Consider how differently the press treats this liberal regime when it comes to imagined versus real failings

Consider the pounding Trump got on the false “Russia, Russia, Russia” media meme

Now think of how little uproar has occurred now that Yellen says Chinese customers of failed Silicon Valley Bank will get money from U.S. fund

Washington Times notes how uninsured Chinese depositors to the failed Silicon Valley Bank will have their entire losses covered through Biden’s “special” assessment for that and the other Democrat cash cow.

Uninsured Chinese depositors in the failed Silicon Valley Bank likely will be made whole through the special assessment on U.S. banks that is funding the rescue crafted by the Biden administration, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Thursday.

Meanwhile, some of the nation’s largest banks teamed up to rescue another beleaguered California lender, First Republic Bank, by providing $30 billion in deposits.

Several members of the Senate Finance Committee criticized the government’s emergency intervention in SVB last week.

Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, pressed Ms. Yellen on whether community banks in his state would be reimbursing Chinese citizens and companies that held accounts at the California bank. He cited public reporting that some Chinese investors in SVB have ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

“Will my banks in Oklahoma pay a special assessment to be able to make Chinese investors whole from Silicon Valley Bank?” he asked.

Ms. Yellen replied: “Uninsured investors will be made whole in that bank. I suppose that could include foreign depositors, but I don’t believe there’s any legal basis to discriminate among [the] uninsured.”

With evident sarcasm, Mr. Lankford noted that the administration had promised that U.S. taxpayers wouldn’t pay for the bank bailout.

“I’m sure my bankers are going to be very excited to know they are no longer paying taxes and their banks no longer pay taxes,” he said. “All banks make their revenue off of rates and fees and such to their account holders, which means every Oklahoman will pay higher fees in their community banks.”

(Read more at the Washington Times)

When Biden has been receiving monies from Ukraine and China, why must America send billions to Ukraine in China?

If you have been paying attention to everything Dementia Joe wants you to forget, the Biden clan has been receiving money (from Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, and other foreign sources), you know that up to seven Biden family members have received money. Could this be part of the payback?

If you heard what Yellen was saying, this is not only a bailout of American billionaires. It also bails out wealthy Chinese. Who knows, maybe even some of the ones that finance the “Big Guy.”

Additionally, consider the minor bit of attention paid when former First Lady and Former Secretary of State Clinton paid a fine for lying about the Steele dossier

When the origin of “Russia, Russia, Russia” was discovered, Hillary only had to pay a fine (as reported by the New York Post).

The Federal Election Commission has fined both Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for lying about how they spent money used to fund the now-debunked Steele dossier on former President Donald Trump.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC will be forced to pay $8,000 and $105,000 respectively for mislabeling payments that ultimately went to Fusion GPS, the consulting firm that commissioned the dossier, according to FEC documents viewed by the Post.

The fines stem from a complaint originally filed in 2018 by the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, which was informed of the outcome on Tuesday.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC paid more than $1 million combined to powerful Democratic law firm Perkins Coie, which engaged Fusion GPS to dig for dirt on Trump. Fusion GPS, in turn, hired former British spy Christopher Steele — whose namesake dossier included allegations that Russian security services possessed a tape of Trump in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes who were supposedly urinating on a bed where the Obamas had previously stayed.

The FEC said Clinton and the DNC claimed the money given to Perkins Coie to hire Fusion GPS was reported on disclosure forms as having gone toward “legal advice and services” rather than opposition research.

(Read more at the New York Post)

Let’s not forget the example of President Skinny Pants and his record-setting fine to the

The US News and World Report told us of the time Obama was fined for hiding donors and keeping illegal donations while only having to pay a fine (albeit a record-breaking fine to the FEC).

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for violating federal disclosure laws, Politico reports.

An FEC audit of Obama for America’s 2008 records found the committee failed to disclose millions of dollars in contributions and dragged its feet in refunding millions more in excess contributions.

The resulting fine, one of the largest ever handed down by the FEC, is the result of a failure to disclose or improperly disclosing thousands of contributions to Obama for America during the then-senator’s 2008 presidential run, documents show.

The FEC says the Obama campaign failed to disclose the sources of 1,300 large donations, which together accounted for nearly $1.9 million. Election Commission rules state campaigns must report donations of $1,000 or more within 20 days of Election Day.

Obama for America was also fined for “untimely resolution of excessive contributions,” according to the conciliation agreement, FEC says. The campaign accepted more than $1.3 million in contributions that came from donors who had already given $46,000—the maximum allowed by FEC rules. The campaign eventually refunded the excess cash but did not do so within the 60-day window allotted for resolving such cases, FEC said.

In addition to failing to report big donors and excess donations in a timely manner, the Obama campaign incorrectly dated the filings dealing with $85 million in funds, the FEC claims. This error appears to have been primarily the result of one transfer to the campaign committee from the Obama Victory Fund, a fundraising group that includes money raised by the Democratic National Committee that is earmarked for the presidential race.

(Read more at the US News and World Report)

…

Now think about Biden and the newest discoveries

Comer says “6 or 7 Biden family members” may have been involved in overseas business schemes

The New York Post lets us know of Representative James Comer’s investigation into the Biden influence-for-sale scheme.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer believes that more than half a dozen members of the Biden clan may have been involved in various worldwide business schemes that profited off their family name. 

Comer, whose committee is investigating the Biden family’s business dealings, shared the insight in a Wednesday night interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

“At the end of this I think we’re gonna see there are probably six or seven Biden family members that were involved in various business schemes around the world,” Comer (R-Ky.) told Ingraham, referring to his panel’s far-reaching probe.

Comer didn’t mention any names in the interview and declined to reveal the identity of the unnamed Biden family member who got proceeds from a $3 million wire to Hunter Biden associate John “Rob” Walker  just weeks after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017.

The Oversight Committee chairman first revealed on Monday that bank records obtained via subpoena implicate three Bidens, including one that’s “never before been identified” as being involved in the family’s alleged influence-peddling operation. 

“So this just shows how deep the Biden family was involved in this influence peddling scheme,” Comer told Ingraham, adding that it remains unclear what the $3 million transaction was for.

“It looks to me like these people, who are closely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, sent $3 million to a shell corporation then they turned around and split it three ways with a third going to the Biden family – three different family members for no apparent reason,” Comer said. 

“They didn’t invest it in a business. They just, it appears, stuck it in their pocket,” he added.

(Read more at the New York Post)

If bribery is illegal, this should also be illegal

If Joe’s actions before coming to the Oval Office don’t trigger some legal action (in response to where he used government monies to force the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor that was going after Hunter’s actions at Burisma), then there is no working law enforcement in America. We have become a banana republic.

Likewise, if Joe’s classified documents (gathered while he was vice president and had no authority to have or declassify them) don’t trigger some legal repercussions, there is no equality under the law.

 

A portion of the Biden hole (aka the Federal Treasury treadmill) becomes a black hole

Consider the way the steps of this turn in on itself

Step 1: Federal Reserve takes additional actions to provide up to $2.3 trillion in loans to support the economy

Federal Reserve announced that it would in a 9 April 2020 press release that it would create just over $2 trillion as a backstop to banks as the Federal Reserve works to fight inflation.

The Federal Reserve on Thursday took additional actions to provide up to $2.3 trillion in loans to support the economy. This funding will assist households and employers of all sizes and bolster the ability of state and local governments to deliver critical services during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our country’s highest priority must be to address this public health crisis, providing care for the ill and limiting the further spread of the virus,” said Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell. “The Fed’s role is to provide as much relief and stability as we can during this period of constrained economic activity, and our actions today will help ensure that the eventual recovery is as vigorous as possible.”

The Federal Reserve’s role is guided by its mandate from Congress to promote maximum employment and stable prices, along with its responsibilities to promote the stability of the financial system. In support of these goals, the Federal Reserve is using its full range of authorities to provide powerful support for the flow of credit in the economy.

(Read more at the Federal Reserve)

With Biden’s COVID mandate putting everyone except the “essential services” at home, was Biden’s Treasury afraid that consumers would spend their own saved monies?

Why exactly did Biden’s Treasury feel it necessary to inject $2 trillion into the economy when Biden himself had put a stopper on the economy through his COVID mandate? Maybe this would be needed by the banks, big and small, as they weathered the effects of Biden shutting them off from their customers. But what about the rest of business America? Why did America’s businesses (not America’s big banks) have to take the risk of going out for a PPP loan?

…

Got that? Now consider this

Step 2: Federal Reserve raises key interest rate by 0.75% as it works to fight inflation

NBC News explained in a 27 July 2022 article how Biden’s Federal Reserve had to raise interest rates by 0.75% to fight inflation.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it will raise its key interest rate by 0.75% as it seeks to fight sky-high inflation.

It’s the second time in a row the Fed has raised rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, and the fourth rate hike this year. The reason for the hikes: Prices of goods and services are climbing at the highest rate in four decades. Last month, they surged more than 9% compared with June of last year.

By raising interest rates, the Fed is hoping to reduce overall demand in the economy, which in turn should slow down price growth.

In its statement Wednesday, the Fed said there are signs the rate increases are working.

“Recent indicators of spending and production have softened,” the bank said, adding that, at the same time, job gains are robust and the unemployment rate is low, despite inflation.

The Fed also cited Russia’s war against Ukraine as a key source of inflation, while suppressing overall global economic activity.

While many individual households are struggling, U.S. consumers still have approximately $2 trillion in savings from the pandemic in aggregate, PNC chief economist Gus Faucher said. Combined with a stable base of employment, those savings have allowed households to withstand much of the inflationary environment, he said.

Still, it is not clear whether the Fed will be able to accomplish the balancing act of lowering price growth while avoiding broader economic damage. Many economists are now worried about both the inflation rate, which has reached a four-decade high, and gross domestic product, which could show that the U.S. economy has contracted for two-consecutive quarters — the technical definition of a recession. Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the latest GDP figures.

(Read more at NBC News)

There are more components to inflation than the little shown here; however, If I did not have a 40-hour job, I could show you more.

