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Corruption Faked news How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Progressive Racism The Courts

Like a clock Snopes got it right twice. Did Conservative Justices Lie About Roe v. Wade? Absolutely not.

Image via Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images)

Snopes usually doesn’t get it right, but I know of two occasions that they did. One was about Thomas and the aborted fetus.

In a June 2022 dissenting opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas asserted a debunked claim about the use of aborted fetal cells in COVID-19 vaccines.

Rating

False

False

This is the second one.

Five conservative Supreme Court justices dishonestly suggested, in Senate confirmation hearings, that they thought Roe v. Wade was beyond overturning.

Rating

False

False

Fact Check

In May 2022, after news leaked that the U.S. Supreme Court had provisionally voted to overturn the abortion protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade, the left-wing political action committee MeidasTouch briefly caused “#LyingGOP” to trend on Twitter, with a video that accused five Republican-appointed justices of lying about their intentions to overturn the landmark ruling.

MeidasTouch posted the video on various social media platforms and used it to solicit monetary contributions.

Lying GOP

However, the creators of the video badly misrepresented the full scope of relevant facts in two important ways, and we are issuing a rating of “False.”

First, they engaged in highly selective editing of much longer and more nuanced archival clips of future justices during their U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, in order to grossly misrepresent the substance of what they said.

Second, they appeared to misunderstand or misrepresent the meaning of a Supreme Court precedent. In brief, describing a ruling as an important precedent is not tantamount to giving a commitment not to overturn that ruling, or indicating you believe that ruling cannot be overruled. Therefore, the sweeping allegations of premeditated dishonesty on the part of GOP-appointed justices were as poorly supported by evidence as they were wrongheaded.

The following is our breakdown of what the MeidasTouch “megaviral supercut” video claimed, lined up against what the factual record shows.

Justice Clarence Thomas

Room, Indoors, Person
File photo of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. Source: Bettmann / Getty Images.

The following is how Meidas Touch presented Thomas’s remarks:

Clarence Thomas: I believe the constitution protects the right to privacy. And I have no reason or agenda to prejudge the issue.

Caption: HE LIED

In this section of the video, MeidasTouch mutilated a 1991 quotation from then-Supreme Court nominee Thomas, and grossly misrepresented the substance and meaning of his remarks. In reality, Thomas absolutely did not provide any assurances on how he might rule on the specific case of Roe v. Wade, nor on the question of abortion rights.

The clip of Thomas came from a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Sep. 11, 1991. Readers can watch the exchange in full, or read a full transcript.

U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, had been attempting to pin down Thomas’s views on whether the U.S. Constitution protects abortion rights, and had highlighted what he presented as discrepancies in Thomas’s past pronouncements.

In particular, Metzenbaum asked Thomas to resolve an apparent gap between his putative support for a constitutionally-enshrined right to privacy, more broadly, and abortion rights in particular. Metzenbaum put it to Thomas that:

I fear that you, like other nominees before the committee, could assure us that you support a fundamental right to privacy, but could also decline to find that a woman’s right to choose is protected by the constitution.

At the culmination of his remarks, Metzenbaum asked Thomas:

I must ask you to tell us here and now whether you believe that the constitution protects a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy, and I am not asking you as to how you would vote in connection with any case before the court.

In response, Thomas prevaricated, as so many judicial nominees have in recent decades:

I am afraid though, on your final question, Senator, that it is important for any of us who are judges, in areas that are very deeply contested…I think that to take a position would undermine my ability to be impartial…

I am afraid that to begin to answer questions about what my specific position is in these contested areas would greatly — or leave the impression that I prejudged this issue.

When Metzenbaum again attempted to pin down the nominee, Thomas again prevaricated, providing the quotation that would be mutilated and misrepresented by MeidasTouch in their video:

Senator, as I noted yesterday, and I think we all feel strongly in this country about our privacy — I do — I believe the constitution protects the right to privacy. And I have no reason or agenda to prejudge the issue or to predispose to rule one way or the other on the issue of abortion, which is a difficult issue. [Emphasis is added].

As the transcript makes clear, MeidasTouch cut off the second half of Thomas’s sentence, in which he stipulated that he had “no reason…to prejudge” or “to predispose to rule one way or the other on the issue of abortion.”

In reality, Thomas was repeatedly urged and asked to make pronouncements on abortion rights, and refused to do so. The notion, therefore, that in this exchange he somehow gave an assurance that he would not ever vote to overturn Roe v. Wade is utterly without basis in fact.

Justice Samuel Alito

 

Tie, Accessories, Accessory
WASHINGTON – JANUARY 10: U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito answers questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the second day of his confirmation hearings January 10, 2006 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The following is how MeidasTouch presented Alito’s remarks:

Alito: Roe v Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It was decided in 1973. It has been challenged on a number of occasions and the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the decision. When a decision is challenged and it is reaffirmed, that strengthens its value.

Caption: HE LIED

Once again, this presentation gives the grossly misleading impression that, in his confirmation hearings, Alito indicated he would not vote to overturn Roe v Wade. In reality, the full scope of his remarks clearly shows that — like most judicial nominees — Alito very carefully avoided giving any assurances about how he might vote on that precedent.

The clip in question came from Alito’s hearings on Jan. 11, 2006. Readers can examine a full transcript of the relevant exchange, or watch a video of it.

Ironically, the starting point for the exchange was the concern expressed by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that Alito had “decided to create categories of cases that have been decided by the Court that you will concede have constitutional protection, but you have left in question the future of Roe v. Wade.”

In other words, Durbin was concerned that Alito had not stated, for the record, that Roe v. Wade was no longer open to overturning, and indeed had in the past asserted that “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

So while MeidasTouch presented Alito’s remarks as proof that he thought Roe v. Wade was beyond overturning — “Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court” — what those remarks actually constituted was Alito’s careful avoidance of describing the ruling as such. Here’s the key exchange:

Durbin: Do you believe [Roe v Wade] is the settled law of the land?
Alito: Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It was decided in 1973, so it has been on the books for a long time. It has been challenged on a number of occasions, and I discussed those yesterday, and the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the decision, sometimes on the merits, sometimes [as] in Casey based on stare decisis, and I think that when a decision is challenged and it is reaffirmed that strengthens its value as stare decisis…
Durbin: Is it the settled law of the land?
Alito: It is a — if settled means that it can’t be re-examined, then that’s one thing. If settled means that it is a precedent that is entitled to respect as stare decisis, and all of the factors that I’ve mentioned come into play, including the reaffirmation and all of that, then it is a precedent that is protected, entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis, in that way.

