RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-joe-manchins-moment-11614641678?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Will Sen. Joe Manchin nix President Biden’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services?

In a Senate split 50-50 along party lines, the Democrat from West Virginia already doomed Neera Tanden’s nomination as director of the Office of Management and Budget when he came out against her. Mr. Manchin’s opposition to a $15-an-hour minimum wage likewise helped force it off the Covid-19 relief bill. The question now is whether he really means to serve as a check on the Biden administration, or whether bringing down Ms. Tanden was a token act designed to buy him a pass for supporting more-extreme picks such as Xavier Becerra, the California culture warrior tapped for health secretary.

As usual Mr. Manchin isn’t saying much, beyond a simple statement a week ago that he hasn’t yet made up his mind. Without his support Democrats can’t force the tie needed to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the deciding vote. Unless of course a Republican senator—say, Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins—broke ranks too.

At the moment the anti-Becerra campaign is leading with the argument that at a time of pandemic he isn’t a doctor and has no experience in healthcare. But this isn’t much better than the argument that Betsy DeVos wasn’t qualified to be education secretary because she had no education degree or experience as a public-school teacher. What cabinet secretaries most need isn’t a particular expertise—they have many experts at their disposal—but leadership and judgment.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/27/so-much-winning-trump-outscores-obama-on-five-key-metrics-pollster/

Given all the predictions that President Donald Trump would lead the ruination of the U.S., and despite the 24/7 attacks hurled at him from all quarters, Trump got stronger marks than Barack Obama on all but two of seven key metrics that IBD/TIPP has been following for 20 years.

Raghavan Mayur, the president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which runs the IBD/TIPP poll, explains it all on his new site: TippInsights.com.

Although often ignored by the mainstream press, the Investor’s Business Daily-sponsored IBD/TIPP poll has proven to be the most accurate in the past five presidential elections. And since 2001, IBD/TIPP has been taking the public’s pulse seven topics to gauge the state of the nation: direction of the country; economic optimism; presidential leadership; standing in the world; quality of life; morals and ethics; and national outlook.

The indexes provide a unique view into how the nation judges each president, and after two decades IBD/TIPP now has a wealth of data.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/02/26/americans-see-both-aoc-and-pelosi-as-wildly-unlikeable-n1428726

When you review the latest congressional favorability poll, it is incredible that Democrats hold the House or the Senate. Rassmussen polled 1,000 likely voters, which means a respondent has voted in the last several elections, and asked them about our congressional leaders, and added Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to see how she compared with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and who voters thought congressional Democrats in Congress should emulate.

The results are mixed. Individually, Ocasio-Cortez is wildly unlikeable, but so are Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. According to Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters have an unfavorable view of Ocasio-Cortez, including 44% whose view of her is Very Unfavorable. Only 16% view have a Very Favorable view of AOC, and another 18% have a Somewhat Favorable view.

However, when asked which one of these women Democrats should be more like, 31% said Pelosi, and 22% answered Ocasio-Cortez.  A plurality of 46% said they are not sure. Even those who identify as Democrats pick Pelosi with a plurality of 44%, even though 69% report having a somewhat favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez. Unaffiliated voters have a Very Unfavorable opinion of Ocasio-Cortez 50% of the time with Republican voters at a rate of 69%.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-is-neera-tanden-so-important-that-democrats-would-smear-joe-manchin-to-save-her-doomed-nomination

“Tanden is a violent and vitriolic hack without the chops for running the entire federal budget. But sure, sexism and racism … or something.”

It’s a bold move to smear your own party’s most important senator as a racist and sexist. But evidently, the Biden administration believes that ramming through a professional Twitter troll as the director of the Office of Management and Budget is worth it. 

Nine of President Biden’s nominees earned bipartisan support and, with the exception of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, majority support even among Republicans. But now, the president of the liberal Center for American Progress is set to be voted down by every Republican in the Senate plus West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin, the crucial swing vote of the 50-50 Senate, has announced his opposition to Tanden’s confirmation. 

The case against Tanden is simple enough: She lacks both the resume qualifying her for such a vital position and the civil temperament to work across the aisle. 

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/24/liz-cheney-must-explain-why-she-thinks-the-gop-is-a-white-supremacist-party/

Cheney has defamed tens of millions of Republicans as white supremacists. I want to see her evidence.

Rep. Liz Cheney seems to think the Republican Party is the party of white supremacy. She is so convinced of this that she feels the GOP needs to make clear this is not the case. CNN and other progressive outlets could barely contain their joy. Here is how the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party down in Atlanta covered Cheney’s remarks: “In a speech on Tuesday in Washington, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said something remarkable.”

