RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/26/joe-biden-nominates-swing-vote-sen-joe-manchins-wi/

President Biden intends to appoint the wife of the Senate’s top swing vote, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin III, to a plum federal position that pays upwards of $160,000 annually.

The White House announced on Friday it would nominate Gayle Connelly Manchin, a former president of the West Virginia state board of education, to serve as federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The organization is responsible for spurring economic development and investment in the 13 states that make up the region of Appalachia — which spans from northern Mississippi to Pennsylvania.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mrs. Manchin is slated to replace Tim Thomas, a former staffer for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The role comes with a salary of approximately $163,000 annually, according to a federal pay database.

Mrs. Manchin’s nomination comes as her husband has become a vital political player in Washington, D.C.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/party-of-groupthink/ar-BB1evm67

When President Biden finally signed into law a $1.9 trillion spending package, passed without a single Republican vote in either house of Congress, the White House celebrated it as “the most progressive piece of legislation in history.”

“So, I would say we feel pretty good about that,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist Biden beat to win the Democratic presidential nomination, sang from the same songbook on CNN. Asked about the spending cut from the package to win the votes of a dwindling band of Democratic centrists, Sanders replied, “In my view, this is the most significant legislation for working people that has been passed in decades.” The network’s website later published a piece titled “The US is about to start a massive experiment in progressive government.”

The messaging illustrates the contradiction at the core of Biden’s successful campaign for the White House: He simultaneously pledged to fulfill Sanders’s wishes for the “most progressive president since FDR” and be a nonthreatening, bipartisan deal-maker who would deserve the votes of college-educated, white suburbanites who typically cast their ballots for Republicans.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/11/livelihoods-and-the-congressional-thieves-who-want-to-steal-them/

If there were any doubts that today’s Democratic Party is a corrupt and malevolent force, they were fully removed Tuesday when the House approved the PRO Act, a bill that will steal the livelihood from millions of Americans should it become law. Democrats care about nothing but consolidating their power and making their own lives more comfortable, even if it means creating hardships for others.

The legislation, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, is both a gift to labor union bosses and a burglar’s tool for aiding the outright theft of working Americans’ incomes. It was passed 225-206, with five Republicans voting for it (Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Pa.; Don Young, Alaska; John Katko, N.Y.; Chris Smith, N.J.; Jefferson Van Drew, N.J.) and one Democrat (Rep. Henry Cuellar, Texas) against it.

In addition to stripping states of their right-to-work laws, which allow workers to be employed at unionized businesses without being forced to join the union, it also in effect outlaws independent contract work through its ABC test. Adopted by the California (of course) Supreme Court, the test is used to classify workers as either hired employees or independent contractors (freelancers and gig workers). The test was codified into law in California (of course) in 2019 through Assembly Bill 5.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/03/06/8-senate-democrats-help-gop-send-minimum-wage-bill-down-to-defeat-n1430467

A split in the Democratic Party over whether or not to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour has cost Senator Bernie Sanders and the radicals a victory. The margin of victory suggests the issue is dead, at least for the next two years.

The eight defectors had varied reasons for their opposition.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire voted against proceeding, though the tally remains open. So did two close Biden allies, Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Senate Democrats, also opposed it.

Sinema indicated that she supports raising the wage, which last increased in 2009, because she understands “what it is like to face tough choices while working to meet your family’s most basic needs.” But she said a standalone debate on the issue made more sense than putting it in a coronavirus relief package.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/lunch-box-donald-why-blue-collar-workers-are-don-feder/

An NBC News poll released last week reflects one of the most significant political trends of the past 30 years – the realignment of blue-collar workers who’ve left the party of Planned Parenthood and Drag Queen Story Hour for the party of energy-independence, fair-trade deals and border security.

The poll shows that between 2010 and 2020, the Republican share of blue- collar votes rose from 45% to 57%. Within the same demographic, its Hispanic vote went from 23% to 36%, while its black working-class vote went from 5% to 12%.

In 1992, Bill Clinton carried 49% of counties where at least 25% of the workforce was employed in manufacturing. In 2016, Donald Trump took 95%. What used to be one of the left’s most reliable constituencies is now going the way of evangelicals in their flight from a party that’s lost both its mind and its soul.

Writing in The Detroit News on April 10, 2019, Terry Bowman (a 22- year UAW/Ford worker) charges: “While Democrats fight for policies that crush working-class communities, Republicans and our president are fighting for blue-collar jobs and traditional American values.”

The geezer in the White House is becoming a job-killing machine. On Day One, the Keystone XL-Pipeline was axed. And that’s just a down-payment on Biden’s debt to the Greenies. But, not to worry. As John Forbes Kerry assured us, unemployed pipeline workers can get good-paying jobs manufacturing solar panels – in China.

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%.