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Sunday Smiles
This post was originally published on this site
Pop quiz: Will Biden be remembered as being in the mold of FDR, LBJ, or George Washington? Or, perhaps in the company of presidents whose greatness was never fully realized, such as Wilson, JFK, or James Garfield–greats who never got to complete their mission due to health issues such as being shot or having a stroke?
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NEW: CBS questions whether President Biden will be compared to leaders like FDR, Washington, Wilson, and JFK.
Who do you compare Biden to? pic.twitter.com/rXnZu2anXB
— Resist the Mainstream (@ResisttheMS) January 17, 2025
Only history will tell us whether Biden is remembered as the best or only a great president.
According to a discussion on CBS’ morning show, this is the case. Who ARE these people, and at what point did having a lobotomy become a requirement for being a “journalist” on these shows?
Among normal Americans–at least the ones who went to school back when American history was taught as something other than one long train of colonialist abuses–the hot topic when Joe Biden’s ranking among the presidents is whether he is in competition with James Buchanan as one of the most actively harmful presidents, or with Jimmy Carter as one of its most inept. I suppose you could compare Joe Biden to Wilson–he was both awful as a policy president and also had his brain turn to absolute mush.
Wilson for the win, I guess. And no doubt the folks at CBS would like Wilson. He threw his political opponents in jail, expanded the federal government, loved the administrative state, hated the Constitution, and pursued a “peaceful” foreign policy that left the world in flames.
Yes, Wilson, it is. After all, Buchanan gifted us the Civil War, the most destructive war in American history, while Biden’s death count may be similar, but the victims were not all in the United States. The Afghans, Israelis, and Ukrainians are mostly paying the price.
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TRUMP VICTORY DANCES!
I am not tired of watching people doing the YMCA dance #TrumpDance #MAGA 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/wsnAc3n6Lo
— Pat Wales 🇺🇸 (@patnaturalaging) November 14, 2024
Yes @MarioNawfal .. new endzone dance !
So nice to see young people embracing MAGA, America First and the new Golden Age of Exceptionalism!
University Of Missouri Sigma Nu Fraternity Celebrates Donald J Trump WIN ! #Trump @umsl @SigmaNuHQ
Nick Bosa NFL
Mahomes
YMCA
Trump… pic.twitter.com/tDJjH3YIyH— Kris For #Trump 2024 (@ListenToKris) November 11, 2024
Little dude is practicing his Trump dance for the Inauguration! pic.twitter.com/KYFhh8DkVw
— AmericanPapaBear (@AmericaPapaBear) January 17, 2025
Donald Trump – Do The Trump (Official Trump Dance Song) pic.twitter.com/FSgElMWD4T
— Brett Murphy (@PatriotPointman) December 5, 2024
BEST OF THE BABYLON BEE!
Gen Z Upset About TikTok Ban For 4.3 Seconds, Which Is The Maximum Amount Of Time They Can Focus On Something Thanks To TikTok https://t.co/FbU9QeHluM pic.twitter.com/fuRF1Axc6P
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 17, 2025
California Police Arrest Arsonist For Using Gas Blowtorch Instead Of Electric Blowtorch https://t.co/zaAJYrTv8d pic.twitter.com/31VYs5Gca3
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Pete Hegseth Awarded Silver Star For Enduring Roomful Of Hysterical Women https://t.co/r4Ij67GuEz pic.twitter.com/mKN9j690SA
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
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Gavin Newsom Rushes Into Burning Building To Inform Fire Victim Trump Is Bad https://t.co/qf4ws9LUSY pic.twitter.com/OCSkBRtfCW
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Retired Parents With Open Calendar Want To Know Why You Don’t Put Your 8 Kids In A Car And Drive 3000 Miles To See Them More Often https://t.co/AZsUQCjuGf pic.twitter.com/KfVNLVGEek
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 16, 2025
China Starting To Worry TikTok Has Made Americans Even Dumber Than They Intended https://t.co/DVGHhyaYXw pic.twitter.com/0HacUw3ON8
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 17, 2025
Obama To Divorce Michelle After Discovering She’s Actually A Woman https://t.co/GpVBjSWYl0 pic.twitter.com/UKQKOSz6sb
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 16, 2025
As White House Gig Wraps Up, Karine Jean-Pierre Prepares To Head Back To Old Job At Men’s Wearhouse https://t.co/EjJKpn3eCw pic.twitter.com/cUO3OCzATk
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Biden Confirms That Before Declaring New Amendment, He Talked To Respected Constitutional Scholars Beavis And Butt-Head https://t.co/f2VPwPVDDO pic.twitter.com/WfBF6zki1I
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Frodo And Sam Arrive To Toss Ring Into Fires Of Los Angeles https://t.co/uuZRQ5h71B pic.twitter.com/PRDhau4JUM
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Life Hack: Save Money On Home Improvements By Not Doing Them https://t.co/kuk3wAZX4A pic.twitter.com/HaDCobN78D
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
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Gavin Newsom Demands Answers From Whoever’s In Charge Of Californiahttps://t.co/yZcheY5OmS pic.twitter.com/CNX7FvJqyf
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 9, 2025
Obama And Trump Separated At Carter Funeral For Disruptive Behavior https://t.co/F6PLOIhouW pic.twitter.com/qoV4z2qRmf
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 9, 2025
