Antifa
I'll tell you something that bugs me: antifa.
In an attempt to head off the violence expected the following day, on January 5th, 2020, President Trump instructed the Secretary of State to consider adding Antifa to a list of “aliens who are members of an identified criminal organization” within the country’s Foreign Affairs Manual. A 2019 Senate bill called for "the groups and organizations acting under the banner of Antifa to be designated as domestic terrorist organizations." A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives this year, "calling for the designation of Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization."
The day before the Capitol insurrection, the President issued a statement:
Pundits now theorize that the President actually believed that an organization called "antifa" existed, and he was preparing to have the National Guard protect the nice "pro-Trump people," swooping down on antifa when they tried to disrupt his coup. Then Trump could declare martial law and cancel the certification of the election results. The non-appearance of antifa spoiled the plan.
Fox news and other media went ahead with their part and reported that antifa was actually responsible for the January 6th attack on the Capitol. (Dr. David Duess has even published a 212-page Complete List Of Antifa Members In Capitol Building Riot -- one reviewer wrote, "A thorough and well vetted list of AntiFa terrorists caught trying to undermine the Democracy of this great country of ours. Every patriot should read and try to grasp the magnitude of this book") All the people arrested so far in conjuction with the January 6th attack have been Trumpers.
In small towns across America, warnings have gone out that antifa was planning to attack, and patriotic locals would go downtown with their guns and gimme caps, and in every case antifa saw the turnout and went chicken, didn't even show up.
I'm old enough to remember protesting the Vietnam War. They called us, sensibly enough, "anti-war protesters." There were usually some pro-war protesters as well but not enough to give them a name, maybe "hard-hats" because a lot of them were construction workers. Anti-war protesters were not usually very well organized; if you had somebody with a hammer and some tacks they could put up posters and everybody would show up for the demonstration. You didn't join anything, you just went to express yourself with millions of other Americans.
There were some well-organized civil rights groups in the mid-twentieth-century with names, like the NAACP or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, that had members and leaders. You knew if you were in it or not, there were offices and membership lists and roles in the organization. There were also groups like the Black Muslims and the Black Panthers, who took a different approach but again, you were either a Black Panther or you weren't. You might agree with them and go to their events. but that didn't make you a Black Panther.
On the other side you had groups like the Ku Klux Klan, fighting against racial equality. There were lots of these groups, the point being that on both sides there were real organiztions, with members, and headquarters, and leaders. There were also lots of people who sympathized but did not wear the hood and gown, they might even show up for the violence but you were either in the KKK or not in it.
During the Iraq War I marched in some protests in DC that had two or three hundred thousand people in them, massive parades, miles long. They called anti-war protesters "anti-war protesters," or, maybe "liberals," or if you wanted to be inflammatory you could call them "lefties," but that would not appear in a news story. Most people weren't members of any group, they just opposed the war and protested it.
Donald Trump rose to power on a movement that is correctly described as fascist. It is an authoritarian white supremacist movement that seeks preference and power for a certain segment of the population. They don't like Black people or uppity women or gay and transgender people. Also don't like Jews, Muslims, atheists, or foreigners. Or liberals. They believe that laws apply to other people and not to themselves. This group of people doesn't really have a name because they are used to being the default American. Every television show was about them. They starred in every movie, played every sport, they ran every big company and got all the good jobs there. If you ask them what group they belong to, they will say "we're normal Americans," because as far as they know everyone is just like them, or should go back to where they came from. There was a suggestion to label them "Deplorables" but they also run the newspapers, and that did not stick.
Trump's followers walk around with heavy guns, intimidating people. They start fights on airplanes and in grocery stores when they are told to wear a mask during the pandemic. Groups of them go into cities and vandalize them, shoot people with paint guns or bear spray, start fights with residents. They display a lot of patriotic American symbols as a way of asserting that this country belongs to them and they don't want to share it -- they even refer to one another as "patriots." These people are fascists, even if they are too dumb to know what the word means. Their beliefs coincide with a way of thought that is generally considered by decent people to be an evil force that should be stopped. My father, for one, took a load of shrapnel and nearly lost his life over Europe opposing fascists. Many Americans died for that cause, and we grew up proud that we stopped Hitler.
It turns out there are many millions of people in the country who do not agree with our fascists, and sometimes they come out to protest the increase of racism and authoritarianism in the country today. It would be reasonable to call these people "anti-fascists." Most of them do not belong to any organization, they just have common sense and some knowledge of history.
A rightwing agitator/writer named Andy Ng, in the Pacific Northwest, is most directly responsible for popularizing the myth of antifa. He uses the term for any liberal person or group who challenges the fascist crush for power. He has almost single-handedly created the image, now a cliche on Fox and other Republican media, of antifa rioting, looting, starting fires. He regularly claims to be a victim himself of the awful violence, though nobody ever sees it happen.
Rightwing media took the ball and ran with it, further mythologizing antifa as a well-funded and highly organized group. It is believed by many conservatives that George Soros himself, who in reality has nothing to do with it, is sending paychecks to protesters for marching in the streets, committing violent acts, vandalizing the cities. Rightwing media show video of street violence and claim that it is "antifa," and millions of ignorant Americans think that antifa members use their Soroschecks to loot and vandalize cities and attack "normal Americans" on the street. Out in the flyover states they believe that coastal cities are too violent to visit, because of antifa looting and violence.
Antifa is said to dress in black, that's how you know it's them, unless it is a rightwinger in disguise. Antifa are said to be extremely violent and highly organized and they take orders from a secret cabal of ... nobody really knows. Communist China, maybe. Atheists? Somebody bad, that's all we know.
So listen, have you ever seen an antifa website? Have you ever seen an antifa office building? Have you ever met anyone who said they were a member of antifa? Have you ever received a fund-raising email or text message or robo-call from antifa? Have you ever seen antifa supporting a political candidate, or calling for a boycott, or carrying a banner in a march? Have you ever seen a reporter go undercover into an antifa bunker, compound, or training exercise? Has any TV show ever had commentary by an antifa pundit, or even quoted an antifa official or representative? Have you ever seen an antifa yard-sign, flag, "antifa" on a cap, in a song? Antifa grafitti? Have the police ever busted an antifa arsenal, or actual pile of bricks or concrete milkshakes (hee hee) prepared by antifa? Can you name any real person you have ever heard of, in the news, on TV, anywhere, who said they are a member of antifa?
Does that not seem a little strange to you? The Republicans literally wanted to declare antifa a terrorist organization, but ... what organization? You can read all the organization's beliefs and official positions on their website: antifa.org.
Antifa is the creation of rightwing media. Everything you have heard -- dress in black, looting, attacking conservatives -- is fiction. There is no such group. Oh somebody might loot after the police murder someone, maybe even start a fire, there are counterprotesters at Nazi rallies, but calling them "antifa" is simply made-up. Antifa, or anti-fascist, means somebody who opposes fascism, which should be all of us. It's not an organization, not a club, cult, party. Just like we were anti-war protesters, these are anti-fascism protesters, people who oppose the authoritarian takeover of our constitutional democracy.
Responsible citizens should be wary of the way that our media are able to create the myth of such an organization and drill it into the public's collective brain, and responsible citizens should ask themselves why the media are doing this, what they get out of it, and what it means for our future as a country.
posted by JimK at 1:57 PM
203 Comments:
this is a nice topic to distract us all from the ongoing train wreck called the Biden administration
right now, alarms are going off about omicron
even though, a mild strain that is squeezing out Delta probably signals the end of the pandemic and the beginning of an endemic that will last until they cure the common cold
that's actually very good news
we should all go Christmas shopping in the most crowded place possible and do our part to help omicron become the dominant strain
just like Delta did to Beta and Beta did to Alpha
tonight, Joe Slidin' Biden will get on TV and entertain us all with another bumbling attempt at "leadership"
we'll all tape it and have a good chuckle after the football game played by The Football Team
description of the antifa movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
there are, indeed, leftists that have violent tendencies
so what if there is a catch-all phrase for them?
this post is much ado about no thing
"Antifa, or anti-fascist, means somebody who opposes fascism, which should be all of us"
it's not whether you oppose fascism but how alarmist you are and what you do about it
similarly, we all think blacks lives matter but Black Lives Matter is a group that subscribes to false critical race theory and believes we should replace our systemically racist society with a Marxist one
we all need to be careful not to read too much into a name
Antifa extremist aren't the only ones opposed to fascism, Black Lives Matter aren't the only ones who believe black lives matter, Pro-choice doesn't want the unborn to have a choice at all, Baptists aren't the only ones who baptize, The Football Team isn't really THE football team
everyone have a Merry Christmas!
Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame
Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic.
NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.73 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.
In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."
The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate.
The analysis only looked at the geographic location of COVID-19 deaths. The exact political views of each person taken by the disease remains unknowable. But the strength of the association, combined with polling information about vaccination, strongly suggests that Republicans are being disproportionately affected.
Recent polling shows that partisanship is now this single strongest identifying predictor of whether someone is vaccinated. Polling also shows that mistrust in official sources of information and exposure to misinformation, about both COVID-19 and the vaccines, run high among Republicans.
"An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat," says Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy think tank that tracks attitudes toward vaccination. Political affiliation is now the strongest indicator of whether someone is vaccinated, she says: "If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is."
It was not always this way. Earlier in the pandemic, many different groups expressed hesitancy toward getting vaccinated. African Americans, younger Americans and rural Americans all had significant portions of their demographic that resisted vaccination. But over time, the vaccination rates in those demographics have risen, while the rate of Republican vaccination against COVID-19 has flatlined at just 59%, according to the latest numbers from Kaiser. By comparison, 91% of Democrats are vaccinated.
Being unvaccinated increases the risk of death from COVID-19 dramatically, according to the CDC. The vast majority of deaths since May, around 150,000, have occurred among the unvaccinated, says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
While vaccine hesitancy exists in many different groups, Hotez suspects that the deaths are "overwhelmingly" concentrated in more politically conservative communities. "How does this make sense at any level?" he asks.
Misinformation appears to be a major factor in the lagging vaccination rates. The Kaiser Family Foundation's polling shows Republicans are far more likely to believe false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines. A full 94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines might be true, and 46% believe four or more statements might be true. By contrast, only 14% of Democrats believe four or more false statements about the disease.
Belief in multiple false statements highly correlates with vaccination status, Hamel says. "If you believe that the vaccines can damage your fertility, that they contain a microchip and that the government is inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths, you're going to think really differently about whether to get vaccinated."
Perhaps the most pernicious pieces of misinformation have to do with the perceived severity of COVID-19 itself. The most widely believed false statement was: "The government is exaggerating the number of COVID-19 deaths."
Hamel says that underestimating the severity of COVID-19 appears to be a major reason why Republicans in particular have fallen behind in vaccination: "We've seen lower levels of personal worry among Republicans who remain unvaccinated," she says. "That's a real contrast with what we saw in communities of color, where there was a high level of worry about getting sick."
Vaccine researcher Peter Hotez is deeply troubled by the current state of affairs. A winter surge in COVID-19 cases is brewing, and the newly discovered omicron variant has the potential to make things far worse.
He thinks the elements of the Republican Party that are endorsing anti-vaccine ideas need to take a big step back. "I'm not trying to change Republican thinking or far-right thinking," he says. "I'm trying to say: 'The anti-science doesn't belong; it doesn't fit. ... Just stop it and save lives.' ''
what you don't understand is that those people are making their own, and, not all are doing it based on misinformation
additionally, the Slidin' Biden approach has bred a lack of confidence
finally, the whole conversation is about to melt into irrelevancy as several high-profile people who should be at high-risk, such as Larry Hogan and Elizabeth Warren have contracted omicron
if they survive and have mild symptoms, it's time to end all restrictions and go back to the normalcy of 2019
omicron is mild, most Americans have been vaccinated, and a pill will soon be available that reduces death rates by 95%
it's over
btw, Man of the Year Joe Manchin offered Slidin' Joe Biden a deal last week: he would vote for universal pre-K, BBB enhancements of Obamacare, and the climate crap at a cost of 1.8 trillion if they all would be permanent
Slidin' Joe refused an offer he should have taken
think about that next time the Dems say Man of the Year Joe isn't a man of his word
he's the only Senate Dem who is
Democraps have feigned concern over democracy after a protest January 6 got out of hand because of the incompetence of the DC and Capitol police
but that's just a political stance
AOC, head of their antifa caucus, is urging Biden to act by dictate rather than law
he's already lost a record number of constitutional cases for overstepping his authority
Democraps don't give a crap about democracy !!!!!!!!!!!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday urged President Joe Biden to take action on a number of Democratic priorities after moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia sunk negotiations over the president's Build Back Better agenda on Sunday.
"Biden needs to lean on his executive authority now. He has been delaying and underutilizing it so far. There is an enormous amount he can do on climate, student debt, immigration, cannabis, health care, and more," the New York Democrat tweeted.
"Time is running out - we need to move and use alternative paths," she added.
The progressive lawmaker also singled out the issue of student loan debt, calling on Biden to either cancel the debt or extend the moratorium on student loan payments, scheduled to restart on February 1, 2022 following a nearly two-year pause since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
"With BBB delayed, Child Tax Credits will expire and student loans will restart within a matter of weeks. Working families could lose thousands of $/mo just as prices are rising," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a separate tweet. "That alone is reason for @POTUS to act on student loans ASAP - w/ either moratorium or cancellation."
Ocasio-Cortez, along with a slew of Democrats, have expressed outrage over Manchin's decision to step away from Biden's nearly $2 trillion spending package, which would dramatically expand the country's social safety net and tackle the climate change crisis, known as the Build Back Better Act.
Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday that he’s refusing to comply with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Perry, the first sitting member of Congress the panel has summoned, claimed in a series of tweets that the panel is “illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the rules of the US House of Representatives” before saying he was declining his colleagues’ request to speak with him.
Perry’s refusal comes a day after he bipartisan panel announced it had found evidence showing Perry, who has denied the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory, had “an important role” in installing former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark as the acting attorney general during the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Clark played a key role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, bolstering Trump’s baseless claims that the election was rife with voter fraud.
In a letter to the Pennsylvania lawmaker, panel chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the committeee also had evidence that, in the leadup to the riot, Perry used the encrypted Signal app to communicate with Trump’s former chief of staff about Clark.
Clark told the committee he plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if the committee requests to speak with him.
“When Mr. Clark decided to invoke his 5th Amendment rights, he understood that we planned to pose questions addressing his interactions with you, among a host of other topics,” Thompson wrote to Perry.
Perry’s refusal to comply comes shortly after the House voted in favor of recommending criminal charges against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows over his failure to fully cooperate with the Jan. 6 panel.
Jan 6 was a travesty
now, the Dems' obsession with it is a travesty
this country has real problems, we don't need more political hype
President Slidin' Joe Biden is struggling in the minds of the American public. While his approval rating is down on a slew of issues, his difficulties are perhaps most noticeable on the economy.
Slidin'Biden now sports the lowest net economic rating of any president at this point through their first term since at least Jimmy Carter in 1977.
In the latest CNN/SSRS poll, Slidin' Biden comes in with a 44% approval rating to 55% disapproval rating among registered voters on his economic performance. This makes for a -9 point net approval rating. The average of all polls taken in December is quite similar with Biden at -13 points on the economy.
To put that in perspective, the average president at this point in the last 44 years (since we have been polling on the topic) had a net economic approval rating of +5 points. That means Slidin' Biden's is 18 points worse than the average.
YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Notably, Biden's net rating is worse than his two immediate predecessors, Barack Obama in December 2009 and Donald Trump in December 2017. Both Obama and Trump had net approval ratings on the economy of -4 points
"Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday urged President Joe Biden to take action on a number of Democratic priorities after moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia sunk negotiations over the president's Build Back Better agenda on Sunday."
there are 51 Senators who oppose Build Back Better
all 50 Republicans and 1 Democrat: Joe Manchin
there are 49 Senators who support Build Back Better
"Build Back Better" loses 51-49
AOC, who does not support democracy, wants Biden to impose his agenda without regard to the constitution
now, she's considering running for Chuck Schumer's Senate
what a nice Christmas gift that would be for the GOP
For Christmas from President Biden, Americans asked for a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and a plan at the Southern border.
"If I can ask for a gift for the American people? Resign," Chad said. "The second that he said open the borders, it’s like, are you that dumb?"
Don, of Washington, said: "I want Biden to make this America great again. I am totally a Trump person, but I go along with anything as long as we can get something straight."
"They need to put up the border wall and finish it," he continued.
Recent census data shows that the total immigrant population, both legal and illegal, in the U.S. hit 46.2 million in November, the highest number ever recorded in American history.
"Why did we quit building the wall?" Larry from Arizona asked. "It worked."
Becky, of Washington, said she thought Biden was doing an "OK" job. She wanted everyone to get along and for Biden to "get rid of this COVID stuff."
Bill, of Washington, wants Biden to "get the Senate to work together somehow."
"Good luck, but yeah, that’s it," he said.
Just 41% of Americans say they approve of the job President Biden has been doing, according to a joint NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College study.
Larry said: "I’d probably ask Biden to wake up."
In 2020, Biden relentlessly attacked Trump because of the lack of a "robust" testing program. Yesterday in DC, people waited in lines to get tests for hours, only to be turned away when they got to the front.
Meanwhile, it's clear you need a booster to fight Omicron but getting one is not easy.
It wouldn't be that hard except that many people delayed when the government said only those over 65 should take the risk.
Even now, we could make things easier if we stop vaccinating children. A recent study shows the risk of side effects is higher than the risk of getting symptomatic COVID for those under 18.
When will Sleepy, Slidin' Biden wake up?
This is not the Christmas holiday season that President Joe Biden and Democrats thought they'd be celebrating after a year of holding the White House and both houses of Congress. The pandemic then-candidate Biden promised to "shut down" continues to bedevil him and the country.
A year ago, elected Democrats could have foreseen that 2021 would bring some unexpected challenges. But after spending 2020 blaming Donald Trump for the pandemic and running as the party that listened to "the science," few of Biden's supporters, flushed with the thrill of ousting Trump from the White House, were prepared for the current state of affairs.
Though Democrats are still doing their best to blame the country's problems on the previous president, Republicans and the unvaccinated, they are now being reminded of a basic political truth. Incumbent presidents can take credit for the sunshine but must also shoulder the blame for rain.
In 2020, the general misery that COVID inflicted on a suffering nation cost Trump the election. Yet Democrats expected that the vaccines whose production Trump had streamlined (something for which unbiased future historians, if there ever are any, will give him full credit)—along with Biden's willingness to listen to whatever the Center for Disease Control and Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended—would ensure that the pandemic would subside, if not vanish, during the course of 2021.
But viruses don't obey presidential directives. The coronavirus and its variants have persisted and continue to spread. And as much as the vaccines have done to prevent the infected from suffering serious symptoms, hospitalizations or death, they don't appear to prevent COVID's spread, even among those who have gotten the recommended two (and now three) shots.
At this point 61 percent of the public is now fully vaccinated, including 72 percent of those over 18 and 87 percent of those over 65. That means the vast majority of those most at risk are now largely protected from the worst of the disease. But like the lockdowns, school closings, mask mandates and other measures in which governments threw civil liberties to the wind, even widespread vaccination hasn't been enough to end what now appears to be a permanent public health emergency.
It's not yet clear whether the Omicron variant will cause more severe illnesses or simply turn out to be the health equivalent of a hurricane that doesn't make landfall. Yet its appearance, like that of Delta before it, has set off a wave of hysteria and fear that, if not quite replicating the early days of the pandemic, has put a damper on any hope of ending the restrictions. Indeed, Biden's prediction this past week of "a winter of severe illness and death—if you're unvaccinated—for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they'll soon overwhelm," seemed little different from the gloom and doom Democrats were sounding when Trump was president.
Last month, the country reached a benchmark as more Americans were recorded as having died of COVID on Biden's watch than on Trump's. That's a problem because of all the times Biden claimed that, "if the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive." The administration and its apologists have attempted to spin the statistics. But after a disaster abroad in Afghanistan as well as record inflation resulting from the administration's reckless spending and a supply chain crisis, there's no avoiding the general sense that Biden's presidency is a rerun of Jimmy Carter's gloomy four years in office over 40 years ago.
The persistence of the pandemic is not Biden's fault. But as his job approval ratings indicate, Biden is now learning that if you're president when bad things happen, the public will blame you for their unhappiness.
Biden's problem is bigger than the unpleasant sensation of being hoisted by one's own petard.
A focus on the pandemic and Trump's alleged responsibility for it was key to Democratic victory in 2020. Yet now that they're in power, Democrats have embraced lockdowns, mask mandates and school closures not so much as public health requirements as signs of public virtue and patriotism. The mask, even when worn under circumstances where it was clearly unnecessary—whether outdoors or on children, even when they were playing outside—became the Democrats' version of the red MAGA cap.
The Left now openly deprecates the public's desire for an off ramp from pandemic measures, especially when red-state governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis fight back against unnecessary restrictions. Democrats have learned to thrive by cultivating COVID fears among their supporters and labeling all those who resisted masks and mandates as threats. Now that it appears the disease is not going away, they have no choice but to respond to each new wave with the same heavy-handed tactics and scary rhetoric as before—with as little chance of providing a path to an endgame.
Contributing to their problem is the fact that growing numbers of Americans are sick of government mandates and the threat of lockdowns or other restrictions. The public is catching on to the fact that none of the most annoying measures (like the wearing of masks in airplanes) that Fauci and others would continue indefinitely have been proven to be an effective way to end the pandemic.
It's becoming obvious that at some point, the nation is just going to have to learn to live with COVID the way it does with other diseases for which there are treatments and vaccines that reduce, but do not eliminate, risk. But a party and a president that have made coronavirus hysteria integral to their identity are never going to do that.
That means that not only will Biden be blamed, as all incumbent presidents are, for the nation's problems whether or not they are his fault or even soluble. He is also stuck in a trap of his own making that is likely to make 2022 an even more depressing year for Democrats
What "Dems" don't understand it why Republicans politicized this. From the first cruise ship, Republicans interpreted this as something that would make them look bad if "the numbers" got big. It is a terrible pandemic, millions dead, it needed and still needs a comprehensive response, as we have seen in many other countries. It's not political. There is a problem to solve, it affects all of us, and whoever is in power is charged to solve the problem. You don't win points by failing to solve it, by pretending it's been solved, or by successfully blaming the other party. We need testing, contact tracing, masks and some limits on interpersonal contacts, clear policies on quarantine and isolation, we need widespread vaccination as well as treatments for those who are infected, we need protection for healthcare workers -- no matter what party is in power.
This has been a huge failure for America as a country. We are closing in on a million dead, compared to, say, 18,000 in Japan, with about half the population of the US.
"What "Dems" don't understand it why Republicans politicized this."
this statement is an a perfect example of the politicization of the pandemic
it happened in an election year when the Dems were desperate for an issue
because there usual repertoire of issues has been regularly rejected by the American public
they found one by continually blaming Trump for every twist and turn of the pandemic
they wouldn't have Congress and the Whit House now if they didn't politicize the pandemic
and now that they see Biden performing less capably despite inheriting both a vaccine and a calm regrouping period from March to August 2021, was completely unprepared for Delta and Omicron
Biden's speech last week was the first time Biden gave Trump credit for pushing through the development of vaccines
that's politicization
meanwhile, wearing a mask when unnecessary has become the MAGA hat of the Dem party
"From the first cruise ship, Republicans interpreted this as something that would make them look bad if "the numbers" got big."
they "interpreted" correctly and took action by speeding work on a vaccine
meanwhile, Dems used their power at local levels and in media to interfere with a solution
until recently, mentioning the Great Barrington Declaration would get you banned from social media
in retrospect, the declaration proposed what would have been a preferable solution
"It is a terrible pandemic, millions dead, it needed and still needs a comprehensive response,"
which is what the Dems promised in November 2020 and haven't delivered
it's clear Biden thought the pandemic was winding down when he took office and he didn't have to do anything
messages from the need for boosters to the efficacy of masks has been bungled
and nothing has been done to ramp up testing and contact tracing and the availability of boosters
"There is a problem to solve, it affects all of us, and whoever is in power is charged to solve the problem."
and yet Fauci and Cuomo weren't held accountable
"You don't win points by failing to solve it, by pretending it's been solved, or by successfully blaming the other party."
yeah, Biden found that out on July 4th
"We need testing, contact tracing,"
yes. Biden has failed on his promises here
"masks and some limits on interpersonal contacts, clear policies on quarantine and isolation, we need widespread vaccination"
you must have dropped in from Mars
we have all of these things
it hasn't prevented the latest surge
"as well as treatments for those who are infected,"
Big Pharma, which you so despise, has worked on this non-stop, regardless of who is in power, and has made strides
"we need protection for healthcare workers -- no matter what party is in power."
well, Dems are in power now and this is another example of failing to keep campaign promises
they will be held to account in November 2022
"This has been a huge failure for America as a country. We are closing in on a million dead, compared to, say, 18,000 in Japan, with about half the population of the US."
oh, OK
Tell us what Japan did differently that we should have done
btw, places with high vaccination rates and societies segregated by vaccine card and with obsessive mask regimes are where Omicron is raging now
as in the beginning, NYC is the epicenter
2021 has been the year of the Great Realignment.
Rather than a one-off, Donald Trump’s impressive gains with non-white voters have proven the harbinger of a greater shift.
Republicans won two heavily Hispanic districts in the Texas State House this past November, one which went Democratic in the presidential race by 14%, the other when Democrat Ryan Guillen switched parties in a district where no Republican had ever won more than 39% of the vote.
Democrats have also begun to acknowledge their peril as they have come under fire over their use of the term “Latinx.”
In the meantime, they are losing voters at a speed almost unprecedented not just in American but in world history.
In 2020, Joe Biden still won Latino voters by a factor of almost 2-1.
As recently as this summer, polls showed that advantage falling to a 50-50 split.
This fall, as Joe Biden’s polling numbers have descended to the basement, his numbers among Latinos have fallen into the Earth’s core.
Recent polls have Latino voters being less supportive of Joe Biden than white voters as a whole.
It is hard to describe the scale of this shift.
The last Democrat to win the white vote nationally was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, when he won 62% of white votes overall.
Barack Obama in 2008 managed a mere 43%.
Joe Biden did only marginally worse in 2020, garnering 42%. Marist College, in their most recent poll, finds Joe Biden around that mark among white voters, with 40% approving and 56% disapproving of his job performance.
While underwater, Biden’s numbers among whites are not horrific by historical standards for a Democrat. Obama won reelection with only 39% of the white vote in 2012.
But he also won overwhelming margins among non-whites, to the tune of 93% among African Americans, 72% among Latinos, and almost as much among Asians.
Joe Biden, by contrast, lacks any sort of cushion. As a whole, nonwhite voters disapprove of Joe Biden by a margin of 52%-44%.
That is not a data entry error or a typographical mistake. A majority of non-white voters disapprove of Joe Biden’s Democratic administration.
It is hard to overstate just how momentous this shift is for U.S. politics generally, or how potentially catastrophic it is for Democrats.
The saving grace of the Democratic Party in elections, the force that kept them competitive, was the overwhelming support of non-white voters.
Democratic dreams of electoral victory, or more accurately hegemony, have fixated on the prospect of an increasing proportion of non-white voters.
Such sentiments infected Democratic arguments regarding immigration, leading them to abandon their unionized working-class white base in the Midwest in favor of promoting the mass migration of what they fully expected would turn out to be millions of new Democratic voters at some future point.
They are now discovering that the children of immigrants grow up to be working-class Americans and resent competition from cheap foreign labor, as well as the perception that those who break the law are favored over those who follow it.
The collapse in non-white support for Democrats creates a problem for Democrats, not just in terms of winning elections but in terms of campaigning.
Democratic appeals to non-white voters relied heavily on the belief, which for a time had some basis in reality, that as long as U.S. politics was polarized along racial lines, then voters of different races would have different political and policy views.
Even if Democratic efforts to woo non-white voters by supporting mass immigration, or promoting liberal policies on crime, offended white voters, Republican efforts to exploit that alienation in turn pushed those groups further into the arms of Democrats—or so the thinking went.
The increasing political alignment of voters of different races who are otherwise similar (in terms of class, education, and rural/urban/suburban status) means that the Democrats can no longer count on this sort of divide and rule strategy.
If Latino voters increasingly favor a tougher approach to border security, and African American voters, as they recently demonstrated in New York City’s mayoral election, care far more about getting crime under control than woke social policies, then populist
Republicans face no tradeoff whatsoever running on those issues.
The Democratic collapse differs across non-white groups.
Latino voters have seen the greatest shift. 65% disapprove of Joe Biden’s job performance in the Marist poll, while only 33% approve.
That is an almost exact inverse of Biden’s performance in November 2020, and far worse than his 56%-40% margin among whites.
But other groups have also seen erosion.
While Marist did not provide a breakdown of their African American sample, a recent Economist/YouGov poll found Biden above water at 60%-27%. Although a 60% approval rating among African Americans is drastically better than Biden’s 43% approval rating overall, it is much worse than the 92% of the black vote he received in 2020.
The even bigger surprise is not so much Biden’s collapse among non-white voters but why he has held so firm among whites.
As mentioned, by historical standards for a Democrat, 40% is not particularly bad.
In fact, it is arguably better than Obama’s numbers at the end of his first year.
When we dig deeper, we see another split, one at the heart of the Great Realignment globally.
In the Marist poll sample, white respondents with college degrees actually approve of Joe Biden 52%-46%.
Those without degrees disapprove 32%-65%, almost identical to Biden’s numbers among Latinos. The Economist/YouGov poll finds slightly smaller splits, but still massive. Among white men, those with degrees approve/disapprove 43%-55%, while for those without, the figures are 26%-67%. When it comes to white women, the numbers are 51%-45% and 32%-58%.
In short, for all of the news of Democrats’ collapse, that collapse has not reached the core of the college-educated elites who became the base of the Democratic Party during the Trump years.
That is especially true among white women with degrees. It is probably not a coincidence that the messaging coming out of the White House, whether it be on COVID-19, abortion, or “voting rights” seems almost exclusively designed to appeal to that constituency.
While support for Biden has held up among that constituency, the collapse among everyone else has not escaped notice. Hence the hysteria of the college-educated wing of the Democratic Party is not so much about the loss of non-white support, but what it means for their issues – “democracy” and “abortion” – with the former more or less involving control of institutions such as the federal government and judiciary to safeguard the latter, or to impose draconian restrictions on the working class to keep COVID-19 away from their enclaves.
The sturdiness of white college support for the Democrats in their time of adversity is a mixed blessing at best for the Democratic Party.
While it is preventing their numbers from seeing a total collapse, it creates a feedback loop which is proving hard if not impossible for Democrats to escape.
The more non-white voters desert the party, the greater the dependence the party has on white college grads, a demographic whose policy and cultural interests actively repel nonwhites and working-class voters of all backgrounds.
To make matters worse, discourse about future political strategy is driven by a professional political and media caste dominated by this white college elite.
Hence the focus on words and issues which only matter to them, such as the belief that the use of “Latinx” is more important to Latino voters than the border or support for Communism in Latin America, or that introducing racial lecturing into the schools is more important than reducing crime or keeping schools open for African American children.
By contrast, this is also making it easier for Republicans to keep their new coalition together.
Historically, politics around the world have been about resource distribution.
A dollar spent on school X cannot be spent on school Y.
As a result, it is hard for one party to appeal to everyone because parties become identified with policies that effectively favor one group over another.
One reason the parties became so polarized was because Democrats were the party that wished to spend more money on African American or Latino school districts and police forces, while Republicans wished to spend more in often-wealthier white areas either through lower taxes or spending decisions. This meant Democrats, by favoring redistribution, had an audience.
It is an audience Democrats have forfeited by being the party that wishes to defund the police – for everyone.
The party that advocates closing schools – for everyone. African American and Latino voters who cast ballots for Democrats because they believed Democrats would fight to provide greater funding to their communities had zero reasons to support a party that wished to defund their police departments entirely. In fact, the only people such a policy could appeal to are groups who do not feel they need the police or in-person schools. This does not mean that tensions do not exist within the (potential) new Republican coalition. But they are ones Democrats will find it hard to exploit.
They are also tensions which have been removed by the defection of wealthy former Romney/Bush voters to the Democrats.
In many states and regions, it was precisely these voters who are now Biden’s most committed supporters and who today most stridently champion lockdowns and, when they were “country club” Republicans, tended to veto efforts to redistribute wealth to non-white communities.
In fairness, they tended to oppose investing money in poorer white communities as well.
In fact, they tended to have near equal hostility for the interests of working-class individuals of all backgrounds, an attitude they have taken with them to the Democratic Party.
But the important point is that their absence from the emerging Republican coalition is as important as their presence in the Democratic one. By leaving the Republicans, they have made it easier for the Republicans to serve the interests of working-class voters across the board.
The net effect is what we see now – The Great Realignment, present not just in the U.S. but globally. Every country is different, and whereas in Canada or California, it may simply entrench the dystopian technocracy of the postgraduate classes, in America broadly, it promises the reverse. It has sent the Democratic Party into what may very well be a death cycle, where everything that weakens the Democrats also strengthens the Republican Party.
American politics in 2022 promises to be a new world. One that has Democrats fearing their November 2022 rendezvous with destiny. Caesar’s ghost told Brutus they would meet again at Philippi. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and the rest might as well have the voice of Donald Trump in their ear promising the same.
Maybe Sleepy, Slidin' Biden should try to Warp Speed something.
If he can't get up before 11, maybe Kamala could help out!
We’ve all learnt to wash our hands more carefully over the last couple of years, but no one has soaped his dirty digits as fastidiously as Joe Biden. His announcement that “there is no federal solution” to Covid-19 puts him up there with history’s greatest handwashers. Like Pontius Pilate, Biden is leaving it to the mob: “this gets solved at the state level.” Unlike the procrastinating procurator who surrendered his responsibilities to the jeering Judeans, Biden’s got it right. But it won’t save him from the jeers — and nor should it.
Biden won the presidency on a promise of the federal solution that he now says doesn’t exist. It didn’t exist in 2020, either. Yet that didn’t stop him from saying that he wouldn’t open the economy until he’d marshaled the powers of the federal government to “shut down” Covid, as if a pandemic can be defeated by taking it out back of the gym and pummeling it like it was Donald Trump or Corn Pop.
If you have nothing better to do — if, perhaps, you’re in bed with a mild but slightly synthetic-feeling cold that won’t put you in the hospital unless you’re an obese octogenarian with comorbidities where other people have organs — you can read all about The Biden Plan, as he called it, on his campaign website. This Plan of Plans has three elements:
1. “To massively surge a nationwide campaign and guarantee regular, reliable, and free access to testing”
2. “Double the number of drive-through testing sites and increase the numbers until there are no more lines”
3. “Build a national contact tracing workforce, starting by hiring at least 100,000 Americans and equipping sorely under-resourced public health departments with the resources they need to spot and stop outbreaks”
Biden has failed to deliver any of this. Omicron has caught him pants-down yet again on testing. There are spectacular lines at drive-in testing sites. And while there is no sign of Biden’s contact-tracing militia, there is plentiful evidence that public health departments remain flatfooted.
It is also clear from all over the world that outbreaks cannot be stopped, unless you lock everyone in their homes. This is impossible in the US, even in the wildest dreams of that demonic elf Dr. Fauci. Perhaps this is why Biden was in such a hurry to declare “Mission accomplished” last July, just as Delta was warming up. That attempt to wriggle out of a problem by declaring it solved went about as well for Biden as it did for George W. Bush.
Biden, and Harris, should she turn up for work, now own the pandemic. When they beat Donald Trump, they won the booby prize: building back better with the Trump-made materials of Operation Warp Speed. Success has many fathers: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have done a bang-up job of dictating federal policy and creating what looks like a franchise for a creeping new regime of annual and increasingly mandatory shots. But failure is an orphan — and Biden doesn’t want to be left holding the baby.
More people died in Biden’s first year than in Trump’s last. His signature move, an executive order ordering the compulsory vaccination of federal employees and workers in large corporations, wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Nothing accrues power to politicians’ hands faster than panic. It is a sign of this administration’s ineptitude that it can’t even sow panic proficiently. The federal government continues to contrive new ways of failing the public. How, two years on, can pharmacies be out of home-testing kits? How can Dr. Jill let us down so badly?
Meanwhile, Biden coughs his mysteriously enduring cough and croaks out his absurdly angry promises to deliver the speedy responses that he promised to deliver two years ago in The Biden Plan — as if anyone would believe him now. His shucking off of responsibility to the states isn’t a bold initiative: it’s a cynical surrender. The states have already taken the lead, and are already imposing a crazy quilt of policies on their publics.
There is a Biden Plan, but it’s the same one as ever: the covering of the Biden posterior at all costs. Biden is right not to shut down the country over a cold — but he’s doing it for the wrong reasons. If there was political advantage in driving Americans onto their knees while fully masked, Biden would push them into the dirt. But there is no juice left in the lemon of Covid, and thus no more lemonade to be made from our misfortunes, so now there is political advantage in washing his hands of it.
When Biden staggers across the lawn and onto the helicopter for Delaware, he is running for cover. He is the great abdicator, declaring his irrelevance while clinging to the shreds of authority: a gray shimmer in front of the green screen. He reduces the status of his office to his petty scale: the president as basement-dweller. When Biden sneezes, who bothers to catch a cold?
Vice President Kamala Harris has come in for some bad press of late. Stories of discontent, political failure, and a mass staff exodus have accompanied the first Black woman vice president, who privately told allies that "the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, whom she has described as all white and male," The New York Times reported.
But the truth is, if Harris were white and male, she wouldn't be vice president. Because Harris is our first diversity hire V.P.
This was never a secret, or even an issue. Then-candidate Joe Biden was very explicit about his plans to pick a woman of color to share the ticket. After it became clear that Biden was to be the Democrats' nominee for president in 2020, Biden said during a CNN-Univision debate, "If I'm elected president, my Cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a, pick a woman to be vice president." In a separate press conference, this one a roundtable with Black journalists, Biden was even more specific: "Preferably it will be someone who was of color and/or a different gender," he said of his potential running mate.
