Has the damage already been done here?

Doubling down: Pelosi tells House Dems they won't vote on a bipartisan infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill too

“What the Speaker has said, and I totally agree with her, is that we’re not going to vote on one until the Senate sends us both,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, told reporters after the meeting. “That’s not changed.”…

Pelosi … is standing her ground, supporting the liberals in her caucus who are wary that enacting the smaller infrastructure bill — which the Senate is shooting to pass before the August recess — would erode the momentum behind the larger partisan package, which Democrats intend to pass by reconciliation.

The liberals are demanding that the Senate pass the second measure before the House votes on either, and leadership appears to be well on board.

This went from a celebration about a bi-partisan bill to a whole bunch of infighting and people upset about whether or not there will be one or two big spending bills. The President quite obviously made a mistake by backing up the Pelosi Schumer line publicly. Now we have a giant pissing match with a bunch of people upset. 

Even if they pass both bill at some point, there will be bad-will and the idea that  there are people upset will override the idea of bi-partisan. This will only please the far left, who don't really care about or frankly want any bipartisanship.

I can do anything better than you!

Apparently men are better than women at being sexy beauty queen women?

It's one thing to win a contest between other transgender women, but this is the real thing. She will be competing in the Miss USA contest and if she were to win, competing in Miss Universe. Somehow the irony seems to be missed here. While everyone celebrates her victory as some sort of marker for transgender rights, it seems like a backhanded slap at the cis-gender women who lost to a biological male at a contest about... well being a woman. 

 

Won't this be a blow to all of those who hate the bad orange man

Trump lawyer: Manhattan DA won't charge former president 

According to Fischetti, members of Vance’s team said they were considering bringing charges against the Trump Organization and its individual employees related to alleged failures to pay taxes on corporate benefits and perks. It has been widely reported that those perks including cars and apartments and appear to only involve a small number of executives.

“We asked, ‘Is there anything else?’” Fischetti told POLITICO. “They said, ‘No.’”

The thing to keep in mind here is that Vance is retiring in a few months. The Grad Jury that was supposedly (according to the MSM) sat to hear charges against Trump was actually sat to hear out all of Vances end of career indictments. Certainly you don't sit a Grand Jury specifically to hear possible indictments on fringe tax issues. 

To be clear, this sort of specific tax fraud situation is never actually handled with criminal charges. Generally the IRS would determine if back taxes would be owed for this sort of thing (which is not uncommon in business) and what that tax, penalties, and interest would be. There would be no criminal charges brought. This is not unlike the "failure to register as a foreign agent deal" where the Mueller team charged Manafort and his team, while letting the partner firms register and pay the fees retroactively for the years that they had not registered. 

Obviously Vance is attempting to put the heat on members of the Trump Organization to give up the goods on him. But the interesting thing about it is that they successfully sued to get Trump's personal tax and business records, have had them for months, and apparently are still short of what they need to press any sort of criminal charge. 

Tick tock, tick tock... looks like the State of New York might be running out of time here?

Worst stock trade of all time?

Anyone else got a bad stock buying experience to share?

So last week I was combing through my "investment" twitter feed when I ran across a tweet from one of the people I follow to check out a company called TRCH. It had started the day just under $4.00 and was over $6.00 and climbing. The belief was that this stock would probably hit 15 or so in the next day or two and possibly go higher. 

I like to "dabble" with these sorts of things, so I bought 6 shares at a cost of around $50.00 - which was just over $8.00/share. The stock hit $12.50 before settling in around $10.00 at close. I hold a pretty tight rule against buying and selling in the same day, as the rules on day trading are pretty close to the vest. You get three in any five day period. You go over, and you get hit with a margin call to get your account up to $25,000 to satisfy the SEC day trading laws. I currently have between $2-3K in my account spread out over a dozen stocks and option contracts. I have no interest in having $25K tied up in my Ameritrade account.

But I digress. 

So long story short, the stock does a dive in after hours trading, opens up under the price I bought it for so I just sort of hung on to it. On Friday TRCH announced that they were merging with a company with the stock symbol MMAT and doing a 1-2 stock split. Meaning I would own 3 shares at approximately twice the current value of the stock price.

Here is the rub. This morning I got hit with a mandatory "reorganiztion fee" of $38.00 so that the TRCH could be reregistered to MMAT. Apparently everyone gets the same fee whether they own 6 shares or 60,000. The new stock "opened"  at around $10.00 share and is now trading at $7.92 per share.