Biden Says He’s Looking Forward To Retiring To That Nice Big Farm In The Country Where Jill Sent The Family Dog https://t.co/fkwGBzTfU2 pic.twitter.com/6V53pqNBND
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
Guy Who Said Facebook Was Not Suppressing Free Speech Announces Facebook Will Stop Suppressing Free Speech https://t.co/728QNhOX5b pic.twitter.com/jBfa54CQbh
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 12, 2025
Senate Committee Sticks To Softball Questions For Shotgun-Toting Kristi Noem https://t.co/b7dpj1orA5 pic.twitter.com/wlGdZx8v7d
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 17, 2025
Governor Newsom Orders All Trees To Wear Masks To Prevent Spread Of Wildfires https://t.co/lXNGL0ujjr pic.twitter.com/V5HxuqXT31
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 8, 2025
Government Demands TikTok Stop Spying On Americans As That’s Their Job https://t.co/ElhlduDrpc pic.twitter.com/CTcay9ChGc
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 18, 2025
BEST OF THE REST
The Babylon Bee is genius entertainment, because it’s so damn TRUE! pic.twitter.com/6rlk4u6K5K
— Brian Kennedy (@Brian_Kennedy) January 15, 2025
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Donkey reunited with the girl who raised it.. 🥺 pic.twitter.com/JiKkRgxExx
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 19, 2025
Cow thinks he’s a showjumping horse pic.twitter.com/AVoNOJlXMR
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 17, 2025
WE HAVE TOUCHDOWN!!!😎🇺🇸🥳🥳🥳 pic.twitter.com/6xrwCyYm7o
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) January 16, 2025
Everybody ready? pic.twitter.com/6teTJQBSBj
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 17, 2025
They’re evolving. pic.twitter.com/avC7i4ABas
— cats with jobs 🛠 (@CatWorkers) January 17, 2025
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) January 16, 2025
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) January 16, 2025
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) January 14, 2025
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) January 14, 2025
— puppies video (@puppies_video) January 14, 2025
🐕 🐈 🥰 So HAPPY together! Smile time! 🐕 🐈 🥰
🐕 🐈 🥰 Dogs and Cats that are besties! 🥰🐕 🐈 pic.twitter.com/ivcKETnUwA
— ❤️🔥 𝓓𝓪𝓻 ❤️🔥 (@DameScorpio) January 14, 2025
How To Avoid Harmfully Stereotyping A Muslim Immigrant Who Is Assaulting You pic.twitter.com/6INxTxgOB2
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 16, 2025
AND FINALLY…
Visit California: It’s America’s Future pic.twitter.com/ltWVJcBY9M
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 15, 2025
Nurse Worried She Might Have To Care For Patients If TikTok Is Banned pic.twitter.com/RnNkhAtJjJ
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 17, 2025
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Meet The LAFD’s First Paraplegic Firefighter pic.twitter.com/QJGKDh3VoL
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 15, 2025
BONUS REPEAT
3 MORE DAYS BABY🫨! Can you imagine what he will accomplish when he’s actually President as apposed to President Elect😳! GET READY BECAUSE AMERICA IS ABOUT TO PROSPER GREATER THAN IT EVER HAS😲! Oh and FJB FJB FJB🖕 pic.twitter.com/xKPYZDBrwm
— Bobby D🎙 (@robertdunlap947) January 17, 2025
Anarchists Versus Libertarians
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“Donald Trump will be a tyrant!”
So my neighbors claim. I live in Manhattan. Feel for me.
Yes, Trump says wild things, like riffing about “terminating” parts of the U.S. Constitution.
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But I don’t think he means it. As Joe Rogan said to Trump when candidate Trump came on his show, “You say a lot of wild s—!”
In any case, podcaster Michael Malice, in my new video, says not to worry, “We have so much further to go before we’re lost as a country.”
Malice knows the damage real tyrants do. He’s spent time in North Korea, and he was born in the Soviet Union. He detests political “leaders,” saying the best political system is anarchism: self-government without a central authority, or, as the AI on my computer defines it: “a self-managed, stateless society based on voluntary cooperation and mutual aid.”
Malice and I debate that. I’m no anarchist. I’m a libertarian. I believe we should be allowed to act as we wish, so long as we don’t hurt others. I accept the need for limited government, one that adjudicates disputes, enforces pollution control, and funds police and a military to keep us safe.
Malice says it’s wrong to think that way, because all central government is a problem.
“Security is like anything else,” he argues. “Should the government be producing books? … No. Producing helicopters? … No … a government monopoly makes no sense. But somehow when it comes to security, you’re OK with this. And then you live in New York and wonder why it ends up being the way it is.”
I’m not convinced that security is “like anything else.” A government monopoly on force at least means that we rarely have different security forces fighting each other.
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“How about pollution?” I ask, because I don’t see how my beloved free market will effectively address it. “My smoke goes into other people’s lungs. Under anarchy, there’s no preventative mechanism that would deter me from letting that smoke travel.”
“That’s an aggression,” replies Malice. “You are violating my space. That would be adjudicated under private arbitration, which would be faster and more efficient.”
Private lawsuits and arbitration are efficient? Not that I’ve seen.
