The week in whoppers: AOC, Rep. Jayapal’s civic illiteracy, the NYT’s warped agenda and more

 

Diary of disturbing disinformation and dangerous delusions

This question:

“Why then for conservatives is the Second Amendment sacrosanct but . . . Roe v. Wade is not?” — CNN’s Don Lemon, May 4

We say: Does Don Lemon know what the Constitution is? He’s a top CNN talking head, yet he doesn’t seem to understand that the 2nd Amendment, guaranteeing the right to “keep and bear arms,” is part of that founding document, America’s supreme law, and is changeable only by other constitutional amendments. Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade, by contrast, are merely judicial rulings. Under the Constitution, the high court can — and has — overturned earlier rulings.

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This statement:

We say: It’s one thing for a CNN host like Lemon to be ignorant of basic civics, but a sitting member of Congress? Of course Supreme Court justices have the right to change rulings — on abortion or anything else. Yes, they’re supposed to respect precedent, but when they believe precedents are “egregiously” wrong (as Justice Samuel Alito notes in his draft opinion overturning Roe), they have a duty to overturn them. Does Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.-D) think the court had no right to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, which blessed the “separate but equal” doctrine? 

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Spot the difference:

The New York Times changed a tweet on the legacy of Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin.

Twitter

We say: Talk about spinning a story (under pressure, no doubt; the first tweet was deleted) to make a terrorist appear more palatable. No one should ever again have any doubt about the Gray Lady’s warped agenda.

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This tweet:

We say: The president has legal authority to bypass Congress? Who knew? So Jayapal isn’t the only civics-illiterate congresswoman: Presidents aren’t allowed to ignore the will of Congress but, under the Constitution, must carry out the laws (and only the laws) it passes. AOC and Jayapal must’ve missed junior-high civics class during that lesson.

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This fact-check:

We say: PolitiFact fact-checker Yacob Reyes rated rated Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ claim — that “almost 60%” of student debt is “graduate-school debt” — “mostly false” because the actual percentage held by grad-degree households is “only” 56%. Huh? Are we in grade school? In his fact-check, Reyes also claims the actual share of grad-school debt (as opposed to debt held by households with graduate degrees) was only about 40%. But DeSantis’ main point — that under Dems’ loan forgiveness, truck drivers and waitresses would be paying off the debts of PhD’s via their taxes — stands. We’d rate Reyes’ fact-check “mostly false.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Black man stuns pro-abortion protesters with one simple question about black lives, viral video shows

A black man left pro-abortion protesters speechless when he confronted them outside a medical clinic and asked them a simple question, according to a viral video circulating on social media.

Details about the video are scarce, but its message is resonating on social media in light of the Supreme Court's leaked potential decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a move that would roll back federal abortion rights and send the controversial issue back to the states.

In response to the forthcoming ruling, abortion advocates have flocked to the nation's capital and gathered outside of abortion clinics across the country in protest, characterizing the decision as unjust violence against women.

The viral video purportedly shows one such demonstration taking place outside a clinic of some sort, but the event most likely did not take place recently given the subject matter of the demonstration. In the video, a group of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are seen holding signs that say "Black Lives Matter" and "White Coats for Black Lives."

The man behind the camera then launches into a poignant line of questioning that leaves the protesters stunned.

"Do all black lives matter or just some black lives?" he asked.

The group shouted back in unison: "All black lives matter!"

"Black lives killed by black men matter, right?" the man then asks.

Some in the group affirmed, but things grew noticeably quieter.

Then the man said: "The black babies killed in the abortion clinics matter, right?"

The group went deafeningly silent.

"Thought so," the man said.

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Biden's inflation forcing Americans to 'unretire' in droves

One in five retirees is likely to return to the workforce this year, thanks to soaring inflation under President Joe Biden, a new survey found this week.

The historic inflation crisis in the U.S. continued to impact nearly every member of American society, and now even those who had resolved to withdraw from work and enjoy the sunset of their lives are being forced back into the labor market once again.

The trend is a remarkable turnaround from the larger-than-usual number of Americans who entered retirement during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the details?

According to a recent survey commissioned by Resume Builder, 20% of America's retirees are poised to take a job again in the coming year. Specifically, 8% said that they are "very likely" to return to the workforce, while 12% said they are "somewhat likely."

