needed. The vote comes just days before the five-year anniversary of when then-President Obama nominated Garland
to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans, who then controlled the Senate, refused to give Garland a hearing or a vote. The Hill
Dem Senator crusading against dark money, takes dark money, invites witnesses to Congress with ties to dark money . . . All three witnesses invited by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) to testify at a hearing on the destructive impact dark money has had on the Supreme Court have significant ties to liberal dark money groups. Whitehouse is scheduled to preside over a Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon on "What's Wrong with
the Supreme Court: The Big Money Assault on Our Judiciary." The hearing is Whitehouse’s latest attempt to push dark money groups to disclose their donors. Although he frequently attacks the role of dark money in politics, Whitehouse himself has relied on groups that conceal their donors throughout his tenure in the Senate. Washington Free Beacon
|
|
US plans to deploy missiles in Asia to deter 'our greatest strategic threat' . . . The US military plans to deploy long-range missiles in Asia capable of threatening China as part of efforts to deter a conflict with Beijing, the commander of American military forces in the Pacific said Tuesday. Adm. Philip S. Davidson, the four-star commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, told a congressional hearing his most pressing defense need is
a ground-based missile defense system on the US island of Guam to provide 360-degree defense from a potential Chinese attack. With the Biden administration still formulating its diplomatic and security strategy for East Asia, Adm. Davidson told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “the greatest long-term strategic threat to security in the 21st century [is] China.” Washington Times
US Airforce ‘Got Its Ass Handed To It’ In War Game Against Simulated Chinese Attack . . . A highly classified war game the United States Air Force conducted in Fall 2020 ended with Chinese missiles pounding American bases while China invaded Taiwan. The war simulation started with China mounting a biological attack against U.S. bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region China then used a military exercise as cover to invade
Taiwan and launch missiles against U.S. bases and naval forces.This simulation is one in a series of war games where the U.S. loses, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote. “More than a decade ago, our war games indicated that the Chinese were doing a good job of investing in military capabilities that would make our preferred model of expeditionary warfare . . . increasingly difficult.” “The trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing
faster,” Hinote said. Daily Caller
With regard to US-Russia war-games, my own experience, as senior intel officer for Russian Doctrine & Strategy at the DIA, was similar. Red consistently beat Blue, but not because Red had superior weaponry (often the opposite) but because Blue had no viable response to Red's strategy that aimed to turn Blue's reliance on technology for war fighting into strategic vulnerability.
Lawmakers Say Overhaul Needed to Protect Fed Agencies from Foreign Hacks . . . Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding the federal government beef up cybersecurity, pointing to a series of attacks from hostile nations and the Department of Homeland Security’s current inability to detect and deter complex cyberattacks. The calls for a renewed focus on cybersecurity come as the federal government reels from the "SolarWinds" hack, in which
foreign intruders gained access to vast swathes of federal agency communications and records over the course of 2020. US intelligence community believes Russian intelligence likely accessed emails from the Treasury Department, the State Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and even DHS itself. Researchers and lawmakers worry that foreign adversaries have the upper hand on the federal government, and that programsare unfit for modern cyberwarfare. Washington Free Beacon
|
|
Russia's websites go dark after US vowed retaliation for SolarWinds hack . . . The outages knocked out websites for the Kremlin and other major agencies. Two days after the White House telegraphed a retaliatory stealth attack on Russian cyber systems, Russian government websites for the Kremlin and other agencies were knocked offline. In addition to the Kremlin site, the disabled web pages included those for the State
Duma, the Security Council, the Russian Investigative Committee, the Ministry of the Interior, and other agencies. The outages followed a Monday warning from the White House that the U.S. would launch a counterstrike to retaliate for the SolarWinds computer data breach. Just the
News
China’s parliament approves plan to reform Hong Kong’s electoral system . . . China’s parliament on Thursday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a controversial draft plan that will increase Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong's electoral system, which has drawn criticism from the U.S. The "patriots governing Hong Kong" is a resolution that will allow a pro-Beijing panel to approve some candidates that it deems sufficiently "patriotic," according to
the BBC. The vote was 2,895-0, with one abstention, the report said. The next step is a formal bill, which could be implemented in the city within a few months. Fox News
Millions of websites offline after fire at French cloud services firm . . . A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors. The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France,
and damaged another, the company said. There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze. Reuters