What Alito is saying here is that Roe v. Wade is clearly a precedent whose conclusions have been repeatedly reaffirmed by the court, and would not lightly be overturned, taking into account the doctrine of stare decisis — the legal principle of deference to precedent expressed in the Latin phrase, which means “let stand what has been decided.”

What Alito is not saying — indeed, what he is scrupulously avoiding saying, despite Durbin’s best efforts — is that Roe v Wade is beyond overturning, like various other landmark precedents he had mentioned elsewhere in the hearings, such as Brown v. the Board of Education.

So the full scope of Alito’s remarks, when viewed objectively and in context, actually show the opposite of what the brief clip, strategically cut away by MeidasTouch, appeared to show.

Justice Neil Gorsuch

Tie, Accessories, Accessory
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 22: Judge Neil Gorsuch testifies during the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, March 22, 2017 in Washington. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The following is how Meidas Touch presented Gorsuch’s remarks.

Gorsuch: Roe v Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the United States Supreme Court, worthy [of] treatment [as] precedent, like any other.

Caption: HE LIED

MeidasTouch badly misrepresented Gorsuch’s remarks in the same way as it did Alito’s. In reality, by describing Roe v. Wade as a precedent “worthy of treatment as precedent,” Gorsuch was assiduously avoiding going any further or categorizing it as beyond overturning.

The pattern should be familiar by now. Gorsuch’s remarks came during a Senate confirmation hearing on March 21, 2017, and can be read and viewed in their proper context.

During his questioning of the Trump nominee, Judiciary committee chairman U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Gorsuch whether he thought DC v. Heller, a landmark 2008 decision in which the court reaffirmed the Second Amendment right to bear arms, had been correctly decided. Gorsuch said:

Senator, I would respectfully respond that it [DC v Heller] is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a good judge, you do not approach that question anew, as if it had never been decided. That would be a wrong way to approach it. My personal views, I would also tell you, Mr. Chairman, belong over here. I leave those at home…Part of being a good judge is coming in and taking precedent as it stands, and your personal views about the precedent have absolutely nothing to do with the good job of a judge.

Gorsuch then effectively reiterated the same response in relation to several other landmark precedents, including Citizens United, Hosanna-Tabor, Gideon v. Wainwright and Roe v. Wade. On the latter case, Gorsuch said:

Senator, again, I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy [of] treatment [as] precedent like any other.

Did Gorsuch indicate that Roe v Wade was particularly or unusually vulnerable to being overturned? No. Did he suggest it was immune to overturning? Absolutely not.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh

Person, Human, Room
Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, USA, 27 September 2018. (Photo: Pool / Getty Images).

The following is how MeidasTouch presented Kavanaugh’s remarks.

Kavanaugh: As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. By “it” I mean Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey. Been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent.

Caption: HE LIED

The clip in question came from Kavanaugh’s Senate judiciary committee hearing on Sep. 5, 2018, during questioning by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Readers can consult the relevant transcript and video.

Feinstein had been attempting to pin down Kavanaugh about his views on the status of Roe v. Wade as a precedent, and whether it “could be overturned.” Kavanaugh, stating the obvious, acknowledged Roe was a precedent and described Planned Parenthood v. Casey as “precedent on precedent” but declined to go further, despite repeated invitations by Feinstein.

Feinstein: …It has been reported that you have said that Roe is now settled law. The first question I have of you is what do you mean by “settled law”? I tried to ask earlier do you believe it is correct law? Have your views on whether Roe is settled precedent or could be overturned, and has your views changed since you were in the Bush White House?

Kavanaugh: Senator, I said that it is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis. And one of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

Feinstein followed up one last time, asking “What would you say your position today is on a woman’s right to choose?” and Kavanaugh again prevaricated on the future sustainability of Roe v Wade:

As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. By “it,” I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They have been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent, which itself is an important factor to remember.

As we have pointed out in other cases, acknowledging that a ruling is a precedent, or even “precedent on precedent,” is not the same as saying you would never overturn it.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett

amy coney barrett opinion supreme court
In this Oct. 14, 2020 file photo, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett speaks during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

The following is how MeidasTouch presented Barrett’s remarks.

Barrett: Roe is not a superprecedent because calls for its overruling have never ceased, but that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled.

Caption: THEY ALL LIED

This is perhaps the most egregious example of all, and comes from the second day of Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing, Oct. 13, 2020. An official transcript was not readily available in this case, but readers can consult video footage.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was questioning Barrett about various Supreme Court landmarks, and the concept of the “superprecedent” — a somewhat ambiguous term coined by former Sen. Arlen Specter.

In a 2013 paper, Barrett wrote “Superprecedents are cases that no justice would overrule, even if she disagrees with the interpretive premises from which the precedent proceeds,” and included the following more detailed explanation from law professor Michael Gerhardt:

[T]he point at which a well-settled practice becomes, by virtue of being well-settled, practically immune to reconsideration is the point at which that precedent has become a superprecedent. Nothing becomes a superprecedent, at least in my judgment, unless it has been widely and uniformly accepted by public authorities generally, including the Court, the President, and Congress.

In that 2013 paper, Barrett also explicitly listed a handful of Supreme Court cases — including Brown v. the Board of Education — which were typically cited as superprecedents.

Earlier in her confirmation hearing, during questioning by judiciary committee chairman U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Barrett had said that, in the context of legal scholarship, a superprecedent was a “precedent that is so well established that it would be unthinkable that it would ever be overruled” and Barrett would also similarly tell Klobuchar that the term described a precedent that was “so widely-established and agreed-upon by everyone [that] calls for its overruling simply don’t exist.”

That was the background against which Klobuchar asked Barrett whether Roe v. Wade was a superprecedent, and Barrett explicitly excluded Roe v. Wade from the small handful of cases to which that term applies. She said:

The way that [“superprecedent”] is used in the scholarship, and the way that I was using it in the article that you’re reading from was to define cases that are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling. And I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn’t fall in that category. And scholars across the spectrum say that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled, but descriptively it does mean that it’s not a case that everyone has accepted and doesn’t call for its overruling.

