Outrageous – Biden Refuses to Negotiate on the Debt Ceiling: The arrogance of President Biden and the Democrats to expect/demand that Republicans just fold and add TRILLIONS of more debt to the federal deficit is outrageous.
The Democrats seem to have no concern of the economic effects such deficit spending has. The Democrats seem to care less about the burden on average taxpayers. The Democrats seem to hope that generations of voters just forget or don’t understand how they are getting screwed.
Blackmailing America’s taxpayers is NOT good public policy and I hope voters remember.
Putin’s Minions Want Peace: While Putin and his Soviet era allies in Russia and Belarus continue their savage war on Ukraine, their people, the little guys fighting his arrogant escapades just want peace. Mother Russia is weeping as it is on track to lose HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of its children to Putin’s war.
Let Russia be Russia. Build your country, save your sons and daughters from sure death and/or misery, rebuild your own civilization…join the rest of the civilized world in being a responsible member of the world’s nations.
It’s easy. Stay on your side of the border. Stop threatening your neighbors. Play by the international rules you yourselves have rhetorically accepted…and no one will care if you govern by a Soviet kleptocracy of oligarchs…other than your own people who appear willing to suffer through your arrogant abuse of power.
The war crimes Putin and his allies have committed will NOT be forgotten. International observers are recording the horrors of Putin’s war on civilians, women, and children. Putin and his enablers and implementers will ultimately be held responsible…if not in the courts, then on their way to heaven…detour ahead!
Read more below and follow me on Twitter & GETTR – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
Click Here for Past Commentary from Saul
60 Plus Weekly Video Rewind
This week: US sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine, AARP under scrutiny by the Commitment to Seniors project, and Adam Schiff posts pathetic TikTok video!
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/25/germany-us-ukraine-leopard-abrams-battle-tanks
https://commitmenttoseniors.org/
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6 Failures of Biden’s Presidency in Year 2
Are you better off than you were two years ago?
A number of reports on Saturday suggested that White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain will step down after the State of the Union address next month. So, it’s a good time to look back on the Biden presidency so far.
Last year, just before President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address, I wrote about seven failures of his administration.
From COVID-19 tyranny to a foolhardy retreat from energy independence to a vicious war on parents, the 46th president has proved to be far from the healing uniter he was promised to be.
Though it seems many Americans have already forgotten about it, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal remains one of the most humiliating foreign policy fiascos in American history. Even worse, following that disaster, there was no reckoning, no accountability for what happened.
In Biden’s second year, we saw many ongoing problems, some of which have only escalated. So, to mark the second anniversary of Biden’s presidency, I’ve updated my analysis of some of his biggest failures that are affecting Americans today.
When Will the 2024 Republican Presidential Hopefuls Jump In?
Several potential GOP contenders for the 2024 presidential race suggested they would take the holidays to seriously consider whether to run. Now that we’re firmly post-holiday, should Americans expect a flood of presidential hopefuls to enter the spotlight?
Maybe not, according to national Republican strategist Kristin Davison.
Those weighing a 2024 bid will surely be haunted by the specter of former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s failed 2016 presidential run. In the 2016 cycle, the first Republican primary debate was held in August 2015, one month after Walker launched his campaign. He dropped out the next month.
“The big comparison I hear right now out there is Scott Walker . . . People want to be sure they don’t peak like he did in 2015 and then burn out,” Davison told me.
“I think people have to remember two years is a long time to keep up enthusiasm and fund a big team and so you want to peak at the right time,” she said. Instead, candidates are mostly in a “testing the waters” phase right now. She expects the race will become “more official and aggressive” by the end of this year.
2024 will mark 20 years since Republicans last won the popular vote. Can they rebrand in time to stop losing streak?
2024 will mark a sorry anniversary for the Republican Party: 20 years since President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign won both the popular and Electoral College votes. That feat has since eluded three GOP presidential nominees and one incumbent.
The critical question is, “Are Republicans capable of nominating a winning ticket to halt this embarrassing losing trend?” I doubt it since rapidly changing demographics are reducing the Republicans’ popular vote count in battleground states.
In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president by winning only the Electoral College — a political fluke that he did not repeat in 2020. Moreover, the demeaning label “illegitimate president” can haunt a commander in chief who wins without the popular vote. Just ask George W. Bush, circa 2000.
To understand how this forthcoming non-celebratory 20th anniversary of continuous political loss manifested itself, let’s begin with notable 2004 state voting data and compare it to 2020 state results.
The GOP Wants to Return Discretionary Spending to FY2022 Levels: A Brief Analysis
The U.S. debt limit looms in early summer, with current estimates suggesting that Treasury may run out of borrowing authority under the $31.4 trillion debt limit sometime in June or July. Earlier this year, House Republicans committed to pairing any increase in the debt limit with spending reforms—a key demand before electing a new House Speaker. By targeting discretionary spending, members expect to make an immediate down payment toward more responsible fiscal policy and assert their policy priorities.
The agreement House Republicans struck with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R‑CA) highlights a likely direction for debt limit negotiations this summer. The following priorities are especially relevant to understanding GOP strategy:
– Cap fiscal 2024 discretionary spending at enacted fiscal 2022 levels or lower.
