POLITICS

thelivyjr
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

Popular Mechanics

"Giant Wind Turbines Keep Mysteriously Falling Over. This Shouldn't Be Happening."


Story by Tim Newcomb

26 MAY 2023

* Turbine failures are on the uptick across the world, sometimes with blades falling off or even full turbine collapses.

* A recent report says production issues may be to blame for the mysterious increase in failures.

* Turbines are growing larger as quality control plans get smaller.


The taller the wind turbine, the harder they fall.

And they sure are falling.


Wind turbine failures are on the uptick, from Oklahoma to Sweden and Colorado to Germany, with all three of the major manufacturers admitting that the race to create bigger turbines has invited manufacturing issues, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Multiple turbines that are taller than 750 feet are collapsing across the world, with the tallest—784 feet in stature—falling in Germany in September 2021.

To put it in perspective, those turbines are taller than both the Space Needle in Seattle and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

Even smaller turbines that recently took a tumble in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wales, and Colorado were about the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Turbines are falling for the three largest players in the industry: General Electric, Vestas, and Siemens Gamesa.

Why?

“It takes time to stabilize production and quality on these new products,” Larry Culp, GE CEO, said last October on an earning call, according to Bloomberg.

“Rapid innovation strains manufacturing and the broader supply chain.”

Without industrywide data chronicling the rise — and now fall — of turbines, we’re relying on industry experts to note the flaws in the wind farming.

“We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the new turbines,” Fraser McLachlan, CEO of insurer GCube Underwriting, told Bloomberg, “and that’s quite concerning.”

The push to produce bigger wind-grabbing turbines has sped production of the growing apparatuses.

Bloomberg reports that Siemens has endured quality control issues on a new design, Vestas has seen project delays and quality challenges, and GE has seen an uptick in warranty costs and repairs.

And this all comes along with uncertain supply chain issues and fluctuating material pricing.

With heights stretching taller than 850 feet, blades 300 feet long, and energy generation abilities ratcheting up accordingly, the bigger the turbine, the more energy it can capture.

But the bigger the turbine, the more that can go wrong—and the farther it falls.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... b3452&ei=8
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR MAY 26, 2023 AT 8:23 PM

Paul R. Plante says:

If someone were to ask me if I could express pretty much all of what is wrong today with American politics at the national level in just two words, my answer would be Adam Schiff.

Consider that there are 331.9 million people in the whole United States, while there are only 714,897 people in Adam Schiff’s congressional district which includes Disneyland, where Adam represents Goofy and the Seven Dwarves, and Hollywood, where Adam represents Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and a host of extras hoping to make it into the big time some day, and it is those people and those people only, who can inflict the likes of Adam Schiff on us to our detriment without us being able to do a single thing about it, which is a case of a very small minority exercising control over the vast majority through the lies of the smarmy little pencil-neck Adam Schiff which takes us to a Fox News article titled “GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna seeks $16 million fine against Adam Schiff for ‘lies’ about Trump-Russia collusion” by Peter Kasperowicz on 24 May 2023, where we have the latest on Adam, to wit:

FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., introduced a resolution that would fine Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., $16 million for his claims that former President Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.

Luna says that amount is about half of the cost of the federal investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion, which was debunked by special counsel reports from both Robert Mueller and John Durham.

“The GOP Conference agrees that Adam Schiff has betrayed the trust of the American people, purposely abused positions of extreme authority, lied continuously, and as such, must be held to account,” Luna said.

end quotes

And there, people, is exactly what I am talking about when I say that to me Adam Schiff epitomizes everything wrong with American politics at the national level, where a very small handful of people in California whose values are far different than ours can saddle us with a smarmy little liar who betrays the trust of the American people, purposely abuses positions of extreme authority, and lies continuously, which takes us back for more, to wit:

Luna’s resolution said as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Schiff had a position of “extreme trust” that gave him access to sensitive information not available to other members.

But Schiff “abused this trust” by citing evidence of collusion that later special counsel reports showed did not exist.

“By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution said.

end quotes

And that of course, is and has been a Democrat party tactic going way back in time, which tactic of telling GREAT BIG LIES over and over and over as if they could be made true that way has been honed to perfection by Democrats like Adam and Joe Biden, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:

It noted that Schiff “lent credibility” to the Steele dossier, supported a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Trump aide Carter Page, and publicly accused Page of being a Russian collaborator.

“Representative Schiff exploited his positions on HPSCI to encourage and excuse abusive intelligence investigations of Americans for political purposes,” it said.

“Representative Schiff used his position and access to sensitive information to instigate a fraudulently based investigation, which he then used to amass political gain and fundraising dollars.”

