The Political Insider"House Democrats a few weeks ago released the full text of their big-government socialism $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend package.
"Many important elements were already clear. It would recklessly boost federal spending at a time of already high inflation, impose ruinous tax hikes when the post-pandemic economic recovery is still vulnerable, and impose an anti-work welfare state.
"However, due to the incredible length of the bill—2,465 pages, or about the length of two King James Bibles—there are thousands of separate provisions, far more than can be properly analyzed by legislators or the public." . . .
Takimag. . ."Penn Jillette: a man with no gods, including government. A man who falls for no (to use the title of his Showtime series) “bulls**t.”
"Then his teenage daughter decided that she’s a man. And the world witnessed how quickly the “smug” vanishes from the rationalist when the bullshit hits too close to home.
"About a year or so ago, Jillette’s daughter, Moxie Crimefighter (yes, that’s her name), decided that she’d been “assigned the wrong sex at birth.” And she demanded that her parents no longer use female pronouns for her, like, ever.
"Back in 2014, Jillette bragged on his podcast about how he’d raised Moxie to “laugh at God.”
"There’s an old saying I just coined: “When you laugh at God, He laughs back and best.” Because now Jillette—Mr. “no pseudoscience,” Mr. “no cults or flimflam”—has become the spokesperson for the biggest pseudoscientific cultlike flimflam of the 21st century. The guy who’s spent a career deconstructing magic (“no, the bouquet of flowers didn’t actually become a rabbit; it was sleight of hand”) is now a true believer that a girl can actually become a boy overnight, by the sheer power of mentalism!
"Abracagender!
"In theory, none of this is our concern. What transpires in the Jillette household is solely the business of the Jillettes.
"But Penn makes it our business.
"As part of Jillette’s conversion to spiritualist, he’s publicly renounced his libertarianism (on CNN, no less!), he’s embraced burdensome government, and he’s thrown his support full-throttle behind Joe Biden and Gavin Newsom as they promote policies that strong-arm us to “see” Jillette’s spooks and spirits (Newsom in particular is arguably the most “compulsory” politico in the country when it comes to forcing people to accept tranny theology). Jillette supports politicians who want to force girls to shower, change, and go to the bathroom alongside biological boys. Those same politicians have eliminated cervical cancer smear test outreaches to women (because it’s a hate crime to say that only women have a cervix), and the Mayo Clinic—joining the madness—has scrubbed its cervical cancer awareness page of any mention of women." . . .
"Where do Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson get off spending their own money to go into space when we already have a scandal-ridden and incompetent public agency for that very purpose?
"All Jeff Bezos ever did was make a year-long pandemic bearable by creating the company that delivered everything we wanted to our doors within hours." . . .
"As we saw today, it was even used byRep. Bill Posey (R-FL)on the floor of the House as well as by the Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxtonwhen announcing he would be suing Joe Biden over the border for stopping the building of the border wall. As we noted, while Joe Biden stopped the border wall that would have helped protect Americans, he was having fencing built around his beach house.
"But given that criticism of Biden, one might imagine there would be a backlash from some in the media or on the left against the meme."
"Now some are asking if that’s what’s happening after actions taken by YouTube.". . .
"They need better people. They need people that are respected because it's not that CNN is beyond repair," Rogan said. "Look, I know Jeff Zucker… He's a nice guy… He's a great guy. It's just there, it's like everything else, these people are managing at scale. And but you can't allow people to say things that are absolutely untrue when you have a f---ing news organization.
Did you hear what MSNBC's Joy Reid claimed about Ashli Babbitt? . . ."JOY REID: Ashli Babbitt, who was a trained Air Force specialist, trained by our tax dollars to kill, she was a military member. If she had gotten through that door, God knows what kind of harm she could have done.
"DEAN OBEIDALLAH, MSNBC COLUMNIST: His supporters who attack the Capitol are terrorists. It`s two plus two equals four stuff, like Ashli Babbitt, all those who attacked the Capitol are terrorists because the FBI director has said it was an act of terrorism.
"REP. SWALWELL: Ashley Babbitt was the woman that was leading the mob that was about to storm the House floor and she was shot by a brave officer that was the last line of defense for many members of Congress and many of these members were the slowest, least mobile members. If they had been overrun by that mob, people would have been killed.". . .
What on Earth are our journalism colleges turning out? TD
“As you can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go Brandon’,” she said.
"However, what they were actually chanting was “f*** Joe Biden,” showing their disapproval of the US President.
"Now, the NBC reporter’s hilarious blunder* is going viral on Twitter.". . .
"Blunder"? Emphasis mine, because no way can I consider this a "blunder", but more gaslighting by the press to keep Biden from being the butt of the joke. TD
"Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted on Thursday that the basis for targeting and potentially charging parents concerned about what their children are learning in schools with domestic terrorism was a letter from the National School Boards Association, not real evidence.
“When did you first review the data showing this so-called disturbing uptick?” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan asked during a House Judiciary hearing on Thursday.
“ 'I read the letter, and we have been seeing over time—” Garland began before Jordan interrupted him.
“ 'So you read the letter? That’s your source?” Jordan asked incredulously. “Is there some study, some effort, some investigation someone did that, said there’s been a disturbing uptick, or you just take the words of the National School Board Association?”
'Garland then confirmed it wasn’t until NSBA contacted him that his department began to investigate claims of violence and terrorism.