It’s hard for everyone who breathes my fumes to sue me.
“There would be some John Stossels out there who make those polluting cars or they don’t really care. But the point is, all the pressures on cars and all these other mechanisms are far more a function of people getting informed and involved than it is the function of government laws.”
He points out that pollution is worst in countries with big governments, “like China, where under communism … you drain every bit of resource that you can. … people getting cancer, dying, you don’t care. Under free markets, people are more invested and have more of a space to say something, to clean up the environment.”
“But our air and water were filthy before we had government’s pollution laws,” I point out.
“How did they get cleaned up? Because you had organizations saying ‘pollution is bad’ … And these companies did something about it. Government laws came as a consequence.”
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Malice calls anarchism “libertarianism with principles.” He also published “The Anarchist Handbook,” featuring essays by thinkers who say that a society without government could work well.
I’m skeptical.
I hate our big intrusive government, hate that it grabs almost half our money and micromanages our lives. I hate the politicians who act like good things come from them, rather than from millions of free people pursuing our own interests. I hate that government constantly grows more intrusive and takes more of our money (under both Democrat and Republican administrations).
But I do think we need some of it.
Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
Saving the Best For Last: Sunday Reflection
This post was originally published on this site
Note: I have friends coming in from out of town and will be tied up this weekend. Please enjoy this 2019 reflection, and I’ll return next week with a fresh reflection.
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This morning’s Gospel reading is John 2:1–11:
There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from —although the servers who had drawn the water knew—, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.
As my mother could tell you by chapter and verse, I picked up some peculiar eating habits from a very young age. I remained unaware of a couple of them until adulthood, when she pointed them out to me. For one thing, I almost always ate one item on my at a time until it was completely gone before moving onto another. I’ve been aware of that habit for more than twenty years and still catch myself at it. Also, I have an abhorrence of mixing items on my plate, except — for some odd reason — with mashed potatoes and corn or peas.
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I was a weird kid. As though you needed to read this reflection to find that out.
One other habit has stuck with me, although this is one I rather enjoy. I tend to eat my meals from least-favorite item to most-favorite item. I want to save the best for last rather than the other way around. If I put fruit in my cereal, I’ll mostly eat around it to finish with it at the end. It gives a kind of reward at the end of the meal, a pleasant finish to whatever I’ve made. It’s not a delayed-gratification discipline (as my other eating habits would unfortunately attest), but simply a preference.
Why does this appeal to me? Honestly I’m not sure, but perhaps it’s my own expression of the human need for hope. Today’s Gospel gives us an opportunity to reflect on hope, on redemption, and on grasping the difference between the material now and the eternal hereafter.
John tells us of Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana, but he also tells us something of the mores of the time as well. The wine has run out, which would be embarrassing at a wedding reception today but would have been a humiliation for the family in those times. Today we’d simply go to the nearest liquor store and pick up a couple of cases of whatever was on sale, but in those times the family would have had to stock up for weeks to have enough for their feast. In a small community, the story of a failure of hospitality such as this could have stuck with the family for a generation.
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We also find out that the custom of these times was to serve the best wine first. This makes some sense; as more wine is drunk, palettes become less discerning. This custom would likely encourage people to drink as much as they can up front to ensure they got as much of the best wine as they could before getting switched to the inferior wine later. In fact, John mentions this result in his Gospel through the voice of the headwaiter, part of the amazement that Jesus’ wine causes when it comes late in the celebration.
This first miracle of wine has many lessons to unpack, but among them is this: we should not allow ourselves to get drunk off the first wine of life in this world. Too often we become enthralled by the material world, drinking it in freely and assuming whatever comes next will be inferior. Worse yet, we treat it as a zero-sum game. We drink all the more in order to get our fill before it runs out, not worrying about whether everyone else has been served their portion yet.
As life goes along, the wine may change from sweet to bitter. We age; we lose sight of our grand dreams and machinations; our families become divided and friends fade from sight. If all we know of life is its sweet wine at the beginning, we will lose hope and despair at the coming of our deaths. In effect, life becomes a permanent hangover, a status of regret, bitterness, and recrimination.
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Jesus uses the wedding feast to reverse this, and to tell us about the nature of salvation. We are meant to celebrate life in the world God created — to marry, to live in the world, and to use His gifts to help others along the way. However, we are also meant to know that salvation brings with it the sweetest wine possible: eternal life with the Father through Christ. Our mission is to endure the bitter with the sweet not in despair, but in faith that Christ will be with us at the end to bring us to the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb.
The headwaiter expresses amazement that the bridegroom has saved the best for last. We who follow Christ should not be amazed by this, but should have faith in exactly that outcome. On that day, we will all celebrate the love of God together, the sweetest wine will never run out, and the bounty at the table will sustain itself forever. And I might even mix a couple of items on my plate. Maybe.
Previous reflections on these readings:
The front page image is “The Marriage at Cana” by Paolo Veronese, 1563. In inventory at the Louvre, Paris, France. Via Wikimedia Commons.
“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.
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Europe Takes a Bite Out of America’s Apple
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Envy is an ugly thing — one of the seven deadly sins.
