Daily Archives: February 5, 2022

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh argues that payrolls in January rising by 467,000 is a 'very transparent number' even though the benchmark had been revised, which he acknowledged is 'part of' the reason why job growth blew past expectations.

Democrats are touting an unexpectedly positive jobs report Friday after the economy added 467,000 jobs last month a number that's much higher than expected after a massive surge in coronavirus cases late last year.

"The Republicans who are rooting against the economy are the ones hardest hit," a Democratic aide told FOX Business. "They've been cheering against Joe Biden and Dems while we've created a record 7 million jobs in 12 months and 1.7 million over the last three months. There's work to be done, and Democrats are gonna do it whileRepublicans sit on the sidelines and quite literally cheer against America."

"The January jobs report is proof that Democrats economic policies are working and getting our economy back on track," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said.

"We need to sustain this momentum as we transition from the economic recovery phase to one of sustained, broadly felt growth," he continued. "It is essential that Congress not waste any time enacting further legislation to position American businesses, workers, families, and children in the best possible position to compete in the global economy and Make It In America."

President Biden addresses the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 21, 2021, at U.N. headquarters in New York City. Biden is expected to address positive jobs numbers later Friday. (Timothy A. Clary-Pool/Getty Images / Getty Images)

US JOB GROWTH SOARS PAST EXPECTATIONS WITH 467,000 ADDED, SHAKING OFF OMICRON SURGE

The 467,000 increase in payrolls during January easily topped the 150,000 jobs gain forecast by Refinitiv economists. The unemployment rate, which is calculated based on a separate survey, ticked up slightly to 4%.

Further, the December increase in payrolls was revised upward from 199,000 to 510,000.

In remarks later Friday morning, President Biden said the jobs report showed the "extraordinary resilience and grit of the American people, and American capitalism."

"Our country is taking everything that COVID has to throw at us and we've come back stronger," Biden said. "America's job machine is going stronger than ever... America is back to work."

"467,000 jobs added in January, well above expectations," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted. "Thank you to the American people. Thank you to @POTUS and@VP. Thank you American Rescue Plan. Democrats are fighting #ForThePeople."

"Todays jobs report makes it clear: President Bidens economic plan is working. The economy is booming, and continues to exceed expectations," Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said. "Thanks to the work of Democrats who passed the American Rescue Plan, got more than 200 million Americans vaccinated, and tackled supply chain bottlenecks, the economy has created a record over 6.6 million jobs in 12 months, and 2021 was the greatest year of job creation under any president in history."

Even amid a surge in the omicron coronavirus variant, and with many states still not as vaccinated as the Biden administration would like, jobs increased in January. | Getty Images

President Biden, in a tweet, highlighted that more than 6.6 million jobs have been created since he took office.

Republicans and conservatives are not giving the president credit for the jobs bump. Alfredo Ortiz, the CEO and president of the conservative Job Creators Network, said Friday that the positive numbers have more to do with Americans moving on from the pandemic.

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"This is a good number, and its encouraging. It certainly shows Americans are tired of government-induced lockdowns, and a new Johns Hopkins study confirms what we knew all long: Lockdowns dont help," Ortiz said. "Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. We were down 22.4 million jobs at the height of the pandemic.Many of those jobs have returned, thanks to Republican governors and their pro-freedom policies."

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., the ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, said that inflation is still eating away at Americans' paychecks even if they do have jobs.

"Thanks to runaway spending in Congress, inflation is handing most Americans a pay cut, and falling real wages have discouraged many from returning to work," he said. "The threat of vaccine mandates has caused more employers to separate the unvaccinated from their livelihoods."

FOX Business' Megan Henney contributed to this report.

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Democrats tout higher-than-expected January jobs numbers - Fox Business

Poll numbers look bleak for Democrats. A wide range of surveys show twice as many people saying America is on the wrong track as saying its heading in the right direction. In the most recent polls aggregated by RealClearPolitics, right track/wrong track deficits were 31, 30, 37, 48, 39, 26, and 50 points. President Joe Biden is underwater by 16, 4, 11, 5, 17, 19, and 14 points on the approve-disapprove question.

