tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-95706302024-03-19T07:49:11.821-04:00LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTICHRISTOPHER K. LEAVITTCHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.comBlogger688125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-56511510583904644882023-10-13T05:21:00.002-04:002023-10-13T05:21:14.176-04:00Why The Democrats Side With Terrorists<p> Will the Biden administration keep trying to restart some kind of "deal" with Iran, after they sponsored the HAMAS terrorist attack on Israel? I think they will, because the US Democrat party wants to destroy the free market, capitalist economic and political system that the Western world has lived by for over two centuries. The evidence is clear, in the Build Back Better Act. This legislation deepens our dependence on China, for inreliable solar and wind energy components, while divesting tax dollars from reliable LNG resources, here in America.</p><p>No, the Biden administration would rather enrich our enemies than help American businesses. I'm not sure that they have seen the national security implications of this "Green New Deal," but they should, now. Further, other departments of our own government have been telling anyone who wants to listen that we are closing too many fossil fuel plants, and that there is NO WAY that "wind and solar" can replace that lost energy generation.</p><p>Now, this post is about why the Democrats are siding with the terrorists, so let's get there. China wants Russian and Middle Eastern oil. Beside the "progressive" wing of the party siding with HAMAS, Pres. Biden has been clearly bought by China, and the former, Russia-backed government of Ukraine. He has tried his best to stifle US oil production, which benefits Russia and Iran, with higher oil prices. Biden made a show of asking Saudi Arabia, and even Venezuela to increase production, while hampering US drilling. </p><p>Democrats in the US are religious fanatics, and one main tenet of their religion is opposing fossil fuels. Don't get me wrong, it's not the only policy that they are religiously fanatical about. There is the Southern border, where hundreds of potential terrorists have been allowed into our nation, with a "wink and nod" from Biden, and the Democrats, until recently. This is perhaps a larger threat than the Biden administration's energy policy.</p><p>We have just witnessed an unprecedented slaughter of Jewish citizens in Israel, and those same terrorists are saying they will do the same, here in America. I'm not sure if most Americans remember that there were people who cheered he 9/11 attacks, here in America. However, it is plain that many Americans have cheered this terrorist attack on innocent Israelis. I don't like to generalize, but I'm going to say this, with absolute confidence: ALL of those Americans who supported, defended, or otherwise excused or tried to rationalize HAMAS' attack on Israel are ALL DEMOCRATS. That is the political party that allows supporters of terrorism to be a part of its base.</p><p>I was a Democrat for much of my youth, and I am still a liberal Republican. The Democrats need to get rid of anyone that equivocates on the slaughter of innocent people. I would also remind the Democrats that when HAMAS launches rockets from civillian areas, THEY are responsible for any civillian deaths that are caused by Iraelis defending themselves. Please remember that, Ilhan Omar and the Squad.</p><p>The Democratic Party that I grew up in is long gone. The Republican Party that I grew up hating is at least more open to change than the Democrats are. I've seen the Tea Party movement, and now the Trump populist group, and every new group gets called "facist, racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic" by the liberal media. I have my issues with the Trump "cultists," and other factions of the GOP. However, when Trump was president, the policies that got enacted were significantly beneficial. Wages rose, especially for minorities, and the Abraham Accords surprised us all, and he killed the biggest Iranian terrorist leader of the last two decades! That was potentially bigger than killing Osama Bin Laden! Illegal immigration was at an all time low even before COVID, so what is there to argue with?</p><p>Meanwhile, Pres. Obama and Biden tried kissing Ir,an's ass, and it got us nothing but abuse, and more terror. Shit, Obama tried to dismiss ISIS as "the JV team," until they almost derailed his re-election. Yes, it is the Democrats that kiss up to terrorists, Besides terrorists, who doesn't remember Hillary "resetting" relations with Russia, or Pres. Obama telling Romney that his anti-Russia foreign policy was "from the '80's." That was before the Democrats needed to blame Russia for Trump's election.</p><p>I'll admit that the GOP has had it's share of stupid political foreign policy decisions. In fact, NOT supporting Ukraine right now is a BIG one. However, I attribute that to a suspicion about Ukraine, and not a greater geopolitical view. Again, there are many opinions in the GOP, and they are ALL being heard, as opposed to the Democrats. I will say that if there is division in the Dem Part about Ukraine, it explains Pres. Biden's waffling policy, which really sucks. Again, they are helping the terrorists, and other enemies of America, and freedom/</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-32310496793214652532023-04-05T00:44:00.005-04:002023-04-05T00:44:55.644-04:00The Bogus Charges Against Pres. Trump, Part IV<p> </p><p><b> One can say many critical things about former Pres. Trump, many of which may be true. However, there is one thing that also is true, but is not critical: He has been the most unjustly accused president of the modern era. It's a fact: The "Russian collusion" allegations, which were not true. The two "impeachments," that didn't follow the regular House rules so blatantly that they were dismissed by the Senate both times, and now, a Manhattan DA has indicted Trump on the most spurious of grounds.</b></p><p><b> It's about time that DA Alvin Bragg was thrown out of office. This "prosecutorial overreach" should just be the final straw, because he has enough reasons preceding this. Abusing "discretion" to cover a "blanket" ban on prosecuting any specific offense is an abuse of power. He doesn't get to order his ADA's how to use their discretion, on specific crimes. It's incredibly ironic that he now is trying to upgrade a misdemeanor that is past the statute of limitations to a felony, just to target a former president of the other major party.</b></p><p><b> There is a theory that this is a ploy to help Trump win the GOP nomination, so that Biden can beat him again, in 2024. It sounds plausible, but if true, it is misguided. The primaries are a long way from now, and partisan extremists like DA Alvin Bragg and his ilk often overplay their hand, way too early. The Trump supporters may do this, as well, mistaking level-headed support against this indictment as support for Trump's re-election. It is nothing of the sort.</b></p><p><b> I'm looking forward to how this plays out, but so far, it hasn't changed anything, since the raid on Mar A Lago. Trump is a "wounded warrior," with solid support of a third of the GOP base. The more that the Democratic government entities use their power to attack him without evidence, they will alienate independents. If someone other than Trump becomes the GOP nominee, this puts Biden and his party in a hole.</b></p><p><b> Right now, it looks like the far left Dems are celebrating, and the moderate Dems are warning them not to. On the GOP side, most are rallying to Trump's defense, as I am. Again, if anyone says this is a good legal case against Trump, or says "No one is above the law," or now says "let's see the facts," they are blowing smoke. This case ought to be thrown out preemptorily by the first judge to adjudicate it.</b></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-52796047361174119742023-02-04T02:37:00.003-05:002023-02-04T02:46:31.501-05:00Why, Pres. Biden?<div><br /></div><div><b> One has to ask, over and over again, why does Pres. Biden do the things he does? He ran his successful campaign from his basement on a theme of "bringing back normal," and unifying the nation, as in working with his political opponents. Since his inauguration, he has done neither. In fact, he has done the opposite of those promises, unless anyone thinks that eight percent inflation is "normal," and calling Republicans "semi-fascists" is a unifying statement.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> His disastrous abandonment of Afghanistan set the stage for Russia to invade Ukraine again, and for China to set its sights on Taiwan. Even the Mullahs in Iran won't give him the time of day, as he tries kissing their asses to restart the deeply flawed nuclear deal that Trump wisely withdrew us from. Back to Russia, after agreeing to a five year extension of the START treaty, now the Biden people say that Russia may be violating it. Again, the Trump administration advised a six month extension, to evaluate just this situation. One has to ask "why?"</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> Why did Pres. Biden allow AG Garland to raid Mar A Lago, looking for classified documents, when there were many lesser options available? Now that the president might have a bigger problem regarding classified documents, will he face criminal charges, or at least impeachment? I'm curious if the special counsels for the Trump and Biden investigations are communicating with each other. This one was totally avoidable, if the Biden/Garland DOJ had not acted so partisanly against Trump in the first place.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> I almost forgot to bring it up, but Hunter Biden's laptop is not going away. Pres. Biden is "the Big Guy," and his decades of cashing in on his political clout may come back to haunt him. Back in the Watergate days, the saying was "follow the money." If Hunter's money is comingled with his father's, that is a start. Next, these classified documents may come into play. Everything that the liberal media accused Trump of may actually be true of Pres. Biden. He may be actively selling our national security to China.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> This is why the Dems, and the media are trying every trick in the book to cover for the Bidens, going back to when Twitter blocked the NY Post's inital story about the laptop. The intel community has been involved, as well, but they have been exposed by the Twitter files, so they are not taking an active role in this phase of the coverup, it seems. For his part, the president is playing dumb, and not commenting. It's the first smart thing he's done, because there are now pictures and messages about him meeting with Hunter's foreign business associates, contrary to his repeated public claims.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> Then, there's the whole issue of the economy. Why on Earth does the president say it's doing well? It's as if he doesn't realize that increased regulation and taxes hurt economic growth. He seems to believe, as Nancy Pelosi used to say, that "every dollar spent by the federal government generates three" in the private sector. If the last two years have not disabused him of that fallacy, nothing will. It is astounding that he still stands by his economic failure.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> Last, but not least, there's the Southern border. This is a national security crisis of the first order, and that's not an exaggeration. Pres. Biden seems happy to preside over this, and deny the reality of it to the public. Honestly, his Sec. of Homeland Security Alejandro Myorkas should be impached, and Biden, as well, if it can be established that he ignored the seriousness of the crisis.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> All of this points to a staggering incompetence in our chief executive. Pres. Biden is clearly unfit for office, and the only ones who disagree are the people that support the far-left group that is actually running the show over at the White House. They are a bunch of anti-American radicals that think the USA is built on White Supremacy, and that Capitalism must be discarded, as well. Their policy prescriptions will destroy America, and the proof is in the first two years of Joe Biden's presidency.</b></div>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-89906371783532768452023-01-20T01:00:00.005-05:002023-01-20T02:30:56.680-05:00My Favorite Policy Opinions<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>This week, I'm sharing some of my favorite policy opinions/arguments:</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span style="background-color: white;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> None of the economically crippling "green" policies that Western nations are implementing will reduce global warming by one degree, over the next century. This is a fact, not an opinion, because western nations' emissions have been declining, before the latests policy prescriptions. All of the future increases in greenhouse gasses will come from the "developing" world, and the way to mitigate those emissions is the opposite of what Western nations are proposing. Western "divestment" in global fossil fuels does two bad things: it drives up the prices of those fuels, and allows non-Western authoritarian nations to reap those higher profits from the undeveloped world, who can't afford unreliable wind and solar power.</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Further, implementing the "green agenda" in Western nations is causing blackouts and energy shortages in every nation that is doing it. Prices are doubling, and even tripling for scarce electricity, at the same time that governments are dictating all heating, stoves, and cars must convert to electrical power. There already isn't enough electricity generated to supply current demand. In what world does this make sense? You don't have to be a scientist or fortune teller to see that this will come to a bad end, sooner or later.</b></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="animation-name: none; background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition-property: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Open borders are destructive to developed nations, because there are limits on how many people any nation can accept. Also, assimilation is mandatory. People that arrive in a new nation must learn the laws, language, and culture that they are living in, to succeed. <span style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><a style="animation-name: none; color: #385898; cursor: pointer; transition-property: none;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>Any government that ignores this is enabling the destruction of their own nation, and must be removed from power ASAP, by political, or legal means. Yes, I mean the Biden administration.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Anyone who forms an opinion about someone else based solely on their race, religion, or nationality is a bigot. People who don't treat others equally, regardless of gender or appearance are also biased. Calling someone a racist, misogynist, homophobe, or transphobe without justification is also a bias of another kind. It is often used to deflect legitimate questions. Politicizing race, gender, and religion is a way of eliminating debate about the real issues that need to be addressed.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> The new divisiveness that many agree our nation is experiencing is not due to a "turning back of the clock" to the days of the KKK and the Black Panthers, but a new "establishment" that embraces the most extreme positions, and calls any who disagree "deniers," "haters," and "enemies of democracy." Interestingly enough, while the KKK were "white supremacists," sponsored for 100 years by the Democrat party, somehow today's Democrats, such as Pres. Biden, pin that label on Republicans. The radical philosophy of the Black Panthers is now accepted wisdom, that all problems that face the black community are the fault of white people in power. This flies in the face of decades of black political power in cities, states, and at the federal level, with the election of Pres. Obama.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> No, the new divisiveness is a calculated political strategy from the socialist left, aimed at destroying the underpinnings of what makes America a great nation. I believe it has its origins in Marxism, from our foreign authoritarian enemy nations. They used to use class to try dividing the US, but today, race is the card that's easiest to play.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Schools do a disservice to students by avoiding testing, and giving credit for not learning. Why on earth would a parent be happy to find that their child graduated grade school without learning to read? What's worse is that this "soft bigotry of low expectations" has taken root in mostly minority urban schools, and the local politicians oppose alternatives, such as charter schools or vouchers for private schools or tutors. They are mostly black politicians, in most of these cities, that are keeping black children from a good education. The only reason is that they are Democrats, and the teachers' unions are a major source of Democrat funding.</span></b></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> A further examination of education policy exposes the hypocrisy. Many schools are setting aside "testing" and "educational standards" in the name of "racial diversity." However, Asian Americans, who, as a group, score higher than whites on standardized tests, are denied entry to these schools and colleges at a greater rate than white students, in order to raise the number of black and latino enrolees. It looks as if these educrats are selective in which minorities they are trying to help. In fact, I've read about some of these bureaucrats calling Asian Americans "white-adjacent," whatever that means. In other words, it's not about race at all, it's about telling black and latino children they are "victims," instead of challenging them to excell academically.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> This leads to my next issue, which is crime. The Democrats, under Pres. Obama, put out a policy advisory saying that because school suspensions were mostly of black students, they would assume it was because of racism. This advisory started a whole new system of discipline in schools, called "restorative justice." It resulted in higher crime rates and discipline issues in schools, and Pres. Trump rescinded it. The Biden administration is planning to bring it back, so let me explain why it's a bad policy.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> I will start with the familiar progressive argument of the "school to jail pipeline," and debunk it. If anything, children that are allowed to be disruptive, and break the rules without consequences are more likely to continue this behavior after leaving school. Restorative justice does not put any consequences on bad behavior, other than "saying sorry." The victims of the bullying behavior are also minorities, and they are still faced with the prospect of further harm. It's as if the people who promote this policy don't care about the majority of the class, who just want to learn.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> This does carry over into the adult world, where progressive prosecutors seem to care more about criminals' freedom than the safety of the communities they are elected to represent. How is it that a prosecutor who clamors for harsher gun laws fails to enforce the ones already on the books? I am at my wits' end, when I see a prosecutor charge a victim of a crime for defending himself, as he declines to prosecute a majority of recidivist violent criminals. </b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>I will say this: It looks to me as if the white progressives are the ones that voted these District Attorneys, and other progressive pols into office, but they usually get 90% of the black vote, as well. I don't think they have that much support for their harmful policies, in the black community. This is why the black vote is starting to lean more Republican. It's time to end the racial politization, and just vote for a candidate that will help protect your neighborhood. </b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> The economy is another issue that I can put out a clear argument about. Lower taxes, and cut regulation. Simplify the tax code, and make it easier for people to comply with it. Also, the government puts up a lot of barriers for people to step up the economic ladder. Instead of spending so much money on payments to people, how about incentivising work, by cutting taxes on lower wage employees? I'm not an economist, so I can't be specific, but I know that a lot of government programs disincentivise work, and increase dependency on govermnent. </b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> In general, both parties seem to want to throw money at a perceived problem, before even looking at whether it was caused by throwing government money at some previous problem. It is apparent to me that this is one of the major snafus of our current economic dilemma. I lived through a few times that the government temporarily slowed down this endless largesse, so I believe it can happen again. It usually takes divided government, and both parties willing to negotiate. I don't see that happening with the Biden team. He's a puppet of the exreme left, who just want to destroy our economy, border, and rule of law, as far as I can tell.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> These are a few of my major policy opinions. Feel free to argus about any of them, on my facebook page. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023180921187817" target="_blank">Graffiti Politti on fb</a></b></span></div></div>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-48159592952788327202023-01-14T01:07:00.000-05:002023-01-14T01:07:59.304-05:002023 Begins: You Can't Make This Stuff Up<p> </p><p> I was going to write Part II of "2022: The Year in Review," but it looks like 2023 is going to be tied into last year so much, I won't need to. Case in point: The whole Mar a Lago raid, and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Pres. Trump's handling of classified documents, after leaving office. Now, we find out that the Justice Department was alerted to highly classified documents that were illegaly possessed by Pres. Biden, from his tenure as Vice President, on Nov. 2nd, days before the midterm elections. "Nothing to see here, it was nothing like what Trump did" seems to be the media narrative, but who's buying that?</p><p> Besides the suppressing of that info until the new year, we now learn that there were two other places that Biden had confidential documents illegally stored, neither of which was secure. In fact, his son, who was under federal investigation for foreign payments, lived at the location that some of those documents were discovered. I hope that Special Counsel Robert Hur will thoroughly investigate any Hunter Biden connection to the documents.</p><p> Pres. Biden says he was surprised to find out that he had classified documents in his possession. Well, if that's the case, after finding them in three different locations, maybe the FBI needs to search all of his past residences and offices. It couldn't hurt, could it? Also, I heard something on a TV show, tonight. The host said that when the FBI first found the classified material at Mar a Lago, they left it there, and put a padlock on the door. Why didn't they take it back to the National Archives? </p><p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p><br /></p><p> Academia continues losing its crusade against the English language in 2023. On the heels of Stanford University's <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2023/01/08/stanford-university-backs-away-from-its-harmful-language-list/?sh=4c75853d62df" target="_blank">now retracted</a> list of "banned" words, <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/usc-will-no-longer-use-the-word-field-over-racist-origin/" target="_blank">USC has banned the use of the word "field,"</a> as if it has some racist origin. <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/12/usc-keep-using-word-field-despite-departmental-ban/" target="_blank">It looks as if this will not stand, either</a>. 