Come On, McConnell, Republicans Need You To Step Up And Lead

 The Federalist

As the top elected Republican in the country, Mitch McConnell has an obligation to immediately and dramatically improve his performance.

"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked yesterday about Republican prospects for the November elections.

“ 'I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell replied.

"The media and others on the left were of course thrilled with the Republican leader’s “notable quotable” disparagement of Republican candidates and the voters who chose them, which somehow came off even worse on video.

"What was McConnell thinking? What in the world was he thinking?

"Unnecessarily ceding an incredibly winnable Senate to Democrats three months before an election is a great example of the leadership choices that have led McConnell to be the least popular national politician in the country, according to the RealClearPolitics average. And it’s a good example of why so many Republicans — grateful as they may be for his successes — think it’s time for new leadership.

"Still, for the time being, McConnell is the top elected Republican, and he has an obligation to effectively lead the Republican team, respecting the voters and who they have chosen.

"In this case, having a nearly opposite response about Republican prospects rather than the pouty and clinical one McConnell offered would have been strategically and politically wise. It also would have matched much more with the reality of the political environment.". . .

Job One For The GOP: Kill The Inflation Reduction Act

 Job One For The GOP: Kill The Inflation Reduction Act – Issues & Insights

Simply put, the IRA is jam-packed with Democratic Party crackpot ideas that couldn’t get passed on their own. It is the most rancid of rotten policy stews cooked up in more than aofore deployed by the climate crowd as possible vehicles to re-engineer the U.S. economy,” says author and attorney Chris Horner.

"Joe Biden’s $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act passed both the Senate and House without a single vote from Republicans. It has zero redeeming value and is the most wretched bill out of Washington since Obamacare was approved in 2010. The GOP has to take it off the books.

As we pointed out in this space weeks ago, the entire bill is a lie. It has nothing whatsoever to do with inflation and, in fact, won’t reduce it at all. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model says the IRA’s “impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, says it won’t rein in rising prices “over the short run.” Even the Congressional Budget Office says ​​it does nothing to address inflation.

What it will do, however, is:

• Enact much of the New Green Deal, a counterproductive bill that was conceived as a means to redistribute wealth rather than save the environment through green initiatives (anyone sensing a pattern here?), and was estimated to cost $51 trillion to $93 trillion over its first decade. 
• Raise energy costs and, says James Agresti of Just Facts, “make America poorer by subsidizing products that are much more expensive.”
• Outright rob millions of Americans of their livelihoods by requiring businesses to hire workers rather than letting them work as independent contractors, which many prefer. This provision of the bill is based on California’s 2019 Assembly Bill 5, which has stolen Californians’ right to work and hurt small businesses. The law is so depraved that it’s likely to require the state’s 70,000 independent truckers, who are key to moving goods from West Coast ports to the rest of the country, “to sell their trucks and either retire from the business or drive as an employee of a shipping company,” says Edward Ring of the California Policy Center. It’s nearly impossible to overstate how cruel and malevolent AB5 and the similar provision in the IRA are.
• Enact hidden taxes that hit Americans across all income groups (Agresti again).
• “Reduce the incentives of some people to work, mainly because of the enhanced health insurance subsidies, pushing down output and pushing up inflation,” says the CBO.
• Create a small army of IRS shock troops who will abet the progressive-socialist political complex’s consolidation of raw political power while wrecking families, individuals, and small businesses.
• Use its 40 pages of amendments to the Clean Air Act “to arm litigants hostile to the energy industries” and employ “various provisions of the Clean Air Act not heretofore deployed by the climate crowd as possible vehicles to re-engineer the U.S. economy,” says author and attorney Chris Horner.". . .

Has the Great Reset Reminded Us Why Freedom's Worth the Fight?

Has the Great Reset Reminded Us Why Freedom's Worth the Fight? - American Thinker

. . ." Looking around today at this rumbling, raging contest between individual freedom and State-imposed control has me pondering that early childhood memory once again.  Can people imagine the costs of securing freedom without having to endure its attendant struggles?  Or is it necessary, from time to time, for some contingent of humanity to suffer through tyranny just so that it might subsequently fight for personal liberation?  "Freedom isn't free."  It's a great bumper sticker, a message of sublime truth.  Do most people actually understand it, though, if they haven't become personally acquainted with its painful meaning?  Or must they first lose what they were freely given before learning why liberty is so dear?  The past two years of COVID-1984 madness and Western governments' increasing obsession with "climate change" fear porn necessitating today's food and fuel rationing suggest an obvious, if dispiriting, answer. ". . . 

