Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

President Biden floats witlessly and America is on the hook with him By John Kass

https://johnkassnews.com/biden-the-president-as-a-soft-biscuit-with-putin-and-xi-jinping-salivating-as-he-floats-on-by/?utm_source=rss&utm_

Now you know why America’s real presidents—perhaps White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain and Susan Rice—have kept Joe Biden in the basement for so long.

The other day they let him out for all the world to see. They had to let him out, with his poll numbers dropping. Initially, he appeared somewhat competent as he obediently read what they’d written for him to say.

But then the questions came. And the world could see him fade away.

Of all he was asked at his White House news conference, Mr. Biden was not asked a single question about the epidemic of rising violent crime in American cities ruled by Democrats.

But he was able to reveal the important thing, proving in public what Americans have long suspected. His mind has become soft, like a melted dish of his favorite ice cream. And in his twilight, he offers the world a dangerous dessert, one with nuclear weapons rather than cherries on top.

There is nothing as menacing to the world as a weak president in deep political trouble who is desperate to be led by the hand. And what Biden babbled about Russia, inviting Russia’s killer Vladimir Putin, into Ukraine is chilling.

If former President Donald Trump or any other Republican acted this way, the entire country and all media would be dusting off the 25th Amendment. But Biden is a Democrat, and if he were removed via the 25 Amendment, it would mean installing the vapid and thoroughly unqualified Vice President Cackles in the White House, who has already demonstrated her incompetence. Biden (or Klain and Rice and others) chose her for immutable characteristics. Her obvious failing becomes his insurance policy.

 So Biden is given protection by corrupt corporate media. And the day after his disastrous news conference, team Biden went out on the news shows hoping to clean his mess up.

But there is no spinning out of this or cleaning it up. He’s the president and America is on the hook with him now.

The False God of Central Planning: The Mysterious Reappearance of the Flu, Natural vs Vaccine-Induced Immunity, the Inability of the Vaccines to Control the Virus, and Other Extraordinary Lessons About the End of the Pandemic

https://www.juliusruechel.com/2022/01/the-false-god-of-central-planning.html

Colds and flus mysteriously disappeared over the past two years only to return recently in many countries, often with a vengeance. While only rarely discussed and frequently dismissed as a mere curiosity, the mystery of the disappearing flu is actually one of the most important events of the past two years. Unpacking this mystery provides deep insights into the future trajectory of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, exposes the abject failure of the vaccines to control the pandemic, and puts the final nail in the coffin on futile public health measures like masks and social distancing. Get ready for more than a few surprises as you follow me on another deep dive into Covid mayhem.

Many public health officials and journalists credited masks, lockdowns, and social distancing for the disappearance of the flu. Critics pointed out that the flu also disappeared in places like Sweden, which did not have lockdowns, mask mandates, or social distancing rules. Critics also pointed to long-standing research demonstrating that virus-bearing aerosols are too small to be stopped by masks and that, even in perfectly still air, these aerosols are so small that they hang in the air for many days before settling to the ground, making social distancing a joke. 

Particularly embarrassing for those cheerleading all these heavy-handed measures is that the flu disappeared several months before the first mask mandate was imposed, as demonstrated in the chart below showing influenza cases in Canada. I’ve added dates to the chart to show when mask recommendations and mask mandates were first rolled out — it’s rather obvious that they had nothing whatsoever to do with why the flu disappeared. Clearly, we need to look elsewhere to explain the mystery of the disappearing flu.

The January 6 Narrative is Starting to Unravel John Green

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/the_january_6_narrative_is_starting_to_unravel.html

The Democrats and the propaganda ministry have tried to portray the events of January 6 as the greatest assault on democracy… in like, forever.  But it seems like that narrative is starting to unravel.  The unraveling began when many people began to suspect that the whole thing was a setup and started looking into it. 

