DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus What Democrats have become part 1

From "your" New York Times...

Frustrated Democrats Call for ‘Reset’ Ahead of Midterm Elections
Democrats already were expecting a rough election year. But their struggle to advance priorities has some calling for a course correction.

President Biden had one of the worst weeks of his presidency with the looming failure of voting rights legislation and other setbacks in his domestic and international agenda

By Lisa Lerer and Emily Cochrane
Published Jan. 14, 2022
Updated Jan. 16, 2022


WASHINGTON — With the White House legislative agenda in shambles less than a year before the midterm elections, Democrats are sounding alarms that their party could face even deeper losses than anticipated without a major shift in strategy led by the president.

The frustrations span the spectrum from those of the party’s liberal wing, which feels deflated by the failure to enact a bold agenda, to the concerns of moderates, who are worried about losing suburban swing voters and had believed Democratic victories would usher a return to normalcy after last year’s upheaval.

Democrats already anticipated a difficult midterm climate, given that the party in power historically loses seats during a president’s first term. But the party’s struggle to act on its biggest legislative priorities has rattled lawmakers and strategists, who fear their candidates will be left combating the perception that Democrats failed to deliver on President Biden’s central campaign promise of rebooting a broken Washington.

“I think millions of Americans have become very demoralized — they’re asking, what do the Democrats stand for?” said Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent in charge of the Senate Budget Committee. In a lengthy interview, he added, “Clearly, the current strategy is failing and we need a major course correction.”

Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat from a blue-collar Ohio district who is running for the state’s open Senate seat, said his party isn’t addressing voter anxieties about school closures, the pandemic and economic security. He faulted the Biden administration, not just for failing to pass its domestic agenda but also for a lack of clear public health guidance around issues like masking and testing.

“It seems like the Democrats can’t get out of their own way,” he said. “The Democrats have got to do a better job of being clear on what they’re trying to do.”

The complaints capped one of the worst weeks of the Biden presidency, with the White House facing the looming failure of voting rights legislation, the defeat of their vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers at the Supreme Court, inflation rising to a 40-year high and friction with Russia over aggression toward Ukraine. Meanwhile, Mr. Biden’s top domestic priority — a sprawling $2.2 trillion spending, climate and tax policy plan — remains stalled, not just because of Republicans, but also opposition from a centrist Democrat.


“I’m sure they’re frustrated — I am,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, when asked this week about the chamber’s inability to act on Mr. Biden’s agenda. Discussing the impact on voters ahead of the midterm elections, he added, “It depends on who they blame for it.”

The end of the week provided another painful marker for Democrats: Friday was the first time since July that millions of American families with children did not receive a monthly child benefit, a payment established as part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan that Democrats muscled through in March without any Republican support.

Plans to extend the expiration date for the payments, which helped keep millions of children out of poverty, were stymied with the collapse of negotiations over the sprawling domestic policy plan. And additional pandemic-related provisions will expire before the end of the year without congressional action.

“That’s just about as straightforward as it gets,” said Mr. Ryan. “If the Democrats can’t get on with a tax cut for working families, what are we for?”

In recent days, Mr. Biden has faced a wave of rising anger from traditional party supporters. Members of some civil rights groups boycotted his voting rights speech in Atlanta to express their disappointment with his push on the issue, while others, including Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor in Georgia, were noticeably absent. Mr. Biden vowed to make a new forceful push for voting right protections, only to see it fizzle the next day.

And last week, six of Mr. Biden’s former public health advisers went public with their criticisms of his handling of the pandemic, calling on the White House to adopt a strategy geared to the “new normal” of living with the virus indefinitely. Others have called for the firing of Jeffrey Zients, who leads the White House pandemic response team.


“There does not seem to be an appreciation for the urgency of the moment,” said Tré Easton, a senior adviser for Battle Born Collective, a progressive group that is pushing for overturning the filibuster to enable Democrats to pass a series of their priorities. “It’s sort of, ‘OK, what comes next?’ Is there something that’s going to happen where voters can say, yes, my life is appreciatively more stable than it was two years ago.”

White House officials and Democrats insist that their agenda is far from dead and that discussions continue with key lawmakers to pass the bulk of Mr. Biden’s domestic plans. Talks over an omnibus package to keep the government open beyond Feb. 18 have quietly resumed, and states are beginning to receive funds from the $1 trillion infrastructure law.

“I guess the truth is an agenda doesn’t wrap up in one year,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.


Mr. Biden’s top domestic priority, the $2.2 trillion spending, climate and tax policy plan, is stalled by opposition from Senator Manchin.


While there’s widespread agreement around the electoral peril that the party faces, there’s little consensus over who, exactly, is to blame. Liberals have been particularly scathing in their critique of two centrist senators, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and their longstanding objections to undermining the Senate filibuster, as well as Mr. Manchin’s decision to abruptly reject the $2.2 trillion spending plan last month. For months, Democratic lawmakers, activists and officials have been raising concerns about sinking support among crucial segments of the party’s coalition — Black, female, young and Latino voters — ratings many worry could drop further without action on issues like voting rights, climate change, abortion rights and paid family leave.