“American taxpayers paid $32 million to fund the investigation into collusion that was launched as a result of Rep. Schiff’s lies, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information,” it added.

The resolution “censures and condemns” Schiff for “conduct that misleads the American people in a way that is not befitting an elected Member of the House” and declares that Schiff is fined $16 million.

“It is the obligation of House Leadership to back up this motion for the American people and hold this feckless man accountable,” Luna said.

Last week, Luna introduced a separate resolution to expel Schiff from Congress for abusing his position on the intelligence committee.

Durham released a report last week that found significant FBI failures and no evidence that Donald Trump’s campaign was coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Schiff spent years arguing there was evidence to the contrary.

He said in 2017 that the “evidence is not circumstantial.”

Last week, Schiff said Luna’s resolution to expel him from Congress was “payback” for his effort to hold Trump accountable.

“A MAGA Republican Member of Congress just filed a motion to expel me from the U.S. House of Representatives.”

“I stood up to Donald Trump and held extreme MAGA forces accountable,” Schiff, who is running for the Senate, said on Twitter last week.

“Now they want payback.”

“They’ll go after anyone who defends the rule of law.”

end quotes

Which sure as hell isn’t you, Adam!

And I hope they succeed in getting him tossed out because he does not deserve to be there.

Do the right thing, Congress, and send Adam Schiff back to Disneyland where he belongs!

http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/assesv ... ent-804120
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Re: POLITICS

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THE HILL

"Joe Biden’s ‘Ministry of Truth’"


BY JOE CONCHA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

05/01/22

The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that it has launched what is being dubbed a Disinformation Governance Board to combat “misinformation.”

No, really.

A government agency creating a “ministry of truth” to combat what it deems misinformation?


And it’s going to fall under the leadership of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas?

The guy presiding over the worst border crisis of our lifetimes, who publicly denies it is a crisis at all while privately admitting it is?

Who better to give more responsibility in a democracy that largely rejects government intervention over free speech?

What could possibly go wrong?


The person chosen to lead this new “Committee of Public Information” under Mayorkas is Nina Jankowicz, who calls herself “a disinformation fellow” and a Russian disinformation expert.

This is always a fun game to play: Let’s say Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had decided to create a “Disinformation Governance Board” in the state of Florida.

And to lead that effort, let’s say he chose someone who once openly pushed a partisan conspiracy theory.

You can only imagine the exclamations about a “chilling attack on democracy” and totalitarianism rearing its head in the Sunshine State.

Here’s what Mayorkas’s choice to helm Biden’s “Ministry of Truth” once said about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, which many on the left and in the media dubbed as Russian disinformation in the weeks before the 2020 election.

“We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” Jankowicz said of the story at the time.

“Not to mention that the emails don’t need to be altered to be part of an influence campaign."

"Voters deserve that context, not a [fairy] tale about a laptop repair shop,” she also tweeted in October 2020.


Well, it turns out the laptop from hell really is just that for Hunter Biden and possibly his father, the sitting president.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, which both pushed the same conspiracy theory that the laptop came from Russia to hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump, recently confirmed that the laptop and its contents belong to Hunter Biden.

A federal investigation into Hunter is expanding, with reports that he may have violated money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying laws.

The new head of the “Ministry of Truth” isn’t tweeting much about that investigation these days.

Why is that?

Jankowicz was also a big fan of the now-discredited (and laughable) Steele dossier.

Here’s what she tweeted about a guest appearance that Christopher Steele made on something called the “Infotagion” podcast: “Listened to this last night."

"Chris Steele (yes THAT Chris Steele) provides some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo."

"Worth a listen.”

Steele’s sources have since been proven not to be credible.

His allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, of Russian hookers and “pee tapes” — also not credible.

Yet Jankowicz once recommended that we listen to “THAT Chris Steele” when it comes to disinformation.

And here’s what she tweeted in recent days about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter: “Last week I told @NPRMICHEL: I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities … which are already shouldering … disproportionate amounts of this abuse.”

This pro-Steele anti-Musker will report to Mayorkas, who said in congressional testimony this week that he inherited “a broken and dismantled” immigration and border security system from the Trump administration and that “only Congress can fix this.”

He added, “Yet we have effectively managed an unprecedented number of non-citizens seeking to enter the United States.”

Border crossings have skyrocketed under Biden-Mayorkas, surpassing an estimated 2 million in 2021.

The numbers weren’t remotely near those under Trump.

It was the Biden administration that stopped border wall construction and ended an effective “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers.

