Manchin Sticks a Fork in Dems’ HR 1 Power Grab
The Democrat senator from the deep-red state of West Virginia showed that he’s more concerned about being beholden to his constituents than to advancing his party’s power plays. Senator Joe Manchin penned an op-ed in West Virginia’s Gazette-Mail over the weekend, sending a clear response to socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s not-so-veiled rebuke over his refusal to go along with Senate Democrat desires to eliminate the filibuster. “Partisan policy making won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it,” Manchin wrote. Therefore, he declared, “I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.”
Last week, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden asserted, “I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t socialist scumbag/liar-Biden get [HR 1] done?’ Well because socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.” Once again, facts don’t appear to matter to socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden when he’s spinning a yarn, as the record shows that both Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) — the other apparent reference — have voted with Biden 100% of the time thus far.
Manchin contends that the biggest problem with the Democrats’ “For the People Act” is its partisan nature, observing that not one Republican has voted in favor of it. “Voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen,” he argues. The reality is that, for Democrats, the partisanship is the point. Democrats’ bill is so mendacious, tilted in their favor, and flagrantly unconstitutional that no Republican could ever support anything remotely like it. Manchin’s tone it down message is far from sufficient.
Meanwhile, like Sinema in her defense of the Senate filibuster last week, Manchin noted that the Founding Fathers wisely constructed the Senate as a check against absolute power, intending “specific checks and balances to force compromise that serves to preserve our fragile democracy.” At one time this perspective would have been widely held by the majority of lawmakers in both parties, but in this modern era of hyper-partisanship the majority of Democrats have heeded the siren call of power over principle.
In any case, Manchin’s declaration makes it somewhat official — the Democrats’ prospect of eliminating the filibuster in order to get HR 1/S 1 onto the desk of socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden is all over but the shouting.
Speaking of shouting, though, Manchin received an earful from former ESPN anchor and Leftmedia pundit Jemele Hill, who ridiculously asserted via social media: “Record number of black voters show up to save this democracy, only for white supremacy to be upheld by a cowardly, power-hungry white dude. Sen. Joe Manchin is a clown.” The only clown here appears to be Hill.
Manchin may or may not be truly bound by principles. He does have a “D” after his name, after all. But he is at least keenly aware of political reality in a state Donald Trump won by 39 points. ~The Patriot Post
Now It’s Time for socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s Bad
It was in some ways a typical commencement address, full of the usual bromides of hope delivered to those embarking on an entirely new phase of life. We will, however, say it was bizarre for him to tell these graduates that they’re the “one of the most … well-educated generations in American history.” Coming out of a pandemic that greatly disrupted the last two years of their education, and given the utter miseducation driven by leftist indoctrination on race and gender in particular, this was the description of an alternate reality.
But what really stood out to us was something else Democrats tend to do — make “wars” out of things that aren’t wars. He did it by likening current struggles to the war our nation was fighting when socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden graduated college in the 1960s:
Just three years after I stood where you’re standing, two of my political heroes, Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Robert Kennedy, were gunned down. The Vietnam war divided the nation and divided families. We were in the midst of a great movement for civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental rights. We faced an inflection point, and we did our best to seize that moment because things were changing so rapidly.
And now, you face another inflection point. As we put this pandemic behind us, rebuild our economy, root out systemic racism, and tackle climate change, we’re addressing the great crises of our time with a greater sense of purpose than ever before.
He then told them, “Because of you, your generation, I’ve never been more optimistic about the future than I am today.” Perhaps that’s because our country is such a racist cesspool, according to socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden, that we can’t help but improve. Perhaps it’s also because he knows how deeply leftist indoctrination on race is sinking in with this generation.
There’s so much packed into his short speech that we could spend thousands of words rebutting him, but we’ll focus on his Vietnam analogy to point out some gross hypocrisy.
First, rather than serve his country in the ‘60s, socialist/ scumbag/liar-Biden himself received five student draft deferments. He’s hardly alone in that, but then again he’s telling this generation of graduates to tackle climate change and racism like this is a war.
Should they, too, get deferments?
Second, a certain hanoi-John Kerry is socialist/scumbag/ liar-Biden’s current climate czar. hanoi-Kerry may have received three Purple Hearts while serving in Vietnam, but his treason actions cavorting with the North Vietnamese and then slandering American troops in sworn testimony before the Senate should have earned hanoi-Kerry something a bit different than a longtime Senate seat, a stint as secretary of state, and a post as climate czar.
