RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/04/20/gop_rep_burgess_owens_projection

Clarence Burgess Owens is a Republican politician, and former professional football player elected in 2020.

Rep. Burgess Ownes testified at a Senate hearing on whether voter ID laws represent a “New Jim Crow,” particularly mentioning that he is insulted when Democrats characterize black voters as “not smart enough” to get identification.

“The true racism is this: the projection of the Democratic party on my proud race. It’s called the self bigotry of low expectation,” Rep. Owens said Tuesday. “President Biden said of the Georgia law ‘This is Jim Crow on steroids.’ With all due respect, Mr. President, you know better.”
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“What I find extremely offensive from the left is the narrative that black people are not smart enough, not educated enough…to do what every other culture does in this country —get an ID,” Rep. Owens says in a congressional hearing about voting rights. https://abcn.ws/2QbCft8

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/04/have-new-york-city-voters-burned-out-left-daniel-greenfield/

New York City went from being run by a Republican and a moderate Democrat, and descended into hard leftist under De Blasio. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s win, the defeat of Rep. Elliot Engel, and the campaign to replace Cuomo with a Socialist seemed to solidify the city and perhaps even the state as leftist territory. And yet, despite all that, the Left seems unable to get a grip on the upcoming mayoral election.

A survey conducted by Data For Progress, a national think tank, found 26 percent of voters are supporting Yang’s candidacy — double the 13 percent who said they would support Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. 

The poll also found Yang leading Adams 25 to 22 percent among Black voters — a surprising number given the borough president’s political base in predominantly African-American parts of Brooklyn. Data For Progress polled 1,007 likely voters between March 21 and April 5 through web and text interviews, which would not necessarily capture the older New Yorkers Adams — a former police officer and state Senator — is counting on.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a career politician from Manhattan, captured 11 percent of those surveyed, and former City Hall attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Maya Wiley came in fourth at 10 percent. Every other candidate polled in single digits.

The Left and the media have been pushing Wiley. She is the model of what the Left wants. Instead, Yang is far ahead despite the media’s efforts to destroy him. And while I’m no fan of Eric Adams, he’s far too moderate these days for the Left.

Could the Left win St. Louis while losing New York to moderate Democrats? The media is doing its best to stop Yang. With no effect. 

Why is Yang polling better with black voters than Adams or Wiley? One answer might be that a big chunk of the electorate in New York City is sick and tired of the lunatic Left.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-tonic-for-restoring-the-gop-overreaching-democrats-11617920447?st=rpc564ajay1a49a&reflink=article_email_share

The media has reveled this year in the frequent, gleeful penning of obituaries for the Republican Party. The GOP is described as broken, fractured, befuddled about its identity, dying or already dead, not to mention up an unprintable creek, after corporate donors cut money following the Jan. 6 riot.

Or maybe not.

The obits are hard to square with a surprising new number from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s political team: $27.1 million. That’s the amount they tell me Mr. McCarthy single-handedly raked in during the first quarter of 2021. It’s the most money any Republican representative has ever raised in a quarter.

It’s even more notable given it was accomplished mostly in two months: January was rough for Republicans. And it was done almost entirely without big-business support. Only about $450,000, or less than 2%, came from corporate political-action committees. How big is a $27.1 million quarter? Mr. McCarthy raised about $100 million over the entire previous two-year cycle, or an average of $12.5 million a quarter.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced on Thursday that it raked in $33.7 million in the first quarter (about $5 million of which came from Mr. McCarthy). It pulled in $19.1 million in March alone—an odd-year fundraising record. And the National Republican Senatorial Committee, under Florida Sen. Rick Scott, had one of its healthiest Februarys in years, bringing in $6.4 million—despite a precipitous drop in corporate PAC donations. (It has yet to report quarterly numbers.)

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cotton-backs-arkansas-legislatures-override-of-hutchinsons-veto/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=first

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas backs the Arkansas legislature’s action to stop doctors in the state from performing gender-transition surgeries on minors or prescribing puberty-blocking hormones to minors who identify as transgender. 

“I support our legislature’s action to protect children from dangerous, life-altering, irreversible harms,” Cotton tells National Review in a statement.

In order to enact the law, the state legislature on Tuesday overrode the veto of Republican governor Asa Hutchinson.

On Tuesday night, Hutchinson was grilled by Fox News host Tucker Carlson about the veto.

“Let’s let parents and doctors make decisions,” Hutchinson said. 