With a little investigation of supply chain, you can find Biden’s regulation-covered fingerprints. With a little investigation of oil and gas (and not that much), you can find some of the multitudinous amount of Biden’s screw up in that industry.

…

After this step, you may see a pattern.

Step 3: Fed bank has scope to inject as much as $2 trillion

Bloomberg explained in a 15 March 2022 article how Biden’s Federal Reserve will be injecting $2 trillion into banks to fight inflation.

Market observers are on alert to find out just how much extra funding the Federal Reserve’s new bank backstop program will ultimately add into the system, with analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. positing that it could inject anywhere up to $2 trillion in liquidity.

That’s their maximum estimate. The analysts’ prediction based on the amount of uninsured deposits at six US banks that have the highest ratio of uninsured deposits over total deposits is closer to $460 billion. That’s a smaller amount, but still enormous compared to historic usage of the so-called discount window, another Fed facility that is often seen to carry a stigma and has historically involved banks taking a haircut on the amount borrowed relative to collateral. 

The Fed has said that it plans to publish figures weekly in the same balance-sheet statement that it uses to reveal uptake of funding from the window. That release is scheduled for around 4:30pm Thursday New York time.

“The usage of the Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program is likely to be big,” strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou in London wrote in a client note Wednesday. While the largest banks are unlikely to tap the program, the maximum usage envisaged for the facility is close to $2 trillion, which is the par amount of bonds held by US banks outside the five biggest, they said.

(Read more at Bloomberg)

Does it take a part-time blogger to put this together?

Why can’t the Democrat-voting public put this together? Is it that they only exist as ballots copied and rubber-banded together by operatives? Is it that they only exist electronically? Or do they exist in magnified importance (at least in importance due to gerrymandering) in the system?

…

If it weren’t for these Constitutionally-protected rights, we’d be screwed

In that it seems that Biden has our financial system set up to only serve the rich (more on the specifics of that tomorrow), at least we can take comfort in the fact that we have basic rights that he cannot edit away. Right?

Thank heavens that we don’t have a government that is set up to only protect the elite Democrats, right? Thank heaven that we have a Biden to protect us (or not) on the following range of issues:

Freedom of Religion	Freedom of Speech	Freedom of the Press	Second Amendment	Due process to deprive us of property	Equal protection under the law	Unreasonable searches
Biden’s Attack On Religious Freedom	Private-federal censorship machine targeted TRUE “misinformation”	New McCarthyism: Democrats call for Taibbi to reveal sources	Biden: Second Amendment is not absolute	Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due-Process Rights	Trump’s Fourth Amendment Claims	Biden push for equity violates equal protection under the law

 

The Biden hole continues to grow (updated)

The Biden hole: the gap between the rosy reporting of the main stream media and reality

As recently as 22 February 2023, Vox tried to blow smoke about what they said was a rosy Biden economy

Vox really blew all of the smoke possible in an article dated 22 February 2023 where they attempted to try to convince us all that the economy has started a real boom.

President Joe Biden has a lot to be proud of. Riding off a State of the Union speech earlier this month that felt like a victory lap, he and his Cabinet have been blitzing across the country to sharpen his economic message. The Biden administration has sought to contrast Republican threats to Social Security and Medicare with its own legislative work to invest in infrastructure and manufacturing, and bring down the costs of education, health care, and energy.

The image of the accelerating “Biden boom” that the White House has been trying to project is rooted in economic data: unemployment is now at its lowest level since 1969, January saw the seventh straight month of slowing inflation, the economy has continued to grow despite fears of a recession, and over 12 million jobs have been created since Biden took office two years ago.

(Read on at Vox to see how the author attempts to explain away inflation)

Never mind the simple facts like how Biden mandated all but “essential services” go home; therefore, now those people have returned to work

Joe Biden has not done a single thing to encourage the creation of a job. In fact, his re-introduction of regulations has discouraged the creation of jobs. Additionally, the relaxed sick leave policies put in place by the Democrats during the initial months of the Biden regime (and COVID crisis) allowed a number of people to stay home.

Only because Joe Biden enforced a “stay home, stay safe” policy where only people working in “essential services” were allowed to continue working, the current job numbers are only a return to normality — not an evidence of Biden’s blockbuster economy.

…

Then reality jumps up

Biden fails at trying to convince us that the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were anomalies and the billions to investors would be taken care of by the FDIC

The Wall Street Journal examines the major lie that Biden told about the bailout of Democrat money-laundering banks. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

President Biden tried to reassure Americans early Monday morning that the banking system is safe and not to worry about the failures of Silicon Valley (SVB) and Signature banks. Markets didn’t believe him because bank stocks took another plunge, with some down 60% or more.

Perhaps investors don’t believe the Administration’s Sunday interventions solve the problems. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says it couldn’t find a private buyer for SVB, though a source tells us Treasury and the Federal Reserve favored one. FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg nixed it owing to hostility to bank mergers.

Instead the regulators offered solutions that bail out even uninsured bank depositors and other banks at unknown costs that Mr. Biden isn’t acknowledging. Take Mr. Biden’s pledge that “no losses will be borne by the taxpayers.” He said “the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.”

(continued)

That’s not nearly the full story. The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund normally guarantees up to $250,000 in deposits, which protects small retail customers including mom-and-pop businesses. Banks pay for this guarantee with insurance premiums, but the insurance fund isn’t intended to backstop deposits of bigger customers with more capacity to weather losses if a bank goes under.

Yet after venture capitalists (Democratic donors) and Silicon Valley politicians howled, the FDIC on Sunday announced it would cover uninsured deposits at SVB and Signature Bank under its “systemic risk” exception. Apparently, Silicon Valley investors and startups are too big to lose money when they take risks. They benefited enormously from the Fed’s pandemic liquidity hose, which caused SVB’s deposits to double between 2020 and 2021. SVB paid interest of up to 5.28% on large deposits, which it used to fund loans to startups.

(Read more at the Wall Street Journal)

While this may be part of yesterday’s news and yesterday’s highlights, there are developments

The failure of these two banks (two darling cash cows of the Democrats) may have been the center of attention yesterday, there are other banks in distress that Biden will not such a generous hand.

…

The Biden hole continues to grow: Asian stock markets in bloodbath as bank fears resurface

Breitbart points a light into the dark issues opened by Joe Biden’s bailout of Democrat-favored cash-cow banks (and their affect on international lenders like Credit Suisse and other institutions).

Stock markets sank on Wednesday on renewed fears of a burgeoning banking crisis, snapping a one-day rally as Credit Suisse led a rout in shares of major lenders.

Global markets have been rattled by the collapse of tech sector lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature, which forced US authorities to intervene at the weekend to prevent contagion.

After a rebound on Tuesday, equities fell again on Wednesday, with European indices tumbling by more than three percent and the Dow Industrial Average shedding 1.7 percent to lead a drop on Wall Street.

The euro slid while oil prices also dropped, with the main US contract WTI down more than five percent as it fell under $70 per barrel for the first time since December 2021.

“You get the picture: investors were panicking. Bloodbath, if you will,” said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and FOREX.com.

“Concerns over another 2008-style financial crises have intensified,” he said.

Shares of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second biggest bank, crashed by more than 30 percent to hit a record low.

(Read of the history of Credit Suisse at Breitbart)

Was it more happy talk from Joe and American funds that stilled Credit Suisse?

Did Joe make a call and offer our funds or did the Swiss government just step in and stabilize the situation on their own? Only crooked politicians and God will know for certain.

…

The economic consequences of Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan

Additionally, The Hill explores just as many of the ramifications of adopting Joe’s left-wing budget as they can and still be s card-carrying Democrat. 

There is an old joke about someone jumping from the top of the Empire State Building. When the jumper was asked at the 50th floor how he was doing, he replied, “so far so good.” One has to wonder whether at the end of the first of his four-year term, something similar might be said about President Biden’s handling of the economy.

(continued with Democrat blather and out-and-out lies presented as facts)

Inflation’s return hardly bodes well for the economy’s prospects in the run up to November’s midterm elections. The Federal Reserve is signaling that it will slam on the monetary policy brakes soon with a series of interest rate hikes to bring inflation back under control. That could very well cause a hard economic landing, since it could be the trigger for the bursting of today’s equity and housing market bubbles, which have been premised on the assumption that today’s ultra-low interest rates would last forever.

James Carville, President Clinton’s political adviser, never tired of saying that when it came to elections, it’s the economy, stupid. One must wonder why President Biden’s team did not remind him of this adage in March 2021 at the time when he rushed through Congress the excessively large American Rescue Plan, which former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers correctly warned would lead to economic overheating. Maybe then Biden would have been spared the boom-bust cycle that now is in prospect and that could cost him dearly in November’s midterm elections. 

(Read more at The Hill only if you have a barf bag)

Odd that the author, who claims a history with the International Monetary Fund, might not recognize an instance of supply and demand

If you go to the bottom of the article, you will see the author claims an association with the International Monetary Fund. Why then, does he not consider that an oversupply of money (as would come from a multi-trillion dollar budget) would produce an undervaluing of that commodity (as happens with inflation)?

…

The Biden hole continues to grow

Moody’s downgrades US banking sector outlook and puts six banks on watch

CNN reports that financial gatekeeper Moody’s has downgraded the whole U.S. banking sector and has put six banks on watch.

Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook for the entire US banking sector and placed six US banks on review for potential credit rating downgrades, in the wake of last week’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The credit ratings firm said it expects more banks will come under pressure after SVB’s failure — particularly those with large hoards of uninsured deposits and long-term Treasury bonds that have crumbled in value. Moody’s said it expects pressure on the banking sector to persist as the Fed continues to hike interest rates to combat inflation.

Another concern: US banks are raising the interest rates they pay on savings accounts. Although they hope the higher rates will retain customers worried by the collapse of SVB, that could also eat into profits, Moody’s warned.

The good news, Moody’s said, is that America’s banking system is generally healthy. It has enough cash and liquid assets to withstand an economic downturn. The bad news, for banks anyway, is that US regulators may require them to hold more capital after SVB’s rapid failure.

