This Is Truly Sad

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about a recent comment by former Vice-President Joe Biden.

The article reports:

2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden said miners need to find “jobs of the future” when talking about transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels.

“Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well,” Biden said Monday during a campaign event in New Hampshire. “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for god’s sake!”

On Sunday, Biden also said he wanted to throw fossil fuel executives in prison for damaging the environment.

“Put them in jail,” he said. “I’m not joking about this.”

The comment came after the former vice president said that there would not be a single new coal plant made in the U.S. earlier this month. During the December Democratic debate, Biden said he was willing to end hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fossil fuel industry.

I can’t believe that anyone who listens to what he says would vote for this man.

Voting With Their Feet

Breitbart is reporting today that the population of the State of New York dropped by about 77,000 residents over the last year — the steepest statewide population drop in the United States.

The article notes:

New Census Bureau data released this week reveals that ten states in the U.S. saw their populations decline from 2018 to 2019. New York saw the largest decline with nearly 77,000 residents fleeing the state, helping to drop the population by about 0.4 percent.

…Likewise, Illinois lost about 51,250 residents over the last year, while West Virginia’s population declined by about 12,000 residents. About 11,000 residents fled Louisiana, 6,200 residents left Connecticut, 4,900 left Mississippi, 4,700 left Hawaii, more than 3,800 left New Jersey, about 3,600 left Alaska, and about 370 left Vermont.

In New York, between 2018 and 2019, about 45,753 foreign-born residents were added to the population, which is the lowest level of immigration to the state since 2010 and the second-lowest level in nearly 60 years, according to an Empire Center analysis published in the New York Post.

“The cost of living in New York — the high taxes, regulations, and housing costs — are making it untenable to live the American dream here,” New York City Councilman for Staten Island Joe Borelli told the Post. “It’s hard to see how this changes with progressive Democrats entrenched in government.”

The article concludes:

New York’s population decline comes as mass immigration and rapid corporate development by billionaire developers, with the approval of Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), has helped drive up rents and housing costs in New York City. The results have forced working and middle-class Americans out of the state.

Between 2005 and 2017, household incomes for single adults in New York grew by less than two percent per year, a study by the state’s comptroller found. At the same time, overall median rents in New York City increased by about four percent per year, resulting in a 61 percent rent hike for one-bedroom apartments and a 53 percent rent hike for two-bedroom apartments.

This is information you can’t ignore, even if you don’t live in one of the states that is losing population. When New York State (and probably California) finally declare bankruptcy because of bad fiscal policies, the rest of the states will be called on to bail them out. I have no idea how that will work, but I am ready to guarantee it will happen. States that practice fiscal sanity will be asked to bail out states that practice fiscal insanity. The only way that works is if the states practicing fiscal insanity are willing to change their ways. This could get very interesting.

Things That Don’t Turn Out As Expected

Today I learned the following:

Issues & Insights is a new site launched by the seasoned journalists behind the legendary IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to use our decades of experience to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day.

We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we think our approach to commentary is sorely lacking both in today’s mainstream media and on the internet.

Since I truly miss the IBD Editorial page, I am glad to see this website.

Today Issues & Insights posted an article about the raids on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The article reports:

Remember when Democrats reflexively accused President Donald Trump of being a racist when he said illegal immigrants steal American jobs? Turns out, he was right, as evidenced by the aftermath of the massive summer raid that rounded up hundreds of illegals working at chicken processing plants in Mississippi.

In early August, some 600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded seven plants operated by five companies in six different cities. They rounded up 680 “undocumented” immigrants, in what was described as the largest raid in a single state.

This is part of a larger effort by Trump to target companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Last year, it raided a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. A Government Accountability Office report issued in early December found that arrests, detentions, and removals were all up in Trump’s first two years in office compared with Obama’s last two.

Nevertheless, the reaction to the Mississippi raid from Democrats was swift and furious. Joe Biden said the raid was a sign that “Trump is morally unfit to lead this country.” Sen. Bernie Sanders called it “evil.” Beto O’Rourke – who dropped out of the race two months after the raid – said Trump’s “cruelty knows no bounds.” The media, naturally, lent Democrats a hand by playing up the disruption and crying children, while playing down the fact that those workers were in the country illegally.

In fact, the raid was the furthest thing from cruel or evil or immoral to American citizens living in the area – many of them black people – who flocked to get the jobs those illegals had held.

The New York Times traveled to Morton, Mississippi, to report on the impact of the raids. The times reported that the residents of the town benefited from the raids. Before the raids, the managers had been hiring illegal workers and exploiting them. When they hired American workers, they were forced to follow labor laws.

The article concludes:

To be sure, the Times sheds plenty of crocodile tears for the poor illegal immigrants affected by the raid, and it tries mightily to get the newly employed Americans to wring their hands about “stealing” those jobs.

But the inescapable conclusion is that the chicken companies had been exploiting cheap illegal immigrant labor to do jobs that Americans are clearly willing to take, if they have the chance.

Yet here we have the country’s leading Democrats – who constantly bleat about being on the side of the little guy and the downtrodden – siding with greedy companies that were exploiting illegal immigrants to fatten their bottom lines, and were doing so at the expense of low-income black people in the area who were shut out of those jobs.

