Happy Tuesday!

Hope you like your Morning Brew with a shot of … well, shot. And some great news from Tokyo.

Way to Go! Simone Biles Bronzes on the Balance Beam

Perhaps it’s the greatest of her Fort Knox-sized stash of medal. A bronze on the balance beam for gymnast Simone Biles. Biles, who had stepped away from competing this past week to deal with mental issues and a bad case of the “twisties,” returned this morning. She placed third in the balance beam … as she had in 2016. 

Simone didn’t do her patented double-twisting double flip dismount, opting for the less risky double pike. (Which she executed near flawlessly.) But she competed when she could have easily packed it in. And she’s on the podium with the bronze. And that is why Simone Biles is the GOAT. 

Not for nothing, but Biles also leaves Tokyo tying the mark for most Olympic medals by a U.S. gymnast in history with 7.

Making history. Always. @Simone_Biles ties the record for the most Olympic medals won by a U.S. gymnast. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/4lXZ6waUeQ

— Team USA (@TeamUSA) August 3, 2021

… with the 2024 Games now just three years away. 

But more than that, the smile is back.

All smiles for Biles! 😄

What a showcase of perseverance and strength, closing this Olympics campaign with a bronze medal! 🙌 #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/Esivi6RRJa

— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) August 3, 2021

Silver Medal-Winning Shot-Putter Won’t Face Any Punishment from US for Podium Protest

Shot-putter Raven Saunders crossed her arms into an X over her head while on the podium Sunday. She says the X demonstrates “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.” But, Al, I thought you weren’t allowed to protest on the podium. Well, the US Olympic committee decided Monday the silver-medalist was in the clear.

The USOPC conducted its own review and determined that Raven Saunders’ peaceful expression in support of racial and social justice that happened at the conclusion of the ceremony was respectful of her competitors and did not violate our rules related to demonstration.

The IOC says it’s investigating.

After winning the silver, Saunders celebrated by twerking. Bookers for Dancing With the Stars will be investigating. According to Huffington Post, some fans complained NBC cut away from Saunders when she began twerking. Bravo, NBC.

That said, if you want to see something graceful, watch Saunders’ silver-winning toss in slow-mo.

https://twitter.com/BillyHeyen/status/1421661972957962240?s=20

First Transgender Olympian Flops … or Did Hubbard Take a Dive?

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard flopped Monday. Hubbard is the massive dude who started competing as a female a couple years back. Hubbard had an easy time defeating the females down under, but in Tokyo, no such luck. Hubbard failed to complete a single lift, failing in three attempts in the preliminaries, first at 120 kilograms, then 125 kg and again at 125 kg. Sprinters don’t move that fast in and out of a competition.

But here’s the odd thing. Hubbard qualified for the Olympics with two lifts totaling just under 285 kg. Or an average of over 144 kg a lift. That was good enough to be ranked #4 in the women’s super-heavyweight category. But at the Olympics, Hubbard could not do any lifts 20-25 kilograms less?

Sure, it could have been the pressure, the scrutiny, a bad hair day. What do I know? My best lift is a knife and fork. But you have to wonder: Was the biological men-competing-against-women movement harmed or helped by Hubbard failing to advance? “See? They don’t always win!”

I’m not saying Hubbard took a dive for Team Transgender. But I wouldn’t be tooooo surprised if Hubbard’s new nickname was “Louganis.”

Evidence Points to Wuhan Lab as Source of COVID … and Leak Happened Much Earlier Than Admitted

“The preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019.” Or so declares an updated report on COVID origins released by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The addendum adds that lab workers, the Chinese Communist Party and “potentially American citizens” all “directly engaged in efforts to obfuscate information related to the origins of the virus and to suppress public debate of a possible lab leak.”

By “potentially American citizens” do they mean all those Fauci pals in the medical community and Big Tech who tried to break any finger pointing toward the lab?

In a Fox News op-ed, former Director of National Intelligence John Radcliffe backed up the Wuhan lab theory. “I had access to all of the U.S. government’s most sensitive intelligence related to the pandemic,” he said. “My informed opinion is that the lab leak theory isn’t just a ‘possibility,’ at the very least it is more like a probability, if not very close to a certainty.”

Sure, Radcliffe had access to all the U.S. intel. But does he have a bobble head doll like Dr. Fauci?

NY Times Deliberately Takes Trump Quote Out of Context to Suggest He Wanted DOJ to Falsely Declare Election Corrupt

The New York Times had a big splashy story, saying “Trump Pressed Justice Dept. to Declare Election Results Corrupt, Notes Show.” The media ran with it like an Olympic baton.