SVB was brought down by a bank run, but its exposure to long-term Treasuries that tumbled in value during the Fed’s historic rate-hike campaign aggravated its liquidity problem. Moody’s predicts the newly “stressed operating environment” for banks could lead some to lend less, buy back fewer shares or cut dividends to preserve capital in case of emergency.

Also, the credit ratings firm late Monday downgraded Signature Bank deep into junk territory following that bank’s failure. Ratings downgrades can make it more expensive for companies to borrow money.

Moody’s warned it could similarly downgrade First Republic Bank (FRC), Zions (ZION), Western Alliance (WAL), Comerica (CMA), UMB Financial (UMBF) and Intrust Financial. The firm cited the “extremely volatile funding conditions for some US banks exposed to the risk of uninsured deposit outflows.”

(Read more at CNN)

How bad has the situation become when even the mainstays of “Russia, Russia, Russia” have been forced to report against Biden?

While none of us expect balanced reporting from CNN, MSNBC, or PBS, when these outlets start reporting on Biden’s failures, one would think that the failures have become self evident.

…

The Biden hole continues to grow: Swiss bank troubles prompt question: More ahead?

The Hill asks the pertinent question of how permanently Biden’s market turmoil will remain.

Investors on Wednesday were so spooked about cracks opening in the global financial system, including at 166-year-old Credit Suisse, that Switzerland’s central bank threw a liquidity lifeline to the systemically important institution, which last year reported $569 billion in assets and is now able to borrow up to 50 billion francs ($53.7 billion) (Bloomberg News).

The bank’s shares soared as markets opened today on news of the Swiss National Bank’s lending decision. Fears after a rough 24-hour period appeared to be allayed. 

The U.S. Treasury Department spent Wednesday in contact with global counterparts and monitored evolving developments, which also served to compound U.S. investor anxieties and helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 280 points by the end of the trading day (The Washington Post and The New York Times).

Asked about the impact of Credit Suisse’s problems on the U.S. banking system, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told Reuters, “Everybody is concerned.”

Credit Suisse’s challenges are not the same as those that sent Silicon Valley Bank, nearly 6,000 miles away in California, into insolvency last week. But the Zurich bank’s higher costs of overnight funding, based on the price of its credit-default swaps, meant it needed to move quickly. It has been battered by years of financial missteps, including huge trading losses and scandals that have cost it two chief executives over three years, the Times reported.

(Read more at The Hill)

It could be that a new diet craze will sweep America: the Biden diet

Will Joe turn us all into vegetarians (aka little Hitlers)

…

The Biden hole continues to grow in areas other than finances

Although I don’t want to research his affect on energy, supply chain, inflation, transportation, and many other subjects, here is one on how Biden changed education and our freedom

All sports teams at a Vermont Christian school get banned because the girls basketball team refused to play against a bigger, stronger opponent whose birth certificate registers male

The New York Post reports on a Christian school whose athletics teams have been banned from competition because their girls’ basketball team refused to play against a team including a member who now identifies as a female.

A Vermont high school has been banned from participating in state athletics after its girls’ hoops team forfeited a playoff game against a team with a trans player.

Mid Vermont Christian School declined to play Long Trail in a Feb. 21 Division IV playoff basketball game because the school believed that playing a team with a biological male “jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” officials told Valley News.

On Monday, the Vermont Principals’ Association, which governs high school athletics in the state, announced in a statement that it had ruled that the private religious school had violated its policies on “commitment to racial, gender-fair, and disability awareness” and on “gender identity.”

The officials made an “immediate determination” that the White River Junction K-12 school and its 94 students would be ineligible for state-sanctioned activities and tournaments going forward, the release said.

“VPA policies prohibit discrimination and/or harassment of students on school property or
at school functions by students or employees,” officials wrote.

“The prohibition against discrimination includes discrimination based on a student’s actual or perceived sex and gender.”

In a statement to The Post, Mid Vermont Christian School Head of School Vicky Fogg said the school was “disappointed” with the ruling, and planned to appeal.

“Cancelling our membership is not a solution and does nothing to deal with the very real issue of safety and fairness facing women’s sports in our beloved state,” Fogg wrote.

“We urge the VPA to reconsider its policies, and balance the rights of every athlete in the state.”

(Read more at the New York Post)

…

 

An addendum to “Proof positive the press … (part 3)”

Biden shows his wish to force Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity on America

Biden defends stability of US banking system after Silicon Valley Bank’s stunning collapse

The New York Post at least outlines Biden’s words as he gaslit us all by his claim to secure our nation’s banks without having to perform another taxpayer-funded bailout.

President Biden defended the stability of the US banking system on Monday morning after the stunning collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sparked fears of a major economic crisis.

“Thanks to the quick action of my administration over the last few days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” Biden said. “Your deposits will be there when you need them.”

The president sought to reassure worried Americans and small business owners even as regional bank stocks led by First Republic Bank plunged in premarket trading Monday due to fears that SVB’s meltdown would prompt a nationwide flurry of withdrawals.

Biden also blasted executives at SVB and other failing banks, declaring that those whose actions prompted the current crisis “will be fired.”

“If the bank is taken over by FDIC, the people running the bank should not work there anymore,” Biden said.

The feds will get a “full accounting of what happened and why,” Biden added.

“Those responsible can be held accountable. In my administration, no one is above the law,” he said.

While the holdings of impacted depositors will have their money guaranteed, Biden noted that “investors in the banks will not be protected” because they “knowingly took a risk” by pouring cash into SVB.

Biden also took aim at former President Donald Trump, arguing his administration rolled back regulations that could have helped to prevent the current crisis.

He pledged an overhaul that will “make it less likely this kind of bank failure would happen again and to protect American jobs and small businesses.”

(Read more from the New York Post)

When these banking wokesters invest in pie-in-the-sky ESG projects and the money gets spent before the company and then bank fails, the money goes somewhere

So since the money will have been spent by the time that the next bank fails (three since Silicon Valley Bank started the trend), where will Biden pull the money? He claims he will get it from FDIC dues. Who pays those dues? Is it anyone with a bank account or the taxpayer?

I smell gaslighting.

Other Americans face a limit of $250,000 on their deposits. Why did the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank merit additional monies (possibly into the millions for some, like Roku)? Was it that thousands of green-oriented companies depended on Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank? Was it that Silicon Valley Bank seemed more focused on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity than profits?

…

It’s not just the food on your plate being threatened

Silicon Valley Bank collapse threatens climate start-ups

The New York Times has been so gracious to point out the green largesse made available through the Silicon Valley Bank. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

As the fallout of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank continued to spread over the weekend, it became clear that some of the worst casualties were companies developing solutions for the climate crisis.

The bank, the largest to fail since 2008, worked with more than 1,550 technology firms that are creating solar, hydrogen and battery storage projects. According to its website, the bank issued them billions in loans.

“Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways a climate bank,” said Kiran Bhatraju, chief executive of Arcadia, the largest community solar manager in the country. “When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage.”

Community solar projects appear to be especially hard hit. Silicon Valley Bank said that it led or participated in 62 percent of financing deals for community solar projects, which are smaller-scale solar projects that often serve lower-income residential areas.

(Read more at the New York Times)

SVB hired board obsessed with diversity, invested $5BN for “healthier planet,” and held month-long Pride celebration, but had NO chief risk officer for eight months last year

The Daily Mail provides a wide-angle view of the wokeness within Silicon Valley Bank, along with an overview of its recklessness. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

Executives at Silicon Valley Bank focused on woke initiatives to increase diversity amongst its ranks and invest in startups promoting a ‘healthier planet,’ but failed to spot its glaring problems with investments as interest rates rose.

The now-failed bank had an A rating for its Environmental, Social and Governance policies according to the MSCI index after creating its own initiatives to ‘advance inclusion and opportunity in the innovation economy’ and investing in clean energy solutions over the past few years.

It even announced that it would invest a whopping $5billion by 2027 to support sustainability efforts, while its European offices held a monthlong Pride celebration and promoted ‘safe spaces.’

But for eight months last year, the bank did not have a chief risk operator, as it invested clients’ money in low-interest government bonds and securities.

Then when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates, the value of SVB’s assets fell while customers tried to withdraw their money.

Now, many are slamming the financial institution for focusing too much on woke policies and not enough on its investments.

Silicon Valley Bank has long touted its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as it built its banking franchise around startups.

It said in its 2022 ESG Report that the bank strives to ‘create a more just, equitable and sustainable world.’

Among the initiatives included in that report are a ‘commitment to provide at least $5billion by 2027 in loans, investments and other financing to support clients’ sustainability business.

‘SVB’s Sustainable Finance Commitment aims to support companies that are working to decarbonize the energy and infrastructure industries and hasten the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon, net zero emissions economy,’ the report states.

It also notes that the bank implemented ‘a diverse candidate slate for US leadership roles’ and introduced its first six Employee Resource Groups for Asian, black, Hispanic, LGBTQ, veteran, military and female employees.

(Read more at the Daily Mail)

Well, woke Democrats flock together and don’t allow one another to go under, do they, Biden?

It looks like the one reason for saving this bank is the same reason Obama “saved” Solyndra with tons of taxpayer cash.

Green job money laundering that turn into cash donations to Democrats. A good Democrat cannot stop that.

Of course, the previous two articles highlight the previous wokeness of this Democrat bank; however, …

Although the previous two articles accentuate the woke nature of SVB, we cannot forget how this hurts the Democrat cause. It stops Democrat funding. It interrupts monies flowing to climate-related projects, race-related projects, trans-centered initiatives, and more.

…

Let’s not forget Signature Bank, friend of crypto and their board member Barney Frank

Yes, don’t forget that Signature Bank closed the Trump account when it was offended by his actions

The New York Post reminds us that Signature Bank has Barney Frank (former Representative in the U.S. House and half of the genesis of the Dodd-Frank Act that over-regulated banking) as a board member.

Barney Frank — the retired congressman who co-authored the Dodd-Frank Act to tighten bank regulations after the 2008 financial crisis — is under fire over his role in the latest US banking disaster.

