OK, we admit we may be just banging our heads against the wall. But we’re not giving up on our crusade to get Republicans to approve the $130 billion of automatic spending cuts that are REQUIRED in Congress’s own legally binding budget rules.
Why in the world wouldn’t they do this when we are spending $1 trillion more this year than we are taking in? Because they say these cuts are too deep! To hear some of the Senate Republicans talk, you’d think we were calling for a starvation budget that would slash popular programs.
That’s preposterous. Please look at the chart below. In the last two years, Congress has approved $5 TRILLION of spending ABOVE the normal spending levels.
You’re telling us that Congress can’t claw back 3% of this federal budget bloat without the world coming to an end?
The front page of this weekend’s New York Times warns of a COVID “Tripledemic” because of an increase in the flu this December.
This looks like more scaremongering by the media as they try all they can to prevent a long-overdue post-COVID return to normalcy.
As we’ve shown on these pages, the early arrival of RSV and Influenza did not portend unusual severity — despite the media panic.
Now the CDC confirms we got it right:
"Not that there is an average flu season, but it’s within the bounds of what we saw during flu seasons prior to the pandemic," Lynnette Brammer, team lead for domestic surveillance in the CDC’s influenza division said. "It doesn’t look particularly severe."
About a month ago we noted influenza was tracking about six weeks earlier than recent pre-pandemic seasons but otherwise looked normal. That has continued:
What about RSV? That peaked in early November and has plunged since:
The irony of all of this "tripledemic" hype is that as COVID has become no more dangerous than other respiratory viruses, instead of promoting a return to normal, the media seems intent on transferring COVID to flu phobia. This is why you see more people donning masks again and even mask mandates coming back.
3) Maybe FTX Was Just A Political Money-Laundering Operation
A month ago, we noted that fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and two other FTX executives gave an estimated $57 million to Democratic candidates and groups and $22 million to Republican candidates and groups. We promised to keep track of which politicians and PACs give the money back so it can go to the victims of SBF’s Ponzi scheme.
The United States attorney’s office in New York has since called on everyone linked to FTX to “work with us to return that money to innocent victims.”
A few - including incoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep.-elect Aaron Bean, a Florida Republican — have either returned FTX donations or given the money to charity. But they remain outliers.
Meanwhile, new donations linked to FTX keep turning up.
A Biden-linked nonprofit called Future Forward USA Action received $1.65 million that was linked to FTX.
One group that appears linked to FTX money is the Elias Group, a law firm described by the New York Times as “the leading political law firm on the left.” Elias was the lawyer who acted as the go-between for payments from Hillary's 2016 campaign to the folks who produced the infamous and inaccurate Steele Dossier that smeared Donald Trump over RussiaGate.
The Times reports that political groups represented by the Elias firm that got FTX money include the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign, and the House Majority PAC.
Will they return the funds? Don’t count on it. House Majority PAC took in $6 million from SBF, but it now has less than $500,000 in assets.
We’re thrilled to report that one of the original founders of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Larry Kudlow, has ended 2022 with the NUMBER ONE business show on all cable TV.
Amazing! It turns out people want a business show that celebrates and promotes free market capitalism. Which, as Larry would say, is the “best path to prosperity.”
5) Media Disparages Argentina Soccer Champs for Being Too White
Congrats to Argentina for winning the World Cup on Sunday – the ultimate sports prize for national pride.
But in an effort to spoil the celebration, the Washington Post wrote an extensive story headlined: “Why doesn’t Argentina’s team have more Black players?” It noted that other South American countries such as Brazil had teams with far more Black representation.
(Given that Argentina won the cup, we can’t help wondering if the Washington Post is implying that blacks are worse than whites at soccer!)
La Libertad Avanza, a conservative political coalition in Argentina, had the perfect response. It noted that the country had less than 150,000 Black people out of a population of nearly 50 million and its soccer team didn’t meet “woke” standards “because we are a country, not a Disney film.”
You would think that a reporter for the Washington Post would at least check the demographics of a country before screaming RACISM!