…As Richard Fallon from Harvard said, Roe is not superprecedent because calls for its overruling have never ceased, but that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled. It just means that it doesn’t fall on the small handful of cases like Marbury v Madison and Brown v the Board, that noone questions any more.

Reading Barrett’s remarks in their proper context clearly demonstrates that she directly and explicitly exploded the frankly laughable claim, made by MeidasTouch, that she had indicated Roe v. Wade was immune to overruling. In fact, she did just the opposite.

Sources:

– CONFIRMATION HEARING ON THE NOMINATION OF HON. BRETT M. KAVANAUGH TO BE AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg32765/html/CHRG-115shrg32765.htm. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Alito Confirmation Hearing, Day 3 Part 1 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?190503-1/alito-confirmation-hearing-day-3-part-1. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Barrett Confirmation Hearing, Day 2 Part 1 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?476316-1/barrett-confirmation-hearing-day-2-part-1. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Barrett Confirmation Hearing, Day 2 Part 2 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?476316-4/barrett-confirmation-hearing-day-2-part-2. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Becker, Jo, and Charles Babington. “No Right to Abortion, Alito Argued in 1985.” Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2005. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/11/15/no-right-to-abortion-alito-argued-in-1985/bcbd4e02-0c2e-4dac-8caf-0d252c5630a0/.

“Exclusive: Supreme Court Has Voted to Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows.” POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473. Accessed 5 May 2022.

GOP Judges EXPOSED as Liars in Megaviral Supercut. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jbHMHN_mfo. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Gorsuch Confirmation Hearing, Day 2, Part 1 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?425138-1/supreme-court-nominee-stresses-independence-calls-criticism-judges-disheartening&airingid=61108104. Accessed 5 May 2022.

“Hunting for ‘Super Precedents’ in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmations – National Constitution Center.” National Constitution Center – Constitutioncenter.Org, https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/hunting-for-super-precedents-in-u.s-supreme-court-confirmations. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Judiciary, United States Congress Senate Committee on the. Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to Be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, First Session … U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

“Stare Decisis.” LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Roe Is ‘Settled Law,’ Kavanaugh Tells Collins. Democrats Aren’t Moved.” The New York Times, 21 Aug. 2018. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/us/politics/kavanaugh-collins-abortion.html.

Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing, Day 2, Part 1 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?449705-1/supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-hearing-day-2-part-1. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Thomas Confirmation Hearing Day 2, Part 1 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?21115-1/thomas-confirmation-hearing-day-2-part-1. Accessed 5 May 2022.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Crime Faked news How sick is this? Reprints from others. The Courts

Proud Boys Proven INNOCENT in Newly Released VIDEO Hidden from Public! — DOJ Tried to Hide This Evidence! BLOWS UP DOJ and Liz Cheney’s Bogus SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY Charges

Not a "far-right militia", "neo-fascists", or anything the leftists are painting them as. (Check out the Wikipedia entry to see what I'm talking about)

Five of these indicted men currently sit in pre-trial detention. They include Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio and his pals Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Zachary Rehl.

This recorded Zoom meeting was leaked by an Indicted Proud Boy that had viewed it live.

The Department of Justice had confiscated this video from the phone of Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio and hidden it from the public.

Luckily, these DOJ geniuses did not realize it still lived on a hidden YouTube link or they surely would have forced their minions at YouTube to take it down.

In the video, Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio said:

“We are never going to be the ones to cross the police barrier, or to cross something in order to get to somebody… We’re always going to be the ones standing back, right? We are always going to be the ones to f**king defend.”

The group then proceeds to discuss how they will defend themselves against Antifa attackers and avoid getting stabbed by not wearing their normal uniforms of black and yellow so they blend in.

They discuss the importance of organization, group leaders and formation. They drill in the importance of staying sober as to stay out of trouble. They pledge to stay away from women and avoid “normies” (non-Proud Boys) so they can march in an actual straight line and avoid losing each other on the day of the march. They discuss the danger of wandering off alone to “take a leak”. They mention how charming they are. They insult a female that irritated them at a past rally. They chat about going to the Dollar Tree store to purchase cutting boards to put in their shirts to act as stab-proof vests in case of an Antifa attack (multiple Proud Boys were stabbed at a rally only a few weeks prior to this meeting by Antifa infiltrators). They talk about “beer tax” and poke fun at each other. They barely mention the Capitol or President Trump.

There is no evidence pointing to a group planning on taking over the government.

Yet, the maniacal prosecution and January 6th Selective Misinformation Committee have literally alluded to a baseless conspiracy theory that a drinking fraternity (the Proud Boys) and Oath Keepers somehow magically assisted President Trump in an “insurrection”. The government, Liz Cheney and Merrick Garland’s DOJ have been planting these seeds in the minds of their minions in the fake news and spreading this misinformation everywhere.

In fact, prosecutors stated on the record that the Proud Boys began planning the Capitol Attack on December 19th, 2020, directly after President Trump tweeted to his followers to come to Washington DC on January 6th.

Yet, this video was taken eleven days after that and shows NO CONSPIRACY TO EVEN ENTER THE CAPITOL.

The Indicted Members of the Proud Boy Drinking Fraternity, now know to the Biden Regime as “Seditious Conspirators”. A new video proves innocence.

“This video should prove once and for all to your liberal and moderate friends what demonic liars these people are,” said Tina Ryan of Citizens Against Political Persecution.

“They conscientiously FRAMED INNOCENT MEN- innocent American Citizens- for political power and gain. This will go down in history as one of the most organized attacks on the American people by their own Government.”

Apparently, a reporter at the New York Times was also able to view the video after the very recent leak. We assume he was very surprised (to say the least) by its contents. Only a few days prior the New York Times had published a hit piece on the Proud Boys, including a video called “How the Proud Boys Breached the Capitol on Jan. 6: Rile Up the Normies.”

“After viewing this new evidence that the government withheld from the media and manipulated in court documents, perhaps this particular journalist realized the media has been misled by the Department of Justice.” said Ryan. “It seems he is fair in this new piece.”

See the blurbs below in italics from Alan Feuer’s New York Times article:

“The meeting, on Dec. 30, 2020, marked the founding of a special new chapter of the Proud Boys called the Ministry of Self-Defense. The team of several dozen trusted members was intended, Mr. Tarrio told his men, to bring a level of order and professionalism to the group’s upcoming march in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, that had, by his own account, been missing at earlier Proud Boys rallies in the city.

