Here’s Why Trump Almost Fired Esper

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President Trump was reportedly close to firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper after the Pentagon chief publicly broke with him over deploying active-duty troops during recent protests.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump was prepared to ax Esper but was convinced not to do so after he consulted with several advisers and Republican lawmakers. Esper, who knew about the president’s feelings toward him, had also reportedly begun preparations for a resignation letter before being persuaded not to do so.

The tension came to a head when Esper publicly broke with Trump during a hastily called briefing at the Pentagon. The defense chief said he didn’t support the president invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell demonstrations that began after the death of George Floyd.

“I’ve always believed and continue to believe that the National Guard is best suited for performing domestic support to civil authorities in these situations, in support of local law enforcement. I say this not only as secretary of defense, but also as a former soldier and a former member of the National Guard,” Esper said.

“The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now,” he added. (Read more from “Here’s Why Trump Almost Fired Esper” HERE)

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The Social Distancing Double Standard Is Real and Absurd; Conservatives Charge Liberals With Social-Distancing Hypocrisy

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By Washington Examiner. People of faith in the United States have been told since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that they cannot congregate in their churches, mosques, or synagogues until the threat of the virus has passed.

It is simply too dangerous, our leaders say, for people of faith to meet as a body for worship and praise. Yet many of these same leaders also support the massive, crowded protests that have sprung up in response to the wrongful death of George Floyd.

It is impossible to miss the double standard, especially because these elected officials told us specifically that it is a matter of life and death that we socially distance ourselves.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, for example, joined a recent Floyd protest in his city, participating proudly in a demonstration that saw attendees doing very little to adhere to those social distancing guidelines we were told would save lives. But it was not so long ago that Garcetti, whose public appearance last week saw him forgo the all-important face mask, said that it was essential that churches, synagogues, and mosques remain closed. For public health reasons.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, whose restrictions on places of worship are still in place, has similarly marched with large crowds in the nation’s capital. (Read more from “The Social Distancing Double Standard Is Real and Absurd” HERE)

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Conservatives Charge Liberals With Social-Distancing Hypocrisy

By Politico. Conservatives have found their latest example of liberal hypocrisy: Disappearing outrage over protesters refusing to social distance.

The charge has spread through conservative Twitter and is invoked frequently on conservative media outlets, from Red State to Fox News. They note that when lockdown protesters flooded state capitol buildings, politicians and pundits alike expressed horror that gatherings would accelerate the coronavirus pandemic. But now, with thousands of people gathering to protest police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of the Minneapolis police, conservatives are asking: Where did that concern go?

For many on the right — even conservatives who are harsh Trump critics — the situation plays into a broader narrative of liberal elite double standards.

Conservatives “are upset at the political leaders who think protesting and mass gatherings are more important suddenly than being able to feed your family or keep your business open,” said Stephen L. Miller, a conservative media critic and contributor to The Spectator. (Read more from “Conservatives Charge Liberals With Social-Distancing Hypocrisy” HERE)

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Justice for David Dorn? Man Accused of Killing Retired Black Cop Never Served a Day of 7-Year Sentence

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Had our criminal justice system been working the way it should, perhaps retired police officer David Dorn would still be alive today. Yet there will be no calls for true criminal justice reform to ensure that repeat violent felons like Dorn’s suspected murderer are locked up, even as there is rioting for justice for George Floyd when justice is already well on its way to being served.

Monday, Stephan Cannon, 24, was arrested for the murder of retired St. Louis police Captain David Dorn on June 2. Like nearly all murder suspects, Cannon had a prior violent crime record, but he never served a day in prison. This is the systemic injustice in our criminal justice system that nobody in politics wants to talk about. Yet for every cop like Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis there are thousands upon thousands of undeterred and unpunished criminals like Cannon who are responsible for killing exponentially more African-Americans.

Missouri court records show that Cannon was sentenced to seven years in prison for a robbery and assault in St. Louis County in 2014. The sentence stemmed from an incident in August 2013 when Cannon confessed to beating a man in a robbery in order to steal his cash and phone. As is often the case in our leaky justice system, he was able to plead down to second-degree robbery.

Cannon should have been behind bars, and assuming he was the one who pulled the trigger on June 2, David Dorn would still be alive. But in what has become the rule rather than the exception, Cannon was granted suspended execution of sentence (SES), according to Fox2. Thus, he never served a day in prison.

