November 15, 2023

Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Joe is always busy.

Inflation stayed still. A miracle.

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Israel-Hamas War Update.

An estimated 290,000 people were at yesterday’s #MarchForIsrael in Washington.

People marched for Israel, for the hostages and against antisemitism.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog, Sen. Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, actor Debra Messing and several families of hostages spoke at the demonstration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

But it was Leader Hakeem Jeffries who delivered a speech that overwhelmed the crowd.

Touch to watch. 👇

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Israeli Military announces military action on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

The Israeli army asked Hamas to surrender.

The Israeli military said early Wednesday its troops were raiding Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, a complex of buildings where thousands of people have taken shelter and conditions for patients have grown increasingly horrific in recent days as fuel and medical supplies have run out.

In a statement posted on social media, the Israel Defense Forces said it had launched “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.” It remained unclear how many troops were involved in the assault or what their immediate objective was.

Fighting has been raging around the compound for days, and the hospital was hit by ordnance at least four times over the weekend, killing several people, the hospital director said.

A spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health told Al Aqsa TV just before the raid that the Israeli military had warned them a military operation was imminent.

Israeli commanders say that Hamas fighters have built an underground operational hub and tunnels under the hospital. They have accused Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, of using patients, doctors and hospital workers as human shields for command centers and safe houses. The United States has backed Israel’s description, saying it has intelligence supporting it. Hamas and hospital officials deny the accusations.

Hospital officials say conditions are dire for patients as fuel for generators has run out, shutting down equipment. Medicine, anesthetics and other supplies are also all but gone. At particular risk are roughly three dozen premature babies whose incubators were turned off.

The hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, said that doctors had performed surgeries on Monday without anesthesia and oxygen, and that multiple people had died at the medical complex. Health workers had been forced to bury decomposing bodies on the grounds, he and Gazan health officials said.

In the statement, the Israeli military said that the aim of the raid was not to harm civilians, and the force that went into the hospital included medical teams and Arabic speakers. “Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza,” the announcement said. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said on social media that the military would transfer incubators, medical equipment and baby food to the hospital. He claimed that, before the raid, Israel had tried evacuate the hospital’s patients and the people who had taken shelter there, creating a safe route for them to leave.

The military’s statement said the “relevant authorities in Gaza” had been warned on Monday that “all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours,” adding, “Unfortunately, it did not.” (New York Times).

Inside Hamas Terrorist Tunnel Under Rantisi Hospital in Gaza.

You will be shocked, mesmerized and become maybe a little more informed after watching this video of the tunnel in Gaza under another hospital.

One more thing.

Hillary spoke about why there can’t be a cease fire.To save Israel and Gaza, Hamas must go. (Click on the photo to read the whole article by the Secretary of State).

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Trump’s 2nd Term Plans Summarized.

Heather Cox Richardson. Letters from an American.November 13, 2023.

Claremont, NH, Veterans Day. A Day of Infamy. The day Trump’s Nazi ranting came to the fore.

In a speech Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting yesterday on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis.

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream…. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

The use of language referring to enemies as bugs or rodents has a long history in genocide because it dehumanizes opponents, making it easier to kill them. In the U.S. this concept is most commonly associated with Hitler and the Nazis, who often spoke of Jews as “vermin” and vowed to exterminate them.

The parallel between MAGA Republicans’ plans and the Nazis had other echoes this weekend, as Trump’s speech came the same day that Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that Trump and his people are planning to revive his travel ban, more popularly known as the “Muslim ban,” which refused entry to the U.S. by people from some majority-Muslim nations, and to reimpose the pandemic-era restrictions he used during the coronavirus pandemic to refuse asylum claims—it is not only legal to apply for asylum in the United States, but it is a guaranteed right under the Refugee Act of 1980—by claiming that immigrants bring infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

They plan mass deportations of unauthorized people in the U.S., rounding them up with specially deputized law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers contributed by Republican-dominated states. Because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t have the space for such numbers of people, Trump’s people plan to put them in “sprawling camps” while they wait to be expelled. Trump refers to this as “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

Trump’s people would screen visa applicants to eliminate those with ideas they consider undesirable, and would kick out those here temporarily for humanitarian reasons, including Afghans who came here after the 2021 Taliban takeover. Trump ally Steve Bannon and his likely attorney general, Mike Davis, expect to deport 10 million people.