So I paid $88 for three shares of a $7.92 stock. The stock will need to hit approximately $30 share for me to break even! 

I get that it's not a big loss and good thing I only like to dabble in these things... but in terms of a bad stock purchase, this might be my worst. 

Well this was obvious fallout from the Biden gaffe

From Politico:

Despite Biden’s statement, the enormous reconciliation bill that Democrats are drafting will hang over the process all summer and remain a handy excuse [sic (and sickening)] for any Republican who doesn’t want to back the bipartisan bill. Sen. JERRY MORAN (R-Kan.), an initial backer of the bipartisan bill, has already indicated that he wants a commitment from Sens. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) and KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) not to support the reconciliation bill. That is as much a moving of the goal posts as Biden’s veto threat.

So I am not sure that this is "moving the goalposts" unless you happen to believe that five Republican Senators sat down with five Democratic Senators to negotiate a spending bill, only to accept that everything that these five Democrats were giving up would be put into a separate reconciliation bill. Doesn't seem like much of a negotiation. 

At this point, I would offer that the "bi-partisan" portion of this bill is likely done. As of right now, it doesn't appear that even the original five are still on board, and you would need to find at least five other Republicans willing to back a negotiation that appears to have been dishonest and misleading from the start.  

So will Manchin or Sinema commit to opposing a reconciliation bill? Apparently not, but Manchin is suggesting that he will only support a bill with a pricetag that is at least a trillion or two less than what Pelosi/Schumer/Biden are pushing for. If the bipartisan infastructure bill falls apart and the reconcilation bill is cut down, the 4-6 trillion that Biden wanted might end up looking like 2 trillion, with bad blood and mistrust between the Parties.

As one former President once stated... That's a "heck of a job". 

Legal experts line up against the DOJ's move to sue Georgia

McCarthy, Turley, and others are suggesting that Garland's effort might even backfire

The lawsuit against Georgia is DOA. Even if they managed to draw a liberal judge willing to make a political statement, it will never stand up to appeals and ultimately would never get a favorable ruling from the USSC. Not sure that even your liberal Justices would find legal reason to overturn it.

"I'm highly skeptical and I think they may ultimately regret this move. It could indeed clarify this issue in a way the Biden administration does not want," Turley said. 

Make no mistake, you cannot sue because you do not like a law.You can only sue if you can prove that the law is unconstitutional. The problem with the Georgia law is that it is more voter friendly, allowing for more early voting, and allows for more access than probably a majority of the State laws out there. 

As our Caroline Downey reports, the Justice Department will today announce that it is suing Georgia over the latter’s election-integrity law. This is ridiculous. The law provides for voting far more extensive than the Constitution’s minimal standards, and well beyond what, about five minutes ago, were state-law norms. The lawsuit is yet another sign, as if we needed one, that the Biden Justice Department is the Obama DOJ 2.0, an activist tool that puts the awesome law-enforcement power of the federal government in the service of woke progressivism. (link)

The biggest issue with this lawsuit is that the political rhetoric doesn't match with the facts of the law. Moreover, the Garland lawsuit is demanding that the Georgia lawmakers "intended" to discriminate when they created the law. Suffice it to say that this is not an ideal way to create the lawsuit, but another pending court decision on election laws gives the DOJ little choice. They will not just have to prove that some sort of disciminory result might take place (that the law effects minorities more than whites) - but will have to show that this was the actual intent. 

Unless they find Georgia Republicans willing to admit to discrimination, this is a large legal hurdle. 

But the law itself is no different that dozens of other state laws. Voter ID is required in all but 15 states, Georgia expanded their early voting hours, and access to mail in ballots was also increased. The major complaints about the Georgia law (reduction in amount of time to request absentee ballots, no food or water within 150 feet, limitations on provisional voting for wrong precincts, and making the counties report and count their ballots in a more timely manner)  are not really unique to this new Georgia law. In many ways the Georgia law is less restrictive and provides more access to voting than many other states.  

Hard to win a lawsuit when your facts are simply not there. 

The new argument from CRT backers is to confuse the meaning?

Pretty much all arguments surrounding CRT now include the CRT advocate arguing that whatever it is that the CRT opposition states is a problem, is not really CRT. Advocates seemed to have given up trying to make the arguments that they had been making, and instead are just suggesting that they never actually made those arguments in the first place.