2022 had a plethora of these battles, and it looks as if that was the year that the tide turned against the "wokesters." Phrases like "chest feeding" and "birthing person" are <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/times-poll-shows-americans-reject-terms-like-chestfeeding-latinx/" target="_blank">not being accepted by the majority of people</a>, no matter how hard the left tries to push them</p><p> While the Biden administration still is trying to force men who claim to be women into bathrooms, locker rooms and to compete in women's sports events, this is also facing a growing public pushback. 2023 looks to be a year that America will have to decide if women are legally different from men, and not just a matter of what a person wants to call themselves. Academics, scientists, and other experts have gone a step too far, perhaps, when they try to use government power to force their theories on the real world.</p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> A corollary of the "woke" language regimen was the silencing of speech on social media, under the guise of "misinformation," "disinformation," or the catch-all ""missing context." This was an ongoing issue for several years, which came to a head when Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022. Once he took the company private, he began exposing the illegal influence the government used to censor the speech of American citizens. </p><p> People who had been the targets of this censorship had been talking about it for years, while Twitter flat out denied it. Now that Twitter's new owner is exposing the lies, and the government's involvment, the next step is to find out whether this same thing is happening with all of the other big tech social media platforms, and to put an end to it. </p><p> My personal experience on facebook has been that they have warned me that some of the posts that I, and others share in my "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023180921187817" target="_blank">Graffiti Politti on fb</a>" group either go against "community standards," or get labeled as "missing context." In some cases, fb has removed the articles, and sometimes, they have told me to remove the articles, or my group may be "at risk." To my shame, I have removed a few posts, but I have stopped doing that, in the past few months. They also have notified me that my group, which is public, will be less visible in fb searches.</p><p> My personal experience on Blogger, which is owned by Google, has been that they have never contacted me about anything controversial that I've written. I've been blogging since 2004, and I've posted some very controversial things. Google may be hiding them, in their searches, but I can still find all of my posts, and I occasionally share them on my Graffiti Politti on FB group. I'm not sure how easy it is for others to find my blog, of course.</p><p> Perhaps because I'm not a popular, public figure, my opinions haven't gotten wider exposure, or gotten me cancelled, although for every incendiary post I write, I have written at least one post that honestly tries to understand and reach out to my political oponents. The part that you can't make up is that there are a bunch of nitwits out there who have NO interest in listening to the other side, and are intent on just shutting up other views. I doubt that will change in 2023.</p><p> </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-81441926453715044132022-12-31T04:31:00.004-05:002023-01-13T21:09:08.314-05:002022, the Year in Review<p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> 2022 is just about over, so there are the inevitable compilations of what has happened in the last year. I'm still wondering about what was said at the end of last year. I've been reviewing the "Year in Review" articles from 2021, and very few of them say what a bad year it was. Most of them say things like "Biden is facing challenges," instead of his policies are total failures, which is common knowledge, now. I find this interesting, because it points toward a bigger point. The leftist media has covered up for Biden's leftward policies for so long, they have no choice but to continue. </span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> There have been some exceptions, notably on inflation. At the end of 2021, there were many people warning about it, myself included. Not to inflate my own importance, I can cite Larry Summers, who was Secretary of the Treasury under Pres. Obama. I only noticed that the chair set we bought at the beginning of the year was double the price by the end of 2021. It wasn't until well into 2022 that the Biden administration, the Federal Reserve, and the media finally admitted that this historic level of inflation was not "transitory," but a very real destructive tax on everyone, whether they paid formal taxes or not.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> It was very bizzarre, when some in the media tried to spin inflation as "a good thing," or a "rich person's problem," when the people hit hardest by it are the ones who have the least disposable income. All of that went out the window in 2022. In fact, the Democrats passed the ironically-titled "Inflation Reduction Act," which actually fed fuel to inflation, without a Republican vote. Before claiming the GOP as the party against fanning inflationary spending, they had to blow up that image, spectacularly.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> At the end of 2022, a "lame duck" Congress, composed of a Democratic House majority, and a Senate that will be one less Republican after the new year, passed a disgraceful "omnibus" spending bill, that will not only tie the new 2023 Congress' hands, but make structural legislative changes that will be very hard to reverse, in long-term spending. Now, when inflation continues to be a problem, Republicans are just as much to blame. On a side note, I have also correctly placed some of the blame for the current inflation on Pres. Trump's final "stimulus" bill, in 2020. At that point, the economy was recovering, and it looked to me as if he was just trying to buy votes.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Back to 2022. Pres. Trump continued to be the focus of the Democrats, through the "Jan. 6th Committee." It actually served them well, because it made Pres. Trump relevant in electoral politics. The DoJ raid on Mar a Lago was another political stroke of genius, in the same vein. Voters overwhelmingly supported Republicans that distanced themselves from Pres. Trump, and Democrats beat the candidates that followed his "stop the steal" line.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> It was a very strange outcome, but very clear, if you look at the details. In New York, a deep Blue state, there was a Red wave, but it didn't include the Gubenatorial candidate, who was a Trump supporter, and 2020 election denialist. I'm betting that Rob Astorino, a former Westchester County executive, could've had the same coattails, and beat Gov. Hochul. We'll never know, but Trump is especially unpopular in NY, and Mr. Astorino has been elected in a county that is just North of NYC.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Why did they wait so long? Did they think Trump might seize back the presidency, in 2021? Or maybe it was the way that the Biden administration abandoned Afghanistan, after a 20 year committment. It's interesting, that Russia acted against Ukraine when Obama was president, and caught on an open mic saying "Tell Vladimir I'll be more flexible after my reelection," and again after Joe Biden was elected. So 2022 has been a very interesting year in international relations. Also, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO, which bring us to Russia's doorstep, regardless of what happens in Ukraine.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Speaking of which, I have to tip my hat to Speaker Pelosi, for her visit to Taiwan. I have <a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2007/04/speaker-pelosi-as-diplomat.html" target="_blank">criticized her on international affairs</a> in the past, but she showed true patriotism, and support for freedom in the American tradition by ignoring the Chinese Communist threats. I also am concerned with the Republican opposition to aiding Ukraine in their war against Russia. I have read some good justifications for opposing support, but even those are worth debate. Most of my friends who oppose supporting Ukraine are asking for "accountability," and saying that Ukraine is another corrupt oligarchy. The facts on the ground appear that Russia is losing. They, and most of the world, assumed that they would overwhelm Ukraine in a short time. Now, Russia is losing ground, seven months later. The question now is what will happen between Russia and Ukraine in 2023?</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> That "Red Wave" that happened in a few states was tied to two things: Schools and crime. In New York, Lee Zeldin focused on crime, which has been surging, across the state, and across demographics. It wasn't enough to get him elected, but it did sweep a wave of Republicans into office, at all levels of government. As I mentioned above, Zeldin's support of Trump may have cost him, but the facts on the ground in minority communities contributed to higher minority votes for "down ballot" GOP candidates.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis had coattails that swept a huge amount of Republicans into office, even in counties that were historically Democratic. In this case, it really was because of education policy, and especially bringing race and sexuality into the classroom for younger children. It turned out that most people, even Democrats, whether parents or not, don't think it's a good thing for schools to engage in these topics with young children, especially under 10 year olds. This is part of a national trend, that was evident with Glen Youngkin's election as Governor in Virginia last year. It's gone down to the school board level, and become a very personal battle, more than political.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> 2022 has widely been called "the year that we lost faith in experts," and rightly so. Nobodyy should believe anything the government, or any other bureaucracy says "Ssettled, or consensus," ever again! 2022 has proved them ALL to be FULL OF SHIT! The CDC, the NIH, the FDA, the FBI, the CIA, and every other alphabet soup government agency, as well as their appointed leaders have ALL been exposed as prevaricators that were serving a political end, not a public good. Dr. Fauci is example #1!</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> The dissolution of the US Sothern border is an ongoing crisis, and it's getting worse every day. This one is totally on the Biden administration, and they are still refusing to accept the blame. The media are halfway blaming them, but supporting the Biden solution of "legalizing" all of these illegal immigrants. Democrats from the border states that are directly affected are finally calling it what it is, and Democrats in Northern "sanctuary" cities, who are finding their budgets challenged by a paltry amount of these immigrants at their doorsteps "political pawns." </span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> It's ironic, because these cities and localities, such as Martha's Vineyard made such a big deal about being "open to all immigrants, legal or not," but when Gov. DeSantis sent just 50 illegal immigrants to the Vineyard, the state sent in the National Guard to remove them, within 24 hours. How the Hell do these liberals expect anyone to take them at their word, seriously, after that?</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Oh, and let's not forget COVID-19. By 2022, even Pres. Biden admitted "it's over," but not really. This goes back to my earlier paragraphs about losing faith in "experts." I lived in Brooklyn, during the first weeks of COVID, and remember thinking that the "two weeks to flatten the curve" was a bunch of BS. First of all, I understood that "flattening the curve" would only make it last longer, and I'm sure I posted that, on fb. We all know now that it just became an excuse for government to exercise authoritarian government, instead of representative democracy.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> It's kind of crazy that Gov. Cuomo was exiled from office for something that had nothing to do with his abuse of power, regarding the thousands of seniors that died because of his policies. Gov. Whitmer was innoculated by what turned out to be a plot by the government to lure some disgruntled citizens into a phony attempt to kidnap her, as she destroyed her state's economy. The list of government malefactors that prospered, and some that continue to prosper, because of the pandemic "emergency" is very long.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Dr. Fauci, who first told us that "masks don't protect us," because he wanted to save the supplies of masks for medical personnell, and then said "wearing two, or three masks" adds protection, is still considered an "expert" by some dumb ass people. Anyone who gives him an ounce of credibility in 2023 is a mindless husk, to quote an old friend. Seriously, almost everything that Dr. Fauci has said has been disproven. His last stand is that COVID wasn't leaked from a lab in Wuhan, and that the NIH funded "gain of function" research that may have created it. If he's wrong, that means that the US funded Chinese bioweapon research that killed millions of people...</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> 2022 had quite a few other things happening, especially crime. 21 states have made stealing less than $900.00 worth of goods a misdemeanor, so there is now a national criminal syndicate that targets retail stores, and resells their goods online, or to local retailers. The numbers are off the charts, and affecting the bottom line of large chain stores. It's actually not new, but because it's been growing, it now has become a factor in pricing, and insurance. Unfortunately, "woke" District Attorneys aren't interested in pursuing "BIG CRIME,' as much as punishing "Big Business."</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> 2022 has been an interesting year, and very scary for too many of us. I have hope that the domestic political pendulum has swung too far leftward, and now it wil be swinging back. There is evidence of this, but there is also evidence of Democrats solidifying authoritarian control over some states.<a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/illinois-voters-add-union-membership-right-to-constitution" target="_blank"> Illinois is now owned by the unions</a>. New York, and many other "Blue" states are, as well, and yet they occasionally break out of the "one party rule" cycle. I still have hope, for 2023.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> Internationally, the biggest challenge for the US is China, and whether they will invade Taiwan. I have read some columns from people that claim to be US military strategists, who say we will lose a direct conflict with China, especially over the next few years. They may be right, but I have reservations. From all I've read about the run up to WW II, the US was woefully unprepared. I'm not that well read about WW I, but I'll bet it was a similar situation. Russia's attack on Ukraine has shown their military to be incompetent to degree beyond what I suspect our "woke" forces may be.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> About China: While they have a bunch of HUGE advantages, on paper, I'm not sure that those will translate on the ground. Let's say that they take out some of our best assets, quickly. Sooner or later, there will come a point where the will to win matters more, and while China seems to have the edge, they are not a free country. Taiwan is, and Japan, Australia, South Korea, and hopefully the US has it's back. That's a formidable alliance, and I don't think that the isolationist wing of the GOP will stand up, if push comes to shove in the South Pacific.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"> </span></b></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-20234547522551943862022-12-23T00:21:00.002-05:002022-12-23T01:27:36.239-05:00Brief Comments About Current Events<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Some brief comments about current events. There is so much going on, I can't just focus on one story, and I've been slacking off on my weekly posts. We'll look at the Southern border crisis, the coming investigation of Pres. Biden, GOP opposition to Ukraine war funding, and GOP support for the omnibus disaster. I'm a moderate Republican, conservative on many issues, and liberal on others. I try to keep that separate from my analysis of what's happening, but I appreciate your feedback about my columns.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> First, and maybe easiest to analyze, is the real crisis of illegal immigration on the Southern border, which has been exported to localities around the nation. I've been following this issue for decades, and the numbers don't lie. What is happening now at the Southern border is beyond anything that has occurred in the past. The partisan line from the right is that the Biden administration wants to flood the nation with immigrants, and then make them citizens who will vote for Democrats. The partisan line from the left is that we need to accept every immigrant, legal or not, and that they will do the jobs that American citizens won't do.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Both partisan angles have some truths, and some holes in them. Since this is a short analysis, we won't debate that. The numbers don't lie, so the answer is to enforce the border. If the Biden administration's "Inflation Reduction Act" had added 87,000 more border agents, instead of IRS agents, maybe I would think they were taking some action. The fact is that even Democrats are rebelling against the Biden border abdication, so it's obvious that this issue is going to get worse, before something concrete gets done.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Second, the media and Democrats are gathering their full political war machine to counter the coming investigation of the information on Hunter Biden's laptop. The partisan in me wishes that they just go ahead and do a quickie impeachment of Pres. Biden, the way that Pelosi's House did on the second impeachment of Pres. Trump. The analyst in me knows that won't happen. What will be interesting is how the left wing MSM will try not to cover the investigation, while other media will cover it. Most interesting will be CNN's coverage, because they are supposed to be changing to "straight news coverage." This will be a test of that. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Most of us on the right are already familiar with the contents of the laptop, and how damning they are of Pres. Biden. In fact, this investigation is actually not about Hunter Biden, but about "the Big Guy," as he was called in one email. The bigger issue is will there be enough Democrats that flip on Biden, the way the Republicans flipped against Nixon. They may spare him from removal, if he promises not to run for reelection. Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal proceeding. The Republican House may not even go that route, because they don't want to emulate the disgraceful Democrats' tactics.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Third, I'm amazed at the Republican opposition to military aid to Ukraine. First, because when Pres. Obama witheld it, Republicans were critical, and then critical that he sent no "lethal" weapons, only "socks and soup." Then there was VP Biden's famous $2 billion blackmail video, where he forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma, who paid his son over $50,000 a month. A new administration came to power in Ukraine in 2019, that was anti-Russia. After Biden won the election, Russia decided to invade Ukraine. Imagine that! (There would not have been an invasion if Trump were still president, I think.)</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> I've read some good reasons why we shouldn't make Ukraine a member of NATO, and those same columns said that Russia invaded Ukraine because we "greenlighted" it, after Biden took office. I know the US has outsize influence in NATO, but does anyone think that a nation that was already partially occupied by Russia since 2014 would be admitted to NATO? If so, then it would be an example of a far more reckless policy decision by the Biden administration than anything Trump did. In fact, it looks like Pres. Obama aquiesced to "Vladmir" back in 2014, when he was caught saying so to Russia's nominal president, "Tell Vladimir I'll be more flexible after the election."</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> The latest line opposing aid to Ukraine calls for "accountability," as if the people saying it are "fiscal hawks." Maybe I should remind them about how Pres. Reagan won the Cold War. We outspent Russia, on defense, and we threatened them with advanced programs like "Star Wars," that never came to fruition. Right now, Russia is running out of resources, because Ukraine has fought back, and is actually winning. Their allies China and Iran are supporting them, but at significant cost to them, as well. Also, Russia's debacle in Ukraine may give China second thoughts about invading Taiwan.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> If we want to talk about "accountability," my GOP friends need look no further than this "omnibus" disaster that the Congress just passed, with 18 GOP votes in the Senate. You can bitch about $100 billion for Ukraine, but what else is in this bill makes that look like peanuts. I'm still reading up on all of the long-term costs that were in this bill, but the WSJ called it "The ugliest omnibus bill ever," which is probably an understatement. I know that Richard Shelby, who is retiring, got over $600 million for his home state in earmarks. Mitch McConnell, who I have still maintained a modicum of respect for, over the years, supported it, and with it lost my respect. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Apparently, the Senate GOP minority preferred to make a deal with the lame duck Democrat House majority than the incoming GOP House majority. Maybe they didn't want to play "chicken" with the budget, again, and worried that they'd be painted as "holding the nation hostage." I've seen that show before, and the media always paint the GOP as the bad guys, whichever side they are on. Still, it looks bad to Republican voters. Here's a list of the 18 Republicans:</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; width: 790px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Here is a full list of Republican senators who voted in favor of the bill:</b></span></p><ul style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; list-style: decimal; margin: 20px 0px 20px 45px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Roy Blunt (Missouri)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>John Boozman (Arkansas)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Shelley Capito (West Virginia)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Susan Collins (Maine)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>John Cornyn (Texas)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Tom Cotton (Arkansas)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Jerry Moran (Kansas)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Rob Portman (Ohio)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Mitt Romney (Utah)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Mike Rounds (South Dakota)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Richard Shelby (Alabama)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>John Thune (South Dakota)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Roger Wicker (Mississippi)</b></span></li><li style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4em; list-style: disc; margin: 9px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Todd Young (Indiana)</b></span></li></ul><figure class="fullCode" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #222222; height: auto; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: none 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b> Links:</b></span></figure><figure class="fullCode" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #222222; height: auto; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: none 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-title-42-catastrophe-southern-border-compromise-trump-reversal-fentanyl-incompetence-11671653008?st=l67qohuoiga06qa&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank"><b>Immigration And Biden's Title 42 Catastrophe: Dan Henninger, WSJ</b></a></span></figure><figure class="fullCode" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #222222; height: auto; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: none 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://nypost.com/2022/12/20/the-naked-truth-on-the-hunter-biden-laptop-coverup/" target="_blank"><b>The Naked Truth On The Hunter Biden Laptop: Michael Goodwin, NY Post</b></a></span></figure><figure class="fullCode" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #222222; height: auto; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: none 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gop-loses-the-plot-on-ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-congress-aid-josh-hawley-kevin-mccarthy-11671749750?st=zsmwc9x2irqrx6p&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank"><b>Republicans Lose The Plot On The Ukraine-Russian War: WSJ</b></a></span></figure><figure class="fullCode" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #222222; height: auto; list-style: outside none none; margin: 20px 0px; max-width: inherit; outline: none 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-back-end-of-an-omnibus-mcconnell-gop-spending-healthcare-cosmetics-pork-earmarks-house-speaker-shutdown-11671747654?st=gp3r78eq4j482sh&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank"><b>The Back End Of An Omnibus: Kim Strassel, WSJ</b></a></span></figure>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-68149235261617023562022-12-08T23:42:00.003-05:002022-12-08T23:42:35.918-05:00FBI and Intel Agencies Are Politically Compromised<p> </p><p> The American public is politically divided somewhat evenly, according to the outcomes of the last several elections, and most polls. There's been a pattern, actually, where a new executive comes into office with a congressional majority, and loses one or both houses in the midterms, but still gets reelected. By the end of their second term, the nation is sick of them, and their party, and the process is repeated. This cycle has been in effect since the '90's, with a few aberrations, until the Trump presidency.</p><p> Pres. Trump broke much more than the political cycle of the last 30 years. He blew up both the Republican and Democratic parties, and exposed the extent that the US intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies were illegally interfering in national elections. There is no doubt that Democrats think that James Comey's public reopening of the Clinton email investigation cost her the election in 2016. Likewise, Republicans think that the FBI's "covert" suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story cost Trump the election in 2020. Both sides can agree that the FBI, and other intelligence agencies have been meddling in domestic politics.</p><p> Can something be done about this? Not likely, because each party has a partisan agenda. The Republican House of Representatives probably will find enough evidence in Hunter's laptop to impeach Pres. Biden, but the Democratic Senate will aquit him. It's doubtful that either chamber of Congress will agree on actual reforms to the FBI, and whatever other intelligence agencies are at fault here, as well as reforming the standards for the FISA court. </p><p> Right now, it looks like the intel agencies and FBI are backing the Democrats, but that can change. Democrats have done stupid things before, for short term political gain. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went "nuclear" on judicial appointees, making it a simple majority of 51 votes, which opened the door for Republicans to appoint enough SCOTUS Justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is the history of politics.</p><p> Elected Democrats, and their handmaidens in the media and big tech seem to think that using their slim majority power to censor and "cancel" conservative voices comes without a cost. I will cite one Elected Democrat, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ro-khanna-warned-twitter-backlash-suppressing-hunter-biden-story-1764408" target="_blank">Ro Khanna, who warned Twitter about censoring the Hunter Biden </a>story. Now, they are still trying to ignore the substance of the info on the laptop, while acknowledging it is real. The Twitter Files emails may prove that Twitter was acting as a government agent, illegaly censoring the NY Post's right to free speech.</p><p> Again, there is a clear problem with our leading law enforcement and intelligence agencies. I remember the '70's, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee" target="_blank">Church Committee</a>, which was bipartisan, and was the most comprehensive review of our intelligence agencies ever. Pres. Trump was investigated deeper than either Pres. Nixon or Clinton, and is still being investigated by NYS and GA. It would be nice if Ro Khanna, and other Democrats could join with the GOP to put some restrictions on the FBI and other intel agancies, to keep them out of interfering in political campaigns.</p><p> On a final note, the FBI has to be forced to reveal how long they had the info that has now been verified from Hunter Biden's laptop, and why they warned Twitter and Facebook to treat it a a "Russian hack." Who can prosecute the FBI, in this matter? Well, Elon Musk is providing the evidence. Maybe we can have a "Khanna Committee," and get to the bottom of the politicization of the FBI and the intel community. To date, most Dem pols have been covering up for them, unlike in the '70's.</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-19202446382560817442022-11-30T02:25:00.000-05:002022-11-30T02:25:08.659-05:00Current Events: Trump's Antisemitic Dinner, and Biden's Embrace of America's Enemies<p> </p><p> A few comments on current events: </p><p> There are a bunch of anti-semitic controversies being reported on, lately. A NY Nets basketball player named Kyrie Irving <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/kyrie-irving-antisemitic-movie-hebrews-negroes-omnist-nets/fmzlswm6vod3kfbwbfyjf0pl" target="_blank">shared a link to an Amazon.com</a> post of an "antisemitic documentary". He <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/kyrie-irving-nets-apologize-tweet-antisemitic-film/hijazrxdrlrwb2w0qtm9wv2o" target="_blank">says that he was not promoting</a> the documentary by tweeting a link to it, which falls flat in the face of social media reality. If you share something controversial, if you don't openly condemn it, you are promoting it. (Full disclosure: over my almost 20 years blogging, I have posted content that I disagree with, and not proclaimed my opposition.) He eventually was <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kyrie-irving-brooklyn-nets-return-today-suspension-apology/" target="_blank">forced to apologize, after being suspended</a> from the team for several games. That's how public life works, but I have a question: Is nobody questioning why Amazon is selling this "antisemitic" documentary? <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hebrews-Negroes-Wake-Black-America/dp/B07P5J2RR7" target="_blank">It's still up there</a>.</p><p> Of course, Kanye West had to "one up" the story. Before <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/31/kanye-west-backs-real-one-kyrie-irving-amid-anti-semitism-controversy/" target="_blank">defending Irving</a>, he had gone on his own crazy antisemitic rant, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/25/adidas-to-drop-kanye-west-after-his-anti-semitic-outbursts/" target="_blank">which cost him a bunch of lucrative sponsorships</a>. Then, in a bizzarre twist, he attended a <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/11/27/trump-slammed-by-fellow-republicans-for-kanye-west-dinner/">dinner party thrown by Pres. Trump, and brought along with some young man named Nick Fuentes.</a> I have to be honest, I never heard of this guy, just as Trump claims. However, if I was a former president, with a huge staff to vet people I invite to dinner, I would not have that excuse. Further, this guy Fuentes is 24 years old, which makes his political experience extremely brief, and his knowledge of history even more suspect. I'm a "free speech" proponent, so I say let them all spout their antisemitic BS and conspiracies. I don't see it as an equivalent to any historical pogrom or persecution of Jews, but it's not something I am comfortable seeing.</p><p> My job, as a free individual, is to condemn these idiots, as well as refute their incoherent arguments. First of all, Pres. Trump, while he supported Israel in foreign policy as president, has lost all credibility as a supporter of Jewish Americans. I won't even deign to respond to a basketball player, a pop star, and some 24 year old kid who I never heard of before last month, other than to say they are misguided. I will say unequiviocally that claiming "Jews" control the world, or hollywood, or anything in general is way off base. Jews are people, just like everyone else. They are not a monolithic block, that act with one mind, contrary to what some people think. It's almost funny, because those are the same mistakes that people make about "minorities," in general, and the assumptions those people make about the "majority" of people, in America. If Jews and whites run Amazon, why is that documentary still available there?</p><p>-------------------------------------------------</p><p> Russia is obviously losing the war against Ukraine, and China is watching, as it decides about invading Taiwan. Iran is doing its best to help both of them, and itself. The Biden administration seems intent on kissing both China and Iran's asses, as it is forced to support Ukraine, by public demand. There is supposedly a large faction of Republicans that oppose supporting Ukraine. I'm not sure of that, but I know that Tucker Carlson opposes supporting Ukraine, and he can sway some part of the GOP base. Again, I won't say that Tucker is "a Russian agent," or any such nonsense. I just disagree with his assessment of Ukraine.</p><p> Maybe it's because of my age, but my view of global geopolitics is that there has always been a global struggle between nations that are politically free versus authoritarian nations. I don't think that most younger Americans, or citizens of other Western nations realize what a huge thing it was, when the <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/timeline/end/" target="_blank">USSR collapsed</a>. One would think that Germans, who were on the front lines of it, and actually reunified their nation, would be more cognizant of the threat that Russia still posed, but they didn't. As I remember, we all thought that Russia was going to become a free, democratic nation. Along came Putin, who thought that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057" target="_blank">the demise of the USSR was the greatest tragedy in history</a>.</p><p> The US <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum" target="_blank">signed on to a treaty</a>, promising to protect Ukrainian sovereignity, in return for them sending their nuclear weapons back to Russia. Now, Russia <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-nato-moscow-b7696dca6ca1d517f59179f981a57c56" target="_blank">is threatening</a> to use nukes in Ukraine, and who is talking about the treaty? Nobody. It's not just the Biden admin, either. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/03/05/dont-rehabilitate-obama-on-russia/" target="_blank">Russia's previous incursions in Ukraine (2014) went unanswered</a>, though they didn't go further while Donald Trump was president. The future is scary, but inevitable. There are several possible outcomes, and I can't guess which is most likely, but I'll try.</p><p> Ukraine is destroying Russia, and drawing military resources from Iran, North Korea, and China, in return for Russian oil. I think Putin's nuclear threats are empty, now, because he has rattled that sabre a few too many times. At this point, I doubt his military will follow a nuclear strike order. The demoralization of the military is too apparent, and Putin's power is hanging on by a tenuous thread. This should not lead to Western overconfidence, though, because the arsenal of drones and other weapons that his allies are providing are inflicting real damage to Ukraine.</p><p> It's also not clear that China has committed any significant weapons to Putin's war effort. They definitely still have designs on Taiwan, and sooner, rather than later. If Western analysts think that Putin's failure in Ukraine is dissuading China from attacking Taiwan, they are mistaken. China has never been a true ally to Russia, except in the eyes of "anti-Commies," which I can admit to being. I also watched the history of the US playing the two biggest Communist powers off of each other, all the while suspecting that they hated us more than each other. When Pres. Xi said their friendship "knew no limits," it sounded as if my worst fears were confirmed. However, I'm also very familiar with Communist propaganda, and that was what that was.</p><p> China has it's own domestic problems, as do Russia and Iran. The global economy is slowing down, and nobody has spare money to throw around waging war. The US still has the strongest global GDP, but the Biden administration policies are handicapping us as much as the CCP's lockdowns and political control of business are killing their economy. It just boggles the mind that such a simple thing as allowing domestic energy production could flip the whole economic equation, but the Biden people prefer to make deals with Iran and Venezuela. I haven't seen a worse foreign and economic policy since the 1970's, with the oil embargo under Pres. Carter.</p><p> Interestingly enough, that was over our support for Israel, and now, the Arab nations that were involved are now aligned with Israel, against Iran. The nation that is cutting off oil supplies is the US, under President Biden. I know Pres. Trump had dinner with some antisemites, but he's a private citizen, now. Pres. Biden is actively courting Israel's enemies, who are openly antisemitic, and relieveng sanctions on them for false promises of oil production that US suppliers are being banned from providing. Disgraceful.</p><p> </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-86872001128582431432022-11-29T21:10:00.000-05:002022-11-29T21:10:30.612-05:002022 Midterm Election Outcome and Analysis is Complicated: Biden Wins, Trump and Dems Still Lose?<p> </p><p> I have to admit being surprised by the results of the 2022 midterm elections. The partisan in me was disappointed, but the analyst in me was intrigued. In some ways, it resembled what happened in 2020, when the GOP lost the White House and Senate, but gained seats in the House. While the presidency wasn't on the ballot this year, the similarities in the Senate are uncanny, with Georgia's one Senate race going into a runoff, as both did in 2020. There is a lot to unpack and analyze, and I've waited until the final results are in, except for the Georgia runoff, before posting this. On Nov. 21st, there were still some localities that are still counting ballots, amazingly, but none of them made a big difference in the national outcome. By Nov. 29th, it looks as if the <a href="https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/house/" target="_blank">GOP has a 220 to 213 advantage over Dems</a>, with 2 seats still undecided, but leaning Republican.</p><p> At this point, the GOP has won control of the House of Representatives, by a slim margin. In 2020, the Dems held on to the House by a slim margin. They lost seats, even though their presidential candidate won. The Republicans gained House seats in both the 2020 and 2022 elections. All of this has to be considered along with the impact that Pres. Trump had on the electorate. There were several other factors that came into play, particularly the SCOTUS ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, rising crime since 2020, and reaction to the closing of schools during the pandemic.</p><p> Let's start with Pres. Trump. I don't propound any type of "stolen election" theory about 2020, but I will say there were enough irregularities that I don't think people who do think so are crazy, or neccesarily wrong. There was a <a href="https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/" target="_blank">concerted effort by progressives to tilt the election in their favor,</a> and they have admitted it. I don't know for sure that they "stole" the election from Pres. Trump, and definitely don't think that any progressive scheme impacted the 2022 midterms significantly. What did seem to impact the midterms significantly was blind allegiance to Pres. Trump, and his "stop the seal" campaign strategy. Most of them lost.</p><p> It looks as if there are several clear winners from both parties, in various states. Republicans romped in Florida, riding on <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-desantis-helped-turn-the-house-republican-black-candidates-redistricting-map-11668638516?st=sa9l31i6o3lt7ly&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">Gov. DeSantis' coattails</a>, but also in "blue" New York, where Rep. Lee Zeldin failed to win the governorship, but brought an unprecedented amount of "down-ticket" GOP candidates across the goal post to election. Democrats locked up Illinois as a union and Democrat controlled state, and won a slim majority of governorships that were up for grabs this cycle. </p><p> Also winning handily were the sitting governors in Georgia and Texas, which made clear losers or their opponents, former Democrat "rising stars" Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, and Stacy Abrams, who may still think she won her first election against Gov. Kemp, back in 2018. This raises one big question of this election cycle: How much does "candidate quality" count for? I would compare these progressive "stars" to the "MAGA" candidates that Pres. Trump promoted, except the progs have kept promoting them for years. I hope the GOP won't follow that pattern, unless the candidates can drop their focus on the past, and look to the future, that might not include Pres. Trump.</p><p> This question was first raised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, referring to the candidates that former Pres. Trump supported in the GOP primaries. It turns out that McConnell was right, as were the Democratic groups that spent money to support these MAGA candidates in the primaries. However, one could say the same about candidates like O'Rourke and Abrams, as "far left" stars with no real voter support. However, no Republican groups spent money supporting them, as far as I know. Mitch McConell spent a bunch of money supporting the MAGA candidates that Democrats helped win the primaries, even as Pres. Trump refused to spend a penny to support them after the primaries. This is another strike against Trump, which is more than one too many. </p><p> Almost all of Pres. Trump's "big name" endorsed candidates lost, including Lee Zeldin, who really had a shot at winning the Governorship of deep blue NYS. I supported former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino in the primaries, because he wasn't echoing Trump's "stop the steal" line. I now believe that he could have beat Gov. Hochul, because of those few percentage points that Zeldin lost by were probably from suburban independents that hated Trump. Crime was the issue moving voters, not Trump or abortion rights. Again, this was how Trump's influence worked in the primary elections. There is a lesson, there. One only has to look at Gov. Kemp, of Georgia, Gov. Youngkin, of Virginia, or Gov. DeSantis of Florida to see that keeping Trump at arms distance is a good campaign strategy.</p><p> Meanwhile, Democrats are not on the road to political oblivion. There are many cities where they continue winning. Several states, such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, among others, still elected Democrats to statewide offices, mostly because of these urban areas. I mentioned above that crime, education, and abortion all were other significant factors in the midterms, but perhaps I missed one or two. Those would be the Biden administration's funnelling of money into the illusory "student loan forgiveness," which will not materialize, and the continuing racial polarization, which is promoted by claiming that "white supremacism" is one of the biggest threats to national security.</p><p> Unfortunately for Democrats, the GOP is slowly chipping away at this new take on an old political strategy. In fact, many black and other minority voters are realizing that the Democrat's claims of "racial bias" in law enforcement are hollow, and that their "reforms" have led to thousands more "black lives" being lost to criminals, not police. It's interesting that NYC was early in realizing this in 2022, but whether it will continue as a political trend is still up in the air. Will it spread to the "Blue" cities in the heartland, such as St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis? Who knows.</p><p> What's more is that Pres. Biden looks to be embracing a "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" policy, to the far left. Some state governors have the power to do this, but even <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-gov-gavin-newsom-fights-loudly-with-republicans-nationally-quietly-with-democrats-back-home-11667494033?st=qz09aezi3ymdv17&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">Gov. Newsome in California is trying to steer his policy in a more centrist direction</a>. It looks like reality is biting at their heels, over in progressiveland. Pres. Biden is a drag on the national party, because he's embraced the fathest left faction, and independents are joining Republicans in opposing that agenda. Biden thinks that using Trump as a "boogeyman" will continue to pay off electorally. He's wrong.