Tell us again which is the party of compassion?

We live in America. Our government needs to make decisions that put American workers first.

The Search Continues…

Yesterday John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about a story The New York Times ran about a disgruntled Trump voter. The article in The New York Times was posted in October. It was about Mark Graham, a real estate appraiser in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The New York Times reported:

Mark Graham, a real estate appraiser in this faded manufacturing hub [Erie, Pennsylvania], sat with friends at a gym named FitnessU on the morning after the Democratic debate in mid-September. He had voted for Barack Obama, but in 2016 he took a gamble on Donald Trump.
***
“Things have changed in the last couple weeks: More stupidity has come out,” Mr. Graham, 69, said in a telephone interview last week. He hopes Democrats nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but he is not particular. “I’d vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is at this point,” he said.

Well, voting records are public. It turns out that Mr. Graham did not vote in 2016.

The article at Power Line Blog continues:

Fast forward a month, to November 12. Now the Times reports, excitedly, on a new anti-Trump ad campaign being undertaken by David Brock’s disreputable organization, American Bridge:

A Democratic group unveiled a $3 million advertising campaign Tuesday featuring people who supported President Trump but now regret it, the first wave of a yearlong effort to reclaim some of the voters in the industrial Midwest who helped tip the 2016 election.

The group, American Bridge, will air commercials in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that are first-person testimonials from residents of each state explaining why they backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and why they will not do so again next year.

The Times proudly noted its own role in tracking down anti-Trump converts:

The disaffected Trump voter who appeared in the Pennsylvania spot — Mark Graham of Erie, Pa. — was featured in a New York Times article last month.

It is reasonable to assume that American Bridge found Mr. Graham via the Times article.

Unfortunately, neither American Bridge nor the Times thought to check the Erie, Pennsylvania voting records to confirm Mr. Graham’s claim that he voted for President Trump in 2016. It turns out he didn’t:

An allegedly regretful Trump voter in Pennsylvania, highlighted in videos by a Democratic political action committee and by The New York Times, never actually voted in 2016.

News organization JET 24, an ABC affiliate, found after checking county voting records that Mark Graham of Erie County, Pennsylvania, did not vote in the presidential election three years ago.
***
[T]he Trump campaign noted Friday that American Bridge has yet to take down its ad or apologize.

The New York Times has run a correction:

After this article was published, local news media reported that Mark Graham did not vote in the 2016 election. The Times has confirmed that Mr. Graham did not vote in the election. While Mr. Graham acknowledged misspeaking about his voting record, he said the article accurately reflects his feelings about the 2016 race and President Trump’s performance in office.

I guess that’s sort of an apology for their lack of research. It gives me hope that the mainstream media is having so much trouble finding everyday Americans who regret voting for President Trump.

Some Wise Words From Walter Williams

On Saturday, Breitbart posted an article quoting Walter Williams on the new gun registration measures being instituted in Virginia. Walter Williams is a columnist and a George Mason economics Professor.

The article reports:

On December 10, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Northam changed his position from supporting an across-the-board ban on possession of such weapons to supporting a ban only in a situation where a person refuses to register the firearm with the government. The Virginia Mercury quoted Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky saying, “The governor’s assault weapons ban will include a grandfather clause for individuals who already own assault weapons, with the requirement they register their weapons before the end of a designated grace period.”

On December 27, 2019, Walter E. Williams used a Fox News op-ed to warn Virginians “not to fall for the registration trick.” He said, “Knowing who owns what weapons is the first step to confiscation.”

In the article, Walter Williams quoted James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 46:

James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 46 wrote that the Constitution preserves “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote: “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

Too many Americans believe the Second Amendment grants Americans the right to own firearms only to go hunting and for self-protection. The framers of our Constitution had no such intent in mind.

The article concludes:

Eighty-six of Virginia’s 95 counties have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries in which future gun controls passed by Northam and his Democrat colleagues will not be enforced.

Stay tuned.

When You Pull A Loose Thread On A Sweater…

Evidently becoming a powerful Congressman has a lot more perks than we knew. Have you ever wondered how many Congressman become millionaires after ten years in Congress while making $174,000 a year and supporting households in both Washington, D.C. and their home districts? I think we are finding some clues. I also think we have only begun to uncover the corruption that Washington has practiced for so long. No wonder they hate President Trump. He is exposing their corruption and is not taking part in it.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about some of the business dealings of Nancy Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi, Jr.

The article reports:

The more you look at Paul Pelosi Jr. the more you see another Hunter Biden.

Paul Pelosi Jr. – like Hunter Biden, was given no-show jobs for which he wasn’t qualified in an effort to buy influence with his politician parent.

Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul is also on the board of an energy company.
Paul Pelosi Jr. also traveled to Ukraine for his work.

AND — Better Yet — Speaker Nancy Pelosi even appears in the company’s video ad!
According to Patrick Howley at National File Speaker Pelosi’s son Paul Jr. was an executive at Viscoil.

Paul Jr. traveled to Ukraine in 2017.

…Shortly after his mother Nancy Pelosi became the first woman speaker, Paul Pelosi Jr., was hired by InfoUSA for $180,000 a year as its vice president for Strategic Planning in 2007.