• Opposition suggest that we shouln't single children out by race. The advocate demands that CRT does not include that..
• Opposition suggests that we shouldn't teach White kids that they are racist by nature. The advocate demands that CRT does not include that..
• Opposition suggests that we shouldn't teach structural racism. The advocate demands that CRT does not include that..
• Opposition suggests that we shouldn't be teaching that American society is built on racism. The advocate demands that CRT does not include that..

Yet, if you attempt to pass a law that bans teachers from singling anyone out regarding their race, or bans the teaching that White people are races, or bans the teaching of structural racism, or bans the teaching that our society is built on racism, ironically the same CRT advocates have a heart attack. Seems like they want to win this argument on sleight of hand. Obviously that is no way to win an argument.

In spite of the CRT being jammed down the throats of Americans all over the place (social media, work place, school, media, Politicians) the fact is that Americans still don't like it. Accordign to a Harvard - Harris Poll (not exactly a right wing pollster) Americans are against teaching the basic concept of systemic racism and that we are a white supremacist nation by 22%.  I would venture that every last one of those 61% who oppose it, has had to deal with it from someone or from some situation within the past six months. 

Much like the big election lie, the bully pulpit of Social Media, academia, big business, media and the Democratic Party has failed to convince the general public of one of their biggest pushes in recent history. They simply are unable to "indoctrate" more than the 35-40 percent of the population who are prone to pretty much any incoctrination. These are the "sheep" who will obey the influencers and to follow whatever it is they are told to follow. These are the lock step brown shirts who would have fit right in with Nazi Germany. 

Sunday Funnies

 

There are lies, four pinnochio lies, and whoppers

But we need an entirely new category for this! 

Here’s Jen Psaki suggesting REPUBLICANS were trying to defund police pic.twitter.com/m8pus7BS9O

— Kylee Zempel (@kyleezempel) June 23, 2021

CNN and MSNBC falling apart without Anti-Trump programming?

MSNBC’s Joy Reid Sees Ratings Tank Post-Trump

“The ReidOut” averaged 1.2 million total viewers for its smallest audience since the far-left program began in July 2020, when the controversial host was chosen to fill the vacancy left by Chris Matthews’ sudden retirement.

Reid’s struggling program also had its worst turnout among the crucial news demo of adults age 25-54, averaging only 149,000 viewers in the category that helps keep the lights on. “The ReidOut” finished the week as the No. 29 program in cable news among demo viewers, finishing behind 15 different Fox News offerings, five different MSNBC shows, and even eight programs from rival liberal network CNN.

“Fox News Primetime,” which is Reid’s direct time-slot competition, averaged 1.5 million viewers and 238,000 among the key demo to top the MSNBC show by 60%.

And let's be clear. Fox News Primetime is one of the least popular Fox shows. Tucker Carlson routinely sees around 3.5 million viewers with 600K or so coming from the 25-54 demographic. That makes his show somewhere between 3-4 times more popular depending on your demographic. 

 I am guessing that ratings would still be a bit stronger here if the bad orange man was still President. While the left attempts to keep the bad orange man in the news, the facts are that nobody (other than the radical few) really care anymore. If you are still obsessed with Trump and think you are normal, then looking at these numbers should make you think twice. 

All that being said, not sure how this sort of hate news works long term. Reid is one of many who simply has nothing good to say ever. Hard to watch a news show when everything is literally slanted to the dark. Angry conspiracy theorists don't last very long when they harp on the same theory over and over and over. 

Wouldn't that be a huge letdown?

Trump Organization lawyer says New York prosecutors could soon bring criminal charges against the company

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has informed Donald Trump’s lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business, the Trump Organization, in connection with fringe benefits the company awarded a top executive, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., could announce charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, as soon as next week, the people said.

Prosecutors are looking into whether those benefits were properly recorded in the company’s ledgers and whether taxes were paid on them, The New York Times has reported.

It would be highly unusual to indict a company just for failing to pay taxes on fringe benefits, said several lawyers who specialize in tax rules. None of them could cite any recent example, noting that many companies provide their employees with perks like company cars.

So was this the charges that Vance was really looking for when he started this fishing exhibition against the Trump organization?  Obviously not. But it would also appear fairly obvious that the charges against Weisselberg is supposed to put pressure on him to "give up the goods" on the other unknown nefarious actions that have supposedly been committed by Trump.

