Justin Baragona
@justinbaragona
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, somewhat confusingly, says they are aware of 223 people who have died with covid after being vaccinated.

"Not all of those 223 cases who had covid actually died of covid. They may have had mild disease but died, for example, of a heart attack." //

All I can do is shake my head at this. What Walensky is doing is trying to draw a distinction between those who died directly because they got COVID and those who may have tested positive, but ultimately died of another comorbidity or condition. Now, to most people, that would seem like common sense. After all, why would you count someone with terminal cancer or an already failing heart as a COVID death — just because they had the virus when they died?

But what’s so astonishing about this is that what Walensky is saying has previously been declared to be completely off-limits for over a year by the powers that be. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that has often gotten right-leaning sites in trouble with the social media censors. Yet, here is the Biden administration saying what was previously labeled as taboo, just because it fits their narrative. Meanwhile, the media don’t question it, and the social media overlords just shrug.

Obviously, what Walensky is saying is true, though. What we know about COVID — and who is hit the hardest — says that co-morbidities, including heart problems, lung problems, and morbid obesity, are the top factor. If someone is otherwise terminally sick, even a mild case of COVID could expedite matters.

hoot.smawley
4 hours ago edited
Name one Freedom Caucus leader who has actually built a coalition of GOP votes capable of winning that position. Just one. I’ll wait.

I actually support the goals of the Freedom Caucus and share concerns about Stefanik (and loathed Cheney), but here’s a harsh truth…not one of the members of that caucus has built any kind of base of support that could elevate them to leadership. Not one. They preen for the cameras, they complain to the friendly press, and they do little to nothing to actually lead when it comes to doing the work in Congress, so nobody votes to make them leaders. They’re grandstanders who alienate people, and so the only people with sufficient support to get promoted to leadership are the squishes.

We spend a lot of time trashing Dems, RINOs, and weak-kneed conservatives (deservedly so)…but we also need to ask why the people saying things we want to hear to friendly journalists (cough Gaetz) can’t seem to impress their colleagues enough to get a leadership position. Because that’s actually on the person pursuing the leadership job when they fail to perform. We can’t clear the entire path for them…they actually have to do more than produce a bunch of pithy soundbites in order to get promoted. And until they d0 that, Stefanik is an improvement over Cheney, so she’ll do for now. //

hoot.smawley writeofcenter
2 hours ago edited
There was an observation from Elizabeth Warren (when she first got into office) that at some point politicians have to make a choice between being insiders or outsiders. If you’re an insider, you get to lead and make changes and have authority, but the one rule is that you can never criticize other insiders. If you’re an outsider, you can say and do anything you want, but nobody with the ability to change anything will care what you think and you probably won’t accomplish much. And if you’re not sure which you are, you’re an outsider.

I happen to think there’s a middle ground between those positions…you can have sway and criticize insiders, but only if you’ve actually accomplished something impressive first and demonstrated your value. Usually that means you kept your mouth shut, focused on building smart legislation, did a solid job in your committees, and built up a raft of allies. Then you can start taking the big guys down a few pegs…you put in the work, you earn the respect from enough people that you matter. That way, you shift what qualifies as “inside” and you build your army before going to war.

Problem is that too many of these guys in the Freedom Caucus (especially Gaetz) just came to D.C. to play the R vs. D game and get their faces on camera so they can maybe land a gig on Fox like Chaffetz or Gowdy (two guys who ran their mouths a lot while accomplishing very little that mattered) did. You’re not going to build a winning movement by building around the mouthy malcontents who mainly produce hot air,

I suspect that middle way is going to look an awful lot like Ron DeSantis…who takes a lot of shots at the press and prominent Dems, but doesn’t take shots at his own party even when he disagrees. He stays in his lane and doesn’t alienate potential allies while dismembering adversaries.

Historical parallels are always there for the thoughtful. Consider a key turning point for each of two former US presidents.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia on 4 May 1864 – 157 years ago this very week – to commence the Overland Campaign in order to engage and destroy Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a series of bloody battles that ended on 12 June when the siege of Petersburg began.