Europeans have long been dripping with jealousy that American firms dominate the tech sector — cellphones, search engines, social media platforms, artificial intelligence and robotics. Our “magnificent seven” tech companies — including Google, Nvidia, Apple and Amazon — saw massive stocks market gains in 2024. Meanwhile, Europe has flatlined.
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One reason for this success: The United States innovates while Europe regulates. Instead of fixing their economies, the European Union bureaucrats want to kneecap America’s tech success stories with lawsuits and regulatory barbed wire fences to keep American firms from competing on a level playing field.
Their first target was Google, with a rash of expensive antitrust lawsuits against search engines.
Even worse, the EU bureaucrats are waging war against Apple with the “Digital Markets Act” — a law that requires “contestable and fair markets in the digital sector.”
They are also demanding of Apple something called “interoperability,” which absurdly requires Apple to hand over access to its private operating systems to its competitors and will require iPhones to offer competitors’ applications. This makes as much sense as requiring McDonald’s to offer Burger King fries with their Happy Meals.
The iPhone’s amenities and apps are part of a package deal that have made these devices the most popular in the world, with billions of customers. This hardly sounds like monopolistic behavior. If people don’t like Apple’s apps, there are many other cellphone products (such as the Galaxy) made by Samsung, Google or other companies, including some in China, that consumers can turn to.
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For all the talk about Apple’s monopoly, it now controls slightly less than 20% of the global cellphone market.
What is especially dangerous about interoperability is what it means for security and privacy. If third parties are given unfettered access to the Apple platform, this shield of privacy will be pierced.
Apple warns that outsiders could “read on a user’s device all of their messages and emails, see every phone call they make or receive, track every app that they use, scan all of their photos, look at their files and calendar events, log all of their passwords, and more.”
But the biggest danger of these kinds of raids on successful companies that spend billions of dollars innovating is that the incentive to innovate at all is stifled — in which case everyone loses. Sharing patented information with competitors in the name of “fairness” is a socialist idea that has rusted the Eurozone economy.
If Europe wants to get back in the tech game, EU bureaucrats should focus on what made these companies so successful in the first place — and then try to create a public policy environment that will foster innovative companies that can compete and win — rather than run to the courts for protection. Punishing the winners is a good way to keep producing losers.
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In the meantime, let’s hope the incoming Trump regulators at the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department defend American companies against aggressive and hostile lawsuits to hobble our made-in-America companies. In other words, put America first, and don’t let Europe take a bite out of our Apple.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is also an economic advisor to the Trump campaign. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Scenes From the People’s March
This post was originally published on this site
As I described yesterday, the rebranded Women’s March is taking place in Washington, DC and some other cities around the country today. The original Women’s March brought out hundreds of thousands of protesters but this year’s People’s March has less lofty goals.
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The march, two days before Inauguration Day, is a joint effort among civil rights, racial and social justice, and reproductive health organizations. Organizers hope that the march can inspire people who have who felt exhausted and resigned and that protesters can turn their passions, outrage and fears into collective opposition…
“If the prerequisite were that we shouldn’t get out or shouldn’t take action … unless it can be bigger than the biggest thing that ever was, no one would ever take action,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the executive director of Women’s March.
The gathering in DC was set to start at 10 am followed by a march to the Lincoln Memorial starting at 11 am. There is already some video on X showcasing the event. One focus of the march is abortion rights.
The People’s March in Washington D.C. is set to begin. Protesters focusing on LGBTQ and abortion rights are gathered at Franklin Park.
The groups included are the Women’s March, Gender Liberation Movement, and Generation Common Good.@TPUSA | @BrandonDrey pic.twitter.com/znSJmYozGH
— FRONTLINES (@FrontlinesTPUSA) January 18, 2025
People on the left are celebrating the size of the crowd but it’s hard to actually get a sense of it. In this video clip of Franklin Park, for instance, I see maybe 1,000 people. That’s not nothing on a very frigid morning in DC but it’s not a massive turnout either.
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BREAKING: Thousands of people are marching in Washington D.C at the People’s March against Trump. They are chanting “we will not go back”. pic.twitter.com/1BZW3xlVah
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) January 18, 2025
This video from the same spot is longer. Near the end we get a walk around the crowd and it’s really not that packed. There’s a lot of space between people toward the back.
LIVE: People’s March – formerly Women’s March – opposes Trump in Washington DC https://t.co/fcGmqVNGQP
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) January 18, 2025
One reporter on scene estimated several hundred people in this spot but this was a bit earlier.
On a slightly drizzly day, several hundred people are gathered at Franklin Park, one of three kickoff points to converge at the Lincoln Memorial, to demonstrate at the People’s March.
Reporting for The Hill pic.twitter.com/lHvjec4x7s
— Caroline Vakil (@CarolineVakil) January 18, 2025
To be fair, this was only one of three initial gatherings which were all supposed to meet up for the march. So there are more people. Here’s the crowd at Farragut Square. Again, this looks like maybe 1,000 people to me.
A group gathers in Farragut Square before the start of the People’s March, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025, in Washington. pic.twitter.com/ZKIGPh1emA
— CSB News USA (@csbnewsus) January 18, 2025
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Groups like Rising Majority, Popular Democracy, and Democratic Socialists of America are gathered at Farragut Square in Washington D.C. for the People’s March.@TPUSA | @MonicaPaigeTV pic.twitter.com/vSwKuwDFed
— FRONTLINES (@FrontlinesTPUSA) January 18, 2025
Lots of energy directed at Trump of course.