</p><p> Even with the Dems making Trump the central issue of the midterms, minority voters chose the GOP in greater percentages than in either of the previous two elections. In fact, the numbers of minority voters leaving the Democratic party are unprecedented. Just as important, though, is appealing to independent voters with policies that are practical, and not ideological. These are winning issues: In education, teaching should focus on reading, writing, and arithmatic, and teachers should NOT talk about anything regarding gender, sex, or sexual identity, especially with grade school children. On crime: elected officials should support enforcement of the laws that are on the books, as written. Law enforcement should be supported, and held to an even higher standard of following the laws. </p><p> If the results of the 2022 midterms have shown us anything, it's that voters aren't "all in" for what either party was offering, in many areas of the nation. The fact that there were such diverse outcomes across the country is a good sign, because it means that voters aren't following "national trends," as much as what's happening in their state or locality. This is what the Founding Fathers intended, and it's kind of funny that the localized targeting of the internet is creating the same experience as people from 200 years ago, who didn't have news from outside their own area. While todays voters do have that access, they seem to vote on their local issues. Notice the recent focus, at least by conservative news outlets, on local school board races, and how that played out in last year's election of Gov. Youngkin, in VA. It looks as if <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/School_board_elections,_2022" target="_blank">that trend continued this year</a>, with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/08/desantis-conservatives-school-board-00065794" target="_blank">Gov. DeSantis having success</a> at endorsing school board candidates.</p><p>It's a complex political landscape, and almost impossible to predict. However, I will keep trying, as well as analyzing political and cultural developments. At this point, I think the GOP is poised for gains, if they can move beyond Pres. Trump, and the Democrats are poised for further losses, if they keep embracing really bad Socialist, race baiting, and anti-woman "transgender" policies. I can see the GOP moving past Trump, with a big fight, but there's NO way that Dems will support women's rights over transexuals. Women are once again second-class citizens, this time to men who say they are women. That's my radical prediction, but we'll see how it plays out.</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-42733339472729374192022-11-05T05:28:00.002-04:002022-11-06T23:44:40.075-05:00The Biden Record, and the Democrats Who Supported It: Closing Argument Before Election Day<p> </p><p> This is the final post in my series on the 2022 midterm elections, and before I make my closing arguments, I'd like to share links to each post, so that they can all be accessed through this post.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who.html" target="_blank">Part 1:</a> The Biden Record, and the Democrats Who Supported It: A Series on Graffiti Politti</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_12.html" target="_blank">Part 2:</a> COVID and Educational Policy Failures</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_19.html" target="_blank">Part 3:</a> Garland's DoJ and FBI Seek Domestic Threats, While Ignoring Crime and the Crisis on the Southern Border</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_30.html" target="_blank">Part 4:</a> How Biden Blew Up the Economy With Inflation</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who.html" target="_blank">Part 5:</a> Foreign Policy Failures, Empowering America's Enemies, and Being Owned by Foreign Powers</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_20.html" target="_blank">Part 6:</a> The Corruption of the Biden Family, and the Democrat and Media Cover-Up</p></blockquote><p> When I started this series, the political landscape was a bit different, with Democrats having a surge from their year-long drubbing in the polls. The raid on Mar a Lago put Pres. Trump back in the media spotlight, and the SCOTUS ruling on abortion was still affecting the GOP poll numbers, as well. Unfortunately for them, neither issue "had legs," in political parlance. While abortion is proving to have some lasting impact in several states, it has faded from the agenda in "blue" states like NY, because it is already protected there, and the GOP gubenatorial candidate has no intention of changing that.</p><p> Likewise, and almost counter-intuitively, the MAGA candidates that Democrats cynically supported in the GOP primaries, with an eye to facing an easier general election opponent, may now be poised to win, next week. Apparently, voters can overlook ranting about a "stolen election," because they know that the candidate can't undo it. They also might remember that plenty of Dems have ranted about "stolen elections," for many years. This leaves Democrats' claims that "democracy is on the ballot" sounding a bit hollow.</p><p> Neither Trump nor Biden are on the ballot this year, but since Biden is president, his policies are. It's no secret that most Democrats running this cycle do not want to be seen with Pres. Biden, and many are openly campaigning on their opposition to his policies. However, it's hard to do that, when your legislative record tells a different story. If you listen closely, most of them cite opposition to policies that never went to a congressional vote, such as student debt relief. How convenient for them.</p><p> To recap, every Democrat voted for the American Rescue Plan, which spent $1.9 trillion dollars on a wish list of Democrat policies, and ended up stoking the already growing embers of inflation. No Republicans voted for it. Pres. Trump had already pumped too much money into the "pandemic shut down" economy, but he left Pres. Biden with three quarters of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/business/us-gdp-4q-2021.html#:~:text=U.S.%20Economy%20Grew%201.7%25%20in,Year%20%2D%20The%20New%20York%20Times" target="_blank">solid GDP growth</a>. Since Pres. Biden took office, inflation has steadily increased. In 2022, we've had 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP, which is the classic definition of a recession, although in the latest quarter, GDP rebounded to positive territory. The economic forecasts are not so positive.</p><p> As bad as the economy has become under Pres. Biden and the Democrat Congress, there are several larger problems that can only be resolved by voting in a Republican Congess. Pres. Biden is not the actual president. I don't know who is making the decisions, but it's not him. There is also the issue of his connections to foreign powers, that have paid his family millions of dollars. These two factors make a solid case for removal from office, but nobody in his cabinet, or the congressional Democrat leadership is contemplating that. Why is that? Because they are using his power to help themselves, and not looking out for the national interest or security.</p><p> Let's look at the crisis on the Southern border, where every local Democratic legislator has been begging the White House to do something, to no avail. The Biden administration is throwing all of these elected officials under the bus, and why? What is the reason that they will do nothing about the open Southern border? Mexico is a corrupt state, with the cartels as much in control as the government. The numbers of foreign nationals not from Central or South America have been increasing for years, as well as the numbers of known or suspected terrorists. Let's not forget the fentanyl from China, being funneled through Mexico. This whole issue is on Biden's watch, because Pres. Trump worked hard to stop illegal immigration, with some success.</p><p> Pres. Biden's AG, Merrick Garland, is out of control, and another official that should be impeached for abuse of power, if not outright unconstitutional actions by the DoJ. We can start with the Jan. 6th rioters, and go on from there. The Jan. 6th, 2021 Capitol Hill invasion was a travesty, beyond a doubt. There were many people who deserve the charges they got, because we've seen the video of their actions. What concerns me is the lack of a full public exposure of ALL of the evidence from that day. The Department of Justice also has a duty to share any exculpatory evidence it has posession of, and I don't think they have done that.</p><p> This is where Jan. 6th, 2021 has become a political weapon. Let's not kid ourselves, Speaker Pelosi's committee was not created to get to the truth about what happened that day, but to turn public opinion against the Republicans in this week's midterm elections. Can anyone honestly say that the threat against "democracy" that day, which was opposed by the Republican Vice President, was actually an organized "insurrection?" The fact that AG Garland is indicting people who weren't even there that day says volumes about who the real authoritarians are, and it's not the GOP, or even most Trump supporters.</p><p> Another thing that has to be laid at the feet of the Biden/Garland DoJ is the unconstitutional war against parents of public school children. This was so convoluted, it seems insane. <a href="https://defendinged.org/press-releases/full-nsba-letter-to-biden-administration-and-department-of-justice-memo/" target="_blank">This letter </a>was sent by the National School Boards Association to Pres. Biden, asking for the DoJ to protect school board members against "threats." Then, it was <a href="https://katv.com/news/nation-world/doj-memo-which-compared-parents-to-terrorists-allegedly-requested-by-education-secretary-miguel-cardona-national-school-board-association-white-house-education-deparment-justice-marrick-garland-nsba-school-board-domestic-doj-doe" target="_blank">exposed that Biden's Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona solicited</a> the NSBA to send the letter. In other words, one branch of the Biden administration reached out to a federation of state associations, and asked them to ask the president to use federal law enforcement to stifle local parents who were too vociferous in their objections to local school board policies. The Biden/Garland DoJ played right along with this, and haven't even apologized, after it was all exposed. The only real consequence has been at the ballot box, in school board races across the country, and most famously with Republican Go. Glen Youngkin's election in Virginia, ground zero for this political fight. Vot Republican if you want sanity in your local public school.</p><p> The biggest issue on everyone's mind this year is the economy. There are no easy outs from the current economic situation, but there are some policies that are sure to lead us out of this mess faster. Democrats hate big business, and frame everything as a greedy choice made by "fat cats." It's true that businesses exist to make profits, but they have to provide a product or service, otherwise nobody would give them money. Pres. Biden and the Democrats have tried to blame inflation on every business, <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/09/09/white-house-blames-big-meat-for-rising-prices-alleges-profiteering/" target="_blank">big</a> and <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/07/04/biden-shouldnt-blame-gas-station-owners-for-high-prices-drivers/" target="_blank">small</a>, without looking to their own spending policies, and the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates effectively negative at the same time.</p><p> It's true that the GOP was profligate at spending, under Trump. Fiscal hawks were pushed out, and it only got worse, during the pandemic. However, only a handful GOP members supported just two of the Democrats' big spending bills, over the last two years. Other than the infrastructure and semiconductor bills, the GOP was unified against Pres. Biden's spending. It's a good bet that Pres. Biden, in the clutch of the far left, won't get any more insane progressive giveaways in his first term, if the GOP controls Congress.</p><p> Foreign policy is an area that is troubling, because we are militarily less powerful than China, right now, in naval assets. I have stated above my belief that Pres. Biden, or whoever in his family is making decisions for him, is possibly controlled by China. Right now, there is some sentiment in the GOP base to abandon support for Ukraine. I wonder if theose people think the same about Taiwan. It's all well and good to say "the US shouldn't be the policeman of the world," and that's true, except that if not us, then who? My father served in WW II, and when the shit hit the fan, globally, we were woefully unprepared. I don't want to see that scenario replayed in this century. Considering Pres. Biden's feckless withdrawl from Afghanistan, does anyone think he's up to that challenge?</p><p> Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps some other nations are waging a new "Cold War" against the West, and they have much better resources than the old USSR did, thanks to China's embrace of "state Capitalism." My bigger point here is actually bipartisan: we have to stop using partisan divisions to guide foreign policy. While Pres. Trump said he wanted to be friends with Putin's Russia, he had no problem killing hundreds of Russians in Syria, with 59 cruise missiles, fired as he was hosting Chinese President Xi for dinner at Mar A Lago. That's why Russia didn't invade Ukraine while Trump was president.</p><p> In any case, foreign policy is not near the top of 2022 voters' concerns, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the other top issue after the economy, which is crime. Pres. Biden and Congress really have little policy effect on local crime policy, but the Democrats, as a party, do. Much like the situation at the Southern border, the rising crime rates in cities across the country are causing big political problems. Pres. Biden tried to retroactively say that his American Rescue Plan had money for more police, but <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/legislation/2021/01/20/president-biden-announces-american-rescue-plan/" target="_blank">it doesn't mention them, in the 2021 press release</a>. They even tried to flip the script, and say <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-white-house-says-congressional-republicans-trying-defund-police-fbi-amid-crime-crisis" target="_blank">Republicans want to defund the police</a>, at one point.</p><p> The truth is that the far left Democrats who have taken over the party, from NY State to the Biden White House, simply think that criminals are the victims of a systemically racist judicial system. They have no sympathy for the minority victims of these crimes. If this is not enough to infuriate any independent or even Democrat voter, I have no other argument. Maybe there IS a systemically racist judicial system, but it's setting free the criminals that are plaguing minority communities. Who is killing black and brown men, women, and children in higher numbers than just two years ago? Not police, that's for sure. Democrat DA's, Governors, judges and legislatures all have a hand in it. The only way for minority communities to end this cycle is to vote for a different party than the one that brought this devastation to their neighborhoods. Even Trump said it: "What have you got to lose?"</p><p> This coming Tuesday, America is going to make a choice. It's going to be messy, and of course, there will be arguments, and denial, and we know that Pennsylvania will not have results for a few days, because of their idiotic laws. This won't be an election that "decides the future of our nation," any more than the last one, or the next one. In this series of posts, I have laid out my case against Pres. Biden and the Democrats. This is not to say the Republicans are perfect. We are all imperfect, as human beings, so any grouping of us will have some flaws. My point is that in 2022, the Democrats have brought the nation to a very bad place, in very many respects, which I have outlined.</p><p> I'm going to post an "after election" update, to follow up on how well the electorate lived up to what I was hoping for. I'll link it here, but until then, please go and vote your concience, or your self-interest, or whatever motivates you the most. </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-5743553413868942102022-10-27T00:24:00.001-04:002022-10-27T00:24:19.326-04:00Will the Red Wave Reach NYS? Lee Zeldin Says Yes<p> </p><p> Over the last six weeks, I've bee documenting the problems that Pres. Biden and his congressional allies have caused for America, and for themselves, politically. This week, I'd like to focus on my home state of New York. I, as well as thousands of others, have moved to Florida in the past two years. All of us had different reasons, but they pretty much fall into one of a few categories. Cost of living, taxes, excessive regulations, and crime. Three of these are generally long-standing issues in NYS, and have contributed to people and businesses leaving for greener pastures for some time. However, until about two years ago, crime was not a factor in this larger equation, because it was lower than the national average. What has changed, and why?</p><p> The simple answer is that the Democratic Party now has a supermajority in the NYS Legislature, and the party has been commandeered by the far left, ever since AOC ousted Joseph Crowley in the congressional primary. Crowley, while a US Representative, had a lock on the Queens Democratic machine, and had his cousin, Liz Crowley, on the NYC Council. They represented the establishment Democrats, who played tranactional "pay to play" politics. Ideology didn't matter as much as money. AOC's victory in the primary changed the whole dynamic of NYS politics.</p><p> Since then, the far-left has dominated the NYS legislature, as well as the national Democratic party. The disatrous "bail reform" laws have increased crime, including murders, statewide. The cosmetic "fixes" that were passed in response to the first backlash did nothing to stop the ongoing crime wave across the state. Gov. Hochul is clueless, trying to blame the rising crime stats on judges, or passing it off as a "perception" problem, as if knowing about higher crime rates isn't the same as being at higher risk of being a crime victim.</p><p> Unfortunately, Gov. Hochul is part of that "far-left" group of politicians, who oppose "incarceration" as a punishment for commiting a crime. She said as much, in her debate with Rep. Lee zeldin (<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?523515-1/york-governor-debate" target="_blank">Watch it here</a>). In response to his asking why she never talks about locking criminals up, she said <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/25/passionate-zeldin-beats-robot-hochul-in-ny-governor-debate/" target="_blank">"I don't know why that's so important to you."</a> Besides being clueless, it exposed her thought process. She is a leftie, who thinks that being pro-incarceration is racist. Her statement was an inept attempt to portray Zeldin as a racist for supporting incarceration.</p><p> This is where dumb-ass lefties like Gov. Hochul have gone off of the rails, They are worried about minority criminals, but don't seem to have any cares about the minority victims of these criminals. It must be so easy to live in a bubble, and have a worldview that bears no resemblance to reality, to say the statements she did, in her debate with Rep. Zeldin. In truth, she may not even be a leftie, but a political stooge, who stumbled into the governor's office. She just may be <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/08/10/ny-gov-kathy-hochul-goes-off-script-while-attacking-florida-gov-ron-desantis-at-holocaust-event/" target="_blank">following a script</a>.</p><p> It's no wonder that Rep. Lee Zeldin has a good chance of being elected as the next governor of NYS. The issues are pretty straightforward. He will fire Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for cause on day one, and will look at all of the DA's in the state, to assess if they are not doing their jobs. He will need legislative help, but if the "red wave" puts him in office, it may affect the state legislature, as well. That "bail reform" law has to go, as well as several other criminal-friendly measures that are on the books. </p><p> I haven't even started on the economic problems that NYS has created for itself. It is one of the least business-friendly states, and has been for a long time. Fixing the crime problem will not bring back businesses that have left, or attract new ones. Regulatory strangulation keeps small businesses from growing in state, and new ones from expanding into NY. "Pay to Play," as official government policy, has to be discarded. I'm not sure if any governor can do that, but it definitely won't happen under Gov. Hochul. If I were still living in NYS, I'd jump at giving Rep. Zeldin a chance.</p><p> </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-72440973595540277552022-10-20T00:26:00.003-04:002022-10-20T00:31:07.324-04:00The Biden Record, and the Democrats Who Supported It, Pt. 6: The Corruption of the Biden Family, and the Democrat and Media Cover-Up<p> </p><p> Wh<span style="font-family: arial;">ile it's no surprise that the left wing media has "soft-pedaled" Democrat corruption for decades, the coverage of the Biden family is second only to the Clintons, in the brazenness and continued denial of clearly unethical, if not criminal activity. In this post we are going to explore how many ways Pres. Biden's family have cashed in on his political position, as well as how his family members have gotten away with crimes that would put "regular" people in jail, consistently and repeatedly. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Let's start with the least offender, his niece Caroline. She <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-niece-pleads-guilty-credit-account-theft/" target="_blank">pled guilty to $110,000 credit card theft</a> in NYC, in 2013. From the article: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #101010;">Caroline Biden admitted Friday to grand larceny and petty larceny, with an agreement to get two years' probation if she repays the money, does 10 days of community service and avoids re-arrest for a year." Caroline continued to break the law, again skating away from<a href="https://www.insider.com/bidens-niece-avoids-jail-after-crashing-car-into-a-tree-2020-12" target="_blank"> serious penalties for a DUI incident</a>. The <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/joe-bidens-family-has-a-long-rap-sheet/" target="_blank">NY Post has a long list of the Biden family members who have actually been charged, and gotten off with wrist slaps</a>. This post is going to look at "The Big Guy," and his son Hunter, as well as his brother James Biden.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010;"> It's fairly common for people to ask "how does a Congressman or Senator become a millionaire, if not by corruption?", especially if they weren't rich before being elected. Joe Biden is a perfect example of that. I won't reach back too far, but<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-investigation-hunter-brother-hedge-fund-money-2020-campaign-227407/" target="_blank"> this Politico </a></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-investigation-hunter-brother-hedge-fund-money-2020-campaign-227407/" target="_blank">article details</a> how James, Hunter, and Beau Biden acted as surrogates to cash in on the Biden name, and political clout. James Biden has a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-profitable-business-of-being-joe-bidens-brother" target="_blank">long history of cashing in on his brother's political power, as noted by the progressives at Pro Publica</a>. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> All of that stuff is old news, from when Biden was a Senator. When he became Vice President, the Biden Crime Family operation went into the big leagues. His son Hunter was hired by a corrupt Ukrainian oil company called Burisma, at over $50,000 per month, to sit on it's board of directors. The real reason he was hired was that Burisma was allied with the Russian backed government of Ukraine, and there was a burgeoning democratic opposition, which included a prosecutor that was looking into Burisma.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> It's worth noting at this point that Pres. Trump was impeached for witholding aid to Ukraine, a few years later, to prod them to investigate what happened with the Burisma investigation, and Hunter Biden. It turns out to look like Burisma hired Hunter Biden in May, 2014, with the express intent of using his Dad, VP Joe Biden, to kill the investigation into them. It worked, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azLKK0xTOFI" target="_blank">big mouth Joe admitted it, in a widely viewed video</a>. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> For further insight into the Biden Criminal Enterprise, we only need to look at the information provided by the Hunter Biden laptop, which has been <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/washington-post-admits-hunter-biden-laptop-is-real/" target="_blank">verified as rea</a>l, contrary to the early <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276" target="_blank">social and liberal</a> media, especially <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/923766097/facebook-and-twitter-limit-sharing-new-york-post-story-about-joe-biden" target="_blank">Twitter and Facebook</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/fbi-possesses-significant-impactful-voluminous-evidence-of-potential-criminality-in-biden-family-business-arrangements" target="_blank">government attempts</a> to cover it up, and discredit it. From what is on the laptop, it looks as if Pres. Biden was paid by the Chinese Communist Party, as well as other foreign entities, through various businesses in his son Hunter's name. What did he do to get this money? </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> We've seen what he did for the corrupt Russian-allied kleptocrats who ran Burisma, and we can see that he is soft of foreign policy issues regarding China, currently. He rails against Russia, but won't use the biggest non-military weapon in America's arsenal: Oil and LNG production, to blunt that aspect of the Russian strategy. His insistence on transitioning to "green energy" is actually making us as reliant on China for our future energy supply as Europe has become on Russian LNG. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> I can't say that Pres. Biden is selling out America for foreign money, but I can say that his policies are selling out American energy independence, as well as destroying the economy. Whether he is personally profitting from it is really irrelevant. He, and his far left Democrats in both houses of Congress need to be booted out of office, in 2022. They stand for destroying the capitalist system, and they admit it. The Biden family has gotten rich under the capitalist system, and they think that they will continue to do so, even after they destroy it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> Sen. Grassley is investigating multiple aspects of the Biden administration's potential corruption, starting with the DoJ. The coverup of Hunter Biden's crimes, as well as the aggressive prosecution of Pres. Trump, and many of his supporters is something that FBI whistleblowers have been contacting the senator about. There is also the FBI investigations of parents who have complained at school board meetings. This is an abuse of government power, clearly.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> There is no way to assure that the judicial system will ever bring these people to justice. The only recourse is political. Remember, it's not just about the corruption. It's about giving us a break from over-regulation and taxation. Maybe we can take the money for 87,000 new IRS agents, and hire 87,000 new Border Control Agents. A Republican Congress will stop the destructive Biden agenda in it's tracks.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> For all of the talk about Pres. Trump "breaking norms," and being "secretive" and "authoritarian," it looks as if the opposite was true. His was one of the most transparent administrations ever, thanks to all of the "opposition" and "resistance" people that were inside, and leaked everything they could. Some even contravened explicit policy that the chief executive stated, just because they could.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> Where are those people, now? The economy is going to Hell in a handbasket, the Southern border is nonexistant, foreign allies and enemies are laughing in our face at our attempts to influence them, and businesses are being strangled by new regulatory burdens, all of which is crushing average middle class Americans. Where are the people that should be in a position to counter the destructive and corrupt policies that Biden is pursuing?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> Nowhere. They all are on the same page, without even getting paid off. That's why they're called "useful idiots."</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010; font-family: arial;"> </span></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-20967077992852236712022-10-06T23:56:00.002-04:002022-10-07T00:01:31.470-04:00The Biden Record, and the Democrats Who Supported It, Pt. 5: Foreign Policy Failures, Empowering America's Enemies, and Being Owned by Foreign Powers<p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>One area of policy that doesn't usually factor into electoral politics is foreign policy, unless the US is actively involved in a conflict. The only active conflict that the US was involved in when Pres. Biden took office was in Afghanistan. We had been engaged there for 20 years, and there hadn't been a US casualty in around two years, at that point. His predecessor had been laying out a withdrawl plan for his whole term, but it had conditions that hadn't been met, when he left office.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Nonetheless, Pres. Biden accelerated the withdrawl timeline, paving the way for one of the <a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/blame-joe-biden-the-afghanistan-disaster-no-one-else" target="_blank">worst foreign policy disasters </a>since the withdrawl from Vietnam. A bombing at the gate of the last American base killed 13 Marines, and a retaliatory drone strike killed an aid worker, and a bunch of children. In the face of all of this, Pres. Biden proudly proclaimed that this was some kind of success, even comparing it to the English evacuation at Dunkirk, bizzarely.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> The Biden administration's abandonment of Afghanistan had profound consequences. Many potential US allies started to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghanistan-chaos-blame-us/2021/08/14/0d4e5ab2-fd3e-11eb-911c-524bc8b68f17_story.html" target="_blank">look elsewhere for security assurance</a>s, and our global adveraries saw an opportunity. Russia and China started <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-china-hold-large-scale-joint-military-drills-2021-08-10/" target="_blank">performing joint military exercises</a> in 2021, and of course Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022. The consequences of that are still being felt, and it's interesting to note that Russia last invaded Ukraine on Pres. Obama's watch, and refrained from any aggression during Pres. Trump's time in office.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Another really bad and harmful foreign policy move by the Biden team has been the fruitless attempt to revive the disastrous <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance" target="_blank">Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA</a>. Iran never abided by the original bad deal, and Pres. Trump rightly withdrew the US from it, as well as killing Qasem Solemani, the biggest Iranian state sponsored terrorist in the world. It is a mystery to me why the Democratic leadership in Congress, specifically Sen. Schumer goes along with the coddling of the most antisemitic regime on the planet. Even Saudi Arabia is on the brink of making official peace with Israel, because of the threat that a nuclear Iran poses to both of them.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Progressive leftists like to call Israel "an Apartheid State," though most of them weren't even alive when South Africa practiced Apartheid. Many also like to compare Israel's treatment of Arabs or Muslims to what Nazis did to Jews, but that doesn't pass the test of reality, as Israel has elected officials that are Arab and Muslim. They also totally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and within two years, Hamas took it over, and not by democratic means. Unfortunately, US politics have not helped, when the Obama administration saw Netanyahu as a partisan enemy, and cozied up to Iran, instead.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Since then, a young, inexperienced kid named Jared Kushner, Pres. Trump's Son in law, brokered a normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab nations, called <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/" target="_blank">The Abraham Accords</a>. This was an unprecedented breakthrough, which got none of the recognition it deserved in the US media, because they all hated Pres. Trump. Since then as well, there is new leadership in Israel, and Netanyahu is out. However, it looks as if the Biden people still consider Israel as a pariah, and Iran as a nation to befriend. Talk about having your foreign policy ass-backwards.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Beside Israel, Pres. Biden recently <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-blasted-using-italian-election-example-democracy-stake-democrats-elected" target="_blank">criticized the newly elected leader of Italy as an "autocrat,</a>" with absolutely no justification. For a US president to smear allied leaders over political differences is worse than calling his domestic political opponents "semi-fascists," because it becomes an international incident. Does Pres. Biden really need to make more enemies out of our allies? This, on top of the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-saudis-snub-biden-again-opec-oil-production-saudi-arabia-11665002069?st=6t6ifrt70pe5kta&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">Saudis latest snub</a>, where they are doubling their reduction in oil production, after he asked them to increase it.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Pres. Biden is obviously mentally incapacitated, so his Secretary of State has to bear full responsibility for whatever our foreign policy is. As much as the Dems used to say that Pres. Trump was a Russian puppet, it looks as if <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-best-weapon-bidenomics-russia-ukraine-war-invasion-nato-sanctions-army-military-aid-economy-west-11664996493?st=4wmshfteid4px39&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">Pres. Biden is helping Pres. Putin much more</a>, by sabatoging US energy production. That's not under the SoS' purview, which then leads us to who else is actually running this administration. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> None of us know the full details of Hunter and <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/the-biden-family-investigation_part-iii-james-biden" target="_blank">James Biden</a>'s relationship with the previous corrupt administration of Ukraine, or why the former Mayor of Moscow's wife has not been sanctioned by the Biden administration. There is also the issue of the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/bidens-son-hunter-made-money-from-russia-china-donald-trump/articleshow/78360279.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">monetary ties between the Bidens</a> and entities controlled by Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, as well as the Chinese Communist Party, and what effect it has on American national security. More about this in next week's post.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> This bring us to China. Strangely enough, Pres. Biden has said multiple times that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-us-forces-would-defend-taiwan-event-chinese-invasion-2022-09-18/" target="_blank">we will defend Taiwan</a>, if China attacks them, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/white-house-walks-back-biden-taiwan-defense-claim-again/" target="_blank">only to be contradicted by his staff, afterwards</a>. Now, we all know China is the biggest global competitor/threat, as well as our largest trading partner. To say that the US/China relationship is "complicated" is an understatement. If <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/" target="_blank">China has been paying Joe Biden</a> since he was VP, then that is an impeachable offense. I hate the idea of President Harris, but there is no other choice.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> There is <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/10/22/hunter-biz-partner-confirms-e-mail-details-joe-bidens-push-to-make-millions-from-china/" target="_blank">credible evidence of this, on Hunter Biden's laptop</a>, corroborated by at least two people with first-hand knowledge. The liberal media has done their best to cover it up, but without an opposition party in control of Congress, there may never be true accountability. This is yet another reason that the Republicans must retake majorities in both houses of Congress, in 2022. Our national security depends on it.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Something that also is not mentioned often in the liberal media is the Biden team's support for Socialists in Central America, and also the effort to promote "green" policies in Africa, as well as other developing nations. These are foreign policy blunders of the highest order, which will come back to bite future US administrations in the rear. It's not difficult to see the mixed messages. Push "green" policies in democracies, and ask authoritarian states to produce more oil. Hypocrisy, thy name is the <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2022/10/01/joe-biden-absent-minded-president-who-runs-white-house/10460695002/" target="_blank">Biden Regency</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>In summation, the Biden foreign policy is a complete mess. Begging enemies to supply more oil, and alienating friends who could do it, but won't. Kissing Iran's ass, and trying to give them a path to nuclear weapons, even as they are attempting to assasinate people in the US. Refusing to enable the US to produce more oil and LNG, to keep prices down, and counter Russia's foot on the throat of Germany and Europe over Winter fuel supplies. It may not be apparent to most average voters, but the Democrats, and the Biden team are pursuing policies that are destructive on a global scale. The worst part is that they cite "global climate change" as the biggest REAL threat to humanity, when the science says that NONE of their policies will affect it. There is something else behind all of the Western government subsidies going into "green" energy, and it seems to be benefitting Russia and China, and hurting Western economies. More on that in the next few weeks.</b></span></p><p> </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-42925468163236801302022-09-30T01:38:00.006-04:002022-09-30T02:44:45.034-04:00The Biden Record, and the Democrats Who Supported It, Pt. 4: How Biden Blew Up the Economy With Inflation<p><br /></p><p> <span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> The US economy is in chaos. This is not "spin," or "opinion," but a fact. Some people aren't feeling it as hard as others, because they were well-off before the inflation started. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come, and it will affect those "well-off" people, to a greater degree than it does currently, as the recession sets in. It also will present a crisis for government, as the interest rates for the chronic borrowing that sustains all of their largesse double, triple, or even quadruple. How did we get here, after what was shaping up as a robust recovery from the pandemic response inspired recession?</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> When Pres. Biden was elected, almost every policy that had been in place was reversed. We've <a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_19.html" target="_blank">looked at the disatrous results of this on the southern border</a>, but what's happened to our economy has impacted many more Americans. It started out on day one, when Biden killed the KeystoneXL pipeline, followed by freezing new federal leases for oil exploration. While they didn't affect the day to day supply of oil and gas, they sent market signals that there would be less supply in the future. Prices started to rise.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> As much as the Democrats love to deride oil as a "fossil fuel," it seems that they don't understand how many other everyday products are dependent on it. Plastics, fertilizer, and pretty much anything that is manufactured. Long before Pres. Putin started threatening to invade Ukraine, the increase in US oil prices was working it's way into our supply chain. It didn't help that the Biden economic team not only ignored this inflation, but added fuel to it.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> The <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_2021" target="_blank">American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was passed on partisan lines, with no Republican votes</a>. Even noted Democrat economist, and Obama adviser <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/544188-larry-summers-blasts-least-responsible-economic-policy-in-40-years/" target="_blank">Lawrence Summers predicted that it woud fan the flames of inflation</a>, to no avail. All through this period, Pres. Biden and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen kept asserting that inflation was "tranistory," or temporary, and prices of goods would come back to "normal" soon. They spent <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2021/07/20/biden-favors-temporary-inflation-view-heres-why-thats-risky/?sh=17aba50960ef" target="_blank">quite a bit of effort</a>, and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-12/yellen-sticks-with-transitory-view-of-higher-u-s-inflation" target="_blank">political capital pushing that message</a>, even <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-inflation-temporary-fed-should-do-what-it-deems-necessary-recovery-2021-07-19/" target="_blank">bringing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell into the White House for a talk</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> By the end of 2021, it was clear that inflation was not going away. However, in 2022, Pres. Biden and his team presented a series of other things to put the blame on, from <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/594685-former-obama-official-biden-dishonest-to-blame-supply-chain-for/" target="_blank">supply chains</a>, to <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/robertrobb/2022/01/14/biden-blames-big-meat-not-big-spending-inflation/6513736001/" target="_blank">big meat</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/joe-biden-has-a-new-scapegoat-your-local-gas-station" target="_blank">local gas stations</a>. Of course, the biggest one was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which exacerbated the inflation that was already well past "transitory" by the time Pres. Biden started <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-blames-putin-for-70-of-the-increase-in-inflation-in-america" target="_blank">blaming it on Putin</a>. None of this passed the smell test, even with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/opinion/inflation-supply-chain.html" target="_blank">friendly media outlets</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Inflation wasn't the only destructive force that Pres. Biden and the Democrats unleashed on our economy, after Pres. Trump left office. The details of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/16/1117709411/biden-signs-sweeping-climate-health-care-tax-bill-into-law" target="_blank">legislation they have passed</a> contain provisions that will continue to curtail economic growth, as well as freedom of labor and capital to move in the most productive ways. To be fair, Republicans share responsibility for some of it, specifically the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-administration-touts-1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-2022-08-19/" target="_blank">infrastucture bill</a>, and the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/biden-sign-bill-boost-us-chips-compete-with-china-2022-08-09/" target="_blank">semiconductor bill</a>, both of which increased burdens on taxpayers, and put government in the role of choosing which businesses to favor.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> One of the most blatant ways that the Dems are harming the economy is by their slavish support of unions, which represent around 6% of the American workforce. Private sector unions have been shrinking, while public sector union membership has been increasing, which should tell you something. Unions have gone from being investigated for corruption by the government to corrupting the government that used to investigate them. It's a pet peeve of mine, so I have to ask it again: Is it fair to allow an employee to contribute money to their employer, to keep them in office?</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Before we get into the issues with public sector unions, we have to look at how Pres. Biden has catered to the private sector unions, at all taxpayers' expense. He continues to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-pension-bailout-is-a-giveaway-to-unions-multiemployer-pbgc-covid-insolvency-american-rescue-plan-11657573175" target="_blank">throw our money into pensions that were supposed to be funded</a> by private sector unions, without even demanding reforms in the way these pensions are structured. He's pushing his <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/starbucks-sees-labor-bias-at-the-nlrb-national-labor-relations-board-union-legal-complaint-11660682323?st=agwjw7qe74u7ml8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">NLRB to be biased on the side of unions</a> in its role as arbiter of labor disputes. He has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/11/biden-working-class-unions-00031759" target="_blank">lived up to his nickname of "Union Joe," as president</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> His support for unions only goes so far, though. It seems that they continue to support him, even as he <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/21/biden-green-jobs-labor-unions-470311">destroys the economy that supports them, with his green agend</a>a. This is where the growing public sector unions come into play. They don't care about the private economy, because governments can't declare bankruptcy, <a href="https://www.governing.com/finance101/gov-pension-protections-state-by-state.html#:~:text=In%20all%2C%2021%20states%20protect,or%20another%20theory%20of%20law." target="_blank">and many of them</a> have benefits <a href="https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-lawmakers-got-15-1m-before-seeking-constitutional-power-for-union-bosses/" target="_blank">enshrined in state constitutions</a>, or in law. These are almost all states run by Democrats, and Pres. Biden is doing his best to benefit his union cronys, whether public or private. In any case, it is hurting the other 94% of us, and the US economy, in general.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> One of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money are the <a href="https://www.nevadabusiness.com/2012/06/prevailing-wage-laws-time-to-end-this-corrupt-system/" target="_blank">"prevailing wage" laws, which basically force government projects to use union workers</a>. The federal version is the <a href="https://quickbooks.intuit.com/time-tracking/resources/what-is-davis-bacon-act/" target="_blank">Davis Bacon law of 1931</a>. Perhaps it was needed in that era, but today it has become a privilege for the select few businesses that get government contracts, leaving the majority of private businesses, especially small and minority owned businesses out of luck. The fact that they survive, and even thrive in the private economy should be proof that taxpayers are being taken for a ride by these laws. No, somehow "Union Joe" and his Democratic cohort continue to claim that "UNIONS" actually represent most working Americans, when the opposite is true.