It was Biden who as a presidential candidate urged migrants to “surge the border” — and they listened.

The guy whose agency is launching a Disinformation Governance Board also, without evidence, accused his own Border Patrol agents of whipping migrants, saying that it “painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”

You get the point.

Mayorkas and Jankowicz are two of the last people who should be leading any “Ministry of Truth.”

And the U.S. government shouldn’t even have considered creating something like this to be run by partisans with political agendas.

Yet this horrible idea apparently has been in the works for some time among Democrats.

“There’s absolutely a commission that’s being discussed, but it seems to be more investigating in style rather than truth and reconciliation,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an Instagram video in 2018.

“I do think that several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is part of what happened here."

"We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.”

“Rein in our media environment” — how comforting, coming from AOC.

Here’s what she said in a 2018 “60 Minutes” interview when asked about how she’d been fact-checked about her dubious public comments:

“People want to really blow up one figure here or one word there."

"I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees."

"I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.”

What an utterly fascinating way to define truth: Hey, it’s not that important to be factually correct, as long as a person is, from their own perspective, morally right.

Maybe Mayorkas can add AOC — who really seemed to care about conditions at border facilities until a Democratic president made her suddenly lose her voice — as an honorary spokesperson for the new “Ministry of Truth.”

The Biden administration says it simply wants to battle misinformation.

The best way to start might be to purchase a large mirror.


When you blame Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for inflation that has been rising for well over a year or blame Trump for the current state of the U.S. border or say democracy is at stake if voting rights aren’t federalized, then the arbiters-of-truth business isn’t one it should be in.

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... -of-truth/
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Re: POLITICS

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The Telegraph

"Joe Biden’s Democrats are talentless, extreme – and about to face a reckoning"


Story by Douglas Murray

26 MAY 2023

The worst-kept secret in American politics is out: Ron DeSantis is running for president.

For months, the governor of Florida has been eyeing up the opportunity of running as the Republican nominee.

He has done all of the things you need to do – including a trip to the UK last month.

He has also sat it out quietly as his main rival – Donald J Trump – has taken potshots at him.

It was an unenviable position for a putative candidate to have been in.

Most polls show Trump way ahead of the other candidates among Republican voters.

Despite – or because of – his legal troubles, he has settled at around twice the polling of his nearest rival.

A poll this week showed Trump as first choice for 53 per cent of Republican-leaning voters and DeSantis at 26 per cent.

Other contenders linger on single digits.

Some have taken such polls to suggest that Trump is unassailable.

But all of them were taken before DeSantis was actually running.

Now he has declared his candidacy, several things will happen.

The first is that the Left’s attacks on him will heat up.

This week Vanity Fair headlined a piece to suggest that DeSantis would happily share a platform with neo-Nazi sympathisers to launch his campaign.

He should expect more of this, and it won’t hurt him at all on his own side.

Republican voters have been through – and seen through – political hit jobs of this kind for years now.

The second thing is that DeSantis now has the opportunity to lay out what he would do in the Oval office.

At this week’s online Twitter launch with Elon Musk, the governor managed to get into detailed policy as well as broad direction of travel announcements.

But the third thing is that now DeSantis can – and should – respond to Trump’s barrage against him.

For months, Trump has been attacking DeSantis by trying out nicknames on him (the most inane being “Ron DeSanctimonious”, which doesn’t even fit the target).

He has also started to try to criticise DeSantis’s record.

This is an unwise move.

As governor of Florida, DeSantis has overseen a massive amount of growth in his state.

Florida has become the number one destination in America for people fleeing Democrat-run, crime-ridden cities.

During Covid, DeSantis took the bold decision to avoid locking down and was proved right.

Furthermore, he has not only picked culture war battles but has also won them.

As a result, when DeSantis was asked about Trump’s recent attacks on him yesterday, he had the chance to point out that it is strange to be attacked by Trump from his Left.

In an open debate between Trump and DeSantis, the former may revert to his bully-boy tactics, but the latter has achievements to run on.

In any case, all this means that the Republican primary has become interesting.

The party now has an opportunity to have meaningful policy and direction-of-travel discussions – not least the question of whether the party wants to keep looking back to the 2020 election (which Trump still claims to have won) or forward to actually winning the next election.

It is a healthy position for a party to be in.

The vibrancy of the debate within the American Right might be fruitfully contrasted with the lack of anything similar among their British counterparts.

But the bigger comparison is with the state of the Democrat party.

Last month Joe Biden released a video announcing his plan to run for re-election in 2024.

The 80-year-old president is already the oldest man to have held that office, and it is not a reflection on everyone his age simply to note that Biden does not always seem to be up to the job.

