Free Republic

Regarding that cancer research funding that was in the omnibus bill and was cited as a reason the GOP needed to vote for the bill (from the linked article):

“(Hours after the third attempt to craft a resolution that both houses would pass succeeded, the Senate finally got around to passing the House bill for this research.)”

Turns out that Schumer had been sitting on the House-passed bill for months. Clearly, he was holding it hostage to pass the omnibus. This deserves more attention.

Yes, they lose their fifth amendment protection. So maybe a bunch of pardons will enable the GOP to get some real testimony on the record as to what actually happened that day.

If they refuse to testify, or testify falsely, they’ll open themselves to punishment outside of the scope of the pardon (maybe), so it will be easier to get at the truth than if they are all lawyered up and trying to stay out of jail for their actions on Jan 6th.

And, in this case, getting at the truth is essential for the nation to heal. People need to know they were conned.

The only thing I know for sure about all this is that 3,000 square kilometers is not 74,000 acres; it’s 740,000 or so.

Put an in-wall gun safe in every classroom and change the signs on the doors from “Gun-Free Zone” to “Teachers and Staff are Armed”

Then train those teachers who are willing to keep a gun in their safes to use them. They don’t all have to be armed, but it would get the damned signs off the doors and give these monsters reason to go elsewhere instead of assuring their safe entrance. Then there’s the plus that one of those guns will be put to its intended use someday.

>>“try to get your liberal and progressive friends and family to see it.”

That’s the problem. Libs and progs will refuse, so the movie basically is preaching to the choir.<<

Granted, so maybe get a NeverTrumper friend to see it? Or one of those soccer moms now upset at Biden’s treatment of their kids in school, but who voted for Biden because of mean tweets?

>>Playing devil’s advocate with this.<<

The author at the Wash Post link you cited tries to make the case that: 1) the votes themselves aren’t alleged to be illegal votes, and 2) so what if people (the mules) took them to drop boxes as long as the votes were legal and drop boxes were allowed?

What he fails to explain, as I believe the movie demonstrates, is why those “mules” felt the need to have a route covering dozens of drop boxes if, in fact, the ballots they were carrying were legal ballots, and if the “mules” were violating no laws. Why not just deposit the entire stash of ballots in the first drop box he encountered, the nearest one? Why deposit a few and move on to the next drop box? An exercise regimen, perhaps?

Frankly, I would argue that such behavior is an indication that the ballots themselves were fraudulent, and not just that legal votes were being cast in an illegal manner.

Again, this has been absolutely debunked by the very sources relied upon by the Times reporters, and the reporters had advance notice from their sources that they were reporting wrong. They went ahead anyway. Scum is too nice a word.

Just a suggestion if you live in Wisconsin, or any state that has a public voter registration system on the web:

If you know the first and last name and birth date of a nursing home resident who is obviously incapable of voting, whether a relative or not, in WI you can go to the voter registration site and confirm whether that resident is registered. You can also track their ballot, i.e., whether they’ve requested one, received one, and sent one back.

Obviously, if they’re incompetent (and ruled so, with a guardian appointed), they shouldn’t even be registered, much less receive a ballot and vote it. One of my relatives, for example, while not deemed incompetent, has absolutely no interest in voting nor the knowledge to cast an informed vote any longer. He should not be voting, and would not unless induced to do so by someone. So, I’m keeping an eye on the process. Thinking about it, I suppose I should tell him to revoke his registration since he has no intention of voting.

This would make a good project, actually. It wouldn’t be that hard to get names and birth dates of other residents in your local nursing home, particularly if you’re often visiting a relative. Finding out which ones are in no mental condition to cast a valid vote and tracking their ballots could yield a lot of results. Even better, it could lead to a process where their registrations were revoked permanently, making it even more difficult for someone else to induce them to vote. After all, even a guardian shouldn’t be allowed to cast the vote of an incompetent ward.

Per the source document: Dated: 02/10/2022

So GWP is wrong when they said that it was announced over the weekend. Plus, this is a Board of Governors meeting, not a meeting of the Open Market Committee that sets monetary policy.

Just a random thought: The Biden administration has already accused Russia of planning a false flag operation to place the blame for the start of any hostilities on the Ukrainians.

Maybe we should assume, as we usually can do in all matters Democrat, that what they’re accusing others of doing is exactly what they intend to do themselves?

If the Ukraine is attacked and Putin says they didn’t do it, perhaps we should cut him some slack for a bit?

Can’t someone just leak the damned report?

I hope Tucker Carlson manages to get to this tonight. I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sounds like Nancy might be managing her own secret police corps.

On the off chance that someone here might be interested in a discussion of the Fed’s role in inflation, here are a number of points for consideration:

1. The Fed lost direct control of the money supply when it aggressively expanded excess reserves over a decade ago while simultaneously deciding to pay banks interest on those excess reserves. However, there was no particular catalyst that got money growth going until Covid came along.

2. Before Covid, the imposition of higher risk/capital requirements on individual banks combined with the interest they were being paid on excess reserves kept the excess reserves from circulating, i.e., from entering the money supply used by the public.