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b>Let's not forget to mention Pres. Biden's latest fiasco, the "student loan" giveaway. He tries so hard to paint this as having some benefit for the nation, but it looks as if <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/new-poll-76-americans-oppose-student-debt-cancellation-it-drives-price-college-64-oppose-it" target="_blank">nobody is buying it</a>. It almost parallels his union giveaways: Spending a bunch of taxpayer money to benefit a small percentage of people who are already better off than the average taxpayer. This is not helping the economy in any way. In fact, it's doing two things that are detrimental: It's taking taxpayer money out of the government budget, and giving it to people who didn't ask for it. In fact, they filed multiple papers swearing that they would pay that money back. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Pres. Biden has said publicly that this is making college more affordable, which is the opposite of the truth. In fact, colleges are <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-administration-will-look-crack-colleges-raising-tuition-student-loan-handout" target="_blank">still raising tuitions</a>, because the government is signaling that it will continue to pay off student debt. There has never been a word spoken about the value of the education that these colleges are providing, and whether they should have some financial liability, or "<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/education/442497-colleges-need-to-have-skin-in-the-game-to-tackle-student-loan-debt/" target="_blank">skin in the game,</a>" so to speak. This is because academia is one of the Democrats biggest support bases.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> What is interesting is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Service_Loan_Forgiveness" target="_blank">that the Democratic pecursors </a>to Pres. Biden's "forgiveness" gave preference to people that chose to work in government service, and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/publicserviceloanforgiveness/" target="_blank">he is continuing it</a>. This is a blatant way to increase the federal workforce with college-indoctrinated bureaucrats and personnell of all types, from teachers to CIA or FBI agents, supervisors, as well as keeping their public sector unions stocked with the same. They know which way the wind is blowing, for government graft.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Some of these are small examples, but there is a common thread, and it involves one more policy that is contributing to the harm our economy is experiencing: ESG, or Environmental and Social Governance regulations. The Biden admin, and Dems such as Sen. "Fauxcahontas" Elizabeth Warren are trying to use financial regulation to enforce policies that they can't pass through legislation. Why? Because the limited "ESG" policies that have been passed by the federal government, and especially in certain states like California have proven disastrous, or been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. Subsidizing intermittent wind and solar energy has caused reliable fossil fuel plants out of business, and when people need reliable energy, the price for it has spiked.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> There is no way that ESG policy will increase shareholder value, or give the public a better product or service at a lower cost. In fact, it does the <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/03/an-inconvenient-truth-about-esg-investing" target="_blank">opposite</a>, as so many progressive policies do. What's worse is that all of the big union pension funds, and private equity investment companies have joined the ESG bandwagon. The basic theme is that "we, as big businesses, are bad, so we have a responsibility to lose money, and eventually go out of business." They don't explicitly say that, but they cover up the fact that their policies are losing money by saying that it is a "long term" positive policy. Not that they have any facts to support that claim.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Again, the corruption is the cause of this. Green energy businesses donate to Democrats, who give them back billions in subsidies for unreliable energy. The capper is that the Biden administration, as well as a bunch of private equity firms are trying to force this ESG agenda on the nation. What they don't admit is that none of those goals are compatible with growing the economy. Indeed, they have a <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/03/an-inconvenient-truth-about-esg-investing" target="_blank">track record of lagging behind</a> companies that just pay attention to the bottom financial line.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> It seems that the far left has never recognized that capitalism, for all its ups and downs, has been the greatest boon to the human race in all of history. What it looks like to me is that a bunch of rich "fat cats" are feeling guilty about things that they had no hand in creating, but they think that destroying the economy is the way to "fix" them. Specifically, income inequality, whether personal or national. I can't believe that they are so detached from economic reality to think that, but they do.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b>To these Democrats, politics seems to be a "racket," where you get paid off for your political choices. Pres. Biden represents this, in the most old-school way. It's why he's going along with the progressives that have comandeered his party. He's gotta go along, to get along. The Democrats controlled the House for almost 50 years, when he was first elected to it. Back then, there was still some ideological diversity in both parties: "Blue Dog" Democrats, and "Rockerfeller" Republicans were opposing factions in their parties, but still voted with their own party most of the time.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b> Those days are long gone, for the most part. There are still the occasional bills that are passed on a bipartisan basis, but it's much rarer than in the past. What's happened over the last several decades is a malfunction of the process, where bills are bundled together in packages that have to be passed at the last minute, without thorough debate, or any debate. Again, that's a bipartisan problem, but right now, the Democrats are in total control of the government, so they, and espacially Pres. Biden have to take the blame for what has occurred over the last two years.</b></span></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-2275695055958895352022-09-19T01:25:00.003-04:002022-09-19T02:12:30.032-04:00The Biden Record, and The Democrats Who Supported It, Part 3: Garland's DoJ and FBI Seek Domestic Threats, While Ignoring Crime and the Crisis on the Southern Border<div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> I started to examine the DoJ's efforts to <a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-biden-record-and-democrats-who_12.html" target="_blank">classify angry parents at school board meetings as domestic terror threats</a> in my last post, but <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/15/biden-trump-riot-statute-capitol-prosecution-476208" target="_blank">AG Garland has much more to answer for, as does his boss, Pres. Biden</a>. We're going to start with a touchy subject, the mob that broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. There is no doubt that what happened there was an outrage, and a sometimes violent attempt to influence a political agenda. However, there were also people that just walked in, without violent intent. This is an event that deserves a fair examination, and release of all video and audio correspondence from that day. It would also be helpful for the FBI to release all info they received prior to that day about the potential threat, and what assets they had on the ground that day. None of this is forthcoming, and the Democratic Jan. 6th Comittee is not asking for any of it. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> It appears that there were many FBI assets in the crowd, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/25/us/politics/capitol-riot-fbi-informant.html" target="_blank">including the head of the Proud Boys</a>. There is also the mystery <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYF6-sZkgM" target="_blank">surrounding Ray Epps</a>. Now, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/jan-6-ray-epps-evidence.html" target="_blank">the NY Times</a>, and all of the left-wing media is lamenting Mr. Epps as an innocent whose life has been destroyed by these false allegations. The video is there, in the link, so I'd like to know why the DoJ isn't prosecuting him. In any case, the DoJ seems to be doing their best to upend the American principle of "innocent, until proven guilty" in all of these cases of Jan. 6th defendants. I'm not making any excuses for anyone who broke the law, that day. They should be punished. I don't think that the political intent was as serious as, say, the Sept. 11th terrorists, which some <a href="https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/us-news/democrats-equate-9-11-hijackers-with-capitol-rioters-say-republicans-threaten-democracy-articleshow.html" target="_blank">Democrats have compared them</a> to, and Pres. <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/george-bush-delights-democrats-infuriates-maga-world-veiled-jan-6-9-11-comparison-1628208" target="_blank">GW Bush did last year</a>, with his usual ham-handedness.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> Byron York points out the numbers, and the statutory basis for these prosecutions, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cracking-down-on-unarmed-insurrectionist-trespassing">here</a>. It's quite astonishing to look at the numbers. Seven hundred and fifty one people are charged with trespassing. The cases that the DoJ are pursuing are not neccessarily solid, although quite a few defendants have already pled guilty. That is actually a function of our justice system, which offers reduced penalties for lesser pleas. What is more worrisome is that the DoJ is <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/doj-seizes-team-trump-phones-part-intensifying-jan-6-probe-rcna47448" target="_blank">seizing phones </a>and records of <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0wvEpy8vLjocRW76Rw3xmSKzh5VsFMDiFmtid5x2RttCb34JWLHtx1SiXAHCxrxMLl&id=1536921927&sfnsn=mo" target="_blank">Trump supporters</a>. This is starting to look like a political vendetta, more than an actual investigation into a crime.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> Merrick Garland has shown himself to be a puppet of the Biden administration in a much worse fashion than the <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/06/03/barr-has-made-the-justice-department-trumps-puppet/" target="_blank">Dems accused AG Barr of being</a> for Pres. Trump. FBI director Chris Wray is only slightly less of a tool than James Comey was. One has to wonder, why do these leaders spend so much time and effort focusing on "domestic threats" that purportedly come from Americans who oppose Pres. Biden, but seem blind to the actual threats that are killing more Americans than any "White supremacist" group?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> The biggest factor in African American deaths in the US is local gun violence, by gangs. The biggest reason these deaths go unaddressed is that local DA's refuse to enforce the laws for gun violence against minority defendants, in the name of "social justice" and "criminal justice reform." There is also a growing problem of crime in Latino communities, fed by the Biden administration's "open borders" policy. MS-13 gangsters are decimating existing Latino communities, on Long Island and around the country. For some reason, the Democrats, and the Biden administration think that all Latinos must support this "open borders" policy, because they have traditionally been Democrats. In reality, it is a reason that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113166779/hispanic-and-minority-voters-are-increasingly-shifting-to-the-republican-party" target="_blank">Latinos are leaving the Democrats</a>. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> There is a crisis at the Southern border, and the <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/15/white-house-doubles-down-on-kamala-harris-claim-that-border-is-secure/" target="_blank">Biden administration continues to deny it, with VP Harris saying the border is secure</a>. Fentanyl, other drugs, migrants, and even terrorists are crossing into our country, freely. Even as the <a href="https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2022/08/30/dea-warns-brightly-colored-fentanyl-used-target-young-americans" target="_blank">DEA warns about i</a>t, the President doesn't mention it, preferring to bask in false achievements. The perverse outcome of Biden's open border is that the Customs and Border Patrol is too busy processing the huge influx of illegal immigrants to devote the manpower towards intercepting the flood of fentanyl and other drugs coming across the southern border. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm" target="_blank">Drug deaths are at record levels</a>, much <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm" target="_blank">higher than gun violence deaths</a>, and yet the Democrats have no policy proposals to address it, either. They pay lip service, but when it comes to supporting laws that will punish criminals, they always vote no.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> A corollary to the border situation, as compared to the focus on Pres. Trump's supposed crimes, and those of his supporters: I'm not passing judgement, because everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The rhetoric about the action of the above-mentioned people as being an "attack on democracy" rings hollow, coming from Pres. Biden. Why? Because apparently democracy is not as important as a bad news story on the southern border. When there were<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58667669" target="_blank"> thousands of Hatian immigrants massed </a>at the Texas-Mexico border, Pres. Biden <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1040446618/biden-border-agents-horses-haiti-migrants-dangerous-wrong" target="_blank">wasted no time flying them back to Haiti.</a> Now, the <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/biden-sold-out-haitian-democracy-for-a-migrant-deal-ex-envoy/" target="_blank">Biden administration's special envoy to Haiti accuses them of looking the other way</a>, as the acting Prime Minister consolidates power, after the assasination of Haiti's president in 2021. They did so because the Prime Minister agreed to accept back all the planeloads of Haitians that were causing such a big political problem for the Biden team. So much for supporting democracy.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> It is becoming a pattern: Instead of focusing on actual crime and real threats to national security, the Biden-Garland DoJ is focust on domestic political opponents. The latest example is the open question of whether the DoJ <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/16/white-house-calls-desantis-abbott-to-smugglers-transporting-migrants/https://nypost.com/2022/09/16/white-house-calls-desantis-abbott-to-smugglers-transporting-migrants/" target="_blank">will investigate, and try to prosecute Republican</a> governors that are busing and flying illegal immigrants to "sanctuary cities" and jurisdictions. If they do, it will be at the expense of exposing their own boss, Pres. Biden, to the same charge, because his administration has been busing illegal immigrants around the nation since its early days. If so, they will be giving in to the <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/3646647-bussing-migrants-to-sanctuary-cities-looks-a-lot-like-human-trafficking/" target="_blank">most absurd elements</a> in their party, which is actually par for the course. Jonathan Turley gets it right, in his <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3647169-no-desantis-is-not-a-human-trafficker-or-kidnapper/" target="_blank">recent column</a>: </b></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30;"><b>The governors’ critics are correct: These trips are politically motivated. That is precisely why the proper response is also political, not criminal. Using the criminal code to amplify political points is a dangerous precedent. Frustrating though it may be for sanctuary cities to face an influx of undocumented migrants, criminal irony still is not an offense under the federal code.</b></span></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> In summation, while border security/illegal immigration and crime are not at the top of everybody's list of "most important issues," they are important, because of the trajectory that the rising levels of both are having on the country. I certainly think they are more important than investigating the former president and his supporters for anything beyond clear and easily provable crimes. Focusing the national security apparatus on them, when there are real, and much more pressing threats to national security rearing their head almost every other day is yet another reason to vote for the opposition Republicans in the midterms, to put some checks and balances on this rogue administration.</b></span></div>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-28990832772049303232022-09-12T00:00:00.005-04:002022-09-12T00:09:29.564-04:00The Biden Record, and The Democrats Who Supported It, Part 2: COVID and Education Policy Failures<p> When Pres. Biden took office, the COVID vaccine was finally becoming available, and the newer variants were proving less lethal than the first wave. By late in the year, when the <a href="http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-omicron-deception.html" target="_blank">Omicron variant</a> hit, even unvaccinated people were at low risk, if they didn't have any other medical conditions. Not that this kept the Biden administration, and Democrats across the country from extend their "emergency" powers and restrictions on the public. The politicized CDC was still advising people to <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/04/27/cdc-announces-updated-covid-19-mask-guidelines/">wear masks outdoors until April, and then only the vaccinated</a> should be able to breathe freely outside. This was the same CDC that issued a ban on evictions, which the <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/08/26/supreme-court-ends-federal-eviction-moratorium/" target="_blank">SCOTUS ultimately struck down</a>.</p><p> One of the most glaring examples of the politicization of the CDC was the guidance on school closures. The CDC was ready to recommend that in person instruction should resume, in Feb. 2021. However, the teachers' union stepped in, and in a <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-with-cdc-on-school-reopening-emails/" target="_blank">series of emails with the CDC,</a> were able to get the CDC guidance changed to reflect word for word what the American Federation of Teachers recommended. This resulted in public schools being kept closed, and relying on remote instruction, which has now been proven to be totally ineffective. According to the reporting in the NY Post article linked above, the White House was in the loop for this, and of course <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/12/28/randi-weingartens-attempts-to-rewrite-school-closings-history-wont-fly/" target="_blank">Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, has tried to deny</a> that they had any hand in keeping schools closed in 2021. The emails tell a different story, and the Biden administration was instrumental in this corrupt process.</p><p> We're going to discuss other aspects of the Biden administration's completely destructive education policies later in this post, but there are a few more COVID related policies that need to be mentioned. First is the attempt to <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/bidens-private-business-vaccine-mandate-begins-jan-4/" target="_blank">mandate vaccinations for employees of private businesses</a> through an OSHA ruling. While it was eventually <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/18/osha-suspends-bidens-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/" target="_blank">recinded</a>, it wreaked havok on the economy, and with no real benefit. Vaccination rates were climbing, and the government never recognized natural immunity for people who had already recovered. Most of all, they tried to hide the fact that vaccinated people could still get COVID, and spread it. All the vaccination did was make it less likely that a person would be severely ill from COVID, or die. It looks as if the Biden people are still obscuring how many fully vaccinated and boosted people have died from COVID, as well as the number of people who have died, or had severely adverse reactions to the vaccination.</p><p> The overarching story of the pandemic is how governments around the globe, including the Trump administration here in America, got the response wrong. Here in the US, Pres. Trump was clearly uncomfortable with it, and probably glad that our system allowed states to make the final decisions on public health matters. Gov. DeSantis in Florida has been proven right, as was Sweden, on the international stage, though both were under heavy criticism in 2020, during the early months of it. What happened in 2021 was interesting, because it became political. Many governments wanted to hold on to their expanded "emergency" powers to control every aspect of people's lives, so they just extended the emergency. In the US, this manifested as a divide between the right and left, with the Republicans wanting to open up, and the Democrats wanting to continue restrictions, in the name of "safety." This played out for a while, but finally was laid to rest this year, as people came to see through the politics of it. I hope voters remember who kept the economic damage going into 2021, when the US economy was <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/17/signs-of-a-rapid-economic-recovery-and-hope-for-trump/">showing signs of recovery in</a> 2020.</p><p> One big thing that resulted from the lockdowns, with both parents working and kids learning from home, was that parents got to see what the public schools were actually teaching their kids. If the teachers' unions had realized how badly this would end up, they may not have pushed so hard for remote learning. There has been a revolution in the politics of education over the last year or so, with a flipping of the parties. Democrats no longer have the faith of the voters, as has been shown repeatedly in recent elections. <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/578885-education-blunder-igniting-suburban-parents-driving-mcauliffe-panic-in/" target="_blank">Democrat Terry McCauliffe made the mistake</a> of saying "I don't think that parents should be telling schools what they should teach" in a Sept. 29th, 2021 debate with Republican now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin.</p><p> There are more recent examples, and they go down to the local school board election level, with<a href="https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/08/24/gov-ron-desantis-helps-florida-school-board-candidates-win-advance/7880979001/" target="_blank"> governors getting involved</a>. Even in progressive San Francisco, three members of the school board were actually recalled, not just voted out. Outraged parents couldn't wait until the next election, because these board members were <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/san-francisco-recalls-gabriela-lopez-faauuga-moliga-alison-collins-off-citys-school-board/">pushing politics instead of acting in the best interest of the kids</a>. One might think that the Biden administration, and Democrats in Congress would see this as a sign that their support of the education establishment and unions was a bad policy, especially with test scores crashing, and the failure of remote learning over 2020 and 2021. Or not.