Inventing New Ways to Lie

The View from the Middle

 

The media and politicians in Washington never cease to amaze me.  I thought I had seen every kind of lie ever invented, but then our politicians and media, masters in the art of duplicity, went to their “lie-lab” and concocted at least three new ways to deceive the public.  To be honest, these aren’t brand new ways to lie, but just focus group tested twists on old lies that makes them more effective and lethal.  It is sort of like the virus enhancing research that was done in the Wuhan lab in China that created today’s Coronavirus.

I will call the first new lying format “Inventing Detractors”.  As the new administration approached the 200 millionth shot level here in the United States, President Biden said that, “Some told us that this couldn’t be done in the first 100 days”.  Really?  Who were these “some” people?  Give me the name of one person who didn’t think this could be done.  

The fact is, when Joe became President, he announced that his administration was going to accept the bold challenge of giving our 100 million shots in Americans arms by the end of his first 100 days in office.  Then someone in his staff pulled him aside and informed him that the Trump administration was already above that pace, and on pace to deliver over 200 million by his 100^th day.  In fact, according to the CDC, on the day Joe was inaugurated, 1.3 million people were vaccinated and was on a trend line to deliver three million shots per day by the end of March.  

Who were these people that didn’t think it was possible to deliver 200 million shots in the first 100 days of the Biden White House?  The truth is, there weren’t any experts who didn’t think this could happen.  The process and pace to go over 200 million shots was already in place.  All Joe had to do was sit back and do nothing, so Joe invented “some people” who doubted he could pull it off.  That’s a clever way to take credit for something Joe didn’t do, but it is far from truthful.

I’ll call the 2^nd new form of lying the “Wild Over-exaggeration”.  Back when the CDC was trying to convince people in this country to continue wearing masks outside, they made this statement, “Less than 10% of Covid-19 infections occur out of doors”.  That is a low percentage, but it implies that the true number is somewhere around 10%. Right?  Well, the real statement should be, “Less than .1% (one tenth of one percent) of infections occur outside.”  

Even the New York Times had to call BS on this statement.  The Times said that this statement is like saying “sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year.”  Sharks actually only attack around 150 people per year, so the 20,000 number is both true and deceiving at the same time.  Shouldn’t we be proud of these governmental bureaucrats on the absolute leading edge of distortion and equivocation in our country?  They are inventing brand new ways to deceive, frighten and manipulate our citizens.  What patriots!

I will call the final new form of falsification the “Follow the Science” lie.  You see, you can put those words in front of anything and it will supposedly deny any rebuttal to your claim.  What these new, frontline lie-developers have discovered is that what you put that statement in front of doesn’t even have to be true.  Isn’t that great!  You can lie with impunity and then just stick those three words in front of it and you’re golden.  Sweet!  Right?

Leading edge liars have used these words to tell us that our children shouldn’t be back in school, we had to shut down our economy and you must wear your masks outside.  Just yesterday, out of the blue, Uncle Joe Biden let us know that we NOW didn’t have to wear masks outside, or even inside, if we were vaccinated.  That statement was made after President Biden, who was famously vaccinated back in December, had stubbornly worn his mask indoors, outdoors and even during the recent “virtual” Climate Summit.  He was the only world leader, out of 17, who wore a mask during this international zoom session.  He was the image of fear and weakness for which he was roundly criticized.  At a time like this, our country needs a bold and courageous leader and even Joe sensed he was falling way short.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we are finally coming to our senses when it comes to mask wearing.  I don’t think it should have ever been mandatory, but my question is – what changed from Thursday to Friday?  What milestone did we hit in terms of vaccinations or Covid cases or deaths or hospitalizations that was driving this change in policy?  What science was driving this decision.  NONE!!

Who knew that changing the subject from multiple crises (like illegal immigration on our southern border, unrest in the Middle East, gas prices, inflation and challenges from Iran to North Korea to China) was a scientific reason to change the mask rules.  The polls were turning against Uncle Joe and he needed some positive news to distract us from his divisive, extreme and failed policies.  Follow the science?  Yah, the political science!!

