Democrat 'Leaders' Fail the Leadership Test
By Oliver North and David Goetsch +++ The Latest Effort to Pressure Joe Manchin on Biden Bill Will Fail for a Very Simple Reason
By Matt Vespa ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Check out this Article from AmericanThinker https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/stanford_university_hostile_environment_for_jews_and_others.html THE MORE EXPENSIVE THE EDUCATION INSTITUTION THE GREATER THE ANTI SEMITISM +++++++++++++++++ Is a well deserved cell the only way to end the Hillary Saga? Hillary Clinton: The Greasy Pole Beckons Again - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics By David Catron
It was inevitable that the implosion of the Biden administration would lure former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton back onto the political stage. The voters showed her the door five years ago, yet she remains unable to grasp what they were trying to tell her. The latest manifestation of this learning disability began last month with an online lecture series in which Clinton holds forth on “The Power of Resilience.” The series culminates with a cringeworthy reading, complete with feigned attempt to hold back tears, of the speech she purportedly prepared in anticipation of victory in 2016. My fellow Americans, today you sent a message to the whole world. Our values endure. Our democracy stands strong. And our motto remains: e pluribus unum. Out of many, one. We will not be defined only by our differences. We will not be an us versus them country.… Fundamentally, this election challenged us to decide what it means to be an American in the 21st century. And for reaching for a unity, decency, and what President Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” We met that challenge. If this undelivered unity speech seems wildly at odds with Clinton’s actual behavior and rhetoric, before and after the 2016 election, it is no illusion. It is impossible to reconcile it with her infamous “basket of deplorables” remark, in which she characterized millions of Americans as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic.” The speech is also inconsistent with her oft-repeated post-election claim that Trump was an “illegitimate president.” Indeed, it even fails to conform to the ostensibly benign point of her lectures, part of which she devotes to slandering Trump as a “bully” and a “creep.” Such ad hominem cheap shots are, of course, far more characteristic of the Hillary Clinton we all know rather than the circumspect observations of a seasoned leader who has learned from her mistakes. She recently offered seemingly reasonable advice to the Democrats about avoiding a far left turn before the 2022 midterms, a clear reference to “the Squad.” Yet she continues to attack former President Trump based on the most absurd leftwing conspiracy theory since the Russia collusion hoax. During a recent CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria about her new novel, Clinton delivered herself of the following opinion: I do think our democracy is under continuing assault by the former president, who masterminded a coup in the attack on our Capitol, has continued to promote the false accusation that the election of 2020 was somehow rigged.… I think he poses a real clear and present danger to the United States. And having lived through that presidency, when it came time to write a political thriller with my friend and collaborator Louise Penny, of course I would draw from the reality that we all have experienced. Never mind that the Justice Department has concluded that there was no coup to “mastermind.” As Reuters reported last August, “The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.” Forget that not a single rioter has been prosecuted for treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government. Ignore the inconvenient fact that those who have been prosecuted were charged with such things as trespassing, disorderly conduct, and destruction of property. Yet Clinton doesn’t hesitate to label Trump as the evil architect of a coup. Many Democrats take this nonsense seriously. They believe, as Clinton maintains, that the republic will be in great peril if Trump runs again in 2024: “I want people to understand that this is a make-or-break point.” But they know how unpopular President Biden and Vice President Harris are with the voters. Consequently, high-profile Democratic operatives are casting about for a candidate who can defeat Trump. Douglas Schoen, an influential consultant, believes that Hillary Clinton may be the only Democrat who has any chance of defeating Trump in 2024. As he recently put it in the Orange County Register: Democrats already have reason to be concerned about their presidential ticket in 2024.… Indeed, voters are turning on the Biden presidency: Republicans lead in the 2022 generic vote for Congress; and in a hypothetical Trump-Biden rematch, 48% of voters say they would back Trump, compared with 45% for Biden.… Clinton would offer Democrats a new approach that is separate from the Biden Administration.