Over nearly two hours, Mr. Tarrio and his leadership team — many of whom have since been charged with seditious conspiracy — gave the new recruits a series of directives: Adopt a defensive posture on Jan. 6, they were told. Keep the “normies” — or the normal protesters — away from the Proud Boys’ marching ranks. And obey police lines.

The prosecution has claimed that the Proud Boys began to plan their assault as early as Dec. 19, 2020 — the day that President Donald J. Trump posted a tweet announcing his Jan. 6 rally and saying it would be “wild.” But the video conference shows that, just one week before the event, when Mr. Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders gathered their team for a meeting, they spent most of their time discussing things like staying away from alcohol and women and taking measures to ensure their own security.

The recorded meeting makes no mention of any planning that might have occurred in the week directly before the Capitol attack. And while Mr. Tarrio suggests during the meeting that the complex structure he created for the Ministry of Self-Defense was meant to be self-protective — not offensive — in nature, prosecutors have claimed that the group’s “command and control” design was instrumental in facilitating the Capitol attack.

Lawyers for the Proud Boys say the recorded meeting is a key piece of exculpatory evidence, contradicting claims by the government that a conspiracy to attack the Capitol was hatched several weeks before Jan. 6.” 

YES- that was from the New York Times. Liberals read that.

The January 6th Committee is panicking as their lies are finally being revealed in the mainstream media.

*Please see the entire UNEDITED version of the video here. We want to give you the option of seeing the video in its entirety so you know that nothing of importance was edited out.

Warning-this video may incriminate these men for having filthy mouths and offensive speech habits, but NOT of Seditious Conspiracy!

This video has been mentioned in court hearings but was not available to the public.

The prosecution had viewed the recording in its entirety, and cherry-picked out bits to misconstrue evidence to incriminate the defendants.

“These sick demonic people literally knew the Proud Boys were never planning on going inside the Capitol,” said Tina Ryan of Citizens Against Political Persecution. “They saw this tape. Yet they made the conscious decision to manipulate the contents of this video and present it to the judge and the public with the malicious intent to smear these men and jeopardize their lives and fair trails.”

Proud Boy Pals and Drinking Buddies Enrique Tarrio and Joseph Biggs at a rally before they were charged with Seditious Conspiracy by the Biden Regime.

The January 6th Select Committee undoubtedly knew about this video as well- yet they still decided to move forward during their first hearing and nail the Proud Boys to a cross by knowingly accusing them of tremendous false crimes.

These Committee members hid exculpatory evidence from the American people after looking into the cameras and promising to tell the American people “the truth about January 6th”.

Proud Boy Ethan “Ruffio” Nordean before his pre-trial detainment.

“The January 6th Hearings have made it impossible for the Proud Boys on this indictment to ever get a fair shake at a trial,” said Ryan. “They demonized the Proud Boys and accused them of seditious conspiracy in a ‘special video presentation’ before their trials. The Proud Boys charges should be dropped and these Congresspeople held liable for conspiring to falsify evidence.”

This is the perfect example of how the government continues to withhold important information from the people of the United States about a day as important as January 6th.
This is one of hundreds of unreleased videos that can potentially exonerate defendants.

“The court of public opinion will decide the fate of these men,” said Ryan.

Ryan ended with this:  “It is completely unethical that this type of evidence has been held from the public and manipulated to frame these men for the ‘crime of the century’. These prosecutors and Congresspeople must be held accountable.”

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

NY Supreme Court Eliminates Law that Allowed 800k Non-Citizens to Vote

Andrew Jose  for The Western Journal  June 27, 2022 at 3:23pm

A New York State Supreme Court Judge ruled Monday that a New York City law, which would have permitted resident non-U.S. citizens in the city the right to vote, violated state law and the state constitution.

“There is no statutory ability for the City of New York to issue inconsistent laws permitting non-citizens to vote and exceed the authority granted to it by the New York State Constitution,” Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio wrote in his 13-page ruling, according to the New York Post.

The judge said that the city’s December “Our City, Our Vote” would go against the state’s Election Law and Municipal Home Rule Law. These laws permitted only U.S. citizens above 18 to vote in state and local elections, according to the judge, the New York Post reported.

Because the city’s law went against state constitutional requirements, should the city extend voting rights to its over 800,000 resident aliens, it would first need to hold a referendum, the judge wrote in his ruling, according to the New York Times.

Non-citizen voting in New York is illegal.

In December, the New York City city council approved 33-14 with two abstentions in the measure granting the city’s resident aliens, who comprise 10 percent of its population, the right to vote, according to reporting from the Washington Post.

The law was set to come into effect in the state’s January 2023 elections, according to the Times.

Then former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio doubted the law’s survivability in the face of lawsuits, although he did not veto it.

“I still have a concern about it. Citizenship has an extraordinary value. People work so hard for it,” de Blasio said in December, according to the Associated Press.

Republican New York City city council Minority Leader, Joseph Borelli, was among the plaintiffs challenging the law..

“devalues citizenship”

In December, Borelli said that the law “devalues citizenship, and citizenship is the standard by which the state constitution issues or allows for suffrage in New York state elections at all levels,” the wire service reported.

Borelli welcomed the Monday ruling in a news release.

“Today’s decision validates those of us who can read the plain English words of our State Constitution and State statutes,” Borelli wrote in the news statement shared on his Twitter account.

“Non-citizen voting in New York is illegal,” Borelli wrote.

The law’s proponents told Gothamist that the case’s outcome was not surprising since plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in Staten Island, a Republican-leaning part of the city.

“They went court shopping where they knew that the court would be favorable to them,” New York City Immigration Coalition head Murad Awawdeh told Gothamist.

“We’re gonna keep fighting to ensure that nearly 1 million New Yorkers who are building their families, paying taxes and investing in our communities have a say in their local democracy,” Awawdeh said, according to the Gothamist.

“That is what this comes down to,” Awawdeh added.

Should non citizens be allowed to vote in local elections as long as they don’t vote in state or federal elections?
Yes: 1% (5 Votes)
No: 99% (836 Votes)

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Faked news Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion Politics

This is what hate and jealousy from Progressives brings you.

Personal attacks on a good man.-MSNBC Photo

What happens when a respected Congressman is cleared by the Capitol Hill Police when he had a group of his constituents on tour the day before the To do about nothing protest?