The 82-year-old Democrat is on the board of directors at Signature Bank — a New York lender that was shut down by state regulators over the weekend, becoming the industry’s third major casualty since Silicon Valley Bank was abruptly shuttered on Friday and the crypto-focused Silvergate Capital shut down a week earlier.

In an interview with Bloomberg late Sunday, Frank partly blamed cryptocurrencies, which hadn’t existed when he and fellow lawmakers in Washington were grappling with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

“Digital currency was the new element entered into our system,” Frank told Bloomberg. “A new and destabilizing — potentially destabilizing — element is inatroduced into the financial system. What we get are three failures.”

Frank didn’t address the fact that crypto had become a key growth vehicle for Signature Bank under the direction of himself and others — despite widespread concerns about the risks of the notoriously volatile sector.

(Read more at the New York Post)

If you go beyond reading the words of Mr. Frank and read the context, you’ll see this bank is a grow-rich land for Democrats

It may involve crypto. It may involve high tech or green technology. Any which way, it will involve money to Democrats.

…

Signature Bank de-banked Trump after Jan 6—now the regulators have shut them down

The Post Millennial reminds us that it was Signature Bank who closed Trump account after they were offended by the 6 January events.

Regulators shut down New York City based Signature Bank on Sunday, a financial institution which had previously cut ties with President Donald Trump following the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Signature Bank is the second financial institution shuttered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) this week after Friday’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. According to CNBC, “Signature is one of the main banks to the cryptocurrency industry. As of Dec. 31, Signature had $110.4 billion in total assets and $88.6 billion in total deposits, according to a securities filing.”

On January 12, 2021, the bank told The New York Post that it had begun the process of closing Trump’s two personal accounts and “will not do business in the future with any members of Congress who voted to disregard the Electoral College.”

According to the outlet, Signature also posted a “scathing statement” on its website slamming Trump stating, “We have never before commented on any political matter and hope to never do so again.”

The statement continued, “We witnessed the President of the United States encouraging the rioters and refraining from calling in the National Guard to protect the Congress in its performance of duty. At this point in time, to ensure the peaceful transition of power, we believe the appropriate action would be the resignation of the President of the United States, which is in the best interests of our nation and the American people.”

(Read more at the Post Millennial)

So it looks like being woke was more important than a lucrative account

Whether this won brownie points with the Germans cannot be measured through this article; however, it seems the monies associated with the Trump organization was not enough to motivate this bank into sane practices.

…

One for all the Democrats who believe Biden’s fairy tales on SVB and the rest

Biden’s Bank bailout Whoppers

The Wall Street Journal examines the major lie that Biden told about the bailout of Democrat money-laundering banks. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

President Biden tried to reassure Americans early Monday morning that the banking system is safe and not to worry about the failures of Silicon Valley (SVB) and Signature banks. Markets didn’t believe him because bank stocks took another plunge, with some down 60% or more.

Perhaps investors don’t believe the Administration’s Sunday interventions solve the problems. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says it couldn’t find a private buyer for SVB, though a source tells us Treasury and the Federal Reserve favored one. FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg nixed it owing to hostility to bank mergers.

Instead the regulators offered solutions that bail out even uninsured bank depositors and other banks at unknown costs that Mr. Biden isn’t acknowledging. Take Mr. Biden’s pledge that “no losses will be borne by the taxpayers.” He said “the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.”

(continued)

That’s not nearly the full story. The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund normally guarantees up to $250,000 in deposits, which protects small retail customers including mom-and-pop businesses. Banks pay for this guarantee with insurance premiums, but the insurance fund isn’t intended to backstop deposits of bigger customers with more capacity to weather losses if a bank goes under.

Yet after venture capitalists (Democratic donors) and Silicon Valley politicians howled, the FDIC on Sunday announced it would cover uninsured deposits at SVB and Signature Bank under its “systemic risk” exception. Apparently, Silicon Valley investors and startups are too big to lose money when they take risks. They benefited enormously from the Fed’s pandemic liquidity hose, which caused SVB’s deposits to double between 2020 and 2021. SVB paid interest of up to 5.28% on large deposits, which it used to fund loans to startups.

(Read more at the Wall Street Journal)

For the idiot Democrats who don’t live on the coasts, but continue to vote for this idiot

Deposit insurance encourages bank failures like SVB

The Wall Street Journal explains how making a built-in escape hatch makes one less committed to taking the mission to completion. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure makes many Americans grateful for deposit insurance, which protects accounts holding $250,000 or less. But the SVB episode also illustrates the dangers of deposit insurance. A banking system dominated by government insurance, plus too-big-to-fail protection that effectively insures all deposits at the largest banks, lacks essential market discipline, is systemically unsafe, is more likely to see episodes like SVB’s failure, and is more costly to taxpayers and bank customers.

Historically, unprotected well-informed depositors, especially other banks, gauged and responded to each bank’s risk, creating an incentive for banks to manage risk responsibly. Uninformed depositors—like those now at risk at SVB — were free riders on informed discipline. Now, informed depositors can easily get around the $250,000 limit on insurance, which eliminates their incentive to monitor banks. The recent disappearance of the interbank loan market means that banks don’t monitor each other to gauge creditworthiness as short-term borrowers of reserves either. That leaves only bank regulators to mind the store, and they often lack incentives and knowledge to measure and punish risk on a speedy basis. That’s how predictable messes like SVB happen.

(continued)

Deposit insurance was absent from nearly all other countries’ banking systems before 1980, and from the U.S. (with some temporary exceptions) until 1933. It was adopted for political reasons, and it hasn’t been a stabilizing influence. Virtually every academic study of deposit insurance shows that it promotes, rather than reduces, banking system fragility, with major costs borne by the insurers — which means ultimately by insured depositors and potentially taxpayers. The popularity of deposit insurance reflects public ignorance about its costs and about how a disciplined, uninsured banking system could operate as an alternative.

(continued)

This episode points to a continuing failure of regulatory discipline, which lacks the incentives and smarts of the market, to substitute for market discipline. It also points to the need for business managers to learn more about banking, and for the Fed to learn that its own monetary-policy mismanagement for many years has lots of consequences for reducing financial stability. Those consequences include the insidious elimination of interbank discipline by ending the last vestige of informed discipline on imprudent risk management by banks.

Again, for Democrats not on the coasts who don’t benefit from Biden’s largesse

Regional banks are seeing flight of deposits to too-big-to-fail megabanks

Market Watch points out how local banks are now seeing depositors leave for larger banks that might be classified as “too big to fail.”

The unexpected demise of Signature Bank over the weekend, along with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, ignited a shoot-first-ask-questions-later reaction among regional-bank investors as customers moved deposits to the largest U.S. banks for perceived safekeeping, observers said Monday.

Stocks of regional banks such as First Republic Bank (FRC), Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL), PacWest Bancorp (PACW) and Zions Bancorp (ZION) dropped Monday even after U.S. bank regulators set up a new emergency-loan program as a backstop for deposits.

(Read more at Market Watch)

Finally, to name Democrat beneficiary names

Here’s who benefited from their executive, PAC donations

Fox Business lays out a little of those who benefitted from the SVB largesse.

Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, failed Friday after depositors hurried to withdraw money amid anxiety over the bank’s health. It was the second-biggest bank failure in United States history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008.

The bank’s California executives and political action committee have propped up a handful of politicians in recent elections, which has primarily benefited Democrat lawmakers.

Greg Becker, the bank’s president and chief executive officer, cut two maximum checks totaling $5,800 to the campaigns of New York Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner during the 2022 midterm election cycle. The two Democrat senators are the only politicians Becker financially backed directly during the most recent cycle.

Becker also gave $2,500 to the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund in May last year. The New Democrat Coalition Action Fund sent $1 million in contributions to numerous Democrat politicians during the 2022 elections.

Becker’s most recent donations came on the heels of $5,600 he donated between President Biden’s 2020 campaign and victory fund.

Jeffrey Leerink, the chief executive officer of SVB Securities, donated $1,250 to Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss during the 2022 and 2020 elections.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley Bank’s chief credit officer, Marc Cadieux, poured $250 into Biden’s campaign during the 2020 elections.

The bank’s political action committee has received around $40,000 from its employees over the past two election cycles. In turn, it contributed thousands to Warner, New York Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks and North Carolina Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry during the 2022 elections.

(Read more Democrats, Democrats, and more Democrats at Fox Business)

What did you expect when the bank was all Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity?

Did you expect a better job than Mayor Pete has provided to the Department of Transportation?

Still, let me try to get this straight. Biden says that he will use the bank assets to pay off the multi-billion dollar debt

Biden says that the tax payers will not be on the hook for this bailout. I am sure that includes tax payers not having to pay seven times the rate current during Trump years for eggs, milk, meat, and other necessities. Surely Dementia Joe would not just print millions of dollars and hand it over to his Democrat friends, causing even greater inflation.

Still, let’s go through the numbers:

Joe’s claims	Reality	Monies available
Assets would be sold	SVB was encouraged to buy T-bills at $1K (which mature in 5 years) and forced to sell at $750 immediately	This does not present a newly available cash stream.
	SVB was invested in 10-year mortgage-backed securities that had to be sold at a loss (no sources divulged how much of a loss)	This does not present a newly available cash stream.
	SVB was invested in green projects. We know how well Solyndra did.	This does not present a newly available cash stream.

So please tell me how America does not eat this loss.

…

One final point: Beside selling stock in the bank just before the collapse — this is what the bank management did

Silicon Valley Bank gave company-wide bonuses hours before it collapsed

Fox Buisness reported in a 12 March 2023 article that SVB issued company-wide bonuses before the collapse.

Silicon Valley Bank employees received their annual bonuses on Friday just hours before the government took control of the company, according to reports.

SVB traditionally processes annual bonuses on the second Friday of March, unnamed sources associated with the bank told CNBC. The bonuses were reportedly for work completed in 2022.

SVB did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The Santa Clara, California-based band collapsed last week and is now under the control of federal regulators. SVB had been the 16th-largest bank in the U.S. prior to the bank run that led to its downfall.

(Read more at Fox Buisness)

As mentioned at Bunkerville, this came after the bank leadership rewarded itself

Bunkerville pointed out in a 15 March post that the SVB leadership rewarded itself before the collapse by selling large chunks of bank stock.

