quote:

"The elephant in the room on the Democratic side is Meghan Markle, who continues to make moves out there and I would argue test the water in various ways and in various senses.

Elephant in the room, making moves, testing the waters. Got it.

It doesn't even qualify as nonsense.

Even more amazing than Markle is the 25% who though Harris is a viable candidate!

The democRATS way of thinking makes me think we are closer and closer to an idiocracy every day. I get that they hate Trump… that they hate us… but to think Markle, or Whorris, or even Clinton are viable candidates for all their ignorance, stupidity, or outright criminal background. Insanity.

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...rk-no-more-drilling/

Biden told a climate activist on Sunday he would not allow any new drilling in the United States,

just days after he complained that oil companies are not drilling enough.

“We haven’t slowed them down at all. They should be drilling more than they’re doing now,” he said at a rally in New Mexico. “If they were drilling more, we’d have more relief at the pump.”

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

Quite a pathetic turnout for the Obama-Biden rally in Philadelphia last night. They apparently tried to hide how empty the arena was by dropping a large curtain and draping large flags over the empty sections.

That’s pretty sad that they can’t even turn out the faithful with their Messiah Obama in one of the deepest blue cities in the entire USA. The enthusiasm and momentum is definitely on our side this year.

I guess even SNL has figured-out the tide is turning. A five-minute roast of Crazy Uncle Joe and the Democrat Party: https://twitter.com/bennyjohns...0MenSj59l45YLl4qry6w

It must be getting really, really, bad for the Democrats and Biden.
How bad you ask?
Even CNN is fact checking him and finally stating the obvious. He's a liar. An inept liar. A mentally diminished liar. They could only whitewash this so much and probably want to be able to point to this after election day to claim some sort of credibility.
Most amazingly, one item even (sort of) makes Trump look good.

President Joe Biden has been back on the campaign trail, traveling in October and early November to deliver his pitch for electing Democrats in the midterm elections on Tuesday.

Biden’s pitch has included claims that are false, misleading or lacking important context. (As always, we take no position on the accuracy of his subjective arguments.) Here is a fact-check look at nine of his recent statements.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Social Security, part 1

Biden said at a Democratic fundraiser in Pennsylvania last week: “On our watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are going to get the biggest increase in their Social Security checks they’ve gotten.” He has also touted the 2023 increase in Social Security payments at other recent events.

But Biden’s boasts leave out such critical context that they are highly misleading. He hasn’t explained that the increase in Social Security payments for 2023, 8.7%, is unusually big simply because the inflation rate has been unusually big. A law passed in the 1970s says that Social Security payments must be increased by the same percentage that a certain measure of inflation has increased. It’s called a cost-of-living adjustment.

The White House deleted a Tuesday tweet that delivered an especially triumphant version of Biden’s boast, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged Wednesday that the tweet was lacking “context.” You can read a more detailed fact check here.
Social Security, part 2

Biden said at a Democratic rally in Florida on Tuesday: “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.”

The claim that the 2023 increase to Social Security payments is the first in 10 years is false. In reality, there has been a cost-of-living increase every year from 2017 onward. There was also an increase every year from 2012 through 2015 before the payment level was kept flat in 2016 because of a lack of inflation.

The context around this Biden remark in Florida suggests he might have botched his repeat campaign line about Social Security payments increasing at the same time as Medicare premiums are declining. Regardless of his intentions, though, he was wrong.
A new corporate tax

Biden repeatedly suggested in speeches in October and early November that a new law he signed in August, the Inflation Reduction Act, will stop the practice of successful corporations paying no federal corporate income tax. Biden made the claim explicitly in a tweet last week: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.”

But “puts an end to this” is an exaggeration. The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the number of companies on the list of non-payers, but the law will not eliminate the list entirely.

That’s because the law’s new 15% alternative corporate minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. (There are lots of nuances; you can read more specifics here.) According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the think tank that in 2021 published the list of 55 large and profitable companies that avoided paying any federal income tax in their previous fiscal year, only 14 of these 55 companies reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion in that year.

In other words, there will clearly still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax even after the minimum tax takes effect in 2023. The exact number is not yet known.

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in a Thursday email that the new tax is “an important step forward from the status quo” and that it will raise substantial revenue, but he also said: “I wouldn’t want to assert that the minimum tax will end the phenomenon of zero-tax profitable corporations. A more accurate phrasing would be to say that the minimum tax will *help* ensure that *the most profitable* corporations pay at least some federal income tax.”
The debt and the deficit

Biden said at the Tuesday rally in Florida: “Look, you know, you can hear it from Republicans, ‘My God, that big-spending Democrat Biden. Man, he’s taken us in debt.’ Well, guess what? I reduced the federal deficit this year by $1 trillion $400 billion. One trillion 400 billion dollars. The most in all American history. No one has ever reduced the debt that much. We cut the federal debt in half.”

Biden offered a similar narrative at a Thursday rally in New Mexico, this time saying, “We cut the federal debt in half. A fact.”

There are two significant problems here.

