The Right to Make Sense
There's a lot going on these days but you might have noticed that Republicans have become very concerned about transgender people. They are passing laws regulating medical attention for trans people, keeping transgender people out of athletics, stopping any mention of trans topics in school; Texas passed a law saying that parents of a trans child can be convicted of felony child abuse, and other states are trying to pass similar laws. They want neighbors, schoolteachers, doctors to report parents so they can be charged with the crime of having a transgender family member.
It's a political strategy that works for Republicans. In real life, nobody is actually upset by someone's gender identity. Trans people are just people, you might do a double-take and then it doesn't matter. It literally does not hurt anything, does not affect anybody's life in any way except for the one person, who is pursuing happiness just like anybody.
So here's the game -- and conservatives do this over and over, we saw them try it here in our little county a few years ago. Out of nowhere, they start complaining about something that is not a problem -- on the topic of gender identity two favorite starter issues are bathrooms and sports, because they can bring these up as "what-ifs" without anything actually happening. Some preacher or lawyer starts complaining to the press and of course the press is happy to write about "the issue." If a preacher explains that something is sinful or even evil, many people just don't know any better, and believe what they are told. Next thing you know they are passing laws making life miserable for some citizens who have not hurt anything or anybody.
If you are comfortable with your birth gender then it can be difficult, if not impossible, to imagine what it would be like to have people treating you like someone you are not. You cannot blame people who don't get it, if they have not had a trans friend or family member or given it much thought. It "seems" easy, penises on this side, vaginas on that side, and most of the time that's how it works, but not always, and it can be hard to explain. On the other hand it is not hard to accept, either. There have always been trans people and somehow society managed to function. It does not affect anybody, and it should be nobody's business.
As conservatives start obsessing loudly over this, somebody has to come out and say, wait a minute, this isn't even a problem, and that will be liberals. And next thing you know, liberals are using unfamiliar words like "nonbinary" and giving press conferences about rights for trans people, and then the conservatives will claim liberals are "promoting" or pushing something that seems weird to unschooled countryfolk. These days they are saying that liberals are "grooming" young people for some kind of sexual exploitation, as if there was no other explanation for treating people fairly. Of course in the meantime they have passed a bunch of hateful laws, taking away the rights of transgender people, who are not a big part of the voting population and can't win in a majority-rules system.
People out there reading the newspaper don't know any better, they don't know what's going on. Millions of conservatives actually believe that liberals are literally pedophiles. It's not just that one pizza place. Fox News is telling them that Democrats are grooming children for secret liberal child-orgies, and people who don't know any better believe it.
This is absurd but you can't ignore it, you have to fight for the right to make sense in this crazy country. This is not something that will correct itself automatically, people will only get dumber and dumber if we do not stand up to this nonsense.
posted by JimK at 10:50 AM
196 Comments:
"There's a lot going on these days but you might have noticed that Republicans have become very concerned about transgender people"
haven't noticed it
"They are passing laws regulating medical attention for trans people,"
when have they done that? I think rational people have said underage children shouldn't undergo these treatments
adults can do what they want
"keeping transgender people out of athletics,"
no, they are free to participate as their birth gender
anything else in unfair, and the only time any sport allows anything else is by governmental imposition
"stopping any mention of trans topics in school;"
on an age-appropriate basis
it's a confusing topic and kids shouldn't be expose to it at an early age
"Texas passed a law saying that parents of a trans child can be convicted of felony child abuse, and other states are trying to pass similar laws."
the Texas law involves parents enabling these gender treatments before kids are ready to make them
"They want neighbors, schoolteachers, doctors to report parents so they can be charged with the crime of having a transgender family member."
the same is true of all crime
see something, say something
"It's a political strategy that works for Republicans. In real life, nobody is actually upset by someone's gender identity."
neither are Republicans
they are trying to protect children and female athletes
"So here's the game -- and conservatives do this over and over, we saw them try it here in our little county"
in what sense is our county "little"?
I know the liberals that run the place aren't very original, mainly imitating places like NY and California, but it is one of the wealthiest places in America
"a few years ago. Out of nowhere, they start complaining about something that is not a problem -- on the topic of gender identity two favorite starter issues are bathrooms and sports,"
they simply react to changes made by the radicals here
"because they can bring these up as "what-ifs" without anything actually happening. Some preacher"
not aware of any local preachers becoming involved
"or lawyer starts complaining to the press and of course the press is happy to write about "the issue." If a preacher explains that something is sinful or even evil, many people just don't know any better, and believe what they are told. Next thing you know they are passing laws making life miserable for some citizens who have not hurt anything or anybody."
can you describe this "misery"?
what are you talking about?
"There have always been trans people and somehow society managed to function. It does not affect anybody, and it should be nobody's business."
well, when liberals try to impose their perspective on school curriculums and say girls have to compete with biological guys in sports and businesses have to let guys use the girls' room, that affect others
In what is expected to be a record year for anti-trans legislation, Colorado service organizations say they’re already seeing increased demand from places like Texas and Idaho.
She isn’t sure when, but someday soon her family will get in the car and travel from Houston to northern Colorado, where they’ll start a new life.
She’s a fourth-generation Texan and all her close relatives live near her. She’s only been to Colorado a few times, and her family has zero friends here.
But her eldest child, a 17-year-old boy, is transgender, and in Texas that now makes her a child abuser in the eyes of her governor, whose recent dictate has led to at least nine investigations of parents like her. Lawyers have advised she keep her name out of the news, lest she tip-off authorities.
“I just want to be able to have a moment of peace, of just enjoying my kids and enjoying living,” she said between deep sighs during a break from packing boxes for the move. “I want a normal family that just exists, without wondering if we’re going to get a knock on the door.”
It’s likely to be a record year for anti-trans legislation in the U.S. The Human Rights Campaign charts almost 300 existing or forthcoming bills in American statehouses, up from 147 last year and 79 in 2020. Most of these bills concern bathroom access, participation in youth sports and health care.
Some newer policies, however, go a step further: Texas leaders have sought to criminalize adults who aid kids in obtaining gender-affirming treatment. A judge on Friday halted child abuse investigations in these cases, but the long-term future of the policy is unclear. Violators of a bill advanced this month in Idaho could face life in prison, and Idaho lawmakers are also pursuing criminal penalties for people who travel out of state to obtain certain medical care for transgender children.
This is why the Texas mother and others around the country are looking to Colorado as a safe haven. While parts of the U.S. become less welcoming and supportive of trans kids and adults, Colorado has spent years moving in the opposite direction.
Last year Colorado became the first in the nation to require some health insurance plans to cover gender-affirming care. The legislature last year updated state anti-discrimination statutes to make them gender-neutral, and in 2019 banned conversion therapy. Colorado allows people to easily change a gender marker on state-issued identity documents, and there are no bathroom bills or youth sports bills targeting trans kids here....
“Horrifically wrong”
The Houston woman is hardly alone. Another mother from the same part of Texas, Katie Laird, is plotting a similar move. Her family plans to come to Denver this summer for an indefinite period of time.
On the day Laird spoke to The Post, she said she’d heard of four other families planning to leave Texas, and that she knew two that already left.
Laird’s son, Noah, is 15 years old and transgender, and for years she’s been a regular at the Texas statehouse for hearings on bills affecting trans kids, among others. She didn’t think it would get to this point, but she knows now, she said, she was “horrifically wrong.”
Noah used to practice martial arts competitively, and no longer does. That’s a result of pandemic stress and of anti-trans sports laws, Laird said. As of this month, the hospital where Noah received gender-affirming care can no longer provide it to him.
“Is this even a feasible place for us to ensure our child’s safety and access to medical care?” Laird wondered. “Is it even an option for us to stay?”
By email, Noah reflected on what he needs and what Texas can no longer provide: “I would want a safer space to be able to talk to people in and out of the community about the experiences of just being a trans kid. If adults and politicians actually listened to us, the kids, about how this is important and how the gender-affirming treatments are literally lifesaving, then I think everyone could be a bit more comfortable with that.”
When Laird wants to feel better about the state of things, she looks forward a few months and imagines her son clearing his head in the mountain air.
500 people on a waiting list
The service and advocacy organizations in Colorado that work with trans youth are getting more calls these days, and not just from Texas.
“Internal to the state, parents and families are contacting to make sure there are protections,” said Nadine Bridges, executive director of the nonprofit One Colorado. “Internally, it’s the fear of, could this happen to us? Can it? What do we need to do? How do I make sure I put my kid into a school that’s going to be accepting and that’s going to support them?
“If they’re outside of the state,” Bridges said, “they’re calling to see what the protections are here, and making sure that if they were to come to Colorado that they’d have protections for their kid.”
Another nonprofit director, Jessie Pocock of Inside Out Youth Services in Colorado Springs, said, “We will see people move here and we’ll see a need for accessing services.”
Pocock also said that for all of the state laws that make Colorado a relatively welcoming environment for trans youth, there’s plenty still to fight against. Advocates and parents just last month helped rally opposition to an anti-trans school resolution at Monument Academy in El Paso County.
That resolution, approved Feb. 10, described gender-inclusive policies relating to bathroom access and sports participation as violations of “natural law” and “moral truth.”
“You’re not going to face what you’re seeing (in Texas) in Colorado Springs,” Pocock said. “However, you may be facing different systems that might refuse to use pronouns, who could very well tell you, ‘I don’t actually accept your lifestyle’ when you’re trying to seek out access.
“People feel so emboldened in our community to really just preach the rhetoric of anti-LGBT sentiment. A lot of these people are in control.”
There are also challenges in Colorado that have nothing to do with hate or stigma; even those who’d seek to help trans youth sometimes do not have the capacity. Pocock said she’s aware of a 500-person waiting list at a clinic that provides gender-affirming care. The clinic just opened a branch in Colorado Springs, but only for one day a week...
“They’re erasing trans people”
These long waits are primarily an issue of funding. Pocock said her organization spent almost 30 years begging for money and that the group could hardly operate at times.
It’s not clear that the state is preparing in any specific way, through extra funding or otherwise, for the increased demand that anti-trans laws in other states is likely to create in Colorado.
A spokeswomen for the governor, Jared Polis, said in a statement, “Colorado will continue moving forward and stand for the rights of all Coloradans, and we welcome those who are denied basic rights in other states.”
State Rep. Brianna Titone of Arvada, the first and only out transgender state lawmaker in Colorado history, is well aware of the limits of the law to root out hate. She has been often misgendered on the floor of the state House of Representatives and was the target of an anti-trans election-season ad campaign by a former state lawmaker who, on a robocall to voters, suggested Titone is a danger to “your wives and daughters.”
Of this national moment, Titone said, “It’s easy to pick on a small group of people who are poorly understood.”
“They’re erasing trans people in every way that they can. In my mind, the next step — and I hate to say it — would be rounding people up. That’s what a lot of people are thinking right now when these things happen. If you’re saying, ‘We’re erasing you, … and we don’t want you to be the way you are,’ that is really scary.”
Back in Texas, the Houston mother says she doesn’t expect Colorado to solve every challenge imposed on her family as a result of her son’s gender. After all, you can’t legislate stigma, ignorance or misunderstanding. But she knows, at least, that nothing about her son’s identity is illegal here.
“I don’t need everybody to think the way we do, but I need to live somewhere where people will listen to reason, and don’t think a solution is to take my children away from me,” she said, then returned to packing.
"require some health insurance plans to cover gender-affirming care"
ah, "gender-affirming care" - an Orwellian term for efforts to artificially change someone's gender
"banned conversion therapy"
so liberals think they have a right to ban treatment for mental issues related to gender identity
then, they discuss "rights" - more Orwellian crap
"there are no bathroom bills or youth sports bills"
bathroom bills protect the privacy of females
sports bill ensure fairness in athletic competition
lunatic fringe gay advocates think guys with gender delusion issues have the right to violate the privacy of females and enjoy an unfair advantage is sports competition
it's not complicated...
"Texas passed a law saying that parents of a trans child can be convicted of felony child abuse, and other states are trying to pass similar laws."
the Texas law involves parents enabling these gender treatments before kids are ready to make them"
No. The Texas law is about Christian Dominionists who don't believe in science overriding doctors, parents, and patients who want to get the latest treatment for their children that has been based on a series of medical procedures that have been performed, tested, reviewed and followed since the 1950's. Just because a loud and obnoxious minority of Christians can't cope with the reality of some people's medical conditions doesn't give them the right to criminalize medical care.
"They want neighbors, schoolteachers, doctors to report parents so they can be charged with the crime of having a transgender family member."
the same is true of all crime
see something, say something"
Getting standard medical care is not a crime. It is quite Orwellian of you to promote making it one. But that is the kind of fascist behavior we've come to expect from book-banning conservatives these days.
"so liberals think they have a right to ban treatment for mental issues related to gender identity"
No. But governments exercise the right to ban snake-oil "treatments" proffered by anyone that tends to harm people more than it helps - especially if they don't have a medical license.
I could cure your toe fungus with some hydrochloric acid. You may not have much of a toe left though. Not everyone is smart enough to know that is not a good idea, and that there are better ways to deal with toe fungus.
The US has had food, drug, and medical safety laws of various forms for a couple of centuries now. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need them, but history has shown that there a profiteers eager to take advantage of people's medical ignorance.
Historically, letting religious people (or religiously motivated politicians) dictate medical care is not a good idea. How some religious folks dealt with the pandemic should be evidence enough of that... may they rest in peace.
https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/post/pastors-who-died-from-covid
"No. The Texas law is about Christian Dominionists who don't believe in science overriding doctors, parents, and patients who want to get the latest treatment for their children that has been based on a series of medical procedures that have been performed, tested, reviewed and followed since the 1950's. Just because a loud and obnoxious minority of Christians can't cope with the reality of some people's medical conditions doesn't give them the right to criminalize medical care."
people who have no religious beliefs at all think that no one should make such a decision until they are an adult
science can also make people look like Barbie dolls
but if a parent signed their kid up for it, they'd be a bad parent
same with a life-altering decision to mutilate their body and poison their blood in an attempt to create an artificial gender
"Getting standard medical care is not a crime."
it's not medical care, it's a cosmetic procedure
also, no one is saying that it should be illegal for an adult to try to artificially change their gender
it's a crime to allow a child to make such a decision
"It is quite Orwellian of you to promote making it one."
nice projection
it's actually Orwellian to call cosmetic surgery medical care
"But that is the kind of fascist behavior we've come to expect from book-banning conservatives these days."
every society chooses not to expose children to certain things until they are mature enough
calling that "book-banning" is another Orwellianism
and more than a little hypocritical
"No. But governments exercise the right to ban snake-oil "treatments" proffered by anyone that tends to harm people more than it helps - especially if they don't have a medical license."
attempting to rid oneself of unwanted same sex attraction is no more harmful than a weight loss program
"I could cure your toe fungus with some hydrochloric acid. You may not have much of a toe left though. Not everyone is smart enough to know that is not a good idea, and that there are better ways to deal with toe fungus."
when "everyone" is smart enough, why does the government need to be involved
by the way "everyone" knows that no one should make a decision to artificially change their gender untii they are an adult
"The US has had food, drug, and medical safety laws of various forms for a couple of centuries now. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need them, but history has shown that there a profiteers eager to take advantage of people's medical ignorance."
all those things, food, drugs, are physical things
governments have no business outlawing words
"people who have no religious beliefs at all think that no one should make such a decision until they are an adult"
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. No one is entitled to enforce their opinions upon doctors, parents, and children of other people just because they don't agree with it.
Jehovah's witnesses don't want blood transfusions, despite the fact it is well known to save lives. As far as I know though, we don't through the parents of JW children in jail because they refused a transfusion for their child.
It is also no secret that it is the religious right behind these anti-trans attacks in state legislatures.
"science can also make people look like Barbie dolls
but if a parent signed their kid up for it, they'd be a bad parent"
Here you have appealed to the Faulty Analogy Logical Fallacy:
Faulty Analogy
This fallacy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect.
Example:
Medical Student: "No one objects to a physician looking up a difficult case in medical books. Why, then, shouldn't students taking a difficult examination be permitted to use their textbooks?"
"same with a life-altering decision to mutilate their body and poison their blood in an attempt to create an artificial gender"
Here you have attempted the Straw Man Logical Fallacy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/straw-man-fallacy-examples.html
Of the many types of logical fallacies, the straw man fallacy is particularly common in political debates and in discussions over controversial topics. The basic structure of the argument consists of Person A making a claim, Person B creating a distorted version of the claim (the “straw man”), and then Person B attacking this distorted version in order to refute Person A’s original assertion.
The unwarranted certitude in your "right" to criminalize how medically informed parents care for their children doesn't make you correct. Nor does it give you the right to indulge your authoritarian proclivities.
"when "everyone" is smart enough, why does the government need to be involved"
Who said everyone is smart enough? Did you have problems reading what I wrote?
By definition, half of the population have an intelligence that is "below average." Your frequent mischaracterizations here of transgender medical care (that have lasted over a decade) clearly identify you as belonging to that lower half. Hormone levels are carefully monitored and adjusted individually for each patient to make sure they fall well within healthy normal levels. That information has been explained here and is readily available around the web and yet conservatives invariably mischaracterize that aspect of treatment at every opportunity - banking on the fact that most below-average folks (and fellow conservative voters) will never bother to look up the facts.
This makes them particularly unsuited for imposing their un-informed "medical beliefs" on anyone's dog, much less someone's child.
"governments have no business outlawing words"
And yet you can't make a threat on someone life without risking going to jail. We also have laws about "slander" and "liable" - all limiting what people can say. Those kinds of laws go back centuries.
Once again, you have made another pointless point - oblivious to the fact that a Republican governor has thrown red meat to his base recently with the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
Funny how conservatives are quite happy to outlaw words when they can use it to marginalize LGBT people, or other minorities.
Ammon Bundy, a far-right activist who has built a reputation by clashing with law enforcement on multiple occasions, has been arrested by police in Meridian, Idaho, on a charge of trespassing.
Mr Bundy, who is running for governor in Idaho, was leading a group of protesters expressing outrage at authorities for taking a malnourished child into protective custody.
According to police, the protesters arrived at St Luke’s Meridian Medical Centre demonstrating against the “kidnapping” of the child, and refused to leave the area when asked to do so.
In a statement, Mr Bundy’s campaign wrote that he was arrested “while standing for parental rights and against medical tyranny” and for “the crime of disagreeing with the hospital and CPS.
“Make no mistake about it, this was an ambush arrest with no legal grounds.”
However, the Meridian police gave a more detailed account of what had happened to the child, explaining that he was first admitted to the hospital for severe malnourishment before being returned to his parents.
“During a follow-up appointment earlier this week,” the force said in a statement, “it was determined the child had again lost a significant amount of weight and when the parents cancelled the next follow-up appointment and could not be located, the Meridian Police were contacted and advised this child’s condition could lead to severe injury or even death if not treated.”
After the child’s father failed to bring the child in for a requested examination, officers reportedly visited the parents’ home and found them “uncooperative”.
Serving a warrant to empty the home, they found the family gone, but were later able to take the child into custody after he was found with his parents during a traffic stop.
Mr Bundy’s website has a page dedicated to updates on the child’s case. Headed “BABY CYRUS WAS KIDNAPPED!!!” it makes assorted unverified claims about the child’s health and accuses the hospital of doing him “great harm”.
Having been arrested several times in the past few years for his activism – including twice in two hours for allegedly trespassing at the Idaho Statehouse – Mr Bundy last week filed his papers to stand as an independent candidate for governor of Idaho.
He has harshly criticized Republican governor Brad Little as insufficiently right wing for the solidly Republican state.
"Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay"
say, how many times have you watched The Shining?
"Everyone is entitled to an opinion. No one is entitled to enforce their opinions upon doctors, parents, and children of other people just because they don't agree with it."
that's why a life-altering decision like this should be made only when a person is old enough to be sure he is making it of his own volition and has has the sufficient maturity
just like with smoking and drinking and buying porn
"Jehovah's witnesses don't want blood transfusions, despite the fact it is well known to save lives. As far as I know though, we don't through the parents of JW children in jail because they refused a transfusion for their child."
states do in fact intervene in cases like this
just like they should if some parent is allowing, or encouraging, a kid to make a life-altering decision to permanently mutilate and poison themselves to suppress their natural biology
blood transfusions save lives and restore a person to healthy and normal biology, sexual reassignment therapy causes harm and permanently alters biology to an abnormal state
see the difference now?
"It is also no secret that it is the religious right behind these anti-trans attacks in state legislatures."
protecting children and ensuring the privacy of women and the fairness of athletic competition is not an "attack" on anyone
and plenty of people who are not particularly religious support such efforts
indeed, that's what worries you so much
"Here you have appealed to the Faulty Analogy Logical Fallacy"
actually, that's what you've done by calling a cosmetic procedure to make one appear to be a different gender with life-saving medical procedures
you're kind of a hypocrite
"The unwarranted certitude in your "right" to criminalize"
oh, Texas is always a little draconian with its laws
here in Maryland, instead of throwing the parents in jail, they tend to take custody of the kid if the parent endanger the child
"how medically informed parents care for their children doesn't make you correct."
again, calling mutilation "care" is O:rwelian
"Nor does it give you the right to indulge your authoritarian proclivities."
so is calling protecting children "authoritarian"
"By definition, half of the population have an intelligence that is "below average.""
and that part of the population is well-represented by TTFers
"Your frequent mischaracterizations here of transgender medical care (that have lasted over a decade)"
LOL!
in prior comments you were talking about "since the fifties"
"never bother to look up the facts"
the fact that science can do a pretty good job making you appear to be something you're not doesn't mean it's an inconsequential decision
it's a decision that should be made personally at a mature age
and no science contradicts that
"We also have laws about "slander" and "liable""
again we see that TTFers can't even spell but grandly believe they are in the upper half of the population when it comes to IQ
ROFL!!!!!
"we don't through the parents of JW children in jail"
another example of, ahem, careless spelling by the upper half of geniuses
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yes, you must be in the toppermost on the IQ scale to understand that mutilating children is not child abuse
mentally challenged individuals simply can't understand how good mutilation is!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jane Campion won best director at the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday evening, and made these comments:
“It’s absolutely stunning to be here tonight among so many incredible women. Halle Berry, you have already done my speech — and really killed it, I loved it. You’re absolutely brilliant.
And Venus and Serena, what an honor to be in the room with you. I’ve taken up tennis. I truly have. And Will, if you want to come over and give me lessons, I would truly love it. I actually had to stop playing ’cause I got tennis elbow. I’d also just like to give my love out to my fellow — the guys. The nominees. And you know, Serena and Venus, you are such marvels. However, you do not play against the guys — like I have to.”
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, consultant Doug Haddix reported Sunday that since July 1 (when the lifesaving vaccine was widely available), the 14 states with the highest death rates were all run by Republican governors. This included Florida (at about 153 deaths per 100,000 residents), Ohio (142 deaths per 100,000), Arizona (138) and Georgia (134). Contrast that with the deep-blue District of Columbia (only 27 deaths per 100,000) and California (58 per 100,000).
For verification, I checked with health-care analyst Charles Gaba, whose data on covid-19 and voting patterns has been widely cited. He ran the numbers for me using data mostly from Johns Hopkins and found similar results. The 16 states with the highest coronavirus death rates since July 1 were all run by Republicans. The worst was West Virginia (about 204 deaths per 100,000), followed closely by Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wyoming and the aforementioned Florida.
The states with the lowest death rates, by contrast, were all run by Democrats — or, in the case of Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts, by moderate Republican governors who had heavily Democratic legislatures and embraced vaccines and masks. The best jurisdictions were D.C., Vermont, Hawaii and California. Looking at data from the period since May 1 (by which time all U.S. adults theoretically could have been vaccinated) produced similar results.
Florida residents were, since vaccines have been widely available, nearly seven times as likely to die from covid-19 as residents of D.C., nearly three times as likely to die as residents of California and 2½ times as likely to die as residents of New York. With Florida’s population of about 22 million, that’s a lot of unnecessary deaths.
This raises a question: How does Ron DeSantis sleep at night? Florida’s Republican governor has been among the most outspoken in raising fears of the coronavirus vaccine (most recently suggesting, falsely, that it could harm women’s fertility), suing to stop vaccine mandates, promoting ineffective cures, blocking rules requiring face masks, scolding mask-wearing kids for “covid theater” and touting misleading statistics.
It’s likely no coincidence that Florida, under DeSantis, has had by far the highest covid-19 death rate among the most-populous states and is in the top five of all states. Other factors, including climate, health-care infrastructure, and the age and underlying health of the population, don’t fully account for it. Maine, with an even older population than Florida’s, had a death rate just over half as high. Also, Florida’s vaccination rate appears to be overstated thanks to vaccine tourism.
"say, how many times have you watched The Shining?"
Only once. The "gay gay gay" title is an allusion and link to Mark Hamill's tweet about DeSantis' "Don't say gay" bill to BS (Ben Shapiro) - it highlights the irony you claiming "governments have no business outlawing words"
"that's why a life-altering decision like this should be made only when a person is old enough to be sure he is making it of his own volition and has has the sufficient maturity"
The decision to proceed with surgery is only allowed once the teenager has reached the age of 18 - when they are legally considered an adult. You should know that already. The use of puberty blockers is entirely reversible should the patient decide after living life for several years as they see fit, to decide not to complete the transition.
Both doctors and parents around the teenager have been paying close attention to their behavior for years to make sure they are mature enough to make that decision and not regret it.
That fact that you keep mischaracterizing transgender care for your political agenda shows either that you don't know anything about how it is actually carried out, or you do, but don't mind lying to indulge your authoritarian urges.
"just like with smoking and drinking and buying porn"
There you go again with the faulty analogy logical fallacy.
"actually, that's what you've done by calling a cosmetic procedure to make one appear to be a different gender with life-saving medical procedures"
First, what is commonly referred to as "cosmetic surgery" is only (except in rare cases) performed on adults over 18. In the few cases where it has been done on someone under 18 (but 16 or older) it has been on patients who have been living their comfortable gender for years and shown they have the maturity to cope well with life in that gender.
The cognitive dissonance caused by gender dysphoria, very often combined with a society that demonizes trans people - both children and adults - far to frequently leads to suicidal ideation. The multi-staged treatment program identified WPATH standards has been shown (after decades of use) to be effective in reducing and even eliminating self-harm and suicide.
"the fact that science can do a pretty good job making you appear to be something you're not doesn't mean it's an inconsequential decision
it's a decision that should be made personally at a mature age"
Conservatives have no idea what constitutes "maturity." If they did, they never would have voted for D. Trump or S. Palin. I've known 8-years that are more mature than both of them combined.
"Your frequent mischaracterizations here of transgender medical care (that have lasted over a decade)"
LOL!
in prior comments you were talking about "since the fifties"
Apparently I've hit one of your reading comprehension problems again; I'm guessing it's the big word that threw you off.
Yes, the 3-pronged approach to transgender medical care is a refined version of the approach used by Christine Jorgensen in the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen
"Your frequent mischaracterizations here" have lasted over a decade. Since you obviously didn't know what the time was referring to, I will point you to this guide on how to diagram a sentence. Maybe it will help you:
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-diagram-a-sentence#what-is-the-purpose-of-sentence-diagramming
You will need to pay particular attention to what is the subject, what is the object, and what is the modifier.
"again we see that TTFers can't even spell but grandly believe they are in the upper half of the population when it comes to IQ"
Actually, all the spelling was correct there - it was an improper use of a homophone. You might know that if you weren't so afraid of homos. I don't have a proofreader, and type slower than I think, so I frequently leave out letters or even short words. And yes I occasionally use the wrong homophone. I'm not perfect, but I'm quite comfortable with the fact that my posts are far more grammatically, punctually, and factually correct than the repetitive conservative drivel here.
"Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, consultant Doug Haddix reported Sunday that since July 1 (when the lifesaving vaccine was widely available), the 14 states with the highest death rates were all run by Republican governors."
actually, vaccines, produced thanks to Donald Trump's Warp speed program, have been widely available since March 2020
it is true that although New York and New Jersey are still in the top ten of deaths per million, they are no longer the top two spots, mainly because of vaccines
but people in different states are entitled to make their own risk assessments
also, it's worth mentioning that, all things being equal, you would expect people in Sun Belt states like Florida, Arizona, and Georgia to have higher death rates because they have higher shares of elderly people since they are popular retirement destinations
"Only once"
well, if they ever make of movie of your life, contact Jack Nicholson
"The "gay gay gay" title is an allusion and link to Mark Hamill's tweet"
ne of the most successful bad actors of all time, probably hoping to get a little press attention
"about DeSantis' "Don't say gay" bill"
there is no "Don't say gay" bill
that is derisive term for the “Parental Rights in Education” bill in Florida that holds that teachers should not encourage discussion about homosexuality in classrooms of young children
teachers would be allowed to answer questions though
calling it "Don't say gay" is similar to calling age-appropriate curriculum decision "banning books"
this attempt by the lunatic fringe to generalize the protection of young childrent o the rights of adults is pathetic
the lunatic fringe targets kids because they have few rights and it's easier to cram this crap don't their throats because they have no effective way to resist
"Conservatives have no idea what constitutes "maturity." If they did, they never would have voted for D. Trump or S. Palin. I've known 8-years that are more mature than both of them combined."
I guess you think AOC is mature
of course, Biden, Bernie, Pocohontas, Hillary are all so mature as to be senile
"Apparently I've hit one of your reading comprehension problems again; I'm guessing it's the big word that threw you off."
well, I've heard that Eskimos have 200 words for snow
so. it's no surprising that those swimming in perversions have a lot of terms for them
"Actually, all the spelling was correct there"
oh me gursh!
doesn't even know what words he misspelled
it's worse than I thought
maybe he's actually from the lower quadrant of IQ ranges
So many of your typos have gone unmentioned by this proofreader, but your desperation to win one argument means you'll stoop to typos for your fake self-gratification.
While you fake-celebrate your typo victory, here's some new for you to ponder.
"Americans are becoming increasingly appalled by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and increasingly aligned with the Biden administration’s response."
NATO backs Biden's leadership and western unity is growing again.
Thank goodness!
"governments have no business outlawing words"
That's why DeSantis-backed 'Dont Say Gay' bill sparks outrage
And yet you can't make a threat on someone life without risking going to jail. We also have laws about "slander" and "liable" - all limiting what people can say. Those kinds of laws go back centuries.
"doesn't even know what words he misspelled"
As was explained before, there are no misspelled words there. However, the wrong homophone was used:
liable:
responsible by law; legally answerable.
libel:
a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.
And since you didn't understand the explanation the first time:
homophone:
each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, for example new and knew.
Do I need to explain to you again that "voila" isn't spelled "wala?"
"there is no "Don't say gay" bill"
There was no "Bathroom bill", but that's the hyperbole conservatives used in their misinformation campaign against MoCo's 23-07 anti-discrimination bill.
"also, it's worth mentioning that, all things being equal, you would expect people in Sun Belt states like Florida, Arizona, and Georgia to have higher death rates because they have higher shares of elderly people since they are popular retirement destinations"
You would like to think that, but data scientists use math and statistics to determine if confounders like that had an effect, which allowed them to draw conclusions like this:
"It’s likely no coincidence that Florida, under DeSantis, has had by far the highest covid-19 death rate among the most-populous states and is in the top five of all states. Other factors, including climate, health-care infrastructure, and the age and underlying health of the population, don’t fully account for it. Maine, with an even older population than Florida’s, had a death rate just over half as high. Also, Florida’s vaccination rate appears to be overstated thanks to vaccine tourism."
"I guess you think AOC is mature."
Compared to Trump and Palin? Absolutely. Conservatives had more than a dozen other primary candidates to choose from in 2015-2016. They chose the least mature and least qualified idiot of the bunch.
And just to clarify, allow me to specify which definition of "mature" I'm using:
mature:
having reached an advanced stage of mental or emotional development characteristic of an adult
"So many of your typos have gone unmentioned by this proofreader,"
if you want to mention them, feel free
but they are clear letters dropped by typing quickly, not clear spelling errors
and, honestly, I only brought it up because he was insulting the intelligence of anyone who doesn't agree with him about his view of transgenderism
"but your desperation to win one argument means you'll stoop to typos for your fake self-gratification."
desperation to win what argument?
let's see, what made me say that?...
oh yeah, hear it is:
"By definition, half of the population have an intelligence that is "below average." Your frequent mischaracterizations here of transgender medical care (that have lasted over a decade) clearly identify you as belonging to that lower half."
so, I counter this nasty remark, pointing out how vulnerable he is to qualify for the insult he's making
and you act like I'm victimizing the poor fellow
the old adage "they can dish it out but they can't take it" seems to apply
""Americans are becoming increasingly appalled by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and increasingly aligned with the Biden administration’s response."
NATO backs Biden's leadership and western unity is growing again.
Thank goodness!"
interesting perspective
Zelensky today called NATO a failure
but at least they all agree
geez
Biden has created a very dangerous situation by constantly telling Putin what we'll do in advance
""governments have no business outlawing words"
That's why DeSantis-backed 'Dont Say Gay' bill sparks outrage"
there you go again, Dimmy
DeSantis has backed no 'Dont Say Gay' bill
that's a lie and you know it
"there are no misspelled words there. However, the wrong homophone was used:"
dude, using the wrong homophone is misspelling
by definition
"Maine, with an even older population than Florida’s, had a death rate just over half as high."
Florida's a little more crowded than Maine
and while we don't want to discuss the relationship between rural Down-easters and their sheep, suffice it to say they have limited human contact
"Conservatives had more than a dozen other primary candidates to choose from in 2015-2016. They chose the least mature and least qualified idiot of the bunch."
actually, I don't think Trump won 50% of many primaries so you can't really say conservatives chose him
he was more chosen by the media
"there are no misspelled words there. However, the wrong homophone was used"
that's right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wrooonnnnnnng
"dude, using the wrong homophone is misspelling
by definition"
No, it's not. That's not how definitions work. Especially when none of the words were actually misspelled.
It's not clear at all that you even knew there was a homophone for "libel." It appears you had never even seen the word "liable" and are now trying to cover it up with the new word you just learned and the bluffing insistence on a "misspelling." You're like the child caught with chocolate smeared on his face telling his mom he didn't eat the cookie.