From the get go, the plan was to pick a woman of color. Not the most competent person, or the most liked, but someone who simply won the "by birth" lottery. A man of Joe Biden's age and dwindling health decided that what America needed was for us to be one heartbeat away from our first diversity hire President of the United States.
I am old enough to remember when Democrats were outraged when Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he had "binders full of women" to pick from to work in his administration. They were rightfully insulted that Romney used women as another box to check to satisfy a diversity requirement, instead of choosing the most qualified to shine through regardless of sex.
Eight years after that incident, the Democrats have taken this exact mentality and injected it with steroids.
Some may say this mentality always existed. Maybe so. But now they are proud to be overtly identity oriented. Throughout the Democratic primaries in 2020, it became increasingly clear that the political party that I felt strongly associated with, the party which I always believed was the party of the people, the party of true liberal values and the party of diversity had become nothing more than the party of rigid identity before my very eyes.
The days of being proud that people from diverse backgrounds chose to be Democrats because of their overall good policies are no more. The Democrats are now the party of ideologically tailored policies based on identity, as if we no longer share common interests.
When the day came for Joe Biden to announce that he had found his woman of color, Kamala Harris, it only solidified my belief in the ridiculous nature of choosing people for diversity points. Though she was a senator from California, Harris was deeply unpopular—something voters made known throughout the presidential primaries. Her campaign was such a mess that Tulsi Gabbard lasted longer than Harris did. Harris was never the "top-tier candidate" she named herself to be.
Harris' unpopularity as a candidate is mirrored in her unpopularity as vice president; she has a groundbreaking 28 percent approval rating. And her questionable track record as a prosecutor is mirrored in her failures since the election, compounding my fears that she truly was simply a "woman of color" in Joe Biden's binder.
The Democrats' obsession with having the first of a demographic category in a position of power has led them to discard any semblance of meritocracy or consideration for popularity or effectiveness. The Democrats wanted to achieve historical greatness by forcing diversity, but the only achievement Harris has to her name is having amassed the lowest approval rating of any modern vice president.
People who do not earn their way into a position of prominence know it. And that's what's happening here: Harris knows how she got her position. Much in the way her race and sex were how she got her job, her race and sex are now being weaponized against legitimate criticisms—including by Harris herself.
The Left's obsession with identity has resulted in promoting an undeserving political figure and disenfranchising moderate Democrats who refuse to let identity decide someone's qualifications or importance. Yet despite its obvious cost, the Democrats' addiction to identity politics shows no signs of abating.
It gave me no pleasure to realize that the party I believed in doesn't actually believe minorities can compete—because if they did, they wouldn't have undeservedly anointed Harris into such a position of prominence, seemingly based purely on immutable characteristics.
The savior complex reigns supreme within Democrat politics. They seem to feel they must uplift Black people, even the undeserving ones, in order to appear as our morally righteous saviors. It is the Democrat establishment, not Black people, that needs to be saved.
A group of swimmers on the University of Pennsylvania women's team were so upset over the advantages of transgender teammate Lia Thomas they considered boycotting their final home meet of the season next week, DailyMail.com has learned.
'They've been ignored by both Penn and the NCAA, and there is a feeling among some of the girls that they should make some sort of statement, seize the opportunity while they have a spotlight on them to make their feelings about the issue known,' a source close to the team of 41 women told DailyMail.com.
They've been discussing various possibilities for protest at the January 8 meet, wanting to express their opposition to NCAA rules that allow Thomas to compete on the women's team after completing one year of hormonal therapy, the source said.
They ultimately decided against a boycott, for fear that it would keep them out of the Ivy League championship, where the team's top 17 swimmers - out of a total of 41 - will compete in February.
'Knowing they do not have backing from the school or NCAA, they're reluctant to jeopardize their opportunity to make the elite Ivy League squad,' the source said
President Joe Biden has low approval ratings — lower than that of his historically unpopular vice president — but is his standing with the electorate worse than they indicate?
The Rasmussen survey is generally a good one since it samples likely voters and publishes a three-day rolling average; therefore the numbers are a good indicator of trends.
In Biden’s case, his approval rating has quickly dropped to 41%.
After surveying the damage of 2021 on several fronts, many ask how more than 40% can approve of the president’s overall job.
Well, some are lying to the pollster purely out of party loyalty. We saw the same thing during the Barack Obama era. So it’s imperative to look beyond overall favorability numbers, which are driven by ideology and partisanship. Pollsters tend to get more honest answers when they focus on specific issues. And unsurprisingly, in Biden’s case, when you ask voters about important issues, most say he is doing a poor job.
Rasmussen offered the headline “Most Voters Give Biden ‘Poor’ Ratings on Crime, Immigration” Tuesday.
It explained in part:
“A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that only 31% of likely U.S. voters rate Biden excellent or good for his handling of crime and law enforcement issues. That’s down from 34% in July. Fifty-one percent give Biden a poor rating for his handling of crime, up from 48% in July.”
Voters rate Biden even worse on immigration, with just 27% saying he is handling immigration-related issues well.
Regardless of what Democrats think, crime and immigration are major issues, and Biden is viewed as “poor” by a majority of voters on both.
On both crime and immigration, even Democrat voters now rate Biden low. On law enforcement issues, for example, only 57% of Democrats rate Biden excellent or good, down from 62% in July, while on immigration, the number of Democrats rating the president excellent or good declined to 50% from 52% a few months ago.
And all these numbers do not even include his disastrous handling of foreign policy, the southern border, the economy, or COVID-19, where Biden once saw positive numbers–but even the liberal media now says he’s failing there too.
Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia governor's race by saying, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach." If that was no gaffe, Democrats have a lot more significant losing ahead
On Meet the Press Daily last week, Chuck Todd featured a small item about the 23 Democrats not planning on running for re-reelection to congress next year. Todd guessed such a high number expressed a lack of confidence in next year’s midterms, and his guest, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, agreed. “This is just another indicator that Democrats will probably have a bad year in 2022,” said Sabato, adding, “They only have a majority of five. It’s pretty tough to see how they hold on.”
On the full Meet the Press Sunday, Todd in an ostensibly unrelated segment interviewed 1619 Project author and New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones about Republican efforts in some states to ban teaching of her work. He detoured to ask about the Virginia governor’s race, which seemingly was decided on the question, “How influential should parents be about curriculum?” Given that Democrats lost Virginia after candidate Terry McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach,” Todd asked her, “How do we do this?”
Hannah-Jones’s first answer was to chide Todd for not remembering that Virginia was lost not because of whatever unimportant thing he’d just said, but because of a “right-wing propaganda campaign that told white parents to fight against their children being indoctrinated.” This was standard pundit fare that for the millionth time showed a national media figure ignoring, say, the objections of Asian immigrant parents to Virginia policies, but whatever: her next response was more notable. “I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught,” Hannah-Jones said. “I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science.”
It was pretty rich hearing the author of The 1619 Project say she lacked the expertise to teach, given that a) many historians agree with her there, yet b) she’s been advocating for schools to teach her dubious work to students all over the country.
Even odder were her next comments, regarding McAuliffe’s infamous line about parents. About this, Hannah-Jones said:
We send our kids to school because we want our kids to be taught by people with expertise in the subject area… When the governor, or the candidate, said he didn’t think parents should be deciding what’s being taught in school, he was panned for that, but that’s just a fact.
In the wake of McAuliffe’s loss, the “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach” line was universally tabbed a “gaffe” by media. Yahoo! said the “gaffe precipitated the Democrat’s slide in the polls,” while the Daily Beast’s blunter headline was, “Terry McAuliffe’s White-Guy Confidence Just Fucked the Dems.”
However, much like the Hillary Clinton quote about “deplorables,” conventional wisdom after the “gaffe” soon hardened around the idea that what McAuliffe said wasn’t wrong at all. In fact, people like Hannah-Jones are now doubling down and applying to education the same formula that Democrats brought with disastrous results to a whole range of other issues in the Trump years, telling voters that they should get over themselves and learn to defer to “experts” and “expertise.”
This was a bad enough error in 2016 when neither Democrats nor traditional Republicans realized how furious the public was with “experts” on Wall Street who designed horrifically unequal bailouts, or “experts” on trade who promised technical retraining that never arrived to make up for NAFTA job josses, or Pentagon “experts” who promised we’d find WMDs in Iraq and be greeted as liberators there, and so on, and so on. Ignoring that drumbeat, and advising Hillary Clinton to run on her 25 years of “experience” as the ultimate Washington insider, won the Democratic Party leaders four years of Donald Trump.
It was at least understandable how national pols could once believe the public valued their “professional” governance on foreign policy, trade, the economy, etc. Many of these matters probably shouldn’t be left to amateurs (although as has been revealed over and over of late, the lofty reputations of experts often turn out to be based mainly upon their fluidity with gibberish occupational jargon), and disaster probably would ensue if your average neophyte was suddenly asked to revamp, say, the laws governing securities clearing.
But parenting? For good reason, there’s no parent anywhere who believes that any “expert” knows what’s better for their kids than they do. Parents of course will rush to seek out a medical expert when a child is sick, or has a learning disability, or is depressed, or mired in a hundred other dilemmas. Even through these inevitable terrifying crises of child rearing, however, all parents are alike in being animated by the absolute certainty — and they’re virtually always right in this — that no one loves their children more than they do, or worries about them more, or agonizes even a fraction as much over how best to shepherd them to adulthood happy and in one piece.
Implying the opposite is a political error of almost mathematically inexpressible enormity. This is being done as part of a poisonous rhetorical two-step. First, Democrats across the country have instituted radical policy changes, mainly in an effort to address socioeconomic and racial disparities. These included eliminating standardized testing to the University of California system, doing away with gifted programs (and rejecting the concept of gifted children in general), replacing courses like calculus with data science or statistics to make advancement easier, and pushing a series of near-parodical ideas with the aid of hundreds of millions of dollars from groups like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that include things like denouncing emphasis on “getting the right answer” or “independent practice over teamwork” as white supremacy.
When criticism ensued, pundits first denied as myth all rumors of radical change, then denounced complaining parents as belligerent racists unfit to decide what should be taught to their children, all while reaffirming the justice of leaving such matters to the education “experts” who’d spent the last decade-plus doing things like legislating grades out of existence. This “parents should leave ruining education to us” approach cost McAuliffe Virginia, because it dovetailed with what parents had long been seeing and hearing on the ground.
The recent surge in COVID infections is being distributed in an alarmingly discriminating fashion. Data shows that it is predominantly spreading in the parts of the country that voted for Donald Trump. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has noticed how Trump and his right-wing propaganda machine have downplayed the risks and discouraged responsible behavior such as getting vaccinated and wearing masks. Even worse, they have actually been celebrating the suffering and loss of life.
A new study by NPR confirms that “Counties that went heavily for Donald Trump have seen much lower vaccination rates and much higher death rates from COVID.” However, this isn’t the first time that the pandemic has been observed stalking Trump’s cult disciples. As far back as July there were reports of this grisly statistic that pointed to the reality that we are in the midst of a “Pandemic of Fox News.”
What makes this all the more disturbing is that, despite its unambiguous culpability, Fox News has failed to alert its audience to the deadly path that the network has put them on. Fox News has not reported the facts revealed in the NPR study. To the contrary, Fox continues to disinform their dimwitted viewers. And the fruits of that disinformation are evident in studies that show that those who trust Fox News and its ilk are most likely to believe the most certifiably false COVID myths.
Many of those myths are actually invented by Fox News. For instance, Tucker Carlson recently warned his viewers that vaccines don’t work and “they” aren’t telling you. And Trump (who now claims to have developed the vaccine) is deliberately doctoring COVID death data to cast undeserved blame Biden.
These studies that reveal the truth about the course that COVID is taking are essential to understanding the scope of the problem and arriving at solutions. However, the people that need most to see this data are not going to see it because the only news media they patronize (Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, etc.) are not reporting it. So the press that they rely on is working purposefully to keep them ignorant and at risk of deadly consequences. That’s a bizarre business model.
Peril! assigns female records to transgender man, and parent company NBC News hails Amy Schneider as the “highest-paid female contestant of nearly 57 years of game show.”
“Amy Schneider equals Julia Collins’ record for consecutive games won – the sweater was lucky indeed! ” Peril! tweeted Tuesday, referring to Schneider’s decision to wear a sweater to match the clothes of show winner Julia Collins.
“‘Peril!’ Champion Amy Schneider made history again on Friday, becoming the “game show’s nearly 57-year-old highest-paid race competitor,” NBC wrote this week. Engineering took her total winnings to $ 706,800, overtaking her from Larissa Kelly to become the highest-paying player on the show. “
Larissa Kelly – the woman who previously held the record for the female award – praised the Schneider in a December 24 tweet.
Schneider, thanked Kelly. “Thank you very much, I am honored to be with you and look forward to one day watching the woman who beats us both!” “
Kelly then replied, “I hope there will be a long line of such women, but you are certainly setting the bar very high for them!”
Kelly also described herself as a “Dowager”, referring to a queen who has lost her authority and power.
And Kelly did not once complain about DNA vs. identity unlike those female athletes who complain and whine about their competition.
"The recent surge in COVID infections is being distributed in an alarmingly discriminating fashion."
thanks for the propaganda
we can always count on a steady diet of horse crap from TTFers
nobody trust anything the "experts" say and Biden is to blame for that
the bungled messaging is morally scandalous
let's see..
1. we had to get vaccinated so we could stop the spread and prevent more mutations
turns out that vaccines don't stop the spread at all, just lessen the severity of symptoms
guess they don't stop mutations after all
so, what is the governmental interest is vaccine mandates?
people can make their own choicess
2. we all have to wear masks because "science" proves they stop the virus - never mind that the virus is smaller than the space between the threads of most masks
now, in the last week we've been treated to "experts" admitting the masks don't work at all and everyone needs an N95 mask
maybe should we get our facts straight before we violate the civil rights of our citizens
at least ask the "experts" some questions
3. during the campaign, Biden said we needed a robust testing capability and more hospital capacity and that he would "shut down" the virus
he hasn't done a thing about the first two and now says the third is up to the states not the Federal government
isn't it time he admitted he was elected under false pretense and resign?
4. meanwhile, places like DC, NY, NJ, RI, MI -all masked and vaccinated and checking your card are experiencing COVID surges that are higher than anything previously
"Trans “Jeopardy!” Candidate Wins Top-Paid Women’s Winning Streak Crown said...
Peril! assigns female records to transgender man, ‘Peril!’ Champion Amy Schneider made history again on Friday, becoming the “game show’s nearly 57-year-old highest-paid race competitor,” NBC wrote this week. Engineering took her total winnings to $ 706,800, overtaking her from Larissa Kelly to become the highest-paying player on the show. “
Amy Schneider is a guy that likes to dress in girls' clothes
he even has a girlfriend so he's also heterosexual
the most sickening moment was on a show earlier in the week when he said he would use the earnings to buy a tub big enough for him and his girlfriend to both get in at the same time and take baths together
"And Kelly did not once complain about DNA vs. identity unlike those female athletes who complain and whine about their competition."
maybe that has something to do with the fact that Jeopardy isn't dichotmized by gender because it's not a physical sport
boy oh boy, TTFers do say stooooopid things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Reuters) - Former Republican President Donald Trump's recent comments touting COVID-19 vaccines as safe and a major achievement of his presidency have roiled extreme anti-vaxxers.
After months of a relatively low profile on vaccines he championed as President, Trump on Dec. 19 told former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly during an event in Dallas that he'd received the booster - eliciting some boos from the audience.
In an interview with right-wing pundit Candace Owens released two days later, Trump pushed back when Owens suggested the shots were not safe.
"Oh no, the vaccine works," Trump interrupted Owens, who said she was not vaccinated. "The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take the vaccine."
While in both cases Trump stressed that he is against Democratic President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates, his comments have stoked criticism from anti-vaccine activists.
As 2021 comes to an end, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has allowed an anti-abortion law that is, for now, flagrantly unconstitutional to remain in effect in Texas since September. The justices earlier in the summer stopped enforcement of the pandemic-related federal eviction moratorium. And now, the justices agreed to start off 2022 by considering whether the Biden administration’s employer “vaccine-or-test” mandate and its vaccine mandate for health care workers are permitted.
The five most conservative justices have become emboldened — both on and off the bench.
The five most conservative justices have become emboldened — both on and off the bench, and at times leaving Chief Justice John Roberts behind. In addition to the cases this term, several conservative justices took time out of their schedules to criticize the reporting on and criticism of the Supreme Court and some of its practices. In a speech at the University of Notre Dame, Justice Samuel Alito went after critiques of the court’s so-called “shadow docket” — decisions issued without full briefing or argument that have increased in prevalence and, arguably, importance in recent years — by calling them “sill[y]” and “annoying” and concluding that they don’t amount to “serious criticism.”
During that time, Justice Stephen Breyer was talking, too, promoting his book centered on his claim that the court is, for the most part, an apolitical body and must continue to be so. That book, “The Authority of the Court and the Perils of Politics,” appears, at times, to have been written in a different era than the one in which we live.
Breyer, 83, has been either a federal appellate judge or a Supreme Court justice for 41 years, nearly half his life. When it became clear that he would not be retiring at the end of the Supreme Court’s last term, Breyer faced a wave of criticism that led to, so far as we know, nothing. And yet, the pressure remains, and it is likely to grow as 2021 turns to 2022.
Although Breyer has described calls for him to retire as political, the reality — a disappointing one to liberals — is that his retirement now wouldn’t be political in the way people talk about it. His replacement wouldn’t change the balance of the Supreme Court; if he were to retire now, there would still be a 6-3 conservative majority.
But such a retirement would have the potential to change the dynamic on the court; that is to bring a new, younger voice to the court’s discussions. And these discussions are not, Breyer acknowledges, just about past actions. They are also about the future of our country.
Although he writes of his understanding of politics by referencing his time as a Senate staffer, he last worked in the Senate when Jimmy Carter was president and Pete Buttigieg hadn’t yet been born.
Democrats remember Republicans roadblocking Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination fast-tracking Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s.
Meanwhile, the Senate that would have to confirm any successor to Breyer is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote. The press for Breyer to retire is, in large part, based on that. Democrats remember Republicans roadblocking Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016 and those same Republicans fast-tracking Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020.
Some Republicans have already made clear that if the Senate majority changes next year and a spot becomes open on the Supreme Court, then they won’t vote to confirm a successor. And, if past performance is any prediction of future behavior, Sen. Mitch McConnell — were he to become the Senate’s majority leader once more — is unlikely to even proceed with consideration of a nominee.
Nonetheless, Breyer has made no statements about any planned retirement. To the contrary, any statements have been to disclaim any decision, thus far, about when he will retire.
All of which leads to a simple point: The Supreme Court is a 6-3 conservative, increasingly aggressive, court. A new, younger voice from the left joining the court is essential to continuing the work of democracy to which Breyer claims to be so committed.
Breyer provides a handful of suggestions in his latest book about what the justices can do to maintain America’s belief in the court’s authority. The first is, “Just Do The Job.” It is an argument against ego, with Breyer writing that justices should “not seek or expect popularity.” He later writes of the importance of compromise and deliberation, as well as the “broader perspective” of the Constitution, the rule of law, and, in effect, the job of being a Supreme Court justice. Although he certainly didn’t say so, one could easily read Breyer’s suggestions as a reason for a justice to retire when it’s best for the court and the rule of law.
Breyer also writes persuasively about the Constitution’s seeking of a “workable democracy,” and the court’s conservatives have made increasingly clear this fall that an even more unbalanced court would almost certainly make maintaining a workable democracy more difficult. In this situation, Breyer retiring now could be his best way of doing the job — even as he perceives it.
"An analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that low- and middle-income households spent about 7% more in 2021 for the same products they bought in 2020 or 2019, an average of about $3,500."
Trump brought unemployment among minorities to the lowest point in history
Biden has stolen 3,500 from them
aren't you people ashamed of yourselves for supporting this?
Ladies and gentlemen, the next Democratic nominee for President of the United States, a lady who won't be a tie-breaker after 2022, you know her by one name..KAMALA!!!!!:
Vice President Kamala Harris struggled to give a coherent answer when asked about the economy and inflation during a Sunday interview on CBS.
Harris appeared on "Face the Nation" when host Margaret Brennan asked her about the issues of inflation going into the "third year" of a pandemic.
"Was it wrong to consider inflation transitory? These price spikes seem like they’re going to be with us for a while," Brennan asked.
The question referred to a previous statement pushed by White House press secretary Jen Psaki that insisted inflation was only "transitory" and should go down within the next year.
Since then economists have admitted inflation has only gotten worse as the year ends with many predicting the increased spending proposals from President Biden could make the problem worse.
Harris did not provide a clear answer to the question of combating inflation. She appeared to stumble on describing the process before pivoting to support for Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which has been delayed because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced his opposition to the legislation.
"We have to address the fact that we have got to deal with the fact that folks are paying for gas, paying for groceries, and are -- need solutions to it. So let's talk about that," Harris said. "Short-term solution includes what we need to do around the supply chain, right? So, we went to the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Savannah, Georgia, and said, 'Hey, guys, no more five days a week, eight hours a day; 24/7, let's move the products because people need their product – they need what they need.' We're dealing with it in terms of the long term. And that's about what we need to do to pass Build Back Better. It strengthens our economy."
This struggle through a basic question reminded critics of previous reporting in which an ex-staffer of the vice president says she repeatedly refuses to read briefing materials and prepare for meetings.
There are never-ending stories and there are never-ending stories. There is no better example of the latter than Nancy Pelosi’s continuing obsession with the January 6 Capitol “insurrection” and her subsequent silly Jan. 6 witch hunt. Now, we learn that Madam Speaker plans to continue her “hearings” into the new year.
Publicly.
The question is, why? Pelosi’s Stage 4 Trump Derangement Syndrome affliction has raged for at least five years, everybody knows that. But at least when the Russian “collusion” nonsense finally and conclusively proved to be a hoax, she mostly let it go. At least, publicly. But Jan 6. occupies a different twisted crevasse of Pelosi’s Trump-riddled brain. Or does it? Might she simply be using Jan. 6 to try to deflect from Biden’s disastrous presidency? You decide.
Either way, Pelosi’s Jan. 6 band plays on.
As reported by The Washington Post, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack plans to begin holding public hearings in the new year to “tell the story of the insurrection from start to finish while crafting an ample interim report on its findings by summer, as it shifts into a more public phase of its work.”
The committee will continue to collect information and seek testimony from willing witnesses and those who have been reluctant — a group that now includes Republican members of Congress — as it decides whether to recommend that the Justice Department pursue charges against anyone involved, “shockingly” including Donald Trump.
In addition, the committee is considering whether legislative proposals are needed to “help prevent valid election results from being overturned in the future.” (Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton were unavailable for comment.)
Democrat Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson said in a recent interview, as noted by WaPo:
We have to address it — our families, our districts, and our country demand that we get as much of the causal effects of what occurred and come up with some recommendations for the House so that it won’t ever happen again.
Uh-huh, Bennie. Now do Black Lives Matter “peaceful protests.”
The amount of data Pelosi’s ridiculous show trial has collected to date is “massive,” as WaPo noted.
The committee has taken in a massive amount of data — interviewing more than 300 witnesses, announcing more than 50 subpoenas, obtaining more than 35,000 pages of records and receiving hundreds of telephone leads through the Jan. 6 tip line, according to aides familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe details of the panel’s work.
Yet Pelosi just can’t quit Jan. 6. Said a senior committee aide, as transcribed by WaPo:
We want to tell it from start to finish over a series of weeks, where we can bring out the best witnesses in a way that makes the most sense. Our legacy piece and final product will be the select committee’s report.
The question remains, why doesn’t Pelosi realize the horse is dead and let it go? Because she can’t. Because she needs it. Desperately, so.
Consider:
Congressional Democrats are likely facing a 2022 midterm drubbing that will make their horrible performance in the 2020 elections look like a walk in the park. The number of House Democrats announcing retirement — like rats fleeing a sinking ship — continues to mount. Thing is, they are fleeing a sinking ship — HMS Pelosi.
And why wouldn’t they? The disastrous Biden presidency has been beset by self-inflicted crisis after self-inflicted crisis. The Biden Economy is handicapped by Bidenflation. COVID continues to rage after Biden’s hollow promise more than a year ago to “shut it down.”
China is now using Biden’s meaningless pledge against him, as well.
The list goes on.
The Biden Afghanistan Debacle. The Biden Border Crisis. The Biden Biden Crisis of confusion, and ineptitude on a scale that makes Jimmy Carter look like the greatest president in the history of the country. Speaking of Carter, he lived long enough to realize he was only the second-worst president in history.
So Pelosi instinctively chose to do what Democrats always do when they fail: deflect and lie. When Democrats have no winning issues on which to run, they weaponize the levers of government to seek retribution against political opponents.
According to the results of a UMass/Amhurst poll released on Tuesday, respondents were less likely to describe participants in the attack as “rioters,” than in previous polls, with 50 percent opting for that description from a list in December, down from 54 percent in April. The poll found similarly that respondents in December were less likely to select the descriptor “insurrectionists.”
Notably, according to the poll, support for Pelosi’s never-ending investigation and prosecution of the participants softened from 52 percent to 46 percent.
Pelosi’s calculation has zero to do with numbers in polls and everything to do with the Biden Crisis — and beyond.
Let’s assume Biden does the right thing for the country and decides against running for reelection. Then what? Kamala Harris? Bernie Sanders? Hillary Two-Time Loser Clinton, one of the worst presidential candidates in modern history?
It all “almost” explains Pelosi’s never-ending obsession with Jan. 6 and all things Donald Trump
"guess they [vaccines] don't stop mutations after all"
You seem to be forgetting about the millions of unvaccinated around the world.
Typical of GOPers to ignore inconvenient facts like Worldwide: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations
"the bungled messaging is morally scandalous"
Yes we all remember it well.
March 2020. Donald Trump's Bungled Coronavirus Response Isn't Inspiring Confidence: Here's a look at 8 ways he's caused concerns.
April 2020. Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment
June 2020 How Trump’s erratic behavior and failure on coronavirus doomed his reelection
Amen!
"You seem to be forgetting about the millions of unvaccinated around the world."
oh, I haven't forgotten
we need to everything is our power to get them vaccinated as soon as possible
but, just to save lives directly
the argument that the vaccine will stop variants because it will halt the spread ha proven wrong
we all now know many people who have gotten the virus despite three shots and living in mask mandate central, Montgomery County
the vaccine appears to save lives by making the disease less severe
but it doesn't stop the virus from circulating and forming new variants
to the chagrin of our socialist comrades here at TTFland, there is no justification for the government t violate our civil rights
"Yes we all remember it well."
ah, then you are on a to a well-known secret:
Biden's record on handling this health crisis is worse than Trump's
and it's not even close
Biden had a vaccine developed during the Trump administration already going into arms on his first day hiding in the Oval Office
As Joe Biden hurtles towards the first anniversary of his inauguration, despondency is enveloping his White House, leaving Democrats fearful about what lies ahead. After a bruising 11 months in office, his approval ratings are sliding. On every major issue the public is communicating hostility towards the cut of his jib.
The next 12 months will be testing for the 79-year-old US President. November’s midterm elections will serve as a referendum on his presidency. A third of the US Senate and the entire House of Representatives will be up for grabs along with the keys to 36 governors’ mansions from coast to coast.
Republicans expect to make massive gains, hoping to overturn the Democrats’ wafer-thin majorities in both houses of Congress. That outcome would neuter the Biden presidency.
Democrats are already apportioning blame. Some say the White House messaging is faulty, failing to convey the scale of the President’s achievements. Others argue that Biden was simply the wrong candidate in 2020 – too old, too moderate, too traditional – and that the party should have skipped a generation. Some blame the media, suggesting reporters pay too little attention to the investigation into Donald Trump’s incitement of the violent January 6 Capitol Hill "insurrection", and too much time critiquing the Biden administration.
But Biden’s record is failing to resonate with voters. After a year that began with Trump supporters ransacking the Capitol and threatening to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence, Republicans are confident 2022 will see a dramatic upturn in their fortunes.
The Biden team hoped that by now, Covid-19 would be firmly in America’s rear-view mirror. An ill-timed celebration of the country’s “independence from the pandemic” took place at the White House on 4 July: more than 1,000 people were jammed into its grounds for the largest mass event since President Trump held a super-spreader rally on the South Lawn the previous October.
“We are emerging from the darkness,” President Biden claimed, adding that the country was ending “a year of pandemic and isolation … fear and heartbreaking loss”.
Even as he spoke, his public health advisers knew the Delta variant was taking root nationwide. They also knew the country had fallen short of the President’s aim to have 70 per cent of adults receive at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccine before Independence Day.
That goal was only achieved a month later, and throughout the summer, vaccine refuseniks were digging in. Now, with more than 50 million cases and 800,000 deaths to date, what Biden calls the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” continues to rage while Omicron causes more breakthrough cases in the fully-vaccinated than ever before.
Democrats vigorously defend the President’s performance. “He marshalled a whole-of-government effort to make vaccines available,” asserts Jeff Zients, head of the President’s Covid-19 response team.
But the public is not currently minded to give the President much credit. In the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, 53 per cent of voters said they approved of the President’s handling of the pandemic, the lowest number recorded since his inauguration. Given the administration’s refusal to countenance lockdowns or tightening Christmas restrictions, the White House is now at the mercy of Omicron.
“We have the tools to fight this virus, including Omicron”, insisted Zients earlier this month. Yet we now know 500 million urgently needed testing kits belatedly pledged by the President had not even been ordered before Christmas. On the campaign trial, Biden vowed to “shut the virus down”, a phrase sure to feature in 2022 Republican advertisements.
As all students of American politics know, whenever elections approach, “it’s the economy, stupid”.
That assertion by political strategist James Carville propelled Bill Clinton to the Presidency in 1992. The Biden team knows there’s a direct connection between voters’ economic satisfaction and their warmth towards incumbents.
But just in time for Christmas, the US is witnessing inflation rates not seen since 1982. A generation of Americans has never encountered the price rises now exhibiting themselves in supermarkets across the country. Rising oil prices and the supply chain crisis remain a double-edged sword threatening America’s economic recovery.
Earlier this year, the White House expressed irritation when former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned inflation could undermine the Biden team’s economic plans. Now he’s predicting things will get even worse, writing in The Washington Post that “excessive inflation … risks bringing Donald Trump back to power”.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way: when Joe Biden marked his 100th day in office in April, Democrats insisted he would become the most consequential President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose “New Deal” initiatives dragged the country out of the Great Depression.
Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan is the largest single piece of legislation signed into law since President Dwight Eisenhower built America’s highway system in the 1950s. The President’s separate “Build Back Better” initiative, designed to extend the country’s social safety net and combat climate change, currently appears doomed in Congress amid Democratic Party infighting.
But while White House insiders insist the economy is Biden’s strong suit, voters disagree. Sixty-nine per cent now disapprove of his handling of inflation, while 57 per cent disapprove of his handling of the economy more broadly. For the White House, nothing will be harder than persuading voters next year that the economy is recovering if people don’t feel it.
Foreign policy: Biden’s surprising underbelly
Biden’s election sparked widespread relief among Washington’s foreign policy elites. After four years of Trump-inspired sleepless nights, they could finally exhale. Whatever you thought of the new President, at least he wouldn’t spark a national security crisis.
But August in Afghanistan destroyed all that.
The botched military withdrawal, the mad scramble at Hamid Karzai International Airport and the deaths of 13 US troops in an Isis-K suicide attack are indelible stains on the Biden record that deeply damaged his credibility inside the Beltway.
White House loyalists argue most Americans simply wanted the country’s longest war to end and the President was stuck implementing a bad deal his predecessor inked with the Taliban. They have a harder time explaining why – in its rush for the exits – the Pentagon left $86bn of weaponry on the Afghan battlefield.
Whether or not voters punish the White House over Afghanistan is open to question. More certain is the newfound willingness of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to test Joe Biden’s mettle. 2022 begins with the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a Congressional report warning that China is massing the military capability needed to launch an assault on Taiwan.
Either eventuality would sorely test the President’s ability to deal with another national security crisis.
For families of America’s countless victims of gun violence, the Biden presidency has fallen into a familiar, disappointing pattern: promises made on the campaign trail were immediately broken.
In 2019, candidate Biden – with tears in his eyes – promised those families that this time, things would be different on gun control. “My first day in office”, he pledged, “I’m going to send a bill to Congress.”
But his first day in office came and went. Only in April did he get around to signing Executive Orders on guns, and they didn’t approximate the scope of his original promise.
By the time 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley was charged with the murder of four classmates in a gun attack in Michigan, there had already been 137 school shootings in America this year. The Gun Violence Archive reports 19,783 people have been shot to death since January, the highest figure in two decades. For the second consecutive year, gun sales are soaring too.
But the political equation on Capitol Hill hasn’t changed: there simply isn’t enough support for the passage of meaningful gun control legislation. Like Democrat presidents before him, Biden is putting no visible effort into changing that grim, deadly reality.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida business owner Robert Palmer cheered on the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 before he joined the fray. Screaming obscenities, he hurled a wooden plank and a fire extinguisher at police officers trying to ward off the mob.
Nearly a year later, Palmer fought back tears when he faced the federal judge who sentenced him to more than five years in prison. He said he was “horrified, absolutely devastated” by what he had done.
“I'm just so ashamed that I was a part of that,” Palmer told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Dec. 17 before she gave him the longest prison term for any rioter so far.
Judges are hearing tearful expressions of remorse — and a litany of excuses — from rioters paying a price for joining the Jan. 6 insurrection, even as others try to play down the deadly attack on a seat of American democracy...
The rioters' refrains before the judges are often the same: They were caught up in the moment or just following the crowd into the Capitol. They didn’t see any violence or vandalism. They thought police were letting them enter the building. They insist they went there to peacefully protest.
Their excuses often implode in the face of overwhelming evidence. Thousands of hours of videos from surveillance cameras, mobile phones and police body cameras captured them reveling in the mayhem. Many boasted about their crimes on social media in the days after the deadly attack.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson said then-President Trump’s incendiary speech on Jan. 6 “stoked the flames of fear and discontent.” But she told Russell James Peterson, a rioter from Pennsylvania, that he “walked there on his own two feet” and must bear responsibility for his own actions.
“No one was swept away to the Capitol. No one was carried. The rioters were adults,” Jackson said before sentencing Peterson to 30 days' imprisonment.
so sad that Dems do not understand that Americans know all they want to about a few hundred people that broke into the Capitol and engaged in some petty vandalism
their attempt to associate all the protesters that with those crimes and the attempt to extrapolate this association to the swath of the country that voted against Slidin' Biden and Clueless Kamal in 2020 has been as politically successful as Hillary's "deplorables" comment
please keep it up
"Judge" Amy Berman Jackson was appointed by Obama and has a history of rulings supporting the Russian collusion hoax
she's hardly in a position to credibly lecture others
When it comes to health-care success stories of 2021, it is understandable that most have revolved around the development of multiple coronavirus vaccines, boosters and treatments to combat the pandemic. Certainly, the lightning speed with which free vaccines and boosters were rolled out to hundreds of millions of people is worth celebrating.
But there’s another, less-remarked-upon health-care story that should rank high in the list of 2021 accomplishments: The ongoing success of the Affordable Care Act.
President Biden announced this month that more than 4.6 million people had gained health coverage under the law during his time in office. “From Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 alone, more than 13.6 million Americans signed up for coverage through healthcare.gov and the state-based marketplaces — an all-time high,” he said. “That includes 1.8 million new enrollees, a significant accomplishment that builds on the success of our earlier Special Enrollment Period.” Enrollments will continue through Jan. 15, further boosting the figures.
Biden and congressional Democrats deserve credit for increasing government subsides for ACA plans and capping costs as part of the American Rescue Plan. Kaiser Health News reports, “President Joe Biden’s top health advisers credited the increased government subsidies, which lowered out-of-pocket costs, for the surge in enrollment. They also said enhanced personal assistance and outreach helped connect more people to health insurance plans.”
Ironically, some of the biggest beneficiaries were residents of red states that had refused to expand Medicaid eligibility. Kaiser Health News reports: “Some of the largest increases are in Florida, Texas, Georgia and nine other states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. . . . Enrollment has jumped more in states that have not expanded Medicaid because they have more uninsured residents than expansion states.” In Texas, Georgia and South Dakota, enrollment rose at least 20 percent.
In Georgia, for example, the Biden administration nixed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s waiver request to make a limited Medicaid expansion subject to work requirements. Georgians, meanwhile, flocked to the ACA marketplaces. Georgia Health News reported “a record 653,000 enrollees, as the number of insurance options increased, buttressed by more help from ACA counselors (‘navigators’) and enhanced discounts for some marketplace customers.”
The irony is that Democrats have, in effect, saved Republicans from the consequences of their Scrooge-like attempts to repeal and disable the ACA. Democrats have done a poor job of explaining this to Georgia voters, who might be interested to learn that the Biden administration delivered on health care despite the opposition and interference of Republicans in their state. [Stacy Abrams will make sure Georgia voters know about it.]
The ACA has been an economic and health-care success. It has increased access to care, helped reduce avoidable deaths with early detection of life-threatening diseases, lowered the percentage of uncompensated care foisted on health-care providers, provided peace of mind for many Americans and enhanced economic stability. One clear sign that it is working is that Republicans are no longer promising to rip up the law.
For the administration, Democrats in Congress and the employees of the Department of Health and Human Services that have bolstered and administered the ACA, we can say, well done.
"a few hundred people that broke into the Capitol"
We have all seen the videos of how many people breached the perimeter, climbed the walls, smashed the windows, attacked the police protecting the Capitol.
But for trolls like you, actual facts don't matter because your natural tendency is to lie.
That's the one that was "a few hundred people"
WSJ. Rally for Jan. 6 Capitol Rioters Smaller Than Expected
Crowd was about 400 to 450 people, including dozens of reporters and camera crews
WASHINGTON—A rally by Trump supporters protesting the prosecutions of hundreds of people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol ended without the violent clashes law-enforcement officials feared, after authorities applied lessons learned during the attack.
