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January 2022

Biden Calls Fox News Reporter a ‘Stupid Son of a B****’ for Asking about Inflation Impact on Midterms By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-calls-fox-news-reporter-a-stupid-son-of-a-b-for-asking-about-inflation-impact-on-midterms/

President Biden was caught insulting Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Monday for asking if he believes inflation is a “political liability” in the midterms.

“That’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden responded on a hot mic. “What a stupid son of a b****.”

Biden’s comment comes weeks after a Labor Department report showed inflation increased at the fastest rate in 40 years over the last twelve months. The report showed that the consumer price index, a major inflation gauge, for all items surged 0.5 percent in December and 7.0 percent for the last twelve months ending in December, representing the largest annual spike since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1 percent.

I&I/TIPP Poll: Americans Agree —McConnell, Pelosi, Fauci And Breyer Should Ride Off Into The Sunset Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/24/ii-tipp-poll-americans-agree-mcconnell-pelosi-fauci-and-breyer-should-ride-off-into-the-sunset/

In a time marked by widening political differences across the country and growing ideological acrimony, it’s probably no surprise to anyone that politicians and other government officials have come under increasing critical scrutiny.

In a new I&I/TIPP Poll, we asked Americans which of four prominent public officials now making headlines should retire or leave office. Turns out, it’s all of them.

Poll respondents were asked the following question: “Should the following officials retire soon or continue?” People were then given the names of four major public officials: Republican Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chief Presidential Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

All of those named, it should be noted, have come under intense public pressure from both political interest groups, activists and media pundits to either retire or resign.

Do ordinary Americans agree?

Russia-Ukraine conflict puts Biden administration’s weakness on full display A competent administration’s efforts to deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine would have started a long time ago: Mike Pompeo

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/russia-ukraine-biden-weakness-mike-pompeo

From negotiating with the malign Iranian regime while they have threatened former President Trump, or allowing the Taliban to sweep through Afghanistan and directly imperil American lives, or refusing to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its central role in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic or for its aggression towards Taiwan, the Biden administration’s record after one year in office is marked by abject weakness.

But his weakness has been unmatched in attempting to deter Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine.

For months now, Vladimir Putin has massed Russian military forces on the Ukrainian border. Last month, on December 17, the Kremlin unveiled two draft agreements that essentially acted as ultimatums for NATO and the Biden administration.

The demands? For the United States and NATO to guarantee that NATO would not expand further east, that the United States would withdraw its nuclear missiles from Europe, and that no NATO country would cooperate militarily with former Soviet countries.  In effect, Vladimir Putin wants to reestablish Russian dominance over Eastern Europe by recapturing old Soviet bloc countries.

Of course, this would be disastrous for Europe and American national security.  President Putin made no offers or concessions in exchange for these demands.  He included no guarantees to withdraw the mass of Russian troops in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and proposed no plan to end Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea.

All he ‘promised’ was to no longer threaten America.  Any competent team in the White House, any capable American president, would have responded to such threats with immediate and tangible costs to the Russians.

They would have responded to the massive military build-up on Ukraine’s border with preemptive, crushing economic sanctions and an ironclad guarantee to help Ukraine defend itself should Russia invade.  President Biden should be rallying European allies to commit themselves to standing against Putin and his lawless, authoritarian actions.  But deterrence was lost with Biden’s weakness.

Saving Democracy From the Pandemic Three years of crisis were used to justify the concentration of powers and suppression of freedoms that must be clawed back: by John P.A. Ioannidis and Michaéla C. Schippers

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/saving-democracy-from-pandemic

COVID-19 has killed millions and threatened the prospects of democracy for billions more. Since early 2020, the world has witnessed a marked expansion of governmental decision-making regarding health. Lockdowns and curfews were instated in many countries, and many freedoms were taken away under the justification of a major health threat. Health authorities and politicians alluding to or exploiting health authorities acquired extraordinary power to regulate society at large, including the application of mandates. A Freedom House report found that democracy grew weaker in 80 countries during COVID-19, and that in 2020 the number of free countries reached the lowest level in 15 years. Countries that regressed included ones you’d expect like China and Belarus, but also democratic bulwarks like the United States, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The United States was listed as one of the 25 countries that witnessed the steepest declines in freedom. Even if the pandemic enters a less threatening endemic phase (as may already be the case in several countries), the legacy of authoritarian measures and mandates may leave behind a more enduring threat to democracy.

Several governments responded to the lethal pandemic by undermining the very systems that were in place to ensure accountability and to protect public health and well-being. No single individual can be blamed for this—it was a systemic problem, as decisions taken by one government or government agency instantaneously affected the decisions of others. But the result was the restriction of basic freedoms and the normalization of scapegoating and exclusion, both historically a prelude to atrocities. While some extreme actions were justified as efforts to achieve otherwise laudable goals (like increasing rates of vaccination), the attempt to isolate vast numbers of people while whipping the general population into agreement on aggressive public health policies probably damaged even these goals.

