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An effort to be more inclusive or the federal government being too nosy? Democrats and Republicans took starkly contrasting views Tuesday of proposed legislation that would put voluntary questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on federal demographic surveys.

The Democratic-controlled U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform approved a bill requiring federal agencies that collect demographic data through surveys to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity, but no one would be required to give the information nor would they be penalized for refusing to do so.

Supporters of the legislation said it could help provide much better data about the LGBTQ population nationwide at a time when views about sexual orientation and gender identity are evolving and as right-wing extremists are firing up anti-LGBTQ rhetoric online.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committees Democratic chair, said the measure would help make data collection as inclusive as possible.

By including this, we can ensure that our policies are more equitable and inclusive of the constituents we serve, said Maloney of New York.

Republican committee members called the measure government intrusion and overreach at its most personal.

We should be alarmed by this attempt by the federal government to gather such sensitive data, said Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona.

Republican committee members proposed amendments that would require the legislation to offer a definition of sex, only allow people to answer such questions about themselves and would limit the questions to adults only. Biggs also proposed an amendment that would require data collection of people in the U.S. illegally, in a discussion that referenced then-President Donald Trumps failed effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

All of the Republican amendments were voted down.

The legislation was debated at a time when the Census Bureau separately is requesting $10 million to study over several years the best ways to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity for its annual American Community Survey, and as President Joe Biden declared June as LGBTQ Pride Month. It also is taking place as some Republican-dominated state legislatures have restricted what can be discussed about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and banned transgender girls from competing in girls sports.

Some federal agencies already ask about sexual orientation and gender identity, but they are limited primarily to health and criminal justice surveys. The once-a-decade census and several Census Bureau surveys give same-sex couples a chance to answer if they are in a marriage or domestic partnership. But that omits LGBTQ people who are single or not living in the same household with their partner, and for the gender question, male and female are the only options.

The online Household Pulse Survey is the only Census Bureau survey that asks these questions, but it is categorized as experimental and may not meet some of the quality standards for the nations largest statistical agency.

Several Democratic House members on Tuesday also urged the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau to add a category of Middle Eastern and North African, also known as MENA, for the once-a-decade census and other federal surveys.

The Census Bureau recommended adding a MENA category to the 2020 census, but the idea was dropped by the Trump administration.

Decades-old Office of Management and Budget standards have designated Middle Eastern and North African residents as white. Adding a separate MENA category would help guarantee that residents with roots from this region get federal resources and produce more accurate data, said the letter to OMD Director Shalanda Young and Census Bureau Director Robert Santos.

Since members of the MENA community trace their roots to either the Middle East or North Africa, OMBs standards fail to capture the lived experience of many community members, the letter said.

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Democrats, GOP take contrasting views on LGBTQ survey bill - KRON4

President Joe Biden recently flew off to Taiwan to assure our allies there that he will fight for them. And a couple of weeks later he was winging off to Saudi Arabia, intending to "repair ties" with that repressive monarchy.

A major reason for pessimism about the party's November chances is that its top leaders have decided their candidates can't win in rural areas and smaller factory citiesso they've quit trying.

In terms of international realpolitik, this flurry of foreign travel might be strategically important, but there's a strategic political reality right here at home that calls for a different presidential itinerary: Our country's midterm congressional elections are less than five months away! Taiwan and Saudi Arabia don't get to vote, but Texas and South Carolina do. So, how about spending a bit more time flying, driving or even whistle-stopping to such places, where many hard-hit working-class families are feeling ignored by the national Democratic Party? They'd like to see President Joe fight for and repair ties with them.

In fairness, Biden came through for such families early in his tenure, and his proposals to do more have been deliberately gummed up by such congressional blobs of do-nothingism as Sens. Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin. But blaming them isn't winning any points for himor helping the families now struggling with baby formula shortages, $5 gasoline, continuing farm and factory depression, housing evictions, etc.

President Joe Biden recently flew off to Taiwan to assure our allies there that he will fight for them. And a couple of weeks later he was winging off to Saudi Arabia, intending to "repair ties" with that repressive monarchy.

In terms of international realpolitik, this flurry of foreign travel might be strategically important, but there's a strategic political reality right here at home that calls for a different presidential itinerary: Our country's midterm congressional elections are less than five months away! Taiwan and Saudi Arabia don't get to vote, but Texas and South Carolina do. So, how about spending a bit more time flying, driving or even whistle-stopping to such places, where many hard-hit working-class families are feeling ignored by the national Democratic Party? They'd like to see President Joe fight for and repair ties with them.

In fairness, Biden came through for such families early in his tenure, and his proposals to do more have been deliberately gummed up by such congressional blobs of do-nothingism as Sens. Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin. But blaming them isn't winning any points for himor helping the families now struggling with baby formula shortages, $5 gasoline, continuing farm and factory depression, housing evictions, etc.

