Cenk Uygur on Twitter - "There are a million things left to fight for. For progressives, we've just begun to fight (and win). But I have to say that the "return to normalcy" feels amazing. Right-wing madness isn't gone & this won't last, but not having a literal lunatic in charge is unbelievable relief." - Jan 21, 2021
Cenk Uygur on Twitter - "So, @JoeBiden bombs Syria and kills the minimum wage hike, confirming every fear progressives had. Soon they'll renege on getting $2000 checks to everyone in the middle class by limiting who gets it (to appease their donors). The establishment is back! And it absolutely sucks." - February 25, 2021
Joe Biden suggests China’s Uighur genocide is ‘different cultural norms’ - "Mr Biden’s own State Department said it was “deeply disturbed” by reports that Uighur women being held in re-education camps were being systematically raped and sexually tortured."
Since Trump was racist, we know that condemning Uigher repression is racist
Hunter Biden connected to Chinese company implicated in ongoing genocide of Uyghurs
With Donald Trump going, who in the free world will stand up for Uighurs now? - "As reports of concentration camps and unprecedented surveillance emerged from the Uighur region in 2017, thousands of Uighur in exile received final messages from their family, all communicating the same thing: please do not contact us – when things change, we will reach out to you. Since then, testimonies have poured in of people who have escaped the region. As a translator, I hear these stories again and again. East Turkestan has become one giant prison. Everyone is watched, all the time. Thousands upon thousands have been sent to the so-called “re-education camps”. In the name of deradicalisation, they are brainwashed, enslaved and humiliated. They are denied their faith and culture, and torn from their families. This treatment of my people is party policy, even if Beijing still denies allegations of abuse. Leaked high-level Chinese government documents last year quote Xi Jinping himself as saying we should be shown “absolutely no mercy”. China’s state media is even more explicit about what should be done to the Uighur, calling upon the government to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections and break their origins”. As The Washington Post put it in an editorial: “It’s hard to read that as anything other than a declaration of genocidal intent.”... For years nobody stood up for us. The Obama administration: nothing. The David Cameron government: nothing. Angela Merkel: nothing. Theresa May: nothing. Trump? Under Trump, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, pursued an aggressive line on China, which gave us hope. For the first time, our oppressors were being sanctioned, and real action was being taken to prevent companies sourcing goods made with Uighur slave labour."
I still see tankies pretending that it's all a lie made up by Adrian Zenz
President Biden Argues Equity Policies Are Moral Imperative - "During his first full week in office, President Biden made clear that addressing inequity would be not only a fixture of his presidency, but also the responsibility of the entire federal government... In the weeks and months to come, the Biden administration is expected to take steps to directly address inequity in all parts of life. And Biden has said that equity is at the center of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal... "So just to be clear then, it sounds like racial equity means treating people differently based on their race, is that correct?" Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked her.Fudge went on to say that race was not necessarily the only factor involved in equity."It could be based on economics, it could be based on the history of discrimination that has existed for a long time. It could be based on educational levels, it could be based on many things," she said. Gonzalez said that as president, Biden should be focused on ensuring that "all Americans are equally protected," and that the equity-focused actions "violate cherished notions that millions of Americans have.""
The Washington Post Tried To Memory-Hole Kamala Harris’ Bad Joke About Inmates Begging for Food and Water - "When The Washington Post published a 2019 campaign trail feature about then-presidential hopeful Kamala Harris' close relationship with her sister, it opened with a memorable anecdote in which Harris bizarrely compared the rigors of the campaign trail to…life behind bars.And then proceeded to laugh—at the idea of an inmate begging for a sip of water... Harris made her name as a prosecutor, and her track record includes defending dirty cops and laughing off criticism of her history of throwing poor parents in jail when their kids missed school. The Post profile provided a mask-slipping moment that seemed to perfectly capture a warped sense of justice and lack of basic human dignity—all in just a few hundred words... The original quote might have demonstrated something about Harris—indeed, it suggests why her presidential primary campaign flopped so hard—but its disappearance suggests something about the Post, and about the way traditional political media are preparing to cover Harris now that she's one heartbeat away from the presidency... the memory-holing of the older version of the piece sends a message that the Post is willing to pave over its own good journalism to protect a powerful politician from her own words."
By his own definition, Biden is already governing like a dictator - "“I have this strange notion, we are a democracy ... if you can’t get the votes … you can’t [legislate] by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”Those are the words of Joe Biden. And, no, this isn't a matter of unearthing a clip from the 1980s or '90s in an attempt to play a game of gotcha on some antiquated flip-flop. That's Democratic nominee Biden, less than three weeks before the 2020 presidential election... In President Biden's first week alone, he has signed 37 executive orders and actions as of Thursday. That's 33 more than the guy he indirectly referred to as a dictator, in the form of predecessor Donald Trump. It's 32 more than his old boss, Barack Obama, and 37 more than George W. Bush, who signed zero in his first week as president... Even the New York Times editorial board is calling on the president to pump the brakes on governing exclusively by executive fiat... China will be quite pleased that the U.S. rejoined the Beijing-friendly Paris climate accord... Biden hasn't been asked any direct questions by the press on the job-killing Keystone order, of course. That's what happens when the leader of the free world requires a staffer to call on a predetermined list of invariably friendly reporters, compiled by his team, instead of calling on reporters himself.How friendly? Here's a "question" around the topic of unity posed to him on Tuesday. "Given that unity is such a key part of your message and your promise, can you talk and reflect a little bit more about what is unity when you see it and as you define it?" asked Washington Post White House correspondent Annie Linskey, one of the six reporters permitted to question the new president in his first press conference."
Joe Biden Syria air strikes: Kamala Harris, Jen Psaki old tweets resurface criticising Trump - "Old tweets from US Vice President Kamala Harris and White House press secretary Jen Psaki have resurfaced after air strikes against Syria were launched by US forces on Thursday... critics of Mr Biden’s administration were quick to point out tweets from Ms Harris from 2018, where she questioned strikes ordered by then US President Donald Trump’s administration... In 2017, now White House Press Jen Psaki also questioned the “legal authority” of air strikes against Syria."
DayGloDisastah on Twitter - "Imagine being dumb enough to believe Joe Biden is literally going to "bomb" the Middle East, you all Trumpers are lunatics."
AG Wilson urges Biden to reverse cancellation of ICE operation on convicted sex offenders - "South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a coalition of 18 state attorneys general in urging Biden's administration to reverse their cancellation of Operation Talon, which focuses on removing convicted sex offenders living illegally in the U.S."
Biden Promises Nationwide Mask Mandate And Womandate | The Babylon Bee - ""Listen folks-- we all make mistakes. I realized this morning that my COVID plan includes a mask mandate, but not a womandate. I have amended and also awomended my plan to include a mask womandate," Biden read off his teleprompter. "We will also be adding a mask non-binarydate, a mask genderqueerdate, a mask two-spiritdate, a mask polygenderdate, and a mask non-binarytrans-speciesdate. More 'dates' will be arriving as we continue to do our research to make sure no one is left out." According to sources, the Biden transition team has grown alarmed at the number of times the word "men" appears in the English language. They have been working around the clock to replace all usages of the word "men" in their plan with the word "women." Unfortunately, it was determined that the word "women" is also problematic, they then replaced the word "women" with "people who menstruate.""