As a condition of the parole, Cannon was supposed to serve seven years for any subsequent violation. But after he violated his parole in 2018, the judge declined to enforce the sentence.

According to court records, Cannon was arrested for theft in February, yet despite his past criminal record and violating the grace accorded to him, he was out free with a scheduled hearing on June 22.

Liberals in both parties, including Jared Kushner’s pro-criminal team in the White House, always speak of the need for “second chances.” But like so many repeat violent offenders these days, Cannon wasn’t subjected to the full sentence even after violating his extremely generous probation on two separate occasions.

According to police, Cannon was seen on surveillance video pointing a gun at Dorn before Dorn fell to the ground and lay dying on the sidewalk in a horrific video streamed on Facebook. Cannon, who was with a group of people looting a pawn shop that Dorn was defending, was charged with first-degree murder for the death of the 38-year veteran of the St. Louis police force, as well as robbery, burglary, felon in possession of a firearm, and three counts of armed criminal action.

A second suspect who was with Cannon, Jimmie Robinson, was charged with burglary, armed criminal action, and stealing. His bond was set at just $30,000 despite his prior criminal record and parole.

Consider the fact that he was with Cannon at the murder of a retired cop and will be out on just $30,000, while the three cops who were with Chauvin, the one accused of killing George Floyd, are being held on $1 million bond. As former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy observes, in the case of one of those cops, Tou Thao, he is barely mentioned in the criminal complaint and not alleged to have taken any active role in the physical restraint of Floyd. The other two officers, Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng, were undergoing their first week of training on the job with Chauvin and were completely under his command.

Indeed, the time has come for a “three strikes and you’re out” bill. How is it that such jailbreak is occurring in a state like Missouri that Republicans control with super-majorities in the legislature? Where are the bills to ensure that repeat violent offenders and parole-breakers are returned to prison and denied bail?

Just last December, a Missouri circuit judge suspended the 20-year murder sentence of a teenager who killed a retired St. Louis cop. Justin Mathews was convicted of murdering retired St. Louis police Sergeant Ralph Harper in 2018 during a robbery of the officer in front of his nephew’s home. In December 2019, Missouri Circuit Judge Michael Noble suspended the 20-year sentence and ordered the 16-year-old to enter a “program” at juvenile hall, which will enable his release at the age of 21.

Why is there no rush to fix these injustices against forgotten American victims of crime who don’t have the weight of their entire culture demanding justice?

Yesterday, the president held a roundtable with law enforcement and the top White House officials who were responsible for getting him to support jailbreak rather than law and order, including Jared Kushner and domestic policy advisers Brooke Rollins and Ja’Ron Smith. They continuously struck a defensive tone, validating the premise of the Left that somehow the injustice in our system is that we are too tough on criminals, rather than showing how tough-on-crime policies save more lives, particularly black lives in inner cities. At the end of the meeting, Trump referred to Kushner as “my star.”

Trump needs to pick a side in this debate and have his personnel reflect that reality. Tough-on-crime policies are supported by the overwhelming majority of suburban voters as well as any African-American voters who would ever entertain the idea of voting for the GOP. As recently as last September, 63 percent of Minneapolis residents supported expanding the police force by 850 people, according to one poll, with an even greater share of non-white respondents expressing support. Non-white respondents in particular articulated concern about high crime, which was already increasing in the Twin Cities at the time.

According to the Bureau of Economic Research, 41 percent of black-owned small businesses have been destroyed by the lockdown. Many more were undoubtedly destroyed by the riots. Jared Kushner was part of that failed shadow task force on the coronavirus response and opposed taking a tougher stance on the riots. The results of both policies have been devastating for those black voters most likely to vote for Trump.

Memo to Jared Kushner and his team of Koch associates in the White House: The black vote in general is not congruent with the looting vote, and it’s insulting to insinuate that most African-Americans want your weak-on-crime policies. In fact, the opposite is true. Law-abiding black business owners want low crime and economic opportunity. Now is the time for the White House to push a tough-on-crime bill like Reagan did and seek justice for the forgotten victims of preventable crimes like David Dorn. (For more from the author of “Justice for David Dorn? Man Accused of Killing Retired Black Cop Never Served a Day of 7-Year Sentence” please click HERE)

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The WHO Throws a Wrench in What We All Thought About the Coronavirus

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For months we have heard about how asymptomatic people, particularly the young, are unknowingly spreading the Wuhan coronavirus to vulnerable people, including the elderly and those with preexisting conditions. The World Health Organization on Monday said asymptomatic people spreading the disease is actually “very rare.”