Pelosi kept his other full-time day job as a mortgage loan officer for Countrywide Loans in California. And, unlike all of the other InfoUSA employees, Paul Pelosi did not report to work at the company’s headquarters in Omaha.

It must be nice being the spawn of a powerful Democrat politician.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Paul Pelosi, Jr., is so ambitious that he is holding two full-time jobs. Wow. I’m sure it is entirely a coincidence that the lucrative job at InfoUSA was offered to him shortly after his mother became Speaker of the House.

Washington is a swamp that needs to be drained. President Trump is attempting to do that. No wonder they hate him.

The Year In Journalism

Yesterday Dan Gainor posted an article at Fox News about journalism in 2019. Dan Gainor is the vice president for TechWatch, business and culture at the Media Research Center. You can follow him at @dangainor on Twitter.

The article lists seven reasons for calling 2019 American journalism’s worst year ever.

The article reports:

  1. President Trump’s impeachment wouldn’t have happened without an activist press leading the way. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said repeatedly she didn’t want to impeach Trump, knowing that the Republican-controlled Senate would never convict him and realizing the pointless exercise would hurt Democrats in the 2020 election.

2. The New York Times made news the wrong way when the paper ran a legitimate headline about Trump in August. The headline in the print edition of the newspaper was only five words: “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM.” (Yep, he did.)

Left-wing critics chimed in almost immediately, outraged that the accurate headline didn’t bash the president sufficiently. Everyone from Democratic presidential candidates to radical Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., skewered the paper.

Even its own staff. New York Magazine and HuffPost Contributor Yashar Ali tweeted that Times staffers “feel like their hard work is being sullied by a horrible headline.” They blamed it Executive Editor Dean Baquet.

Baquet caved first on the headline. The Times changed it in later editions to “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS.”

3. Few incidents show the collapse of journalism ethics more than ABC’s attempt to hype Turkey’s attack on the Kurds in Syria. The goal appeared to be to embarrass President Trump – who had pulled U.S. troops from the Kurdish-controlled portion Syria – and possibly draw the U.S. into war.

ABC’s Tom Llamas told the “ABC World News Tonight” audience that Trump was “effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against ISIS.” ABC then broadcast a video that Llamas said appeared to show “Turkey’s military bombing Kurdish civilians in a Syrian border town.”

Only it wasn’t. It was from a nighttime machine gun shoot held by a Kentucky gun range. The president mocked the “FAKE footage.” ABC apologized. But it ran the apology on its website and viewers never knew how badly the network fed them false information.

4. The same media pros who freak out when anyone dares criticize teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg were quick to slam an entire high school. Journalists especially blamed student Nicholas Sandmann for a confrontation that happened in January.

…The journalistic witch hunt was based on a selectively edited video and the fact that Sandmann was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. The horrendous news coverage spawned multiple, well-deserved defamation lawsuits.

5. Journalists have elevated anyone who represents The Resistance against Trump. But no one got more star treatment than now-disgraced anti-Trump attorney Michael Avenatti, who represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in her case against Trump.

6. The Russia collusion narrative ran smack dab into reality this year. Journalists who spent at least 2,284 minutes on TV claiming the president was working with or for an American enemy failed to deliver any proof of their ridiculous claims.

7. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald summed up the media’s failure: “This was the single biggest story the US media fixated on for *3 years* & got the crux of it totally & completely wrong in a very damaging way.”

Unfortunately, journalists haven’t learned a darn thing. And that summarizes 2019 as well as anything.

I have no reason to believe that 2020 will be any different. I am waiting for all the polls that show President Trump losing to whoever the Democrats nominate by a landslide. Then after the election, the pollsters will try to get their credibility back. We have seen this play before.

Policies Have Consequences

Fox News is reporting today that Mayor Douglas Nicholls of Yuma, Arizona, has withdrawn his city’s state of emergency that was declared in response to this year’s migrant crisis at the southern border — saying that the crisis has diminished in recent months.

The article reports:

“I am grateful to be able to withdraw the Proclamation of Emergency due to the Trump Administration’s policy changes that diminish the flow of the migrant family units to the Yuma area and prevent releases into the Yuma community,” Mayor Douglas Nicholls said in a statement earlier this month.

Nicholls declared a state of emergency in April near the peaks of the border crisis, when the number of migrants apprehended or turned away at the border soared to over 109,000. That number would hit 144,000 in May, but then decline sharply in the months since then, down to about 42,000 in November. At the time, Nicholls said the state of emergency was “due to the migrant family releases overwhelming the local shelter system.”

The administration has credited a slew of measures for bringing down the numbers of migrants approaching the border. Most significantly is the ramping up of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) over the summer — which sees migrants returned to Mexico as they await their hearings. So far more than 53,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico under MPP. That has been coupled with asylum agreements with countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador that sees migrants sent there to claim asylum instead

While those policies have drawn significant criticism from pro-migrant and humanitarian groups, who warn that they could send migrants into dangerous areas and place them at risk of violence, the administration claims it is those policies that have helped slow the crisis and end the pull factors that brought migrants north. They also mean that apprehended migrants can be processed quicker and, in many cases, be sent to Mexico or a Central American country rather than released into the U.S. interior. In a press release, Nicholls also credited those initiatives for alleviating the crisis in Yuma.

