Do These Stories Surprise You?

Interesting Stories & Issues Out There

So the issues dividing the two parties among themselves are clear and evident today.
The Democrats are struggling to get a bill on spending out as the moderates and progressives have a wide disagreement on how much to spend.

The Republicans are divided on the question should Donald Trump control the party going forward.
Which of the parties are facing the bigger divide? Do you think one is a shorter term divide than the other?

Me? I think this divide is going to hurt both in 2022, and I’m not sure which party more. By 2024, I think the leftward challenge in the Democratic party is very dangerous for them.

Here’s an example of the Republican Party divide.
Yesterday we told of the announced retirement of Rep. Gonzalez, one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump.
Well Liz Cheney is taking the opposite approach and look who is backing her; this from the WSJ:
Former President George Bush is backing Rep. Liz Cheney  with his first fundraiser of the 2022 cycle.
The event, Oct. 18 in Dallas, will draw a stark battle line between Trump and Bush in the hotly contested proxy primary for the GOP’s future.
Among the co-hosts for the Cheney fundraiser are Karl Rove (Bush Advisor) and former Sen.Kay Bailey Hutchinson. (Who served in the Trump administration.)  

Me? When two former Presidents of the same party get involved against each other like this, that is not good.

Here’s an interesting story on another “Never Trump” whose family signed up with President Biden in 2020:

Meghan McCain is mad at President Biden. In her inaugural column for The Daily Mail, the former commentator for ABC’s “The View” has a thing or two to say about the 46th president.

“Eight months since President Biden was sworn into office, the anticipation of a tone change and ‘return to normalcy’ has utterly disappeared. The man I once considered a friend and confidante has morphed into a feckless and unreliable leader I no longer recognize. He gives all the signs of stubborn cantankerous naiveté, surrounded by idiotic sycophants anyone who has spent more than fifteen minutes around politics should easily recognize as the worst type of corrupt bureaucrats,” Ms. McCain advised.

Well now, isn’t that interesting.

On the spending plan how do you feel about this from Stephen Moore and his team?
Biden’s Spending And Borrow Binge Is “For The Children”
Biden keeps trying to sell his $5,000,000,000,000 social welfare bill as benefiting “the children.” 
Seriously?
Who does he think is going to pay off this spending and debt? Not any of us. We will be dead.
CTUP in partnership with FreedomWorks have calculated how much every child born today would have to pay in higher taxes over the next 30 years if Biden’s plan is enacted. 
We will be bequeathing $300,000 of debt repayment to every child born today by 2050 in today’s dollars.
On behalf of my children and yours: gee, thanks, Joe.

Me? I don’t want to pass any debt to my children and grandchildren. I can’t understand Americans who don’t want to live within their means. Why is it always spend more and not less to balance the budget?

What do you think of the plan in Minneapolis? They have experienced a surge in violent crime since the riots that engulfed the city in the wake of George Floyd’s murder last year. As an example, they recorded 84 murders last year, and another 67 murders so far this year. At least five kids under the age of 10 have been gunned down in crossfire. 
Now, despite this record, the “Social Justice Warriors” in the city have placed a referendum on the November 2 ballot to disband the police department and replace it with a nebulous Department of Public Safety, which may or may not include police officers but would focus on public health. The details are vague, but backers have referred to it as a de facto “Defund the Police” effort.
The funny thing about all this is that in a recent poll it was white voters who think that fewer cops make sense. Minorities, who bear the brunt of any increase in urban crime, overwhelmingly think the notion is crazy.  

Me? I want more police and fully understand minority concerns about defunding.

In fact, murders are up across the nation this year. The NYT reports that upcoming FBI data is expected to show 2020 had the highest single-year spike in U.S. murders in at least 60 years.  
Some more from the Times report:
FBI data shows a 29% spike in murders last year. That would be the biggest single-year increase since national record-keeping began in 1960. Previously, the largest one-year increase was a 12.7% rise in 1968. 

Me? Not surprised at all. We don’t trust the police, lock people up and then we release them early. Isn’t the logical outcome more crime and murder?

Is the government going to shut down? We’re less than a week away, as we wrote yesterday, and here’s what happened. Politico reported these two stories:
1. How can you tell the threat of a government shutdown is real? The Office of Management and Budget, which oversees federal agencies, will send out its shutdown guidance today. Its standard practice is for OMB to send out such guidance seven days before funding lapses.

2. GOOD NEWS FOR MCCONNELL: The latest weekly POLITICO/Morning Consult poll is out this morning and finds that more voters would blame Democrats than Republicans if the U.S. were to default on its debt. The finding comes as Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL is rallying his members to oppose raising the borrowing cap. Asked which party they would blame more, 33% said Democrats, 42% said both parties, and only 16% said Republicans. Nine percent didn’t know. 

Me? This will come down to the end as always. The question is, will Democrats do it alone since they own both chambers and the Presidency? I think the answer is yes. Their defense will be people need the money today to survive.

Here’s another story that shouldn’t be a surprise to many. It’s on Iran and involves what I think was a weak speech by President Biden and then what Iran said:

President Biden promised to thaw diplomatic relations with Iran and to resurrect a global nuclear deal shunned by his predecessor, but nine months into his term Mr. Biden has little to show for that effort amid growing signs the administration may have misplayed its hand and created an even bolder, more belligerent regime in Tehran. Tuesday’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York offered fresh evidence of the deep gulf that remains between the two sides and how a massive American diplomatic effort hasn’t moved the needle. In his maiden U.N. speech as president, Mr. Biden held out an olive branch to Tehran and said that the U.S. remains willing to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. But Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi just hours later openly mocked Mr. Biden and his political catchphrase that “America is back” on the world stage. The Iranian leader declared that his country believes it has outmaneuvered Washington and now holds a much stronger hand at the negotiating table. “The United States mistakenly believed it would render us desperate and devastated, but our perseverance has yielded results,” he said.

Lastly, this story on the ever interesting Donald Trump. He announced a new lawsuit. This against his niece.
Former President Donald Trump is going on the offensive, filing a $100 million lawsuit against the New York Times and his niece, Mary Trump, as he seeks to withhold disclosing his tax information. Trump filed the lawsuit in the Hudson Valley accusing both his niece and the Times of “tortiously breaching and/or interfering with his contractual rights and otherwise maliciously conspiring against him” as they continue requesting a report on his 2018 taxes.  The lawsuit alleges that the Times coerced Mary Trump to “smuggle records out of her attorney’s office and turn them over to the Times,” despite a confidentiality agreement. It is alleged that Mary Trump had access to “more than 40,000 pages of highly sensitive, proprietary, private and confidential documents, including, but not limited to, financial documents, accountings, tax records, income tax returns, bank statements, legal documents, and other related documents.”

Have A Great Day and Weekend.