Posts on Sunday, August 7, 2022
This week the baseball world lost its greatest voice in legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully.
However, because through the wonders of modern technology we never truly lose someone’s voice, on Friday the Chicago Cubs chose to pay tribute to Scully by running back the rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame that Scully sang in 1998 in honor of their legendary broadcaster, Harry Caray.(Tweet/Video) Scully and Caray maintained a strong friendship throughout the years. (Tweets) The move was met with widespread praise online: (Tweets) Scully began broadcasting Dodgers games in Brooklyn in 1950, eight years before the team made the trip to Los Angeles.
Sen. Lindsey Graham gave credit Sunday to President Biden for several bipartisan legislative accomplishments, such as on infrastructure, gun control and social media. The praise from the South Carolina Republican came as Senate Democrats were advancing their tax and climate spending bill along party lines, a move that has infuriated Republicans amid the highest inflation rate in four decades. “He’s signed things that made sense. The infrastructure bill, the gun thing, we’ve been working on this for years. We sort of found the sweet spot,” Mr. Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”(Snip)Mr. Graham, who was interviewed with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, also offered kind words
There is a "deep state" of government bureaucrats who regularly disrupt the commander in chief's plans, former President Donald Trump said in a recent interview.
In talking with popular conservative commentator Dan Bongino, Trump opened up about how officials within his own administration created roadblocks for his agenda and put blame on recommendations he received from "RINOS," or Republicans in Name Only, a pejorative often used to criticize fellow members of the GOP.
"Look, there is a deep state," Trump said. "There is a group of people that are not doing a very good job for the country."
CNN anchor Brian Stelter said Sunday on his show “Reliable Sources” that the ongoing federal investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter is “not just a right-wing media story.”
Stelter added Hunter’s legal jeopardy could endanger his father’s chances in his 2024 re-election run.
Stelter said, “Maureen Dowd’s column in this morning’s New York Times basically says that Joe Biden should not run for re-election. This has been a narrative for months, and it is getting louder and louder, including from some Democratic lawmakers saying Biden should basically hang it up and say he is a lame duck and not run in 2024. So where do you come down on this
President Joe Biden left the White House for Rehoboth beach on Sunday morning after being released from covid isolation.
He has tested negative for the second day in a row and his doctor cleared him for public engagement and presidential travel.
He arrived at the Delaware shore a short time later, where he'll be reunited with Jill Biden. He last saw the first lady on July 20th.
'I'm feeling good,' he told reporters at the White House upon departure.
He smiled and waved as he headed to Marine One.
The Queensland state government will shutter a $223 million (US$154.6 million) COVID-19 quarantine facility in Wellcamp, west of Toowoomba, just six months after it was opened.
In the same announcement, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said another multi-million dollar, federal government-funded quarantine facility in Pinkenba, Brisbane—due to be finalised in a few weeks—would not be opened.
On July 27, Miles announced that the state would not continue leasing the Wellcamp-based Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre until Aug. 1.
Wellcamp is about 144 kilometres west of Brisbane, the state capital, while the federally funded $350 million, 800-bed Pinkenba facility is adjacent to the Brisbane Airport and cruise ship terminal.
As recently as 2012, Iowa was basically a Democratic state that occasionally voted Republican. The political legacy of former Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin was still a very big deal. Three of Iowa's five congressmen were Democrats. Iowa had a very socially conservative Republican tradition, but it also had a strong left-wing populist Democratic tradition. (Snip) The official argument for this change, of course, is that Iowa is 90% white, so it no longer looks like the Democratic Party. Sorry, you're just too white to get the first shot at choosing our party nominee. But then, it was Iowa caucusgoers who
CNN has discovered that Liz Cheney’s position is truly as bad as it seems, with that position looking even worse given her recent, desperate releases of media meant to stimulate Republicans into voting for her: an image of Kevin Costner, the actor that shot and killed someone on set, supporting her and a video of her dad, the warmonger that bathed Iraq in blood, claiming that Trump is a threat to the republic.
Predictably, Republican voters weren’t particularly impressed with a return to the Bush days or with a far-left actor that negligently shot someone (I guess he has that in common with Dick Cheney) supporting her,
The Senate on Sunday passed the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act, a scaled-down version of the Build Back Better Act.
The Senate voted to pass H.R. 5376, otherwise known as the Inflation Reduction Act, 51-50. The legislation passed on a party-line vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.
“It’s been a long, tough and winding road,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said ahead of the vote. (Snip) House Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN) has detailed the 50 most radical aspects of the legislation.