When are we as a people going to learn our lesson.  Our politicians and media (but I repeat myself) do not have our best interests at heart.  They are both pursuing their own self-centered financial and power goals and, as Charles Barkley suggested, trying to divide and conquer us.  We need to unite in rejecting their duplicity and messages of fear and division.  2022 is just around the corner and it is our first chance to send a message to Washington.  And that message should be that we reject division, fear and manipulation and embrace unity, courage and freedom.

Anyone for School Choice Today?

 Anyone for School Choice Today?

The View from the Middle

 

Back in the 1980’s Al Shanker, then President of the United Federation of Teachers union, let the cat out of the bag when he famously said, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”  This Freudian Slip revealed the ugly truth that the teachers’ unions didn’t give a flip about our kids.  All of the teachers’ unions have tried to hide this reality from that day forward, but it is times like this when we can all see the truth in that statement and sentiment.

Throughout this pandemic the teachers’ unions have ignored the science (which they say they love) that children don’t acquire this disease very well, and they don’t transmit it very well.  If they do get Covid, their symptoms are usually mild and they rarely succumb to it.  In fact, the CDC’s data shows that children under the age of 20 have a 99.998% likelihood of surviving Covid-19 IF they are infected.  Despite all of the actual scientific evidence that children and even teachers are safer in school than out, the teachers’ unions have held our country and our children hostage and used this health crisis to advance their own interests at the expense of our kids.  Remember Rahm Emanuel’s (Obama’s first Chief of Staff) famous Freudian slip when he admitted that it was a Democrat Party strategy to, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”  

And the real problem is that American parents have no choice in this matter.  They must cave to the union demands or watch their children suffer the academic, emotional and even physical consequences of remote learning.  The fact is, 90% of American families send their children to public (government) schools.  If this were a business, it would be considered a monopoly.  Parents really don’t have a choice.

But private schools have been completely open for months with virtually zero consequences reported.  So, why don’t more parents send their children to private schools?  The number one reason given by parents is the cost of tuition.  Most people don’t like the idea of paying for one education for their kids through their taxes and then paying for another one through private school tuition.  

It is interesting, however, to look at who is more likely to send their children to private schools.  Public school teachers, for example, are twice as likely to send their children to private schools.  Let that fact sink in, and then consider the fact that 40% of our members of Congress send their children to private schools.  That’s four times the rate of an average family in the US.  They do it because they have options.  Primarily, these people have the financial resources that allow them to overcome that #1 barrier to pulling their kids out of the public school prison system, which is COST.

So, how could we allow everyone in America to have the same options, choices, opportunities that our political leaders have?  Vouchers!!  The average cost of a K through 12 education in the United States is $11,392 per year.  In Arkansas, where I live it is $9,694.  Interestingly, the highest cost of a public school education is $19,396, and that is in Washington DC.  I wonder why that is?  According to Forbes magazine, the average cost of a private school education in this country is $11,450, only a $58 per year difference from the public schools. according to Forbes magazine.  And the Catholic school average cost is only $7,350.  Wow, that’s actually quite the bargain.

In effect, our government gives this money to school buildings so that “we the people” can go those buildings and get a free education.  It isn’t “free” of course, because the government has NO money.  They simply take the money for these “free” educations out of our paychecks every month.  What if, however, we sent this money to parents in the form of a voucher that can only be used for education and allow them to choose the “building” to which they would send their children?  This would remove the monetary barrier that traps many families in the public school system and allow them the same choices that our members of Congress have.  Why shouldn’t every family in America have the same choice when it comes to education that our member of Congress and our Presidents have had.

Not only would this give every family in America real choice in education for their children, but it would make the public schools compete for students.  Public schools would either improve or die, and some should die.  The government school casualties, however, would be replaced by better schools – charter, private or public.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as they are better.

