RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-12-its-time-to-get-to-know-joe-

For the past four years, the Republicans have held voting control of the U.S. Senate, but by very narrow margins. Since 2017, the Republicans have had either 51, 52 or 53 seats, out of 100, at various times. That has meant that on any given vote, a handful of Republican defectors would be sufficient to sink whatever initiative was on the table. And thus a very small group of independent-minded Republican Senators — most prominently, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and (until his death in 2018) John McCain of Arizona — held the keys to any Republican plans to get legislation enacted or government officers confirmed.

As a prime example, who can forget the Hamlet act of Senator Collins in the run-up to the Kavanaugh confirmation?

Now, the Senate is going to be split right down the middle, 50/50, with Vice President Kamala Harris having the ability to break a tie when everyone shows up and the vote goes along party lines. Suddenly, the question of whether there might be a couple of potential defectors on the Democratic side — or maybe even just one — becomes significant.

The situation of an even split in the Senate, with the VP breaking the tie, has occurred a few times in U.S. history. For example, one such time was during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, when the tie-breaking VP was Richard Nixon. Most recently there was a 50/50 Senate split in 2001, after the very close 2000 presidential election. VP Dick Cheney had the swing vote; but that only lasted for a few months. In May 2001 a Republican Senator from Vermont named Jim Jeffords decided to switch parties and become an “independent,” however “caucusing” with the Democrats. That act immediately swung the balance of power in the Senate to the Democrats.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/11/an-open-letter-to-sen-joe-manchin-its-time-to-change-parties/

Last week’s Senate runoff elections in Georgia gave the Democrats full control of the federal governing apparatus. America is now a one-party state, and the Californication of the country will soon begin. But there’s one man who can slow it down if not stop it, at least for a while: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

The West Virginian could erase the Democrats’ de facto Senate majority (the Democratic vice president is the tie-breaker in the 50-50 chamber) simply by changing parties. This is no radical suggestion. Manchin is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, if not all of Washington, and the possibility of him flipping parties has come up before. But he remains a Democrat, and as recently as last week said he had no intention to switch.

However, we would like to make a formal pitch, inviting him to follow an honorable path taken by others. Here is our open letter to the senator.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/07/rashida-tlaibs-new-capitol-hill-office-neighbor-to-fly-israeli-flag/

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D., Mich.) new office neighbor plans to fly an Israeli flag as a statement against Tlaib’s anti-Israel stance, The Washington Free Beacon reports.

The newly sworn-in Republican Congresswoman Rep. Kat Cammack from Florida vowed on Tuesday to place an Israeli flag outside her Capitol Hill office, which is right next door to that of Rashida Tlaib, a renowned critic of Israel with a history of anti-Semitic comments.

“[Tlaib] has some very strong opinions about Israel, and I have some very strong opinions about Israel, so I have made a pledge that I’m going to be planting the flag of Israel outside my door right next to the American flag,” Cammack told a Gainesville, Fla., ABC affiliate. “I think it’ll be very helpful as she walks past it every day.”

Carmack will be using an Israeli flag sent to her by Gators for Israel, an AIPAC-trained campus group at the University of Florida.

“Cammack became the representative for Florida’s Third Congressional District following the retirement of her former boss, Rep. Ted Yoho (R., Fla.), for whom she served for six years as deputy chief of staff. Cammack’s support for Israel and Israeli sovereignty was a major plank of her campaign platform,” according to Free Beacon.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-rules-11609792916?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Georgia voters, you can’t say Nancy Pelosi hasn’t warned you. The Speaker of the House is clarifying today that without a Republican Senate to serve as a check on her chamber, the 117th Congress is prepared to follow the fiscal blowout of 2020 with another historic surge in federal spending and debt. New House rules will eliminate one of the few modest institutional restraints on government budgets and further reduce the power of minority Republicans to impede the Pelosi agenda.

For anyone who’s been wondering whether the loss of Democratic House seats in November’s elections might encourage the Speaker to run a less partisan and less ideological House, you have your answer. Mrs. Pelosi has now endorsed a budgeting rule championed by radical Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). The basic idea is to make every liberal priority eligible for “emergency” spending and remove it from any debate about government priorities.

