Amber Duke

Doctor rebuts NYT hit piece about Kushner’s coronavirus efforts

The doctor at the center of a New York Times story alleging Jared Kushner bungled the administration's attempts to procure medical supplies is pushing back on the negative tone of the piece, indicating that the Times’s reporting 'did not fully reflect my experience.' Dr Jeffrey Hendricks is quoted in a Times article from May 5 expressing frustration with Kushner's assembled team of coronavirus volunteers, whose job it was to identify potential sources of medical equipment. 'When I offered them viable leads at viable prices from an approved vendor, they kept passing me down the line and made terrible deals instead,' Hendricks said of dealing with the volunteer team, adding that getting responses at all was difficult.

Jared Kushner
Rep. Maxine Waters

Get ready for the corona coup

House Democrats, flummoxed by their failed attempt to remove President Trump earlier this year, are gearing up for another round of quasi-impeachment with their coronavirus oversight committee. It's been just a few months, believe it or not, since the House impeached the President for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but the moment was quickly overshadowed by the global pandemic. The coronavirus committee thus could be the Democrats' last ditch effort to dig up dirt on the President before the election in November.

The ambition of Kristi Noem

Gov. Kristi Noem has taken an unconventional approach to the COVID-19 outbreak in South Dakota, avoiding issuing a state-wide shelter-in-place order and instead affording her constituents the freedom to socially distance as appropriate. The strategy has seemingly paid off: with the exception of a large outbreak at a Smithfield meat processing plant, South Dakota has been relatively effective in flattening its curve to prevent overcrowding at hospitals while avoiding shutting down the entire economy. For her ingenuity, Noem has been rewarded with a cynical media that's questioned her motives and desperately tried to prove that her approach is a failure.

Gov. Kristi Noem

Biden’s denial doesn’t close the door on the Tara Reade accusation

Joe Biden finally went on the record Friday denying he sexually assaulted Tara Reade. It took 39 days and multiple media appearances before he finally addressed the allegation in an official statement and during a live interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe. Biden had over a month to get his story straight, but his response still left a lot to be desired. Biden's decision to address the allegations on Morning Joe was likely strategic, as the hosts of the program have been vocal about defending Democrats accused of sexual harassment and assault. Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough reportedly helped Mark Halperin rehabilitate his image after he was accused of groping multiple women. Mika also publicly supported Tom Brokaw, Sen.

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What Biden’s recent endorsers said about Kavanaugh and #MeToo

Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer for Joe Biden, claimed in an interview last month that the former vice president had put his hand up her skirt and digitally penetrated her in 1993. Since the March 25 interview, new evidence has emerged that seems to corroborate Reade's story: her mother called into Larry King's radio show about the incident in 1993, and her brother, a friend, and a neighbor all recall being told the story by Reade. Nonetheless, despite making multiple media appearances in the month since the allegation, Biden has not addressed Reade's claim directly, though his spokespeople have denied it on his behalf. The former VP is nonetheless holding a 'Virtual Women’s Town Hall' on Tuesday.

Joe Biden kavanaugh

Half of Americans want their state to sue China for coronavirus damages

Public opinion is rapidly turning against China as intelligence agencies have exposed the full extent of the communist state’s coverup of the novel coronavirus outbreak. US intelligence has determined that China has underreported total cases and deaths, and dragged its feet in telling the rest of the world about the seriousness of the virus. A Trump administration official told The Spectator earlier this month that the US response was delayed by at least a month due to China’s lack of transparency. Americans are angry at China’s deception: a majority of them polled at the end of March and in early April said they agree with President Trump referring to COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese virus’.

wuhan sue china

The Russia probe was mishandled worse than anyone could have imagined

It’s been over three years since the FBI first launched its investigation into an alleged conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government, and yet we’re still learning just how badly our intelligence agencies bungled Crossfire Hurricane. The president and his allies have been arguing since the probe went public that it was all a ‘witch hunt’ designed to put a stop to or delegitimize his electoral victory. Subsequently released details about the investigation seemed to track with that theory: Inspector General Michael Horowitz, for example, chided the FBI in a December report for failing to fulfill its full obligations when seeking FISA warrants against former Trump campaign official Carter Page. Sens.