It wasn’t law enforcement or MSM journalists investigating — they could be controlled.  It was amateur citizen investigators using the power of the internet.  Ah… the internet — allowing average citizens to cross-reference and collate a limitless sea of information.  Our Founders would approve.

Citizen investigators began to identify individuals who were clearly involved in inciting the riot on January 6.  But a curious number of them had not been arrested by the FBI, even though their identity was well known.  One such individual is Ray Epps.  Epps is seen on video urging the crowd to enter the Capitol building.  He lives in Arizona on a ranch and hasn’t been arrested.  There are numerous others, just like him.  The question became unavoidable: Did the federal government have involvement with January 6?  We don’t know the answer to that question — and that’s a problem for a constitutional republic.

As this curious information began to come to public attention, the FBI cover-up started.  It removed Ray Epps from its “most wanted” list and released a report stating that there was no evidence of a coordinated attack on the Capitol — even though they had been calling it a coordinated attack for months.  Apparently, the bureau hoped the whole thing would fade into obscurity.  But it didn’t.  Merrick Garland and San Fran Nan wouldn’t let it.

The proud head of the police part of our police state couldn’t let it go.  Garland was having too much fun playing with his new “fully operational death star” — which has the Orwellian name “Department of Justice.”  The only thing missing is a “Peoples” at the beginning of that name.  Unfortunately, Garland has bragged for months about his “shock and awe” campaign to bring insurrectionists to justice.  The DoJ has had hundreds of citizens under arrest for months — for the horrendous crimes of trespassing and taking selfies on Capitol grounds.  What are prosecutors supposed to do? Go to the judge and say, “Oops!  Our bad.”  That’s not the way police states operate.

When The Administrative State Slips Its Constitutional Bonds Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-1-20-when-the-administrative-state-slips-its-bonds

For the past few weeks, everybody’s attention has been focused on the looming demise of President Biden’s legislative agenda. Both the massive social spending bill (going by the Orwellian name “Build Back Better”) and the anti-voter-integrity bill, have now conclusively failed, at least in their most recent forms. A major part of the Build Back Better monstrosity was the launching of the Green New Deal, with its attendant suppression of the use of carbon-based fuels.

So, at least for now, these things are dead in Congress. But what’s happening over in the Administrative State? That’s where, in Woodrow Wilson’s progressive vision, the “experts” from various fields of endeavor have gathered in the government, unconstrained by the Constitution’s separation of powers, to make the all-important rules for a smoothly running society. Today there are hundreds of thousands of these “experts” in the bureaucracy. To a person, they appear to believe that the most pressing issue of our era is saving the world from U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide. How do they know that? Obviously, they know it because they are the “experts.”

Under what legislative authority do these “experts” operate to impose their green agenda? Excellent question. Barack Obama had a big plan for “cap and trade” legislation to lower emissions by driving up the price of all fossil fuels. (“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, the price of electricity will necessarily skyrocket.”). The legislation failed in Congress. Biden’s Green New Deal also has so far failed in Congress. There has been no relevant amendment to the Clean Air Act further empowering the bureaucracy to regulate carbon emissions since such emissions first became a progressive obsession in the early 2000s.

Clearly then, the bureaucracy must be stymied in its goal to effect a fundamental transformation of the U.S. energy system by suppressing production and use of fossil fuels, while they await Congressional authorization to proceed. If you think that is true, you do not understand the extent to which the Administrative State has slipped its constitutional bonds.

For today, let me highlight just a few of the initiatives currently emanating from the Administrative State.

TRUST : SYDNEY WILLIAMS

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Like all species (or, at least, those of which I am aware), man is born with an innate trust for the female who gave him birth. We would not survive, without the care and feeding by she who gave us life. As we age, caution grows. As Sophocles said, “mistrust blossoms.” Nature has instilled in most animals a sense of wariness of danger, be it predators, fire or some other peril. This allows the rabbit to avoid the coyote, the mole to avoid the fox, or the deer to run from man. We have the same instincts. It is why the hair on the back of our neck stands up when unseen hazards lurk, or why we become suspicious when someone says, “trust me.”