In closing, I need to point out that I have no skin in this game at all.  My children are out of college, but my wife and I had the luxury (the finances) to send both of our children to private schools for most of their education.  I would just like every family in America to have the same choices we had all those years ago.  If we had a voucher system this year, I’m guessing that many families would have made the leap out of the public school monopoly system and “chose” to send their children to schools that were actually open and cared about the children.  What do you think?

A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory

 A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory

The View from the Middle

 

If you look up the word “theory” in the dictionary, you will find multiple definitions, but there a couple that I think best apply to Critical Race Theory.  One definition states that a theory is “an unproven assumption or conjecture”.  A second suggests that a theory is “an abstract thought or speculation”.  So, before we start teaching this “theory” in our schools, I think it is important for everyone to understand the basic principles and even the many flaws in this theory.

The first and biggest flaw in Critical Race Theory is that it is racist at its core.  It actually turns Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech on its head.  It suggests that EVERYTHING must be viewed through a lens of race.  It insists that white people are racists and bigots and evil because of the color of their skin.  People should not be judged by the content of their character, but simply by the color of their skin.  This theory would take us all back over 200 years and simply switch the race that it deems appropriate to be ridiculed, demeaned and dehumanized.

Critical Race Theory also ignores or denies all the progress that we have made in this country over those last 200 years.  Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black member of Congress, was elected back in 1870, over 150 years ago (FYI, he was a Republican).  Even in the 1960’s we had only four black members of Congress, but today we have 57 African American members of the House of Representative’s total of 435 members or 13% of that body.  That percentage just happens to perfectly match the African American community’s share of the country’s total population.

In 2008 we elected the first Black President in The United States and Barack Obama was then re-elected for a second term in 2012.  Today, we have our first Black female as Vice President.  I’m sure that all of these members of Congress and Obama received a high percent of the black vote, but none of these people could have been elected without the support of millions of those racist, bigoted, evil white people.

Critical Race Theory also assumes that all Black people are perfect and have never made any poor choices that have resulted in negative consequences in their lives.  Despite the fact that it is illegal to deny anyone an education on the basis of race, young black students are more that 50% more likely to drop out of high school than whites.  Also, across America, almost 40% of our births are out of wedlock.  That is a terrible number for our country, but there are tremendous differences by race.  White births in the US are out of wedlock 28% of the time, which is too high, but young African Americans have children prior to marriage a whopping 69% of the time.  That’s a choice.  There is no gun to the heads of our young people forcing them to have unprotected sex.

The only reason I bring these two stats up is because they are the two most important behaviors that enhance the chances of people ending up living in poverty.  Single parent households, for example are almost six times more likely to live in poverty than two parent households (45% vs 8%), and dropping out of high school only increases that likelihood.  And these two categories represent choices, especially the choice to have children before marriage.  And if you want to argue that public education is systemically racist and put young black children at risk, remember that public schools ARE the government and you should all support “school choice” in education.

The book Cynical Theories points out the flaws of Critical Race Theory this way.  “It is bad psychology to tell people who do not believe that they are racist – who may even actively despise racism – that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racist, and then ask them to help you.”  Prager University points out another flaw with an example – “A man owns a store and two customers come in, one white and one black.  If the store owner addresses the black person first it’s because he doesn’t trust black people in his store, and that’s racist.  If he addresses the white person first it’s because he thinks that black people are second class citizens, and that’s racist.”  That is the definition of a no-win situation and is a very convenient argument for Critical Race Theorists to make.  It is, however, not based on any facts, just emotion.  Abraham Lincoln would put it this way, “If you look for racism in everything you experience, expecting to find it, you surely will.”  Now THAT is a fact, and you will also find racism in some places where it doesn’t even exist.