“In my view, we are not going to win the elections in 2022 unless our base is energized and ordinary people understand what we are fighting for, and how we are different than the Republicans,” Mr. Sanders said. “That’s not the case now.”

But many in the party concede that the realities of their narrow congressional majorities and united Republican opposition have blocked their ability to pass much of their agenda. Some have faulted party leaders for catering to progressives’ ambitions, without the votes to execute.

“Leadership set out with a failed strategy, and while I guess, maybe they can message that they tried, it actually isn’t going to yield real laws,” said Representative Stephanie Murphy, a Florida centrist, who is retiring but has signaled aspirations for a future Senate run.

Representative Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from rural Illinois, said Democrats should consider less ambitious bills that could draw some Republican support to give the party accomplishments it can claim in the midterm elections.

“We really kind of need to reset at this point,” said Ms. Bustos, who is retiring from a district that swung to Donald J. Trump in 2020. “I hope we focus on what we can get done and then focus like crazy on selling it.”

Mr. Biden effectively staked his presidency on the belief that voters would reward his party for steering the country out of a deadly pandemic and into economic prosperity. But even after a year that produced record job growth, widely available vaccines and stock market highs, Mr. Biden has not begun to deliver a message of success nor focused on promoting his legislative victories.

Many Democrats say they need to do more to sell their accomplishments or risk watching the midterms go the way of the off-year elections, when many in the party were surprised by the intensity of the backlash against them in races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

“We need to get into the business of promotion and selling and out of the business of moaning and groaning,” said Bradley Beychok, a senior adviser for American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic group.

Others say that as president, Mr. Biden has fallen out of step with many voters by focusing on issues like climate change and voting rights. While crucial for the country, those topics aren’t topping the list of concerns for many voters still trying to navigate the uncertainties of a pandemic stretching into a third year.

“The administration is focused on things that are important but not particularly salient to voters and sometimes as president you have to do that,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank. “Now, we need to begin to move back to talking about the things that people do care about.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/democratic-midterms.html

It’s gonna be funny if the GOP fumble the bag cause they keep getting wrecked by their own conservative courts over the district maps.

And even funnier watching these MAGA candidates eating each other alive.

The GOP is really good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Dems giving y’all a lay up, and yet you’re poised to get hung at the rim.

I don't get this news narrative. Biden has not got everything done that they've started or tried to do, but between infrastructure, pandemic relief package, and getting the vaccines out; I think he's accomplished more than Trump did in four years, but definitely more than Trump's first year.

love the imagery.

Bro you know the GOP are the epitome of the phrase “you played yourself.”

Yea, but the GOPers who voted against those things are claiming credit for them

I don't really disagree with this for the most part, outside of the things that OCD cited in his post. The Democrats have their own factions who are conflicting with each other and their "majority" in the Senate is literally the smallest majority you can have, which hampers things further, as we've seen with Manchin and Sinema. Regardless, it has resulted in a lot of struggles for them.

On the flip side, the Republicans have that tried and true method of not having any platform outside of blocking any legislation that gets introduced. To their credit, they have been pretty uniform locking arms on that front.

Their biggest problem will be what they actually want to stand for when they actually have to stand for something.

Fascism is where they were going the last time they had power. We'll see when they get back into power if anything has changed. I doubt it.

I'm not sure that playing follow the leader instead of standing on their individual principals is something I would give them credit for. It certainly makes it easier to pass legislation but I'm not sure I believe rubber stamping everything your party supports is the noble and proper thing to do.

Biden Raises ‘Border Security’: 'There's a Whole Lot of Illegal -- Um, Um, Movement, But--Ah...’
By Susan Jones | January 31, 2022 | 11:56am EST

(CNSNews.com) - At a Monday meeting with the nation's governors, President Biden mentioned "border security," a topic he rarely addresses, despite record flows of illegal immigrants into this country, a situation that stems from his administration's lax policies.

Biden today said it's a question of figuring out "why they're leaving in the first place."

"Border security. We're working a lot with neighboring countries," Biden said at the conclusion of his opening remarks to the governors.

https://cdn.mrctv.org/videos/62739/62739-480p.mp4


A lot to do, there's a lot, I think -- I think one of the fundamental things we gotta do, in addition to some of the changes we'll make, I won't get into today, but -- is that if we figure out why they're leaving in the first place.

It's not like people sit around and say, in Guadalajara -- 'I've got a great idea, let's sell everything we have, give it to a coyote, takes us across the border, leave us in the desert, in a country that doesn't want us, we don't speak the language. Won't that be fun.'

You know, there are gangs we're working on. There's a whole lot of illegal -- um, um, movement, but ah, there's also a way to begin to deal with the reason they're leaving in the first place. And I’d love to talk with you personally about that, in a little bit, if I may.

Here Biden said he'd stop speaking and take questions from the governors. His handlers ushered the press out of the room first.

Recently revealed videotape, played on cable channels, shows planeloads of illegal immigrants, many of them adult men, being flown to destinations around the country.

Biden and his fellow Democrats have refused to address border security -- or even visit the border, in Biden's case -- and a recent poll shows ‘security issues,’ including the open border, are a major concern of voters.

https://cnsnews.com/article/washing...-theres-whole-lot-illegal-um-um-movement

It was a "dark humor" style credit.