Perhaps ironically for Manchin, the bill would not reduce inflation, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The US summer driving season is a bust. But that’s no bad thing. With less than a month until Labor Day, which marks the end of the peak gasoline demand season, deliveries of the fuel have dropped below the level seen during the pandemic summer of 2020. On a four-week average basis, which smooths out a lot of the noise in the weekly figures, gasoline deliveries from primary storage facilities, which the Energy Information Administration measures as a proxy for demand, slipped below those seen in the same period two years ago. Driving Season's a Bust Gasoline demand is lower
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted Democrats over details in a reconciliation bill that would add 87,000 more IRS workers.
Cruz shared the remarks during a Senate floor speech this weekend that noted Americans are not looking for more IRS agents as an answer to the nation’s problems.
“There are a lot of bad things in this bill, but few are worse than the proposal by Democrats in this bill to double the size of the IRS and create 87,000 new IRS agents,” Cruz said during his Senate floor speech.
“I guarantee you citizens in every one of our states, if you ask them, ‘What do they want?’ they don’t want
The World Has Gone Crazy
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Normally, when I sit down to write column, I have one subject in mind and focus on that. Today it is different. I’ve been sitting around trying to think of one topic, but this week has given me too many – far too many things that make no sense or are completely stupid that I can’t get out of my mind. So I’m going all buffet-style today, loading up the plate with a little from each because it seems like the whole world has gone mad.
First, the idea that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema “changed their minds” on setting another several hundred billion dollars on fire to subsidize
The Senate has passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a $740 billion climate change and healthcare spending bill that has been the result of months-long talks within the Democratic Party.
No Republican lawmakers signed onto the bill, though Democrats were able to pass it via a simple majority through the budget reconciliation process.
Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the evenly divided chamber as Democrats erupted into applause at the end of their 16-hour session.
A visibly emotional Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate Democrats passed their massive spending package on Sunday in a party-line vote using budget reconciliation.
The so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” passed the Senate via a simple majority with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Democrats used the budget reconciliation process, which allows a measure to pass with a simple majority rather than needing to meet a 60-vote threshold.
The legislation is essentially a pared down version of President Biden’s Build Back Better package that was put to rest last year when Senator Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) pulled his support.
The plan would allocate $369 billion for energy and climate initiatives
California City To Consider Resolution
Banning Abortions, Making City A ‘Sanctuary
For Life’ replies
Banning Abortions, Making City A ‘Sanctuary
For Life’ replies
The city council in one Orange County, California, town will consider a resolution in the coming weeks that would ban abortions and make the community a “sanctuary for life.”
San Clemente City Councilman Steve Knoblock drafted and proposed the resolution that recognizes life beginning at conception and “stands firmly against” Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics having a presence in the city of nearly 65,000 people. The council is set to consider the resolution at its next meeting on August 16.
An investigation is underway into a robbery by four masked men who brazenly broke into a Bronx jewelry store last week and made off with an estimated $2 million worth of merchandise, according to the NYPD. The incident, which involved four men wearing face masks and was recorded by the business' surveillance camera, happened just after 2:30 p.m. local time on Friday afternoon. Footage shows one man initially standing at storefront door of Rocco's Jewelry, a retailer whose shop is located on a busy avenue in the Bronx, steps from Fordham University and down the road from the New
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wouldn't commit to throwing her weight behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if he were the GOP presidential candidate in 2024 because of his similarities to former President Donald Trump. "I think that Ron DeSantis has lined himself up almost entirely with Donald Trump, and I think that’s very dangerous," Cheney said during an interview at a house party last week, according to the New York Times.
Cheney, who faces an uphill climb to keep her seat in Congress during next week's Wyoming primary election, said she "would find it very difficult" to support DeSantis in a general election, but also brushed off talk
Former President Donald Trump has often promised that he would drain the swamp that is Washington, D.C. and now, after reportedly being excluded from a briefing ahead of the public on the killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the swamp may be trying to drain him.
(snip) Trump was a notable and telling exemption from the group that President Joe Biden’s administration had provided a heads-up to. After cagier responses on the matter following the initial reporting on the terrorists death, the National Security Council admitted Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had been notified.
If Rep. Liz Cheney were trying to prove she’s the worst GOP politician in decades, what would she be doing differently?
The Wyoming congresswoman, who is about to get blown out in her primary by Harriet Hageman, locked arms with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the 2020 election to spearhead the January 6th committee. What has followed is an exercise in partisan insanity, with proclamations of a “seven-step plan” by Trump to overthrow the government being met with no evidence at all. All the while, Cheney continues to tease bombshells that are supposedly so important that she can wait to reveal them just prior to the mid-terms.