Officials took no chances ahead of the Saturday rally, deploying hundreds of officers from across the region—some visibly armed and in riot gear—installing a metal fence around the Capitol and requesting assistance from the National Guard, measures largely absent ahead of the January breach.
But the crowd on Saturday was small—about 400 to 450 people, by law-enforcement estimates, including dozens of reporters and camera crews—and the “Justice for J6” rally, roughly a block from the Capitol, unfolded with few problems.
At the end of the event, Capitol Police reported the arrests of four people, including a man who had a knife and two others on outstanding felony warrants out of Texas.
A fourth man was arrested after someone spotted him in the crowd with a handgun, according to police, who said it wasn’t clear why he was at the demonstration. He was charged under a federal statute that makes it illegal to bring a gun onto the Capitol grounds...
Here's what actually happened and the troll calls merely "a few hundred people that broke into the Capitol and engaged in some petty vandalism"
Two firefighters loaned to Washington for the day said they were the only medics on the Capitol steps Jan. 6, trying to triage injured officers as they watched the angry mob swell and attack police working to protect Congress.
Law enforcement agents were “being pulled into the crowd and trampled, assaulted with scaffolding materials, and/or bear maced by protesters,” wrote Arlington County firefighter Taylor Blunt in an after-action memo. Some couldn’t walk, and had to be dragged to safety.
Even the attackers sought medical help, and Blunt and his colleague Nathan Waterfall treated those who were passing out or had been hit. But some “feigned illness to remain behind police lines,” Blunt wrote.
The memo is one of hundreds of emails, texts, photos and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Taken together, the materials shed new light on the sprawling patchwork of law enforcement agencies that tried to stop the siege and the lack of coordination and inadequate planning that stymied their efforts.
The AP obtained the materials through 35 Freedom of Information Act requests to law enforcement agencies that responded to the Capitol insurrection.
“We were among the first mutual aid teams to arrive and were critical to begin the process of driving protestors off the Capitol,” wrote Blunt. Other emergency medical personnel also responded to incidents at the U.S. Capitol, including on the Capitol steps earlier in the day.
Five people died in the attack, including a police officer. Two other officers killed themselves after. There were hundreds of injuries and more than 300 people, including members of extremist groups Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, have been charged with federal crimes. Federal agents are still investigating and hundreds more suspects are at large. Justice Department officials have said they may charge some with sedition...
In a briefing at noon on that day, just as Trump was encouraging supporters to “ fight like hell,” a Federal Protective Service email said about 300 Proud Boys were at the U.S. Capitol.
“No incidents at this time,” the email said. But then it warned, “The Proud Boys are threatening to shut down the water system in the downtown area, which includes government facilities.”
The email noted there was a man in a tree with what appeared to be a rifle near the Ellipse, and about 25,000 people were around the White House, including some who were hiding bags in bushes outside the building...
About 20 minutes later, a protective service officer whose name was redacted sent an email that read, “POTUS is encouraging the protesters to march to capitol grounds and continue protesting there.” POTUS stands for president of the United States.
In a series of emails that followed, protective service officers messages offered a blow-by-blow account of the march to the Capitol from the rally where Trump spoke.
“Protesters moving towards the capitol down Pennsylvania, Constitution and Madison in numbers estimated 10-15,000,” read an email sent at 12:28 p.m.
The officers tracked them across the city and at 12:57 p.m. a message read, “Large group just breached the USCP barricade on the West Front,” referring to the Capitol Police barriers on west side of the Capitol Building.
About a half hour later, they reported several police officers were injured, and then at 2:14 a message screamed “CAPITOL HAS BEEN BREACHED. PROTESTERS ARE NOW INSIDE THE CAPITOL.” Two minutes later they reported the House and Senate chambers were being locked down.
“Shots fired 2nd floor house side inside the capitol,” read a message at 2:45,
"We have all seen the videos of how many people breached the perimeter, climbed the walls, smashed the windows, attacked the police protecting the Capitol.
But for trolls like you, actual facts don't matter because your natural tendency is to lie."
actually, I stated the facts
which is that, out of a protest crowd of tens of thousands, a few hundred trespassed inside the Capitol
some of them vandalized and yell threats
others acted like tourists, taking pictures and roaming around
not to excuse any of those actions, but the Dems are doing their usual hyperbole routine
only one person died, someone who was shot by a police officer in what appears to be the use of excessive force
the video of that shooting has been available from the beginning
none of the supposed insurrectionists fired a shot
I think people who are trying to overthrow the government do that kind of thing and the invaders in the Capitol didn't
even though there was opportunity
"Two firefighters loaned to Washington for the day said they were the only medics on the Capitol steps Jan. 6, trying to triage injured officers as they watched the angry mob swell and attack police working to protect Congress.
Law enforcement agents were “being pulled into the crowd and trampled, assaulted with scaffolding materials, and/or bear maced by protesters,” wrote Arlington County firefighter Taylor Blunt in an after-action memo. Some couldn’t walk, and had to be dragged to safety."
weren't they doing triage? how were they also watching the crowd? the memories are likely supplemented by the selective video clips by the media
why aren't you quoting the police who were attacked?
"The memo is one of hundreds of emails, texts, photos and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Taken together, the materials shed new light on the sprawling patchwork of law enforcement agencies that tried to stop the siege and the lack of coordination and inadequate planning that stymied their efforts."
actually, they don't
we all saw what happened
"shed new light" is just a phrase used by the media to drag out stories that support their agenda
you rarely hear any new light being shed on the riots that exploded in cities across the country in the summer of 2020
"“We were among the first mutual aid teams to arrive and were critical to begin the process of driving protestors off the Capitol,” wrote Blunt."
still quoting the same person
why?
is he the only one who said this?
"Five people died in the attack, including a police officer."
no they didn't
the one person who died was a woman who was crawling in through a window in the Capitol and was shot cold dead by a police officer
it wasn't justified
"Two other officers killed themselves after."
and why was that?
"Justice Department officials have said they may charge some with sedition"
any time a statement includes "may", it's not a fact
"The email noted there was a man in a tree with what appeared to be a rifle near the Ellipse, and about 25,000 people were around the White House, including some who were hiding bags in bushes outside the building..."
emails are no more proof of anything than your lame blog comments
"“Shots fired 2nd floor house side inside the capitol,” read a message at 2:45,"
undoubtedly, the officer who killed the female drawing to crawl in the window
"none of the supposed insurrectionists fired a shot"
No, but we have video evidence of them failing to follow police orders and attacking police with all sorts of things from flagpoles to bear spray to fire extinguishers.
"why aren't you quoting the police who were attacked?"
CSPAN allows us all to hear the words of Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police; and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department ourselves.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?513434-1/capitol-dc-police-testify-january-6-attack
You're welcome.
"still quoting the same person
why?
is he the only one who said this?"
AP was quoting one of the "Two firefighters loaned to Washington for the day"..."they were the only medics on the Capitol steps Jan. 6"
Taylor Blunt is one of those two firefighters. Nathan Waterfall is the other.
There are several sets of exterior Capitol Steps. Firefighters Blunt and Waterfall were at one of them. Some of the police officers you can hear at CSPAN were at different staircases or entrances.
"any time a statement includes "may", it's not a fact"
And in this thread, one comment of mine (9:52AM today) has used the word "may" but two comments of yours have used the word "may" three times (December 28, 2021 5:14 PM and December 29, 2021 4:33 PM).
"No, but we have video evidence of them failing to follow police orders and attacking police with all sorts of things from flagpoles to bear spray to fire extinguishers."
oh well, you have implied that the protesters fired shots
but that was only done by a police officer
and he did it because a woman was trying to crawl in a window and didn't follow his orders to stop
one of the big problems we have is that police in this country are trained to believe that they are justified in using deadly force whenever someone disobeys their orders
that's warped and needs to change
"CSPAN allows us all to hear the words of Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police; and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department ourselves."
actually, I asked why you didn't quote them
and you still haven't
"AP was quoting one of the "Two firefighters loaned to Washington for the day"..."they were the only medics on the Capitol steps Jan. 6"
Taylor Blunt is one of those two firefighters. Nathan Waterfall is the other."
to be clear, this one firefighter is the only one who said this, right?
"And in this thread, one comment of mine (9:52AM today) has used the word "may" but two comments of yours have used the word "may" three times (December 28, 2021 5:14 PM and December 29, 2021 4:33 PM)."
well, I'm not going to bother to look back at the posts but I can say that if I used "may", I didn't characterize my statement as a fact
it would have been interpretation of the political situation
hate to break it to you though
most experts agree with my interpretation of the political situation
still, reasonable people can have different opinions
and so can unreasonable people like you
"one of the big problems we have is that police in this country are trained to believe that they are justified in using deadly force whenever someone disobeys their orders"
Black Lives Matters has been saying that since 4 cops murdered George Floyd in public for passing a fake $20.
"actually, I asked why you didn't quote them
and you still haven't"
I didn't write the AP article.
"well, I'm not going to bother to look back at the posts but I can say that if I used "may", I didn't characterize my statement as a fact"
You're not going to check the facts?
No surprise there.
"most experts agree with my interpretation"
Do these "most experts" have names you care to share?
"Black Lives Matters has been saying that since 4 cops murdered George Floyd in public for passing a fake $20."
actually, they haven't
they say the problem is that police forces are systemically racist
not that the police have been trained to use deadly force any time their authority is questioned
the lack of perspective is applied on a color-blind basis
more unarmed whites are killed by police every year than blacks
a FACT that is never reported in the media
Floyd and the monster that killed him had history, they were once co-workers, and the motive was not necessarily racism
"I didn't write the AP article."
I don't write most of my comments either but you still attribute them to me
but the question remains: was is only one person quoted repeatedly?
"You're not going to check the facts?
No surprise there."
if you have a point to make, make it
I'm not following any links
if you think something relevant was said, post it
"Do these "most experts" have names you care to share?"
are you saying experts don't agree that Biden is in deep political trouble?
Frequent consumers of news may be aware of Gallup's annual poll measuring the "most admired man" in America which is typically announced a few days before New Year's.
The poll was done yearly from 1946 through 2020.
A year ago, liberal news media lost interest in the annual poll after Donald Trump started edging out Barack Obama for first place, whereas the networks previously enjoyed using the survey to embarrassing Trump as sitting President failing to come in first place.
This year, a Google search conspicuously shows no sign that Gallup conducted such a poll for the past year. Perhaps, JUST MAYBE, they couldn't stand the thought of having to report what likely would have been Trump coming in first again this year -- after the January 6 riot.
The end of the year is always a time to take stock—and as years go, in terms of politics at least, 2021 was a doozy. Here are 7 of the biggest political takeaways from 2021.
1. Donald Trump’s Political Career Is Alive and Well
Though it may have seemed unlikely in the early days of 2021, former President Donald Trump has returned to center stage. He is polling as high as 13 points above Joe Biden in a potential 2024 general election matchup, further solidifying his frontrunner status as the next GOP nominee should he choose to enter the race.
2. Conservatives Can Win on Culture War Issues
No issue has dominated the airwaves in 2021 quite like Critical Race Theory (CRT)—a Marxist ideology that suggests all of human history and social identity ought to be viewed through a strictly racial lens, and that the United States and indeed all of Western civilization is irredeemably racist and evil. But that message of division received a resounding rebuke with Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race, a state that Biden won by 10 points in 2020. For the GOP, the takeaway was clear: embrace the fight for America’s culture.
Though some Republicans remain permanently convinced that the GOP should avoid hot-button social disputes and stick only to ‘soft’ issues like tax cuts, 2021 proved not only that Americans care about culture, but also that cultural issues can be the most important to voters, and win campaigns for Republicans.
3. After Just One Year, Joe Biden’s Legislative Agenda Is Dead in the Water
Instead of following through on his campaign promise of governing as a consensus-building moderate, Joe Biden has instead governed as an ultra-left radical, keen on remaking every facet of American society—and the results have been devastating for him and his party.
The so-called “Build Back Better” plan, which contained trillions of dollars in unnecessary social spending and has been identified by the administration as a cornerstone of the Biden agenda, was recently shot down by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who was Democrats’ last hope for getting the legislation through an evenly divided Senate. The legislation included amnesty for illegal aliens, $500 billion dollars for Green New Deal-type policies, an expansion of Obamacare, and countless other far-left wish list items for which the radical Democrats have long been clamoring.
Although Biden’s signature socialist wish list is currently on life support, other Biden-led initiatives like the misleadingly titled “American Rescue Plan” and “bipartisan” infrastructure bill have wreaked havoc on the economy. In addition, the administration has pursued radical policies through unilateral executive action, threatening Americans’ constitutional rights and liberties.
As if that weren’t enough, the Biden administration then proceeded to wage an all-out war on American energy, do nothing about spiraling inflation and a supply chain crisis, and blunder into a disastrous surrender in Afghanistan that has badly undermined American prestige and security.
Congressional Democrats have added their own slew of radical and disastrous policies, including an attempt to federalize elections, ban Voter ID, and destroy election security, add new blue states to the union in order to cement liberal majorities in Congress, betray Israel, and defund police departments amid an ongoing crime wave.
If Biden’s sinking approval ratings and the double-digit advantage Republicans currently enjoy on the generic ballot indicate anything, it is that the American people are waking up to the radicalism of the Democrat party and are eager for a change in direction.
4. Trump’s COVID Plan Was the Best Path Forward All Along
In perhaps one of the most unexpected political turns of the year, Joe Biden has finally come around to essentially the same COVID strategy he ardently ran against in 2020. Though Biden repeatedly vowed to “shut down the virus, not the country” and accused President Trump of failing Americans on COVID throughout the campaign, more Americans have now died from Covid under Biden in 2021 than under Trump in 2020.
Furthermore, after causing a severe nationwide testing shortage, Biden has concluded that “there is no federal solution” to the pandemic and that it must be solved at the “state level”—even though he said that he would “fully use the federal government’s powers once inaugurated to speed the production and dispersal of vaccines and protective equipment” just a year prior (something Trump, obviously, also did to great success). A federalist approach to handling the pandemic, however, is precisely what Biden campaigned against in 2020, and is the latest in a long series of revelations this year demonstrating that Trump’s record on COVID was far more impressive than he was given credit for.
5. Cementing a Conservative Majority on the Supreme Court Was a Transformative Event
Following indications that the Supreme Court may be prepared to revisit the landmark cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which have recognized and upheld the right to abortion for almost half a century, the historic and long-term significance of Trump’s three appointments to the Court is becoming increasingly clear. Trump’s three appointees—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—could provide the deciding votes in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the most significant challenge to abortion rights in decades. The Court will also issue decisions on high-profile cases relating to religious freedom and the Second Amendment next spring.
6. Democrats Have No Viable Bench of Candidates
Democrats’ 2024 outlook has become increasingly bleak. With Biden’s plummeting approval ratings and Vice President Kamala Harris’s status as the least popular sitting vice president in 50 years, Democrats have strikingly few viable candidates as they look ahead to the next presidential election. All polling indicates that Harris—the presumed frontrunner— would be unsuccessful against nearly every Republican presidential hopeful.
Prospects for other Democrat aspirants—such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—look equally troubling. If Republicans take advantage of the obvious lack of talent atop the Democratic Party, the 2024 presidential election could very well be theirs to lose.
After a turbulent 12 months, 2022 could prove to be a banner political year for conservatives and the GOP, despite the political and cultural chaos inflicted by Democrats this year. As GOP pollster Robert Blizzard put it, “they’re running for the hills… I think they see the writing on the wall.”
Democrats had all the power in the world, but they may have flown too close to the sun. And for that—as soon as next fall—they will have to pay the price.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. There will be some commemorations of the day in Washington and pro-democracy groups will hold vigils for democracy while pro-Trump groups will be holding vigils to support the insurrectionists. Donald Trump plans to hold a press conference on that day where he says he will discuss in-depth the "stolen election" of 2020, citing several states where "the numbers don't work for them." Feel the magic:
"Remember, the insurrection took place on November 3rd, it was the completely unarmed protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th."
Over the holiday break, the Department of Justice released more shocking footage of the allegedly "completely unarmed protest" which showed three hours of bloody violence raining down upon the capitol police that day. Trump's attempt to reframe January 6th as an unarmed peaceful protest may be his greatest act of chutzpah yet — and that's saying something.
Several news organizations released polling this past weekend looking at the public's attitude toward the 2020 election and January 6th one year later. The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 68 percent say there was no evidence of fraud and that includes huge majorities of Democrats (88%) and Independents (78%). Republicans, however, are still living in denial. 62 percent of Republicans still believe that the election was riddled with fraud, a number virtually unchanged since this time last year. That adds up to a massive 30% of the nation that still believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump.
An ABC-Ipsos poll found pretty much the same thing. They also asked if Americans believed that the people who stormed the Capitol that day were "threatening democracy" and 72% said "yes" while 25% say they were "protecting democracy." That last number includes 52% of Republicans, which is stunning. I'm sure you will recall those ancient times when the GOP prided itself on being the party of "law and order." 78% of Republicans now believe that Trump bears only a little or no responsibility for the attack, which is contradictory since they also profess to believe that the mob was protecting democracy. Surely they don't think Trump was against that, do they?
A CBS Poll delved into public attitudes about political violence and it's isn't comforting. Two-thirds of Americans believe that the events of January 6th were a sign of increasing political violence and that American democracy is threatened. Most have not changed their minds about that violence in the ensuing 12 months. 87% disapproved then and 83% say they disapprove now. But lest you think that Republicans understand what happened that day, CBS reports that "the intensity with which Republicans disapprove softened over the summer and has stayed softer."
They no longer strongly disapprove – they seem to have reconciled themselves to seeing it some kind of minor infraction. Four out of ten have persuaded themselves that it was actually leftists who committed the violence. Apparently, they think the Trump supporters were all standing outside sweetly singing "What a Friend We have In Jesus" as red-hatted Antifa members hit cops over the head with American flags.
Most disturbing in the CBS Poll was the question of whether there will be political violence from the losing side in the future. 62 percent of Americans believe there will be. And that's not all:
"We then followed up and asked, "If that's your side that loses and there is in fact violence, would you be in favor of that or not?" It's an abstraction right now, of course, and a mere 2% would favor it. But another quarter left it open, saying it depends on the circumstance — and in that, we start to see political differences, with 2020 Trump voters twice as likely as Biden voters to say that it depends."
30 percent of Republicans are open to violence if their side loses.
All of that indicates that the GOP is very dug in on The Big Lie and the ensuing insurrection. It's unlikely they are going to change their minds. If there were decent leadership in the Republican Party and a moral compass among the right-wing media, all of whom know the truth but refuse to speak it, there might have been a chance to walk back from the precipice. But there is not and so we are facing the increasingly uncomfortable reality that tens of millions of our fellow Americans see violence as a reasonable response to losing elections. Because of that, two-thirds of Americans now see democracy as being threatened. And they are right.
All of this new data shows that the ideas expressed in a remarkably unvarnished, year-end New York Times editorial speak for a large majority of Americans:
"[T]he Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists."
It exists.
It is clear that Republicans refuse to accept reality and they are primed to fight to preserve their delusions and the large majority who know otherwise are going to have to step up. The good news is that there seems to be many more of them. In all that polling about January 6th, the Big Lie and the willingness to use violence to obtain power, Democrats and independents are in lock step agreement, which is unusual. On this, the country isn't polarized. A large majority of Americans are opposed to this anti-democratic impulse — the Republicans are very much in the minority.
That means that as we go into this election year it's incumbent upon the Democrats to ensure that this issue is front and center. The Washington Post's EJ Dionne made a good case for the Democrats to run on a democracy platform by quickly passing the democracy bills pending in the Senate, with the president himself taking the lead and championing democracy far more forcefully than he has until now, pushing legislation and using executive action wherever possible. Most importantly, he writes:
"It also requires invoking the evidence from the House select committee's Jan. 6 investigation to make clear that the threat to democracy comes not just from Trump but also from a Republican Party complicit in undermining democratic institutions, both overtly and through its silence."
It is not just Trump, far from it. The entire Republican Party is complicit in this ongoing assault on democracy: from the wealthy donors to the powerful Washington officials all the way down to the grassroots. Democrats must pull out all the stops to explain the stakes and activate the vast majority of Americans who want to save it. This could not be a worse time for complacency.
Former President Donald Trump's smear campaign against the validity of American democracy culminated in a deadly failed insurrection against the United States Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
The insurrectionists shattered windows, ransacked offices, smeared excrement across the walls, and called for the execution of any elected official they deemed disloyal to Trump—including his own Vice President.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who may be contemplating a presidential run in 2024, recently told the Christian Broadcasting Network of the attack:
"I'm not going to allow the Democrats or the national media to use one tragic day in January to demean the intentions of 74 million people who stood with us in our cause, and I'm not going to allow the Democrats to use one tragic day in January to distract attention from their failed agenda and the failed policies of the Biden Administration."
Perhaps no group faced a more direct threat than the Capitol and D.C. Metro police officers who defended the building that day. They faced chemical attacks and beatings from Trump supporters. Within a month, two Capitol officers would take their own lives. By August, two more would do the same.
One of the officers who defended the Capitol, Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who testified this summer before a congressional committee that he thought he was going to die as he defended against the belligerent mob.
Gonell took issue with Pence's characterization of the insurrection as "one tragic day in January" and responded by tweeting pictures of the injuries he sustained that day.
Staff Sergeant Gonell, Aquilino
@SergeantAqGo
Pence: “that one day in January”. This happened to me giving him and others time to escape to safely so he wouldn’t get hanged/executed. To some, my efforts and injuries are just an exaggeration. THEY did this to me. This why it matters to me and should matters to you.
[Click this link to see photos of Aquilino's injuries from Jan 6]
1:43 PM · Dec 30, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
While Gonell feels Pence is dismissing the sacrifice of Capitol Police that day, gratitude poured in from social media users across the country.
Chris Murphy
@ChrisMurphyCT
The right's January 6th mythology relies on no one ever seeing the results of the violent mob. Thank you, Staff Sergeant Gonell, for sharing this.
US Rep Brendan Boyle
@RepBrendanBoyle
From the bottom of my heart, thank you Sergeant Gonell.
Leah McElrath ��️��
@leahmcelrath
Thank you for your service and sacrifice on all our behalf,
@SergeantAqGo
Amanda Carpenter
@amandacarpenter
Thank you for protecting our Capitol. And our elections. And our democracy. You aren't exaggerating. The photos don't lie. They did it. It matters.
Thomas B. Malone
@_TBrianMalone_
Thank you for your service. The Republicans trying to downplay what happened on #January6th will fail. There *will* be accountability for all responsible.
.
The assault on democracy began in 2000 when Gore refused to accept the results of the election. Since then, Dems have tried to get rid of the electoral college, pushed to pack the Supreme Court until their political view is favored, pressured social media companies into censoring speech that doesn't support their agenda, , orchestrated smear campaigns against Supreme Court nominees who opposed Dem positions, issued executive orders when they lost their patience because Congress and states won't follow the orders of whatever authoritarian Dem happens to be President. Just like any other socialists, Dems can't win by democratic means because reasonable people don't agree with their ideas.
"All of that indicates that the GOP is very dug in on The Big Lie"
Dems, at al levels, regularly say the election was stolen from them. Think Al Gore, Hilary Clinton, Stacey Abrams. Actually, their whole "voting rights bill" is based on the lie that elections are regularly stolen from them by the GOP. The truth is that opposition to voter integrity procedures is anti-democratic.
Since Nov 2020, the media regularly say that the Trump claim is a lie (they don't know that conclusively) and that 2020 was the most secure election in history (that's clearly false)
"and the ensuing insurrection."
both the FBI and the DOJ have concluded there was no coordinated attempt to overthrow the US government last January.
Dems don't like that answer so they are trying to build a case
it's a common political tactic
remember Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the Russian hoax gang?
"It's unlikely they are going to change their minds."
the Dems, that is
no facts will change heir minds
"That means that as we go into this election year it's incumbent upon the Democrats to ensure that this issue is front and center"
LOL!
yes, they need to stop ignoring the issue
"The Washington Post's EJ Dionne made a good case for the Democrats to run on a democracy platform by quickly passing the democracy bills pending in the Senate, with the president himself taking the lead and championing democracy far more forcefully than he has until now, pushing legislation and using executive action wherever possible."
unfortunately for them, they don't have the votes
The campaign to destroy Trump really lifted into the stratosphere after the Nov. 3 election. When they called his claim that the election was stolen “the Big Lie,” what they meant was they don’t agree with him. When they said he made his claims “without evidence,” they meant “without evidence that they agree with” or that they would even look at.
Then — after the Jan. 6 House select committee voted to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress — they pivoted and announced that the Big Lie was now “the Big Coup.” Meadows was chief of staff to President Trump, and since Trump clearly believed the election was stolen, it should be no surprise that Meadows was in constant communication with members of Congress and others who were working to prove that fraud had taken place. But in the Orwellian world of Democrats, trying to prove that fraud was committed by someone else means you are yourself guilty of fraud. Believing the election was stolen means that you yourself tried to steal the election. And worst of all, asking people to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol means that you were instructing them to riot and overthrow the government.
As we approach the anniversary of the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” the unspoken truth is that Donald Trump had nothing to gain and everything to lose by the violent assault on the Capitol that day. The only chance of keeping Trump in the White House was not by invading the Capitol, but by keeping it secure while our representatives debated the validity of the election using the entirely constitutional process taking place inside the halls of Congress.
The electoral votes of at least five states were being challenged — not in a coup, but in a lawful manner also used by Democrats in earlier elections, following the procedures mandated by the Electoral Count Act of 1887. Republican senators and House members had lined up to make the case to the public and their fellow constitutional officers that something was rotten in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and that the election was therefore tainted. But the violence outside resulted in a sharply truncated debate inside that was virtually ignored, if not outright mocked or shamed, by the mainstream media. The riot instantly doomed any chance Trump had of prevailing in his argument that the election was stolen.
So ask yourself who benefited from the supposed coup at the Capitol. Not Trump. Not the Republicans who had put themselves on the line to support him with evidence of voting irregularities in several states. Cui bono? Who benefits? None other than the very Democrats who for the last year have worked tirelessly to discredit Trump and to find some way to disqualify him from being elected president again in 2024.
The latest claim is that Trump had criminally “obstructed an official proceeding of Congress” by encouraging his supporters to “Stop the Steal.” This is an absurd claim on several fronts.
First of all, Trump’s belief that the election was stolen is protected by his First Amendment right of free speech. So is his right to use the courts and Congress to seek redress of his grievances. There is no evidence he had advance knowledge of the riot or planned it in any way. As noted, the particular proceeding of Congress in question was the only hope Trump had of remaining in office beyond Jan. 20, 2021.
Moreover, the argument that Trump “allowed” the riot to take place because he did not send National Guard troops to intervene is wrong on both the facts and the logic of the case. As I showed in my last column, Trump did in fact request 10,000 National Guard troops to be deployed, but his request was ignored by the Pentagon, the speaker of the House, the Capitol Police and the mayor of Washington, D.C. Even more importantly, if Trump had used the power of the presidency to order a military presence at the Capitol, then the Democrats would have gotten exactly what they wanted — the appearance of a coup ordered by a reckless, out-of-control authoritarian who was trying to bend Congress to his will. In other words, Trump could not win that day no matter what he did. The violence made victory impossible.
But to argue, as Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi do, that Trump didn’t have a right to contest the election is to replace the rule of law with the rule of intimidation. The Democrats and their partners in the media have used all their assembled might to coerce Trump and his allies into silence. His only crime is that he won’t shut up about the election being stolen. Nor for that matter is he the only one who thinks that the election was fraudulent. Millions of us independently reached the same conclusion. If any of those supporters had turned to violence at the Capitol, they should be appropriately tried, convicted and punished for their misdeeds, but that’s not on Trump any more than it is on the rest of us who encouraged our fellow citizens to work to prevent the installation of Joe Biden as president as long as doubts persisted about his legitimacy.
But the Jan. 6 committee and its supporters don’t care about logic or facts. They trotted out text messages from Trump supporters condemning the violence and said that meant Trump himself must have supported the violence. They showed messages that indicated Trump had a strategy to try to prove to Congress and then to the Supreme Court that his rights had been violated, and they said that proved “the Big Coup.”
Goodness, they really didn’t need to wait this long if that’s all it takes to prove a coup! They could have just read Trump’s speech from the morning of Jan. 6. He never hid the fact that he thought he had been cheated out of victory, nor did he ever pretend he would go gentle into that good night the way Democrats hoped he would. But they already knew all that. In fact, they impeached him over the same speech and failed to convict him. If they tried to convict him on the same charges again, under any guise, they would have violated the intent of the Constitution’s protection against double jeopardy. Not that they care.
One last point: In general, the liberal elites appear to be incapable of recognizing that every argument has two sides. They honestly believe that whatever the Democratic leadership says is true, and whatever Donald Trump or his supporters say is false. Although this condition existed prior to the 2020 election, it was exaggerated afterwards to the point where we no longer have the expectation of honest debate. And that, contrary to the claims of politicians like Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney, is the real danger to democracy.
When half the people are considered by the other half to be malignant, prevaricating miscreants, there is no hope for true democracy — rule by the people. The best you can expect is demi-democracy, rule of the people by half of the people. That may be the hope of the liberals, but they should be careful what they wish for. Despite their frantic attacks on the Deplorables, it is not yet certain who will prevail in the war they have unleashed. Not a war of weapons, but a war of words and a war of ideas.
On the Democrat side, there are threats and intimidation, warning American citizens not to step out of line. Wear your mask. Get your shot. Turn in your gun. Do what we tell you, and keep your head down. You’ll be fine if you obey.
On the other side, there is a rising chorus of voices, moms and dads, black and white, free-thinkers all, who ask for the right to raise their children as they see fit, insist on medical autonomy, expect elections to be fair, and don’t bow before authority unless it is legitimately wielded.
The choice of two diametrically opposed futures has not been so clear since the Civil War, and Democrats — just as they did in that great conflict — seem intent once again on proving the truth of Lincoln’s dictum that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
One year after a mob of Donald Trump loyalists tried to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory by laying violent siege to the U.S. Capitol, the “big lie” that fueled their attack has only become more entrenched. Today, a full three-quarters of Trump voters (75 percent) falsely believe the election was “rigged and stolen,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll — more than ever before.
Just 9 percent, meanwhile, think Biden “won fair and square” — down from 13 percent last January.
The fact that Trump’s “stolen election” myth is not just lingering but growing underscores the deep and ongoing damage American society has sustained from Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the election results.
Biden voters and Trump voters don’t agree on much, but nearly all of them — 88 percent of the former and 89 percent of the latter — now say they are “worried about the future of U.S. democracy.”
Their reasons, of course, are different. The poll of 1,537 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Dec. 18 to 22, 2021, found that Trump voters overwhelmingly buy the former president’s fabrication that there was enough fraud in 2020 “to influence the outcome” (75 percent). As a result, a majority of Trump voters (52 percent) are convinced that the next election will be “rigged” as well.
Among Biden voters, the fear is that false accusations of fraud could trigger “another attack like Jan. 6” (75 percent) — or simply provide a pretext for Republican politicians in key battleground states such as Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania to keep proposing and passing laws that would make it easier to reject their own citizens’ votes and hand the Electoral College to the Republican presidential nominee.
Yet despite such differences, the overall effect is largely the same on both the right and the left: plummeting confidence in the democratic process.
Before the 2020 election, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) said they at least trusted their own state “to accurately count the votes in the next presidential election.” Since then, even that number has fallen 10 points, to 53 percent. At the same time, clear majorities of both Trump voters (56 percent) and Biden voters (57 percent) now say U.S. democracy is less secure than it was prior to Jan. 6.
This pessimism is particularly evident in response to questions about coming electoral contests. Only 27 percent of Americans, for instance, believe the next election will be “free and fair.” Just 31 percent say “no” when asked if the same election will be “rigged” in favor of one candidate or another. And less than a quarter (23 percent) believe election experts who insist that a U.S. presidential election cannot be rigged.
To be sure, Trump voters are less inclined to say the next election will be “free and fair” (10 percent) than Biden voters (41 percent). But that still means 6 in 10 Biden voters either think the next contest won’t be free and fair (14 percent) or aren’t sure (45 percent). Given that the same Americans almost unanimously believe 2020 was free and fair (94 percent), this signals a striking loss of confidence likely triggered by GOP efforts to alter election laws after 2020.
Unfortunately, there is little sign that trust in U.S. democracy will be restored anytime soon. While Biden voters (81 percent) and Trump voters (82 percent) also agree that “violent protest is never justified in the U.S. as a way for a group to accomplish its goals,” the latter are increasingly convinced that the Jan. 6 attack wasn’t actually violent or unjustified.
In fact, twice as many Trump voters now say the events of Jan. 6 were justified (23 percent) as said the same immediately after the siege itself (11 percent). Nearly 6 in 10 continue to think — as they did in a May 2021 Yahoo News/YouGov poll — that the people who participated that day were “primarily peaceful and law-abiding” (57 percent) rather than “primarily violent and lawless” (26 percent), even though multiple protesters have been convicted and imprisoned after clear evidence that they assaulted Capitol Police has emerged. And when asked how the attack on the Capitol made them feel, fewer Trump voters now say “angry” (down from 45 percent to 34 percent) — while more say “proud” (up from 7 percent to 14 percent) or “excited” (up from 5 percent to 13 percent).
“The thing that’s most concerning is that it has endured in the face of all evidence,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — one of just two Republicans who agreed to sit on the House of Representatives’ select committee to investigate the attack — recently told NPR. “And I’ve gotten to wonder if there is actually any evidence that would ever change certain people’s minds.”
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests the committee’s investigation is unlikely to do the trick. While nearly all Biden voters want more investigations “to find out the truth of what happened” (86 percent) and believe that the most important thing is to “hold Trump and others accountable for their role in the attack” (91 percent), nearly every Trump voter disagrees that the then president incited violence (84 percent) and says it’s more important to “put the attack on the U.S. Capitol behind us” (85 percent). In fact, fewer Trump voters blame Trump (15 percent) or even the “Trump supporters who gathered at the U.S. Capitol” (38 percent) for the attack than blame nonexistent “left wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad” (82 percent).
The result is that Biden voters overwhelmingly approve of the committee (89 percent), while Trump voters overwhelmingly disapprove of it (75 percent).
All in all, a slim majority of Americans (51 percent) side with Biden voters and favor the committee’s work, in large part because self-identified Republicans (64 percent) as well as independents (41 percent) are significantly less likely than Trump voters to oppose it. Similar numbers of Americans say Trump should testify if subpoenaed (53 percent), as should his former chief of staff Mark Meadows (56 percent) and his former adviser Steve Bannon (56 percent), both of whom have refused to cooperate with the investigation. Half of Americans (50 percent) say uncooperative witnesses such as Meadows and Bannon should face criminal charges, while just under one-third (32 percent) say they should not.
But ultimately just 20 percent of U.S. adults say they are following news about the House’s Jan. 6 panel “very closely,” and those people are twice as likely to be Biden voters (36 percent) than Trump voters (18 percent). About two-thirds of Biden voters believe the committee will “report the truth about the attack” (65 percent); likewise, they describe the committee as the “most truthful source of information about Jan. 6” (69 percent). But more Trump voters say the committee will not report the truth (78 percent), skewing the results among Americans overall: 30 percent yes, 42 percent no, 28 percent not sure.
As for Trump voters’ preferred source of “truthful” information about Jan. 6, it is not the House committee (5 percent) or even “outlets such as Fox News” (24 percent) — but rather Trump himself (26 percent).
Before the 2020 election, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) said they at least trusted their own state “to accurately count the votes in the next presidential election.” Since then, even that number has fallen 10 points, to 53 percent.
This pessimism is particularly evident in response to questions about coming electoral contests. Only 27 percent of Americans, for instance, believe the next election will be “free and fair.” Just 31 percent say “no” when asked if the same election will be “rigged” in favor of one candidate or another. And less than a quarter (23 percent) believe election experts who insist that a U.S. presidential election cannot be rigged.
Only 41 percent of Biden voters believe the election will be “free and fair” . That means 6 in 10 Biden voters either think the next contest won’t be free and fair (14 percent) or aren’t sure (45 percent).
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests the committee’s investigation is unlikely to do the trick. Only a slim majority of Americans (51 percent) side with Biden voters and favor the committee’s work. Only half of Americans (50 percent) say uncooperative witnesses such as Meadows and Bannon should face criminal charges.
Trump, his media trolls, and what used to be the GOP are to blame for spreading lies about the 2020 election because they can't stand the fact they lost.
Trump and his anti-democracy GOPers have lost almost every case they filed to try to overturn the 2020 election.
"One sign of a healthy democracy is a judiciary that applies the law independently, even in cases involving powerful partisan interests. When President Donald Trump tried to enlist the courts in his campaign to overturn the results of the election, state and federal judges applied the law as they understood it. They did so despite Trump’s history of lashing out at judges who crossed him during his 2016 campaign and later.
Trump’s election litigation efforts failed decisively, even though some judges found his lawyers’ arguments persuasive.
Despite his judicial failures—and unlike autocratic executives who have tried to silence independent judges, such as Hungary, India, and Poland—Trump apparently did not try to intimidate judges as he did state election officials. That does not mean he will be silent during litigation over future elections, especially if, as is likely, that litigation is less slap dash than the challenges in 2020."
USA Today provided the conventional assessment of those challenges: “Out of the 62 lawsuits filed challenging the presidential election, 61 have failed,” and “decisions have came [sic] from both Democratic-appointed and Republican-appointed judges.”
One victory out of 62 cases is about a 1.5% win rate.