The constant flow of illegal immigrants flowing into America from our southern border does not help anyone–it puts those immigrants at risk and puts American citizens at risk. It puts downward pressure on the wages of working Americans. It poses a security risk. The wall is not the entire answer–the policies that the Trump administration is putting in place are also very helpful.

Insanity Made Legal

An article at New Jersey News 12 updated on December 23 reported that New Jersey birth certificates will now include a third, non-binary label come February 1.

The article reports:

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Babs Siperstein Bill into law last July.

The new legislation gives parents the option of choosing a gender-neutral or non-binary identity on their child’s birth certificate. It also allows adults to change the gender marker on their birth and death certificates, without proof of reassignment surgery.

“Just because your sex assigned at birth is one thing, it does not necessarily mean that it is something that’s going to be consistent with your gender identity throughout your life,” says Ashley Chiappano with the group Garden State Equality.

I would like to remind Ms. Chiappano that the sex assigned at birth is not randomly assigned–it is based on visible biological, scientific information.

The article concludes:

Chiappano says that there is a difference between sex and gender.

“Sex is more like a label. When we’re talking about sex, this is assignment by a doctor,” she says. “Gender identity goes even further to say that it’s how you feel on the inside and how you express yourself. It’s how you express yourself through your clothing, your behavior, your personal appearance.”

The new law is named after Edison resident Babs Siperstein, the first elected transgender member of the Democratic National Committee in 2012.

New Jersey joins Oregon, California and Washington, which have all approved similar legislation. New York City also just changed birth certificates to be gender neutral.

I totally reject the idea that sex is assigned by a doctor. It is designated on the basis of visual evidence. It is becoming obvious that in several states the inmates have taken over the asylum.

Some Perspective From A Former FBI Agent

Sometimes the people who have done a job are the most qualified to analyze how a job was done. Frank Watt, a former FBI Agent, posted an article at The American Thinker today about the surveillance of Carter Page. The title of the article is, “Two Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping, and Neither Is Good.”

Mr. Watt reminds us that because the surveillance of an American citizen violates that citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights, there has to be proven justification for that surveillance. We know that was not the case with Carter Page, in fact, some things were left out of the application for surveillance that would have immediately called into question the need for surveillance.

The article notes:

Based on what we are told by the I.G., there are only two possible conclusions that can be reached regarding the official conduct of those responsible for infringing on Carter Pages Constitutional freedoms: 

The first is that the hand selected team of investigators, attorneys, and Senior Executive Service officials with decades of law enforcement, administrative, and judicial experience were abject failures at a task that they were hired to perform. Speaking from personal experience, in FBI, DEA, and state and local wire tap investigations, the slightest omissions, misstatements, and clerical errors are routinely identified and corrected by the street agents and line prosecutors who do these investigations for a living. To believe that a “varsity level” team, with unlimited time, support, and resources, somehow inadvertently overlooked seventeen major omissions, misstatements, and/or outright falsehoods, is simply not believable. 

The second possibility is that nearly everyone who significantly participated in obtaining FISA coverage on Page knowingly and deliberately operated outside the law to one degree or another. The reasons behind the decision to do so are irrelevant. The particulars regarding the seventeen I.G. findings are startling, taken individually. It’s difficult to see how any of the individual omissions or misstatements could have happened accidentally. Viewed collectively, the apparent intentionality is nearly impossible to reconcile as anything but corruption. 

In light of the I.G findings, the presiding FISA court judge seems to have come down on the side of intentional abuse. In a recent court order, Judge Rosemary Collyer gave the FBI until January 10 to explain to the court why the FBI should be allowed to continue to utilize FISA. The statement that the FBI “withheld material information” and that “FBI personnel misled NSD” suggests that the judge isn’t buying the “series of unfortunate events” excuse peddled by prominent figures in defense of the indefensible. 

The article concludes:

Whichever explanation seems more likely, the end result should be infuriating to every American. Either your nations premiere law enforcement agency was breathtakingly incompetent when the stakes were the highest, or select officials in that organization made deliberate decisions to break the law, undermine the Constitution, and illegally spy on a fellow American. Either possibility has deeply damaged the reputation of the FBI and DOJ in addition to the reputations of thousands of honest FBI Agents and DOJ attorneys. Despite the legitimate concerns of civil libertarians, the FISA process has indisputably proved an invaluable resource in safeguarding the country from terrorism. If the heinous abuses documented in the I.G.s report result in a weakening or loss of FISA, we will all be the worse for it. If those responsible are not held to account, this will happen again. There is no happy face to put on this episode. 

It is time for those guilty of corruption to be tried and held accountable for their actions.

The Truth About Purging Voter Rolls

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about some of the lies the media is telling about purging voter rolls.

The article reports:

Maggie Haberman, the esteemed New York Times reporter, recently tweeted out a Mother Jones article to 1.2 million followers. It was titled: “GOP-Led Voter Purges in Wisconsin and Georgia Could Tip 2020 Elections.”