And these are Democrats talking! Even before November's congressional elections are run, too many conventional-thinking Democratic operatives are surrendering to a presumed Republican sweep. You don't need a political science degree to know that if you start out announcing that you'll lose, chances are you will. After all, who wants to vote for a party that shows no fighting spirit, no confidence in the appeal of its own ideas?

A major reason for pessimism about the party's November chances is that its top leaders have decided their candidates can't win in rural areas and smaller factory citiesso they've quit trying. Worse, they blame the voters, claiming that Trumpism, Fox News BS and culture war conspiracy nonsense have poisoned the minds of people "out there." Thus, they've abandoned the countryside to go all out in big urban areas. Democratic congressional leaders even killed their rural outreach programs, and the former Party chairman officially abandoned the turf in 2018, meekly declaring: "You can't door-knock in rural America."

Actually, sir, you can. And if you choose to abandon this whole working-class constituencysurprise!it will abandon you. And the cold fact is that national Democrats didn't just quit going down the dirt roads and factory streets, they've actively been working for several years against families living therethe trade scams that sucked out union jobs; the shameful bailout of Wall Street bankers who crashed our real economy, while ignoring millions of devastated workaday people; protecting drug profiteers who caused the brutal opioid epidemic; doing nothing about the corporate-caused farm depression still ripping across our land; and so many other vivid examples of top Democrats not hearing, seeing or responding to this vital, FDR-ish constituency of millions that they now blithely dismiss as irredeemable.

Did party poobahs think voters wouldn't notice or care how they're being treated? If we want them back on our side, then go to them... and get back on their side!

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Opinion | Can Democrats Save Their Party... From Its Leadership? - Common Dreams

In early May, Newsom asked "Where is the Democratic Party?" in response to a leaked Supreme Court opinion showing that a majority of justices will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. During an interview with Fox 11's Elex Michaelson's "The Issue Is" show last week, Newsom again blasted the national party apparatus as impotent and asleep at the wheel.

"What is going on in the Democratic Party nationwide? I cannot answer that question," the governor said. "I pose that question out of frustration and reflection. Some parts of the Democratic Party were critical of that, but overwhelming response to that statement, I don't have an answer for you. Joe Biden's not the head of the Democratic Party, he happens to be president of the United States, it's not his job to organize at all levels. ... That's the Democratic Party's responsibility."

In the interview, Newsom continued his public spat with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, criticizing him for making the Special Olympics drop a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for athletes. Newsom once again (intentionally or unintentionally) butchered DeSantis' name, calling him "DeSantos" as he did in his original May rant.

The California governor also again exempted Democratic national leadership from criticism. Previously, his criticism of the national Democratic Party was interpreted as a swipe at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even though he specifically said he thought she wasn't at fault.

"I don't want to take a cheap shot, it's not an individual gripe with anybody, it has nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, they are not the heads of the party," he said. "But we have a Democratic Party and yeah, where the hell are we as a party to capture the narrative, to capture the imagination of the American people."

When Michaelson pressed Newsom on who, exactly, his complaints are being directed at, the governor said it's about party operatives and strategists.

"We have a party, there is something called the Democratic Party, I've read about it," he said. "I've met a few of these people over the years. It's not even an indictment of the current leadership. It's time to organize guys, bottom-up, not just top-down. Republicans have been organizing bottom-up forever."

Newsom also discussed the Chesa Boudin recall election and the issues of public safety and crime. You can watch portions of the interview from Fox 11.

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'Where the hell are we?': Gavin Newsom puts national Democrats on blast again - SFGATE

Dont call it an ideology. Call it an idiot-ology, Steve Forbes says ofPresident Joe Bidens defeated Build Back Better economic plan, which Democrats in the Senate are now trying to revive.

Build Back Better is a multitrillion-dollar legislative packageproposed by Biden consisting of massive spending onsocial, infrastructure, and environmental programs.

Forbes, the CEO of Forbes Media, spoke out against Build Back Better ata discussion of his newbook Inflation: What It Is, Why Its Bad, and How to Fix It in Washingtonon June 7.

Forbes addressed the Biden administration proposal, which includesraising marginal tax rates on corporations and other businesses. Hecompared the presidents logic to that of an 18th-century doctor: To cure you, they bleed you, which got rid of pain and sufferingbecause it got rid of you.

Preston Brashers, a senior analyst for tax policy at The Heritage Foundation, concurs, describing theBuild Back Better bill as a $3.5 trillion patchwork oftaxes,mandates, job-killingregulations, and social welfare entitlements that will only exacerbate the supply-side issues plaguing the economy. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Forbes alsospoke out againstthe Biden administrations [electric vehicle]charging action plan, which includes $7.5 billion in federal spending for a national EV charging network and a community grant program. He noted that governments around the world have spent$5 trillion on renewable energy over the past 20 years, but that has reduced the shareof global energy supplies coming from fossil fuels by only 2 percentage points.