Those set to re-enter the workforce indicated that they are overwhelmingly doing so in response to the economic strain brought by rising consumer costs. In fact, 69% of respondents claimed they would return to the workforce to combat rising costs associated with the inflation and supply chain crises.

Another 12.5% said they needed extra money to pay off medical debt accrued during the pandemic. More generally, an eye-opening 83% of those considering "unretiring" expressed concerns about their finances.

The survey sought responses from 800 American citizens over the age of 54 and retired.

While commenting on the survey, career consultant Stacie Haller tried to put a positive spin on the results.

"There is no longer a retirement age and people want to be engaged longer," she said, though acknowledging, "Others are returning to the workplace for financial reasons, and in this new work world, there are now more options for them to return with the advent of remote work [and] more part-time work for older workers who cannot commit to a full workweek."

Another study, this one put on by job website Indeed, found that "as of March 2022, 3.2% of workers who were retired a year earlier are now employed."

Indeed, too, came to the same conclusion as Resume Builder. In its analysis of the trend, the site stated, "Amid a hot labor market and high inflation, retired workers are returning to work at a rising rate. ‘Unretirements’ are on the rise as workers who previously said they were retired are now taking jobs again."

What's the background?

Earlier this year, inflation reached a 40-year peak as consumer prices rose 8.5% year-over-year. The skyrocketing numbers have put the squeeze on many Americans and caused economic experts to fear that a recession is "inevitable."

After downplaying inflation for months, calling it only "transitory," the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve finally admitted the problem to be serious in recent weeks.

The Fed took action this week, albeit likely too late, by raising short-term interest rates by a half-percent — the sharpest rate hike since 2000. More rate hikes are expected in the coming months.

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'Complete lack of self-awareness': Bill Maher blasts 'failed' Twitter for flagging Babylon Bee, censoring Hunter Biden laptop story

 Elon Musk made a deal to purchase Twitter for roughly $44 billion. The tech billionaire said, "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated." On Friday, Bill Maher blasted current and previous Twitter management for "failing" to become an open town square for online discussion. Maher noted that it is time for Twitter to get a "new sheriff."

On Friday's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," the HBO host welcomed former Democratic Alabama Senator Doug Jones and MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi to discuss what – if any – moderation Twitter should have as the online town square.

Maher asked, "Has Twitter failed in setting itself up in the past as the judge of what can go out there?" He then answered his own question, "And I would say yes, you have."

Maher delivered a tongue-lashing to Twitter's management by saying, "You failed when you threw the New York Post off of Twitter for talking about Hunter Biden's emails. And it turned out that was a real story. You failed when you said we couldn't read about whether COVID had come from a lab. You failed!"

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Twitter banned the New York Post for 16 days for sharing damning accusations about an abandoned laptop owned by Hunter Biden and also censored the story. Last month, the New York Times and Washington Post finally got around to authenticating the laptop emails.

Earlier this month, Maher accused left-wing media outlets of burying the Hunter Biden laptop story.

"It looks like the left-wing media just buried the story because it wasn't part of their narrative and that's why people don't trust the media," Maher explained.

Christian satire website The Babylon Bee shared a video of a Twitter employee being too sensitive about Musk purchasing the social media platform.

Twitter Employee Undergoes Therapy Over Elon Musk Takeover youtu.be

Twitter quickly and unironically slapped a warning on the video that claimed the comedic clip "might have sensitive content."

“Our video mocking Twitter employees for being too sensitive was flagged by Twitter for sensitive content,” Babylon Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann wrote. Musk replied with laughing emojis.

Maher described Twitter as having a "complete lack of self-awareness" for flagging the video.

"'Sensitive content,' Twitter said," Maher noted. "In the video, they were making fun of Twitter for being too sensitive. This is so 'Through the Looking Glass.'"

"This is well within what satire has always been," Maher said of The Babylon Bee video. "And the fact that they flagged this for being insensitive shows their complete lack of self-awareness about what their own problem is. If that's where the line is, you have failed Twitter. You do need a new sheriff."

Maher slammed Twitter for becoming a "left-wing place," according to Fox News. The liberal talk show host stressed, "Twitter could be a place where you might see an opinion that you didn't formally consider, and we need that desperately in America."

The HBO host noted, "I'd much rather have Elon Musk making the rules than a 23-year-old who can't take the joke on Babylon Beeswax, or whatever the f*** that is."

Maher said of Gen Z, "I mean, this is a generation that doesn't know what the word ‘violence’ means. They think ‘violence’ means 'anything I don't like.' Their standard of free speech is 'I'm uncomfortable.' That's not where the standard is, right?"

