The Liberal Media Sees Something That Could Energize Dems, But So Far It’s Only Animated GOP Voters

The Liberal Media Sees Something That Could Energize Dems, But So Far It’s Only Animated GOP Voters

Matt Vespa

    

AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

There isn't much to be excited about if you're a Democrat. You have a president who is mentally deficient and could be impeached next year if more damning evidence about a bribery operation is revealed, a scheme where he is allegedly neck-deep in its involvement. This corruption, plus using the Department of Justice to interfere in investigations into his son, are impeachable offenses. 

No one is happy about Joe Biden 2024. The re-election campaign infrastructure says it all, being a hallowed shell, though we're told that's by design. Obama was already spending serious money in 2012. Biden has not, though money isn't going to be an issue. One topic that some in the liberal media see as having the potential to energize the Democratic base is a throwback to 2016, but it was Republicans who took it to heart. 

It's the Supreme Court. That cycle saw Mitch McConnell's gamble to hold the line on Merrick Garland's failed nomination pay off. While Trump had emerged from a brutal primary, where hurt feelings were pervasive, many Republicans saw a Trump win to preserve some key rights, especially on the Second Amendment. In an exit poll, 21 percent of the electorate said that the Court was their most important factor when casting their ballot, and these voters broke for Trump 57/40. That might have impacted Trump's ability to topple the Blue Wall that year. 

Some on the Left think that the recent rulings upholding religious liberty, gutting affirmative action, and curbing Biden's rogue action on student loans could galvanize the Democrats in the same manner as it did with Republican voters next year (via CNN): 

This week’s [July 1] monumental rulings – striking down affirmative action in college admissions and unraveling Biden’s student debt relief plan among them – amount to serious setbacks for a president who promised as a candidate to advance racial equity and erase student debt. 

They are also an urgent reminder to Democrats of the enduring consequences of elections at a moment Biden’s advisers are searching for ways to inject enthusiasm into his bid for another term. 

What impact that will have on the coming election remains unknown. But Biden and his team have already begun assigning blame on Republicans for dismantling programs that have benefited young, college-educated and minority voters – all critical components of the Democratic coalition Biden will need to mobilize if he hopes to win reelection. 

That three justices within the court’s conservative majority were appointed by President Donald Trump – both Biden’s predecessor and, according to polls, his most likely opponent next year – creates even more of an impetus for Biden to use the rulings as a political cudgel as his campaign heats up. 

“The excesses of the Supreme Court are going to backfire,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat. “You know, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe versus Wade reduced what was supposed to be a red wave in the 2022 election cycle to nothing more than a red trickle. So not only is the Supreme Court’s decision bad law, it’s also bad politics and it’s going to come back to haunt the Republican Party.” 

And yet, what happened when this article was posted around three weeks ago? The Left was going haywire over affirmative action, with some nasty reactions. Whatever happened to the days of rage? It fizzled, mostly because the data the Left thought they had didn't support their narrative. It's hard to smear those who support the ruling as racist when a large number of Black Americans aren't hot about this policy either. The narrative imploded fast, though, for a few days, liberal America reached full froth, with insane commentaries about how we're on the precipice of a new Jim Crow era. 

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Overall, 63 percent of Americans don't support affirmative action. The best reaction was the media trying to manufacture a fake narrative that Asian Americans support the policy when the numbers are non-existent. You can't sell that this community supports it, but 76 percent don't think race should be considered in the applications for higher education. You look like a clown trying to make cognitive dissonance sound rational. 

Second Amendment rights and ensuring the Court keeps an executive, which under Obama went over the line regarding immigration policy, in check will be more persuasive and resonating than ensuring rich college kids get money to pay off their worthless degrees. Second, if you want a new Trump era, push for a college loan bailout, where the working class would be forced to subsidize the elite college class, helping them pay off the crippling debt they've accrued in obtaining "woke" degrees that serve little use in the real world. If everyone went into academia, that would be different. These nonsensical ideas are what's to be expected in a college faculty lounge, but not everyone does that—and these kids got saddled with a crippling debt that's 100 percent their choice. 