… Clinton has the stature, the positions, and the record that Democrats need. Schoen seems to have forgotten that whatever “stature” Clinton brings to the 2024 election, she would carry even more baggage than she lugged to the 2016 race. The heaviest load she carries is the role her campaign played in concocting the Russian collusion hoax. As Kimberly Strassel puts it in the Wall Street Journal, “The Clinton campaign ultimately paid a Russian [Igor Danchenko] to gin up the core allegations against Mr. Trump.” These tales ended up in the Steele Dossier that was deployed against Trump. In other words, the Russians did interfere with the 2016 election — on behalf of the Clinton campaign. This means the stench of corruption that has always enveloped Clinton and her associates will be more pungent than ever in 2024. Will this stop Hillary from running? Of course not. As former Clinton advisor Dick Morris recently phrased it, “I’ve always said that the way you could tell if Hillary is running again is check whether she has a pulse or not.” There can be little doubt that Biden’s many blunders has Clinton casting a lustful eye on the greasy pole once again, but can she reach its slimy pinnacle in 2024 carrying all those decades of baggage? Perhaps, but Trump will get there first, just as he did in 2016. ++++++++ The greatest threat to our Bill of Rights and our republic is the enormous wealth poured into campaigns by the likes of Soros, Zuckerberg and the media billionaires in California. Zuckerbucks Shouldn’t Pay for Elections It fans mistrust to let private donors fund official voting duties. By The Editorial Board
The 2020 pandemic election wasn’t stolen, but it sure was a superspreader of bad precedents. More than a year later, we’re still getting information about the huge private money that underwrote official government voting efforts in 49 states. Much is still unknown, but lawmakers already know enough to ban this practice. A nonprofit called the Center for Technology and Civic Life, or CTCL, funded by Mark Zuckerberg, says it gave $350 million to nearly 2,500 election departments in the course of the 2020 campaign. Last month it posted its 990 tax form for the period, with 199 pages listing grants to support the “safe administration” of voting amid Covid-19. Some conservatives see this largess of “Zuckerbucks” as a clever plot to help Democrats win. CTCL “consistently gave bigger grants and more money per capita to counties that voted for Biden, ” says an analysis by the Capital Research Center. Its tally for Georgia, to pick one state, shows average grants of $1.41 per head in Trump areas and $5.33 in Biden ones. A conservative group in Wisconsin suggests that extra voter outreach funded by CTCL could have boosted Mr. Biden’s turnout there by something like 8,000 votes. It isn’t hard to see why they’re concerned. On the other hand, CTCL’s biggest check was $19,294,627 to New York City, and in a scheme to flip America blue, that would be a waste of eight figures. Ditto for sizable checks to red areas. DeSoto County, Miss., population 185,000, went 61% for President Trump, and it received $347,752. The county installed plastic shields, bought more voting machines to prevent lines, and hired workers to sanitize equipment. “This money was a huge help,” a spokeswoman says, since “none of these items were budgeted.” Another caveat is that it’s hard to untangle partisan bias from urban bias. Big cities have big-city voting problems, and maybe they were more likely to ask CTCL for help. Only two places in Nevada received grants, the Capital Research Center says: Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno). No other county in the state has 60,000 people, and probably the rugged desert dwellers didn’t need the aid. There are good questions about how CTCL spent money, and if Republicans take the House this year, maybe they’ll ask. Yet even under the purest motives, private election funding is inappropriate and sows distrust. This is evident in Green Bay, Wis., which received $1,245,706, plus nonfinancial help from CTCL partners. One was Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a fellow with the National Vote at Home Institute, who became awfully cozy in Green Bay. In one email he offered assistance with follow-up on rejected mail votes, saying “curing ballots might be something we could take off your plate.” The city clerk, Kris Teske, rightly declined. Other emails show him helping to plan the layout and staffing of the ballot-counting center. On Election Day he was inside that room, at one point with a tag marked “City Employee.” Ms. Teske seems to have unsuccessfully opposed this outside influence. Two weeks before the voting, she went on leave. Then she resigned, citing clashes with the mayor’s office. “He allowed staff who were not educated on election law to run the election, along with people who weren’t even City of Green Bay employees,” Ms. Teske wrote. She felt cut out, “even though it’s the Clerk’s job to administer an election.” In a rebuttal to what she called “extensive misinformation,” Green