Former President Donald J. Trump delivered the goods at CPAC with another of his epic, crowd pleasing speeches in which he excoriated his adversaries and brilliantly mocked the story of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchison about his alleged clash with Secret Service agents on January 6, 2021. (Video) Hutchinson, who was the top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who was unveiled as the J6 committee’s star “witness” in June told a tale that an “irate” Trump lunged at the steering wheel in his presidential limo “The Beast” and reportedly said
Even border crossers are too scared of the crime-ridden Big Apple.
Mayor Adams tried to greet the latest bus load of migrants to get shipped in from Texas early Sunday — but was horrified to find the vast majority had already skipped, admitting it was likely through “fear” of the city.
“We were led to believe about 40 people should have been on that bus. Only 14 got off,” said Adams, whom The Post caught having heated words with an organizer during the alarming, unexpected 7 a.m. no-show at Midtown’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. (Photos) “We’ve got to work together — we’re not on different sides here,” Mayor Eric Adams said
Analysis: Latest Version of Senate Democrats’
Reconciliation Bill Raises Taxes on Small Businesses replies
Reconciliation Bill Raises Taxes on Small Businesses replies
The latest iteration of the Senate Democrats’ reconciliation bill, known as the “Inflation Reduction Act,” would raise taxes on thousands of small and mid-sized businesses across the country, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).
Senate Democrats changed the language of their new minimum corporate book tax, which would now hit small and midsized businesses well below the $1 billion profit threshold the tax intended to hit.
The new tax would impose a 15 percent minimum tax on the book income of “applicable corporations.” However, the latest change to the book tax would impact any business with private equity in its capital structure.
My dog, my choice?
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“My body, my choice” is a favorite slogan of abortion advocates. It’s thin gruel.
To the extent this slogan is an analysis and not just a chant, it assumes the conclusion. It assumes that a fetus anywhere from hours old to nearly born is simply owned in a legal property sense by the mother in whom it resides.
But that’s the whole question, right? That question is not answered by just determining the location of the fetus. If it were, then a mother wrapping her arms around her baby or toddler or husband could make the same argument; “My body, my choice.”
When Tulare resident Quentin Nelms heard California was offering a hefty state subsidy to help lower-income residents buy electric cars, he applied right away.
But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.
Nelms spent four months on a waitlist before he was accepted into one of the state’s clean-car incentive programs in January. He qualified for $9,500 that he planned to use to buy a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E. But after discovering that several dealerships had raised the car’s price by more than $10,000 during the time it took to get the grant, he could no longer afford the roughly $53,000 cost.
Democrats got a twofer with the cave-in of Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on their badly misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act" of 2022, paving the way for the $700 billion bill's passage in Congress -- the joy of taxing, and the joy of spending.
Now they are hailing this as some kind of achievement, something that could save their bacon come the November midterms, or else trash the economy enough as Republicans take over to make voters cry out for the Democrats' return.
The crowing for this disastrous bill, badly misnamed as the "Inflation Reduction Act," is incredible.
Billionaires, Hollywood celebrities, and climate activists share fame, fortune, and a profile they work hard to control. All of which is why so many are calling on a public company not to track their flights and expose their carbon footprints.
AFP reports flight-following websites and Twitter accounts that offer real-time views of air traffic are on the end of regular pushback ranging from complaints to gear seizures by those who would rather their movements are not in the public domain. One U.S.-based group alone gets dozens of “requests” each year to stop posting aircraft flight movements, according to its organiser, Dan Streufert.
“We have not removed anything so far. This is all public information.
Freight ships carrying almost 170,000 tonnes of grain and other products set sail from Ukraine's Black Sea ports this morning as part of a U.N.-brokered deal to protect the export of vital foodstuffs from the nation amid war with Russia. Foreign-flagged ships yesterday docked at a Ukrainian port for the first time since Russia's invasion began on February 24, according to infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov.(Snip)The ships that have left Ukrainian ports included the Marshall Islands-flagged Glory, with a cargo of 66,000 tonnes of corn bound for Istanbul, and Riva Wind, loaded with 44,000 tonnes of corn, heading for Turkey's Iskenderun, the Turkish defence ministry said.
Rev. Al Sharpton argued this week that the Bible endorses abortion because the Bible is about choice.
Rev Al: “The Bible, if you’re using this as a religious argument, the Bible is about choice.
Murder is about choice too, but that doesn’t mean the Bible condones it.
It’s not clear which Bible Rev. Al Sharpton is referring to but it’s not the Christian Bible. President of National Action Network and MSNBC PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton joined Chris Jansing Reports on Thursday to discuss abortion and religion. Sharpton didn’t understand how one could be a good Christian and be pro-life because, according to him, “the Bible is about choice.”