This is not unlike what we saw from the Mueller investigation. Go after people "around" Trump, hoping that someone would step forward with the big reveal in order to avoid personal prosecution. But as Mueller found out, nobody gave up anything, most likely because there wasn't anything really to give up.

More to the point, Mueller also charged a bunch of people with breaking laws that almost nobody had ever been charged with previously.  You'd think if Trump was such a criminal that finding evidence of such would be a much simpler task and not involve having to push the scope and charge people with charges that normally have not been charged.

Unfortunately, in their quest to get the Donald, many people around him have been unfairly prosecuted with charges that others never face. 

As I have stated repeatedly. An investigation into the Trump organization would unlikely find itself back to Trump himself, as he has been largely a figurehead and had literally nothing to do with the business during his four years as President. These charges will go against those who run the company, and to that degree, Vance and his team will be in a real fight when the time comes to go to trial. 

Biden the moron blows up his own "bi-partsan bill"

Did Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer Already Blow Up the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal?

On Thursday, the group of five Senate Republicans and five Senate Democrats joined President Biden at the White House to announce that they had reached a deal to spend $579 billion on infrastructure over the next five years. But around the same time as the deal was announced, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made clear that a bipartisan Senate bill would not even receive a vote in the House until all 50 Senate Democrats and Harris had first passed a big reconciliation bill. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer backed Pelosi’s plan, and Biden soon followed suit: At a second press conference on Thursday afternoon, the president said that if the bipartisan deal “is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it.”

The Biden-Pelosi-Schumer strategy has already received some blowback from members of Congress. Two negotiators of the Senate deal, Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, rejected the idea of conditioning a bipartisan deal on the passage of a Democrats-only reconciliation bill.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the ten Senate Republicans who expressed support for the bipartisan deal, flatly said that he’d vote against it if it followed the passage of a partisan reconciliation bill. “If reports are accurate that President Biden is refusing to sign a bipartisan deal unless reconciliation is also passed, that would be the ultimate deal breaker for me,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “I don’t mind working with the other side for the common good, but I’m not going to be extorted by liberal Democrats or anyone else.”

A few hours later, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell went on Fox News to say that Democratic leadership’s insistence on passing a big, partisan reconciliation bill first had made him “pessimistic” that the bipartisan deal would make it through the upper chamber.

There is no such thing as bi-partsianship here folks. Biden and the Democrats are not programmed to work with anyone from the other side. They agree to some bi-partsisan spending, under the guise that they will get the rest in a partisan reconciliation action. 

Now it appears that even the Republicans who negotiated it (and even at least one Democrat) are no longer on board with the bipartisan bill. This can be blamed entirely on the stupidity of Biden and the partisanship of Pelosi and Schumer. 

Interestingly, after Joe the moron plugged his "bi-partisan" bill, he then caved into the demands of Pelosi / Schumer who apparently have Biden hooked by the mouth and have no intentions of letting him swin around on his own.  

All they need to do is admit Trump was right and they were wrong

The White House Know Its Police And Border Policies Are About To Crash, But Can They Stop It?

Something strange is afoot in the party of Jefferson. With the Democrats still spinning after the collapse of their election bill — and progressives furious with the White House’s seeming lack of commitment to that effort — the president has already pivoted, announcing a plan to tackle the violent crime wave besetting American cities.

Trump was right, Biden and Democrats are wrong!

And the vice president? She’s on her way to the border, 91 days, two countries, and countless laughs after it was first assigned by the boss.

Some might notice that cracking down on rampant crime and tackling a crisis at the border were not topics of discussion when now-President Joe Biden and now-Vice President Kamala (briefly) shared a debate stage two years ago. In fact, it was quite the opposite, littered with jabs and brags about who was more anti-cop or more open-border. So what gives?

Well what gives is that Democrats and their lackies have been trying unsuccessfully to pin the increase in violence on Trump, Republicans, White supremacists, and law enforecement in general. They continue to pretend that the rash of violence and rioting in many of our cities is not really much of a deal. Rather, the only thing that should concern anyone is the Jan 6th Capital riot. This is why they are working so hard to keep the Capital riot in the news. Not because it was especially violent compared to other riots, but because it's the sole example they have of something not caused by liberals. 

The problem with this logic is for all of the rhetoric and nonsense about White supremacy, there really hasn't been any real NEW tangible violence, rioting, or other outbreaks of crime that can be tied to White supremacy. It's one thing to "declare" it from the bully pulpit. It's another thing to convince people that it is real, when the stubborn facts are suggesting something 180 degrees different. 

