“Politics has turned the lofty ideal of equality into the ugly reality of resentments of other people’s achievements — and a feeling that the world owes you something, while you owe nobody anything, not even common decency.” – Thomas Sowell
Biden calls for “unity” and says democracy needs “consensus” but…: Immediately after his gracious (and hypocritical) speech on inaugural day, Biden signs a series of controversial Executive Orders that neither unites our country nor looks for consensus.
Biden’s rhetoric belies his actions. He is talking like a “moderate” and yet succumbing to the pressures from the progressive left. Meanwhile he is slamming mid America. Can he… does he… will he eventually try to lower the political temperature in Washington? No sign of that happening as of yet!
Very disappointing.
Impeachment – Stupid Partisan Political Gamesmanship: Give it up. Progressive liberal Democrats have to accept the fact that President Trump is out and they should move on.
The county has enough challenges and President Biden is looking for “unity.” Well, drop all the political gamesmanship. Drop the impeachment fiasco, leave the filibuster in place, forget the purely political HR 1, and don’t try and pack the courts and expand the Senate. These are all purely partisan political ploys to change the rules of our democratic process in the middle of the game.
We have enough policy fights ahead. This is where the Democrats should be looking for consensus to move our country forward. Instead, they are playing partisan games.
The real question is, will moderate and mainstream Democrats just go along?!? Blindly following Pelosi & Schumer who are sucking up to the progressive liberals???
Just Copy Florida’s Plan: Let’s learn from Florida! It was the first large state and battle ground state to announce its results on election night this last year with virtually NO controversy at all!
After the 2000 electoral debacle in Florida that made hanging chads famous, Florida created a bi-partisan commission to review its state laws and procedures to make sure something like that would NEVER happen again. It instituted a set of reforms that today makes Florida a model for the country.
At the very least…all the states that had controversies and confusion with regard to their voting process and procedures which contributed to this year’s electoral fiasco should consider creating a similar commission and passing reforms in their respective state legislatures.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada could go a long way towards restoring trust in our system of elections by doing a fair and open assessment of the issues raised and insure they are fairly addressed by new laws and rules where necessary. It is vital to have a process that EVERY voter in America trusts, win or lose, that continues this great tradition of a constitutional republic.
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Links to the articles discussed in the video:
https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2021/01/27/bidens-antiunity-agenda-n2583752
America, It’s Time for ‘Unity’—or Else
If you were an enthusiastic Donald Trump supporter, are you ready to enter a re-education program?
Can you feel the unity?
Have you come together to bind the nation’s wounds?
Have you renounced your white privilege? Your unconscious bias probably hasn’t been eradicated in the last week, so it will need attention. But don’t worry. If you work in the federal government, you’ll soon have the opportunity—sorry, obligation—to get that fixed with a series of bias-elimination sessions. If you work for a large company, you’ve probably already watched the videos, so you’ve no excuses for continuing not to recognize that America’s foundational malignity is all your fault.
If you’re a woman, have you shared a restroom with some strapping-looking figure you’re sure used to be a man but now says she’s all female? I hope your high-school daughters are doing their part to unify the country by ceding whatever hope of athletic success they had to the new class of 6-foot-tall girls with bulbous triceps.
In the service of national unity, you should by now have agreed to welcome a new influx of illegal aliens into your community. Better yet, perhaps you’re an immigrant who’s been through the costly, protracted process to become an American citizen and are looking forward to welcoming those who opted to take the less “documented” route.
The Trump-Impeachment Farce
The Democratic congressional leadership is determined to proceed with the impeachment and trial of former President Trump. This does not bode well for the possibilities of good government from the Democrats in the next 18 months, before the campaigning begins for the midterm elections, because this impeachment must stand as the stupidest legislative initiative in the entire history of the United States of America.