Omar paid thousands by restaurant accused of stealing money intended to feed starving children

Rep. Ilhan Omar and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are accused of receiving donations from men who stole millions of COVID relief dollars. One of these men also runs a charity founded by a city council member and sits on a city working group.

By Alpha News Staff -January 31, 2022

Rep. Ilhan Omar has partied at and received donations from a business accused by the FBI of stealing millions of COVID relief dollars from children.

Feeding Our Future received $197.9 million in 2021 to provide food to starving Minnesota children impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the FBI recently raided the nonprofit’s headquarters and suggested that little or none of this money was actually spent feeding kids.

Instead, the agency believes the nonprofit conspired with local businesses to falsify records and funnel the money into private accounts. The Pioneer Press has observed that the businesses involved in this scandal tend to be led by “members of the East African diaspora.”

One of these establishments is Safari Restaurant, a Somali eatery located in Minneapolis’s Powderhorn Park neighborhood. Safari has been a focal point of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s engagement with her constituents for years. She’s appeared there numerous times and even hosted her 2018 victory party at the restaurant, the owners of which are now accused of stealing millions.





Specifically, Safari was reimbursed for $15 million it allegedly spent serving meals to hungry children between May and November 2020. The restaurant claims it fed 5,000 children a day, more than the St. Paul public school system.

The FBI doubts this narrative and highlights in a search warrant that Safari-affiliated shell companies purchased items like an $87,000 pickup truck, a million-dollar home in Plymouth and a $2.8 million mansion in Minneapolis after the alleged fraud took place.

The restaurant has also donated thousands to Omar’s campaign since the fraud reportedly transpired.

Omar is not the only progressive politician who may have received stolen money as donations. The Sahan Journal reports that at least six men named by the FBI as being involved in the scandal donated to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Two of these are owners of Safari.

A third Frey donor, Abdikadir Mohamud, runs Stigma-Free — a group that was originally incorporated and run by Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman. Stigma-Free also worked with Safari in perpetrating fraud, the FBI claims.

Abdikadir Mohamud was appointed by the mayor to sit on a public safety working group late last year.

Meanwhile, Aimee Bock, the leader of Feeding Our Future, maintains that she is innocent. “I believe that this is an attack on a community,” she said, apparently accusing the FBI of being racist against Somalis. Bock’s home was raided earlier this month by law enforcement officers.

https://alphanews.org/omar-paid-tho...oney-intended-to-feed-starving-children/

EXCLUSIVE: Smoking gun documents tie Nancy Pelosi's son to fraud and bribery scheme to remove permit violations against squalid San Francisco flop house owned by his ex-girlfriend and probed by the FBI
DailyMail.com revealed last week Paul Pelosi Jr. is involved in an FBI investigation into San Francisco officials
The officials were allegedly bribed to remove violations at Nancy Pelosi's son's ex-girlfriend's squalid property
Now DailyMail.com has obtained smoking gun documents that tie him directly to the fraud and bribery scheme
In one document, Pelosi signed statements that he was the property owner, 'the party legally and financially responsible for this proposed construction activity'
City permit expediter Rodrigo Santos, a former president of the San Francisco Building Inspection Commission, was indicted for fraud in November
Santos is accused of having his clients donate thousands of dollars to building inspector Bernie Curran's rugby club in exchange for city permits
The documents show Pelosi applying for the very same permit that building inspector Bernie Curran and Santos have been indicted for

By JOSH BOSWELL IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 19:04 EST, 31 January 2022 | UPDATED: 09:23 EST, 1 February 2022

Nancy Pelosi's son listed himself as the owner of a flop house tied to a fraud and bribery scheme prosecuted by the FBI, in documents newly unearthed by DailyMail.com.

In the documents, Paul Pelosi Jr. signed statements that he was the property owner, 'the party legally and financially responsible for this proposed construction activity' and agreed to 'abide by all applicable laws and requirements that govern Owner-Builders as well as employers.'

And they even show Pelosi Jr., 53, applying for one of the very same permits that building inspector Bernie Curran and 'permits expeditor' Rodrigo Santos have been indicted for.


The Department of Building Inspection (DBI) form, signed by Pelosi Jr. and dated December 7, 2017, is a 'smoking gun' that evidences the House Speaker's son's close links to the high-profile public corruption criminal case.

Curran and Santos are due in federal court in San Francisco this week.

Prosecutors claim Santos arranged for his clients to donate thousands of dollars to Curran's favorite non-profit - a rugby club - in exchange for him turning a blind eye to violations and which would deny their buildings city permits. One such person, identified only as Client 9 in charging documents wrote a $1,500 check to the club to help remove violations from the squalid ‘residential hotel’ on Utah Street.

Last week DailyMail.com exclusively revealed that Pelosi Jr. was interviewed by feds in San Francisco over the hotel which was owned by his former girlfriend Karena Apple Feng.

There was already some suggestion that he could be the mysterious Client 9. The discovery of the new documents heighten that speculation.

Text messages obtained by the feds allegedly show Santos and Client 9 brazenly discussing a bribe to Curran's favorite charity to help grease the permit process.