|
|
A $60 billion surprise in the Covid relief bill: Tax hikes . . . Democrats tucked in a trio of little-noticed tax hikes on the wealthy and big corporations. It’s surprising because Democrats were widely expected to put off their tax-increase plans until later. Many lawmakers are wary of hiking them now, when the economy is still struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. If anything, when it came to their stimulus plan, Democrats were
focused on cutting taxes, not increasing them. But they ran into problems complying with the stringent budget rules surrounding so-called reconciliation measures like the coronavirus legislation — especially after some wanted to add provisions like one waiving taxes on unemployment benefits. Politico
|
|
Wall Street Journal Fact-Checks Facebook Fact-Checkers . . . Recently, the WSJ editorial board responded to yet another instance of Big Tech censorship by Facebook’s “fact-checkers.” A scholarly article written by John Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary about COVID herd immunity, published by the WSJ and run on its Facebook page, was labeled as “missing context” thus “misleading” by “independent
fact-checkers.” The reason for the article, titled “We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April,” being “fact-checked” appears clear — it challenged the Left’s political narrative on the pandemic. FB "fact checkers" disagree with the evidence Dr. Makary cites as well as how he interprets it. But scientists disagree all the time. Frustrated by the dubious “fact-check” of an opinion piece by a clearly well-educated and knowledgeable individual, the WSJ decided to fact-check the
“fact-checkers.” The Journal concluded that Facebook’s third-party “independent” fact-checkers were in fact opinion-checkers. The legal privileges enabled by Section 230 protections, that shield internet platforms from liability, have given cover to The Big Tech for this censorship abuse. Patriot
Post
NYC school encourages kids to stop using words like ‘mom,’ ‘dad’ in ‘inclusive language’ guide . . . A Manhattan private school aiming to use more “inclusive language” is encouraging its students to stop using the terms “mom,” “dad” and “parents” because the words make “assumptions” about kids’ home lives. The Grace Church School in NoHo — which offers academic courses for junior kindergarten through 12th grade — issued a 12-page guide to
students and staff explaining the school’s mission of inclusivity. The detailed guide recommends using the terms “grown-ups,” “folks,” “family,” or “guardians” as alternatives to “mom” “dad” and “parents.” It also suggests using “caregiver” instead of “nanny/ babysitter.” New York Post
Unilever to remove the word 'normal' from beauty products and ads to be inclusive . . . Unilever is doing away with the word “normal” on the packaging of its beauty products and respective advertisements. The language change is one way the multinational consumer goods company is being “equitable and inclusive,” according to a press release issued on Tuesday. Brands such as Dove, Vaseline, Axe, Sunsilk and Love Beauty and Planet are
included in Unilever’s progressive commitment among other beauty and personal care lines the company owns. Unilever’s decision to strike the word “normal” from its products comes as a response to the 10,000-person study it commissioned that found the term makes 70% of consumers (from across nine countries) feel excluded. Fox Business
To fully comprehend the potentially catastrophic consequences of the progressive movement's relentless pursuit to re-order the American society and alter reality, every American must read "We," a seminal piece of literature by the Russian author Yevgeniy Zamyatin. Banned by the Soviets for "subversive" content, Zamyatin's "We," by some accounts, inspired George Orwell's "1984." For over 70 years, the Russian people endured the alternate
reality forced upon them by the totalitarian Soviet government, until the entire house of cards collapsed in 1991.
MyPillow CEO to launch social media site described as cross between YouTube and Twitter . . . MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said in an interview that he plans to launch a social media site called Vocl that he described as a cross between YouTube and Twitter. Lindell said that Vocl would be meant “for print, radio and TV” and differ from conservative platforms Gab and Parler. "It's all about being able to be vocal again and not to be
walking on eggshells,” he said. The MyPillow CEO, who was barred from Twitter this year after posting repeated claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, said he’s worked on Vocl for four years and plans to be the CEO. He predicted it would launch at the latest in three weeks. The Hill
It would be liberating for conservatives not to have to walk on eggshells any longer when expressing our views.
|
|
Bear chases ski instructor at Romanian resort . . . A ski instructor at a Romanian resort captured video of a bear chasing him down a slope for several minutes before the animal fled into the woods. The bear eventually turned and ran back into the forest. Officials said the person who filmed it was a ski instructor who was trying to draw the bear away from other skiers and back toward the woods. The incident took
place just weeks after riders on the chairlifts at the same resort captured video of a bear chasing a skier. UPI
|
|
Do you love Cut to the News? Let your family and friends know about it! They'll thank you for it. Spread the word . . .
By Email - use the message that pops up or write your own. On Facebook - On FB, write your own message
Thank you for doing it.
Have a great day.
Rebekah
Rebekah Koffler
Got this from a friend? Subscribe here and get Cut to the News sent to your Inbox every morning.
|
|
|