"Trump, his media trolls, and what used to be the GOP are to blame for spreading lies about the 2020 election because they can't stand the fact they lost."
it's truly amazing that you don't realize this applies to Hillary Clinton who bogged down our government for three years with the BIG lie that Trump won in 2016 because he colluded with Russia
"Trump and his anti-democracy GOPers have lost almost every case they filed to try to overturn the 2020 election."
gee, when Al Gore lost his challenge in 2000 to the election results, you blamed the court and said the election was stolen from him
"One sign of a healthy democracy is a judiciary that applies the law independently, even in cases involving powerful partisan interests. When President Donald Trump tried to enlist the courts in his campaign to overturn the results of the election, state and federal judges applied the law as they understood it."
he has every right to sue in a court of law
Dems who lose elections do so with regularity
"They did so despite Trump’s history of lashing out at judges who crossed him during his 2016 campaign and later."
you mean like the Dems lashed out at the Supreme Court for their decision in the 2000 election?
do you ever feel like lightning might strike the growing wooden nose in the center of your face?
"Trump’s election litigation efforts failed decisively, even though some judges found his lawyers’ arguments persuasive."
a fascinating analysis
so what?
"Despite his judicial failures—and unlike autocratic executives who have tried to silence independent judges, such as Hungary, India, and Poland—Trump apparently did not try to intimidate judges as he did state election officials. That does not mean he will be silent during litigation over future elections, especially if, as is likely, that litigation is less slap dash than the challenges in 2020."
what a bunch of happy horse crap!
"That does not mean he will be silent during litigation over future elections,"
what a fun rhetorical game!
let's do some more anticipatory ad libs!
just because Nancy Pelosi didn't show porn films in the Congressional chamber yet doesn't mean she won't in the future
just because Bernie Sanders didn't club baby seals this Christmas doesn't mean he won't in the future
just because AOC didn't shoot heroin at the MLK memorial at midnight doesn't she won't in the future
just because Kamala hasn't had a sleazy affair with Hunter Biden this fall doesn't she won't in the future
I was going to do one with Bill Clinton but I couldn't think of anything he hasn't already done
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
remember that time losers in an election rioted in the streets?
that's right, 2017
when antifa torched cars and smashed windows in a fit because Dems lost the election
here's a handy comparison guide looking at the Jan 6 "riot" that lasted a couple of hours and the forgotten summer riots of 2020:
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/09/09/realclearinvestigations_jan_6-blm_comparison_database_791370.html
When Biden campaigned he said he'd "shut down the virus." On July 4th, he held a party at the White house to declare victory.
Yesterday, the US reported over a million new cases in one day. Over the last week, one out of every 100 people in the US tested positive.
Now, Biden says the Federal government won't solve the problem, it's up to the states. He also persists in calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated even though Omicron is surging in the vaccinated and boosted.
It's true that the vaccines developed during the Trump administration will reduce the likelihood of serious illness, But it doesn't stop the spread of the disease and the notion that you need to get vaccinated to protect your neighbor has been blown to smithereens. It's clearer than ever that getting vaccinated is a personal choice not a "patriotic duty," as Biden has claimed.
So, Biden couldn't have predicted how the virus would evolve but it's difficult to extend magnanimity when he didn't do the same for Trump.
Further, over the year he has been in office, he has done nothing to increase hospital capacity and testing availability, meaning our hospitals are in the same predicament they were in March 2020.
Nor has he done anything to increase the production of therapeutics or the supply of N95 masks.
If anything serious pops up while Biden is President, we're in deep trouble. Thankfully, Omicron is mild.
Let's hope we don't get any bad flu strains over the next three years.
Slidin' Biden is as out of his league as fellow Dumbocraps, Clueless Kamala and Overwhelmed Buttagieg
"Slidin' Biden is as out of his league as fellow Dumbocraps, Clueless Kamala and Overwhelmed Buttagieg"
unfortunately, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have noticed the same thing
it will take a miracle for us to survive the next three years
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday his opposition to President Joe Biden's roughly $2 trillion package of social and environmental initiatives remains undimmed, as party leaders said work on the stalled measure was on hold until AT LEAST later this month.
Manchin, D-W.Va., told reporters that he's not currently negotiating with the White House over the standoff. Manchin, who was his party's chief remaining holdout over months of talks, enraged party leaders before Christmas by saying he could not support the legislation as written. The GOP had a very merry holiday!
“I feel as strongly today as I did then," Manchin said in his first extended remarks since announcing his opposition on Dec. 19. He has cited concerns about the measure's impact on inflation and federal deficits, criticisms other Democrats have been unable to address.
Manchin's comments Tuesday, along with leaders' concessions that the bill is on the back burner for now, suggested that the legislation's fate remains in doubt as the calendar slips ever closer to this November's congressional elections. Any Senators who vote for the massive spending bill will have to explain it to voters during the campaigns that will soon be underway.
Usually, the prospects for obstructed bills fade over time as opponents mount offensives that weaken support from lawmakers seeking reelection in closely divided districts.
That's a whole lotta lies.
What a predictably boring troll you are.
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney revealed the committee has detailed accounts of Trump's actions and inaction as the deadly attack on the U.S. seat of government unfolded. Here's several quotes in which Cheney paints a picture of exactly where Trump was located, what he was doing, and what those around him were doing.
"The committee has firsthand testimony now that [Trump] was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred."
"We know, as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television, to tell people to stop."
"We have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence."
Cheney's revelations are clear indicators of the panel's progress and the information Americans can expect to glean as the committee enters a more public phase of its work.
But perhaps more importantly, Cheney is telling all those fence-sitters with crucial knowledge of the events surrounding Jan. 6 that the panel already knows much of what happened through “firsthand” eyewitness testimony. In other words, Hey, we've got the receipts, so if you want to get on the right side of both history and the law here, come chat with us.
That message won't matter to billionaire beneficiary Steve Bannon and it may not matter to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who doesn’t dare cross Trump; but there's clearly plenty of lower level staffers and even appointees at the White House and other agencies to whom it does matter. Many of them don't have the fortunes to absorb an endless string of legal bills, and most still want to salvage a career in Washington politics. That's the audience to whom Cheney is speaking. It’s choosing time—they either have to place their bets with Trump or with the committee. Cheney is telling them that they may as well choose the path of least resistance and cooperate because plenty of their peers have already done so.
"That's a whole lotta lies."
until you give a few examples, I don't think anyone will take you seriously
"What a predictably boring troll you are."
What a hypocritical and despicable goblin you are!
Don't take that growing nose out in any thunderstorms!
"GOP Rep. Liz Cheney revealed the committee has detailed accounts of Trump's actions and inaction as the deadly attack on the U.S. seat of government unfolded. Here's several quotes in which Cheney paints a picture of exactly where Trump was located, what he was doing, and what those around him were doing.
"The committee has firsthand testimony now that [Trump] was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred.""
that's no crime
millions across America were doing the same
""We know, as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television, to tell people to stop."
"We have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence.""
big deal
this indicates that she thought they would listen to him
nothing more
"Cheney's revelations are clear indicators of the panel's progress and the information Americans can expect to glean as the committee enters a more public phase of its work."
after all this time, that's all they can come up with?
reminds me of the hopeless Mueller investigation
oh yeah, Trump's aides met with Russians
so, they must have been colluding
now, the nuts are sure that because Ivanka asked Trump to stop the violence
so, he must be running it
or, maybe she just thought he'd have some influence over them
just a thought
"But perhaps more importantly, Cheney is telling all those fence-sitters with crucial knowledge of the events surrounding Jan. 6 that the panel already knows much of what happened through “firsthand” eyewitness testimony. In other words, Hey, we've got the receipts, so if you want to get on the right side of both history and the law here, come chat with us."
yeah, Mueller tried that too
tried to scare people
problem is, the scared people don't really have anything of importance to say
"That message won't matter to billionaire beneficiary Steve Bannon and it may not matter to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who doesn’t dare cross Trump; but there's clearly plenty of lower level staffers and even appointees at the White House and other agencies to whom it does matter. Many of them don't have the fortunes to absorb an endless string of legal bills,"
so you support prosecutorial abuse?
threatening to bankrupt someone if they don't say what you want
"That's the audience to whom Cheney is speaking. It’s choosing time—they either have to place their bets with Trump or with the committee."
if so, she should resign
frankly, right now, Trump looks like a better bet than the party that twice impeached Trump without success
“Jeopardy!” champion "Amy" Schneider said Monday that he was robbed over the weekend.
Schneider, an engineering manager in Oakland, California, who made history last month as the first guy who thinks he's a girl to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, said on Twitter that someone stole his phone, credit cards and ID on Sunday.
The robbery occurred days after Schneider snagged his 21st consecutive win on the game show and broke the record for most wins by a guy who thinks he's a girl.
“Hi all! So, first off: I’m fine. But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards, and phone. I then couldn’t really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything,” Schneider tweeted Monday evening.
A spokesperson for “Jeopardy!” said they had reached out to Schneider to offer support.
“We were deeply saddened to hear about this incident, and we reached out to Amy privately to offer our help in any capacity,” the show said in an email to NBC News.
Police in Oakland, where Schneider resides, confirmed that they are investigating an armed robbery on Sunday afternoon without identifying the victim's gender.
Candace Kea, a police spokesperson, told NBC News in an email that two people, one armed, fled after robbing the victim of “personal belongings.” No arrests had been made as of early Tuesday afternoon, Kea said.
While Schneider — who has earned $897,600 in “Jeopardy!” winnings so far — has made headlines for his success on the show, he has also faced a spate of anti-transgender harassment online. Over the holidays, Schneider defended himself against trolls who pointed out that he's really a guy on social media.
“I’d like to thank all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man,” she wrote. “Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind.”
Schneider says he doesn’t want his gender to become the sole focus of his identity.
“I didn’t want to make too much about being trans, at least in the context of the show,” he wrote in November in a Twitter thread.
That would be … Mitch McConnell?
McConnell objects to Democrats’ plans to change filibuster rules to pass democracy/election legislation. “Make no mistake about it, this is genuine radicalism,” he says. “They want to turn the Senate into the House. They want to make it easy to fundamentally change the country.”
Mitch McConnell: “Why would any legislature in America want to overturn the counting of votes? … The notion that some state legislature would be crazy enough to say to their own voters—’We’re not gonna honor the outcome of an election’—is ridiculous.”
Originally tweeted by Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) on January 4, 2022.
Totally cool to refuse to hold hearing or a vote on a Supreme Court Justice in the Democratic president’s final term yet rush one through in the final days of a Republican’s term, though. Nothing “radical” about that. And, needless to say, he had no compunction about changing the filibuster rules for Supreme Court judges in order to facilitate his racialism.
McConnell could hardly suppress his belly laugh as he said that I’m sure. It may be the most absurd thing he’s ever said.
Another GOPer liar.
"Totally cool to refuse to hold hearing or a vote on a Supreme Court Justice in the Democratic president’s final term yet rush one through in the final days of a Republican’s term, though. Nothing “radical” about that."
no, there isn't
as a matter of fact, you need to go way back in history to find a Senate that approved the SCOTUS nominee when the Senate was controlled by the opposite party of the President
it's called democracy
the voters elected the Senate and gave the power to reject nominees to those Senators they elected
why should they rubber-stamp the nominee of a President who didn't believe in the Constitution?
and considering some of the unconstitutional activities of Garland, McConnell did America a favor
"And, needless to say, he had no compunction about changing the filibuster rules for Supreme Court judges in order to facilitate his racialism."
you can thank Harry Reid, McConnell didn't get that ball rolling
"McConnell could hardly suppress his belly laugh as he said that I’m sure. It may be the most absurd thing he’s ever said."
the Dems are using Jan 6 as an excuse to squeeze out states' voter integrity measures
Another Democrap loser:
Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., announced Tuesday that she will retire from Congress at the end of her term, making her the 25th House Democrat to decide not to seek re-election in 2022.
Lawrence represents Michigan’s 14th Congressional District, which includes a slice of Detroit and over a dozen cities in Oakland and Wayne counties. She has served in the House since 2015. Her term ends in January 2023.
“This year marks my 30th year in elected public service, and I've had the good fortune of serving Michiganders on the local and national level,” Lawrence, 67, said in a video on Twitter. “After reflecting on my journey & having conversations with my family, I'm announcing that I will not be seeking re-election to Congress.”
Dems have used Jan 6 as an excuse to promote legislation that would take the power to control elections away from states and have the Feds take over
yesterday, Mitch McConnell called their bluff
he offered to amend the Electoral Counting Act to make clear that Congress couldn't reject the electoral votes that a state sends in
that would have prevented Trump from trying to get Congress to overturn the election and given his least savory supporters little to protest about
Schumer's response just shows that the Dems' real intention is to eliminate voter integrity laws to make voting fraud easier:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/schumer-throws-cold-water-on-electoral-college-act/vi-AAStkCK?ocid=msedgntp
For thousands of years, the biological distinction between male and female was considered a simple fact of life. But no more. According to a survey by pollsters Rasmussen Reports, a significant minority of Americans reject the claim that male and female are the only two genders.
While 75 per cent of those polled agree that there are only two genders, 18 per cent disagree. Eighteen per cent may be a clear minority, but as a proportion of Americans it is still a substantial number of people.
Moreover, this minority view has considerable influence over public life and government policy. In the US, people can change the gender identity on their passports without documentation; male-born transgender athletes are now allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s sports; and schools constantly expose children to transgender ideology. And all of this is taking place in spite of popular opposition.
Today’s political and cultural elites are not only indifferent to the views of the majority on sex and gender – they consider these views to be ignorant and prejudiced. Indeed, these elites believe they have a duty to educate and ‘raise the awareness’ of their culturally illiterate inferiors.
The media, academia and other cultural institutions ceaselessly promote trans ideology. In Western societies, celebrities, media stars and commentators possess a monopoly over how gender is framed. HBO’s highly publicised Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts is a case in point. Because of her views on sex and gender, Harry Potter creator JK Rowling was infamously excluded from the show, appearing only in a few snippets of archive footage. This effectively told the world that Rowling’s views on sex are unacceptable. The Harry Potter cast members were also mobilised to promote the message that if you love Harry Potter then you should take a stand against Rowling’s views.
In recent years trans ideology has been all over our TV screens. Indeed, as one commentator at Salon recently boasted, ‘2021 was an extraordinary year of making the non-binary ordinary… More inclusive… pop culture led the charge in busting the gender binary.’
The non-binary identity, in particular, is today celebrated as a cultural ideal. Typically, non-binary characters in TV shows and movies possess far greater moral authority than heterosexual or homosexual ones. Netflix’s Sex Education is paradigmatic in this respect. In the third series, we’re introduced to Cal, a non-binary student, whose dramatic struggle for recognition is meant to show that traditional ideas of gender have a harmful impact on young people. And so Sex Education sets about discrediting conventional notions about sex and gender.
Or take the non-binary character Taylor Mason (played by Asia Kate Dillon who also identifies as non-binary in real life) in Billions. Mason personifies the cultural elite’s fantasy of a non-binary person. She is the most nuanced, multi-dimensional and sensitive person in the series. She is smart and intelligent, while the other characters are extraordinarily shallow and their relationships are dysfunctional.
This cultural valorisation of non-binary and trans identities has played a significant role in altering many people’s perception of biological sex. And it has had a particularly pronounced effect on young people. At school they are encouraged to view their gender as fluid. And in our culture more broadly, young people are routinely invited to disregard the sex they were ‘assigned at birth’ when constructing their identities.
That our cultural oligarchy has so speedily and so willingly traded in the scientifically validated view of biological sex for a non-binary, genderfluid fantasy speaks profoundly to its lack of moral foundation. Unless this fantasy is seriously challenged it is only a matter of time before the trans view of the world becomes the norm.
Back in 1997, when the first Harry Potter novel was published, the ideas promoted by the trans lobby had hardly any influence on society. In a very short period, however, that has all changed. Views that would once have been dismissed as a symptom of biological illiteracy have gained significant support among the upper echelons of society and have been thoroughly internalised by the cultural elites.
It is not too late to stop this descent into the mire of identity confusion. The vast majority of people are concerned about the corrosive impact of trans ideology. The problem is that they lack a means to express their concerns. Helping this majority find its voice is one of the most important challenges of our time.
.....Babbitt is a central character throughout Carlson’s three-part series. Gruesome footage of her death is shown multiple times. The third episode begins with her, and the final half of that last episode is focused on her alone.
Carlson voices opinions about Babbitt’s death without examining the evidence against his argument. “[She] presented no imminent threat to anyone,” he says, ignoring the fact that she was part of a violent mob that had assaulted police and invaded the Capitol.
In fact, Babbitt was in a group of rioters who were banging on doors and breaking glass windows that led to a room where they could see members of Congress only a few dozen feet away. The doors were barricaded by police. Babbitt was shot as she climbed through the broken window into this room.
Carlson does not give any airtime to consider the point of view of the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Babbitt, Lt. Michael Byrd. Byrd, a 28-year veteran of the police force, came forward last summer and talked publicly about his decision after the Justice Department and the Capitol Police concluded an investigation into the incident and cleared him of wrongdoing.
“I tried to wait as long as I could,” Byrd said of the one shot he fired at Babbitt. “I hoped and prayed no one tried to enter through those doors. But their failure to comply required me to take the appropriate action to save the lives of members of Congress and myself and my fellow officers.
“If they get through that door, they’re into the House chamber and upon the members of Congress,” Byrd told NBC News.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a conservative Republican congressman from Oklahoma, was an eyewitness and backed up Byrd’s account. “He didn’t have a choice at that time,” Mullin said. “The mob was going to come through the door. There was a lot of members and staff that were in danger at the time.”
But Babbitt, a 35-year-old California resident and a 14-year Air Force veteran who had become a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory, has been turned into a martyr by many on the right. Trump also has repeatedly invoked her name and memory, as part of his quest to rewrite the events of that day and portray the instigators of the Jan. 6 riot as that day’s real victims.
Carlson ends his special by telling his audience, over harsh military music, that “they’re pushing you toward violence and they’re doing it on purpose. But don’t fall for it.”
He ends with this: “Tell the truth. Build the country. Love your family and each other. Be the light. That’s how it gets better.”
But despite Carlson’s exhortation to “tell the truth,” his three-part special is plagued by half-truths and inaccuracies. And he uses sensationalistic and sometimes horrific video footage — some of it from the war on terror, some of it dramatized — that will likely terrify anyone who watches his special and believes they are being targeted by the government.
"his three-part special is plagued by half-truths and inaccuracies"
could you give us a few examples?
climbing though a window is not a capital crime
the police could have subdued a woman stuck halfway through a window by other means than deadly force
I'm not condoning vandalism and trespassing but the protesters didn't kill anyone
the police killed someone who wasn't a threat
You want examples, read Ward's artlcle linked to above.
I suggest you cease and desist showing off your Trump U education by pretending only one woman was at that door trying to break in.
Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove called on members of the GOP to more forcefully condemn the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of former President Trump's supporters.
"To move beyond Jan. 6, 2021, we must put country ahead of party," Rove wrote in an Op-Ed published in the Wall Street Journal on the one-year anniversary of the tragic event. "For Democrats, that means resisting their leadership’s petty habit of aggravating partisan fault lines by indiscriminately condemning all who came to Washington that day."
Many Republicans in Congress have downplayed the significance of the attack, while others have condemned the violence carried out by the rioters. Few have blamed former president Trump directly for inciting the mob.
In a speech from the Capitol on Thursday, President Biden blamed Trump and the unsubstantiated claims he has spread about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election for the violent attack at the Capitol without mentioning the former president by name.
“The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He has done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest, America’s interest, and because his bruised ego means more to him than our democracy and our Constitution,” Biden said. “He can’t accept he lost.”
Rove, a former chief political mind in the George W. Bush administration, said he still believes in the values Republicans have long represented.
But when it comes to the Jan. 6 attack,"there can be no soft-pedaling what happened and no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy," Rove wrote.
"Love of country demands nothing less," he concluded. "That’s true patriotism."
"You want examples, read Ward's artlcle linked to above."
oh, I wanted to know what you think are "half-truths and inaccuracies"
if you don't have any examples, that's OK, just let us know
"I suggest you cease and desist showing off your Trump U education by pretending only one woman was at that door trying to break in."
actually, she was the only one shot
murdered, actually, while posing no real threat
the police killed someone who wasn't a threat
"Keep lying"
if you think I've lied about something, by all means, let's hear what it is
if you don't have any examples, that's OK, just let us know
when are you going to share a few of them lies, half-truths, and inaccuracies
if you don't have any examples, that's OK, just let us know
"when are you going to share a few of them lies, half-truths, and inaccuracies
if you don't have any examples, that's OK, just let us know"
the loud-mouth TTFer was given an opportunity to specify what lies, half-truths, and inaccuracies I made and the silence tells you all you need to know
there were none
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was viciously criticized by Democrats during and after his tenure under President George W. Bush. On Thursday, he and his daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) became the only two Republicans to participate in a Democrat-led moment of silence to immortalize the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It's clear that Democrats are trying to time their "investigation" of the events of Jan. 6 to coincide with the midterm elections.
What else are they going to run on? "we held inflation to under 1979's level and gave Afghanistan back to Bin Laden's buddies!"
It won't work, and Cheney's playing along with the kangaroo investigation is a betrayal of her party.
Oh, a legitimate investigation of the events would be worthwhile but Pelosi wouldn't allow any Republicans who didn't vote to impeach Trump to be on the committee. And the committee hasn't looked at the failure of Congress to properly oversee the Capitol Police Force, whose has more officers than the city of Atlanta and only is tasked with protecting one building.
“We need a lot more Liz Cheney’s in America,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. “A very courageous Republican, a conservative — the daughter of one of the most conservative vice presidents in the history of this country — but she has stood up for what was right. She has spoken out about it, speaking truth to power in her own party.”
We all remember that when Dick Cheney was VP, the Democrats use the same kind of language to attack him that they used on Trump. He was an "authoritarian" and incited "violent followers".
President Slidin' Joe Biden spoke Thursday morning about "the importance of defending democracy"
If he loves democracy so much, he should denounce the Democrats' effort to loosen election integrity rules
Every voter fraud cancels out a legitimate vote
Rules to prevent that strengthen democracy, by definition
“We are in a battle for the soul of America,” he said. Slidin' Biden laid the blame for the insurrection at the feet of Trump: “the former president who lies about this election, and the mob that attacked this Capitol, could not be further away from the core American values.”
Uh, Joe, what do you think about Hillary Clinton who lies about the 2016 election and incited mobs to smash windows and burn cars during the Trump inauguration?
"Connolly, for his part, said there is more to do to prevent another Jan. 6 and what Biden today called “the Big Lie” — that Trump actually won the election."
And what will we do to prevent another Russian hoax, which threatened to undo the voters' choice in 2016?
“I think we have to fight voter suppression by passing two voting rights bills that are before the Senate right now, that have already passed the House, whatever it takes — if we have to get rid of the filibuster to do it. What’s more sacred in our democracy than the ability to vote, and to have that vote count?” Connolly said.
No person has been denied the right to vote. Democrats want to make permanent the loosening of rules made necessary by the pandemic. All someone has to do to vote is show up on election day at the polls with a valid ID.
The majority of Americans agree that's reasonable but Democrats, laughingly say they are promoting democracy by pushing a bill opposed by the voters
Right now, those bills don't have the support of 51 Senators but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier this week that the Senate will vote to end the filibuster by Jan. 17 in order to enact the voting rights legislation.
Another humiliating defeat is coming for the Democraps!
Even if they end the filibuster, which they don't have the vote of 51 Senators to do, they still don't have the vote of 51 Senators to pass the bills to have the Feds take over the election from the states.
When even socialists in Europe won't put up with any gay crap, you know the backlash is in full swing!
The European Court of Human Rights said on Thursday it will not hear a high-profile discrimination case involving pro-gay-marriage cakes and cartoon characters.
The court ruled it does not find the case involving activist Gareth Lee and the Ashers Baking Co. admissible. It claimed that Lee did "exhaust domestic remedies" after having his order for a cake be refused by the company because it would have had Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie and the phrase "Support Gay Marriage" on it.
"The supreme court found on the facts of the case that the applicant was not treated differently on account of his real or perceived sexual orientation, but rather that the refusal to supply the cake was because of the defendants' religious objection to gay marriage," the court wrote in its decision. "What was principally at issue, therefore, was not the effect on the applicant's private life or his freedom to hold or express his opinions or beliefs, but rather whether Ashers bakery was required to produce a cake expressing the applicant's political support for gay marriage."
Lee expressed dismay at the verdict, saying that it was only determined on a technicality. He maintained that the refusal of the cake order violated his freedom of expression, which he said: "must equally apply to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people." It is unknown whether or not he plans to appeal.
Lee originally ordered the cake to support a campaign to allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. The campaign succeeded when Britain's Parliament stepped in to bring the region into line with the rest of the country. Two women who tied the knot in February 2020 became the first gay couple to wed in Northern Ireland.
Britain's Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the bakery's refusal to make the cake Lee ordered did not amount to discrimination.
Lee then took his case to the Strasbourg, France-based human rights court, arguing that the U.K. Supreme Court decision breached the European Convention on Human Rights.
LGBTQ support group the Rainbow Project called the ruling disappointing.
"When a commercial business is providing services to the public, they cannot discriminate against their customers or clients on any grounds protected by equality law," John O'Doherty, the group's director, said.
He said the 2018 U.K. Supreme Court ruling created legal uncertainty throughout the country.
"Unfortunately, with today's decision, that uncertainty will remain," he said.
The Christian Institute, which had backed the legal fight of the McArthur family that runs Ashers Baking Co., welcomed the ruling, which a spokesman called "good news for free speech, good news for Christians, and good news for the McArthurs."
"The UK Supreme Court engaged at length with the human rights arguments in this case and upheld the McArthurs' rights to freedom of expression and religion," spokesman Simon Calvert said."
What do you call people who have a good case to make but then stretch the truth until it breaks?
Democrats — very desperate Democrats.
Joe Biden is a drowning man who proved Thursday that he will grab hold of anything that remotely resembles a life raft. His attempt to use last Jan. 6 as a savior for his misbegotten presidency reveals more about his party’s predicament than it does about the unsettling events a year ago.
After making several valid points about former President Donald Trump’s continuing refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, Biden promptly undercut his own argument by going too far. Sounding like a late-night TV pitchman selling cheap garden hoses with the promise of two for the price of one, he began promoting his party’s bid to override state laws to federalize elections as the only logical response.
Rahm Emanuel famously urged Dems to never let a crisis go to waste, but they apparently never heard the warning by Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry that “a man has to know his limitations.”
When it comes to weaponizing Jan. 6 for partisan purposes, Dems don’t know any limitations. Indeed, sometimes it was hard to tell on Thursday if they were commemorating a tragedy or celebrating an opportunity.
The most glaring example of overreach came when the White House equated the storming of the Capitol with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, a mistake that should live in political infamy. By that token, any and all who entered the Capitol, even those who acted like awed tourists, are as wicked as Osama bin Laden and Japanese militarists of 80 years ago.
That the job of making the ludicrous comparison was given to Kamala Harris, the hapless vice president, only added to the absurdity. She probably had to stifle a cackle when handed the script.
The essence of the problem is that Biden and party leaders, facing massive voter discontent with his failed leadership on the economy, the pandemic and other areas, have seized on the Capitol riot to portray it as an actual “insurrection” that threatened America. Insisting residual forces are hiding behind every tree and could strike at any moment, they have gone so far as to equate opponents and critics of their far-left agenda as enemies of the state, making their reaction a far greater danger to democracy than anything that happened on that fateful day.
Nancy Pelosi’s House has devoted itself to an investigation that is little more than Trump Impeachment 3.0. Just as they hoped their two failed impeachments would bar him permanently from holding public office, some Dems are now advocating the use of a clause in the 14th Amendment that prevents any official who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from ever holding office again.
It sounds ludicrous, but they are deadly serious. Enough so that after growing criticism from activists and some officials that the Justice Department wasn’t doing enough to hold Trump and others “accountable” for the Capitol riot despite arresting more than 700 people, Attorney General Merrick Garland felt compelled to give a disgraceful speech Wednesday in which he promised to keep hunting for more scalps.
“The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last,” Garland said. “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”
Wink, wink, nod, nod, get my drift?
Even in an age of nonstop outrage and social-media hyperbole, the attempt to criminalize political opposition should be beneath a president, the AG and leaders of Congress. Should be but isn’t.
If decency doesn’t restrain them, practicality should. Thanks to television and handheld cameras, tens of millions of Americans were eyewitnesses to the events a year ago, and no amount of spin and media propaganda can turn the commonly understood facts into something they aren’t.
Moreover, the day was bad enough that it doesn’t need to be made into something more nefarious to be important. By trying to do so, and by endless exaggeration, fabrication and withholding contrary evidence, such as what role secret FBI agents played in inciting some participants, the White House and its allies are calling attention to their own dirty history.
Consider an email from a reader named James Dalton. Writing on Jan. 5, he says: “Five years ago today, a historic and despicable meeting was held in the Oval Office. President Obama presided. Present were VP Biden, James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper and other denizens of the swamp.
“The purpose of this meeting was to upend/derail the incoming Administration via promulgating a discredited dossier and earnest talk of a nonexistent collusion with Russia.”
Dalton is accurately referring to the gathering that took place a day before Comey, the J. Edgar Hoover of our times, was scheduled to brief President-elect Trump on the Steele dossier that was commissioned by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It was decided at the Jan. 5 meeting that Comey wouldn’t tell Trump about all the outlandish allegations Steele taped together, instead limiting the briefing to the salacious “pee tape” fiction.
After doing so, Comey raced to his car and memorialized Trump’s reactions, evidence that even the briefing was designed to further the Obama team’s spying on the incoming president.
Clapper, as he eventually admitted, leaked the briefing to CNN, which gave it license to publish a story saying Trump had been told about the dossier. That led BuzzFeed to publish the entire document, which was exactly the sort of response the Obama White House hoped for in its bid to destroy its successor.
Susan Rice, in a memo that would be hilarious in any other circumstance, wrote a note to the file on the day of Trump’s inauguration about the Jan. 5 meeting, which is why we know how important it was. In her memo, Rice wrote that Obama reminded Comey that the FBI should do everything “by the book.”
Why such a memo aimed at protecting Obama would be necessary to write in her last moments in the White House remains a mystery only to those dead-enders who can’t accept the fact that Trump legitimately won the 2016 election despite the unprecedented spying by the incumbent president, his party and the top law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Rice, of course, then a top aide to Obama, is now a top aide to Biden. Accountability for thee, but not for me.
Within months, it fell to Robert Mueller to finish the job of dethroning Trump, but after two years of squeezing the president’s associates and numerous instances of prosecutorial abuse, Mueller had to concede he couldn’t prove collusion with Russia. Many Democrats, in and out of the media, who had applauded his appointment suddenly decided they didn’t trust his findings.
Lately, there has been an effort at the New York Times and others who swallowed and spread the Russia fable to argue that the case against Trump was strong. To this day, Pelosi still says that with Trump, “all roads lead to Putin.”
None of this history is meant to excuse Trump’s conduct in the waning days of his term, including the enormous pressure he put on Vice President Mike Pence to reject unfavorable results from several states. Trump, though, appears to genuinely believed the election was stolen.
Yet that belief did not justify his pressuring Pence and Justice Department officials, nor did it justify the too-hot speech he gave to the crowd on Jan. 6, or his late, reluctant video urging those storming the Capitol to retreat and go home.
Even now, Trump continues to make claims the 2020 election was stolen. As Biden emphasized Thursday, no court, including the Supreme Court, found enough evidence of fraud to conclude the results are not legitimate.
Although I don’t share the concern that Trump’s claims about 2020 are a threat to the nation — after all, Dems and their media mouthpieces made similar claims about 2016, and many still do — I believe Trump is further damaging his legacy. Perhaps more important, he is squandering a chance to unite all those who see Biden’s presidency as a disaster for America and the entire free world.
By seeming to make his allegations about 2020 a litmus test, the former president is limiting his prospective candidacy to like-minded voters. Similarly, many Republicans up and down the ballot are being held to the same litmus test to get his endorsement, which could tie their fates to a charge that can never be proven and that most voters in key states do not accept.
One of the oddities of our angry, scorched-earth era is that both parties have helped elect their opponents by going to extremes.
Trump defeated Clinton because of the excesses of the Obama administration, which she promised to double down on. And Biden beat Trump despite the incumbent’s policy success because enough voters tired of the president’s personality.
If that pattern holds, both this year’s midterms and the 2024 election will go to the party that plays to the middle instead of just its hard-core base. So far, neither side looks like it wants to win.
As congressional Democrats struggle to breathe new life into their stalled legislative agenda, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this week told “VIP” donors on a leaked private phone call that all party members need to brag about the House-passed version of the Build Back Better bill even as she cautioned her colleagues not to describe the multitrillion-dollar spending measure’s impact as too sweeping.
“So, this is transformative. But people tell me, don’t use the word ‘transformative.’ Just say it lowers costs,” she told supporters on the call. “It lowers costs for health care — costs for families across America; it lowers cost of child care; it enables so much more to happen. So, we're very, very proud of the legislation. Now we just have to get it passed.”
It’s a message that Democratic leaders have been unsuccessfully pushing for months amid Senate gridlock on the “human infrastructure” bill they view as companion legislation to the $1.2 trillion traditional infrastructure measure enacted in November.
Recent polls, however, show that the flagging economy is the top priority for the majority of Americans who worry that Slidin' Biden’s agenda will continue stoking inflation – one of the main reasons why key Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin opposes Build Back Better. A CNBC Change Research survey released this week found that a whopping 73% of voters believe the economy is in “poor” or “not so good shape,” and 60% disapprove of Slidin' Biden’s economic record.
In light of those numbers, there’s little wonder why some Democrats in tough election battles this year aren’t heeding Pelosi’s call to sing the praises of progressives’ vast social spending measure. With the party facing serious headwinds in the November midterms, five Democratic House challengers have been noticeably mum about their position on BBB, failing to publicly tout Biden’s top legislative priority, with no mentions of it on their otherwise active social media sites.
The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs than expected in December, the Labor Department said Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls grew by 199,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That compared with the Dow Jones estimate of 422,000 for the payrolls number.
Stock market futures edged lower after the report.
“The new year is off to a rocky start,” wrote Nick Bunker, economic research director at job placement site Indeed. “These less than stellar numbers were recorded before the omicron variant started to spread significantly in the United States.”
Rents are likely to continue to rise throughout 2022.
Rental prices skyrocketed over the last year. For example, the rental cost for an average one-bedroom apartment has increased by more than 20% year over year.
Brian Carberry, the senior managing editor of Rent.com, said that he expects prices to continue increasing in the coming months.
Car prices could remain high for another two years as dealerships continue to struggle to maintain their inventory of used and new cars, dealers said.
"We have to charge more money for the cars because we're paying more money for the cars," John Bodmann, a product specialist with McGrath Volvo Cars of Fort Myers said.
The price of used cars and trucks rose 31.4% over the past year, while new vehicles climbed 11.1%, the latest Consumer Price Index showed. The car dealers said they estimated that prices would continue to be high for the next one to two years.
Clueless Kamala Harris has now lost at least seven aides since her disastrous southern border trip on June 25 after her director of press operations Peter Velz confirmed Wednesday he is leaving his role with the White House.
Velz's announcement comes in the midst of a staff exodus following reports the vice president is a 'bully' who facilitates a toxic work environment and other reports indicate tensions between the president's staff and Harris'
Slidin' Biden's oft-repeated ignorant belief that COVID-19 remains a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" is running headlong into global data on the real-world performance of vaccines against the Omicron variant, which the CDC estimates now accounts for 19 in 20 U.S. infections.
A new study by Ontario, Canada's public health agency and health researchers at Canadian universities found that two-dose mRNA vaccines are "not protective against" the new variant, while the booster shot only improves effectiveness to 37% seven or more days later.
"The European Court of Human Rights said on Thursday it will not hear a high-profile discrimination case involving pro-gay-marriage cakes and cartoon characters.
The court ruled it does not find the case involving activist Gareth Lee and the Ashers Baking Co. admissible. Gareth's order for a cake was refused by the company because it would have had Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie and the phrase "Support Gay Marriage" on it.
"The supreme court found on the facts of the case that the applicant was not treated differently on account of his real or perceived sexual orientation, but rather that the refusal to supply the cake was because of the defendants' religious objection to gay marriage," the court wrote in its decision. "What was principally at issue, therefore, was not the effect on the applicant's private life or his freedom to hold or express his opinions or beliefs, but rather whether Ashers bakery was required to produce a cake expressing the applicant's political support for gay marriage."
this is great
now, there is global right to not make gay cakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President Slidin' Biden won the White House promising to resolve the Covid crisis, and prematurely declared victory on July 4th so he could shift attention to his Build Back Better boondoggle. As America’s Covid deaths in his first year exceeded those in President Trump’s last year, liberals are eager to blame conservatives for refusing to “follow the science.” Biden has framed vaccination as self-evident patriotic duty — rather than a personal choice based on risk tolerance and individual circumstances — giving liberals another excuse to feel morally superior.
Today’s Supreme Court hearing on vaccine mandates for large companies and health care facilities provides an opportunity to give Americans the responsibility to make their own heath care decisions. As President Obama opposed health insurance mandates before he was for them, Slidin' Biden once opposed vaccine mandates. Slidin' Biden’s employer mandate in September conveniently allowed him to demonstrate executive action. His approval ratings had dropped to their then-lowest levels, thanks to the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan and rise in covid cases.
A majority of Democrats and Independents supported the mandate, while over two-thirds of Republicans opposed it, but he wasn’t getting the latter’s votes anyway. He probably thought the surge would end on its own, and assumed he’d get credit for taking aggressive, albeit superfluous, action. Slidin' Biden undercut his messaging by snapping he was “losing patience” with the unvaccinated, especially since many vaccinated understand their concerns, support religious, medical, and testing exemptions required by the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and do not want them fired.
Even before rules were promulgated, the announcement gave companies an excuse to require vaccines. Though the EEOC, beginning under Trump, advised companies they could mandate vaccination, many feared losing employees in a tight labor market and hid behind Biden’s announcement. Some health care facilities reported difficulty maintaining staffing levels due to turnover caused by the mandates and reduced services.