'I will forward the address to Curran. He will abate it,' Santos, 63, allegedly wrote to his client in September 2017.

'Please drop off a check payable to Golden Gate Youth [Rugby] Association for $1k. Bernie's nonprofit.'

'With pleasure,' Client 9 replied, and later sent Santos a picture of a $1,500 check with the message: 'made the donation and it is being sent today.'

The check was never deposited by the club, and prosecutors have not accused it of any wrongdoing. It is unclear why Client 9 sent $1,500 rather than the suggested $1,000.

The charging documents describe Client 9 as 'an individual working on behalf of the owners of the property located on the 1300 block of Utah Street'.

There is one permit in the DBI system at that address, signed off by Curran on December 7, 2017 – and the application number matches the number Pelosi Jr. wrote on his 'smoking gun' documents obtained by DailyMail.com, dated that same day.

The documents are the latest in a growing pile of evidence suggesting the Speaker's son is Client 9.


Curran, 61, told DailyMail.com that Santos introduced him to Pelosi Jr. in the Department of Building Inspection offices, telling Curran that Pelosi Jr. was a friend with whom he went jogging.

An anonymous building inspector claimed in an interview with San Francisco news site Mission Local that in 2018 Pelosi Jr. met with him several times and was trying to 'get rid of Notices of Violation' on the property at 1312-1314 Utah Street.

Pelosi Jr.'s ex-girlfriend Nicole Bulick, 46, told DailyMail.com that the FBI's interest in his involvement in the troubled Utah Street property began in 2017, and that he was interviewed three times.

Pelosi Jr.'s business associate Naveen Singha, who acted as a consultant for him on the sale of 1312 Utah Street, also said he was interviewed by federal agents about the Speaker's son around May 2019.

And the former owner of the property, Karena Feng, said she was interviewed by the same agents over several months, about 1312 Utah Street and Paul Pelosi Jr.'s involvement.

Emails and subpoenas for records back up their claims.

Earlier this month a DailyMail.com investigation revealed Pelosi Jr., 53, has been linked to five previous federal probes. This ongoing criminal case is the sixth.

As well as tying Pelosi Jr. to an alleged criminal scheme, the December 2017 DBI form also raises serious questions over how he came to own, or own a share of, the multi-million-dollar building.

Feng, who was previously in a romantic relationship with Pelosi Jr., sued him in 2019 claiming he conspired with a now-convicted lawyer and fraudulent realtor to steal the property from her.

Pelosi Jr. and the other defendants denied the claims, Feng's case was dismissed in 2020 on technical grounds, and she has not refiled.

Pelosi Jr. was recorded as the listing agent on a 2015 contract in which Feng sold the property for $4million, though she claimed her signature on it was forged.

He was also listed as chief financial officer of Feng RE Inc, Feng's company which held the flop house, in 2015.


In an August 2016 email to Feng, Pelosi Jr. claimed that he owned 20 per cent of Feng RE.

But when Mission Local asked him about the property in 2018 he lied, at first denying ever having held any stake in Feng RE.

'It's not my business,' he told the paper. 'I never got paid. I never expected to get paid.'

When confronted with documents showing he had been an officer of the company, he reportedly changed his story to the paper, claiming Feng gifted him 20 per cent equity in the building on his birthday but he refused the offer - contrary to his claims in his August 2016 email to Feng.

When contacted by DailyMail.com for comment, Pelosi Jr. said he had another incoming call and hung up. He has not responded to any written messages.

The alleged bribery over Utah St. permits is one of several bungs that prosecutors claim Santos arranged for Curran to push through permits for his clients at other properties.

Curran and Santos deny wrongdoing. They are next due in court on February 4.

The recently fired building inspector is livid, claiming he knew nothing about Santos's alleged scheme or checks to charities and said he has acted professionally and ethically his whole 40-year career.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...cy-Pelosis-son-fraud-bribery-scheme.html

So? Are the kids of all politicians now fair game? Other than being related to Nancy, there is nothing political here. Smh. If the left goes hard after the kids on the right, all we hear is how bad we are… Where is that outrage over going after Biden and Pelosi's Kids? It's all good. We went after Trump's kids for their part in his admin. But the non-political kids were pretty much left alone, and the time people went after Baron, the left was mad about it.

yes. go after them all.

Now that's the part I don't get.. Vote against something, then take credit for it.. basically that's saying we knew it was right to vote in favor but the trump loving wing of the party won't like it no matter what. That's not serving the people, that's just playing politics.

Ummm - that's the epitome of politics isn't it? The actual issue is not enough people paying attention or holding them accountable. The vast majority of the voting public have been brain washed into thinking that if they don't vote for "their party guy" then the other side is going to destroy the fabric of America.

Biden Administration Paying Doctors to Push COVID-19 Vaccines
by Michael Tennant February 1, 2022


The Biden administration is paying pediatricians to advise parents to subject their children to one of the COVID-19 vaccines.

In December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it “is now requiring states to cover COVID-19 vaccine counseling visits in which healthcare providers talk to families about the importance of kids’ vaccination.”