The "Real Time with Bill Maher" host pilloried the education system for failing to teach civics to young Americans.

"Civics doesn't exist anymore. They don't know … ‘Free speech? What the f*** does that mean? It hurt my feelings.’ That's what matters to them. That's what I worry about. I mean, I hear it all the time," Maher declared.

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Watch: CNN contributor annihilates Biden's 'disaster' of a presidency, questions if the country is any better now than under Trump

by Paul Sacca 

Political commentator Scott Jennings delivered a scathing rebuke of President Joe Biden during a recent appearance on CNN. The blistering takedown questioned whether Biden was any different or better on key issues than former President Donald Trump.

"I never imagined how quickly this would all unfold," Jennings said on Thursday's episode of "Anderson Cooper 360." "The person they sold on the campaign, the nice old, you know, moderate grandpa who just wanted to help everybody get along and compromise, is not what we got over the last year."

"He has no mandate really to do much of anything." Jennings continued. "It's amazing that he got a couple of things done when the mandate was really pretty clear – 50/50 Senate, a near 50/50 House, and a pretty close presidential election."

"The mandate was simply, 'Replace Donald Trump and don't do anything drastic or stupid,'" said Jennings, who previously worked as a special assistant for former President George W. Bush and was a former campaign adviser Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

"And everything about this agenda is extremely drastic, and he has been angrier than I think people expected," Jennings said.

Jennings added that Biden has also been "more divisive" and "more partisan" than what Americans anticipated.

"You look at the issues," the CNN contributor noted. "We built five years of coverage on Trump out of Russia, COVID, and democracy."

"The president at his press conference invites Russia to invade the Ukraine," he said.

During Biden's rare press conference on Wednesday, he suggested that "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukraine might not warrant a strong international response. The White House has since walked back Biden's comments.

Jennings pointed out that there have been more COVID-19 deaths under Biden than Trump.

According to Worldometer data, there were 430,803 COVID-19 deaths from the start of the pandemic until Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2020. As of Jan. 20, 2022, there were a total of 884,866 COVID-19 deaths, meaning that there were 454,063 COVID-19 deaths in Biden's first year as president — despite having the benefit of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies that Trump wasn't afforded.

During the presidential debate on Oct. 22, 2020, Biden told Trump, "Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States." At the time, there were approximately 220,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths.

Days before the 2020 presidential election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised Americans, "I'm going to shut down the virus."

Jennings stated, "And now, we have the president and vice president and leading Democrats questioning the legitimacy of the 2022 election."

During Biden's press conference this week, he proclaimed that the 2022 midterm elections "easily could be — be illegitimate." White House press secretary Jen Psaki also walked back Biden's statement that the elections could be illegitimate. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris completely dodged questions about Biden hinting that the elections could be tainted and not conducted fairly.

Jennings — who had been critical of Trump as president while contributing to CNN — slammed Biden, "Are we any better off on these three issues that we crucified Trump over?"

Jennings brought to light a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that found just 28% of Americans want Biden to run for re-election in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats. The survey released on Thursday, said 43% of Americans approve of Biden's job performance versus 56% who disapprove.

"This is a disaster," Jennings declared.

Jennings accused Biden of not showing any interest in key issues such as "schools, crime, your quality of life kind of stuff."

Jennings also tore apart Biden's first year in office in an opinion piece published in the Courier Journal.

"After a year we see the reality: divisive, angry, out-of-touch and as dishonest as his predecessor," he wrote of Biden.

"If there’s a human embodiment of ambiguity, apprehension, and confusion, Biden is it," Jennings said.

Scott Jennings reflects on President Biden's "disaster" of a first year on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360

 Los Angeles County's democratic sheriff says he won't enforce county's vaccine mandate because he can't afford to lose officers due to defunding efforts

Leon Wolf   October 09, 2021

 Democratic Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva says that he does not plan to enforce the county's vaccine requirement for his own deputies because he cannot afford to lose any additional deputies due to the county's attempts to reduce funding for his department.

In August, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis issued an executive order requiring all county employees to be vaccinated by October 1st, without allowing for any exceptions, except for certain narrowly-defined medical and religious reasons.