They make up stuff and drag his good name threw the mud. Based on what? Who knows. But since that mud dragging we’ve seen that the Congressman has been receiving death threats. Please play the video below.

Despite the letter exonerating Rep. Loudermilk, the January 6 Committee on Wednesday released selectively edited video footage of GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk leading constituents on a tour around the Capitol complex on Jan. 5th.

The sham Jan. 6 Committee did this knowing it was a lie and that Loudermilk had been exonerated.

Categories
Corruption Food Leftist Virtue(!) Life

Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs

Take that!

Who couldn’t see this coming?

Food processing corporation Smithfield Foods will shut down its Vernon, California, plant and scale back operations in California, Utah and Arizona, the company announced Friday.

Smithfield “will cease all harvest and processing operations in Vernon, California in early 2023 and, at the same time, align its hog production system by reducing its sow herd in its Western region,” the company said in a Friday news release.

“Smithfield is taking these steps due to the escalating cost of doing business in California,” the company said.

“It’s increasingly challenging to operate efficiently there,” Smithfield Foods spokesperson Jim Monroe told the Wall Street Journal. “We’re striving to keep costs down and keep food affordable.”

Owned by Hong-Kong-based conglomerate WH Group, Smithfield is the largest pork processor in the country by volume.

Like other food businesses nationwide, the company was hit by a combination of supply chain and labor shortages,  the ongoing record-high inflation, and the war in Ukraine — a major producer of wheat⁠⁠—which sent grain prices soaring worldwide⁠.

Because grain is a crucial ingredient in livestock feed, the impending grain shortage also spiked livestock feed prices, raising the California plant’s production costs.

Adding salt to economic injury were utility costs in California⁠, which, according to the company’s spokesman, were 3.5 times higher per head than those in the 45 other plants in the country run by Smithfield.

Furthermore, according to Monroe, California’s regulatory environment has made it difficult for the pork processor to do business there.

Do you think we are heading toward a global famine?
Yes: 88% (120 Votes)
No: 12% (17 Votes)

The spokesman pointed to Proposition 12, a 2018 voter-approved rule, which mandated that food processing companies confining pigs and sows must have adequate spaces for the animals to lie down and move around.

The regulation effectively rendered confining such animals in smaller stalls unlawful, to the dismay of food producers, who pointed out that the regulation would raise food costs and push up production costs.

In addition to closing down the Vernon plant, the company said in the Friday news release that it would look at “strategic options to exit its farms in Arizona and California” in addition to scaling back its sow herd in Utah.

“Smithfield is providing transition assistance to all impacted employees, including relocation options to other company facilities and farms as well as retention incentives to ensure business continuity until early next year,” the company said.

Smithfield also said that it had reached an agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Union of Operating Engineers on shutting the Vernon facility.

“We are grateful to our team members in the Western region for their dedication and invaluable contributions to our mission. We are committed to providing financial and other transition assistance to employees impacted by this difficult decision,” Smithfield Chief Operating Officer Brady Stewart said.

The closure of the company comes as food prices rise nationwide amidst the ongoing baby formula shortage, growing inflation and soaring gas prices.  Adding to the threats facing the nation’s food security is a looming worldwide fertilizer shortage, from which the U.S. is not exempt.

“We are deeply concerned about the combined impacts of overlapping crises jeopardizing people’s ability to produce and access foods, pushing millions more into extreme levels of acute food insecurity,” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu warned.

“We are in a race against time to help farmers in the most affected countries, including by rapidly increasing potential food production and boosting their resilience in the face of challenges,” Qu said.

Categories
Corruption COVID Drugs Politics

Same junk, different name: Novavax will pursue indefinite boosting, and there’s no trial data on Omicron

Approved despite known adverse effects.

Prior to COVID Mania, Novavax and its competitors had never brought a product to market

The rubber stamp.

On Tuesday, the FDA’s advisory committee — a concoction of massively corrupt individuals who entertain a plethora of conflicts of pharmaceutical interests — unanimously voted to clear Novavax’s COVID injection on the path to FDA emergency use authorization.

This “expert” panel, which again and again has presented a green light for mRNA injections for young children, has concluded that Novavax’s product is a worthy COVID vaccine. Why? Because they say so.

Should the Maryland-based company receive FDA clearance, they will become the 4th company in the U.S. — and the first since February 2021 — to enter the COVID vaccine government gravy train.

Don’t expect Novavax to be the cure for a coronavirus that you were looking for. There’s several reasons why you should expect this product to work as poorly as the rest of them.

Novavax was designed for the original COVID strain

The Novavax COVID-19 shot was designed in early 2020 and has not been updated to combat any current variants. This is also true for the Pfizer and Moderna shots, which were designed on an mRNA platform, and never updated.

Novavax is not a “traditional” vaccine

Perhaps the most prevalent marketing behind Novavax advances the claim that the product is a more traditional vaccine, akin to an inactivated vaccine that is associated with a Flu shot.

This idea is presented to the public with the hopes that “vaccine hesitant” individuals will take Novavax shots instead of the ostensible more edgy mRNA shots.

But in reality, the Novavax shot does not contain the traditional inactivated virus. It is usually defined as a subunit protein shot.

Twitter avatar for @balsamo_rRichard R Balsamo, MD, JD @balsamo_r

@UnWokeCEO @kerpen The Novavax vaccine on which everyone is focused presents a modified spike protein to the immune system, not an inactivated virus. This avoids the RNA/DNA genetic therapy issue, but not the risk of toxicity from the spike protein itself.

November 29th 2021

1 Retweet

It’s not mRNA, but it’s also not traditional or “normal” in the sense that most understand.

Novavax has never brought a product to market

Similar to their competitors in Moderna and BioNTech, Novavax has never brought a product to market. That didn’t stop the government from investing $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds in the company.

Twitter avatar for @FTFinancial Times @FT

Novavax closes in on Covid triumph after 33 years of failure Subscribe to read | Financial TimesNews, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publicationon.ft.com

March 1st 2021

11 Retweets

In its 33 year history, Novavax has attempted to bring a handful of products to market, including Ebola and Flu vaccines, but the company never succeeded prior to COVID Mania. They have zero track record of success, safety, and/or efficacious products.

The Novavax shot, like mRNA COVID injections, has a demonstrated increased risk for heart inflammation

Myocarditis was observed in several of the trial participants within 2 weeks of injection.