…

 

Proof positive the press has their heads pushed so far up Joe Biden’s backside as to give him an upper endoscopy (part 3)

When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall

Who killed the Silicon Valley Bank?

The Wall Street Journal gives us an idea of what the screwballs at Silicon Valley Bank did to drain the bank. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

That giant slurping sound on Friday was Silicon Valley Bank imploding. America’s 16th-largest bank had some $175 billion in deposits and disappeared by breakfast. It wouldn’t have happened if not for management mistakes. This was a 21st-century bank run—customers tried to withdraw about $42 billion, a quarter of all deposits. But what triggered the collapse?

Let’s go back. In January 2020, SVB had $55 billion in customer deposits on its balance sheet. By the end of 2022, that number exploded to $186 billion. Yes, SVB was a victim of its own success. These deposits were often from initial public offerings and SPAC deals—SVB banked almost half of all IPO proceeds in the last two years. Most startups had relationships with the bank.

That’s a lot of money to put to work. Some was lent out, but with soaring stock prices and near-zero interest rates, no one needed to take on excessive debt. There was no way SVB was going to initiate $131 billion in new loans. So the bank put some of this new capital into higher-yielding long-term government bonds and $80 billion into 10-year mortgage-backed securities paying 1.5% instead of short-term Treasurys paying 0.25%.

 This was mistake No. 1. SVB reached for yield, just as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers did in the 2000s. With few loans, these investments were the bank’s profit center. SVB got caught with its pants down as interest rates went up.

Everyone, except SVB management it seems, knew interest rates were heading up. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been shouting this from the mountain tops. Yet SVB froze and kept business as usual, borrowing short-term from depositors and lending long-term, without any interest-rate hedging.

The bear market started in January 2022, 14 months ago. Surely it shouldn’t have taken more than a year for management at SVB to figure out that credit would tighten and the IPO market would dry up. Or that companies would need to spend money on salaries and cloud services. Nope, and that was mistake No. 2. SVB misread its customers’ cash needs. Risk management seemed to be an afterthought. The bank didn’t even have a chief risk officer for eight months last year. CEO Greg Becker sat on the risk committee.

As customers asked for their money, SVB had to sell $21 billion in underwater longer-term assets, with an average interest rate around 1.8%. The bank lost $1.8 billion on the sale and tried to raise more than $2 billion to fill the hole.

The loss flagged that something was wrong. Venture capitalists, including Peter Thiel, suggested that companies in their portfolios should withdraw their money and put it somewhere safer. On Thursday the dam broke and there was no way to cover billions in withdrawal requests.

Mistake No. 3 was not quickly selling equity to cover losses. The first rule of survival is to keep selling equity until investors or depositors no longer fear bankruptcy. Private-equity firm General Atlantic apparently made an offer to buy $500 million of the bank’s common stock. Friday morning, I’d have offered $3 billion for half the company. Where was Warren Buffett? Or JPMorgan?

(Read more at the Wall Street Journal)

This is where maturity-mismatch comes into play. If the bank buys long-term securities and a customer comes to the bank needing the money, they have a liquidity crisis.

Rules of Democrat debate: fast forward to censoring everyone on this subject also

Remember the rules of Democrat debate:

1. If you have a strong topic, beat the topic
2. If you don’t have a strong topic, beat the table
3. If you still don’t gather an audience, take away the table

Rep. Massie: DHS efforts are already underway to add censorship of "financial misinformation" to CISA's portfolio o… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) March 13, 2023

If you did not look at the tweet’s attached graphics, it would behoove you to take a glimpse. First, the report to the CISA director defines misinformation/disinformation concerning finances (shown in top illustration) (sentence continues below top illustration)

(sentence continued) in much the same way CISA defined misinformation/disinformation when suppressing it on social media.. (Note the scribblings of Representative Thomas Massie, who surely must have known about the censorship and likely been subject to it as it spread across social media and is now widely contested in the lying press.)

If you refer back to the Wall Street Journal’s “mistake no. 2,” you will note the inclusion of inflation in the equation

Since inflation can be created by governments that throw too much money into the market through reckless spending (such as multi-trillion dollar deficit spending), maybe Dementia Joe and the Cash-Burning Democrats might take note and not continue by creating conditions that create more of these failed banks.

…

White House launches full court press against House Freedom Caucus’ debt ceiling demands

Is Biden trying to create more inflation and crash more banks?

The Washington Times details the Biden regime opposition to a measure that would at least level off the current forty-year-high of inflation.

The White House stepped up its offensive against the House Freedom Caucus over the weekend after the bloc of conservatives laid out a series of demands for securing their vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

In a press release formatted as a memo addressed to television show producers on Saturday, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt accused the Republican lawmakers of threatening to cut funding for law enforcement, border security, education and manufacturing while introducing “tax breaks for the super-wealthy and wasteful spending for special interests.” 

“MAGA House Republicans are proposing, if spread evenly across affected discretionary programs, at least a 20% across the board cut,” the press release read. “That means a 20% cut to law enforcement, border security, education, and manufacturing.

“These cuts will weaken our competition with China, raise costs for working families, and threaten our national security,” the release read.

The Freedom Caucus lawmakers laid out their series of demands on Friday, setting the bar in the Republican Party ahead of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s return to negotiations with the White House.

(Read more at the Washington Times)

As much as Biden claims he will save Social Security and Medicare, he seems set on screwing things up

When even liberal outlets like CNN counter the Biden line, you know that Biden has gotten himself deep into a senseless lie. In this case, if he continues to do nothing, even CNN acknowledges that Social Security and Medicare will be out of money by 2035.

In fact, a recent report found that COVID graft during the Biden regime cut the life of Social Security and Medicare down to 2033.

…

The “not a bailout” bailout for the “not a recession” recession

Bloomberg goes to bat for its fellow Democrat and claims this bailout is not a bailout

BNN Bloomberg goes to bat for Hochul and Biden as they individually claim the economy is not teetering on the brink of what it is.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the takeover of Signature Bank by federal regulators on Sunday “was not a bailout” that puts state taxpayers at risk.

“This is simply using fees that are assessed on all banks,” Hochul said at a briefing Monday with Adrienne Harris, superintendent of the state Department of Financial Services. “This is an unusual circumstance, but the main message I want to deliver to New Yorkers is that their money is secure.”

Federal regulators swept the lender into receivership just days after the demise of fellow crypto-friendly bank Silvergate Capital Corp. and SVB Financial Group’s Silicon Valley Bank. The announcement coincided with a slate of measures out of Washington, including the Federal Reserve’s creation of a new lending program for banks, aimed at ensuring they can meet any customer requests to withdraw money.

New York officials said on Sunday that they were closing Signature Bank and turning it over to federal regulators amid a broader effort to prevent the crisis from spreading further.

(Read more at BNN Bloomberg)

How many will believe the Democrat gaslighting?

Biden and Hochul claim that this is “not a bailout;” however, the funds needed would outweigh the resources set aside for FDIC-member banks. Whether we pay for it though higher inflation or through government funds, I am sure Biden is lying.

Still, if you believe Biden’s bailout gaslighting, you probably cannot see through Biden’s border gaslighting:

…

The biased press reaches a new low

Liberals blame Trump for Silicon Valley Bank collapse citing 2018 bipartisan bill

Fox News reports on the measures some “news readers” will take to blame the Silicone Valley Bank failure on President Trump.

Shortly after the second-largest bank collapse in United States history, many liberals took to social media to place the blame on former President Donald Trump.

“By the way, Trump deregulated banks like Silicon Valley Bank, which failed Friday,” Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under former President Bill Clinton, posted on Twitter Friday after news that Silicon Valley Bank had been shut down by FDIC regulators in an effort to protect customers as the bank faced a liquidity crunch after losing $2 billion.

Reich was joined by other liberals on Twitter attempting to place the blame on Trump for signing a bipartisan bill in 2018 that rolled back elements of Dodd-Frank.

“It seems likely that this could have been avoided if it weren’t for the roll-backs by the Trump administration,” journalist Ed Krassenstein tweeted.

In 2018 President Trump signed a bill that rolled back Dodd-Frank regulations on banks like Silicon Valley Bank.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) March 11, 2023

“Quick reminder: 50 Republican senators and 17 Democratic senators voted to ignore warnings and weaken risk regulations for Silicon Valley Bank,” journalist David Sirota tweeted. “Donald Trump signed the bill into law. And now the bank is the 2nd biggest bank collapse in American history.”

Quick reminder: 50 Republican senators and 17 Democratic senators voted to ignore warnings and weaken risk regulat… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
David Sirota (@davidsirota) March 11, 2023

(continued)

EJ Antoni, research fellow in regional economics with The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, told FOX Business on Saturday that the collapse had “nothing to do with Trump or Dodd-Frank” and more to do with an “unusual confluence of events.”

Antoni explained that the bank “dealt almost exclusively with tech firms which usually rely on continuously rolling over large debts” which means that the firms are “not paying off their debt but simply taking out new debt to pay off the old.”

“Second, SVB put a disproportionate amount of its cash into long-term bonds. Ordinarily, that’s not a bad strategy, but it’s unwise when interest rates are zero because those rates must rise eventually,” Antoni said. “When rates rise, bond prices fall. This is because an investor with the choice to buy an existing bond at a low rate or a new bond at a high rate will choose the new bond since it’s a better return on investment. If you want to sell the old bond with its lower interest rate, you must be willing to sell it at a discount; otherwise, no one will buy it.”

Antoni explained that SVB’s undiversified clientele meant “too many depositors needed cash all at once” forcing the liquidation of bonds that had lost value and a “death spiral” quickly ensued.

(Read more at Fox News)

Here is an example of a news reader who learned President Trump’s bill was not at fault

If you don’t believe that our press would stretch to blame President Trump like this, look at the following:

In wake of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, @MarthaRaddatz asks Democratic Sen. Mark Warner if he regrets voting f… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 12, 2023

…

 

Proof positive the press has their heads pushed so far up Joe Biden’s backside as to give him an upper endoscopy (part 2)

On COVID, what happened to the debate on the right and the pressure on the left?