In his weekly question and answer session with local media earlier this week, Villanueva explained why he would not be enforcing the order among his own deputies. While he stated that he himself is vaccinated and that he is strongly encouraging his deputies to be vaccinated, he noted that the county budget for 2021-22 cuts his department's budget by about 4 percent, which forces him to "pick and choose" which mandates from the county to enforce.

Appearing on Fox News Friday night, Villanueva explained that his department was already short-staffed by about 1,000 employees when it was hit with what he called a "politically motivated" hiring freeze in response to the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

With further cuts to his department coming next year, Villanueva said that he considered the personnel situation in his department to be a public safety issue, and that he could not in good conscience allow his department to lose more officers due to vaccine-hesitancy. Villanueva estimated that approximately 5-10 percent of his force has indicated that they will refuse to get the vaccine, and that "hundreds" of them have told him personally that they would rather lose their jobs than get the vaccine. Villanueva went on to call the mandate "politicized" as well as "poorly thought out [and] poorly executed."

"This issue has become so politicized, there are entire groups of employees that are willing to be fired and laid off rather than get vaccinated," Villanueva said earlier this week, according to Deadline. "So I don't want to be in a position to lose 5-10% of my workforce overnight."

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has not yet publicly responded to Villanueva's defiance of their order.

Separately, a group of Los Angeles Police Department employees sued last month over the city's vaccine mandate, alleging that the mandate violated their federal statutory and constitutional rights.

Sen. Joe Manchin resists own party, delivers possible death blow to Democrats' massive spending bill: 'Fiscal insanity'

by PAUL SACCA - September 30, 2021

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke from his own party to torch the $3.5 trillion social welfare and climate change spending bill. Manchin proclaimed that the government spending trillions right now would be "fiscal insanity."

"Every Member of Congress has a solemn duty to vote for what they believe is best for the country and the American people, not their party," Manchin declared in a statement released Wednesday. "Respectfully, as I have said for months, I can't support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party must ask the simple question — 'how much is enough?'"

"What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can't even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity," Manchin continued.

"Proposing a historic expansion of social programs while ignoring the fact we are not in a recession and that millions of jobs remain open will only feed a dysfunction that could weaken our economic recovery," Manchin said. "This is the shared reality we all now face, and it is this reality that must shape the future decisions that we, as elected leaders, must make."

Manchin proposed that "any expansion of social programs must be targeted to those in need, not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible." He also recommended that the tax code "be reformed to fix the flaws of the 2017 tax bill and ensure everyone pays their fair share but it should not weaken our global competitiveness or the ability of millions of small businesses to compete with the Amazons of the world."

The Democrat suggested, "The amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford — not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending."

Manchin sounded the alarm that spending trillions would cause even more inflation that would hurt American families.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 5.3% in August from a year earlier. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned lawmakers this week that inflation will likely continue in the coming months.

"While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot — and will not — support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces," Manchin said.

"America is a great nation but great nations throughout history have been weakened by careless spending and bad policies," Manchin concluded. "Now, more than ever, we must work together to avoid these fatal mistakes so that we may fulfill our greatest responsibility as elected leaders and pass on a better America to the next generation."

The defiant statement could spell a potential death blow to the massive spending bill because Manchin's vote could derail the proposal. Republicans oppose the $3.5 trillion spending bill — which could cost between $5 trillion and $5.5 trillion over a decade. Democratic leadership desperately wants to pass the huge spending bill, but would need a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate to pass it. That would require a "yes" vote from every Senate Democrat, including Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Both Manchin and Sinema have publicly opposed the hefty price tag of the bill.

Sinema said in July, "I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion — and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues and the administration to strengthen Arizona's economy and help Arizona's everyday families get ahead."

President Joe Biden reportedly canceled a planned trip to Chicago on Wednesday to attempt to get all Democrats on board with the spending bill.

"Biden reportedly met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at the White House Wednesday afternoon following a series of meetings Tuesday with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who oppose both the size of the social spending package and key provisions in it," the Fiscal Times reported.

Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) contended that the reconciliation bill should spend $3.5 trillion "at a minimum."

"If Mr. Manchin is concerned about the deficit — I think we all are, national debt — I'm sure he understands that this bill is not going add one nickel to the deficit because it's all going to be paid for by demanding the wealthy and large corporations starting to pay their fair share of taxes," Sanders said Wednesday, echoing the Democratic talking point that the entire $3.5 trillion in spending will "cost zero dollars" and be paid for by taxing wealthy Americans and big corporations.

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