Trust is akin to a sixth sense, like echolocation that allows bats to fly in the dark. It is defined as a belief in the reliability of someone or something, be it a spouse or an automobile. It reflects both emotion and reasoning, as in the faithfulness of a relationship, or the trust we have for an old car. Trust in the business world, according to a December 2021 article in The Atlantic, is about two things: competence and character. Once lost, it is hard to re-build. The article suggests three steps to help recover lost trust: the use of humor, sharing one’s vulnerabilities and promoting transparency – lessons for those who govern us. 

A September 2021 Gallup Poll found trust in government near record lows. It mimicked a Pew Research Center survey published last May. The Pew poll saw trust in government at 24% as of April 2021. That could be compared to trust in government at 68% during the height of the anti-War movement in 1968. The Gallup poll showed that a lack of trust in government extends to all branches; it is lowest in the legislative branch and highest in local governments. In the Gallup poll, a mere 7% of respondents had a great deal of trust in the media. As recently as September 2018, that number stood at 14%. Distrust in government and the media may manifest wisdom on the part of the people, but it reflects poorly on those judged.

What those who accept the ‘stolen land’ myth don’t understand Jonathan S. Tobin

https://www.jns.org/opinion/what-those-who-accept-the-stolen-land-myth-dont-understand/

Woke culture demands ritual acknowledgements about Native Americans. Those, however, who think this should also apply to Palestinians don’t understand that Jews are indigenous in Israel.

One of the tragicomic if all too prevalent customs of contemporary woke corporate culture is the way many groups and corporations now open meetings with ritual acknowledgments that they are on “stolen land.” It involves the convener of the gathering to begin any proceedings by first stating that those speaking are “on the lands” of whatever Native American tribe once lived there as the indigenous inhabitants of the North American continent.

That is part of the context of the claim that the State of Israel was built on “stolen land,” a phrase that was used by Hussain Altamimi, one of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s staffers when he smeared it as a “racist-European ethno-state.” Unsurprisingly, Altamimi didn’t lose his job when this came out. Why would AOC fire someone who reflects the same hatred of the Jewish state that she and other “Squad” colleagues have often expressed?

This is a commonplace myth spread by those who believe in intersectional ideology, which deems the efforts of all oppressed “people of color” to resist the racist oppression of those possessing “white privilege” to be part of one great righteous struggle.

Theodore Roosevelt: Back to the Badlands

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/theodore-roosevelt-back-to-the-badlands/91960/

This is the week in which the statue of Theodore Roosevelt begins its journey to the Badlands from its pedestal in front of the American Museum of Natural History. Let us just say that New York’s loss will be North Dakota’s gain. The statue had come under fire as “a racist work of public art,” as a mayoral advisory commission described it. It’s hardly a “Square Deal” for TR, who did more than most in his day for racial equality.

When the statue was unveiled in 1940, a New York Times editorial applauded Roosevelt’s taking “his place in enduring bronze among the monuments of this city that he loved.” The Times predicted “few, passing the newly dedicated statue and noting the firm, up-tilted chin and the eyes fixed on a far distance, will doubt” TR “would have met present problems face-forward, with high courage and clear decision.”

Eighty years later, “present problems” have dictated a change of plans. The museum recently lumped the statue among other “powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism” subjected to scrutiny amid “the movement for racial justice that emerged after the murder of George Floyd.” Evicting Roosevelt is a symbol of “progress toward an inclusive and equitable community,” the museum claimed.

Biden Doubles Down, But the American Voters Are Smarter By Lawrence Kudlow

https://www.nysun.com/national/biden-doubles-down-but-the-american-voters-are/91957/

So, no reset or midcourse changes for President Biden. That’s what we learned in the President’s presser. Big government socialist policies are alive and well. He’s doubling down.