Though his vice-president, Kamala Harris, appeared in the launch video, she did not speak.

The clear intimation was that Harris just could not be unstuck from the ticket so may as well stay along for the ride.

The only Democrat to have announced that they wish to challenge Biden is Robert F Kennedy Jr.

In some polls he has been as close to Biden for the Democrat nomination as DeSantis is to Trump.

But Kennedy is an outlier, someone who has picked up a certain amount of notice not just because of America’s love of dynastic politics, or his own often idiosyncratic views, but because nobody in the true mainstream of the party is challenging Biden.

In part that is because to try to kill the king at this moment would be seen as an act of lèse-majesté within the party.

The assassin would not be rewarded.

But the bigger problem for the Democrats is that, if you get rid of Biden, you have to jump down a generation from those who have held the party in their grip for so long.

As Americans have been reminded from seeing Senator Dianne Feinstein wheeled into the chamber at the age of 89, the Democrats have a generational problem.

Biden, Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and others have controlled their party for a long time – too long for its own good.

One result of this is that, while the Republicans can go down a generation and find plenty of talent (not least DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott and Governor Glenn Youngkin), the Democrats have a talent drought.

Nothing seems to grow below Biden.

There was a time when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was talked about as a successor.

But the American electorate have hardly seen Blinken for the past two and a half years.

Any foreign policy credit that can be picked up – and there is precious little of it – has been picked up by the president.

Just about the only name being bandied about to take up the Democrat mantle is Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.

By contrast with DeSantis in Florida, Newsom presides over a state where 1 per cent of the population were chased out in a single year.

They are leaving the state not just because of the high tax burden but because of the disintegration of the cities.

Newsom managed to ruin San Francisco as mayor before trying the same policies on a state-wide canvas as governor.

He may be one of the only talked-about successors to Biden, but he would be the most talked-about candidate imaginable for the Republicans.

If Newsom ever runs for the presidency, you can expect plenty of Republican commercials focusing on any one of his state’s filthy, zombie-ridden, crime-infested and tent-encamped streets.

As things stand, there is a significant ideas battle going on across the American Right and none at all on the American Left.

Biden ran as a unifying moderate, but has governed as an anti-Republican – specifically an anti-Trump – Leftist.

The Democrats who exist under him seem to spend most of their time trying to both pander to, and not get destroyed by, the extremists on their own side.

Newsom himself recently set up a taskforce to look into the paying of reparations to descendants of slaves in California.

The group came back with a recommendation that billions of dollars should be paid to black Americans in the state for such crimes as “overpolicing”.

Even Newsom has had to distance himself from the monster he created.

He, Biden and other Democrats are hoping that the Republicans run Donald Trump as their candidate in 2024, so that they can spend their campaign simply pointing at him and reminding voters that they are not Trump.

But if the Republicans choose wisely and well, the Democrats could yet be robbed of that opportunity and the one reason they have to ask the public to return them to office.

Douglas Murray’s latest book The War on the West is now out in paperback

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 3452&ei=10
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

FOX NEWS

"House GOP attempts to undo Biden’s 'socialist' mortgage rule"


Story by Chase Williams

26 MAY 2023

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans passed a bill through the House Financial Services Committee this week that, if ultimately enacted by Congress, would undo President Biden’s controversial mortgage rule that has angered conservatives.

The bill, titled the Middle-Class Borrower Protection Act of 2023, would "cancel recent changes made by the Federal Housing Finance Agency to the up-front loan level pricing adjustments charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guarantee of single-family mortgages."

The legislation, which passed through committee along party lines Wednesday, was originally introduced by Rep. Warren Davidson, R-OH, an outspoken critic of the rule.

"It really is just a socialist redistribution of wealth."

"It is that simple."

"It's an equity play by the administration," Davidson told Fox Business in an exclusive interview.


The rule has faced fierce pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill – including Davidson – with members from both chambers of Congress vowing to repeal the changes made by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), saying the rule is unfair.

"Why would you punish people by making it more expensive for people that have been most responsible?"

"On the credit score piece, it's not even clear that it only helps people who are poor."

"I mean, there are wealthy people who don't manage their credit well," Davidson pointed out.


"You could have someone who is low income but very responsible, manages a tight budget, pays their bill on time, and they could get hit with a higher fee and subsidize somebody who maybe has plenty of money but just doesn't pay their bills on time," the Ohio congressman added.

Davidson’s bill comes the same week that embattled FHFA Director Sandra L. Thompson appeared before the House Financial Services Committee, with the director facing tough questions from lawmakers.