 Antifa is still rioting. Border crime is through the roof. Inner cities are blowing up. But there just doesn't seem to be that rash of White supremacy violence that has been promised by the Biden Administration and Biden DOJ. Nope, all the violence seems to stem from where it always has stemmed from. The blame can be squarely placed on the defund the police movement and the lax manner in which our Justice departments across the country are handling the criminal actions. 

Democrats have tried to play the game of misdirection. Pretending that if they simply don't arrest or punish anyone for Antifa/BLM violence or if they simply allow looting and property crimes to happen without consequences that the American public will not see it as an issue. As long as they spend all of their time rounding up tourists from the Jan 6th rally, they will convince everyone that that was the only criminal event since Biden has taken office. 

So now Biden and gang are planning on addressing violence. The problem is that they really cannot help themselves. I have no doubt that their plan will still include finger pointing at Trump and the Republicans and pretending that the issue is not the issues with defund the police or the lax manner in which our justice departments treat criminals. They will do more to deflect blame than to solve the problem. Because solving the problem will be to admit that Trump was right and they were wrong.

The results of this likely battleground state poll is striking...

TROUBLE FOR DEMS IN BATTLEGROUND STATES

You can go to this link and look at the results for yourself. There are a bunch of interesting questions, but the consistent factor to consider is that Indepenents are siding with Republicans on pretty much every single issue. They blame Biden for inflation, say that America cannot afford his spending. Indepenends believe we are on the wrong track, they back Israel over Palestine, and they believe that Democrats have been too weak in regards to the Wuhan lab leak theory and too quick to say such a theory is racist. But the one that really stuck out to me was on Critical Race Theory.

Finally, we come to Critical Race Theory, the racist ideology to which the Democratic Party is now irrevocably committed. Respondents were asked whether they agree with the idea that “White Americans are inherently racist whether they know it or not because they benefit from the American culture of systematic racism and white privilege.” The extraordinary thing, in my opinion, is that Democrats actually buy that bulls**t by 55% to 39%. These people, I take it, are masochists suffering from psychological problems not suitable for discussion on a family web site.

Happily, this is one more issue where Independents align firmly with Republicans. By 65% to 30%, they reject the “white privilege” hypothesis. On this issue, Independents may be even stronger than Republicans, who reject “white privilege” and “unconscious racism” by 63% to 33%.

Here is another one: respondents were asked whether they agree that “The United States was founded on the practice of slavery and white supremacy which continues to this day.” You might think that no one could be so ignorant as to agree with that claim, but “strong Democrats,” by an astonishing 67% to 28%, subscribe to what can only be termed vicious anti-Americanism. But here again, they are in a boat by themselves: Republicans reject this revisionist twisting of our history by 68% to 27%, and Independents do so by an even wider margin, 76% to 20%. The Democrats are determined to sink or swim with Critical Race Theory, and it looks to me like they are going to sink.

The truth is that Independents might have been turned off by Trump, but they seemed more turned off by Democratic Policies. Now that Trump is not on the ballot, one has to look for Independent to fall back where they historically and consistently remain... moderate conservatives. This has been, after all, a slightly right leaning country and that has not changed. 

For Democrats, they cannot help themselves. They believe that they won some sort of culture war with the election of Joe Biden. But if we are all being honest, the 2020 election was 90% about Trump and maybe 10% about Biden. Voters voted against Trump, rather than for Biden. Most certainly they did not vote for six trillion dollars in spending,  border issues, a rise in crime, and the Critical Race Theory. 

If you want to know which side of the partisan equation is going off on their own, just track how the Independents are falling. Democrats are trying to "reshape" the country and everyone other than Democrats reject it. 

How true...

 

Hypocrisy is the bedrock of liberalism Part XCVII

Senate Democrats’ Filibuster Hypocrisy

In April of 2017, 61 senators signed a letter urging the Senate leadership to preserve the 60-vote rule for legislation. “We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions as they pertain to the right of Members to engage in extended debate on legislation before the United States Senate,” the 61 senators wrote to then-Majority Leader McConnell and then-Minority Leader Schumer.

Thirty-one of the 61 signatories were Democrats, but most of those Democrats now support getting rid of the filibuster. In the Senate this week, National Review asked several filibuster flip-floppers why they changed their positions. None of the explanations made much sense.