3. With Covid came trillions of dollars of direct payments to consumers and businesses. This bypassed the banking system, putting the new dollars directly into the hands of the public. This was the equivalent of Venezuela printing new bolivar notes and using them to pay for its expenses by making direct cash payments to individuals and businesses, an action that precipitated a hyperinflation.

4. As with Venezuela, the U.S. public began driving prices higher using the direct payments from the government. Since the Covid cash was deposited into personal bank accounts, total bank deposits, including M2, increased accordingly.

5. Then, with the banking system flush with cash and willing to lend, the initial price rises started to drive increased bank lending. For example, a house that sold for 20% more than a year ago generated a new mortgage loan 20% higher than it would have been a year ago. Ditto for car loans, personal loans, credit card loans, etc.

6. The result is that the Covid payments were the catalyst to get those excessive bank reserves started into circulation. Once that happened, and prices started rising, the risk is that it continues, with higher prices on everything generating higher lending. Rinse and repeat.

7. Now, with no impinging reserve requirements, hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar has become a distinct possibility. The “transitory” part of inflation might just be a transition from single-digit inflation to double and triple digit inflation, rather than back down to 0-2% again.

8. The Fed’s dilemma, as perceived by nearly all, is that it can’t remove several trillion dollars of unneeded bank reserves over a short period of time without destroying the bond market and it can’t raise interest rates to levels that would get in front of higher inflation. That would require short-term rates in excess of 5% today and possibly much higher. Either move would raise government spending significantly which would increase the deficit even further.

9. But there is a way for the Fed to restore normalcy. It’s just that it has gotten zero consideration. The way to soak up all of the existing reserves in the banking system without requiring the Fed to liquidate its portfolio to a large extent is to change the current reserve requirement from the present 0% to a rate high enough to absorb the entire reserve balance. That would mean setting reserve requirements at somewhere between 40% and 50%. Incidentally, Milton Friedman once advocated a 100% reserve requirement on transaction balances (checking accounts).

10. The result would be to remove the need for the Fed to sell any bonds, while successfully converting all of the present excess reserve balance into required reserves. At that point, the risk of a hyperinflation would be reduced to zero which would remove the need to raise short rates aggressively to get ahead of the present inflation rate, one that risks rising rapidly at present.

That’s it. I don’t see any alternative way out other for the Fed. Tapering certainly isn’t going to do it, nor will modest interest rate increases while inflation is accelerating rapidly.

From the article:

>>CNN’s media newsletter reported:

The White House, not happy with the news media’s coverage of the supply chain and economy, has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor.<<

I find it interesting that CNN allowed this to be published at all. Maybe having to fire Cuomo for cause has them wondering about their present business model?

This guy has made claims that are easily checked if just one single reporter anywhere in the world would make the effort. So why doesn’t someone do so? Serious question.

Instead we get rebuttals in the form of broad statistics. Meanwhile those inclined to believe the claim add anecdotal evidence of their own.

Just go find out if what he’s saying actually happened. Are there no actual journalists anymore?

>>But no one is saying these votes were miscounted, only that the audit process and cataloging of batches was sloppy.<<

You might be right. I don’t have any idea because there wasn’t enough information in the article.

It would be nice if the vast majority of comments to the article would have focused on figuring out what the article was all about instead of just whining about the GOP and Kemp. Yours was the only one that even attempted to address the content of the article.

I tried to email the author to suggest she insert some links to sources such as the audit itself, Rossi’s work, and the Sawyer court case documents, but there doesn’t appear to be a contact email in her article either.

I don’t know about states other than Wisconsin, but in Wisconsin anyone can go to the Wisconsin registration website and put in anyone’s name, birthdate, and address and then see their voting record (not the vote itself, but whether that person voted in past elections.)

If you live in Wisconsin and have an elderly relative who was either too cognitively impaired to vote, or who just didn’t want to vote at all, try putting their info into the registration site and see if they voted.

I’ll tell you this much. A lot more of them ended up with absentee ballots this time around than in previous elections, whether they wanted them or not.

In other words, what happened at that single nursing home in Racine probably happened all over the state. And if the cognitively-impaired had their votes cast illegally, who is to say that didn’t also happen to many of the other residents in those homes? Or how many were heavily influenced by the person helping to fill out the ballot?

So, if you live in WI and have someone you can check on, try it and see what you learn.

>>So, what is continuing to hold interest rates down? Manipulation?<<

Bingo!

The Fed’s main concern right now is what happens to the value of their portfolio when they stop supporting the bond market.

I’ve heard personal stories from two different managers recently. The first had 12 interviews with job applicants scheduled. Only one showed up. The second had six applicants. None showed up.

Both said that such applicants are just collecting the paperwork to keep getting benefits that require them to be looking for employment.

Until those benefits end, or are reduced significantly, the situation is unlikely to change.

My initial reaction: The details of this sort of story rarely support the headlines. (And now I’ll read it.)