All readers will be aware that that the preceding sentence is an extraordinary superlative for which there is fierce competition, yet it seems well justified. This impeachment ignored all precedent and prior practice, which required the presentation of evidence, witnesses, and a full right to reply and call and question witnesses by the accused. There was none of that in this case; in fact, there was no due process whatsoever; it was a sham and an outrage that would not be tolerated in any court in the United States at any time, not excluding courts that have acquitted those accused of lynching or courts that upheld blacklists, or even the colonial courts that purported to identify witches. The impeachment was jammed through the House of Representatives on an almost entirely partisan vote, with 10 Republicans voting with the Democrats in the heat of the Never Trump post-election revival, but 197 Republicans voting against the charge. It is recognized that presidential impeachments, to be successful, must be substantially bipartisan and not simply the party out of the White House imposing its congressional majority to get to the Senate and fail there, as happened with President Clinton and President Trump last year. That is what occurred here, and that is why the only presidential-impeachment process in history that had any chance of succeeding was that against President Nixon in 1974, when he suffered substantial defections from his own party and, patriotic traditionalist as he was, and although there remains no conclusive evidence that he committed a crime, acknowledged that he had made serious mistakes and spared the country the embarrassment of an impeachment trial by resigning.
Democrats Want a ‘Return to Civility’; When Did They Practice It?
A 2020 Joe Biden campaign ad described the pending election as an “opportunity to leave the dark, angry politics of the past behind us.” After Biden’s election, he, Democrats and media urge a “return to civility.” But when did the Democrats practice the very civility to which they seek to return?
Let’s go to the videotape:
When Barry Goldwater accepted the 1964 Republican nomination, California’s Democratic Gov. Pat Brown said, “The stench of fascism is in the air.”
Former Rep. William Clay Sr., D-Mo., said President Ronald Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from ‘Mein Kampf.'”
Pelosi slammed as hypocrite for praising storming of Capitol building in 2011
HOUSE Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been branded a “hypocrite”, after comments resurfaced of her praising the storming of the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011.
Pelosi praised the incident as an “impressive show of democracy in action” after up to 100,000 people stormed the building in protest of then-Governor Scott Walker’s proposed bill to end collective bargaining for the majority of public workers.
Pelosi took to Twitter to express her support and “solidarity” for the cause, yet the 2011 protests somewhat mirror the Capitol riots on January 6 – that she branded an “assault on our democracy”.
The House Speaker was extremely vocal in her disgust at the shocking attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, when MAGA supporters stormed the building.
One rioter casually posed with his feet sitting on Pelosi’s desk while another stole the House podium from the chambers.
Five people were killed during the deadly insurrection, including a Capitol Police officer and a Trump supporter.
The shocking attack that targeted the heart of American democracy saw the historical Capitol building in tatters, as windows were smashed, doors broken down and vandals let loose, in a bid to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win.
Despite the attack being regarded as unprecedented across the world, it is almost identical to the Wisconsin riots.
Unionists stormed the building, breaking down doors and crawling through windows, on a hunt for Republican lawmakers.
Protestors took physical occupation of the building and even established a fully functioning community inside – complete with a sleeping area, an information center and a medic station.
Similar to the events of January 6, lawmakers were ushered to safety by police – but a Democrat alerted the mob, creating a stand-off in the secret tunnel.
GOP Lawmakers Now Raise Alarms About Debt As Democrats Push Costly Agenda
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) on Wednesday re-introduced a bill that he proposes annually which would withhold pay from members of Congress if they do not pass a balanced budget – one in which expenditures don’t exceed revenue.
That comes after Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.) proposed a Constitutional amendment – initially introduced by Lee in 2015 – that would require the federal budget to be balanced unless two-thirds of Congress voted to run a deficit, raise taxes or increase the debt limit.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) sent a letter to colleagues on Tuesday arguing the U.S.’s $27 trillion national debt should “gravely concern every member of this body” and calling for “enforceable limitations on deficit spending.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Wednesday released a list of “bananas” government expenditures – such as “tens of thousands of dollars sunk into an underwater sculpture garden” – and expressed support for a bill requiring federal agencies to publish justifications for their budgets.
Tensions among Democrats are about progressive ends, not violent means
The Washington Post’s coverage of the insurrectionist violence in Portland, Ore., is classic.