Bay City Attorney Vanessa Chavez said that Mr. Spitzer-Rubenstein “had no decision-making authority” and “never assisted with any matters involving actual ballots.” She said the city was “not required” by CTCL to accept such help. Yet among the “advisory services” that CTCL made available to Green Bay, one consultant was from the Brennan Center, a highly ideological outfit that supports Democratic legal and election causes. What if conservatives underwrote “voter outreach” by town clerks, while sending in experts from the Heritage Foundation? This isn’t how elections should be run, especially in the current era of partisan mistrust. Some states, including Georgia, Arizona and Florida, have already moved to prohibit donations to election offices. But Democratic governors in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina have blocked bans or restrictions. In a veto message last month, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said that private funds “were needed” in 2020 to pay for masks and so on. He told lawmakers to “start properly funding elections boards,” which “would end the need for grants.” Maybe the Legislature should call Mr. Cooper’s bluff and sweeten its bill with some added money. It’s worth the trade for eliminating a source of election mistrust. And then there is always Topsy and her amoebic growth:: Entitlements Always Grow and Grow The ‘equally worthy claim’ inexorably prompts further expansion, regardless of lawmakers’ initial limits. By John F. Cogan Sen. Joe Manchin’s emphatic “no” to the current version of Build Back Better put the bill on life support. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, having promised a Senate vote, now must try to maintain the bill’s progressive priorities—including a raft of new and expanded entitlement programs—while shrinking its cost to meet Mr. Manchin’s concerns. A revised bill would almost certainly attempt to disguise the cost of these entitlements by making them initially less-generous. Experience teaches that no matter how slimmed-down the initial provision, an entitlement’s costs grow inexorably over time. The history of U.S. entitlements is a 230-year record of continuous expansion and liberalization. The first major entitlement, Revolutionary War disability benefits, was initially restricted to members of the Continental Army and Navy who were injured in battle and survivors of those killed in wartime. Eligibility was then expanded, first to state militia soldiers, then to veterans whose disabilities were unrelated to wartime service, and eventually to virtually all people who served during the war regardless of disability. Civil War disability pensions followed the same liberalization process, except on a far grander scale. Pensions were initially confined to U.S servicemen who suffered wartime injuries and survivors of those killed in battle. Eventually they were extended to virtually all union Civil War veterans regardless of disability. In the 1890s, nearly one million veterans and their survivors were receiving Civil War pensions. Pension expenditures accounted for 40% of federal spending and continued to rise until finally peaking in 1921. That wasn’t the end of it. Benefits were subsequently extended even to a handful of widows of Confederate soldiers. Congress followed the same liberalizing process with 20th-century entitlements. The original 1956 Social Security disability program limited eligibility to permanently and totally disabled workers 50 and older. Ten years later, eligibility had been extended to temporarily and partly disabled workers regardless of age. When the disability program was enacted, it was expected to cost $1.1 billion in 2000. Its actual cost that year was $56 billion. When Medicare hospital insurance was enacted, cost projections were made to 1990. The projected cost for that year was $9 billion. The actual cost was $67 billion. Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps) began as programs to provide benefits to recipients of state-run cash welfare programs. Over several decades, Congress expanded eligibility up the income ladder to the nonpoor who weren’t on welfare. When Medicaid became too financially burdensome for states, Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act to provide federally funded health insurance further up the income ladder. When states didn’t meet the federal government’s liberal SNAP program expectations, Congress nationalized the program. Today, 1 in 4 non-elderly people in the U.S. receive Medicaid benefits, another 10 million receive ACA subsidies, and SNAP helps more than 40 million people pay their grocery bills. The nearby chart makes clear the inexorable growth in entitlement spending and puts the fiscal response to the pandemic into perspective. From the end of World War II to 2019, all—yes, all—of the increase in noninterest federal spending relative to gross domestic product is attributable to the growth in entitlement spending. Defense spending declined after the Korean War. Nondefense discretionary spending shows no appreciable increase. The historic