Democratic senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a signatory of the pro-filibuster letter, said Donald Trump changed his view. “I would say Donald Trump and a complete takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing ideology that is making it impossible for us to work on the biggest issues that are confronting our country,” Markey told National Review. Markey, of course, signed a letter in support of the filibuster three months into Donald Trump’s term as president.

Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said the “relentless, unending, determined, unbreakable Republican obstruction” changed his view on the filibuster. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said: “We never saw the kind of obstruction we’ve seen.”

But the Senate made it all the way until the May 28 vote on the January 6 commission without a filibuster, and that remains the only bill that had the support of a majority of senators that was killed by the filibuster. S. 1 failed on a 50–50 tie, and the motion to advance the Paycheck Fairness Act only got 49 Democratic votes due to the absence of one Democratic senator.

So let's start wtih the fact that Democrats used the filibuster 314 times while Donald Trump was President. But according to Democratic Senators the fact that it has been used three times (and only once where a majority of Senators supported a bill) is out of control?  

Based on this trend, if Democrats were to retain the Senate, the Republicans would use the filibuser less than 30 times or about 10% of how much Democrats used it. But that really isn't the point, is it? Democrats realize that it is unlikely that they will hold both the House and the Senate for four years, and that their trivecta will probably come to a close in 2022. 

So this is likely their one and only chance to push partisan legistlation that otherwise has no chance to pass. But without the ability to get to 60 votes, they will get nothing done. Or at least they will get none of the partisan one-sided divisive legislation that they really want to pass to the President for a signature.

Which, of course, has always been the point of the filibuster and why most Americans support the existance of it. They would rather see legislation that has bi-partisan support and see Republicans and Democrats working together, than to see a bunch of partisan divisive 50+VP legislation getting signed into law. 

Wow - just wow!

Georgia Conducting Secret 2020 Ballot Review -- Keeping Plaintiffs in the Dark

State officials also neglected to inform the judge hearing the lawsuit that they were conducting such an inspection, even though the judge had issued a protective order over the ballots in January. In a nine-page amicus brief recently filed in the case, attorneys for the office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urged Superior Court Judge Brian Amero to deny petitioners’ requests to inspect the ballots, calling them a “fishing expedition.”

Frances Watson, chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, confirmed in a statement to RCI that she sent investigators to Fulton County earlier this year to inspect the batches of sealed ballots. Poll monitors involved in last November’s hand recount had described the mail-in ballots in sworn affidavits as devoid of creases and folds and featuring identically bubbled-in marks for Biden. But the state said it could not find any ballots matching that description.

The watchdogs question why state officials did not disclose their activities to the court and fear they may have “tampered” with the sealed ballots, which are at the center of their lawsuit seeking access to all 147,000 absentee ballots cast during the 2020 election in Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta.

“If the secretary of state’s office did that, they tampered with the ballots and violated Georgia state law,” which restricts the handling of ballots to authorized elections officials involved in the tabulation and care of the ballots, Favorito said. He also noted that Judge Amero had placed the ballots under a protective order in January. “They would have had to ask for a court order to unseal and inspect those ballots and they never did that.”

So basically the local Georgia officials continues to fight an independent third party audit of their ballots, filing lawsuits in court to prevent just that. At the same time, they ignore a Judge's order to leave all ballots untouched (and secured) and decide to unseal ballots to do their own non-independent audit that neither the Judge or the Plaintiffs were aware of. 

Nothing suspicious or illegal about that? If anyone could come up with a legitimate reason to do this, I would love to hear it.

Schumer- The media is biased "for" Trump?

Schumer out of control!

“How despicable a man is Donald Trump?! He lost an election legitimately. He can’t face that, that it was his failure. And he creates a lie, a big lie, and wins so many people over to that lie with the help of news media; and other news commentators that are lying, as well, and they know it.”

Yeah, sure. The media is certainly on the side of Donald Trump here. Obviously there is nobody in the media willing to repeat the Schumer Democrat rhetoric that election fraud is the "big lie". Well nobody except for CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, and every other liberal outlet there is. 

I  want to try to understand why these people are so upset that everyone just doesn't suck it up and accept their explanation that 2020 was the "most secure election ever". Obviously it was not the "most secure election ever". Nearly ever state with a Democratic Governor loosened their security measures, we had more people arrested for fraud or fraud attempts than in any recent election, mostly involving mail in ballots. We have numerous examples of chain of custody issues. Statistical anomalies abound unexplained. 

