"As the political ground crumbles beneath Biden's feet, opposing the left's $3.5 trillion package is becoming easier by the day. Also known as the 'Bernie Budget,' (the Vermont socialist has hit the road trying to sell it), it includes the worst provisions that party leaders knew they could not stuff into the smaller infrastructure package while keeping a straight face about any semblance of 'bipartisanship.'

"It is chock full of giveaways to powerful special interest groups in the coalition. For the Green New Dealers and the limousine Liberals, there are huge tax hikes on energy producers and corresponding giveaways for wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles. ...

"Most galling, perhaps, is the blatant hostility and targeting of many private sector companies, especially those responsible for developing the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. The budget would be funded in part via massive tax increases and government meddling in Medicare Part D negotiations. The net result would be a socialist takeover of the drug industry, restrictions on medication choice and outsourcing drug manufacturing and innovation to hostile nations like China."

"House Democrats are proposing almost $3 trillion ($3,000,000,000,000) in tax increases including tax increases on small businesses and working families. This would be the largest tax increase since 1968 compared to the size of the economy and the largest tax increase ever in nominal dollars.

"Some of these tax increases include:

"Raising taxes on working families by increasing the federal corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 26.5 percent. This tax increase will be passed along to working families in the form of higher prices, fewer jobs, and lower wages. This will give the U.S. a combined state-federal rate of 30.9 percent, higher than our foreign competitors including China, which has a 25 percent corporate tax rate, and Europe which has an average rate of 21.7 percent.

"According to Stephen Entin of the Tax Foundation, labor (or workers) bear an estimated 70 percent of the corporate income tax in the form of wages and employment. Similarly, a 2020 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 31% of the corporate tax falls on consumers.

"A corporate tax increase will threaten the life savings of families by reducing the value of publicly traded stocks in brokerage accounts or in 401(k)s. Individual investors opened 10 million new brokerage accounts in 2020 and at least 53% of households own stock. In addition, 80 million to 100 million people have a 401(k), and 46.4 million households have an individual retirement account."

Read the entire article here.

"So what did they hide, and when did they hide it? Key Democratic committees -- Ways and Means in the House and Finance in the Senate -- are marking up unheard of spending and taxing plans. Right now. Yet they are not telling the public what they're really up to.

"The answer to 'what did they hide?' and 'when did they hide it?' is that they're hiding it now, and information is starting to leak out on specifics. There's no question that the Democrats want this $3.5 trillion reconciliation, which is really going to be more than $5 rillion, to avoid public scrutiny and to roll rapidly through both houses just to get it done.

"Some say that it's going to be a 10,000 page bill and that literally no one is going to know what's in it. ...

"The vast majority of Americans favor free market capitalism and oppose big government socialism. That's precisely why the Democrats are doing as much as they can to hide these policies and get the legislation passed before anyone gets through reading the first 500 pages, let alone the last 9,500."

"It isn't hard to make the case against vaccine passports: Requiring proof of vaccination is unnecessarily burdensome to business and a violation of individual privacy. ...

"Amusingly enough, liberals, the people most likely to support vaccine passports, have long made contradictory arguments. For years, we have heard Democrats insist that asking voters to present identification is a fundamental violation of civil rights, tantamount to Jim Crow.

"Who exactly belongs in this vast class of persons being denied the franchise has always been a mystery. Apparently, they are also people who have never had a job, driven a car, opened a bank account, flown on an airplane, received government benefits, ordered a beer, bought a pack of cigarettes or played the lottery.

"According to progressives, we need ID for everything in this country except the apparently sacred exercise of our voting rights. Liberals pretend that asking people to get the same ID they need to do almost anything else is an undue burden to vote, even though non-driver can get a government-issued picture ID in all 50 states. Yet now they pretend that using some cockamamie smartphone app dreamed up by bureaucrats in Albany or City Hall can be a requirement for participating in civilized life.

"The same people blithely dismiss the possibility of voter fraud out of hand while insisting that the honors system won't cut it for COVID. You can believe one of these things but not both."

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday rebuffed a demand from Sen. Joe Manchin to take a 'stretegic pause' on a $3.5 trillion economic package, making clear that she was moving on an aggressive timeline to push the measure through this month and setting up a clash with moderate Democrats eager to pare back the price tag.