“F**k Trump!” and “Trans Lives Matter!” Crowds Chant as they protest Trump’s Upcoming Innaguaration in Washington DC during People’s March. pic.twitter.com/XXv6lJHk6d
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 18, 2025
At some point they started marching and chanting.
People’s March attendees chant “f*ck you fascists” pic.twitter.com/NuYpLw7o5T
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 18, 2025
This is one of the best shots of the crowd size.
Thousands marching against Trump in Washington DC as part of the “Peoples March”
Video by @yyeeaahhhboiii2
[email protected] to license pic.twitter.com/zDXpAfFUcD— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 18, 2025
Eventually they all converged at the Lincoln Memorial.
Demonstrators congregate near the Lincoln Memorial as they wait for speakers to kick things off pic.twitter.com/5Mj8KZ0R0o
— Caroline Vakil (@CarolineVakil) January 18, 2025
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There’s a video here that shows the crowd.
Apparently, there is a protest at the Lincoln Memorial pic.twitter.com/6OUPi0aU3v
— Kitana (@KitanaUponUs) January 18, 2025
Of course protest organizers always multiply the crowd count by 5-10 so I’m sure they’ll claim it was a huge success. It’s clearly several thousand people but I don’t think it’s the 25,000 they were hoping for much less the 50,000 mentioned in some articles. Whatever the crowd size actually is, It’s certainly a long way from the reported 500,000 who turned up in 2017.
Democrats Now Threatening People Who Donated to Trump’s Inauguration
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Democrats are the political equivalent of mafia bosses who basically run protection rackets.
“Nice company you have there. Shame if something happened to it.”
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We saw a lot of this behavior over the past few years. One of the techniques used to bully social media companies into censorship was the use of open (and private) threats to use antitrust laws to break up Meta, Twitter, Google and all the tech companies if they did not comply with demands to suppress the speech of conservatives and, frankly, anybody including dissenting Democrats.
Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennett are trying the same thing by going after people and companies that contributed to the Trump inaugural.
it was a personal contribution as you state; i am confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 17, 2025
These contributions are standard practice. Obama took millions of dollars from donors, including the companies Warren and Bennet are targeting. So did Joe Biden, even though all the inaugural hoopla was very muted due to insane COVID policies. Presidential libraries get showered with money and no doubt Biden will do his best to vacuum up all that sweet dough once he leaves office.
But, in the eyes of progressives, this time, it’s different.
Because Trump. Orange Man Bad, and hence doing anything to suck up to him is by its very nature corrupt. Contributing to Biden and buying his son’s paintings.
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There really is no depth to which the progressives will not go, and if you subject yourself to the rantings of leftists on TV or social media, you will find little but accusations that Trump is extorting compliance from scared victims who are afraid he will destroy their lives or their companies if they don’t pay tribute.
During Trump’s first term, these tactics worked, partly because the #resistance within the federal government could be counted upon to sabotage Trump and help the Democrats. Everybody knew that Trump was a one-off, so working to undermine him didn’t seem that dangerous compared to offending The Swamp.
This time, not so much. Once Elon Musk broke the taboo of working with Trump, the barrier to doing so fell to dust.
Perhaps I am too optimistic about the seeming collapse of support for progressive ideas in the general public, but it sure looks like Trump’s magic has been working once again. Elizabeth Warren has always been a crazy leftist harridan, but now she seems to be a crazy leftist harridan with no ability to intimidate.
Sam Altman, who will likely shoot up the ranks of the world’s wealthiest men due to his leading-edge position in the AI market, clearly isn’t scared of her. I doubt any of the companies and men she is targeting are either.
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Protection rackets only work if the victims are intimidated, and the intimidation seems to be wearing off.
The world is healing, although it has taken it long enough. One of the most frustrating things, I find, is predicting disaster, watching it unfold, and only after the maximum damage is done does anybody start paying attention, as if it was all a shock.
Trump warned that California would burn down years ago, and the Democrats laughed. Now it’s happening, and Californians are waking up to the wages of leftism and noticing that backing leftists might not have been such a good idea.
Los Angeles elected an actual communist, and now they are surprised to see she is incompetent?
Who could have guessed?
Pennsylvania Farm Leaders Applaud Aggressive Action Against Avian Flu
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HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) took the threat of avian flu head-on at a town hall at the 109th annual Pennsylvania Farm Show, saying that as highly pathogenic avian influenza spreads to dairy in other states, his administration would remain proactive and aggressive in establishing a nation-leading surveillance-testing system for milk at the processor level.
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“Because of our aggressive approach to testing and quarantine plans, we successfully reduced the threat of avian flu and haven’t had a positive test after taking over 10,000 milk samples,” he said.
Dan Hougentogler, the top animal disease expert who specializes in poultry diseases, emergency response, biosecurity education and implementation, said Pennsylvania is one of the four top egg-producing states in the country, along with Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. He said Shapiro has been proactive in protective actions that have helped keep livestock and farmers safe.