“Then why don’t we allow 18-year-olds to drink beer in Arkansas? Why don’t we allow them to get tattoos? Why don’t we allow 15-year-olds to get married?” Carlson replied. “You vetoed a bill that would’ve protected children — not adults, children, to whom a different standard applies — from a life-altering, permanent procedure.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/06/if-democrats-will-cry-racist-no-matter-what-republicans-should-pass-much-stronger-laws/

In March, Georgia Republicans amended their state’s election laws in a weak attempt to assuage voters disgusted with their enabling of the 2020 election circus. To punish their political opponents for requiring voter ID and creating an election season of a month long or more Democrats called up their character assassination squads.

Democrats have been throwing every bit of pressure they can at Georgia elected officials to get their way without winning power legitimately through elections. This has included pressure from Democrats’ current and last U.S. presidents, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Biden called on companies to push his political goals outside of the legitimate political system by boycotting Georgia. He is the first president to openly push private companies to boycott a U.S. state over fully legal political outcomes he dislikes.

Biden also explicitly voiced support for Major League Baseball economically punishing Americans represented by members of his political opposition by withdrawing MLB’s All-Star game from Atlanta. MLB quickly complied.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/04/06/man-behind-alleged-gaetz-extortion-scheme-admits-wanting-25-million-n1437915

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has claimed that the sexual misconduct allegations made against him were part of an extortion scheme, and Bob Kent, one of the men allegedly involved in the scheme, all but confirmed in an interview on “The Michael Smerconish Program” on SiriusXM radio on Monday that he had asked Gaetz’s father for $25 million—but insists it was not extortion.

Kent says he needed the money to help find FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in March 2007 and is presumed to be dead by his family, but Kent claims he’s seen video evidence that Levinson is alive in Iran.

“Matt Gaetz is in need of good publicity, and I’m in need of $25 million to rescue Robert Levinson,” Kent said on the show, and acknowledged that he asked Gaetz’s father for the money.

“At first he started laughing and he said, ‘You know we get these extortion attempts all the time,’ And I said whoa, stop. This is not an extortion attempt. I’m not trying to extort him, I’m not, you know, that’s not what we’re doing here.”

But according to a report from the Washington Examiner, Gaetz, “possesses text message screenshots, an email, and a typed document that purportedly support his claims that a federal investigation into his relationship with a 17-year-old is related to an extortion scheme against him.” According to screenshots provided to the Washington Examiner, Rep. Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, a former Florida state Senate president, received a text message from Kent on March 16 proposing “a plan that can make [Matt Gaetz’s] future legal and political problems go away.”

Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/sinema-calls-on-senators-to-change-their-behavior-instead-of-eliminating-filibuster/

Senator Kyrsten Sinema called on colleagues to “change their behavior” and work for compromises instead of attempting to eliminate the Senate filibuster, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

“When you have a place that’s broken and not working, and many would say that’s the Senate today, I don’t think the solution is to erode the rules,” Sinema told the Journal. “I think the solution is for senators to change their behavior and begin to work together, which is what the country wants us to do.”

Sinema’s comments come amid pressure from progressive Democrats to eliminate the filibuster entirely, and allow legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority in place of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) has floated changing filibuster rules to make the procedure more difficult to use, without eliminating the filibuster entirely, however Sinema refused to discuss that possibility.

The purpose of the Senate is “to craft bipartisan solutions to solve the challenges we face in our country,” Sinema said.

The Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.

Amid Republican opposition, Democrats used budget reconciliation rules to pass their $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill by a simple majority. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) announced on Monday evening that the Senate parliamentarian approved using budget reconciliation for two additional bills, which could allow Democrats to pass the Biden administration’s infrastructure package.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/04/05/manchin-n2587410

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) delivered a blow to President Biden’s “infrastructure” plan, which is already facing a steep challenge in the Senate. Manchin said publicly that he opposes an increase in the corporate tax rate, to 28 percent, that is included in the plan proposed by the administration. 

The “swing vote” Democrat lawmaker said that the increase was a non-starter for him.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is considering using budget reconciliation to pass the hefty infrastructure plan, in order to sidestep the 60-vote threshold, as Democrats did to pass the American Rescue Plan earlier this year. If Schumer took this route, only 51 votes would be necessary to pass the plan. Manchin warned the administration that he is not alone in opposing such a steep increase to the corporate tax rate.

“There’s six or seven other Democrats who feel very strongly about this. We have to be competitive, and we’re not going to throw caution to the wind,” he continued in the interview.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that the administration’s infrastructure plan mandates that corporations pay their “fair share” of taxes.

Like other plans put forth by the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats, the infrastructure plan is receiving blowback from Republican lawmakers for inclusion of line-items that are completely unrelated to infrastructure.