"actually, I don't think Trump won 50% of many primaries so you can't really say conservatives chose him"
Once again, the facts don't jive well with your assertions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries
A quick onceover looks like Trump won over 50% in about 15 states, and the largest majority in many others ("Results by State Popular Vote"), well over 50% of the counties, and nearly 3x the number of delegates as the next closest competitor.
"he was more chosen by the media"
Well, that's the problem when a party depends on voters from the lower half of the IQ scale - they are easily distracted by bombastic idiots and the free media they attract.
"We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated," Trump said during his victory speech.
Let's set aside the fact that "poorly educated" is not the same as "less educated" and look at the numbers:
Trump did well across the board in Nevada, garnering 45.9% of the vote, but he did even better among voters with a high school education or less. Fifty-seven percent of those voters supported him, according to entrance polls, courtesy of CNN."
"Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV"
Ooh, look at that very stable genius go!
"It's not clear at all that you even knew there was a homophone for "libel." It appears you had never even seen the word "liable" and are now trying to cover it up with the new word you just learned and the bluffing insistence on a "misspelling." You're like the child caught with chocolate smeared on his face telling his mom he didn't eat the cookie."
heavens to murgatroid!
you misspelled the word
it's clear from the context you didn't mean "liable"
Once again, the facts don't jive well with your assertions:
"A quick onceover looks like Trump won over 50% in about 15 states, and the largest majority in many others ("Results by State Popular Vote"), well over 50% of the counties, and nearly 3x the number of delegates as the next closest competitor."
looks like our "quick" thinkin' strikes again
in 35 states he didn't win over 50%
conservatives actually never liked him much
he was a demagogue and a populist who adopted Dem-type tactics
"Well, that's the problem when a party depends on voters from the lower half of the IQ scale - they are easily distracted by bombastic idiots and the free media they attract."
actually. the mainstream media were intrigued by him for decades
the Dems in DC were swooning when he took over the Old Post Office in DC
Here's a shocking stat: Less than 1 in 3 (29%) of registered voters don't think that Slidin' Joe Biden will run for a second term in 2024.
Those numbers come courtesy of a new Wall Street Journal poll, which suggests the electorate has serious doubts as to whether Biden, who be 81 in two years, will seek another four years in office.
"dude, using the wrong homophone is misspelling"
Like when you wrote "oh yeah, hear it is:" a few entries back?
Just to be clear, "hear" is a homophone for "here."
"Florida's a little more crowded than Maine"
Stop using Trump U mathematics.
Total numbers of residents in each state aren't the point.
The data is presented as the number of covid deaths per 100,000 residents.
Florida has about 153 covid deaths per 100,000 residents
While "Maine, with an even older population than Florida’s, had a death rate just over half as high."
That would put Maine at about 75-80 covid deaths per 100,000 residents
Your math comprehension appears to be as low as your reading comprehension.
"Like when you wrote "oh yeah, hear it is:" a few entries back?"
LOL
yes, assuming you're telling the truth, it's just like that
if I wrote that, it's a misspelling
"Total numbers of residents in each state aren't the point."
I didn't say they were
I said density is a factor
density results in more exposure
anyone with an IQ above 100 knows that
but your IQ is somewhat below that, isn't it?
"While "Maine, with an even older population than Florida’s, had a death rate just over half as high.""
I'm telling you, a lot of their social contacts are sheep
"Your math comprehension appears to be as low as your reading comprehension."
your perception of reality is, let's just say, alternative
looks like our "quick" thinkin' strikes again
in 35 states he didn't win over 50%
There were 17 candidates starting the primaries. A uniformly random distribution of votes and states would mean each candidate would receive around 5.9% of the vote and 3 states.
"conservatives actually never liked him much"
Rumpy did 5 times better than what would be expected from a random distribution of votes. He got nearly twice as many total votes as the next most popular candidate - Cancun Cruz, 3.27x as many as Kasich, and 3.99x as many as Rubio. Everyone else was in the noise.
If they never liked him much, who the heck did conservatives vote for?
"he was a demagogue and a populist who adopted Dem-type tactics"
Right... because there is nothing conservatives are more susceptible to than nefarious and nebulous "Dem-type tactics."
If "Dem-type tactics worked," conservatives would be voting for more Democrats. Democrats are barely organized well enough to keep their own party together. You'd like to blame Rump's disastrous stint as the head of the Republican party on Democrats, but Lindsay knew the truth years ago:
https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/727604522156228608?lang=en
"If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it." L.G., 3 May 16
"There were 17 candidates starting the primaries. A uniformly random distribution of votes and states would mean each candidate would receive around 5.9% of the vote and 3 states."
well, numbskull, that's just the point
even with your limited intelligence, I'm sure you realize that conservative votes were divided among a number of candidates
Trump got more because the media turned him into some entertaining populist and he attracted a bunch of people who don't usually vote
also, on the campaign trail he favored many things that conservatives in 2016 didn't believe in
let me know if you need a list
"If they never liked him much, who the heck did conservatives vote for?"
I think we covered that
"he was a demagogue and a populist who adopted Dem-type tactics"
"Right... because there is nothing conservatives are more susceptible to than nefarious and nebulous "Dem-type tactics.""
if they don't have an effect, why do Dems use them?
"If "Dem-type tactics worked," conservatives would be voting for more Democrats. Democrats are barely organized well enough to keep their own party together. You'd like to blame Rump's disastrous stint as the head of the Republican party on Democrats, but Lindsay knew the truth years ago"
get a coherent thought together and we can discuss it
"even with your limited intelligence, I'm sure you realize that conservative votes were divided among a number of candidates"
Even after showing you how the numbers were "divided" among the candidates showed an overwhelming favorability for Trump, you failed to show who conservatives actually voted for. Was it Cancun Cruz? He got about half of the popular votes Rumpie did and about 1/3rd of the delegates.
"Trump got more because the media turned him into some entertaining populist and he attracted a bunch of people who don't usually vote"
So what you're telling me is that conservative values (and / or their candidates) lack so much popularity that they can easily be defeated (nearly 2:1) by media coverage of a slow-moving train wreck, in spite of that same media coverage showing the guy was a sexual predator. The majority of that media coverage was not "good" by any stretch of the imagination.
"if they don't have an effect, why do Dems use them?"
Could you be any more nebulous here? What tactics are you referring to? Using television ads? Facebook ads? Voter registration drives? Appealing to voters with popular policies?
When you can get a coherent thought together maybe we'll have something to discuss.
The problem isn't Trump, or the media. The problem has been identified by a fringe Republican group called "The Republican Accountability Project."
They put out a video of the problem. It's called "Partisan Derangement Syndrome":
https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP?
If you don't want to click the Twitter link, here is a description:
A Republican group is running an ad on Fox News that calls out members of the GOP who recognize the danger of Donald Trump but plan to vote for him if he’s the party’s nominee in 2024.
The spot from the Republican Accountability Project is meant to resemble the old ASPCA ads featuring singer Sarah McLachlan. Except instead of a plea to help animals escape abusive environments, this one’s a mock PSA for Republicans suffering from “Partisan Derangement Syndrome” who are “too far gone” to be saved.
The ad is set to run in the D.C. market on “Fox & Friends” next week ― reportedly one of Trump’s favorite shows.
“This ad shows the ridiculous lengths these Republicans will go to try to remain in Trump’s good graces,” Sarah Longwell, the organization’s executive director, said in a news release. “They know Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and actions on January 6 were wrong, but they lack the courage to take a stand and say they won’t support him.”
The Republican Accountability Project, a group of “never Trump” conservatives, has been calling out members of the GOP who enabled the former president, especially during and after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol that was carried out by his supporters. The group has taken out ads against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and others, and has vowed to support candidates who challenge Trump’s enablers in the primaries.
Over 400 Companies Have Withdrawn from Russia—But Some Remain
33 companies (as of Wednesday afternoon) that form a “hall of shame,” defying demands that they exit Russia or reduce their activities there.
“They are funding the Russian war machine, and they are undermining the whole idea of the sanctions," Sonnenfeld told me. “The whole idea is to freeze up civil society, to get people out on the streets and outraged. They’re undermining an effective resolution” and increasing the likelihood of continued bloodshed.
Those who want to stop Russia’s murderous attack against Ukraine should stop investing in or buying the products of these companies.
Koch Industries, whose owners gave to right-wing causes for years, is now financing Putin’s war. The people who make Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Vanity Fair napkins and Georgia-Pacific lumber are abetting the spilling of Ukrainians’ blood.
Like Reebok shoes? They’re being used to stomp on Ukraine. Authentic Brands Group, which also owns Aeropostale, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Nine West, among others, is in the hall of shame.
Before you bite into a Cinnabon (or Carvel ice cream, Schlotzsky’s sandwich or Auntie Anne’s pretzel) consider that parent company Focus Brands is taking a bite out of democracy in Ukraine.
So is Subway. While selling you the All-American Club, it’s giving Ukrainians the Cold-Cock Combo by refusing to cut loose its 446 Russian franchises.
Several other household brands — Truvia and Diamond Crystal salt (Cargill), Avon cosmetics (Natura), LG appliances, ASUS laptops, Mission tortillas (Gruma) and Pirelli tires — are produced by companies on the shameful list.
Are you or your mutual fund invested in Halliburton, Baker Hughes or Schlumberger? Then you should know that these oil-services companies could deal a huge blow to Putin’s ability to wage war — but they choose profit instead.
Let’s name and shame all the others among the 33: advertising firms BBDO, DDB and Omnicom; accountant Baker Tilly; industrial companies Air Liquide, Air Products, Greif, IPG Photonics, Linde, Mettler Toledo, Nalco and Rockwool; French hotelier Accor and retailers Auchan, Decathlon and Leroy Merlin; German wholesaler Metro; cloud service Cloudflare; International Paper; and Sweden’s Oriflame Cosmetics.
It should come as no surprise that the highest rates for covid-19 deaths and murders are found mainly in red states. A political mind-set that prioritizes racial resentment, anti-science zealotry and manufactured cultural wedge issues is not likely to be conducive to long, healthy lives. Indeed, antagonism toward “elites” (e.g., experts) often impedes common-sense measures that save lives.
Steven H. Woolf, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, writes in the Journal of American Medicine: “Disparities in health across the 50 states are growing, a trend that began in the 1990s. For example, in 1990, life expectancy in New York was lower than in Oklahoma, but the trajectories separated sharply in the 1990s and, by 2016, New York ranked third in life expectancy, whereas Oklahoma ranked 45th.” Moreover, “the widening gap cannot be explained by changes in the racial and ethnic composition of states, because the same trend occurred within racial and ethnic groups.”
Instead, Woolf says the politics of red states is killing their residents. “Conservative governors increasingly use preemption, the authority to override local governments, to block liberal health policies (e.g., indoor smoking bans),” he notes. “States have preempted local regulations on nutrition (e.g., menu labeling, food deserts) and, as of 2013, 45 states had enacted statutes to limit local firearm regulations.”
This is also true of public health measures to address covid-19, making residents in red states more likely to die of the disease than others:
"Some elected officials made a political issue out of challenging scientific evidence, embracing dubious theories, and labeling public health safeguards as infringements on personal freedom. Conservative governors used preemption to reverse efforts by mayors and school districts to control local transmission rates.
These policy choices may have been associated with increased COVID-19–related morbidity and mortality. States that rushed to curtail lockdowns in the spring of 2020 experienced more protracted surges in infections and disruptions to their economies. In 2021, excess deaths were disproportionately concentrated in states where resistance to COVID-19 vaccination was prevalent. For example, excess death rates in Florida and Georgia (more than 200 deaths per 100 000) were much higher than in states with largely vaccinated populations such as New York (112 per 100 000), New Jersey (73 deaths per 100 000), and Massachusetts (50 per 100 000). States that resisted public health protections experienced higher numbers of excess deaths during the Delta variant surge in the fall of 2021. Between August and December 2021, Florida experienced more than triple the number of excess deaths (29 252) as New York (8786), despite both states having similar population counts (21.7 million and 19.3 million, respectively)."
Eight of the 10 states with the highest covid death rates adjusted for age have Republican governors: Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas and Indiana. (Nevada and Kentucky are the exceptions, coming in 6th and 10th, respectively.) Similarly, nine of the 10 states with the worst vaccination rates — Wyoming, Mississippi, Louisiana, Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, West Virginia and North Dakota — have GOP governors. Of these, only Louisiana is led by a Democrat, and all of them voted for defeated former president Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
The same divergence between red and blue states exists with respect to murder rates, as well. The center-left think tank Third Way reports: “In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.” Even more dramatically, “8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.”
The right-wing media racket would have you believe this is a problem of blue cities, but, as Third Way reports: “Beyond the top 10, we looked at the 2020 murder rates in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump and compared it with the murder rates in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden. The 8.20 murders per 100,000 residents rate in Trump states was 40% higher than the 5.78 murders per 100,000 residents in Biden states.”
The difference between red and blue states might be related to gun laws, higher levels of poverty (where red states also predominate), low education levels (also worse in red states), cruddy health care (same) or relatively low economic opportunity (again, red states dominate the worst states).
Whatever the specific reason, it’s clear the governing philosophy of right-wing states (e.g., low spending; prioritization of cultural wedge issues; anti-elitism) leads to deadly results. Maybe it’s time they stop spending their political energy persecuting gay kids, banning books, outlawing abortion and fanning culture wars. They have plenty of systemic problems they’ve failed to address while busying themselves with MAGA crusades. Red-state voters should look around and see why their states have fallen so far behind in so many categories.
Russian foreign minister praises Fox News for Ukraine coverage
After three weeks of bitter and barbaric fighting in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised the coverage of the war from one American media outlet: Fox News.
Speaking to the state-owned RT network, Lavrov said Fox News has been “trying to represent some alternative points of view” in its coverage of the war.
“We understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent Western media,” he said in the Friday interview, which was conducted in English.
He went on to denounce the social media ban of former President Donald Trump and appeared to criticize the labeling of Jan. 6 insurrectionists as terrorists.
“But when you watch other channels, read the social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked and this censorship continues in a very big way. The substitution of notions whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest, mass demonstrations, which they don’t like, they immediately call it domestic terrorism.”
He added: “So it’s a war, and it’s a war which involves the methods of information terrorism.”
Last Friday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that U.S. government officials wanted a war between Russia and Ukraine in a bid to “grab more power.” While otherwise denouncing the Russian invasion, Carlson theorized that the U.S. helped provoke the conflict after emergency powers enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic had come to an end.
“At exactly the moment when the emergency powers they awarded to themselves to fight COVID started to wane, our leaders began pushing for conflict with Russia,” the Fox News host said.
Meanwhile, retired United States Army Col. Douglas Macgregor declared on Carlson’s show on Thursday that Kyiv had lost the war with Russia and that Ukraine had been “grounded to bits.”
The retired colonel added: “There’s no question about that, despite what we report on our mainstream media.” Most military experts, however, say the Russian advance is moving much slower than Moscow expected in the face of severe logistical problems and fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Fox News hosts have continued to push certain talking points while reporting on Russia’s invasion, linking the war to various Biden administration policies.
Three days into the invasion, “Fox and Friends” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy declared it “a Green New Deal war,” stating, “This is John Kerry’s war. This is AOC’s war.”
Two days before that, while covering Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine, Carlson accused the Biden administration of trying to “degrade and humiliate” the U.S. military by focusing on “white rage” and “maternity flight suits.”
Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin has made waves for her near-constant correcting of the record set forth by the news network's opinion hosts, including primetime host Sean Hannity.
And Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall corrected “The Five” co-host Greg Gutfeld in early March after Gutfeld complained about what he saw as a narrative presented solely through the eyes of the Ukrainians.
“And they only go in one direction. And I understand why they only go in one direction, because it’s the invaded who experience the atrocity, right? And that’s all we’re going to see,” Gutfeld complained.
Moments later, live on air, Hall rebuked the host for making those comments from a studio in New York. “Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response," Hall said from Ukraine. Gutfeld, whose mother-in-law escaped from Ukraine to Poland earlier this month, called it a “cheap attack” on him.
Hall was wounded during a Russian attack just five days later. A cameraman, Pierre Zakrzewski, and a producer, Oleksandra Kuvshynova, who were both working for Fox News on the ground in Ukraine, were killed in the attack.
Fox News host Sean Hannity twice suggested on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to imitate former U.S. President Donald Trump with his massive pro-war rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.
“It looks like Vladimir Putin is channeling his inner Donald Trump,” Hannity, who once joined Trump onstage at a campaign event, first said on his radio show.
“He had a what looked like, it almost looked like ‘The Big House’ in Michigan. Their football stadium, I think, holds 110,000 people,” Hannity said of Putin’s huge flag-waving rally in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Later, on his prime-time Fox News show, Hannity said the “manufactured” rally was Putin’s “best attempt to look like Donald Trump.”
“Now, like I’ve been saying, Biden’s weakness on the world stage, it is emboldening bad actors all across the globe,” Hannity said after reading the Russian talking point word for word.
Hannity is one of the worst actors right here in the USA.
Biden's unyielding strength has united NATO against Putin's invasion of the independent nation of Ukraine.
"Biden's unyielding strength has united NATO against Putin's invasion of the independent nation of Ukraine."
you're mistaken
Biden's apparent weakness is what encouraged Putin to think he could get away with this
remember hi saying during the build-up "unless it's a minor invasion, we will hit 'em with sanctions"
then since the invasion, he keeps telling Putin what we will and won't do
I'm sure Putin appreciate the free intel so he can plot his next move
and on sanctions and assistance, Biden has repeatedly been pushed by others to go further
Boris Johnson and Olaf Scholz have been much more resolute and visionary
also, the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia have all shown amazing courage
Zelensky is an inspiring blend of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill who has emboldened the West
but the one most responsible for ne united NATO is Putin
he might as well be a double agent
The Christian satire site The Babylon Bee is refusing to back down after Twitter locked its account over a tweet naming U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine the satire site's "Man of the Year" for 2022.
"I just received this notice that we’ve been locked out of our account for ‘hateful conduct,’" Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon wrote on Twitter, sharing a screenshot of the social media platform's notice that the Bee's account had been suspended.
"Hi The Babylon Bee, Your account, @TheBabylonBee has been locked for violating the Twitter Rules," the message reads.
In suspending the Bee's account, Twitter cited its rules against "hateful conduct," which state, "You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."
The tweet in question consists of a graphic with a picture of Levine and the text "The Babylon Bee Man of the Year," along with a Babylon Bee headline, "The Babylon Bee's Man of the Year Is Rachel Levine."
The satire site published a satirical article dubbing Levine "Man of the Year" on March 15.
"The Babylon Bee has selected Rachel Levine as its first annual Man of the Year," the post reads. "Levine is the U.S. assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman. He is also an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. What a boss!"
"Rachel's original name is Richard Levine, but he changed it to Rachel for some strange reason a few years ago," the post jokingly continues. "Who cares? Who says a dude as accomplished as this can't be named "Rachel?" This king doesn't care what people think about him! He often wears a dress, which some people think is weird—but he doesn't care one bit. Come on! Men in India wear dress-type garments, don't they?"
The post came two days after USA TODAY named Levine one of its "Women of the Year."
\
Right before Russia invaded Ukraine, crude oil was trading for $99 a barrel, and American motorists were paying $3.61 at the pump. Crude then quickly jumped to $130 and gas prices soared to $4.30. Last week, crude tumbled back down to $99, but we’re still paying the same $4.30 for gas, according to AAA.
For a press that obsessed over gas prices as they climbed, while platforming Republican claims that President Joe Biden was to blame for the energy inflation (another White House “crisis”), the media have now lost interest in the gas station saga. It’s another case of putting extra energy into chasing Bad News for Biden stories. And news outlets have shown no interest in putting Big Oil under a microscope to highlight what role they play in today’s stubbornly high gas prices.
Is price gouging a factor today? Democrats think so. “As American families work to make ends meet, Congress must take action to investigate reports of illegal profiteering, anticompetitive business practices, and price gouging within the oil and gas industry and hold public hearings, as appropriate,” wrote 32 members of Congress who signed a letter to U.S. House and Senate leaders urging “immediate investigations.”
The press couldn’t care less. During the week of March 6-12, when they were in a frantic mode, often reporting live from outlier gas stations that were pushing astronomical prices, “gas” was mentioned 1,450 times on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and MSNBC, according to TVeyes. By contrast “price gouging” that week was referenced just 45 times. There hasn’t been an ounce of media skepticism in play for this story.
As gas prices skyrocketed, the media presented a very succinct cause-and-effect storyline: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted the global energy market, which caused the price of crude oil to jump, triggering U.S. pumps prices to increase immediately and dramatically, sometimes by more than 15 cents in a single day.
The press was clear, “Gasoline prices are based on the cost of crude oil, which jumped in response to the invasion and Western sanctions,” the Times recently stressed. Added the Washington Post, “Every $10 increase in the price of crude oil adds about 24 cents to the cost of each gallon of gasoline and is quickly reflected in what you pay at the pump.”
So how come when the price of crude oil dropped $30 in a week, consumers kept paying the same high prices at the pump? Why isn’t that considered a big news story — is there no media formula for how prices are supposed to come down?
This continues the media’s pattern of refusing to hold Big Oil accountable.
Gas and oil companies, currently banking record profits, are usually portrayed in the ongoing coverage as disinterested players who have nothing to gain from higher prices because, according to the narrative, Big Oil is simply passing along the marketplace increases to consumers. Rather than drilling for more oil as demand naturally surged when world economies recovered from the pandemic, energy companies are instead using billions in profits to reward shareholders by buying back their stock.
“For now, most large shale companies aren’t answering the White House’s call [to drill more], sticking to commitments they made to limit production and return more cash to shareholders, an effort to win back investors who fled the industry after years of poor returns,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. Companies say they don’t care how high the price of crude climbs, they’re committed to not drilling more. “Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, told investors in February: “$100 oil, $150 oil, we’re not going to change our growth rate.””
The Journal recently profiled a West Texas oilman whose private company is among the few that’s actively expanding drilling operations. He said he’s never seen a market with surging prices yet so little drilling competition from the major, public corporations. “This is almost too good to be true,” he said. Good for him, bad for U.S. consumers.
Virtually none of that context regarding Big Oil has been included in breathless gas price reporting. They’ve been given a free ride about drilling, raising gas prices, and why they remain sky-high when barrels of crude dropped 20 percent in a week.
There was a time when the mainstream media cast a constantly skeptical eye not only on Big Oil, but on Big Business in general. Today, they get a pass, while Biden gets the blame.
we actually live in a capitalist society
you had a guy go into the girls restroom in Loundon county and rape a girl, while dressed as a girl. Sorry, pretty sure this is EXACTLY what everyone was concerned about Jim.
You are having a fit over a bill passed in Florida to prevent you perverted sickos on teaching sex to five year olds.
Jim, have you considered that you are probably going to burn in hell ?
Theresa
By Michelle Goldberg
This is a story about how the right twisted the sexual assault of a teenager into a culture war fantasy. It’s about how a distorted tale on a conservative website became grist for a nationwide moral panic.
On June 22, a middle-aged plumber named Scott Smith was dragged, lip bleeding and hands cuffed behind his back, from a raucous school board meeting in Loudoun County, Va. According to the local newspaper Loudoun Now, he’d been swearing loudly at another parent and leaning toward her with a clenched fist when the police tackled him and pulled him outside. He’d eventually be convicted of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and given a suspended 10-day jail sentence.
Smith’s image quickly went viral as a symbol of the sort of school board strife breaking out all over America. The National School Boards Association, writing to President Biden to request help dealing with the “growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation” directed at school board members, included Smith’s arrest in a list of examples.
Soon, however, Smith revealed why he’d been so distraught. In an interview with The Daily Wire, a website co-founded by the conservative wunderkind Ben Shapiro, Smith said that his ninth-grade daughter had been sexually assaulted in a school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt. Smith was opposed to a proposed policy allowing trans kids to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identities, believing it made girls like his daughter vulnerable.
“The point is kids are using it as an advantage to get into the bathrooms,” he told the reporter, Luke Rosiak.
By the time Smith spoke to Rosiak, the story had become even uglier. In July, the boy was arrested in the attack on Smith’s daughter and charged with two counts of forcible sodomy. But pending a hearing, he was allowed to enroll at another high school while wearing an ankle monitor. In early October he was arrested again, this time for allegedly forcing a girl into an empty classroom and touching her inappropriately.
After Rosiak’s article came out, Smith became a symbol of a different kind: a blue-collar martyr to wokeness. Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, Rosiak said, “This story is one of the most disturbing I’ve ever worked on. It raises the possibility that the Loudoun County public schools covered up the rape of a 14-year-old girl at the hands of a boy wearing a skirt in order to pass a school policy that Democrats were adamant about passing.” As a result of that cover-up, Rosiak said, a second girl was allegedly attacked, “and to prevent all of this from coming out potentially, they arrested the father of the victim.”
Not surprisingly, the story ricocheted around the right. Conservatives have long argued that letting trans girls and women into women’s bathrooms would lead to sexual predation, and now that seemed to have happened. They’ve argued that wokeness is a form of tyranny, and in Smith they had a man who seemed to have been tyrannized because his family’s lived experience posed a threat to trans ideology.
If they had it all wrong, it’s almost hard to blame them — the narrative was too irresistible.
Outrage over the assaults has loomed over the Virginia gubernatorial race, where the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, has sought to harness parental anger toward school boards accused of putting left-wing dogma above student welfare. Senate Republicans recently harped on the case in a hearing for an appeals court nominee, Holly Thomas. On Wednesday, Senator Tom Cotton badgered Attorney General Merrick Garland about it, indignant about steps the Justice Department is taking to address threats to school board members. Smith’s daughter, said Cotton, “was raped in a bathroom by a boy wearing girls’ clothes and the Loudoun County School Board covered it up because it would interfere with their transgender policy during pride month.”
Buta Biberaj, the Commonwealth attorney who prosecuted Smith, received death threats. So did members of the school board.
But this week, during a juvenile court hearing, a fuller picture of Smith’s daughter’s ordeal emerged. She suffered something atrocious. It had nothing at all to do, however, with trans bathroom policies. Instead, like many women and girls, she was a victim of relationship violence.
Smith’s daughter testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again. “The evidence was that the girl chose that bathroom, but her intent was to talk to him, not to engage in sexual relations,” Biberaj, whose office prosecuted the case, told me. The boy, however, expected sex and refused to accept the girl’s refusal. As the The Washington Post reported, she testified, “He flipped me over. I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”
The boy was indeed wearing a skirt, but that skirt didn’t authorize him to use the girls’ bathroom. As Amanda Terkel reported in HuffPost, the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault. This was not, said Biberaj, someone “identifying as transgender and going into the girls’ bathroom under the guise of that.”
On Monday, the boy received the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict. The case dealing with the second attack he is accused of will be decided in November.
We don’t know exactly why the boy was allowed to attend a different school after his first arrest. The district has refused to comment on the transfer because of state and federal privacy laws. According to Biberaj, under state law, juveniles can be detained for only 21 days without a hearing, and her office needed more time than that to get DNA results. A condition of the boy’s release was that he could have no contact with the girl, so he couldn’t return to his original school.
It’s not clear whether the school system had the option of barring the boy from in-person school altogether. In a statement this month, the Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent, Scott Ziegler, called for policy changes that would allow administrators to “separate alleged offenders from the general student body.” Conservatives, of course, have traditionally opposed policies that would keep accused offenders out of school.
As Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s secretary of education, said last year, “Too many students have lost access to their education because their school inadequately responded when a student filed a complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault.”
Even as the facts of this case have come out, the damage done by all the disinformation about it will be hard to undo. “Once the politics are over, we’re still dealing with the destruction,” said Biberaj, who wonders how her community is supposed to heal. “You can’t always successfully bring people back to say, ‘I know this is what you were told, but look what happened in court under oath.’”
A sad and complicated truth is probably no match for an exquisitely useful lie.
"Jim, have you considered that you are probably going to burn in hell ?
Theresa"
Would that be before or after those that lied about (and continue to lie about) the 2020 election?
Asking for a friend.
"Would that be before or after those that lied about (and continue to lie about) the 2020 election?"
while much of what Trump has said is not true, it's no worse than what we've become used to from Dems in the 21st century
Hillary claims the election was stolen by Trump colluding with Russia
that's a lie, and the acts she took to create this hoax are probably the biggest election scandal of all time
Al Gore claims the election was stolen from him by a partisan Supreme Court
that's a lie
actually, you can look at virtually every election in America where a Dem lost by less than a blow-out and they will claim the election was rigged, just ask Stacy Abrams
truth is this:
the election in 2020 was stolen from Trump, but not how he describes it
the media and anti-Trump members of the intelligence community conspired to convince the public that Hunter's laptop was a fake plant by Russians trying to help Trump
the media now admits that was wrong, it was Hunter's laptop
furthermore, 17% of people who voted for Biden say they wouldn't have had they known the laptop was real
it's that easy
the election was stolen
what should we do know?
demand Biden's resignation
tell him not to make the nation relive the two year Watergate drama
"Asking for a friend."
you mean co-conspirator?
"that's a lie, and the acts she took to create this hoax are probably the biggest election scandal of all time"
Simply no. People went to investigate the allegations. Most of the country waited patiently until the investigation was complete.
Trump and his lawyers created their big lie and a bunch of conservative idiots still believe even after SIXTY cases have been thrown out of court for lack of voter fraud evidence.
Then Trump's "stand back and stand by" crew went on to a "rally" conveniently held on the very day Biden was to be certified, whipped them to a frenzy to storm the Capitol, where a number of cops had the #($#& beat out of them and several a couple of people died because of that violence.
It wasn't the first time Trump lied about election fraud either - he claimed he would have won the popular vote to if Hillary hadn't gotten millions of illegal votes. The Republican congress put through a voter fraud investigation, and golllll--ly, they didn't find any evidence of millions of illegal voters - but they didn't make nearly as much noise about that as they did claiming there were.
Biden's laptop is another distraction, just like Hillary's emails. Right wing media has a way of fabricating "explosive" stories at convenient times only for them to turn into a nothing-burger later. You can't blame other media outlets for being skeptical and waiting until they could find corroborating evidence.
Congress investigated Hunter Biden and found no evidence of wrong-doing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.html
Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden
The report delivered on Wednesday appeared to be little more than a rehashing of unproven allegations that echoed a Russian disinformation campaign.
"WASHINGTON — An election-year investigation by Senate Republicans into corruption allegations against Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter, involving Ukraine found no evidence of improper influence or wrongdoing by the former vice president, closing out an inquiry its leaders had hoped would tarnish the Democratic presidential nominee.
The investigation found that Hunter Biden had “cashed in” on his father’s name to close lucrative business deals around the world. It also concluded that his work for Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company then mired in a corruption scandal, while the former vice president was directing American policy toward Kyiv had given the appearance of a conflict of interest and alarmed some State Department officials.
But an 87-page report summing up the findings, released jointly on Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees, contained no evidence that the elder Mr. Biden improperly manipulated American policy toward Ukraine or committed any other misdeed. In fact, investigators heard witness testimony that rebutted those charges."
So what you're saying is that 17% of voters wouldn't have voted for Biden if they had known about the laptop, but Republicans didn't find anything incriminating about what either Biden did, even with the laptop.
Sounds like another nothing-burger to me.
"tell him not to make the nation relive the two year Watergate drama"
It looks like Rumpie is responsible for that - the news coming out of the congressional investigation is making it look like the insurrection might have been planned right in the White House.
Quelle surprise.
""Jim, have you considered that you are probably going to burn in hell ?
Theresa"
Would that be before or after those that lied about (and continue to lie about) the 2020 election?
Asking for a friend."
many of us who listened to the state legislature hearings believe that there was significant fraud in the election, and there are now investigations going on in Wisconsin and Georgia that seem to back that up. None of the sixty court cases actually examined the evidence, they were thrown out on technicalities such as standing, etc. that isn't the point. Biden is doing such a great job of destroying the democratic party that you will never win again. I just hope we survive him, and I am not sure we will. Military conference I attended last week... one of the panelists said, and I quote "I was in a briefing with a general last week, and it is not unlikely we will be at war with Russia and China shortly". He said this in front of 200 people. Wow. One of my Mitre friends and I were discussing that he used the conjunction AND as opposed to OR. I have been attending these conferences for 20 years and the "you go to war with the Army you have, not the army you want". The entire thing was extremely frightening.
Not to mention the demise of the petrodollar, rampant inflation, loss of energy independence.... AND as if this were not enough, you are now after the five year olds...and trying to destroy Disney. I actually LOATHE you people at this point.
LOATHE is the accurate word.
FIVE YEAR OLDS.
Here is the link to the "don't say gay" bill that the left keeps talking about. Basically it says don't discuss sex with 5-8 year olds. Any sort of sex. by their teacher, advised on their gender identity without notifying their parent ? REALLY ? https://www.flsenate.gov/.../2022/1834/BillText/Filed/HTML
so yes, Jim then spins it as liberals are not a bunch of pedophiles, conservatives are over-reacting, and this is no big deal.
This legislation exists because the liberal woke school system has become a grooming ground. Case in point, I have 5 nieces in the MOCO or NOVA school system. Out of the five, FOUR have decided they are gay or bi-sexual... hey because it's NOT COOL to be cisgender. My kids, private schools for the most part, are all cisgender and this craziness was just starting when they were growing up... and I put them back in private schools immediately. so teach the facts, Congratulations, you have been VERY VERY SUCCESSFUL in your objectives.
It wasn't enough to go after them in their teen and pre-teen years, though.
Now you want to go after the babies. The truly innocent.
Well, if you disagree that teachers should be explaining the details of sex to five year olds....and getting them to question their gender, and introduce sex and sexuality away from their parents... YOU ARE A Bunch of pedophiles.
And yes, Jim will burn in hell.
"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."
Just one quote, there are lots more.
And guess what, we may all be meeting a much earlier death than we previously thought, so I guess we will find out what God thinks of your behavior.