According to Mr Biden, the polls are wrong, you see, the country really loves him and his policies. So his job is to travel around and better communicate his achievements and his goals to the American people.

That’s basically how I read yesterday’s performance. Trouble is for Uncle Joe, the public actually knows full well what his so-called achievements and policies are.

Voters are smarter than the radical left thinks. Polling is as much art as science, but seldom have I seen as much unanimity.

From Byron York’s column yesterday, the Gallup poll shows a remarkable swing from a year ago, when 49% considered themselves Democrats against 40% Republicans. Now it’s just 42% Democrats against 47% Republicans. That’s a net 14-point swing over just one year. Unprecedented.

Societal psychosis and the ‘mental illness’ excuse By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-694114

Less than two hours before a Pakistani-born British Muslim took four Jews hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas last Saturday, African-American Martial Simon pushed a young woman into an oncoming subway at the Times Square station in New York City.

In the first case, only the perpetrator wound up dead. In the second, it was the victim who lost her life.

These two unrelated incidents have more in common than immediately meets the eye. Both involved assailants who were well-known to law enforcement. Each was said by family members to be suffering from “mental illness.”

Let’s start with Malik Faisal Akram. Entering the synagogue during Shabbat-morning services and announcing his affiliation with Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, the armed foreign national held the rabbi and three congregants captive for 11 hours straight. (The rest of the already dwindling flock was participating via Zoom, due to the spike in COVID-19 infection.)

For most of the day, FBI SWAT-team agents negotiated with Akram, whose reference to Siddiqui as his “sister” turned out to be an expression of ideological, rather than literal, kinship. But his emotional attachment to “Lady al-Qaeda” was strong enough for him to travel across the ocean to demand her release from the prison where she is serving an 86-year sentence for the attempted murder of US soldiers in Afghanistan and in connection with a plot to carry out a mass-casualty attack.

Joe Biden’s Fractured Fairy Tales The President’s talent for political fiction. Don Feder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/joe-bidens-fractured-fairy-tales-don-feder/

Joe Biden has been called a pathological liar, Pinocchio on steroids, delusional and totally detached from reality.

That’s unfair. Instead, let’s just say the president has a flair for fiction. Think of him as a master storyteller to put Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm to shame. Here are a few of my favorite Biden bedtime stories:

The Democrats Freedom to Vote Act will secure the right to vote for millions of Americans the GOP is trying to disenfranchise – Biden said Republicans working for election reform (secure ballots) are on the side of George Wallace not Martin Luther King. So, according to POTUS, to stand with the civil rights icon means supporting ballots mailed out en masse, casting ballots by putting them in drop-boxes, no requirement of signature verification, and no ID of any sort if you vote in person. DC now requires proof of vaccination and a photo ID to enter most indoor venues. That must mean that Mayor Bowser stands with George Wallace.
 
White Supremacy is a threat to democracy – Did white supremacists riot in more than 23 states in 2020, burning whole city blocks? (Actually, that was BLM and Antifa.) Are there hundreds of churches preaching white supremacy? (No, but there are hundreds of mosques preaching jihad.) Are foreign governments supporting white nationalism? (Oh, you must mean the way Iran, Yemen and half a dozen other Islamic states fund jihad here?) White supremacy is the Democrats’ “look-over-here” ploy to distract the credulous from Islamic extremism and leftists subversion.
 
What happened on January 6, 2021 was an insurrection or an attempted coup, if you prefer. – You betcha, struck at the very heart of democracy it did. Except, the only death directly attributable to the riot at the Capitol was an unarmed protestor shot by Capitol police. In fact, none of the rioters had guns. (How do you overthrow a government with supersonic jets by throwing folding chairs?) January 6, 2021 is the Democrats’ Reichstag fire. The goal is to criminalize the conservative movement and the half of the country that agrees with Donald Trump. The real threat to democracy isn’t the non-insurrection of 2021, but using the myth to crush dissent.