1/1024th Liberty Memes - Posts | Facebook - "If headlines were accurate."
"The person glorified for drugging and robbing men, discusses police misconduct with the author of the 1994 Crime Bill"
On Cardi B and Biden
Man Who Has Been In Government For Nearly 50 Years Promises To Fix Government | The Babylon Bee - "He also has a cop helping him out, sources confirmed at publishing time."
Man Who Called Half The Country Racists All Year Calls For Unity | The Babylon Bee - "Biden said there are different kinds of unity, from the normal kind where everyone tries to understand each other even though they have different viewpoints, and democratic unity, where the morally correct people throw the morally incorrect people into labor camps. According to the president, he is pushing for the second kind of unity, where the winning side imposes their will on the losing side, or else they get reeducated."
Garbage Human on Twitter - ""First Lady Jill Biden Wore a Scrunchie While Shopping and People Felt So Seen"
"Top tier, hard hitting journalism at its finest.
Hey @ectannenbaum, can you please donate whatever you got paid for writing this article to charity?"
"@ectannenbaum blocked you"
"I guess not."
Comment (elsewhere): "If Melania wore a scrunchie, no doubt she would have been mocked by that same writer "
Watch | Facebook - "Media "REPORT" on Joe Biden Playing Mario Kart
For years, the media complained when Trump would play golf. Now they are writing puff pieces about Biden playing video games."
Biden team disables chat on Zoom conferences to avoid questions from journalists
It's not a war on the press if Democrats do it
Is Joe Biden really 'tough on China'? - The Spectator - "Look not at what he says, but what his administration does... the Biden administration will be a gift to China’s ambitions to reshape the world order... The idea that Trump’s ‘China virus’ rhetoric is xenophobic is puzzling. Naming a virus after the place it was first reported and thought to have originated has been a matter of scientific consensus for over a century. Where was the hand-wringing over the Zika virus or Mers (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)?... If the term is ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobic,’ surely we must also cease referring to the ‘UK’ or ‘South African’ variant of SARS-CoV-2 as well. This is unnecessary moral posturing. The supposed increase in anti-Asian hate crimes derives from self-reporting via an online portal. No attempts have been made to isolate causation from correlation. Trump is out of office and the Great Digital Crackdown of 2021 has deprived him of the largest social media platforms. So what does Biden’s efforts to advance racial equity by memo really accomplish? He can’t magically banish racist incidents against individuals on the streets by signed decree. If racial equity is really his big concern here, where is the memorandum against racial discrimination against Asian American students by tax payer-supported colleges and universities?... Since he became President-elect, China has approved a law allowing attacks on foreign vessels in the South China Sea, ramped up arrests of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and, most recently, made incursions into Taiwanese air space with over a dozen fighter jets and bombers.These escalating tactics are tests. But the Biden administration has yet to draw up any coherent response"
Joebama W. Trump - Posts | Facebook - "This seems like a good time to remind everyone that Biden's campaign was supported by contributions from Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, and numerous investment & venture capital firms. Wall Street donors spent more on Biden than Trump, over $74 million."People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what President Donald Trump raised from Wall Street"
A Wyoming County Predicts 'Total Economic Devastation' From Biden Leasing Ban : President Biden Takes Office
Joe Biden has awkward moment with nurse running vaccine site - "Biden got up to some of his “creepy” old antics when he responded to the nursing supervisor’s detailed description of giving COVID-19 shots by asking her about her age."
It's not sexual harassment if it's a Democrat
WATCH: Joe Biden is still falsely claiming that allegations against Hunter are 'Russian disinformation'
Biden's new education secretary will divide students and curriculum along racial lines - "Biden's pick for Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona is an example of an educator who focuses more on skin color and ethnicity than education or equality.It's not only that race is the top driver in hiring for the Biden administration—it's that their governing methods and goals will be fixated on race as well. Nowhere is that more evident than in the credentials of those being nominated for Cabinet positions, and nowhere is it more dangerous that in the newly nominated Secretary of Education."
Meme - "Joe Biden never called black people super predators. Hillary called black people super predators. He only called them predators. TRUMP'S A RACIST!"
If Biden wins, we all lose - "One of the most revealing justifications for voting for Biden is that he would relieve people of the burden of thinking about politics... the wave of pro-Biden sentiment among vast swathes of the establishment is not merely about changing policy in the White House, as most elections are. (Indeed, it is striking how much of the pro-Biden commentary says Biden’s policies don’t actually matter. ‘It’s not the policies that count’, as the Guardian says.) Rather, it is about negating the ‘feral’ populism of recent years and restoring the rightful rule of the smart set, of those who can be trusted to govern while the rest of us just get on with our lives and never think about politics. A Biden presidency is a ‘protest against protest’, in the words of the Guardian. That is, it would be a protest against the protest votes cast by vast numbers of ordinary people in 2016 for a different, more democratic way of doing politics. There’s a word for ‘protest against protest’, of course: counter-protest, or counterrevolution. That is what the elite Biden wave represents: a counterrevolution against the populist cries and democratic demands of the 2016 era... The desire to make politics diminutive again, to return decision-making to ‘the experts’, speaks to the overarching aim of the technocratic impulse – to insulate political life from the pressure of the masses."
Nicole Arbour on Twitter - "I've been asked by the Biden team to step down as Surgeon General. Its been the honor of my life to serve this Nation, and I will do all I can to ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve and maintain health"
"First thing Biden did was fire a black man. 🤦🏼♀️ #BLM""
Jason Miller on Twitter - Joe Biden: "Wheels up, folks."
"Yesterday: CLIMATE CHANGE!
Today: FIRE UP THE PRIVATE JET!"
John Kerry family private jet emitted estimated 116 metric tons of carbon over past year - "Data compiled by the flight tracking firm FlightAware and obtained by Fox News show that John Kerry's family Gulfstream GIV-SP spent around 22 hours and 22 minutes in the air over the past year.Using Paramount Business Jets emissions calculator, Fox News found that Kerry's planed accumulated an estimated 116 metric tons of carbon between trips dating from Feb. 9, 2020, to Jan. 10, 2021.For comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year... the Kerry family owned a private charter jet company that the longtime Democratic politician appeared to benefit from financially. As late as 2013, his executive branch personnel financial disclosure showed Kerry owning "over $1,000,001" in assets for the charter company Flying Squirrel LLC through his wife... Private jets have been estimated to emit upward of 40 times as much carbon per passenger as commercial flights.The emissions estimate comes as Democrats consider massive proposals for overhauling the nation's energy economy with potentially skyrocketing costs for households and individual Americans. President Biden's climate proposal would cost at least $1.7 trillion. That could grow, however, depending on how Democrats negotiate with him in Congress, where progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have been adamant about passing the ambitious Green New Deal."