At the Right’s Wall Street Journal: Intelligence on sick staff at Wuhan lab fuels debate on Covid-19 origin

The Wall Street Journal points out a debate on the right during 2021 where some were duped by the Biden line and others saw the logic of a Wuhan virus having come from a Wuhan lab.

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins.

Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.

Another person described the intelligence as stronger. “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” he said, referring to the researchers.

November 2019 is roughly when many epidemiologists and virologists believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing says that the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.

The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus.

(Read more woo-hoo from China and their friends as repeated by the Wall Street Journal)

Ok. There are a hew more steps in the logic chain than stating the Wuhan virus came from a Wuhan lab

To condense the creation of the COVID virus through the help of Dr. Redfield’s testimony before the House COVID-19 panel (and the summarizing skills of the Daily Signal), here are six take-aways concerning COVID’S origin:

The House on Wednesday held its first hearing investigating the origins of COVID-19 after two federal agencies suggested the pandemic likely began when a new coronavirus escaped China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

(continued)

Here are six highlights from testimony before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s subcommittee on the pandemic. 

1. What’s Ahead?

   Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the select subcommittee, provided a glimpse of what his panel will delve into during future hearings.

   (continued)

   “Unfortunately the question of the origins [of COVID-19] has been politicized,” Wenstrup said. “That’s no secret. It has driven most people to their corners, rather than driving apolitical scientific debate or discussion.”

2. ‘No Doubt’ US Tax Dollars Funded Gain-of-Function Research

   The key witness was Dr. Robert Redfield, who was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Trump administration when the pandemic emerged. 

   (continued)

   The term “gain of function” describes a risky process of making a disease more dangerous or contagious for the purpose of studying a response.

   “Do you think that Dr. Fauci intentionally lied under oath to Sen. Paul when he vehemently denied NIH’s funding of gain-of-function research?” Malliotakis asked Redfield. 

   Redfield responded: “I think there is no doubt NIH was funding gain-of-function research.”

   The former CDC director didn’t address whether Fauci was truthful under oath. 

   Malliotakis then asked: “Is it likely American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”

   Redfield responded yes, but that the NIH wasn’t the only factor. 

   “I think it did, not only from the NIH but the State Department, from USAID, and from DOD,” Redfield said, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense. 

   (continued)

   The subcommittee chairman then asked: “Has gain-of-function research stopped a pandemic, in your opinion?”

   Redfield: “No, on the contrary, I think it probably caused the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”

   (continued)

3. ‘Three Things Happened in That Lab’

   Wuhan Institute of Virology officials deleted chronological logs of past research data, put the lab under military control, and redid the ventilation system in fall 2019, months before the rest of the world became aware of a new coronavirus and COVID-19, Redfield noted. 

   Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., asked Redfield: “Do you believe that we can have certainty that the virus did not come from the Wuhan lab, and that U.S. funding was not used for COVID-19-related research? 

   Redfield responded that the public can read recently unclassified information that shows those in charge of the Wuhan lab engaged in unusual conduct. 

   “The declassified information now shows in September 2019, three things happened in that lab,” Redfield said. 

   “One is they deleted the sequences,” he said, referring to sequencing, a laboratory technique used to determine the exact order of nucleotide bases, which compose individual genomes. 

   “That’s highly irregular. Researchers don’t usually like to do that.”

   “The second thing they did is they changed command and control of the lab from civilian control to military control. Highly unusual,” Redfield said. 

   “The third thing they did, I think is really telling, is they let a contractor redo the ventilation system in that laboratory,” Redfield added. “So, I think clearly, there is strong evidence that a significant event happened in that laboratory in September. It has now been declassified. You can read it.”

4. ‘Donald Trump’s Culpability’^**

   Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the full House Oversight Committee, argued that regardless of the origins of the pandemic, it happened on former President Donald Trump’s watch. (Read below at ^**A double asterisk to the baseless accusations by the Democrats on this committee)

   (continued)

5. ‘Bunch of Yokels Are Eating Bats’

   (continued with numerous biased Democrat memes on the Chinese equivalent of Walmart shoppers)

6. ‘Antithetical to Science’

   Fauci, who became the face of the nation’s fight against COVID-19, has said that “attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science.” 

   However, Redfield said actions taken by Fauci and other officials to shut down discussion of the pandemic was “antithetical to science.”

   (continued)

(Read the whole thing, including the Democrat excuses, at the Daily Signal)

^**A double asterisk to the baseless accusations by the Democrats on this committee

First, regarding trying to link Trump to the major effects of COVID, let us remember that:

• Trump allowed states and cities to set their own COVID policies, therefore,
  • Governor Wolf of Pennsylvania was allowed to put COVID patients in nursing homes, costing 11,000 people their lives
  • Governor Cuomo of New York also allowed COVID patients into nursing homes, costing 9,000 people their lives
  • New Jersey Governor Murphy ordered COVID patients into nursing homes, costing 8,000 their lives
  • Michigan’s Governor Whitmer put COVID patients in nursing homes, resulting in 6,000 deaths
• Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to get ventilators into Pennsylvania and New York
• Trump had the Navy bring New York a floating hospital for the COVID crisis
• Trump and the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the CARES Act (which I disagreed with and felt to be inflationary) in response to the 14% unemployment brought on by the first wave of COVID

However, it was Biden who:

• Mandated the shut-down of the “non-essential businesses” (as if this geezer with an orbit of inexperienced socialists would know an essential business if their lives depended on it)
• Mandated wearing of masks (something proven in many studies to be ineffective) in public
• Used his war-time powers to mandate the manufacture of masks, swabs, and other equipment
• Ramped up free COVID testing (which always seemed to be for the previous variant and which had an inflationary effect similar to giving out free money)
• Pushed through the American Rescue Plan (largely a money hand-out — spell that: inflationary)
• Required all military personnel to get vaccinated (though most fell within the age range that easily developed natural immunity and a number had developed natural immunity through recovery from the virus)
• Announced his attempt to use OSHA to require businesses with more than 100 employees to get those employees vaccinated
  • By announcing this, he bullied a number of large companies into forcing the jab
• Essentially confiscated personal property by announcing his Eviction Moratorium

The New York Times formerly shamed us with: The Lab-Leak Theory

The New York Times tried to school all of us Walmart shoppers on 27 May 2021 in how it was non-scientific and racist to believe anything but the bat soup theory of COVID origin.

Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.

President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of Covid-19 and figure out whether the virus that causes it accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Major publications and social media have recently been filled with discussion of the subject.

Today, we offer an explainer.

What are the basics?

The origin of the virus remains unclear. Many scientists have long believed that the most likely explanation is that it jumped from an animal to a person, possibly at a food market in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Animal-to human transmission — known as zoonotic spillover — is a common origin story for viruses, including Ebola and some bird flus.

But some scientists have pointed to another possibility: that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As in other laboratories, researchers there sometimes modify viruses, to understand and treat them.

“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators yesterday.

Why now?

The subject is getting more attention because some scientists who were once skeptical of the laboratory theory have expressed new openness to it.

Two weeks ago, 18 scientists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for a new investigation and describing both the animal-to-human theory and the lab-leak theory as “viable.” And three scientists who last year dismissed the lab-leak explanation as a conspiracy theory have told The Wall Street Journal that they now consider it plausible.

Among the reasons: Chinese officials have refused to allow an independent investigation into the lab and have failed to explain some inconsistencies in the animal-to-human hypothesis. Most of the first confirmed cases had no evident link to the food market.

What changed?

In some ways, not much has not changed. From the beginning, the virus’s origin has been unclear. All along, some scientists, politicians and journalists have argued that the lab-leak theory deserves consideration.

Almost 15 months ago, two Chinese researchers wrote a paper concluding that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” Alina Chan, a molecular biologist affiliated with Harvard and M.I.T., made similar arguments. David Ignatius and Josh Rogin, both Washington Post columnists, wrote about the possibility more than a year ago. Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, didn’t mention the lab-leak theory in early 2020 but he did argue that the U.S. should “not be taking China’s word” for how the outbreak started.

But these voices were in the minority. The World Health Organization initially dismissed the lab-leak theory as implausible.

(Read more “take the word of Chinese Socialists” at the New York Times)

@apoorva_nyc Why is it racist to know where COVID-19 originated and what the Wuhan Institute of Virology is? https://t.co/iVH52cLZZN

—
jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) May 26, 2021

By the way, Apoorva was/is the COVID reporter for the New York Times.

…

 

 

Proof positive the press has their heads pushed so far up Joe Biden’s backside as to give him an upper endoscopy

The press refuses to report on nine boxes of material moved to Boston from the Penn-Biden Center

Biden’s document story keeps changing, this time by nine boxes

Just the-News addresses the nine boxes of unknown Biden documents that have been moved from the Penn-Biden Center.

President Joe Biden strongly condemned former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified materials following the FBI’s Aug. 8, 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago, yet an ever-growing number of document discoveries appears to undercut his criticisms.

The National Archives and Records Administration in a March 7 letter to GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin confirmed that it had recovered a further nine boxes of materials from the Boston office of Biden’s attorney, Patrick Moore.

Moreover, despite claiming possession of them in November and storing the materials in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, “NARA has not reviewed the contents of the boxes found at Mr. Moore’s Boston office,” acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall told the lawmakers.

This trove of materials was previously housed at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, the site at which a lawyer cleaning out Biden’s former office discovered classified materials that reportedly included intelligence on the U.K., Iran, and Ukraine. Biden said in January that he was “surprised” to learn of the discovery.

Reports of the discovery first emerged in January of this year and prompted Biden staff to comb facilities and offices he occupied for additional sensitive materials. That search turned up more materials, including multiple batches of documents marked classified at his Delaware home. Biden indicated he had been aware of at least one such batch, defending his storage of documents inside his locked garage alongside his Corvette.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, facing intense GOP criticism, eventually appointed special counsel Robert Hur to handle the Department of Justice’s Biden-related dealings.