Theresa
Nothing incriminating on the laptop ! You are kidding right.... you haven't seen the pictures of Hunter Biden leaning over what looks like a little 7 year old child in extremely incriminating pictures which appears like he was having sex with that chil.
but I forgot, that's a big nothingburger because sex with kids IS a big nothingburger to you sickos.
theresa
Sounds like all those rumors of Hillary running a child porn ring out of the basement of a DC pizza parlor... which turned out to be a big nothing burger with extra pepperoni.
No, I hadn't heard of that, because I don't go trawling around discredited websites the right-wingers love to feed their conspiracy theories. You'd think that after so many of their conspiracies turning into big nothing burgers, the gullible idiots on the right would start to catch on. But fortunately for Republican politicians, they're not just gullible idiots, they're USEFUL idiots.
Let's look into this a bit further:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/20/facebook-posts/fact-checking-unproven-claims-about-hunter-biden-a/
Fact-checking unproven claims about Hunter Biden and child pornography
Two weeks until Election Day, social media is rife with attacks on Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
A New York Post story about a recovered computer hard drive led to attacks about the Biden son’s business dealings. Facebook and cable news have gone further to suggest new and unsupported theories about what’s on the hard drive.
One text post says, "Hunter Biden had 25,000 pics of him torturing and raping children under age 10 in China on his laptop!"
Claims like this were amplified by websites like Natural News and InfoWars. Facebook has long banned the sites for posting anti-vaccine misinformation and hate speech, but we found one InfoWars video on Facebook with more than 173,000 views. It claims Trump "has footage of Hunter Biden raping and torturing little girls."
These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Similar posts have been shared tens of thousands of times, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool.
We can’t say for certain what is or isn’t on a hard drive. But there is no evidence to support allegations that it contains thousands of images of Hunter Biden abusing children in China.
The unproven claim has roots on a fringe internet forum that’s a known source of online disinformation, 4chan.
On Oct. 15, Chanel Rion, the chief White House correspondent for One America News Network — a pro-Trump cable TV network — tweeted that she had seen the contents of the hard drive at the center of the New York Post story.
"Drugs, underage obsessions, power deals," she said in the post. "Druggie Hunter makes Anthony Weiner's down under selfie addiction look normal."
The tweet, which was shared more than 53,000 times, then made its way to 4chan, where users anonymously speculated that it meant the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden. One user posing as Rion affirmed that speculation, saying the hard drive contained child pornography.
The real Rion tweeted Oct. 16 that she did not write the posts.
"For the record: I do not post on chat forums," she wrote. "I understand there are hoaxers posing as me."
But it was too late. Social media users dedicated to QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that claims Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic, left-leaning pedophiles, took the 4chan posts as evidence that the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden for potentially possessing child pornography.
By Sunday, the conspiracy theory had made its way to Fox News. "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo noted that a name written on the back of a federal subpoena included in the Post’s story appears to belong to Joshua Wilson, an FBI agent who has worked on child pornography cases.
"Connect the dots: If an FBI agent is working on child pornography issues for five years, why is he subpoenaing the laptop of Hunter Biden? Is there a connection here?" Bartiromo asked Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
Johnson did not give a direct answer. "Well, I think you just made the connection," he said. "Again, this is what the FBI, I think, has to come clean about."
Later that day, a tweet from Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative radio host who has pushed false claims about former President Barack Obama’s birthplace and the identity of the 2017 Las Vegas shooter, claimed to have breaking news.
"My sources-as high up as it gets- watched videos on Hunter’s laptops TODAY. Just told me point blank...no rumor...they saw Hunter raping & torturing little Chinese children," he tweeted.
When asked in an email for evidence to support his claims aside from anonymous sources, Root did not provide any.
Concerns about the New York Post story
There’s a lot we still don’t know about the hard drive at the center of the New York Post coverage.
The story about Joe Biden and a Ukraine meeting relies on information from a computer hard drive that the tabloid said it received from Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The computer was supposedly left unclaimed at a Delaware computer shop, the owner of which called the FBI and a Giuliani associate after noticing a sticker for the Beau Biden Foundation on the laptop. The emails cited in the Post’s article, which we are not able to verify, do not establish that a meeting between the elder Biden and a Ukrainian businessman ever occurred.
Nowhere in the Post’s story is Hunter Biden linked to child pornography. We reached out to the FBI for more information, but it declined to comment due to its practice of "neither confirming nor denying the existence of an investigation."
Remember these points as you see claims about the laptop and stories around it.
It's unclear if the name on the back of the subpoena actually belongs to Joshua Wilson, or if there’s more than one FBI agent who goes by that name. It’s also unconfirmed if the subpoena in the Post’s story was for the laptop.
Federal investigators are looking into whether emails found on the laptop could be linked to a foreign intelligence operation to discredit Joe Biden. (More than 50 former intelligence officials told Politico they appear to be. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says they’re not.)
Our ruling
Several Facebook posts claim "Hunter Biden had 25,000 pics of him torturing and raping children under age 10 in China on his laptop."
There is no evidence to support that.
The allegation originated on an anonymous internet forum that’s a known source of online disinformation, and conspiracy websites that reported the claims relied on anonymous sources to back them up. The New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop is unconfirmed — but it also does not mention child pornography. The owner of the computer repair shop where the laptop came from told reporters he didn’t see child pornography on it.
Without information to support the allegations, we rate the posts False.
Lame attempt to switch the subject.
Does TTF support teaching children about all aspects of sexuality... including children as young as FIVE YEARS OLD ... or not ?
Fisting is an appropriate subject for five year olds, don't you think... you perverts ?
I will respond with DETAILED information on why the Presidents son is a pedophile, and links, later.
In the meantime, the Florida bill says DON"T TALK TO MY KIDS ABOUT SEX BETWEEN AGES OF FIVE AND EIGHT.
That is my job as a parent, NOT YOURS.
I take it TTF is opposed to this policy, you god damned pedophiles ? You want to teach FIVE YEAR OLDS ABOUT SEX without notifying their PARENTS ?
I am sorry, but there is no polite way to respond to you perverts.
you are going after the babies.
You are pedophiles. and I will name the demon. You must name the demon to expel the demon.
You are demons.
and no, I don't go to church.
and no, I don't affiliate with a religion, though I was raised Catholic.
but I recognize ABSOLUTE EVIL when I see it.
and teaching kids about gay sex at FIVE is EVIL.
Theresa
For those who have forgotten, here are other things the Biden laptop was supposed to contain:
The laptop allegedly contained “smoking-gun” emails between Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the energy company Burisma, and Biden, who was paid as much as $50,000 a month to advise the company on the strength of his family name. In an email revealed by the Post, Pozharskyi thanked Biden for introducing him to his father, the then-vice president, whom Republicans claimed had used his office to pressure Ukrainian officials into firing a top prosecutor allegedly investigating Burisma. As was widely reported, Vice-President Biden had done the opposite and pressured the Ukrainian government to oust the prosecutor for corruption.
The story initiated a storm of conspiracy theories from QAnon supporters, who latched on to claims that there was content on the hard drive depicting Biden, who has well-documented addiction issues, using drugs and engaging in sexual acts with an unknown woman. [At least this one sounds plausible - who knows, it might even be true.]
(QAnon regularly trades in ludicrous conspiracy theories and broadly believes a cabal of Democratic elites and “deep state” operatives are engaged in a vast child sex-trafficking and cannibalism ring.)
Though there isn’t an iota of evidence to suggest Biden engaged in any sex crimes, Business Insider reported that an FBI agent who has been publicly identified as investigating child pornography crimes in New Jersey appears to have served the subpoena for the laptop at the repair shop in Delaware. (The FBI declined to confirm or deny that there was any investigation at all.)
In September 2020, two Republican Senate committee chairmen released a joint report on Biden and his connections to Burisma, alleging his role with the Ukrainian energy firm was “problematic” and that he and relatives “cashed in” on his father’s vice-presidency, but did not find his role influenced U.S. foreign policy on Ukraine whatsoever. Penned by Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, the report claimed Biden “sent thousands of dollars” to unnamed people the senators asserted were either “involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking” or associated “with the adult entertainment industry.” This has not resulted in any charges. [If they had actually found evidence of human trafficking, why didn't they press charges - are they in on it too? Or is this just another case of a Republican smear campaign lacking all sorts of evidence?] Senator Johnson, in particular, is well-known for continuously peddling misinformation, including about the coronavirus pandemic and the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Anyone who has watched enough police investigations on TV can tell you that when someone keeps changing their story, at the very least, they are lying; and they may well be the criminal in the case they are investigating.
First, the laptop was supposed to prove some Ukrainian / Burisma shenanigans.
Then it was pictures of his well known drug habit and sex acts with an adult woman.
Then it was proof of thousands of dollars to conveniently unnamed people for "transactions consistent with human trafficking" could you be more specific? I paid thousands of dollars for my car - I had to transfer money from my bank account to do it. Arguably those are "transactions consistent with human trafficking" because human traffickers charge money just like car dealers do. Therefore, my "transactions are consistent with human trafficking." Moreover, I am human, and my car sits in traffic. Case closed.
But after the Republicans investigated all that, they still couldn't find any broken laws to charge the Bidens with.
Surprise! Now there are allegations of thousands of child porn pictures on the laptop.
It looks an awful lot like you guys are throwing #$@% at the wall desperately hoping something will stick.
If there is a stash of kiddie porn on Hunter's laptop, and it's proven to be his, then he should go to jail as soon as he is convicted.
My bet though is that this is all Republican smokescreen and when they really don't find any actual kiddie porn, the next thing right-wing media is going to "find" on his laptop is Hunter eating someone's liver with a nice Chianti.
"Does TTF support teaching children about all aspects of sexuality... including children as young as FIVE YEARS OLD ... or not ?
Of course not, stop being ridiculous.
"Fisting is an appropriate subject for five year olds, don't you think... you perverts ?"
Of course not, stop being ridiculous.
There are plenty of ways to talk to children about their classmates who have gay parents without getting sexually explicit. Anyone who isn't an utter moron can figure that out.
"I take it TTF is opposed to this policy, you god damned pedophiles ?"
Is that your drunk rage or just your regular rage?
You can tell a conservative is desperate when they just start accusing people they disagree with of being pedophiles without any evidence.
"and no, I don't go to church.
and no, I don't affiliate with a religion, though I was raised Catholic."
I don't normally recommend this, but maybe you should go to church and get in touch with some people in the real world. It may help reduce your misdirected rage. I'm not going to recommend a specific one. In fact, I'm going to recommend going to different ones - a LOT of different ones - including very liberal ones. Just on the off chance that you might start to grasp that just because someone has different political views than you, doesn't mean they are EVIL.
"and teaching kids about gay sex at FIVE is EVIL."
You can explain to a five year old that Johnny has two moms that love each other very much, love Johnny too, and take care of him as his parents without ever saying one damn thing about "fisting."
Why you would even think about bringing that up in a conversation with 5 year-olds just boggles my mind.
Get some sleep girl.
You didn't address my points, at all. we can continue this in the morning. did you read of the Florida bill ?
and yes you have 12 year olds cutting off their breasts so the extent of your depravity knows no bounds.
"You can explain to a five year old that Johnny has two moms that love each other very much, love Johnny too, and take care of him as his parents without ever saying one damn thing about "fisting."" I agree. they also need to not talk about sex, at all, period. no discussion of penises or vaginas. leave it at one kid has two mommies and one kids has two daddies and that is that. by the way, that is ALL the florida bill tries to do. don't sexualize our KIDS. we want them to stay innocent as much as possible
I am really so angry. I am just done with you guys. you destroy EVERYTHING that is good and fun in this world. you are I think so unhappy with your own lives that you try to kill everyone else's happiness.
ask the people in Ukraine how happy they are ? do you think Putin would have DARED to invade Ukraine under Trump ? of course not Trump would have bombed Moscow immediately. and the threat of trump bombing Moscow STOPPED an ukraine invasion, but liberals have NO MORALS, and biden will always cave to fucking anyone, and GOD help us.
and it really doesn't matter what you think about sex-ed, because we are all going to die because you elected this fucking goddamn idiot.
alright. look, I am going to try one final attempt to get you to understand why Biden is a fucking idiot.... Have you ever played poker? Is it your practice to announce to the rest of the players the cards you hold ? do you announce your position and your strategy ? I mean seriously ? how do you support what this guy is doing on an international stage .... we have serious disagreements about sex-ed, but I thought we were all intelligent people.... there is no excuse for what your guy is doing.. seriously none. unless you are trying to destroy the US as a nation you don't announce what you are going to do and not do the whole thing is nuts... I can't control this and there are very limited steps I can take to protect my family when the government doesn't care..... aren't you worried ?
and finally we are probably going to war. there are a lot folks on this blog that probably need to decide what freedom really means. If freedom means US and Europe, we need to band together and help each other. I have never been against gay people, at all. I have been against teaching kids about sex at a young age, and yes against teaching gay as "normal". none of this matters now. If you want to make sure that the western culture exists, at all going forward I would suggest you dump "woke" in favor of "alive".
It is going to get real fast, folks.
we need to come together quickly.
"Congress investigated Hunter Biden and found no evidence of wrong-doing"
good point
and, as anyone who has watched Miracle on 34th Street knows, the Postal Service, a branch of the US government, has certified that Santa Claus is real
to summarize Theresa's points:
1. there is no "Don't Say Gay" bill - it's a bill to prevent discussion by teachers about sexual identity among young children
2. Hunter's laptop contains much that needs explaining, and has not yet been explained - it appears that the current President, while he was VP, may have gotten a cut for peddling influence to questionable foreign parties opposed to our national interest
3. Biden's weakness has brought has to the brink of nuclear apocalypse
Are you better off today under President Joe Biden than you were a year earlier?
And are you financially prepared for a downturn in the economy or a job loss?
The March I&I/TIPP Poll suggests most Americans would answer "no" to both of those questions.
The poll asked: "Generally speaking, is your family better off today than it was one year ago, worse off than it was one year ago, or about the same as it was a year ago?"
Fewer than one in five (20%) said they were "better off."
Taken as a whole, 78% of Americans have seen no progress or improvement at all in their financial and economic lives since Biden took over in early 2020.
Despite this, Biden's recent speeches have included references to the “best economic growth in the last four decades.”
"We did it alone. Without one single solitary Republican vote," he said in Philadelphia on March 11, speaking to House Democrats. "It was the Democrats — it was you — that brought us back."
If that's the message, Americans don't seem to be buying it. And a big reason for that is likely the sudden scary surge in inflation, which hits low- and middle-class Americans hardest of all.
While wage gains have averaged 5% or higher for four straight months, unfortunately, inflation during the same period has surged by an annual rate of over 7%, and looks likely to go even higher.
Americans, it seems, are feeling the pinch of Bidenomics. They can't keep up, despite all the "stimulus" — or perhaps, because of it.
In the same poll, I&I/TIPP also asked Americans, "How much does your household have in emergency savings — that is, money that is readily available in either a checking, savings or money-market account?"
Respondents were given eight possible responses: "No emergency savings," "One month's expenses," "Two months' expenses," "Three months' expenses," "Four months' expenses," "Five months' expenses," "Six months' expenses or more," and "Not sure."
Sadly, the biggest category by far was "No emergency savings," at 34%. Both "One month's" and "Two months' " garnered 11% each.
So 56% of all Americans, over half of the population, have either no savings or barely enough to last two months, should economic trouble occur. For most, that means they are one job loss or personal injury away from economic disaster.
Only 16% of respondents said they had financial resources for three to five months. And just 16% responded they had enough stashed to last for six months or more. Another 11% said they "weren't sure," perhaps the most worrisome response of all.
This, after the federal government has spent $6 trillion on COVID recovery and passed another $1.5 trillion in spending for the coming year, while the Federal Reserve printed an estimated $16.5 trillion in new cash and checking deposits since the start of the pandemic.
Despite all this activity and booster rhetoric from Democrats, Americans have given Biden's economic performance failing grades in recent polls.
"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," CNN noted, citing its own CNN/SRSS Poll.
If anything, with the stock market's plunge, continued soaring inflation and growing shortages in supermarkets, confidence in Bidenomics has grown worse in recent weeks, prompting even Democrats to criticize the president's policies.
The GOP has turned it back on America and its faith toward Putin.
Here is what Trump ACTUALLY said about Russia:
Donald Trump has said that Vladimir Putin is “very savvy” and made a “genius” move by declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states and moving Russian armed forces to them.
Trump said he saw the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis on TV “and I said: ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
The former US president said that the Russian president had made a “smart move” by sending “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen” to the area.
Biden imposes sanctions on company behind Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – as it happened
Read more
Trump, a long-term admirer of Putin who was impeached over allegations he threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless it could help damage the reputation of Joe Biden, praised the Russian president’s moves while also claiming that they would not have happened if he was still president.
“Here’s a guy who’s very savvy … I know him very well,” Trump said of Putin while talking to the The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. “Very, very well. By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened.
“But here’s a guy that says, you know, ‘I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent’ – he used the word ‘independent’ – ‘and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
Trump’s intervention was criticized by the two Republicans serving on the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, who are among the few Republicans who have been critical of the former president. Liz Cheney tweeted that Trump’s statement “aids our enemies. Trump’s interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States of America.”
Adam Kinzinger, meanwhile, retweeted a screenshot from the House Republicans that showed Biden walking away – which was captioned with the comment: “This is what weakness on the world stage looks like” – to denounce it in fiery terms. Kinzinger wrote: “As still ‘technically’ a member of house Republicans, let me, with all my might, condemn this damn awful tweet during this crisis. You can criticize policy but this is insane and feeds into Putins narrative. But hey, retweets amirite?”
Donald Trump and right-wing media sold their audiences on quack COVID cures — and not the vaccine. Why?
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that a new study, the biggest to date, has determined that the anti-parasite drug ivermectin did not prevent hospitalization or death in COVID-19 patients. I'm sure you are shocked to learn this. After all, tens of thousands of your fellow Americans insisted that it had cured them. Unfortunately, many others died after having used it in lieu of the vaccines that likely would have kept the virus from being so deadly. The "ivermectin protocol" prescribed by many doctors, largely at the request of their patients, is bunk.
"There was no indication that ivermectin is clinically useful," Edward Mills, one of the study's lead researchers and a professor of health sciences at Canada's McMaster University, told the Journal.
The people who thought it cured them would have survived the virus anyway and those that eschewed the vaccines in favor of this drug and wound up in the hospital were placing their faith in something that didn't work. The new study clears up any confusion. If some people took ivermectin and survived COVID, it was a coincidence.
Right-wing celebrities touted the drug. Some, like notorious podcaster Joe Rogan, said that healthy people need not get vaccinated, caught the virus and lived to tell the tale. Others, such as conservative talk show host Phil Valentine, weren't so lucky.
And this wasn't the first dubious COVID cure out there. You'll remember that the first one that caught the popular imagination among the MAGA crowd was Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria and lupus drug. It, too, was highly touted by right-wing media, particularly Fox News host Laura Ingraham who took her so-called "medicine cabinet" (a couple of Fox News physicians) up to the White House to push for the government to use it as a treatment back in 2020. One of the doctors gave then President Trump "a detailed presentation" about the drug's efficacy "based on his own experiences and studies."
Trump was very impressed. He tweeted, "HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine, and it should be "put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST!"
He spent the next few months relentlessly pushing the drug and under pressure, the FDA granted it emergency use authorization even though the agency knew it was ineffective. Trump said he took the drug himself, for all the good it did him. But when a major study conducted on VA patients was released showing that the drug not only didn't work and it actually harmed people, Trump claimed it was a hoax study given to people who were "ready to die" as a way to hurt him politically:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1262839740509949957?
As it turned out, an analysis of patients across six continents found that patients treated with the drug were more likely to develop irregular heartbeats leading to sudden cardiac death. Other reports yielded similar findings.
So the desire for that particular fake cure was eventually superseded by a new snake oil cure ivermectin, pushed by many of the same people who pushed Hydroxychloroquine:
https://youtu.be/VLoGUC4S3Q0
As you can see Fox News touted ivermectin as a cure for COVID many times. They pushed Hydroxychloroquine more than 300 hundred times. It's fair to suspect that the use of these two drugs based upon bogus science and anecdotal Facebook posts with heavy promotion by Donald Trump and Fox News cost many lives. They have a large audience of gullible viewers who were more than happy to experiment on their bodies with unproven cures — but curiously didn't trust the COVID vaccines.
What's the reason for this bizarre behavior? Some of it was Trump, of course. He pushed the phony cures, even going so far as to suggest that ingesting disinfectant might be a way to "clean" the lungs of COVID. And Fox News and other right-wing media were no doubt influential. But mostly, I think it had to do with the propensity among right-wingers to dive headfirst into conspiracy theories. This study looked into some of the possible theories:
"Some believe that COVID-19 is a business for health care workers (HCWs) and doctors are diagnosing every fever as COVID-19 for their benefits. Ironically, in some places, people attacked HCWs in the hospitals for not handing over the dead body immediately to the family.The claim that COVID-19 is a pre-planned project to cover the Bill Gates trackable microchip conspiracy was also raised.Myth about the origin of virus was also emergedand people also believe that government is providing false number of COVID-19 cases because a large number of cases will get more profit and donation. Many people also believe that it is from God as a punishment,the 5G technology directly transmits the virus and weaken the human immunity, and some consider that the virus is a bio-warfare weapon. In addition, the video "Plandemic" that shows that COVID-19 pandemic is a conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies to sell their products also have become viral through social media platforms adding the list of conspiracy theories."
This tracks with all the other conspiracy theories swirling around the right-wing fever swamps so I suppose it's not surprising. But what's the logic of Republicans and Fox News being anti-vax and pro-snake oil? They all got vaccinated themselves but they pushed "alternative" treatments hard while degrading the vaccines as dangerous. You still have GOP senators like Ted Cruz running around with that sad sack anti-vax "trucker convoy" that's driving in circles in the beltway for no good reason.
As the historian Rick Perlstein pointed out some time back, peddlers of quack medicine and right-wing extremists have had a long and happy relationship. Their customers and their audience are the same people. Take a look at how the "nutritional supplement" industry largely supports right-wing media, from Alex Jones to Tucker Carlson. There's a financial incentive to keep their audience believing in snake oil but it's very short-sighted. After all, telling your followers that a pill will improve their sex life probably isn't going to kill them. But pushing them to take an alternative quack cure for COVID might.
There is little to indicate Trump would actually stop Putin from taking over Ukraine. In fact it appears he would be rooting him on.
And as for NATO, US relations would have only continued to get worse under Trump. The unity of action, unprecedented sanctions, and commitment we have now with our NATO allies would have NEVER happened under Rump - he was too busy berating them.
Was Trump good at threats?
Absolutely.
Could he have made the same kind of "Rocket Man" remark?
In a heartbeat:
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump said at an event on the topic of opioid use in the US on August 8, 2017.
Two days later, a statement carried by North Korean state media said: “We cannot have a sound dialogue with a senile man who can’t think rationally, only absolute force can work on him. This is the judgement made by our soldiers of the Strategic Force.”
Kim Jong Un blinked.
But Kim doesn't have enough nukes to destroy the entire planet.
Putin does.
Like Trump though, Putin doesn't back down, he doubles down.
So even if Trump had threatened Putin - instead of allowed him to take over Ukraine with his blessing, Putin would only threaten back, and we'd have two blowhard loudmouths each with their finger on the nuclear button threatening to destroy the world.
Putin is not going to back down from Ukraine. He doesn't care if he looses five armies trying to take it over. He doesn't care if he has to lock up half the population of Russia to keep domestic dissent under control.
One of Putin's biggest fears is a united NATO - that's why he invaded Crimea, the Donbas region, and later, the rest of Ukraine in the first place.
He is now facing a VERY united NATO. And since Biden got us out of Afghanistan, we don't have our biggest contingent of troops bogged down in Bush's unending "War on Terror." If necessary we could send them all into Ukraine.
But that's not the best option here.
The problem is Putin. And even if we sees there is no way he can win, he will still destroy Ukraine - by a slow slog of conventional forces like he's done in other countries, but with chemical weapons or even nukes if he has to. His twisted views on history and his own ambitions make that clear. He will destroy everything he has to before he backs down.
A direct confrontation with the US, Biden, and / or NATO only hastens his end game. He doesn't give one tiny #&%# about what the world thinks of him if he starts a nuclear war.
Putin is not leaving Ukraine under his watch.
The safest way out of this mess is if folks in Russia decide it's in their own best interest to take him out. Biden and Zelenskyy have inspired not only NATO but non-NATO countries and even corporations to isolate Russia as a pariah state only comparable to North Korea in terms of completeness. Even historically neutral Switzerland has joined us.
Biden did that by using American intelligence to telegraph Putin's every move before he even went into Ukraine, even while Zelenskyy and others in Ukraine were telling him he was over-reacting. By doing so, Biden undermined Putin's propaganda campaign before it got of the ground and showed the world this whole mess is Putin's sole choice.
Biden is sending billions in weapons to Ukraine, and that is the best move right now, and it is handing Putin battlefield defeats on a scale he never expected. It is also showing other countries what is possible when they stand united against Russia, and with the US.
Biden has shown Putin has a major weakness, and how to exploit it. Assuming Putin doesn't go nuclear, he will never again be in position to roll into a country and take it over. And their military is going to have second thoughts about it too - but it will take at least a decade (two?) to rebuild all their lost equipment.
If Biden were to come out and threat Putin and / or Russia with Trump-like blowhard tactics that Republicans confuse with "strength," clips of that would go straight to Russian media as propaganda for Putin to whip up domestic support. The longer Biden avoids that, the less fodder Putin has to whip up fears of an American attack. Instead, Putin's base is subject to a grinding, everyday crippling of their economy, as news of Putin's folly slowly drips in from the West.
Better yet, the news will be that it was Ukrainians are sending their sons home in body bags - the "brothers" that Putin told them would be glad for their "help." Many Russians may believe Putin's propaganda now, but they're not all stupid. Eventually, when they see that the cause of their suffering is Putin's lies, and not threats from Biden or NATO, they will start taking lessons from brave Ukrainians and take care of Putin themselves.
Biden can't let it be known that's the strategy though. That's just more grist for Putin's propaganda mill, and he will use it to paint himself as the "victim" of the West's attacks.
Lindsay was absolutely right in with this sentiment:
"The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out," Graham said. "You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service."
The problem is he doesn't understand the NO ONE in the west should actually be heard SAYING that.
THAT is the best strategy to take down Putin. Threating violence and attacks is not "strength" no matter how much simple-minded Republicans think it is. Any idiot can do that, and Putin will just double down on it.
We don't need a loudmouth in office right now, we need someone who knows what a strategy is and how to use it.
The other thing Biden has to balance is China and President Xi. China is watching very closely how the West handles this, because it has implications for how it tries to take over Taiwan. China isn't worried about the US alone. It can handle the US alone. Taking on the whole rest of the world and being turned into a pariah state like Russia however, is something that Xi appears smart enough to avoid - unlike Putin.
How did Hunter Biden's depraved behavior and his and his family members' dubious dealings with adversaries and oligarchs compromise and corrupt Joe Biden? What did Joe know, when did he know it and did he directly or indirectly profit? To what extent would—and today, does—the Biden family's conduct loom over vital issues of American foreign policy, and thus national security?
We were deprived of the answers to these critical questions during the 2020 election—deprived of hearing the questions asked themselves—because of one of the gravest American information operations in history, masquerading as a defense against a Russian information operation.
Now, our Ruling Class' chief organ has admitted it. It took 17 months, and 24 paragraphs into an article at first glance unrelated, but buried in a New York Times report on the apparently sprawling federal investigation into Hunter Biden, the "Paper of Record" revealed the truth we've long known: Hunter's "laptop from hell" is real.
We knew this before Joe Biden was elected. But millions of Americans didn't because the corporate media, the Deep State for which it serves as a conduit and the Big Tech that propagates their Official Narratives conspired together to suppress the true story while amplifying the politically beneficial one.
One poll shows this operation—part and parcel of a coordinated effort by our Ruling Class to use every lever of power to undermine Donald Trump while protecting Joe Biden—alone may have swung the 2020 election.
The people who purport to defend "our democracy," in other words, thwarted the republic by concealing from the public the kind of crucial information on which war and peace hinges.
The many layers to this scandal are worth recounting because they so vividly reveal a pervasive rot at the core of our country that is poised to fester absent a massive reckoning.
There's the fact the corporate media dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story out of hand, refused to pursue it and even ran interference for then-candidate Biden when directly questioned on it by then-President Trump in debate.
There's the fact the corporate media unquestioningly ran with a narrative that the story was "Russian disinformation" to justify its dismissal of it, despite lacking a scintilla of concrete evidence to substantiate that dubious claim.
There's the fact dozens of senior then-ex intelligence community (IC) officials—people whose profession ostensibly demands equipoise, analytical rigor and the setting aside of politics—fed the corporate media that narrative, abusing their positions with reckless abandon.
The more than 50 prominent IC members, former CIA directors and on down, used their names and reputations to baselessly speculate that the laptop contents and circumstances around their release "ha[d] all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation"—naturally in contravention of the ignored Trump administration officials actually in command of the intelligence apparatus at the time, who vigorously denied the charge. The Trump-hating spooks, like the corporate media, presented not one scintilla of evidence to justify their charge.
Sure, they hedged, admitting that"we want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails...are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement... ." But they knew well Politico and others would run with headlines like: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
How contrived was the operation? Consider that it was a former top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan—perhaps the most Trump-deranged and notoriously dishonest of the overwhelmingly Democrat-serving officials endorsing the letter—who arranged for the letter's distribution to Politico. He delivered it to one of the Trump-loathing Deep State's friendliest of reporters—perhaps most well-known for promoting the notorious Steele dossier at the heart of the Russiagate hoax—surely knowing this would set the narrative in motion.
Almost universally, the signatories show no remorse for the con they pulled. It was all worth it for them to replace Trump with someone who spent 50 years getting every major foreign policy issue wrong, and who has kept that imperfect streak alive since he's been in office.
There's also the fact Big Tech engaged in Rubicon-crossing censorship, not only preventing people from sharing the story publicly, but in private messages, and de-platforming the sharers. Twitter admitted as much, months after the election, when the damage had been done. This set the precedent for the ever-more widespread, almost desensitizing Wrongthink censorship we see today. Donald Trump is of course banned on Twitter, and the likes of Vladimir Putin and crony Ayatollah Khamenei are free to tweet at their leisure. Chinese coronavirus information that got people banned six months ago is now the official CDC narrative promoted on social media.
The Hunter Biden laptop story looms over it all.
"There is little to indicate Trump would actually stop Putin from taking over Ukraine. In fact it appears he would be rooting him on"
actually, Trump pushed all our NATO partners to increase their defense spending, bombed Syria when they used Russian-supplied chemical weapons against children of minorities, sent the military aid to Ukraine that Obama refused to do, and once told Putin "we've got nice new missile just for you if you try anything"
to recap, Russia invaded Georgia during George W, invaded Crimea during Obama, invaded the rest of Ukraine during Biden
all of which sounds like more than a "little to indicate Trump would actually stop Putin from taking over Ukraine"
do you guys ever stop and think before you post?
"And as for NATO, US relations would have only continued to get worse under Trump. The unity of action, unprecedented sanctions, and commitment we have now with our NATO allies would have NEVER happened under Rump - he was too busy berating them."
actually, the reason for the decline in relations was that Trump warned them they needed to increase defense spending
and it was the invasion that unified everyone
even then, Biden has not been in the leadership
"Putin is not going to back down from Ukraine."
but he is afraid to die
have you seen the conference table he meets people at because he's afraid of COVID?
it's a mile long
he knows the exchange of nuclear between the US and Russia would end civilization and most sentient life
"The safest way out of this mess is if folks in Russia decide it's in their own best interest to take him out."
it's probably the only way out
"Biden and Zelenskyy have inspired not only NATO but non-NATO countries and even corporations to isolate Russia as a pariah state only comparable to North Korea in terms of completeness. Even historically neutral Switzerland has joined us."
this is an insult to Zelensky
Biden has inspired no one
Let's look at ow Biden is inspiring everyone:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating fell to a new low of 40% this week, a clear warning sign for his Democratic Party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in the Nov. 8 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.
The national poll, conducted on March 21 and 22, found that 54% of Americans disapprove of his job performance as the country struggles with high inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed geopolitical concerns to the fore.
Biden's approval rating, down three percentage points from the prior week.
Poll respondents cited the economy as their top concern, followed by war and foreign conflicts.
Biden's popularity began dropping in mid-August as COVID-19 deaths began to rise and the U.S. military faced a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Democrats hold razor-thin majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate. The coming loss of both will grind Biden's legislative agenda to a halt
"naturally in contravention of the ignored Trump administration officials actually in command of the intelligence apparatus at the time"
You're talking about an administration that tried to convince the public of a hurricane path with a map hastily marked up with a Sharpie pen:
The incredibly absurd Trump/CNN SharpieGate feud, explained
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/6/20851971/trump-hurricane-dorian-alabama-sharpie-cnn-media
It had ZERO credibility.
Do you guys even think before you post here?
"all of which sounds like more than a "little to indicate Trump would actually stop Putin from taking over Ukraine"
Trump was in Putin's pocket - remember what he said in Helsinki? Putin knew NATO was no threat to Russia while Trump was running around pissing off all our allies.
I know you like to quote polls - especially when they make Dems look bad, and then ignore them when they go against Republicans.
I prefer to stick with actual facts. And the facts are the Dems have done a whole lot better than Republicans with the economy this century:
Trump added 6.5 million US jobs in his first 3 years WITHOUT a pandemic.
Biden added 6.704 million jobs in his first ONE year WITH a pandemic:
The data is here:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ces0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
Trump's pandemic year was DISASTROUS, with a loss of 9.111 million jobs, ending Trump's 4 years with a net loss of 2.611 million jobs.
And in case you already forgot, Biden's pandemic year ADDED 6.704 million jobs.
For reference, Obama added 8.08 million jobs during his last 3 years in office - job growth actually SLOWED down under Trump, despite his tax cuts that didn't help the economy as much as Obama did, and dug us further into Regan's never-ending debt hole.