The policy applies to all children covered by Medicaid. “Medicaid provides health insurance coverage to over 40% of all children in the United States and are [sic] a significant source of coverage for Black and brown children,” notes CMS, indicating by its use of a capital letter which children it considers more important.

According to a recent Washington Post report, the program could have been broader, covering vaccine counseling for patients on Medicare, too, but Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Xavier Becerra opposed the Medicare portion of the plan, arguing that it wasn’t needed because senior citizens already had a fairly high vaccination rate and because it could lead to fraud. Becerra’s lack of enthusiasm for even bigger government “incensed” “some White House and HHS officials,” who spoke to the Post for an article obviously aimed at getting rid of him.

Still, the Medicaid portion of the plan is bad enough. Children, after all, are at practically zero risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19, but they are at significant risk from the vaccines. There is absolutely no reason for doctors to be pushing them to get vaccinated.

At least there wasn’t until the Biden plan came along. In fact, doctors’ groups lobbied for the Medicaid reimbursements because they claimed their members couldn’t afford to take time to talk to parents about the vaccines.

Time reported in December:


Pediatricians remain the most trusted source of information for Covid-19 vaccines. Overall, 77% of parents said they trust their child’s pediatrician or health care provider a great deal or a fair amount, and that trust remained high across party, race and ethnicity. Providers know this and they want to use their power of persuasion on each family. But they often have limited time and are also trying to help patients catch up on medical care they missed during the pandemic, ask about any chronic disease issues or figure out why a patient is sick now, and ensure parents know about regular annual vaccines their children still need.

“You make an audible on the line of scrimmage every visit. If somebody has got a lot of genuine questions and the conversation is going well, you steal an extra three or four minutes for the conversation, and you take it out of the next visit,” [Dr. John] Waits[, CEO of Cahaba Medical Care in Alabama,] says. If a parent seems to really shut down, he might move on more quickly and revisit the issue another time.



The administration, of course, has its own objectives. Dr. Cameron Webb, senior advisor for equity on the White House COVID-19 Response Team, told the magazine that the Medicaid reimbursement program is “critical … to combating mis- and disinformation,” i.e., anything that contradicts the public-health establishment’s line on the vaccines. In addition, since many private insurers follow the government’s lead, they may well begin covering vaccine counseling, potentially getting even more kids jabbed.

How much cash doctors will actually get from Medicaid for vaccine counseling remains to be seen. Dr. Wendy Williams, chief medical officer for Coastal Family Health Center, a group of Mississippi clinics, told Time that “her clinics have been struggling to get reimbursed from the federal government for vaccinating uninsured patients throughout the pandemic. So far, she says they have been reimbursed for about 30-40% of those shots, which means the center has fronted the rest of the cost.”

One can only hope the same thing happens with reimbursements for vaccine counseling, and not just because they’re unconstitutional. If, as studies show, doctors tend to prescribe certain drugs in greater quantities — even when they’re not needed and can lead to overdoses — when they are getting gifts from those drugs’ manufacturers, are they not likely to recommend vaccines that could be more harmful than the disease they are intended to prevent if Uncle Sam is paying them to do so?


https://thenewamerican.com/biden-administration-paying-doctors-to-push-covid-19-vaccines/

You do realize that nothing in that article even comes close to saying that the "Biden Administration Paying Doctors to Push COVID-19 Vaccines", right? All it says is that unlike before, Medicaid has to cover the costs of the counseling. You're hilarious.

It's like your article about Omar. It doesn't say she did anything wrong at all. All it says is some of the people who contributed to her campaign did something wrong. This is the desperation you are now stooping to in order to take attention away from a man who tried to steal an election.

Psaki accuses Senator Hawley of parroting “Russian talking points” after he argued US should nix Ukrainian membership into NATO
FEB. 2, 2022 2:23 PM BY THE RIGHT SCOOP


The most pro-Russia White House in the the last decade has just accused Senator Hawley of parroting Russian talking points after he argued that the US should take Ukrainian membership into NATO off the table.

First, here’s what Hawley sent in a letter to the White House:

AXIOS – Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is calling on the Biden administration to drop longstanding U.S. support for Ukraine’s eventual membership in NATO, arguing that a binding commitment to defend the country would undermine efforts to counter China.

Hawley is essentially arguing that China is the bigger threat and that going to war with Russia over Ukraine would detract from the US military doing everything it could to be ready for China:

Hawley is asking for “clarity” from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on how Ukraine’s future membership in NATO would serve U.S. interests, according to a letter obtained by Axios.

Hawley said he supports sending assistance that Ukraine needs to defend itself, but contends that the U.S. interest “is not so strong” to warrant going to war with Russia.

“Such a deployment can only detract from the U.S. military’s ability to ready and modernize forces to deter China in the Indo-Pacific,” Hawley writes, arguing that “Americans’ security and prosperity rest upon our ability” to curtail Beijing’s dominance.

“But those opportunity costs pale in comparison to what would be expected — indeed, required — of the United States, were NATO actually to admit Ukraine as a member.”

Pointing to the failure of NATO member states to spend 2% of their GDP on defense, Hawley called on Biden to rethink “basic assumptions” about U.S. foreign policy that have been “collapsed” by the rise of China.