States have broad police powers they can invoke in emergencies. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1905 case of Jacobson vs. Massachusetts that states can mandate vaccines, but federalism allows states powers denied to Biden. Courts and legislators have curtailed emergency powers the longer the pandemic lasts, as governments have time to enact policies through normal legislative processes. Over half of the states passed laws limiting public health authority. After giving Biden time to pass legislation, the Supreme Court struck down the CDC's ban on evictions started under Trump. Several states have challenged Biden’s mandates in court or banned them via laws and executive orders.
Slidin' Biden relies on an expansive interpretation of public health authority to justify mandates. When OSHA issued an emergency covid rule in June concerning health care workers, it had previously lost in court five out of nine times it offered emergency standards. The last time it used this emergency authority was 1983. OHSA has to show “employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful.” “Substance” has generally been interpreted as a chemical; a court ruled in 1985 that OSHA can define “grave danger,” but today's court should worry that gives the agency too much power. Challengers to the health care mandate can cite the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act ruling that the Department of Health and Human Services cannot use funding to “coerce” states to expand Medicaid.
Slidin' Biden’s obsession with vaccines and masks causes him to neglect tests and treatments, seeing them as distractions that will be rendered obsolete by universal vaccination. Vice President Harris admitted they did not anticipate and prepare for more transmissible Delta and Omicron variants. The CDC in June said vaccinated individuals no longer needed to be tested, and the administration failed to approve tests available in Europe. The mixed messaging and uneven demand caused Abbott Laboratories to lay off workers, cancel supplier contracts, and destroy millions of tests. Slidin' Biden’s mandate that unvaccinated employees be tested weekly creates even more unmet demand. While America has led other nations in developing and securing vaccines, the U.K. and Germany have done a better job providing rapid tests.
Slidin' Biden belatedly credited Trump for vaccine development, but has not learned the lessons of his public-private partnership. Operation Warp Speed paid vaccine companies to scale up manufacturing during FDA’s review, ensuring adequate supplies upon approval. Biden failed to do the same with tests and treatments. Though Slidin' Biden signed purchase agreements with Merck and Pfizer for treatments, relatively few doses will be available in coming weeks.
Slidin' Biden should be giving Americans options for managing the Omicron surge and creating confidence among the vaccinated. He instead defines success in case numbers rather than more pertinent measures like serious cases, mortality, and hospital capacity, undervaluing the loss of freedom, privacy, and normalcy. Overpromising and underdelivering leave the vaccinated disappointed when confronted with breakthrough infections and calls for boosters, masks, and quarantines, and cause the unvaccinated to wonder why they should bother getting shots. Both groups suffer from covid fatigue and increasingly tune out experts. Biden’s top-down approach and repeated cycle of failed promises feed increasing polarization and decreasing trust.
Mindlessly chanting “follow the science” seeks to delegitimize conservatives without considering the merits of their arguments. “Follow the science” did not apply when Democrats questioned vaccines, and public health experts advocated delaying their approval while Trump was in office. “Follow the science” does not apply when serious researchers explore whether herd immunity is a workable strategy, risk-based approaches should differ by age and other demographics, or the costs of eradicating covid exceed the benefit beyond making it endemic and largely survivable.
Slidin' Biden’s strident rhetoric castigates mandate opponents as opposing science and favoring Covid. He seems more interested in browbeating than persuading the unvaccinated, and ignores the reasonable pro-vaccine, anti-mandate, and anti-school closures position that worked for Glenn Youngkin. One can believe in vaccines’ efficacy without believing them panaceas. Biden should follow the science and adopt a more holistic approach, as his vaccine idolatry is not working.
Pope Francis has sent an encouraging letter to an American nun thanking her for her 50 years of ministry to LGBTQ Catholics, more than two decades after she was investigated and censured by the Vatican for her work.
In his letter dated Dec. 10, Francis wrote that Sister Jeannine Gramick has not been afraid of “closeness” and without condemning anyone had the “tenderness” of a sister and a mother. “Thank you, Sister Jeannine, for all your closeness, compassion and tenderness,” he wrote.
He also noted her “suffering ... without condemning anyone.”
Gramick, who lives just outside of Washington, D.C., in Mount Rainier, Md., said that the letter felt like it was “from a friend.”
“Of course, I was overjoyed,” she said. “It felt like a turning point in the church, because for so long, this ministry has been maligned and in the shadows.”
For decades, Gramick and her New Ways Ministry co-founder, the late Rev. Robert Nugent, were considered controversial by some church leaders for the workshops they did about the science and theology around LGBTQ topics. Gramick said she would not provide her opinion, but she would present the Catholic Church’s teaching, as well as doctrinal positions from more moderate and liberal theologians.
Gramick said she was under scrutiny from the Vatican for about 20 years before officials issued a declaration that she would be barred from ministry.
“The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church,” the 1999 statement from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said.
Gramick later transferred to another religious order to keep doing her work.
A spokesman for the Vatican did not respond immediately Friday to a message seeking to confirm the authenticity of the pope’s letter to Gramick. The letter, first published on Friday in the Catholic publication America magazine, is the latest in a series of several letters the pontiff has written this year to gay Catholics and others who are serving and advocating for LGBTQ people.
In December, a Vatican official apologized to New Ways Ministry for having pulled a reference to it on the Vatican website, drawing praise from the group as a rare and “historic” apology and for restoring the reference. New Ways revealed that Pope Francis had written them two letters earlier in 2021 praising their ministry. In those letters, Francis noted Gramick’s work, that he knew “how much she has suffered,” describing her as “a valiant woman who makes her decisions in prayer.”
The Rev. James Martin, a New York City-based priest known for his ministry affirming LGBTQ Catholics, said he has received a few letters from Pope Francis but made one of them public in July 2021. Gramick’s letter, he said, is significant because she has been censured by the Vatican.
“For most LGBTQ Catholics, Sister Jeannine is a real hero, so they’ll be delighted. They’ll rightly see this as one of Pope Francis’s steps forward,” Martin said. “He doesn’t change church teaching on this but take steps … added up, all the steps, we’ve come a long way.”
Gramick said official investigations came after the late Cardinal James Hickey, the former archbishop of Washington, wrote to the Vatican asking officials to pressure Gramick and Nugent to stop their ministry. An investigation was launched in 1988 and in 1999, the Vatican issued its censure.
“It was devastating,” she said. “What can I say? It didn’t feel good.”
A spokeswoman for the archdiocese of Washington did not immediately return a request for comment on the letter.
Gramick said she and others from New Ways Ministries met with Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, in October and told them about the letters Pope Francis had sent the ministry. “Sounds like you’re pen pals,” Gregory told them, according to Gramick...
A North Carolina woman who brought her 14-year-old son into the U.S. Capitol during last year's riot was sentenced Friday to three months imprisonment.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she finds it “very hard to comprehend” why Virginia Marie Spencer and her husband took their child into the building during a violent insurrection. Spencer's husband, Christopher Raphael Spencer, also was arrested. He has pleaded not guilty to riot-related charges.
“It must have been a traumatic experience to witness this kind of violence,” the judge said. “It’s a complete lack of judgment on your part.”
Spencer must report to prison to begin serving her 90-day sentence by Feb. 25. The judge also sentenced her to three years of probation.
Spencer and her husband pressed forward toward the Capitol building with their 14-year-old son “in tow” despite seeing police shooting tear gas on the crowd, a federal prosecutor wrote in a court filing. The Spencers joined other rioters who overwhelmed a line of police officers, invaded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite and demanded entry to the House chamber, the filing says.
Virginia Spencer pleaded guilty in September to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of 6 months imprisonment.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of three months of incarceration, three years of probation and $500 for restitution. Her defense attorney, Allen Orenberg, asked for a sentence of one year of probation with community service.
More than 700 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Over 170 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor charges. Spencer was at least the 75th riot defendant to be sentenced.
Spencer, a mother of five from Pilot Mountain who works as a restaurant cashier, was arrested in Durham, North Carolina, in February.
On Jan. 6, 2021, the Spencers and their son walked to the Capitol behind a group of members of the far-right Proud Boys. The couple briefly stopped to scream profanities at a counter-protester, according to prosecutors.
Inside the Capitol, Christopher Spencer filmed a Facebook Live video as he and his wife briefly entered Pelosi's office suite, prosecutors said.
“Of note, Speaker Pelosi had staff members who were trapped inside that suite as the rioters called for Speaker Pelosi steps away from them,” a prosecutor wrote.
Virginia Spencer later joined a group of rioters who were chanting “Stop the steal!” and “Break it down!” outside the House Chamber door, although prosecutors say she wasn't vocal or at the front of that crowd.
The Spencers spent more than 30 minutes inside the Capitol before leaving.
Spencer's lawyer says she "ate up" media coverage of protests that erupted across the country in the summer of 2020 after a white police officer killed a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.
“After months of watching our major cities burn, many people became convinced that vocal displays of outrage in the form of protesting was the only way to make their voices heard,” Orenberg wrote in a court filing.
Spencer also believed Donald Trump's lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, her attorney said.
“Mrs. Spencer did not come to Washington, D.C., with the intention of subverting democracy,” Orenberg wrote. She came “to peacefully protest what she believed at that time to be a fraudulent election.”
A prosecutor said Virginia Spencer “felt she was embarking on a noble endeavor as a representative of the citizenry."
“She could not have been more wrong,” the prosecutor wrote.
Reigning "Jeopardy!" champion Amy Schneider has achieved yet another milestone during her historic run on the trivia game show.
Friday's episode saw Schneider, 42, score her 28th consecutive win and earn $42,000, bringing her total winnings to to $1,019,001 – making her the fourth "Jeopardy!" contestant and first woman to win over $1 million in regular season play.
Schneider is currently the fourth-highest-earning winner in regular season play, behind legends Matt Amodio ($1,518,601), James Holzhauer ($2,462,216) and Ken Jennings ($2,520,700)
“It feels amazing, it feels strange,” Schneider said. “It’s not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name."
Though this week ended on a high note for Schneider, it got off to a rocky start. The contestant revealed on Twitter Monday that she was feeling "fine" after getting robbed of her ID, credit cards and phone on Sunday.
"I then couldn't really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything," she added.
Oakland police said in a statement they were still investigating the armed robbery that occurred Sunday afternoon and had not yet made any arrests.
The game show issued a statement saying, “We were deeply saddened to hear about this incident, and we reached out to Amy privately to offer our help in any capacity.”
The engineering manager from Oakland, California, became the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for a spot in the next tournament of top winners after just five wins earlier this year. She's since opened up about the value of on-screen representation.
"I am so incredibly grateful," she said in a recent interview with San Francisco station KGO-TV. "Hopefully I can send a positive message to the nerdy trans girl who wants to be on the show too."
GLAAD's Director of Transgender Representation Nick Adams celebrated Schneider passing the $1 million mark on the show in a statement Friday.
"Amy Schneider's incredible run on Jeopardy! allows families all over the country to get to know her as someone who is great at word puzzles, has in-depth knowledge on a range of topics, and who also happens to be a transgender woman," Adams said. "Amy is using her history-making appearances and new platform to raise awareness of transgender issues and share a bit of her personal story too."
Of the "Jeopardy!" contestant greats, Schneider said she'd like to beat Holzhauer, who won 32 games in a row in 2019, nabbed a total of $2,962,216 in prize money and holds the show record for single-game winnings with $131,127.
Schneider addressed transphobic comments she's received since appearing on "Jeopardy!" in a tweet on New Year's Eve.
"I’d like to thank all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man," she wrote. "Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind."
“He doesn’t change church teaching on this"
most important thing to remember
to adhere to Christian teachings, Christian should minister to gays without changing their commitment to scriptural principles
"A North Carolina woman who brought her 14-year-old son into the U.S. Capitol during last year's riot was sentenced Friday to three months imprisonment.
Spencer must report to prison to begin serving her 90-day sentence by Feb. 25. The judge also sentenced her to three years of probation."
the sentence seems appropriate, compared some of the others that have been handed out
""Reigning "Jeopardy!" champion Amy Schneider has achieved yet another milestone during her historic run on the trivia game show.
Friday's episode saw Schneider, 42, score her 28th consecutive win and earn $42,000,
"Schneider addressed transphobic comments she's received since appearing on "Jeopardy!" in a tweet on New Year's Eve.
"I’d like to thank all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man," she wrote. "Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind.""
actually, Schneider is guy
so, there is still a dearth of biological females among the big winner lists
not really that important though
he has an impressive base of knowledge
and I didn't know it was a guy until it came out in the media
one thing that dims the achievement, however, is that this is the third long-run winner since Alex Trebek died
you wonder if something has been fixed to rev up ratings during an uncertain period
he (or she, depending on your perspective) also seems to get a lot if fairly easy clues, especially daily doubles
does the left-had buzzer just work faster?
"actually, Schneider is guy"
The first recognized million dollar female Jeopardy champion, Amy Schneider, thanks you along with "all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man," she wrote. "Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind."
"a lot if fairly easy clues, especially daily doubles
does the left-had buzzer just work faster?"
Oh my, look at the lying GOPer trying to start a clever conspiracy theory that Jeopardy has changed the game to help one contestant.
Look out, troll, trans women are starting to win all over the place.
"And the category is... Golden Globes history.
On Sunday, Michaela Jaé "Mj" Rodriguez, 31, took home a Golden Globe for best actress in a TV drama for her role as house mother and nurse Blanca on the FX show "Pose." It marks the first time in history a trans actress has won a Golden Globe.
On Sunday, Rodriguez took to Instagram to celebrate her win.
"Wow! You talking about sickening birthday present! Thank you! This is the door that is going to open the door for many more young talented individuals," she wrote on Instagram.
"They will see that it is more than possible. They will see that a young Black Latina girl from Newark, New Jersey who had a dream, to change the minds others would WITH LOVE. LOVE WINS. To my young LGBTQAI babies WE ARE HERE the door is now open now reach the stars!!!!!"
Rodriguez also shouted out her fellow esteemed nominees, that were Uzo Aduba, Jennifer Aniston, Christine Baranski and Elisabeth Moss.
"To the nominees we are Queens," she told them. "I’m so happy to share space with you! Each and every last one of you women are phenomenal.""
"The first recognized million dollar female Jeopardy champion, Amy Schneider, thanks you"
wasn't thanking me
I'm not sure what kind of strange people are writing this guy to tell him he's a guy and I'm not sure any really have
but, I do know I haven't
so "Amy" was thanking someone else
"Oh my, look at the lying GOPer trying to start a clever conspiracy theory that Jeopardy has changed the game to help one contestant."
conspiracy theory?
game shows have been caught doing that to make crowd favorites won in the past
so speculating, which is not a conspiracy theory, is not out-of-bounds
Jeopardy is a reality show entertainment and, similar to sports, part of the fun is trying to surmise explanations for the results
as I said, Schneider's breadth of knowledge is impressive but she/he also gets most of the daily doubles, and they are sometime simple
as are many questions where the others fail to buzz in first
"Look out, troll, trans women are starting to win all over the place."
well, creepy goblin, if by "winning", you mean have the support of the media elite...
yeah, they had a biiiiiiiig victory at the prestigious GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS!!!!!!!!!!
LOL!!!!
"Senator" Bernie Sanders has called on Democrats to make “a major course correction” that focuses on fighting for America’s working class and standing up to “powerful corporate interests” because the Democrats’ legislative agenda is stalled and their party faces tough prospects in this November’s elections.
The White House zees his comments as a shot across the bow by the left wing of a party increasingly frustrated at how centrist Democrats have managed to scupper or delay huge chunks of Biden’s domestic policy plans.
Sanders called on Joe Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to push to hold votes on individual bills that would be a boon to working families, citing extending the child tax credit, cutting prescription drug prices and raising the federal hourly minimum wage to $15.
Such votes would be good policy and good politics, the Vermont senator insisted, saying they would show the Democrats battling for the working class while highlighting Republican opposition to hugely popular policies.
“It is no great secret that the Republican party is winning more and more support from working people,” Sanders said. “It’s because in too many ways the Democratic party has turned its back on the working class.”
Sanders is a popular figure on the left of the party, and with Republicans who know he makes their task so much easier.
His comments appear to reflect a growing discontent and concern with the Biden administration’s direction. “I think it’s absolutely important that we do a major course correction,” Sanders continued. “It’s important that we have the guts to take on the very powerful corporate interests that have an unbelievably powerful hold on the economy of this country.”
The individual bills that Sanders favors will not attract the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, and a defeat on them would embarrass the Democrats.
Donald Trump cannot be sued over his fiery speech before the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol because he was acting within the scope of his official presidential duties.
Trump's lawyer, Jesse Binnall, pointed out, during a court hearing, that Trump was "immune," or shielded, from three lawsuits by Democratic members of Congress and two police officers.
"Executive immunity must be broad," Binnall said.
The dubious lawsuits, filed by plaintiffs including Democratic U.S. representatives Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler, argue that Trump is liable for injuries to police and lawmakers.
Looming large in the case is a Supreme Court case from 1982 holding that presidents are immune from lawsuits over their official acts.
During a five-hour court hearing, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in the District of Columbia pressed lawyers for the plaintiffs about presidential immunity.
During a five-hour court hearing, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in the District of Columbia pressed lawyers for both sides about the limits of this presidential immunity.
Plaintiffs lawyer Joseph Sellers countered that Trump's speech was a campaign event, not an official act and said it was "inconceivable" that the Supreme Court intended to shield presidents from lawsuits over this sort of conduct.
"There is no legitimate role for fomenting an insurrection aimed at Congress," Sellers said.
The Democratic lawmakers have invoked an 1871 law passed to fight the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan that prohibits political intimidation.
The lawsuits charge that the Capitol attack was a direct consequence of Trump's actions, including the speech to thousands of supporters who then stormed the building to try to overturn President Joe Biden's election.
Mehta did not issue a ruling on Monday, saying during the hearing that the litigation raises difficult legal questions.
"If there is one thing this hearing has shown it's that this is not an easy case," Mehta said.
At one point, Mehta questioned whether Trump's remarks in the aftermath of the Capitol siege were intended to encourage rioters.
"What do I do about the fact the president didn’t denounce the conduct immediately?” Mehta said to Binnall.
“Isn’t that, from a plausibility standpoint, enough to at least plausibly infer that the president agreed with the conduct of the people that were inside the Capitol that day?"
Binnall replied: “The president cannot be subject to judicial action for any sort of damages for failing to do something.”
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and acquitted by the Senate on a charge of inciting the riot, which is also under investigation by a House select committee.
Swalwell's lawsuit includes similar claims against Trump allies who also spoke at the Jan. 6 rally, including campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr., and Republican congressman Mo Brooks.
Brooks, representing himself during the hearing, asked Mehta to dismiss Swalwell's claims against him.
Brooks argued his remarks at the Jan. 6 rally were within the scope of his duties as a House member. A law called the Westfall Act protects federal employees from being sued for actions taken as part of their jobs.
Trump and his co-defendants have argued that their remarks preceding the Jan. 6 attack were political speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The two Capitol Police officers who sued Trump are James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby.
Terry McAuliffe lost Virginia when he said parents have no right to question schools' decisions
Dems will lose in 2022 and 2024 because Biden's administration has categorized parents who protest at school board meetings as terrorists:
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona solicited the much-criticized letter from the National School Boards Association that compared protesting parents to domestic terrorists.
An email exchange indicates Cardona was more involved with the letter's creation than previously known.
President Biden's Department of Justice relied on the NSBA letter, which suggested using the PATRIOT Act against parents, in creating its own memo directing the FBI to mobilize in support of local education officials.
In the Oct. 5 email, NSBA Secretary-Treasurer Kristi Swett recounted that NSBA interim CEO Chip Slaven "told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona."
Previous emails had revealed that the NSBA was in contact with the White House and Justice Department in the weeks before it publicly sent the letter.
The emails were obtained by the parents group Parents Defending Education in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
"Should this allegation be true, it would reveal that this administration's pretextual war on parents came from the highest levels," PDE President Nicole Neily said.
Inflation plowed ahead at its fastest 12-month pace in nearly 40 years during December, according to a closely watched gauge the Labor Department released Wednesday.
The consumer price index, a metric that measures costs across dozens of items, increased 7%, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a monthly basis, CPI rose 0.5%.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the gauge to increase 0.4% from November.
The annual move was the fastest increase since June 1982 and comes amid a shortage of goods and workers and on the heels of unprecedented cash flowing through the U.S. economy from Congress and the Federal Reserve.
"Inflation plowed ahead at its fastest 12-month pace in nearly 40 years during December, according to a closely watched gauge the Labor Department released Wednesday."
how can you let this go on?
Dems need to convince Biden to resign at once
for the good of the country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The economy created nearly as many jobs in President Joe Biden's first year as were created in Donald Trump's first three years combined.
Earlier this year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy insisted that President Joe Biden's economic policies "have stalled our recovery," adding, "Bidenomics is bad for America." Around the same time, Rep. Jim Banks, the chair of the Republican Study Committee, argued that the White House's economy agenda was sending the economy into a "tailspin."
The quotes came to mind this morning while taking stock of last year's job growth. USA Today reported this morning:
"For all of 2021, the economy added a record 6.4 million jobs, or 537,000 a month, as the nation continued to recover from the unprecedented losses caused by a pandemic-induced recession and shutdowns of 2020."
Headed into 2021, the recent high point for job creation came in Barack Obama's second term. In Republican circles, it's taken as a given that Donald Trump oversaw an economic boom that saved us from Obama-era doldrums, but none of that reflects reality in any way.
In fact, before last year, Americans saw the best annual job growth in the 21st century in 2014, when the economy created over 3 million jobs. The second best came a year later, when the economy created an additional 2.7 million.
Soon after, Trump took office, at which point job growth in the United States slowed down — even before 2020 recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But in 2021, the economic recovery, fueled in part by the Democrats' American Rescue Plan, generated job gains unseen in generations.
Over the course of the first three years of Trump's term, the economy created 6.5 million jobs. This includes all of 2017, 2018, and 2019.
In just 2021, the economy generated 6.4 million, nearly matching the combined total of the Republican's first three years.
Republicans not only predicted economic ruin in Biden's first year, leading GOP officials even spent parts of 2021 blaming the Democratic president for "disastrous" employment data.
Reality, however, is stubborn.
actually, economic health is experiential
people know what they are experiencing
and they don't think Biden has handled the economy well at all
not at all
The betting odds that former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 election have surged in the past year, pushing him into the lead over President Joe Biden — and possible GOP primary challengers.
The political betting “intelligence” site U.S. Bookies has Trump as a 3-1 favorite in 2024, up from the 10-1 odds after he left the White House nearly a year ago.
Biden, meanwhile, has gone from the 4-1 favorite a year ago to second place, with 9-2 odds.
“Donald Trump’s odds to win the 2024 election were noticeably worse than Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris's, but that has since changed after the administration’s first year in office,” a U.S. Bookies spokesperson said. “Since Biden and Harris were inaugurated, Trump surpassed both in the betting markets to become the sole favorite to win in 2024."
Latest poll shows Biden at 35 approve, 54 disapprove:
https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us01122022_regvoter_ubjw88.pdf
So apparently, if you don’t support two voting bills President Joe Biden wants to pass — and if you don’t support ending the Senate filibuster on bills involving voting — you are no better than two of the worst people of the 20th century and one of the worst of the 19th.
“I ask every elected official in America,” Biden said in Atlanta during a passionate and wildly demagogic speech designed to make Twitter blue-checks do a Snoopy dance of joy while embracing an effort with no chance of actual success. “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”
So congratulations to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two Democratic senators who have made it plain they will not vote to kill the filibuster.
By not following him in lockstep, they are no better than the man who turned hoses on peaceful protesters in Birmingham.
They are standing in the schoolhouse door, shouting “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
They are even leading the Confederacy!
And here you thought Donald Trump was mean to Republicans.
As for Biden, the word “hypocrite” would seem to be too gentle to describe his own political gyration here. In his 36 years as a senator, he actively used the filibuster’s powers in nakedly partisan ways he spent much of his speech condemning current Senate Republicans for deploying.
Case in point: the years 2003 and 2004, when Republicans had a majority in the Senate and a president in the White House.
As a 2005 Washington Times editorial noted, “Democrats filibustered 10 circuit-court nominees. … Altogether, there were 20 cloture votes on the 10 circuit-court nominees. Mr. Biden was absent for one. He voted against cloture on 18 of the remaining 19 attempts.”
Yes, I know Democrats believe Republicans are now uniquely monstrous agents of evil while they are advocates for good — so when they used the filibuster to block Republicans, the filibuster was a gloriously moral tool.
In point of fact, according to Repustar, “During the 2019-2020 Congressional term, a record-breaking 328 filibusters were recorded with Democrats in the minority.”
Now, of course, that Republicans are in the minority, any use of the filibuster is evil.
But while Biden spent the speech attacking Republicans and singing of the glories of voting rules expanded on an emergency basis due to a pandemic, its real target were those recalcitrant Democrats who haven’t signed on to his progressive agenda.
He made his frustrations clear when he complained he’d been working quietly for two months talking about voting issues with people in his own party. “I’m tired of being quiet!” declared the least quiet man in American history — the man who blathered so much in the Senate that Barack Obama once wrote a note to an aide that said “Kill me now” when he rose to speak.
Here’s the truth: Biden isn’t mad at Manchin and Sinema because of voting rights. He’s mad because they are the reason he won’t get his multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill through.
"Here’s the truth: Biden isn’t mad at Manchin and Sinema because of voting rights. He’s mad because they are the reason he won’t get his multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill through."
Here’s more truth:
if Manchin hadn't stopped "Build Back Better", already horrid inflation would go into hyperdrive
that's because it concentrates its spending in the next three years and the taxes to cover it over ten years
once inflation gets ingrained, which is already close to happening, it will only be tamed extreme recessionary measures
so, hopefully, Dems are thanking Manchin on the downlow, as the rest of the country is
he's a profile in courage
How to explain why an ultra-experienced politician makes a major speech for a bill that is both doomed to fail and unpopular with voters? Especially when his speech is boycotted by the bill’s chief backers and features one big lie after another — and may not even be in his own partisan interest.
President Joe Biden’s speech in Atlanta on Tuesday raised these questions, although most of the media are unlikely to ask them.
The speech purported to rally support for the Democrats’ legislation to impose federal standards on voting in all 50 states — legislation that has no chance of passing. It doesn’t even seem to have the support of all 50 Senate Democrats, but if it does, it is sure to be the subject of a Republican filibuster.
Biden’s calls for Democrats to abolish filibusters for voting laws are opposed by Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and possibly several others.
At the same time, organizations advocating Biden’s changes pointedly boycotted his Atlanta event. So did Stacey Abrams, the Georgia legislator who claimed, two years before then-President Donald Trump made similar claims, that she had actually won the 2018 Georgia governor's race, which she lost by 54,000 votes.
Abrams, who is running again this year, said she had a scheduling conflict. Obviously, this was a “shocking snub,” as one critic put it, of Biden and also of Vice President Kamala Harris, who accompanied him. But it was not as shocking as the falsehoods in Biden’s speech.
Start with the title of his “Freedom to Vote Act,” which implies that we are not already free to vote. Go on to his peroration: “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”
The implication is that anyone who favors requiring picture ID for voters, a requirement in 35 states that most people support, is on the same side as those who proclaimed “segregation forever” or rebelled against the Union to preserve slavery.
This also passes over the embarrassing fact that George Wallace, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis were all partisan Democrats. Connor, in fact, was Alabama’s Democratic National Committeeman at the time he directed police dogs and fire hoses at peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham in 1963.
Joe Biden campaigned as a practitioner of comity who would bring people back together. Instead, he now accuses those restoring election rules to roughly what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic of being supporters of slavery and segregation, “Jim Crow 2.0” and “voter suppression.”
Actually, none of the state legislatures he is accusing of these sins have proposed any changes to make voting harder than it was in 2019. The idea that these laws suppress “democracy” or “freedom” raises the question of why Sen. and Vice President Biden didn’t do more to change them before 2019.
Biden's stand is also way out of line with public opinion. A recent Echelon Insights poll showed that 47% of voters favor returning to pre-pandemic voting procedures, versus 41% who favor making the pandemic changes permanent.
Those numbers are similar to the current partisan balance and reflect different ways of balancing the worthy goals of assuring access and preventing fraud.
They also reflect differing partisan interests. For most of the 79 years of Joe Biden’s life, most marginal voters have been downscale, transient, and more Democratic than Republican. The rule of thumb was that high turnout helped Democrats.
But that’s no longer clear, as Donald Trump accelerated the preexisting trends of upscale voters toward Democrats and downscale voters toward Republicans.
If anyone has been suppressing votes, they haven’t been doing it very well. The 21st century, with its increasing partisan conflict, has seen rising voter turnout, from 105 million in 2000 to 158 million in 2020.
Turnout has only decreased, compared to four years prior, in the two most recent years when Democratic presidents have run for reelection: 1996 and 2012. It has risen most rapidly when Republican presidents have run for reelection: by 16% in 2004 and again in 2020.
Republican turnout increases reelected George W. Bush in 2004 and came within just 42,000 votes of reelecting Donald Trump. In the latter case, they also unexpectedly produced Republican gains in congressional and state legislative seats.
So the Democrats’ election bill, besides lacking the votes to pass, may not be in their own partisan interest. This makes the big lies in Joe Biden’s Atlanta speech all the more deplorable.
Who are the Democrats going to nominate for President in 2024?
Kamala?
Buttajig?
Merrick Garland: hero against terrorist parents?
Moscow's main man, the Bern?
Hillary? Please, yes, Hillary!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe Sleepy, Slidin' Joe Biden again
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
House Democrats facing an uphill fight to retain control of the lower chamber are finding their mission all the more imperiled by a wave of incumbents who have opted against seeking another term in Congress later this year, a troubling sign of pessimism from those who see an unappealing life in the minority ahead.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) this week became the 26th House Democrat to say he will not seek a new term in office this year. He is the 18th member to say he will quit politics outright, while another eight are running for another office.
Already, more Democrats have called it quits this year than in any cycle since 1996, when 29 members newly in the minority decided not to run again. The same number of Democrats, 29, retired in 1994, the year Republicans reclaimed control of Congress for the first time in four decades.
The exodus may not be over yet. Several Democratic incumbents have not said whether they will seek another term, and others are likely waiting to see the new district lines they would have to run under after the decennial redistricting process concludes.
The departures are a reflection of a deep anxiety over their party’s chances of holding onto power next year. Members who have spent four years in the majority, including the last two under a Democratic president, do not relish life in the powerless minority, when their jobs amount to little more than collecting a paycheck and voting against the majority’s priorities.
“There is a lot of weariness and frustration in the ranks,” said Ian Russell, a former top DCCC official.
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced Senate Democrats’ New Year’s resolution to abolish the filibuster and ram through a partisan federal takeover of election administration, he framed it as an attempt to protect “free and fair elections,” the “foundation of our democracy,” from state governments. In reality, it is the leftist elites and their corporate allies, not the states, that pose the greatest threat to our constitutional system.
Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, but the Democrats’ concerns about election rights are totally baseless. Progressives from all over the country — from President Joe Biden to Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Schumer — claim that Republicans are passing “voter suppression laws” to exclude their political opponents from the vote.
In reality, it is easier to vote in 2022 than it ever has been. Voter registration has been streamlined, and record turnouts show that Americans of all backgrounds are freely exercising their rights.
The left’s proposed reforms would restrict Americans’ freedom, not expand it. Legalizing ballot harvesting, for instance, would present more opportunities for corruption.
More generally, taking election administration powers away from the states and handing them to the federal government would not eliminate the potential for abusing those powers, it would just make it easier for officials in Washington, D.C., to abuse them — and it would further undermine our system of federalism.
In 2020, when election integrity fears swept other parts of the country, the state of Florida conducted its elections with peace, security from interference, and respect for all citizens, all in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. This is proof that with strong leadership, state governments are perfectly capable of holding the responsibility of election administration. Ironically, this year will be the first time that the president’s home state of Delaware allows in-person early voting, whereas Florida has had it for years.
Democrats’ campaign to centralize elections is part of a broader effort to consolidate power in the hands of a leftist elite class. This class wants to use that power to silence and disempower anyone who dissents from their radical progressive agenda.
Case in point: the very same people who said in 2005 that restricting the filibuster would mean losing to “the passions of the moment” and spell “doomsday for democracy” — Biden and Schumer — want to eliminate the rule now that they are in power.
This power grab masquerading as democracy reform is bigger than just what goes on in the Senate. In 2020, leftist politicians closed churches and restricted in-home religious services while they let political protests, and eventually full-scale riots, go unnoticed. In 2021, critical race theory advocates indoctrinated our children and tried to remove parents from our schools. And this year, the Biden administration will begin forcing millions of Americans to get a Covid-19 vaccine to keep their jobs.
In this movement, the political left has been aided by social media giants and mega-corporations. To gain favor with the Marxists in Washington, D.C., Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter censor dissenting voices, labeling unpopular views as “misinformation.” Amazon blacklists conservative authors. And banks that taxpayers bailed out in 2008 cancel accounts based on Orwellian “reputational risk.”
Of course, behind closed doors many of these same companies are in bed with a genocidal regime, the Chinese Communist Party. While they are eager to appear human rights champions, they lobby for trading goods made with slave labor and protect communist propaganda from negative customer reviews. It makes sense that corporations comfortable with totalitarianism abroad would be happy to silence dissent in the United States.
Those of us who are not on board with the progressive agenda should take note. America is still a free nation, and it will take some time before the situation here begins to resemble the dystopia that is communist China. But if it can happen anywhere, it can happen here, and censorship and consolidation of power are two important steps on the road to tyranny.
Americans need to remember where the greatest threats to our democracy really lie. If we focus our attention on exaggerated problems and imaginary fears, rather than the leftist elite power grab unfolding before our very eyes, we do so at our own peril.
The new year hasn't stopped ongoing food shortages.
Shortages at grocery stores across the country have grown more acute in recent weeks as omicron continues to spread and winter storms have piled on to the supply chain struggles and labor shortages.
The shortages being reported nationwide are widespread, impacting produce and meat as well as packaged goods such as cereal.
While items are harder to find, many also cost more with rising inflation.
The consumer price index jumped 7% last year, the fastest pace since 1982, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That's up from 6.8% annually in November, which was also a nearly four-decade high.
Albertsons' CEO Vivek Sankaran spoke about supply chain challenges during the company's earnings call with analysts Tuesday.
"I think as a business, we've all learned to manage it,” Sankaran said. “We've all learned to make sure that the stores are still very presentable, give the consumers as much choice as we can get.”
Curt Covington, senior director of institutional credit at AgAmerica, told USA TODAY that the trends for specific food shortages are intermittent and varied.
“Shortages depend on the item, store, and region of the country,” Covington said. “Shortages can be driven by supply chain issues, consumer behavior, or environmental factors, so it’s hard to pinpoint what will be affected next.
News that U.S. inflation inched up 0.5 percent last month set off another round of excited media reports, as news outlets pounded one of their favorite themes in recent months. Convinced that rising prices are the defining economic issue of the day — not huge job gains, record-setting GDP predictions, or boosted wages — the press continues to portray inflation as a uniquely American problem that’s hounding Democrats.
“President Joe Biden suffered a new blow to his economic agenda this week,” Politico announced, pointing to the new inflation figures. “That prompted the Biden White House to scramble to do damage control in the face of attacks by Republicans.” The Associated Press on Wednesday stressed that inflation is “heaping pressure on President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve to address what has become the biggest threat to the U.S. economy.”
The New York Times: “A troubling development for President Biden.” The Washington Post headline: “Democrats Worry Biden Could Pay the Political Price For Rising Inflation.” (The first person quoted in the piece was a GOP pollster.)
What’s missing from the inflation coverage is the consistent acknowledgement that the trend of rising prices is a global phenomenon, fueled by the pandemic. The Politico report made no mention of worldwide inflation, neither did the Times or Post dispatches; the AP included just one sentence.
Dismissed or downplayed is the fact that systemic, record-setting inflation has taken hold in virtually every major economy:
• “Germany: Annual Inflation Hits Highest Rate Since 1993”
• “Italian Inflation Hits Highest In More Than A Decade On Energy”
• “Mexico Ends Year With Inflation At 7.36%, Most In 20 Years”
• “Russian 2021 Inflation Accelerates To 8.39%, Preliminary Data Shows”
• “Spain's Annual Inflation Jumps To 6.7% At End Of 2021, Highest Since 1989”
• “UK Inflation Hits 10-Year High Ahead Of Key Bank Of England Meeting”
• “Canada's Annual Inflation Rate Matches 18-Year High, Set to Keep Rising”
Thanks to international reporting, we know inflation is on the rise around the world. But news consumers here have to search that information out because it’s rarely included in coverage of the U.S. economy. Most often, domestic inflation is presented in a silo, independent from the global economic trend that has been sparked by a worldwide virus.
Meanwhile, the press eagerly trumpets Republican claims that Biden’s agenda is responsible for inflation, while failing to point out that it wasn’t the infrastructure bill or Covid relief legislation that prompted inflation to jump to 4.7 percent in Canada, 5.1 percent in the U.K and and 6.7 percent in Spain. Inflation is occurring everywhere, so it’s not Biden’s policies that are to blame. The press prefers a more linear narrative, and seems to deliberately leave out the international context. That allows journalists to frame the story as a Dem vs. GOP one, as if policy adjustments from Biden would cure inflation.
Today’s unfortunate economic trend is clearly caused by the pandemic, which warped global supply and demand patterns, creating a mismatch that has driven prices higher. Energy costs and shipping bottlenecks are two major, driving factors. One reason inflation sprouted so quickly in the U.S. is that consumer demand is booming as the economy has recovered from Covid faster and stronger under Biden than most people ever thought possible.
Still, Republicans claim Biden is driving up prices by passing large spending bills. Government spending is bad because it fuels inflation, the GOP claims over and over in the press.
Yet eager Republicans just helped pass a $768 billion Defense budget. When Trump was president, Senate Republicans supported pumping trillions of dollars into the economy in order to battle the effects of the pandemic shutdown. The GOP, with help from the press, is still able to frame inflation as a problem Biden created and must be penalized for. The Post: “Republicans argued the new inflation numbers were another sign that Biden’s policies are not working.”