Walk all along the cavernous Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, and you will be surrounded by interactive exhibits, with farmers young and not so young displaying and educating visitors from across the commonwealth and neighboring states about the importance of the biggest economic driver in the state: agriculture.
However, live bird exhibits are limited to the birds headed to market, and Farm Show visitors are restricted from handling or petting the birds. The governor’s office said farmers exhibiting live animals at the Farm Show must present a certificate of veterinary inspection signed by an accredited veterinarian within 30 days prior to their arrival.
Chris Herr, executive vice president of PennAG, an agriculture trade organization, said these preventive measures are necessary to curtail the spread of the disease.
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“Pennsylvania has been on high alert since the first outbreak of HPAI three years ago; that has included quarantines that makes sure it doesn’t spread to other livestock,” he said.
Hougentogler explained that avian flu, or bird flu, is a highly contagious disease with a high mortality rate among the poultry population: “When hit, it causes a high decrease in production, which then causes often devastating economic losses for the farmer and adds to the impact inflation has had with diesel fuel, which causes egg prices to skyrocket.”
Agriculture is a major economic driver in Pennsylvania. According to data from the governor’s office, the agriculture sector contributes $132 billion annually to Pennsylvania’s economy and supports more than 580,000 jobs statewide. And those are just the direct jobs. Talk to anyone at the Farm Show, and they’ll say agribusiness casts a wide net with spillover economic effects as well.
There are farm products at the local feed stores and suppliers, as well as trucking services, mechanics, veterinary services, manufacturing and the natural gas industry. The list goes on and on. These workers then use their wages to invest in local economies.
Shapiro, when asked by reporters after his speech about what the plan is going forward for 2025 in the state with regard to the bird flu, said, “Look, a huge part of being able to protect our flocks from high-path avian influenza is having really good communication with our farmers — from our big farmers, you know, big scale, down to our Amish farms.”
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Shapiro stressed that he and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding have been on the road visiting farmers across the spectrum in the state.
“We’ve been down in the basements of Amish living quarters, talking directly to them, letting them know that we’re here to help and that the biosecurity measures we want them to participate in is for their own good and the collective good,” he said. “The good news is, we are seeing folks all in on adopting those biosecurity measures and protecting their flocks and other people’s flocks.”
Shapiro warned that he could not say that the state would be bird flu-free forever.
“God willing, we will be,” he said, “but I can tell you that we’re much further along in the calendar and much further along than other states, I think because of the great communication we’ve had with our farmers and their willingness to adopt these biosecurity measures and work closely with us.”
Hougentogler explained that the highly contagious bird flu, deadly to poultry, is spread from wild waterfowl, such as migrating snow geese and ducks, through their feces and saliva.
“It has the power to significantly impact the commercial poultry industry,” he warned.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Game Commission said preliminary testing showed bird flu is suspected to have caused the death of 200 migrating snow geese in the Lehigh Valley, warning that wild waterfowl and shorebirds are considered natural reservoirs for avian influenza viruses.
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“While infected birds may shed the virus in their feces and saliva despite appearing healthy, HPAI can lead to sickness or death in raptors (hawks, eagles), avian scavengers (crows, gulls, ravens), other waterfowl species (ducks, geese), and wild poultry (turkey, grouse),” commission officials continued in a news release.
Herr explained that Pennsylvania has been a leader in testing dairy cattle and ensuring that lactating dairy cattle from stricken farms in other states don’t infect Pennsylvania cattle.
“It is all about testing and more testing in the state,” he said.
Hougentogler and Herr share Shapiro’s concern about the threat of the bird flu spreading in the state. Hougentogler said that nationwide, in the last 30 days, there have been 13 million egg layers who have been depopulated.
“What you have in Pennsylvania has been a very aggressive, proactive approach that (is) allocating resources in education as well as financial resources, and that is critically important,” he said.
Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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Johnson: Here’s When I Knew Biden Wasn’t Running Anything
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Good to know, but it prompts a big question. And Mike Johnson has no good answer for it.
As the House Speaker tells Bari Weiss in a live interview for The Free Press, Johnson considers Joe Biden the worst president in US history. It’s not just the policies or the actions that drive that assessment, Johnson explains, but the fact that Biden clearly had no idea what was going on in his own administration — or even what Biden’s own executive orders said and did.
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Almost exactly a year ago in January 2024, Johnson met with Biden for an Oval Office meeting on national security, but Johnson wanted to discuss a recent EO that cut off liquified natural gas to Europe. Here’s what happened next:
Mike Johnson tells a wild story about how Biden had no idea he paused LNG exports to Europe.
“He obviously has not been in charge for some time.”
(Via @TheFP) pic.twitter.com/gERM1aIhzc
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) January 18, 2025
“Can I ask you a question? I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana,” Johnson recalled telling Biden. “Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him.”
Biden, according to Johnson, was stunned. “I didn’t do that,” Biden said. Johnson responded, “Mr. President, yes you did. It was an executive order like three weeks ago.” Biden continued to deny that he paused the LNG exports. At that point, Johnson suggested that the president ask the president’s secretary to print out the executive order, so the two could read it together.
Biden then recalled that he had signed an executive order, but it only called for a study on the effects of LNG. Johnson was firm. “Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security.”
In this exchange, Johnson said he realized that Biden was not lying to him. “He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson said. “And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, “We are in serious trouble—who is running the country?” Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.”