Axois points out that this goes against the historic position of the GOP:

Hawley is staking out a position increasingly supported by the Republican base but historically at odds with the mainstream GOP consensus still backed by his Senate colleagues.

Former President George W. Bush and all NATO leaders agreed at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine and Georgia “will become” members of the alliance — though no specific roadmap was offered at the time.

Russia, which vigorously opposed the accession of either former Soviet republic, went on to invade Georgia later that year, and Ukraine in 2014.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to renew his invasion of Ukraine with a massive military buildup on its borders, he is demanding legal guarantees that the country will never be allowed into NATO.

NATO has no plans to admit Ukraine any time soon but has refused to allow Putin to set limitations on its foundational “open-door policy.”

I honestly don’t know whether I agree with Hawley on this one. He makes an interesting point, but taking Ukraine membership off the table would seem to invite a Russian invasion more than deter it. I agree that we should do everything we can to avoid war with Russia, but I’m not sure this is the way to do that.

What I am sure of, however, is that Hawley’s argument is based on America’s self-interest and not that of Russia, despite what Psaki accused of him today:

This is rich coming from a White House that has done about everything wrong one can do to invite Russia to invade Ukraine. Instead of abiding by the law, Biden removed sanctions from the Russian company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline so they could finish it, which is why Russia has his armies on the borders of Ukraine right now. Biden stood down when Putin threatened war with him last year if he entered the Sea of Azov, while Putin was amassing his armies. And Biden publicly stated the other day that he wouldn’t have as big a problem with a smaller Russian invasion, which he called an incursion.

If anyone is doing Russia’s bidding here, it’s Biden, not Hawley.

https://therightscoop.com/psaki-acc...ould-nix-ukrainian-membership-into-nato/

Hawley, like Trump, is a fascist. He's also a fist pumping wannabe insurrectionist. Character is not deep with that one. I expect him to be embroiled in the January 6th mess up to his eyeballs before all is said and done.

Not for nothing, but wouldn't it be easier to make a short list of conservatives who aren't fascists?

Maybe we could put a sticky at the top of every political thread?

To his credit, Hawley is despicable.

Hey if you want to start a list, I saw Larry Hogan being interviewed recently. He was great - I could easily vote for him.

Biden Repeats False Attack on the Second Amendment That Even the Washington Post Debunked
Brad Polumbo
February 3, 2022

On Thursday, President Biden gave public remarks where he renewed his calls to ban “assault weapons.” (A vague term that generally refers to scary-looking guns.) To justify this ban, Biden argued that the Second Amendment isn’t absolute—and in doing so, the president falsely claimed that the Second Amendment banned cannons in early American history.

“[Banning assault weapons] doesn’t violate anybody’s Second Amendment rights,” he said. “There is no amendment that is absolute.”

Then Biden got into historical analysis that was… interesting.

“When the amendment was passed it didn’t say anybody can own a gun and any kind of weapon,” Biden claimed. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when this amendment was passed, so there’s no reason you should be able to buy certain assault weapons.”




This bizarre aside is more than a non sequitur. It’s actually false. As Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in September 2021:

“You do not have to look far in the Constitution to see that private individuals could own cannons. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare war. But there is another element of that clause that might seem strange to modern ears — Congress also had the power to ‘grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.’

What’s that? These were special waivers that allowed private individuals to act as pirates on behalf of the United States against countries engaged in war with it. The ‘letter of marque’ allowed a warship to cross into another country’s territory to take a ship, while a ‘letter of reprisal’ gave authorization to bring the ship back to the home port of the capturer.

Individuals who were given these waivers and owned warships obviously also obtained cannons for use in battle. We have no idea where [Biden] conjured up this notion about a ban on cannon ownership in the early days of the Republic, but he needs to stop making this claim.”

That’s right: Biden’s wrong about the history of the Second Amendment and the facts. Don’t forget that guns are used more times in self-defense annually than in violent crimes. Oh, and don’t forget that we already had a ban on “assault weapons” for over a decade and even liberal-leaning outlets like Vox have admitted it didn’t work.

So, it’s easy to see why Biden keeps stretching the truth to push his anti-gun policies. None of the facts are on his side.

https://www.based-politics.com/2022...im-that-second-amendment-banned-cannons/

US Government Left As Many As 9,000 American Citizens In Afghanistan After Withdrawal, Senate Report Reveals

MICHAEL GINSBERG
CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER
February 03, 2022
10:01 AM ET


As many as 9,000 American citizens were left in Afghanistan when the U.S. military withdrew from the country Aug. 31, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In public statements, Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed that only 100-150 Americans remained in Afghanistan and had contacted the U.S. government with a desire to leave. The State Department and Defense Department officials stuck to that number, even as the government publicly admitted that large numbers of American citizens were still leaving the country.

The report, signed by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch of Idaho, reveals that State Department officials believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan as late as Aug. 17. In the next two weeks, only 6,000 Americans were able to escape the country ahead of the Taliban takeover. In testimony in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, Blinken claimed that “approximately 100-150 remained in Afghanistan who still wished to depart.”

