Okay, so while I'm waiting around for Congress to do its job and raise the #DebtCeiling, hoping that their screwing around doesn't cost me my 401(k), I decided to fact check the GOP talking points.

Here's how we got our huge national debt. Broken out by year and party control. First of all, here's a refresher on the deficit, the debt and how they relate to one another.

Now let's dig into the numbers.

https://twitter.com/TheValuesVoter/status/1619415870702501888?s=20

So, since we’re sitting around hoping that the hardcore seditionists McCarthy pledged his obedience to don’t make us default, let’s look at the House Republicans who serve Districts where there are more registered Democrats than either registered Republicans or Independents. Republicans in Districts with more registered Democrats than Republicans or Independents:

CA-03 - Kevin Kiley
CA-13 - John Duarte
CA-22 - David Valadao
CA-27 - Mike Garcia
CA-41 - Ken Calvert
CA-45 - Michelle Steel
IA-03 - Zach Nunn
NY-02 - Andrew Garbarino
NY-03 - George Santos

If only 6,675 more people IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY had voted for Democrats in the midterm elections:

- Kevin McCarthy and his merry band of seditionists wouldn’t be the thing standing between America and a possible debt default.

https://twitter.com/thevaluesvoter/status/1610773659483865089

- Jim Jordan would be embarrassing himself in committee meetings a lot less frequently and a lot less badly.

- Nobody would be paying much attention to Lauren Boebert or her personal life.

https://twitter.com/thevaluesvoter/status/1610773659483865089

“For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

- Hebrews 4:12, Amolified

Whatever word you use to describe the MAGA movement, its tribe members will soon afterward use the exact same words to fling back at you.

It’s so predictable. Try it and see. You: “Trump is an authoritarian.”
MAGA: “You guys are the authoritarians!”

You: “January 6th was an insurrection.”
MAGA: “You guys were the ones who carried out an insurrection!”

You: “That stuff is racist.”
MAGA: “You’re the real racists!”

It never ends.

We have this insane asylum running the House of Representatives because 6,675 Democrats, Independents and Sane Republicans didn’t bother to vote.

https://twitter.com/thevaluesvoter/status/1610773659483865089

In all, Republicans won AT LEAST FOURTEEN House Districts in 2022 in which there were more registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans. Possibly more. Still looking.

I have not found a single district yet in which Democrats won where Republicans outnumber Democrats.

While running for President in 2016, Donald Trump’s son set up a meeting which he believed would lead to his father’s campaign getting dirt on Hillary Clinton’s campaign from the Russian government.

theguardian.com/us-news/2017/j… Donald Trump’s then-Campaign Chair, Paul Manafort, gave internal polling data to a Russian spy.

nbcnews.com/politics/natio…

The Trump-era Republican Party absolutely depends on its constituency not knowing basic facts. More so than any organization I have ever observed.

To the modern GOP, a well-informed public is a business risk. Which is why they’ve invested so much in a well-coordinated media ecosystem which they use to “teach” their audience their version of the truth. Which is, in many cases and with regard to a really broad range of topics, very misleading.

Ignore the disingenuous talking points about the COVID pandemic, the vaccine, etc, which come from politicians and people trying to get elected or earn a buck from it.

Here's the data. This is where people died in the greatest concentrations during the COVID pandemic in the US. I factored in population density, vaccination rates, obesity rates, median age and elder population percentage.

Some states clearly fared way better and way worse than others. Considerably so.

On the one year anniversary of the day an 18 year-old kid specifically targeted a heavily black neighborhood and murdered 10 people, including 4 Senior Citizens, because of the Great Replacement Theory …

Disingenuous hacks act offended about warnings of white supremacists. Politicians and pundits who benefit from racial division have the nerve to look with doe eyes and innocently ask “what is a white nationalist?”

They’re part of your electoral base. The people you try to rile up the most to get you elected and to keep you in office.

https://twitter.com/jdvance1/status/1494122476296679425

I don’t believe for a second that the politicians who refuse to do anything to reduce gun massacres are acting out of either sincere belief in the power of prayer or even a sincere love of the Second Amendment.