Chicago police and transit officials announced additional plans to increase security on L and subway trains and platforms after a 29-year-old man was fatally shot on a Red Line train early Saturday near Chatham. Diuntel Moon was on the train near the 100 block of West 79th Street at about 2:05 a.m. when someone walked up and shot him in the chest and abdomen, according to police. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he died. “Senseless gun violence and incidents like these, whether on the CTA or in our neighborhoods, have no place in this city.(Snip)As of mid-July, 488 attacks
Los Angeles voters to decide if hotels
will be forced to house the homeless despite
safety concerns replies
will be forced to house the homeless despite
safety concerns replies
Los Angeles voters will cast their ballot on a proposal that could force hotels to house the homeless, a policy that has many hotel owners concerned about how it will impact public safety. President of the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association Ray Patel joined "Fox & Friends Weekend," Sunday, to discuss why the policy is not a long-term solution and his worry if the policy is adopted. "This is not a solution, it's just a temporary fix," Patel told co-host Carley Shimkus. "And during Project Roomkey, a great example, they housed the unhoused in the hotels – but the government
The mother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died shortly after the infamous mob riot at the Capitol, told the Daily Mail that he did not die from being struck on the head by a fire extinguisher, further destroying one now-debunked piece of the narrative propelling outrage and investigations into who was in D.C. on Jan. 6.
“We think he had a stroke, but we don’t know anything for sure,” Gladys Sicknick said almost a month after stories about her son being bludgeoned to death by Trump supporters went viral. “We’d love to know what happened.”
Gladys’s confirmation completely undermines the erroneous coverage promoted and propelled by corrupt corporate media institutions
When attempting to rank or evaluate something or someone, context is everything. For instance, if we want to proclaim that a professional baseball player is an exceptional first baseman, we must first establish context. Are we comparing that player only to other first baseman playing today, in which case the bar is lower than it might otherwise be? Or are we comparing to him every first baseman who has ever played the game, in which case the great Lou Gehrig is indisputably the gold standard?
Context is critical.
So too does context affect one’s effort in trying to establish the qualifications of a country.
Elon Musk questioned President Joe Biden’s ongoing effort to release WNBA star Brittney Griner from a Russian prison while thousands are locked up in the US for the same offense.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in Russia for cannabis possession and Musk noted others locked up on American soil aren’t getting the same attention from the White House.
“If the president is working so hard to free someone who is in jail in Russia for some weed, shouldn’t we free people in America?” the Tesla CEO asked on an episode of the “Full Send” podcast this week.
Fact Check: White House Says Teenage Layabouts
Drove the Labor Force Participation Rate Down replies
Drove the Labor Force Participation Rate Down replies
Claim: The decline in the labor force participation rate fell in July because fewer teenagers were working.
On Friday, after the Department of Labor’s jobs numbers showed that the labor force participation rate declined from 62.2 percent to 62.1 percent despite employers taking on 528,000 new workers, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the decline as “about teenagers.”Doocy: "Why do you think people are continuing to drop out of the labor market?"
Jean-Pierre: "Participation actually ticked up."
Doocy: "It declined 0.1 percentage points to 62.1%, the lowest level of the year."
Having Republicans choose between being the “Party of Lincoln” or the “Party of Reagan” can be like asking a parent to pick a favorite child, unless the topic is strictly economics.
The “new right” and the “free-market conservatives” are at war centered on their economic policy divide, forcing members of the Republican Party to choose a side: common good conservatism or free-market fundamentalists.
Project Veritas's whistleblower materials revealing that the FBI views the Gadsden and Betsy Ross flags, the Liberty Tree, and a smorgasbord of other Revolutionary War symbols as evidence of domestic terrorism are just further proof that the feds' secret police force no longer bleeds red, white, and blue (although it does probably give new recruits hammer and sickle tattoos). A federal agency with both intelligence-gathering and law enforcement functions is dangerous enough to any free society, but one that openly views the spirit of 1776 as a threat to the Republic has lost any vestige of a more noble purpose to defend the country from its enemies.
Every year kids from around the country enter a contest, the Spelling Bee, to test their ability to spell often difficult words better than anyone else. If adults held a Constitution Bee, the winner this week would be Florida governor Ron DeSantis and the loser would be White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
It has been the game in many states, particularly those where the attorney generals were elected with a big assist from leftist moneybag George Soros and friends, to refuse to enforce (usually criminal) laws adopted by state legislatures with which they disagree. This week, Governor DeSantis played his ace in the hole,
Former President Donald Trump once again talked about overhauling the administrative state on Saturday, telling a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas that the next Congress and president need to “remove rogue bureaucrats and root out the deep state.”