– Reject any negotiations with the Senate unless that chamber’s 12 spending bills are passed, the bills comply with the House budget resolution, and they reduce non‐defense discretionary spending.
– Not agree to a debt limit increase without a budget agreement or “commensurate fiscal reforms.”
School choice is the great equalizer
The scandal of Virginia schools deliberately withholding merit awards from their own high-achieving students has public officials and parents in an uproar, and rightly so. Students were unfairly denied recognition and benefits from the National Merit Scholarship program that they had earned so school administrators could pat themselves on the back for creating an “equitable” environment.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has launched an investigation, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) even suggested the schools could be guilty of a “human rights violation.” Accountability will be welcome.
But there is a better solution to this problem, and that is school choice.
This week is National School Choice Week , and the Virginia education system’s failures are a perfect example of why education freedom is so important. Students should not be trapped in a system that deprecates their achievements and is more interested in egalitarian poses than in success. No one benefits from an environment in which excellence is meaningless, least of all low-achieving students who will never be challenged or encouraged to reach higher.
Such schools are failing their students by prioritizing ideology over education. They do not deserve the steady flow of taxpayer dollars allotted to them. Indeed, they deserve to have the cash flow stanched. Families should not be forced to keep funding a system that betrays their children and its purpose. Virginia’s families, and all others across the country, need choice — the ability to take taxpayer funding away from the public education system and spend it instead on an education that meets their children’s needs.
Virginia Gov. Youngkin stokes 2024 campaign speculation after killing Ford battery plant over its links to China
Youngkin may be trying to neutralize a potential line of attack on his former company’s extensive business in China ahead of a 2024 presidential run.
It seemed like a deal any governor would love to tout, especially if dreaming of a move to the White House: 2,500 high-tech manufacturing jobs for an iconic American company in a long-struggling part of the state.
But this week, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia nixed a proposed $3.5 billion Ford electric vehicle battery factory over its partnership with a Chinese battery maker, saying he would not allow taxpayer money to be used to “recruit Ford as a front for China.”
The decision by the former CEO stunned observers, leading many to see it as further evidence that Youngkin is preparing to run for president and trying to neutralize a potential line of attack on his past business ties to the communist country. (Virginia doesn’t allow governors to serve consecutive terms, so Youngkin can’t seek re-election.)
DeSantis is right to reject the woke AP African-American studies curriculum
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stands accused of a long parade of horribles to which has now been added a new count — allegedly opposing the teaching of African-American history.
Florida rejected the College Board’s pilot Advanced Placement African-American Studies course, and the decision has been treated in progressive quarters like the curricular equivalent of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the state’s decision “incomprehensible.” DeSantis wants to “block,” according to Jean-Pierre, “the study of black Americans.” She noted, ominously, “these types of actions aren’t new, especially from what we’re seeing from Florida, sadly.”
Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat, said the rejection of the course amounts to a “whitewash” of American history. Jones maintains that “we’re back at square one, seeing that we once again have to defend ourselves to be legitimate in America.”
Never mind that there’s obviously a difference between objecting to the ideological content of a pilot course that hasn’t yet been adopted and erasing the history of African Americans as such.
The Cost Of San Francisco’s Reparations Proposal: Nearly $600,000 Per Household
Last week, San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee submitted a proposal to the city’s Human Rights Commission that would pay every eligible African American adult living in San Francisco $5 million.
Last week, San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee submitted a proposal to the city’s Human Rights Commission that would pay every eligible African American adult living in San Francisco $5 million. The report calls for 18 other financial recommendations, including the cancellation of personal debts, annual income supplements for 250 years, and the conversion of public housing to condominiums that would be gifted to recipients. The recommendations are listed on pages 31–32 of the proposal.
I have analyzed some parts of this proposal and estimate that its cost, presented on a per-household basis, will be nearly $600,000 per non–African American San Francisco household. For the reasons I describe below, this estimate may be too low. The obvious fiscal implication is that the committee’s recommendations are infeasible. Implementing a plan of this size—or even one that was one-fifth as large—would lead to significant business and household relocations, which in turn would magnify San Francisco’s existing fiscal problems by reducing the city’s tax base and the scope and depth of its economic activity. The tax consequences of this proposal would turn San Francisco into a 21st-century version of Detroit, which has lost 60% of its population since 1950. After losing 6.3% of its population between 2019 and 2021, San Francisco remains vulnerable for additional population losses.
The major cost component of the proposal is the $5 million payment for each eligible African American who is 18 years or older. The Census Bureau estimates there are 46,466 African Americans in San Francisco. Among them are about 35,445 individuals who are 18 years or older, given the age distribution of the African American population.
Eligibility for the $5 million payments is broad (see page 30 of the proposal), so I will assume that all African Americans 18 years and older currently living in the city will be eligible for these payments. Paying $5 million to 35,455 individuals totals about $175 billion. To put this in perspective, the city’s budget for the current fiscal year is $14 billion, while this proposed sum exceeds the current state budgets of all US states except for California, New York, and Texas.