Estimating the number of Americans residing or visiting a country like Afghanistan is “50% art and 50% science and educated guesswork,” staffers of the former Kabul Embassy reportedly said, since Americans are encouraged but not required to register with the State Department when they enter a country. The staffers noted that host countries are generally able to provide better estimates than the embassy, but that Afghanistan was not capable of doing so.

Officials like Blinken and U.S. Central Command leader Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie frequently qualified their statements about the number of Americans remaining in-country by saying that they were in contact with smaller numbers who “want to leave.”

Contributing the failure was the Biden administration’s lack of preparation for the execution of the withdrawal. National security officials were still working to formulate a withdrawal plan a day before Kabul fell to the Taliban, despite the fact that Biden announced that American forces would withdraw from Afghanistan four months before the collapse of the U.S.-allied government. The National Security Council failed to coordinate withdrawal operations between the State and Defense departments, and rapid troop withdrawals exacerbated the failed evacuation process, according to the report. (RELATED: Docs Reveal Biden Admin Was Warned About Rapid Afghan Air Force Collapse)

After Kabul fell to the Taliban, the Biden administration was still slow to organize contingency responses for withdrawal. The Transportation Department waited five days to issue an order allowing foreign airlines to deliver evacuees to American airports, and seven days to activate the Civil Reserve Aircraft Fleet (CRAF). The CRAF is a private airline fleet that can aid the U.S. military in a crisis, but “was barely used and did little to impact evacuation operations.”

Government officials had warned as early as 2007 that plans for withdrawal from unsafe and hostile nations would need a significant overhaul, particularly the reporting requirements for American citizens in those countries. A key factor in those plans is the reliance on the host government in providing an accurate number of Americans in need of evacuation. This issue has not been corrected across four presidential administrations.

“The lack of host nation accounting for Americans is likely not unique to Afghanistan and will be a persistent feature in countries with weak central governments and inefficient accounting systems,” the report notes. “It is exactly these countries that are most prone to rapid onsets of instability requiring the evacuation of Americans.”

Despite these logistical failures, as well as the death of 13 American service members in an ISIS-K terrorist attack, the Biden administration has claimed its withdrawal efforts a success.

“We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history. With more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety, that number is more than double what most experts thought was possible. No nation – no nation has ever done anything like it in all the history,” Biden said in a speech marking the final withdrawal of American forces and embassy officials.

“The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” he added.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/02/03/...-after-withdrawal-senate-report-reveals/

for all their flaws, the founding fathers made the best living document alive: the constitution.

there's a REASON its called amendments. i know looking up definitions of words is tough for some of you guys, but i promise its worth it.

the constitution was meant to be a foundation; an permanent motherboard, requiring constant upgrades such as RAM, graphics cards, software updates, etc.

too many people talk about the constitution as if its never been changed, as if its always been this way.

Wow, a libertarian rag...

Hey dude!

Happy Birthday! Hope you had a terrific day!!

Happy Birthday OCD!

Dya ever notice how: When Trump was president, he would say something like, "Stop the cycle of endless new wars" .
and how when he was president
The US didn't get involved in new wars.

Did ya ever notice how, of potential enemy countries, there is always a single leader that is a household name in the US, but, any leader in say, "South Korea", nobody knows who that is, and there could be dozens, not a (One named bad guy)

It's an endless cycle. It's almost like, the brainwashed puppeteers running American media are a one trick pony, doing the same tired act for the last 100 years.

Here we go again, Who is behind all of this? Is it that queen of ingland?

If the queen of ingland is not behind US foreign policy? Then how come every time there is a war to fight, the US has to go over to that hemisphere and the englich people don't handle their own continent, and let the Americans do the fighting?

Why don't the dumb Ukrainians fight there own battles?
You are talking about Two parts of the former Soviot Block! That's like getting in between a fight between two members of a different family.
The Democrats are so far subject to foreign enemy interests, they wouldn't know what to do, if those enemy states didn't pull the puppet strings to tell them.

The Democrats can't think for themselves! That's what the democrats have become.

Out of hundreds of posts - this might take the prize. Outstanding.

Slug excrement. ING land... lmfao. This is why GOPers don't need to be banning books, they need to be reading them.

Biden’s Wag-the-Dog ISIS Raid Killed at Least 10 Unarmed Civilians, Including 6 Kids

'If you don’t leave, we have orders...'

By
Editor 1
February 4, 2022


(Headline USA) When helicopters carrying some 50 U.S. commandos thumped onto the ground in Syria an hour after midnight, the raiders confronted a houseful of innocent civilians—including women and children—alongside a smattering of ISIS extremists.

The attack Wednesday on reported ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was an audacious raid in an extremist stronghold of northwest Syria, executed with the understanding that children might die if the building’s occupants did not get out when given the chance to leave.

Pictures of the rubble afterward revealed a wrecked bedroom with a wooden crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one damaged wall, the baby swing was still hanging.

Blood could be seen on the walls and floor in what remains of the structure.

First responders said 13 people died, six of them children.

Videos released by the Syrian opposition group Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, showed a paramedic rushing a little girl from the house into an ambulance. A photo of a girl circulated on social media later showing a girl who appeared to be about five with blood on her face.