Moreover, the counties under scrutiny are fighting like cornered badgers to keep anyone from actually auditing or looking at their ballots. Doesn't seem very secure to me. 

Now does that mean that Donald Trump won the election and was "robbed" by cheaters? Not necessarily. But without actually investigating anything it's sort of impossible to either claim it was legitimate or it was not. 

So perhaps Chuck should put together a real Senate investigation of the 2020 election. Take every allegation and go through them with a fine tooth comb, allowing for bi-partisan independent review by people who are not the same ones who secured and counted the ballots in the first place. After all, it is not an audit to audit yourself. Then, if everything proves to be on the up and up, they can put it to rest. 

Remember this one?

Review of U.S. Park Police Actions at Lafayette Park

The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP [U.S. Park Police] cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid- to late afternoon on June 1—hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.

So another far left Trump-hating conspiracy lie bites the dust. Protesters were never cleared out to make way for the President (as was argued ad nauseum by the left), but rather protesters were legally cleared out for entirely different reasons. 

Keep in mind that this was all Federal property and if protesters refused to heed the authorities call to leave, then they would be guilty of trespassing on Federal land. Of course, we now know that trespassing on Federal land is a crime that will cause the FBI to hunt you down, bring you back to a D.C. jail cell, and hold you without bail. They might even hold you in isolation. 

It's not just Manchin that would have to be convinced...

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: Abolishing filibuster would weaken "democracy's guardrails"

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) defended her opposition to abolishing the 60-vote legislative filibuster in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday night, saying to do so would weaken "democracy's guardrails."

Why it matters: There have been growing calls from Democrats, particularly progressives, to overhaul the rules as the Senate prepares to vote Tuesday on a massive voting rights package. But Sinema writes in her op-ed that if this were to happen "we will lose much more than we gain."

With Joe Manchin getting most of the attention for his stance against the filibuster, Kyrsten Sinema is looking to remind people that she too holds the same stance. According to many, there are at least a handful of other Democrats who more quietly oppose any moves to eliminate the filibuster, but simply do not want to put themselves out there in this sort of political environment. 

Schumer and gang can act tough on this one, but they really do not have the votes. I am quite certain that deep down, Schumer understands this. But playing the media along (who almost seem to want the filibuster gone more than politicians do) seems to be a strategy. Not sure if it is a good strategy or a bad strategy, but Schumer is sort of playing the obstructionist card, possibly hoping to expand a majority under the guise that they need to eliminate the filibuster. 

However, putting the filibuster front and center for the 2022 elections might help draw out their rank and file, it turns off moderates and also ignites the GOP base as well. In fact, I would offer that the enthusiasm from the left (eliminating the filibuster) would be less than the enthusiasm from the right (keeping the filibuster) and also turn off moderates to the Democratic message. 

 

Is there no end to what Democrats get away with?

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE BELONGS TO ALL-WHITE BEACH CLUB HE PROMISED TO QUIT YEARS AGO

Whitehouse calls himself progressive and an opponent of “systemic racism.” Yet, the New York Post reports that the Rhode Island Senator has belonged for decades to an all-White beach club. I call that regressive.

Even his name sounds racist!

Whitehouse has confirmed the truth of this report. What’s his defense? He says “I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet.”

Asked whether all-White clubs should exist in this day and age, Whitehouse responded, “It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island.”

It’s worth adding that Whitehouse’s wife Sandra is one of the three largest shareholders in the all-White club. Thus, the Whitehouses aren’t just club members, they are major stakeholders.

So imagine if a Republican Senator was not only a member, but held stock in an all White country club. Imaging if this Republican used the excuse that his state has a long tradition of all White clubs. Would that Senator not have been run out of town?

Of course Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democrat and therefor immune to this sort of criticism. Sort of how Racist Joe Biden can get away with making anti-bussing statements under the idea that he did not want his sons growing up in a "racial jungle".  You put the "D" behind your name, and suddenly you can do no bad. 

The same holds true in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland...

Most Riot, Looting Cases From Last Year Dropped by NYC DAs

NYPD data reviewed by the NBC New York I-Team shows 118 arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting in early June. Since then, the NYPD says the Bronx DA and the courts have dismissed most of those cases – 73 in all. Eighteen cases remain open and there have been 19 convictions for mostly lesser counts like trespassing, counts which carry no jail time.