First: Biden conflated the debt and the deficit, which are two different things. It’s not true that Biden has “cut the federal debt in half”; the federal debt (total borrowing plus interest owed) has continued to rise under Biden, exceeding $31 trillion for the first time this October. Rather, it’s the federal deficit – the annual difference between spending and revenue – that was cut in half between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022.

Second, it’s highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for even the reduction in the deficit. Biden doesn’t mention that the primary reason the deficit plummeted in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 was that it had skyrocketed to a record high in 2020 because of emergency pandemic relief spending. It then fell as expected as the spending expired as planned.

Dan White, senior director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics – an economics firm whose assessments Biden has repeatedly cited during his presidency – told CNN’s Matt Egan in October: “On net, the policies of the administration have increased the deficit, not reduced it.” The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group, says the administration’s own actions have significantly worsened the deficit picture. (David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds, told Egan that the Biden administration does deserve credit for the economic recovery that has boosted tax revenues.)
The unemployment rate

Biden said at the Florida rally on Tuesday: “Unemployment is down from 6.5 to 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years.” He said at the New Mexico rally on Thursday: “Unemployment rate is 3.5% – the lowest it’s been in 50 years.”

But Biden didn’t acknowledge that September’s 3.5% unemployment rate was actually a tie for the lowest in 50 years – a tie, specifically, with three months of Trump’s administration, in late 2019 and early 2020. Since Biden uses these campaign speeches to favorably compare his own record to Trump’s record, that omission is significant.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in October; that number was revealed on Friday, after these Biden comments. The rate was 6.4% in January 2021, the month Biden took office.
Biden’s student debt policy

During an on-camera discussion conducted by progressive organization NowThis News and published online in late October, Biden told young activists that they “probably are aware, I just signed a law” on student debt forgiveness that is being challenged by Republicans. He added: “It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two, and it’s in effect.”

Biden’s claims are false.

He created his student debt forgiveness initiative through executive action, not through legislation, so he didn’t sign a law and didn’t get it passed by any margin. Since Republicans opposed to the initiative, including those challenging the initiative in court, have called it unlawful precisely because it wasn’t passed by Congress, the distinction between a law and an executive action is a highly pertinent fact here.

A White House official told CNN that Biden was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, the law narrowly passed by the Senate in August; the official said the Inflation Reduction Act created “room for other crucial programs” by bringing down the deficit. But Biden certainly did not make it clear that he was talking about anything other than the student debt initiative.
Gas prices

Biden correctly noted on various occasions in October that gas prices have declined substantially since their June 2022 peak – though, as always, it’s important to note that presidents have a limited impact on gas prices. But in an economic speech in New York last week, Biden said, “Today, the most common price of gas in America is $3.39 – down from over $5 when I took office.”

Biden’s claim that the most common gas price when he took office was more than $5 is not even close to accurate. The most common price for a gallon of regular gas on the day he was inaugurated, January 20, 2021, was $2.39, according to data provided to CNN by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. In other words, Biden made it sound like gas prices had fallen significantly during his presidency when they had actually increased significantly.

In other recent remarks, Biden has discussed the state of gas prices in relation to the summer peak of more than $5 per gallon, not in relation to when he took office. Regardless, the comment last week was the second this fall in which Biden inaccurately described the price of gas – both times in a way that made it sound more impressive.

You can read a longer fact check here.
Biden and Xi

Biden has revived a claim that was debunked more than 20 months ago by The Washington Post and then CNN. At least twice in October, he boasted that he traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“I’ve spent more time with Xi Jinping of China than any world leader has, when I was Vice President all the way through to now. Over 78 hours with him alone. Eight – nine of those hours on the phone and the others in person, traveling 17,000 miles with him around the world, in China and the United States,” he told a Democratic gathering in Oregon in mid-October.

Biden made the number even bigger during a speech on student debt in New Mexico on Thursday, saying, “I traveled 17-, 18,000 miles with him.”

The claim is false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that the two men often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of his flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which, obviously, Xi was not with him.

A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with” Xi as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of a boast about how well he knows Xi – and Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.
The Trump tax cuts

Biden claimed at the Thursday rally in New Mexico that under Trump, Republicans passed a $2 trillion tax cut that “affected only the top 1% of the American public.”

Biden correctly said in various October remarks that the Trump tax cut law was particularly beneficial to the wealthy, but he went too far here. It’s not true that the Trump policy “only” affected the top 1%.

The Tax Policy Center think tank found in early 2018 that Trump’s law “will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states.” The think tank estimated that “between 60 and 76 percent of taxpayers in every state will receive a tax cut.” And in April 2019, tax-preparation company H&R Block said two-thirds of its returning customers had indeed paid less in tax that year than they did the year prior, The New York Times reported in an article headlined “Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut.”

The Tax Policy Center did find in early 2018 that people at the top would get by far the biggest benefits from Trump’s law. Specifically, the think tank found that the top 1% of earners would get an average 3.4% increase in after-tax 2018 income – versus an average 1.6% income increase for people in the middle quintile, an average 1.2% income increase for people in the quintile below that and just an average 0.4% income increase for people in the lowest quintile. The think tank also found that the top 1% of earners would get more than 20% of the income benefits from the law, a bigger share than the bottom 60% of earners combined.

