End Of Day - 9/19/2022 - He Said What, Progressive Privilege, A Return To Normalcy

He Said What?!

Last week, President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with “60 Minutes” at the Detroit Auto Show. It was his first extensive media interview in seven months. Yet, even that still wasn’t enough time for his staff to fully prepare him for a few softball questions.

For example, when the subject of inflation came up, as the White House surely knew it would, Biden seemed totally unprepared. Consider this exchange:

SCOTT PELLEY: Mr. President, as you know, last Tuesday the annual inflation rate came in at 8.3%. The stock market nosedived. People are shocked by their grocery bills. What can you do better and faster?

JOE BIDEN: Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective. [The] inflation rate month to month was just, just an inch, hardly at all. . .

PELLEY: You're not arguing that 8.3% is good news?

BIDEN: No, I'm not saying it is good news. But it was 8.2% before. I mean, it's not -- you're act -- we act -- make it sound like all of a sudden, "My god, it went to 8.2%. . .”

PELLEY: It's the highest inflation rate, Mr. President, in 40 years.

BIDEN: I got that. . . We're in a position where, for the last several months, it hasn't spiked. It has just barely -- it's been basically even. . . This is a process.

Back to Pelley’s original question, Biden had no answer for what he could do better on inflation. It doesn’t seem to be a big problem to him at all, which is exactly what he has been telling us for months. (Here and here.)

Not surprisingly, this really wasn’t an interview as much as an infomercial for Joe Biden. For example, here’s the burning question Pelley asked about Hunter Biden:

“Mr. President, if you run again, Republicans are most likely to go after your son Hunter once again. And I wonder what you would like to say about your son and whether any of his troubles have caused conflicts for you or for the United States.”

There were so many things Pelley could have asked about – Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine, in Russia, in communist China, who “the big guy” is, how much was Joe’s “10% take” worth. Instead, he essentially asked, “If you run again, Republicans are going to be mean to your child. How does that make you feel?”

That’s not journalism!

More Bad News

Unfortunately, we got more bad economic news today. As interest rates rise and mortgage rates climb, homebuilder sentiment has fallen into negative territory.

Measured on a scale of 0 to 100, it was 83 in January. Now, it’s down to 46. Homebuilder sentiment has been falling now for nine months in a row.

Progressive Privilege

The neo-Marxist outrage over 50 migrants being sent to Martha’s Vineyard has been very telling. It speaks volumes about how much the rich and famous cherish the isolated lives they live while they inflict their radical policies on the rest of us.

More than 60 people were shot in Chicago this weekend. Nine were killed. But you don’t hear the left condemning those shootings and murders. No, they’re far more outraged over a couple dozen migrants landing in Martha’s Vineyard.

The mayor of Washington, D.C., another progressive “sanctuary city,” whined to the media about the illegal aliens arriving in her city. She said, “We’re not a border town. We don’t have an infrastructure to handle this level of immigration to our city. . . We’re not Texas.”

In other words, the left believes it can send thousands of migrants into your communities, into your hospitals and your schools. They can release criminal aliens onto your streets, but don’t you dare send a few dozen migrants to Martha’s Vineyard or Washington, D.C.!

The left is perfectly fine with open borders as long as suburban and rural communities are the ones being overwhelmed. But as soon as they have to deal with the negative effects of open borders, suddenly illegal immigration is a national emergency.

Here are some facts you need to know:

Two million illegal aliens have entered the country since Joe Biden took office.
The Border Patrol recently set a new record by logging 8,000 apprehensions in one day. At that rate, nearly three million people would be crossing our southern border in a year.
More illegal aliens have been arrested along the southern border in the last 18 months than during all eight years of the Obama Administration.

The high number of apprehensions may sound like good news, but it’s actually bad news. Most of them are released into the U.S. and will never show up for their court dates. This unprecedented surge means illegal aliens from all over the world know our border is wide open, and they are coming in record numbers because they know Joe Biden won’t stop them.

A Return To Normalcy

Glenn Youngkin stunned the political establishment when he defeated former Governor Terry McAuliffe’s comeback bid in last November’s race for governor of Virginia. All the polls showed McAuliffe leading until the final week of the campaign.

The issue that many believe cinched it for Youngkin was parental rights in education. Youngkin ran hard on getting critical race theory out of the public schools. McAuliffe suggested critical race theory wasn’t real, and he dismissed such concerns as “conspiracy theories.”

But McAuliffe really lost it when he suggested that parents and taxpayers shouldn’t have any say over what is taught in the public schools.

Soon after taking office, Governor Glenn Youngkin moved to ban critical race theory from the schools. And he didn’t stop there.

Late last week, Youngkin’s Department of Education threw out rules written by the previous left-wing administration that allowed students to pick and choose their bathrooms and pronouns.

From now on, students must use the bathrooms that match their biological sex and they must be called by the names and pronouns listed on their official records. In other words, Virginia is returning to normalcy after a couple of years in La La Land.

The rules change comes on the heels of reports that radical teachers and school administrators are “transitioning” students without their parents’ knowledge, while teachers who refuse to lie about biological reality have been fired.

Gov. Youngkin made the right call. While the Washington Post and some radicals are furious with him, the American people overwhelmingly agree with him.

A newly released poll by the New York Times asked voters whether they supported or opposed teaching children in the public schools about sexual orientation and gender identity. When it came to elementary school children, 70% of voters said they opposed teaching young kids about these radical ideas. Only 27% thought it was okay.

As you may recall, this is the same premise behind Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act that passed earlier this year. Polling found widespread, bipartisan support for the commonsense Florida law, but Disney’s woke CEO vehemently opposed it.

Unbelievably, Joe Biden and today’s radical Democrat Party are willing to die on this hill. The Biden Administration is threatening to hold funding for school lunches hostage if school districts resist the transgender agenda.

Republicans should welcome this fight! They should prioritize parental rights and school choice. There are few issues that have this kind of public support. Republicans must talk about more than just inflation.