“ 'Well, the National School Board Association, which represents thousands of school boards and school board members, says that there are these kinds of threats. When we read in the newspapers reports of threats of violence—” Garland said before Jordan interjected again." . . . Full article here
The Problems With the NSBA Apology for Their ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Letter"As we previously reported, the NSBA apologized last night for a letter they had written to Joe Biden implying that parents could be “domestic terrorists.” That letter was then used by Attorney General Merrick Garland to justify a coordinated federal law enforcement effort to address “threats” against school boards, an effort which people feared was really to chill speech from parents upset about the politicized agenda being pitched to their kids in school, particularly in regard to Critical Race Theory.". . .
The letter (cropped to enhance legibility, but contained in the posted article above):
"The Madness of King George, Based on Alan Bennett's acclaimed play The Madness of George III, takes a dark-humored look at the mental decline of King George III of England. Taking place in 1788, the film's story begins three decades into George's reign, as the unstable king (Nigel Hawthorne) begins to show signs of increasing dementia, from violent fits of foul language to bouts of forgetfulness. The King's prime minister William Pitt (Julian Wadham) and his wife Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren) are determined to protect the throne during this time of weakness, when many see it as an opportunity to overthrow the unpopular George, whom they blamed for the loss of the American colonies. Although doctors are brought in, their archaic treatments of the time prove of little value and therefore, in desperation, they turn to Dr. Willis (Ian Holm), a harsh, unconventional specialist whose unusual methods recall modern psychiatry."
Comment to this post by Anne Browning: "Yes - it's a brilliant screenplay enabling brilliant performances. The direction is superb. It's also a great lesson in juxtaposition of elements. His gagging coincides with the rousing coronation music, used ironically here, it creates a terrible sense of loss of dignity. That's good direction - not pulling out the violins and going slo-mo or something obvious like that is a stroke of genius. But yes, Nigel Hawthorne is just magnificent. He was often defined as a comic actor, indeed his timing and ability to flip scenes on their head, as you might in a comedy, is used to brilliant effect in this film. His choices are unpredictable and absolutely inspired and help create the strange nature of George's "madness". In many ways George was an effective monarch, and like Shakespeare the writer uses the important stage of monarchy to talk about something much more intimate and real - the loss of status, dignity and respect we feel with a mental illness. It is a totally convincing portrait of a man unravelling before our eyes."
For now, policymakers should be vigilant about avoiding well-meaning but counterproductive policy responses and, instead, work to improve long-run supply chain resilience by jettisoning existing harmful government policies.
"Snarled supply chains are a major economic and news story, with dramatic photos of dozens of container ships waiting offshore for weeks at a time for the opportunity to unload their cargoes at overflowing West Coast ports. In a sign of the times, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles became so congested that some ships could not even approach shallower depths to anchor, forcing them to drift 20 miles offshore. But it’s not just the ports; every hub and spoke of the logistics chain is at capacity. And unfortunately for pundits and politicians in Washington, D.C., there are no policy levers to pull to quickly and easily resolve these issues.
"To be sure, certain government policies have made this situation worse than it otherwise would be. These policies include the failure to adopt international best practices and technologies at U.S. ports due to intransigent labor unions and their allied politicians, the duties on Chinese truck chassis that have tripled their price in recent years under the Trump and Biden administrations, and unprecedented federal COVID-19 relief, stimulus and unemployment money going to many households, which contributed to spending. However, while policy reforms could help improve the long-run resilience of the supply chain, the main source of these problems is unusual short-run consumer demand that public policy is ill-suited to address.". . . Marc Scribner Senior Transportation Policy Analyst
“This growth in extremist ideology is echoed in an epidemic of violence and intimidation directed at our health care professionals, teachers, essential workers, school board members and election workers,” Nadler said.
"Nadler, a partisan loon who spent the past four years stirring up every conspiracy theory against President Trump, claimed there was a “broader pattern” here, including “the growing threats of violence against public servants.' ” . . .
The world must regard America as a silly nation, no longer worthy of respect. Nations sheltering under our wings now have to feel they are alone in facing their enemies.
Maybe Biden is in a similar situation because he is using the same formula. He proposed colossal spending packages for projects that will take years just to receive permits. Meanwhile, Americans are supposed to be content with a raft of social programs that no one asked for. It wasn’t a winning formula in 2010 and does not appear to be any more popular now.
Silvio Canto, Jr."A year ago, the Biden 2020 electoral strategy was to hide, blame it on the pandemic, and let Trump do all of the talking. The strategy was made possible by an assist from a media hysterically obsessed with everything Trump.
"The strategy worked.
"It's the fall of 2021, and President Biden is not disappointing anyone who branded him the master of gaffes. Check out the latest from #46:
During a rambling speech in Scranton on Wednesday, Joe Biden accidentally said he was Vice President for 36 years. Not 8 years, but 36 years.
He also said that his economic plan would cost nothing and vowed to take “millions” of cars off the road in the name of climate change.
Let's be fair. President Biden's comments about his plan costing nothing and removing cars off the road were political. He is not the first politician to say something absurd.
His comments about commuting for 36 years are not political. They are dangerously signs of a man who can't follow the text or just goes off on his own. He is obviously failing to hear what he is saying and does not have the ability to laugh and fix it.
"Don't expect a lot of press conferences or anything more than a friendly conversation with a CNN host. In the meantime, no one in the media is apologizing for letting Biden hide in the basement during the campaign . . ."
