Real Progress Is Not What Progressives
Have in Mind
Posted By: Garnet, 9/7/2021 12:49:19 PM
For people who call themselves “progressive,” leftists are astonishingly hostile to progress. Seemingly mired in 1965, congressional Democrats bulldozed through the U.S. House of Representatives in a special session last month a so-called voting rights bill, H.R. 4, with no Republican support. Named after the late U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), Democrats have lavished praise upon themselves for a bill they claim would address what they call “racial discrimination in voting.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill would “give the federal government new power over states’ voting procedures, a change Democrats say is needed to protect the political power of minority voters.”
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Garnet"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Most Recent Articles posted by
Garnet"
A new Texas law that drastically restricts abortion didn’t just spawn outrage from progressives. It also created a Twitter hashtag — #TexasTaliban — that trended as liberal celebrities and their followers vented their outrage at the prospect of the end of legal abortion in the Lone Star State. They spared neither the state’s legislators nor the conservative US Supreme Court majority that declined to stop the law from being implemented.
Part of this is just business as usual in American politics in 2021. We’re long past the point where civility was a concern on either side of the aisle. Too many Democrats and Republicans tend to consider their opponents evil,
Joe Biden Is a Total Failure
11 replies
As cant and emotionalism subside, it is becoming possible to give a clear and fair assessment of the performance of the Biden Administration and of the president himself: a total failure.
The shortfall of 500,000 in the expected net new job figures for August shows that stagflation is upon us: employers are afraid to hire employees as they normally would coming out of the COVID recession because they don’t know if they will be able to afford them. Hourly pay scales are increasing at 7.5 percent, new car prices at 10 percent, rental accommodation at 12 percent, and new homes at 20 percent,
For people who call themselves “progressive,” leftists are astonishingly hostile to progress.
Seemingly mired in 1965, congressional Democrats bulldozed through the U.S. House of Representatives in a special session last month a so-called voting rights bill, H.R. 4, with no Republican support. Named after the late U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), Democrats have lavished praise upon themselves for a bill they claim would address what they call “racial discrimination in voting.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill would “give the federal government new power over states’ voting procedures, a change Democrats say is needed to protect the political power of minority voters.”
While the unemployment rate for Americans dropped in August, there is a political time bomb buried in the statistics for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party increasingly focused on equity: black joblessness shot up significantly.In other words, the president who fondly boasts of a domestic policy promising to leave nobody behind has an economic recovery that is leaving a key Democratic constituency in worse shape.
"The rise in black unemployment in August is certainly troubling, considering their unemployment rates were already much higher than any other group," Elise Gould, a senior economist
President Biden’s address to the nation concerning his surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban was obviously a desperate attempt to convince the public that it wasn’t the disaster we watched in real time. The actual effect of his weirdly belligerent speech was to confirm his inability to grasp the military and foreign policy complexities associated with his role as Commander in Chief. This has sent his approval numbers into a nosedive from which it will be difficult to recover. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, for example, shows his approval rating at an all time low of 44 percent and that only a third of Americans believe he handled Afghanistan properly.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in a challenge to S.B. 8, Texas' new abortion law. This unique statute empowers private citizens to sue those who perform or facilitate abortions. President Biden ripped the 5-4 decision, charging that the conservative justices followed "procedural complexities" "rather than use its supreme authority to ensure justice."Biden is wrong. The Court has no sweeping, majestic power to "ensure justice." Indeed, it is a myth that courts can "strike down" laws at all. Rather, judges have a very limited power: to enjoin specific government officials from enforcing laws against specific litigants. The judiciary cannot simply erase statutes from the book.
Rooted at the very core of Texas’s Heartbeat Act is the concept of basic humanity, informed by science. This week the U.S. Supreme Court allowed this law, which protects unborn children from abortion after their beating heart can be detected, to go into effect.For the past half century, the pro-abortion Left has attempted to deceive the American people about the science, facts, and the law surrounding abortion.