Thompson defended the proposal on Tuesday, chalking up criticism of the rule to one big misunderstanding – that the media has driven.

"Unfortunately, certain media reports have distorted basic facts by painting an incomplete and misleading picture of these pricing updates," Thompson told lawmakers.

"I want to be very clear on one key point, and one that bears repeating: under the new pricing framework, borrowers with strong credit profiles are not being penalized to benefit borrowers with weaker credit profiles."

"That is simply not true," the FHFA director asserted.

During the same hearing, some Democrats rushed to defend the rule, including the ranking member on the Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

"My colleagues on the other side of the aisle appear to be more concerned about protecting the wealthy, even if it comes at the expense of those with less intergenerational wealth."

"I for one, support FHA as if it's a base effort to expand across to the American dream of home ownership," Waters stated during her opening remarks.

"Unfortunately, Republicans are continuing to spread misinformation about the new pricing framework and regurgitating alternative facts about what this actually means for borrowers," the California congresswoman charged.

Later during the hearing, Waters accused Republicans of "undermining Biden by undermining America" while defending the FHFA changes.

"These changes will correct for unfair subsidies that have benefited wealthier individuals purchasing lavish vacation homes and investment properties for over a decade," Waters said.

"House Democrats will continue to support policies that help every family live affordably and with dignity, both through housing reforms and cleanly raising the debt ceiling," she added, acknowledging the current debt ceiling debate on Capitol Hill.


It is unclear if Republicans can undo the changes entirely, but Davidson remains optimistic.

"I think it'll get a quick vote on the floor."

"I hope it's not a party line vote but either way, I hope the Senate will take it up."

"If not, I hope we can put it into something that they have to pass," Davidson remarked.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 3452&ei=31
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

OK! Magazine

"President Joe Biden Dragged by CNN's Jake Tapper Over 'Horrible' Poll Results"


Story by Alexandra Stone

26 MAY 2023

CNN's Jake Tapper trashed President Joe Biden's poll results after revealing 41% of Americans surveyed believed that the aging politician winning a second term would be a "disaster" for the United States.

David Chalian, who works as a political director for CNN, shared that according to a recent poll done by the network, 26% would consider a second term for the Biden Administration a "setback" for the country, rather than a disaster.

Meanwhile, 44% of Americans who took part in the survey said that political rival Donald Trump winning the 2024 election would be a "disaster" and only 12% said it would be a "setback."

Per CNN, a mere 35% of those polled Americans had a positive view of Biden.

"Horrible news, horrible for Joe Biden in our new CNN poll."

"While the president leads his Democratic competitors by a huge margin, two-thirds of all of the American people surveyed, 66% of the public say that a Biden victory would either be a setback or a disaster for the United States," Tapper said on a broadcast that aired on Thursday, May 25.

"When it comes to how voters see Joe Biden and another presidential term, I mean those are some bad numbers," he added.

"Look at how Americans are rating him, Jake."

"I mean, 35% favorable, that is remarkably low," Chalian said, pointing out that Biden's popularity had dropped 3% in the last 6 months.

"That’s a big warning sign."

"You hear Joe Biden say all the time, compare him to the alternative, not the almighty," he continued.

"And basically, they’re both not looking good," he noted, referring to both the current president and Trump.

"It’s worse for Biden," Tapper added.

"But for both of them, most of the American people think electing them would be a disaster or a setback for both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the current Democratic and Republican frontrunners."

"It is not an election the American people want," Chalian agreed.

This comes as Biden continues to face backlash over forgetting names, flubbing his words during speeches and other slip-ups, leading critics to doubt the 80-year-old president's mental capabilities.

"I respect them taking a hard look at it."

"I take a hard look at it as well," Biden addressed concerns about his age earlier this year after announcing he would be running for a second term.

"I took a hard look at it before I decided to run," he said at the time.

"And I feel good and I feel excited about the prospects."

"And I think we’re on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven’t in a long time."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 3452&ei=45
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

OK! Magazine

"President Joe Biden's Most Embarrassing Slip-Ups of 2023 So Far"


Story by Aaron Johnson

27 MAY 2023

Joe Biden has suffered his fair share of public trips, slips and verbal gaffes since taking office in January 2021, from stumbling over spelling to forgetting how to pronounce his own vice president's name.

Although his supporters defend the frequent flubs as simple mistakes incomparable to the cruel quips from controversial ex-prez Donald Trump, critics of the Biden Administration have been quick to mock the oldest sitting President of the United States and accuse him of being mentally unfit to lead the country.