entitlement spending surge in 2020 and 2021 matches the entire increase that occurred during the preceding 50 years. The seven-decade-long growth of entitlements and the pandemic response are the product of expansionary forces that operate on Congress regardless of who is in charge. Throughout history, the most potent force has been the equally worthy claim. The claim originates from a well-meaning impulse to treat all similarly situated persons equally under the law. Here’s how it works. When first enacted, entitlement benefits are usually confined to a narrow group of worthy individuals. As time passes, groups of excluded individuals claim that they are no less deserving of aid. Pressure is brought by, or on behalf of, these excluded groups to expand eligibility rules. Eventually, Congress acquiesces. But the broadening of eligibility rules only brings another group of claimants closer to the eligibility boundary lines, and the pressure to relax qualifying rules begins again. The process of liberalization repeats itself until the entitlement program’s original limited goals are no longer recognizable. Regardless of how much progressive entitlement programs are slimmed down in a new version of Build Back Better, the equally worthy claim will pressure future Congresses to expand them. How long, for example, will it be before Congress expands income thresholds for daycare subsidies? Not long if the ObamaCare expansions in the House version of Build Back Better are any indication. The original ObamaCare law provided subsidies to families with incomes up to $106,000 in 2021. The House bill proposes to increase those subsidies to families earning $200,000 or more. Predictions that the eventual cost of a revised Build Back Better will be higher than official government estimates are not mere speculation. Expanding entitlements is a fundamental characteristic of Congress that was baked into its DNA centuries ago. Mr. Cogan is author of “The High Cost of Good Intentions” and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. ++++++++++++++++ Trump was the best thing going for the mass media. He helped many survive economically. He provided them with material which they used to turn him into their pin cushion.
Now that he is no longer president they have found Covid as their new source of revenue. The constant ability to record all the statistics which they have basically ignored in the case of flu is testimony to the fact that their reporting is over the top, sensationalized and mostly the basis for a lot of misinformation which the government happily has been supplying. +++ Biden holds the key to how much the challenge will be in 2022 and whether America pulls through: For Putin, OPEC and Trump, 2021 Was a Good Year Xi Jinping, democracy and technocrats, by contrast, didn’t fare so well. By Walter Russell Mead As a weary world ushers in 2022, there is little nostalgia for 2021—a year defined by a lingering pandemic, surging inflation, and rising international tensions across the board. Some had a better time than others, though, and here’s a list of the three biggest winners and losers in the past year. First the winners: • Vladimir Putin. Since taking power in 1999, the Russian president has had a good run. Mr. Putin’s winning streak continued in 2021 as Russian support helped Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko survive Western sanctions, Russian power grew from the Caucasus to the Balkans, and a late-year Russian troop buildup east of Ukraine put Moscow’s revisionist agenda at the center of world politics. Sagging demographics, a rising China and the continuing failure to diversify the economy away from overreliance on oil and gas make Russia’s future perilous in the long term, but for the moment, Mr. Putin and the country he rules are on the march. • The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Much to the dismay of the world’s climate warriors, 2021 was a banner year for fossil-fuel producers. This year looks even better. Twenty twenty-one saw Saudi Arabia post its first budget surplus since 2013. The Saudis currently project a 10% rise in oil revenue in 2022 as the pandemic eases and oil demand rises. But it isn’t only about the money. Energy shortages enabled the big oil producers to make great powers dance to their tunes. The Biden administration had hoped to take a tough line with the Gulf Arabs on issues ranging from climate change to human rights. Instead, President Biden found himself begging the sheikhs to restrain rising oil prices to limit American inflation. • Donald Trump. He started 2021 as one of the biggest losers in American political history: a one-term president, twice impeached, whose party lost control of the House in the midterms and lost the Senate two years later. His shambolic effort to overturn the election launched to universal mockery at Four Seasons Total Landscaping and culminated in the lasting disgrace of Jan. 6. During 2021, the momentum shifted. Mr. Trump has reasserted his power in Republican politics and is a credible contender for 2024. On China and on trade, the