So much for the climate czar
Kamala Harris: We will restore aid to Palestinians, renew ties
Comment: "That's it then. Kamala Harris means forever war and forever conflict in the Middle East."
Biden pick to head DOJ Civil Rights Division wrote Blacks had 'superior physical and mental abilities' - "Joe Biden's pick to run the Justice Department's enormously powerful Civil Rights Division is a woman called Kristen Clarke. Clarke says her job is simple: End hate. But like so many in her world, Clarke is actually an enthusiastic purveyor of what she claims to fight... Clarke wrote a letter to The Harvard Crimson in her capacity as the president of the Black Students Association to explain her views on race science."Please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites [sic]," Clarke wrote. "One: Dr Richard King reveals that the core of the human brain is the 'locus coeruleus,' which is a structure that is Black, because it contains large amounts of neuro-melanin, which is essential for its operation. "Two: Black infants sit, crawl and walk sooner than whites [sic]. Three: Carol Barnes notes that human mental processes are controlled by melanin -- that same chemical which gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities."Four: Some scientists have revealed that most whites [sic] are unable to produce melanin because their pineal glands are often calcified or non-functioning. Pineal calcification rates with Africans are five to 15 percent [sic], Asians 15 to 25 percent [sic] and Europeans 60 to 80 percent [sic]. This is the chemical basis for the cultural differences between blacks and whites [sic]."Five: Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities -- something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards."... Even at Harvard, crackpot theories like that were considered deranged and dangerous. After an outcry on campus, Kristen Clarke suggested that she didn't necessarily believe what she had written. The left-wing Harvard Crimson didn’t buy that explanation. "Well, does she or doesn't she?" wrote the editors. "So far, she has given us every indication that she does." Just a month later, Clarke invited the noted Trinidadian anti-Semite Tony Martin to speak on campus. Martin, then a professor at Wellesley College, was the author of a self-published manifesto called "The Jewish Onslaught." In it, Martin chronicled the "escalating Jewish onslaught" against Black people."
Biden pick for Dept. of Justice's top civil rights post has called for partially defunding police
Biden: Administration to make minority and female-owned businesses 'priority,' sparking criticisms of 'discrimination' - "President-elect Joe Biden said his administration will prioritize businesses owned by minority and female Americans, which sparked backlash, with some calling it "discrimination.""
Joe Biden is a Racist Who Loves Police Brutality | Left Voice - "Liberals, seeking moderate and ultimately end the uprisings, are coalescing around a “don’t riot, vote” message, which has been taken up by corporate media figures, regular white liberals, and even former presidents. They’re selling the idea that the solution to police brutality and all the other ills of the racist capitalist system is to vote for Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden for president in November. If we get Trump out, they argue, things can return to “normal”: no more curfews, no more pandemic, no more police brutality. All these problems are caused by Republicans. Biden will save us!Joe Biden is a dedicated, lifelong racist. He won’t save any of us, least of all the victims of police brutality. Biden’s history of enthusiastic racism stretches back decades. From the moment he entered the U.S. Senate in the early 1970s, he vocally opposed busing to achieve school desegregation... Biden represented Delaware in the Senate, a state that essentially refused to desegregate schools through a combination of hair-splitting laws and white parents shifting their children to private schools en masse. Private school enrollment in Delaware is now among the highest in the nation, at 17.6 percent in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington — the vast majority of them white. Meanwhile, disproprotionately Black public schools are systematically starved of funds... Twenty years later, having risen to the prominent position of chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden presided over confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas to become the second Black Supreme Court justice. The hearings became a crucible for the particular combination of racism and misogyny at the heart of the United States when law professor Anita Hill, also Black and who had previously worked for Thomas, came forward with sexual harassment allegations against him. The all-male, all-white committee Biden chaired questioned her in brutal detail. He refused to take her allegations seriously, launched no investigation, and failed to accept testimony from multiple other witnesses and survivors of Thomas’s harassment. With Biden’s collusion, Thomas was confirmed and today is one of the Court’s consistent right-wing votes. Reportedly, he’s also Trump’s favorite justice... Perhaps the most egregious example of Biden’s racist use of power is 1994’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the crime bill he wrote and continues to support vocally to this day. The bill is a laundry list of the worst aspects of the mass incarceration state... Since then, people have died in prison for things like stealing a dollar in loose change from a parked car, possessing less than 1 gram of a drug, and attempting to break into a soup kitchen. Biden had also co-written the Anti-Drug Abuse Act a few years earlier, during the so-called crack epidemic. It amplified sentencing disparities between crack cocaine users, who were mostly Black, and powder cocaine users, who were mostly white. All these new laws affected people of color, especially Black and Indigenous people, the most, leading to a massive increase in incarceration, policing, and the destruction of Black communities. While the crime bill was very popular at the time, it came under heavy criticism from those who knew it would worsen carceral capitalism. Now considered widely to be a racist failure, some previous supporters have disowned it. Only someone truly committed to racism would maintain his support of the bill, as Biden still does... Obama, though, had more power than most liberals and used it to expand a racist system. It cannot be a defense of Biden that he served as vice president — a stepping stone to power in itself — under a Black president who pursued mass incarceration, surveillance, the war against drugs, imperialism, land theft from Indigenous people, and other policies of neoliberalism that disproportionately target people of color... While Biden may have learned the right words to say in 2020 to avoid accusations of racism, as in his “plan for Black America,” he lacks the policies, actions, or record to back them up. Racism isn’t what you say; it’s what you do. And Biden continues to advocate for racist action worldwide, from criminal penalties for immigration to increased military spending, even after his recent and calculated about-face on prisons and sentencing.Biden doesn’t really stand with Black Americans. Faced with the clear choice to stand with protesters fighting racist state violence or with the police brutalizing them, it is no surprise that he sought a pseudo-middle ground, saying, “The idea that instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person, coming at him with a knife or something, to shoot him in the leg instead of in the heart. There’s a lot of different things [policies] that can change.”Apparently, Biden thinks the things that can change are limited to what part of an unarmed protester’s body the police should aim to shoot. The only way to read this is that Biden, an enthusiastic proponent of state violence, just wishes the cops would carry it out a bit more politely and with more plausible deniability... Joe Biden has said, “I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done.” We should take him at his word, and look at his record... The problem isn’t just Joe Biden. When you look across the United States at where police are responding to protests with brutal force, you’ll find many places with Democrats in power... Instead of relying on powerful Democrats to solve problems they have helped cause, we should look to the uprisings. Socialists should work to show the people in the streets that our anger and outrage have an answer — and it won’t be found in voting for Democrats... The only lasting solution is to abolish the police and abolish capitalism the world over."