Such figures point to an unambiguous electoral repudiation of the Democratic Party and its policies, wholly owned by left-wing extremists. The president, having thrown off the mantle of moderation, and the militants for whom he works are heading for what former President Barack Obama called a shellacking. Voters never gave them a mandate for radicalism and dont like being played for saps in a bait and switch.

Bidens White House website boasts that hes building a better America. To which the looming electoral riposte is, No, thanks, we like the America we already had. And, anyway, its not yours to change.

The public knows that the Left and Democrats a distinction without a difference have spun out of control. To borrow the lyrics of Neil Young, the aging rocker who now pines for orthodoxy and cancel culture, the Lefts Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch and a wheel on the track. The only problem with the analogy is that the Left no longer has even one wheel on the track. It has lurched out of control, leapt the verge, and is a steaming wreck in the undergrowth beyond the guardrail.

A week is a long time in politics, but even 10 months out from the midterm elections, the numbers are a nightmare for the Left. They could spell Democratic disaster and national salvation as far ahead as the 2024 presidential election. For the transformation of the Democratic Party is a long-term phenomenon. It is no quickly passing, easily forgotten squall. The partys absorption into the sub-Marxist Left has taken decades.

Its emergence into plain sight has produced many related phenomena. One is, as Gerard Baker noted in the Wall Street Journal recently, that the ratchet that until recently made Americas leftward drift seem irreversible might be about to lose its grip. Like a spring that cannot be compressed any further, the nations politics and culture appear poised to snap back, retrieving common sense from its current marginalization and restoring it to its rightful place at the center of public life.

Another is the emergence of a more combative cadre of conservative Republican political leaders. People are almost always of their time, perhaps especially politicians. As James Antle writes in our cover story, the likes of Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other contenders for the 2024 GOP nomination are members of a rising generation no longer willing to go along and get along with the liberal dispensation. They have arrived, ready to fight, determined to win, at a moment when the nation seems to want that decisive victory.

Continued here:

See the whites of Democrats' eyes - Washington Examiner

I believe that voting Democrat can be an addiction. Democrats continue to vote Democrat for decades while their cities disintegrate into cesspools of drugs, slums, crime, disease and suffocating taxes. For some of them, when they finally cant stand it any longer, they move and vote Democrat in their new location. They are Demoholics!

Todays Democratic Party has been hijacked by the Marxist, socialist, progressive, woke movement. It has proclaimed and is implementing its evil and diabolical agenda to fundamentally transform our country.

I believe that todays Democratic Party has shown its agenda be: the banishing of God, Judeo-Christian values, natural law and patriotism; the atrocity of abortion; the destruction of the nuclear family; BLM and antifa and the burning, looting and destroying of historic statues; the shattering of MLKs dream of a colorblind society by fomenting racial tension; teachers unions indoctrinating and poisoning the minds of our children; the hate-mongering and dividing of us into factions by race, party, and financial and vaccination status, and a house divided cannot stand.

Those who hate this country are living a dream. Those of us who love it are living a nightmare. Traditional Democrats are facing a dilemma: vote to save the country as founded or vote Democrat. Many will try to appease their conscience by defending and justifying what their party has become. But, alas, in the end, like an alcoholic who cant pass by a liquor store without stopping in, far too many Democrats will continue to vote Democrat no matter what. They are hopelessly addicted Demoholics!

Bob McBride

West Deer

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Letter to the editor: Voting Democrat an addiction - TribLIVE

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Democrats and teachers unions are working to block bills proposed in at least a dozen states that would require curriculum transparency in schools across the country, arguing that parents access to their childrens learning materials online could lead to undue censorship and backlash against educators.

Parents are entitled under federal law to request their children's curriculum for review if they attend a federally funded school, but schools are not required to post the materials online. Lawmakers in at least 12 states have introduced legislation to require schools to post lists of all their teaching materials online, including books, articles and videos.

A Missouri billsponsored by Republican state Rep. Doug Richey would do just that, but Democrats say curriculum transparency billswould only further embolden parents to censor certain materials and trainings, like those pertaining to critical race theory (CRT) a framework that involves deconstructing aspects of society to discover systemic racism beneath the surface.