George Papadopoulos
President Donald Trump immigration

Jared Kushner pushes back on Trump’s immigration ban

The White House is currently facing an internal battle over President Trump’s announcement Monday night that he will sign an executive order temporarily halting immigration amid the coronavirus outbreak. The details of the order had not been finalized as of Tuesday morning, causing frantic debate over which groups of immigrants will be exempt from the ban. Immigration restrictionists have been trying to sell the president on the idea of a ban for at least a week, pointing to various polling that shows it is popular among voters due to fears of the spread of COVID-19 and the high unemployment numbers in the US. Twenty-two million people thus far have filed for unemployment as the economy has practically shut down because of social distancing measures.

Why the mainstream media won’t take Tara Reade seriously

'The gym bag, I don’t know where it went. I handed it to him. It was gone and then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And then he went down my skirt, but then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers.' That's how former Senate aide Tara Reade described a 1993 encounter with her former boss Joe Biden on a podcast last month. A Biden spokesperson says the account is 'false’, but Reade's claim is supported by a friend and her younger brother, who both say she told them about the alleged assault shortly after it happened. But most establishment media outlets, such as the Washington Post, didn’t give her allegation more than a passing mention. Biden managed to give seven interviews to the press without being asked about Reade's claims once.

joe biden tara reade

How to be a woman on Twitter

It's not easy being a woman online, or so the saying goes. When we're not being dismissed as dime-a-dozen bimbos, there's a very optimistic creep in our DMs trying to corral us into ‘showing bobs and vagene’ from thousands of miles away. Twitter in particular seems to be an unwinnable terrain. That said, the constant search for validation on the internet brings out the worst in some of us. If we can only build an audience, we tell ourselves, it will be easier to tune out the occasional misogynistic troll. Thus we resort to building an army of followers in some awfully predictable ways. *** Subscribe for three months’ free access to The Spectator USA website — then just $3.

twitter women

French Hill: Congress should conduct ‘full oversight’ of WHO funding

Rep. French Hill is on board with President Trump's threat to withhold funding from the World Health Organization because of its collusion with China's initial coverup of the seriousness of the novel coronavirus. 'I support the president's indication,' the Arkansas congressman told The Spectator during a Thursday phone interview. 'I think it sends a message to the world that these global, multinational, multilateral organizations tend to be inadequately accountable to those who fund them.' 'I would urge our committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate to conduct a full oversight on America's contribution to the WHO and what the World Health Organization did or did not do vis-a-vis this particular pandemic crisis,' Hill asserted.

Rep. French Hill who

The coronavirus class divide

Tone-deaf media elites and celebrities demand we all just stay home just as they do, self-isolating in their multi-million-dollar LA mansions or NYC brownstones. Journalists who don’t care to educate themselves about rural America — even after wildly misunderstanding the rise of Trump in 2016 — now lecture us country bumpkins, because we’re too stupid to understand how to quarantine ourselves. The architect of this condescending union of the fatuous and the famous was the New York Times.

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Italy gave China PPE to help with coronavirus — then China made them buy it back

China has tried to restore its image after lying to the world about the seriousness of its coronavirus outbreak, but its attempts at humanitarianism have turned out to be as slippery as its wet markets. After COVID-19 made its way to Italy, decimating the country's significant elderly population, China told the world it would donate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help Italy stop its spread. Reports later indicated that China had actually sold, not donated, the PPE to Italy. A senior Trump administration official tells The Spectator that it is much worse than that: China forced Italy to buy back the PPE supply that it gave to China during the initial coronavirus outbreak.