Should these graduates treat the climate “crisis” with the same seriousness?
Finally, the Democrat Party is the entire reason for the division and “inflection points” of the '60s and now. They’ve turned MLK’s “Dream” into a racist nightmare. Their “Great Society” and “war on poverty” is the primary reason there is anything resembling systemic racial disparities.
Should today’s college graduates continue this agenda, or should they take socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s other advice and “change the trajectory of the country”? ~The Patriot Post
The Beltway’s Vaccine Hypocrites
In the largely ignored May 11 hearing before a Senate panel tasked to report updates on the coronavirus response in the U.S., more than two hours of testimony revealed yet more of the Beltway’s boundless hypocrisy. It continues to matter to millions of Americans.
Testimony was offered by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases; Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research housed in the FDA; and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control. Nearing the conclusion of the testimony, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) got to something important: “I’m going to go to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Marks, and Dr. Walensky. What percentage of the employees in your institute, your center, or your agency, of your employees, has been vaccinated?”
Based on the nonstop cable news COVID coverage with the major emphasis to get “shots in arms,” along with President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s major push over the next month to have 70% of adults vaccinated by July 4, one might expect that the answers would be points of pride for these health leaders. Remember, media outlets get most of their information about this crisis, when they’re not citing each other, from the NIAID, FDA, and CDC. We’re all vaccinated would have encouraged Americans to consider following suit.
Instead, Fauci had to respond, “I’m not 100% sure, Senator, but I think it’s probably a little bit more than half; probably around 60%.” Dr. Peter Marks echoed, “I can’t tell you the exact number, but it’s probably in the same range. Some people [have been] vaccinated at our facility, and others outside of the facility.” Finally, Dr. Walensky opined, “We’re encouraging our employees to get vaccinated. We’ve been doing town halls and education seminars. Our staff have the option to report their vaccination status, but as you understand, the federal government is not requiring it, so we do not know.”
Interestingly, these comments mirror the public’s response, as noted by President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden last week. In his declaration for June to be a national month of action, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden cited CDC data that 52.8% of U.S. adults have been fully vaccinated, including 75% of seniors, the most vulnerable and likely to succumb to the virus. His multi-tiered plan to raise those numbers involves education, incentives, and greater availability of vaccines in non-healthcare venues. But pay attention to the numbers.
The American public has responded, in large part, by wisely talking to their healthcare providers and their families and making personal decisions on the vaccine. There are roughly 140 million adults with COVID protections due to the vaccine and another 30 million with a single shot of the two-dose regime. There is some overlap between infected and vaccinated, but more than 30 million Americans have had COVID, meaning they have some natural immunity now.
As the CDC director noted in her response, those who are in charge of COVID response are making the same choices about the COVID vaccine as the general public.
Social media, however, caught fire when @Breaking911 posted on Instagram about the hearing’s revelations, framing it this way: “NEW: About 40-50% of CDC, FDA employees are refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Fauci, Marks.” Of course, the “fact-checkers” sprang into action to clarify that no such comments were made. While getting a “False” declaration from PolitiFact and similar coverage at Reuters and USA Today, the math still adds up. If around 60% have been vaccinated, according to these leaders, then around 40% have chosen not to be vaccinated after six months of free vaccines available nationwide. So we can quibble about the meaning of “refusing,” or we can get the general gist of the math.
How does socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden plan to increase these numbers? Incentives. He praised the state of Ohio for its “Vax-A-Million” promotion for those vaccinated to sign up to win one of five $1 million drawings, as well as Anheuser-Busch’s “Let’s Grab a Beer” promo that involves the things that motivates our current culture most — taking pictures of themselves at their favorite hangout and getting free alcohol. Once America reaches the 70% mark of shots in the arms of citizens, the King of Beers “will buy America’s next round” to celebrate. Other states and businesses are offering similar incentives as vaccination rates fall off.
The federal healthcare bureaucracy has earned mistrust over the last 18 months because of embracing partisanship and tactics of shaming instead of relying dispassionate and essential information for individuals to use to make informed decisions. Senator Burr’s closing comments to these lettered experts summed it up as well as anything we’ve seen: “We’re going to have to start portraying that we’re willing to do to ourselves what we’re asking the American people to do.” ~The Patriot Post
Hide Your Jewishness for Safety Sake?
In what can only be described as yet another capitulation to mob violence by Democrats and the socialist/scumbag/ liar-Biden administration, White House “Jewish engagement director” Aaron Keyak has warned Jews that they should remove faith-identifying items from their clothing due to an escalation of anti-Semitic attacks and physical assaults.