This past January, Biden raised eyebrows after mistakenly referring to Kamala Harris as "CAM-a-la" rather than "COMMA-la."

That same month, he also accidentally called her the President instead of VP.

Only days later, he appeared to confuse a Salvation Army member with the Secret Service.

The aging politician also puzzled his audience when he claimed Oregon was attempting to secede to Idaho during a speech in March, and later that month, he confused China with Canada, accidentally "praising" the East Asian country while at a speaking engagement in Ottawa.

"Today, I applaud China for stepping up."

"Excuse me, I applaud Canada," he said, before joking, "You can tell what I'm thinking about China."

"I won't get into that yet."

Biden sparked concerns in April when he seemingly needed his son Hunter's help deciphering a child's question about the steps to success on his recent trip to Ireland.

He awkwardly told them that the top step to success was "making sure that we don’t all have COVID," before asking, "What — why — what are we talking about here?"

During the White House's "Take Your Child to Work Day" event that took place less than two weeks later, Biden struggled to remember which country he visited last, when a separate little boy had to remind the 80-year-old that he had just visited the Emerald Isle.

Among other April gaffes include incorrectly spelling the number eight during a speech, mispronouncing the name of an Asian American television producer and being accused of using a "cheat sheet" in the form of note cards with reporters' questions on them during a Q&A.

The POTUS also appeared confused and unsure where to go for a photo-op while meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister and his wife in May, later nearly tripping down a short set of steps while visiting the Itsukushima Shrine.

That same trip, Biden incorrectly claimed his late son, Beau, passed away in Iraq.

While the son of the current president did serve in the Army, he died of an aggressive form of brain cancer on U.S. soil several years after serving in Iraq.

Biden announced his intention to run for a second term as President of the United States in late April, later addressing concerns regarding his age.

"I respect them taking a hard look at it."

"I take a hard look at as well."

"I took a hard look at it before I decided to run," he explained at the time.

"And I feel good and I feel excited about the prospects."

"And I think we’re on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven’t in a long time."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... aaa8&ei=73
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

The Telegraph

"Me-me-me Britain’s only growth areas are entitlement and laziness"


Story by Camilla Tominey

26 MAY 2023

Britain has found a new heroine in the lady who set a hose on the Just Stop Oil protesters who vandalised a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.

When several ecomaniacs started throwing orange powder paint across the plants of a display showcasing sustainability on Thursday, one middle-aged woman grabbed a hose and ever so casually soaked the intruders until she was stopped by a security guard.


As this most irritating of scenes unfolded at one of the most civilised events on Earth, I’m sure you were thinking the same as me: if only she had been within arm’s reach of a water cannon.

Yet her remarkably restrained response to the selfish outrages committed by radical activists sums up the dignity of ordinary, decent people in the face of this offensive bunch of over-privileged rabble rousers.

The well-deserved drenching was emblematic of a Britain that has had it up to here with the sublime entitlement of campaigners who think they can spoil someone else’s hard work – and a day out to Chelsea – because they have something to shout about climate change.

We later learnt that the garden spoilers included Naomi Goddard, 58, a reported “flood expert” from Hebden Bridge, who warns of disaster in her quiet corner of West Yorkshire while apparently struggling to acknowledge the area has been prone to flooding for centuries.

She was joined by charity worker Stephanie Golder, 35, an activist from Southend, Essex, and support worker Rosa Hicks, 28, who doesn’t appear to see the hypocrisy in hectoring about the environment while having reportedly taken a year out to study in Australia.

Privilege doesn’t even cover it.

Don’t these women have jobs to go to?

While the Chelsea Flower Show was being shamelessly oranged, another trio of mimseys were kidnapping lambs from the King’s Sandringham estate, supposedly in the name of animal welfare.

Seemingly oblivious to the potential distress caused to the lambs by being separated from their flock, militants Rose Patterson, 33, Rosa Sharkey, 23, and Sarah Foy, 23, filmed themselves holding the animals in a van in a stunt anyone with any knowledge of farming knows will have left the bleaters terrified.

Despite apparently lacking understanding of livestock care, these morons actually think they are in a position to lecture others on animal welfare.

Indeed, many “animal rights” activists appear blissfully unaware that being a herbivore does not make you an expert on anything, except perhaps vitamin B-12 deficiency.

Yet on they go, ramming their marginal and extremist views down everyone else’s throats.

Sadly, entitlement seems to be becoming something of a running theme in this country.

This week, we learnt that borrowing has risen to the second highest level ever for April, driven in part by surging welfare payments.

More than five million people are now on out-of-work benefits according to some estimates, despite there being hundreds of thousands of job vacancies.