(Read more at Just the-News)

Not one question by the press or one news segment on ABC news

While my wife had the broadcast from the ABC World News Tonight blaring in the living room and neither of us were giving it full attention, at least I gave it enough attention to not that there was never a mention of the nine boxes. Likewise, there was no mention of the moral conflict created by Biden’s having contributed to the bail funds of so many Antifa outlaws while he holds numerous 6 January protesters on charges like parading and obstructing an official proceeding.

…

 

The press goes into overtime regarding its denial of actual events on 6 January 2021

Footage shows Capitol cop Brian Sicknick uninjured on 6 January

The Federalist points out how Officer Sicknick has been shown walking around the Capitol buildings long after Democrats in the press and office allege him to have been beaten to death during the 6 January riot.

New footage from the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 shows Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick walking around the complex after Democrats and the media claimed he was brutally murdered. The clips aired on Monday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and were reportedly viewed previously by “investigators working for the Democratic Party,” according to Carlson.

Sicknick’s Jan. 7 death was immediately exploited by the left. The New York Times reported directly that Sicknick died—according to the paper’s headline—“From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” One month later, the Times quietly corrected its reporting.

CNN later linked Sicknick’s death to a chemical irritant such as pepper spray or bear spray used by rioters. His family told ProPublica on Jan. 8 that Sicknick “texted them Wednesday night to say that while he had been pepper-sprayed, he was in good spirits.” Two men were charged in March of 2021 for spraying the officer.

A report from the D.C. medical examiner’s office published a month later concluded Sicknick died of natural causes.

The surveillance tapes aired by Carlson on Monday night show Sicknick walking around after altercations with the alleged murderers. Carlson’s program published the footage upon review of more than 40,000 hours of tape handed over to his team by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy several weeks ago.

“To this day, media accounts describe Sicknick as someone who was ‘slain’ on Jan. 6,” Carlson said. “The video we reviewed proves that was a lie… By all appearances, Brian Sicknick is healthy and vigorous. He’s wearing a helmet, so it’s hard to imagine he was killed by a head injury.”

(Read more at The Federalist)

Like a dog trained to bark on cue, Karine Jean-Pierre doubled down on her claim that the 6 January 2021 riot “cost police officers their lives”

The four officers who committed suicide cannot be proven to be the victims of this riot any more than they can be proven to have been killed because they would “spill the beans” on the game of Pelosi and Biden.

Biden’s lackeys in the DOJ have denied justice to 6 January defendants

The Daily Mail details how the attorney of the QAnon Shaman was denied exculpatory evidence vailable to the January 6 Commission.

The lawyer who represented the ‘QAnon Shaman’ in his trial for storming the Capitol on January 6 has called for his client to be released after Tucker Carlson aired previously unseen footage from the riot.

Carlson on Monday night used his Fox News show to broadcast clips showing the so-called Shaman, Jacob Chansley, inside Congress.

Chansley appears to be escorted through the building by Capitol Police officers, while other officers allow the chest-baring, horn-wearing Trump supporter to pass. Carlson used the footage to argue that the rioters were ‘sightseers’, and ‘mostly peaceful’.

Chansley pleaded guilty in September 2021 to civil disorder and violent entry to the Capitol, among other charges. He was sentenced two months later to three and a half years in prison, with the new footage leading to claims he was unfairly portrayed as a violent intruder. 

On Wednesday night, Chansley’s former lawyer said he had not been shown the footage broadcast by Carlson, which the conservative news anchor said was ‘clearly exculpatory’.

(Read more at the Daily Mail)

Will this exonerate Chansley? Whether it does or doesn’t is for lawyers and higher court judges to mete out

Whether or not being lead into the chambers of Congress by Capitol Police would exonerate Jacob Chansley from a charge of obstructing a congressional proceeding falls into a range above my pay grade. Still, isn’t the defense supposed to get all the evidence in the case against the defendant?

Therefore, this will all be decided in a court one step up from the D.C. courts where this skewed view of justice has been sent out. I hope this results in a resignation of a judge or two.

…

The press ignores hearings on Biden’s Afghan failure

Congress investigates deadly withdrawal and current threats from Afghanistan

The Washington Examiner details the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s review of the evacuation of Afghanistan during August 2021.

Emotional testimony from Sgt. Vargas-Andrews on suicide bombing outside of Kabal airport: "I opened my eyes to mari… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
CSPAN (@cspan) March 08, 2023

Congress revisited the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the current threat level from the country where the United States was at war for 20 years in a pair of hearings Wednesday.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard from six witnesses in a hearing that focused on evacuation efforts during the final two weeks of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Two witnesses had been at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the evacuations were taking place, when a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians. Three others were among the hundreds of veterans who participated in ad hoc groups helping to get Afghan allies out of the country. The sixth witness was the executive director of an immigrant nonprofit group that has helped Afghans resettle in the U.S.

Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews emotionally recounted the Aug. 26, 2021, bombing, in which he lost an arm and a leg. Although he had identified a suspect he still believes to be the bomber beforehand, he was not given the green light by his superiors to take out the threat.

“Throughout the entirety of the day on August 26, 2021, we disseminated the suicide bomber information to ground forces at Abbey Gate. … Over the communication network, we passed that there was a potential threat and an attack imminent. This was as serious as it could get,” he explained. “Eventually, the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was a suicide bomber. We made everyone on the ground aware. Operations had briefly halted but then started again. Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety.”

He called the withdrawal a “catastrophe, in my opinion” and said “it was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence,” while Aiden Gunderson, a former Army combat medic who was deployed twice to Afghanistan and assisted with the evacuation, told the committee the withdrawal was “an organization failure at multiple levels.”

Both relived the painful and tragic memories of the bombing, also describing the desperation and fear of the thousands of Afghans that swarmed the airport gates every day for those two weeks despite tremendous heat and overcrowding, hoping and praying to be selected by U.S. forces to get on a plane out of Afghanistan.

Francis Hoang, Lt. Col. Scott Mann, and Peter Lucier worked with separate groups that worked tirelessly to navigate Afghan allies through Kabul and into the confines of the airport. Each spoke about the deep emotional strife they felt, which they said was a feeling shared by countless veterans, as the U.S. military left on Aug. 30, 2021, with an untold number of Afghan allies at risk under the Taliban regime left behind. They frequently referenced the thoughts and feelings of veterans at large who were left mentally wounded by how the end of the war played out.

Mann referenced a friend who ended his life a few months ago, saying the friend’s wife “confirmed to me that the Afghan abandonment reactivated all of the demons that he had managed to put behind him from our time in Afghanistan together.”

Members of both parties thanked the witnesses for their tireless work. There was a nearly complete partisan divide about blaming the Biden administration for what happened. House Republicans have been eager to hold hearings on the withdrawal since regaining the majority this year. Democrats frequently pointed to the longevity of the war and argued that previous administrations set up untenable conditions.

The special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, which has provided oversight to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan for more than a decade, substantially blamed the Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban for a negotiated withdrawal in February 2020.

On the other side of the Capitol, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA Director William Burns, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Scott Berrier, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on their current threat assessments globally to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Berrier acknowledged that his agency’s “reach and grasp into that nation since the fall of the government has eroded over time, but we still have some access, and I would say, based on what we know right now from the threat of al Qaeda, they’re trying to survive basically without a real plan to at least, or intent to, attack the West anytime soon,” though he warned, “ISIS-K poses a bit of a larger threat, but they are under attack from the Taliban regime right now, and it’s a matter of time before they may have the ability and intent to actually attack the West at this point.”

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

What? Current threats? Just like the border, Biden assures us this all is secure.

During what should have been the slowest month of illegal entry for the year (January 2023), America experienced the apprehension of over 128,000 known illegal aliens coming over our Southern border. That does not count the thousands who have discovered how porous our Northern border is and have started taking rides into Canada in order to then come South.

Additionally, Biden, you can’t have it two ways. You can’t say that four police who committed suicide after 6 January 2021 were “killed by the riot” and not take credit for the deaths of service men who, like the friend of Lt. Col. Scott Mann, took their lives due to the results of the Afghan withdrawal.

…

 

It is nice when parts of the Left recognize things that the Right has seen for some time

Russell Brand Claps Back At MSNBC Analyst For Ripping Fox News, Blatantly Ignoring Own Network’s ‘Biased’ Coverage

The Daily Caller provides the first incursion into the land where the elites see things those on the right have seen for years.

Comedian, actor and podcast host Russell Brand blasted MSNBC analyst John Heilemann for being “disingenuous” Friday night, saying MSNBC has exhibited similar bias as other outlets in its news coverage.

“I have to say, it’s disingenuous to claim that the biases exhibited on Fox News are any different than the biases exhibited on MSNBC,” Brand told Heilemann during a panel discussion on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” going on to say that the networks were “mouthpieces” for investment firms like BlackRock and Vanguard.

“I’ve been on MSNBC, mate, it was propaganda. It’s nutcrackery,” Brand said.

Heilemann has a history of statements targeting Trump supporters. Heilemann said in a July 2018 appearance on MSNBC that people who questioned claims that Former President Donald Trump was “in the bag” for Russian President Vladimir Putin were “impaired” or “a moron.”

Former Trump administration official Sarah Isgur confronted MSNBC host Ari Melber over the network’s coverage of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, into allegations that former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia during Maher’s Feb. 17 show.

BREAKING: Angry MSNBC's John Heilemann melts down, curses out Russell Brand, gets crushed when Russell goes off https://t.co/xgcr4RNaiK

—
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 04, 2023

(Read a linked enumeration of MSNBC diatribes against the right at the Daily Caller)

I am unaware of if Brand has become a newfound-conservative or a traditional liberal

What I am aware of is that this rings true.

…

Dems got their woke-up call with Lori Lightfoot’s loss

The New York Post blazes a second path into liberal land where the Lefties thought they might make permanent changes.

Heart be still, there are signs Democrats are finally getting the message that voters are sick to death of crime. Make that some Democrats. 

A brouhaha is brewing on at least three fronts, and the good news is that the White House is on the right side this time.