The chilling piece warns readers that “hundreds of thousands of voters are set to be purged in two key swing states,” which “potentially” gives Republicans “a crucial advantage by shrinking the electorate” in those states.

None of this, of course, is true. Cynical pieces of this genre, an election-time tradition at this point, only allow Democrats to warn of widespread disenfranchisement and preemptively give aggrieved Democrats such as Stacey Abrams a baked-in excuse for losing elections and smearing Republicans.

How many people who fall for these claims understand that both federal law and state law mandate the updating of voter lists?

In Georgia, we already know that hundreds of thousands of “voters” were not purged, because at least 62% of registrations that were canceled recently by the state had surely moved away or died. Either their mail was returned as undeliverable or they had officially changed their address to a different state.

Other registrations were purged because the person hadn’t voted in years. Georgia has automatic registration. I know it’s difficult for some people to believe this, but lots of Americans have no interest in voting.

And Georgia voters can be declared “inactive” if they haven’t participated in elections, contacted officials, responded to officials, or updated their registrations since the 2012 election.

That’s state law. Georgia sends everyone letters explaining how they can fix any potential problems. Georgia, in fact, publishes a list of names online so anyone who has not received a letter can check if they are still registered. Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed a law that lengthens the period before voters become “inactive” from three to nine years.

As Justin Gray, a reporter in Atlanta, notes, the reason you don’t hear complaints from these “hundreds of thousands” of disenfranchised voters is because “most on [the] list are either dead, have moved, or as some told me were registered automatically when they got [a] license and don’t ever want to vote.”

It’s important to note, as well, that despite what you’ve heard, and what Democrats are constantly intimating, an analysis by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution uncovered no racial disparities in the voter roll purge in Georgia, finding that blacks and whites were purged in proportion to their shares of the state’s registered voters:

The article concludes:

However you look at these situations, though, “hundreds of thousands of voters” are not losing their right to cast ballots. Even if judges began forcing Wisconsin and Georgia—and the seven other states with “use it or lose it laws”—to ignore the law, there’s no evidence that it would have any bearing on the election.

Because even if we conceded that a tenth of these purges were inappropriate (and there’s zero evidence that suggests that even 1% of them are wrong), and even if we conceded that every single one of those voters would then cast their ballots for Democrats (which is implausible), it still wouldn’t change the outcome.

Not in Georgia. Not in Wisconsin. Not anywhere.

None of this is to contend that there isn’t a single person in the country who is being unfairly denied the right to vote. But the notion that “hundreds of thousands of voters” will be stopped from participating in the 2020 election through voter purges is nothing but destructive scaremongering meant to undermine American belief in the veracity of our elections.

Purging the voter rolls cuts down on voter fraud. It eliminates the possibility of someone claiming to be someone who has either moved or died. It prevents the vote of an American citizen from being cancelled out by fraud. It helps keep our elections honest.

How Many Times Do Voters Have To Pass This To Make It Law?

A 2016 article at CNN reported:

A federal appeals court Friday overturned parts of North Carolina’s 2013 voting law, including provisions that required voters to show a photo identification card, saying they were enacted “with racially discriminatory intent” in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

“We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history,” 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diana Motz wrote.

This was the third federal court ruling against voter identification laws this month. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled July 20 that Texas’ voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act, and federal judges softened a Wisconsin law on July 19.

The voters responded by passing an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution in November 2018 that required voter id.

The Carolina Journal continues the story today:

 A federal court gave North Carolinians who adopted a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID a late lump of coal.

U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs and Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld issued a notice Thursday, Dec. 26, saying the court will put the law implementing the constitutional amendment on hold. They’re presiding over a lawsuit challenging the law requiring voters to present a state-approved form of identification at the polls. The court said it will issue an order next week.

…What happens next is anyone’s guess. The defendants in the lawsuit who have standing to file an appeal may choose not to, jeopardizing the voter ID requirement for the March 2020 primary.

The N.C. chapter of the NAACP filed the lawsuit a year ago, saying the 2018 implementing law was too much like earlier voter ID attempts that were ruled unconstitutional. Senate Bill 824 became law Dec. 19, 2018, over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.

But in its lawsuit, the NAACP didn’t include the General Assembly among the defendants, even though legislators passed the law being challenged. The only defendants are Cooper (who vetoed S.B. 824) and the members of the State Board of Elections.

Legislative leaders asked the court in January to join the lawsuit. Biggs rejected the request, saying the elections board could defend the law.

County elections boards were told Thursday the voter ID informational mailing was scrapped.

It is significant that the only defendants are Governor Cooper and the State Board of Elections. My guess is that the Governor will choose not to oppose the ruling and we will have to vote for voter id again. The legislature passed voter id laws a few years ago, and the voters amended the Constitution to require voter id last year. The court is taking away the rights of the voters and of the legislature. That should not be allowed to stand.

Leadership Matters

Breitbart is reporting today that thanks to the immigration policies enacted by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, illegal migrant landings have been cut in half in 2019.

The article reports:

According to the ministry, the country saw 23,210 arrivals in 2018 which then reduced to 11,439 in 2019, although the number of arrivals has dramatically increased since Salvini and his League party left the government in August and were replaced by the leftist Democratic Party, Il Giornale reports.