“It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety take off your kippah [head covering] and hide your magen david [Jewish Star of David]. (Obviously, if you can, ask your rabbi first.),” he said on May 21.
Moreover, when Keyak received the well-deserved blowback that anyone capitulating to mob violence should engender, he doubled down four days later: “It’s important that those who wear kippot don’t feel more pressure to put our lives in unnecessary actual danger — especially when actions are attempting to be grounded in halach [the body of Jewish law]. Given the rise in Jew hatred and antisemitic attacks, we must stand with all Jews.”
Stand? Cower is more like it, courtesy of an administration disproportionately obsessed with white supremacy, and a Democrat Party that remains highly tolerant, if not wholly accommodating, to the increasing anti-Semitism among its supporters — and in its ranks.
And despite the administration’s obsession, columnist Robert Spencer illuminates wholly inconvenient truths about exactly who is attacking Jews:
In New York City, a Muslim mob screaming “Allahu akbar” attacked a Jewish man in midtown Manhattan. Also in Manhattan, Palestinians threatened violence and screamed anti-Semitic slurs at Jews. One threw a mini-firebomb. Pro-jihad protesters stormed a restaurant and spat on Jewish patrons; one of the thugs threw a bottle. A Muslim, Waseem Awawdeh, was arrested for viciously beating a Jew in Times Square.
In Los Angeles, Palestinian protesters asked people dining at the Sushi Fumi restaurant if they were Jewish, and proceeded to attack them with knives. Elsewhere in Los Angeles, two cars festooned with Palestinian flags chased a Jewish man down a street as he was leaving his synagogue.
In Florida, a van also bearing a Palestinian flag and emblazoned with the slogan “Hitler was Right” drove past a pro-Israel demonstration.
In Skokie, Illinois, a pro-jihad vandal wearing an Arab headdress smashed a synagogue window and left a Palestine flag and a pro-jihad sign inside.
None of this should be remotely surprising. Ever since 2012, when the effort to reinstate the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital into the party’s platform during the Democrat National Convention was met with a loud chorus of boos, Democrat anti-Semitism has been increasingly impossible to hide. The recent attacks by Hamas against Israel brought that anti-Semitism to the forefront, courtesy of “Squad” members such as Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who insisted that Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu should be held responsible for “war crimes”; Rep. scumbag/worthless-Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who stated, “We must stand against efforts to silence legitimate dissent and accountability for illegal Israeli government actions”; and socialist/commie/liar-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who asserted that America “should not be rubber-stamping weapons sales to the Israeli government as they deploy our resources to target international media outlets, schools, hospitals, humanitarian missions and civilian sites for bombing.”
Where was Keyak then? Nowhere to be found.
Again, this should surprise no one. As Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker astutely notes, “woke” anti-Semitism has taken root in a party where “the rhetoric of some leading leftist Democrats has helped nourish resentments and prejudices.”
He is even more dismayed by the Democrats’ attempt to alter reality so that it squares with their contemptible agenda. “It takes extraordinary intellectual flexibility to represent the Jewish people, especially those in Israel, as part of some grand global historical pattern of white-supremacist aggression, but these ascendant protagonists of modern progressivism are used to such gymnastics,” he adds. “As long as the narrative can be sculpted to fit the larger objective, it will do.”
Keyak is equally invested in intellectual gymnastics. In September 2020, he blamed former President Donald Trump for anti-Semitism in the United States, saying, “We know that Donald Trump’s use of antisemitic tropes has emboldened all those who hate Jews.”
And how did Trump “embolden” Jew-haters? By doing what Democrats booed in 2012, and keeping a U.S. promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. By creating an entirely new Middle East paradigm with the brokering of deals known as the “Abraham Accords” that normalized relations between Israel and four Arab/Muslim nations, while making it clear that Palestinians would no longer be accommodated for their longstanding historical intransigence. By cutting off more than $200 million in aid to Palestinians purportedly used to provide aid to Gaza and the West Bank, but inevitably used to abet Hamas terrorism. And by making it clear that his administration’s support for the Jewish State was unequivocal and unwavering.
All of it infuriates Democrat mental gymnasts and their contemptible effort to view everything through a prism of systemic racism. Columnist Liel Leibovitz notes the inherent consequences of such rank propagandizing. “Seeing everything and everywhere through the same racially tinged lens applied to American politics isn’t just intellectually dishonest and morally ruinous,” he writes. “It also puts real American Jews in real danger: If, after all, you believe that Tel Aviv is just another Ferguson or that dead Hamas terrorists are only so many more George Floyds, why not respond to Israel’s attempts at self-defense by taking a page from the BLM playbook? And why not beat up men in yarmulkes the way you would anyone wearing uniform and a badge? It all makes perfect sense.”