Stat News reports: “Five of the cases of myocarditis and pericarditis in the Novavax trial were reported within two weeks of vaccination. One case may have been caused by Covid, not the vaccine, but there were no clear alternative explanations for the other cases. Four cases of heart inflammation occurred in young men.”

Myocarditis is not just a Novavax side effect. It remains a major issue among the experimental mRNA injections sold by Pfizer and Moderna.

Much to the delight of depraved Pfizer and Moderna executives, if the myocarditis narrative can stick to Novavax, it could sink their potential market share. After the FDA advisory committee published their concerns, the stock market reacted negatively to Novavax, despite the green light for an FDA emergency use authorization.

Twitter avatar for @AboutIndiaSharell Cook @AboutIndia

“US FDA issues warning of myocarditis for Novavax’s COVID vaccine, suggesting a common factor being the spike protein across all vaccine platforms.” Via ⁦@Mod_Disc⁩ All Roads Lead to Spike (Protein)US FDA issues warning of myocarditis for Novavax’s COVID vaccine, suggesting a common factor being the spike protein across all vaccine platforms.moderndiscontent.substack.com

June 3rd 2022

804 Retweets

More boosters

Novavax and the FDA panel has already acknowledged that two doses of the Novavax shot will not be enough to “protect” people from a coronavirus. Therefore, repeated boosting is already being discussed as a probable path forward for this latest pharmaceutical.

There is no trial data on Omicron variant

The shot was developed over two years ago, and it has not been tested for Omicron. The FDA said in a statement:

“Relevant data to assess effectiveness of NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax shot) against the Omicron variant and sublineages, including observational data from use in other countries where the vaccine has been deployed, are currently unavailable.”

And yet, the stellar advisory committee approved it anyway.

As Forbes reports, even Novavax has acknowledged that the shot may not work as well for the mutation that is actually present today in 2022. The report says:

“Novavax said its vaccine showed ‘cross-reactive immune response’ against omicron and other coronavirus variants, though it noted that the neutralizing response for the omicron variant was four times lower than for the original coronavirus.”

Not a cure.

The Novavax shot has been approved in several countries already and their inhabitants have not become immune from COVID-19 or cured of a disease.

Although there are dozens of different COVID “vaccines” available throughout the world, none have demonstrated a discernible difference in outcomes. In reality, this is just another questionable pharmaceutical product that joins the endless and continuing list of questionable pharmaceutical products on the market.

 

Categories
Corruption COVID Faked news Leftist Virtue(!) MSM Politics

Big Surprise: DeSantis Vindicated of COVID Cover-up After Media Darling, ‘Whistleblower’ Ends Up in Complete Disgrace

What a surprise: Rebekah Jones, once hailed as a “whistleblower” for claiming Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis had fudged the state’s COVID-19 numbers, has been revealed as a complete fraud.
Rebekah Jones “data scientist” that WAS the left’s darling in FLA.

A report released last week by the Florida Department of Health Office of Inspector General exonerated DeSantis on the allegations and found nothing to back up Jones’ allegations that she’d been pressured to alter COVID-19 case and death counts. In fact, the people the inspector general’s office talked to couldn’t even make sense out of the allegations, considering Jones didn’t have access to the raw coronavirus data.

(In spite of this, the mainstream media is hardly handling the report with the same breathlessness they handled the accusations against DeSantis — and for obvious reasons.

According to an editorial published Friday by The Wall Street Journal, (!) the inspector general found no evidence to support Jones’ claims.

“Based upon an analysis of the available evidence, there is insufficient evidence to clearly support a violation of a law, rule, or policy, as described by the complainant,” the report stated.

The governor’s office argued that Jones was fired from her job for “insubordination” and “unilateral decisions to modify the Department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.”

Jones’ original allegations were that she had been ordered to tidy up COVID numbers to support the state’s reopening in the spring of 2020. In addition, she claimed the governor had retaliated against her by having the Florida Department of Law Enforcement execute a search warrant against her in December 2020, arguing DeSantis had “sent the Gestapo” to keep her quiet.

Police say the raid involved a data breach that was traced back to Jones’ home IP address. She’s been hit with a felony charge for downloading confidential health department data. She has pleaded innocent.

According to the Journal, the inspector general’s office talked to over a dozen individuals who worked with Jones as part of its investigation, including her superiors — and not a single one supported her allegations of fudged data.

While she told some of her co-workers that she was told to alter COVID data in the system, the report said they didn’t buy her allegations. That wasn’t just because of her inherent unreliability but because of the fact she didn’t have access to the pertinent data. Instead, she was in charge of handling the state’s online dashboard, not the raw data.

“If the complainant or other DOH staff were to have falsified COVID-19 data on the dashboard, the dashboard would then not have matched the data in the corresponding final daily report,” the report said.

“Such a discrepancy would have been detectable by [Bureau of Epidemiology] staff conducting data quality assurance, as well as other parties, both within and outside the DOH, including but not limited to [county health departments], local governments, researchers, the press/media, and the general public.”

Instead, the report stated the inspector general’s office “found no evidence that the DOH misrepresented or otherwise misled the public regarding how positivity rates were calculated,” according to the report.

“The definitions for overall and new case positivity were provided on the Data Definition sheet and Health Metrics Overview, which were both linked to the dashboard, and were consistent with testimonial evidence obtained by the OIG.”

The report appeared last week to nary a peep in the same media outlets that loved her back in the febrile days of the early pandemic.

As The Daily Caller noted, Jones was a frequent guest on Joy Reid’s MSNBC’s show and made at least five appearances on former CNN host Chris Cuomo’s old show. (No lack of sad irony there; Cuomo’s brother Andrew, the erstwhile governor of New York, was forced out of office over sexual harassment allegations, but also faced accusations of covering up COVID deaths in the state’s nursing homes.)

The headlines in liberal media outlets were similarly effusive — calling Jones a “scientist” to buttress her standing, like Jones was filling test tubes with potential coronavirus vaccines when she wasn’t trying to expose fraud in the Florida government. But even CNN has been honest enough to qualify that as “data scientist.”

NPR, May 19, 2020: “Florida Dismisses A Scientist For Her Refusal To Manipulate State’s Coronavirus Data.” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 10, 2020: “FDLE raid dramatizes Florida’s COVID-19 coverup.” HuffPo, Dec. 17, 2020: “Florida Scientist Vows To Speak COVID-19 ‘Truth To Power’ Despite Police Raid.” Cosmopolitan, March 11, 2021: “Rebekah Jones Tried To Warn Us About COVID-19. How Her Freedom Is On The Line.”