There’s nothing subtle about what the GOP is doing. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) last year told the Wall Street Journal that rising prices were a “gold mine” for Republicans, suggesting the party hopes consumers will continue to have to pay higher prices this year.
The press trumpets that GOP message. Inflation is a “political nightmare for Biden,” CNN recently stressed. The Associated Press, while conceding that consumer spending is way up, claimed inflation was “casting a pall” and that upward prices, not plummeting unemployment, dominated water cooler talk in the U.S. When weekly jobless claims recently fell to a 52-year low, the New York Times ran yet another excited Biden inflation piece on the following day’s front page. News of the historic jobless numbers ran on page B3.
It was no surprise that a recent AP poll found consumers fixated on inflation: “Income Is Up, But Americans Focus on Inflation.” Why is that? Americans are inundated with the media’s constant inflation coverage, most of which omits the fact the trend is now happening all around the world.
"News that U.S. inflation inched up 0.5 percent last month set off another round of excited media reports, as news outlets pounded one of their favorite themes in recent months. Convinced that rising prices are the defining economic issue of the day"
they reflect the public, who experiences inflation that many have never seen in their lifetime
the voting public considers rising prices the defining economic issue of the day
"not huge job gains,"
the economy was at full employment before the blue states of America sabotaged the economy with unnecessary and draconian lockdowns - so the return to jobs is nothing Biden should get a backslap for
it's like him taking credit for the vaccines he had nothing to do with
"record-setting GDP predictions,"
speculation is not a fact
"or boosted wages"
you do realize wage gains have already been eaten up by inflation, right?
"the press continues to portray inflation as a uniquely American problem that’s hounding Democrats"
Biden and the Dems in Congress are responsible for our problems
Europe has always had higher inflation
their economies are socialist
“President Joe Biden suffered a new blow to his economic agenda this week,” Politico announced, pointing to the new inflation figures. “That prompted the Biden White House to scramble to do damage control”
The Associated Press on Wednesday stressed that inflation is “heaping pressure on President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve to address what has become the biggest threat to the U.S. economy.”
The New York Times: “A troubling development for President Biden.”
The Washington Post headline: “Democrats Worry Biden Could Pay the Political Price For Rising Inflation.”
Even the Times and Post have stopped cheerleading for the lousy Dem management of our economy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has been telling people for the last year that the 2020 election was fair, but this week he did something few other Republicans have dared — tell a national audience that.
Now he wishes more Republicans would join him.
Rounds, who is in his second Senate term, has been telling local newspapers, radio shows and Rotary clubs in South Dakota that he checked out the allegations of election fraud made by former President Donald Trump and, while there were some “irregularities,” they all came up empty of anything that could counter the truth that Trump lost. So, when ABC News' “This Week” asked the senator to appear on its Sunday show to discuss the Jan. 6, 2020, attack on the Capitol, Rounds said his decision was simple: “Well, of course I will.”
But the backlash from speaking was swift. Rounds said he wasn't looking to pick a fight with Trump, but that's exactly what happened. The former president called Rounds a “jerk” in a statement. Rounds stood by what he said, and argued there are many more Republicans like him — and they need to speak up.
“If we want to keep the trust and gain the trust of more individuals that are wondering, we have to probably say it a little bit louder and in more places that many of us normally either aren’t invited to talk or have chosen not to get into the fray,” Rounds told The Associated Press in an interview this week.
Rounds got backup after Trump's attack from several high-profile Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow South Dakotan Sen. John Thune, who has had his own run-ins with Trump. But with the GOP still largely in the former president's grip, it's not clear whether Rounds' defiance represents a slip in that grasp or whether he's a lonely voice in the party.
Republicans have mostly avoided public talk of the deadliest domestic attack on Congress in the nation’s history, calling memorials and inquiries into the insurrection “politicized.” And Trump has clung to the notion that the election was stolen from him. In an interview Tuesday with National Public Radio, the former president said it was an “advantage” for Republicans to keep alleging fraud and that Rounds was “totally wrong.”
Some Republicans have worried that Trump's attacks will wind up hurting the party, depressing turnout by conservatives and damaging them in future elections.
That's a point Rounds made. He wants to move on from Trump's baseless election fraud claims, but not before making it clear that Trump lost — fair and square. He said the party risks losing credibility and voters if Trump is allowed to undermine trust in the democratic process.
“We have to be more aggressive in reassuring conservatives that their vote counts,” Rounds said, adding “to give them reassurance that they can trust us and that we will speak the truth. And even if it’s the hard truth that’s hard to swallow, we’re not going to lie to them.”
Rounds said he agreed that Trump lost and that any irregularities found wouldn't be enough to change the result
that's what I've said since the beginning
it's not the same as saying the election was "fair"
"News that U.S. inflation inched up 0.5 percent last month set off another round of excited media reports, as news outlets pounded one of their favorite themes in recent months."
inched? quite a euphemism for EXPLODED
inflation is setting back the economic health of working families
reinforcing the truth that Dems have deserted their former blue-collar base
meanwhile, TTF is in denial
"job gains"
"record-setting GDP predictions"
"or boosted wages"
Germany: Annual inflation hits highest rate since 1993: The surge in the cost of living by 3.1% in 2021 was largely driven by rising energy prices, supply chain bottlenecks and the end of a temporary VAT cut.
Italian Inflation Hits Highest in More Than a Decade on Energy: Soaring utility bills led the acceleration in price growth
Italy has set aside $4.5 billion to help consumers, businesses"
Mexico ends year with inflation at 7.36%, most in 20 years
Russian 2021 inflation accelerates to 8.39%, preliminary data shows
Spain's annual inflation jumps to 6.7% at end of 2021, highest since 1989
UK inflation hits 10-year high ahead of key Bank of England meeting
Canada's annual inflation rate matches 18-year high, set to keep rising
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Tuesday debunked a Capitol riot conspiracy theory backed by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that’s become increasingly popular in right-wing circles.
“I know this will break some hearts. For a few months, people like Tucker Carlson, MTG, Gaetz, and now Cruz have been ‘just asking questions’ about a man named Ray Epps,” Kinzinger wrote on Twitter, referring to Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Epps was seen on camera on Jan. 5, 2021, urging Donald Trump supporters to go into the U.S. Capitol, one day before the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.
“Some in the crowd chanted ‘fed fed fed,’” Kinzinger noted. “Why? Who knows, maybe they knew he was videoed talking about breaking into the Capitol the day before it was to happen and wanted to create distance?”
Because he wasn’t arrested ― and because he was initially on an FBI “wanted” list and then removed ― Carlson and others have suggested he’s an FBI operative and part of a “false flag” operation at the Capitol.
Cruz ― fresh off an appearance on Carlson’s show critics described as “groveling” to the Fox News host ― used his time during a hearing on Tuesday to ask an FBI official about Epps.
But Kinzinger wrote in a series of tweets that Epp has spoken with the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot and there’s another reason he was removed from the wanted list, never arrested and never charged:
Adam Kinzinger
@AdamKinzinger
·
Jan 11
RAY EPPS THREAD:
1) I know this will break some hearts. For a few months, people like Tucker Carlson, MTG, Gaetz, and now Cruz have been “just asking questions” about a man named Ray Epps.
2) He was on video the day before Jan 6 saying “we’re going INTO the capitol!” The some in the crowd chanted “fed fed fed.” Why? Who knows, maybe they knew he was videoed talking about breaking into the Capitol the day before it was to happen and wanted to create distance?
3) Regardless, he was put on the FBI wanted list, then removed. Because of all of that, the conspiracy that he was an FBI agent has been gospel on the blogs and shows. -side note- this is why we have to address conspiracies not ignore them.
4) He didn’t enter the Capitol on Jan 6, and was removed from the most wanted list because apparently he broke no laws. I’m pretty sure the FBI wouldn’t be dumb enough to put their own agent on a wanted list. Ray Epps has cooperated with the Jan 6 committee and we thank him
5) on the broader issue. Let’s say Ray was an agent (HE IS NOT), the premise is that one agent can gin up a crowd to insurrection. That isn’t saying much about the intelligence of your voters is it Ted? The rioters had formal education, owned businesses etc. they knew.
6) An FBI informant is someone that is paid by or turned by law enforcement as they build broader cases. Informants are usually criminals that turn to save their own butt. An informant is not an agent. But Ted wants you to think it is. RAY is NO informant either.
7) The narrative on Jan 6 has been that it’s first antifa, or patriots who love their country, maybe crisis actors, def false flag operatives, or now FBI agents. Take your pick. Truth is they were rioters incited by lies. And RAY is no fed. Just another misled man.
While it may break hearts, it’s true. So many are misled by so few. Just look up.
Kinzinger also included a statement from a spokesperson for the committee and added a note of his own aimed at Cruz:
Adam Kinzinger
@AdamKinzinger
One more @tedcruz conspiracy down. Ray Epps has conspiracy down. Ray Epps has cooperated and is nothing but a Jan 6 protest attendee, in his own words. Sorry crazies, it ain’t true.
The Supreme Court on Thursday stopped the Biden administration from implementing a vaccine mandate on large businesses.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court knocked down the White House’s proposal that all private businesses of 100 employees or more needed to require vaccinations for COVID-19. The rule had been challenged by states and business groups.
“OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here,” wrote the court.
The rule had been a cornerstone of President Biden’s efforts to rein in the coronavirus by bullying people who remain unvaccinated.
President Slidin' Joe Biden addressed an American public Thursday that dislikes how he’s handled the pandemic, deeply distrusts him and his top health advisers and in its own way is moving on; they now think inflation is a bigger problem than COVID-19, according to new research by NewsNation.
This NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll of 1,000 registered voters, completed this week by Decision Desk HQ, also revealed this: More than half of the country thinks the pandemic will never end.
“What’s going on there is called COVID fatigue,” said Robert L. Murphy, a professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University and the executive director of the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health.
“People are just tired of COVID,” Murphy said. “They’re tired of living with it. They’re tired of the restrictions, they are tired of the problems, and they’re just basically numb to the idea of COVID. Many people have just turned it off.”
Scott Tranter, an adviser for Decision Desk HQ, said the poll suggests, “The population does not have a positive outlook on COVID or the economy and it appears they blame Joe Biden.”
Still, many Americans remain very worried about COVID-19. Nearly 80 percent said the virus concerns them and 78 percent worry about new variants, according to the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll.
But even as Slidin' Biden Thursday morning discussed his administration’s response to the COVID-19 surge, he faces a very skeptical and frustrated public, according to the NewsNation research:
Takeaways from NewsNation’s COVID-19 survey:
Nearly 55 percent of respondents disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic, while 45 percent approve.
Almost 52 percent of voters think the pandemic will never end, while 41 percent believe it will end in six months to a year.
Seven percent think the pandemic is already over.
Americans are more concerned about inflation than COVID-19: 45 percent to 41 percent, respectively.
In addition, the administration has a trust problem. More than 63 percent of respondents trust their doctors and 50 percent trust federal health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food & Drug Administration.
But when asked who they trusted, only 31 percent chose Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease; and 16 percent chose Slidin' Biden, according to the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll.
In addition, only 10 percent trust information from the news media.
Decision Desk HQ conducted the research on behalf of NewsNation this week. The poll of more than 1,000 registered voters had a margin of error of about 3.1 percent.
Slidin' Biden’s approval rating also dropped to 33 percent, his lowest mark yet, in a new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
Despite NewsNation research that shows voters are struggling to envision an end to the pandemic, scientists are seeing signals that the omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S. At that point, cases may start dropping off dramatically, scientists have said.
"when asked who they trusted, only 31 percent chose Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease; and 16 percent chose Slidin' Biden,
In addition, only 10 percent trust information from the news media"
this is amazing
Fauci is more trusted than Biden
Biden is more trusted than the media
the media is more trusted than Congress
and Donald Trump is more trusted than all of them...
President Slidin' Joe Biden mentioned former Alabama Democratic Governor George Wallace in a derogatory manner despite recounting praise he had received from the controversial segregationist decades ago.
During his speech at the Atlanta University Center Consortium in Georgia on Tuesday urging Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, the president referenced the governor who infamously said "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" during his inaugural speech in 1963.
That same year, Wallace also stood at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop Black students from enrolling at the school.
Wallace died in 1998 aged 79.
Slidin' Biden named Wallace as an opposing example to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King while highlighting why elected officials should back the Freedom to Vote Act, which claims to make it easier for people to cast their ballots in elections.
"I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered?" Slidin' Biden said.
"At consequential moments in history, they presented a choice: Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?
"This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy."
However, Slidin' Biden "once bragged about being praised" by Wallace.
In a Detroit Free Press article from 1987 Slidin' Biden, then Senator for Delaware, reminded people that Wallace called him an "outstanding young politician."
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in September 1988 that Slidin' Biden, while campaigning in Alabama that year, "talked of his sympathy for the South, bragged of an award he had received from George Wallace in 1973 and said 'we Delawareans were on the South's side in the Civil War.'"
This is not the first time that Biden has made reference to Wallace to make a point.
In July 2019, Biden compared his then-2020 Election rival Donald Trump as "more George Wallace than George Washington" during a campaign event in California, and again while speaking at an event in Iowa in January 2020.
Trump's campaign team also used Biden's past links to Wallace to criticize him over the remarks. "Hey @JoeBiden, maybe you forgot, but the only person in this race connected to George Wallace is you," the Trump War Room account tweeted.
All but conceding defeat, President Slidin' Joe Biden said Thursday he’s now unsure the Democrats' major elections and voting rights legislation can pass Congress this year. He spoke at the Capitol after a brave Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, dramatically announced her refusal to go along with changing Senate rules to muscle the bill past a filibuster.
Slidin' Biden had come to the Capitol to prod Democratic senators in a closed-door meeting, but he was not optimistic when he emerged. He vowed to keep fighting for the sweeping legislation that advocates say is vital to protecting elections.
“The honest to God answer is I don’t know whether we can get this done," Slidin' Biden said. To the amusement of all, he told reporters, his voice rising, “As long as I’m in the White House, as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting.”
Sinema dashed the bill’s chances minutes earlier, declaring just before Slidin' Biden arrived on Capitol Hill that she could not support a “short sighted” rules change.
She said in a speech on the Senate floor that the answer to divisiveness in the Senate and in the country is not to change filibuster rules so one party, even hers, can pass controversial bills. “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy,” she said.
The moment once again leaves Slidin' Biden empty-handed after a high-profile visit to Congress. Earlier forays did little to advance his other big priority, the “Build Back Better Act” of social and climate change initiatives. Instead, Slidin' Biden returned to the White House with his agenda languishing in Congress and it was clear to everyone that he had no powers of suasion or deal-making.
Slidin' Biden spoke for more than an hour in private with restive Democrats in the Senate, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who also opposes changing Senate rules.
Manchin said in a statement later: “Ending the filibuster would be the easy way out. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation.”
Both senators went to the White House Thursday evening for an additional hour, which the White House later described as “a candid and respectful exchange of views.”
Since taking control of Congress and the White House last year, Democrats have vowed to counteract state laws that ensure voting integrity. But their efforts have stalled in the Senate, where they lack the 51 votes needed to pass the legislation.
For weeks, Sinema and Manchin have been bullied to pressure them to support rules changes that would allow the party to pass their legislation with a simple majority — a step both have long opposed. But even if they allowed the end of the filibuster, the Democrats still have, at most, 48 votes in favor of the legislation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Sinema’s speech an important act of “political courage” that could “save the Senate as an institution."
and with that, the gay agenda has officially concluded
thanks for all the comments over the years!
Pompous perverts, pedophiles, and propagandists don’t sell. Who knew?
CNN saw a sharp decline in viewership the first week of 2022 with a nearly 90% drop both overall and in the critical demographic coveted by advertisers.
Wait, there’s more…
The network averaged just 548,000 viewers during the week of January 3, a precipitous drop to the nearly 2.7 million viewers from the same week in 2021.
But-but-but wasn’t the first week of the year the same week when CNN went all in to turn a mostly peaceful protest against vote fraud into a terrorist insurrection?
Why, yes! Yes, it was!
Looks like no one cared.
CNN didn’t just lose 90 percent of its overall audience. The far-left propaganda outlet lost 86 percent of its viewers in the 25-54 age group, which is the age group that sets advertising rates.
CNN also saw an 86 percent decline in the much-desirable 25-to-54 demographic, with a paltry 113,000 tuned in last week, compared to the 822,000 CNN averaged a year ago.
The network, which was swallowed up by AT&T in its merger with WarnerMedia last year, has been plagued by high-profile scandals – most notably the firing of its top-rated prime time star Chris Cuomo after the anchor was found to be helping his sex-pest brother Andrew try to beat harassment allegations, which led to his resignation as New York’s governor.
On top of Chris Cuomo’s endless scandals, there’s the sexual assault allegation against basement-rated Don Lemon, there’s Jake Tapper’s guy, who’s accused of sex crimes against children, and isn’t there one more? Oh, yeah, the accused pedophile who worked for Chris Cuomo. And let’s not forget that Chris himself admitted to grabbing a woman’s butt.
Here’s the status of CNN’s primetime:
CNN also shed 89 percent of its primetime viewers among its key demographic and 91 percent of viewers ages 18 to 49.
The former television news leader also failed to maintain strong viewership on January 6, something its anchors boasted about the prior year.
In 2021, the network averaged 5.3 million viewers on January 6. This year it failed to reach 1.5 million during any hour of the day despite having special programing marking the anniversary of the riot.
Who would have ever guessed that smug, joyless anchors spewing lies, bigotry, hate, violence, and propaganda would not sell like hotcakes?
And this is not due to some drop in the country’s desire to consume news. On the contrary, Fox News is doing just fine:
While CNN’s ratings declined last week, Fox topped the rankings for its coverage of January 6. It was also the no. 1 ranked cable news network during President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ anniversary remarks.
MSNBC lost 67 percent of its total audience last week, 80 percent of which was among its key demographic.
CNN is left-wing talk radio with pictures, and CNN is failing at that because MSNBC does it a whole lot better with superior production values and appealing anchors.
The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court declared the pandemic of the autocrat must come to an end.
Whether it has been governors or mayors, presidents or admirals, the disturbing aggrandizement of power in a very few ought to trouble any American committed to freedom, especially religious freedom. Thursday’s high-profile ruling enjoining the Slidin' Biden administration’s efforts to federalize the private workforce should put an end to that once and for all.
Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments concerning the "emergency" standard imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) at the insistence of President Slidin' Joe Biden. In its 50-year history, OSHA has only issued such standards ten times. Only one survived legal challenge.
But this mandate was somehow worse. As the Justices noted in their per curiam opinion, "It is telling that OSHA, in its half century of existence, has never before adopted a broad public health regulation of this kind—addressing a threat that is untethered, in any causal sense, from the workplace."
OSHA’s standard makes sweeping pronouncements on matters of public health, which one would expect if that agency were tasked with monitoring the public health. It is not. Rather, President Slidin' Biden, through OSHA is attempting to federalize the American workforce. By use of central planning, he is regulating private business—including religious organizations.
"Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life—simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock," the Justices wrote, "would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization."
President Slidin' Biden’s mandate is authoritarian and offensive to the U.S. Constitution. It violates the Constitution’s commerce clause by regulating parts of the economy reserved to the police powers of the 50 states. It claims authority that it does not have and has not been given by Congress. Worse, it tramples the First Amendment by forcing religious employers to violate their religious mission by forcing their employees to violate theirs.
Separation of powers, federalism, and religious liberty mean precious little if a president can pronounce kingly edicts and demand he be obeyed.
Such an inflexible mandate is also illogical, defying commonsense. The mandate seeks to take emergency action, but OSHA took almost two months to create and issue the "emergency" order—offering no termination date for when the "emergency" will end. It says that the COVID shot is necessary to protect every American worker, but then exempts employers with 99 employees or fewer. OSHA unilaterally declares that COVID-19 poses a risk to every employee in every workplace, while admitting that not every employee in every workplace will face the threat of COVID-19 while at work.
And, perhaps most illogical, OSHA’s draconian rule suggests that the extreme measure is necessary because COVID-19 presents a grave danger to every American employee, but then declares that the 78 percent of those 12+ who are vaccinated face little to no danger at all!
If President Slidin' Biden is so committed to this mandate, the Justices suggest he has a built-in solution: take it to Congress—both houses of which his party controls. The fact that he has not reveals either that he cannot lead even his own political party or he has become drunk on the same drink of raw power we have seen throughout this pandemic.
The thing about autocratic policies is that they eventually always fail. But autocratic lords, lacking the ability to lead by conviction, demand they be obeyed and force their peasants to comply with failed policies even harder expecting different results.
Watch for President Slidin' Biden, already famously out of patience with those who have declined the COVID shot, now loses his patience with the Justices who have reminded him of his rightful place under the Constitution. The president and his far-left allies always default to the autocracy of the administrative state summoned by "a phone and a pen" and threats of "pack the court."
For now, the American work force—including its religious employers—is safe from the unnecessary threat of its government trying to help.
Last year closed out with an annual 7% inflation rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finally announced Wednesday. That price increase, further fueled by a 0.5% increase in December alone, constitutes the highest inflation rate since 1982 when Paul Volcker had to engage in a recession-inducing interest-rate-hike campaign just to crack down on the catastrophic stagflation of the 70s.
To put this into more practical terms, the average U.S. worker earns 26 paychecks a year on a biweekly pay schedule. Inflation in 2021 effectively wiped out nearly two of those 26 paychecks. Suffice it to say, the devastation of inflation is not evenly distributed, and as usual, the data demonstrate the damage is regressive.
Across categories, inflation has disproportionately stung lower-income earners. Whereas the inflation rate of services has held near the 2% benchmark the Fed usually considers normal, the prices of energy, food, and goods have skyrocketed.
Gas prices are up nearly 50% from this point last year, and electricity is up more than 10%. Food is up 6.3% in no small part due to the price of meats, poultry, fish, and eggs — these are often the healthiest protein options for lower-income households — increasing by nearly twice the overall food rate.
The Fed's decade-long zero-interest rate and its radical quantitative easing contributed to this problem. But the ramifications of Joe Biden's fiscal and regulatory policies are also evident in the numbers.
Across industries, the worker shortage is partially caused by Boomers choosing to retire early rather than return to an unsteady job market and by parents stuck balancing onerous school coronavirus protocols and closures forced upon them by teachers unions. Through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Biden administration has also instituted a number of regulations, ranging from biofuel mandates to stricter truck emissions standards that have increased costs and exacerbated shortages, especially as it pertains to food.
Biden also reversed the Trump-era policies in 2019 that allowed us to export more petroleum than we imported for the first time in nearly half a century. Biden nixed the Keystone XL pipeline and suspended a number of oil leases, reminding domestic oil producers they are on the chopping block for his climate agenda. He also suspended sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a victory for an emboldened OPEC-plus. Although his administration has made a recent about-face, urging domestic producers to increase supply, the market remains wary of the regulations his radical advisers will come up with next.
Sure, the pandemic may play a small part in this, but ask yourself why the food shortages never got this bad in 2020. Ask yourself why oil output was actually higher in 2020 than it was last year.
Yes, our current inflation crisis owes something to the post-Great Recession monetary policy, but the pain felt now by the working class is the result of pure Bidenomics.
Watch and hear GOP AZ State Rep. Jake Hoffman refuse to answer question re why he signed phony declaration in 2020 that Arizona electors voted for Trump.
Michigan AG asks feds to investigate fake GOP electors
Seditious conspiracy: 11 Oath Keepers charged in Jan. 6 riot
John Kuczwanski, the 53-year-old Legislative Affairs Director for the State Board of Administration, died on Jan. 6, 2022 after a road rage shooting incident. The other person involved in the incident was taken into custody but subsequently released.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation told Florida Politics that the shooting incident began as an auto accident caused by Kuczwanski that escalated into a road rage shooting between Kuczwanski and another man. Just north of Tallahassee, Kuczwanski’s black BMW reportedly drifted out of its lane and into a white Prius. Both cars then pulled into the parking lot of a Circle K. It is here where events became deadly.
Anonymous sources tell Florida Politics that the driver of the Prius got out of his car and “confronted Kuczwanski about hitting him,” and then returned to his car to wait for law enforcement’s arrival (ostensibly to file a report for insurance purposes). At this point Kuczwanski reportedly rammed his BMW into the Prius’ driver-side door and “began pushing the car sideways in the parking lot.” At this point sources told Florida Politics that Kuczwanski shot a gun at the Prius, at which time the Prius driver, also a gun owner, pulled out a gun and shot Kuczwanski through the windshield. The Prius driver slipped out of the passenger side door and hid, not knowing whether or not Kuczwanski was going to continue shooting.
Kuczwanski was the Republican spokesperson for the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA). Director of Special Projects Dennis Mackee, the man Kuczwanski reported to at the SBA, told the Tallahassee Democrat that while he could not confirm that Kuczwanski was the man killed in the road rage incident, he could speak to his skill at his job. “He was a quiet fellow. Everything in his world was about his family.”
In a tweet, Kuczwanski’s wife reportedly characterized her husband’s death as an “assassination,” though no evidence points to that conclusion. According to multiple Florida news outlets, John Kuczwanski pled no contest to a road rage incident at the exact same intersection back in 2014. According to WCTV:
Arrest papers show a driver complained that a man in a red F150 pick up pointed a gun with a laser site at him while the two were at the intersection of Thomasville and Bannerman Roads.
According to arrest papers, the driver gave deputies the tag number and when they arrived at Kuczwanski’s home just a few miles away, he told deputies the other car had cut him off in traffic.
Arrest papers also say deputies found a gun matching the driver’s description in the console of Koczwanski’s car and arrested him for aggravated assault with a firearm.
Kuczwanski was given probation after that incident. His probation ended in 2018.
"Interesting developments"
not really
but, if you're a progressive, just waking up to the FACT that Americans don't support your agenda and never will, I can understand why you want to talk about
basically, the only time people with your point of view can win an election is win the candidate on the other side is so egregious that people have no choice but to vote for your candidate
you can never win on the issues
I'm sure you're horrified by the FACT that if the presidential election were held today and the candidates were Biden and Trump
Trump would win by a landslide
"John Kuczwanski, the 53-year-old Legislative Affairs Director for the State Board of Administration, died on Jan. 6, 2022 after a road rage shooting incident."
two people got in a fight and one killed the other
over the many millennia of human history it's happened millions of times
In the lead-up to the one-year anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riots last week, the American left worked themselves into a frenzy of manufactured moral panic and indignant outrage. CNN ran an entire special live from the Capitol. The New York Times published an op-ed bizarrely insisting that “every day is January 6 now.” Joe Biden and a host of other elected Democrats gave breathless speeches lamenting how democracy is still “under threat” from anyone who dares support the Republican Party or doesn’t submit to their attempted federal takeover of elections. But while analysis of the left’s alarmist and, at times, absurd statements is certainly warranted, the coverage of the event also underscored one broader observation about the American left that often goes unremarked: today’s liberals are a generally miserable bunch.
Steven Hayward at PowerLine reminded us of this fact late last month. As he detailed, conservatives generally derive greater pleasure and joy from their professional, personal, and spiritual lives by a wide margin. Contrary to the caricature liberals often promote Republicans as bitter, angry, “old white people” with an ax to grind, the data suggests that, in fact, that may be a mere projection.
In the past, left-leaning academics have dismissed this notion by asserting that conservatives’ greater happiness is a byproduct of their willingness to ignore the pain of others.
While this narrative may provide liberals emotional comfort, the facts are less convenient. A recent academic study investigated that conclusion and found far more fantasy than fact underpinning it. This newer study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, noted that “Conservatives score higher than liberals on personality and attitude measures traditionally associated with positive adjustment and mental health, including personal agency, positive outlook, transcendent moral beliefs, and generalized beliefs in fairness.” Translation? A conservative worldview generally leads to a greater likelihood of living a healthy, well-adjusted life.
Furthermore, according to the new study, greater conservative happiness is grounded in “responsibility,” not “ignorance.” Conservatives believe in “the objectivity of moral principles,” and with “clear prescriptions for how to live, people can derive a sense of purpose and meaning in life.” Through a belief in self-reliance and moral clarity, conservatives feel more able to make positive change for themselves, their families, and their communities.
By contrast, the moral ambiguity and emphasis on systems of power that liberals have internalized diminish their ability to derive satisfaction from life. As the study states, “When moral codes lack clarity and promote flexibility, people may come to feel a sense of normlessness (lack of purpose in life) and alienation.” Liberal unhappiness, then, isn’t due to a greater sense of empathy. Instead, the study suggests that the ambiguity and lack of moral clarity with which most liberals perceive the world denies them feelings of power, purpose, and meaning in life.
Other studies seem to back this up. Last month, for example, a poll from Axios revealed that the most intellectually intolerant people in America are young liberals. 71% of young Democrats would not go on a date with someone who voted for a member of the opposite party, compared to only 31% of young Republicans. Over a third of young Democrats would also refuse to shop or work for a business supporting a cause they oppose. Lastly, 37% of Democrats outright refuse to be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to only 5% Republicans. In short, it may be Democrats, not Republicans, who are really guilty of “intolerance.”
The left may be right about one thing – this country does need to find common ground and see past partisan divides. But the “science” shows that an important first step may be the need for the left to pause its systematic assault on the right long enough to look in the mirror and consider who may really be at fault for such divisions.
Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?
Jaime L. Napier, John T. Jost
First Published June 1, 2008 Research Article Find in PubMed
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02124.x
Abstract
In this research, we drew on system-justification theory and the notion that conservative ideology serves a palliative function to explain why conservatives are happier than liberals. Specifically, in three studies using nationally representative data from the United States and nine additional countries, we found that right-wing (vs. left-wing) orientation is indeed associated with greater subjective well-being and that the relation between political orientation and subjective well-being is mediated by the rationalization of inequality. In our third study, we found that increasing economic inequality (as measured by the Gini index) from 1974 to 2004 has exacerbated the happiness gap between liberals and conservatives, apparently because conservatives (more than liberals) possess an ideological buffer against the negative hedonic effects of economic inequality.
Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, believes his party is at a crossroads as the 2022 midterm elections approach. And he says Republican voters need to choose between believing in disproven election fraud conspiracy theories and forging ahead with new leadership that will push the party toward a better place.
“We're either gonna placate and play populism one on one and try to live 10 seconds at a time, or we're gonna put genuine leadership on display,” Duncan, who describes himself as a lifelong conservative, told Yahoo News, scoffing at the notion that the loudest GOP voices are its most influential.
“I don't think [Fox News host] Tucker Carlson or [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz are the leaders of our party. I think that would take us in the wrong direction just from tone alone.”
“It's time to turn the page,” he added. “It's time to move on.”
Duncan, Georgia’s second in command behind Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, catapulted himself into the national spotlight over the last 14 months after going toe-to-toe with former President Donald Trump over Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud. Trump called Duncan “corrupt” and “too dumb” to recognize voter fraud in December 2020 and said he should be “replaced.” But at a time when many Republican leaders backed Trump’s lies or stayed silent, Duncan pushed back.
“When you have a sitting president willing to lie to America and to their party about what the true realities of the election were and willing to stoke the fire and send out incredibly hateful tweets and cause all types of disruptions, including [the Capitol riot on] Jan. 6, to play out, then of course it's gonna take some time to unwind those comments and that kind of ideology,” Duncan said.
Surveys suggest that most Republicans think President Biden cheated to win the 2020 election. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released last week showed that just 9 percent of Trump voters believe Biden won the election “fair and square.”
And Republicans can’t seem to get on the same page when it comes to condemning the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
Last week, on the first anniversary of Jan. 6, Kemp, Duncan and Republican Georgia House Speaker David Ralston allcondemned what Ralston called the “despicable criminal behavior” of pro-Trump rioters. But Carlson, who has promoted conspiracy theories about Jan. 6, took a different approach, mocking Cruz for calling it a “terrorist attack.”
“Every word Ted Cruz uses is used intentionally. He’s a lawyer,” Carlson said on his Fox News program. “He described Jan. 6 as a violent terrorist attack. Of all the things Jan. 6 was, it was definitely not a violent terrorist attack. It wasn’t an insurrection. Was it a riot? Sure. It was not a violent terrorist attack.”
Cruz later appeared on Carlson’s program to apologize for his remarks.
Looking to push the idea of rebranding the Republican Party, Duncan has shifted his focus on building an advocacy organization called GOP 2.0, which he says advocates for putting policy above politics.
“We forgot to be more inclusive and grow the size of the tent, and we forgot to have an encouraging tone,” Duncan said. “That's not some sort of election fraud. That's our fault as a party.”
“That's what GOP 2.0 is in the process of trying to unwind — that damage — and really try to put a safe place to call home for folks like me that are fired-up conservatives,” he added. “I believe in the conservative principles from start to finish. I just don't think I gotta be angry when I do it.”
Duncan has decided not to run for reelection this fall. He says he’s instead looking to connect with Americans all over the country through speeches, media events and a new book. Eventually, though, he hopes to run for elected office again in the future.
“I love the job of lieutenant governor, but I can't have a conversation with America if I'm trying to run for reelection in just Georgia,” he said.
Following twoclose election cycles in Georgia, both Kemp and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will be on the ballot in the Peach State this November. Kemp is also facing a primary challenge from former GOP Sen. David Perdue, who says he would not have certified Biden’s victory in Georgia and has secured Trump’s endorsement.
Duncan says Georgia voters will now decide the trajectory of America — and he hopes they land on the right side of history.
“I think so many people wake up now on both sides of the aisle and kind of think that our best, America's best days are behind us. That's not true. This is America. Our best days are in front of us,” he said. “We're going to be the proving ground for who is right.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said days after the U.S. Capitol riot that then-President Donald Trump had admitted to him that he bore some responsibility for the violence that unfurled among his supporters on Jan. 6 last year.
“I say he has responsibility. He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do,” McCarthy said in a Jan. 12 interview with Bakersfield, California, radio station KERN that CNN’s “K-File” unearthed and released on Friday.
Listen to the audio here.
McCarthy reportedly made a similar claim about Trump taking responsibility for the riot in a Jan. 11 call to Republican lawmakers, per Reuters.
“I asked him personally today if he holds responsibility for what happened, if he feels bad about what happened. He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened,” the top House Republican reportedly said, although he’s since claimed he can’t recall saying it.
The resurfacing of the KERN interview audio is notable, given that Trump has never publicly admitted his role in inciting the storming of the Capitol (for which he was later impeached) and McCarthy has reasserted himself as a key Trump ally and refused to cooperate with the House select committee’s investigation into the riot.
Listen to McCarthy’s full interview on KERN Radio here
DirecTV announced Friday it plans to drop the right-wing media operation OAN (One American News Network) within months, delivering a huge setback to the network that’s been a favorite of former President Donald Trump.
The satellite TV provider notified OAN’s owner, Herring Networks Inc., that it will stop carrying the company’s two channels — OAN and lifestyle channel AWE — when their contract expires in early April, according to Bloomberg, which was the first to report the decision.
The controversial OAN, based in San Diego, relies largely on DirectTV, one of the largest pay-TV providers in America, to deliver its channels to consumers. Without DirecTV, only Verizon FiOS and some small pay-TV providers will carry OAN’s news, according to its website.
“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” DirecTV said in a statement to Bloomberg.
The company, owned by AT&T and TPG, provided no reason. But critics have repeatedly demanded that the company drop OAN because of the false information it promotes, most notably the baseless claim that the 2020 president election was somehow rigged against Trump but also several conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation about COVID-19.
Two OAN correspondents who gushed about the widely disparaged audit of presidential votes in Maricopa County, Arizona, last year, also donated $605,000 to the vote-checking operation, records revealed. Dominion Voting Systems last year sued OAN for $1.6 billion for defamation for allegedly pushing “verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion.”
"2008 was before Trump took over the GOP"
typical deceit from TTFers
the article I cited wasn't from 2008
"Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?"
it's the same reason Americans are happier than North Koreans
belief in the power of freedom versus faith in collectivism
it's not because liberals spend so much time empathizing with the sufferings of the less fortunate
"Georgia lt. gov. dismisses Trump, Carlson and Cruz as GOP leaders"
it's interesting how excited TTFers get if they can just find any obscure individual that agrees them
Trump is clearly more concerned about himself than any political party
Carlson is a video commentator
Cruz has never been a leader, he's a buffoon the liberal media likes to use to further its agenda
"CNN Unearths Audio Of Kevin McCarthy Saying Trump Admitted Responsibility For Riot"
if Trump concedes that his rhetoric may have contributed to the chaos, that's to his credit
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
This quote, from the Rev. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, is probably his best-known utterance. It was surely his most consequential.
Until recently, it formed the nation’s racial conscience, helping all Americans of goodwill aspire to a society where one’s race is an incidental characteristic, not the essential end-all-be-all that determines how one’s life will proceed.
That was the goal, anyway, until the pretend successors to King’s civil rights movement decided to throw his entire career into the dumpster and adopt racial essentialism.
Today, with the rise of the toxic academic ideology known as critical race theory, the idea of a color-blind society, in which people are truly judged by merit and character over skin color, is no longer even a desirable goal.
Indeed, the academic writings of critical race theory explicitly denounce color blindness as a white supremacist ideal that “preserves White privilege” and is “equivalent to emphasizing the plight of Nazis and the plight of White supremacists.”
It would probably come as some surprise to Dr. King that he is a white supremacist, but this is the state of leftist academia today. Unfortunately, academia can no longer be laughed off as it should be, because this toxic sludge has seeped into every corner of the educational establishment.
Having unfortunately infiltrated all levels of public school systems, these toxic ideologues are determined to teach children of all races, much to the detriment of their development, that their race will determine their entire life; that they should elevate or despise others because of their skin color; that entire races of people can be collectively guilty of crimes that no living individual had any part in.
This is the slop being drummed into the minds of today’s teachers, who are in turn being encouraged or required to incorporate such garbage ideas into the lesson plans they teach children as early as kindergarten.
There is only one conclusion to draw here: They have canceled Dr. King.
They have canceled his message of anti-racism and replaced it with their own ugly message of racial essentialism. Black students are being taught that they cannot succeed because they are black. White students are being taught that they are guilty of racism and oppression that not even their parents were alive to witness.