"sent the military aid to Ukraine that Obama refused to do, and once told Putin "we've got nice new missile just for you if you try anything"
You mean the military aid that CONGRESS approved and that Rumpie illegally threatened to withhold unless he got some dirt on Joe Biden? And then only sent AFTER he got caught?
You know, what he got impeached for the FIRST time?!
Give me a break.
THINK man, THINK.
"U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating fell to a new low of 40% this week"
You think that's bad?
Trump's approval rating during his second year in office, 2018, started at 37% and went all the way to 39% by the end of that year.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
Sanctions imposed on Russia to cripple its economy may be starting to hurt its military capabilities.
The country’s primary armored vehicle manufacturer appears to have run out of parts to make and repair tanks, according to a Facebook post by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Citing “available information,” it reported state-owned company Uralvagonzavod, which builds tanks such as the T-72B3, has had to temporarily cease production in Nizhny Tagil.
In addition to Uralvagonzavod, one of the largest tank manufacturers in the world with reportedly 30,000 employees last year, the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant has also run out of foreign-made parts.
“The specified companies specialize in the manufacturing and repair of tanks, as well as other armored equipment needed by the Russian Federation armed forces,” the General Staff wrote in its Facebook post.
Western allies, including the United States and the European Union, have ordered a complete halt to the export of certain components like microchips to Russia as part of an escalation package of sanctions.
So-called dual-use goods have been banned, since they can be employed for both military as well as civilian applications.
“Our aim is to reduce the Kremlin’s capacity to wage war on its neighbor,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen explained earlier this month.
It may be working. Halting the manufacture and repair of T-72B3s, as well as more advanced but less numerous T-80s and T-90s, could hobble Russia’s efforts to continue its advance across war-torn Ukraine.
Over the past 27 days since Putin’s invasion, Russian tank columns have been one of the main targets of drone strikes by Ukraine’s fleet of Bayraktar TB2s.
They have also come under heavy fire from infantry personnel wielding shoulder-launched “fire and forget” Javelin missiles, as well as next-generation light anti-tank weapons (NLAWs) that can destroy or at least disable the tracked vehicles.
On Monday, the General Staff claimed Ukraine’s forces had eliminated 509 tanks in total, an estimate that Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, former commanding officer of U.S. Army Europe, seemed to share.
Some tanks, either abandoned or out of fuel, have even been filmed being carted away by tractor-driving Ukrainian farmers.
Developments in Russia are however notoriously difficult to independently verify with any degree of certainty given Putin’s stranglehold over the media.
In a potentially inadvertent leak on Monday, a pro-Kremlin website published data from the Ministry of Defense citing nearly 9,900 Russian dead and over 16,000 wounded before the post was swiftly taken down.
"but he is afraid to die
have you seen the conference table he meets people at because he's afraid of COVID?
it's a mile long
he knows the exchange of nuclear between the US and Russia would end civilization and most sentient life"
Sure he does. He also knows that the US for decades has done everything it can to avoid MADD.
Unless Putin is totally backed into a corner, it is unlikely he's going to start Armageddon. But he's still a sociopath, and no one really knows where he's going to draw the line to "escalate to de-escalate." It is most likely to start with a small "tactical" nuke somewhere in Ukraine. If he can't have it, no one can. And we can expect him to give an excuse and misleading propaganda about the West being the source of any nuclear weapon before it happens.
But you can rest assured he and his buddies will be safely locked away in his nuclear bunker before he does that. He's not planning on dying anytime soon... and he doesn't give a damn about other people dying.
It is painfully obvious, as was predictable, that Joe Biden’s presidency is a dumpster fire. As demonstrated by the party’s destructive callousness towards children, the elderly, and the poor during their Covid lockdown frenzy, Democrats care about none of these real-world results of their policies. But they do care about polling, and Joe Biden’s is abysmal.
According to even heavily politicized polls, Biden is at least performing as badly as Donald Trump. Biden is between the third- and fifth-most ratings-underwater president ever in American history at this point in his first term.
Biden of course also has the advantage of a wildly favorable press and social media monopoly while Trump had the strong headwind of a wildly negative one. That factor obscured for a great many of American voters actions that easily demonstrated long before his election that Biden was unfit for the presidency.
Now that he’s president, however, and very publicly bungling essentially every major issue all the way up to U.S. national security, Biden’s weakness and incompetence have been impossible for the corrupt media to entirely cover up. Biden’s appalling withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been the first major blow to public confidence in his governing ability, and it’s been followed by blow after blow: the repercussions of ending U.S. energy independence, historic inflation caused by massive government spending, aggression by America’s foreign foes, a tacitly open border with human trafficking of historic proportions, not to mention fueling America’s legalized mass killings of unborn infants and forcing schools to inflict gender dysphoria on the children in their care.
So yes, the polls look bad. That’s why Democrat officials suddenly switched away from their Covid mania, lifting mask mandates in blue states, ending the daily falsified “body counts” on TVs and newspapers, and jumping immediately into European war hysteria. But that’s not been enough to turn those polls around. Historic indicators presently suggest a “red wave” in the upcoming midterms.
The top reason domestic energy production hasn’t ramped up isn’t Joe Biden’s green energy agenda, according to oil company executives. Instead, it’s a lack of enthusiasm from investors.
A majority of oil and gas executives surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas this month pointed to pressure from investors as the top obstacle to growth. Less than 10% blamed government regulation.
Questions and data here:
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/surveys/des/2022/2201.aspx#tab-questions
“We are maintaining discipline in capital spending to maintain great internal rates of return,” said one executive at an unnamed exploration and production firm, referring to profits from earlier investments.
The Dallas Fed survey comes at a moment of fierce political debate over rising gas prices and overall high inflation, with Republicans blaming higher fuel costs entirely on Biden.
[Of course they would, why would Republicans care about facts when they can blame their favorite Democrat scapegoat?]
The Biden administration has also pointed out in recent weeks that oil and gas companies are sitting on more than 9,000 approved but unused permits to drill across millions of acres of federal lands.
But when asked at a congressional hearing this month about the impact of Biden’s leasing pause, Colette Hirstius, senior vice president of oil giant Shell, said, “I do not think that not having lease sales has raised the costs to consumers.”
Biden’s critics have ignored the fact that Wall Street investors are pressuring U.S. drillers to limit production amid record prices.
More than half — 59% — of the 139 executives surveyed by the Dallas Fed listed investor pressure as the primary reason producers are keeping production down.
Other comments reflected the pressure from investors to avoid plowing capital into new exploration and drilling projects.
“Investors dumped huge funds into shale drilling only to discover that when oil prices dropped, very little value existed at the end of the day,” one executive said. “Investors have demanded restraint and capital discipline of their client companies.”
So investors have pressured oil companies to keep production down so that they can keep their profits up. And then Republicans blame Biden for high gas prices.
Who could have possibly guessed that oil companies and investors are playing market games at the expense of the American public? Say it ain't so!
Russia's Top Diplomat Admits Kremlin Was Shocked By Scale Of Western Sanctions
Russia’s top diplomat said on Wednesday that the Kremlin was surprised that Western leaders imposed the level of economic sanctions currently hurting the country — a rare admission of weakness from President Vladimir Putin’s government amid the ongoing destruction in Ukraine.
“When the reserves of the Central Bank were frozen, no one who was predicting what sanctions the West would pass could have pictured that,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, according to Kommersant. Lavrov also called the sanctions an act of “theft.”
“The Russian Federation must be made to never again depend on supplies from abroad. … Russia has no right to allow dependence on the West in vital sectors of its economy,” Lavrov said, according to Russian state-owned news outlet TASS. The official added that the Kremlin would still be “ready to cooperate” with the West in the future “if they want.”
Putin made the decision in February to invade Ukraine despite NATO and Western leaders holding repeated talks to avoid a war. A large number of nations, including the United States, slammed Russia with increasingly severe sanctions — sending the ruble plummeting and the Russian economy in shambles.
Russia’s Elvira Nabiullina tried to resign from her position as central bank governor after Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing four people with knowledge of the discussion. Putin reportedly ordered her to stay, nominating her for a new five-year term last week so that she’s forced to deal with a wartime economy isolated by global sanctions. Bloomberg’s sources told the outlet that her departure would now be seen as a betrayal by the president.
Anatoly Chubais, Russia’s climate envoy who advised Putin, resigned and left Russia on Wednesday — making him the highest-level officer to quit the Kremlin since the beginning of Russia’s invasion. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the resignation to the Financial Times, but said Chubais’ reason for leaving is a “personal matter.”
The business oligarch known for overseeing Russian privatization after the fall of the Soviet Union left due to his opposition to the war in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg, citing two sources familiar with the situation. A source told Reuters that Chubais left for ties with international organizations.
"Oops, Putin believed Trump and thought he was dealing with a "Sleepy Joe"
Russia's Top Diplomat Admits Kremlin Was Shocked By Scale Of Western Sanctions"
Putin was right. He was dealing with "Sleepy Joe." What he didn't realize is that the other western democracies have real leaders not ones elected while hiding in his basement while the mainstream covered up his families' scandals and his influence peddling while VP
Every step of the way, Biden initially favored watered-down sanctions and had to be pushed by the rest of the world to go further
Further, he kept telling Putin he could commit any humanitarian catastrophe he wished and the US would not try to stop him
Biden is pathetic and weak and the villains of humanity know this is their chance to make some big gains
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Biden meets with key allies in Brussels to coordinate a stronger response to Russia's monthlong assault on Ukraine, a new poll shows Americans have yet to rally around his leadership.
Concern about Russia has swelled and support for a major U.S. role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, but Biden's negative approval rating has not budged, according to the poll Thursday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Few are very confident that he can handle a crisis, and a majority thinks he lacks toughness in dealing with Russia.
Only 43% of Americans approve of Biden and a similar percentage approve of his handling of the relationship with Russia. Both measures are little different from an AP-NORC poll conducted days before the Feb. 24 invasion.
The U.S., pushed by NATO allies, has tried to isolate Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin with sanctions, including freezing foreign assets of Russia’s central bank and cutting off its supply to essential war materiel. But Russia has continued for a month to batter cities in Ukraine with air strikes and artillery, despite a stalled ground invasion.
Over the next three days, the Biden administration aims to work with key European allies on a united strategy to aid Ukraine militarily, increase sanctions on Russia and wrestle with the worsening humanitarian crisis, according to Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Biden does so on shaky ground with the American public. Only about a quarter are very confident that the president has the ability to handle a crisis, promote U.S. standing in the world or effectively manage the U.S. military.
Fifty-six percent of Americans think Biden has not been tough enough on Russia.
Even among members of his own party, Biden faces pressure to do more. The poll shows Democrats are closely divided over the president’s response, with 43% saying he hasn’t been tough enough.
“I understand he’s between a rock and a hard place,” said Rachel Collins, a 41-year-old Democrat from Chicago. “It just feels like Putin’s not going to stop at Ukraine.”
Collins, an elementary school teacher, said she feels like she’s watching history unfolding yet again.
“How many years are we gonna watch this happen and then have to step in anyway?” she added. “It just feels inevitable and, in the meantime, we’re just watching all these people suffer.”
Most say they think Biden’s response has not been tough enough.
“He’s scared,” said David Stoddard, a retired border patrol agent in Sierra Vista, Arizona. “He’s scared of Putin. He’s scared of (China’s) Xi (Jinping). He’s scared of everything.”
Stoddard, 76, would prefer somebody like former President Donald Trump over Biden to tell Putin “that Putin may have a red button but the United States’ red button is bigger,” he said.
Stoddard thinks there’s more Biden could be doing to strengthen sanctions and support Ukraine militarily, including transferring Polish MiG fighter jets to Ukraine from a NATO air base in Germany, which the Pentagon declined to do earlier in March.
“I’m sure there’s more that he could do,” said Chris Hollander, a research assistant in Denver.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an official proclamation Tuesday declaring a Florida resident the “rightful winner” of an NCAA women’s swimming championship race over transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
Thomas — the University of Pennsylvania swimmer whose record-breaking season has sparked national debate over whether men who think they are women should compete on female sports teams — became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA championship last week, placing first in the 500-yard freestyle race at the Division I finals in Atlanta on Thursday.
DeSantis said he would "reject these lies and recognize" University of Virginia swimmer and Florida resident Emma Weyant, who came in second place, as the winner.
"The NCAA's actions serve to erode opportunities for women athletes and perpetuate a fraud against women athletes as well as the public at large," the proclamation read. "Florida rejects the NCAA’s efforts to destroy women’s athletics, disapproves of the NCAA elevating ideology over biology and takes offense at the NCAA trying to make others complicit in a lie."
Voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a pro-Trump group from going door-to-door in Colorado in search of evidence to support voter fraud allegations that have already been debunked and rejected by courts.
The lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Election Integrity Plan — led by Shawn Smith, an ally of former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell — is sending armed members door-to-door in areas with large numbers of voters of color, questioning people about how they voted and taking photographs of their homes.
The lawsuit, which is backed by the state chapter of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and Mi Familia Vota, alleges that the "voter intimidation" campaign violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a post-Civil War law aimed at preventing white vigilantes from terrorizing Black people to stop them from voting.
The lawsuit cites the "County & Local Organizing Playbook" used by the group, which instructs members to "undertake citizen audit activities to either refute or confirm serious allegations of election malfeasance" in order to "support future legal action." The group, some of whose members are armed, has been going door-to-door in El Paso, Mesa and Weld counties in Colorado, using public voter lists to identify areas where they believe ballots were fraudulently cast, the Colorado Times Recorder reported last year. The report prompted an alert from Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who warned voters of unofficial canvassing efforts and urged residents to report harassment and threats to local law enforcement or the Justice Department.
"Defendants' objectives are clear. By planning to, threatening to, and actually deploying armed agents to knock on doors throughout the state of Colorado, USEIP is engaged in voter intimidation," the lawsuit states. "USEIP's public-facing actions are a clear signal to Colorado voters — especially voters of color — that to vote in an upcoming election means facing interrogation by potentially armed and threatening USEIP agents at their doorstep thereafter."
The lawsuit claims that some members have worn "badges" and falsely accused voters of fraud.
"Sometimes armed and donning badges to present an appearance of government officiality, USEIP agents interrogate voters about their addresses, whether they participated in the 2020 election, and — if so — how they cast their vote," the complaint says. "It is reported that multiple agents have claimed to be from 'the county,' and have, without any evidence, falsely accused the residents of casting fraudulent ballots."
"Sometimes armed and donning badges to present an appearance of government officiality, USEIP agents interrogate voters about their addresses, whether they participated in the 2020 election, and — if so — how they cast their vote," the complaint says. "It is reported that multiple agents have claimed to be from 'the county,' and have, without any evidence, falsely accused the residents of casting fraudulent ballots."
The group's "playbook" thanks Lindell, a leading election conspiracy theorist. Smith, the group's founder, attended Lindell's election conspiracy-laden "symposium" last year in South Dakota along with former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted earlier this month for her role in leaking sensitive voting system data that was published by QAnon conspiracy theorists and right-wing websites. Griswold's office said earlier this year that Smith had also convinced another election official, Elbert County Clerk and Recorder Dallas Schroeder, to make copies of his office's hard drives that he later gave to "unauthorized people in violation of Election Rules."
Shawn Smith, the head of USEIP last month led a "lock her up" chant while discussing Griswold at a rally and said that "if you're involved in election fraud, you deserve to hang."
He can also be seen in a video among a group of violent Trump supporters who clashed with police outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He was accompanied by Colorado state Rep. Ron Hanks, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate who has also pushed false election claims.
Smith is also the president of another "election integrity" group called Cause of America, also funded by Lindell, which Smith announced on Bannon's "War Room" podcast.
USEIP appears to have fully embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. Its website and the first page of its "playbook" include the slogan "We Are the Plan," frequently associated with QAnon believers. During a presentation organized by Sherronna Bishop, the former campaign manager for Rep. Lauren Boebert, USEIP leader Cory Anderson (who is also a member of the anti-government Three Percenter militia) described the briefing as "being red-pilled," according to the Times Recorder. (That expression, originally drawn from "The Matrix," is popular among QAnon followers and other far-right conspiracy theorists.)
The lawsuit names Smith, as well as co-founders Holly Kasun and Ashe Epp, who was also at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It alleges that their attempted canvassing for election fraud evidence had the "purpose and effect of intimidating Coloradans from voting, trying to vote, helping others to vote, supporting or advocating for certain political beliefs, or exercising the right to speak, peaceably assemble, or petition the government for redress of grievances, in violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act." The suit also accuses the group of violating a section of the Ku Klux Klan Act that bans "conspiracy to interfere with civil rights."
"Sadly, efforts to intimidate voters are nothing new," NAACP general counsel Janette McCarthy Wallace said in a statement. "The NAACP has a long and proud history of opposing those who would seek to thwart democracy. We could not sit idly by and allow voters to potentially be bullied out of exercising their rights."
"No voter should ever feel threatened in the safety of their own homes," Celina Stewart, League of Women Voters chief counsel, said in a statement. "The nefarious actions of the USEIP are a blatant form of voter intimidation used to target and with the intent to silence Colorado voters of color, which is in clear violation of the Voting Rights Act."
The USEIP is also working with the Colorado Republican Party on its "Election Integrity Operations," according to the Times Recorder. A USEIP member is in charge of the GOP's program and has given joint presentations with Epp, the group's co-founder. Heidi Ganahl, the leading Republican candidate for Colorado governor, promoted the group during a recent event, declaring that they are "doing great things."
USEIP did not respond to a request for comment. The group's website says it plans to expand to other states, including Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire. Its training materials are already being used by conspiracy theorists in Utah who call themselves the Utah Voter Verification Project, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
USEIP also appears to have had trouble vetting its volunteers. The group's training manual says that the group intends to check volunteers' social media and called on them for a "gut check," saying leaders had "learned (roundaboutly) that there were a couple of people in our group, who were volunteering for our events, who had a criminal history of sexual misconduct," and adding, "it's unfortunate that we must check volunteers for pedophilic leanings."
The Republican Party has morphed into something completely different since former President Donald Trump took control, radio icon Howard Stern said.
“The whole Republican Party’s gone bonkers,” Stern said Wednesday on his SiriusXM radio show, according to The Hill.
Stern also described the GOP as the “wacko party.”
“There’s so many wackos. I miss the old Republican Party. It used to be nice to have a two-party system,” he said.
Stern then tore into the “wackos” for resisting masks and refusing to get vaccinated during the global coronavirus pandemic.
“I hate to say it, but only 65 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and I can’t help but think the wackos are winning,” he said.
Stern also gave Republicans who believe Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election a reality check. Trump has claimed the election, which he lost, was rigged.
Stern agreed, just not in the way the former president thinks. The rigging, according to Stern, is the Electoral College system, which allows someone to lose the popular vote as Trump did in 2016 and still become president.
“The stupidity of the way we have our voting set up. The system was rigged — Trump’s right. It was rigged in his favor,” he said. “It was absolutely absurd that this guy got to be the president of the United States.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years as the U.S. job market continues to show strength in the midst of rising costs and an ongoing virus pandemic.
Jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 187,000 for the week ending March 19, the lowest since September of 1969, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time applications for jobless aid generally track the pace of layoffs.
The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, also fell to levels not seen in five decades. The Labor Department reported that the four week moving average tumbled to 211,750 from the previous week’s 223,250.
In total, 1,350,000 Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended March 12, another five-decade low.
Earlier this month, the government reported that employers added a robust 678,000 jobs in February, the largest monthly total since July. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%, from 4% in January, extending a sharp decline in joblessness to its lowest level since before the pandemic erupted two years ago.
When they said they’d be livestreaming, this isn’t what we had in mind.
The remaining truckers in Washington, D.C., who gathered for a “convoy” earlier this month are apparently having trouble finding places to relieve themselves as they circle the D.C. Beltway.
So much so that they’re peeing their pants with some regularity.
“Truckers speaking with [People’s Convoy co-organizer Ron] Coleman say that other truckers haven’t been able to ‘go to the bathroom’ while circling the Beltway,” Daily Beast reporter Zachary Petrizzo relayed via Twitter, “which has left ‘people hav[ing] actually pissed their pants!’”
What’s more, Petrizzo says, the truckers believe the ultimate blame for their predicament lies with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Metropolitan Police — and so, they’ve mulled over making “citizen’s arrests” of Bowser and police officers in response.
The convoy has been casting about for a raison d’etre since states nationwide have relaxed their mask and vaccine mandates. The truckers’ original cause ― COVID-19 restrictions ― has ceased to be a galvanizing force.
Generic anti-government gripes like undocumented immigrants, gas prices, critical race theory and the Black Lives Matter movement remain, though the crowd of truckers appears to be thinning, Vice News reports.
Last week, a speaker tried to rally the group by vowing to “tar and feather” the city’s Black Lives Matter Plaza, a pledge that so far hasn’t come to pass.
In the meantime, the remaining truckers are still doing their daily lap, getting stuck behind commuters on bikes, and complaining about all the D.C. drivers flipping them off.
"The Republican Party has morphed into something completely different since former President Donald Trump took control, radio icon Howard Stern said."
what can you say about a group like TTF?
they feel vindicated when a disgusting shock jock agrees with them
"WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years as the U.S. job market continues to show strength in the midst of rising costs and an ongoing virus pandemic."
what can you say about a group like TTF?
they feel vindicated when employment returns to the pre-pandemic levels achieved by Donald Trump
"“Truckers speaking with [People’s Convoy co-organizer Ron] Coleman say that other truckers haven’t been able to ‘go to the bathroom’ while circling the Beltway,” Daily Beast reporter Zachary Petrizzo relayed via Twitter, “which has left ‘people hav[ing] actually pissed their pants!’”
what can you say about a group like TTF?
they feel vindicated when a liberal rag does some vital journalism about how protesters urinate
I guess you could say they are in for a big surprise:
Former President Donald Trump beats President Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup in an Emerson College poll that also revealed a commanding 12-point lead in favorability for America’s 45th chief executive.
More than four out of five respondents (83%) said they were experiencing "some hardship" due to price increases on everyday items, according to the March 18-20, 2022, Emerson poll of 1,023 registered U.S. voters.
Most voters (59%) say they view former President Trump favorably while less than half of voters (47%), view Biden favorably.
Trump beat Biden 45% to 42% in a hypothetical 2024 presidential election, according to the poll.
"Biden struggles among Independent voters: just 28% approve of the job he is doing while 64% disapprove. When looking at the Midterm generic congressional ballot, Independents break 28% for Democrats, 42% with Republicans, and 31% are undecided," Emerson College Poll Executive Director Spencer Kimball said.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the Dems will lose control of Congress in November
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and two other conservative lawmakers challenging the fines they faced for refusing to wear masks on the House floor.
Greene joined U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ralph Norman of South Carolina in filing a court challenge in July hoping to recoup penalties they faced after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through new enforcement rules for an existing mask mandate.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton wrote in a Wednesday ruling that the case had no merit because Pelosi and the staffers who enforced the fines by docking lawmakers pay could not be sued for decisions made in their government capacity.
Walton also disagreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments that the mask fines amounted to an illegal reduction in their annual salary. The 27th Amendment prohibits any law from changing members’ compensation before the next election.
Walton disregarded the claim that the mask fines violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment protections of free speech, which their lawyers claimed should be invoked because the three lawmakers chose not to wear masks as a form of protest.
Greene, Massie and Norman have filed an appeal.
During a December hearing, Walton repeatedly pointed out that the mask mandates were steps taken to preserve the safety of lawmakers, staff and police officers during a pandemic. The three plaintiffs sat on the front row during the hearing; all wore masks in compliance with courthouse rules.
Walton wrote that on the days in May 2021 that the lawmakers chose not to wear masks while casting votes that the total COVID-19 death toll in America had risen to 588,764.
Contrary to the plaintiffs’ assertion that the use of face coverings did not halt the spread of the coronavirus, “the consensus within the scientific community is clear that masks —and, in particular, well-fitting, protective masks — are effective in slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, as demonstrated by the very articles cited by the plaintiffs in their Complaint,” he wrote.
While Massie and Norman’s protest was limited, Greene continued to show up on the House floor without a mask for the rest of 2021 and into 2022. She eventually accumulated more than $100,000 in fines that were docked from her salary, which is $174,000 a year.
Georgia U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde eventually joined the protest and spent several months refusing to wear a mask on the floor. While he did not join the lawsuit over those fines, he has a separate suit pending for penalties he also faced for refusing to go through metal detectors before casting votes. Those rules were implemented after the U.S. Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2020.
The Capitol’s attending physician dropped the mask mandate shortly before President Joe Biden’s March 1 State of the Union address.
"U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton wrote in a Wednesday ruling that the case had no merit because Pelosi and the staffers who enforced the fines by docking lawmakers pay could not be sued for decisions made in their government capacity."
they have no "capacity" to steal someone else's pay
fortunately, we have a Supreme Court
"During a December hearing, Walton repeatedly pointed out that the mask mandates were steps taken to preserve the safety of lawmakers, staff and police officers during a pandemic."
never before in history have healthy people been forced to shield themselves from other people, just in case they might have an undetected illness
extrapolating this concept to its logical conclusion would obliterate our freedom
there is nothing in the Constitution that suspends the Bill of Rights when there is a bad respiratory illness going around
"Walton wrote that on the days in May 2021 that the lawmakers chose not to wear masks while casting votes that the total COVID-19 death toll in America had risen to 588,764."
actually, that was a cumulative number including cases prior to vaccine availability and including the period when Andrew Cuomo was killing the elderly by forcing nursing homes to house contagious COVID patients
in May 2021, vaccines were widely available and there was no longer any rationale to impose restrictions on others
something that Dems love to do unless an election is looming and polls show they will lose because of their overreach
you know, like now
back then, everyone had the capacity to protect themselves if they chose to do so
"The Capitol’s attending physician dropped the mask mandate shortly before President Joe Biden’s March 1 State of the Union address."
what a coincidence
actually, Slidin' Biden should wear a mask for his own sake
in his feeble state, even he flu could kill him
still, it's his business
not Nancy Pelosi's
this is democracy, and people really aren't very fond of Nancy
Here are the averages per the RealClearPolitics poll of polls…
Favorable / Unfavorable / Spread
Trump: 45 / 50.6 / -5.6
Biden: 42.5 / 52.8 / -10.3
Harris: 36.5 / 56 / -15.5
McConnell: 24.3 / 57.8 / -33.5
McCarthy: 23.7 / 40.3 / -16.6
Pelosi: 34.4 / 56.6 / -22.2
Schumer: 29 / 46.0 / -17.7
Keep in mind these are averages. This is not some outlier poll.
Former President Donald Trump’s favorability rating is in much better shape than every national political figure, including those the corporate media spend billions of dollars to protect.
What’s key about “favorability” is that it’s basically a “likability” poll. A winning favorability rating means the public likes you, which can be even more important than your job approval ratings. A good example is Barack Obama.
People liked the guy more than they approved of the job he did. It was one of those things that allowed his approval ratings to sometimes defy gravity.
What’s so fascinating about Trump is that for the last five years, the corporate media have spent billions of dollars smearing the guy as a racist, sexist, predator, Russian puppet… And it’s not working.
What’s also interesting is that Trump can oftentimes be his own worst enemy regarding likability. This is a very smart and charming guy who can also be petty, childish, obsessed with things that don’t matter, and entirely too abrasive for what many people see as the role of a president or even a former president.
Nevertheless, he’s wiping the floor with the media-approved politicians.
The smoking gun has been found. CIA director Brennan, a guy who once voted for the Communist Party, wrote a memo to Obama that Hillary was creating a fake Russian collusion story to "vilify" Donald Trump
Hard as the programmers try and tell us there is only one story at a time — Ukraine for now — or that a trite phrase like “but her emails” dismisses one of the most important political events of our time, something sinister happened in the United States which demands our attention. If we remain distracted, it will happen again in 2024.
We are looking for two smoking guns now in connection with Russiagate. Today’s Part I will show that Hillary Clinton herself sat atop a large-scale conspiracy to use the tools of modern espionage to create and disseminate false information about Donald Trump. Part II to follow will show that the FBI was an active participant in that conspiracy. In the mainstream media vernacular, we are bearing witness.
In summer of 2016, Hillary Clinton’s private email server and her improper handling of classified information was the political story. Consensus was that the election was Hillary’s to lose — that her opponents in general and the Trump clown show in particular could not stop her.
But despite the mainstream media’s heroic attempts to downplay the importance of the emails, the issue lingered in the public mind, often aided by Hillary’s own contradictory statements. The emails nagged at the Clinton campaign — her unsecured server lay exposed during her State Department trips to Russia and China, and the deepest fear was that her internal communications and all that they had to say about things like the Clinton Foundation might appear any day on Wikileaks, ending her career. That is what really mattered, lost in a cloud of mumbo jumbo over whether having classified material on an unclassified server was actionable or not. It is also why Julian Assange will never leave prison alive.
Clinton tried to get ahead of the story. The initial shot was fired on July 24, 2016 by campaign manager Robby Mook, who was the first to claim there was a quid pro quo between Trump and Russia. “It was very concerning last week that Donald Trump changed the Republican platform to become what some experts would regard as pro-Russian,” Mook said, referring to a false story from the GOP convention just a few days earlier. (Fun fact: the media this past month revived this fully-negated story, claiming it demonstrated that Trump and Putin were in cahoots over Ukraine early on.)
The New York Times sent up a warning flare to all mainstream media the next day announcing Clinton was making the Trump-Russia allegation a “theme” of the campaign. As if she knew just what was coming next, Hillary took that as her cue to claim the Russians were trying to destroy her campaign, a theme which soon morphed into the narrative that the Russians were trying to help Trump. That soon changed again as themes were crowd-tested, and the theme settled on the notion that Trump and Putin were working in collusion to elect Trump as a Manchurian candidate.
A prime driver behind all this was a mysterious “dossier,” including a “pee tape” — kompromat that Moscow supposedly held to control Trump. Word was a former MI6 intelligence officer named Christopher Steele compiled the dossier, giving the whole thing Bond-like credibility. American media openly speculated on Trump’s imminent arrest for treason even as he won the election. The FBI’s James Comey and CIA’s John Brennan briefed/threatened president-elect Trump on the dossier as the full contents spilled into the media. Talk shifted to impeachment.
We know now the dossier was fiction. Steele’s raw information was provided by the Clinton campaign, with his chief source working for the Brookings Institute. Steele worked as a double agent, feeding Clinton-bought fake info to the FBI while pretending he was an FBI informant with sources deep inside Russia. The dossier was fully a product of the Clinton campaign.
We also now know the Clinton campaign, via one of its lawyers, Michael Sussmann, gathered internet DNS data on Trump and used that to create a completely fictional story about Trump using a secret server connected to the Alfa Bank to communicate with his Russian “handlers.” It turns out some of the academics who investigated the DNC server break-in were the same ones who fed Sussmann data on Alfa Bank. And get this — they were paid by the Pentagon. Sussmann was the bridge between the two ops, working for the DNC to pin the server hack on Russia and facilitating the Alfa Bank story behind the scenes.
Sussmann also peddled a false story about Russian smartphones connecting into the Trump White House. Sussmann hid his relationship to Clinton from the FBI, pretending to be a “concerned citizen.” Sussmann is under indictment by Special Counsel John Durham, and he does not dispute these basic facts in his own defense filing. He only claims his lying was immaterial. His most recent effort to throw out evidence leading to his indictment failed.
Both the dossier op and the DNS op were funded by Clinton campaign money laundered through its lawyers at Perkins Coie and then contractors Fusion GPS and Orbis. In both instances the false information created was peddled to the FBI (and CIA) by a Clinton-paid stooge pretending not to be affiliated with the campaign. As noted, Steele posed as an FBI informant and Sussmann as a “concerned citizen.”
Both ops used a sophisticated information sub-op, feeding the media as if Steele and Sussmann were not the source and then having Steele and Sussmann step in to serve as anonymous confirmers: an inside loop. In both instances the FBI took the bait and opened unprecedented full-spectrum investigations into first candidate Trump, and then president Trump.
There was one more route into the FBI: Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr. Ohr’s wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, the front company for Steele, having previously done contract work for the CIA. Nellie passed the Steele dossier to her husband to hand-carry the work into the FBI. Bruce Ohr, despite acknowledging that it broke all rules of evidence handling, did just that on July 30, 2016. The FBI issued infiltration orders to Stephan Halper to start running operation Crossfire Hurricane against Trump staffers.
Four years after all that, on October 6, 2020, then-director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified documents revealing that then-CIA director John Brennan briefed then-president Obama on or about July 28, 2016 on Hillary Clinton’s plan to tie candidate Trump to Russia as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.
The highly-redacted document states, “We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED]. Cite alleged approved by Hillary Clinton on July 26 a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”
Ratcliffe in 2020 also revealed that in September 2016, the CIA forwarded to the FBI an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections in order to distract the public from her email scandal.”
The mainstream media at the time dismissed these two important disclosures as unverified disinformation. The problem with simply waving away these documents is the very high threshold for information to actually reach the president. Every day a near-infinite amount of information is collected by the CIA. A tiny percentage of that is culled for the standing agency briefings the president receives. An even tinier subset is seen as important and credible enough to be personally briefed by the CIA director face-to-face with the president.
Rarely is there near-time “verification” with intelligence. There is, however, “confidence” — how sure the CIA is that the information is true. The director would not waste his boss’s time with intelligence of low or medium confidence (and neither would the agency do the same in sending its referral on to the FBI.)
Knowing what we know now about the Clinton campaign funding of the ops and Clinton personnel involvement, Brennan’s confidence is better understood. And it is important to remember that Brennan openly supported Hillary; he was not the guy to dish dirt on her. He was just making sure his boss, Barack Obama, had a heads up if the whole thing was ever exposed.
Both ops ran on Clinton’s money and Clinton’s people. Both ops used the same tradecraft. And the smoking gun of Brennan’s notes ties it all to Hillary herself
During Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearing today, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stormed out of the room in a fit of rage and defensiveness after being corrected by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.