"'Obviously, I don't agree,' Pelosi told CNN when asked about Machin's highly publicized demand for Congress to hit the brakes on fulfilling a bulk of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda this month.

"In another sign of a looming clash, Pelosi showed little desire to pare back the massive $3.5 trillion price tag, a top-level spending amount that Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both indicated they do not support.

'"The number is the number, $3.5 (trillion), we can't go above that,' Pelosi said. Asked about the likelihood she will have to go below that level, the California Democrat responded, 'Why?'"

"The polarized views on just about every political and cultural issue in America have been underscored again in a new study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center. The study reveals a Grand Canyon-sized gap between Republican and Democratic perspectives on the national news media.

"Just five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that share has been cut in half, with just 35 percent feeling the same way.

"Meanwhile, Democrats are peachy keen on what they're seeing and hearing from the national news media, with 78 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents saying they have 'a lot' or 'some' trust in the Fourth Estate nationally. When breaking down the numbers between self-identified liberals and conservatives, the gap widens to 53 points. Eighty-three percent of liberal Democrats have at least some trust in the national media, while just 30 percent of conservative Republicans do."

Read the entire article here.

"Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Democrats should hit 'pause' on President Biden's $3.5 trillion spending package, firing a significant warning shot at his party's top legislative priority.

"Manchin, during remarks this week at a West Virginia Chamber of Commerce event pointed to concerns about 'runaway inflation,' the delta variant of the coronavirus and a botched withdrawal in Afghanistan to float slowing down what is the centerpiece of Biden's economic agenda.

'"If the country is facing what we're facing now. ... I would ask my colleagues and all of the Senate to hit the pause button on the $3.5 [trillion],' Manchin said at the event on Wednesday. 'Let's sit back. Let's see what happens. We have so much on our plate. We really have an awful lot. I think that would be the prudent, wise thing to do.'

"'I know they're going to go nuts right now ... because what I said is going to all my caucus in Washington,' Manchin added, referring to his Democratic colleagues. 'But I'm thinking of it from the standpoint of where we are as a nation today.'"

"A sharply and bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block a novel Texas law that opponents say could effectively outlaw abortion in the state.

"In an order and opinions issued just before midnight Wednesday, the justices revealed that they split 5-4 in refusing the request from abortion rights advocates to put the Texas law -- which went into force early Wednesday -- on hold while litigation over the measure proceeds.

"The court's majority said in an unsigned order that procedural issues related to the unusual private enforcement mechanism the law sets up undermined the argument for blocking the statute at this preliminary stage.

"However, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's three liberals in publicly declaring that the court was erring by refusing to grant the emergency motion to stay the Texas law. In a highly unusual move for a case on the court's so-called shadow docket, all four dissenters authored opinions that lamented the court's decision."

"President Biden stressed the need for changing the 'perception' of the Taliban's progress in Afghanistan, 'whether it is true or not,' during a phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani less than four weeks before Kabul collapsed, according to a new report.

"According to a transcript of the July 23 presidential call reviewed by Reuters, Biden didn't anticipate the Taliban's rapid advance across Afghanistan, which ended when they stormed Kabul on Aug. 15 and Ghani fled the presidential palace. Instead, Biden focused much of the 14-minute call on the Afghan government's 'perception' problem, Reuters reported.

"'I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,' Biden said. 'And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.'"

Read the entire article here.

"Nearly 90 retired U.S. generals and admirals penned an open letter asking Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to resign from their positions following their 'negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.'

"'As principal military advisors to the CINC [Commander-in-Chief]/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms,' the letter states. 'If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign. Conversely, if they did do everything within their ability to persuade the CINC/President to not hastily exit the country without ensuring the safety of our citizens and Afghans loyal to America, then they should have resigned in protest as a matter of conscience and public statement.'

"This 'hasty retreat,' the letter continues, not only left thousands of vulnerable Americans and Afghan allies stranded at the hands of the Taliban but also contributed to the 'catastrophic' loss of 'billions of dollars in advanced military equipment and supplies falling into the hands of our enemies.'"

Read the entire article here.