And now our government is planning to teach this unproven, divisive, destructive “theory” in our schools.  As if our schools aren’t struggling enough already just trying to teach the fundamentals of math and science as we fall further and further behind other countries in the world every year.  Now they intend to turn virtually all students against each other.  Half will be told that they are evil and will never deserve any success they could achieve so they shouldn’t even make the effort.  They will be telling the other half that any negative consequences in their lives are only the result of oppression by the other half whom they will undoubtedly hate.  This train of thought will suggest that they have no personal responsibility for the outcomes in their life.  What all this does is minimize the productivity of every child who will grow up to be equally unproductive adults.

The only good news in this story is that many, many Black thought leaders like Leo Terrell, Dr. Carol Swain, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell and Pastor Voddie Baucham are vigorously opposing the basic teachings of Critical Race Theory.  And I also support two modern-day Black philosophers who recently came out against hatred and manipulation, Charles Barkley and Tyler Perry.  Charles said that he believes that most White people and Black people are “awesome” and that our politicians (and the media) are just trying to make us hate each other.  They are trying to divide and conquer us.  Tyler Perry announced at the Oscars the he is tired of the hate and he asked everyone to refuse to hate Hispanics, Blacks, White people, LGBTQ and even the police.  He even gave a plug to this blog when he asked people to meet in “The Middle”, away from the extreme fanatics on both sides of the political spectrum where he said “progress is made”.  I certainly can agree with that!

If you really want to hear the solution to Racial Disparity and Discrimination you should read my post from June of last year called "EFFE".  I will re-release that post later next week.

Sir Charles Nails It

 Sir Charles Nails It

The View from the Middle

 

I have often written about the wonder of our country.  Our founders worked and battled and finally compromised to establish a self-correcting Constitution that would deliver the most powerful and free country in the world.  With five simple words in The Declaration of Independence (all men are created equal) they would begin the eradication of slavery in America and eventually deliver the first black President and Vice President of the United States.

The values and principles in those establishing documents has also delivered an amazing citizenry that has won two world wars, dug the Panama Canal and built the Hoover Dam.  And, despite politicians and the media’s attempts to demonize massive groups of people, America has developed the most giving, tolerant and kind people in the world.  I could write thousands of words laying out the progress we have made as a country and a people, but sometimes it is the simple words of a simple and yet wise man that captures the spirit of my argument.

Below is a direct quote from Charles Barkley, Hall of Fame professional basketball player, who described the current situation in our country in a way that is incredibly wise in its brevity, and with which I totally agree. Volumes of historical proof couldn’t say it any better.  Here are his words,

 

CHARLES BARKLEY: Man, I think most white people and black people are great people. I really believe that in my heart, but I think our system is set up where our politicians (and media), whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power. 

They divide and conquer. 

I truly believe in my heart most white people and black people are awesome people, but we’re so stupid following our politicians (and media), whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, and their only job is, ‘Hey, let’s make these people not like each other. We don’t live in their neighborhoods, we all got money, let’s make the whites and blacks not like each other, let’s make rich people and poor people not like each other, let’s scramble the middle class. 

I truly believe that in my heart.

 

To be totally honest, I added the (and media) parentheses above. If you want to actually watch the video, here is a link to the video.  Just copy this link into your browser and see Charles deliver his heartfelt analysis.  I couldn’t have said it better with a million words.  Way to go, Charles.!!

 

https://www.cnsnews.com/index.php/blog/craig-bannister/charles-barkley-most-white-people-and-black-people-are-awesome-people

Joe Biden's First Press Conference

 What the Heck Was That?

The View from the Middle

 

I just finished watching Joe Biden’s first press conference of his Presidency and I’m a little jittery.  I have to admit that I had to drink two cups of coffee and take a NoDoz to stay awake.  Before I get into the substance of the press conference, because there was so little of it, let’s talk a little about the format and process of it.

They created a very sterile and stifling environment where all 30 reporters were seated with perfect posture, at least six feet apart, all politely wearing their masks even when they were asking questions.  I should note here that Joe Biden didn’t wear a mask while speaking and no reporter asked him to put it on as they did to Senator Ted Cruz just yesterday.  But I digress.