Graham had delivered an inaccurate account about recidivism rates out of the federal detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After conducting a line of questioning of the nominee about her judicial philosophy in an attempt to pin her down as an “activist judge,” Graham proceeded to deliver an unsolicited opinion about Democratic President Joe Biden's selection for the bench.
Following Graham’s monologue, Democratic Senator Durbin of Illinois explained the 39 current detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay are costing the United States government over $500 million.
“Each of these detainees is being held at the expense of $13 million per year."
"If they were to be incarcerated at the SuperMax federal prison in Colorado, the amount would be dramatically, dramatically less.”
Durbin detailed today’s recidivism rate out of Guantanamo Bay is 5% to which Graham interrupted, alleging the rate is 31%. To this interjection, Durbin calmly reminded the Republican Senator that his stated statistic was outdated by over a decade.
Graham glossed over his errors and directed his rage back to nominee Jackson, yelling:
“The system has failed miserably, and advocates to change the system—like she was advocating—would destroy our ability to protect this country!”
Regarding the detainees, he added:
“As long as they’re dangerous, I hope they all die in jail.”
“If they’re going back and kill Americans, it won’t bother me one bit if 39 of them die in prison.”
"That’s a better outcome than letting them go."
“If it costs $500 million to keep ’em in jail, keep ’em in jail, because they’re going to go back to the fight.”
His rant continued while the Supreme Court nominee sat patiently, unphased by his petulant conduct and accusations against her.
Viewers noticed Jackson’s composure.
Jason King
@callmeTMMIII
#KetanjiBrownJackson just made Lindsey Graham look foolish by maintaing grace and class while he baited her. He knew it. Dick Durbin just piled on. That is why Lindsey Graham just threw his hissy fit.
11:18 AM · Mar 22, 2022
DocSusan
@DocSusan2
If you needed a demonstration of judicial temperament and maturity, watching Judge Jackson answer the likes of @LindseyGrahamSC is perfect. #wtpblue #votethemallout
12:33 PM Mar 22, 2022
The GOP Senator concluded his rant by shrieking:
“This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working!”
He then stood up from his seat and stormed out of the room.
Ironically, President Joe Biden’s post-election progressive turn seemed to inspire many people to reject far-left policies. Who would have guessed on the eve of Biden’s inauguration that, one year later, parents across the country would attend local school-board meetings to challenge critical race theory? Or that, sensing their constituents’ anger at progressive spending proposals like the Build Back Better bill, a record number of Democrats would be retiring from Congress?
Only months after the end of the 2020 campaign, medical researchers who had previously deferred to government Covid guidance began confessing their long-held reservations. At the same time, academics like Williams College political scientist Darel E. Paul and NYU Stern professor Jonathan Haidt began ramping up their attacks on “woke” ideology. And though a fearful MIT administration still withdrew its invitation for geophysicist Dorian Abbot’s lecture on the excesses of diversity policies, he gave the same talk at Princeton, where thousands eagerly registered to hear it.
Even within the notoriously liberal entertainment industry, entertainers’ reluctance to sound politically incorrect has softened considerably since Biden’s sharp left turn. While comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, and Chris Rock had previously concluded that woke culture made it all but impossible to poke fun at progressive sensibilities, Bill Maher has done just that on his nightly Real Time show, to the apparent delight of studio audiences.
To give President Biden sole credit for growing public defiance of progressive thinking would, of course, be an exaggeration. Any self-righteous political philosophy held by only seven percent of registered voters will inevitably inspire popular pushback, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. But by promoting left-wing economic and environmental policies from the very beginning of his administration, Biden effectively, if unintentionally, exposed their harmful consequences to even the most casual observers.
Take the president’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which even some liberal economists now concede has contributed to an inflationary outbreak not experienced since the late 1970s. Similarly, Biden’s forceful clampdown on fossil-fuel production, supposedly aimed at sparking a compensatory increase in green energy, only jacked up the price of gasoline, all the while funding the ambitions of petro-dictators like Vladimir Putin, the Iranian mullahs, and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Combined with foreign missteps—a botched withdraw from Afghanistan and a failure to either prevent Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine or adequately arm the resistance—Biden’s domestic policies produced poll numbers that made it easier for critics to overcome their fear of being “cancelled” as a racist or climate-change denier if they spoke out. At the very least, risk-averse conservatives, disillusioned independents, and even many traditional Democrats had the assurance that a great majority of Americans agreed with their rejection of far-left ideas.
It also has not helped progressivism’s cause that, from the very beginning of his administration, the president’s instinctive response to any policy failure has been to fabricate blatantly transparent lies, like the claims that Build Back Better is completely paid for, our Afghanistan withdrawal was a great success, spending more on social programs will tame inflation, and Russian sanctions were never meant to deter the country from invading Ukraine.
Whatever progressivism’s shortcomings before Biden’s support, it at least benefitted from the appearance of being an idealistic crusade—a sincere, if misguided, attempt to compensate for past racial injustices and to preserve the natural environment for future generations. But once a prevaricating president became the movement’s best-known advocate, its standing with the public inevitably suffered.
As Larry Kudlow recently put it, “What the President is doing is devastating…. the collapsing popular opinion of Biden’s character and honesty has completely undermined confidence in his agenda.”
The interesting question now is what Biden’s presidency will do to the long-term prospects of the progressive movement, which, not that long ago, seemed to be riding high in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests. Has the unpopularity of the president’s policies and the mistrust of his character delivered a temporary setback to left-wing ideology, or is it on its way to becoming an historical footnote?
The left seems fated to take a major—perhaps even historic—blow in the November mid-terms. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey, Republicans enjoy an unprecedented 10-point advantage among registered voters on the so-called “generic ballot,” which indicates the party respondents prefer to represent them in Congress.
Some observers, like Hudson Institute senior fellow Arthur Herman, believe that if the president remains as committed to a left-wing agenda as he sounded during his State of the Union address, two decades of partisan political wrangling could finally end with a definitive shift to the right. Just as the Great Depression destroyed the electorate’s faith in free markets, putting pro-regulation and redistributionist Democrats in charge of Washington, so Biden’s policies may precipitate a once-in-a-century political reversal.
On the other hand, as George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen recently argued, numerous institutional imperatives will continue to provide the progressive movement with safe spaces from which it can theoretically rebound. Fear of employment lawsuits, for example, will make most companies reluctant to abandon their risk-averse policies and pro-diversity rhetoric when it comes to hiring.
Similarly, the tenure system at U.S. colleges and universities means that today’s younger faculty, who tend to be more left-wing than their older colleagues, will retain control of their schools’ academic programs for some time to come. “The simple march of retirements is going to make universities even more left-wing—and even more out of touch with mainstream America,” says Cowen.
One factor that will clearly determine progressivism’s influence between now and the end of Biden’s presidency is the extent to which the far left feels embarrassed by him. For if there is anything liberal elites value more than their policies, it is the ability to parade their sense of wisdom and moral superiority.
To be mocked on Saturday Night Live, have eloquent attacks on critical race theory come from black and Hispanic parents, or have panicked Democrat politicians concede the need to start drilling and stop spending would at least require progressives to pursue a time-consuming face-lift of their agenda.
Whatever the future of progressivism, Joe Biden has clearly become its greatest present liability. We may never know the real reason for his abrupt turn from a campaigning moderate to a committed leftist—his debt to Bernie Sanders’s supporters or genuine conviction—but the president has politically damaged the progressive brand in a way that no other public figure could.
Former President Donald Trump continues to falsely promote the repeatedly debunked fantasy that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him by Democrats conspiring with elections companies and foreign adversaries to facilitate widespread election fraud.
With Trump's status as the kingmaker of the Republican party fully cemented, the promotion of Trump's election lies is imperative to gain his endorsement.
Far-right Alabama Congressman-turned-Senate candidate Mo Brooks just learned that the hard way.
As one of Trump's most devout defenders in Congress, Brooks repeatedly embraced Trump's election lies, even giving a rousing speech promoting these delusions before a crowd of supporters at the White House Ellipse on January 6—just hours before a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the United States Capitol to disrupt the joint congressional session certifying now-President Joe Biden's victory.
But it only took one sentence for that loyalty, in Trump's eyes, to evaporate. Last August—at a Trump rally in Cullman, Alabama—Brooks urged Trump's supporters to "put [the 2020 election] behind you" and instead look forward to mobilizing in 2022 and 2024. The comments earned immediate boos from the crowd.
Now, seven months later, Trump has issued a lengthy statement publicly revoking his endorsement of Brooks, writing in part:
"Very sad but, since he decided to go in another direction, so have I, and I am hereby withdrawing my Endorsement of Mo Brooks for the Senate. I don't think the great people of Alabama will disagree with me. Election Fraud must be captured and stopped, or we won't have a Country anymore. I will be making a new Endorsement in the near future!"
It's a humiliating development for Brooks, who has touted Trump's endorsement at every chance. As recently as this month, he released an ad touting his ties to Trump. Brooks even put "Endorsed by President Trump" in his Twitter name.
Now, Brooks has released his own lengthy statement responding to Trump's un-endorsement, accusing the former President of being "manipulated" by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, writing:
"It's disappointing that, just like in 2017, President Trump lets Mitch McConnell manipulate him again. Every single negative TV ad against our campaign has come from McConnell and his allies. I wish President Trump wouldn't fall for McConnell's ploys, but, once again, he has."
That isn't going to sit well with Trump, who has repeatedly blasted McConnell for publicly refuting his election lies, labeling McConnell a "broken old crow."
Brooks added:
"President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I've repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period."
He cited his oath to the Constitution before concluding:
"There's only one conservative option in this race, and I am confident that the people of Alabama will see that on Election Day."
Veteran broadcaster Dan Rather made a career out of asking questions.
But in light of new revelations about Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the longtime TV news anchor had just two:
Dan Rather @DanRather
What does Clarence Thomas know? And when did he know it?
8:33 PM · Mar 24, 2022
On Thursday, it was revealed that Ginni Thomas sent some two dozen off-the-rails text messages loaded with wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat.
“We already knew a lot about this storyline, but today proved that there still is a potential for surprise — or more accurately, horror,” Rather wrote in a follow-up on Substack. “This is a smoking gun in the form of text messages between Ms. Thomas and the White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows.”
Rather called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “coup attempt” and said Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have become “gospel for much of the Republican Party.”
But the revelations about Ginni Thomas raise those two questions for her husband, given a key Supreme Court decision earlier this year.
The court rejected Trump’s attempt to block Congress from getting White House records related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
There was just one dissenter: Clarence Thomas.
Rather wonders if Thomas had been trying to protect his wife.
“What else might he know?” he asked. “Recusal is a bare minimum. The questions go much deeper.”
The Supreme Court said on Sunday that Thomas was hospitalized for an infection and was expected to be released within a day or two. The court has since declined to provide any updates.
NORCO, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California private school apologized to parents after a teacher shared a video last month of her leading preschool students in a chant denouncing President Joe Biden.
The video obtained by ABC 7 News in Los Angeles shows the unnamed teacher at Turning Point Christian School in Norco asking the 4- and 5-year-olds, “Who’s our president?”
When they answer in unison, “Biden,” the teacher then asks, “What do we want to do with him?”
The students shout back, “We want him out!”
Parent Christina McFadden told ABC 7 the video from the President’s Day lesson was shared through the school’s messaging app, before it was taken down.
Turning Point officials said in a statement to parents that the school was “sorry for any misunderstanding” caused by the video.
“Earlier today a video was posted that has since been deleted as it did not share our school and church philosophy of honoring and respecting authority including those in government positions,” the school statement said.
School officials didn’t respond Monday to a request for further comment.
It’s unclear what, if any, disciplinary action was taken against the teacher.
McFadden said she has removed her daughter from the school.
“It doesn’t matter at this point what side of the fence you’re on. This can happen in your child’s classroom, and it is happening,” she said.
Turning Point is a nonprofit Christian institution that offers a wide range of programs for preschool through sixth grade, according to its website.
Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.
The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.
On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, the White House chief of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”
Thomas replied: “Thank you!! Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!”
It is unclear to whom Thomas was referring.
The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results — and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Among Thomas’s stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team.
Cool, cool.
This is fine because as we know, two Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of George W. Bush in Bush vs Gore even though they were appointed by his father and three current Supreme Court Justices worked for George W. Bush on the case. So there is no such thing as a conflict of interest for Republicans on the Supreme Court. That’s just the way it is because they are all basically political operatives.
Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama on Wednesday said Donald Trump had asked him to “rescind” the 2020 presidential election, “remove” President Joe Biden from his office, “immediately put” Trump back in the White House and hold a new special presidential election.
Brooks said in a statement that he had drawn Trump’s “ire” by telling the former president that his plan was not legal.
The congressman later told NBC News that Trump proposed the series of events to restore him to the presidency after Sept. 1, more than seven months after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.
Trump earlier Wednesday said he was withdrawing an endorsement of Brooks in May’s GOP primary for one of Alabama’s U.S. Senate seats.
Trump cited Brooks’ call for Republicans to move on from the 2020 presidential election and to focus on winning races this year and in 2024.
Brooks made that suggestion at a Trump rally seven months ago. Trump since November 2020 has falsely claimed that he actually defeated Biden, but was swindled out of a second term in the White House by widespread ballot fraud in several swing states.
“I repeat what has prompted President Trump’s ire,” Brooks said in his prepared statement later Wednesday responding to Trump’s decision to pull his endorsement.
“The only legal way America can prevent 2020′s election debacle is for patriotic Americans to focus on and win the 2022 and 2024 elections so that we have the power to enact laws that give us honest and accurate elections,” Brooks said.
“President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency,” said the congressperson, who represents Alabama’s 5th District.
“As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period,” Brooks said.
“I’ve told President Trump the truth knowing full well that it might cause President Trump to rescind his endorsement,” he continued. “But I took a sworn oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. I honor my oath. That is the way I am. I break my sworn oath for no man.”
In an interview with NBC News, Brooks noted that he had not said in his statement that Trump proposed having Congress rescind the 2020 election results.
“You’re using the word Congress,” Brooks said to NBC News when asked details about the plan. “My statement doesn’t say Congress. We never got that far because I explained to the president that what he asked was legally impossible and violates the United States Constitution and I’m not going to do it.
Trump’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Brooks’ allegation.
Brooks, despite his statement Wednesday, had supported Trump’s false claims that he actually won the 2020 election.
"Brooks added: "President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I've repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks."
this is all fascinating but ...so what?
Trump feels the election was stolen from him and was desperately looking for some technicality to change that
if there were a snowball's chance in hell he'd prevail, this might be relevant
but there isn't
Trump won in 2016 largely because liberals and their PR branch, the mainstream media, was fascinated by him and starved any alternative of any attention
this is still apparently makes him a threat
if he makes a comeback, it will be because liberals made him the center of attention
"Former President Donald Trump continues to falsely promote the repeatedly debunked fantasy that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him by Democrats conspiring with elections companies and foreign adversaries to facilitate widespread election fraud."
yes, he does
you might remember that Hillary also falsely promotes the repeatedly debunked fantasy that the 2016 election was "stolen" from her by Trump conspiring with foreign adversaries to facilitate widespread election fraud
strange how that doesn't bother you...
difference: Trump has a case to make that the election was stolen from him, although not in the way he generally describes it
the media suppressed and published false assertions about Hunter's laptop and polls show Slidin' Biden wouldn't have won if the reporting had been done truthfully
With Trump's status as the kingmaker of the Republican party fully cemented, the promotion of Trump's election lies is imperative to gain his endorsement.
"Veteran broadcaster Dan Rather made a career out of asking questions."
actually, he became famous for trading barbs with Richard Nixon at a press conference
but his "career" crashed when he was caught making fraudulent reports
"On Thursday, it was revealed that Ginni Thomas sent some two dozen off-the-rails text messages loaded with wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat."
so what?
she's not on the Supreme Court
neither is Merrick Garland, for that matter...LOL!!!!!!!!
"“We already knew a lot about this storyline, but today proved that there still is a potential for surprise — or more accurately, horror,” Rather wrote in a follow-up on Substack."
it's no use, Dan
other than TTFers looking for validation of their widely discredited views, no one else cares about your desperate attempts a restored relevance
“This is a smoking gun in the form of text messages between Ms. Thomas and the White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows.”
sure, it is, Dan
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Rather called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “coup attempt”"
there you go again, Dan
I assume you mean a coup d'etat
here's the definition:
"the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group"
that clearly didn't happen
"A Southern California private school apologized to parents after a teacher shared a video last month of her leading preschool students in a chant denouncing President Joe Biden."
what can you say about a group like TTF?
they feel vindicated when a rogue teacher violates a school's policy and the school disavows the action
it was a private school
think of all the PUBLIC schools pushing debunked CRT and transgenderism on small children
using OUR tax dollars!!!!!!!!!!
"furthermore, 17% of people who voted for Biden say they wouldn't have had they known the laptop was real
it's that easy
the election was stolen"
"the media suppressed and published false assertions about Hunter's laptop and polls show Slidin' Biden wouldn't have won if the reporting had been done truthfully"
That is not what the polls say, and your numbers conveniently omit important facts.
Here is the only evidence of the ONE poll that claims what you state:
https://twitter.com/KyleMartinsen_/status/1504485278601211909?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1504485278601211909%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthepostmillennial.com%2Fflashback-16-of-biden-voters
The guy that posted it to Twitter is fresh out of college and working for the RNC:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-martinsen-985839146/
His job title is:
"Deputy Rapid Response Director at Republican National Committee"
When you try to go looking for the original data for this alleged poll, don't be surprised if you find this:
"It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search"
If you can find ANY evidence of the original poll that it appears Martinsen took the plot from, please let me know. I'd like to know who did the polling, when, how many people they polled, how were participants selected, and what other questions the pollsters asked. Those often provide useful information, and help establish the utility (or bias) of a poll.
For all we know, Kyle asked a dozen of his frat buddies this question and made a nice PowerPoint plot. Someone should have told him that that it's a REALLY good idea to have your percentages add up to 100%, rather than 101%. Amateur.
If there is more than one poll with this data, feel free to share it.
The other thing to notice about this poll is the wording, noted twice on the twice on the tweet:
"Among Biden voters who were unaware of the investigation.."
and:
"If you had been aware of this evidence..."
This begs the question, with all of the right wing media screaming about "left-wing media suppression of evidence" how many people could have actually been unaware of Biden's laptop? 5%? 2%? 10%?
Looking closer at the numbers is more interesting:
5% Would not have voted at all.
4% Would have skipped voting for president, but would have voted for other offices.
4% Would have voted for a 3rd party candidate for president.
4% Would have switched your vote to Donald Trump.
Let's presume for the moment that a relatively high percentage (10%) of Biden's voters somehow were blissfully unaware of the laptop controversy.
That would mean that 8,126,892.4 Biden voters didn't know. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election)
From the numbers above (ignoring the 1% overage) that means 13% would not have voted for Biden, or 1,056,496 fewer votes for Biden.
An extra 4% of those Biden voters for Trump is 325,075.696 votes moved to Trump's column.
This drops Biden's votes to 80,212,428. (I rounded the 0.988)
And increases Trumps votes to 74,541,230. (I rounded the 0.696)
Even with the Electoral College favoring Trump, Biden is still likely to have won.
If you want numbers you can trust about polls, look at the folks who have been doing it for years:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/
"Among those who voted for Clinton and Trump in 2016, similar shares of each – about nine-in-ten – also turned out in 2020, and the vast majority remained loyal to the same party in the 2020 presidential contest. These voters formed substantial bases of support for both Biden and Trump. Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump."
For those who forgot, Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.
Former president Donald Trump would not be “capable” of holding Ukraine peace talks in Moscow to stop the invasion, according to his own former national security adviser.
“He’s not capable of it,” John Bolton told The Palm Beach Post in a story Saturday when asked about Trump’s ability to successfully conduct a “peace-negotiating trip” to Moscow.
“This would require thinking through a policy and considering the pluses and minuses, the risks and costs involved. That’s just not what he does,” Bolton added.
Bolton spoke to the newspaper as it examined Trump’s boasts that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened on his watch — in part because of his claimed excellent relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Early on, Trump called Putin’s Ukraine invasion “genius.”
If the invasion had occurred while he was president, he could have ended it, Trump has also claimed. The former president said last week he would use U.S. nuclear submarines to threaten Russia, which many observers viewed as dangerously provocative, especially since Putin has already indicated he’s ready to use nuclear weapons.
Bolton had said earlier that Trump in fact helped set the stage for the invasion. His repeated flattery of Putin and his weakening of America’s relationship with Europe emboldened the Russian leader, while Trump’s “contempt” for Ukraine and his baseless claims that its government was corrupt weakened that nation’s standing.
“I think all contributed to a precarious status for Ukraine, which would have continued in a second term,” for Trump, Bolton told The Palm Beach Post.
In 2019, Trump froze military aid to Ukraine authorized by Congress that he then tried to use as an enticement to convince Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Trump’s rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The action led to Trump’s first impeachment.
The aid stall was far more serious for Ukraine than many realized at the time, according to Bolton.
“The urgency of the particular $250 million was that it was appropriated money that under the federal government’s bizarre budget procedures would have expired on Sept. 30, 2019,” Bolton recounted to the newspaper.
He also said that Ukraine wasn’t the only nation that faced increased security risks in the Trump administration. Bolton believed Trump’s objective was to “withdraw the U.S. from NATO or substantially limit” Washington’s support for the defense alliance. That’s what Putin was “waiting for” in a second Trump term, Bolton told The Washington Post early this month.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has praised Fox News for its coverage, appearing on the Russian state-controlled RT network to hail the right-leaning US cable channel, whose primetime host Tucker Carlson has played down the invasion.
“We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the western countries to manipulate media, we understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent western media,” said Lavrov, speaking in English in a studio interview on Friday.
“If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view,” he said.
He also denounced the social media ban of former president Donald Trump and took exception to the description of January 6 rioters as terrorists.
“But when you watch other channels, read the social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked and this censorship continues in a very big way … Whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest, mass demonstrations – which they don’t like – they immediately call it domestic terrorism.
“So it’s a war, and it’s a war which involves the methods of information terrorism,” he said.
Russian media regularly play clips of Carlson criticising the US and Ukraine, and he was still praising President Vladimir Putin hours before Russia invaded Ukraine almost four weeks ago.
In contrast, as Moscow’s bombardment escalated, Russian apologism by numerous Fox hosts, commentators and guests was being corrected on air by the network’s own national security correspondent, Jennifer Griffin.
The mental split-screen effect only sharpened earlier this week when a Fox news team on the ground in Ukraine came under Russian fire on the frontline.
Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova were both killed during a Russian attack outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Correspondent Benjamin Hall was badly wounded in the incident.
Lavrov’s comments on Friday came as six western nations accused Moscow of using the UN security council to launder disinformation and spread propaganda, after Russian diplomats again raised allegations that the US was involved in biological weapons, which have been repeatedly denied by both Washington and Ukraine.
Western diplomats slammed the claims, with Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, calling Russia’s tactics the “disinformation of the desperate”.
The gay agenda continues its collapse:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an ascending Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country's culture wars, with LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House ranting and falsely calling the legislation the “Don't Say Gay” bill.
DeSantis and Republicans have repeatedly said the measure is reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children.
“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said before he signed the bill into law. He and other speakers stood at a podium affixed with a placard reading Protect Children/Support Parents.
The bill states: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations.
DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 46 miles (74 kilometers) north of Tampa. The school was founded by Anne Corcoran, wife of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, according to The Gainesville Sun.
With Russia waging war on Ukraine and talking use of tactical nuclear weapons – while inflation rages at home – President Joe Biden's approval rating (40%) has reached a new low in the latest NBC News poll.
Also, in an ominous midterm sign for Democrats, registered voters favor Republicans as the party of choice to hold the majority in Congress for the first time since 2014.
"What this poll says is that President Biden and Democrats are headed for a catastrophic election," NBC News pollster Bill McInturff said.
Biden's 40% approval rating is not just the lowest of his presidency, but 70% of Americans have low confidence in Biden's ability to deal with Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and a plurality of blame Biden and his policies for high and steady inflation in the economy.
Also, 80% fear the war will raise gas prices and possibly devolve into nuclear war and overwhelming majorities (71%) say they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, with only 33% approving, according to NBC.
Biden's disapproval has ticked up to 55% in the poll.
"You cannot get down to the low 40s in presidential approval, unless you have strained your own base," McInturff told NBC.
NBC News polled 1,000 adults March 18-22 – and 790 registered voters – with margins of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points and 3.49 percentage points for the respective sample sizes
The gay agenda continues its collapse:
Democrat extremism and the ongoing implosion of America’s government-run school system have given Republicans a seven-point advantage on who can better handle the issue of education.
Rasmussen asked 1,000 likely voters, “Who do you trust more to deal with education issues. Democrats or Republicans?” Only 36 percent said Democrats, while 43 percent said Republicans. Eighteen percent said the two parties are “about the same.”
What should worry Democrats most of all is that only 34 percent of women chose Democrats, while 42 percent chose the GOP. That’s an eight-point gap. A plurality of 45 percent of black voters chose Democrats, while a whopping 31 percent chose Republicans. Normally, those numbers would be something like 80 percent for Democrats and 11 percent for Republicans.
Even 12 percent of Democrats chose the GOP on education, as did a plurality of 42 percent of Independents. Only 25 percent of Independents chose Democrats.
Historically, education has been a top issue for Democrats, a winning issue, but the tables have turned since Democrats began to openly embrace the worst kind of corrupting and perverse extremism. Democrats backed closing government-run schools throughout much of the pandemic. Democrats favor the anti-science and cruel masking of kids. Democrats support teaching kids gay porn. Democrats support teaching white kids they are racist oppressors and black kids they have no chance of success in America.
Democrats want to sexualize and groom kids, teach them to fail, teach them to hate the greatest country in the history of the world, teach them everything but the basics required to make a living.
In this same poll, a massive majority of 84 percent said that in the upcoming congressional elections, education would be “very” (53 percent) or “somewhat” (31 percent) important. Only 13 percent said “not very” (12 percent) or “not at all” (1 percent) important.
When asked, “Is the quality of public schools in America getting better or worse?” A clear majority of 58 percent said “worse,” while only 13 percent said “better.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday asserted it is “more likely than not” that former President Donald Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election, ruling to order the release of more than 100 emails from Trump adviser John Eastman to the committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge David Carter marked a major legal win for the House panel as it looks to correspondence from Eastman, the lawyer who was consulting with Trump as he attempted to overturn the presidential election.
“Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” Carter wrote in the ruling submitted in the federal Central District of California.
Eastman was trying to withhold documents from the committee on the basis of an attorney-client privilege claim between him and the former president. The committee responded earlier this month, arguing that there is a legal exception allowing the disclosure of communications regarding ongoing or future crimes.
An attorney representing Eastman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The March 3 filing from the committee was their most formal effort to link the former president to a federal crime. Lawmakers do not have the power to bring criminal charges on their own and can only make a referral to the Justice Department.
The committee argued in the court documents that Trump and his associates engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Trump and those working with him then spread false information about the outcome of the presidential election and pressured state officials to overturn the results, potentially violating multiple federal laws, the panel said.
The trove of documents the nine-member panel has publicly released so far, which include some emails already retrieved from Eastman, offers an early look at some of the panel’s likely conclusions, which are expected to be submitted in the coming months. The committee says it has interviewed more than 650 witnesses as it investigates the violent siege by Trump supporters, the worst attack on the Capitol in more than two centuries.
"I bet Republicans are hoping the Committee's findings don't come out at just the wrong time before elections"
it's yet another bet you'd lose
I realize Trump is the Dems' only issue thay may have any potential for support, but it won't be enough
voters are on the warpath and the Dems will face a reckoning in November for their role in the return of inflation, the explosion of crime, the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same, and bungling foreign policy so as to make nuclear war conceivable
Biden could hardly have screwed up any worse
the Dems' have been trying to plan their dubious findings to come out right before the election so no one will have time to look at them very hard
"A federal judge on Monday asserted it is “more likely than not” that former President Donald Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election, ruling to order the release of more than 100 emails from Trump adviser John Eastman to the committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol."
has anyone told you about the Supreme Court?
most of them support attorney-client privilege and other Constitutional principles
“Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,”
let us know what "evidence" that is
LOL!
"The committee argued in the court documents that Trump and his associates engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College."
they have no proof of that
which is why they are trying to get his lawyers' emails
like Mueller before them, they are desperate
"Trump and those working with him then spread false information about the outcome of the presidential election and pressured state officials to overturn the results, potentially violating multiple federal laws, the panel said."
potential? I thought the judge said "likely"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes#The_18%C2%BD-minute_gap
We now know there's a 6 hour and 37 minute gap in Trump's Jan. 6, 2021 phone log!
"We now know there's a 6 hour and 37 minute gap in Trump's Jan. 6, 2021 phone log!"
oh, thank goodness
now, we know Trump, like the rest of America, was watching TV and not talking on the phone
now maybe the voters will forget about the Dems
you know, about their role in the return of inflation, the explosion of crime, the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same, lack of preparedness for Omicron, opening up the border to a flood of illegals, and bungling foreign policy so as to make nuclear war conceivable
oh, also, the influence peddling documented on Hunter's laptop and nominating an extreme progressive to the Supreme Court when plenty of qualified originalist black female judges were available
if you keep talking about Trump, maybe America will forget all that
btw, Biden proposed a tax increase yesterday
"now, we know Trump, like the rest of America, was watching TV and not talking on the phone"
How could any PUSA sit on his ass watching TV while the United States capitol building was being ransacked by a mob that was attacking the police who were defending the capitol?
That's worse than sad, that's a dereliction of duty.
The good news is, for every phone call, there are two people communicating from two different phone numbers.
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
"Attorney-client privilege does not apply when the two or more are committing a crime"
no reason to believe either was committing a crime
Dem fantasies don't hold up at the highest court in the land
"How could any PUSA sit on his ass watching TV while the United States capitol building was being ransacked by a mob that was attacking the police who were defending the capitol?
That's worse than sad, that's a dereliction of duty."
what do you think he should do?
march down Pennsylvania with a shotgun?
where was the police chief?
"The good news is, for every phone call, there are two people communicating from two different phone numbers."
of course that would only work if there was another party
as fascinating as this all is, voters still won't forget about he voters will forget about the Dems' role in the return of inflation, the explosion of crime, the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same, lack of preparedness for Omicron, opening up the border to a flood of illegals, the influence peddling documented on Hunter's laptop, nominating an extreme progressive to the Supreme Court when plenty of qualified originalist black female judges were available, and bungling foreign policy so as to make nuclear war conceivable
would you like me to paste a current poll?
"no reason to believe either was committing a crime"
Good to know. Because I'm looking for Biden to learn from Trump's mistakes, and then, if necessary, have Kamala decertify the vote on suspicion of voting fraud among the Republicans, placing Biden back in office in 2024.
" the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same"
You forgot about the litter boxes:
"A Nebraska state lawmaker claimed that schools are placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats.
Sen. Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, repeated the claim during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help school children who have behavioral problems. His comments quickly went viral, with one Twitter video garnering more than 300,000 views as of Monday afternoon, and drew an onslaught of online criticism and ridicule.
Bostelman initially said he was “shocked” when he heard stories that children were dressing as cats and dogs while at school, with claims that schools were accommodating them with litter boxes.
“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during legislative debate. “And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”
"Good to know. Because I'm looking for Biden to learn from Trump's mistakes, and then, if necessary, have Kamala decertify the vote on suspicion of voting fraud among the Republicans, placing Biden back in office in 2024."
learn from Trump?
what do you think is behind the Dems' push to eliminate all voting verification procedures?
they are preparing to claim the rules were rigged when they lose Congress in November
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg sharply criticized Florida’s new “Don’t Say Gay” law, signed this week by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Buttigieg, the first openly homosexual man who has served in a presidential Cabinet and who together with his "husband", Chasten Buttigieg, adopted twin infants last summer, cast his objections to the new Florida law in a personal rant. The law would ban any discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in early elementary school grades.
“Look, bottom line, it’s hurting kids,” Buttigieg ironically said about the Florida law that will protect young kids from being subject to attempts to normalize homosexuality. “I think about what life might be like for our kids when they start school. If they were in a place like Florida, it might stop them from mentioning they had a great time over the weekend with their dads.”
Imagine that!
Actually, Pete the moron isn't informed about the bill. It doesn't restrict the speech of kids. It directs teachers not to initiate conversations about homosexuality. It's common sense.
DeSantis, widely considered a leading Republican presidential candidate in 2024, has promoted the new law as a means of combating a “woke gender ideology” that is being foisted upon young schoolchildren by leftist activists.
Buttigieg criticized political figures on the right for advocating legislation to prevent teachers from indoctrinating children in a worldview that considers homosexuality normal.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg sharply criticized Florida’s new law protecting small children from exposure to gay agenda propaganda, signed this week by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. First homosexual in the cabinet opposes protecting children.
Doesn't look good!
Anyone watching the media rush to defend President Biden’s weirdness in Warsaw is getting a free tutorial on the corrupt relationship between the press and this White House. The handmaidens’ mad dash to protect him from an avalanche of deserved criticism also helps explain why Biden’s presidency is a flop with voters.
To most of the world, including our European allies, Biden’s “this man cannot remain in power” remark in Poland was a dangerous surprise because the president was seemingly committing the United States and NATO to a radical policy of regime change against a brutal dictator who talks about using nuclear weapons.
His aides certainly heard it that way, which is why they immediately issued a clarifying statement that claimed Biden was “not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change.”
Later, it became clear the reference about removing Putin was not in prepared remarks but was added by Biden on the fly.
If that had been the end of it, Washington would have moved on after a day or so and chalked up the detour as just another Biden-being-Biden gaffe.
But that was not the end of it. Instead, many of the media’s usual suspects seized on the president’s heated language to credit him as heroically expressing universal horror at Putin’s savagery.
None of the apologists could top Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf, who suggested Biden surpassed JFK’s “Ich bin ein berliner” speech and Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall” address. He found the remarks so stirring they reminded him of Winston Churchill’s remarkable “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Mo., in 1946 that warned of the emerging Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Apparently seeing such unexpected praise as too good to resist, the White House suddenly shifted gears overnight and grabbed it like a drowning man grabs a life raft.
Now it, too, saw only virtue in Biden’s on-the-fly addition and the president on Monday made an appearance to defend the very remarks his aides had disavowed Saturday.
“I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it,” Biden told reporters.
“Nobody believes I was talking about taking down Putin. Nobody believes that,” he insisted.
Nobody except most of the world, and therein is the political problem for Biden and his team. Operating under the illusion that Big Media and its Big Tech fellow travelers represent the views of most Americans, they seem not to realize that the Amen corner reflects only an elite sliver of the country.
Put it this way: How is it possible there is only the most gentle and occasional criticism of Biden on any subject in the big newspapers, the broadcast media, CNN and MSNBC and on most of social media, while the president’s approval rating among all voters is in the toilet?
The gap is ginormous. The most recent Harvard-Harris survey has him with just a 39% approval rating and the Real Clear Politics average of polls in the last two weeks shows him at 41% approval, with 53% disapproval.
On the economy, his average approval is 37.5, with a 58% disapproval. On foreign policy, meaning mostly Ukraine, his approval is 40.7 and disapproval is 54.2. On immigration, it’s 34.4% approval vs. 57% disapproval.
These numbers spell massive defeat for Democrats in November, yet policies that are widely unpopular remain in place as the general public is discounted while press support is overrated.
Recall that the administration’s preposterous effort to blame Putin for inflation, after a year of sharply rising prices on everything, was actually embraced by some in the press. The near-total collapse of border enforcement gets barely a mention in the media, except for accusations that anyone who wants an orderly, secure immigration system is a racist.
The pattern started before Biden took office, with the blackballing of The Post for daring to expose Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes and his father’s hidden help the best example.
Then came the deluge of crazy ideas from the far left wing, from packing the Supreme Court to making DC a state to wrecking the domestic energy sector, all of which found more support in the media than the general public. Even the few remaining moderate Dems balked at most.
Ditto for the spending monstrosity known as Build Back Better and the bid to have Washington control all election laws, an effort that demonized states as “Jim Crow 2.0” if they dared to require voter identification.
Biden’s vile accusation that anybody who opposed the measure was on the side of George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis remains a low point of his presidency. Yet even that smear was no bar to his lapdogs.
Every politician, of course, wants and seeks media acclaim. But the smart, successful ones understand the public no longer trusts most of the media and that lockstep support from the press can be a kiss of death.
Somebody should tell Joe Biden.
On Friday, The Daily Mail reported that emails recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop show he helped an infectious disease research company pursue projects in Ukraine. Those emails confirm portions of charges Russia made the previous day that an investment group run by the now-president’s son had funded a company conducting research at biological laboratories in Ukraine.
While these developments add another scandal to the long list of Biden family dirty laundry, the more urgent concern for the country should be the continuing threat to our national security posed by a compromised President Biden and the possibility that Russia has access to the catalog of compromising material contained on Hunter’s laptop.
Mere weeks before then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off in the November 2020 presidential election, The New York Post published emails obtained from a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware. Those emails revealed that during the elder Biden’s time as Barack Obama’s vice president, Hunter engaged in a pay-to-play scandal, trading off his father’s position to strike deals with players in Ukraine and China. The venture was a family one, with Joe “the Big Guy” Biden listed in one email as set to receive a 10 percent cut of one pending deal and Hunter telling his daughter in another message that “pop” took half of his earnings.
Even after a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s confirmed the authenticity of the emails, the supposed standard-bearers of journalism buried the scandal and social media outlets censored both the story and The New York Post. Worse still, “more than 50 former senior intelligence officials” signed a letter framing the Hunter Biden emails as Russian disinformation.
Among others, former CIA directors or acting directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta, Gen. Michael Hayden, John McLaughlin, and Michael Morell signed the letter. In doing so they gave then-candidate Joe Biden cover to lie to the American public, which he did when Trump confronted him about the scandal during a presidential debate.
Are you saying the “laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?” Trump asked Biden.
“That’s exactly what I was told,” Biden countered. “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden professed to the American public before they went to the polls and elected Biden our commander in chief.
But even The New York Times has finally admitted the laptop was real and the emails were legitimate. Initially, that admission proved significant because it likewise legitimizes the scandals spawned from the documents recovered from Hunter’s abandoned laptop. However, the trajectory of the scandal changed Friday with The Daily Mail’s exclusive.
“Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show he helped secure millions of dollars of funding for Metabiota, a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases that could be used as bioweapons,” The Daily Mail announced last week. The article continued: “[Biden] also introduced Metabiota to an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm, Burisma, for a ‘science project’ involving high biosecurity level labs in Ukraine. And although Metabiota is ostensibly a medical data company, its vice president emailed Hunter in 2014 describing how they could ‘assert Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russia’– an unusual goal for a biotech firm.”
The Daily Mail added more details about Metabiota and Hunter Biden’s role in brokering relationships for the research company in Ukraine. Included throughout the article were copies of the emails ostensibly obtained from Hunter’s laptop that confirmed The Daily Mail’s reporting. The article also added details shedding light on Hunter’s “business” dealings in Ukraine during the time his father served as vice president and America’s point person on issues related to that country.
Then there is the FBI which, by December 2019, had access to the abandoned laptop and thereby also knew that Hunter believed Russians had stolen his laptop in summer 2018. To date, there has been no indication that the FBI provided Joe Biden a defensive briefing on the national security risk posed by those laptops. Or if FBI agents did brief Biden on the risks in a timely manner, that means he nonetheless lied to the American public and ran for president knowing the propaganda at Putin’s fingertips.
Even when coupled with the complicity of former members of the intelligence community, all of Joe Biden’s lies would mean nothing if the media had done its job and reported the story when it still matter. It’s too late now, however: Biden is our commander in chief and Putin potentially holds a cache of compromising information perfect for propaganda purposes.
How much more disastrous can the Biden-Harris administration get before calls for their resignation start?
Replace them with Manchin as President and Larry Hogan as VP.
Vicious Putin has united Europe and Slidin' Biden is uniting America.
Every race, gender, age group, and area of the country disapproves of Biden and Harris!
"what do you think he should do?"
Oh I don't know, maybe loudly and publicly tell his insurrectionist mob to stand down and go back to their comfy red states.
Maybe he could even remind them the GOP supports the police, law and order, not mayhem and destruction of federal property.
But no, Trump chose to just sit on his big fat lazy fat ass for hours and watch the Jan. 6 insurrection by his supporters happen without lifting a finger to try to stop it.
That was after he encouraged them to walk to the capitol, telling the mob "I'll be there with you" and "we're going to walk to the capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong" and here's the videotape:
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-encourages-those-at-his-rally-to-march-to-the-capitol-99045445525
"On Friday, The Daily Mail reported that emails recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop show he helped an infectious disease research company pursue projects in Ukraine."
A week ago it was:
"Hunter Biden had 25,000 pics of him torturing and raping children under age 10 in China on his laptop."
And Theresa said:
"I will respond with DETAILED information on why the Presidents son is a pedophile, and links, later.
Just how big is the hard drive on this laptop?
Is their anything it DOESN'T contain?
Why do you guys keep changing the story and providing no actual proof?
Do you think Obama's original long-form birth certificate is on there somewhere?
It really makes it all look like another nothing-burger.
Theresa, I was going to reply to your initial comment but you have made it clear you are beyond reasoning with. I am concerned about how angry you are. TTF is a little citizens group that stands up for some persecuted minorities in our county. We believe everyone should have the same rights and we oppose those who hate people for who they are. This is not an extreme or unusual position - most Americans agree with us. We aren't really demons, we are just normal people who are looking out for our fellow citizens. I honestly cannot imagine living in a world where hate and constant outrage are the norm, and do not believe it makes sense to let your angry and unjustified beliefs become the official policies of our govrnment.
BTW I notice you haven't updated your "We Stop the Steal" blog since January 6th of last year. Has the committee contacted you yet about your support for the insurrection?
JimK
Theresa supporting the overthrow of US democracy
Trump: "How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife gave the Biden family three and a half million dollars? I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer. I’m sure he knows.”
Uh huh. Now that Putin has enraged and horrified the entire world with his horrific assault on Ukrainian civilians and has been beaten back by the Ukrainian military, backed by NATO, led by the US, he might want to help Trump smear Joe Biden. Yes, he might.
This is about as close to treason as it gets. We’re not technically at war with Russia but it’s damn close. He may not be legally guilty of it, but he is a traitor.
Does he have no sense whatsoever? He was investigated by a Special Counsel for two years and impeached for this crap. And he just can’t stop doing it. There is something literally wrong with him.
But I'm sure he was happy about Ivanka's Chinese trademarks.
Good news, Finland has decided supporting traditional sexual morality is not a hate crime!
Hate speech charges against a Finnish lawmaker and a Lutheran pastor who shared anti-gay Bible passages were dropped Wednesday.
Päivi Räsänen, a member of parliament, and Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission were facing hate speech charges after Räsänen wrote and Pohjola published a pamphlet about "biblical marriage.". Räsänen was also facing charges for comments made in a broadcast interview and on her social media.
The case highlighted the line between expressing religious beliefs and expressing hatred toward a group of people. Though the court asserted that the politician's words were at least "partly offensive," it decided that as long as the intention was to speak about her religious beliefs and not to "disparage homosexuals," it cannot be considered hate speech, according to Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
Räsänen has been a member of the Finnish Parliament since 1995 as part of the Christian Democratic Party. In 2004, she published the pamphlet Man and Woman: He Created Them, which described homosexuality as "a disorder of psychosexual development, among other things," Helsingin Sanomat reported.
"TTF is a little citizens group that stands up for some persecuted minorities in our county. We believe everyone should have the same rights and we oppose those who hate people for who they are."
that's what Will Smith says
Wow, Const, what a slam dunk. You really showed that guy.
"what a slam dunk"
it's not a trivial point
progressive liberalism has morphed into the idea that speech can be violence
and that misconception is what has led to so much division in our society
Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle blasted the legacy media for its collective dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election.
In a piece published on Saturday, McArdle began by noting what a friend coined was a "growing 'epistemic closure' on the right" that filters out what is reported in the distrusted liberal media.
"This frets the mainstream media. It is our job to provide information, so naturally we worry when so many customers aren’t buying… In fact, we in the mainstream have been so busy denouncing ‘fake news’ that we failed to notice we’re developing a wee disinformation problem of our own — much of which has stemmed, ironically, from our efforts to fight disinformation on the right," McArdle told readers.
She then turned to the New York Post's bombshell reporting about Hunter Biden's laptop, which included emails that implicated his father, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and how the "information gatekeepers scrambled to keep this story from polluting the mainstream’s pristine infoscape" using various tactics like calling the story "Russian disinformation" or a "distraction" to Big Tech's suppression of the report.
"That’s a whole lot of effort to suppress a story that seems to be … true?" McArdle wrote, citing The New York Times' recent report that authenticated the laptop's contents. "One week into the ‘Oops, it was real’ news cycle, I have now heard all the excuses as to why this actually is an instance of journalism and tech moderation working like they should. It was unverified, I’ve heard. Too close to an election. And even if the emails were real, they may have been obtained illegally — can’t have that!"
McArdle pointed to the media's hypocrisy when it comes to stories that "made conservatives look bad," referring to the Times' September 2020 report about then-President Trump's tax documents that were "likely" illegally leaked but "Twitter didn’t block it from being shared."
The columnist also listed the discredited Steele dossier and the unverified sexual assault accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh as examples of how media outlets "relaxed their journalistic standards" while being "considerably more skeptical" towards Biden accuser Tara Reade and videos released by Project Veritas.
"As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, the difference in mainstream reporting is the difference between can and must. When it comes to stories that flatter Democrats, we often ask ‘Can I believe it?’ If it’s not obviously false, we do. But if the story flatters the right, we are more likely to ask ‘Must I believe it?’ If we can find any reason to disbelieve, we take it — and keep the story off our pages," McArdle wrote. "The obvious retort is that the same thing is happening on the right, only more so. And indeed, some right-wing media have gone much further with crazy election conspiracies than any mainstream outlet ever did with Russophobia. But pointing that out doesn’t do a thing to solve the problem."
"An actual solution will require the recognition that we in the mainstream media are part of the problem: We are not trusted because we are not entirely trustworthy. That is not the only thing that will have to be fixed to heal our epistemic divide. But it would make a very good start," McArdle added.
Donald Trump’s Truth Social app has plummeted in sign-ups and traffic since its technically challenged launch last month, The Wrap reported Tuesday.
The former president’s social media network for MAGA disciples has sunk to about 60,000 new users a week.
“This is down 93% from its launch week, when it saw 872,000 installs during the week of Feb. 21,” Stephanie Chan of the analytics site Sensor Tower told The Wrap. “We estimate that Truth Social has so far reached approximately 1.2 million installs since its launch.”
Truthsocial.com reportedly has fallen to 1.9 million weekly visits from a high of 6 million in the debut week for the Twitter-like platform, according to Similarweb stats cited by the news website.
Team Trump created Truth Social after he was banned from Twitter for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The digital opinion site has struggled in a conservative space already occupied by right-leaning ventures such as Gettr.
Truth Social also caught the snarky attention of talk show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel.
“Truth Social has been such a disappointment so far, Trump may have to rename it to ‘Don Jr.,’” Kimmel sniped last month.
Trump has been so perturbed by the stumbling rollout that he was heard asking, “What the #$@! is going on?” on the phone, The Daily Beast reported.
Every news outlet from FOX to CNN to The New York Times to local newspapers has a story with attention-grabbing headlines like “US cities hit all-time murder records.” Fox News and Republicans have jumped on this and framed it as a “Democrat” problem. They blame it on Democrat’s “soft-on-crime” approach and have even referred to a New York District Attorney’s approach as “hug-a-thug.” Many news stories outside of Fox have also purported that police reform is responsible for this rise in murder and have pointed to cities like New York and Los Angeles.
There is a measure of truth to these stories. The US saw an alarming 30% increase in murder in 2020. While 2021 data is not yet complete, murder was on the rise again this past year. Some “blue” cities, like Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, have seen real and persistent increases in homicides. These cities—along with others like Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis—are also in places with wall-to-wall media coverage and national media interest.
But there is a large piece of the homicide story that is missing and calls into question the veracity of the right-wing obsession over homicides in Democratic cities: murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.
For example, Jacksonville, a city with a Republican mayor, had 128 more murders in 2020 than San Francisco, a city with a Democrat mayor, despite their comparable populations. In fact, the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Yet there is barely a whisper, let alone an outcry, over the stunning levels of murders in these and other places.
We collected 2019 and 2020 murder data from all 50 states. (Comprehensive 2021 data is not yet available.) We pulled the data from yearly crime reports released by state governments, specifically the Departments of Justice and Safety. For states that didn’t issue state crime reports, we pulled data from reputable local news sources. To allow for comparison, we calculated the state’s per capita murder rate, the number of murders per 100,000 residents, and categorized states by their presidential vote in the 2020 election, resulting in an even 25-25 split.
We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts. And finally, many of the states with the worst murder rates—like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas—are ones that few would describe as urban. Only 2 of America’s top 100 cities in population are located in these high murder rate states. And not a single one of the top 10 murder states registers in the top 15 for population density.
Whether one does or does not blame Republican leaders for high murder rates, it seems that Republican officeholders do a better job of blaming Democrats for lethal crime than actually reducing lethal crime.
Trump-Voting States Account for 8 out of the 10 Highest Murder Rates in 2020.
If you’re tuned in to the media, you’d think murder is rocketing skyward in New York, California, Illinois. But those states don’t even crack the top ten.
In fact, the top per capita murder rate states in 2020 were mostly those far from massive urban centers and Democratic mayors and governors. Eight of the top ten worst murder rate states voted for Trump in 2020. None of those eight has supported a Democrat for president since 1996.
The chart below shows the top 10 murder rate states in 2020. Mississippi had the highest homicide rate at 20.50 murders per 100,000 residents, followed by Louisiana at 15.79, Kentucky at 14.32, Alabama at 14.2, and Missouri at 14. The national average was 6.5 per 100,000 residents, but the top five states had rates more than twice that high.
These red states are not generating “murder is out of control” national headlines. They seem to generate no headlines at all. The rest of the top ten were filled out by South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee—all states rarely talked about in breathless media reports about rampant crime in Democratic strongholds. Notably, New Mexico and Georgia were the only Biden-voting states in the top ten, and they ranked seventh and eighth, respectively.
State.............. Per Capita Murder Rate
Mississippi ..... 20.50
Louisiana ....... 15.79
Kentucky ........ 14.32
Alabama ......... 14.20
Missouri ........ 14.00
South Carolina .. 10.72
New Mexico ...... 10.70
Georgia ......... 10.50
Arkansas ........ 10.29
Tennessee ....... 9.90
[For those that don't remember, Trump tried to flip Georgia to red with a phone call asking to "find" eleven thousand votes for him.]
Five of the largest Biden-voting states by population, and those often in the news when it comes to crime, had much lower murder rates. New York at 4.11 per 100,000 residents, California at 5.59, and New Jersey at 3.70 were each well below the national average. Pennsylvania (7.22) and Illinois (9.20) were higher than the national average. But Mississippi’s murder rate was nearly 400% higher than New York’s, more than 250% higher than California’s, and about 120% higher than Illinois’s. In fact, the five states with the highest murder rates, all Trump-voting states, had rates at least 240% higher than New York’s murder rate and at least 150% higher than California’s, the homes to some of the largest cities featured prominently in the “crime is out of control” narrative.
I actually haven't seen much in the national media about the murder rate other than Chicago. The context of those comments is that it is illogical to say "Black Lives Matter" by pointing to a handful of incidents with the police and then not discuss that far more blacks lives are lost to murder by other blacks in places like Chicago
What has been discussed in the national media is the overall crime rate. But no one in Vermont is going to vote against their local congressman because of crime in San Francisco. People is California might. After all, retailers pulled out of San Francisco because the government announced it wouldn't prosecute most shoplifting
Defund the Police is not the same as police reform. Dems got swept up in the moment in summer of 2020 and began this mantra. Police pulled back, crime shot up, and Dems have no one to blame but themselves.
America needs leaders that can keep their head, not leaders that get swept up in the moment.
And that applies on every level - having a guy like Biden with access to the nuclear button is a threat to civilization
Under the last administration, the one that Democrats talked openly of using the 25th Amendment against, the world was not rushing toward nuclear conflict. There was relative peace, cheap gas and American economic optimism.
Now, Biden’s inflationary policies eat at American savings. Most Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. And the white working class—once considered the base of the Democratic Party—is no longer the base. Black Democrats and Latinos also edge away from the Democrats for the same reasons. They see a Democratic party controlled by the radical left. And they have bills as inflation rises quickly, to heights not seen for decades.
And with with costs rising so high, many must choose between buying enough gas to get to work, or food. Not beef, but beans.
I’m sure most reasonable Americans believe it would be best for America and the world that the Bidens leave the White House. He’s not the same man he was just years ago. I’m not making fun of him, I don’t mean to mock him, many of us have aged parents.
But senility on full display in a nuclear world is not a luxury the world can afford. And whether Dr. Jill in her role as Edith Wilson leads Joe into a Delaware basement and leaves him there with the TV on without telling him why; or whether they leave the White House through some bloodless Democrat palace coup, Americans will not feel all that upset if the Bidens just move on.
Not even Democrats would be all that upset. They see the poll numbers. They’ll sigh with relief when he’s gone.
But that that begs another question:
Is Vice President Kamala Harris really an acceptable replacement for the man who selected her as his running mate, in order to appease the racists of the Democratic Party, simply because she checked all of those important demographic boxes of skin pigment and gender?
Can America and the world handle even a few seconds of Kamala, with that sing-song delivery of hers, talking to us as if we were children, while knowing that she finds policy so boring, so completely uninteresting, that she can’t be bothered to read her briefing books.
There is no competent leadership from the president or vice president, is there?
A disastrous new NBC poll showing Biden’s approval ratings at his lowest ever. The Hill reported that the poll finds 7 in 10 Americans have little confidence in Biden’s competence regarding Russia and Ukraine. And 8 in 10 are fearful that it all may lead to higher gas prices and nuclear war.
The NBC News poll was compiled before the president went on his disastrous trip to Poland. His handlers and America’s allies hoped that he’d follow the script and keep it simple, offering strength, competence, clarity and resolve during this time of crisis. But that didn’t happen
The Consumer Price Index rose by nearly 8 percent last month, the fastest rise in annual inflation in four decades. Prices are up across the board, with prices of fuel and food spiking particularly high, supply chains are falling apart, and store shelves are emptying. To say that America's current economic prospects are bleak is an understatement. But this current state of economic hardship is hitting people of color even harder.
Inflation is an invisible tax on poor people, and the percentage of Black Americans in poverty is practically double their percentage of the total population. According to the U.S. Census, in 2019 Black Americans represented 23.8 percent of the population living in poverty, while accounting for only 13.2 percent of the population overall.
And because inflation hurts the poor most of all, it is disproportionately hurting Black and Latino families, as a report by Bank of America released in November of last year found: Black, Hispanic, and Latino households spent 7.1 percent of their post-tax income on energy—compared to 5.4 percent spent by other demographics, and they spent 12.5 percent of their income on food compared to 11.1 percent for everyone else.
Since the Democratic Party assumed control of the White House in January 2021, inflation has skyrocketed far beyond where it was when Bank of America's report was released. As of this week, the national gas price average stands well above $4.00, according to the AAA, and last month Americans suffered the largest rise in food prices since 1981.
All foods are being affected, from fresh staples like eggs and milk, to major name brand packaged goods. Companies that have announced price increases include Tyson Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, with each one blaming supply chain issues and labor shortages.
This calamitous state of economic affairs is not occurring in a vacuum. The simple fact is that the Democratic Party's reckless and economically devastating policies are driving up the prices of food and gas astronomically, while simultaneously stifling economic growth that could create jobs for Black Americans.
The CPI more than doubled since January 2021, and while many would like the American public to believe that this sad state of affairs is the result of the Russia's nefarious invasion of Ukraine, the truth is that this downward economic spiral began the very day Democrats took control of the White House—not when Putin's forces entered Ukraine. All available data show this clearly.
Thankfully, Black voters are seeing through this veil of lies. According to a CNN poll released last month, the percentage of Black voters who approve of President Biden has plummeted by a whopping 25 percent. We can only hope that as the economy continues to decline under the Democrats' woefully inadequate stewardship, his approval rating among the Black community will decline further, too.
The Black community is finally waking up to the Democrats' war on our wallets. We know what life was like before President Biden took office, and we've seen how quickly it has deteriorated since.
The simple fact is that in America today, it is the Republicans who offer our community a brighter, more secure, and more prosperous future. We know this because we just experienced a Republican presidency that saw the lowest unemployment rate in the Black and Hispanic community in history. But that's just the tip of the iceberg; by cutting taxes and regulations, the previous administration spurred an economic boom unlike any seen in our lifetimes. In 2016, gross domestic product grew just 1.6 percent, but in 2017 it grew by 2.2 percent and by an even healthier 2.9 percent in 2019.
And yet, unlike many economic booms before it, Black Americans directly benefited from this one. "The economy grew in ways that mostly benefited low-income and middle-class households, categories that cover a disproportionate number of blacks," writes senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Jason L. Wriley, author of The Black Boom, in the Wall Street Journal. Wriley found that between 2017 and 2019, median household incomes grew by 15.4 percent among Black Americans and only 11.5 percent among whites.
For decades, the Black community has been at the forefront of the fight to secure freedom, equality, and progress in America. It's time we fight to secure economic freedom, equality of opportunity, and the future prosperity of our community as well.
If the Black community at large continues to vote for politicians who willfully mishandle the economy, it will be voting for its own destruction. The Republicans are the party representing our economic interests.
voters won't forget about the Dems' role in the return of inflation, the explosion of crime, the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same, lack of preparedness for Omicron, opening up the border to a flood of illegals, the influence peddling documented on Hunter's laptop, nominating an extreme progressive to the Supreme Court when plenty of qualified originalist black female judges were available, and bungling foreign policy so as to make nuclear war conceivable
would you like me to paste a current poll?
No. But it would be nice if you learned how to use a period and were able to form an actual paragraph, instead of a misleading, incorrect, and longwinded conglomeration of phrases, which you've posted several times already.
Repeating it doesn't make it any less wrong.
BACKGROUND
The efficacy of ivermectin in preventing hospitalization or extended observation in an emergency setting among outpatients with acutely symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is unclear.
METHODS
We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, adaptive platform trial involving symptomatic SARS-CoV-2–positive adults recruited from 12 public health clinics in Brazil. Patients who had had symptoms of Covid-19 for up to 7 days and had at least one risk factor for disease progression were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin (400 μg per kilogram of body weight) once daily for 3 days or placebo. (The trial also involved other interventions that are not reported here.) The primary composite outcome was hospitalization due to Covid-19 within 28 days after randomization or an emergency department visit due to clinical worsening of Covid-19 (defined as the participant remaining under observation for >6 hours) within 28 days after randomization.
RESULTS
A total of 3515 patients were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin (679 patients), placebo (679), or another intervention (2157). Overall, 100 patients (14.7%) in the ivermectin group had a primary-outcome event, as compared with 111 (16.3%) in the placebo group (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16). Of the 211 primary-outcome events, 171 (81.0%) were hospital admissions. Findings were similar to the primary analysis in a modified intention-to-treat analysis that included only patients who received at least one dose of ivermectin or placebo (relative risk, 0.89; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.69 to 1.15) and in a per-protocol analysis that included only patients who reported 100% adherence to the assigned regimen (relative risk, 0.94; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.67 to 1.35). There were no significant effects of ivermectin use on secondary outcomes or adverse events.
CONCLUSIONS
Treatment with ivermectin did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of Covid-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis of Covid-19. (Funded by FastGrants and the Rainwater Charitable Foundation; TOGETHER ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04727424. opens in new tab.)
CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood says Donald Trump, the former president, "is mentally unwell in a way that makes him interested exclusively in what benefits him."
"Distinctions between true-false, right-wrong, America's friends, America's enemies are irrelevant to Donald Trump," Harwood added on Wednesday morning on CNN's "New Day," in response to what the cable news outlet is calling "Trump's brazen request to Putin."
"Russia has helped him financially and politically over the years," Harwood continued, "and he has aligned himself with Vladimir Putin. This is significant not just because he was president, but he's the leader of one of America's two political parties, he might be president again. And this is a moment of moral clarity. When Vladimir Putin is slaughtering thousands of people in Ukraine, for Republicans who do care about the difference between right-wrong, true-false, America's friends, America's enemies, to reflect on whether this is the person they want to attach their party to."
CNN reports that in "a new interview published Tuesday, former President Donald Trump called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release any damaging information he has about the Biden family, in a brazen request for domestic political assistance from America's top adversary."
Watch Harwood
"it would be nice if you learned how to use a period"
hard to see what would be nice about that
maybe if you could elaborate on your deep commitment to punctuation, I could consider it
"and were able to form an actual paragraph, instead of a misleading, incorrect, and longwinded conglomeration of phrases"
nothing misleading nor incorrect
just a partial recap of why the gay agenda will be defeated in November
"which you've posted several times already"
sounds like your posts concerning Jan 6
"Repeating it doesn't make it any less wrong"
well, you can't be reminded enough that zero voters will vote based on Jan 6
and tens of million will vote based on the issues I posted
but, that's irrelevant, right?
after all, TTF is a little citizens group that stands up for some persecuted minorities in our county
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood says Donald Trump, the former president, "is mentally unwell in a way that makes him interested exclusively in what benefits him."
well, Harwood is a minor, semi-competent journalist who disgrace himself with a poor performance moderating a debate years ago
but, he's basically right about this
except that Trump, whatever his emotional disturbance, is not relevant
Biden, whose senility has made a good case for invoking the 25th amendment, is relevant
his gaffes have flirted with nuclear catastrophe
a GOP majority in both Houses next year will neutralize him
Slidin' Biden is sick of everyone not supporting the thesis that transgenderism is normal
so, he's taking bold action!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he's going to fly a trans pride flag at HHS
that oughta scare the hell outta 'em
btw, I wasn't aware there was a trans pride flag
Slidin' Joe Biden said Thursday that his administration is working to protect Americans from the wave of anti-trans laws being passed at the state level.
“To everyone celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, I want you to know your president sees you,” Slidin' said in a video statement. “Our entire administration sees you for who you are, made in the image of God and deserving in dignity, respect and support. But we know it’s hard when there are those out there who don’t see you and don’t respect you.”
Joe Slidin' then referenced the surge in state-level laws targeting transgender Americans. In Texas, the state government is investigating parents of trans youths for child abuse. In Idaho, a bill would have made it a felony punishable by life in prison for parents to seek gender-affirming care for their children and for medical professionals to provide it. While the bill passed in the state House, virtually along party lines, it ended up being shelved in the Senate.
“To parents of transgender children, affirming your child’s identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy,” Slidin' said. “To any transgender American who’s struggling, please know you’re not alone. To parents and children alike, please ask for help and know this: You’re so brave, you belong, and we have your back.”
As part of its rollout of actions on Thursday, the White House said it would work to streamline processes for transgender and nonbinary Americans in areas like education, travel and employment as well as providing additional resources to LGBT youths. The White House added that the Department of Health and Human Services would be the first federal agency to fly a trans pride flag.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., says that as more information comes to light about Hunter Biden's laptop, he has grown "suspicious" President Joe Biden could be compromised.
Johnson said, "I don't know it for certain" that the information on Hunter's laptop would compromise the president, "but I'm sure suspicious of it."
Why did Biden "waive all these sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?" Johnson asked. "Why did he cancel the China initiative? There was the Department of Justice investigation initiative into China's stealing our intellectual property at universities; why did he take these actions?"
"So we have no idea," the congressman continued, "what Russia, what China, these other intelligence services, know about President Biden. And we have no idea how that might be affecting his policy decisions.
"But I agree with Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden's former business partner, who said that Joe Biden is 'compromised.' I think it's pretty obvious he must be," the senator concluded.
you just can't be reminded enough that zero voters in November 2022 will vote based on Trump and Jan 6
but tens of million of voters won't forget about the Dems' role in the return of inflation, the explosion of crime, the damage done to the nation's children by nonsense COVID lockdowns and restrictions in public schools as well as promoting CRT and the gay agenda in the same, lack of preparedness for Omicron, opening up the border to a flood of illegals, the influence peddling documented on Hunter's laptop, nominating an extreme progressive to the Supreme Court when plenty of qualified originalist black female judges were available, and bungling foreign policy so as to make nuclear war conceivable
how could Biden screw up so bad?
The unemployment rate fell to a new pandemic low of 3.6 percent, as strong hiring continues
The national unemployment rate fell to a pandemic low of 3.6 percent in March, as employers added 431,000 jobs, further bolstering the most rapid labor market rebound on record.
Average hourly wages for private-sector workers, rose by 13 cents to $31.73 in March, the Labor Department said Friday.
The labor market is pretty close to healing from the shock of the covid pandemic two years ago, having recovered 93 percent of the 22 million jobs lost early in the pandemic.
Both the unemployment rate and the number of people without jobs are almost down to pre-pandemic levels, but other parts of the labor market have yet to recover. The percentage of American workers who have a job or actively looking for work is still lower than it was before the crisis.
This is the 11th consecutive month that employers have added more than 400,000 jobs, which is considered a particularly strong pace of job growth.
“It’s been a remarkable recovery — we’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jane Oates, president of the employment-focused nonprofit WorkingNation and a former Labor Department official. “Two years ago, every sector was at least disrupted if not completely shut down. But we’ve had such a quick recovery that things are almost back to normal.”
Industries like hospitality, retail and construction — which were among the most affected early in the pandemic when shutdowns forced millions of layoffs — have been rapidly rehiring in recent months. That trend continued into March, with restaurants, hotels and stores picking up a combined 161,000 jobs.
Employers have added a record 7 million jobs in the past year, as hiring roars back to life.
An official review found that the White House phone records for Jan. 6, 2021, are complete, CNN reported Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter, following reports earlier in the week that the call logs given to the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol had a gap of more than seven hours that day.
The source told CNN that no pages were found to be missing from the six-page White House phone logs from Jan. 6.
Meanwhile, Axios reported on Thursday, citing three sources with knowledge on the matter, that Trump’s executive assistant, Molly Michael, was absent most of Jan. 6 for personal reasons. Michael’s duties included keeping notes on Trump’s unscheduled calls and meetings, per the outlet.
This comes after The Washington Post and CBS News falsely reported on Tuesdaythat White House logs given to the committee by the National Archives earlier this year show a gap of 7 hours and 37 minutes between 11:17 a.m. and 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) found out the hard way what sort of vile and divisive rhetoric the Republican Party absolutely will not tolerate: talking about crazy Washington parties.
The extremist congressman was spotted emerging from a half-hour meeting with top House Republican Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) on Wednesday after members of the party spent days fretting over comments Cawthorn made on a fringe-right YouTube channel.
“I just told him he’s lost my trust [and] he’s gonna have to earn it back. And I laid out to him everything that I find unbecoming,” McCarthy said to Axios’ Alayna Treene, adding, “He’s got a lot of members very upset.”
“You can’t make statements like that as a member of Congress. It affects everybody else, and the country as a whole,” the House minority leader told Politico reporter Olivia Beavers.
According to McCarthy, Cawthorn admitted in the meeting that his claims were “exaggerated” and that, at worst, he might have seen a staffer take cocaine in a parking garage from a distance.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) previously told Politico he also plans to speak with Cawthorn on the matter, adding that he might ask the lawmaker to name names.
The suggestion that conservative D.C. elites might attend sex parties and use illicit drugs has inspired more sweaty hand-wringing from the GOP than when some Republicans attended a white nationalist conference just last month.
It took three days for Republican Party leadership to criticize Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona for participating in the America First Political Action Conference ― an event so controversial that its organizers could not announce its location beforehand. Gosar appeared at the same conference last year.