California will be 'the de facto policy think tank' for the Biden team: Report - "Biden is most likely to adopt California’s approach to climate change, free college tuition, workers' rights, and criminal justice reform.“There is no place the incoming administration is leaning on more heavily for inspiration in setting a progressive policy agenda,” the paper declared.But not everyone agrees California is the place to emulate, with several major tech companies leaving the state in recent months to states with friendlier tax and regulatory policies.People are leaving the state too, with 653,000 residents deciding to call a news state home in 2019 compared to 480,000 that moved into the state.“California is not a good place to live or do business with anymore," one California resident, Jim DeMartini, said of the reason he plans to flee the state. "I’ve been involved in local government here for 16 years, and I see California as just a basket case.”DeMartini joins others who have cited the state's high taxes, business regulatory structure, and “left-wing” politics as enough to push them elsewhere."
Will the media’s Biden sycophancy ever end? - "Now that Donald Trump has left the White House, the media are no longer even pretending to hold the government accountable. Sycophancy has already begun to dominate the airwaves and the press. The media have its man in the White House and we can expect nothing but fawning coverage from here on in... The New York Times, supposedly America’s paper of record, published an article on Tuesday entitled: ‘Biden has a Peloton bike. That raises issues at the White House.’ The ‘issue’, apparently, is that it necessitates ‘regular morning negotiations’ between Mr and Mrs Biden as to ‘who gets to ride’ the $1,900 bike ‘first’. How human and relatable the new first family are! NPR, which outright refused to report on the Hunter Biden scandal during the election – declaring it a ‘pure distraction’ which would waste its journalists’ and listeners’ time – has reported on the ‘indoguration’ of Biden’s German shepherd."
Joe Biden is promoting wokeness on steroids - "In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, a number of anti-woke commentators said people should vote for Joe Biden.A common refrain was that the presence of Donald Trump in the White House was the catalyst for most woke madness and zealotry.Biden, on the other hand, being a moderate and less woke than other Democrats, would diffuse tensions... one of Biden’s first acts as president will be to extend trans students’ access to single-sex spaces... Current guidance leaves it up to individual states to determine their policies in this area. But for Biden, centralising this rule is apparently a major priority for his presidency.This should come as no surprise. Biden has a poor record when it comes to protecting women’s spaces. He declared at an LGBT forum in 2019 that, ‘In prison… your sexual identity is defined by what you say it is, not what in fact prison says it is’. And in January last year, he tweeted: ‘Let’s be clear: transgender equality is the civil-rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights.’But it is not just on trans issues that Biden has shown his true, woke colours. Two of the people he has appointed to his new climate team have turned the environment into a woke issue, blaming climate change on racism. Maggie Thomas has been named chief of staff at the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, while Cecilia Martinez has been appointed ‘senior director for environmental justice’... He has also promised that Covid relief funds will be allocated with a view to gender and race, rather than simply on the basis of financial need.Anyone who thought electing Biden would strike a blow against wokeness was sorely mistaken. The madness is only just beginning."
"Biden's climate plan will not address gender and racial inequality" is a real headline we're not supposed to think is ridiculous - "The specific problem they find with Biden's plan to build a "new green energy infrastructure" is that that would provide way too many jobs to men... It gets worse. The money that would go to the solar industry in particular would provide jobs to way too many white men... Think about that. An industry dedicated to the production of solar power does not track the race of the people it hires.Shouldn't we all be thinking about race all the time to be sure we make hiring decisions based on a person's race since that is the most important thing about them?To do otherwise would be racist!... They want to simply hand more money to people already over-represented in certain fields the better to trap them there and keep them hostages to the largess of the state.Totally not condescending, if you were thinking that... are they saying that increasing the available labor supply in a specific industry without any concurrent marginal increase in demand for that labor appears to lower average wages?Okay, we just covered the first week of a Freshman Economics 101 course.Unfortunately, that conclusion is not politically useful. So let's conclude the following instead:
That is, the gender wage gap may not solely follow from excluding women from more highly paid fields, but rather that female-dominated jobs are paid less because they are held by women.
Keep in mind, one of the authors has a Ph.D. in economics. Well, environmental economics. Maybe the laws of supply and demand don't work in environmental economics, and by "work" I mean "result in politically-desirable outcomes." That, or she got one of those "Jill Biden" Ph.Ds... [Let's] try to achieve political agendas by hijacking totally unrelated bills so as to avoid too much scrutiny.It's the American way!"
Trumka, a former coal miner, also signaled his skepticism at Biden’s plan to transition coal, gas and oil workers to clean energy jobs, saying he was subject to a similar failed policy.“You know, when they laid off at the mines back in Pennsylvania, they told us they were going to train us to be computer programmers”... Biden’s climate czar John Kerry was also condemned by Republicans last month as “out of touch” when he suggested that energy and coal workers impacted by climate change efforts could “go to work to make the solar panels.”"
Unions Wanted Biden. Now They’re Blasting Him Over Killing Keystone XL
Joe Biden latest president to flout rule of law when it comes to Canadian relations | The Star - "The Americans won’t share the COVID-19 vaccine they produce with their closest neighbour and ally. They cancel Alberta’s Keystone XL pipeline without even going through the motions of consulting us. In the midst of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression they impose a buy America policy that flies in the face of our free trade agreement.And this from the U.S. president Canadians cheered for in the recent election because the previous one, Donald Trump, posed a terrifying threat to the entire world. As the old saw goes, with friends like these … Canada has been confronted with surprise tariffs and “buy America” dictats from U.S. presidents.In his inaugural speech, President Biden was clearly proud to announce that America was back — back to participate in restoring the international order of trust, consultation and co-operation.From where Canada sits, he hasn’t made an impressive start on that agenda. Rather, with his first moves in office, Biden appears to prefer another old saw: “do as we say, not as we do.”"
Why the cancellation of Keystone XL is bad for the climate, the environment and Canada - "One of the big claims by opponents of KXL is that somehow the cancellation of the pipeline will reduce oil sands production. I have no clue where this claim comes from because every objective analysis of this topic has come to the same conclusion as the US government did in their 2014 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (2014 SEIS) [which was completed under the Obama Administration] or their more recent 2019 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Project (2019 SEIS)... The cancellation of KXL will not affect Alberta oil sands production in any meaningful sense... Oil-by-rail is less safe and has higher GHG emissions than a pipeline. These facts are incontrovertible and dealt with in the SEIS reports. With reference to what cancelling the Presidential Permit means to the movement of Alberta crude, consider that a “rail bridge” was already being planned in 2013 under the concern that KXL would be canceled. Remember, the Presidential Permit only blocks the transportation of oil in a pipeline across the border. Nothing is in place to stop oil producers from moving their product from one pipeline location to another via a rail bridge. Admittedly, doing so will increase the cost and GHG intensity of the oil but given the potential profit this project isn’t really a hard one to envision. To be specific, the 2014 SEIS calculated that the total GHG emissions attributed to using either rail or a combination of rail/pipeline would range from 28% to 42% greater (in the transportation step), than moving that same volume of oil by KXL... by cancelling Keystone XL President Biden will not reduce GHG emissions since the pipeline was intended to move existing production. Rather, the alternatives to KXL will generate higher emissions, at higher risk, while pulling billions from Canada’s economy... As for whether the pipeline was in the US interest lets look at the final paragraph of the Department of State, Record of Decision and National Interest Determination... 'issuance of a Presidential permit for this proposed Project serves the national interest.'"