Reporters Marissa J. Lang and Kimberly Kindy acknowledge that those behind the violence, which has continued for months, are of the “far-left and anarchist” persuasion. But, though those individuals are engaged in “destructive tactics” and “vandalism,” and “burned an American flag” while confronting police (and some “threw large rocks” at federal officers, according to prosecutors), these insurrectionists cannot, of course, be described as “insurrectionists.” The media-Democratic complex reserves that designation for the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — and for Republican politicians who are said to have abetted them by supporting the former president’s effort to overturn the election.
The lefties are not even to be labeled “rioters” — although, if you stick with the report long enough, you’ll eventually learn that prosecutors have alleged that at least four individuals “participated in a riot.” Militants of the hard-left are merely “crowds” of “demonstrators.”
Close to the top, there is this not-to-be-missed paragraph: “Some activists are carrying their destructive tactics into a new administration to voice rejection of centrist ideologies they believe will do little to address existential worries over climate change, economic inequality, foreign wars and racism. The vandalizing of the Oregon Democratic Party headquarters by extreme-left demonstrators on Inauguration Day has split Portland liberals, and federal agents’ launching of tear gas at crowds that descended on the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters produced scenes reminiscent of similar summer standoffs ordered by President Donald Trump.”
Liberal authoritarians like John Brennan are real threat to democracy
Every time former CIA Director John Brennan appears on cable news to warn about some new “insidious threat to democracy,” I am reminded again that he deserves to be in federal prison.
In this corrupt media environment, however, the official who oversaw an illegal domestic-spying operation on the legislative branch of the US government, who tried to cover it up and blame innocent Senate staffers when discovered and who then brazenly lied about it to legislators and the American people — this man is held up as a paragon of civic virtue.
We still don’t even know what role Brennan played in spying on his political opponents during the 2016 campaign. We do know he went on TV for years after, alleging to have insider knowledge of an unprecedented seditious criminal conspiracy against the United States. Never once was he challenged by his hosts. And when an independent multimillion-dollar investigation couldn’t pull together a single indictment related to those claims, Brennan shrugged it off by saying that he may have “received bad information.”
Brennan was back on MSNBC last week, contending American intel agencies “are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about” the pro-Trump “insurgency” that harbors “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
Even a former Communist such as Brennan surely understands there is nothing prohibiting Americans from being religious extremists, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists or even libertarians. It’s definitely none of his business, or that of intelligence agencies, to define what those terms mean. (And the idea that libertarians, who can’t get a minyan to agree on anything libertarian, are marshaling forces for a national insurgency is nonsensical.)
Rand Paul smackdown of George Stephanopoulos is what media deserve
Sen. Rand Paul went on “This Week” on ABC and, after being labeled by host George Stephanopoulos a liar and characterized as a political hack and practically called out as carrying water for the former president, Donald Trump, fought back with this: George, you’re not so much a “journalist” as “a fool.”
And Paul was being polite.
That’s what most in the media these days deserve.
Stephanopoulos — who was once a Bill Clinton White House flak — kicked off by asking Paul the obviously leading, subtly snarking, “this election was not stolen — do you accept that fact?”
It’s that old liberal slight of hand that pretends something controversial is not at all controversial, and that the only people who think it’s in fact controversial are the stupidly uniformed.
It’s how arrogant liberals treat climate change — as “settled science,” when of course, it’s far from settled.
But as Paul pointed out, leftists in the media have been, with increasing frequency, leaving out the middle man, i.e., the liberal guest, to make the partisan hit themselves.
State-level Republicans wracked by division after Trump’s loss
Long-simmering tensions between Republicans at the state level are spilling into plain sight as conservative activists loyal to former President Trump look to cement their hold on the GOP.
With Trump now settling into his post-presidency, the grassroots activists whom he inspired — many of whom now hold sway over state and local Republican parties — are ratcheting up pressure on Republicans they deem too moderate or insufficiently loyal to the former president and his political legacy…
…Saul Anuzis, a Michigan-based Republican strategist and a former chair of the state GOP, acknowledged that the Republican Party as a whole is experiencing “growing pains” in the wake of Trump’s presidency.