Salvini, who closed Italian ports to migrant transport NGOs, is largely credited with dramatically reducing the number of drowning deaths in the Mediterranean sea.

The populist League leader slammed the leftist government coalition for the rise of new arrivals in recent months saying: “Even in December the landings increased compared to the same period a year ago.”

Since the new government took over, the number of migrants has increased.

The article concludes:

According to Il Giornale, the number of new migrants has increased since the new coalition took power in September, compared to the same period last year and claimed that the current government was taking credit for policies enacted by Salvini, rather than their own record.

The policies of Salvini remain popular in Italy, with the League topping opinion polls for months and Salvini himself consistently being voted the most trusted politician in the country, ahead of current Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

The coalition of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party, however, remains unpopular with the vast majority of the Italian public with some polls showing Salvini’s League with nearly as much support as both parties combined.

Cracks in the government coalition have also begun to emerge in recent weeks, with three Five Star Movement senators defecting to the League earlier this month.

Stay tuned. Around the world, average citizens of any country do not want to see their country inundated by illegal immigrants who have no intention of assimilation or contributing to the culture of the country they are entering. It is disheartening to see pictures of young men pouring into foreign countries rather than working to improve conditions in their own countries.

A Great Idea!

NewJersey.com is reporting that Island Beach State Park is accepting old Christmas trees (without lights or decorations) on Jan. 4 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the A-23 parking lot. The trees will be used to protect the sands from erosion.

The article reports:

The old timber will protect the sands from erosion, and you’ll also avoid having to drag your tree to the side of the road, hoping it gets picked up.

Trees at the Shore can aid and improve the dune systems on the beaches by forming sand and soil erosion barriers, capturing sand that is pushed by northeasterly winds, staff said.

Staff will be onsite to help those donating their trees. For further information about the collection, contact Island Beach Nature Programs at 732-793-1315.

What a wonderful idea.

That is an idea that is also being put to use locally. If you live anywhere near the coast, please contact your town or county to see if they have a similar program. Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Dorian caused major beach erosion along the North Carolina coast, and we need to work on restoring the damaged sand dunes.

Pettiness On Parade

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The movie is the rather silly physical comedy sequel to Home Alone. There is a scene in the movie where President Trump (before he was involved in politics) makes a cameo appearance. CBC TV in Canada chose to remove that scene from the movie.

The article reports:

That’s right, ComicBook.com reports that CBC edited out Donald Trump’s cameo from the 1992 movie. And people watching it were quick to report the suspicious omission on social media. Some were outraged, and the snowflakes were thrilled.

The article concludes:

Donald Trump formally announced his campaign in June 2015. The first time the CBC’s cutting of Trump’s cameo appearance was acknowledged on Twitter was around Christmas that year

…Now, either 2015 happened to be the first year the CBC broadcasted the movie, which I highly doubt, or something happened between the 2014 CBC broadcast of Home Alone 2, and the 2015 CBC broadcast. One could argue that Trump wasn’t a political figure in the public’s conscious before 2015, but years prior he had been making headlines for publicly questioning Obama’s birth certificate—so I don’t think that excuse really works. Had his cameo been cut before then, I’m sure it would have been noticed.

Trump’s presidential bid appears to the be beginning of the folks at the CBC being triggered by Trump so badly that they actually had to edit him out of their broadcast of the film. I can’t decide if this is hilarious or sad.

How petty can the media get?

Wisdom From The Mayor Of Livermore California

The article I am referring to is from June 2018, but it is still totally relevant. Linked in posted an article on June 16, 2018, about the success and popularity of President Trump. Obviously that popularity does not extend to the media, but it does extend to the thousands of people who attend his rallies. The article is written by Marshall Kamena, a registered Democrat who is the Mayor of Livermore, California.

The article notes:

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The article continues:

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

…Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”… Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. … They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is extremely insightful!

The Overlooked Impact Of Illegal Immigration

Breitbart posted an article yesterday about an aspect of illegal immigration that is often overlooked.

The article reports:

Research by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler finds that annual illegal and legal immigration to the U.S. will redistribute political power in the form of 26 House seats away from a number of red states and towards massively populated blue states like California and New York.

“To put this number in perspective, changing the party of 21 members of the current Congress would flip the majority in the U.S. House,” Camarota and Zeigler note.

Ohio, a swing state that voted for President Trump in 2016, will get three fewer congressional seats in 2020 due to mass immigration in other states. Michigan and Pennsylvania, also states that voted for Trump in 2016, will each have two fewer congressional seats. Wisconsin, a Trump-supporting swing state, will have its congressional seats cut by at least one.

Red states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia, Camarota and Zeigler predict, will all get one less congressional seat in 2020. Smaller blue states such as Minnesota and Rhode Island will each receive one less congressional seat.

Those seats cut from mostly red states will be redistributed to California, the most immigration-inundated state in the country. California, by 2020, is set to gain 11 congressional seats solely due to the fact that noncitizens, rather than just American citizens, are counted in congressional apportionment.

Likewise, New York — where nearly 40 percent of residents are foreign-born — is set to gain four more congressional seats and New Jersey, with a more than 22 percent foreign-born population, will also take an additional two congressional seats.