Meanwhile, a vicious lie about “systemic racism” has been elevated to the status of unquestionable truth. American life, it holds, is irredeemably and incurably racist, and this fact is meant to justify the imposition of tyrannical speech codes and deliberate race-based injustices — for example, discrimination against Asians applying to college or against people who need medical care but don’t belong to the correct race.
Today is a good day to reject all of this nonsense — a good day to send the new racists back into their toxic academic waste dumps for good.
Today is a good day to recommit to MLK’s vision of a colorblind society, in which merit and character really are the measure of a man or woman.
King’s vision, especially after his violent death, brought together people of all races. It united an entire generation behind his vision of a society in which we treat people of all races with respect and uphold their rights. This is no time to let crazed ideologues destroy all that progress
Good morning.
After winning more votes than any presidential candidate in US history, Joe Biden is now – just 12 months later – one of the country’s most unpopular presidents.
Much of his domestic agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill, impeded by members of his own party. The virus is once again raging out of control: daily infections of Covid-19 have soared to record levels, hospitalizing more Americans than at any previous point during the pandemic.
The administration’s vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers was blocked by the supreme court’s conservative super-majority. Inflation is at a nearly 40-year high. Diplomatic talks have so far failed to pull Russia back from the brink of war with Ukraine.
How unpopular is he? For months, Biden’s approval ratings have languished in the mid to low 40s, with an average approval rating of 42%. A Quinnipiac poll released last week found him at a dire 33%.
On the eve of his one-year anniversary in office, President Joe Biden finds himself at the lowest polling point of his tenure -- a worrisome omen for Democrats desperately trying to hold onto their House and Senate majorities this fall.
That's according to new poll numbers from Gallup that peg Biden's approval at just 40% with 56% disapproving. It's the lowest measure so far by Gallup and well below his 48.9% polling average over the past year in the organization's surveys.
Those numbers are broadly consistent with CNN's poll of polls, which averages the last four national polls to give a better (and broader) sense of where Biden stands. As of last week, Biden approval in the poll of polls was 42% with 53% disapproving.
The top-line numbers are concerning enough for Biden. But, dig into where Biden has lost support and things are even more worrisome.
That erosion has come primarily from political independents, generally regarded as the swing votes in any election. More than six in ten independents approved of how Biden was handling the job in January 2021. Now that number stands at a paltry 33%
I'm so glad Dems nominated Slidin' Biden for Prezeedent
just imagine if Dems didn't have a senile sleazebag in the White House
they might have actually passed a BBB bill!
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many Americans give President Joe Biden a failing grade for his first year in office, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, that also revealed that 51% disagreed with the statement that "Biden is capable of leading the country."
That's right!
51% say he's incapable of leading the country
About 37% of respondents gave Biden an "F," compared to 31% who gave him either an "A" or a "B" for the past year, Politico reported Wednesday.
Biden received a "C" from 18%, and a "D" from nearly 12%.
Only 2% of respondents offered no grade for Biden's first year.
Politico reported that Biden also ended his first year in office with his lowest approval rating — 40% — compared to 56% disapproval.
Politico reported that Biden’s numbers between men and women were barely distinguishable from one another or from his overall grades.
When respondents were asked about his performance regarding specific issues, Biden was given an "F" by 40% overall for his work in restoring a sense of unity within the country.
Biden also graded out poorly on immigration and the national debt, Politico said.
The most As Biden received on a specific issue was 18% for his handling of COVID-19 last year. Just 3% of Republicans, 20% of independents, and about 37% of Democrats gave Biden a top mark for his pandemic response.
The Politico/Morning Consult poll of 2,005 registered voters was conducted Jan. 15-16, with an overall margin of error of 2 percentage points.
A recent Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey said Biden's overall approval ratings continued a downward slide as he approaches his one-year anniversary in office, and a plurality of respondents believe he has not handled the coronavirus pandemic as well as his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
That's right! not as good as Trump........
According to the survey, conducted Jan. 8-9, 44% of Americans disapprove of Biden's overall performance, while 39% approve, giving him a net -5% approval rating.
Let's hear it for accountability!!! YAY!!!
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former president Donald Trump’s request to block the release of some of his White House records to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The order turned aside Trump’s request to block the records’ release while the case regarding his assertion of executive privilege continues through the courts. It means there is no legal obstacle to release of the materials from the National Archives — which President Biden has approved — and Trump’s lawyers have argued that would make the case moot.
White House spokesman Michael Gwin said the court’s ruling was an “important step forward” in the probe.
“The former President subverted the constitution in an attempt to overturn a lawful and fair election,” Gwin said in a statement Wednesday night. “His actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy, and President Biden has been clear that these events require a full investigation to ensure that what we saw on January 6th can never happen again.”
It was a major victory for the House select committee, which has been aggressive in going after Trump’s records, issuing subpoenas to his allies and focusing on the president’s actions during the insurrection.
“The Supreme Court’s action tonight is a victory for the rule of law and American democracy,” committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in a joint statement. “The Select Committee has already begun to receive records that the former President had hoped to keep hidden. … Our work goes forward to uncover all the facts about the violence of January 6th and its causes.”
The records will be released to the committee, and not the public.
"The former President subverted the constitution in an attempt to overturn a lawful and fair election...His actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy, and President Biden has been clear that these events require a full investigation to ensure that what we saw on January 6th can never happen again.”
whether Trump planned or intended the Capitol trespassing and vandalization has not been established
that the spokesman for his opponent, now the head of government, would make this claim without evidence is outrageous
and a threat to our democracy
as for saying the election results were rigged, Dems so the same all the time
Al Gore claims the Supreme Court stole his victory
Hillary Clinton said Trump colluded with Russia to steal he election from her
that false claim had severely adverse effects on the nation, as three years of national focus on the investigation prevented other progress
Stacy Abrams is still screeching about how the Governor's ace was stolen from her
and the current attempt by Dems to nationalize elections is just building an excuse for the massive defeat they know they will suffer in November 2022
claiming that Georgia's new voting rules are suppressive when they are looser than those of NY, NJ, and Delaware is a Big Lie
"The Supreme Court’s action tonight is a victory for he rule of law and American democracy,"
not really
neither were threatened by the protest that got out of hand because Congress and the DC government didn't adequately plan for the event
"The records will be released to the committee, and not the public."
if any Democrat leaks them, he should face contempt charges
btw, were is the TTF apology to the Supreme Court?
President Joe Biden ends his first year in the White House with a clear majority of Americans for the first time disapproving of his handling of the presidency in the face of an unrelenting pandemic and roaring inflation, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
More Americans disapprove than approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, 56% to 43%. As of now, just 28% of Americans say they want Biden to run for reelection in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats.
Asked on Wednesday at a wide-ranging news conference about his flagging popularity, Biden responded, “I don't believe the polls.”
It’s a stark reversal from early in Biden's presidency.
In July, 59% of Americans said they approved of Biden’s job performance in an AP-NORC poll. His approval rating dipped to 50% by late September in the aftermath of the chaotic and bloody U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid surging coronavirus infections and huge stimulus bills that stoked soaring inflation and the administration’s fitful efforts to push economic, infrastructure and tax policies through Congress.
The latest poll shows that Americans' confidence in Biden's handling of the pandemic — seen as a strength early in his administration — has further eroded as the omicron variant strains the health care system and further exhausts an American electorate that had hoped life would be back to a semblance of normalcy by now.
Former Democratic Labor Secretary Robert Reich became the latest figure on the left to viciously attack Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., over her filibuster stance, suggesting Senate Democrats should assault her for it.
"Tonight, Republican senators lined up to shake Kyrsten Sinema's hand," he wrote in a tweet on Thursday. "Democratic senators should have given her the backs of their hands."
Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined all 50 Senate Republicans on Wednesday in opposing the attempt to alter the Senate filibuster on party lines, resulting in a 48-52 final tally. As predicted, Democrats failed to advance their expansive election overhaul bills over the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Sinema has particularly enraged liberals for her steadfast support for maintaining the filibuster, and Reich's suggestion that Democrats should hit a woman for her stance drew outrage.
National Review's Charles Cooke said Reich's remark was tantamount to saying Sinema "must be slapped around by her party if she fails to follow the demands of a white man."
"No big deal," tweeted radio host Larry O'Connor. "Just Democrat/Socialist icon Robert Reich encouraging violence against a female senator who didn't vote the way he wanted."
Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Wednesday named Angela Sailor, a policy expert at The Heritage Foundation who has criticized school lessons on systemic racism in the U.S., as the state’s new director of diversity, equity and inclusion.
As he named Sailor to the post, Youngkin also issued an executive order to refocus the office, tasking Sailor and her staff to work on economic opportunity, cooperation among religious groups, promoting “free speech and civil discourse” at colleges and universities, and ensuring that the state’s history curriculum is “honest, objective, and complete.”
According to the order, Sailor will also work on “eliminating disparities in prenatal care, and be an ambassador for unborn children.” Youngkin has said he opposes abortion. He supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.
The order offers a look at Youngkin’s plans for the state’s work on racial equity and inclusion. In the executive order, the Youngkin administration says it acknowledges that “too many of our citizens have not received the equal opportunity they deserve,” and that “diversity when genuinely embraced strengthens our Commonwealth.” The executive order doesn’t mention race or any specific racial group.
Within the Cabinet, Sailor’s title will be “chief diversity, opportunity and inclusion officer,” swapping the word “equity” for “opportunity.” Youngkin said he will back legislation to legally change the title of the office.
Former Gov. Ralph Northam created the state’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2019 in the aftermath of the blackface scandal that nearly ended his term. The office has been unstaffed since its former chief and her four staffers, who served at the will of the governor, were not asked to stay in their jobs.
Over the furious dissent of three evil and extreme liberal justices, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected another desperate attempt by abortion providers to block Texas' six-week abortion ban.
The court's order is the latest setback for providers who are trying to revive challenges to the law against killing unborn children, five months after it went into effect, bringing a halt to most baby-killings in the country's second-largest state.
The three evil and extreme liberal justices wrote a sneering dissent.
"This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies," Justice Sonia Sotomayor hissed, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. "I will not stand by silently as a State continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee."
Last month, the Supreme Court allowed the life-saving law to remain in effect. The court's ruling was a devastating blow to the heinous supporters of abortion rights who had hoped the justices would block the law outright, and let the killing of children to resume.
let's see how Biden's week is going:
after decrying Trump's Big Lie all year, Biden now says the legitimacy of the fall elections is in doubt because Congress didn't nationalize the running of elections
then, amazingly, he said the USA would do something if Russia invades Ukraine ... unless it was a "minor excursion"
senility isn't pretty
Dems need to convince him to resign
now!
It wouldn’t be surprising if President Joe Biden felt a strong sense of déjà vu as he marked his first year in office and the D.C. press eagerly writes him off as a failure buried by a mountain of crises, while at the same time erasing his accomplishments. (Record job gains, ending the Forever War.) Reading from GOP talking points, journalists remain in hyperventilation mode, obsessively detailing Biden’s soft polling numbers while loudly — and falsely —claiming he can’t get his key legislative initiatives passed into law.
Biden’s lurking sense of been-here-before would be driven by the fact that as Barack Obama’s vice president, he watched the same media story play out under a different Democratic administration. Hounded by a D.C. press corps that was often obsessed with tagging Obama as a failure, depicting him as overwhelmed and outsmarted by Republicans, and occasionally just losing its mind over relatively minor unfolding stories (remember Ebola and the glitchy Obamacare website?), the press misjudged one of the most successful and popular presidents of the last half century.
Today, the Beltway media remains in groupthink mode (CNN headline: “Is Biden's Presidency Doomed?”), with everyone eagerly hitting the same points regardless of the facts. "For now, virtually none of the groups that fueled Biden’s 2020 victory are happy,” the Associated Press recently reported, despite the fact that polling shows 80-plus percent of Democratic voters approve of Biden’s performance in office.
The Washington Post published a long obituary on Biden’s presidency this week, casting his first year in office as a failure. (“Disarray,” “tensions,” “worry,” “stumbled.”) Left unmentioned in the article’s 43 paragraphs was the fact that a record 6.4 million new jobs have been created since Biden took office, and that the U.S. now enjoys full employment with workers earning all-time high wages.
The Post article indicated that Biden’s polling numbers (“stuck in the low 40s”) were a key part of his presidency. Yet after one year in office, Trump’s approval rating was in the 30s and the press rarely obsessed over it.
Holy shit:
Mitch McConnell: "African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as American voters."
Toni Morrison: "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."
"It wouldn’t be surprising if President Joe Biden felt a strong sense of déjà vu"
when you've lived as long as the oldest President in history, everything seems like deja vu
and, with this guy, everything he says displays his senility
"erasing his accomplishments. (Record job gains,"
please...
job gains were people going back to work because the vaccines developed during Trump's administration allowed it
"ending the Forever War"
this was a process begun by Trump but which was botched in execution by Biden
13 families of Marines grieve the husbands, sons, and brothers who didn't live through Biden's incompetent pull-out
"journalists remain in hyperventilation mode"
so amusing to see Dems new attitude toward the main-stream media, America's least trusted institution
"one of the most successful and popular presidents of the last half century"
LOL!
maybe Michelle Obama should run
you know how well that worked out for the Clintons!
"the U.S. now enjoys full employment with workers earning all-time high wages"
minority unemployment is not as low as in Trump's time
and working class Americans have lost thousands to inflation
but, clueless government workers are doing fine
"Trump’s approval rating was in the 30s and the press rarely obsessed over it."
an amazing level of ignorance
the media followed Trump's approval ratings like a sporting event
"Holy shit:
"Mitch McConnell: "African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as American voters.""
obviously he meant the same as other Americans
no one is going to fall the latest line form the Democraps
"Toni Morrison: "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.""
this is not true
isn't it from a book written in 1970?
I don’t know a better illustration of systemic racism than this:
Prior to a vote to move the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to the Senate floor failed Wednesday, McConnell was asked by a reporter about concerns among voters of color.
“Well the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” McConnell responded.
For McConnell, it simply hasn’t registered, at any deep level, that Americans from Africa are, in fact, simply Americans.
(Adding: I’ll leave it to others to point out that it is because Blacks are, indeed voting that McConnell’s White supremacist party is using every single illegal and immoral tactic they can think of to ensure that Black votes don’t count. )
any rational person knows that McConnell didn't mean that blacks weren't American
here's a better illustration of systemic racism:
mask mandates are more burdensome to blacks than whites because they are more likely to have public-acing jobs
here's another one:
wealthy whites can choose whatever school they think is best for their kids
but because Dems favor teacher unions over the welfare of inner city blacks, they fight to prevent school choice and blacks are forced to send their kids to whatever rundown school the government tells them to
"I’ll leave it to others to point out that it is because Blacks are"
Dem support among blacks is down 20%
and the trend is showing signs of accelerating
Dems haven't done nothing
The Jan. 6 select panel has obtained the draft order and a document titled "Remarks on National Healing." Both are reported here in detail for the first time.
Among the records that Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to shield from Jan. 6 investigators are a draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and a document titled “Remarks on National Healing.”
POLITICO has reviewed both documents. The text of the draft executive order is published here for the first time.
The executive order — which also would have appointed a special counsel to probe the 2020 election — was never issued, and the remarks were never delivered. Together, the two documents point to the wildly divergent perspectives of White House advisers and allies during Trump’s frenetic final weeks in office.
It’s not clear who wrote either document. But the draft executive order is dated Dec. 16, 2020, and is consistent with proposals that lawyer Sidney Powell made to the then-president. On Dec. 18, 2020, Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump administration lawyer Emily Newman, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne met with Trump in the Oval Office.
In that meeting, Powell urged Trump to seize voting machines and to appointher as a special counsel to investigate the election, according to Axios.
A spokesperson for the House’s Jan. 6 select committee confirmed earlier Friday that the panel had received the last of the documents that Trump’s lawyers tried to keep under wraps and later declined to comment for this story on these two documents.
The full text of the never-issued executive order can be read here.
If last week was considered Joe Biden's no-good, very bad week, there's a case to be made that this week was Donald Trump's no-good, even worse week.
Let's look at all of the legal cases and investigations that seem to be pushing forward against Trump despite his best efforts to repel them with lawsuits and delaying tactics. The good news for Trump is that it appears the Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided that all of the obstruction of justice Trump perpetrated in plain sight during the Russia investigation is not worth prosecuting. Unless they make a move very quickly, the statute of limitations is about to run out on that front. So much for Robert Mueller's sanguine pronouncement that we needn't worry about his refusal to recommend indictment because, of course, they could always do it after the president left office.
But that's the only good news on this front that Trump's received in recent days.
The former president is still facing a flurry of legal investigations from New York to Georgia while the evidence is piling up at the January 6th committee and the DOJ. The case that seems to be closest to coming to a head is the civil investigation by New York State Attorney General Leticia James. Last Tuesday, James filed a response to one of Trump's frivolous arguments with a filing and a statement that her office has "uncovered significant evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations on multiple properties to obtain economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions for years."
It's not that anyone's surprised by this. The New York Times exposed the massive tax fraud perpetrated by Trump's father over decades — and Trump learned everything he knows about "business" from his daddy. There have been numerous other journalistic deep dives into Trump's corrupt business practices defrauding customers, investors and insurance companies. The joint investigation by Pro-Publica and WNYC called Trump Inc. and the book by its main producer Andrea Bernstein called "American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power" alone uncovered years of misrepresentations and double-dealing in Trump's real estate businesses in the U.S. and abroad. This family business — as we know from previous cases such as the Trump University fraud case which Trump settled for 25 million dollars when he assumed the presidency and the embarrassing con game they ran called the "Trump Foundation" which turned out to be little more than a slush fund for themselves — has been skirting the edge of criminality for years.
This case by the NY attorney general is the first to take an official look at some of those allegations and it appears that there is plenty of evidence to back them up. For instance, James brought receipts showing that Trump had refinanced the loan on his 40 Wall Street tower in Lower Manhattan by claiming that it was worth $735 million when it was worth less than half of that. The Trump Organization's Aberdeen Golf Club's value was massively inflated based upon lies about how many luxury houses it was planning to build. The AG also claims that Trump gave untrue statements to the IRS, overstating the values of land at two of his golf courses by counting the values of nonexistent mansions for which he then took deductions. I don't know about you, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if any of us tried to do something like that even on a tiny scale we would be in serious criminal trouble.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office has an ongoing criminal investigation based upon the same evidence and there is some coordination between the two offices, a fact which Trump and his offspring are using to argue that they should not have to appear under subpoena. You see, if they wish to avoid incriminating themselves in the criminal case, they would have to take the 5th in the civil case, and unlike criminal cases, that can be used against them.
Just think about that: the former president of the United States and his children, one of whom was a senior white house adviser, are arguing that they will not be able to testify because they might incriminate themselves criminally. You might think they're just trying to delay the proceedings but they must actually be very worried about criminal exposure. According to James, Eric Trump, the only one to testify until now, took the 5th 500 times in his deposition.
The criminal investigation has been much quieter than the New York attorney general's but they have indicted the Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer on unrelated fraud charges and since the case is intertwined with the civil case, one can assume they are operating from the same evidence. It's possible they won't be able to put together criminal charges from what we've seen, but if what James says is true, that means something is terribly wrong with our criminal justice system.
Meanwhile, down in Georgia, the district attorney investigating Trump's attempt to coerce state and local officials into committing voter fraud has requested a special grand jury to hear the case. That's the one where he was recorded calling up the Secretary of State to tell him he would be in legal trouble if he didn't "find" 11,800 votes to put Trump over the top. It looks as though that case isn't going away any time soon either.
Back in DC, Trump's hand-picked Supreme Court betrayed him once again, ruling this week that the National Archives can turn over the records requested by the January 6th committee. (I would be very surprised if lawyers in the White House who were reportedly so concerned about the president's unconstitutional coup planning, did not write notes to the file outlining their objections.) The committee subpoenaed Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and has asked Ivanka Trump to appear voluntarily to tell what she knows about her father sitting on his hands while his supporters sacked the Capitol.
And now we have this story of Giuliani coordinating the use of fraudulent Trump "alternate electors" who actually sent fake documents to the National Archives, which may end up being the most notorious case of voter fraud in history. (It's enough to make your head explode.) Two state attorneys general have referred the case to the Department of Justice and it's hard to imagine that they will not look into this. People are in jail right now for far less.
It's raining bad legal news for Donald Trump. Unfortunately, what this means is that Trump will definitely run for president which he believes will insulate him and his family from legal exposure. Coming from the man who won his election with promises to "lock her up!" that's especially rich, but this is Trump. And if he were to win (or "win") in 2024, he would gain himself four more years in which to run out the clock on all prospective crimes since the DOJ policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Perhaps that's one norm that really deserves to be shattered.
An elections board in a rural county in northeastern Georgia is looking to close six of its seven polling stations for next year’s elections, a move that was made possible by a controversial state law passed earlier this year.
Residents in Lincoln County, Georgia, are speaking out against the proposal. Originally intended to be voted on last week, the county board of elections lacked a quorum and postponed the vote until a later unspecified time.
Some residents have sought to postpone that vote until next month, to allow for public input to be given. At least one official said the vote will occur next week, although it’s unclear when it will happen for sure, as there has been no public notice about it.
If passed, the measure would create just one place for residents to vote in the county seat of Lincolnton, The Augusta Chronicle reported. Although Lincoln County’s population is small at just 7,690 residents, the single voting location in a predominately white area would mean that some residents would have to travel up to 23 miles, making for a 46-mile round trip, just to vote, according to activist and former county school board member Denise Freeman.
Board members say that creating a single place to vote will make things “easier and more accessible,” adding that it will reduce the need to transport voting equipment to multiple sites in the county. But many residents aren’t sold on the idea, arguing that it’s disenfranchising and harmful to the area’s Black population, which makes up about 29 percent of the county’s total.
“This is not about convenience for the citizens,” said Freeman. “This is about control. This is about the good old boys wanting to do what they’ve always done, which is power and control.”
“The citizens are looking at the disenfranchisement of the body of the people that now have to go to a place outside of their area to vote,” said Rev. Chris Johnson, head of the Augusta Interfaith Coalition.
The proposal being considered is a result of a state law passed in Georgia this last spring, Senate Bill 202, which allows state lawmakers to dissolve county boards they view as being unfit. Local boards were dissolved in six counties across Georgia (including Lincoln) under separate bills passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature using the powers that were delegated under SB 202. The newly-formed Lincoln County board agreed with a “consolidation” plan that was offered under the legislation.
Changes to who is appointed to elections boards were also made. In Lincoln County, for example, the new law allowed for its election board to be picked entirely by the county’s Republican-led county board of commissioners. Previously, Democrats and Republicans were given equal apportionment to the election board.
Lincoln County is getting ready to go from many polling stations down to just one.
“We are not trying to suppress any votes, were trying to make it better,” said Walker Norman, chairman of the Lincoln County Commission.
The Lincoln County Commission is in support of the board of elections plan to close all but one voting precinct in the county.
“If I thought it was suppressing anybody’s vote, I’ll be the first one with opposition to it,” said Norman.
“Lincoln County historically votes 60 percent of our people in early election,” he said.
He adds many of the precincts in use are not equipped for citizens to vote, with at least three precincts not meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
“We have seven precincts across the county most of them are inadequate, most of them are concrete buildings with no handicap facilities at all, no central heating and air.
And he scoffed at the idea that people would have problems casting their ballots, saying "99.9 percent of the public today has automobiles" and can get to the central polling location.
Voters also can seek absentee ballots to vote by mail, he said.
The county's election director, Lilvender Bolton, said this week that officials are prepared to arrange rides to the polling place for voters without transportation.
"He adds many of the precincts in use are not equipped for citizens to vote, with at least three precincts not meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
“We have seven precincts across the county most of them are inadequate, most of them are concrete buildings with no handicap facilities at all, no central heating and air."
Funny how these inadequate buildings in the poor areas of the county were never a problem before Democrats won Georgia. Now all of the sudden they are not good enough for people to vote in? And how much air conditioning do you really need in November? Sounds like a convenient excuse.
"99.9 percent of the public today has automobiles"
My brother - who lost a good engineering job at an oil refinery in 2020 thanks to Rump's disastrous handling of CV - has a pickup truck. It gets 9 miles to the gallon. He won't go to the other side of town to his bank because it will cost him $20 to $25 in gas. He won't be going to the other side of the county any time soon.
"Voters also can seek absentee ballots to vote by mail, he said."
-- Complete ignoring the fact that Republicans have gone out of their way to make that more difficult - if not impossible wherever they can.
"The county's election director, Lilvender Bolton, said this week that officials are prepared to arrange rides to the polling place for voters without transportation."
Really? Who is going to pay for that? Is that even in the budget? Is there a law that says they are required to do that? Or are they just expecting some volunteers to show up and do it? Talk is cheap - especially for politicians, and there are no consequences if they don't follow through.
By passing one of the nation's most restrictive voting bills, Republican lawmakers in Georgia have forgotten a lesson from the past and are setting themselves up for defeat in the future.
The sweeping bill, signed into law Thursday by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, imposes new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to hand them food and water.
No food and water? Hey! Conservatives kept saying this was about making sure everyone showed ID? Now they don't want food and water at inadequate facilities that don't have central heating and air? Oh, right - those have been eliminated.
"No one but Pee Wee Herman believed them when they talked about the 'integrity of the vote,'" says the Rev. Tim McDonald, an Atlanta-based pastor who founded the African American Ministers Leadership Council. His group created "Souls to the Polls," a get-out-the-vote movement among Black churches nationwide. Earlier versions of the Georgia elections bill would have virtually eliminated early Sunday voting, which is popular with Black voters.
"Black folks are not stupid. We know their tricks. We know their motivation,'' McDonald says. "They are the [Ku Klux] Klan in three-piece suits."
For the most part, Christian right leaders are more interested in telling their flocks how to vote than in ensuring they do vote; the latter is the emphasis of “souls to the polls” drives. But however you slice and dice it, selective support for separation of church and state (or church and politics) based on the partisan inclinations of the faithful is a very bad look, particularly when it has heavy racial undertones. One North Carolina GOP effort to proscribe Sunday early voting was struck down by a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel in 2016 as overtly discriminatory, as the Washington Post reported at the time:
[T]he judges point to a “smoking gun” in North Carolina’s justification for the law, proving discriminatory intent. The state argued in court that “counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic,” and said it did away with Sunday voting as a result.
The ruling was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, albeit on procedural grounds (the law in question also had other questionable features).
We probably won’t know until the end of March which combination of voter-suppression laws the Republican-controlled Georgia legislature will send to Republican Governor Brian Kemp to sign. If restrictions on Sunday voting are involved, it is to be profoundly hoped the pols involved don’t repair to the nearest conservative Evangelical church to brag about it, even as they claim Black voters should leave the Democratic Party to more properly reflect Gospel’s teachings.
Final numbers for Oct 21 and preliminary numbers for Dec 2021 are in and it's not good news for conservatives who keep trying to pretend Republicans know how to handle the economy better:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ces0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
For those of you allergic to math, I'll summarize it here for you:
In Rump's first 3 years in office, before he failed any reasonable response to CV-19, the US economy added 6.622 million jobs (Feb 2017 - Jan 2020 inclusive). You may recall how loudly conservatives were crowing about how "great again" the economy was now that it was taken over from that miserable Obama, and how all those "tax cuts for businesses" were "creating new jobs!" They just hoped that you never looked at the actual data and saw that during Obama's last 3 years (Feb 2014 - Jan 2017 inclusive) it added 8.064 million jobs - 21.8% higher for the adjacent 3 year period.
So how is it, that with all those tax cuts, corporations didn't create more jobs?
Well, if you believe tax cuts create more jobs, you've fallen prey to conservative's OTHER big lie.
The simple fact is this: corporations aren't here to create JOBS.
They are here to create PROFITS.
If corporations can create profits by buying a new machine - say self-service checkouts to replace 6 workers - they will do that instead. Check-out machines don't ask for overtime pay.
If they can create profits for shareholders by taking their tax cuts and buying back stock, they will do that instead. Shareholders don't ask for pesky things like health insurance.
If corporations can create more profits by buying a tax loophole from a congressman, they will do that instead. Congressmen don't form unions.
If corporations find they can make more profits by hiding income in offshore accounts, they will do that instead. What a way to pay even lower taxes!
It's only if corporations see that there is more demand for their products than they have necessary people to service will they finally hire some more people.
But perhaps one of the worst nails in the conservative economic superiority myth is this:
In the first 11 months of Biden's term (Feb 2021 - Dec 2021 inclusive, Nov & Dec estimated) the economy added back 6.215 million jobs...
Or to put it another way: in Biden's first 11 MONTHS, that's 93.9% of the 6.622 million jobs of Rump's FIRST 3 YEARS.
"Let's go Biden!" indeed.
Arizona’s Republican State Senate, which hired the discredited Cyber Ninjas company to carry out a vote audit of Maricopa County, is now desperately seeking the company’s hidden public records to comply with a court order.
Senate Republicans recently discovered the Ninjas leased a mysterious “data center,” and have sent a two-sentence letter to the company and others involved in the botched audit, asking if public records are stored there, The Arizona Republic reported.
“We recently learned that a data center, possibly leased to Cyber Ninjas ... may be housing records concerning the Arizona State Senate’s audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County,” Arizona Senate President Karen Fann wrote in the letter sent Thursday.
“Please confirm as soon as possible whether this information is correct and, if so, when and on what terms the Senate may access the facility or its resources.”
As of Sunday, no response was reported.
The Cyber Ninjas shut down and fired all personnel early this month. The company was facing $50,000 daily fines beginning Jan. 6 until it turned over public records it collected as part of the audit. The records have yet to be provided.
Fann told the Republic she has no idea where the data center is located.
“There’s not a lot I can say,” she said. “I received info that possible records were stored in a data center.”
The newspaper and nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight sued to make the records public.
Last week, an Arizona judge ordered Cyber Ninjas and CEO Doug Logan to answer questions under oath from American Oversight regarding the company’s failure to turn over documents.
“As much as he might like to walk away from the dumpster fire he helped create, Doug Logan is not above the law. We look forward to deposing him on the 27th, and if it takes an arrest warrant to ensure the public gets the full story of the ‘audit,’ then so be it,” American Oversight senior adviser Melanie Sloan said in a statement made available to HuffPost.
State Senate Republicans hired the Ninjas in a doomed attempt to challenge Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
Cyber Ninjas, which had no election experience before conducting the audit, actually confirmed Biden’s victory in Maricopa County some seven months after the recount began. It did, however, raise challenging questions about the election, which were dismissed out of hand, even by a number of Republicans.
County election officials released a scathing report earlier this month rebutting almost every claim in the vote review. It concluded that nearly 80 claims made by Cyber Ninjas were misleading or false.
The operation, funded by right-wing extremists, was headed by Doug Logan, a QAnon conspiracy acolyte, who predicted months before the audit even began that “hundreds of thousands of votes” would inevitably be found for Donald Trump.
The audit effort was a fiasco from the start. Auditors were equipped with blue pens, which can be used to alter ballots, and sought traces of bamboo in ballots, which they supposed would be proof of Chinese interference. In addition, truckloads of voter data were spirited away to a cabin in Montana, 1,300 miles from where votes were cast, allegedly for “special” examination.
The Arizona vote was certified Nov. 30, 2020, by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey after several official recounts failed to find any irregularities. Biden beat Trump by 10,457 votes in the state. He edged out Trump by more than 2 percentage points ― about 45,000 votes ― in Maricopa County.
President Biden at his news conference last week asked the question that the media should have been asking Republicans for months: “What are they for?”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t say. Asked last week what was in Republicans’ agenda if they regain control of Congress, McConnell told reporters: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”
Consider the arrogance and disdain for voters inherent in that answer. Responsiveness to the voters? Solutions to the problems they complain about, such as inflation? Only suckers would care about such things, Republicans seem to believe. They prefer to spend their time concocting cultural wedge issues, spreading conspiracy theories and obstructing progress on issues for which there is broad, bipartisan consensus (e.g., a path to citizenship, reasonable gun laws).
But it would be misleading to say Republicans are not for anything; they certainly do have an agenda. The problem is that it is so unpopular they dare not remind voters about their plans.
Republicans have clear views on taxes. They want to protect the super-rich from paying more taxes, even though billionaires became 62 percent richer during the pandemic and many pay practically no federal income taxes. And Republicans really don’t want corporations to pay their fair share either. They favor keeping the corporate tax rate at 21 percent, even though corporate income taxes make up a mere 7 percent of federal revenue. (The Tax Policy Center reports: “Revenue from [corporate taxes] has fallen from an average of 3.7 percent of GDP in the late 1960s to an average of just 1.4 percent of GDP over the past five years, and 1.1 percent of GDP most recently in 2019.”)
Republicans are also for underfunding the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency does not have adequate resources to enforce existing tax laws. And they would like to do away with the child tax credit that cut child poverty by 40 percent. It is not a stretch to say Republicans actively promote income and wealth inequality.
Republicans are in favor of forcing women to continue pregnancies and giving birth, even in cases of rape and incest. They also delight in incentivizing Americans to spy on pregnant women whose reproductive choices don’t match the party’s religious doctrine and to turn them in for bounties. Meanwhile, they strenuously favor protecting anyone who refuses to be vaccinated or wear a mask. In other words, Republicans favor “personal choice” when it comes to preventing the spread of a deadly disease, but not when it comes to a woman’s body.
Republicans are all in when it comes to keeping in place monuments to the slave-owning traitors of the Confederacy; removing anything from school curriculum that might make White people feel uncomfortable, including Martin Luther King Jr. and the KKK; and stopping the FBI from investigating death threats against school board members and other public officials. No wonder white supremacists are so enamored with the GOP these days.
Republicans are also the best friends of climate change. Why else would they oppose the Paris accords, new subsidies for green energy, measures to phase out of coal and higher car mileage standards? They are, however, all for emergency aid when extreme weather strikes — but only for their own states.
And now we know Republicans are devoted to making voting harder and giving Republican lawmakers the ability to elbow out nonpartisan election officials so they can control vote-counting. They are definitely for respecting election outcomes — only when they win.
You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure out why McConnell wants to conceal Republicans’ agenda for as long as possible. What’s not to like?
Bill kicks off the 20th season of Real Time with jokes about President Biden's press conference and our perpetual pandemic panic: "It's just gone on too long, nobody cares anymore," Maher said. "I don't want to live in your mask paranoid world anymore. You go out it's silly now: you have to have a mask, you have to have a booster, they scan your head. Like you're a cashier and I'm a bunch of bananas. I'm not bananas, you are."
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" was key to the 1994 rout of congressional Democrats. Under his leadership, Republicans broke 40 years of Democratic control over the House and delivered the GOP a substantial Senate majority.
How did he do it? He likes to talk about identifying issues where 80% of the population agrees with you and then just stand next to those and look pretty. You may have a wide range of messages, but the ones you choose to spend your time and money on during the campaign are those people like most.
Almost everyone is against crime, so you promise to get tough on crime. People want a lower tax bill? Promise them a tax cut. People want to cut bureaucracy? Ban flag burning? Secure the border? Hold Congress to the laws it passes? Ban race-based preferences? Then you promise to vote on those things when you win your majority, and you constantly run on that promise. You never deviate from your message in your stump speeches and campaign ads. This is, more or less, how the Contract came to be and why it succeeded.
Democrats also do this, at least when they're being smart. Their version is obviously different. It might include free healthcare, paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, etc. But there is something Democrats are currently focused on, almost to the exclusion of everything else — yet the public just doesn't share their opinion. You hear it every time they repeat their dark-money-funded buzz phrase, "Our democracy," which has become so ubiquitous that it's almost becoming a joke in Washington.
The problem is that people just aren't buying their allegation that today's Republican Party or its legislators pose a unique threat to their right to vote.
Democrats spent months talking up the election bill they just failed to pass. The media sanitized it for them and dressed it up as nicely as possible, referring to it repeatedly with the misleading label of "voting rights bill" and refusing to point out its unpopular aspects, such as its ban on voter identification. Then we had the Jan. 6 anniversary, the ideal moment to exploit fears about "our democracy." Democrats did everything they could to bring back the bad memories, and the media did everything to help them out. Biden's over-the-top speech on the subject in Georgia was an ideally panicky communication of this message: Are you with me, or are you with Jefferson Davis?
And now the jury has returned on the question of whether anyone is convinced. A Quinnipiac poll of registered voters, taken in the four days following the spectacle of the Jan. 6 commemoration, found that 45% of respondents believe the Democratic Party is the better party for protecting their vote.
Now, remember, Democrats have been talking about this stuff ad nauseam. They have literally insinuated that if they lose the next election, we'll end up with some kind of dictatorship. Leftist media outlets have run multiple editorials or columns exaggerating or just plain lying about supposed threats to the right of citizens to cast a ballot in the next election.
They could hardly get more hysterical about all this. They could hardly have talked about it any more than they have. And yet, given every advantage, this issue is still a dog. It is definitely not one of those 80-20 votes that Gingrich talks about — not even close. In fact, 66% of respondents in this poll were "confident" their state legislators would protect their right to vote.
If you're a conservative, you were probably upset to hear President Joe Biden say you're a racist because you don't support his agenda. You should be — even Barack Obama never said anything quite that overtly insulting. But you should actually be happy that Biden is making such a fool of himself so ineffectually.
Consider what all the other polling says. Biden is getting his clock cleaned on overall approval. He is underwater on every important aspect: the economy, immigration, foreign policy, and now, at last, on the pandemic as well. Pretty much on everything that affects people day to day, people think Biden is making it worse. They don't even believe he's any use when it comes to their right to vote, and it's not for lack of effort on his part.
Right now, Democrats may not even have an 80-20 issue to campaign on. This phony-baloney message about "our democracy," no doubt cooked up behind the scenes by people far too clever for their own good, is not going to save Biden's backside from the swift kick that's coming
When President Biden warned of a bleak and deadly winter, he was referring to the Covid-19 outbreak that he promised to “shut down.” While he has failed to curb the virus, his policies have unfortunately been more successful reining in our once thriving energy industry.