President Biden stunned many in his own party by supporting a Republican-led House bill to overrule a nutty plan in Washington, DC, to reduce penalties for homicides, carjacking, and other violent crimes in the nation’s capital. 

Biden’s move, which was a flip-flop from an earlier position, came despite his support for home rule and statehood for DC.

Trying to square that circle, the White House noted that the move to lighter sentences was opposed by Mayor Muriel Bowser but passed over her veto by the city council. 

“He believes in keeping the 700,000 residents in DC safe. And so he’s taking that action because it’s coming to him,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued Friday. 

Unless you’re a sucker for claims of coincidence, you know the shifting political sands had everything to do with Biden’s about-face.

(Read a linked list of trends that likely pushed the Democrats out as given by the New York Post)

As intriguing as it might be even the Right, we cannot have “permanent change” to one side or the other

As much as we would want it, the only “permanent change” comes with the constant state of flux.

During this life and this fallen world, waves will not stop on the ocean.

…

Liberal news site The Daily Wire walks back its claim that CPAC speaker Michael Knowles wants to “eradicate” the “transgender community”

The Daily Caller also lets us know about how the Daily Wire had to walk back its claim that Michael Knowles advocated eradicating the “transgender community.”

iberal news outlet The Daily Beast walked back its initial headline claiming The Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles wants the “transgender community” to be “eradicated.”

Knowles called for the ideology of transgenderism to be “eradicated from public life entirely” during his Saturday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The Daily Beast initially published the headline, “Michael Knowles Says Transgender Community Must Be ‘Eradicated’ At CPAC,” indicating that he referred to transgender people rather than the ideology.

“There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism,” Knowles said. “It is all or nothing. If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false, as it is, if men really can’t become women, as they cannot, then it’s false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it. Especially since that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of so many people.”

“If it is false, then for the good of society and especially for the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. The whole, preposterous ideology at every level,” he continued.

Knowles demanded a retraction on Twitter Saturday with a screenshot of the article.

“I never said that and demand a retraction,” Knowles said, tagging The Daily Beast.

(Read more at the Daily Caller)

As you would expect, the liberal bias was even wider than that

In keeping with their past history, the Rolling Stone also got into the game of casting stones.

Luckily, their lawyers – not their columnists – reigned in the rhetoric.

Actually, both @thedailybeast and @rollingstone caved and changed the headlines because they were clearly libelous. twitter.com/AmoneyResists/…

—
Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) March 06, 2023

…

 

The Left provides good news with a whine

Is this a bad thing?

The New York Times whines, “Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns.”

The New York Times whines and tries to spin a government that spends less as a bad or even an evil thing.

More brinkmanship

The House speaker elections last week turned a typically routine government procedure into a dramatic affair. They also exposed a major vulnerability in Congress: A small segment of lawmakers can stop the process of basic governance to obtain what it wants, with potentially big ramifications for the country.

In the speaker fight, the immediate consequences were relatively small. A Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is leading a majority-Republican House.

More critical is how Republicans got there. McCarthy made concessions that will weaken his power, make it easier for lawmakers to oust him and give the right-wing rank-and-file greater input in legislation and in lawmakers’ assignments to committees, where Congress does much of its work.

The graver consequences will unfold months from now if the ultraconservatives who prolonged the speaker selection again withhold their votes until they have their way on looming spending bills. Congress must pass such legislation to keep the government open and avoid economic calamity. If deadlines for these bills come and go without a resolution, the government could be forced to shut down or, worse, default on its debt obligations, likely triggering a financial crisis. (More on that later.)

The right flank has already connected its opposition to McCarthy to such spending bills. In speeches during the four-day speaker battle, far-right Republicans cited a $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress passed last month to argue that establishment figures, including McCarthy, have failed to reduce government spending. Among the concessions that ultraconservatives drew from McCarthy was a promise that any increase on the country’s debt limit, a congressionally set cap on the federal debt, will be paired with spending cuts.

Some hard-liners have been clear that they would take drastic action again to have their way on spending. “Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? That’s a nonnegotiable item,” said Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican critic of McCarthy who ultimately voted for him.

Deliberate gridlock

The ultraconservatives have said that one of their main goals is to shrink the size of government. “If you don’t stop spending money that we don’t have to fund the bureaucracy that is undermining the American people, we cannot win,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Republican who voted against McCarthy in 11 ballots.

One way to achieve this goal is by pushing Congress toward inaction. Consider some of the assurances the holdout Republicans received from McCarthy: more time to read and debate legislation, as well as to propose unlimited changes to it.

In theory, these changes might sound like common sense, since legislators should, ideally, be taking time to understand and finalize bills. But in practice, these kinds of allowances have slowed Congress’s work, if not halted it altogether, by giving lawmakers more chances to stand in the way of any kind of legislation.

This roadblock is especially likely in a closely divided Congress. Since House Republicans have a slim majority of 222 votes out of 435, they must rely on their right-wing faction to reach a majority in any vote (absent unlikely support from Democrats). Last week, that faction showed it will wield its leverage.

“It’s all about the ability — empowering us to stop the machine in this town from doing what it does,” Roy said.

Coming deadlines

If the ultraconservatives use these tactics in future legislative debates, Congress could miss deadlines to keep the government open and avoid a financial crisis.

Among the looming fights is one over the debt limit. If the government ever reaches this limit, it can no longer borrow money to pay off its debts, potentially forcing a default. That could cause serious damage to the global financial system, which relies on U.S. Treasuries as a safe investment.

The government is expected to hit the current debt limit in late summer. Republicans have already suggested that they will try to use negotiations over raising it to draw spending concessions from Senate Democrats and the Biden administration, a tactic that conservatives used during Barack Obama’s presidency. But Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt limit this time.

If both sides stick to their word, the government could be on track for the most treacherous debt-limit debate since 2011, my colleague Jim Tankersley reported. That year, Obama and a new Republican House majority nearly defaulted on the nation’s debt before reaching a deal.

(Read more Gerber-grade pabulum at the New York Times)

If this were a balanced review from a nonpartisan publication, this might be welcome

If the people at this paper were in any way balanced in their views, this news would be more acceptable. However, because they report for Democrats and only for the benefit of liberal policies (which continually ebb and flow), we can easily ignore this pabulum.

To prove my point, search the electronic pages of this paper for “ultra-liberals” or any term that discredits the theory of global warming (also known now as climate change). If you can find such within the past 10 years, I would be surprised.

On the other hand, I do believe that our economy might benefit from a reduction of deficit government spending and a suspension of a number of government programs. However, the problem with reducing that spending and suspending those programs with the current uneducated Democrat population and Democrat press remains at this: these events are like night breezes to the sleeping. They go unnoticed.

…

Not a whine, but a largely-ignored battle call

GOP rebels need to take the win

The Wall Street Journal produced a mirror-image article that noted the positives that may come from the stand-off between the two factions within the GOP.

And it makes it much harder for the House to tax and spend. It imposes a “cut go” rule — requiring any mandatory spending increases be offset with equal or greater mandatory spending cuts. A three-fifths supermajority vote will be required for tax increases. It revives what’s known as the “Holman rule,” allowing appropriations bills effectively to defund the salaries of specific executive-branch officials or specific programs. It also requires each committee to submit an oversight plan that lays out what action it intends to take on unauthorized or duplicative programs.

These changes will produce the first functioning House in years, even as they take the hand of spenders. Take the win!

(Read more at the Wall Street Journal)

Who can disagree with any of this?

Who can disagree with actions that may result in a lowering of the times the Federal Reserve has to raise rates?

…

 

The press and other Democrats ask how McCarthy will avoid extremist control after they bowed to BLM for years

Even the conservative Washington Examiner asks how McCarthy will control a “divided and angry GOP”

The Washington Examiner poses the question of how McCarthy will control what it seems to suggest to be a radically conservative faction in the House.

Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would like to defy recent history. He’s joining a troubled fraternity whose tenures ended badly, as opposed to riding off into a triumphant semi-retirement like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) helped lead Republicans to their first majority in the chamber in 40 years, the first member of his party to wield the gavel since Rep. Joseph W. Martin Jr (R-MA). He was out within five years, with the GOP’s right flank already nipping at his heels.

Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was actually booted from the original Gingrich leadership team, passed over after two terms as the House Republican Conference’s chairman in favor of then-Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK). He clawed his way all the back up to the top spot, winning the speakership in 2011. Within four years, he was hounded out of office by disaffected conservatives.

Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would like to defy recent history. He’s joining a troubled fraternity whose tenures ended badly, as opposed to riding off into a triumphant semi-retirement like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) helped lead Republicans to their first majority in the chamber in 40 years, the first member of his party to wield the gavel since Rep. Joseph W. Martin Jr (R-MA). He was out within five years, with the GOP’s right flank already nipping at his heels.

Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was actually booted from the original Gingrich leadership team, passed over after two terms as the House Republican Conference’s chairman in favor of then-Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK). He clawed his way all the back up to the top spot, winning the speakership in 2011. Within four years, he was hounded out of office by disaffected conservatives.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

Where were these questions when Nancy Pelosi took a knee to Black Lives Matter for the past few years?

Where were the intrepid reporters when it came to the George Floyd riots?

What probes went on when the purported middle-of-the-road Democrats took a knee to the socialists?

On the other hand, since the journalists at the Washington Examiner decided to deride conservatives, maybe they should also explain why conservative is bad. That might be an informational ride for us all (especially since the Washington Examiner formerly had some conservative bona fides).

…

Seriously, they quote Schiff on his misgivings on GOP concessions

The Washington Examiner also sat and listened to serial liar Adam Schiff and his inane opinion on how concessions were offered to certain groups other than his favored groups.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) slammed the new House speaker on Saturday for conceding “all the power of his office to the crazies” in a bid to win the speakership.

“He had to give away the house to do it, and that was a sacrifice he was willing to make — for the title,” Schiff wrote in a tweet.

Looks like Kevin McCarthy conceded all the power of his office to the crazies to finally get their votes. He had… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 07, 2023

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

Either the Washington Examiner has lapsed into occational satire or they have hired liberals who cannot research Schiff-for-brains

I certainly hope that they have converted to a satire site with this article.

…