LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

     The Virginia gubernatorial race has taken a very strange turn in the last few weeks. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe had a comfortable lead, for some time. He had been "playing the Trump card," an expression meaning to paint his opponent as a version of Pres. Trump, or a supporter. This was easy enough, since Glenn Youngkin is a businessman, not a politician, and he has supported Pres. Trump . The race started to tighten up, though, as Pres. Biden's poll numbers tanked , and support for his policies waned, especially on the economy .    Meanwhile, in Loudoun County, VA, Scott Smith, the father of a girl who was sexually assaulted by a transgender student in the women's bathroom of the school was arrested for losing his temper at a school board meeting, when a school board official denied the assault had happened. This became national news, because the National School Boards Association tried to make Mr. Smith the "poster boy" for their letter to AG Mer

     I was slightly perplexed when I started seeing my friends commenting "Let's go, Brandon," seemingly at random, on many of my Facebook posts, over the last few days. I soon discovered that it was a euphemism for "F**k Joe Biden," which had been prevalent both as a comment on my posts, and as a stand alone post by many of my friends for much longer. Apparently, it has become a cultural phenomenon, that is bigger than partisan politics. That is not a good sign for any politician, especially a US President.   Before we get to the reasons that so many people across the political spectrum feel the need to either chant or write "F**k Joe Biden," the story of how "Let's go Brandon" became it's surrogate is worth relating. The chant of "F**k Joe Biden" has become popular at many sporting events, seemingly out of the blue. The president did not have to be there, or even be mentioned by the arena announcers. Especially at televise

   The Democrats are working on another debacle for Pres. Biden, this time on the economy. More precisely, the progressive caucus thinks that Pres. Biden has given them their best opportunity to "destroy capitalism," and they're taking it. The pathway they chose was by tying a "bipartisan" infrastructure bill to a bloated "budget reconciliation" bill. That was just the start of this debacle. Let's look at a timeline: The WH published this "Fact Sheet" on 6/24/21, and announced their support for 1.2 trillion "infrastructure" spending over eight years. Also on 6/24/21, Speaker Pelosi announced "There won't be an infrastructure bill unless we have a reconciliation bill." On 7/28/21, it published another fact sheet , with more details of the infrastructure bill, and mentioning bipartisan agreement. Also on 7/28/21, Sen. Manchin proposes a deal to Sen. Schumer, outlining his top line numbers and positions for the bud