Trump’s advisors also intend to challenge birthright citizenship, the principle that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. This principle was established by the Fourteenth Amendment and acknowledged in the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision during a period when native-born Americans were persecuting immigrants from Asia. That hatred resulted in Wong Kim Ark, an American-born child of Chinese immigrants, being denied reentry to the U.S. after a visit to China. Wong sued, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment established birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court agreed. The children of immigrants to the U.S.—no matter how unpopular immigration was at the time—were U.S. citizens, entitled to all the rights and immunities of citizenship, and no act of Congress could overrule a constitutional amendment.

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Trump immigration hardliner Stephen Miller told the New York Times reporters. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”

In addition to being illegal and unconstitutional, such plans to strip the nation of millions of workers would shatter the economy, sparking sky-high prices, especially of food.

For a long time, Trump’s increasingly fascist language hasn’t drawn much attention from the press, perhaps because the frequency of his outrageous statements has normalized them. When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 referred to many Trump supporters as “deplorables,” a New York Times headline read: “Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P.* Pounces.” Yet Trump’s threat to root out “vermin” at first drew a New York Times headline saying, “Trump Takes Veterans Day Speech in a Very Different Direction.” (This prompted Mark Jacobs of Stop the Presses to write his own headlines about disasters, including my favorite: “John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to the Theater in a Very Different Direction.”)

Finally, it seems, Trump’s explicit use of Nazi language, especially when coupled with his threats to establish camps, has woken up at least some headline writers. Forbes accurately headlined yesterday’s story: “Trump Compares Political Foes to ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda.”

Republicans have refused to disavow Trump’s language. When Kristen Welker of Meet the Press asked Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel: “Are you comfortable with this language coming from the [Republican] frontrunner,” McDaniel answered: “I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging.” Others have remained silent.

Trump’s Veterans Day “vermin” statement set up his opponents as enemies of the country by blurring them together as “Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs.” Conflating liberals with the “Left” has been a common tactic in the U.S. right-wing movement since 1954, when L. Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley Jr. tried to demonize liberals—those Americans of all parties who wanted the government to regulate business, provide Social Security and basic welfare programs, fund roads and hospitals, and protect civil rights—as wannabe socialists.

In the United States there is a big difference between liberals and the political “Left.” Liberals believe in a society based in laws designed to protect the individual, arrived at by a government elected by the people. Political parties disagree about policy and work to change the laws, but they support the system itself. Most Americans, including Democrats and traditional Republicans, are liberals.

Both “the Left,” and the “Right” want to get rid of the system. Those on the Left believe that its creation was so warped either by wealth or by racism that it must be torn down and rebuilt. Those on the Right believe that most people don’t know what’s good for them, making democracy dangerous. They think the majority of people must be ruled by their betters, who will steer them toward productivity and religion. The political Left has never been powerful in the U.S.; the political Right has taken over the Republican Party.

The radical right pushes the idea that their opponents are “Radical Left Thugs” trying to tear down the system because they know liberal policies like Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection, reproductive rights, gun safety legislation, and so on, are actually quite popular. This weekend, for example, Trump once again took credit for signing into law the Veterans Choice health care act, which was actually sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and signed by President Barack Obama in 2014.

The Right’s draconian immigration policies ignore the reality that presidents since Ronald Reagan have repeatedly asked Congress to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws, only to have Republicans tank such measures to keep the hot button issue alive, knowing it turns out their voters. Both President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have begged Congress to fund more immigration courts and border security and to provide a path to citizenship for those brought to the U.S. as children. They, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, have tried to slow the influx of undocumented migrants by working to stabilize the countries from which such migrants primarily come.

Such a plan does not reflect “hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country.” It reflects support for a system in which Congress, not a dictator, writes the laws.

A video ABC News published tonight from Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’s plea deal makes the distinction between liberal democracy and a far-right dictatorship clear. In it, Ellis told prosecutors that former White House deputy chief of staff and social media coordinator Dan Scavino told her in December 2020 that Trump was simply not going to leave the White House, despite losing the presidential election.