But he said that state parties, especially in electoral battlegrounds, will be better served if they bring together disparate factions of the GOP — establishment Republicans and Trump-aligned activists — rather than seek ideological and political purity among their members.
“The party in general is having growing pains,” Anuzis said. “This kind of conservative populism that’s less about issues like defense and more about America First — that’s a new leg that we’ve never stood on, so now you have to bring that group in and integrate them into the party.”…
…“I think that the Trump wing, the American First wing, is a growing part of the party, a sustaining part of the party,” he said. “In other words, this is not just a Trump phenomenon. He just brought it into the forefront.”
Tom Emmer, House GOP reelection chair, says Biden executive orders making job easier for Republicans
He said Biden ‘already started’ providing the ammunition needed to win House majority.
The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee said the initial policy moves by President Biden are helping him in his mission to win back the House majority next year.
“The last cycle we ran and won in districts all over the country by highlighting exactly the policies that these guys, now with the stroke of a pen, have followed through on,” Rep. Tom Emmer said in an interview with Fox News, as he pointed to a flurry of executive orders signed by Biden in the week since the president’s inauguration.
Looking back to the 2020 elections, when House Republicans defied expectations and flipped around a dozen Democratic held seats, which dramatically shrank the Democrats’ majority in the chamber, the four-term GOP congressman from Minnesota highlighted that “the polling we did last cycle showed us in places like Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, just how devastating this job-killing, anti-energy agenda is. That’s why we won.”
COVID-19’s Death Toll: A Historical Perspective
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, public discussion of the virus’s lethality has focused on two metrics: the infection fatality rate (the percentage of those who become infected that go on to die), and the absolute number of deaths attributable to COVID-19.
The latter quantity has been estimated in two different ways: (1) the number of deaths in which COVID-19 was a plausible contributing factor (“confirmed deaths”), and (2) the number of all-cause deaths in excess of the average over the last five years (“excess deaths”). Governments typically report confirmed deaths on the basis of whether the deceased recently tested positive for COVID-19, or whether COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate. Many national health authorities also report data on excess deaths, much of which is compiled on the Our World in Data website.
There may be a significant discrepancy between confirmed deaths and excess deaths. If a country lacks testing infrastructure or many people die without being properly diagnosed, confirmed deaths are likely to be lower than excess deaths (false negatives). By contrast, if many people who die of other causes happen to test positive for COVID-19, confirmed deaths will be greater than excess deaths (false positives). Due to the difficulty of establishing whether someone died of or merely with the disease, excess deaths are generally the preferred measure.
But excess deaths are still not an ideal measure of COVID-19’s lethality. As a nation’s population gets older—as in most Western countries—the absolute number of people at risk of dying each year goes up, even without a pandemic. (In England and Wales, the number of people aged 70 or older increased by 13 percent between 2015 and 2019.) As a consequence, the average number of deaths over the last five years tends to underestimate the expected number who will die—again, even without a pandemic. In addition, since people who die from COVID-19 tend to be slightly older than those dying of other causes, each COVID-19 death is, on average, associated with fewer life-years lost.
Due to these issues, demographers typically use age-adjusted measures when comparing mortality rates over time or across countries. Simply adjusting for total population is insufficient. For example, Mexico and Japan have approximately the same total population. Although the risk of dying at any age is lower in Japan—as reflected by its higher life expectancy—there are actually fewer deaths each year in Mexico (at least ordinarily) because of its younger population.
New Movie: Thomas Sowell – Common Sense In A Senseless World
Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World traces Sowell’s journey from humble beginnings to the Hoover Institution, becoming one of our era’s greatest economists, political philosophers, and prolific authors.
Hosted by Jason Riley, a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, the one-hour program features insights from Sowell and interviews with his close friends and associates, revealing why the intensely private Thomas Sowell is considered by many to be “one of the greatest minds of the past half-century” and “the smartest person in the room.”