With the stakes equally high for the country, Donald Trump crossed his own Rapidan to commence his version of the Overland Campaign when he started down that escalator on 15 June 2015 and declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. This past Monday, that campaign continued with the latest battle as he labeled the 2020 election “The Big Lie.”

Some would say this is over-the-top hyperbole. I think not. Let us examine the parallels.

Grant developed a reputation for dogged determination and tenacity – honed in capturing heavily fortified Vicksburg, MS, in July 1863 and later at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee in November 1863 – but also for ingenuity in the use of maneuver warfare and op tempo, the delegation of authority to subordinates, battlefield improvisation, and a genius-level understanding of the strategic and operational levels of 19th-century warfare.

The Overland Campaign was his first major operation after having been appointed commander of all Union armies by President Lincoln in March 1964. The strategy he developed involved continually holding and engaging Lee’s sizeable but inferior army while Gen. William T. Sherman cut through Georgia (which eventually became the “March to the Sea”), and two other Union generals concentrated on the key Confederate port at Mobile, AL, and major railway supply lines in West Virginian. The strategic objective was to attrite Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia while destroying the Confederate army’s logistics resupply capability and ability to wage war.

Kyle DeMarino
@KyleDeMarino
It’s inappropriate to copy and paste verbatim ‘guidance’ from a political organization; rather than CDC using science and their own methods to form guidance. It’s clear the AFT was leveraging their power to keep kids out of school, regardless of science.

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC.

I urge my GOP colleagues to do the same.

For too long, Republicans have allowed the left & their big-business allies to attack our values & ship jobs overseas with no response.

No more. //

Yes! Corporate America has put Americans last. They ship our jobs to China, mock middle America’s way of life, try to control our speech and run our lives. It’s time we stood up to them. I won’t take corporate PAC donations & I’ll fight to break up their monopoly power https://t.co/BXZ5DWzrzl

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 29, 2021

You can’t win, but that’s all part of the plan.

Reason, rules, processes – these are the foundations of a free society, which is why the cultural left is so dead set against them. A citizen needs to be able to rely on clear rules and fixed processes to vindicate his rights in order to have any rights. But the rights of free citizens – your rights – are an obstacle to the Lil’ Stalins who yearn to rule over us. If the liberal establishment can create a society where you can’t appeal to facts, evidence, or law, then – until the peasants' revolt – its poobahs can wield undisputed, undiluted authority. That’s their dream, a country where you live in terror of them because you can never be sure that what you are doing or failing to do is suddenly going to be criminalized. //

If you can’t rely on the law or the evidence, then you are at the mercy of the whims of the liberal elite. Sure, the cop did the right thing, and the evidence is indisputable that he did the right thing, but it doesn’t matter at all. The cop is wrong and subject to all sorts of sanctions not because he violated any rule but purely because it is useful for him to be guilty of something.

The Rule of Law has become the Rule of Power, which the bad guys possess for the moment. And they are so arrogant about it that they do not even bother to make a straight-faced argument against cops saving black children’s lives. Hey, it’s just a routine kid knife fight – no biggie. We all remember back in the day, hacking up other suburban teens with machetes and scimitars, and how the cops never bothered us. Not allowing black teens to be gutted is worse than Jim Crow – it’s Jim Eagle. Heck, it’s Jim Rodan.

And we all know if that punk planted a shiv in the other girl’s gut on the bodycam tape, the cop would be lynched for not stopping her. You can’t win, which is the idea.

You can’t have a society where normal people can’t possibly prevail by obeying well-established rules. You’re not wrong because you did something wrong but because you're being wrong is handy for the people who hate you. //

This is how our oppressors like it. But this is not how we like it. Normal people can only take getting bopped on the noggin by the southpaw monkey in the Nairobi Trio for so long before they hit back. You cannot have an enduring status quo where one side is firmly bound to rules and obligations while the other gets to make it up as they go along. Eventually, you will inevitably reach a breaking point. And that’s coming. Then the bad guys are going to miss the rules that they still expect to protect them.

The recall qualification process is so rigorous that, as the Orange County Register reports, “Since California voters approved the recall process in 1911, there have been 179 recall attempts. Only 10 got enough signatures to make the ballot, and just six succeeded.” Just 3.3 percent of recall attempts have succeeded, yet Newman feels it necessary to chill that exercise of free speech?