When Ellis lamented that their election challenges had lost, Scavino allegedly answered: “‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave.” Ellis replied: “‘What do you mean?” Scavino answered: “The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.” When Ellis responded “Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize?” he allegedly answered: “We don’t care.”

*The GOP, or Grand Old Party, is an old nickname for the Republican Party. (Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American.November 13, 2023.)

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From the January 6th case in Washington- Testimony from Trump’s Team.

The high (low?) point of the former Trump lawyers’ testimony (leaked and obtained by the Washington Post) may be this - Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’ testimony that Trump’s caddy-turned-deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino told her, “The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.”

Hear the words. Recognize what they mean. “The Boss.” “We are just going to stay in power.”

Here is Jenna Ellis’s testimony on video. Just touch👇!

To support Trump means to wave goodbye to Democracy. We all must fight.

One more thing.

Remember this. Trump knew. Trump didn’t care about Democracy.

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Trump’s violent rhetoric is out of control…again.

Jonathan Karl said the ex-president told him he wanted his followers to take his words to heart and added, "I believe the press is the enemy of the people."

Trump Told Reporter He Hopes Fans Act On His Fiery Rhetoric.

Donald Trump has long been known for directing fiery rhetoric at his followers, and he apparently wants to them to take his words seriously.

That’s according to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, who said the former president admitted to him that he hopes his supporters act on his words ― even if it means violence.

That was the assertion the Washington correspondent made Monday in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, when he discussed a conversation he had with Trump in August 2019, after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

“There were real concerns that there would be copycats, there would be more [shootings],” Karl told Wallace.

Trump responded using phrases that echoed the propaganda of Nazi Germany, Karl said, even though he might not know the history of it.

“He’s using this language,” Karl said. “This language out of the Third Reich — ‘enemy of the people.’”

Karl said he asked the president if he was worried his supporters might take his words to heart, saying, “Aren’t you concerned they will act on them?”

Karl said Trump didn’t miss a beat with his response.

“He said, ‘I hope they take my words to heart. I believe the press is the enemy of the people,’” Karl remembered Trump telling him.

Karl said he is still trying to figure out what would make a person say things that could inspire others to lash out.

“Maybe it’s an inability to have any kind of empathy or understanding of the consequences of your words, but [his rhetoric] is consistent. That’s not new.”

Karl’s comments came after a wild weekend in which Trump, in the words of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, went “full-on Hitler” and referred to political opponents as “vermin” during a Veterans Day speech in Claremont, New Hampshire.

You can watch Karl’s segment below.

https://youtu.be/Ms3wHQiZhNA

(HuffPost).

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Add Hypocrisy to Speaker Mike Johnson’s sins.

Johnson Said in 2015 Trump Was Unfit and Could Be ‘Dangerous’ as President.

The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mike Johnson wrote in 2015.

Speaker Mike Johnson, then a Republican state lawmaker, posted on social media that Donald J. Trump lacked the character and morality to be president and could be vindictive.

Years before he played a lead role in trying to help President Donald J. Trump stay in office after the 2020 election or defended him in two separate Senate impeachment trials, Speaker Mike Johnson bluntly asserted that Mr. Trump was unfit to serve and could be a danger as president.

“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle.

Challenged in the comments by someone defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson responded: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”

Mr. Johnson, then a state lawmaker in Louisiana, also questioned what would happen if “he decided to bomb another head of state merely disrespecting him.”

“I am only halfway kidding about this,” he wrote. “I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be President.”

The comments came at a time when many Republicans who would later become loyalists of Mr. Trump were disparaging him and declaring him unfit to hold the nation’s highest office. Only later did they fall in line and serve as the first-line defenders of his most extreme words and actions.

But Mr. Johnson’s anti-Trump screed has, until now, flown under the radar, in a large part because Mr. Johnson himself did, too, before his unlikely election as speaker last month put him second in line to the presidency.

These days, Mr. Johnson only praises Mr. Trump and defends him against what he dismisses as politically motivated indictments and criminal charges. Mr. Trump has lauded Mr. Johnson as someone who has acted as a loyal soldier since the beginning of his political rise.