“The left is losing the battle for the minds of the American electorate, Morning Consult research shows”

 Legal Insurrection

"There are many explanations and reasons for why the left is so aggressive, capturing institutions like academia and relentlessly driving out anyone who disagrees. There was an important article about this phenomenon in The NY Sun, The Way of the Dodo: Conservative Professors Confront the Future:

The ranks of right-leaning academics are dwindling, as college campuses trend toward ideological homogeneity and some professors are choosing to leave as they lament the failed promises of liberal education in America….

Nearly a quarter of American academics favor ousting a colleague for having a so-called wrong opinion about hot-button topics like immigration, according to a recent study from a libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute.. . .

‘So disingenuous’! Charles Payne torches CNN’s shameless spin on gas prices –

  Twitchy.com  "Yesterday we told you about CNN’s headline about gas prices that’s guaranteed to get the Biden White House’s seal of approval. If you missed it, get a load of this feat of journalistic water-carrying:

Forgiveness and Healing for Two Old Soldiers -

 . . ."Both wounds were healed when the two men met at an Easy Company reunion.  Having seen Vietnam vets meeting their enemies inspired Bill Maloney to invite German soldiers to the Easy Company reunions.  The Easy Company men were receptive except for a couple, including Philadelphian William Guarnere, who told Fritz that he would have killed him 60 years ago, punctuating his comment with a throat slash.  Malarkey saved the scene by toasting Fritz and welcoming him to the Band of Brothers.". . .

 Forgiveness and Healing for Two Old Soldiers - American Thinker  . . ."Authored by figures such as James Patterson, Clive Cussler, and especially Tom Clancy, dad books helped to enforce the narrative of the American Century.  In this narrative, (Anglo-) American democracy struggled with and ultimately overcame fascism and communism and is currently battling various rogue terrorist actors.

"There are "dad shows" and "dad movies," which along with dad books form "dad media."  Within dad media, a middle-aged American male — usually a vet — acts as a spy or commando fighting to make the world safe for democracy.  Dad media usually depict a flawed American military and intelligence establishment, and there are bad apples in the American establishment.  The system itself, however, is fundamentally worth preserving.

"One of the most popular stories in dad media is the struggle between Western liberalism and German National Socialism and its axis partners in Italy and Japan.  There are many dad films that tell this story, including The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Day (1962), The Great Escape (1963), and Patton (1969).  While many of these films were released during the Vietnam era, the 1990s, saw a renewed interest in the second World War.  With films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Terrence Malick's masterful The Thin Red Line (1998), a new generation was able to watch (usually with their dads) America's struggle against Germany and Japan.

"One of the most powerful and popular examples of dad media was the 2001 HBO series Band of Brothers.  As the War on Terror rolled out, Americans sat transfixed to their TVs, viewing the struggles of Dick Winters, Don Malarkey, and Carwood Lipton of the 101st Airborne Division's "Easy Company" from Camp Toccoa, Georgia to Berchtesgaden, Germany.  Soon available on DVD, Band of Brothers became one of the first "binge series" as well as one of the first "boxed sets" of TV shows.  While the series was deeply patriotic, it did not flinch in revealing some of the faults of its characters as well as some sympathy to the lives of German soldiers — there is the famous "German general speech" at the end, in which the members of Easy Company realize that, while their cause was just, the members of Wehrmacht against which they fought were also soldiers.". . .

‘Absolutely horrifying’: Fox News co-host tears into Texas school district for banning Bible, Anne Frank adaptation

 Fox News co-host Emily Compagno tore into a Texas school district on Thursday for banning, among 41 books, the Bible and a graphic adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

(Video: Fox News)  "After three new conservative school board members were elected to the Keller Independent School District’s seven-member board of trustees, the district reversed course and decided to pull all 41 books that were challenged last year, despite recommendations from the school district committee, which included members of the public, that some of the books should stay on the student library shelves.

"Included in the purge are all versions of the Bible, Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” and an illustrated adaptation of  “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank.

"The Texas Tribune obtained an email sent to principals in the district from Jennifer Price, the executive director of Keller ISD’s curriculum and instruction, in which Price gives the order to yank the books.

“Attached is a list of all books that were challenged last year,” Price wrote. “By the end of today, I need all books pulled from the library and classrooms. Please collect these books and store them in a location. (book room, office, etc.).”

"The challenged books will once again undergo a review.". . .

CDC Director: We Screwed Up COVID Response -

 The Lid (lidblog.com)

"People who do not read newspapers, had their cable shut off for lack of payment, or took a rocket keeping them away from the Earth since 2019 might find this news to be surprising.

"On Wednesday, Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky admitted they screwed up their response to COVID-19. As Homer Simpson might respond, “DOH.” Americans have been saying that all along. Take the six-foot separation, for example. There was no scientific basis for it. The CDC pulled that out of their magician’s hat.

"Remember the two-week-long quarantine? The CDC recently shortened that to five days.