Newman believes that votes should be secret but that signing a petition is political advocacy that should be reportable, and that voters have nothing to fear. //

skeptic62
2 hours ago
Let me get this straight. The Dems would prohibit any investigation into voter fraud but want a list of those who would vote against them. Is that really what they are asking for? How very Marxist of them.

There are 10 new ideas that are changing America, maybe permanently.”

Americans privately fear these rules, while publicly appearing to accept them. They still could be transitory and invite a reaction. Or they are already near-permanent and institutionalized.

“The answer determines whether a constitutional republic continues as once envisioned, or warps into something never imagined by those who created it.”

So let’s listen to Joe Biden in 2005 talk about how doing the very thing he appears to be trying to do now is a corrupt “power grab.” “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” and FDR wanting to do that was “corrupted by power,” Biden said.

Eddie Zipperer
@EddieZipperer
Reminder: Biden refers to court packing a "power grab" in 2005: //

Here he is in 1987 talking about how it is the “futility and absurdity of the devious” meant to punish the justices for having their own opinions (i.e. acting not according to FDR’s political whim). He says such autocratic things were what led to the revolt against the English.

Jerry Dunleavy
@JerryDunleavy
Biden in 1987 approvingly quoting Senate’s 1937 condemnation of FDR's court packing scheme: “It's a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America.” //

Jerry Dunleavy
@JerryDunleavy
RBG: “Bad idea when [FDR] tried to pack the court… If anything would make the court appear partisan it'd be...one side saying, ‘When we’re in power we’re going to enlarge the number of judges so we'll have more ppl who will vote the way we want them to.’"

Neither Side is Winning
23 minutes ago
"19 Republicans still voted to confirm him because the GOP remains a mostly useless vestige."

You fail to understand the truth about the 2 party system... Both sides of the same coin will never change the coin...

Red/Blue game theory

"The power structure needs people to believe that the way to solve problems is within the system. That is the KEY to the whole puzzle. The system is run on game theory. The status QUO know that as long as people are working in the system, nothing fundamental can ever change.

The primary method they use to distract people is with the two party red/blue system that gives you a “right” to vote. Do you want red or blue? As long as you are trying to “get back to the constitution” or get someone on the supreme court, you will lose “the game“. Period. How much evidence has to be accumulated? The government never shrinks. The people are ignored. The debt just grows.

The entire red/blue system is the heartbeat. Countless hours are drained off arguing about things that make no difference. The whole industry of Red radio, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et. al are doing a great job. They just can’t see that the job they are REALLY doing is not what they think. Some are truly genius in the way they have learned to parse the liberal agenda’s hypocrisy. If they turned that genius on the right target we might actually GET somewhere.

But do we actually ever GET anywhere? No. Just look around. Nothing ever changes. Conservatives. Nothing. Tea party, nothing. Libertarians, nothing. Patriots, nothing. Why? Because the people in these movements don’t understand the real LEGAL GAME. These movements are serving as pointless time drains when they could otherwise be a useful asset for REAL change.

The red/blue game keeps people parsing distinctions and issues that don’t matter! The candidates are never going to change the system. No party will ever “change the system”. The Parties ARE THE SYSTEM. GET IT?

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers. –Thomas Pynchon

Power to the people! And it’s true. You just misunderstand WHICH people.

Still don’t believe me? Then answer this one question. We have had both republican/red and democrat/blue guys running the country alternating since the end of the “great depression”, right? And has there ever been a 20 year period where the government shrank? How bout a 10 year period? how bout just a 5 year period? Get it? The red/blue game is a distraction. It will never work. It can’t. It’s game theory."

source: http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.COM/rush-limbaugh-is-right-hes-just-analyzing-the-wrong-problems/ //

edintexas
an hour ago
' It’s an easy political cudgel that doesn’t actually do anything which makes it right up Biden’s alley."