Its ability to reap political benefits from sowing confusion and fear gives activists incentive to stir the pot at every available opportunity. The case of Texas’s Heartbeat Act is no exception. Pro-abortion activists instinctively raised the alarm
President Biden is facing a crisis of confidence in his ability to serve as commander in chief due to the overwhelming negative fallout he is receiving over the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, which left 13 U.S. service members dead and Americans and Afghan allies stranded.
Former defense officials, military leaders and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have criticized Biden for leaving Americans behind as the last U.S. C-17 plane took off from Kabul Monday night, despite the president's promise weeks ago that "If there are American citizens left, we're going to stay until we get them all out."Foreign policy experts are also warning that the international credibility
Almost exactly 24 hours after the last cargo plane carrying Americans lumbered down the Kabul airport runway, President Biden started walking. He exited the Oval Office, passed through the Cross Hall of the White House, and entered the State Dining Room. He arrived with a full head of steam, and he was there to say that the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history, was over.
In remarks that lasted roughly half an hour, Biden took “full responsibility for the decision” to end the war while, at the same time, pushing responsibility onto others for how it ended.He blamed former President Trump for signing an agreement with the Taliban
The withdrawal of the final U.S. troops from Afghanistan on Monday marks the end of the U.S. military's 20-year mission in Afghanistan.
But for President Joe Biden, the end of the "forever war" is more of an inflection point than an actual conclusion. The departure of forces kicks off a new phase of the United States's entanglement in Afghanistan that could also prove perilous - and no less challenging for American leadership than the previous two decades.Biden and his team now have to grapple with deep skepticism over whether the Taliban, which now rules Afghanistan, will keep its promises for a peaceful transition.
Joe Concha has an op-ed over at The Hill this week where he seeks to answer a question that Karen Townsend asks here on a regular basis. Where’s Kamala? You still see the occasional video clip of her fending off reporters or being dispatched on some presumably important business to Central America or Asia, with the occasional, uncomfortable moment where she laughs at serious questions. But aside from that, we just don’t see much of her. Concha makes the argument that none of this is happening by accident.
When the Biden administration’s feckless management of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan produced all too predictable chaos, the legacy media uncharacteristically reported on the debacle with remarkable candor. This was unsettling to a White House inured to obsequious coverage, and various administration officials have expressed frustration concerning the Fourth Estate’s unfavorable approach to the story. Inevitably, certain “journalists” echoed the complaint. New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz, for example, querulously insisted, “America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has yet to cost our nation a single casualty.” The day after this was published, 13 Americans were murdered by Islamic State terrorists. In a New York Times column published on the day of this attack
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
President Joe Biden’s administration is asking Congress to authorize about $6.4 billion in American taxpayer money to bring 95,000 Afghans to the United States for permanent resettlement.In a call with reporters on Tuesday, administration officials said the White House would request Congress to authorize about $6.4 billion in funding to resettle tens of thousands of Afghans across the U.S.Pro-mass migration groups had asked Biden to authorize $8 billion in funds for Afghans.Roughly $1.7 billion of the funding will go toward “funding and resources to the Afghans to help them set up a new home in the U.S.,” NBC News reports.
Another Failed Presidency at Hand
44 replies
This Sept. 11, a diminished president will preside over a diminished nation. [Snip] Joe Biden was supposed to be the man of the hour: a calming presence exuding decency, moderation and trust. As a candidate, he sold himself as a transitional president, a fatherly figure in the mold of George H.W. Bush who would restore dignity and prudence to the Oval Office after the mendacity and chaos that came before. It’s why I voted for him, as did so many others who once tipped red. Instead, Biden has become the emblem of the hour: headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept.
Perhaps, at long last, the deadly reign of Anthony Fauci will come to an end. That’s because The Intercept, a hard-left publication, has revealed 900 pages of government documents definitively proving that Fauci used his position to fund gain-of-function research into bat viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (“WIV”)—and then lied to Congress about it.