</p><p> Indeed, the Biden administration, and Democrats at all levels of government have doubled down on support for teachers' unions, and a raft of absurdly destructive policies that do nothing to ecucate children. Let's start with "antiracism." The name suggests a concept everyone should embrace, because <a href="https://www.aft.org/news/aft-launches-campaign-stamp-out-racism" target="_blank">who isn't against racism</a>? Much like it's ideological cousin Black Lives Matter, that was done by design, so that anyone who questioned what message they stand for could be silenced, and labeled "racist." In fact, "antiracism" is a radical ideology that seeks ro reinterpret US history through a "Black and White" racial lens. Unfortunately, history has many more facets than this ideology allows, and teaching it to grade school children is educational malpractice, besides inciting divisiveness and even hate.</p><p> However, the Biden administration has gone ahead with <a href="https://www.aei.org/op-eds/team-biden-wants-white-teachers-to-undergo-anti-racist-therapy/" target="_blank">support for this agenda</a> in public schools, even though it has nothing to do with the areas that US children, especially minorities, have fallen behind during the last two years: Reading, writing, and arithmatic. US children are falling behind children from other nations in the most basic education categories, yet the federal government, and many state and local governments <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/phonics-failure-public-schools" target="_blank">continue to neglect</a> such basic learning concepts as <a href="https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics" target="_blank">phonics</a>. Think about this when you go to the polls in November, and vote accordingly.</p><p> The radical left Democrats, and the Biden team are also promoting the radicals trangender agenda on to children, and keep families in the dark. This is perhaps more harmful than any other policy they are implementing, because it can impact children's physical and mental health for the rest of their lives. <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/03/25/the-transgender-care-that-states-are-banning-explained-00020580" target="_blank">Some states have banned use of puberty blockers and criminalized mastectomies and other gender-related surgeries for children</a>, but the Biden administration is still supporting it. In addition, they are trying to enforce rules that allow biological males to not only compete in female sports, but use female bathrooms and locker rooms. Where does this leave a girl that has spent years competing in women's sports, and excelling to a level that would get her a scholarship to college, or a female college athelete that was hoping to use her atheletic status as a springboard to a career in sports? They take a back seat to a biological male, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas" target="_blank">Lia Thomas</a>.</p><p> The worst part about it is that the educrats want to keep all of this secret from parents. They often justify it by claiming that parents might not be "receptive" or "affirming" of the child's choice, and guess what? They're right about that. There is a reason that they are the child's parents, and the teacher is not. Teachers and school administrators, social workers, or anyone in that bureaucracy really have NO business interfering in a child's emotional or private development. I understand that there are times that a school should alert authorities, if they see signs of abuse on a child. This is almost the opposite. If the teacher addresses your son as a female, or vice versa, you have a right to know, especially in the early grades. This is a HUGE issue, that every Democratic candidate for office should have to answer questions about, before the November elections.</p><p> How many of you remember what happened to <a href="https://wjla.com/features/i-team/loudoun-county-public-school-board-sex-assaults-scott-scmith-parents-domestic-terrorists-national-school-boards-association" target="_blank">Scott Smith, a parent who lost his temper at a Loudoun County, VA</a>, school board meeting, when they denied that his daughter was sexually assaulted by a transgender student. It got national attention, with predictable political divisions. Republicans took the side of the parent, and Democrats called him a national security threat. Before you think I'm exaggerating, or joking, read the article in the link above, about Mr. Smith. It turns out that the <a href="https://tennesseestar.com/2022/01/13/bidens-education-secretary-solicited-nsba-letter-describing-parents-as-domestic-terrorists/" target="_blank">Biden administration solicited the NSBA</a> to send a letter to AG Garland, which attempted to designate angry parents at school board meetings a "domestic threats" to national security. The transgender student in question was convicted of sexual assault on Mr. Smith's daughter, as well as another assault at another school. It appears that because of this student's transgender status, the crimes committed were covered up by school administrators. This is yet another reason why education policy MUST be a big factor in the 2022 mid term elections.</p><p> I'm writing this series of articles on various aspects of the Biden Democrat agenda in the hope that my readers and friends will share them, and explain why it is so important to stop this destructive agenda in it's tracks, right now. I cited COVID policy, and education policy, in this chapter. I will be picking up from here in my next post, with the way that the Biden team has abused the police power of the DoJ and FBI, beyond attacking parents as domestic terrorist threats. Besides examining the politization of these law-enforcement agencies, we will also address the lack of response to the wave of illegal immigration, human trafficking, potential terrorists, and drugs flowing through our southern border.</p><p> </p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-77071244447826557632022-09-02T19:13:00.007-04:002022-09-02T19:35:11.078-04:00The Biden Record, and The Democrats Who Supported It: A Series on Graffiti Politti, Pt. 1<p> </p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> President Biden has been in office almost two years, and his policies are on the ballot in the 2022 mid-term elections. This is why the Democrats, and the Biden administration are pulling out all the stops to change the focus to anything else. Donald Trump, Roe v. Wade, the Jan. 6th riot, and now any one who supports "Make America Great Again" are all being served up by the sweet on Democrat media. It's been working, at least for the last few weeks, as both Biden's and generic Democrats' poll numbers have been rebounding. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> However, whether that will last another two months until the election is an open question. In this series of posts, we will examine the Biden record, and how the Democratic congressional majorities enabled his policies, for better or worse. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> We will start with a look at COVID policy, especially as it relates to education, as well as education policy, in general. Beyond the school closures, the Biden administration has supported "antiracist" policies that are actually racist, and expanding Title IX protections to transgender people, to the point where they are depriving biological girls of opportunities, as well as privacy concerns regarding bathrooms and locker rooms. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> We will look at the politicizing of the FBI and DOJ, branching out from it's intersection with education. We are all familiar with the FBI's meddling in the 2016 election, when Kevin Klinesmith, an FBI lawyer, was convicted of falsifying a warrant to the FISA court to spy on a Trump campaign aide. It looks as if they are up to their old tricks under Pres. Biden, but this time, they actually targeted parents of school children who were complaining at school board meetings. It sounds strange, but apparently AG Garland was involved, so this is no small thing.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> We will look at the crisis on the southern border, and why Democrats in Congress can't curtail this ongoing policy disaster. Besides the unprecedentd number of illegals gaining entry into the US, the fentanyl crisis, and gang infiltration into US neighborhoods is destroying communituies across the nation. No community is exempt from this scourge, except perhaps those ultra-rich, lilly-white progressives that are pushing this madness on the nation.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> Economic policy will be examined, and how the Biden administration ignored warnings about inflation, and Democrats in Congress passed an inflationary bill without a single Republican vote. We'll look at how gas prices were increasing long before Russia invaded Ukraine, and how Pres. Biden has shifted blame for what his economic policies have wrought to so many other things beside that war. Speaking of Ukraine, we will look at his clear falsehoods about his involvement in his son's business dealings. If he has been paid by corrupt foreign regimes in the past, how do we know that he is not being blackmailed by them, now?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> The disastrous Biden foreign policy is yet another boondoggle that cannot be overlooked. From the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to the insane attempts to appease the Iranians into a new nuclear "agreement," there are serious questions to be answered. The naval threat from China is the biggest challenge to the US since WWII, yet the Biden policy is to cut our naval forces, for the next several years. The administration's support for corrupt leftist authoritarians in Central and South America is also worth looking at, to say nothing of the way he has alienated our MidEast allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and perhaps blocked the burgoning rapproachment between them that was strengthened by the Abraham Accords. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> We have to examine the authoritarian bent of this administration, and how many things they have done without a clear legal underpinning.There has been extensive commentary on this, from the right, but I will have to add my two cents, and summarize it. Further, I think that someone needs to collect his opposing quotes, and policies, and just lay it out for independent voters to see. When a president is making primetime speeches about the opposition party being "semi-fascist," it seems he doth protest too much. There are far too many examples of his administration acting in an authoritarian manner not to expose the hypocrisy.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> I reserve the right to add some subjects I may have overlooked here, because the Biden administration is such a complete failure, across the board. However, I hope that I can put a spotlight on each and every area that these leftist politicians have harmed us, the people of the United States. Right now, people are just starting to think about if and how they will vote in the mid-term elections. There are still six weeks until then, and my intention is to stay focused like a laser on who got us into the mess our nation is in, and why they need to be voted out of office.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> </b></span></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-23657564830098288532022-08-25T21:02:00.002-04:002022-08-25T21:02:37.550-04:00The Trump Opposition<div><br /></div><div> It's very hard not to side with Pres. Trump right now. For the life of me, I know that he is a blowhard jackass, who very well may have violated every check and balance that our Constitution places on a president. In that, he's not alone. I can cite multiple times that his predeccessors did the same. Pres. Obama was struck down by the SCOTUS 9-0 on at least one of his illegal policies, and we all know that GW Bush, "Slick" Bill Clinton, and even Pres. Reagan violated laws, and the Constitution, at various times. Sometimes they were thwarted, and other times they got away with it.</div><div><br /></div><div> You see, what the founders of our nation set up was a system of "checks and balances," that kept any one branch from getting too much power. In the nations younger days, presidents ignored SCOTUS <a href="https://sustainatlanta.com/2015/04/02/remembering-the-time-andrew-jackson-decided-to-ignore-the-supreme-court-in-the-name-of-georgias-right-to-cherokee-land/" target="_blank">rulings</a>, with Pres. Jackson saying that Chief Justice Marshall "has made his decision, now let him come enforce it." Today's politics are very different, but one thing remains the same: the power resides in the willingness of the government to use force to achieve a political objective. </div><div><br /></div><div> When Donald Trump ran for office, the "establishment" tried to use subterfuge, and the government intelligence bureaucracy to kneecap his campaign. It was a blatant abuse of power, and had to be approved by the Obama administration. We're all familiar with how the Clinton campaign was able to place the Steele dossier into the system, and how it became the predicate for the Mueller investigation. The most interesting part was that Trump still won, which most people blame that on Anthony Wiener's laptop, with Hillary's emails on it. That, in itself was a crazy detour that even the intelligence bureaucracy couldn't forsee, and FBI director Comey had to blow up everything in response to it.</div><div><br /></div><div> Director Comey did his best to undermine the newly elected president, by sending FBI agents to the WH for a "friendly" interview with Gen. Flynn, without proper vetting or counsel. The agents who conducted that interview initially stated that there was nothing amiss in Flynn's actions, but somehow, there was a case built on him not being accurate in everything he said. This is a classic "trap," and why he should have had counsel present. He was forced out as Pres. Trump's National Security Advisor, and his life was destroyed. The FBI used potential charges against his son as leverage.</div><div><br /></div><div> Director Comey then took notes of a conversation with Pres. Trump, right before he was fired. He illegaly kept copies of them, and admittedly gave them to a friend, who leaked them to the media. These notes became the basis of the Mueller Special Counsel investigation. It all wraps up so neatly, doesn't it? There is an "establishmeny/bureaucracy" in DC, that doesn't want anyone with "outside eyes" to see how they are running the country. Pres. Trump was "outside eyes," and it explains much of the radical things he proposed.</div><div><br /></div><div> I'll skip all of the stuff that happened in the runup to the 2020 election, except to <a href="https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/" target="_blank">share this story</a>. There were enough irregularities, of all kinds, on so many local and statewide fronts, that I can't write off all the claims of Trump supporters. In any case, I respect the outcome of the 2020 election, and don't believe it was stolen. At the same time, I am appalled at Trump's behavior during the Jan. 6th Capitol riot. This gets back to the man being an asshole, who cares more about himself than the country. I doubted I could ever support him again, after that day.</div><div><br /></div><div> I also don't think he broke any laws, though. That's why the House Jan. 6th committee, and the various investigations into his actions are a bad idea. Do the Democrats in the House remember that they impeached him twice, to no effect? Well, he had already lost the election, before the second impeachment, so it just looked bad. The Democrats have an obvious obsession with destroying Donald Trump, and apparently anyone who supports him, or even tries to ask that he get fair treatment.</div><div><br /></div><div> I've left some historical details out, but that summary brings us to what's happening today. The House Jan. 6th Committee is doing it's best to find something to refer to the Justice Department for prosecution. There are also ongoing criminal probes in NY, GA, and perhaps other jurisdictions regarding him trying to illegally overturn the election results in 2020. There are also several other legal actions against his businesses and nonprofit organizations. In other words, this ex-president is being targeted by bureaucrats and prosecutors around the nation.</div><div><br /></div><div> The biggest issue is the raid on Trump's Mar a Lago residence. It's unprecedented, and because of the political implications it opened, it looks as if we are going to find out whether it was justified, or part of a second "hoax" perpetrated by a Democratic administration against a potential political opponent. Looking at the media reporting since the raid, it looks like the same story, all over again. These people have no shame, and will go on TV to say things like "nuclear weapons," or comparing Trump to the Rosenbergs (thanks, <a href="https://twitter.com/beschlossdc/status/1557894715307171841" target="_blank">Michael Beschloss, you idiot</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div> Look, maybe I have a soft spot for the underdog, even if he doesn't deserve it, but I'm on Trump's side on this. As I said, he's a jackass, and I don't think he understands how a constitutional republic like ours is supposed to work. On the other hand, I can't blame him, because it often doesn't work the way it's supposed to! He seemed to think he could get away with doing the things that others got away with, but there was a difference. The establishment opposed him, from the get-go.</div><div><br /></div><div> I agreed with most of Pres. Trump's policies, and if he is the GOP nominee in '24, he's got my vote. However, I prefer another standard-bearer for the GOP. I'm a Florida resident, and Gov. Desantis would be a good choice. I also like Nikki Haley, and Texas Gov. Abbott. One thing I am sure of id that the Dems will use every dirty trick in the book to destroy Trump, and possibly because they want him to be the GOP nominee... </div>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-69356375783070450872022-08-18T23:47:00.003-04:002022-08-18T23:52:13.823-04:00When Will Asian Americans Get Reparations For Current Discrimination?<p> </p><p> Harvard University, and a broad range of other academic institutions, ranging from private colleges to public high schools, are discriminating against Asian Americans, on the basis of racial preference for African Americans and Latin Americans who do not score as high on standardized tests. The premise for this discrimination is that African and Latino Americans have faced "historical discrimination." That may well be true, but it also applies to Asian Americans, who are still being discriminated against. </p><p> There are so many levels to address this on, the first being how Harvard, and other Ivy League universities discriminated against Jews, decades ago. They used a version of "social scoring" to say that these students did not meet the qualifications to be admitted. Guess what? That's exactly what they are doing to Asian American students today.</p><p> What is further aggravating is that if they are bending the standards to make up for past discrimination against African Americans and Latinos, when are they going to make reparations to the Asian American students? When their test scores fall below the average? Why is one minority, that has been successful in the face of racial adversity being punished for that success?</p><p> I have another, deeper question, for the academic administrators. Why do you think that lowering standards for any racial group is a good idea? That is a racist policy, that has no place in an institution that is trying to give equal opportunity to all students. That policy seems to set up students for failure, or forces educators to lower standards for passing their classes. </p><p> It seems to me that people who think that any person can not achieve the goals that anyone else can, because of their race, and historic racism that happened to their parents, or other people of their race, years before, is handicapping that person in an unfair way. Making someone feel like a victim, and telling them that they don't have to be as qualified as another person is not doing them any favors.</p><p> Just imagine if you are an Asian American student, whose parents are struggling to get by. They pushed you to study hard, and do your school work. You are rewarded by being rejected from all of the schools you applied for, because they give preferences to another kid, who is from one of the "preferred" minority groups. I guess you would be concerned about the outcome of this lawsuit in the SCOTUS, which may well end the discrimination against Asian Americans.</p><p> Justice Roberts said it best, in another case about this subject. <span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v._Seattle_School_District_No._1#:~:text=Chief%20Justice%20Roberts%20wrote%20in,American%20schools%20are%20more%20racially" target="_blank">plurality opinion</a> that “</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race</b><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">.” </span></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-36388147016731747942022-08-12T00:44:00.005-04:002022-08-12T02:11:21.838-04:00Why is Anyone Surprised by The Raid on Trump's Home? I just watched a montage of left wing network hosts saying "it was not a raid" on Pres. Trump's Mar a Lago home, on the Gutfeld show. That means it was a raid, which was obvious. The thing that amazes me is that why anyone feels outrage now. Sure, this was unprecedented, but so was everything that happened to the 45th president of the United States, from before he won the election. Many people frame his presidency in terms of him breaking norms, but I don't see it that way. He was a non-politician, who saw through the DC media game, and played it into being elected president. What happened to him, after that, broke all norms.<div><br /></div><div> When AG Barr said that the DOJ had spied on the Trump campaign, the media treated it with derision. FBI attorney Kevin Klinesmith was found guilty of altering a FISA affadavit to say that Carter Paige was NOT an FBI informant, when he WAS. Mr. Klinesmith received a "slap on the wrist," as well as the sympathy of the judge. The penalties for falsifying information on a FISA warrant are supposed to be severe. This is an example of the judicial branch colluding with the corrupt DOJ and FBI.</div><div><br /></div><div> We can continue with the fruits of that unprecedented, and fuitless spy operation. FBI Director James Comey violated all policies, and perhaps the law, on more than one occasion. He decided to "send a couple of guys" to the White House, to interview General Flynn, without counsel, or appropriate notification. He then used that interview to force Gen. Flynn out of office. If that wasn't enough, he made, and kept personal copies of notes that he took from a conversation with Pres. Trump, which is the same crime that the FBI used to predicate their Mar a Lago raid. </div><div><br /></div><div> Further, he leaked those notes to the media, which instigated the Special Council investigation. It fact, it was predicated on nothing but lies and innuendo. The people in the DOJ and FBI behind this should have been sanctioned through legal means at this time, but it didn't happen. It appears that the judicial branch was on board with this plot against an elected president.