It was also obvious that they had preselected the questioners and the questions well before the event.  First of all, all of the questions came from friendly (liberal) sources like the AP, CNN, ABC and the other left leaning networks. There was not one question asked by Fox, Newsmax or The New York Post.  And it was clear that Joe knew the questions beforehand, as he frequently shuffled through papers after each question to get to the right page of notes for his answer.  He would then regularly look down and simply read his answer from his prepared notes. 

It was actually kind of amusing at one point when he pulled out a list of infrastructure problems that he said he had his staff prepare.  Of course, he suggested that he didn’t do that in preparation for this press conference, but he just happened to have that list in his coat pocket.  Now, you can believe that he didn’t do this in preparation for today’s press conference if you like, but I don’t.

I would like to see President Biden confront the kind of Press Conferences that President Trump faced on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.  Not only was there not the absolutely rude screaming out of questions (remember Jim Acosta from CNN), but not a single reporter even spoke out of turn.  They weren’t even allowed to raise their hands for fear that Uncle Joe might call on the wrong person and get a question he wasn’t prepared for.  The President suggested at least a couple of times that the battle of the future of the world will be between Democracy and Autocracy (a government of absolute power, like China or Russia), and I agree.  But, it should have occurred to everyone watching this performance that this is exactly the kind of press conference you will find in China or Russia.  No real or difficult questions, no surprises, very little substance and very little truth.

When asked about the filibuster in the Senate, Joe said that it had only been used about 50 times in the first 50 years of its existence.  He then talked about how it had been “abused” just last year over 250 times.  He either forgot or was unaware that the “abuse” he was talking about came from the Democrats, who were the minority party in the Senate last year.  He also didn’t mention that 27 Democrat Senators signed a letter just four years ago suggesting that the elimination of the filibuster would be “the end of Democracy as we know it”.  I agreed with those Democrat Senators then, and now!

He only absolutely lost track of what he was talking about three times during this press conference.  I say “only” because that is probably going to be an acceptable performance for Uncle Joe, while it would have been grounds to invoke the 25^th Amendment for every other President (at least a Republican President).  He also said some absolutely crazy things during this event.  For example, he said that we will need to be building roads three feet higher across the country because of climate change and, I guess, because of the rise of the oceans.  I can’t believe that no one asked a follow-up question to that statement.  Where in the heck did he get that information?  He also said that the vast majority of people at the border were being returned to Mexico right now, while I have it on good authority that 87% are not.  Was that a lie?  Or just another famous Uncle Joe Gaffe?

And as if those crazy statements weren’t enough, he threw in some hyperbolic fearmonger for good measure.  Just minutes after suggesting that he wants to unite the country, Joe suggested that any state that wants to control their own election laws was trying to unleash Jim Crow on steroids, what he called “Jim Eagle” in an attempt to be clever.  Personally, I found this comparison to be pathetic, fraudulent and divisive.  He is suggesting that anyone who disagrees with his definition of election integrity is a racist bigot.  Yah, that kind of rhetoric will bring the country together!

He did, however, manage to improve our rank in the world in regards to infrastructure during his press conference.  When he started talking about infrastructure and was trying to suggest how bad things are here, he stated that the US was ranked 85^th in the world when it comes to infrastructure.  But then two minutes later, when reading his infrastructure cliff notes from his staff, he stated that we were ranked 13^th in the world in that area.  Now THAT is fast work for any President!  Way to go Joe.  We moved up from 85^th to 13^th in two minutes.  How did you do it?

The bottom line is, The United States of America needs and deserves better than this.  The lame-stream media and the Democrat party might allow this President to put training wheels on his press conferences, but Xi Xing Ping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un will not.  Even his staunchest advocates are calling his performance “fine” and “OK” for a near octogenarian, thus grading him on a curve for his age.  While the media and his party may want to lower the expectations or requirements of our President, the world will not.  Our enemies and even our allies will take advantage of any shortcomings that he exhibits.  Contrary to what Joe thinks, I believe there are 80 million people in this country experiencing buyer’s remorse this morning.