The White House attributed the deaths of three of the children to a suicide-bomb vest detonated by al-Qurayshi, while the Pentagon spoke of two—both leaving unexplained, for now, how many might have been killed in a firefight that followed.

In the fog-of-war aftermath, however, there was no immediate accounting from the U.S. of how many children died in all, and how.

No U.S. commandos were wounded, military officials said.

DISTRACTION NEEDED
The raid comes amid a backdrop of persistent policy failures by President Joe Biden, leaving his fellow Democrats “spooked” at their election-year prospects.

It is a frequently mocked trope in contemporary US politics that presidents with flagging approval will use military strikes to “wag the dog,” hoping to jolt their popularity by stirring up patriotic sentiment and simultaneously changing the media narrative to one more favorable.

For Biden, however, who once chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, foreign policy has been a particularly weak spot, even eclipsing his dismal domestic agenda.

The resurgence of the terrorist group ISIS—once dismissed by former President Barack Obama as the “JV team” to al-Qaeda—falls squarely on the shoulders of the Biden administration after a catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal last summer gave the underground insurgency the breathing room it needed to re-organize.

An ISIS suicide bombing killed 13 American servicemembers and more than 60 Afghan civilians at the Kabul airport during the chaotic US retreat in August 2021.

A retaliatory drone strike killed a US-allied Afghan aid worker and nine other civilians, including seven of his children. The Pentagon ultimately concluded that nobody was directly responsible for the failed mission.

The military’s apparent efforts to cover up the massacre—claiming for nearly two weeks that the strike was a success until the New York Times reported otherwise—has further undermined the credibility of the newly “woke” Defense Department, which prioritized the political indoctrination of troops over combat readiness.

Nonetheless, Biden’s saber-rattling abroad—particularly in Ukraine, where he has issued ultimatums to Russian president Vladmir Putin over a troop buildup at the border—has left many alarmed that the US may soon enter another costly military conflict for which it is wholly unprepared.

Targeted strikes on Islamic terrorists may be a safer option from a geopolitical standpoint, but it remains to be seen whether Americans will rally around their cognitively unsteady commander-in-chief.

A CALCULATED RISK
Following Wednesday’s raid, Biden claimed the world was rid of a man he described as the driving force behind the “genocide of the Yazidi people in northwestern Iraq in 2014,” when slaughters wiped out villages, thousands of women and young girls were sold into slavery and rape was used as a weapon of war.

“Thanks to the bravery of our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said.

Anticipating that al-Qurayshi could well choose death by self-detonation if cornered by U.S. forces, U.S. officials commissioned an engineering study-from-afar of the three-story, cinder-block building to see if it would collapse in that event and kill everyone inside.

They concluded that enough of the building was likely to survive such a blast to spare those not near him.

The second floor of the Syrian house was occupied by a lower-ranking Islamic State leader and his family. The ground floor, partly a basement, housed a family unconnected to the Islamic State and unaware of al-Qurayshi’s presence or significance, U.S. officials said.

On Tuesday morning, Biden met Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Oval Office and gave the go-ahead.

Wednesday evening in Washington, Biden was in the Situation Room, monitoring a live feed of the mission as it unfolded.

At the outset, the building’s occupants were told to leave.

“If you don’t leave, we have orders,” a man speaking with Iraqi dialect could be heard saying through a loudspeaker. “We will fire missiles toward the house. There are drones overhead.”

Ten people left the building, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby—a man and woman from the first floor and eight children in all from the first and second.

Not long after came the apparent suicide-vest explosion that collapsed much of the third story and blew bodies out of the house, al-Qurayshi’s among them.

Biden said U.S. forces chose a riskier commando raid instead of an attack from the air so as to minimize civilian casualties.

Yet the U.S. launched the operation knowing the IS leader might respond by killing innocent people around him as well as himself. McKenzie said the U.S. “as always” will look into whether innocent people were killed by its forces.

When the commandos safely departed, Biden uttered “God bless our troops,” according to a U.S. official who briefed the press on condition of anonymity.

https://headlineusa.com/biden-kill-10-civilians-6-kids/

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Many have become branch covidians.

Nothing demonstrates a person’s ignorance more than throwing around words like fascist or nazi. And anyone who thinks josh Hawley is a fascist is displaying an abysmal lack of knowledge. You clearly have no idea what a fascist looks like. To help your education do this. Go down to see your local Walgreen. Go to the back of the store to their time machine. Put in two quarters and punch in 1939 Warsaw Poland. For additional detail put in Krystalnacht. Then you can see what fascists look like and maybe you won’t say anything so ignorant again

WTFE keithfromxenia. Hawley fist pumped the insurrectionists. He can go straight to hell and rot. Sorry if you are a Nazi sympathizer, but Trump and company and the GOPer leadership is absolutely fascist at this point and time. Sorry if the truth offends, but it's as true as the day is long. No ignorance, just facts.

When you generalize all those that feel differently than you, it is YOU that looks bad.

I'm good with that. See, I don't give a damn what anybody thinks of me, never have really. And I wouldn't call my words generalizations either. It's how I feel about GOPers and facts that are publically available, if you choose to believe in them.