Biden administration has largely followed Mr. Trump’s lead. Even Mr. Trump’s controversial “Remain in Mexico” initiative has been revived by the courts. The trend of growing GOP support among working-class black and Hispanic voters attracted by Trumpian populism continues. With Covid still uncontrolled and inflation surging, Donald Trump plans to spend 2022 asking voters “Do you miss me yet?” Many seem ready to answer in the affirmative. • The cause of promoting democracy. China continued to grind Hong Kong’s once-vibrant freedom into the dust with no significant international response. The world’s democracies huffed and puffed but made no impression as Mr. Lukashenko stabilized his dictatorship in Belarus. Nothing the West could do or say softened the policies of the Myanmar junta, and as Afghanistan’s struggling democracy collapsed in the face of Taliban victories and American withdrawal, the once-promising democratic reforms in Ethiopia vanished in a bitter civil war. The Biden administration’s virtual Summit for Democracy had no discernible effect on world events as the tide of global democracy continued to ebb. • Xi Jinping. Ruling China absolutely without all those pesky laws and courts that tie Mr. Biden’s hands, Mr. Xi remains the most powerful man on earth. But even a strong man can have a tough year. The year saw Taiwan gain major support from around the world even as opinion in the European Union turned decisively against Mr. Xi’s China. Covid lockdowns tested the government’s popularity, the Peng Shuai case brought “Me Too” to China, world attention on the plight of the Uyghurs grew, and a spreading financial crisis raised alarms over the future of the country’s vital property development industry. None of these events muted the adulation of Mr. Xi by servile officials and a captive press, but one suspects he is too intelligent to believe the flattery. • Experts and technocrats. It should have been a year of vindication for the scientists and public-health administrators on the frontlines of the pandemic. That’s not what happened. Covid-19 was a new and complex disease, and experts required time to begin to understand it. But the public urgently needed health guidance every step of the way. Technocrats and politicians sought to offer information and advice that was authoritative and clear. Unfortunately, much of it proved to be wrong. To mask or not to mask? To close schools or keep them running? Are “breakthrough” cases common or rare? By year-end, as the seemingly endless pandemic ground relentlessly on, large numbers of the public had tuned out the health and medical establishments. During a year in which inflation blindsided the Federal Reserve chairman and the unexpectedly rapid Afghan collapse stunned the White House, confidence in the experts continued to wane.
Main Street: Critic warn that talk of military action will kill any hope of a diplomatic solution with Iran. But the opposite is closer to the truth. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly +++ Israel signs $3 billion arms deal with the U.S. By World Israel News staff Israel signed a $3.1 billion deal with the U.S. to buy 12 Lockheed Martin CH-53K helicopters and two Boeing KC-46 refueling planes, the Defense Ministry said on Friday. “The procurement plans include the purchase of a new fleet of F35 aircraft, refueling aircraft, CH-53K helicopters, advanced air munition, air defense systems, and new marine and land platforms as well as cyber systems,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The deal is a part of a larger operation by Israel’s air force to update its capabilities and includes an option to buy an addition six helicopters. “These procurement agreements are significant milestones in the IDF’s force buildup processes,” said Defense Minister Benny Gantz. “We continue to strengthen our capabilities and to change and adapt our air force to face future challenges both near and far.” The agreement was signed with the U.S. Navy by the head of the Defense Ministry mission to the U.S., Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Michel Ben Baruch. However, the refueling planes will not be delivered until 2025, Brig. Gen. Shimon Tsentsiper, chief of materiel for the air force, told Army Radio last week. He added that he was trying to bring forward the delivery of the KC-46s. 
Amid Iran nuke talks, Lapid says Israel has capabilities many ‘cannot even imagine’ In TV interview, foreign minister vows Jewish state ‘will protect itself against the Iranian threat’; promises anyone who misused NSO Group spyware ‘will be brought to justice’ By TOI STAFF 31 December 2021 Foreign Minister Yair Lapid talked up Israel’s military capabilities amid talks between world powers and Iran on restoring the 2015 accord curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. In an interview aired Friday to mark 10 years since he entered politics, Lapid was asked if Israel has the ability to strike uranium enrichment facilities and/or weapons sites in Iran. CONTINUE ++++++++++++++++ | 
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