Imagine what those resources could have done for fighting disease, hesaid.

Forbes concludedthat Republicans [in the Senate] did Biden a favor by blocking the Build Back Better bill, which had passed the Democrat-controlled House inNovember on a straight party-line vote.

If the bill had passed, you would have a far worse [economic] situation, he said.

But now, Senate Democrats areattempting to craft a pared-downversion of Build Back Better that they hope topass through the reconciliation process with onlyDemocratic senators votes.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.comand well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Forbes Bludgeons Build Back Better Bill as Democrats Seek to Revive It - Daily Signal

If you want a sense of what separates much of the leadership of the Democratic Party from many of its supporters of what illustrates their profound disconnect from younger cohorts of liberal and progressive voters you could do much worse than to read this recent statement from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.

Some things take longer than others, and you can only do what you can do at a given time, she said in an interview with Rebecca Traister of New York magazine. That does not mean you cant do it at another time, she continued, and so one of the things you develop is a certain kind of memory for progress: when you can do something in terms of legislation and have a chance of getting it through, and when the odds are against it, meaning the votes and that kind of thing.

So, Feinstein concluded, Im very optimistic about the future of our country.

This entire comment was, in Traisters analysis, a damning example of the sanguine complacency that seems to mark much of the gerontocratic leadership of the Democratic Party.

I agree.

Whats missing from party leaders, an absence that is endlessly frustrating to younger liberals, is any sense of urgency and crisis any sense that our system is on the brink. Despite mounting threats to the right to vote, the right to an abortion and the ability of the federal government to act proactively in the public interest, senior Democrats continue to act as if American politics is back to business as usual.

Earlier this year at the National Prayer Breakfast, to give another example, President Biden praised Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, as a man of your word and a man of honor.

Thank you for being my friend, Biden said to a man who is almost singularly responsible for the destruction of the Senate as a functional lawmaking body and whose chief accomplishment in public life is the creation of a far-right Supreme Court majority that is now poised to roll American jurisprudence back to the 19th century.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is similarly enamored of this rhetoric of bipartisan comity in the face of a Republican Party whose members are caught in the grip of a cult of personality marked by conspiratorial thinking and an open contempt for electoral democracy.

It might come as a surprise to some of you that the president I quote most often is President Reagan, Pelosi said at the ribbon-cutting for the Washington branch of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. The good humor of our president was really a tonic for the nation, the gentleman that he was.

And last month, she told an audience in Miami that she wants a strong Republican Party that can return to where it was when it cared about a womans right to choose and cared about the environment. Of course, the ideologically moderate Republican Party that Pelosi seems to want resurrected was largely dead by the time she entered national politics in the late 1970s, bludgeoned into submission with the notable help of Ronald Reagan, among other figures.

As I reflect on this attitude among Democratic leaders, Im reminded of the historian Jefferson Cowies argument about the New Deals relationship to the American political order. In The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics, Cowie argues for an interpretation of the United States in the 20th century that treats the New Deal era, from the administration of Franklin Roosevelt to the 1970s, as a sustained deviation from some of the main contours of American political practice, economic structure, and cultural outlook.

The Great Depression and World War II may have forced clear realignments of American politics and class relations, Cowie writes, but those changes were less the linear triumph of the welfare state than the product of very specific, and short-lived, historical circumstances.

If this is true if the New Deal was the product of highly contingent circumstances unlikely to be repeated either now or in the future then the challenge for those committed to the notion of a government that protects and expands the collective economic rights of the American people is to forge a new vision for what that might be. The path forward is not clear, Cowie writes, but whatever successful incarnation of a liberal social imaginary might follow will not look like the New Deal, and it might be best to free ourselves from the notion that it will.

I think you can apply a similar great exception analysis to the decades of institutional stability and orderly partisan competition that shaped the current generation of Democratic leaders, including the president and many of his closest allies.

They came into national politics in an age of bipartisan consensus and centrist policymaking, at a time when the parties and their coalitions were less ideological and more geographically varied. But this, too, was a historical aberration, the result of political and social dynamics such as the broad prosperity of the industrial economic order at home that were already well in decline by the time that Biden, Pelosi, Feinstein and others first took office.

American politics since then has reverted to an earlier state of heightened division, partisanship and fierce electoral competition. Even the authoritarianism on display in the Republican Party has antecedents in the behavior of Southern political elites at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Millions of Democratic voters can see and feel that American politics has changed in profound ways since at least the 1990s, and they want their leaders to act, and react, accordingly.

Standing in the way of this demand, unfortunately, is the stubborn and ultimately ruinous optimism of some of the most powerful people in the Democratic Party.

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Opinion | The Gerontocracy of the Democratic Party Doesnt Understand That Were at the Brink - The New York Times