Funity

Funity

The View from the Middle

 

Joe Biden should be very proud.  It isn’t often that Webster’s Dictionary chooses to add a word to their universe of defined terms.  Thanks to Uncle Joe, Webster’s will be adding the word “Funity” to their dictionary (pronounced few-ni-tee).  According to Webster the definition of Funity is “a false promise of Unity” or “a promise made for Unity with no intention of fulfilling that promise.”  At least this is what I’ve heard.  Way to go, Joe.  You are really changing the world, or at least the English language.  Given his refusal or inability to give a press conference (take live questions from reporters) Webster is also looking at adding “Fransparency” to their lexicon.

But let’s be fair.  Uncle Joe richly deserves credit for inspiring these two new words.  As of today, he has only been in office for 49 days, but he is smashing records left and right.  He has yet to give a press conference where he actually answers questions that he hasn’t heard of in advance.  That is a modern-day record.  Way to go, Joe.  Between this and his habit of sleeping in, taking daily naps and his early bed times, Joe is the least transparent and least accessible President in my lifetime.  Say what you will about Donald Trump, he constantly took questions from a hostile press corp.  President Biden (he is still President, right?), you are setting a new low standard for transparency, or “fransparency” in your case.

And his fransparency is nothing compared to his “Funity”.  Candidate Biden didn’t run on closing the Keystone Pipeline, bailing our blue states with your money or sending money for abortions to other countries, but he has done all of those things.  He DID run on a promise to deliver unity to the country, which he immediately broke. 

In his first 49 days he has set another record for signing Executive orders, and this is a record for all past Presidents back to George Washington.  In his first 49 days, he has written 59 Executive Orders.  Now, let’s be clear, signing an Executive order requires zero support from Republicans in office, and I’m sure that’s what he would get if any Republicans were even asked if they supported them.  Let’s also be clear that signing Executive Orders is the opposite of unity.  If fact, signing EO’s is more like the actions of a dictator than a President, and Joe Biden even said so back in October of 2020.  His exact words were, “Things you can't do by executive order unless you're a dictator. We're a democracy. We need consensus."  Joe obviously doesn’t know or has forgotten what the definition of “consensus” is.

Joe has allowed major legislation pass without a single Republican vote.  He met with 10 Republican Senators concerning the $1.9 TRILLION Covid-19 relief package, but Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have passed that bill today without a single Republican vote.  Joe, I know you’re only the President of the United States, but couldn’t you come out and send a message to Nancy and Chuck that there might be some good ideas from Republicans that could have been worked into this bill?  Do you mean to tell me that you couldn’t put something in this bill (or take something out) that would get the support of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski or Mitt Romney.  To quote you, Joe, “Come on Man!”

And then we have HR1, a bill that will rewrite and federalize election laws across the country.  This bill will make permanent the changes made to accommodate people during the pandemic.  Yes, we set a record for the number of votes cast for both Presidential candidates, but what we did in 2020 was less than perfect.  Should we send out unsolicited ballots to everyone in the United States, which opens the door for ballot harvesting and fraud?  Should we eliminate signature verification?  Of course, we want to maximize participation, but we must also protect the integrity of our elections.  HR1, again, did not get a single Republican vote.  Are there some conservative ideas that could have been added to that bill to get at least some Republican support?  Absolutely!  But maybe Joe has forgotten his promise to deliver unity.  Side note, HR1 will certainly get challenged in the Supreme Court and I predict it will be overthrown.

And, as if signing EO’s and passing legislation without any Republican support isn’t enough, Joe has stooped to using Hillary’s tactic of “character assassination”.  Hillary Clinton put anyone who disagreed with her in her “basket of deplorables” and now Joe has followed her lead just changing her characterization to “Neanderthal”.  This is a small thing and I only bring it up because it absolutely flies in the face of his promise of unity.  