We all thought the era of people being better off by not working had ended with the introduction of Universal Credit.

And yet, in this strange post-pandemic period, some people who could work are simply choosing not to.

While that may be their right in a free society, where does it leave the rest of us?

All those people shunning jobs are necessitating an immigration policy that sees hundreds of thousands of workers imported into the country to plug the shortages.

As Thursday’s immigration figures from the Office for National Statistics confirmed, net migration stands at an unprecedented 606,000.

This, in turn, is fuelling a mass housing shortage and sky high rents along with a scarcity of school places and doctors’ appointments.

It will inevitably place enormous pressure on Britain’s infrastructure, but our culture has become so consumed by me-me-me that nobody wants to connect the dots.

Of course, successive governments are to blame for creating a high tax, low wage economy where younger generations can no longer afford to get on the housing ladder.

And, as well as failing to build enough houses, our elected representatives have been remiss in neglecting to train more homegrown medics, preferring the cheaper solution of issuing health visas to foreigners instead.

Similarly, by allowing campuses to be flooded with overseas students, they might well be limiting the number of British university entrants in a bid to keep tuition fees down for those lucky enough to gain a place.

Still, it is not just the fault of the powers that be that, to ape the famous Saatchi & Saatchi slogan from the 1970s, Britain isn’t working.

These days, people seem to need to be actively encouraged to go out to work when it used to be a given.

Once upon a time, Britons had a moral impulse to work because they didn’t want to become a burden on the state.

The consensus was that you shouldn’t take something out if you hadn’t put anything in, yet that seems to have evaporated into a narcissistic presumptuousness that you can do as little as you want and expect others to pick up the tab.

People increasingly seem to think they are entitled to an easy life – paid for by the rest of us.


While I appreciate there has been a troubling rise in mental health issues and anxiety, particularly among the young, I cannot help but think that some of this could be down to a lack of purpose in life.

For it used to be thought that work was positive for helping to manage conditions like mild depression by giving sufferers a sense of belonging and accomplishment.

Work was also a calling, a chance to help yourself, your family and even strangers.

And thankfully, some young people – the most ambitious of them – still understand this.

Ask a graduate trainee or an apprentice if they would like to work hard in an office and they will probably say yes.

But their voices are drowned out by a metropolitan elite that appears so hooked on the convenience of Zoom that it has forgotten it is supposed to be passing on knowledge to the next generation.

These lazy elites were given a leg up, but now it’s a case of pull the ladder up, and damn the rest.

Why should they care that others don’t have the luxury of working from home, so long as they can get their recycling bins emptied on time, and their organic food boxes delivered straight to the door?

Some will be cheering on the antics of a small minority of Greta Thunberg devotees, who seem intent on getting in the way of people with actual jobs.

Many of the ills in this country today, from its sinking economy to the troublemaking of radical protestors, can be associated with our wider social crisis.

Frankly, it’s a miracle that the fury of the sensibles has so far been contained to a bit of hose-waving.

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thelivyjr
Site Admin
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

FOX NEWS

"State Farm ceasing new applications in California for property insurance, other policies"


Story by Louis Casiano

26 MAY 2023

The State Farm General Insurance Company will no longer accept new applications for property insurance and other policies in California, citing "historic" increases in construction costs and inflation," the company said Friday.

Beginning Saturday, the Illinois-based insurance group will cease to accept applications for business and personal lines property and casualty insurance.


The move doesn't impact personal vehicle insurance.

"State Farm General Insurance Company made this decision due to historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market," the company said in a release.

"The Department of Insurance is focused on the safety of our homes and communities."

The insurance company said actions are necessary to improve its financial strength.

State Farm agents in California will continue to serve existing customers, it said.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Insurance told Fox Business it is committed to protecting customers.

"The factors driving State Farm’s decision are beyond our control, including climate change, reinsurance costs affecting the entire insurance industry, and global inflation," the spokesperson said.

California has some of the most expensive housing costs in the nation amid a shortage that many say has exacerbated the homeless crisis up and down the state.

The state plans to spend about $30 million to build 1,200 small homes.

In February, State Farm halted new coverage for some Kia, Hyundai drivers in several states because the vehicles were vulnerable to theft, it said.

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thelivyjr
Site Admin
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

HuffPost

"James Comer Is Not Saying Joe Biden Took A $5 Million Bribe — He’s Just Asking Questions"


Story by Arthur Delaney

27 MAY 2023

WASHINGTON — Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) can’t say for certain that Joe Biden once asked for a bribe, but he knows someone said it happened.