Everything about what CNN mentioned to galvanize the base via the Supreme Court is too niche. Also, again, affirmative action isn't popular. But Trump will energize the base, as will abortion, but that's a longer story. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/07/27/for-democrats-there-arent-many-reasons-to-be-excited-for-2024-could-this-serve-as-one-n2626272

The war on life’s simple pleasures

Time and again we are told that in pursuit of a cleaner planet, we all have to be miserable

By

Amber Athey

There are few things better in life than taking a hot shower at the end of a long day, crawling into a freshly made bed and passing out into the deepest sleep ever. There are also few things that ruin this uniquely cozy experience more quickly than stepping into a shower with dinky water pressure.

Luckily, I’ve rarely dealt had to deal with that issue because I grew up with a plumber for a dad. We eschewed so-called “water-saving” shower heads in our home in favor of ones with such high water pressure that showers felt like a deep-tissue massage. When I moved out after college, my dad would drop by my various apartments to drill a hole in the non-removable flow restrictors put in shower heads by management.

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Former president Donald Trump shared my family’s vendetta against weak water pressure. In office, he amended a federal rule that limited how much water could flow through shower heads. Unfortunately, the Biden administration quickly undid this life-improving reform. They insisted that no modern shower heads were at risk of exceeding the Obama-era standards anyway (um, maybe that’s because they were forced to manufacture them that way?) and reinstated the rule.

Weak water pressure was only a sign of things to come. The war on life’s simple pleasures in the name of environmental friendliness is in full swing. Time and again we are told that in pursuit of a cleaner planet, we all have to be miserable.

Take the proposed federal gas stove ban, which Democrats insisted wasn’t happening even though multiple cities in California had already taken such measures. Then, when Republicans unveiled legislation to prevent federal authorities from taking away the superior cooking fuel, the Biden administration said that they opposed the bill. New York recently followed the trend by asking restaurants with wood- and coal-fired pizza oven to cut their emissions by 75 percent. Apparently, if you prefer to cook on a surface that actually heats food evenly and has greater temperature control — the kind preferred by most professional chefs — you have to reckon with the fact that you’re going to give a bunch of kids asthma. At least, that’s what the expert “studies” funded by pro-renewable energy groups say.

When Trump jested that Americans would have to flush their toilets ten to fifteen times instead of just once under federal water flow regulations, the media made fun of him. The truth is that besides taking away a bunch of things Americans enjoy using, these Green New Deal-esque restrictions are often self-defeating. A toilet is going to use more water if you have to flush it multiple times after a bathroom trip. A low-flow shower head is wasting water if you have to stay in the shower five minutes longer to get all of the shampoo out of your hair. How many cycles does a “high efficiency” washer and dryer set need to run until your clothes are actually clean and dry? How about a dishwasher that doesn’t actually clean your dishes on the first try?

Take the new ban on incandescent light bulbs that went into effect in July. Incandescent light bulbs are the old-school ones you’re used to, with the wire in the center. They emit a warmer light that is relaxing and aesthetically pleasing. LEDs run cooler, which gives a sterile hospital effect. A French study found that the bright, blue-leaning white light emitted by LEDs is unnatural to humans and can actually cause health issues. LEDs are said to trigger migraines, eye strain, insomnia and dizziness and to increase stress. No wonder blue light-blocking glasses are perennial bestsellers on Amazon.

The left won’t stop with your gas cars or appliances. An article published in Scientific American last month tried to convince people to cut back on ice in their cocktails. Seriously.

“Energy wasted from ice is largely because of in-house ice machines, which many — if not most — bars and restaurants use to maintain their steady ice supply. Ice machines run continually until they are full, potentially for several hours at a time,” the article said.

Apparently there is an entire segment of the bar industry that is experimenting with ways to use less ice and water for their drinks. Count me out. I’d like an orange crush with extra crushed ice, please.

The elites decide to take away the little joys while they don’t have to bear the brunt of the consequences. They can afford to get their hair washed and styled on the regular or to bring in a maid who runs the clothes through the wash multiple times. For middle-class Americans, the modern convenience of our supposedly environmentally unfriendly appliances makes their life a bit easier and better. That is worth something — and it needs to be heavily weighed against the often fantastical claims that having a spa-like shower is going to destroy the planet.

https://thespectator.com/topic/war-life-simple-pleasures-shower-gas/

Are Places Like Portland Oregon the Left's Testing Ground for Recruiting Young People?