Columnist Joel Pollak makes even more sense. “The only thing you should conceal (legally) is your firearm,” he argued. “Second Amendment protects the First. We are not Europe.”
Europe? When the left-leaning Anti-Defamation League (ADL) finds more than 17,000 tweets using variations of the phrase, “Hitler was right” between May 7 and May 14, 2021, and Keyak himself has a track record of supporting gun control, being like Europe is the least of our worries.
Enough obfuscation: Americans must understand that anti-Semitism and the Critical Race Theory being rammed down their collective throats are two sides of the same progressive coin. They must understand that every totalitarian effort, from Hitler to Stalin and Mao, and everything in between, has always been about first fostering division — followed by dehumanization — as a prerequisite for establishing “social utopia.” And for those deemed “the other,” be they the Jews, the bourgeoisie, Donald Trump supporters, or simply people who express disagreement with the prevailing dogma, all manner of retribution is presented as eminently justifiable, even when it precipitates a trip to gulag.
Or the gas chamber. ~The Patriot Post
Mike Pence Goes All-In on MAGA
Last week in New Hampshire, Mike Pence threaded a needle. He’d better get used to doing it.
“President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office,” said the former vice president at the Hillsborough County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner. “I don’t know if we will ever see eye to eye on that day, but I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years. And I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans.”
And there, in a nutshell, is that threaded needle — the three-part challenge facing the former vice president from now until the 2024 election: first, acknowledging the events of January 6 and his heartfelt disagreement with Donald Trump about them; second, relentlessly returning the focus to the far more fertile ground of the America First agenda and the conservative policies that made it so successful; and third, punching back against a Trump-deranged Democrat Party and their media trucklings whenever they try to tar 74 million Trump-Pence voters with the brush of a relative handful of hooligans.
Pence would no doubt prefer to turn the page on the Capitol riot, but neither the media nor the Democrats will let him. Instead, they’ll continue to remind him all about it, and they’ll continue to reach for the smelling salts each time he and his fellow Republicans express an interest in moving beyond it. The January 6 riot was, after all, the least violent and least successful “insurrection” in world history — that is, unless you ask socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden, in which case it was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
On this night, however, Pence was among friends. One of those friends, New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu, introduced him. Sununu’s remarks begin at the 9:10 mark, and Pence’s begin at 16:15.
“Y'know, I learned a lot working alongside President Donald Trump,” said Pence. “Some people think we’re a little bit different. But I think what President Trump showed us was what Republicans can accomplish when our leaders stand firm on conservative principles and don’t back down. That’s exactly what he did, for four years. And under President Donald Trump, and our administration, it was four years of consequence, four years of results. It was four years of promises made and promises kept.”
Pence went on to rattle off a list of high-level achievements: the lowest unemployment rate, highest household income, greatest energy production, the best trade deals, the most secure border, and the strongest military in the history of the world. In a word: MAGA.
He then drilled down a bit: annihilating the ISIS caliphate, isolating Iran and tearing up Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s rotten nuke deal, moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, orchestrated historic peace deals between Arab states and Israel, confirming three Supreme Court justices, and standing strong for human life — these were all great successes.
“But how times have changed,” he said. “The governor said he didn’t come here to bash the current administration. … Well I did. So buckle up.” Pence then went on to rattle off “an avalanche of big government liberal policies the likes of which I never even imagined we’d see in our lifetimes.” He quipped, “The truth is, they’ve been so busy on their side, sometimes I think the left hand doesn’t know what the far left hand is doing.”
Pence also pushed back against the Left’s pernicious Critical Race Theory. “America is not a racist country,” he said, prompting one of several standing ovations he received. “It is past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism. … I commend state legislators and governors across the country for banning Critical Race Theory from our schools.”
He then compared the presidency of the dinner’s namesake to that of our 45th president. “President Reagan articulated an agenda that he never took credit for. Because it was an American agenda. He said, ‘People say I’m a great communicator. I’m not a great communicator; I just communicated great things.’ President Donald Trump did the same thing. It was an agenda of a strong and prosperous American built on freedom. And that’s our agenda.”