Texas, which has become increasingly blue due to immigration and out-of-state young people, will gain another four congressional seats, as will the swing state of Florida with its foreign-born population of 4.1 million.

The deeply blue states of Illinois and Massachusetts, both of which went 55 to 60 percent for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, will each gain one congressional seat.

What this is saying is that the influx of non-citizens into blue states will lessen the impact of voters in red states. This is a glaring example of the reason only citizens should be counted when allotting seats in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is supposed to represent American citizens. Americans are leaving California and New York in droves. These two states should be losing representatives–not gaining them.

Beginning To Level The Playing Field In Trade

CNBC reported yesterday that China will lower tariffs on products ranging from frozen pork and avocado to some types of semiconductors next year.  The Chinese economy is slowing down, and lowering tariffs is seen as a way to bring back previous growth.

The article also notes:

 

  • Next year, China will implement temporary import tariffs, which are lower than the most-favored-nation tariffs, on more than 850 products, the finance ministry said on Monday.
  • That compared with 706 products that were taxed at temporary rates in 2019.

The article cites a few significant tariff cuts:

The finance ministry said the tariff rate for frozen pork will be cut to 8% from the most-favored-nation duty of 12%, as China copes to plug a huge supply gap after a severe pig disease decimated its hog herd.

…China will also lower temporary import tariffs for ferroniobium — used as an additive to high strength low alloy steel and stainless steel for oil and gas pipelines, cars and trucks — from 1% to zero in 2020 to support its high-tech development.

…The tariff rate for frozen avocado was cut to 7% from the most-favored-nation duty of 30%, the ministry said.

…Tariffs for some asthma and diabetes medications will be set at zero, the ministry said, while duties on some wood and paper products will be lowered too.

Import tariffs on multi-component semiconductors will be cut to zero.

China will also further lower most-favored-nation import tariffs on some information technology products from July 1, the ministry said.

China has long been an unfair trading partner–manipulating their currency, disregarding intellectual property, and generally behaving badly. Hopefully President Trump’s ‘trade war’ will bring some balance into our trade relationship with China.

 

The Real Game

As you no doubt are aware, Senator Schumer has ‘uncovered’ documents that show that the Democrats need to call witnesses in the Senate in addition to witnesses that testified in the House of Representatives. While this is much ado about nothing, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today that explains the actual goal of all the drama. The article is very detailed (including the full arguments from the House of Representatives asking for more witnesses and the Department of Justice’s response). I suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire thing.

The article notes:

As we suspected, albeit against much criticism, House counsel Doug Letter has responded to the DC Appeals Court arguing the forced testimony of White House counsel Don McGahn is needed for evidence in impeachment trial. [Court pdf Avail Here]

This court filing today bolsters the unspoken background motive for delayed House Impeachment Managers.  The House Judiciary Committee is using impeachment as support for their ongoing effort to gain: Don McGahn deposition, and Mueller grand jury material (6e).  The goal is opposition research; impeachment is a tool to establish legal standing to obtain it.  Everything else is chaff and countermeasures.

The Democrats are looking for a legal basis to continue their fishing expedition to gather campaign fodder for 2020.

The article continues:

This court filing bolsters CTH analysis that rushed House articles are a means to an end. That is – a way for House lawyers to argue in court all of the constitutionally contended material is required as evidence for pending judicial proceedings, a trial in the Senate.

This would explain why all the prior evidence debated for inclusion and legal additions to “articles of impeachment” were dropped. Instead the House focused only on quickly framing two articles that can facilitate pending court cases.

…REMINDER: The House Judiciary Committee (HJC) led by Chairman Jerry Nadler has been seeking: (1) Mueller grand jury material; (2) a deposition by former White House counsel Don McGahn; and less importantly (3) Trump financial and tax records.  Each of these issues is currently being argued in appellate courts (6e and McGahn) and the supreme court (financials/taxes).

Looking at the legal maneuvers from that perspective means the grand jury material is the unspoken goal and impeachment is simply the enhanced means to obtain it.

The 6(e) material relates to evidence gathered by the Mueller team for grand jury proceedings in their two-year effort to construct a case against President Trump.

Remember, the Mueller evidence was gathered during a counterintelligence investigation, which means all things Trump -including his family and business interests- were subject to unbridled surveillance for two years; and a host of intelligence gathering going back in time indefinitely. A goldmine of political opposition research.

Obviously if Jerry Nadler could get his hands on this material it would quickly find its way into the DNC, and ultimately to the 2020 democrat candidate for president. This material would also be fuel for a year of leaks to DC media who could exploit rumor, supposition, and drops of information that Andrew Weissmann and team left to be discovered.

The article highlights some of the Department of Justice response:

[…] “Pursuing an interbranch suit in court while simultaneously pursuing impeachment, and then using that litigation as part of the impeachment proceedings, is “far from the model of the traditional common-law cause of action at the conceptual core of the case-or-controversy requirement.” Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 833 (1997) (Souter, J., concurring). But that is exactly what the Committee has done. The effect of that choice is
to “embroil the federal courts in a power contest nearly at the height of its political tension.” Id.