According to the Times, DOJ and Trump were discussing whether more votes were counted in Pennsylvania than there were voters. DOJ official Richard Donoghue “warned that the department had no power to change the outcome of the election,” Trump said he didn’t expect them to. “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

In the Times narrative, the DOJ found no fraud and Trump told them to declare the election corrupt anyway and he’d take care of the rest.

Only one problem. As Margot Cleveland of The Federalist proves, the notes the NYT cites do no such thing. The newspaper deliberately extracted Trump’s quote from its context, marrying it to a different part of the conversation with DOJ. Entirely changed the meaning.

The reality: Trump’s quote came directly after DOJ said they can look at allegations there were more votes in Pennsylvania than there were voters. As Donoghue wrote in his notes, he said, “But understand that the DOJ can’t + won’t snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn’t work that way.”

Trump responds: “[I] don’t expect you to do that, just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen.”

In other words, he expects the DOJ to find that more votes were counted than there were voters. “I know that. You just do your job and show the fraud happened.”

As it happened, there weren’t more votes in Pennsylvania than voters. (Unlike parts of Detroit.)

But that’s not the point. Just as the media did with conversations Trump had with Georgia’s Secretary of State after the election — The New York Times bamboozled their readers. Deliberately removed a Trump quote out of context to give his words an opposite meaning.

My question: “If the election was so clean, why does the media feel the need to still lie?”

And slander …

CNN’s Brian Stelter Compares Trump Supporters to Jonestown Cult

So CNN’s Brian Stelter is now comparing Trump supporters to members of the Jonestown Cult.

Let’s talk about irony. The five people who watch his show might be interested to learn Rev. Jim Jones, head of the cult, was a BFF to California Democratic leaders and celebrities. They loved them some Rev. Jim.

In fact, California powerbroker Willie Brown — the same man who gave Kamala Harris her leg up in politics, so to speak — strongly defended Jones when stories started spreading about the dangerous things going on in Guyana. As did a good portion of California’s Democratic elite.

Read more about it: “Before Jim Jones’ Followers Drank the Kool-Aid, San Francisco Did.”

Speaking of CNN …

CNN Tweet Raises a Question

Saw this tweet from CNN:

More than 99.99% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 haven't had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death, according to CDC data, highlighting that vaccines are the US' best shot at slowing the pandemic and avoiding more suffering. https://t.co/73C2b7zwYn

— CNN (@CNN) August 2, 2021

Here’s my question, for CNN. Do you like that 99.99% number? Think it represents a purity and good that renders the other .01 an aberration?

More than 99.99% of the people at the Trump Rally January 6 did not commit any violent crimes, let alone “Insurrection.” And yet, you’ve spent six months calling them all insurrectionists and domestic terrorists. You sit gleeful as many languish in DC jail, in solitary confinement, their civil and legal rights out the window.

You’ve labeled January 6 Trump’s Insurrection when the violence was an aberration.

Good News, Bad News for Trump … and Biden Did What With His Face Mask?!?!

Good News for Donald Trump. Chicago owes him $1.03 million dollar tax refund for over-assessing the value of his Chicago skyscraper back in 2011.

Bad News for Donald Trump. The Democratic States Attorney in Cook County is suing to prevent Trump from getting the money owed him.

Good News for Trump: At least he doesn’t have to resort to eating left-overs off his chin, like some people we know.

After a staffer gives Joe Biden a note saying, “there’s something on your chin,” Biden wipes his chin.

Then appears to put whatever was on his chin in his mouth? pic.twitter.com/VvN17i4IWY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 30, 2021

Or depositing his dirty face masks into the hand of an innocent child.

.@JoeBiden reaches out and holds the hand of Kentucky Gov. @AndyBeshearKY's young son… and puts his used mask in the boy's hand?????

WHY?!pic.twitter.com/hwYsOjAiil

— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) August 2, 2021

“Uh, thanks, Mr. President. I would have been happy with just an official White House pen!”

Along The Stream

A good day to catch up on your Z’s. John Zmirak’s got a double whammy of related columns out: “Loss of Faith in Jesus Will Make You a Natural Slave and Your Nation a Slave State” and “The Public Health Dictatorship Post-Christians Crave, and Deserve.”

Mark Judge is also back with “Pray for Me: I Struggle With Homosociality.”

Have a great day!

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl at Gab, Parler, MeWe and now GETTR.