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said during a press conference. “It’s very rare.”

Originally, the WHO and the White House Coronavirus Task Force said that otherwise healthy people could contract the Wuhan coronavirus and pass it on to others without knowing it because they lack any symptoms, CNBC reported. The asymptomatic spread was the very reason most of the nation went on lockdown and social distancing was heavily emphasized.

According to Van Kerkhove, government officials are better off spending their time finding those who are infected and conducting contact tracing.

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she explained. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.” (Read more from “The WHO Throws a Wrench in What We All Thought About the Coronavirus” HERE)

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Trump to Resume ‘Make America Great Again’ Campaign Rallies This Month

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President Trump plans to hit the road in the next two weeks to resume his “Make America Great Again” campaign rallies despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Politico reported Monday that the president’s advisers are still determining where the rallies will take place and what safety measures will be implemented to protect the public amid the pandemic. Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale is expected to provide Trump with options this week.

“Americans are ready to get back to action and so is President Trump,” Parscale said in a statement. “The great American comeback is real and the rallies will be tremendous. You’ll again see the kind of crowds and enthusiasm that sleepy Joe Biden can only dream of.” (Read more from “Trump to Resume ‘Make America Great Again’ Campaign Rallies This Month” HERE)

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Influential Study on Hydroxychloroquine Withdrawn

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An influential article that found hydroxychloroquine increases the risk of death in coronavirus patients has been retracted over data concerns.

Three of the study’s authors said they could not longer vouch for its veracity because Surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind the data, would not allow an independent review of its dataset. . .

Research for the article, published last month in medical journal The Lancet, involved 96,000 coronavirus patients across 671 hospitals worldwide. Nearly 15,000 were given hydroxychloroquine – or a related form, chloroquine – either alone or with an antibiotic.

It concluded that the drug showed no benefits against coronavirus and increased the risk patients developing irregular heart rhythms and dying.

Mandeep Mehra, a Harvard University professor who led the study, together with Frank Ruschitzka of the University Hospital Zurich and Amit Patel of the University of Utah, said in a statement that they had tried to arrange for a third-party peer review of the data, but Surgisphere had refused to co-operate. (Read more from “Influential Study on Hydroxychloroquine Withdrawn” HERE)

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Army Secretary Open to Renaming Military Bases Named for Confederate Generals

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U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is open to renaming military bases named after Confederate generals, an issue getting increased attention in recent weeks amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racism following the death of George Floyd, Fox News has learned.

A senior Army official told Fox News on Monday that McCarthy did not plan to change the names unilaterally, but instead will seek bipartisan support to do so. U.S. Army installations named after Confederate generals include Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

“We must recognize history is important, but we must come together and have some sort of open discussion about race,” the official said, adding: “This week highlighted the need to start understanding those feelings and the Army secretary is open to considering changing the names of these bases named for Confederate generals.”

The announcement marked a reversal of the Army. The branch had indicated earlier this year it was opposed to the idea after the Marine Corps announced this past April it was banning Confederate flags from its installations.

In a letter to the Corps, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David H. Berger said the Confederate flag “has the power to inflame feelings of division.”

(Read more from “Army Secretary Open to Renaming Military Bases Named for Confederate Generals” HERE)

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Over Half of This State’s Coronavirus Death Certificates List Something Else as Primary Cause of Death

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What percentage of those who have been added to the COVID-19 death toll really died primarily or completely of other causes, especially those in nursing homes and hospices? How many would have died anyway within the day or week even without the virus? New data from the Minneapolis Department of Health obtained by CR shows the inflation of the COVID-19 death toll might be even higher than we first thought.