Are Places Like Portland Oregon the Left's Testing Ground for Recruiting Young People?

By Becky Noble | 

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Many movements in world history have used the notion of “Get ’em while they are young” – the idea that beginning to indoctrinate children at as early an age as possible will pay off for that particular movement in the long run. It was done in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and is currently going on with summer camps in China. But the most disturbing case is going on right under our noses in our own backyard. The left has gotten a pretty good head start on it, and common sense Americans will have to work fast if we are going to correct it.

For roughly one hundred years, people like John Dewey have tried to slip progressive ideology into the public school system. And their patience and diligence have paid off. Fast forward through that one hundred years, and teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) don’t even try to hide the fact that they are actively engaged in the indoctrination of American school children. Have all of the nation’s classrooms become leftist indoctrination labs, or is there a testing ground of sorts where various tactics can be tried out, and the left can play a sick game of trial and error?

You might be familiar with the name Christopher F. Rufo. He has done a lot of work exposing the transgender agenda to the nation. But he has also written a book entitled, “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.” In it, he has laid out what appears to be the blueprint from which the left is working to recruit America’s young people into the radical leftist agenda. And in places like Portland, Oregon, it is not just the public school system involved. City governments are also playing a role. The idea seems to be: If radical leftism is in your face all day, every day, you won’t know anything else. Rufo talks about a series of “Five-Year-Plans” adopted by the Portland city government to address, you got it, “equity and inclusion.” He notes that many local store owners have signs emblazoned with leftist battle cries in their windows in a kind of protection racket, presumably so as not to be targeted in any possible future protests. But the bulk of the brainwashing is going on at school.

Rufo describes the curriculums at three Portland area school districts as “saturated in critical theory,” and notes that the districts have assigned several individuals at the various schools within the districts to enforce those curriculums under the veil of “equity and social justice.” Both administrators and teachers have seen to it that the overall curriculum in the districts are not reading, writing, and arithmetic, but left-wing political activism. The end result is what you might expect. Students are taught that America is an inherently evil place. And the riots and destruction that took place in most American cities, especially Portland, after the death of George Floyd in 2020 were a good thing, and those that participated were the good guys because, ultimately, revolution is the end game.

Rufo goes on to explain that the indoctrination doesn’t end there. The districts are encouraging students to participate in such things as “attending a training, joining an allies group, participating in a protest.” Training for what? A protest for what? The people seemingly held responsible for any injustice are white students. They appear to get a very special kind of “training.” They are told that they should “analyze their covert white supremacy” and have “difficult conversations with white friends and family about racism,” and, of course, “use their privilege to support anti-racist work.” Rufo explains that the apparent goal of the training is to “ensure that pathological whiteness has been banished from their psyches.” So much for teaching children to love and respect one another and judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin – how twentieth century.

The results of all of this “education” are about what you might expect. The newly indoctrinated teenage revolutionaries are chomping at the bit, ready to hit the streets and go out into their community to test out what they’ve learned. You might understand protests when Donald Trump was elected, but the protests appeared to escalate when Joe Biden became President. Rufo tells of protests in the streets of Portland on Inauguration Day where windows were broken, and banners that read, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge,” “We are ungovernable,” and “A new world from the ashes.” No word on what these, as the great Rush Limbaugh would say, “young skulls full of mush,” want revenge for exactly.

This is the blueprint, the formula for feeding the far left-wing agenda and supplying it with a never-ending stream of newly indoctrinated social justice warriors. And public schools seem more than happy to assist. It is not just going on in places like Portland, Oregon, but all over the country. Make no mistake about it, they have a plan, and the plan is mandatory compliance for America’s young people.

https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2023/07/28/are-places-like-portland-oregon-the-lefts-testing-ground-for-recruiting-young-people-n783744?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=333548a2571394d78f5984884e55069e

AMERICA’S DECLINE FOLLOWS A FAMILIAR ARC: ‘GRADUALLY, THEN SUDDENLY’

AMERICA’S DECLINE FOLLOWS A FAMILIAR ARC: ‘GRADUALLY, THEN SUDDENLY’

BY ELIZABETH STAUFFER IN ADMINISTRATIVE STATE, ANTI-AMERICANISM, BIDEN CORRUPTION

You’ve likely never heard of Scottish mathematician John Napier, but his invention of logarithms in 1614 revolutionized the scientific world by making complicated calculations a thing of the past. 