Another GOP senator, Mike Braun of Indiana, recently said the question of whether people of different races should be able to marry is best decided on a state-by-state basis.
But Cawthorn’s offense appears to have disturbed Republican leadership on a different level.
Last week, Cawthorn responded to a question from the host of “Warrior Poet Society” about how his experience in the nation’s capital compared to the degeneracy seen on “House of Cards” by launching into a discussion on “the sexual perversion that goes on in Washington.”
He claimed that certain unnamed officials had invited him to sex parties and taken cocaine “key bumps” in his presence.
“I look at a lot of these people, a lot of them that I’ve looked up to through my life ― I’ve always paid attention to politics,” Cawthorn said in the episode. “Then all of a sudden, you get invited to, ‘Oh, hey, we’re going to have a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come.’”
“Then you realized they’re asking you to come to an orgy,” he said.
Cawthorn, whose hometown newspaper once called him “North Carolina’s gift to Crazytown,” has made a number of inaccurate or ill-advised claims in the past, including calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) an alcoholic, calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug,” and calling former President Donald Trump a father figure.
The House of Representatives approved a bill Friday to decriminalize marijuana.
The House bill passed by a vote of 220 to 204, with three Republicans in favor and two Democrats against.
The House bill would remove cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances and eliminate criminal penalties for its distribution or possession. The bill would also set up a process for expunging past convictions, create an excise tax on marijuana products and direct various government agencies to track and study the impact of cannabis on the economy and society generally.
Democrats argued the legislation would improve racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Black Americans are more than three times more likely than white Americans to be arrested for crimes related to marijuana, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, even though use is roughly equal.
Despite bipartisan enthusiasm for the First Step Act, the prison reform bill Congress passed in 2018, there’s not much appetite among Republicans for reforming outdated marijuana laws.
The attorney general of Washington D.C. has expanded his lawsuit against members of the Jan. 6, 2021 mob that played leading roles in the attack on the Capitol — including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.
Karl Racine announced Friday that he had added six new high-profile figures to the district’s lawsuit, which already featured more than 30 defendants connected to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
“Over the last few months, we have learned more about the horrors of January 6—including more about how the leaders of the two groups behind the attack urged members to use violence to overturn the outcome of a lawful presidential election,” Racine said in a statement. “We are seeking justice for the District, our democracy, and the brave law enforcement officers who risked their lives that day.”
In addition to Rhodes, Racine added Oath Keepers Edward Vallejo, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel and Brian Ulrich. He also added Matthew Greene, a member of the Proud Boys who recently pleaded guilty for his role in the riot and is cooperating with prosecutors.
Racine’s suit is one of a handful of major efforts by those affected by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to seek damages from its most prominent participants. Several Capitol Police officers have sued former President Donald Trump, his top aides and leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys as well. About 10 members of Congress filed lawsuits against Trump and his inner circle as well.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta recently issued a landmark ruling determining that Trump could face civil liability for his actions on Jan. 6, and that the typical immunity accorded to presidents for their actions while in office didn’t apply to his actions at the “Stop the Steal” rally he helped lead.
The new additions to Racine’s suit — which also targets the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers organizations — reflect new evidence unearthed by federal prosecutors against members of both groups, including the charges against Rhodes and his fellow Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy. The suit is the first government-backed litigation against the far-right organizations.
Racine is seeking financial damages from the groups and their members under the Ku Klux Klan Act, a federal statute meant to guard against conspiracies to violate civil rights. The lawsuit also charges the defendants with assault and intentional affliction of emotional distress.
“We are focused on using the law to the maximum extent possible,” Racine said, “to impose financial liability on those who planned and participated in the assault, and believe doing so will deter future illegal attacks.”
do Munoz Alvarez)
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize on Friday, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive.
Warehouse workers cast 2,654 votes — or about 55% — in favor of a union, giving the fledgling Amazon Labor Union enough support to pull off a victory. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which is overseeing the process, 2,131 workers — or 45% — rejected the union bid.
The 67 ballots that were challenged by either Amazon or the ALU were not enough to sway the outcome. Federal labor officials said the results of the count won’t be verified until they process any objections — due by April 8 — that both parties may file.
The victory was an uphill battle for the independent group, made up of former and current workers who lacked official backing from an established union and were out-gunned by the deep-pocketed retail giant. Despite obstacles, organizers believed their grassroots approach was more relatable to workers and could help them overcome where established unions have failed in the past. They were right.
Right-wing anti-vax activist Dr. Sherri Tenpenny recently proclaimed that recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine will develop an AIDS-like illness sometime in 2022. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is the fatal late-stage complication from untreated Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection, which attacks the immune system over time.
Tenpenny – who was banned from Twitter last summer for peddling vaccine misinformation – cited a debunked Exposé story that circulated earlier this year on Facebook which claimed that the German government had conducted a study that determined that coronavirus inoculations lead to AIDS. It did not.
This was not the first time that Tenpenny, a licensed osteopathic physician from Cleveland, Ohio, has promoted such a bizarre conspiracy theory. In January, Tenpenny asserted that coronavirus vaccines "are creating 'quantum entanglement' between those who take them and 'the Google credit scores and the dematrix and all of those things.'"
She was also busted a year ago for teaching an online "COVID-19 conspiracy 'boot camp'" on "how to target vaccine-hesitant" people as well as the "potential hacking of vaccine passports," according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report.
Nevertheless, there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS. But that has not stopped Tenpenny from promulgating the lie.
"The more shots you get, the more – the more you destroy your immune system and the faster that happens. And it's anticipated, the German data says, that by the end of 2022, every fully vaccinated person over the age of 30 may have the equivalent of full-blown vaccine-induced immune-suppressed AIDS," said Tenpenny, who in November admitted to traveling on airplanes while displaying COVID-19 symptoms.
INSIDE THE RETURN OF THE GRIDIRON — New Hampshire Republican Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU stole the show Saturday night at the annual Gridiron Club dinner by saying out loud what most Republicans in Washington *privately* whisper about DONALD TRUMP.
“You know, he’s probably going to be the next president,” Sununu said of Trump, musing about his “experience,” “passion,” “sense of integrity” and the “rationale” he brought to his tweets. As the room quieted to see where he was going with this, he paused, then yelled: “Nah, I’m just kidding! He’s FUCKING CRAZY!” The ballroom roared with laughter. “ARE YOU KIDDING?! Come on. You guys are buying that? I love it … He just stresses me out so much! … I’m going to deny I ever said it.”
It didn’t stop there: “The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!”
It was just the beginning of an evening full of laughs — and, at times, cringes — that had the more than 600 journalists and VIPs in attendance reaching for more wine. For several hours, it was like the pandemic never happened, as D.C.’s high society descended on the Renaissance Hotel downtown for the first Gridiron gathering in three years.
If you weren’t there, don’t worry, we pulled out the choicest tidbits …
SUNUNU HITS REPUBLICANS:
— On VIRGINIA THOMAS’ now-infamous text messages to MARK MEADOWS: “We know she may be extreme, but let’s face it: when it comes to texting, she’s no ANTHONY WEINER. And you guys thought we forgot about that freakshow.”
— And TED CRUZ hanging out with the People’s Convoy: “Nobody really knows why [the Convoy protesters are] in Washington in the first place — which pretty much describes Ted himself, right? … What is with Ted? You see that beard? … He looks like MEL GIBSON after a DUI or something.”
— On Trump ally and MyPillow CEO MIKE LINDELL: “This guy’s head is stuffed with more crap than his pillows. And by the way, I was told not to say this, but I will: His stuff is crap. I mean, it’s absolute crap. You only find that kind of stuff in the Trump Hotel.”
Sununu also told a story about a time Trump visited him in New Hampshire and invited him to ride inside the presidential limo, The Beast. The then-president suddenly stopped talking and pointed out the window at people lining the road holding American flags, saying, “They LOVE me!” Only problem, said Sununu, was that the man he pointed to held a sign that read, “FUCK TRUMP.”
Conservatives used to note that Democrats who wanted to dictate the size of your soda cup were creating a "nanny state." But now, Democrats aren’t content to just be nannies. They want to be your child’s parent – and they think you should have no say in the matter.
That’s the debate happening in Florida right now. Leftists are outraged about the new Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis protecting parental rights, dishonestly dubbed "Don’t Say Gay." Even Disney – a company that has a significant role in influencing kids through entertainment – has made headlines for condemning the legislation as activist employees at the company attempt to turn it into a propaganda arm for the far-left.
This follows an unfortunate pattern of the ultra-woke attempting to reshape American institutions to fit their warped, extreme worldview.
But let’s be clear: Florida’s new law never even mentions the word "gay." Rather, it bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades for kids aged 5 to 8 – something polling shows most Americans support.
A survey by The Daily Wire found that 67% of Americans agreed the move would rightly "protect children from inappropriate topics that should be discussed by parents." A different poll showed even Florida Democrats agree with the legislation when it is described accurately.
But for Democrats, that’s unacceptable. The "experts," they claim, know what’s best for your child. Whether it’s woke corporations or political activists, it’s just the latest example of Democrats putting their far-left agenda over kids’ best interests.
When kids are in the classroom, they’re being indoctrinated with anti-American and sexually-explicit propaganda.
The controversy isn’t about the specific contents of the bill so much as the fact that it dares to assert parental authority over school boards, activists, and government bureaucrats. Democrats have come to feel a sense of entitlement toward other people’s children. Just look at how they treated kids during the pandemic.
For more than a year, Democrats kept kids out of the classroom. They shut down schools, forced our children to learn online and mandated masks for toddlers. The Biden administration even colluded with teachers’ union bosses to keep schools closed. And children are suffering.
More than 97% of educators "saw some learning loss" over the past year. A McKinsey report found that students will lose around $60,000 in lifetime earnings due to the loss of learning last year. Black students will be most affected: the same study projected a 3.3% loss of income a year in their adult lives.
When kids are in the classroom, they’re being indoctrinated with anti-American and sexually-explicit propaganda. More than 4,500 teachers all over the country have used curriculum inspired by The New York Times’ 1619 Project, the "reframing" of American history that claims our country is inherently racist, which has since been debunked by historians.
And, yes, despite what the mainstream media might tell you, kids are also being deluged with inappropriate gender and sexual content.
Last month, a school district in Wisconsin outrageously stated that parents are "not entitled" to know their children’s sexuality. The New York Department of Education is drawing heat for promoting explicit sexual books to its high school students. In Los Angeles, teachers who refuse to use trans pronouns for young children are being targeted by school administrators. In Oregon, the statewide public school system has passed guidance promoting kids as young as kindergarten using gender pronouns of their choice.
This is happening nationwide. No amount of misrepresentation from the left and their allies in the media can erase what the left is trying to do to our kids.
It’s no wonder why Democrats don’t want parents to know what goes in on classrooms. That’s why teachers in Loudoun County, Virginia, created a secret Facebook group to attack concerned parents. The Biden administration tracked moms and dads who spoke up at school board meetings with an FBI "threat tag" despite previously claiming they weren’t using tools usually reserved for domestic terrorists.
That kind of threatening behavior toward parents who care about their kids doesn’t work. Don’t believe me? Just ask Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Democrats who are putting indoctrination and sexualization over education – and cutting parents out in the process – are setting themselves up to fail. It’s not just bad politics. It’s a disgrace.
Meanwhile, Republicans stand for parents being involved in their kids’ education and protecting children from the left’s inappropriate agenda, whether it’s in the classroom or in the movies they watch. That’s a message that will prove successful in midterms and beyond.
Democrats are about to learn a lesson the hard way: Don’t mess with moms.
White House assisted living resident Slidin' Joe Biden’s poll numbers are triggering panic mode for some Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms, strategists said.
“It’s bad,” an anonymous Democratic strategist said. “You have an energy crisis that’s paralyzing and inflation is at a 40-year high and we’re heading into a recession. The problem is simple. The American people have lost confidence in him.”
“Everyone needs to come to terms with the reality that we’re going to get slaughtered in November,” the strategist reportedly continued. “That’s a fact. His polling has gotten worse not better. It’s indicative of the fact that people have lost confidence in his leadership. There’s nothing they’re going to be able to do.”
Chair of the Brookings Institutions governance study program and former domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, Bill Galston, said, “unless and until inflation comes down appreciably, that there’s going to be a ceiling on his job approval that’s a lot lower than the White House wants it to be.”
A recently released NBC News poll revealed Biden’s approval rating hit new lows amid the war in Ukraine and surging inflation.
Among those polled, 40% approved of Biden’s handling of the presidency, with just 16% strongly approving. The poll highlights growing concern about inflation and America’s role on the world stage. Fifty-three percent of respondents indicated that the U.S. is experiencing the beginning of a long-term decline.
Thirty-eight percent of respondents blamed Biden for surging inflation. The poll was conducted between March 18-22 among 1,000 adults, 790 of whom are registered voters. There was a 3.1% margin of error among respondents.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinions Strategy told NBC News that Biden and Democrats “are headed for a catastrophic election.”
“You cannot get down to the low 40s in presidential approval unless you have strained your own base,” McInturff reportedly said.
As we all have learned by now, women do not get pregnant and have babies—“birthing people” do. Women do not exclusively menstruate—both men and women have periods. And women do not nurse babies—“chestfeeders” do. But, so far at least, abortion is still exclusively a question of women’s health.
In May of 2021, Representative Cori Bush testified in a congressional hearing about maternal death among black women and babies. “Every day,” she tweeted, “Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain. My children almost became a statistic. I almost became a statistic.” But Bush, a radical socialist legislator who is sticking with “Defund the Police” as a mantra, was not using some arcane terminology in substituting “birthing person” for the usual “mother.” This substitution apparently reflects official U.S. government policy under the Biden administration, which used it in 2022 fiscal documents.
Tampon companies have also embraced the idea that their products are, potentially, for everyone. “Fact: Not all women have periods,” Tampax tweeted. “Also a fact: Not all people with periods are women. Let’s celebrate the diversity of all people who bleed!” The ACLU has embraced “menstrual equity” as a matter of civil rights, asking, “How can we recognize that barriers to menstrual access are a form of sex discrimination without erasing the lived experiences of trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, as well as women who don’t?” Numerous colleges have installed tampon machines in men’s bathrooms, too.
Breastfeeding has also emerged as a problematic concept, even though both men and women as they are traditionally defined have breast tissue, so the term “chestfeeding” has become a preferred term in some circles. A 2016 article from The Atlantic describes how a new birthing person from Manitoba called Trevor MacDonald “was born with the mammary glands and milk ducts required for lactation, but he’d had his breasts removed. Once he had his baby, his care providers supported his desire to nurse, but it was up to him figure out how.”
Sad story—to think that even Canada, with its up-to-date gender policies and universal healthcare, just leaves it up people who have voluntary double mastectomies to figure out how to chestfeed their babies all by themselves.
In any event, there doesn’t yet to be much talk about how abortion is for “all people who no longer wish to be birthing persons.” It isn’t cast as a men’s health question or a matter of universal consideration. When it comes to abortion, the debate is still framed—as it has been for 50 years—as a fundamental right for women.
NARAL, the nation’s biggest pro-abortion activist organization, came out solidly in favor of Cori Bush’s use of the term “birthing person,” but still uses the old binary terminology when it comes to ending that status. “When the right to abortion is endangered, the fundamental equality of women is threatened,” NARAL quaintly insists. “A woman can never be equal if she is denied the basic right to make decisions for herself and her family.”
Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. senate and president, is now looking to become governor of Texas. Commenting on the new Texas abortion ban, O’Rourke tweeted, “The Texas GOP’s attack on women is deadly. It is complicating life or death medical decisions by forcing women to carry out unviable, dangerous pregnancies.”
Obviously, abortion is an important partisan wedge issue which Democrats use to appeal to their base, which is largely female. So the narrative of a Handmaid’s Tale-style war of systematic Christofascist oppression of women by men is too valuable to obscure in favor of a less-resonant topic which only matters to a tiny subset of radicals and professional ideologues. So traditional biology retains its meaning when it’s necessary for political expediency.
But abortion is also so central to the American Left’s vision of human freedom that it’s virtually a sacrament. Any restriction on abortion, even up to the moment of parturition, is intolerable. Bill Clinton’s pronouncement that abortion should be “legal, safe, and rare” would, if said today, probably disqualify a Democrat from running for major office. Calling for fewer abortions is, for the Left, tantamount to calling for no abortions.
Abortion is such a profound disruption of nature and the essence of the divine feminine that it must be elevated to a position of high cultural esteem. To promote universally available abortion is to construct a new religion out of the rubble of the old, in its inverted image. As such, advocates for abortion must retain the biological determinism of woman as creatrix, but to cast her as the destroyer of life, not its bringer-forth, though equally holy.
As with any cult, abortionism demands new acolytes. So abortion must be advertised in cheerful, anodyne terms, like getting a pedicure or haircut, in order to attract initiates. Once the procedure is over, the novices confront the horror of ritual infanticide by entering the coven of their sisters and fellows and accepting the embrace of their dark knowledge, which must be shared and imparted to a new generation of recruits in order to expand the circle.
So don’t expect “aborting people” to enter the discourse anytime soon. The Left needs the deep currents of biological essentialism even while it denies them.
A grand jury witness was asked to identify the infamous "big guy" mentioned in discussions regarding a Chinese business deal involving the president's son Hunter Biden, according to a new report.
The question came up after this person, who was not identified, was shown a piece of evidence before the grand jury, located in Wilmington, Delaware, a source told the New York Post. The answer that was given was not reported, though some have claimed the "big guy" is President Joe Biden, raising the prospect that the commander in chief could be drawn into a federal criminal investigation. So far, the White House has been adamant in asserting that the president is not involved and that Hunter Biden, 52, did not commit any crimes.
The New York Post has led the charge in reporting on the contents of an abandoned laptop that is believed to have belonged to Hunter Biden. While other major media outlets sought to cast doubt on its authenticity and Big Tech companies even took steps to suppress its spread in the final weeks of the 2020 election, in recent weeks, the New York Times and Politico have come forth with reports saying at least some of the contents on the laptop have been authenticated.
At issue is one particular email, dated May 13, 2017, from investor James Gilliar to himself, Hunter Biden's business associate Rob Walker, and James and Hunter Biden detailing a "provisional" business deal with a Chinese company called CEFC. The email, in part, asked about “10 held by H for the big guy," as well as "10" for "Jim." It appears "H" is a reference to Hunter Biden, "Jim" is Joe Biden's brother, and "10" is a reference to 10%.
Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski, a Navy veteran, corroborated the authenticity of the email in October 2020 and insisted the "big guy" was then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. The Washington Post recently reported on "verified emails illuminating a deal Hunter Biden developed with a fast-growing Chinese energy conglomerate, CEFC China Energy, for which he was paid nearly $5 million, and other business relationships."
The elder Biden has distanced himself from his son's foreign business dealings. Over the weekend, a White House official claimed the president is certain his son did not break the law or do anything unethical as it relates to China.
“Of course the president is confident that his son didn’t break the law,” Ron Klain, the president’s chief of staff, said during an interview on ABC's This Week. “But most importantly, as I said, that’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process. It’s something that no one at the White House has involvement in.”
Hunter Biden revealed he was under federal investigation shortly after the 2020 election.
"I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs," Biden said in a December 2020 statement. "I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers.”
Eric Trump and Allen Weisselberg invoked their 5th Amendment rights more than 500 times in Trump Organization probe, court filing says
Be sure to let us know when any Biden takes the fifth to hide their crimes from investigators.
< not holding my breath >
"If you’re innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment?"
maybe it's to prevent a witch hunt extravaganza among the mass of liberals suffering from Trump Derangement syndrome
truth is, going on trial is expensive and intrusive even if you know you'll eventually be found innocent
are you saying you oppose the fifth amendment?
"Eric Trump and Allen Weisselberg invoked their 5th Amendment rights more than 500 times in Trump Organization probe, court filing says
Be sure to let us know when any Biden takes the fifth to hide their crimes from investigators."
Hunter and Jim are sure to
assisted living resident Slidin' Joe Biden will claim executive privilege
after all this time, with Federal and Congressional investigators as well every journalist in the world on the trail, all the liberals have come up with is that Trump may hae been a little too aggressive is some tax positions
Hunter and the "Big Man" are in much more serious crimes, compromising national security and affecting national policy for personal enrichment
Suspicions surrounding the identity of the "big guy" mentioned in a Hunter Biden email are ramping up, and author Peter Schweizer said Tuesday other members of the Biden family deserve to be scrutinized.
"This is a Biden family scandal, and it involves Joe Biden," Schweizer began. "The way to think about it is Hunter Biden, James Biden and the other family members who are profiting off of Joe Biden's position – they're kind of like moons circling a planet and that planet is Joe Biden."
Expanding on the metaphor, Schweizer went on to say President Biden's "gravitational pull," representative of his political power, allows other members of the Biden family to "cash in" and "leverage" this power to their benefit.
Referring to an email mentioned earlier in the segment, Schweizer ventured into addressing who "the big guy" could be.
"We know that the '10 percent for the big guy’ refers to Joe Biden. We know that Joe Biden was having some of his bills paid by his son when he was Vice President of the United States … [Hunter] was getting that money from overseas," he said.
"You can't say this is just a Hunter Biden financial scandal," he added. "Joe Biden is intimately involved."
"are you saying you oppose the fifth amendment?"
No, Trump said "the mob takes the Fifth Amendment.
"Did Trump Say ‘If You’re Innocent, Why Are You Taking the 5th Amendment?’
Claim
Former President Donald Trump said: "If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"
Origin
In December 2021, former U.S. Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and lawyer John Eastman appeared prepared to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights — based on the constitutional provision that specifies, in part, that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” — as they defied a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As this news circulated on social media, so did a quote from former U.S. President Donald Trump:
Steven Benen: "As Jeffrey Clarke prepared to plead the Fifth as part of the Jan. 6 investigation, I'm reminded of a Trump quote: "The mob takes the Fifth Amendment. If you are innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"
This is a genuine quote from Trump.
Trump made this remark during a September campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa during the 2016 presidential election campaign. At the time, Trump was attacking his political opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after some of her staff members took the Fifth Amendment while being questioned by the House Select Committee during their investigation into the 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi.
Trump said: “So there are five people taking the Fifth Amendment. Like you see on the mob, right? You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” "
"Hunter and Jim are sure to"
Maybe in your pea-brain, just like Huckabee, McCain and Romney were "sure to" be voted in as PUSA.
Uh huh.
You call Schweitzer reliable source?
Peter Schweizer is an elite Oxford graduate and a senior editor-at-large of a far-right media organization, Breitbart News, which is owned by had-to-be-pardoned-to-stay-out-of-jail Steve Bannon.
Wow!
You are way in on covering up a scandal of mammoth proportions.
It may be been even more serious than when Hillary defrauded the United States by paying a foreign agent to make up lies about the President colluding with Russia. Of course, that investigation is coming together, as well.
All in time for the November mid-terms.
It's a shame because everything has been going so well for the Dems until this Hunter thing broke.
ROFLandLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The last 14 months have offered one of the rare occasions in recent American history when the hard Left has operated all the levers of federal government. The presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the permanent bureaucratic state are all in progressive hands. And the result is a disaster that is uniting Americans in their revulsion of elitists whose crazy ideas are tearing apart the fabric of the country.
For understandable reasons, socialists and leftists are usually kept out of the inner circles of the Democratic Party, and especially kept away from control of the country. A now resuscitated Bernie Sanders for most of his political career was an inert outlier. The brief flirtations with old-style hardcore liberals such as George McGovern in 1972 and Mike Dukakis in 1988 imploded the Democratic Party. Their crash-and-burn campaigns were followed by corrective nominees who actually won the presidency: Southern governors Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Such was the nation’s innate distrust of the Left, and in particular the East Coast elite liberal. For nearly half a century between the elections of John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, it was assumed that no Democratic presidential candidate could win the popular vote unless he had a reassuring Southern accent.
How did the extreme Left manage its rare takeover of the country between 2018 and 2020? Certainly, Obama’s election helped accelerate the woke movement and energized identity politics. One could also argue over the political opportunities in 2020 following the devastation of COVID-19.
In the long term, the medicine of lockdowns and quarantines probably proved more calamitous than the disease, and this crisis mode made doable what had once been unimaginable. State governors such as Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and Andrew Cuomo did not let the pandemic crisis go to waste. It was a rare occasion to leverage agendas that otherwise had no public support in ordinary times.
In the chaos of 2020, both laws and customs were altered or scrapped—changing the very way we vote. Over 102 million ballots were either mailed in or cast during so-called “early voting”—strangely resulting in far lower rejection rates in most states than in past “normal” years of predominantly in-person voting on Election Day. Indeed, in just one year, Election Day went from an American institution to an afterthought.
The hatred of Donald Trump prompted an influx of hundreds of millions of dark dollars from Silicon Valley to supplant the responsibilities of registrars in key precincts with armies of paid activists. A non compos mentis, basement-bound Joe Biden was cynically given an “Ol’ Joe from Scranton” moderate veneer to pursue a calibrated hard-Left agenda.
So Americans ended up with a neo-socialist government. It is proving as disastrous as it is bitterly instructive—reminding this generation of Americans what the Left does when it grasps power. As all restraints came off, the hard and now unbridled Left went to work to turn America into something like a looney, one-party California. A wide-open border followed. We may see 3 million illegal aliens cross at the southern border during the first 18 months of the Biden Administration. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been allotted to reward those illegally entering America, who can expect free legal support from the U.S. government to ensure they are not subject to the laws of the United States.
In a sane world, Biden would have been impeached for deliberately destroying the very federal laws he swore to uphold. On the prompt of his hard Left controllers, he was eager to alter the electoral demography of the nation rather than ensure immigrants came in reasonable numbers, legally, with audit and background checks, and safely in a time of a pandemic. The former illegal arrivals were seen as needed constituents, the latter legal immigrants too politically unpredictable.
The Left in about a year has negated American gas and oil independence. Biden, who promised to end America’s use of fossil fuels on his watch, cast adrift millions of his fellow citizens to choose between driving and eating. Much of what the Left had traditionally demonized and wanted gone from American life—from gasoline to beefsteak to new pickup trucks—became so inflated in price as to be nearly unattainable.
The electrician now pays five times more for his wire, the carpenter eight times more for his plywood, the plumber six times more for his pipe—as all three have to pay off-the-books cash for rare workers who prefer to get checks from the Biden Administration. The Biden printing press has destroyed both the idea that all citizens will work if there are just good-paying jobs, and that affordable necessities for life—food, fuel, and shelter—form the basis for a middle-class life.
If the Left did all that in 14 months, imagine what it can still do before losing the Congress in 2022.
The Biden Administration’s profligate multitrillion-dollar budget, inflation of the currency, de facto zero interest rates, destructive subsidies that undermined labor participation, and incompetence at addressing the supply-chain and clogged port crises will all by midyear likely achieve a 10 percent annualized inflation rate. Carter-era stagflation is on the near horizon.
When an American president predicts a food shortage in what used to be the breadbasket of the world, then we see the wages of socialism in all their unapologetic cruelty. When the Left can scarcely hide its glee that diesel fuel hit $7 a gallon in California, the public is finally seeing that the Bidens, Newsoms, and AOCs of the world care nothing for the real-life consequences of their elite utopian green fantasies. How did America ever stoop to begging communist Venezuela, theocratic Iran, and dictatorial Russia to pump oil for us that we have in abundance but will not produce? Which insane person thought up the idea of using Vladimir Putin’s Russia as our mediator to restart the Iran Deal?
The now unfettered woke revolution seeks to Trotskyize American history and its heroes. A disastrous foreign policy of appeasement has ended U.S. deterrence. After the worst military humiliation in 50 years in Afghanistan, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all seek to capitalize on a rare American Phaethon moment. The world’s superpower has turned over the reins of its deterrence chariot to a ninny and his gurus. And before crashing the country, they aimlessly rebound from one self-created crisis to the next self-induced disaster.
Aside from the dismal left-wing political record, the public has also witnessed an unapologetically leftwing federal bureaucracy now completely unbound. Our top echelon of the administrative state is defiant in its weaponized assumption of legislative, executive, and judicial powers.
We are learning that the likes of Anthony Fauci have all but destroyed the reputation of once time-honored federal health agencies. In their contradictions, about-faces, and deceit, they focused mostly on controlling their multibillion-dollar public fiefdoms, hounding critics, rewarding sycophants, politicizing “science,” hiding culpability about routing money to lunatic gain-of-function research in China, and marginalizing outspoken voices of audit.
The military apparat after Afghanistan—defined as woke Pentagon functionaries, revolving door and politically weaponized corporate generals, and outspoken politicos—managed the impossible: a once revered military now cannot even win a 50 percent vote of confidence from the American public.
The intelligence agencies are worse. Former kingpins such as John Brennan and James Clapper, both pundits for hire on leftwing cable networks, lied under oath before Congress without consequences. When 50 retired intelligence officials during the Biden 2020 campaign claimed publicly that Hunter’s laptop was likely a Russian plot, what then is left of any semblance of nonpartisan professionalism and integrity?
James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Christopher Wray have all eroded the reputation of the FBI by fueling the Russian collusion hoax, the Alfa Bank hoax, and the Hunter laptop disinformation hoax. Since when does the FBI go after journalists in their underwear or moms and dads at school board meetings, as if it is now an extension of the teacher union or DNC?
Along with Robert Mueller—who claimed no knowledge of either the Steele dossier or Fusion GPS—the Washington FBI hierarchy did to the agency what Lois Lerner infamously did to the IRS. Just as Lerner became an extension of the Obama 2012 reelection effort and corrupted tax law, so the FBI descended into becoming the wayward Biden family’s retrieval service—eager to keep quiet Hunter’s incriminating laptop and to rescue Ashley Biden’s lurid diary.
When the evidence becomes overwhelming that the collusionary media lied about the laptop or the origins of COVID-19, there is never a retraction, only a Soviet-style silence about past untruth. And then it is on to the next false narrative.
Add in the conduct of FBI luminaries such as the forger Kevin Clinesmith, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok, who preferred to investigate conservatives rather than enemies of the nation. What characterizes, then, our once revered intelligence agencies is not just institutionalized mediocracy. Rather it is a dangerous zeal to enact by fiat politicized agendas that cannot otherwise be ratified by a legislative vote—all with the expectation that these sanctified agents of political change are above the law and will be rewarded accordingly.
Americans had tuned out many of our major institutions that are now openly hostile to American exceptionalism. In their nihilism, leftists seek to destroy the very organizations they absorbed.
Professional sports? Multimillionaire basketball players are more likely to refuse to salute their own flag than to say a word of dissent to their autocratic and often ethnocentric Chinese paymasters.
Higher education? A Yale law school dean contextualizes the loud disruption of free speech by leftist law students at a conference. Only that way can she ensure that rules about open expression remain theoretical, and not real for the woke.
Entertainment? Hiring, promotions, and awards are now based as much on race, gender, and sexual identity as on merit.
Forty years ago, face slapper Will Smith would likely have been removed from the Oscar ceremonies for rudely shouting and interrupting the worldwide show. Twenty years ago, he might still have been rebuked for profanity and yelling the F-word in a live televised event. Now he is neither arrested nor even removed for physically assaulting comedian Chris Rock. His belated contrition is belied by his refusal to leave the ceremony and to go dancing and partying into the post-assault wee hours. Will there be open brawling on stage next year?
The Left got what it wanted and now controls academia, the media, the internet, K-12 education, corporate boardrooms, the Pentagon, Wall Street, and Hollywood. And they more or less have turned each of these into versions of Pravda. The sermons, arrogance, and narcissism of these woke cultural imperialists now explain why they are disliked as much abroad as they are at home.
In sum, we are watching a rare laboratory experiment in which the traditional American fringe is now in control of the government. In pursuit of its utopian omelet, the Left cares little about the millions of middle-class Americans it must break to make it. The result is an unmitigated disaster that not only has tarred the Democratic Party, corrupted once-revered agencies, and alienated half the country from our cultural institutions, but now endangers the very health and security of the United States.
Amid the national backlash over Critical Race Theory, gender theory, and other radical political and social doctrines being peddled in K-12 classrooms, parents are sounding the alarm over a new “variant” of left-wing instructional dogma: “social-emotional learning,” or SEL. While the term sounds innocuous enough, mounting evidence suggests that SEL curriculum is often simply a rebranding of the same dangerous and divisive ideologies that have dominated education headlines in recent months.
If you ask proponents of the concept, they’ll tell you that SEL is all about helping students grow into well-rounded adults who can manage their emotions and interpersonal relationships. Casel, one of the leading organizations that sells SEL programming to schools, defines it as “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”
Much of the terminology that advocates of the doctrine use to promote SEL is drawn from the mental health field. The assertion is that when students are confident in themselves and their identities, they perform better in the classroom. As the Washington Post explained in a recent feature piece on SEL, “social-emotional learning seeks to treat children as human beings with feelings, life goals and even traumas, not just students learning to write essays and solve math problems.”
But while those words sound admirable enough, they’re noticeably lacking any specifics about what SEL learning actually looks like in practice. Does traditional education not “treat children as human beings” or help them achieve “personal and collective goals”?
A closer look at the details of SEL programming reveals some striking similarities with CRT and gender theory-inspired lesson plans that are popping up and causing controversy in school districts around the country. Casel boasts that its lessons will teach students “equity” through an approach known as “transformative SEL,” which explicitly promotes “issues of culture, identity, agency, belonging, and engagement” – all progressive buzzwords. Panorama, another company that provides SEL curriculum to nearly 1,500 school districts, encourages students to “adopt an anti-racist framing” and explicitly promotes SEL “as a vehicle for equity.”
School boards, administrators, and activist-minded teachers have clearly picked up on the cue. In Maryland, one “social-emotional learning” survey asked elementary students to answer the question “how do you feel when you see two men kissing?” Another social-emotional learning program used in a Connecticut school district encouraged first graders to question the sex they were assigned at birth. In Wisconsin, a SEL curriculum from Casel explicitly named “social justice” as its main goal and provided “five tips for your first time [having sex]” to 13 and 14-year-old students. A Virginia district’s SEL training urged teachers to “make your ally status known by hanging a rainbow flag, sharing your own pronouns and/or supporting the school’s LGBTQ groups.”