</div><div><br /></div><div> I won't address any of Trump's claims of the 2020 election being stolen, but I will say that there were unprecedented irregularities, that give me pause to say yes or no on that question. What I can say is that his fervent supporters protested, which devolved into a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6th. An unarmed woman protestor was fatally shot by an officer that day, and much of what actually happened is still being witheld from the public.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Democrat majority in the House of Representatives has an Inquiry into the events of Jan. 6th, but there is no Republican-appointed representation on that panel. It is a "show trial," trying to tar Republicans by association with Pres. Trump. One of the leading theories about this recent raid on Mr. Trump's home is that the FBI and DOJ are looking for evidence to further the case that he incited the Jan. 6th riots.</div><div><br /></div><div> Unfortunately, these people are grasping at straws. Whatever evidence they find will be circumstancial, not concrete. If there is nothing that directly shows Pres. Trump instructing his supporters to attack the Capitol, or hang VP Mike Pence, there is no case. Why I am not surprised by this is because of their previous actions. The DOJ and FBI are out of civillian control.</div><div><br /></div><div> Roger Stone, Paul Manifort, and others have been raided. I tried searching them, but all I can find are stories about Mar a Lago. There have been respected lawyers caught up in this, as well. I'm not making any apologies for people who have broken the law. I'm asking why the FBI and DOJ have to send in armed teams to pick up people accused of non-violent crimes. What irks me even more is that the Biden Justice Department would send an armed team of FBI agents to raid his immediate predeccessor's house, especially when that predeccessor is likely to challenge him in the 2024 election. </div><div><br /></div><div>No, it's not surprising. The Democrats, led by President Biden, have no shame or scruples. They model themselves after the Socialist republics that they emulate. They have done so for years, but their supporters have tried to deny or ignore it, At least one person, <a href="https://reason.com/podcast/2022/08/10/whole-foods-john-mackey-i-feel-like-socialists-are-taking-over/" target="_blank">Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, has come out and admitted it</a>. Maybe it's a good thing that we can see the Democrats for what they are...</div><div><br /></div><div>The unabashed power grab started before Pres. Trump was first elected, and has only grown, even after his leaving office. What's clear to me now is that this "power grab" was going on for a long time, and Pres. Trump's election was just a response to it. What he, and people like me call "The Swamp," is a real thing. It's the entrenched DC establishment, and it has real power. The Democrat party has abandoned its "working class" roots, and its minority members' status, to assume control over everyone's everything. The Democrats are the new Authoritarians, and they will not stand for any political opposition.</div><div><br /></div><div> Then there's Joe Biden, and his incompetent leadership. Pres. Trump had his faults, but the people enforcing his policies created a successful outcome, until the pandemic. Even then, the economy was on a good track until Biden took over. Besides the economic wreck his administration has brought by changing every Trump policy, there is the illegal immigration issue, and the crime associated with it.</div><div><br /></div><div> Also, let's look at the President's children. Eric, Donald Jr, and Ivanka Trump have testified to grand juries, seeking dirt on their father. Hunter Biden has numerous videos of him smoking crack with hookers, and former business partners that have said openly that Pres. Biden is "The Big Guy" that has a 10% interest in his deals with a Chinese corporation. Why isn't Hunter Biden being called into a grand jury? Are the DOJ and FBI covering up for the Bidens? YES is the obvious answer...</div><div><br /></div><div> So yes, none of this is surprising, to a person that has been following the news for a long time. It still is outrageous, because this is NOT how our system of government is supposed to work.</div>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-85830981223220973122022-08-04T21:27:00.004-04:002022-08-04T21:33:41.886-04:00Commentary on Current Events<p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: arial;"> <b>There is so much going on during the traditionally "slow" Summer months, when nobody's paying attention to politics, I had to make this a multiple topics post. I definitely can't cover everything, but I hope to highlight a few important stories. Where I can, I will try to combine related stories into one narrative.</b></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> The "Inflation Reduction Act" is the biggest news out of Congress this week, and it comes on the heels of the huge semiconductor bill that has passed both the House and Senate, and is supposed to be signed by Pres. Biden next week. Sen. Joe Manchin announced that he found a compromise with Sen. Majority Leader Schumer on this new bill, which some are calling a light, rebranded version of "Build Back Better," which Sen. Manchin, and Sen. Sinema famously killed. Sen. Manchin's support hinges on a separate bill, which is supposed to remove the hurdles for a pipeline in his home state of West Virginia. However, it looks as if that bill won't do anything to deter the legal court challenges that are holding up the pipeline.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> There is also the question of Sen. Sinema, who is just now entering the debate over this "Inflation Reduction Act" bill. She will undoubtedly have her own concerns that must be addressed. While all this negotiating is going on, the CBO, and other independent sources have said that any anti-inflationary impact the bill will have won't happen for at least five years. This does not address the inflation that is crushing voters today, in the least. I don't know how the Democrat leadership came up with this, or why Sen. Manchin signed on, but besides being bad policy, it's bad politics.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Next, there is the ongoing debate about Democrats supporting criminals over crime victims, and their efforts to dispel that image. Pres. Biden is trying hard to sound like the "tough on crime" Democrat he was in the '90's, but unfortunately, that's not where his party is, today. NYS Gov. Kathy Hochul, who calls herself a "Biden Democrat," is a prime example. Her opponent in this year's gubenatorial race, Lee Zeldin, was attacked with a bladed weapon at a campaign event, and the attacker was back on the streets a day later. This is on top of more outrageous examples of criminals being prioritized over victims of crime, and general public safety to count, here.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> New York is not the only example. Democrats across the country are still promoting anti-law enforcement policies, and trying to paint criminals as victims of "systemic racism." While no one can dispute that racism may factor into some law enforcement statistics, where are these advocates, when looking at the percentages of crime victims that are minorities? The overwhelming majority of children killed by guns are not in random "mass shootings," but individuals, shot on inner city streets by criminals.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Further, Democrats like to keep limiting the right to legally own a firearm, but the Democratic prosecutors they elect seem to turn a blind eye to criminals convicted of gun crimes. How does that work, exactly? A criminal caught with an illegal gun is released without bail, but they want to expand the definition of "illegal gun," as if that's going to reduce gun crimes? This is primarily a state and local issue, so all of Pres. Biden's efforts are just talking points, and not very good ones.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> This brings us to the more important issue of federal law enforcement, specifically the FBI. The political corruption in the FBI has never been worse that since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, and that may be an understatement. In the information age, these guys can't be allowed to get away with what they are doing. It's not new, either: James Comey's ham-handed attempts to be "balanced" by announcing the Hillary email investigation was reopened gave the game away. He had it in for Pres. Trump, and it continued after Trump won the election.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> In the runup to the 2020 election, the FBI ignored devastating evidence that they had about candidate Biden being possibly compromised by China, Ukraine, and others. It even goes back to Pres. Trump's first impeachment, over a phone call with the Ukrainian persident. There was a supposed "quid pro quo" in that call. However, there was a video of VP Biden, saying openly that he would withold 2 billion in US aid if Ukraine didn't fire the prosecutor looking into Burisma. What the FBI knew, but the public didn;t, at that time, was that Burisma was paying Hunter Biden $80,000 a month as a board member. So the FBI has a lot to answer for, over the past 10 years.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> FBI director Christopher Wray was on Capitol Hill, for a grilling by the Senate. From the little I saw, he dodged all pertinent questions, citing "ongoing investigations." There were other lines of questioning, including citing parents at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists," and why the people who attacked the Arizona statehouse after Roe v. Wade was overturned aren't being treated like the Jan. 6th Capitol rioters. I would include the Summer of 2020 rioters, and the protesters outside of the SCOTUS justices' homes. This gets back to AG Merrick Garland, and what a political hack he is. Thank goodness he was never considered for being a SCOTUS justice.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> A final note: Ian Millheiser, a "senior VOX correspondent" published an obituary for Justice Samuel Alito, and then deleted it. This is not how journalists are supposed to act. I'm an amateur, and I've been writing political commentary for a long time. This blog started in 2004, and I've learned a lot about what is appropriate to publish, since then. In the age of social media, I had to relearn ettiquette about that. I've deleted posts, but I can't understand the mindset of this person, except that he was wishing that Justice Alito was dead. I'm reminded of the comment that Julianne Malveaux made about Clarence Thomas, many years ago: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early." I saw that, and was shocked by it, but all of the people on the panel with her laughed. Why do liberals think it's okay to wish death on their political opponents?</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> I truly despise many left wing politicians and commentators. However, I couldn't imagine wishing for them to die, publicly. To be brutally honest, when those thoughts come into my head privately, I am ashamed, and pray that God forgives me. I understand that people can't control the thoughts that pop into their head, but any professional journalist, especially a senior correspondent, should have better judgement than to share such a hateful thing as a "pre-obituary." Ms. Malveaux has moved on to becoming a college president, so she isn't out there publicly calling for people to die, anymore. Maybe this "senior VOX correspondent" can find a new line of work, as well.</span></b></p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-90644556604666258942022-07-30T22:26:00.002-04:002022-07-30T22:26:54.937-04:00What If the Trump Backed Candidates Win In November?<p><br /></p><p> Democrats have made a cynical ploy of spending a lot of money "opposing" candidates that support Pres. Trump in GOP primaries, with the intent of actually making them the opponents in the general election. They have had some success, in some big contests. However, what if these "extreme, radical" Trumpists actually beat their Democratic opponents in November? </p><p> I'm not getting into specific prognostications, just imagining what will happen. The GOP will be saddled with a new bunch of office holders that aren't "establishment" pols, and the Democrats will have helped that happen. Some of these candidates look like real whackos, but not all of them. Also, our system is one of checks and balances, which limits the power of any elected official.</p><p> The Dems, on the other hand, will still have lost those seats they expected to win, and it's worth looking at their own internal divides. I don't know of any corresponding scheme by the GOP to support "far left" Democrats in the primaries. The candidates that will lose to these GOP candidates may be moderates, which will hurt the Dems more than any Trumpist Republican will the GOP. </p><p> There are still huge differences between the parties, and there are several things that Trumpist Republicans share with "establishment" Republicans, and a majority of independent voters. They oppose the far-left policies of Pres. Biden, and his Democratic majority. The Democrats are doing their best to distract voters from what's in front of their eyes, but it's not working.</p><p> The only real issue in the midterm elections is how to stop the destruction of the economy, the Southern border, the military, public education, and law enforcement, as well as restraining the bureaucratic behemoth that has enabled this destruction. This is an election about putting a check and balance on an administration that is out of control.</p><p> Republicans always have a faction that either gets suckered by, or willingly goes along with Democrats, as shown by the recent "semiconductor" slush fund corporate welfare bill. Perhaps voters can ignore all of the "stolen election" rhetoric, to get some politicians that will actually vote for the people they represent's interest.</p><p> I'm not a fan of Trump, anymore, but I still support most of his policies. I don't like candidates that want to "audit" the last presidential election, or claim it was "stolen." SO WHAT? Kennedy stole the election from Nixon, but Nixon came back, without bemoaning "Chicago" for years. I could still hold my nose, and vote for a representative that supported Trump's nonsense, because they also support the policies that I do. </p><p> This "stop the steal" stuff is just bologna, meant to capture die-hard Trump voters. It really has no bearing on what they are being elected to do. That's why I think that the Dem's scheme to support Trump-backed candidatess may backfire. If it happens, I told you so!!!</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-84500771892166808922022-07-23T02:17:00.002-04:002022-07-23T02:17:38.217-04:00Green Energy Policies Are Destroying the Global Economy, and Not Stopping Climate Change<p> </p><p> Why the hell are Western political leaders pushing "net zero emission" policies? What on Earth are they thinking? NOTHING they are proposing will appreciably affect the climate, but the real costs will be far worse than financial. People will die from lack of energy, because solar and wind are not ready to replace fossil fuels. If Greta Thunberg ran the world, 75% of the humans on Earth would die, and she might be fine with that, because she's a 16 year old kid with Autism.</p><p> I am sick of anyone telling the public that "global climate change" is an "existential crisis." Yes, I mean that indefensible, incoherent fool in the White House, President Joe Biden. He, and all of the other climate alarmists need to stop claiming that science is on their side, because it's NOT. The electorate, meaning the people who vote for their representative government officials, are quite clearly seeing through this political charade.</p><p> Pres. Biden likes to blame it on the Russia-Ukraine war, but gas, and energy prices in general were increasing way before that. It actually is pretty simple, if you break it down. Western nations have strong left-wing "green" parties or factions in their left wings. They have been driving the Western nations to divest from investment in fossil fuels, and nuclear power, because of Fukushima. Since solar and wind power aren't ready to fill the gap, the cost of producing energy from fewer fossil and nuclear sources has increased. It's actually that simple.</p><p> China and India are not buying into this "green energy" scheme, because they need reliable energy. Many smaller developing nations are being bullied into really bad "green energy" policies, and it's destroying their economies. They are turning to China, for funding coal plants, instead. If US progressives cared about "global CO2 emissions," they would fund LNG, or natural gas exploration in Africa, instead of Chinese-funded coal mines.</p><p> No, American progressives won't settle for half a loaf, or incremental progress. They would rather destroy the global economy in service of a goal that they can't achieve. Net zero emissions is a fantasy. What the heck does that mean, anyway? Humans breathe out CO2, and fart methane. The money they want to spend on acieving this fantasy can be used to mitigate its effects, here and now. In a hundred years, scientists may be looking at the "climate change" alarmists the way that we look at how the Catholic Church treated Da Vinci. They definitely will have more data on it.</p><p> What is missing from any of the progressive left's alarmism is a rational cost/benefit analysis. First of all, if we want to talk about life and death, global warming has actually benefitted humanity. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-climate-elite-spread-misery-heat-wave-global-warming-energy-adapted-temperatures-deaths-environment-11658437091?st=gm488ijtdjq3sre&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" target="_blank">This column by Bjorn Lomborg</a> is very informative, as all of his columns are. The amount of money taken away from current mitigation efforts, in service of an unachievable end is staggering! This doesn't even take into account who the costs of these policies fall on.</p><p> John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Gates, and all of their political compatriots, like Pres. Biden think that making fossil fuel energy more expensive will drive the change to "renewables," like wind and solar. Do they care if electric rates triple, because there is a scarcity of energy? No, they are all millionaires, if not billionaires, and some of them got rich off of green government subsidies. They don't give a crap if your electric rate triples, or your gas price doubles.</p><p> Back to the global picture of climate change, and CO2 emissions, how does it look for Pres. Biden to kiss Iran and Venezuela's asses, to get more oil production. They are enemies, but Pres. Biden also looked like a fool kissing up to Saudi Arabia, an ally that he took pains to alienate, again with the gas can in hand. All the while, he's suppressing domestic oil production. How dumb a policy can you get, trying to appease the "green" left, and not look like a hypocrite.</p><p> In conclusion, climate alarmism is a bad thing, and policies based on it are disastrous, both economically and politically. Voters are now experiencing the economic effects of these policies, and there will be an electoral backlash. This is only ONE aspect of the bad policy decisions that are causing the red wave, this year. It's a big one, but not the biggest,,,</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9570630.post-15981393272744173652022-07-09T04:05:00.000-04:002022-07-09T04:05:05.702-04:00What's the Deal With the Biden Team?<p> One has to ask, what's the deal with Pres. Biden's administration? It's easy enough to say "he's old, and incompetent," because that much is obvious. That's not the question, though. Students of history know about times that previous presidents were not in charge, and the constitutional successors did not take charge. It usually happened after a president was elected, because of something unforeseen. In Biden's case, he was incapable of the job from the time he started his campaign. It was accepted that his "team" was an "establishment" bunch, who would bring back "normalcy" to the executive branch, instead of Pres. Trump's "erratic" policies and behaviors.</p><p> Eighteen months in, it looks as if anyone who voted for him, believing that he or his "team" would be a "normal" Democrat on policy, guessed wrong. His team is dominated by far left individuals, who he has backed to the hilt, even as their policies are destroying vital sectors of our economy and security. His incoherence seems invisible to the friendly left-wing media, who share his team's far left goals. Regular people of all parties are flabbergasted with this media covering of his ass, and our foreign adversaries are taking advantage, by playing along. It seems as if he might not even know that China and Russia have bought him off, through his son Hunter. </p><p> Compounded in the potential corruption and incompetence, his team has embraced many of the far-left's goals, and spent significant political capital toward those ends. It's far from enough for them, but it's been enough to destroy the engine of the US economy. Imagine why any US administration would curtail domestic energy production, and all of the economic activity that it accrues as a side benefit, while asking foreign producers, some of which are adversaries, to increase their output.</p><p> The Biden team says they want to accelerate the transition to "renewable" solar and wind energy, but that is not true. The policies that they are using to justify ending fossil fuel usage are also being used to prevent the production of the materials needed to produce batteries, as well as the rest of the hardware for solar and wind power. The policies they are promoting will kill ALL domestic energy production, and leave us even more dependent on fossil fuel energy produced by outside sources. This is why AMLO, the Mexican president, is trying to nationalize that nation's energy industry. He sees where the US is headed, and is positioning his nation accordingly.</p><p> China is a huge beneficiary of the Biden team's policies. They are making his family rich, as he mandates that we buy solar and wind power components from them. I used to think Al Gore was the biggest scammer on the Green Energy racket, and John Kerry was a late-comer. Neither of them hold a candle to the Bidens, who are brazenly driving the nation into paying their family off. It's incredible that even after Russia has invaded Ukraine, and is using it's energy as leverage against Europe, the Biden team still hasn't significantly changed US energy production policy.</p><p> I find it ironic that so many on the left saw "collusion" between Trump and Russia, because he wanted to spread his brand name to a hotel there, before he declared his candidacy. Once in office, his policies drove oil prices down, and hurt Russia's economy, even as he spoke kindly about Putin. I have to mention that he launched 59 cruise missiles into Syria, killing dozens of Russian "contractors," while having dinner with Chinese Pres. Xi, in Mar a Lago. Pres. Trump had AMLO keeping foreign nationals in Mexico, an agreement that Pres. Biden dropped, creating the current border crisis.</p><p> There are plenty of good reasons to dislike Pres. Trump, and to not want him back in office. However, Pres. Biden's "team" have proved themselves to be even LESS popular than the "ORANGE MAN," without any controversial Twitter rants. Biden has also benefitted from media coverage that has covered up for him, when not kissing his ass. So you tell me, what the hell is up with the Biden team, and why do they deserve any respect, much less support from anyone?</p>CHRIS LEAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541894864601303486noreply@blogger.com0