As noted throughout this crisis, the CDC guidance for coding a coronavirus death is so absurd that someone like George Floyd, who had an asymptomatic case of COVID-19 when he was allegedly choked to death by a Minneapolis cop, would be counted as a COVID-19 death. The only reason they are unlikely to add him to the list is because it would so obviously conflict with the narrative of police brutality that has now overtaken coronavirus panic porn as the new hotness in town. But how many others in Floyd’s situation, who clearly died of other causes but tested positive for the virus, were listed among the coronavirus death toll?

Kurt Nelson, who spent three decades in Minnesota law enforcement, paid for a public information request from the Minnesota Department of Health detailing the information on all the death certificates of those who died in the state this year through May 25. He sorted the spreadsheet officials sent him and found that of the 741 death certificates that listed COVID-19 at all as a contributing cause of death, on just 338 was the virus listed on “line A,” indicating that it was the primary cause of death. In other words, in only 44% of the cases was COVID-19 listed as the top and most immediate cause of death. In 287 of them, the virus was listed on line B, and in 116, the virus was listed on line C – with two other primary causes of death above it.

Nelson shared the spreadsheet with me, and I have independently confirmed this information. I also found another three cases where the virus was listed on line D as the 4th cause of death. The department confirmed with Nelson via email that the records are up to date as of May 25.

Now, it’s definitely likely that a certain percentage of those with COVID-19 listed in line B still can reasonably be added to the death toll. Among those 287 cases, 75 had “acute respiratory distress (ARD)” listed as the cause of death on line A. Among those with ARD on line A and COVID-19 on line B, the overwhelming majority were over 80 years old. Given the top-line data from the state, it’s likely that most of them were in nursing homes, where 22 percent of all annual deaths are due to pulmonary issues. This just underscores how difficult it is to truly determine the cause of death for those who had numerous comorbitities and were likely on their final months of life when the virus hit.

Nelson’s first observation is that he only saw a total of 741 coronavirus deaths (744 if you include the three I found all the way on line D) listed anywhere in the database of death certificates. As of May 25, Minnesota’s official tally of COVID-19 deaths was 899. There can be up to a five-day lag in reporting on the database, but that gap still cannot account for the official count being that much higher. Where those extra deaths come from, given that they are not reflected in the death certificate database, remains an open question.

Minnesota leads the nation with the highest percentage of official coronavirus deaths in senior care facilities, relative to the state’s overall death tally. At present, 83% of all deaths in Minnesota have been in senior care facilities. It’s one thing to list COVID-19 as the cause of death when it legitimately hastened their death by a few months. But in many of the cases where they died from Alzheimer’s, did the virus really contribute at all to their deaths?

Let’s not forget that while the virus is exponentially more lethal in seniors who are chronically ill, many seniors still only get an asymptomatic case of the virus – just like George Floyd. Now that they are testing everyone in nursing homes, a large percentage of the residents test positive, but a sizeable number of them are asymptomatic. To suggest that anyone who died of cancer, a heart attack, or Alzheimer’s but tested positive for the virus is a COVID-19 death is laughable.

Last month, I posted results of a Spanish antibody test, which showed that even among those in their 80s, 72 percent of those who tested positive had an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic case. This new revelation casts serious doubt on the accuracy of the top-line death toll of 118,000 nationwide. We already saw in Colorado that there was a 25 percent difference between those who died with COVID-19 and those who died from it. In states like Minnesota where so many deaths were among those receiving some form elder care or even end-of-life care, it’s likely that a significant minority of those deaths were not just comorbidities but downright unrelated to the virus altogether.

I sorted through a number of the cases where the virus was listed as the second or third cause of death, and a number of them had stroke or dementia listed as the top cause of death. Some cases listed “lung cancer,” “terminal cerebral degeneration,” “stroke,” “Acute Renal Failure” or “Abdominal Catastrophe” as the primary cause of death. I saw one case where a COVID-19 death listed on line B had “infirmities of old age-refusing to take meds or eat” as the primary cause of death.

Coding these as COVID-19 deaths is about as absurd as what they did in Washington when they coded homicides as COVID-19 deaths simply because the decedent tested positive, or in Colorado, where they coded an alcohol poisoning death as a virus death.

Dan McGraw, president of Gill Brothers Funeral and Cremation in Minnesota, recently complained about the fact that almost all the deaths he deals with are being certified as the result of COVID-19, including those who died of cancer in hospice. “What useful purpose is being served to clump together decedents that passed away with COVID-19, and not necessarily as a direct cause?” asked the Twin Cities-area funeral director in an interview with a local media outlet.