And despite what SEL advocates have promised, students’ academic performance is getting worse, not better, as more and more of their school day is consumed by learning the tenets of progressivism rather than core subjects like reading and math. One teacher and parent of a student at Harper’s Choice Middle School in Columbia, Maryland, for example, reported that her daughter’s math teacher used half of each class to discuss Black Lives Matter and “equity.” As a result, the class skipped an entire unit of algebra because they “didn’t have time.”
Broad patterns in education data from recent years don’t back up claims of improved student performance, either. A comprehensive analysis from the RAND Institute found scant evidence that SEL programming provides any academic, social, or emotional benefits. Even as SEL becomes ubiquitous in thousands of school districts throughout the country, American students continue to lag behind their international peers in key metrics, while their scores on standardized math and reading tests continue to decline.
Teachers who aren’t on board with this new woke agenda have often been pressured into silence and even threatened by coworkers and administrators pushing the curriculum. One veteran teacher from Northern Virginia who is a self-described Christian and a conservative explained how SEL has been installed in schools. As this educator described, the creeping influence of SEL in recent years has moved from “optional” lesson plans sold as making teachers’ lives “easier” to mandatory instruction in gender theory and other left-wing constructs.
In one such instance, students were given an extensive survey that asked middle schoolers questions like “How do you feel about your gender?” and “Where do you consider yourself on the gender spectrum?” Parents weren’t informed about the survey, and teachers weren’t told what the district intended to do with the information. “They are trying to mine the emotions of our children and use that information to manipulate them,” the teacher from Northern Virginia explained. “There is an agenda to grab our kids’ souls.”
Some parents have realized the danger posed by SEL programming and pushed back against its implementation in their school districts. Much like Critical Race Theory and now gender theory, SEL is being exposed as another effort by progressive activists to infiltrate schools under the guise of “improving” education.
Nonetheless, SEL remains big business for the activists and corporate interests that back it. According to a recent study from the Tyton partners, school districts doled out $765 million between November 2019 and April 2021 for SEL programming. Notably, much of this funding came from massive stimulus packages passed by Congress which Democrats promised were to get kids back in classrooms. Instead, it seems that school boards and administrators often used the money to double down on their political indoctrination efforts.
Even after significant victories and clear evidence that parents are fed up with politicized education, it appears that the battle to restore integrity to classroom instruction is far from over. In the coming weeks and months, it may well be that social-emotional learning becomes the next front in the culture war, as parents of all backgrounds and political persuasions continue to organize around efforts to demand greater oversight and hold schools accountable for what they teach.
From his Inaugural Address to the State of the Union, President Biden has argued that he is a consensus builder. But looking at his key appointments shows the only consensus the president is building is between the Left and the far Left.
The Biden administration and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are pressing hard to force a vote on two of the most extreme nominees ever to face Senate confirmation. Alvaro Bedoya nominated to sit on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Gigi Sohn nominated to sit on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), recently advanced through the committee process on a tied committee vote.
Both the FCC and FTC wield incredible power; each possessing the capacity to cripple the free enterprise system. And both nominees were tapped to lead these agencies precisely because they are well-known activists who seek to expand the power of unelected bureaucrats over the private sector.
Bedoya’s nomination is particularly concerning because the FTC determines whether businesses are free to innovate or get stuck in government red tape. Bedoya's track record shows that much likeLina Kahn, the FTC's chair, he will push for the government to involve itself in transactions and areas outside the government's constitutional purview.
A consistent thread of extremist activism runs through Bedoya’s career, including his fellowship in a George Soros-backed program and deeply controversial and hyper-partisan positions. Bedoya’s academic work has routinely opposed ICE deportation efforts. “It is time to call ICE what it is: An out-of-control domestic surveillance agency that peers into all our lives,” he tweeted in 2020. Criticized for denying the importance of border security, Bedoya attempted to explain away his tweets as "rhetoric."
Either the nominee is lying to grab a far-left Twitter following, or he doesn’t believe that the United States should even have a border. While this would not be his area of oversight, his vote on the FTC would be responsible for regulations and litigation impacting virtually every economic transaction in America.
Bedoya also routinely takes provocative stances on things outside his expertise. In one instance, here tweeted Joy Reid calling President Trump a white supremacist , he also compared the Republican convention to white supremacist rally and another tweet advocating for aspects of critical race theory. While he tried to backtrack and apologize for some of his heated rhetoric during the confirmation process, his rhetoric over the years shows a vocal activist unsuited for a role like the FTC. Sen. Ted Cruz called him“a provocateur, a bomb-thrower” while Sen. Roger Wicker expressed concern about the “the frequency with which he has publicly expressed divisive views on policy matters.”
For her part, Sohn's past remarks show a censorious hostility toward conservative viewpoints. "For all my concerns about#Facebook, I believe that Fox News has had the most negative impact on our democracy,” she tweeted in 2020, adding, “It's state-sponsored propaganda, with few if any opposing viewpoints." If confirmed, she could make good on her past calls to target Fox News with perpetual investigations or drag its senior leadership before a congressional Star Chamber.
Even more alarming is Sohn's demand that the FCC aggressively police broadcast companies and her backing of a petition that would allow the government to censor free speech. She even tweeted, "I say that @FCC should look at whether Sinclair [Broadcasting] is qualified to be a broadcast licensee at all." In her new role, Sohn would have a free hand at dismantling the First Amendment rights to which she has demonstrated such hostility.
Additionally, and incredibly even worse in many respects, Sohn previously sat on the board of Locast, a company that essentially pirates TV content and makes it available for free. Shockingly, she defended the company’s actions, saying, "I thought this was, from a public interest, pro-consumer perspective, I thought this was good."
Her assertion that stealing other people’s property and rebroadcasting was “good” is a window into her belief system that others’ work and property is hers to control. This stance is disqualifying by itself. But she went even further by misleading senators during her hearing about the company’s piracy settlement with TV providers.
The Senate should perform their Constitutional role by rejecting the nominations of these two extremists who are appointed to positions that significantly impact the future of the U.S. economy. The president has a right to nominate anyone he wants, but the Senate’s job is to withhold its confirmation when a nominee is too extreme. Sohn and Bedoya fit this description – particularly as their jobs impact the American economy – and should be rejected.
Here in the British isles we don't tolerate the rubbish the Americans do from buggerers. We bloody well support British women. Our most wealthy commoner woman, Ms. Rowling, supports gender and our Prime Minister stands up for the right of British ladies to have their own sports and private loos, safe from delusional males who think they are something they're not!
Jolly good show!
Transgender women should not be competing in female sporting events, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told broadcasters on Wednesday.
Johnson was speaking as the country looked set to abandon plans to hold a flagship conference designed to promote LGBT+ rights around the world.
Charities and organisations are boycotting the event following a dispute over conversion therapy for transgender people.
"I don't think biological males should be competing in female sporting events. Maybe that's a controversial thing to say, but it just seems to me to be sensible," Johnson said.
"I also happen to think that women should have spaces — whether it's in hospitals, prison or changing rooms — which are dedicated to women. That's as far as my thinking has developed on this issue.
"If that puts me in conflict with some others, then we have got to work it all out."
Transgender "rights" has become a hot talking point as sports seek to ensure there is no unfair advantage.
Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges was ruled out of Britain's National Omnium Championships last weekend after the sport's governing body, the UCI, ruled she was ineligible.
British Cycling had cleared Bridges to take part under their "Transgender and Non-Binary Participation policy".
New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics Games in Tokyo last year.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas last month became the first transgender National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion in Division I history after winning the women's 500-yard freestyle.
Thomas competed on Pennsylvania's men's team for three years before transitioning and setting multiple programme records with the women's team, but her eligibility has come under considerable scrutiny.
Last month, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds surrounded herself with members of the conservative parents-rights group Moms for Liberty when she signed a bill that outlawed transgender students from playing girls’ sports.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis invited a member of the group to stand alongside him weeks later as he signed a bill that allows parents more say in public school teaching materials.
Just over a year ago, Moms for Liberty formed with a few parents upset over their school districts' COVID-19 mask mandates and raced-based equity initiatives. The group has since grown in size and influence, and become a fulcrum for culture war issues that dovetail with education.
Moms for Liberty now has 80,000 members in 34 states. Its leaders are looking to move beyond local school-board tussles and become a force in bigger political battles.
A CNN poll in February found that 46% of voters, including about half of parents with children younger than age 18, said education will be extremely important to their vote for Congress in this year's midterms.
Former Trump administration official Ian Prior, who has launched a separate parents' rights group in Virginia, says the movement could form the “biggest single-issue bloc of voters” in the country and potentially attract Democrats and independents.
“We see this as the highest energy (among Republicans) since the Tea Party,” said Noah Weinrich, a spokesperson for Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
The Tea Party, a grassroots movement born of the financial crisis of 2007-08 and opposition to Obamacare, helped steer Republican politics in a more populist direction in the 2010 midterms and beyond.
The Republicans embracing Moms for Liberty's activism are following the lead of Glenn Youngkin, who used education and cultural issues to propel himself to a stunning victory in the Virginia governor’s race last year.
DeSantis and others are taking Youngkin’s approach a step further by partnering with Moms for Liberty on policy and affiliating themselves with the movement’s goals. In March, DeSantis named a member of the group, Esther Byrd, to Florida's Board of Education.
As the group’s profile has grown, so has the rage from liberals. Teachers’ unions, school board organizations and Democrats say the movement promotes disruptive public behavior, anti-gay and trans ideologies, and book bans.
The National Education Association, a top teacher’s union, says the group is "working to impose a dangerous agenda."
But some Democrats warn their party cannot afford to take the Republican push on education lightly, saying parents remain deeply frustrated in the wake of the pandemic and will support candidates they feel are listening to them.
“Our party has lost significant support as the party that focuses on students,” said Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform, an advocacy group that works with state and federal candidates on education issues.
In February, more than 100 Moms for Liberty activists descended upon the Florida legislature in Tallahassee.
They were advocating for the measure giving parents greater input in school curriculum, as well as what critics nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits classroom instruction for young children on gender and sexuality issues.
Both bills passed, and DeSantis signed them into law.
The latter bill's sponsor, Representative Joe Harding, said Moms for Liberty members effectively warned lawmakers who opposed it that they would be "held accountable” in their districts.
"They were a huge encouragement to me,” said Harding, a Republican who spoke at a dinner organized by the group.
Tina Descovich, a co-founder of the group, said "Moms for Liberty is concerned about anyone that is opposed to a bill protecting children . . . from sexual content."
Moms for Liberty members also lobbied lawmakers in states including South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, New York and Ohio. The group says it plans to hire a series of paid state coordinators, who will organize local chapters into a more cohesive political force and engage with legislators, as well as a Hispanic outreach expert.
Descovich said the group will endorse candidates for local school boards this year, not in state and federal races. But it will press candidates at every level to embrace its priorities ahead of the midterms, she said.
"Mama Bears and Papa Bears are engaged like never before to reclaim our schools from power-hungry bureaucrats and the radical left," Soldano tweeted after the March 21 meeting.
Moms for Liberty has formed three federal PACs and one Florida state PAC to eventually support candidates and causes. According to federal and state records, the committees have received no contributions and made no expenditures. Ultimately, the PACs "can be a tool in our toolbox," Descovich said.
"We are making a difference. I don’t see an end in sight,” said Alexis Spiegelman, who helped organize the group's legislative efforts in Florida. “You can’t manufacture what’s going on here.”
the gay agenda is stuck in the quicksand and can't get out of it
According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, more than three-quarters of Republicans (76%) support Florida’s controversial new “Don’t Say Gay” measure, which seeks to silence any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public elementary school classrooms by allowing parents to sue if they believe teachers have broached those subjects.
Widespread support for the law among Republicans is not surprising given that it was Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who championed it and Florida’s Republican Legislature that passed it.
What may be more unexpected is that the new survey of 1,618 U.S. adults, which was conducted from March 31 to April 4, found that nearly a quarter of Democrats (24%) also think it should be “illegal” for “teachers or other school personnel to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity when teaching children in kindergarten through grade three,” despite weeks of objections and outrage from party leaders and activists.
At the same time, another 24% of Democrats say they’re “not sure” how they feel — leaving only about half (52%) in explicit opposition.
In contrast, just 1 in 10 Republicans opposes the ban.
The resulting imbalance — with conservatives united in their support and liberals largely divided — helps explain why the GOP is leaning into the “Don’t Say Gay” debate as it seeks to rally its base and drive a wedge between Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
It also explains why Democrats may struggle to respond. Overall, just 27% of Americans say discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity should be “legal” in K-3 classrooms — while nearly half (49% for sexual orientation, 48% for gender identity) say they should be “illegal.”
It's time for a reality check. If you take a confidential survey of environmentalists, the candid ones will admit that the Obama administration was a great disappointment when it came to "climate change "and moving the country to “green” energy. Despite promising on election night in 2008 that the sea levels would stop rising because he’d deliver green nirvana, the Obama years saw the massive reversal in America’s long decline in domestic oil production, as the fracking revolution took Washington by surprise.
Obama was an ideologue, but he wasn’t stupid. After the financial crash of 2008 and the slow-growth recovery that followed, the oil and gas sector was about the only sector that boomed aside from Wall Street. He likely knew that without the resurgence of oil and gas, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, he likely would have lost his re-election bid in 2012. Ironically the hated fracking revolution led in the U.S. to the largest decrease in carbon emissions anywhere in the world, as suddenly cheap natural gas outcompeted coal in the marketplace—all without a signing ceremony on the White House lawn.
In sum, the political agenda of the climate campaign largely ground to a halt during the Obama years. Ambitious new legislation stalled out on Capitol Hill despite large Democratic majorities before the 2010 election, and Obama’s regulatory strategy—the so-called “Clean Power Plan”—was blocked in court. The Paris Climate Accord was so weak that the founding father of climate alarmism, NASA’s James Hansen, called it a “bull----” agreement. The only exception to this litany of disappointment was lavish and solar subsidies, which both parties in Congress love to expand, even though they generate meager amounts of energy. By the time he left office, Obama was embracing an “all of the above” energy strategy that implicitly recognized the long-term necessity for fossil fuel energy.
Joe Biden took office apparently after gulping extra helpings of climate Kool-Aid, determined to strangle fossil fuels more seriously than Obama ever did. Halting the Keystone XL pipeline in mid-construction was an unprecedented step. It is one thing to block a permit application for a project, but a president had never before stopped a private sector construction project that was already under way. And while the administration lacks the power to halt fracking in private or state land, proposed new regulations for “fugitive emissions” of methane could significantly hobble fracking activity, which is the intent. The administration is slow-walking permits for oil and gas production on federal lands, and expanding its regulatory chokepoints for oil and gas production finance.
Once again reality has intruded upon the climate fanatics’ green dreams, in the form of energy shortages and price spikes, but most especially the Ukraine crisis which has revealed the folly of dependency on despotic regimes for oil and gas. Even irresponsible governments, which are most of them, have turned on a dime. Germany has abruptly reversed course on its Energiewende (green energy revolution) by making plans to keep coal-fired electricity sources online longer, while France is going to expand its nuclear power capacity and Britain is going to relax its hostility to fracking for natural gas. (According to one recent estimate, one-quarter of British households will be unable to afford their skyrocketing energy costs by the fall.)
Here in the United States, coal production was rising even before the Ukraine crisis, after falling during the Trump administration, because the price of natural gas has been rising. The limits of “green” energy are starting to bite hard, such as in California, which now has retail electricity rates twice the national average.
By far the most embarrassing news for the climate campaigners in the U.S. is the news that the Tennessee Valley Authority, the electric utility for the southeastern U.S. that is an appendage of the federal government, has decided to invest heavily in new natural gas generation rather than wind and solar power.
The TVA decision makes clear what every serious energy analyst knows—that even large amounts of solar and wind power require significant natural gas backup capacity to secure electric grid reliability. The Agency knows that you can’t replace old coal power plants with windmills and solar panels alone, despite what the green energy fanatics say. But that’s not the end of the reality check. The Times also notes:
It marks the second time in recent months that a federal entity has clashed with Mr. Biden’s climate agenda. The United States Postal Service is replacing 165,000 aging mail trucks with mostly gasoline-powered vehicles, despite the desire of the White House and leading Democrats to convert the fleet to all-electric vehicles.
The Times isn't alone in noticing these anomalies. Bloomberg Green blasted the headline, "Biden Embraces Oil as Ukraine War Overwhelms His Climate Agenda." This is more than a simple case of hypocrisy being the tribute that vice pays to virtue, or just as embarrassment to the Biden White House. The failure of federal government entities to conform to the climate crusade ought to be a clear sign to private sector utilities, traditional energy producers, and state regulators charged with electric grid stability that we have reached the limits of energy nonsense.
Since 2018, Stacey Abrams has been running around the country telling everyone to stop the steal! She says the election was stolen from her and is trying to push legislation to stop it from happening again.
Of course, when Donald Trump does that, he's a threat to democracy. Abrams is adored and enriched!
Just imagine how miserable Stacey Abrams would be right now if she had actually won the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race. By now, she’d be just another failed governor who couldn’t keep her ridiculous promises. Her potential would’ve been squandered. Instead, her political ambitions remain unrealized, but she has the consolation of being rich and famous.
Abrams really has the best of both worlds these days. She bears none of the responsibility of elected office, yet she gets to bask in the glory of all the things she would’ve done if those dirty Republicans hadn’t stolen the election from her. She even gets to be on Star Trek. It’s a pretty sweet deal.
But she still has her critics. Witness the rampant racism and sexism in the United States of America. Jeff Amy, Associated Press:
When Democrat Stacey Abrams first ran for Georgia governor in 2018, her lackluster personal finances and a hefty bill from the IRS gave Republicans fodder to question how she could manage a state budget when she struggled with her own debts.
As she launches a second bid this year, that’s no longer an issue.
Abrams now says she’s worth $3.17 million, according to state disclosures filed in March. That’s compared with a net worth of $109,000 when she first ran four years ago.
Abrams is worth literally 30 times more than she was four years ago. Losing is the new winning!
I applaud Stacey Abrams’ newfound fame and financial success, especially if the alternative would’ve been to put her in elected office. If a bunch of dimwits want to cheer her on because she lost, that’s none of my concern.
Now I look forward to Abrams painting herself as a victim yet again. Sure, she’s a millionaire who is worshipped by libs wherever she goes, but some people still oppose her. What’s up with that? Can’t a black woman lose an election in America without somebody making fun of her for whining about it?
Let’s hope she loses again so she can really get rich. You go, girl!
On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives held a vote for a simple, non-binding resolution expressing support for NATO and calling on President Joe Biden to strengthen the organization's commitment to defending democracy. All the Democrats and two-thirds of the Republicans voted for it.
63 Republicans voted against it.
This was the most anodyne resolution under the circumstances you could possibly come up with. This isn't like Kosovo when they were voting on whether to authorize airstrikes, it was a purely symbolic statement to back the NATO allies which are bearing a huge burden of taking refugees and a statement of support for NATO's "founding democratic principles" citing the threat of "authoritarian regimes" and "internal threats from proponents of illiberalism."
If you look at that list of the Republicans who voted against this resolution, nearly one-third of the caucus, you'll see that it includes the usual Trumpist suspects and a few more we might not have known was in that faction. Considering all the kind words Trump himself has had to say about Putin ever since he began the invasion, it's obvious this is where the Trump base is on this issue. And it seems to be growing in Congress.
And this wasn't the first House vote that made that clear — although it did garner more votes than any of the previous ones. The first vote on March 2nd was a resolution urging sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine for which all of the Democrats, even the true blue anti-war lefties, voted. Only three Republicans declined to support it: Matt Rosendale, R-Mt., Thomas Massie, R- Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Az.
Two weeks later on March 9th, the House voted to suspend oil and gas imports from Russia. Two Democrats voted against it as did 15 Republicans. On March 17, the House passed a bill to end favorable trade relations with Russia and Belarus and eight Republicans voted against it. All of the Democrats voted yes.
Meanwhile, members of this faction are busy proposing legislation of their own, which explains their objections to the aforementioned resolutions and bills. North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Arizona's Gosar want to prohibit the military from deploying any more troops in support of Ukraine in Europe than are stationed at the Mexican border. 10 more Republicans want to bar the delivery of military aid to Ukraine until the border wall is completed. I think it's only a matter of time before they propose an invasion of Mexico along the lines of Putin's incursion into Ukraine.
"The GOP is truly Putin's party"
quite a statement
looks like TTFers can't do math any better than they spell
more concerned with gender identity in kindergarten than readin', writin' and rithematic I guess
LOL
let's take a look:
"On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives held a vote for a simple, non-binding resolution expressing support for NATO and calling on President Joe Biden to strengthen the organization's commitment to defending democracy. All the Democrats and two-thirds of the Republicans voted for it."
OK, so more than two=thirds of the GOP voted for the bill and that makes the GOP "truly Putin's party"?
I guess you think Stacey Abrams won too!
LOL!
"And this wasn't the first House vote that made that clear — although it did garner more votes than any of the previous ones. The first vote on March 2nd was a resolution urging sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine for which all of the Democrats, even the true blue anti-war lefties, voted. Only three Republicans declined to support it: Matt Rosendale, R-Mt., Thomas Massie, R- Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Az."
ROFL!
so, now 3 votes makes the GOP "truly Putin's party"?
"Two weeks later on March 9th, the House voted to suspend oil and gas imports from Russia. Two Democrats voted against it as did 15 Republicans. On March 17, the House passed a bill to end favorable trade relations with Russia and Belarus and eight Republicans voted against it. All of the Democrats voted yes."
in both those instances, there were reasonable cases to make either way
I think the House did the right thing, but one might argue that the sanctions hurt us
especially since our non compos mentis President has created a situation where we are no longer energy independent like we were under our last President
btw, three votes makes the GOP "truly Putin's party" but two Dems votes don't make the jackass party "truly Putin's party"?
it's that new TTF math
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
once a generation, Americans give super liberal progressive Dems a chance to put up or shut up
well, they haven't put up
the voters will shut them up
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Republicans are registering formerly Democratic voters at four times the rate that Democrats are making the reverse conversion in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a warning sign for Democrats as they try to keep control of the U.S. Congress.
The Republican gains in Pennsylvania, home to a critical U.S. Senate race, follow a pattern seen in other states that could have competitive contests in November's elections, as high levels of disapproval with President Joe Biden's handling of his job are helping narrow the long-held advantage held by Democrats in numbers of registered voters.
"I just got fed up and just felt like there has to be a better way," said Beth Jones, 48, a retired Philadelphia police officer who last month registered as a Republican, ending her three-decade affiliation with the Democratic Party.
Similar to other recent converts interviewed by Reuters, Jones cited concerns about inflation and violent crime in making the switch.
Reuters examined registration data in six states that could see tight U.S. Senate races in November and which generally require voters to be members of a party to participate in nominating contests. While each state tracks voter registration differently, the review pointed to Republican gains in four of those states, and no substantial difference in two of them.
If Republicans retake control of either of both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, that will give them the power to bring Biden's legislative agenda to a halt.
No surprise here:
Arizona AG report finds no evidence of mass fraud in Maricopa County 2020 election results
Congratulations to Supreme Court Justice Jackson!!
"Proud to be an American on this historic day!
Congratulations to Supreme Court Justice Jackson!!"
oh me gursh!
we've already had black SC Justices and women as well
glad you're proud to be an American but there is nothing particularly historic about today
and while Jackson seems like a nice lady, there were black females available who had a better grasp on constitutional issues
btw, all three liberal nuts on the SC are now women
don't you think there should be at least one male liberal nut?
Angrily parroting other Republicans, Graham attacked Jackson as she outlined her concerns with the federal sentencing guidelines for child pornography possession and distribution. When Jackson explained that the guidelines could result in 50 years of confinement for 15 minutes spent on a computer, Graham shot back, "Good! Good. Absolutely, good. I hope you go to jail for 50 years if you are on the Internet trolling for images of children…"
Graham announced he would vote against Jackson's confirmation in part because of "her flawed sentencing methodology regarding child pornography cases." On the morning of the Senate's historic vote on Jackson's nomination, Graham joined other Republicans in a press conference to again complain about her sentencing record for child pornography convictions. He followed up by casting a no vote from a cloakroom instead of the Senate floor.
But is Graham truly concerned about perceived light child pornography sentences, or was this just manufactured outrage? It is a valid question, because his record on oversight of the military justice system tells a completely different story. Graham has tremendous influence over the military's criminal justice system: He was an integral part of it as an Air Force uniformed lawyer with more than 30 years serving as a judge advocate, and he has also long served in Congress, including time on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
An examination of Graham's Air Force service, which included time as prosecutor and appellate judge, demonstrates that he maintained close ties with the most senior members of the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps. That's important because one would therefore expect Graham to be intimately aware of how the military punishes child pornography offenders, in particular those in the Air Force. One would also expect that if Graham did not like the comparatively short sentences such offenders receive in the military (which are typically much lighter than the ones handed down by Judge Jackson), he would have done something about it — for example, propose legislation to create mandatory minimums for those convicted of child pornography in the military. He did not.
The federal system has used sentencing guidelines for the last 35 years, but the military has no such guidelines. And while Congress has finally mandated using sentencing parameters in the military, they won't go into effect for another two years. Moreover, like almost all crimes in the military, child pornography offenses have no minimum sentencing requirements and include "no punishment" as an authorized sentence for even the production of child pornography. And, contrary to the federal system, no detailed pre-sentencing report is provided to a judge in military cases. Such reports are critical for judges in determining the severity of an offense and the recidivism risk of defendants.
As a result of these procedural deficiencies — ones that Graham could have worked to fix — military sentences skew extremely light. For example, a review of the Air Force's court-martial results since January 2021 show the average airman received less than 10 months for possession of child pornography, with one offender receiving only 30 days of confinement, a far cry from the 50 years Graham claims is appropriate. Indeed, Judge Jackson would be viewed as a draconian "hammer" in the institution where Graham served for 30 years.
The military's kid-gloves sentencing is compounded by the fact that military judges do not have the supervised release tools possessed by federal judges. For example, like all federal judges, Jackson had (and used) the authority to subject offenders to lengthy conditions after being released from prison, including sex offender treatment; restrictions on accessing the internet; monitoring of computer devices and smart phones; and no-notice searches. These measures are, of course, designed to reduce recidivism. In contrast, after a military offender has served their court-martial sentence, they are subject to no such restrictions. When a military offender is released from jail, there is nothing stopping them from going right back to searching for more child pornography. This is particularly troubling, as one expert has estimated that military veterans are four times more likely to be convicted for child pornography charges or sexual offenses against children than those who have never served.
One need look no further than two cases involving Air Force colonels to see how much lighter the military treats child pornography than normally occurs in the civilian realm. Both colonels were caught with thousands of images of child pornography, but one was investigated and prosecuted by the Air Force, and the other by the federal justice system. The officer prosecuted by the Air Force was sentenced to only one year of confinement. The one sentenced by a federal judge received five years, followed by 15 additional years of supervised release. In other words, the federal system produced a sentence five times more severe than the military's.
What has Sen. Graham done, then, to address how leniently the military sentences child pornography offenders? Has he proposed eliminating the "no punishment" sentencing option, imposing mandatory minimum sentences for child pornography offenses, authorizing the use of pre-sentencing reports, or giving military judges the same authority to place conditions on offenders after they have served their sentences? Has he either publicly or privately berated military leadership or military judges for light child pornography offenses? No. Instead, Graham has forcefully fought military justice reform, and worked to undermine his Senate colleagues who have sought such needed reform of the military justice system — often by using his years of service as a military lawyer to justify his opposition.
Graham's indifference concerning the military's lenient treatment of child pornography, compared to his supposed disgust regarding Judge Jackson's sentencing record, is not only hypocritical. It is political theater at its worst. How we should sentence child pornography offenders is a legitimate debate. But after decades of inaction on his part to reform the military sentencing process, Graham's sudden concern about child pornography sentencing is no more than a cheap, hypocritical and destructive attempt to score political points.
The analysis of provisional government statistics found U.S. life expectancy fell by just under a half a year in 2021, adding to a dramatic plummet in life expectancy that occurred in 2020. Public health experts had hoped the vaccines would prevent another drop the following year.
“The finding that instead we had a horrible loss of life in 2021 that actually drove the life expectancy even lower than it was in 2020 is very disturbing,” says Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of population health and health equity at Virginia Commonwealth University, who help conduct the analysis. “It speaks to an extensive loss of life during 2021.”
Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years — the lowest in at least 25 years.
“Shame on the U.S.,” says Noreen Goldman, a demographer at Princeton University who wasn’t involved in the research. “It just continues to boggle my mind how poorly we’ve come through this pandemic. And I find that disgraceful.”
The 2021 drop came after U.S life expectancy plummeted in 2020, tumbling by almost two years — the biggest one-year fall in U.S. life expectancy since at least World War II.
“The motivation for this study was to determine whether the horrible drop in life expectancy that we documented in 2020 resolved or rebounded in 2021 or whether there was a continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news,” Woolf told NPR in an interview.
Surprisingly, while the 2020 drop in life expectancy hit Blacks and Hispanics hardest, that wasn’t the case in 2021, the analysis found. Life expectancy among Hispanics didn’t significantly change between 2020 and 2021, and life expectancy of Blacks actually inched up slightly — by a little less than half a year.
In contrast, the life expectancy of whites fell by about a third of a year, mostly among white men.
Because of the huge loss of life among Blacks and Hispanic in 2020, their life expectancy went down more than whites over the last two years. But the reason whites continued to die in larger numbers in 2021 can be attributed to the fact that unlike Blacks and Hispanics they refused to get vaccinated. And we know why, don’t we?
Will it make any difference in the GOP vote next fall? You have to wonder. In a close race every vote is important. And the people they led to their deaths are their hard-core older, white, male voters. Ooops.
"Lindsey Graham: total hypocrite"
no argument from me
the guy is s national embarrassment
"“The finding that instead we had a horrible loss of life in 2021 that actually drove the life expectancy even lower than it was in 2020 is very disturbing,” says Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of population health and health equity at Virginia Commonwealth University, who help conduct the analysis. “It speaks to an extensive loss of life during 2021.”"
let me see...who was President in 2021?
"Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years — the lowest in at least 25 years."
kind of an imprecise statement
few deaths occurred in people under 60
"“Shame on the U.S.,” says Noreen Goldman, a demographer at Princeton University who wasn’t involved in the research. “It just continues to boggle my mind how poorly we’ve come through this pandemic. And I find that disgraceful.”"
you're an ass, Noreen
"But the reason whites continued to die in larger numbers in 2021 can be attributed to the fact that unlike Blacks and Hispanics they refused to get vaccinated."
which is their right
the government has no business mandating the invasion of an individual's body
"And we know why, don’t we?"
yes, government health officials have been incompetent and contradictory in their statements and no one trusts them
hello, Anthony Fauci
"Will it make any difference in the GOP vote next fall? You have to wonder. In a close race every vote is important. And the people they led to their deaths are their hard-core older, white, male voters. Ooops."
nice fantasy
but the polls show the GOP is better shaoe than they have been in a hundred years
Dems only won in the 2020 race because Trump was such a jerk
notably, they barely have control of the two Houses
there is absolutely nothing to indicate a rebound
"the government has no business mandating the invasion of an individual's body"
Banning medical treatments for trans kids is the ultimate invasion of their bodies.
The latest "trans panic" is literally a complete repeat of the lies that were told in the 1970s and 1980s by people like Anita Bryant to try to stop lesbians and gays from having any sort of freedom to live openly. It's all the same lies about bathrooms and "recruitment." This rhetoric, and the laws it inspires, are nothing more than scapegoat operations to distract lower- and middle-income people while Republicans pick their pockets, such as by canceling school lunch programs while many people are still jobless.
It's not a surprise that the Republican Party and the conservative movement are so interested in toilets. After all, genitalia are important to their most loyal base, religious conservatives (evangelicals). Most if not all of these prohibitions and worries are also about policing people: where they go, what they do, who is allowed and who is not. Consider: If you have a political party that is steeped in ideas about law and order, gender and sexuality, the bathroom is one place you can control if you can't control the bedrooms, as states used to with sodomy laws.
Smearing shit in the halls of Congress is very much a primitive example of failed projection: On Jan. 6, 2021, MAGA insurrectionists expressed their disgust through feces because they were not articulate enough to use language or other symbolic imagery. After all, why not use the real thing to clarify once and for all how shitty our government is? Their feces was their ultimate smear tactic.
The problem the Republican Party has now is that it is losing the culture war. Marriage equality is popular, and no one is surrendering that right. So now, trans people are the new gays, and scapegoating them is the new way of rounding up votes. But like voter fraud, trans people in bathrooms is a non-problem. No one knows and no one cares who is in the stall next to them.
There is an obsession with purity. It is part of the right wing's hyper-religiosity and repressive sexual politics. It's part of their obsession with the notion of "contamination" by immigrants, especially from what Trump called "shithole" countries. And what better symbol of impurity and uncleanliness and contamination than a bathroom? What better symbol of filth and vulnerability than the place you go to shit? They are manifesting precisely the fears one would expect them to, given their obsessions with control and purity and order.
In addition, right-wing (and especially white) obsessions with purity and "contamination" are what long animated racism against Black folks: the fear being that white women needed to be protected from the impurity of Blackness.
In America, fascists, as in the Ku Klux Klan, almost naturally endorse bathroom segregation because, as in all forms of fascism, segregation, demonization and eventual persecution and extermination are different aspects of this deep need to define the other to elevate the self.
"Banning medical treatments for trans kids is the ultimate invasion of their bodies."
one of the scariest things about the lunatic fringe gay agenda is the desire to forward their movement by erasing childhood
so, discerning what literature is appropriate for children is "banning book" and maybe even the equivalent of a Nazi book burning
no allowing teachers to teach 5 years old about sexuality orientation is "don't say gay"
looks like the latest adventure in deception is above
you're pathetic
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