And if the FBI won’t declare the mysterious allegation true or false, Comer announced this week, then Republicans will seek to hold bureau Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress ― with Comer relentlessly promoting the bribery rumor in the meantime.

It’s the latest chapter in the House Oversight Committee chair’s quest for dirt on the president’s family.

So far, the probe has found shell companies allegedly funneling foreign money to family members connected to Hunter Biden’s self-enrichment schemes, starting at the end of his father’s vice presidency and continuing while Joe Biden was out of office.

Comer has not shown a link to the president himself, a failure for which the Kentucky Republican has been skewered by New York Times stories and even Fox News.

But Comer told HuffPost he considers the bribery allegation to be the thing that pulls the rest of his material together, and he said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has his back.

“The New York Times wants to say, ‘Well, there’s nothing there pertaining to Joe Biden,’” Comer said.

“Here we have someone very credible who alleged that he solicited a bribe.”

Congressional Republicans this year have sought to tarnish the Justice Department’s image as it investigates former President Donald Trump and prosecutes his supporters for their involvement in the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Comer and his colleagues have cast the FBI’s refusal to cough up information on the bribery allegation as itself suspicious, potentially another example of the so-called deep state protecting the Bidens.

At issue is an FBI document, an FD-1023 form, that reflects a tip from a confidential source in June 2020, at the height of the presidential campaign.

It relates to what Comer has called a “bribery scheme with a foreign national” when Biden was vice president — the sort of damaging allegation that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to produce in 2019, eventually resulting in Trump’s first impeachment.

Comer is already familiar with what the June 2020 tip says.

Though he hasn’t seen the document itself, he’s reviewed “basically something pertaining to testimony,” he told HuffPost.

But he wants to the FBI to hand it over.

In its initial response to Comer earlier this month, the FBI said that disclosing the material could risk endangering a confidential source and compromising current or future investigations.

And it suggested that an FD-1023 form by itself would lack the context Comer is looking for.

“An FD-1023 form documents information as told to a line FBI agent,” wrote Christopher Dunham, the FBI’s acting assistant director for congressional affairs.

“Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI.”

Comer said all they have to do is redact the source’s name and complained that the FBI wouldn’t even confirm that the document existed.

“They won’t tell us whether or not they looked into it, whether or not they even have the form, much less what they determined or whether there’s an ongoing investigation,” he said.

Comer had initially asked the FBI for all FD-1023 forms from June 2020 that mention the name “Biden.”

This week, in a follow-up letter to the bureau, he narrowed the search to documents that also include the terms “June 30th” and “five million,” which Comer explained is the amount of money “the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome” from Biden ― as though the FBI were simply having a hard time finding the document.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said Comer is not actually trying to get to the bottom of the allegation, because his subpoena only asked for FD-1023 forms and attachments.

“Chair Comer did not subpoena information about the FBI’s investigation of it, or any response it had to it, or any further information about it,” he said Thursday.

“It’s just that one sheet of paper.”

Raskin told HuffPost that he himself didn’t know anything about the substance of the allegation and that Democratic committee staffers had been shut out of the Republican members’ probe.

“It’s somebody introducing on an unverified, uncorroborated basis, a suggestion of subjective information about a tip,” he said.

“That’s all it is.”

Republicans learned about the form from a whistleblower, one of several whose allegations have been highlighted on Capitol Hill recently.

Oversight Committee member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said this week that the whistleblower who told Republicans about the form is highly credible and “fears for their life.”

But Comer said the FD-1023 whistleblower is not the same one connected to an informant whom Comer claimed had gone missing earlier this month.

Some of the whistleblowers have turned out to be less compelling than initially advertised.

One former FBI agent alleging corruption in the Justice Department was someone who didn’t think the FBI should go after Jan. 6 rioters and basically refused to do his job.

Another allegedly obstructed a Jan. 6 investigation because he believed a conspiracy theory that the Capitol riot had been orchestrated by the government.

And Comer has been a bit grandiose about his work.

Before releasing a summary of the Oversight Committee’s preliminary findings from its investigation of shell companies connected to Hunter Biden and others in his family, Comer proclaimed the material would bring about “Judgment Day” for the White House.

But after the report came out, Fox News host Steve Doocy complained that Comer had provided “no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.”

Still, Comer suggested this week that with the bribery allegation, he’s implicated Biden in criminal activity when he served as vice president.

“The vice president set up his family to profit from influence-peddling,” Comer said on Fox Business in an interview about the FBI subpoena.

“At that point his political career was more than likely over, so he was trying to make money."

"And unfortunately he did it while he was in office, and he did it in a way through those shell companies that’s very illegal.”

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