“It’s very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren’t the party of white supremacy,” she said at an event at the Reagan Institute. Of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Cheney added: “You certainly saw antisemitism. You saw the symbols of Holocaust denial. … You saw a Confederate flag being carried through the rotunda. We, as Republicans in particular, have a duty and an obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection.”

It is important to understand that the mere fact that Cheney is spewing this nonsense is an obvious invitation to the left to conclude that the GOP is racist. Just the fact that she is raising the question, they say, is evidence that something deeply wrong is afoot. But in fact, Cheney’s claims are utterly baseless, and quite frankly, if she really believes the GOP is a racist party, the moral thing to do is to quit the party immediately.

But she’s not doing that because, of course, she does not really believe what she is saying. Were there racists who rioted at the Capitol in January? Yes. Was the riot immediately, roundly, and completely denounced by nearly every Republican in America within minutes? Also yes. Nobody is defending the racists at the Capitol riots. None are even so much as giving excuses as the left regularly does for antisemites like Louis Farrakhan.

https://rollcall.com/2021/02/24/tanden-votes-scrapped-in-latest-sign-of-trouble-for-budget-nominee/

The two Senate committees tasked with approving Neera Tanden’s nomination to be White House budget chief postponed their Wednesday votes, hours before senators were expected to vote on the nominee.

An aide to Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Democrats said the panel postponed the meeting because “members need more time to consider the nominee.”

“The president deserves to have a team in place that he wants, and we’re going to work with our members to figure out the best path forward,” said the aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.

The Senate Budget Committee, which shares jurisdiction, never officially set a time for its expected business meeting on Wednesday. A Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wednesday morning the vote had been postponed.

Several high-profile defections in recent days have put Tanden’s confirmation in jeopardy, starting with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who said Friday he couldn’t support her based on her past attacks on other lawmakers.

Later on Wednesday morning, the Budget committee scheduled a confirmation hearing for Shalanda Young, whom Biden has nominated for deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget, on March 2. Young, a popular former top aide to House Appropriations Democrats, has been on the short list of potential candidates to replace Tanden if her nomination continues to falter.

Confirming Young as deputy, which under Senate rules could occur after just two hours of debate versus up to 30 hours for the No. 1 position at OMB, would position her to at minimum take the role of acting OMB director while the Biden administration decides its next move.

https://www.aol.com/joe-manchin-comes-against-neera-213200785.html

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said Friday he will oppose Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget, imperiling the prospects of a high-profile nominee of President Joe Biden.

“I have carefully reviewed Neera Tanden’s public statements and tweets that were personally directed towards my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from Senator Sanders to Senator McConnell and others,” Manchin said in a statement.

“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,” he said. For this reason, I cannot support her nomination.”His statement is a major blow to her prospects in a Senate split between 50 Democratic members and 50 Republicans.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-media-tries-to-divide-republicans-11613580575?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Where does the Republican Party go from here? The party that abolished slavery, won the right to vote for women, and beat Soviet communism must continue to be strong and principled to move America forward.

But the liberal media doesn’t care about that. It wants to stoke a nonstop Republican civil war. The media playbook starts with the demand that everyone pick sides about Donald Trump —either love or hate everything about him. The moment anyone on the right offers the slightest criticism of the 45th president, the media goes berserk: Republicans are trying to have it both ways! It’s a calculated strategy to pit conservatives against one another. It’s also a ridiculous false choice. Real life is never that simple. Someone can do both good and bad things.

People feel strongly about Mr. Trump, but we can acknowledge reality. People on the left, if they’re honest, can find Trump accomplishments they like—a coronavirus vaccine in record time, Middle East peace, more accountability from China. People on the right can find fault with Trump actions, including on Jan. 6. Right or left, when people make these distinctions, they’re not trying to have it both ways. They’re using their brains.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/the_coup_de_grce_for_nikki_haleys_presidential_aspirations.html

“I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture. I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.” Thus spoke Nikki Haley — former South Carolina governor, former ambassador to the UN, and now presidential aspirant — exposing once again her self-serving bona fides. In denigrating Donald Trump, the establishment Republican ended up revealing to Trump’s loyal base of 75-80 million supporters just how much she is motivated by opportunism. Also, just how out of touch she is with the rank and file.

Haley’s betrayal of President Trump took the form of a forceful condemnation: “We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him again.  And we can’t let that ever happen again.” The timing of the tirade couldn’t have been more opportune: for maximum political effect, she released it just before Trump’s legal team presented his defense.

Making common cause with Democrats and disaffected Republicans, she held Trump responsible for the January 6th Capitol riot, disingenuously telling members of the Republican National Committee that the president “will be harshly judged by history.”