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So who did write the EO? And as good as that question is, it’s still not the biggest question left unanswered.
The FP has a longer version of this exchange in a video clip at the top of their article, but this gets the gist of the story. As they note, this is not the first time this story has been made public. the Wall Street Journal reported it in June 2024, roughly six months after it happened, in a piece that presciently warned that “Biden shows signs of slipping.” The WSJ article appeared 23 days before Biden’s humiliating performance at CNN’s presidential debate, a debate that Biden demanded:
When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.
In a February one-on-one chat in the Oval Office with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the president said a recent policy change by his administration that jeopardizes some big energy projects was just a study, according to six people told at the time about what Johnson said had happened. Johnson worried the president’s memory had slipped about the details of his own policy.
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In one sense, it’s good to see Johnson speak publicly about this. If one reads the WSJ report from June carefully, this anecdote and others came through anonymous sources. At one point, reporters note that they spoke with “more than 45 people over several months,” but those sources who warned that Biden had become functionally incompetent remained anonymous. The only person of note to go on the record about Biden’s cognitive decline was Kevin McCarthy, who’d been removed as Speaker and had already left Congress, and had no way to press the issue other than talking to the press.
Johnson, however, was and is Speaker of the House, and someone in position to take action if a president seems to be incapacitated or manipulated by others. And that’s the biggest question this raises: why didn’t Johnson take action? As Speaker, Johnson could have alerted the House to this potential incapacitation, formed a select committee to investigate it, and force White House aides and Cabinet officials to testify under oath to their interactions with Biden.
We have argued for most of Biden’s term that the signs of senility/dementia were recognizable, if not painfully obvious. The April 2022 Easter Bunny incident alone should have prompted the mainstream media to demand these answers and for Democrats to come clean about what we now know they knew at that time. The timing and extent of Biden’s infirmity needs a full investigation, as well as answers as to who issued directives under Biden’s name by taking advantage of that situation.
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But we didn’t need to wait until Tuesday to start that process. Perhaps Johnson didn’t want to create a constitutional crisis by forcing the issue, but defending the Constitution is Johnson’s primary duty. If Johnson knew that Biden wasn’t issuing the orders in the White House — in a literal sense with this EO and others — then Johnson had a duty to investigate that and force the question into the open.
And this is why we probably will never get a full accounting of the Biden fraud and cover-up. Too many people participated in it, explicitly or implicitly, to the extent that full exposure will burn everyone. It will be a replay of Murder On the Orient Express.
And while Joe Biden may very well be the worst president in history (save for James Buchanan, because come on), the current political class in Washington DC may be the worst in its history since the Civil War too. The 17th Amendment and the rise of the bureaucratic state have warped constitutional self-governance badly enough to turn Washington into nothing more than a swamp, where Congress abdicates its responsibilities and puppets dance stiffly in the Oval Office with no consequences for those holding the strings.
Let’s see if we can change that, starting on Monday.
To Stop Wildfires, Burn Wokeism
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Wildfires are inevitable. The apocalyptic devastation seen in Los Angeles isn’t.
The Palisades Fire started recently in west Los Angeles. Driven by intense Santa Ana Winds, the fire quickly spread into the residential area of Pacific Palisades. That fire, along with others in L.A., forced more than 175,000 residents to flee. The fire destroyed more than 9,000 structures. Hundreds of thousands of residents lost power. At least 24 people have died.
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Raw statistics can’t describe the horror shown in video after video. One video showed nursing home patients being wheeled to safety. Another showed two men in a home surrounded by roaring flames. Reportedly, they evacuated safely. Stunning photos of the aftermath show that the inferno consumed whole neighborhoods.
Tragically, devastating wildfires in California have become a regular occurrence. There was the deadly Camp Fire in 2018. The massive August Complex fire in 2020 and Dixie Fire in 2021 each burned around 1 million acres.
One might think that California is especially vulnerable to wildfires because it has so many trees. But at around 33%, California is proportionally less forested than most states. In contrast, half of Florida is forested. Two-thirds of Georgia is forested. In Alabama, it’s more than 70%.
Yet it’s unusual to hear about a major wildfire in the Southeast. A 2023 Congressional Research Service report found “more wildfires occur in the East” but fires in the West “are larger and burn more acreage.”
This doesn’t happen by accident. Southeast states routinely use controlled burns to clear out flammable underbrush. This fuel is what makes wildfires so explosive and dangerous. In an average year, Florida says it “will issue approximately 88,000 authorizations allowing landowners and agencies to prescribe burn over 2.1 million acres.” In contrast, California’s target for fuel reduction projects is 100,000 acres.
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A major reason for the disparity stems from who owns the land. In the Southeast, most forest land is owned by private individuals or companies. They have a personal incentive to take care of their land.
In the West, the federal government controls large swathes of forested land. That turns controlled burns into a political football. Plus, bureaucrats are risk averse. If a prescribed burn goes bad, they could be blamed. But they won’t face consequences for raging wildfires that controlled burns would have contained. In October, the U.S. Forest Service stopped prescribed burns in California “for the foreseeable future.” Angelenos are enduring the result of this forest mismanagement.