Not that the rules enacted to this point by Speaker Pelosi and her predecessors have offered much resistance to the fleecing of taxpayers. The pile of publicly held U.S. Treasury debt is now larger than our entire economy and Washington’s unfunded entitlement promises are many times larger than that.

But when Mrs. Pelosi reclaimed the speaker’s gavel in 2019, she felt the need to maintain at least the appearance of being concerned about reckless federal borrowing. Amid a flourish of pronouncements about transparency and government reform, two years ago the Speaker angered Rep. Ocasio-Cortez with the re-imposition of a House rule purporting to require that new spending be offset by budget savings elsewhere.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/01/03/oh-well-nancy-pelosi-reelected-as-speaker-n1301342

Nancy Pelosi secured another term as Speaker of the House of Sunday. This will be the fourth (albeit nonconsecutive) term for the controversial San Francisco Democrat.

“As we go into session today, I do so full of pride to be nominated by our Democratic Caucus to be Speaker of the House,” Pelosi said in a letter released prior to the vote. “I am enormously grateful for the trust that Members have placed in me. I am confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead, and that we are prepared to set our country on a new course, starting with the Electoral College meeting on Wednesday.”

Some had suggested that a surprise upset by a Republican could have happened.

While House members could vote by proxy due to emergency rules adopted in May to protect members from getting and spreading COVID-19, those rules expired with the new Congress. Since new rules governing the 117th Congress happen after the vote for speaker, members were required to be physically present to vote for speaker

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/what_a_mess_the_us_congress_is.html

The U.S. Congress is a disgrace.  Democrats play dirty, and Republicans are neutered and perhaps in covert cahoots. 

The Democrat-run states and cities have shut down businesses and demanded citizens limit their movement.  Without compensation.  This is what in legal terms regarding government-asset grab is termed an “illegal taking.”  Typically, an illegal taking is a term used when government grabs private land.  But it applies to any government taking,  and current onerous government COVID restrictions have resulted in the demise of countless businesses and a plethora of bankruptcy filings.  Thus, we are witnessing  illegal COVID governmental takings on a colossal  scale.  There has been no compensation. 

After months of inactivity, Congress has come up with a big fat multi-trillion-dollar COVID stimulus dud.  Legislators have endorsed Dostoyevsky-sized legislation for soaring handouts  for foreign  gender education enhancements and millions for border walls in  foreign  lands, while our border wall is sneered at.  In fact, putative president-elect Biden has talked of tearing down the southern border wall. 

Struggling  Americans, whose businesses have been decreed nonessential and arbitrarily shut down, are being belatedly doled out a measly $600.00 per person.  What an insult.  (President Trump has called for an amendment to the bill, demanding a payout of $2,000 per person.)

These are the people who were elected to represent us.  They have forgotten.  They think they are special.  They think they are better than the hardworking people who pay their salaries, pay their staffs, pay their  transportation, pay for their offices, pay for  their mass mailings, and pay for the entitlements that enable them to feel special. 

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-upside-of-defeat/

 In an op-ed in the New York Post on Saturday, Kyle Smith—conservative critic-at-large for National Review—offered U.S. President Donald Trump “a nickel’s worth of free advice” on how to “destroy [his] enemies” after he leaves the White House.

“All you have to do is stop talking,” Smith wrote, addressing the outgoing POTUS whom he has supported over the years against “Never Trumper” hysteria. Within six months, he said, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post would be bleeding financially and otherwise.
Indeed, he pointed out, since June 2015, when Trump made his famous ride down the escalator and announced his candidacy for president, “all of these news outlets’ business models have been built around the same strategy: Turning [his] words into their profits.” Yes, every tweet—each outrageous statement—has been pounced on by the press with glee.

“And if Trump, as a private citizen, should stop providing the media with 24/7 OMG moments, what then?” asked Smith.

It’s a rhetorical question that I answered three years ago—albeit in a far less witty and acerbic style than Smith’s—but from the opposite perspective. Though, like Smith, I pointed out that members of the anti-Trump camp were in a state of exhilaration every time their nemesis opened his mouth and provided them with fodder for their attacks, I explained why I was able to identify with them.