Pissing off allies is only bad when Trump does it
Joe Biden’s celebrity-packed inauguration is an embarrassing start to his presidency - "Biden has tried the cool card before. In desperate attempts to move away from his reputation as a firm establishment figure with a dodgy history when it comes to race relations and incarceration, he has often attempted to be “hip”. In a toe-curling moment of the presidential race, he told radio host Charlamagne Tha God that voters who were still deciding between him and Trump “ain’t black” in one of the worst street-slang accents imaginable.It’s not just Biden who feels the need to jazz-up his image, either. Vice President Kamala Harris has attempted to drown out her track record of increasing the mass incarceration of young black men by trying to gain cultural kudos. In an interview with Elle magazine, Harris revealed her desperation to be liked when she tried to pass off a Martin Luther King anecdote as her own. King told Playboy in 1965 the story of a little girl telling an officer on a civil-rights protest that she wanted ‘Fee-dom’ (Harris claimed that she had demanded “fweedom” from her stroller on a civil-rights march in Oakland)... Most Americans don’t have short memories – they remember that many of the stars now offering their services to Biden were vocal supporters of the #MeToo movement and conspicuously quiet when allegations were made against him during the presidential race. Neither have they forgotten that Harris, who now acts as if her and the president have been best buds for years, was uncompromising in her criticism of Biden during the primaries for working with former segregationists in the past. If celebrity and fame is mostly about hiding the truth behind a perfect smile, Biden and Harris are pros... the Democrats reliance on celebrity and vengeful attempts at impeachment show that America’s second long national nightmare is far from over. If you’re still kidding yourself that Biden’s term will spell a move to serious political change based on what’s good for working-class Americans, switch over when you see Gaga take the mic."
Biden's HHS pick defended policy of returning COVID patients to nursing homes saying 'the virus was already there' - "Incoming President Joe Biden's pick for Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services came under fire in her home state of Pennsylvania for routinely sending COVID-positive patients back to nursing homes, where they spread the illness... for State Senator Doug Mastriano, this was not a good explanation for why COVID patients were returned to nursing homes to infect more people, and he called for Levine's resignation on May 11.In May, Levine pulled her own mother out of a nursing home rather than leave her to be subjected to her own policies... This was not an option afforded to the 10,022 nursing home residents in the state who died from the virus... Mastriano believed that it was Levine's order that led to more COVID deaths in Pennsylvania nursing homes. "Let me state this clearly," he said, "this order by Secretary Levine is responsible for the deaths of approximately 2,500 of our citizens, and displays the gross incompetence of someone unfit for office. The bottom line is Secretary Levine has failed to protect our most vulnerable population."Biden, who appears to be more concerned with Levine's identity as transgender, said of the pick "Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic—no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability—and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond," Biden said. Many of the news outlets reporting on Biden's pick were far more concerned about Levine's status as a gender-nonconforming male who identifies as transgender and uses female pronouns than Levine's ghastly record in Pennsylvania."
It's all Trump's fault states sent covid patients into nursing homes!
Biden planning on legalizing 11 million illegal immigrants - "the bill is said to make no mention whatsoever of increased security related to immigration, which is another break from the norm of previous years and decades, in more than one country actually."
WATCH: Caravan of illegal immigrants say Biden will help them - "Over 7,000 migrants from Honduras moved to Guatemala over the weekend and are said to be making their way, with difficulty, to the US seeking the very amnesty President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on in 2020... The caravan is reported to have gotten violent with the country's security forces while traveling through Guatemala"
People respond to incentives
Biden Staffer Would Boot Traditional Christians Off SCOTUS - "A Joe Biden staffer suggested that orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims who adopt traditional values are “intolerant,” that their beliefs should be “taboo,” and that they should be disqualified from serving on the Supreme Court. Politico contributing editor Adam Wren noted that President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett “was a trustee at a South Bend private school that described ‘homosexual acts’ as ‘at odds with Scripture’ & said marriage was between ‘one man and one woman’ years after Obergefell v. Hodges.”Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, responded, “Wait, why is this news? Isn’t this the standard position for any orthodox Catholic?” At this point, the Biden staffer chimed in. Nikitha Rai, deputy data director for Pennsylvania at Biden’s campaign, responded to Hamid, saying, “Unfortunately, yes.”Hamid responded, “to be fair, it’s the standard position for any orthodox Muslim or Jew as well…”... Rai has locked her account since tweeting those statements, but Jeremy McLellan, a Catholic comedian, captured screenshots. “Here’s a [Joe Biden] staffer saying that orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism should be made ‘taboo’ and driven from the public sphere,” McLellan noted. “Beneath all the talk of ‘interfaith’ and ‘pluralism,’ this is what they really believe.”... Rai suggested that presidents and the U.S. Senate should apply a religious test for Supreme Court nominations and confirmations. The Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for service in government. Article VI Clause 3 reads in part, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”"
The MSM Is No Longer Covering up Biden's Cognitive Decline - "Biden forgetting part of a stump speech is bad enough, but this is an incident that took place last year, but has only come out now. Biden’s handlers kept it under wraps until now. How many other examples of Biden’s cognitive decline from the 2020 campaign have been covered up? If it was leaked to the media earlier, they didn’t report on it then. The obvious question is “why not?”Obviously, Politico got the memo. The election is over. Trump is out of office. Biden’s cognitive decline is no longer taboo. It can be discussed ad nauseam by the media now because getting Biden into office wasn’t the primary objective of getting him elected.Biden’s sole purpose was to play the role of an “electable” candidate who could appeal to independents and anti-Trump Republicans under the ruse of being a centrist just to get Trump out of office. For all intents and purposes, Biden’s job is complete, and a San Francisco liberal is now waiting in the wings to take his place at the appropriate time.While conservative media outlets didn’t shy away from reporting on Biden’s deteriorating mental faculties, the mainstream media tried to pretend they didn’t exist."
FLASHBACK: Biden’s press secretary mocks Biden for his bizarre flubs - "President Joe Biden's press secretary mocked Biden for his "senior moments" on the presidential campaign trail back in 2019."
Biden Executive Order Killing Keystone XL Pipeline Will Backfire - "President Joe Biden wasted no time after Wednesday’s inaugural ceremonies before getting to work. He signed 17 executive orders and memorandums—by far the most in history on a president’s first day—one of which halted construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada through the US...
1. Blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline May Actually Increase CO2 Emissions...
Keystone had already promised to use green technology and eliminate all CO2 emissions from its operations by 2030. And it’s not as if blocking this pipeline will actually mean the oil doesn’t get transported. It will just have to be transported by more costly, less efficient measures like rail shipping.“The Obama State Department found five separate times that the pipeline would have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude would still be extracted... Shipping bitumen by rail or tanker would result in 28% to 42% higher CO2 emissions and more leaks.”...
2. Thousands of Jobs Will Be Lost...
The pipeline project would have created 11,000 jobs and $1.6 billion in wages... even left-wing elected officials like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau oppose Biden’s decision...