In a recent essay, Simon Black, the founder of financial/political website Sovereign Man, discussed Napier’s concept of logarithmic decay, which he noted “models many real world phenomena.” According to Black: 

[S]omething [a society or even one’s bank account] declines very, very slowly at first. But, over a long period of time, the rate of decline becomes faster… and faster… and faster.

If you look at it on a graph, logarithmic decay basically looks like a horizontal line that almost imperceptibly arcs gently downwards. But eventually the arc downward becomes steeper and steeper until it’s practically a vertical line down.

Black explained how “the rise and fall of superpowers are often logarithmic in scale” and pointed to the “gradual, then sudden” fall of the French monarchy in the late 1700s as an example. He warned that we’re seeing the same signs of “logarithmic decay in the West today, and specifically [in] the United States.”

It didn’t happen overnight. The slow, gradual decline began decades ago. But there’s no question it has accelerated over the last decade and, most notably, since President Joe Biden took office.

Remarkably, many Americans don’t perceive the Democrats’ censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and other damaging news as evidence of America’s move away from democracy. But considering its sole purpose was to influence the 2020 presidential election, how can it be otherwise?

Likewise, as Democrats ramp up their efforts to influence the 2024 election, they are indicting the party’s most formidable opponent for minor infractions and covering up evidence that the current president allegedly traded his political influence for cash. How can this possibly be considered the representative system our Constitution’s framers had in mind?

Or consider Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week, which quickly devolved into a clown show. The greatest sound bites from the spectacle came from the repellent Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who repeatedly cut off each of Kennedy’s attempts to explain himself. That was after her failed motion to take the hearing to an executive session. 

After accusing Kennedy of “float[ing] a baseless conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was bioengineered to target caucasians and black people, but spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people,” she barked, “You do see that, yes or no.”

Kennedy replied, “You’re misstating – ”

Following a frustrating exchange during which he tried to explain he was citing a National Institutes of Health-funded study, Wasserman Schultz snapped, “The time is mine. Ask the witness to stop talking. … Reclaiming my time. … I’d like about 10 seconds back.”

Media coverage of the astonishing display took over the news cycle for days. The legacy media, naturally, portrayed Kennedy as crazy. Conservatives, on the other hand, saw Democrats’ questions as an attempt to “censor the censorship hearing.”

And they have a point. When a government censors information it disagrees with, works with its agencies to cover up the illegal acts of favored citizens, and tries to jail its political opponents, it loses the right to call itself a democratic republic.

In a January 2022 speech, Kennedy spoke about “turnkey totalitarianism.” The relinquishment of citizens’ rights in the name of the pandemic, he said, had put us on a slippery slope. He warned that once we surrendered those rights, we would never get them back.

What makes it easier today than ever before for governments to control people, he argued, is technology. 

They are putting in place all these mechanisms of control. … It’s been the ambition of every totalitarian state from the beginning of mankind to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, to obliterate dissent. None of them have been able to do it. They didn’t have the technological capacity. … Today the mechanisms are being put into place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.

We’ve heard this term before. Shortly after the Edward Snowden story broke in 2013, Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and the CIA, described a scenario under which the government could justify collecting tons of data on Americans. Prefacing his remarks by emphasizing that this was “no one’s proposal,” Hayden said:

But you got this metadata here. It’s now queried under very, very narrow circumstances. If the nation suffers an attack, there are other things you could do with that metadata. There are other tools. So in that kind of an emergency, perhaps, you would go to the court and say, ‘In addition to these very limited queries we’re now allowed to do, we actually want to launch some complex algorithms against it.’

So the government is essentially collecting all this data for the proverbial rainy day? 

