Bill Hagerty 2024 is a pathetic excuse for a senator, can't show up for critical votes, might as well be 2010 Nancy Pelosi saying we have to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it

 

Sen. Hagerty: "Thank God Elon Musk Bought Twitter, That's The Only Way We'd Even Know What's In This Bill"

American whiners generally rate their own healthcare positively but not the country's

 Gallup, here.

People are in a bad mood about it since 2020 because of what happened during the pandemic with lock-downs, quarantines, and mask and vaccine mandates, and because the expanded emergency coverage from that year has expired with the expiration of the emergency in 2023.

But 71% still think their own healthcare quality is pretty good, compared with 44% saying the same thing about the quality for the country as a whole.

There's always been that disconnect.

And generally speaking, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from this about pre-Obamacare and post-Obamacare experiences because of it. But 62% rated the quality of healthcare in the country highly in both 2012 and 2010, the year Obamacare was passed. That's now down 18 points to 44%. 71% now rate the quality of their own healthcare highly, down 11 points since 2012 from 82%.

I suspect we'll be living with the after effects of the pandemic debacle for a while longer.

 

Just a reminder that way back in February Emerson College Polling showed Democrats had no options other than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, with Trump beating Joe by one point and Harris by three

 

 

 The Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama/Jane Fonda-Rob Reiner cabal which ousted Joe Biden deserves all the scorn it has received, and more.

In February 2024, when 2023 articles from this cabal about dumping Kamala Harris were in the rearview mirror, Harris was under-performing Biden v Trump by just one point, and Harris v Trump was doing 7 points better than Gavin Newsom v Trump and 10 points better than Gretchen Whitmer v Trump. There was no alternative to Joe but Kamala.

Emerson here.

 

 

And Joe always knew that, which is why he immediately endorsed Harris on the Sunday of the July coup. He knew she was weak, but he knew her Democrat competition was weaker.

In the end Trump's win over Harris was by only 1.61 points, half what Emerson had predicted, and almost the one point by which Emerson had predicted Trump would beat Biden, the stronger candidate.

Democrats should never have dumped Joe Biden.

They panicked, and the panic lost them The White House. Had they rallied around their president, he might have survived. Instead they lost their nerve and abandoned him to the predator.

Democrats have too many herd followers, not enough leaders. And had Harris truly been a leader, she would have rallied the troops to her president, and she did not. And the pressure from the herd is also what made Joe Biden drop out, signaling his weakness.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, got bloodied by a gunman but defiantly got up and continued to fight, just as he's done all along, rallying his followers by himself to himself, the simple elemental difference between winning and losing.

 

 

Trump's mission against the Swamp is far more grandiose than his mission to repeal Obamacare, but it will end up the same way

 

 And Roger Kimball should know better.

Kimball completely underestimates the role that will be played by the federal government employee unions in opposing Trump's efforts to axe them. And it's downright preposterous to think that the Leviathan State is going to be unraveled by July 4, 2026 when it took literally decades to erect it.

Trump will fail to drain the swamp, and it will consume all the valuable energy of his victory, too, keeping him from succeeding on the agenda items which are within his reach. His actions might even strengthen those unions. His own new Labor Secretary actually advocates for that!

Democrats should be encouraged by this.

They are going to have a field day litigating everything Musk and Ramaswamy try to shut down, which will drag everything out interminably. Liberals funded the hapless Kamala Harris to the tune of $1 billion, so I'm confident the Marc Eliases of the Democrat Party will shift the Resistance to this effort with a similar level of support because it has a high likelihood of hamstringing Trump in the same way Russia Russia Russia did.

It's disappointing that Republicans don't understand that Trump is a deeply divisive transitional figure, not a transformational one, but Democrats made the same mistake with Joe Biden, until it was too late, on whom they turned as on a dime.

Trump’s Mission To Dismantle the Administrative State

Roger Kimball, Am. Greatness

 

People with a brain know Trump's threat to close the Department of Education is idle

 Can Trump actually close the DOE?

Technically, yes.

However, “It would take an act of Congress to take it out,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, told Vox. “It would take an act of Congress to radically restructure it. And so the question is whether or not there’d be appetite on the Hill for abolishing the department.”

More.

That's because an act of Congress created it in the first place.

Trump is not a dictator, and never will be, although he plays one on TV, which is the real problem.

It's all just words.

 

12,000 jobs in October 2024 for Biden-Harris is almost as bad as zero jobs in August 2011 for Obama-Biden

Revisions to total nonfarm subtracted 112,000 jobs for August and September, too.