No evidence for any of it. None. Goose egg. Zero-point-zero.

Rebekah Jones was a darling of the mainstream media if just because her wild-eyed conspiracy theories about covering up COVID data could be wielded as a cudgel against Ron DeSantis and others considered a threat to progressives.

As always, the allegations appear on page one; the truth on page 17 — if it appears at all. She’s served her purpose.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption

Biden keeps repeating false Second Amendment claim, despite repeated fact checks

Joe doing what he does best. Geller Report-WP
Joe just can’t get a break.

Biden repeatedly and falsely claims, ‘You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed’

By Jessica Chasmar and others | Fox News

Categories
Biden Pandemic Corruption Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion Politics Progressive Racism Reprints from others. Uncategorized

The Deeply Flawed Narrative That Joe Biden Bought

“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.” Former President Barack Obama shakes hands with Joe Biden after Biden spoke about the Affordable Care Act, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Left critics and self-hating Democrats believe that Obama was a Republican-indulging compromiser. So did Biden and his appointees, who were determined to outdo Obama using narrow Democratic control of Congress. Why they blew it.
by Bill Scher

This is a piece from a new source for me called the Washington Monthly.  Many of the articles are left leaning, but this one does make some sense. I’ll highlight some of the comments I agree with. Most of this article is Bullshit. But I felt all should see how the left thinks.

In July 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank banking bill. Its passage marked his administration’s third major legislative accomplishment, joining the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act. The former, known as “the stimulus,” helped cut short the Great Recession. It also powered a clean energy revolution. From the beginning to the end of the Obama administration, wind power capacity tripled and solar power capacity increased by an astonishing 2,500 percent. The ACA, or “Obamacare,” expanded health insurance coverage, helping to reduce the percentage of uninsured Americans from 14.7 in 2008 to 9.2 in 2021. To fund expanded coverage, the ACA imposed new taxes on the wealthy, which, in concert with subsequent tax code changes, subjected the richest 1 percent of households to their highest tax burden since 1979. And Dodd-Frank’s reorganization of the financial regulatory system, according to the financial reformers at Better Markets, succeeded in “making a financial crash much less likely.”

At the same point, 486 days into his administration, Joe Biden’s scorecard is not as full. His biggest victory is the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Biden signed was significant as well, but his failure to extend the law’s poverty-fighting child tax credit expansion beyond December 2021 mars its legacy.

From the new book This Will Not Pass by the New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin, we know that Biden had hoped to surpass Obama’s legislative output and impact. The president is quoted as saying to an adviser, “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his.” (And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is quoted as having told a friend, “Obama is jealous of Biden.”)

But 16 months into Biden’s presidency, it seems unlikely to be as transformative as Obama’s. It may succeed in many respects; great foreign policy achievements may be in store; a burst of bipartisanship could dampen our polarization. But the window for sweeping progressive legislation appears to be closed. Any last-ditch “reconciliation” bill this year, somehow earning Senator Joe Manchin’s approval and a barely sufficient 50 Senate votes, will have to be much smaller than the Build Back Better bill, meant to be Biden’s crowning legislative achievement. Truly ambitious party line legislation beyond this year would necessitate a Republican collapse, allowing Democrats to control Congress despite high inflation and Biden’s poor approval ratings.

The value of comparing these two administrations is not to settle some presidential pissing contest but to determine how best to enact progressive change.

We learn from This Will Not Pass that the Biden administration was heavily influenced by critics of Obama’s conciliatory approach, some of whom came from within that administration itself. According to Burns and Martin,

The people [Biden] had put in place at the highest levels of the White House largely aligned with [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer and Pelosi in their view of congressional Republicans. Mostly veterans of the Obama administration, they were haunted by their party’s last experience governing in an economic crisis, in 2009, when a newly inaugurated Democratic president and his top staff had spent months pleading and horse-trading for Republican support on various essential priorities and come away with little to show for it. [White House Chief of Staff] Ron Klain was among the Biden aides who [were] clear-eyed about the early missteps of the Obama administration …

The Obama administration, Klain believed, had moved too slowly in its early days to address the recession, and it had done too little to explain to the public what it was doing … Klain fretted that there was a risk Democrats would make the same mistakes again: allowing a drawn-out negotiation over dollar figures and time-tables to overshadow the real benefits the administration wanted to give voters.

Such a narrative became popular in progressive circles, driven by pundits like the New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman. In January 2009, Krugman deemed Obama’s $775 billion stimulus proposal “not enough” to deal with an estimated $2.1 trillion of lost production in the Great Recession. Five years later, Krugman called the stimulus, despite its positive policy elements, a “political disaster” that ended up “discrediting the very idea of stimulus.” Krugman also criticized Obama in August 2009 in response to reports that he was “backing away” from a “public option” during health care negotiations: “It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased.”

Obama revealed his real-time response to such complaints in his memoir, A Promised Land. Attempts to include a public option were dropped toward the end of the process at the behest of moderates in the Democratic caucus, enraging many progressives. Obama wrote,

I found the whole brouhaha exasperating. “What is it about sixty votes these folks don’t understand?” I groused to my staff. “Should I tell the thirty million people who can’t get covered that they’re going to have to wait another ten years because we can’t get them a public option?” It wasn’t just that criticism from friends always stung the most. The carping carried immediate political consequences for Democrats … all the great social-welfare advances in American history, including Social Security and Medicare, had started off incomplete and had been built upon gradually, over time. By preemptively spinning what could be a monumental, if imperfect, victory into a bitter defeat, the criticism contributed to a potential long-term demoralization of Democratic voters—otherwise known as the “What’s the point of voting if nothing ever changes?” syndrome—making it even harder for us to win elections and move progressive legislation forward in the future.

I find Obama’s explanation sensible. Yet inexplicably to me, many Obama administration veterans favor the Krugman view. Even more bizarre, Biden, after pushing back on progressive Obama critics in the 2020 primaries, surrounded himself with such critics once in office. The result was a Biden administration less attuned than his Democratic predecessor’s at determining what could be achieved with the Senate votes available.