This is likely occurring in every state. In Pennsylvania, where roughly 70 percent of official deaths occurred in senior care facilities, dementia is listed as the top condition among all those who died statewide.

Perhaps, if nothing else, this data reveal the broader appalling hypocrisy on the part of our political class, which induces one crisis after another. The same people who said we would all die if we don’t lock down even small gatherings are now actively sanctifying mass gatherings of thousands of people. Well, which crisis is it – a virus or police brutality? They can’t have it both ways. (For more from the author of “Over Half of This State’s Coronavirus Death Certificates List Something Else as Primary Cause of Death” please click HERE)

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Minneapolis City Council to Disband the Police; De Blasio Vows to Defund NYPD; President Trump RIPS Democrats’ Attacks on Law Enforcement

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By Townhall. A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intention to disband the city’s police department. Nine members are set to vote for defunding and dismantling the police force following the death of George Floyd.

“We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” the council members admitted in their statement.

“We’ll be taking intermediate steps towards ending the [Minneapolis Police Department] through the budget process and other policy and budget decisions over the coming weeks and months.” . . .

On Saturday, a mob of protesters called Mayor Jacob Frey out of his home to ask whether he supports defunding the police department. The angry crowd screamed obscenities and told the community-organizing mayor to “go home” after he said no to defunding the police. A spokesperson for Jacob Frey says the mayor remains committed “to working with Chief Arradondo toward deep structural reforms and uprooting systemic racism.”

(Read more from “Minneapolis City Council to Disband the Police” HERE)

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Bill de Blasio Flips, Now Vows to Defund New York Police

By Washington Times. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio knuckled under to protesters Sunday and promised to cut funding to “New York’s Finest.”

Just two days after speaking skeptically of demands by Black Lives Matter and other protesters to defund the police, Mr. de Blasio agreed to start doing so, though he gave few specifics.

“We’re committed to seeing a shift of funding to youth services, to social services, that will happen literally in the course of the next three weeks, but I’m not going to go into detail because it is subject to negotiation and we want to figure out what makes sense,” the mayor said, the New York Times reported Sunday. (Read more from “Bill de Blasio Flips, Now Vows to Defund New York Police” HERE)

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Trump Rips Democrats’ Calls to Defund Police

By AP. Protesters are pushing to “defund the police” over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans killed by law enforcement. Their chant has become rallying cry — and a stick for President Donald Trump to use on Democrats as he portrays them as soft on crime. . .

“They’re saying defund the police,” [Trump] said. “Defund. Think of it. When I saw it, I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘We don’t want to have any police,’ they say. You don’t want police?”

Trump’s 2016 campaign was built on a promise of ensuring law and order — often in contrast to protests against his rhetoric that followed him across the country. As he seeks reelection, Trump is preparing to deploy the same argument again — and seems to believe the “defund the police” call has made the campaign applause line all the more real for his supporters. (Read more from “Trump Rips Democrats’ Calls to Defund Police” HERE)

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White House: Trump’s National Guard ‘Surge’ Allowed George Floyd Protesters to ‘Demonstrate Safely’

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Trump administration officials told the Daily Caller that President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. ensured that the protests in the nation’s capital over the weekend of June 6 and 7 were dramatically more peaceful than those that took place the weekend prior.

Senior White House officials told the Daily Caller that the protests, in both the District and cities across the country, didn’t “spontaneously” turn peaceful overnight and attributed the “decisive” deescalation to coordination between local law enforcement and National Guard troops.

“Juxtapose Washington, D.C. two weekends ago, when there was widespread vandalism, property damage, and arson with this past weekend,” White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farrah told the Daily Caller. “It was night and day.”

“The streets of America didn’t spontaneously become peaceful last week,” she continued. “It was a direct result of President Trump calling on Governors and Mayors to surge the National Guard in their states and restore law and order on America’s streets so that peaceful protestors could demonstrate safely. That is precisely because President Trump took decisive action to secure the streets of our Nation’s Capital and restore law and order.” (Read more from “White House: Trump’s National Guard ‘Surge’ Allowed George Floyd Protesters to ‘Demonstrate Safely’” HERE)

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