3. Regulatory Uncertainty Will Discourage Future Business Investment"
People were cheering this even though his cancellation of the pipeline killed jobs
Wilfred Reilly on Twitter - "Powerful explosions thunder in Milam County, Texas, after a train carrying oil products derailed. It is also reported that fuel trucks also catched."
"Is there any alternative to shipping flammable pure petroleum cross-country in metal train cars?"
Psaki mocks reporter asking about Keystone pipeline job losses - "White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday mocked a reporter who asked when workers on the canceled Keystone XL pipeline would get “green jobs” promised by President Biden.It’s expected that up to 11,000 jobs will be lost following Biden’s day-one decision to immediately shut down construction of the pipeline that was supposed to carry oil from Canada to Texas — leaving South Dakotans reeling and 1,000 people immediately out of work...
'Some premiers want to go to war' over Biden cancelling pipeline deal - "Various premiers met on Thursday and communicated their dismay at the attitude Trudeau is taking over the summary cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline on Wednesday.According to anonymous sources, the discussion got "pretty heated", with many of the premiers being furious over the scuttled deal which threatens to have a very chilling effect on Canada's oil industry... Jason Kenney and Scott Moe, the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan respectively, also publicly slammed both Biden and Trudeau on Twitter"
Some claimed the jobs lost would only be Canadian jobs, so that didn't matter; presumably they had never slammed Trump for pissing allies off
Construction employment declined in 39 states between August 2019 and 2020 - "Thirty-nine states lost construction jobs between August 2019 and August 2020 while 31 states and the District of Columbia added construction jobs between July and August according to a new analysis of Labor Department data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. The new annual figures detail how the coronavirus pandemic has undermined demand for construction projects after a strong start to the year"
Some crank celebrating the cancellation of the pipeline claimed that the jobs weren't real because they were temporary, that the number of jobs was only an estimate, and that it was a near guarantee that those losing jobs would find a new job within a week. I'm sure people employed on projects would be surprised to know that they didn't have real jobs. I doubt he criticised the Green New Deal's claims about job creation. And clearly, the construction industry didn't get the memo that there's an unlimited demand for their services
Kelly McParland: Exactly who is Joe Biden and what's he going to do? - "Joe Biden has spent so long not being Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, Americans can be forgiven for wondering just who it is Supreme Court Justice John Roberts swore in... The man has policies, lots of policies, but you’d be hard put to pick one that could be defined as Bidenesque, or that hasn’t been floated by others before him. Of 45 previous presidents only Lyndon B. Johnson could challenge his depth of experience as a legislator, yet voters resisted his two earlier bids for the job, finding him … to put it kindly … uninspiring. Johnson quit after five years as president, exhausted by the Vietnam conflict; Biden, at 78 and already looking creaky, may have only a single term to make his mark... Biden likes to boast that, as a senator, he introduced the first bill on climate change “way way back in ’87.” But what’s he got to show for it?... If Trump had a claim to success it was the strength of the economy before the coronavirus arrived. He achieved it by slashing regulations and taxes, pouring money into the economy at the cost of a burgeoning debt. Biden says he’ll undo the cuts and raise corporate rates, similarly pouring the money into the economy while the debt, in all likelihood, continues to rise. Whether his approach proves as effective as Trump’s remains to be seen, but it will again appease the left wing of his party, which has to be kept at bay if he hopes to please the moderate wing that is his natural home... After five decades in Washington he’s not about to change his spots. Given his age and the array of crises he faces, it’s unlikely he’d get the chance anyway."
Joe Biden and the crisis of the New World - "America is saved. The republic has been rescued. The healing of the nation can begin now that authoritarian populism has been defeated and ‘the adults’ are back in charge. That’s the narrative swirling around the inauguration of Joe Biden today. It couldn’t be more wrong. The Biden-supporting woke elites pose a graver threat to the American republic, to its visionary founding ideals, than Donald Trump did. Behind the facade of today’s restoration of normalcy, the New World trembles.The hyperbole has been cranked up to 10 ahead of today’s inauguration. America is talked about as if it were a patient recovering from a bout of madness. Trump was the disease, Biden is the cure... This metaphor of the adults re-entering the room is a revealing one. The vote for Trump in 2016, like the vote for Brexit in the UK in the same year, is clearly viewed by the managerial elites as a temper tantrum, an explosion of rage among overgrown children. The ‘low-information’ electorate chose a ‘low-status’ president, and the consequence was mayhem. So now ‘the adults’ – the expert class, the well-educated coastal elites, those people who declare their pronouns and use all the correct racial terminology – must reassert their rightful authority. This vision of children being reprimanded by Biden, Harris and the rest speaks to an incredibly disdainful view of democracy when the result doesn’t go ‘our way’... yet for all of Joe Biden’s experience, for all his celebrated diplomacy, for all his distinctly post-Trump presidential style, he – and more importantly the elites who secured and support his presidency – threatens to unravel the values and virtues of the American republic far more than Trump did.There’s an elephant in the room in all discussions of the US right now: last year’s rioting. Anyone who raises it is accused of whataboutery, of trying to deflect attention from the despicable, anti-democratic storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on 6 January. But it is important, crucial, in fact, to reflect on the disturbing events of 2020. Not simply to reiterate how violent they were or to point out that they caused more destruction and loss of life than the mob at the Capitol did, but also to draw out what they represented; what ideas they gave violent expression to; what they revealed to us about the liberal elites who, as of today, are in charge of America.That rioting, those weeks and weeks of violent destruction, represented a fusion of the politics of the elites with the resentments of certain sections of society... the rioting and the cultural elite’s apologism for it are important: because they confirmed that there has been a corrosion of belief in the American project across various sections of American society, including at the very top of it... what we have witnessed in our time is not simply expressions of frustration with the slow or partial realisation of American values, but a wholesale questioning of the entire point of America; an intellectual crusade, no less, to overturn our understanding of when America was founded and what it was founded to do. Consider the project launched by the New York Times, the bible of the liberal elites, to reimagine the founding date of America as 1619 rather than 1776. That is, this country was born when slaves arrived, not when revolutionaries drew up the Declaration of Independence. It was founded in sin, not virtue... it helped to fuel last year’s rioting: witness how protesters daubed ‘1619’ on the toppled statues of America’s founders and heroes. The reimagining of America as a continuation of the Old World rather than the first cry of the New World has been gathering pace in academia, the media and the cultural sphere. It is now common to depict America as a nation indelibly stained by the experiences of slavery and racism. It was founded to secure the slave-owning rights of the colonists, we’re told. Its later Civil War was not really an effort to end slavery but rather to discover new ways to repress and exploit African-Americans. Even the Thirteenth Amendment that ended slavery in the US is now seen as little more than an underhand effort to enslave black people in new ways via the prison system. This revisionism comes courtesy of a film distributed by that citadel of the woke elites, Netflix... Their myopic identitarianism, their obsession with ‘white privilege’, their introduction of critical race theory into workplaces and places of education – all of this unravels the promise of equality contained in the founding of America, threatening to replace the New World’s cry of ‘all men are created equal’ with the woke elite’s insistence on organising people according to their racial identity and their placing in the charts of privileged / oppressed.The founding rights of the American republic have taken a beating too. They have always disapproved of the Second Amendment, of course. Now they have sullied the Thirteenth Amendment. Next they will come for the First, the world’s clearest guarantor of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.The claim that dangerous disinformation exploded during the Trump era will be used to roll back America’s founding principle of free expression. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already won plaudits for her insistence that the media must be restrained. Lawmakers must ‘figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation’, she said. That, of course, would be a blatant violation of the First Amendment’s provision that congress shall make no law ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’.Meanwhile, comic Sarah Silverman says the First Amendment will need to be ‘amended’ post-Trump in order to ensure that dangerous ideas are not given free expression. Imagine if Trump had talked about ‘amending’ the First Amendment. There would have been uproar. But among those who share the new elite consensus opinion that says America’s very foundation is questionable and its constitutional guarantee of liberty is dangerous, it is apparently fine to fantasise about tearing up the Bill of Rights... Washington torn down, 1776 erased, the First Amendment problematised, the Civil War misrepresented, the New World ideal of equality trashed by new forms of rigid racial thinking… and still the woke elites have the nerve to claim that it is Trumpists who threaten to bring down America. The truth is that it is the supposedly ‘liberal’ establishment that now openly preaches loss of faith in the American project and whose political excesses risk undermining the breakthroughs in liberty and equality that America gave to the world. From their neo-racialism to their cancel culture, their depressive historical revisionism to their growing preference for technocracy over democracy, it is the anti-Trump elites whose ideologies chip away at the foundation stones of the American republic... The birth of America was a unique event in human history. This was the first nation founded in the values of freedom and equality. It was referred to as the New World because it was the New World. Hannah Arendt wrote that ‘the authority of the [American] republic will be safe as long as the act itself, the beginning as such, is remembered as the promise it holds out’. But that act, that beginning, is no longer remembered for its promise, but rather is misremembered as a cynical exercise in the preservation of Old World power.And so the ‘authority of the republic’ is no longer secure. Not because of the rupture of the Trump years, but because of the moral and political exhaustion of the elites who are replacing Trump"
We are till told that liberals don't hate their countries
Joe Biden Supports 2 Regulations That Would Destroy Entire Industries—and My Job - "Consider Biden’s stated support for California’s AB 5, a crushing regulation that has killed too many jobs to count in the Golden State. The former vice president has endorsed similar regulation on the federal level. The California bill was supposedly introduced to help the state’s roughly one million independent contractors by severely limiting the amount of work freelancers can do in an attempt to compel employers to add them onto payroll as full-time employees. The rule was supposed to stop “exploitation.” In reality, it stripped flexibility from thousands of Californians who didn’t want to be full-time employees while prompting companies to let contractors go, not hire them on. From artists to musicians to freelance journalists to Uber drivers, thousands of California workers saw their livelihoods snuffed out by this bill. Even the original sponsor of the law, state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, admitted she was “wrong” in response to angry freelancers who lost work... A full-time freelance journalism career under this regulatory regime would, in most cases, be impossible."
WATCH: Press sec shrugs off question about Biden breaking mask rules: 'We have bigger things to worry about' - "After months of Joe Biden touting his plans for a mask mandate as a near cure-all for COVID, it was noticeable to see him unmasked on Weds. Jan. 20 at the Lincoln Memorial. Especially since it was mere hours after signing an executive order making it mandatory to wear masks on federal property. Newly minted Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the administration has "bigger things to worry about."... His unmasked face brings to mind a number of other high profile politicians over the past nearly year of the COVID pandemic who have eschewed their own restrictions when they feel it is acceptable to do so. These include Governors Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo, as well as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as well as other mayors and officials."
Liberal hypocrisy is nothing to worry about!
Vivian Bercovici: Will Biden revert to Obama's Middle East playbook? - "In the Middle East there is tremendous regional support for what is perhaps the key foreign policy legacy of president Donald Trump: the negotiation of the Abraham Accords. This fourth-year accomplishment is in its infancy but showing great promise. It has heralded a seismic shift in the regional geopolitics that will foster greater economic and security cohesion, particularly when dealing with a hegemonic Iran. The negotiation of the accords brought a wave of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. It also put the lie to a canard promoted for so long by so many in the foreign policy community — and the Obama administration — that there would never be Mideast peace until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, with finality. Furthermore, Obama officials believed firmly that bilateral agreements between Israel and Arab nations were simply not possible in the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. And, as more than a few Biden cabinet picks were key players in the Obama presidency, the Mideast is paying extremely careful attention to what may transpire with Blinken at the helm. The key question: will he be motivated to expunge key Trump achievements and revert, holus bolus, to Obama’s Middle East playbook?Obama’s approach was based on the view that America had historically been excessively heavy-handed in its exercise of power in the region. The “Obama Doctrine,” as some of his acolytes have labelled his views, held that U.S. foreign policy had offended the dignity of many in the Muslim world, in particular, the brief Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and the decades-old extremist theocracy in Iran. He believed that if shown deference by the United States, Iran and others would moderate their policies and enthusiastically rejoin the “family of nations.” It was this profound belief that led Obama officials to agree to terms in the Iran nuclear deal which did pretty much nothing to prevent Iran from achieving a near-term nuclear weapons breakout capability. And it did less than nothing to address the development of Iran’s offensive arsenal, able to launch and deliver nuclear warheads. The agreement was a capitulation and shameless pander to Iran by an administration determined to have such a “deal” bequeathed as its paramount legacy. And it enraged Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which regard Iran as the most significant military and terrorist threat in the region. So, when president Trump announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the nuclear deal as of May 8, 2018, there was huge relief in the Middle East. To this day the region remains steadfast in opposing any return to the previous Obama-led framework... The overriding concern of the Saudis and so many Gulf states was aligned with Israel: they feared a powerful Iran, the foremost sponsor and advocate of terrorism in the region. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, managed their Mideast relationships with astonishing arrogance, treating local leaders as they would swat a fly. And they were supremely confident in their take on things. At a 2016 conference, Kerry famously dismissed any notion of peace between Israel and its neighbours, without a “final resolution” of the Palestinian conflict, as a pipe-dream.Today, that viral clip makes him look like the kid at the back of the class with a funny hat on his head, which is pretty much how he is regarded in the Middle East and likely why he’s been shunted off to the climate file."
Pissing off allies was only bad when Trump did it
Henry Kissinger’s wise warning to Joe Biden on the Iran nuke deal - "Add one more voice of reason to the long list urging President-elect Joe Biden to rethink his plan to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal: Henry Kissinger warns that it could kick off a disastrous nuclear arms race in the Middle East... Biden has said he means to return to it as long as Iran agrees to comply with the restrictions on its actions. But Kissinger notes that the deal’s time limits on key restrictions and “so many escape clauses” render it effectively useless in stopping Iran’s nuclear development. Plus, the accord leaves Iran’s enrichment capabilities intact while banning US economic sanctions — when the ones Trump imposed are hitting the regime hard."
