De-Fund...

 

The vote marked a significant setback for activists dedicated to defunding or dismantling a police department that had for years been confronted with accusations of racism and the use of excessive force. Tuesday night was the first time voters in Minneapolis had the chance to weigh in on a concrete proposal to overhaul policing, and they rejected it by a 13% margin.

At least four city council members who previously supported replacing the police department with a wider encompassing Department of Public Safety lost their elections Tuesday while at least six won either as incumbents, challengers, or filling vacant seats, according to unofficial results from the City of Minneapolis.

Mayor Jacob Frey, re-elected, said he wanted to ensure an integrated approach to public safety, hire more community-oriented officers, build safety beyond policing, and get serious about reform on a "multi-jurisdictional level." But the public safety ballot measure, which would have given the city council shared oversight of the department, was not something he supported.

Moral...

 

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority voiced concern about a New York state law that limits the carrying of concealed weapons, in a case that could lead to the largest expansion of Second Amendment rights in more than a decade.

During two hours of oral arguments, the court was receptive to claims from gun owners that New York abrogated the Second Amendment with its 1911 law conditioning concealed-weapons licenses on “good moral character” and “proper cause.”

Less clear was what limits on weapons access the court would let lawmakers impose. Supreme Court precedent allows reasonable regulation of gun rights.

Gun advocates say their constitutional right to keep and bear arms is undermined by New York state’s century-old system for issuing concealed-weapons licenses.

As criminals and illegal guns are all over the city of New York, the law abiding citizens are forbidden to get a permit to protect themselves. Something is not quite wright here.  

Just a thought.

Singing...

 

I must say that President Biden's achievement are at best dismal. He suspended the the leases for federal land for oil production and as a result, the oil products became three fold the prices, Taxing every one in the country rich and poor in heating, cooking, driving, trucking..etc. In the mean time Saudi Arabia and Russia are making a nice three times the revenue they got during the previous administration. Listen to the scientist is a terminology used repeatedly to do what ever his associated wants. Just a thought.

Sign...

 

Youngkin drew large crowds across Virginia who cheered loudest for his calls to ban "critical race theory" while he evoked a dire picture of classrooms where students are classified by race, seeming to reference equity programs launched by some school districts to address long-standing systemic racism in education.

The win for the GOP in Virginia could also be a sign of what is to come in the 2022 midterm elections when the balance of power in Congress is up for grabs – and 36 states hold gubernatorial elections.

Youngkin's victory could be a template for other Republicans. The former private equity CEO and first-time candidate drew raucous crowds in the closing stages of the race by channeling conservative outrage over public education. 

Many supporters said they were enthusiastic about his defense of parents who are concerned about the way race is taught in school, as well as new protections for transgender students passed by the Virginia legislature.

Restrict...

 

It’s likely to become President Joe Biden’s most hotly contested COVID policy yet: a sweeping nationwide safety standard for the American workplace that demands large businesses require their employees to either get the vaccine or test regularly.

The temporary emergency rule would apply to every U.S. private business that employs 100 workers or more -- from grocery clerks to meatpacking plant employees -- impacting some 80 million Americans.

It would be the first time Washington has set a federal standard that regards a respiratory virus as an occupational hazard outside of the health care sector, essentially putting COVID in the same category as other workplace safety concerns as asbestos and dangerous machinery.

Details were expected to be released as early as Thursday on the rule, drafted by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.

Again this President will not move out of the vaccines to do something else like Build America, solve south border problems, or oil shortages and skyrocketing prices caused by the same president. The only thing these Dems know is to restrict people's and businesses liberty instead of saying we don't know what to do. Just a thought.

BBB...

 

More Americans died from COVID-19 during the first nine months of the year than during the first nine months of the pandemic under Donald Trump’s presidency, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Despite widely available vaccines and Mr. Biden’s pledge to handle the coronavirus better than his predecessor after taking office Jan. 20, Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Research Center reported that, as of Wednesday afternoon, 353,000 Americans had died this year. That surpassed the 352,000 who died from March 2020, when the pandemic started, to December, when the Food and Drug Administration first gave emergency authorization for vaccines.

In a congressional briefing Wednesday, officials with the Coronavirus Research Center said that although delta variant cases and hospitalizations have declined for several weeks, vaccine hesitancy continues and testing has lagged.

Just a thought.

Prop...

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it soon will begin reducing the pace of its monthly bond purchases, the first step toward pulling back on the massive amount of help it had been providing markets and the economy.

Tapering of bond purchases will start “later this month,” the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee said in its post-meeting statement. The process will see reductions of $15 billion each month -- $10 billion in Treasurys and $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities – from the current $120 billion a month that the Fed is buying.

The committee said the move came “in light of the substantial further progress the economy has made toward the Committee’s goals since last December.”

The move was in line with market expectations following a series of Fed signals that it would begin winding down a program that accelerated in March 2020 as a response to the Covid pandemic.

Markets reacted positively, with stocks turning positive and government bond yields inching higher.

Little...

 

Evidence...

 

Tuesday...

 

Republican Glenn Youngkin's projected win in the Virginia governor's race Tuesday erased any doubt: Democrats' slim congressional majorities are in grave danger in next year's midterm elections.

Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe had hoped former President Donald Trump's continuing unpopularity would halt the pendulum swing against a new president and his party that nearly always takes place in Virginia and often continues in the following year's midterms.

Instead, Youngkin drafted a playbook for Republicans to navigate around Trump -- keeping the former President's base energized while also winning back a share of suburbanites who had fled the party during Trump's tenure.

And while CNN projected Wednesday night that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy prevailed in New Jersey, the race's neck-and-neck status through the night Tuesday was another shocker for Democrats who expected Murphy to coast to reelection.

I think voters wants someone to do some work instead of tax and wasteful spending, limiting their freedom, tell them what to do to live their lives, etc.  Just a thought.