In a lengthy statement to The New York Times on Monday night attempting to distance himself from the comments, Mr. Johnson endorsed Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign publicly for the first time, and said his earlier statements were made before he personally knew Mr. Trump. He attributed them to the fact that “his style was very different than mine.”

“During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won me and millions of my fellow Republicans over,” Mr. Johnson said. “When I got to know him personally shortly after we both arrived in Washington in 2017, I grew to appreciate the person that he is and the qualities about him that made him the extraordinary president that he was.”

Mr. Johnson, who campaigned for Mr. Trump in 2020, added: “Since we met, we have always had a very good and friendly relationship. The president and I enjoy working together, and I look forward to doing so again when he returns to the White House.”

A spokesman for Mr. Trump declined to comment on the posts.

In 2015, Mr. Johnson, who would announce his first run for Congress the next year, wrote that he was horrified as he watched Mr. Trump’s debate performance with his wife and children.

“What bothered me most was watching the face of my exceptional 10 yr old son, Jack, at one point when he looked over at me with a sort of confused disappointment, as the leader of all polls boasted about calling a woman a ‘fat pig.’”

In one of the most famous exchanges from that debate, Megyn Kelly, a moderator and then a Fox News host, asked Mr. Trump about his history of referring to women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”

“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Mr. Trump responded. He added that the country’s problem was political correctness, something he didn’t have time for.

Mr. Johnson was horrified.

“Can you imagine the noble, selfless characters of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln or Reagan carrying on like Trump did last night?” wrote Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian. He noted that voters needed to demand a “much higher level of virtue and decency” than what he had just witnessed.

During the Trump administration, Mr. Johnson enjoyed a friendly relationship with the president. In 2020, he accompanied him, along with other House Republicans, to the college football national championship game between Louisiana State University and Clemson.

After the election that year, he played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results. On Nov. 8, 2020, Mr. Johnson was onstage at a northwest Louisiana church speaking about Christianity in America when Mr. Trump called him to discuss legal challenges to the election results.

In recent years, Mr. Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, has used a podcast he hosted with his wife to defend Mr. Trump against four different indictments and the criminal charges against him.

“I think every single one of these bogus prosecutions is overtly weaponized political prosecutions of Donald Trump,” Mr. Johnson said on one episode.

On another, Mr. Johnson proclaimed, “No one did it better in the White House than President Trump.”

In last month’s speaker’s race, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Johnson, noting that he was someone who had “supported me, in both mind and spirit, from the very beginning of our GREAT 2016 Victory.”

Mr. Johnson is far from alone in having expressed deep concerns about Mr. Trump, only to go on to later embrace him and his agenda.

In 2015, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” as well as a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.” He went on to serve as Mr. Trump’s most loyal defender in the Senate.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the second-to-last man left standing in the 2016 Republican primary race, called Mr. Trump a “pathological liar” who was “utterly amoral,” a “serial philanderer” and a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.” Mr. Cruz has explained his decision to become a loyal defender of Mr. Trump as something that was a “responsibility” to his constituents.

Mick Mulvaney, the former Republican congressman who went on to serve as the president’s acting chief of staff, in 2016 called his future boss a “terrible human being” who had made “disgusting and indefensible” comments about women.

Unlike the other lawmakers who fell in line, however, Mr. Johnson has pitched himself as someone of deep religious convictions, whose worldview is driven by his faith. (New York Times).

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The headline of the article below could be - House Democrats save Mike Johnson and GOP’s xxx.

Those of us who prefer the Government avoid a shutdown are grateful.

House Passes Plan to Avert Shutdown in Bipartisan Vote.

With many Republicans refusing to back more government spending, Democrats supplied the bulk of the votes to extend federal funding through early 2024.

Speaker Mike Johnson was forced on Tuesday to rely on Democratic votes as the House passed legislation to keep federal funding flowing into early 2024, after scores of Republicans opposed his plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the week.