Indeed, if this Court now were to resolve the merits question in this case, it would appear to be weighing in on a contested issue in any impeachment trial. That would be of questionable propriety whether or not such a judicial resolution preceded or post-dated any impeachment trial. Cf. Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 232, 235-36 (1993).

The now very real possibility of this Court appearing to weigh in on an article of impeachment at a time when political tensions are at their highest levels—before, during, or after a Senate trial regarding the removal of a President—puts in stark relief why this sort of interbranch dispute is not one that has “traditionally thought to be capable of resolution through the judicial process.” Raines, 521 U.S. at 819.

This Court should decline the Committee’s request that it enter the fray and instead should dismiss this fraught suit between the political branches for lack of jurisdiction.

Stay tuned. Meanwhile, understand that the emails that Senator Schumer has discovered are not a ‘smoking gun’–they are simply a record of the way business is done in Washington.

Sometimes It’s The Little Things That Matter

President Trump has given us back the freedom to choose our light bulbs. American Thinker posted an article today stating:

Score another million votes for President Trump in the coming 2020 election.

The president has gotten rid of a despicable little micromanaging regulation left over from the Obama era, restoring the citizens’ right to buy the light bulbs that fit their preferences and needs. According to The Hill:

“Today the Trump Administration chose to protect consumer choice by ensuring that the American people do not pay the price for unnecessary overregulation from the federal government,” Brouillette said in a statement. “Innovation and technology are already driving progress, increasing the efficiency and affordability of light bulbs, without federal government intervention. The American people will continue to have a choice on how they light their homes.”

Blocking the standards flies in the face of congressional intent, critics say, citing a 2007 act signed into law by President George W. Bush that requires all everyday bulbs to use 65 percent less energy than regular incandescent bulbs, which currently constitute about half of the bulb market.

Where in the Constitution does it give the government power to tell us what kind of light bulbs we can buy?

The article continues:

Way back in 2011, when the Bush-era nanny-state measure was first enacted, Virginia Postrel, then at Bloomberg (she might still be) wrote this brilliant piece on how stupid and immoral the whole thing was. She began:

If you want to know why so many Americans feel alienated from their government, you need only go to Target and check out the light bulb aisle. Instead of the cheap commodities of yesteryear, you’ll find what looks like evidence of a flourishing, technology-driven economy.

There are “ultrasoft” bulbs promising “softer soft white longer life” light, domed halogens for “bright crisp light” and row upon row of Energy Smart bulbs — some curled in the by-now-familiar compact fluorescent form, some with translucent shells that reveal only hints of the twisting tubes within.

I can’t get the whole thing on Outline, but here was her money-quote:

… the activists offended by the public’s presumed wastefulness took a more direct approach. They joined forces with the big bulb producers, who had an interest in replacing low-margin commodities with high-margin specialty wares, and, with help from Congress and President George W. Bush, banned the bulbs people prefer.

It was an inside job. Neither ordinary consumers nor even organized interior designers had a say. Lawmakers buried the ban in the 300-plus pages of the 2007 energy bill, and very few talked about it in public. It was crony capitalism with a touch of green.

Now we have our freedom to choose light bulbs back. Let’s see how many other freedoms we can reclaim!

Guilty As Charged

On September 19th, I posted an article about Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, an airplane mechanic accused of sabotaging an airplane about to take off at Miami International Airport in July.

The Washington Times posted an article on Wednesday about Mr. Alani’s trial.

The article reports:

A longtime airline mechanic with some possible links to Muslim extremists pleaded guilty Wednesday to sabotaging a jetliner with 150 people aboard, causing the pilot to abort the flight just before takeoff at Miami International Airport.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani entered the plea in Miami federal court. He previously admitted to investigators that he committed the sabotage, insisting it was an attempt to gain overtime to fix the American Airlines jet – which he did.

“I do admit the guilt,” Alani, shackled and wearing tan jail clothing, said through an Arabic interpreter.

Alani, 60, is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Iraq who had been an airline mechanic for 30 years. Prosecutors say he has a brother in Iraq who may be involved with the Islamic State extremist group and that he had made statements wishing Allah would use “divine powers” to harm non-Muslims.

Investigators said Alani also had Islamic State videos on his phone depicting mass murders and that he traveled to Iraq in March but did not disclose that to the FBI after his arrest.

Despite that evidence, Alani was never charged with any terrorism-related crime. He pleaded guilty to attempted destruction of an aircraft, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Alani will likely get less prison time when he is sentenced March 4.

Court documents show the sabotage involved gluing Styrofoam inside the nose of the Boeing 737 so that it disabled a component pilots use to monitor things such as airspeed, altitude and the pitch of the plane. Authorities say if the flight had taken off as planned July 17 for Nassau, Bahamas, the sabotage could have caused a crash.

Many of Alani’s actions that day were captured on surveillance video and he was identified by fellow workers.

I wonder why this man was not charged with terrorism. It may be that the government felt that their case was not strong enough. However, the government (and we the people) need to understand that terrorists are probing all the time to find weak spots in our defenses. It terrorists realize that they can commit terrorism and not have it recognized as such, they may become more bold. Thank God the plane did not go down. This could have been much worse. Mishandling of this case could easily result in terrorists feeling they have a green light to commit terrorism because the consequences, whether they succeed or fail, will be minimal.