In Manhattan, the NYPD data shows there were 485 arrests. Of those cases, 222 were later dropped and 73 seeing convictions for lesser counts like trespassing, which carries no jail time. Another 40 cases involved juveniles and were sent to family court; 128 cases remain open.

During the Capital riot there was a big stink provided because one of the police officers suffered an eye injury that might cost him his sight in one eye. In Portland alone, over a 100 police officers have suffered eye damage that includes temporary or even permanent blindness or other sight related issues.  In the capital riots there was a police officer who had cracked ribs and injuries to a spinal disk. Over 100 different officers have suffered broken bones while combatting Antifa and BLM riots.  During the Capital riots there were a couple of officers who suffered concussions. Dozens of police officers have suffered concussions related to Antifa and BLM riots. 

Meanwhile, the Government continues to fly around the nation, picking up Capital Rioters and sometimes holding them without bail for crimes that are not even violent. But New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, and other cities are refusing to press charges against even those rioters known to have attacked police officers and caused injuries.

The New York City officials claim that they haven't the time or resources to work through all of these cases. But of course, they have the time and resources to have put together an entire task force to see if they can dig through Donald Trump's business dealings in search of a crime that they have not yet found.    

New hearing in Fulton County to dismiss the case?

A judge had ordered 147,000 absentee ballots to be unsealed and audited - Now there is a new hearing to overturn that order and dismiss the case.

State and federal authorities have repeatedly said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.

Now a couple of points here. There doesn't seem to be much of an argument here brought forth by the state other than you cannot audit the ballots because there is no evidence that there are problems. That seems to be putting the cart before the horse. Obviously you cannot determine much of anything if you refuse to audit something.

Many observers believe that this is little more than a stall tactic.

Secondly this disproves the insistence from the left that everything everywhere has been audited, recounted, and gone over with a fine tooth comb. These ballot boxes remain under seal. Since they have never been opened, the argument that they have already been audited is silly. There have been cursory audits done, just as are done in any election. Checking this number to that. But everything was internal and done by the same people who counted in the first place.

Most of the counties where there was alleged issues have done either very little or nothing above and beyond what they generally would do anyways. A few counties here and there reran everything through the scanners again, and a couple of counties did hand count. Again, nearly all done by the same people who counted them in the first place. Many others have just been left to fester.

Those counties (such has Maricopa) where there has been attempts to do more involved independent counts and audits have been fought tooth and nail every inch of the way. For the most "secure election in history" there appears to be little stomach for anyone (other than those who counted originally) to take a second look. 

Who knows what (if anything) an audit of those Fulton County absentee ballots would find? Perhaps they would actually confirm that observers were correct and that there some suspicious unfolded ballots of different stock that were actually counted? Or perhaps they will confirm that every ballot was on the up and up. 

But it makes very little sense in not taking the time to open them up and take a look. 

Oh by the way.... Happy Father's Day!

As of this weekend, I am an empty nester. My youngest graduated from High School, got a full time painting job, found an apartment, and moved out since the beginning of the month. My head is still spinning a little.  

 

Don't do your job, you don't get paid!

Gov. Abbott Vetoes Funding For State Legislature, Including Lawmakers' Pay

Abbott said in a statement that “Texans don’t run from a legislative fight, and they don’t walk away from unfinished business.”Funding should not be provided for those who quit their job early, leaving their state with unfinished business and exposing taxpayers to higher costs for an additional legislative session. I therefore object to and disapprove of these appropriations,” the governor said.

Democrats are calling the move an “abuse of power. Texas has a governor, not a dictator,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Chris Turner said in a statement. “The tyrannical veto of the legislative branch is the latest indication that [Abbott] is simply out of control.

The Democrats’ hysteria about the voter integrity bill isn’t likely to cost them anything. Once back in session, Republicans will make sure Democrats are present to vote by attaching the bill to another measure they can’t afford to walk out on. Preventing passage of the bill was legislative theater, not serious lawmaking. That seems to be the Democrats’ favorite tactic these day.

Some people in the legislation are complaining about the fact that congressional aides might end up not being paid, in spite of not having anything to do with the decision to walk out. At the end of the day it's about responsibility. You cannot just ask that people forgive your behavior, because the consequences are hard on other people. How many families with small children are devastated when a mother or father ends up in prison. It's not the judge that is responsible for those children, it is the convicted criminal. 

This bill will pass and it will pass any judicial review. If someone loses a paycheck or two over a tantrum about this, then its on those throwing that tantrum. 

Sunday Funnies