Almost all Democrats and a majority of Republicans overcame the opposition of G.O.P. conservatives to approve the bill under special expedited procedures that required a supermajority. That approach, hatched by Mr. Johnson in his first weeks as speaker, amounted to a gamble that a substantial number of Democrats would rally to help pass a package that Mr. Johnson’s own members were unwilling to back.

The vote was 336 to 95, easily clearing the two-thirds threshold required for passage. In the end, 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans joined to pass the bill. Ninety-three Republicans opposed it, as did two Democrats.

The final tally vividly reflected a dynamic that dogged both Mr. Johnson and his predecessor, Speaker Kevin McCarthy: The House G.O.P. lacks the political will to keep the government funded, forcing its leaders, operating with only a tiny majority, to rely on Democratic votes to do so or face the political backlash for a shutdown.

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation and send it to President Biden’s desk within days. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, told reporters that he wanted the Senate to vote on the bill “as soon as possible.”

Despite criticism of the Johnson plan by the White House when it was released last weekend, Mr. Schumer said he had consulted with the administration and “both of us agreed, the White House and myself, that if this can avoid a shutdown, it will be a good thing.”

Approval of the bill means that government services will continue uninterrupted through the holiday season into early next year, staving off another self-imposed crisis just ahead of Thanksgiving.

But it buys Congress only a few more months before lawmakers find themselves in the same situation again. And the deep divisions among Republicans over government spending levels will not be easily resolved in the weeks to come.

The legislation would fund federal agencies at current spending levels with two different expiration dates: Jan. 19 for one set of government programs and Feb. 2 for another set. That timing would allow lawmakers more time to try to finish off the individual annual spending bills, as many conservatives have demanded. The bill did not include any military aid to Israel and Ukraine.

Mr. Johnson hailed the legislation as having broken an increasingly common practice in Washington of funding the government with one huge spending bill, known as an omnibus, a routine conservatives have long derided.

“We are not going to have a massive omnibus spending bill right before Christmas,” Mr. Johnson said. “That is a gift to the American people. Because that is no way to legislate. It is not good stewardship.”

In the days leading up to this week’s funding deadline, some hard-liners in Mr. Johnson’s conference had suggested that Republicans should let the government shut down and use that as leverage to try to force lower spending levels.

That was an argument that Mr. Johnson might have accepted as a rank-and-file member. In September, he was among a significant minority of Republicans who opposed the stopgap spending bill advanced by Mr. McCarthy that ultimately led to his ouster.

But in his first major test as speaker, a post he won just three weeks ago, Mr. Johnson quickly moved to pull the government back from the brink of a shutdown, using the same formula that prompted his predecessor’s downfall.

“I want to cut spending right now, and I would like to put policy riders” on the bill, he said. “But when you have a three-vote majority — as we do right now — we don’t have the votes. So what we need to do is avoid the government shutdown.”

Democrats had previously panned the idea of a government funding bill that staggered funding for different agencies. But they ultimately supported the bill in the interest of averting a painful shutdown. They said they were relieved that Mr. Johnson had advanced a spending plan that neither cut funding for federal programs nor conditioned it on new policy measures.

“We have consistently made clear that a government shutdown would hurt the economy, our national security and everyday Americans during a very fragile time and must be avoided,” top Democrats wrote in a statement before the vote, led by Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader.

Just six weeks ago, Mr. McCarthy turned to the same coalition to avert a shutdown and extend the funding deadline to Nov. 17. It was the final straw for hard-right Republicans who had distrusted and tormented Mr. McCarthy since he was elected to his post, and they ousted him for it.

Mr. Johnson inherited the same spending dilemmas that dogged Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican. Hard-right Republicans have insisted on loading up the individual spending bills to fund the government with deep cuts and conservative policy riders that mainstream, politically vulnerable Republicans have refused to support.

At the same time, some conservatives have flatly refused to back any sort of stopgap spending measure, including one Mr. McCarthy advanced in Septemberthat included drastic cuts to government programs — in many cases as much as 29 percent.

On Tuesday, some of the same hard-line conservatives who moved to oust Mr. McCarthy vented their anger at Mr. Johnson. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of approximately three dozen hard-right lawmakers, announced ahead of the vote that it would oppose the measure.