 

Barack Obama is a lyin' pos who could have made any such life-saving measures public long before now, but everyone knows they never existed

If they did exist, the lost lives are on him and no one else because he kept his mouth shut, which is what he should be doing right now instead of spewing lies to get Kamala Harris elected.

 

Sometimes it's not the economy stupid: Headline employment under Obama didn't recover until May 2014, but he got re-elected in 2012 anyway

 Six years and four months went by: Jan 2008-May 2014.

And economic confidence actually declined from -11 in 2012 to -10 in 2014 when it did!

It's one of the craziest things in US political history, comparable to FDR getting re-elected throughout the Great Depression, which his economic experimentation only made worse.

By October 2012, 72% said the effects of the Great Recession were still the most important problem, compared to 43% today in October 2024, but it didn't matter that Obama wasn't solving it. He beat Romney anyway.

Is this one of those sometimes?

The same phenomenon may be happening today, but in reverse.

Harris stands to lose despite economic indicators which are chugging along in her favor, or at least not falling apart, to which those 43% seem oblivious.

Civilian employment in July and September 2024 remains near the November 2023 peak. Core inflation is still too high at 2.7%, but it isn't in the 5s anymore like it was for four straight quarters. Congress has thrown the book at the economy since 2Q2020, with nominal GDP growing at an astounding 9.84% compound annual rate because of pandemic spending. That's been a double-edged sword, however, exploding the national debt, inflation, and interest rates.

But economic confidence is Obama-like negative, and has been since it crashed during the pandemic in April 2020 to -32 from its highest level in 20 years under Trump just two months before, in February 2020 at +41.

Trump didn't shut down the economy in 2020, but governors sure did. It was a stark demonstration of just how quickly the wrong leadership can make everything go to hell in a hand basket overnight. The people today aren't wrong to lack confidence.

Ominously for incumbent VP Harris, Gallup thinks 2024 is most analogous to 1992, when Americans booted the incumbent Bush 41 even though the recession had ended more than a year before in 1991.

Majority of Americans Feel Worse Off Than Four Years Ago

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More than half of Americans (52%) say they and their family are worse off today than they were four years ago, while 39% say they are better off and 8% volunteer that they are about the same. The 2024 response is most similar to 1992 among presidential election years in which Gallup has asked the question. ...

With a majority of Americans feeling they are not better off than four years ago, economic confidence remaining low, and less than half of Americans saying now is a good time to find a quality job, the economy will be an important consideration at the ballot box this year. As inflation persists and economic concerns dominate voters' minds, the upcoming election may hinge on which candidate can best address these pressing issues.

 

The average price of gasoline under Biden-Harris remains Obama-like, not Trump-like, costing 44% more on average than under Trump

Gasoline averaged $2.488 per gallon under Trump, 2017-2020 inclusive.

Obama told Gingrich in 2012 that $2.50/gal was a phony promise.

Har-dee-har-har.

Under Biden-Harris gasoline has averaged $3.583 per gallon to date (using three quarters of 2024 at $3.531 as if it were a full year).

 

Trump and Harris agreeing on ending the filibuster rule reminds me of McCain and Obama agreeing on something inadvisable in 2008

 

They both interrupted their campaigns to vote for TARP on October 1, 2008, which became law on Friday, October 3, but did nothing to stop the panic.

On Monday, October 6 Jim Cramer came on the Today Show at 7am and told people who needed their money in the next five years to sell their stocks.

The S&P 500 fell from 1099 to 848 by October 27th, almost 23%, on its way to the March 9, 2009 closing low at 676 (there was an intraday low of 666 on March 6).

Over 500 bank failures marked the era fueled by these events, and more than 6 million lost their homes.

And no one went to jail.

Nothing good will come of ending the filibuster, either, not with the country this divided.

 

CNBC fact-checks Joe Biden, now that it doesn't matter

 But the article name-checks Donald Trump five times because he's an opponent of Fed decisions.

There's a whole movement out there that wants to End the Fed, composed of Republicans, Democrats, and libertarians, which CNBC is loathe to mention.

Many of them argue that the US 2-year Treasury Note should be the benchmark for the Federal Funds Effective Rate, not the whim of the Fed Chair and the Federal Open Market Committee, who are un-elected, well-connected, and VERY WELL PAID elites who watch out primarily for the interests of the banksters.

For example, despite the disastrous Zero Interest Rate Policy post-Great Recession, DGS2 resisted it and outran DFF throughout the period under Obama and Trump, and anticipated the recent inflationary outburst by starting to rise in the spring of 2021, a full year before the Fed moved to "combat inflation" by raising the funds rate in the spring of 2022. 