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Dem AGs demand abortion drugs be delivered to doorsteps

We must be the first generation of Americans to respond to a mass plague by ensuring we can keep killing our babies. Normal human instincts would command we replace our dying elderly population though reproduction, but amid the prospect of hundreds of thousands of mostly older Americans dying of COVID-19, the left’s fight for on-demand abortion access has only intensified. A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general wrote to HHS and the FDA on Wednesday demanding women have easier access to chemically induced abortions, meaning that pregnant women who wish to abort could be prescribed abortion pills via telehealth services.

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airline

Will American workers see enough of the $58 billion airline bailout?

The recently passed coronavirus stimulus bill offers $58 billion in aid to the airline industry to survive the massive decrease in travel caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, but workers are already concerned that airlines are taking advantage of taxpayer money while failing to live up to promises to their employees and customers. The Treasury Department on Tuesday issued its guidelines for the $29 billion loan and $29 billion grant programs, reiterating that companies who apply for money must agree not to layoff or furlough their employees until after September 2020. Treasury also required recipients of grant money, which is earmarked for payroll assistance, to only use that money for American workers.

The casual gamer’s guide to surviving quarantine

After several days in quarantine, you're probably thinking: what now? You've exhausted a few Netflix series, spent some time in the kitchen baking, had some drinking sessions over Skype with your buddies, and now you're probably getting a little bit stir crazy. And if you're a video gamer, you might have finally finished the one or two games you bought a few months ago but never had time to play because of work or social obligations. Unfortunately, that means you're fresh out of ideas for how else to spend your time in self-isolation. Lucky for you folks, I've put together a list of my top video games you should play while quarantined.

Xbox

Peter Navarro blasts ‘Swamp Creature’ opponents of ‘Buy American’ order

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is hitting back at a group of Big Pharma lobbyists, medical organizations, and free trade groups for opposing President Trump's proposed 'Buy American' executive order reshoring the medical supply chain. Navarro, the assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing, told The Spectator that Big Pharma's opposition to the executive order, which would require government agencies to purchase pharmaceutical products made in the US, because it wants to 'preserve its offshore oligopoly'. 'All the EO would do is ensure that government agencies, including the VA, HHS, and DoD, Buy American,' Navarro said.

Peter Navarro

Big Pharma and free market orgs unite against Trump’s ‘Buy American’ order

The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), a trade association for major pharmaceutical manufacturers such as 3M, is drafting a letter to send to President Trump opposing his proposed ‘Buy American’ executive order reshoring medical supply chains. The letter currently has over 40 signatories, including PhRMA, a Big Pharma lobbying organization, dozens of medical nonprofits, and free market-oriented organizations, indicating the president will face immense pressure across the political spectrum for trying to reduce US medical dependence on China. AAM claims that signing the 'Buy American' executive order during the coronavirus crisis will harm efforts to provide doctors and hospitals with the equipment and medicines they need to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Trump coronavirus task force big pharma

How the media created its latest anti-Trump hit job

I can't believe I actually have to write these words, but President Trump is not to blame for a couple ingesting fish tank cleaner. NBC News reported Monday that a man died after he and his wife opted to ingest a 'parasite treatment for fish' because it contained chloroquine, an ingredient in anti-malaria medication that Trump touted as a potential treatment or cure for coronavirus. The media zeroed in on the fact that the wife, who survived ingesting the chemicals, said she got the idea to eat the fish tank powder from the president: 'Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure.' 'Oh my God. Don't take anything. Don't believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the President says & his people...

Trump chloroquine fish tank

Skype dates are the latest COVID-19 nightmare

All dressed up with nowhere to go? You might just be one of the self-isolating singles meeting a potential new beau via video chat. Those unlucky enough to be quarantined without a significant other during the coronavirus crisis are seeking companionship (and killing boredom) by swiping incessantly on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. But what do you do once you have a match? Social distancing recommendations have effectively killed grabbing a coffee or cocktails, and texting can only take a budding relationship so far. Instead, tech savvy youngsters are hopping on Skype, Zoom or other live streaming video services to determine if their sofa sparks are the real deal. Look, first dates are pretty awful.

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