“It contains no spending reductions, no border security and not a single meaningful win for the American people,” the group wrote in a statement. “Republicans must stop negotiating against ourselves over fears of what the Senate may do with the promise ‘roll over today and we’ll fight tomorrow.’”

But in a sign that there was little appetite to depose Mr. Johnson for relying on Democrats to pass the legislation, as they did to Mr. McCarthy, the lawmakers continued, “While we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson, we need bold change.”

Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said that some of his colleagues believed Mr. Johnson’s promise that he wouldn’t advance another stopgap bill to fund the government and was only doing so because he had only become speaker a few weeks ago.

“If you’re storming the beaches of Normandy and the commanding officer goes down and somebody else takes over you don’t say, Oh, well you get a honeymoon period,’” Mr. Roy said. “You got to pick it up and go. And so for me, this was a strategic failure. We should not do this. You should not be passing $400 billion under suspension of the rules. And that’s what we’re going to be doing.”

He continued: “We’re trying to give the speaker a little grace, but today’s a mistake, right out of the gate.” (New York Times).

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Democrats and Black Voters are winning.

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Right wing culture wars have no limits. They have turned their attention to the Macy’s Parade.

They ban books. Now they want to censor our theatres, movies and entertainment outlets. Think of all the fun they will miss.

From Fox News - Thousands sign petition against Macy's non-binary, trans 'extravaganza' planned for Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Macys Balloons are seen at the 90th Annual Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24, 2016 in New York City.

Over 20,000 outraged petitioners have signed an online campaign taking aim at Macy's iconic Thanksgiving Day Parade amid allegations that this year's celebration will put a "non-binary and transgender extravaganza" on display.  

"The non-binary and transgender extravaganza on display this Thanksgiving will be brought to you by Macy’s during their annually sponsored Thanksgiving Day Parade,"  the petition, organized by One Million Moms, reads.

"Unless they are forewarned about it, this year’s holiday parade will potentially expose tens of millions of viewers at home to the liberal LGBTQ agenda."

The petition adds that performances in this year's parade will include music from two Broadway musicals, "both of which feature transgender and non-binary performers in major roles."

Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, blasted the parade plans Tuesday on "FOX & Friends," telling host Brian Kilmeade, "Macy's inclusion of a non-binary transgender character in a parade is just another example of an ideological war that's being waged on families, and customers are saying they've had enough. But it seems that corporate brands that were once trusted just still aren't getting the message." 

"I think you're seeing parents stand up, rise up and say we're going to parent, and we expect our family-friendly events to truly be family friendly and not teach our children values that we object to," she added.

The petition calls out performers Justin David Sullivan and Alex Newell, who both identify as non-binary.

Justin David Sullivan attends The American Theatre Wing 2023 Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on September 11, 2023 in New York City. One Million Moms complained about Sullivan's inclusion in ‘& Juliet,’ which will have a musical number in the 2023 Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

Sullivan, who plays Juliet's non-binary friend "May" in the musical "& Juliet," which is expected to be part of the parade, previously opted out of the Tony Awards to call out gendered categories at major awards shows.

Newell won a Tony Award for playing the female role of Lulu in "Shucked," with the petition adding, "Newell, who uses all pronouns (he/she/they), has worn women’s clothes in recent public appearances and dressed in a shimmering, gold ball gown for the Tonys."

Supporters of the decision to include LGBTQ+ persons in the parade, including LGBTQ+ outlet Pink News, criticized the petition as "sensationalist." LGBTQ Nation, another outlet, criticized it as "alarmist," with both accusing One Million Moms and its parent organization American Family Association of being "anti-LGBTQ." (Fox News).

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Stephen Colbert visited Barbra at home. Monday.

Here are some samples of a day to remember.

Stephen Colbert travels to Malibu to the home of legendary singer, actor and director Barbra Streisand to talk about the release of her memoir, “My Name Is Barbra.”

5:20.

My Name Is Barbra” Was Ten Years in the Making.

7:08

James Brolin, Rose Petals, and Cloning the Dog.

6:16

On Female Directors, Joe Biden, and Trump.

5:30

Barbra’s Greatest On-Screen Romances

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