Walensky also said the agency needs to acknowledge the flaws of its response to Covid-19. Those mistakes date to the earliest days of the pandemic when a test designed by CDC scientists to detect the new disease failed to work on the ground — leaving the country blind to how quickly the SARS-CoV-2 virus was transmitting at a critical juncture when aggressive measures could have slowed Covid’s spread.

Walensky also said the agency needs to acknowledge the flaws of its response to Covid-19. Those mistakes date to the earliest days of the pandemic, when a test designed by CDC scientists to detect the new disease failed to work on the ground — leaving the country blind to how quickly the SARS-CoV-2 virus was transmitting at a critical juncture when aggressive measures could have slowed Covid’s spread.

"The medical term for that is “Sh*t we really f**ked up.”. . .

Mitt Romney Just Stomped All Over Liz Cheney's Presidential Dreams –

  RedState  . . ."But in the grand tradition of those who fail, wanting to fail upward, Cheney is now considering whether to run for president because not even winning her race in Wyoming is somehow an indication that she should run nationally. She even compared herself to Abraham Lincoln in her concession speech. Talk about delusional.

"There’s no doubt that some on the left might support such an effort, thinking that she might draw votes away from the eventual Republican nominee in 2024 if she ran as a third-party candidate. But there’s no way that she becomes the Republican nominee.

"A lot of the media is still in the phase of pumping her up while she’s still attacking Trump.

"But now that she lost and got such a royal trouncing, it sounds like at least one “Never Trumper” might be jumping off that Cheney train, at least when it comes to her running for president — Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), the guy who flips with the wind.

. . ."So he’s not going to be on board with an aborted effort to take away from the Republican nominee. That’s intriguing, coming from Romney, but expect more people not to be on board with this either if he’s dumping all over it. The funniest part is the last sentence. He doesn’t want anyone to think he would be on board with the “collaboration” he thinks is going to come down the pike. And he thinks she might run for “other purposes.”

"What would those “other purposes” be? Getting a ton of money to the anti-Trump organization she’s going to set up? Lincoln Project 2.0? The first one didn’t go well. Talk about craven use of the process. But that would be Liz Cheney."

Babylon Bee Offered Job to Brian Stelter After He Was Fired From CNN

 

Babylon Bee Offered Job to Brian Stelter After He Was Fired From CNN – PJ Media  "Brian Stelter may be out at CNN, but he already has a job offer from Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillion.

“ 'Hey @brianstelter, would you be interested in working for the Bee?” Dillon tweeted. “We’re looking for talent with experience putting out funny fake news. You come highly recommended. Shoot me a DM if you’re interested!”. . .

Stelter Forced Out At CNN After Being Accused Of Sexual Harassment By Mrs. Potato Head | Babylon Bee  . . ."Sources say Stelter's firing is part of a larger effort to remove staff members who are caught up in harassment allegations and who also have a show no one watches.

"Stelter responded to the accusations, saying: "These charges are false, and I'm furious that CNN would allow my good name to be besmirched like this. And you can tell how angry I am because I'm wearing my frowny mouth and angry eyes."

"At publishing time, Stelter confirmed he would be taking his time off to reconnect with relatives in Idaho."

Inflation Reduction Act Tax Changes: Details & Analysis

 

Inflation Reduction Act Tax Changes: Details & Analysis | Tax Foundation

U.S. Retail Sales Indicate The Fed Has A Lot More Work To Do To Bring Down Inflation (breitbart.com)

41 Inconvenient Truths on the "New Energy Economy" - Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org)   "A week doesn’t pass without a mayor, governor, policymaker or pundit joining the rush to demand, or predict, an energy future that is entirely based on wind/solar and batteries, freed from the “burden” of the hydrocarbons that have fueled societies for centuries. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether, or why, an energy “transformation” is called for, the physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future. Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.”

"He’s right. So, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,” I did just that.

"Herein, then, is a summary of some of the bottom-line realities from the underlying math. (See the full report for explanations, documentation, and citations.)". . .

Soros-Funded Gascon Requests Death Penalty Be Reversed for Murderer of Two Students

  Neon Nettle

The deaths were from a car hijacking in the parking lot of a grocery store

. . ."Eric Siddall, vice president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, which represents about 800 Los Angeles County prosecutors, said Gascón position is at odds with jurisprudence.

"This is not the first case in which Gascón has sought a reduced sentence.

"Shortly after taking office, Gascón sought reduced penalties for a man accused of murdering two people.

"Including Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputy Joseph Solano.

"Gascón has only continued to advocate for reduced sentences since then.

"This is often over the objections of his own prosecutors.

"Few elected Democrats have spoken out against him, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who endorsed Gascón in 2020 and appointed him as local district attorney during his tenure as mayor of San Francisco.". . .

Newsom and Gascon: both up for dismission and California wanted to keep them both.