Israeli Minister Warns Potential Biden Policy Change on Iran Could Lead to War - "Hanegbi praised Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran, saying it “works and we see results.”"
Iran offers Arabs 'mafia deal' of security or punishment after Trump - "Iran has sought to reach out to its Arab neighbors, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warning them that US President Donald Trump will be leaving in 70 days, but Iran’s regime will remain “forever.” He urged them to realize that “betting on outsiders to provide security is never a good gamble.” In Arabic and English, he called for dialogue and to work together. The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran was offering them an opening, a message: Shift and join us, or suffer in the future – the US will not protect you. This is a kind of carrot-and- stick approach, a mafia don offering protection... Zarif’s “good cop” approach clearly leaves the “bad cop” actions in the background. Last year, Iran used drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia. It has mined ships in the Gulf of Oman, sent proxies to attack US troops in Iraq, fired rockets at the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, attacked Kurdish dissidents in Koya, threatened tribes allied with the US in Deir al-Zor and pushed Hezbollah to threaten Israel from the Golan Heights... The quiet message behind this entreaty – to be nice to Tehran as Trump leaves – seems to be that those who don’t accept and bend their knees in submission will face the wrath."
WATCH: White House press throws softball questions at Biden's press secretary - ""On a lighter note, will [President Biden] keep Donald Trump's Air Force One color scheme change?" asked a journalist, for example.Jen Psaki, the new White House Press Secretary as of yesterday, replied:"This is such a good question."... It's also definitely worth noting that the previous Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was treated markedly differently than Psaki is being treated.McEnany even wound up being banned on Twitter once, along with journalists who dared to tweet anything negative about the Biden family. In fact, hosts of shows on the MSM actually went on air and bragged about how they wouldn't have her on their shows"
BREAKING: Antifa trashes Democratic Party of Oregon headquarters to mark Biden's inauguration - "Antifa in Portland, Ore., continued to protest on Wednesday, taking aim at the Democratic Party of Oregon headquarters. Windows and doors were smashed, the building vandalized with graffiti that reads "F*ck Biden." The Oregonian reported that about 200 Antifa activists gathered in Southeast Portland and marched through the streets as part of a J20 protest... Antifa activists grabbed an officer's bike and that the police retreated while Antifa threw things at them."
Portland Police Charge 8 After Demonstrators Vandalize Democratic Party Offices - "More than 100 anti-fascist demonstrators in Portland attacked police and vandalized the city's Democratic Party of Oregon building Wednesday afternoon, breaking several windows in the process, according to police.Police arrested eight people between the ages of 18 and 38, some of whom were armed with knives and long poles, the department said... Police say the demonstrators used similar language in flyers announcing the Jan. 20 event as other rallies held months prior that "were punctuated by violence and destruction."... one of the banners held by the demonstrators said, "We don't want Biden. We want revenge for police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres." Some members of the group then moved dumpsters into the street and lit them on fire before the crowd started to disperse."
When even NPR describes them as "anti-fascist"
They didn't get the memo that now that Biden is in power, the authorities won't close two eyes anymore
Biden Administration Tear-Gassed 'Peaceful Protesters' Just Hours After Inauguration - "A Democratic Party headquarters was damaged, an American flag burned, and marchers filled the streets in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, following Joe Biden’s inauguration. Antifa was reportedly behind the activities, known during the summer as “peaceful protests.”... There was a huge amount of outrage last summer after President Trump was accused of having “peaceful protesters” tear-gassed without provocation to clear the area so he could “get his photo op” at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been burned in the riots the night before. The United States Park Police (USPP) denied this allegation and the claim that the D.C. protesters were peaceful was also completely false. Over the course of four days, protesters, armed with baseball bats, metal poles, and glass bottles for projectiles, vandalized property and injured 51 USPP officers. So, where is the outrage over the Biden administration using actual tear gas (according to the New York Times) to break up “peaceful protesters”? They are peaceful, are they not? I mean, that’s what we were told about this behavior all summer. CNN and MSNBC, for example, specifically avoided calling the BLM riots “riots.”MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi even called the riots “mostly peaceful” as he stood amongst rampant violence in front of a burning building."
The media doesn't need to pretend anymore
I saw lots of liberals online telling themselves (and each other) that the rioters were really the Proud Boys
Biden removes Trump’s Diet Coke button from the White House - "A button that Donald Trump used in the Oval Office to request a fresh Diet Coke appears to have been removed by the new president... Mr Trump would reportedly hit the button when in need of refreshment and a staff member would bring in a soda on a silver platter.Former White House aide Chris Sims wrote about the button in his 2019 book Team of Vipers.He said that the twice-impeached president would prank visitors by hitting the button and suggesting it was related to the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal... Mr Biden may have removed the button but is reportedly a soda fan as well and prefers Coke Zero"
BREAKING: New Biden hire allowed Washington state to be defrauded out of millions by Nigerian scammers - "Suzie LeVine, Commissioner of Washington State's Employment Security Department (ESD), will be leaving her post at the end of January to take a position in the Biden Administration.LeVine was directly responsible for the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from Washington state unemployment funds after the agency was defrauded by Nigerian scammers... LeVine and ESD had deliberately bypassed the waiting period for benefits in order to send out unemployment checks faster. That action was taken by ESD director LeVine at the behest of Democrat Governor Jay Inslee. LeVine was a political appointee of Inslee’s who had been a donor to his campaign."
Biden rebukes White House reporter for COVID-19 question - "President Biden displayed his notoriously thin skin while rolling out his COVID-19 plan Thursday, blowing his stack when a reporter questioned whether his target of inoculating 100 million people in 100 days was set too low.“When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible,” he snapped.“Come on, gimme a break, man! It’s a good start.” When Biden took office on Wednesday, a past-week average of 912,497 daily doses were being delivered under outgoing President Donald Trump... This is not the first time Biden has lost his cool with a questioner at a public event.At a campaign event in Wilmington, Del., in June 2020, Biden, 78, lashed out when one reporter asked about people, including Trump, who questioned whether he suffered mental deficits — the questioner noting his own mental deterioration at age 65 and asking if Biden had been tested for cognitive decline.“You’re a lying dog face,” Biden said, apparently irritated that the reporter kept asking questions as he tried to leave the event, before adding that he was “constantly tested.”That came after Biden infamously called a college student a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” at a campaign event in New Hampshire in February 2020.Mercer University student Madison Moore, 21, said it was “humiliating to be called a liar on national TV by the former vice president.”"
Amazon offers Joe Biden COVID-19 vaccine assistance - "Amazon is offering to help President Biden hasten distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, inviting questions about whether the offer was ever made to the Trump administration.Amazon executive Dave Clark pitched the idea to Biden as soon as he took office in a Wednesday letter that also congratulated him on his inauguration.“We are prepared to leverage our operations, IT, & communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts. Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately”... Clark, the Amazon executive who pitched Biden on the idea, was responsible for a December letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that sought help in gaining access to the vaccine for the company’s workers."
I guess it was more important to get Trump out than to reduce covid deaths