STEPHEN MILLERS AMERICA FIRST LEGAL LAUNCHES GUIDE FOR PARENTS TO OBTAIN SCHOOL CURRICULA UNDER FEDERAL LAW

Amy Carney speaks on behalf of parents during a protest against critical race theory being taught at Scottsdale Unified School District before a digital school board meeting at Coronado High School in Scottsdale on May 24, 2021. (Reuters)

Richeys bill, dubbed the Parents Bill of Rights, would also require schools to allow parents receive notifications whenever a teacher intends to teach a "divisive or controversial topic" that may conflict with a "parent's belief that all persons, regardless of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, or ancestry, should be treated equally."

"Parents have a fundamental right, responsibility and authority when it comes to their children," Richey said to committee members Tuesday, FOX 2 reported.

Democratic state Rep. Paula Brown, a former teacher, said Richey's legislation is "setting people up to just be in court."

"Make no mistake: these bills are an attack on Missouri students," she said in a statement after the committee hearing. "They have the right to learn in classrooms free from censorship."

BIDEN ADMIN KEEPS GIVING TEACHERS' UNIONS POLITICAL VICTORIES

Democratic Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, another former teacher, said the legislation would be a "Trojan horse to destroy quality education."

"These laws would create a chilling effect on teachers who would be afraid to teach anything remotely related to banned curriculum," Nurrenbern said, Fox 2 reported.

TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sparked criticism last month after tweeting that curriculum transparency bills are just "thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools."

Emerson Sykes, staff attorney in the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, reiterated the ACLU's position to Fox News Digital last week, saying the organization is "actively pursuing litigation to block" curriculum transparency bills.

"Government bodies should always strive for transparency, and the ACLU supports any good-faith effort to make public education as transparent as possible to parents and communities," Sykes said. "But some of these so-called curriculum transparency bills are thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools. Their sponsors have said as much.

"For example, in Florida, one lawmaker recently introduced legislation that would allow teachers and children to be constantly recorded and surveilled in the classroom for signs of teaching and learning about divisive concepts around race and gender," Sykes added.

PARENTS RIGHTS ACTIVISTS SLAM ACLU FOR OPPOSING CURRICULUM TRANSPARENCY LAWS AMID CRT BATTLES

Asra Nomani, vice president for strategy and investigation at Parents Defending Education, blasted the ACLU's opposition in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"Transparency is key to good governance," she said. "This applies to our schools especially where our youngest minds are being informed andinfluenced. Teachers unions, activists and the ACLU are on the wrong side of history as they try to block transparency inschools."

Floridas Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a parents bills of rights last June. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott introduced a similar proposal last month.

"Florida law should provide parents with the right to review the curriculum used in their childrens schools," DeSantis said in his State of the State address last week.

Amy Jahr sings "The Star Spangled Banner" after a Loudoun County School Board meeting was halted by the school board because the crowd refused to quiet down, in Ashburn, Virginia, June 22, 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo)

Last year, GOP-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania became the first to pass curriculum transparency bills, but both bills were vetoed by Democratic governors, NBC News reported.

Wisconsins Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the classroom transparency act in December, sayingit failed to provide the necessary funding needed to implement it. Pennsylvanias Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said in his veto message that the legislation was a "thinly veiled attempt" to censor content "reflecting various cultures, identities, and experiences."

Like Democrats, teachers unions are opposing parents-bill-of-rights legislation because they say it'll create more problems and censorship, similar to the push to ban CRT in schools.

"Good schools and good school districts have always had curriculum transparency including extensive two-way communication between parents and educators on what we are teaching and how to support our kids," Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement to NBC News. "Pretending otherwise is just the latest attempt by Chris Rufo and others to exploit the frustration of Covid to create a toxic environment where the biggest losers are children and their recovery."

Weingarten was referring toChristopher Rufo, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who has been a leading voice in shining a light on left-wing ideologies like CRT being taught in classrooms across the country.

Michigan Department of Education Board Vice President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, said a curriculum transparency bill introduced by Republican members of the Michigan House on Wednesday aims to disrupt the education system.

"Theres more than meets the eye at the root of these divisive, manufactured, chaotic bills that are being proposed" across the country as part of a national playbook, Pugh told Bridge Michigan. "Its scare tactics and intimidation meant to cause mass chaos, mass confusion, and disruption to our education system."

"Were not the enemy," Ingrid Fournier, a fifth-grade teacher in Ludington Public Schools, told Bridge. "Where is the trust? Just trust us."

Unions heavily opposed the Pennsylvania bill that was recently vetoed by Wolf, saying curriculum transparency bills are part of a larger push to ban teaching racism in schools.

Shelley Slebrch and other angry parents and community members protest after a Loudoun County School Board meeting was halted by the school board because the crowd refused to quiet down, in Ashburn, Virginia, June 22, 2021. (Reuters)

"The shameful truth of racism, both historically and today, must be taught. And as a society we must not just teach it, but do all we can to collectively dismantle the systems that have long failed Black and brown people," Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan told Keystone Crossroads in October as the bill advanced through the state legislature. "This bill is far from a benign attempt at increasing curriculum transparency."

"The last thing students need at this time is further politicization of their education," Rich Askey, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the states largest teachers union, said at the time, Keystone reported.

Ian Prior, executive director of the Virginia parents group Fight For Schools, slammed the left-wing opposition to curriculum transparency in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

"The far left went from saying that there is no critical race theory or gender identity grooming in schools, to now trying to hide what is going on in schools," Prior said. "That tells you all one needs to know about what is happening in America's classrooms.

"Government is supposed to be transparent except in very limited circumstances," he said. "Parents shouldn't need a security clearance to see what their children are learning in the schools that the parents pay for with their tax dollars."

Loudoun County School Board meeting protest (Reuters)

Craig Strazerri, chief marketing officer for PragerU, said in a statement to Fox News Digital: "It's insane that there is any opposition at all tocurriculum transparency in schools - of course parents should be able to review in detail what their children are learning in our schools. What are they hiding?"

A nonprofit group led by former Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller launched a toolkit Wednesday aimed at helping parents understand their rights already granted under federal law in reviewing their childs school curriculum.

The new guide provided by America First Legal (AFL) highlights provisions in the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment of 1978 (PPRA) thatgives parents the right to inspect all learning materials at schools that receive federal funding.

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"Part of the problem is that people don't know about this law," Miller told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday. "They don't know about their rights enshrined in federal statute, and that's because teachers unions, the schools, the administrators and teachers themselves don't want parents to know their rights. And so that's where we come in."

"The purpose of this endeavor from America First Legal is to let parents know what their current rights are under federal law the kind of thing that groups like the ACLU should be doing but arent doing because they have fallen prey to a political agenda. Theyre no longer in the business of defending civil rights and civil liberties," he said.

Fox News Tyler ONeil, Peter Hasson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continued here:

Democrats, teachers unions fight to keep parents from learning what their kids are taught - Fox News

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the latest Democrat officeholder to flout the science! on mask mandates when he was photographed sans mask at the Rams-49ers playoff game, accompanied by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

It wasnt the first time Newsom demonstrated that Covid rules are only for pleb workers, small business owners, and children, and not for their lordships in public office and high society. In November 2020, when the rest of the state was being told to lock down and shut up, it was revealed that Newsom and a dozen other unmasked guests had attended a birthday bash at a high-end Napa Valley restaurant.

Newsom is one of the many Democratic governors, members of Congress, and mayors who have spent the past two years disingenuously threatening, belittling, and terrorizing their constituents and the country at large with unscientific Covid cult practices and superstitions that were unprecedented in public health history prior to February 2020. These fraudsters have readily and cheerfully opted out of their own fear porn whenever it suited them.

While its tempting to attribute the failure to heed their own Covid wisdom as plain old hypocrisy, the real takeaway is that Democratic leaders have always been much less afraid of Covid than they want you to be. Their Covid behavior has been about demonstrating a social hierarchy in which they are unquestionably at the top.

At his Texas rally last weekend, former President Donald Trump earned cheers from the tens of thousands-strong crowd when he announced that were moving on from Covid, whether they like it or not. Ironically, the Covid-fear peddlers and purveyors of tyranny Trump was referencing include Democratic officials who have let it slip time and time again that they moved on from Covid restrictions long ago.

The pioneer in all of this was probably Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who, as early as April 2020, trotted off to get her hair done in violation of her own stay-at-home order. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is another Democrat for whom the prospect of contracting or transmitting Covid was not so terrifying that it stopped her from getting a blowout. Her trip to an otherwise shuttered hair salon in her home state of California was famously captured on CCTV and shared by the salons owner.

Throughout the country, people caught a glimpse of Pelosi, who only months before had chided President Trump for not setting an example by wearing a mask, swanning around maskless. That should have been enough. If an 80-year-old woman, before the availability of vaccines, was brave enough to stare Covid down, despite belonging to one of the most vulnerable age demographics for Covid hospitalizations and deaths, clearly the rest of the population didnt need to be so terrified either.

Pelosi was at it again last summer at a fundraising event, where scores of maskless white leftist elites wined and dined, while minimum-wage minority servers waited on them with their faces obediently covered.

Then there are the hoaxers who ordered their constituents to lock down while they jetted off on vacation interstate and abroad. In 2020, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock tweeted, stay home, avoid travel, and host virtual gatherings before boarding a flight to visit his own out-of-state family.

A month later, Austin Mayor Steve Adler took time out from kicking back in the sun in Los Cabos, Mexico, to shoot a video for the serfs back home, warning them, this is not the time to relax and threatening them with further restrictions and lockdowns.

For politicians seeking temporary respite from self-inflicted blue state misery, Florida has consistently been the destination of choice, despite routine left-wing attacks on Gov. Ron DeSantis for his allegedly reckless, virus spreading, murderous Covid management strategy. Early in the lockdowns, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker sent his family off to live it up on their multi-million-dollar estate in Florida while he locked down his constituents and warned against non-essential travel.

While warning Michiganders about non-essential travel and the perils of spring breaking in variant-ridden Florida and then flying the virus back home, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chartered a private jet to the Sunshine State, lied about the trip, then tried to weasel her way out of the scandal.

Most recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was photographed vacationing and partying in Miami Beach, while back in New York, Covid is apparently so deadly that at restaurants the police are ejecting unvaccinated children and management is denying service to black families.

But its no secret that masks are just expedient political theater for AOC. When she was gracious enough to join celebrity guests at the $30,000 a ticket Met gala last fall, she evidently saw no need to spoil the occasion with something as pointless as a face covering. Meanwhile, scurrying behind in the background were her masked attendants, dutifully fawning over the congresswoman and carrying the train of her ghastly concoction of a dress.

Former President Barack Obama and San Francisco Mayor Breed have both been caught on camera partying and clubbing without masks, totally cool with the covert virus particles theyve been exploiting to spook, propagandize, and scaremonger the rest of us.

Now the latest data again confirms what the Democratic aristocracy was confident of all along: lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and vax mandates may be useful at keeping the drones and neurotics in check, but largely ineffective in preventing virus transmission. Jurisdictions around the world that locked down hard dont appear to have fared any better at curbing the virus than those that took a more relaxed approach.

The Centers for Disease Control begrudgingly acknowledged what Dr. Anthony Fauci was advising back in February 2020, before he switched his position: cloth masks are ineffective. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky recently admitted that vaccines cant prevent virus transmission, and even Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla conceded that two vaccine doses provide limited protection, if any against the Omicron variant.

Meanwhile, an updated review of global research from Stanford Universitys Meta-Research Innovation Centersuggests Covid fatality rates have fallen across most age groups. The analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, reveals an infection survival rate of more than 96 percent for all age groups, and more than 99 percent for all age groups under the age of 70. Data showing this was available early in the pandemic, almost from the time of the U.S. lockdowns.

Even the CDCs best estimates show a relatively low infection fatality ratio across all age groups. For children 17 and younger, that figure is a breathtakingly low 0.002 percent.

Think about this the next time you fasten a useless, oxygen-depriving, speech-impeding bacterial trap to your helpless two-year-old. When you don the Covid talisman to go to church, attend class, enter a grocery store, watch a show, or board an airplane, reflect on how a disdainful coterie of officials have trolled Americans for two years.

Theyve been bleating about flattening the curve while theyve been nonchalantly recreating, dining, primping, and preening, vacationing, partying, and clubbing in contradiction of their own fabricated and capricious public health edicts. Yes, they were being dishonest, hypocritical, and hierarchical. But most importantly, they were clearly never afraid of the virus, and you shouldnt be either.

Carina Benton is a dual citizen of Australia and Italy and a permanent resident of the United States. A recent West Coast migr, she is now helping to repopulate the countrys interior. She holds a masters degree in education and has taught languages, literature, and writing for many years in Catholic and Christian, as well as secular institutions. She is a practicing Catholic and a mother of two young children.

Excerpt from:

Democrats Were Never As Afraid Of Covid As They Want You To Be - The Federalist

Getty Images.

By Dave Harden

The writer is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Marylands First District. He grew up on a small farm in Carroll County, Maryland. He can be reached at Dave@hardenforcongress.com

Democrats lose 90% of all rural counties in America. Why? Because they run weak candidates who simply do not align with the culture, values, hopes, aspirations, concerns and worries of rural folks. The messaging and policies for urban and suburban communities are not tailored to rural communities. The Democrats simply dismiss those people as politically expedient at best, or a lost cause at worst.

Even today, there is little evidence that the Democratic establishment understands these failures. Politicians endorsing politicians, party elites tipping the scales, political hacks who are ahead of their time, none of this works for rural folks. The result: the Democrats rural strategy has failed election after election.

The Democrats failure to appeal to rural voters has consequences. Extreme polarization exacerbated by partisan gerrymandering and the growing urban-rural divide increases the risk that America slips into authoritarianism. We see three challenges right here in Maryland.

First, working class, rural communities on the Eastern Shore are marginalized by the unrelenting consolidation of political and economic power between Washington and Baltimore along the I-95 and 270 corridor.

Second, this consolidation of power is happening while poverty rates in some communities on the Shore are worse than lower middle income countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Third, the census revealed that four Eastern Shore and two western counties lost population in the last decade. Declining populations mean fewer jobs, fewer services, fewer opportunities, less of a tax base and more grievances.

Most worryingly, these political-economic trends are happening amid the accelerating threats to our democracy. The January 6 attacks on our Capitol may just be practice if Donald Trump runs for president in 2024 and his enablers, like Andy Harris from Marylands First District, remain in power.

America needs the Democrats to be competitive in rural communities just like we need Republicans to be competitive in big cities.

Here is what rural folks want: we want to close the wealth gap. We want our kids to have opportunities at home. We want know-it-all politicians to stop speaking to us like we are a bunch of rednecks who are too stupid to vote our economic interests. We want to be valued and heard on our terms.

Democrats can, of course, deliver economic opportunities and the related respect. Broadband, infrastructure, localized renewable energy, decentralized energy grids, rural accelerators and incubators, less regulations on small businesses, tighter connections to high-end markets, next-generation vocational schools can all lead to revitalized growth and economic opportunity in our rural communities. But this requires that the Democrats compete in local elections by charting an independent path forward which aligns with the sensibilities of communities that too often feel left behind and forgotten.

I was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to lead our democracy efforts and conflict stabilization activities around the world. I have worked in fragile countries for decades. Given these experiences, I believe democracy in America is at risk. If the Democrats get it wrong in 2022 by losing to authoritarian incumbents like Andy Harris yet again, America could very well slip into a full blown authoritarian state by 2024.

Despite its imperfections, our generation was given an extraordinary gift of democracy. It is our responsibility to protect and defend our nations legacy. We must begin by electing pro-democracy candidates to safeguard our sacred democratic institutions and norms. All other issues are secondary.

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Opinion: Democrats Lose 90% of Rural Counties in America. Here is why. - Josh Kurtz