Similarly DGS2 also started to fall in November of 2023 despite no change to Fed policy, anticipating the recent decline of inflation rates by almost a year.

The role of the US Treasury Secretary, AS MUCH A CREATURE of the Executive as the Fed Chair, is also huge for interest rates because the Secretary decides how to divvy up the debt securities for auction by duration.

Biden's Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been in the news for driving up the issuance in T-bills to 22% when 15% has been customary, which has contributed to longer rates falling and stocks rising, just in time for the election.

But the costs of this have been dramatic, financing deficit spending at the highest rates and driving interest payments on the debt to the third spot in the budget, behind only Social Security and Medicare.

Kamala Harris is going to spread joy and poverty like Barack Obama spread happiness and poverty

 

Trump has been moving left on abortion, adding insult to injury with a commitment to another federal mandate

 In August, Trump reiterated his opposition to Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks. Asked if he supported an amendment to the state’s constitution expanding the right to abortion, Trump said, “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.” Faced with a firestorm of criticism from anti-abortion groups, Trump campaign officials maintained he “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative.” ...

At the end of August, with polls showing a slight lead for Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump announced that “because we want more babies,” his administration would require either the federal government or insurance companies to pay the entire cost (which typically runs in the tens of thousands of dollars per individual) of IVF treatments for all Americans. He did not specify whether his proposal would be implemented through the Affordable Care Act, which he has promised to repeal, or whether he has become an advocate of socialized medicine. Nor did Trump reconcile the plan with the 2024 GOP platform, which has language that seems to support rights of citizenship, under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.

More.

Trump has learned nothing.

 

The middle class couldn't afford restaurants under Obama-Biden, eleven years later they can't afford even fast food under Biden-Harris

 You got what you voted for, good and hard.

 

She's earned nothing, no one voted for her

 Newspaper thinks you earn things with words. Just words.

Not a serious country.

With Acceptance Speech, Harris Earns Her Ascent

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Phony, baloney, plastic banana, good time rock n' rolla Barack Hussein Obama told Republicans to go sit in the back of the bus in October 2010, just before Republicans ate his lunch and swept the House

 In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Monday 25 October 2010.

Video.

Stories:

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-to-gop-%E2%80%98they-can-come-for-the-ride-but-they-have-to-sit-in-back/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-tells-republicans-to-sit-in-back

https://www.today.com/news/rove-reacts-obama-saying-gop-should-be-back-wbna40024583

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/10/25/obama-assails-gop-on-clouded-final-campaign-push/

https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2010/10/26/obama-assails-gop-in-races/26396696007/

 

POLITICO correspondent surprised DNC convention is just like Pelosi saying you have to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it

 

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times: Joe Biden was pushed out by Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and Jeffries, and their handprints are on his back, and Trump will still win

It was a jaw-dropping putsch, she says, a coup even.

Pelosi knifed her pal, she says.

Obama has now sidelined Joe Biden twice, she says.

Everyone's mad at one another at the DNC in Chicago, she says.

"Top Democrats are bristling with resentment".

Read it at The Irish Times.

This is perfect

 

https://obeygiant.com/kamala-harris-forward/

ABC News says Tim Walz didn't deny he served in Afghanistan, appears to have known his unit would be deployed, and repeatedly referred to himself for years with a rank he didn't have

https://abcnews.go.com/US/walz-previously-faced-criticism-characterized-military-service-records/story?id=112833386
 

In early 2016, Tim Walz sat down with CSPAN for a bipartisan discussion about his opposition to President Barack Obama's push to reduce troop levels overseas. To begin the panel, the host introduced Walz -- at the time in his fifth term as a U.S. representative -- in part by incorrectly outlining his military service.

"Enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 and retired 24 years later as Command Sergeant Major," she said of Walz, "and served with his battalion in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan."

Walz nodded in agreement at that statement -- despite the fact that, according to military records and his own admission, he had never served in Afghanistan. ...

 

These inaccuracies, which at times went uncorrected, include Walz not denying the statement that he served in Afghanistan, and Walz repeatedly saying that he retired with a rank he achieved but did not retire with, as well as an instance in 2018 of Walz claiming that he carried weapons of war "in war," about which the Harris-Walz campaign said that he misspoke. ...

Walz appears to have been aware prior to his retirement that his unit was under consideration for deployment. ...

 

In the National Guard, Walz began serving as command sergeant major, a leadership position, in 2004, and was officially appointed to the role in April 2005, shortly before he retired from service, according to a statement from Army Col. Ruan Cochran. However Walz did not remain in the role long enough to keep the title in retirement.

Still, Walz repeatedly referred to himself as a "retired command sergeant major" for years.

-- ABC News