Yes, Obama had more Senate Democrats to work with than Biden’s 50. Obama began his presidency with 58 Democrats. In late April 2009, Senator Arlen Specter switched parties to make it 59. In early July 2009, Al Franken was sworn in as the 60th Democratic senator following a grueling recount. Then the number was knocked back to 59 in February 2010 after Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won the special election to succeed the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy.

With such a big majority, you might think that Obama could have plucked just about anything off the progressive wish list and made it law, using budget reconciliation—the procedurally complex filibuster-proof process Biden used last year to pass the American Rescue Plan with just 50 Senate Democrats. But Obama’s big majority included a sizable and stingy moderate faction, and not just in the Senate. In 2009, the House had 255 Democrats, but 49 were moderate Blue Dogs, more than enough to deny Pelosi a majority.

As Michael Grunwald explained in his history of the 2009 stimulus, The New New Deal, Obama “had to make sure Blue Dogs in the House and centrist Democrats in the Senate didn’t jump ship,” because even before the inauguration, “they were already sounding alarms about runaway spending.” In December 2008, then Vice President–elect Biden was compelled to publicly state that the emerging package “will not become a Democratic Christmas tree.” That effectively cut off any talk about using reconciliation for the first major bill of the Obama administration. And when a Senate version of the stimulus grew to $930 billion, a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats came together to scale it back to $780 billion.

Following the February 2009 passage of the Recovery Act, Democratic leaders wanted reconciliation available for the rest of Obama’s agenda, but fellow Democrats stymied them. When putting together the budget resolution—the parliamentary precursor to a budget reconciliation bill—Democrats agreed to include health care and education as eligible for the reconciliation process. But a Republican motion explicitly denying the same privilege for any climate change bill was embraced by 26 Senate Democrats and passed overwhelmingly—an omen that the Senate was not going to be hospitable to any ambitious climate change bill.

Even though health care made the cut, Democrats said at the time that the reconciliation option was a last resort. Reconciliation bills can only include budget-related provisions, and many health care reform proposals wouldn’t qualify (a procedural obstacle that fatally compromised Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare using reconciliation in 2017). Then Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad said, “Virtually everyone who has been part of these discussions recognizes that reconciliation is not the preferred way to write this legislation. But the administration wants to have a reconciliation instruction as an insurance policy.”

In turn, Obama calibrated his legislative agenda to meet the limits of what the 60th vote would allow. For the Recovery Act, after helping to limit the price tag, the 58th, 59th, and 60th Senate votes came from Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and—before his switch—Specter. (Senate Democrats were united in support, though eight House Democrats broke ranks.) For Obamacare, the 60th vote came from Democrat-turned-independent moderate Joe Lieberman, who refused both the public option as well as a Medicare buy-in option for those turning 55. For Dodd-Frank, it came from Scott Brown (offsetting the loss of progressive Democrat Russ Feingold), who demanded that a proposed tax on banks be stricken from the bill. It was.

Student loan reform did piggyback on a reconciliation package used to finish up the Obamacare process, accommodating changes sought by the House weeks after Senate Democrats lost their 60th seat. Fifty-six Senate Democrats passed that follow-up bill, with three Democrats joining Republicans in opposition.

Some progressives never cottoned to the horse trades required to win those votes and partly blamed watered-down legislation for the poor Democratic performances in the 2010 and 2014 midterms and even Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. The Biden presidency offered the opportunity to prove the alternate theory of the case. Don’t strain for the 60th vote. Use the reconciliation process. Go big with 50 votes. Don’t even bother with Republicans.

But whatever the merits of reconciliation, basic legislative competence still requires accommodating the determining vote, be it the 60th vote in regular order or the 50th vote in reconciliation.

Biden simply did not do that in his pursuit of a wide-ranging Build Back Better bill. In December, he didn’t rush to take Manchin’s $1.8 trillion offer, apparently because it left out an extension of the expanded child tax credit. As Biden hesitated, Manchin announced his opposition to the entire bill and revoked the offer. Biden was understandably reluctant to give up on a program that had successfully slashed child poverty and had the makings of a signature policy achievement. But it was politically foolish to presume that the one-year expansion of the credit—slipped into the American Rescue Plan reconciliation measure—would be extended indefinitely without first securing Manchin’s support.

Krugman and others charged Obama with having “wasted time” by trying for months to win Republican support for the Affordable Care Act, support that never materialized. But Obama wasn’t just chasing Republicans; he was also chasing Senate Democrat moderates. However long it took, he found the votes he needed. Notably, Obamacare (and the student loan reform that rode along with it) was an anomaly. Every other bill Obama signed into law was passed thanks to mathematically necessary Republican support. It’s far more accurate to charge Biden with having wasted time on Build Back Better, as he spent months trying to wear down Manchin and ended up with nothing. Biden took less time getting the 60 Senate votes needed to pass an infrastructure bill precisely because he let those moderates who held the determining votes take the lead on negotiations.

Getting the historical narrative correct matters. Democrats should have been telling a positive story of Obama’s presidency, one where landmark laws made America better, and he became the first Democratic president to win reelection with more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Instead, Democrats told a narrative that lacked historical perspective, blaming an inevitably imperfect legislative record for midterm losses, even though such defeats are common for the president’s party. Amazingly, Joe Biden, of all politicians, a figure who has lived through decades of Washington history, got suckered into accepting a flawed narrative. No wonder his legislative strategy was similarly flawed.

 

 

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Faked news Leftist Virtue(!)

Whiny Jankowicz Says Americans Criticizing Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board Are “Endangering Our National Security”

Can you believe this loon?

Biden’s ousted disinformation czar on Friday whined about conservatives who criticized the DHS’s ‘Ministry of Truth.’

Earlier this week, the Biden Regime announced it is ‘pausing’ the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ after conservative media hammered the lunatic Marxist chosen to run the Orwellian agency.

Nina Jankowicz, the far-left lunatic chosen to lead the DHS’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ resigned on Wednesday.

Now Jankowicz is attacking Americans for exercising their First Amendment right to criticize the so-called ‘disinformation board.’

Jankowicz claimed conservatives are putting the US’s national security at risk.

“The Disinformation Governance Board was the victim of disinformation,” Jankowicz said. “Disinformation is false information spread with malign intent and clearly there was a malign intent on some actors in the media and in politics…”

[Critics] completely mischaracterized its mission and frankly, this childish behavior is endangering our national security now,” Jankowicz added.

Even Whitney –who died in February, 2012 — currently has more brains  than this loon does.