Since February 2020, the wizened Fauci has been the face of the government’s response to the pandemic. In the ensuing 20 months, Fauci was frequently wrong, incredibly arrogant, and deeply dishonest. Because he was the anti-Trump, though, we were stuck with him.
Four out of five Guantanamo detainees whom former President Barack Obama released in exchange for former U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in 2014 now hold senior positions in the interim government created by the Taliban in Afghanistan.According to the Afghan television network TOLOnews, the Taliban-formed government gave leadership positions to Khairullah Khairkhwa, Norullah Noori, Abdul Haq Wasiq, and Mohammad Fazl; all of whom were released in a 2014 deal between the Obama administration and the Taliban to free Bergdahl, whom the Taliban had held as a prisoner since 2009.
Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in danger of being excommunicated from the Catholic Church for her continuous support of the murder of unborn children.Over the weekend, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who just so happens to be the archbishop of Pelosi’s home diocese in San Francisco, California, wrote an essay in the Washington Post, announcing that excommunication is a potential action to take against self-proclaimed Catholic Democrat leaders who support abortion.In his piece, Cordileone urged Catholic politicians to oppose abortion, saying that “[y]ou cannot be a good Catholic and support expanding a government-approved right to kill innocent human beings.”
WASHINGTON — In the hours before Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, 20, was killed by a terrorist’s bomb in Afghanistan, he posed for a photograph taken by a bunkmate. In the image, the Marine’s brow was furrowed. He flashed a peace sign. (Snip) But Mark Schmitz was confused by what happened next: Biden turned the conversation to his oldest son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. Referring to him has become a reliable constant of Biden’s presidency. In speeches, Oval Office discussions and personal asides, Biden tends to find a common thread back to his son, no matter the
President Joe Biden celebrated Labor Day by delivering deli sandwiches to union workers in his home state of Delaware.According to the Associated Press, the president visited an event orchestrated by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 313 in New Castle, Delaware, where he served sandwiches from Capriotti’s, a Delaware restaurant chain founded in 1976.“He shook hands and chatted with the group of mostly men, who were clad in jeans and union T-shirts,” reported the AP. “Biden spent several minutes chatting with the union members in groups before telling them, ‘C’mon, let’s go get something to eat.'”
Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff definitely got everyone’s attention when she stepped out in little more than a bra and jeans while in New York City. (Photos) The 22-year-old model wowed in a white bra, pair of black jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt outside Christian Siriano Fashion Show in New York. The photos were shared by Splash News and posted on the outlet Tuesday. (Photos) She completed the jaw dropping look with loose hair, a yellow purse and white high-heeled half boots.
Physicians spreading medical misinformation, particularly about COVID, “are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards” due to their “high degree of public trust” and their “powerful platform in society.” One could say this applies more so to the president of the United States, the CDC director, and to major newspapers and media organizations (snip) A popular catchphrase this past summer is that COVID is, “a pandemic among the unvaccinated.” (snip) By simply perusing the news, one can draw a far different conclusion, that we are instead seeing a “pandemic of the vaccinated.”
WSJ: Men appear to be giving up on college
30 replies
There’s an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal today about the declining enrollment of men in 2 and 4-year colleges. This gender enrollment disparity is a trend that has been happening for a while now, but at this point the divergence between men and women is becoming pretty dramatic.
At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men
The State Department on Tuesday expressed concerns over the makeup of the new interim Afghan government announced by the Taliban, including the lack of female leaders and the past actions of some of those appointed to top posts.
A State Department spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Hill that although the Taliban “has presented this as a caretaker cabinet,” the U.S. “will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.”
“We have made clear our expectation that the Afghan people deserve an inclusive government,” the spokesperson added.
Less than one week after the United States completed its full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Sen. Lindsey Graham said the US will “have to” re-enter the war-torn country in an interview with BBC that aired worldwide on Monday. “Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe it’s Trump’s fault or Biden’s fault, here’s where we’re at as the world: The Taliban are not reformed, they’re not new,” said Graham (R-SC). “They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. They’re going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach.