Category Archives: Democrat

Residents wait in line to vote outside of the Tippecanoe branch library on Oct. 20, 2020, in Milwaukee, Wis. Minimum standards for access to in-person early voting are one reform that both Republicans and Democrats have backed. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption

Residents wait in line to vote outside of the Tippecanoe branch library on Oct. 20, 2020, in Milwaukee, Wis. Minimum standards for access to in-person early voting are one reform that both Republicans and Democrats have backed.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called a targeted effort by some senators to reform the election certification process that former President Donald Trump attempted to hijack on Jan. 6, 2021, "unacceptably insufficient and even offensive."

Schumer wanted to go bigger.

He wanted to focus on much more expansive voting rights legislation, known as the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have overhauled essentially everything about the American election system: when and where Americans could cast a ballot, how they contribute to political campaigns and how states draw their political lines.

The proposal was trimmed down from an even larger elections bill, but it was still so massive that many election experts and even some Democrats privately say they never actually expected it to pass.

Then it failed.

Democrats in Congress haven't made it clear what they might pursue next, but experts see at least two paths toward a more piecemeal approach to putting in some guardrails around elections in the U.S.

The option gaining momentum recently is an update to the aforementioned rules around presidential election certification, known as the Electoral Count Act.

The law has been derided as poorly written and vague for decades, and its lack of clarity led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters falsely believed Vice President Mike Pence had more power over the certification of Electoral College votes submitted by the states than he actually did.

A bipartisan group of senators has been meeting to discuss potential revisions to the law, and there are indications that Schumer's opposition to it may be softening since the larger Democratic effort on voting rights failed.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California-Irvine, said that he feels the voting reforms in the Freedom to Vote Act are necessary too, but Congress would be right to prioritize the ECA and other laws meant to prevent subversion of the results of a presidential election.

"As much as one might be concerned about voter suppression and I've written two books on the subject, I'm very concerned about it I put the concern about election subversion even higher," Hasen said. "If you don't have a system where votes are fairly counted, you don't have a democracy at all."

The bipartisan group of senators looking at changing the law is working in smaller groups focused on a number of different aspects of voting reform, according to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who spoke to reporters Monday night after the group met on Capitol Hill.

Each of the smaller groups has a Democrat and Republican co-chair, Collins said, and they are focused on protecting election workers and potential new funding for election administration, in addition to updating the ECA. But she made it clear she thinks whatever legislation that comes from the group will not look anything like the Freedom to Vote Act.

"My goal is to have a bipartisan bill that can secure 60 or more votes in the Senate," she said. "If we re-litigate issues that have already been rejected by the Senate, then I think it would be very difficult for us to reach the 60-vote margin."

The bipartisan group of 16 senators, which includes nine Republicans, is set to meet again on Friday and could start writing text for their proposal in the coming days or weeks. The GOP support is key, since Democrats would need 10 Republicans in agreement to pass a measure in the Senate.

"This group is full of members of the Senate that have experience in getting bipartisan bills to the floor of the Senate. So maybe this group will be more successful," said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the group.

On Tuesday, a group of key Democratic senators also separately released their own potential draft update to the ECA. In some cases, the plan by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Angus King, I-Maine, mirrors proposals that were part of a House Administration Committee staff report released last month.

For example, it says that for an objection to a state's election results to be raised before Congress, the current threshold of only needing one member from each chamber should be raised. Rather, the Senate Democratic proposal, like the House staff report, suggests that one-third of each chamber should have to object. Both Democratic plans also say objections should be subject to a vote by a supermajority not a simple majority in both the House and Senate.

"We stand ready to share the knowledge we have accumulated with our colleagues from both parties and look forward to contributing to a strong, bipartisan effort aimed at resolving this issue and strengthening our democracy," Durbin, Klobuchar and King said in a statement on Tuesday.

King and several members of the bipartisan group agreed they see a potential to work together.

"I'm going to work with anybody who wants to work on the issue," King said.

Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another member of bipartisan group, says the various efforts signal momentum.

"I think what that telegraphs is that this is important and it's something that we can move through on a bipartisan basis," Murkowski said.

The level of bipartisan engagement on the ECA never coalesced around the other voting rights reforms Democrats had hoped would come from this Congress, which have grown more urgent as some states across the country passed laws last year restricting voting access.

Republicans have often said they have no interest in federalizing the nuts and bolts of election infrastructure, so mandating things like automatic voter registration or no-excuse absentee voting was a nonstarter.

But Matthew Weil thinks there is another way.

Weil leads the elections project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, which recently released a report detailing what it sees as an "achievable" set of reforms for Congress to focus on.

"Both parties have prioritized elections to their voters," said Weil. "Democrats have been spending a lot of time talking about voter suppression and voters from the Republican Party are hearing that our election system is completely insecure."

BPC's proposal would address both concerns, Weil says, meaning there's a way for politicians to sell it to their voters no matter their affiliation.

Importantly, the BPC report does not argue for federal mandates, but instead argues for an incentivization structure where federal funding would be tied to whether states meet minimum accessibility and security standards such as:

Nine states that range across the political spectrum either currently already meet all of the report's minimum standards or meet all but one. Both Colorado and Georgia meet all of the proposed minimum standards for instance, even though Colorado is a vote-by-mail state and Georgia leans more heavily on in-person voting.

Because of the incentive structure, the proposal also might be an easier sell to Republicans like Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who worry about federal overreach. LaRose staunchly opposed the Freedom to Vote Act, calling it a power grab on the part of Democrats.

But in an interview with NPR recently, LaRose said he had read the BPC report and that he could see supporting similar legislation. Ohio already complies with more than 80% of the report's standards.

Weil, of the BPC, sees parallels to 2002 when Congress passed a bipartisan set of election reforms in the shadow of the 2000 presidential election, one of the closest and most contentious in modern history.

"Both parties had incentives to do something about the elections process," Weil said. "I think I see some of those same possibilities now."

NPR's Claudia Grisales contributed to this report.

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There are election reforms that both Democrats and Republicans seem to like - NPR

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.

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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

Democrats in New York have redrawn a key congressional district to give former congressman Max Rose a big advantage in his bid to reclaim the seat from Republican incumbent Rep. Nicole Malliotakis packing it with more liberal precincts in Brooklyn to counter conservative Staten Island, political observers said Monday.

Malliotakis and fellow Republicans charge the fix is in after a bipartisan panel all but endured to be at loggerheads failed to come up with a compromise leaving the redrawing of districts in the hands of the majority Democrats.

The 11th District currently includes all of Staten Island along with like-minded neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn just on the other side of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, including Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bath Beach.

But in what sources say was a clearly partisan gerrymander to boost a Democrats chances of winning the 11th and several other congressional seats, the proposed district snakes from the island to Bay Ridge and then to the northwest to take in the heavily Democratic neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Gowanus and Park Slope ending at the border of Smith Street, State Street and Flatbush Avenue.

The move has left the Malliotakis camp crying foul.

This is a blatant attempt by the Democrat leadership in Albany to steal this seat, even after New Yorkers voted twice by ballot referendum for non-partisan maps, said Malliotakis campaign spokesman Rob Ryan.

These are the same cynical politicians that gave us the disastrous bail reform, released criminals from prison, and raised our taxes. They know Congresswoman Malliotakis is popular and they cant beat her on the merits or public policy, so they are changing the boundaries to tilt the scale.

Former President Donald Trump defeated Democrat Joe Biden 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent in the 2020 presidential election in the 11th CD a solid 10.6 percentage point victory.

Malliotakis defeated Rose by about 6 percentage points.

If the redrawn district were in place in 2020, Biden would have taken about 55 percent of the vote and Trump 45 percent a reversal at the top of the ticket that would have aided Rose.

Independent experts and even Democrats agree that their the lines were drawn for maximum partisan advantage.

Its clear that the increase in Democratic voters in the Brooklyn side of the 11th CD is amazing. Cutting the Republican vote in half in Brooklyn is equally amazing, said Steve Romalewski, director of mapping services at the City University of New Yorks Graduate Center who has analyzed the new districts.

Romalewski noted that voters approved a 2014 ballot measure calling for a more independent redistricting process, but that plan was thrown out the window because of partisan squabbling this year.

I dont think you could find anyone who spoke up at a public hearing saying that Park Slope should be in the same district as Staten Island, he said.

Longtime Staten Island Democratic activist Allen Cappelli admitted the redrawn district is a Democratic gerrymander but insists it is no less a gerrymander than what what Republicans in charge of redistricting do in states such as Texas.

The party in charge draws the lines to their advantage, Cappelli said.

In New York, the Democrats who control the state Senate and Assembly draw the congressional maps every 10 years following the census count.

State Sen. Diane Savino agreed that the newly carved district is a potential gift and pick-up for Democrats.

There are more Democratic-leaning voters on the Brooklyn side of the district. These are high turnout voters. That would benefit a Democratic candidate for Congress, said Savino, a Democrat whose own district includes parts of northern Staten Island and southern Brooklyn.

She noted that Staten Island still makes up about two-thirds of the voters in the district and that the 11th CD is still a very competitive seat.

Its not a walk in the park but its better turf for any Democrat than it was before, Savino added.

Even some Democrats complained the redrawn congressional districts are too unwieldy

Long Island Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi is running for governor instead of seeking re-election to the 3rd Congressional district, which has expanded from three to five counties.

The 3rd CD currently cuts across the north shore of Long Island in Nassau and Suffolk counties and takes in parts of northeastern Queens.

The redrawn 3rd CD runs from Suffolk and Nassau through Queens to a small piece of the Bronx and then into Westchester County.

I understand the goal the legislature is trying to achieve with this map, however I believe it could have been accomplished and served the interests of the residents better by having a more compact 3rd district thats not spread out over parts of 5 counties, Suozzi said.

A Republican mapping expert accused Democrats in the state Legislature of engaging in illegal redistricting for partisan gain.

The notion that Staten Island is connected to Park Slope, or Glencove is connected to Mamaroneck these things are crazy and anyone who looks at this map will realize this is an egregious map, said former GOP Hudson Valley Rep. John Faso.

Its pretty clear the proposal theyve made is unconstitutional. Its a very clear partisan gerrymander. The constitution says these proposals would be a prime example of partisan gerrymander it divides communities and it creates districts that are geographic disparate unnecessarily, he said.

Faso continued, Youre connecting Nassau County with Westchester does the congressman get a rowboat or a yacht to transcend the Long Island Sound?

Meanwhile, state Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy said the party will likely file a lawsuit to block the redistricting plan that could cut New Yorks Republican representation in the House in half, from eight members to four.

But one redistricting expert said Malliotakis and the New York Republican Party are screwed because the state and federal courts have historically refused to intervene or overrule partisan-driven redistricting maps.

It would be very difficult to challenge the congressional plan in court. The state courts prefer to leave redistricting to the legislature. No state court has rejected a plan enacted by the state legislature in over 50 years, said Jeffrey Wice, a professor with NYUs Census and Redistricting Institute.

Theres little chance of any court rejecting the new lines for this years elections.

Likewise Wice said federal courts will not hear gerrymandering cases following a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision that concluded that partisan challenges do not belong in federal courts.

The redistricting plan also eliminates the 22nd congressional of upstate GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney because of population loss following the census count. She announced Monday that she will for run re-election in another district.

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Malliotakis accuses NY Dems of trying to 'steal' seat with redrawn congressional map - New York Post

A top Democrat is pushing colleagues to pursue all options to revamp the U.S. immigration system and offer a path to citizenship for undocumented individuals.

We need to explore every legislative option and go as big as we can on immigration with the votes weve got, Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray (Wash.) said in a statement Monday, adding that shes as committed as ever to updating immigration laws.

Proposals to protect undocumented immigrants and overhaul the legal immigration system suffered procedural defeats in the Senate last year, while Democrats hit an impasse on their broader social spending and tax proposal (H.R. 5376). Now Democrats and advocacy groups are hoping to recapture last years momentum to find a new path forward.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Activists rally outside the U.S. Capitol to demand that immigration provisions be included in the Build Back Better Act on Dec. 7, 2021.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and other groups on Monday kicked off a two-week lobbying and advocacy initiative focused on securing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. since 2010.

The Senate rule keeper has already said the approach, along with a less ambitious House-passed plan for temporary parole protections, doesnt comport with the chambers requirements for legislation passed through reconciliationthe partisan procedure Democrats are using for the package.

Bigger questions loom about whether negotiations over the package can be revived after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in December announced he wouldnt support the House version. Several Democrats have suggested a downsized version of the legislation could move forward, and President Joe Biden said he supported advancing provisions in chunks.

Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and other top immigration negotiators in the Senate earlier this month said they were pushing to ensure immigration provisions are included in any future version of the package.

Democrats Seek to Salvage Paths for Immigrants in Imperiled Bill

Rep. Chuy Garca (D-Ill.) said that hes frustrated with the pace of immigration negotiations and called on Biden to persuade Senate Democrats to bypass the parliamentarian and pursue the registry update.

Theres simply too much on the line to accept a watered-down deal, he said during a press call Monday. Or worse, walk away with nothing.

Immigrants rights groups are meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus in the coming weeks to keep up momentum, said Luz Castro, national policy advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen M. Gilmer in Washington at egilmer@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah Babbage at sbabbage@bgov.com; Robin Meszoly at rmeszoly@bgov.com

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Top Senate Democrat Aims to 'Go as Big as We Can' on Immigration | Bloomberg Government - Bloomberg Government

The old saying "the majority has its way, the minority has its say" could come to a crashing halt should lawmakers approve a resolution from Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora.

Weissman's House Concurrent Resolution 1002 would ask voters to end the constitutional requirement to read bills at length. Both parties have deployed the tactic of compelling such a reading chambers can dispense with the rule upon the unanimous consent of the legislators present totry and block or delay the passage of legislation.

But the measure's chances of even making it out of the House appear slim, with support lacking from even some ofWeissman's fellow Democrats.

Currently, bills are "read" three times: the first reading occurs when the bill is introduced and assigned to a committee. That reading, however, is not done at length, a change voters approved in 1950.

The second reading happens when the bill is debated and a voice vote is taken. The third reading, should the measure make it that far, is the recorded vote.

Lawmakers dispense with the full reading of bills most of the time.

But requesting that a bill be read at length on second or third reading is a critical tool that Republicans, who have been in the minority in both chambers since 2019, have employed to slow down the Democrats' agenda or to get the majority party to negotiate.

Weissman told Colorado Politics that people, regardless of party and beliefs, have the right to expect that, in a time-limited session of 120 days, their elected senators and representatives will use that time efficiently.

"It's vitally important," he said, that legislators read bills beforevoting onthem, "and you can do that on your phone, your tablet, your watch, your laptop."

In 1876, legislators didn't have the technological options for reading bills, Weissman pointed out.

Much has changed in Colorado since 1876, but this provision in the state Constitution has not.

"Unfortunately, it's used to delay doing the people's business, and the purpose of this referred measure is to ask the people of this state if they want that to continue to be the case," Weissman said.

However, the chances that HCR 1002 will gain the two-thirds vote in both chambers to get to the ballot are virtually nil, Republican lawmakers said.

It would take at least three Republican votes in favor in the House, in addition to the 41 Democrats, for the measure to pass, and at least four Republicans in the state Senate must also support it, along with the 20 Democrats.

The resolution is also raising eyebrows among House Democrats, several of whom indicated they cannot support it.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have used the tactic over the years. For Democrats, the most notable example occurred in 2003, when Republicans, then in the majority in both chambers, rammed through a bill redrawing congressional maps, including a new 7th congressional district, in the last three days of the session.

Senate Democrats attempted a delay by asking that the 28-page bill, which contained mostly thousands upon thousands of numbers tied to each congressional district, be read at length. In political lore, it became known as the "midnight gerrymander."

The issue most recently became a flash point in March 2019, when Senate Republicans asked for a 2,023-page bill to be read at length in an attempt to get Democrats to the negotiating table. Democrats responded by breaking the bill down into multiple sections and setting up a bank of computer reading programs to read the bill aloud.

The reading was unintelligible, at around 600 words per minute.

Senate Republicans sued Senate Democrats in Denver District Court, winning an injunction against the speed readings. The lawsuit, on appeal, went to the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed with the Republicans on a 4-3 vote a year ago.

The justices agreed with the district court's view that unintelligible computer sounds did not constitute reading.

The justices, however, took issue with Denver District Court Judge David Goldberg's directions on how to read a bill.The lower court told the legislature how to comply, and that was a mistake, the majorityjustices concluded.

That error, the Supreme Court said, stems from directing the reading to be "in anintelligible and comprehensive manner, and at an understandable speed."

That's problematic, the Supreme Court opinion stated, because "it imposes parameters around the form or manner by which the legislature" complies with the reading requirement.

Senate Republicans rarely use the tactic, and even less so since winning the court case.

Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, keeps a copy of HB 19-1172 on his desk as a reminder of what's important and when things don't work the way they're supposed to.

Garcia, who served as assistant minority leader before becoming minority leader in the 2018 session, has a strong memory of those days.

"I care about the institution. We have term limits, and if the [legislature] doesn't function the way it's supposed to, that's a travesty for Colorado," he said.

Senate President Leroy Garcia keeps a copy of HB 19-1172 on his desk as a reminder of what's important and when things go off the rails.

"I've always carried those values, that we work together," he said, adding that includes his belief that government works better when everyone is at the table and work together. He said that's what's wrong with Washington, D.C., and the 2019 session headed in a direction he described as "unbecoming" of the Senate.

Since then, the Senate has shown more collegiality among lawmakers from both parties.

"We have this collegiality that needs to exist, so it doesn't become so political," Garcia said.

It's a different matter in the House, where requests to read bills at length take place far more often and where collegiality isn't always obvious.

House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, R-Loveland, pointed to several examples where the bill reading isn't just a dilatory tactic.

In 2019, McKean offered an amendment to a sunset bill on the Public Utilities Commission to rename it the "Turducken Act of 2019."McKean's amendment lost by only two votes. During the last week of the 2019 session, then-Rep. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, successfully offered two amendments that inserted the language of two other bills into the PUC measure. Those two bills HB 19-1037 and HB 19-1313 both failed in the state Senate.

A more recent example took place on June 8, the last day of the 2021 session, and on the last bill voted on by the House.

House Bill 21-1266 was amended in the Senate to include language from another bill, SB 21-200, which died in the Senate the day before. That was in part because Gov. Jared Polis threatened a veto. Both bills dealt with greenhouse gas emissions.

HB 1266 showed up in the House on June 8 with several Senate amendments, including a 26-page amendment that included the language of SB 200, which had never been considered in the House.

McKean complained thatlawmakers had just 34 seconds to consider how the amendments fit into the bill.

"We had no idea" what was in the bill, he said.

During debate on June 8, McKean pointed out that HB 1266 was effectively a brand new bill.

Rep. Perry Will, R-New Castle, said the bill he heard in a House committee was 15 pages, but it came back with 55 pages.

"We heard the bill number, not the bill," he said.

Republicans could have asked for a recess, which was a gamble, McKean told Colorado Politics. The alternative was to ask for a reading of the bill, which he didn't do, instead focusing on language from SB 200 that found its way into HB 1286.

"It should have been read at length," he said, upon reflection.

McKean pointed out that reading a bill at length is also a tool for the public to learn how a bill has been changed.

HCR 1002 was assigned to the House State, Civic, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee. No date has been set for a hearing.

Correction: A previous version said the Constitutional change would require 55% voter approval, and while the bill includes language about Amendment 71's requirement for 55%, Rep. Mike Weissman pointed out that a repeal of language in the Constitution requires only a simple majority.

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Democrat seeks measure to get rid of constitutional rule of "reading the bill at length" - coloradopolitics.com