California bears plenty of blame, too. A 2022 report from the California Fire and Forest Resilience Task Force described prescribed burns as “beneficial fire.” It said prescribed burns have been “caught up in regulatory hurdles.” As a result of this inaction, “between 10 and 30 million acres in California would benefit from some form of fuel reduction treatment.”
Other moves by California and L.A. officials read like a Mad Lib of leftism. To save some fish, Gov. Gavin Newsom tore down dams. He hasn’t built needed reservoirs despite voters approving billions in funding in 2014. The Santa Ynez Reservoir, which is in the Palisades area, can hold 117 million gallons of water. It was shut down for repairs and empty when the fire started.
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As it turns out, having water available is very helpful in fighting fires. Los Angeles fire hydrants literally ran dry during the blaze. Soft-on-crime policies also resulted in hundreds of fire hydrants being stolen and sold for scrap before the fire.
L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley made DEI one of her top priorities and sought to recruit more women. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana when the fire started. She also cut the fire department budget by more than $17 million, while seeking to spend $1.3 billion on homelessness.
Little wonder that leftist politicians want to talk about global warming after fires like this. They’re trying to distract the public from their own incompetence.
If Californians want to contain future infernos, they need to fire the woke Democrats who run the state.
Victor Joecks is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Email him at [email protected] or follow @victorjoecks on X. To find out more about Victor Joecks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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How Biden’s Inner Circle Managed His Decline
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This was all so predictable. It was clear years ago that Biden’s decline was worse than the White House wanted to admit. And as the evidence kept adding up, it was clear the people around him were lying.
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As Chris Cillizza admitted last month, the White House was working very hard to discourage the media from looking into this and for the most part the media just went along with it.
But in addition it was also clear that, at some point in the not so distant future, the truth would come out. And so it has. Today the NY Times published another now it can be told story that they should have published six months ago. Instead they waited until Biden had nothing left to lose. It’s titled, “How Biden’s Inner Circle Protected a Faltering President.”
“Your biggest issue is the perception of age,” Mike Donilon, the president’s longtime strategist, told him in mid-2022, according to three close aides who heard it…
Mr. Biden acknowledged the concerns, but the warnings only ignited his defiant, competitive streak. In April 2023, without convening his family or having long deliberations with aides, he announced he was running again.
But Biden’s aides all worked together to back up his decision even though they knew he couldn’t possibly do another four years.
…they recognized his physical frailty to a greater degree than they have publicly acknowledged. Then they cooperated, according to interviews with more than two dozen aides, allies, lawmakers and donors, to manage his decline.
They rearranged meetings to make sure Mr. Biden was in a better mood — a strategy one person close to him described as how aides should handle any president. At times, they delayed sharing information with him, including negative polling data, as they debated the best way to frame it. They surrounded him with aides when he walked from the White House to the waiting presidential helicopter on the South Lawn so that news cameras could not capture his awkward bearing.
They had Mr. Biden use a teleprompter for even small fund-raisers in private homes, alarming donors, who were asked to provide questions beforehand. They came up with replacing the grand steps that presidents use to board Air Force One with a shorter set that led directly into the belly of the plane. They chastised White House correspondents for coverage of the president’s age.
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And despite all of the precautions, donors who got to see the president up close were very concerned.
The president made so many rambling remarks at other fund-raisers over the summer that several supporters called his advisers to plead for him to be more focused and on message. Others who saw Mr. Biden thought the wear and tear of the presidency was taking its toll.
There’s more but you probably saw most of it when it happened: He tripped on stage and fell off a bike. His gave word salad answers and confused world leaders. Behind the scenes there was panic each time these things happened. They knew it was bad and they tried their best to hide it.
Biden’s wife and son were apparently leading that effort along with his top aides. But as we all know the Big Lie about his condition backfired during the first debate. That’s not when he lost, he was already heading for a loss before that, but it is when the White House could no longer maintain the lie.
There are a few good comments including this one:
I will never forgive those who allowed this coverup to persist. Americans deserve the truth, no matter what. I HATE to be lied to and HATE to be gaslighted. And what did they hope to achieve, to maybe bring a man into a second term when he was not well enough to hold the office?
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Another one:
In the context of all of the post-election analysis of why Democrats lost this “inner circle” of enablers needs to shoulder the most blame. There were a lot of reasons for what happened in November, but flat-out lying to the public about what anybody could see happening was really fundamental to the narrative of an out-of-touch elitist Democratic Party.
Democrats are angry.
This makes me really, really angry.
The news that even at small, private events, donos had to submit questions ahead of time and that Joe’s remarks, the questions and the answers wwere all fed to him by teleprompter is just outrageous.
That makes it quite clear that Joe, at a bare minimum, was not consistently capable of intelligent interaction with even small groups of people for a limited time in what were essentially social settings.
Schumer, Jeffries et al had to know these things. They had to.
This is just a huge scandal. And it has foisted Trump 2.0 on the nation and the world.
The White House lied to Americans for four years. They got caught and they paid a price. What’s really shocking is how close they came to getting away with this scheme. What would have happened if Biden had squeaked out a half-decent performance at that first debate? I think he still would have lost the election but the fact that he was barely competent and almost made it to election day is incredible. Will the media ever hold themselves accountable for this epic failure? I think we all know the answer.
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