No Biden reboot coming from president who thinks he’s ‘outperformed’ Joe Biden is either seriously delusional or utterly sequestered and misled by his team Liz Peek

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/no-biden-reboot-president-outperformed-liz-peek

Joe Biden is not about to pivot. No siree, no reboot for this president’s White House.

Biden is not interested in making any course corrections because, after all, he has, by his own modest estimation, “outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” Further, the president is convinced “we have made enormous progress” and everything is “getting better.”

That’s what he told the country during his recent press conference, which was an eye-opener. Turns out Joe Biden is either seriously delusional or utterly sequestered and misled by his team. Don’t take my word for it; read his own statements.

Addressing his White House’s effort to “shut down” the pandemic, as he promised to do, Biden said, “Am I satisfied with the way in which we have dealt with COVID and all the things that – that go along with it?  Yeah, I am satisfied.  I think we’ve done remarkably well.”

As to the performance of his embattled and unpopular vice president, Biden said of Kamala Harris: “I think she’s doing a good job.” Well, what could he say?

When asked how his administration’s report card might appear to voters as they approach the midterm elections, Biden said it “would look pretty good.”

That’s an interesting assumption, given that a new Politico/Morning Consult poll found 37% of respondents gave Biden an “F” for his first year in office, more than awarded him an “A” or “B.” A poll which, curiously, graded Biden worse that Donald Trump. For Biden voters, that’s the final ignominy.

But, as Biden declared during the presser, “I don’t believe the polls.”

It’s Still Timely And Necessary To Get The 2020 Election Right By Vince Coyner

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/its_still_timely_and_necessary_to_get_the_2020_election_right.html

A solid majority of Americans know that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That’s a big problem for a country with a representative government, one in which the leaders are supposed to represent the will of the people. We’re a nation of laws ostensibly flowing from a Constitution that sets out explicit limitations on the federal government’s powers and protects a variety of citizens’ rights upon which said government cannot infringe. To the degree that a significant majority of citizens feel that the leader of this government was not constitutionally elected, that’s a problem.

For all its importance, our Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. It doesn’t make laws. It doesn’t have an army. It’s not the police. It’s just words on paper. It functions because Americans have confidence in its words as the foundation for the laws of our country and the guideposts governing the actions of those who actually control the army and the police and write the laws.

When that confidence is shaken, society’s foundation is shaken. While the fraudulent election of 2020 is not the first example of that shaken confidence in government, it’s easily the most important. From the economic upheavals wrought by the Industrial Revolution to widespread hopelessness during the Depression to the perceived fecklessness during the Vietnam War and economic malaise of the 60s and 70s, confidence in government has been shaken before but never before has the government’s legitimacy been in widespread doubt.

That changed with the 2020 election. Americans watched as the fraud played out in real-time, right in front of them. With violent riots in the streets that went unrestrained in the months leading up to the election, with courts inexplicably ignoring countless unconstitutional changes to voting laws, and with the media and social media censoring true stories that harmed Democrat chances, it started to seem as if the scales were tipped to one side. On election night and during the following weeks it became clear that this was indeed the case.

Critical Race Promoters Are More Odious Than Marxists They are a parasitic class of haters who only pretend to be supporting revolutionary change.  By Paul Gottfried

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/23/critical-race-promoters-are-more-odious-than-marxists/

Of late, Fox News has been hosting a series called “The MisEducation of America” featuring gatherings of critical race theory’s critics—such as Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University—focusing on the danger of teaching racially divisive versions of American history. According to Swain, a black professor of political science at Vanderbilt, forcing kids to do things like play games called “privilege bingo” are “a prime example of how CRT, has seeped down to K-12 education, and it disturbs students.” Further: “All of these critical theories with Marxist roots are destroying American education, and parents have to save their children. But they also have to work to save other people’s children.”

 Although the media and our universities may choose to ignore Swain’s complaint, she is actually understating the problem she and “MisEducation” host Pete Hegseth are featuring. I’m not sure I see “the Marxist roots” of the crusade against white people and their history in quite the same way Swain and Hegseth see it. We are indeed witnessing class warfare but not of the kind that Marx foresaw. It is a war being waged by white elites against the “basket of deplorables,” the predominantly white, working-class, and small-town Americans whom these elites hate and want to divest of human dignity. Similar conflicts are going on simultaneously in other Western countries, featuring equivalent social conflict.

In none of these cases do we find Marx’s appeals to the proletariat to rise up against those who control the means of production. In fact, we are witnessing exactly the opposite. An alliance of corporate capitalists, feminists, the LGBT lobby, and black race hustlers are directing their fire on the working class, which seems to be the least affected by the hegemonic ideology of wokeness. If anything, we are now looking at what Pedro Gonzalez has characterized as “the counterrevolution of the ruling class.” If Marxist theory, which supposedly is “seeping in” has any application, it would be as an analysis of how our elites are suppressing those they are stepping on and trying through increasingly vicious hate speech to isolate.