The camel’s nose is now “under the tent,” and soon its whole body will follow. We’ve reached the “sudden” point on the arc of logarithmic decay. The question now is whether America can claw her way out of the abyss.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/07/americas-decline-follows-a-familiar-arc-gradually-then-suddenly.php

Here's Why Joe Biden Can't Pardon His Son

Here's Why Joe Biden Can't Pardon His Son

Matt Vespa 

    

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

It has not been a good week for the Biden White House. The evidence of wrongdoing from their alleged bribery operation hasn’t been refuted or disproven. Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal got tossed by a judge who apparently saw it as a perversion of justice. Hunter was about to plead guilty to gun and tax evasion charges and get no jail time. It was a crock. 

Spencer wrote today that more unethical activities were uncovered through new emails, where Hunter wanted a $2 million retainer to recover frozen Libyan assets in 2015. The emails were sent among Democratic donors, who mulled the proposal due to Hunter's access to then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Leah added that Hunter is also being investigated for being a foreign agent by the Justice Department, which law professor Jonathan Turley said is a charge the Biden White House fears most. Turley added that pardoning Hunter remains the “break-the-glass” option regarding this emerging scandal that could detonate the Biden presidency. Ironically, Biden signing the pardon can only end with the end of this administration, which is why this White House is never going to do it: 

The collapse of the Hunter Biden plea bargain has left many in Washington shocked. After all, this is a city that knows how to fix a fight. After five years, the Biden corruption scandal was supposed to die with a vacuous plea bargain and no jail time. Most everyone was in on the fix, from members of Congress to the media to the prosecutors. The problem was the one notable omission: Judge Maryellen Noreika of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. 

The sentencing hearing was a moment that made the Hindenburg disaster look like a seamless landing. Noreika asked a basic question on the implications of the agreement, and the entire deal immediately collapsed. 

Now the Justice Department is in a bind. It could not admit in the hearing that Hunter Biden could escape future liability for a host of uncharged crimes. Yet, when a defendant backs out of a generous plea deal, federal prosecutors ordinarily will pursue all of the available charges — and jail time. 

While President Joe Biden once declared, in more colorful terms, that no one messes with a Biden, the Justice Department may now find it has no choice. It could be forced to actually treat Hunter like an ordinary citizen. 

[…] 

A FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] charge could further expose Hunter’s alleged influence-peddling operations, with what House GOP investigators say were millions in foreign payments from a virtual rogue's gallery of foreign officials. The Justice Department also would face pressure to seek the same long jail sentence given to Manafort; he was sentenced to 73 months of imprisonment, which included the statutory maximum 60 months for a conspiracy to violate FARA. (That same year, political consultant W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty to lobbying and consulting on behalf of the Opposition Bloc, a Ukrainian political party, and received 36 months of probation.) 

That is not even including potential felony charges for the original gun violation, money laundering, or other crimes. If the Justice Department were to show the same aggressive effort toward Hunter Biden that was shown to figures like Manafort, Hunter could be looking at a real possibility of years in jail. 

There is, however, the ultimate "break-the-glass" option that I raised previously if the Bidens and their supporters could not rig the process: Joe Biden could pardon his son and then announce that he will not run for reelection. 

Turley adds that the pardon would have to include numerous crimes, but the Biden family would keep the millions of dollars they’ve accrued through these schemes. The impeachment threat from House Republicans would be neutralized, as Joe would be heading for the exits in 2025. The media would breathe a sigh of relief not having to comb over evidence of Biden corruption they’ve buried out of loyalty to the Democratic Party. He called it a “happy ending” for all, though that’s not going to happen (via Axios): 

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The White House said Thursday that there is no possibility that President Biden would end up pardoning his son, Hunter Biden. 

The big picture: A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Hunter Biden's plea deal on tax charges and said that she wasn't ready to accept the terms of a revised deal. 

The case is on hold for at least a few weeks while both sides submit new materials to Judge Maryellen Noreika. 

President Biden supported his son last month after Hunter agreed to plead guilty to not paying taxes in 2017 and 2018. 

Joe still controls the Justice Department, which has kept his family safe from criminal prosecution for years. He knows he holds the cards, at least for now.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/07/27/bidens-in-case-of-fire-move-with-hunter-is-not-on-the-table-n2626319?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&recip=28668535