In closing, Pence returned to a place of great personal strength and comfort. “God isn’t done with America yet,” he said. “I just know in those ancient words that it’s always been true that if His people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray, and turn, and seek His face, He’ll do like He’s always done in much more challenging times than we could possibly imagine. He’ll hear from Heaven, and he’ll heal this land — this one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” ~The Patriot Post
GARY BAUER
State Sabotage?
Kudos to Vanity Fair. The outlet has just published an explosive report on various efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19. Consider these excerpts:
“A month-long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents … found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step.
"In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.”
So elements of the Swamp were doing everything they could to prevent an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. One memo reveals that an official worried the investigation would “open a can of worms."
Well, what was he worried about? That an investigation would inevitably show that our public health bureaucracy, i.e. Dr. Anthony Fauci, without any consent from the American people, bankrolled dangerous research at the communist Chinese Wuhan lab? Apparently so.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, working with President Trump, did set up an investigative group at the State Department. Those researchers did their best to battle entrenched bureaucrats who refused to consider the obvious – that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab.
That investigation was unceremoniously disbanded by the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden White House. But in recent days, as the lab leak theory gained credibility, the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden White House suddenly reversed course and ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to produce their own report on the origins of COVID-19 in 90 days.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden shut down an investigation he could not control, led by people with strong relationships with Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump, and gave it to the same intelligence community that lied to us for years about President Trump allegedly colluding with Russia.
In my view, what happened was a shell game. socialist/ scumbag/liar-Biden killed the investigation that might have resulted in a clear conclusion, forcing him to confront communist China for its responsibility for 600,000 American deaths. Instead, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden would rather work with communist China on the fake issue of climate change.
There’s an additional reason he might not want an independent investigation: It could cause problems for the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden family’s (liar-Hunter Biden’s) dealings in communist China.
Reality Check
While Democrats are pounding the table demanding a high-level commission to investigate the events of January 6th, THIS is the high-level investigation we most urgently need right now.
But we must be realistic. Communist China has had 18 months to destroy evidence. They had that time because every time Donald Trump or any other conservative tried to get to the truth, the legacy media, social media and the entire Democrat Party apparatus accused conservatives of promoting conspiracy theories.
And for good measure, they suggested that anyone trying to blame communist China was a white supremacist stoking anti-Asian hatred.
For 18 months the "fact checkers” did everything they could to prevent the facts from being known about the origins of COVID-19. And when they were confronted about their curious lack of interest in an obvious possible explanation, their answer was always the same: “We’re relying on the World Health Organization and the CDC. We’re following the scientists."
Well, we know the World Health Organization is in the hip pocket of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. And elements of the CDC, and people like Dr. Fauci, had their own self-interested reasons to not investigate the lab because they were indirectly funding it and wanted to keep their cozy relationships with the Chinese communist public health authorities.
Meanwhile, the whole time our media and political elites were silencing people who were asking legitimate questions, communist China was telling the world that the virus originated in the United States.
Our media and the American political left were parroting communist propaganda and running interference for Beijing’s brutal regime!
Fauci’s Follies
Dr. Fauci went on MSNBC yesterday and continued to make really absurd arguments. Perhaps his most outrageous statement was this one:
"I mean, obviously you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways you can get it is don’t be accusatory… I think the accusatory part about it is only going to get them [communist China] to pull back even more.”
Even now, Fauci is still running interference for Beijing. He’s telling us that if we want his Chinese communist friends to cooperate, we need to be nice to them.
Dr. Fauci has got to go. He is dangerously naive.
As I noted yesterday, communist China has lied repeatedly about COVID-19. That’s not in dispute. They’re not going to cooperate. They never were going to cooperate.
The regime is committing genocide. That’s not in dispute. It does not believe in free speech or transparency of any kind. It is a communist regime. They lie. They deceive. That’s what communists do.
Pence In New Hampshire
Last night, former Vice President Mike Pence delivered a strong speech to a record crowd at the annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner hosted by New Hampshire’s Hillsborough County Republican Party. Pence told the cheering crowd that socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s radical policies will result in “another great Republican comeback." He said:
"They [the voters] didn’t vote to open our borders, to give away the safety of our streets, our prosperity or our freedoms or our future… It’s time for freedom-loving Americans to stand up and say, ‘NO MORE!' It’s time for freedom-loving Americans to unite behind an agenda that will bring America back!”
The New Hampshire speech is yet another indication that if Donald Trump chooses not to run again, Mike Pence will enter the fray for the 2024 GOP nomination. ~The Patriot Post
Replies