Wokeism Is a Cruel and Dangerous Cult Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—of those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/23/wokeism-is-a-cruel-and-dangerous-cult/

Wokeism has been described by its critics as the omnipresent use of race—and to a lesser extent, gender—to replace meritocracy and thus ensure equality of result. What follows from implementing that ideology are reparatory actions to reward those of the present by atoning for the injustices done to others in the past. 

Some see it as an update of 1960s cultural Marxism fads. Others scoff that it is just a return to 1980s-style political correctness. 

Still more see it as the logical successor to 1990s-type race, class, and gender obsessions—albeit with a shriller and more dangerous Jacobin, Soviet, and Maoist twist. Wokeism’s hysteria also invites comparisons to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. 

But few have described wokeism as the cruel creed that it is. 

Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda. It is nihilist and destroys everything it touches. It tears apart foes and friends alike, whether by fueling media-driven hatred of Donald Trump or faux-deification of the disaster that is now Joe Biden. 

Woke’s Victims 

Defunding law enforcement and defaming police resulted in record numbers of murders in 12 U.S. cities. A wave of violent crime is even hitting America’s suburbs. 

Without much fear of arrest, indictment, conviction, and incarceration, emboldened violent career criminals for the past year have robbed, assaulted, and killed the innocent with impunity. 

The victims at the bus stop, the subway, or in the furniture store do not seem to warrant media or progressive attention, much less sympathy. 

They are the ignored—the unnamed, and the forgotten collateral damage from the grand experiment of redefining crime as a social construct. The guilty are the elite academics, activists, and billionaires like George Soros who are untouched by what they birthed.

We have all seen videos of the vast expanse of flotsam and jetsam strewn by train thieves along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Yet the Wild West mess is still more than just the concrete manifestations of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón’s unhinged efforts to excuse criminals from legal consequences. 

The Houthis Must Be Relisted as a Terrorist Group by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18164/houthis-terrorist-group

Attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to the poverty-stricken people of Yemen appear to have been blocked by the Houthis themselves, as well as by the United States, which has withdrawn support for Saudi Arabia, while giving the Houthis a free pass.

The Houthi strategy, it appears, is to use the dire living situation of the civilians under its control as a shield to get what it wants, such as being removed from the terrorist list and continuing its terror activities without facing any consequences.

If the Biden administration surrenders to this strategy, not only will the terror group feel that it has won, it will also be empowered to ratchet up its violence, crimes, and drone and missile attacks.

A surrender to this form of extortion will also set precedent for other terrorist groups or countries to deprive their populations of humanitarian aid, and hold them as hostages while they blackmail the US and the international community into handing them as a ransom whatever they dream up — in addition to continuing their terrorist activities without any consequences.

The United States can, as it is doing with Iran, re-list the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and allow the export of humanitarian goods to Yemen — if the Houthis even permit. If they do not, it is all the more reason to hold them accountable even more harshly rather than reward them.

This morning, Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, intercepted two ballistic missiles, launched courtesy of the Houthis.

The problem began almost a year ago, courtesy of the Biden administration. After less than a month in office, the Biden administration reversed yet another policy of the former administration. On February 12, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially revoked the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia group, also known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of Allah”), as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. According to the U.S. State Department press release:

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen…. on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel. The revocations are intended to ensure that relevant U.S. policies do not impede assistance to those already suffering what has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

An Insider Mocks the Endless Progressive Guilt Trip By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/an-insider-mocks-the-endless-progressive-guilt-trip/

Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World skewers the culture of liberal self-scourging.

A n intensely determined social worker played by Julianne Moore drives to work listening to equally intense classical music suggesting her utter, lifelong focus on a dramatic struggle for social justice. Then the camera pulls back to reveal the car she’s in: a pathetic, absurd, lawnmower-sized demi-car.

That’s the kind of perfect juxtaposition — funny, cutting, woefully accurate — that characterizes every smartly-designed scene in When You Finish Saving the World, the sly directorial debut of actor-writer Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg (who also wrote the movie, which began as a podcast) politely but devastatingly lampoons the sorts of people he grew up with and works among. And the Sundance Film Festival (where slick Beverly Hills dealmakers in $1,500 ski jackets solemnly take part in “land acknowledgment” ceremonies to parade their guilt about being the heirs of colonialism) is the perfect showcase for the film. Sundance (which is a virtual fest this year) has always hosted an intriguing balance of ruthless Hollywood ambition and silly liberal self-scourging. It can only benefit from taking in a bit of satiric blasphemy about its audience’s culture and politics.