They just want to keep their jobs. Being an elected official in the United States can be a pretty good gig. You could get fired on Election Day, but even the chances of that are greatly reduced if you’re in a district which only your party will realistically ever win.

But you’ll never be laid off,

So here is a set of charts that compare various key metrics about the state of America at the end of Obama's Second Term in 2017, at the end of Trump's Term in 2021 and at Biden's Term at this moment.

Biden has done a very good job in an incredibly challenging environment.

Dear Politicians:

We, the citizens, have the power to pray. We can handle the praying part. God doesn’t value your prayers with any more weight than He values ours. We can handle that part.

What we don’t have the power to do is to pass or change laws. That’s YOUR job. It’s nice that you want to join in on the praying. Thanks for that. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do the job which you all personally promised God that you would do - to protect the citizens.

I am not anti-prayer or anti-gun. The US Constitution affords citizens the right to express our faith as well as right to bear arms.

But let's take a look at this "thoughts and prayers" combined with NO ACTION stance, analytically, for a second. If, simply for argument's sake, the politicians' response to frequent mass murder in America is to invoke faith and talk about prayer ...

Just using their own argument and turning it on its head to prove a point, why would you need a gun at all when you can just pray?

In 42 of our 50 states, the homicide rate increased more sharply between 2019 and 2020 (the last year of the Trump Administration) than it did between 2020 and 2021 (the first year of the Biden Administration).
cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom… The sharpest differences in the change of the year-over-year homicide rates in states between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021:

Montana:
78.38% increase between 2019-2020
33.33% decrease between 2020-2021

South Dakota:
80.56% increase between 2019-2020
18.46% decrease between 2020-2021

How is it possible that nearly 90% of THE ENTIRE COUNTRY wants Universal Background Checks but it still hasn’t happened?

It’s because the gun lobby owns more than 90% of the elected portion of the Republican Party. And that’s the part of the situation which is as scary as a shooting.

It’s possible to legally buy politicians in America in 2023. Give them money and ensure their continued electoral success in heavily gerrymandered districts if they do what their donors want.

My preliminary conclusion from looking over a lot of election and registration data from 2022 is that Republicans simply vote with more intensity than do Democrats.

https://twitter.com/thevaluesvoter/status/1654266387227983874

So far I have found at least 13 House Districts in which Republicans won despite there being more registered Democrats in the district than registered Republicans.

Reality:

America is a country in which any idiot can get almost any gun. Regardless of whether or not they’re legally allowed to own it.

And they can use that gun to kill as many people as possible until they get stopped by police, kill themselves or just get bored. Many politicians are not only bot committed to doing anything to fix it but are actually committed to NOT doing anything to fix it. Because they’ve been legally paid off, as well as implicitly threatened, by people and organizations who don’t want anything at all to change.

Dear @GOP:

On the left: this is what an “open border” looks like. State lines. You can cross them at will.

On the right: our international border with Mexico. Long, remote in many places and difficult to constantly monitor. But most definitely NOT “open.”

Any questions? When a border is “open,” you can transport anybody or anything across it at any time.

(Which is why we have so many guns getting from states with fewer rules, like Indiana, into states with more, like Illinois. But that’s another topic you don’t want to talk about in detail).

Ironically, a lot of suburban and center-right white voters have started voting for Democrats for the exact same main reason why black voters have voted for Democrats for decades.

Because they’re not Republicans.

And that’s it. Black voters are the most reliable constituency of the Democratic Party. But it’s not because black voters are, as a group, liberal. We’re not. And it’s not because we’re in love with the Democrats. We’re not.

It’s because the only viable alternative is the GOP.

Three words of response to politicians and pundits who try rewrite the story of the COVID pandemic and who try to cast Dr. Fauci and the other medical professionals who tried to limit the spread of the virus as the bad guys:

Count The Bodies.

Where did the most suffering occur?

https://twitter.com/thevaluesvoter/status/1603480003156533250

Yes, that’s a disturbing way to put it. But not nearly disturbing as the rhetoric from dishonest politicians who are more worried about winning culture wars and getting elected than they ever were about their citizens living or dying.