The distribution could get even more skewed after 2025, when the law’s individual tax cuts will expire if not extended by Congress and the president. If there is no extension – and, therefore, the law’s permanent corporate tax cut remains in place without the individual tax cuts – the Tax Policy Center has estimated that, in 2027, the top 1% will get 83% of the benefits from the law.

But that’s a possibility about the future. Biden claimed, in the past tense, that the law “affected” only the top 1%. That’s inaccurate.

This wasn’t the first time Biden overstated his point about the Trump tax cuts. The Washington Post fact-checked him in 2019, for example, when he claimed “all of it” went to the ultra-rich and corporations.



https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05...erms-2022/index.html

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
It must be getting really, really, bad for the Democrats and Biden.
How bad you ask?
Even CNN is fact checking him and finally stating the obvious.

As always, their motives are purely self-serving. President Two Scoop's days in office are numbered. The left wants him out of the way, so now, after all this time, oh, they see what's happening. Yeah, that's some hard-hitting journalism there, especially the parts which simply repeat what others have already reported.

Agreed. There was nothing there that wasn't already obvious to any remotely objective person but even that's a big change for them.

After years of being complete shills for the left, they are now trying to regain some small amount of credibility (and lost market share) by disguising themselves as actual journalists.

They did this also because it's risk free, they are just attempting to get ahead of whats to come in a few days so they can preach to the delusional left, "I told you so" and claim to be the way forward and the voice of reason.

The sad part for the country is that we still have two years and two months before the executive office can be reclaimed by someone any better. The truth is that if they decide to somehow maneuver him aside, they have no one even remotely qualified to do that job, even to their low standards of competence or elect-ability in two years. Even with a free choice, I don't see anyone on the horizon in their party. And there's actually that silly constitutional thing , the line of succession, that doesn't give them a free choice.
We all better fasten our seat belts for the ride.


Just in case anyone needs a reminder, here's the list so fill in the officeholders from this politically correct diverse bunch of losers and see if anyone at all, gives you the warm and fuzzies for President.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-p...cession/4674320.html

Do you think she ever gets tired of having to spin, cover and lie for him? It must be absolutely exhausting unless you're a complete sociopath yourself:

Press sec says Biden's 'words were twisted' when he said he wanted to shut down coal plants

quote:

During a White House press briefing on Monday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Joe Biden's remarks on Friday where he promised to shut down coal plants across the country and she said it was "a bit loud and hard to hear."

"We just wanted to be very clear on that," Jean-Pierre said in reference to the president's remarks, adding, "it was a bit loud and hard to hear." She said she didn't "want to get into punditry from here" but that the White House believes that the president said "words we believe were twisted."

Markle in the run?
Another Californian.
Markle already has attention from Pelosi and Schumer, with an open lobbyist letter for paid leave for parents ... an attempt to influence the Build Back Better ...

The start of the left's desired 'royalty'?

There's a constitutional amendment, that was never passed, yet it remains on the table, for 200 years, and relates to preventing Napolean's nephew, from seeking the CiC role.

Th Titles of Nobility Amendment. 1810.

" ... any­one who 'accepts, claims, receives or retains a title of nobil­ity bestowed by a for­eign power' is prevented from holding federal office."

Time to have that conversation again?
Not sure how it would go this time around either, given. the majority held in Congress and Senate.

Anyway, speculation ...

</chris>

Watch out, Two Scoops thinks he's got a mandate now and made a speech and taking questions. UGH

The thought of this brain-dead old man and a brain-damaged younger man like Fetterman being in charge makes me want to retch.

^^ I don't blame you, but if he thinks he's got a mandate then he's three quarters of the way to committing the Dems' favorite mistake: overreach that feeds votes to Repubs in '24.

This story's not making too much news.

quote:

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday night struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, calling it one of the most egregious executive overreaches in presidential history.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman made the decision in a case brought by two Americans and supported by the small business group Job Creators Network.

"Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine. Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States," Pittman wrote.

Pittman wrote Biden's plan violated the separation of powers in the Constitution.

"In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone. Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government," he wrote.

A link that doesn't have paywall.
https://justthenews.com/govern...ampaign=social_icons

^^^^^ Clearly the proper ruling.

But I don't think Biden much cares at this point. It served its purpose in bribing young people to support democrats prior to the midterms.

Face it, you young idiots. Biden played you.

Did the Gary Busey on them, and we saved $400 Billion.

quote:

^^^^^ Clearly the proper ruling.

I dig the implications for the future - there are limits to what can be done with a pen and a phone.

I love the leftist outrage about this. Perfect. How confused and entitled are these people? Every loan I've had, I've paid back. The one loan I've yet to pay back entirely is my mortgage, and I'm working on it.

These leftists are outraged that people who applied to borrow money and received it now have to actually pay it back (as they agreed to), and they don't have a clue or a care about further draining the coffers of the treasury. A half trillion dollars?? Fuck you. Go to work and amortize your debt, just like everyone else. You are nothing special.

They got what they needed out of the Gen Z kids and now that the mid term elections are over they’ll drop this until they need them again in 2024.

Suckers