Trump told the CPAC audience:
As we secure the border, another key priority for the next Congress and the next President will be to drain the swamp once and for all to remove rogue bureaucrats and root out the deep state. Congress should pass groundbreaking reform empowering the president to ensure that any federal employee who
Senate Democrats on Saturday night advanced Biden’s massive tax-and-spend bill dubbed the ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’
Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote Saturday night.
VIDEO: (Tweet/Video) Just the News reported:
Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote Saturday to advance President Joe Biden’s massive spending, tax and climate legislation in the Senate.
The 51-50 party line vote allowed senators to begin debate on the legislation, which includes $400 billion in spending and $700 billion in taxes and revenue increases.
Gun Shop Owner Wants ATF Auditor Investigated
for Using Her Personal Phone to Photograph Documents replies
for Using Her Personal Phone to Photograph Documents replies
When an ATF inspector showed up at Black Metal Firearms in Mesa, Ariz., a few months ago and began taking photos of the gun shop’s sales records using her personal phone, owner Dave Nagel couldn’t believe his eyes.
Nagel posted a snippet of the 20 minutes of footage he had of the auditor snapping pictures of the store’s Acquisitions and Dispensations (A&D) books on Instagram, and the video has gotten tens of thousands of views and plenty of comments. ATF Industry Operations Inspector (IOI) Pamela Scott methodically photographed every page of the A&D books, rather than documenting specific errors, which is common practice.
“No registry?
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, UCLA Geffen School of Medicine Doctor Joseph Lapado and Yale School of Public Health Doctor Harvey Risch are sounding the alarm that there may be serious underestimated risks involved with the side effects of the Wuhan Coronavirus vaccine.
This comes as an independent pollster found that a significant number of Americans regret receiving the vaccine in the first place.
10 percent of those vaccinated said they wish they hadn’t done so, while 15 percent of adults said they have been diagnosed with a new condition by a medical practitioner weeks or months after the first dose.
Camille Paglia's Second Wave
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The internet was set abuzz with Camille Paglia’s name when two characters on HBO’s popular recent series The White Lotus appeared poolside reading a copy of her 1990 seminal tome Sexual Personae. It was only one of many recent examples of the dissident feminist writer and provocateur’s resurgence in popularity among millennials and older zoomers, long after her first wave of notoriety in the early ’90s.
If you’ve followed the politics surrounding COVID-19 for any length of time, you are probably aware of a woman named Rebekah Jones, and depending on your source, you may or may not be completely misinformed.
The liberal media elevated Jones after she claimed to be a “data scientist” who was fired by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for not agreeing to cover up the Sunshine State’s “real” COVID data. She appeared on CNN many times, including being a favorite of Chris Cuomo. Numerous press outlets also gave her credibility, using her “data scientist” title as a way to push the idea that she was a person of authority.
In the grips of monomania, psychotic people perseverate on their object of interest. They talk about their enthusiasm incessantly and believe, wrongly, that everyone else is similarly inclined. America’s establishment, left and right, and the media, are obsessed with Donald J. Trump. Trump’s tweets, his pretend press releases, his real ones, doesn’t matter. He occupies every neuron and inflames them. With each sweaty proclamation, the monomaniacs sound increasingly unhinged. Dick Cheney called Donald Trump the greatest threat to humanity and America and all that is good and decent. And also, he’s proud of his daughter because
The Senate has delayed a vote on its gay marriage bill, misnamed the “Respect for Marriage Act,” until after the August recess. It appeared that momentum was building to pass the bill. A significant number of Republicans, 47, had supported the House’s version of the bill, giving Senate Democrats confidence that they could round up 10 Senate Republicans to vote for their bill. But delaying the vote may give religious freedom advocates time to scuttle the legislation. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who was leaning toward voting for the bill, now questions it,
The Congressional Budget Office Hasn't
Finished Scoring the Manchin's Inflation
Reduction Act replies
Finished Scoring the Manchin's Inflation
Reduction Act replies
While the Senate’s “Vote-a-Rama” for Build Back Better v2.0, better known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is underway, it seems that the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t even finished scoring the bill we’ve been assured reduces inflation. Dear Mr. Leader:
This letter provides information about the budgetary effects of H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, as amended in the nature of a substitute (ERN22410) and posted on the website of the Senate Majority Leader on August 6, 2022: www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_of_20221.pdf
The Congressional Budget Office has not yet completed point estimates for every title, but