At the one-year mark of his administration running the Departments of Interior and Energy and determining regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency, anyone paying a bill sees the results. Oil prices have nearly doubled since Biden’s inauguration.
Despite the longing of green activists worldwide, we are in fact, a fossil fuel-driven economy, and all prices have gone up dramatically: gas, food, utilities, shipping, durable goods. Biden’s inflation, now at 40-year highs of 7 percent, is now the number-one issue among voters and will no doubt hang over every race this November.
The only logical response for an embattled president is changing the narrative. So, Biden bought a puppy.
Supply is becoming an ongoing problem for the energy industry. The United States is currently producing about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil fewer per day than pre-pandemic levels. Worse, investment in the industry is down nearly 25 percent from that period. Why? Biden.
Fossil fuels are a labor and market-intensive industry, and they rely on government cooperation. That means a secretary of Energy who does not laugh when asked about industry challenges. That means an Interior secretary who does not say publicly “it would be great to stop all oil and gas leases on public lands.” Investors are not going to gamble on the Biden variable, even with oil reaching seven-year highs.
Government is dropping the ball. It’s mid-January, and we have a lot of winter ahead of us. Between the high prices and the scarce supply, consumers should be worried.
Hard questions about January 6 are being left unanswered because they might disturb the Democratic narrative. So let’s ask some.
Like the members of the Warren Commission before them, the people claiming the accepted narrative about January 6 is beyond reproach are the same ones blocking any investigation that might challenge it. Potential game-changers are wish-washed away as conspiracy theories. That is funny, given that so much Democratic flailing is built around a narrative of conspiracy—that Trump, in conjunction with a bunch of rednecks, worked to overthrow the Constitution through an elaborate scheme.
The January 6 committee has not spent much time allowing for the possibility that the Capitol rioters succumbed to group think, like fans who swarm the field and tear down the goalposts. The only real cause of the day’s events that the committee has considered is Trump. The committee has no “Subject B.”
So let’s propose a Subject B: the FBI. It would take a simple series of questions from the committee: Mr. Attorney General, how many undercover people did you have on the ground on January 6? How many of them traveled to D.C. with groups they had elsewhere previously infiltrated? What was their purpose on January 6? What were their rules of engagement—in other words, what were they allowed to say or do? Could they scream, “Yeah, let’s go!” and lead people forward? Could they give statements to the media misrepresenting the aims and mood of the crowd without revealing their identity? Did any of the agents stray from being after-the-fact accessories and instead become provocateurs?
You would think, at least, that the number of officers on the ground on January 6 would be an easy question to answer. Yet when Representative Thomas Massie asked A.G. Merrick Garland if any federal agents or assets entered the Capitol or incited others to riot, Garland refused to answer. Massie played a video of a man on January 5 saying “we have to go into the Capitol,” and asked Garland if that man was a fed. No comment, said Garland.
The man in the video is Ray Epps, president of the Arizona Oath Keepers, who is also seen on video organizing the first group to breach the Capitol. That is just one minute after a pipe bomb had been found, as if the acts were themselves a conspiracy. This all appears to have happened even before Trump finished his “incitement” speech. Epps refuses to answer journalists’ questions about whether or not he is a federal agent. And Epps is still a free man. Why?
After Garland’s non-answer about undercover operatives failed to satisfy even the squishy mainstream media, the January 6 committee issued a statement claiming they “spoke” to Epps, who, by golly, said he was not a federal agent (there is no evidence he was under oath; Epps was scheduled to talk to the Committee again on January 21, though no one knows when or if information will be released publicly). The matter was dropped as cleanly as the “umbrella man” in the JFK assassination.
The always-helpful New York Timessaid, “while it remains unclear why Mr. Epps was encouraging people to go into the building, a person cannot be charged with incitement unless his statements present an imminent threat of unlawful action.” That, too, is funny, because a week later Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes, who also did not enter the Capitol, was indicted on “seditious conspiracy.” Without double standards, the prosecutors of January 6 would have no standards at all.
The Epps case raises two key points. Since Epps was talking about storming the Capitol the night before the riot, that would seem to be evidence that Trump’s speech had little to do with the Capitol riot—in other words, the plan would have already been in motion. And of course, if Epps was working in any way with law enforcement, that would suggest he played a role in getting the crowd to attack. It isn’t a “conspiracy theory” to simply ask why, after some 737 cases have been brought against others involved in the January 6 riot, Epps has not even been charged. Or why Epps’ photo was included on the FBI Capitol Violence Most Wanted website at one point and then removed without explanation in July.
It is as simple as this: Under oath and before the January 6 committee, someone should ask FBI Director Wray, Attorney General Garland, and Ray Epps to give a yes or no answer to this question: Did Ray Epps work for or with the federal government? A yes or no answer moves the narrative forward and could even add to the credibility of the committee among skeptics. Why won’t they ask that question?
If Epps was working for the feds on January 6, we already know he was not alone. A Proud Boy who had been turned by the FBI was texting his handler from inside the mob. The New York Times also claims the FBI had a second informant in the crowd. The story has not received much play in the corporate press, because that informant was adamant the Capitol attack was not planned in advance. In fact, none of the 737 people charged so far with January 6-related crimes have claimed the attack on the Capitol was preplanned, that Trump incited them, or said anything to suggest their actions were born of anything but the events and passions on the ground. Quite the contrary; several of the rioters have stood up in court and admitted they felt betrayed by Trump and were deluded by his efforts to portray the election as having been rigged.
Undercover officers can legally commit crimes, including perjury. The same goes for paid sources, informants, and snitches. This practice of authorized criminality is secret, and its practitioners are unaccountable. It is in conflict with democratic theories of policing. It is carried out independent of an undercover agent’s ability to be listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. That fact is relatively meaningless anyway, as the easiest thing for the feds to do is simply not list the undercover agent on any charging documents. Is that what happened with Epps?
There are other simple questions whose answers could send the investigation down new and complex paths. While the Justice Department has called the inquiry into January 6 one of the largest in its history, why has no information come to light on the pipe bomber? Official Washington is one of the most heavily surveilled spots on earth. Why hasn’t the Justice Department allowed the release of more than a few minutes of the 14,000 hours of security-camera footage? Social media only shows the riot in process. The surveillance video would show what happened before.
Why has the report on the cop who gunned down unarmed protester Ashli Babbit and faced no charges not been released, and why was the cop never even interviewed? Why, and on whose order, did Capitol police allow 300 people to simply walk into the building without resistance on the afternoon of January 6? And who was the man in a bicycle helmet whom video shows initiating the window-smashing that ended in the shooting of Ashli Babbitt? Why was he welcomed behind police lines once things got out of hand?
We would not need to ask all of these questions if the FBI and others did not have such an extensive history of infiltrating protests, provoking violence, and creating crimes. The Terrorism Era was littered with plots built around the FBI recruiting “terrorists,” supplying them with money and fake explosives, and then busting them.
A more recent example involved a plot, falsely portrayed by the MSM as a precursor to January 6, to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. At least 12 confidential informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than just snitching. They had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. Without agents pulling strings, it is hard to know if there even would have been a plot to kidnap Whitmer. For all the noise asking how high the January 6 investigation might go, no one seems to be looking lower—to people working that day among the protesters, just as they had in Michigan.
This is not to say Ray Epps is this year’s version of the Grassy Knoll, or that the FBI laid on a Mr. X-style operation to destroy Donald Trump. It is to say that some simple questions need to be answered. Because if even one FBI agent was part of yet another conspiracy to create conspiracists, or otherwise instigated, aided, or abetted what happened on January 6, that changes everything. If the January 6 narrative changes, so does 2024. It really does matter that the investigation go deeper, if only to rule out federal involvement.
Joe Biden is not about to pivot. No siree, no reboot for this president’s White House.
Biden is not interested in making any course corrections because, after all, he has, by his own modest estimation, "outperformed what anybody thought would happen." Further, the president is convinced "we have made enormous progress" and everything is "getting better."
That’s what he told the country during his recent press conference, which was an eye-opener. Turns out Joe Biden is either seriously delusional or utterly sequestered and misled by his team. Don’t take my word for it; read his own statements.
Addressing his White House’s effort to "shut down" the pandemic, as he promised to do, Biden said, "Am I satisfied with the way in which we have dealt with COVID and all the things that – that go along with it? Yeah, I am satisfied. I think we’ve done remarkably well."
As to the performance of his embattled and unpopular vice president, Biden said of Kamala Harris: "I think she’s doing a good job." Well, what could he say?
When asked how his administration’s report card might appear to voters as they approach the midterm elections, Biden said it "would look pretty good."
That’s an interesting assumption, given that a new Politico/Morning Consult poll found 37% of respondents gave Biden an "F" for his first year in office, more than awarded him an "A" or "B." A poll which, curiously, graded Biden worse that Donald Trump. For Biden voters, that’s the final ignominy.
But, as Biden declared during the presser, "I don’t believe the polls."
Joe Biden thinks he has not done a good enough job explaining to people how wonderfully things are going.
The problem is, according to Biden, Americans are too dim to comprehend what a terrific job he is doing. According to him, "We’ve passed a lot of things that people don’t even understand what’s all that’s in it."
Joe Biden thinks he has not done a good enough job explaining to people how wonderfully things are going. His new idea is to go "out on the road a lot, making the case around the country, with my colleagues who are up for reelection and others, making the case of what we did do and what we want to do, what we need to do."
Biden is confident this approach will make Americans feel better about his presidency and save not only his approval numbers but also Democrats come November.
Democrats running for office in moderate districts must be horrified, strategizing frantically how to avoid the Great Taint of the Biden White House. Will they, like Georgia voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, who skipped out on a major Biden speech recently, claim a "scheduling conflict"?
They are cooked, especially with Independents defecting in droves. In a recent Economist/YouGov poll, only 6% of Independents "approved strongly" of the job Biden is doing.
In addition to getting out more, Biden’s new program includes "bringing in more and more – now that I have time-… experts outside, from academia, to editorial writers, to think tanks. And I’m bringing them in, just like I did early on, bringing in presidential historians to get their perspective on what we should be doing…"
If you thought you saw everything from today's Biden press conference, think againVideo
He now has the luxury of this renewal because, as he says, "I’ve gotten the critical crises out of the way, in the sense of it moving – knowing exactly where we’re going."
Voters will be so relieved to know that Biden has solved our biggest problems.
Even as Biden is quite comfortable with the job he is doing, he is very disappointed in his Republican colleagues, who, he says, are out to block his every initiative. More concerning, it seems, is that the president cannot figure out the GOP agenda.
He challenges Republicans to outline "what are you for?"
For the record, Republicans across the country are running on safe streets, stable prices, secure borders, school choice, strength overseas and getting the country back to work. Does Biden seriously not know these are the topmost issues for voters today?
Democrats concerned about Biden impact on midterms Video
In fairness, there are two other reasons Biden may not want to pivot, as Bill Clinton did with great success midway through his presidency.
First, he may not care whether his polls improve. His claims of planning on running again for the presidency in 2024 may be, like so much of this presidency, utter bunk. It is inconceivable that this fast-aging president will stand for reelection.
Last November, the president underwent an annual physical exam, which showed him fit for office, but apparently did not take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which might squash widespread speculation about his mental abilities. Why not? Trump took such a test and passed with flying colors. Why didn’t Biden do the same?
The obvious conclusion may be that Biden knows his mental capabilities are fading, he knows he will not run again and therefore a mid-course correction is not as important as sticking to his leftist guns.
Second, the people who appear to have the most influence over this White House – Democrats like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders, of Vermont – are zealots. They do not care about their party; they do not care about Democrats running in swing districts. They are on a mission.
Even as the political tide has begun to swing away from progressives, who have lost most marquee races in recent months to moderates, Warren and Sanders and their colleagues push the envelope. They know they have a limited amount of time to "transform" a country that does not seek to be transformed.
It is unclear whether Joe Biden understands how badly his White House has been damaged; what is clear is he has no intention of changing course.
One of the most worrisome political signs for the Biden administration from the latest round of polling is that the president isn’t just losing support among typical swing voters—suburbanites, independents, anti-Trump Republicans—but he’s now starting to take friendly fire from his own base.
This vicious cycle is the political version of inflation, providing the White House few obvious tools to get out of the mess they’ve created for themselves. It’s a self-inflicted problem. Just as the president overstimulated the economy by pushing through $1.9 trillion in COVID stimulus, he inflated expectations among his supporters that he’d pass a transformative big-government agenda like FDR and LBJ.
He’s now dealing with a nasty hangover, with two centrist members of his own party blocking his Build Back Better social-spending plan along with a last-ditch effort to roll back the legislative filibuster to pass voting reform. He’s taking heat on all sides: Frustrated moderates facing tough reelections amid fierce political headwinds and disillusioned progressives who believe all hope is lost.
The new NBC News poll paints a dismal picture of the president’s predicament. Biden’s overall 43 percent job approval is bad enough. But look at the crosstabs and the numbers are even worse.
Biden’s 40 percent job approval among the youngest voters (age 18-34)—down 16 points since NBC’s April survey—is remarkably low, given the progressive sensibilities of that voting bloc. He’s only winning over 64 percent of African-American voters, one of the most Democratic constituencies in the country. He’s now underwater with Hispanic voters (48 percent approval), continuing his struggles with a group that was once expected to be an essential part of the Democratic coalition. The once-gaping gender gap has shrunk, with Biden only garnering 51 percent support among women.
These numbers may explain why Biden spent the beginning of the year pursuing a fruitless effort to rally his progressive base behind voting-rights legislation. If Democrats lose support from the cadre of Gen Z activists and African American civil-rights leaders, this year’s midterms could go from bad to worse. Even if the political kamikaze mission hurts him with independents, he has a better chance of winning back the base given the degree of backlash he’s incurred with persuadable voters. (The NBC poll found his approval at 36 percent with independents, a stunning 32-point drop from where he stood in April.)
It’s a no-win situation: Tack to the center, and Biden risks seeing depressed Democratic turnout for this year’s midterms with no guarantee he’ll be able to turn things around with swing voters. But placate the base and you’ve alienated the moderates without having any legislative victories to show for it.
All this is a lesson in expectations management: Biden should have started out his presidency smaller, working with pragmatic Republicans to pass a less-bloated package of emergency relief, building back better (so to speak) political capital in the runup to the midterms. Couple that with a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and Biden would have roughly the same accomplishments without nearly as much political pain.
At this point, however, Biden has dug himself into such a deep political hole that his options for a comeback are limited—and mostly out of his control. The administration’s preferred path is to go after the agenda-less Republicans, in hopes of making the midterm election a choice between parties, not a referendum. But at this point, being the opposition party without an agenda is a better place to be than the governing party facing a mutiny within the ranks.
The Left preaches tolerance but excoriates those who disagree with it. It claims to seek equality or its conveniently and endlessly malleable derivative, equity, but gives preferences unequally to favored groups. It brags that it’s a passionate defender of democracy but works to cancel legitimate votes by making fraudulent voting easier. It arrogates “science” to its partisan causes but rejects the facts of gender, abortion, genetically modified foods, COVID-19, economics, and much else. The list of hypocritical disparities stretches to somewhere over the rainbow.
But one disparity is perhaps weirder and more glaring than all the others. It is on the issue that obsesses the Left most of all — that of race. White gentry liberals, who run the Democratic Party and lead its militant base, are utterly out of sync with the racial minorities they claim to represent and insist they want to help.
Their tastes are different, of course. The white uber-liberal class strives toward the chichi and the hip in entertainment, foods, recreation, etc. Racial minorities, who are disproportionately members of the working class, tend toward blue-collar choices on these things rather than lining up with their professed protectors.
Divergence of taste is mirrored by a gulf on more substantive cultural matters. African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics tend to be more conservative on education and, to an extent, on marriage, family formation, and churchgoing.
And these disparities of taste and culture are increasingly replicated in politics, which is why racial minorities have been sliding away from Democrats over the past four election cycles.
A 2019 poll taken after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was revealed to have worn blackface or a KKK outfit in his youth found that white voters were more upset about it than black voters were. Fewer than half of the former thought Northam should stay in office, whereas 60% of the latter were content to see him remain. On racial matters, left-wing whites are akin to religious converts, more fervent than those baptized in infancy.
As the New York Times reported at the time, “liberal whites — not minorities — are setting the tone on these issues.” The same story revealed that white Clinton voters, unlike black Clinton voters or Trump voters of either race, felt more warmly toward minorities than they did toward their own racial group. In this, they’re like the lily-white would-be African American, Rachel Dolezal .
The Left is in the awkward, not to mention arrogant, position of thinking it knows better than minorities what is good for them. Thus, Democrats push to defund the police in direct opposition to the wishes of African Americans who suffer most from theft and violent crime. The party’s suggestion that racial minority people cannot get and use ID cards just as easily as others is recognized by minorities themselves as what President George W. Bush called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
A 2018 study found that liberals’ patronizing attitude toward racial minorities leads them even to dumb down the way they talk to members of racial minority groups, which is something to which conservatives do not stoop.
One should not be surprised that the Left’s leaders and ideologues are out of step, or that they think hoi polloi should do what they are told and accept things they do not believe. That is the way they treat all ordinary Americans. But on the issue of race, this knowing-better-than-thou attitude sits particularly uncomfortably, for it smacks strongly of the paternalistic arrogance of colonialism that, in theory at least, the modern Left detests.
The similarities are, however, as evident as the differences between them and late Victorian colonialists. Like those colonial officials, they regard themselves as altruistically governing lesser peoples not as they wish but for their ultimate good. They regard the lumpen populace as “new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child,” as Rudyard Kipling wrote of British colonial subjects in The White Man’s Burden.
Nothing could be more unfashionable today than this 1899 paean to imperialism, and yet it is not difficult to adjust a few details of the poem to capture the arrogance of today’s Left and yet remain faithful to Kipling's original sentiments.
Does this not ring true of those who currently run Washington, the universities, and most of the national news media? Take up the liberal burden/ Go teach the Leftist creed/ Send out your pseudo-scholars/ Our captive people need/ The care of justice warriors/ Who will plant the good woke seed.
Today’s Left has become the thing it hates.
In his victory lap at his marathon press conference last week, President Joe Biden boasted that “I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen” and “I have gotten the critical crises out of the way.” He shrugged off concerns about inflation, which he has blamed on greedy corporations and supply-chain snafus. But inflation will be the wrecking ball that could politically destroy Biden and his Democratic allies in the coming months.
Inflation has risen more than fourfold since Biden took office, jumping from 1.4% to 7%. Cynics are quipping that it’s now higher than Biden’s approval rating, but that is a cheap shot — or at least premature.
Last month, Biden characterized inflation as a “bump in the road.” But that “bump” is a hole in the gas tank for tens of millions of Americans who drive to work. Oil prices closed at their highest level in seven years the day Biden spoke.
Biden said in July, “There’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way,” but there were plenty of dire warnings from experts early last year. The president claims that inflation is a problem everywhere, but National Public Radio reported that “between 2019 and 2021, the U.S. saw one of the biggest inflation rate increases in the world, behind only Brazil and Turkey.”
Liberal outlets have responded to this debacle by painting inflation as practically a divine blessing that Biden is bestowing on Americans.
MSNBC tweeted, “Why the inflation we’re seeing now is a good thing,” while The Intercept went whole-hog on soaring milk prices: “Inflation Is Good for You.” The Washington Post editorial board offered a jaw-dropping absolution of the president: “The main reason inflation is at its highest level since 1982″ is because “people continue to spend a lot of time at home” and demand more goods.
It gets wackier. On Tuesday, NPR ran a tear-jerking piece headlined: “The Movement To Stick Inflation Blame On Biden.” After disparaging the “I did that!” stickers of Biden’s face being attached to gas pumps and other places, NPR lamented, “It’s not just vandals, pranksters, and TikTokers trying to stick inflation blame on Biden.” After admitting that real wages for workers fell 2.4% last year, NPR consoles, “It’s A Crummy Time To Be A World Leader.”
But it will take more than media pity parties to save the Biden administration.
Biden’s policymakers appear devoted to Modern Monetary Theory — the notion that politicians can spend unlimited amounts of newly created money with no adverse effect on the economy. A Washington Post headline last April captured the administration’s presumptions: “Biden’s big bet: That he can remake economy with no bad side effects” such as “less incentive to work.” But, as USA Today reported, “Many people have permanently stopped working, depressing labor force participation” by millions of people.
Biden’s pro-inflation policies are dividing Americans between those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. In November, Biden boasted,“Even after accounting for inflation . . . our families have more money in their pockets than they did before the pandemic.” Putting more unearned dollars in people’s pockets will be a windfall for politicians but will worsen economic disruptions. Besides, it is scant consolation to have more dollars that purchase less and less each month.
In his press conference, Biden signaled support for the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy, which will likely mean higher interest rates soon. Biden boasts about high stock-market prices as vindication for his economic policies (as did Donald Trump). But markets will recoil when the Fed raises rates, and that will be one more development that embittered investors blame on Biden and other Democrats.
After his vice presidential term ended, Joe Biden expected a 10% cut of a shady Chinese deal that his son Hunter finagled, reports Post columnist Miranda Devine. But Americans should be far more concerned about a different 10% cut heading their way: At some point later this year, Biden’s inflation will have inflicted a 10% cut in the purchasing power of Americans’ paychecks and savings accounts. People with $50,000 in savings will effectively be hit with a hidden $5,000 federal tax.
Will the president suffer “death by a thousand price hikes,” as consumers blame Biden each time they hit the gas pump or grocery store? More handouts for government dependents will do nothing to ease the inflation pain of hardworking middle-class families. Biden’s attempt to portray himself as an innocent bystander to the destruction of value of the US dollar will be a disastrous flop.
Thank for the James Bovard crap
Y'all like to ignore facts.
WSJ: Inflation Surges Worldwide as Covid-19 Lockdowns End and Supply Chains Can’t Cope
WP: Prices are rising all over the world, and leaders see no quick fix
Republicans Who Signed The Fake Electoral Certificates Are Having a Really Bad Week
Arizona
One of the most prominent members of the Arizona fraudulent electoral certification is GOP State Rep. Jake Hoffman. Last week, he was confronted by reporters, whom he tried to evade, but he stopped to answer a follow-up question from a reporter from the Arizona Republic, likely to his regret. Hoffman explained that “in unprecedented times, unprecedented action” is required. When the reporter asked him whether he had any direction from anybody in taking this action, he said he was “only one of the electors” and that “you would need to ask the party chair that.” When pressed if he was told by someone to be somewhere to sign it, Hoffman refused to answer, repeating, “you would have to ask the party chair that” and when pressed still further with “How did you know to show up?” and “Do you not know you arrived at a place?” Hoffman declined to answer—but many including the January 6 Committee might be interested in hearing from him.
This isn’t the first time Hoffman has been caught using sheer fakery to achieve his political goals. In October of 2020, as reported by the Washington Post and the Arizona Republic, Hoffman was suspended personally and his firm banned from social media for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior”—meaning, he was paying teenagers on a troll farm to post comments that appeared to come from real people. These actions were being executed on behalf of Turning Point Action, a far-right group led by extremist conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Another one of the fake electors, Tyler Bowyer, is also affiliated with Kirk as the COO of Turning Point USA, according to Bowyer’s Twitter page.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs had originally referred the forgery to the Arizona Attorney General’s office back in December of 2020. Currently, election conspiracy and “audit” promoter Mark Brnovich, who is a die-hard Trumper challenging Mark Kelly for his senate seat, is that state’s attorney general, so it’s not surprising that no action has been taken.
Wisconsin
As reported by the Wisconsin State Journal, a group of Republican “electors” who met in the same building in Madison as the actual state electors on December 14, 2020 has drawn a number of complaints alleging the group committed fraud. Although Wisconsin law doesn’t directly address the circumstances of false electors, “It’s probably some type of fraud, some time of criminal forgery,” said David Schultz, a professor of political science at Hamline University who also teaches election law at the University of Minnesota School of Law.
The national coordination of the electoral certifications caught the interest of Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison, who noted it was highly unlikely that the purported “electors” had genuine, fact-based grievances, given that they were in wholly separate states. “It looks more like a national orchestration to try to challenge the election results,” Burden said. “I think there’s a direct line between the suspicions that have been raised about the election results and the violent insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol,” he added.
State GOP party chair Paul Farrow released a statement yesterday, however, defending the signatories and claiming they were advised to execute the documents by attorneys and that the actions were done in accordance with precedent. The “precedent” here likely refers to a contested election in 1960 in Hawaii, cited by John Eastman in his now infamous soft coup memo. But in that case, the circumstances were not comparable...
..Litigation and recounts in a very close election had taken the state far past the “safe harbor” day for election results and .continued right up to the date of the electoral college vote itself, causing both parties to publicly convene two competing slates of electors. “That is radically different from these 10 fraudulent electors skulking in the shadows and submitting false paperwork to create the ground on which the Jan. 6 insurrection was built,” said Jeffrey Mandell, president of the progressive firm Law Forward, which filed the complaints.
Although a formal complaint was also filed before the Wisconsin Elections Commission, an interesting and complicating factor is that the first signatory on the fake electoral certificate is Bob Spindell, who is the Republican appointee to that very commission—meaning there’s already a clear conflict of interest.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who is fighting bogus efforts by the GOP to continue election “investigations” in the state, said last Friday that he believes the federal government is best suited to investigate the GOP “electors” who signed on to the faked document. “I believe it’s critical that the federal government fully investigates and prosecutes any unlawful actions in furtherance of any seditious conspiracy,” he said, adopting the language of the Justice Department’s most recent set of charges which includes actual sedition charges.
Michigan
State Attorney General Dana Nessel took aggressive action last week by formally referring the Michigan electoral certification forgery to federal prosecutors. In announcing the referral, she also made clear that “there’s no double jeopardy if you were to bring both state and federal charges for the same offenses,” indicating she is willing to have her office act as well against the signatories.
Highlighting the political and media divide in America today, the Michigan GOP labeled her comments “political persecution,” noting that she made them on “a left-wing cable news show.” Nessel is facing reelection in November, and her opponents charged her with “playing political games with people’s lives and livelihoods for the sake of scoring political points.”
The 16 signatories to the fake electoral certificate in Michigan include an interesting set of characters such as Amy Facchinello, a Grand Blanc school board member affiliated with QAnon and Stan Grot, a Shelby Township Clerk at the heart of a payoff scandal within the Michigan GOP. But they also include many high ranking GOP officials, underscoring the extent to which the modern GOP is intertwined with fringe elements.
Under Michigan law, as AG Nessel noted, the group could be charged with forgery of a public record, which carries a sentence of up to 14 years. Election forgery itself is specifically punishable up to five in the state. Her opponent, Matt DePerno, who like Brnovich in Arizona has called for even more audits and election investigation, tweeted a doctored image of Nessel in an orange prison jumpsuit, asking for donations to help “LOCK HER UP!” Nessell responded, “Again…totally normal way for an AG candidate to campaign against an opponent. Soliciting campaign contributions in an exchange for a promise to imprison his political adversaries. Also, someone has a very unrealistic view of how tall I am.”
we are the largest economy in the world
the effects of Biden's policies are felt worldwide
energy prices are up because America is once again an importer of fuel rather than the exporter we were during Trump's term
OPEC and Russia have seized the opportunity
massive and unnecessary stimulus in Biden's first few months stoked demand for goods that compete with the world
the Biden's administration's lack of preparedness for Delta and Omicron have caused supply disruptions, raising prices worldwide
just three of the many ways our problems affect the entire world
Americans will never vote for a party that says "oh well, nothing we can do"
but, by all means, keep swimming upstream in de Nile
and lean on the words of the most senile President ever:
"I outperformed what anybody thought would happen."
ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President Biden was caught on a hot mic Monday calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch" in response to a question asked at the start of a White House event on lowering the prices of consumer goods.
When Doocy yelled out, “Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?”
“That’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden responded in a low voice that was heard on his live microphone. “What a stupid son of a bitch.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html
An Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia will be allowed to seat a special grand jury this spring.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested last week to seat a special grand jury starting May 2. Fulton County Superior Court judges approved the request on Monday.
Though the special grand jury does not have the authority to issue an indictment, the move will allow Willis to seat a panel entirely focused on gathering evidence in the Trump investigation. She said she needed such a grand jury in order to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify and to gather additional evidence -- a step toward pursuing possible criminal charges.
Willis has said she expects to decide on whether to bring charges against Trump in the first half of 2022. She wrote last week that her office has "received information indicating a reasonable probability that the State of Georgia's administration of elections in 2020, including the State's election of President of the United States, was subject to possible criminal disruptions," according to a letter sent to Christopher Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County's Superior Court, and provided by the court.
The Georgia inquiry is just one of several investigations that Trump is fielding a year after leaving office. The former President is also facing the New York attorney general's civil investigation into the Trump Organization and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office criminal investigation into his namesake company.
Willis has been investigating whether Trump or his allies committed any crimes in their campaign to convince Georgia officials to find fraud and hand Trump a victory in the Peach State. The probe was launched last year following Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wherein he pushed the Republican to "find" votes to overturn the election results.
"The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump said during the January 2021 call. Raffensperger responded, "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."
In a previous statement repeating his lies about the 2020 election, Trump said, "I didn't say anything wrong in the call, made while I was President on behalf of the United States of America, to look into the massive voter fraud which took place in Georgia," while adding that a special grand jury should not be looking into his "perfect phone call."
Willis said last year that her investigation would expand past Trump's call with Raffensperger to cover any efforts to influence the election in Georgia.
That included a phone call between Raffensperger and Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham, the abrupt departure of Byung "BJay" Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and the false allegations of election fraud Rudy Giuliani made before Georgia legislators.
"Fox News' Peter Doocy revealed that Joe Biden called him to say "It's nothing personal, pal,'" after the president was caught calling him a "stupid son of a b***h" on a hot mic.
Biden made the gibe at the end of a press conference on Monday after Doocy, who was being ushered out the White House's East Room, asked him about inflation.
"Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?" Doocy asked.
"No, it's a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch," Biden was recording saying while stood at the podium.
The comment was included in the official White House transcript of the press conference. [Biden ain't hiding it. Unlike Eric Trump and John Eastman, Biden didn't take the fifth.]
Speaking to Fox News' Sean Hannity, Doocy said his reaction was "delayed" because he had not been aware of what the president said until others told him in the press room.
Doocy added that "within about an hour of that exchange" the president called him on his cellphone.
"He said 'it's nothing personal pal,'" Doocy said.
"We went back and forth and we were talking about moving forward, and I made sure to tell him that I'm always going to try to ask something different than what everybody else is asking. And he said, 'You've got to,' and that's a quote from the President, so I'll keep doing it," Doocy added."
"Willis has been investigating whether Trump or his allies committed any crimes in their campaign to convince Georgia officials to find fraud and hand Trump a victory in the Peach State."
grand juries are so supposed to consider a specific charge referred from prosecutors
when someone tries to see if a group "committed any crimes," that's a witch hunt
"The probe was launched last year following Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wherein he pushed the Republican to "find" votes to overturn the election results.
"The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump said during the January 2021 call. Raffensperger responded, "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.""
well, nothing there proves Trump pressured the guy into reporting something that Trump knew to be false
"In a previous statement repeating his lies about the 2020 election, Trump said, "I didn't say anything wrong in the call, made while I was President on behalf of the United States of America, to look into the massive voter fraud which took place in Georgia,""
he's right
even if there were no fraud, he's entitled to ask officials to look for it
Dems do the same all the time
"Willis said last year that her investigation would expand past Trump's call with Raffensperger to cover any efforts to influence the election in Georgia."
trying to influence an election is a constitutionally protected pursuit unless laws were broken, and no one has come up with one 15 months later
"Such inconvenient facts for lying GOPers"
the only new act you posted was that after being caught calling a reporter a "stupid son of a bitch," Sleepy Slimy Slidin' Biden later called to tell the reporter, "It's nothing personal, pal,'"
that's what Mafia hitmen say when they kill someone: "hey, paisano, the boss wanted you to know it's nothing personal, it's just business"
White House spokesman Jen Psaki began her briefing on January 20 with “happy anniversary.” Of the many people thinking to themselves, “Do we really have three more years of this?” chief among them were those who worry about America’s position in a dangerous world.
Today, Russia dominates world news at the expense of feckless Joe Biden, but the full story of the last year is one of far more comprehensive national decline on the world stage.
Topping the list is Biden’s stunning loss in Afghanistan, which was the biggest blow to American power since at least the fall of Saigon to communists in 1975. However, the year also included Biden and his aides repeatedly begging the Islamist regime that runs Iran for a nuclear deal. Like the last such deal in the Obama-Biden administration, a new one is certain to enshrine rather than abolish the mullah’s nuclear weapons program. Biden is already letting Iran get away with selling oil to China.
Biden took other steps to make Islamism great again. Early in his first year, he gave money and political encouragement to the Palestinians, whose Iranian-backed Hamas overlords launched a missile war on Israel. Biden hasn’t provided for restocking the weapons Israel expended to defend itself.
Biden browbeat Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Gulf states to be nicer to Iranian-backed Houthi insurgents in Yemen, who just responded with a deadly missile attack on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates.
Most dangerously, Biden has been weak on China. He said we would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked that nation. But if Beijing believed that promise, it would have made a much bigger stink. Instead, China looks at the U.S. military, unable to win a war but with leaders who want to explore “white rage,” sees the U.S. Navy and other branches of the armed services shrinking in the Western Pacific, and happily bides its time.
When asked by a reporter if he would press the question of whether China created Covid-19, Biden just grinned, implying that addressing Beijing’s culpability in the deaths of nearly 900,000 Americans was beneath him and an impediment to discussing things like climate change.
China’s friends who run North Korea are back to testing ballistic missiles, the best of which can hit the United States.
Contrast this situation under former President Donald Trump, especially by his last year before Biden. Trump had put tariffs on about half of the items we import from China and enacted strict export controls on the most sophisticated semiconductors made with U.S. technology—a fundamental shift from the previous decades in which our elite thought communist-run China would become a partner.
North Korea was at the negotiating table and had stopped testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Trump achieved historic peace between Israel and several Arab states, unifying the region against the terrorism-exporting Iranian regime.
While the improved relations with Moscow that Trump desired were made impossible by the hysteria surrounding the Russia collusion hoax, Russian president Vladimir Putin undertook none of the provocations against Ukraine that have occurred under weak Biden.
Trump accomplished all of this without acceding to the national security establishment’s desire to get into more wars in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Trump never had the benefit of a cooperative Pentagon. Trump’s first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, was an enthusiast for the fighting in Middle East backwaters that Trump wanted to curtail. His second, Mike Esper, was dominated by generals who opposed Trump politically. Trump’s White House had to work around the Pentagon to get the results the president wanted.
Unfortunately, under Biden, the foreign policy establishment is back in charge. The results are now obvious after just one year. We have been humiliated and are suffering the consequences of American decline—with three full years left to go. Let’s hope the next administration looks more like the last year of Trump than the first year of Biden.
As President Biden stares down the barrel of yet another possible disaster scenario in the Ukraine, things just keep seeming to go from bad to worse for the beleaguered administration. With all the chaos and discontent spreading throughout the country and the world, it’s no surprise that Biden and his party have been on the receiving end of some very, very bad polling news. But with all the numbers and data swirling around from dozens of polling agencies and news outlets, it’s helpful to take a step back to see the full picture of where Biden and Democrats stand with the public today. That picture is a decidedly grim one and, if history is any guide, may get much worse in the months ahead.
Much of the discussion about Biden’s dreadful poll numbers has focused on his ever-slipping approval rating. The most recent Real Clear Politics average shows Biden’s approval at just 41.1%, down from 55% at the beginning of his term. Even more striking is the percentage of Americans who disapprove, which has risen from 36% to 55% in just over a year.
Some polls even found Biden’s approval rating to be as low as 33%, virtually unprecedented for a president this early in his term. For reference, the average Gallup approval rating of all presidents in January of their second year in office going back to 1938 is 53%. At this point in their presidencies, George H.W. Bush sat at 80% approval, Bill Clinton at 55%, George W. Bush at 84%, Barack Obama at 49%, and even Donald Trump, who even left-wing media outlets now admit was far more popular than his polling indicated throughout his presidency, managed 38% approval. And while Trump had spent his first year as the focus of deranged conspiracy theories and unrelenting media hostility, Joe Biden has been the subject of the opposite: an almost unbroken campaign of media cheerleading, while many of Biden’s fiercest critics are literally censored.
Digging into the numbers, things get even worse for Biden. According to data from a recent NBC poll, Biden’s support has declined from 68% last April to 36% now among Independents, from 83% to 64% among Blacks, from 59% to 48% among Hispanics, from 61% to 51% among women, and from 56% to a shocking 40% among those aged 18 to 34. In short, Biden has lost major ground among every group in his electoral coalition.
It doesn’t look much better when you break things down by issue. A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that more than half of registered voters now disapprove of Biden’s handling of the pandemic. Just 36% approve of his handling of the economy, while 54% disapprove. On immigration, those numbers are 33% and 56%, respectively. On foreign policy Biden sits at 38%-49% approve-disapprove, and he sits at 42%-55% on education. Even on climate change, a perennial “good” issue for Democrats, just 33% of registered voters said they approved of how he’s doing.
No matter how you spin it, Americans are not happy with their president. Another Politico/Morning Consult poll asking respondents to “grade” Biden’s performance one year in found that 37% of people would give the president an “F” (including 33% of independents) while just 11% overall and 24% of Democrats would give him an “A.” One CBS News/YouGov survey asked respondents to choose from a list of words describing how Biden’s first year has made them feel. 50% chose “frustrated,” 49% chose “disappointed,” and just 25% chose “satisfied.” By a 70%-28% margin, voters don’t want Biden to run for re-election – a figure that includes just 48% of Democrats. Similarly, just 28% of voters say they have a “great deal of confidence” that Biden can manage the White House, while half of registered voters disagree with the statement that “Joe Biden is in good health.”
how can you people let this go on?
for the good of the country...
for the good of all the causes Dems hold dear...
Sleepy Slimy Slidin' Joe Biden must resign
all TTFites need to get together and convince him to resign!
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