But it does do something. The premise that "gun control" is about firearms is completely mistaken. It is about "control", the firearms are almost superfluous. Take away people's ability to protect themselves and their families, bit by bit, and the criminals and the government will have control of the people. Today it is attacking the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle (and "pistol") when rifles of all types were the weapon in fewer than 600 homicides out of fewer than 11,000. As we've noted time and again, rifles of all types were used to commit homicide less frequently than knives, less frequently than "personal weapons" (hands, feet, elbows, etc.) and most assuredly less frequently than the criminal's firearm of choice, the handgun. So this isn't about crime, it isn't about firearms. It is about control. As long as we are an armed nation the Socialist/Communists can't do as they please without any fear of retribution.

The trickle is starting but we need to create a roaring river, a current of good sense. It is time to put diplomacy on pause. It has its place, and for those of us still engaged in public debate and discussion, we should never completely abandon it. Persuasion is a vital part of winning any culture war. There is value in walking softly, but sometimes persuasion can only be made palatable to the other side by carrying a big stick.

So draw your line. Decide where it is. It won’t be the same for all of us. //

Your line will be different from my line and that’s ok. The battle has many fronts. But it’s important to understand this:

The quiet season is over. We are in a noisy season. Grab a bullhorn and start screaming. //

JohnTruman • 4 hours ago

Churchill had it right. True then. True now.

"If you will not fight for right when you can win easily without bloodshed. . .you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

Glenn Kessler
@GlennKesslerWP
It’s hard for any White House to admit error, especially when the president has three times repeated the falsehood. But this is becoming a pretty deep hole. //

Will Saletan
@saletan
Last week Biden said GA’s election law “ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” Fact checks debunked this claim. https://wapo.st/3ubD0Rd

Today @PressSec was asked whether the WH would issue a correction. She stood by the claim.

FLORIDA—As Florida finally wrapped up its contentious recount of the votes tallied in the recent midterm elections, a winner was finally declared: Al Gore is now the president of the United States.

The recount process at long last found the "missing votes" that would have handed Gore the presidency back in 2000, making him the official president of the country.

The New York Times
@nytimes
Mike Pompeo is emerging as the most outspoken critic of President Biden among former top Trump officials, ignoring, much as he did in office, the custom that current and former secretaries of state avoid the appearance of political partisanship. https://nyti.ms/3ruQB49 //

🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
@mrddmia
Dear @nytimes:

Secretary of State @HillaryClinton ran for President after leaving office.

After her stunning defeat to a political novice (Trump), she’s been an outspoken critic for 4 years (and counting).

And former Secretary @JohnKerry hasn’t shut up.

But besides them ... //

Matt Whitlock
@mattdizwhitlock
Replying to @nytimes
What former Secretaries of State have avoided political partisanship?! Hillary Clinton? John Kerry? Colin Powell who has endorsed every Dem for 20 years? Albright called Trump a fascist.

Only recent Secretary of State to respect this “custom” is Condi Rice. //

Plus, we should note that six past secretaries of state – Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan – all went on to be elected president and multiple others ran for president. But let’s not tell the “presidential historian” about all that.

But nice try, New York Times. Maybe make the naked partisanship of your own a little less obvious the next time.

H.R. 1 would federalize and micromanage the election process administered by the states, imposing unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional mandates on the states and reversing the decentralization of the American election process—which is essential to the protection of our liberty and freedom. It would (among other things) implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election; go even further in eroding and eliminating basic security protocols that states have in place; and interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls, secure the fairness and integrity of elections, and participate and speak freely in the political process.

The latest report is that Wisconsin has joined the ranks of states that will investigate what happened last year by adopting a resolution authorizing an investigation that “would give the investigators subpoena power to compel testimony and gather documents.” That’s at least three states who are keeping the issue in front of the public, counting Arizona and Georgia.

While these actions are excellent, there are three significant challenges that must be overcome in order to restore election integrity and voter confidence in US elections:

Overcoming Democrat attempts to institutionalize election fraud nationwide, as well as their unified resistance to revising state election laws to prevent fraud.
Restoring trust in federal and state government agencies, especially law enforcement, to enforce state election laws to the letter.
Educating the general public about why restoration of election integrity is of vital importance in preserving our constitutional Republic. //

Signing HR 1 into federal law will effectively end our constitutionally-based political system, with all of its checks and balances, replacing it over time with a one-party political dictatorship that would be immune to the outrages of average Americans over capricious authoritarian federal and state policies implemented since corrective elections to replace “elected officials” would be impossible. Third World dictators would be proud.

Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
·
Mar 26, 2021
BOOM: Fox's Peter Doocy just read to Jen Psaki the 2005 comments from Joe Biden in support of the filibuster and then asked if that meant Biden was supporting "the legacy of the Jim Crow era." //

Psaki’s rebuttal was that the filibuster has somehow been abused only in the last few years, with there being 5 times as many filibusters on average now than during the 1970s. //

Even more laughably, Psaki tried to claim that the last year’s frequent use of the filibuster is proof that it needs to go. Yet, she failed to mention that it was the Democrats who carried out every single one of those filibusters. //

Robal
10 hours ago edited
It was brought to everyone's attention that last year(2020)democrats used the filibuster 327 times, while Republicans used it only once. Doocey missed a great opportunity to make a fool out of Psaki. //

cafeblue32 indylawyer
2 hours ago edited
Nothing is like it was in 1970. Remeber all those 5000 page 2 trillion dollar legislative initiatives passed then? Me neither.

Laws today are made more or less like this: Lobbyists and donors meet with a few congress critters on key committees in private meetings, where agreements are made and said lobbyists and donors write the bills. Every Dem sees this window of opportunity to get all they can and so they overeach, as they always do. All across the party, pols facing re-election are in a hurry to pay back their constituency groups and donors while they can and cement a permanent majority based on dependent citizens and government provider. They submit as many non-related items they can shove into a "relief" bill. This is why they don't bother with budgets and operate on emergency spending bills, sequesters, XOs, and any other way they can wait until something is so chaotic the public demands relief.

Lobbyists write the 5000 page monstrosities with 9% of it going to its stated purpose, Congress votes on them without reading what's in them, and the moment it becomes law they gets busy building an entire new impenetrable bureaucracy built to service whatever unsolvable social condition they deem to be a sin. Lobbyists and donors get theirs, the p0licitans get their donations, and the party rewards them with reelection support. And now add in governing by XO and SCOTUS rulings as a replacement for legislating and here we are.

So, we have politicians who lie to get elected, who don't write laws, who don't read the ones they vote for, who place as much of their responsibility off onto the executive as they can, and all of it being run by Party apparatchiks and the elites in the donor and lobbying class, many of whom are former senatiors and congressmen who know how to skirt the rules.

McConnell then began to lay out how Republicans will respond if the filibuster is eliminated. Via Daily Wire:

“They are arguing for a radically less stable and less consensus-driven system of government. Forget about enduring laws with broad support. Nothing in federal law would ever be settled.

“Does anyone really believe the American people were voting for an entirely new system of government by electing Joe Biden to the White House and a 50-50 Senate?

“This is 50-50 Senate. There was no mandate to completely transform America by the American people on November 3.” //

McConnell said the notion that the filibuster is the only thing that stands in the way of Democrats ramming through their entire agenda is false.

“So, let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like.

“None of us have served one minute in a Senate that was completely drained of comity and consent. This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon.”

Given the 50-50 split, McConnell reminded Democrats that the vice president does not break ties in determining a quorum.

“I want our colleagues to imagine a world where every single task, every one of them, requires a physical quorum. […] Everything that Democratic Senates did to Presidents Bush and Trump… everything the Republican Senate did to President Obama… would be child’s play compared to the disaster that Democrats would create for their own priorities if they break the Senate.” //

McConnell listed the following, as noted by The Daily Wire:

Nationwide right-to-work for working Americans.
Defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one.
A whole new era of domestic energy production.
Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn.
Concealed-carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Massive hardening of security on our southern border.
Tough talk. Would he follow through?

The lesson learned is that we must never be sucked into complacency as preached by ANYONE, as that path is exactly what the Uniparty/Deep State/globalists wish us to trod. These people want us all to be complacent and unconcerned while they work diligently behind the scenes to achieve their evil ends. Ben Franklin charged us as American citizens to take continual corrective actions in our government if we wanted to keep our constitutional Republic, not sit on our hands and “trust the plan.” Time to take out the trash bigly and get to work.

The end.