So, whether it is his avalanche of Executive Orders or the totally partisan legislation that is being passed or his disdain for roughly half of America, Joe is failing in his promise to bring this country together, which is a big disappointment to me.  To call out our President with one of his own favorite and really clever quips, “Come on Man”.  Joe you can do better!!

Springsteen's "Meet in the Middle" Message

         Bruce Springsteen has taken a fair amount of criticism for the ad he starred in during the Super Bowl.  The message was that Americans need to, “meet in the middle”.  The commercial was filmed in Lebanon, Kansas, the absolute middle of The United States, and featured a chapel that is open to all Americans all day and every day of the year.  The message is NOT that we should all meet in Kansas and work out our differences.  He is suggesting that we should meet in the center of America’s ideological spectrum, which is certainly in line with The View From the Middle’s message.

Bruce is being criticized because he has been a partisan supporter of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden whose followers boldly claimed to be part of “the resistance” to the Trump administration before he even took office.   The hypocrisy is thick.  Four years ago, their motto was “Resist, Divide and Demonize”, but now those very same people are calling for unity!  And it seems that the message from the Biden administration is not consistent with Mr. Springsteen’s.  It seems clear to me that Biden’s definition of “unity” is that conservatives need to abandon their principles and core beliefs and embrace the ideology of the far left, then we can have unity.  

After running on a “unity” platform, I have seen no sign that President Biden actually plans to deliver on that promise.  His first move was to sign more executive orders in his first two weeks in office than any other President in our country’s history.  This is the opposite of reaching out to the other side of the aisle.  It is the action of an out-of-touch partisan at best or a dictator at the worst.  Next, he could have signaled an attempt at unifying the country by suggesting that the House and Senate drop the unconstitutional and meaningless impeachment of President Trump, but he didn’t.  And now he seems more concerned about allowing transgender boys to play girls’ sports than he does about jobs in the very “middle America” that Mr. Springsteen was talking about, the promised land for our political discourse.

But the final and biggest abandonment of his “unity” promise might be yet to come.  Many of us were encouraged when President Biden met with 10 Republican Senators to discuss the Democrat 1.9 Trillion-dollar Coronavirus relief bill.  There are actually some legitimate concerns about the size and scope of this bill that could and even should be addressed.  For example, Republicans would like the $1,400 stimulus checks to go to a smaller but needier group of citizens, say those individuals making $50,000 a year or couples making $100,000.  This would borrow less money and will reduce the future burden we are piling on our children and grandchildren.  This is NOT a crazy thought and should become part of the compromise bill if uncle Joe actually wants to unite anyone!

Second, this relief bill includes $350 billion to be paid to cities and states across the country.  This is way more than is needed to compensate these localities for the costs of fighting the pandemic.  Everyone knows that this is simply a move to force states like Arkansas and Kansas (the middle of the country) to pay for the fiscally irresponsible states like New York and California.  Again, this is NOT a crazy idea and at a minimum that $350 billion should be reduced if President Biden is serious about seeking bi-partisan solutions.  And finally, there are some serious concerns on both sides of the political aisle that this amount of stimulus will lead to hyper-inflation for the country.  That would hurt low-income and middle-income Americans the most.  Again, this is not a crazy concern.

But the word on the streets of Washington now it that this 1.9 Trillion-dollar bill will be passed without any changes and without a single Republican vote in either house of congress.  If this bill passes with a 51 to 50 vote in the Senate and no change in the 1.9 Trillion-dollar price tag, it will be a slap in the face of every conservative in this country.  The very people he promised to reach out to and to represent.  What part of “unity” does Joe Biden not understand?

But, of course, I still support the message that “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen delivered on Super Bowl Sunday.  I think Republicans are willing to work with Democrats to create compromise, bi-partisan legislation.  Democrats, however, need to stop demonizing everyone who has a different opinion and actually listen to them.  This whole “unity” message may have been a sham from the beginning just to get elected.  But, let’s hope not.