Author Archives: granny g

Sad News From Virginia Beach

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CBN News announced today that Pat Robertson died. Pat Robertson was born on March 22, 1930. His father, Absalom Willis Robertson served in Congress as both a Senator and Representative for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

CBN reports:

Perhaps best known for offering prayer and political commentary at the helm of The 700 Club, the flagship program of his media ministry, Robertson’s rise to prominence is rooted in what he called a vision from God to create The Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded in 1960. A prolific innovator, he also started a Christian university, a legal advocacy group, and an international NGO specializing in disaster relief.

Even while promoting a worldview that believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, both his approach to business and his on-air persona were considered unorthodox by some – if not ahead of his time. Today, his influence and legacy crisscross interests and industries that have broken barriers for countless Christian leaders and laypeople.

…In 1966, Robertson began hosting a daily talk show, The 700 Club. Still on the air today, it is one of the longest-running programs in television history.

From the set of The 700 Club, he transformed Christian television. But his reach went far beyond spirituality.

By the 1970s, Robertson – who once described himself as a “newsman” at heart – had secured interviews with military and political leaders such as the late Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, and Jimmy Carter, who was then Georgia’s governor and would win the White House with the support of evangelical Christians.

Four years later, Robertson was part of the conservative leadership that helped propel Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980. 

The article also notes:

He expanded his political influence by bringing thousands of evangelicals into the electoral process through the founding of the Christian Coalition. He also created the American Center for Law and Justice with a mandate to protect religious freedoms.

“Pat always had this vision to go where a lot of people don’t go. When you do that, sometimes you’re criticized by people,” Pastor Laurie said. “He’s been a risk taker in the best sense of the word. A visionary. A dreamer. But someone whose message was the Gospel.”

With his return to CBN after the failed campaign, Robertson took the company globally, dramatically extending the reach of the ministry’s Christian programming to over 150 countries in more than 100 languages through satellite technology.

Pat Robertson often reminded viewers that America was based on Judeo-Christian principles of law. He encouraged Christians to get involved in politics and uphold those principles. If our current politicians followed those principles today, our country would be in a much better place.

Pat Robertson will be missed, but he left an unbelievable legacy and was an example for all of us.

The End Of An Era?

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Wikipedia (which I don’t generally recommend as a source) states:

Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.

Title IX gave women’s sports the boost it needed. It put women’s high school and college athletics on the map. It allowed many female athletes who couldn’t pay for college to attend on athletic scholarships. Likewise, the Miss America Pageant allowed women a chance to compete for scholarship money based on their talents and appearance. Well, not so fast.

On June 6th, The Daily Wire reported:

A man who was crowned “Miss San Francisco” will compete in the 2023 Miss California Pageant in July.

Monroe Lace, a man who identifies as a woman, won the Miss San Francisco pageant in March, qualifying the “beauty queen” to compete for the Miss California title next month. Lace is the first trans-identifying man to be crowned Miss San Francisco in the competition’s 99-year history.

“Every time I put on the sash, the weight of it reminds me of the weight of my job; of the responsibility I have to make a difference for young children,” Lace told CBS Bay Area.

Lace, 25, visits a different elementary school almost every day. In a video shown by the local CBS affiliate, Lace can be seen reading “Sparkle Boy,” a picture book about a boy who wants to wear women’s clothing, to a 4th-grade class at Tenderloin Community School.

The trans-identifying man told KRON 4 in March that he was “dreaming about this since I was 12 years old” and ran away from home.

Let’s take a look at this. Why is he visiting an elementary school every day and reading the children stories about a boy who dresses in women’s clothing? Also, note that he ran away from home as a 12-year-old. This does not sound like the sort of role model you want for your children. This was a confused child who was obviously not provided the help he needed to deal with gender dysphoria. So why are we rewarding his behavior?

An Important Question That Probably Will Not Be Asked

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On June 6th, The Federalist posted the following headline:

Here’s The Single Most Important Question 2024 GOP Presidential Candidates Must Answer

I will admit it was a question I had not considered.

The article reports:

The million-dollar question for 2024 contenders is: How will you win the general election under the present voting system?

The article notes the problems with the present voting system:

Ballot harvesting is becoming an accepted norm. Candidates not only have to earn votes but figure out how to collect as many votes as they possibly can. Are Republicans overnight going to out-harvest their opponents, or figure out some new means to identify and turn out voters otherwise sitting on the sidelines in sufficient numbers to overcome Democrats’ ballot-harvesting superiority?

“Zuckerbucks” continue to loom over our contests as well, despite bans in many states. The left is doing everything it can to steer private money toward public election administration — administration done in conjunction with left-wing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seemingly targeting the Democrat ballots needed to win.

The Biden administration is working to leverage federal agencies to mobilize presumed Democrat voters as well — also potentially in conjunction with the same NGOs — under a March 2021 executive order, “Promoting Access to Voting,” that has remained shrouded in mystery as the bureaucracy stonewalls over inquiries about its implementation. Republicans have started to engage in election administration, but largely in the context of monitoring over execution. What is the plan to combat Democrat control over election machinery?

The article also notes:

Lawfare is also now an integral part of our election system. Republicans have started to devote significantly greater attention and resources to the litigation game, but to catch up to Democrats will require a long-term, sustained effort, backed with real money. And filing suit over election policies and practices after votes have already been cast of course has proven a losing proposition, as demonstrated by courts’ unwillingness to grapple with fundamental issues around the 2020 election largely on technical grounds.

Meanwhile, Democrats have engaged in efforts to ruin the lives of Republican election lawyers — in their own words to “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms” — seeking to kneecap their competition before it ever reaches the courtroom.

This is an important election. If the people who want a one-party America where the Democrats are in control and opposition is silenced win, it is the end of our freedom as we know it. The corruption and manipulation that has occurred in our election process in recent years is going to be hard to combat.

The Attack On Children Continues

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On June 6th, The Daily Caller reported that a federal judge has blocked the rule restricting minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures.

The article reports:

A federal judge sided Tuesday with families who sued over Florida’s ban on gender transition procedures for minors, declaring that “gender identity is real.”

A group of families, backed by several LGBT activist groups, sued Florida in March shortly after the rule restricting minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures, puberty blockers and hormone therapy took effect. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction against the law to prohibit it from being enforced against the plaintiffs, and proceeded to make the claim that “great weight of medical authority supports these treatments.”

In much of the developed world, including many Scandinavian countries, sex change interventions for minors are seen as lacking evidence and as largely experimental treatments. Additionally, pioneers in gender dysphoria treatment have come out against modern philosophies that emphasize immediately “affirming” gender-confused minors, while experts have repeatedly poked holes in much of the scholarship claiming child sex changes are medically necessary.

Just for the record–I am not opposed to any adult who wants transgender surgery, hormone treatments, etc., to accessing those treatments. I simply question the wisdom of making those treatments available to children under the age of 18. Adolescence is hard, and it is a confusing time for many teenagers. It is a time when teenagers are not necessarily making wise choices. One hopes that their parents would guide them into wise choices, but that is not always the case. Right now, transgender is a fad. Unfortunately it is a fad with lifelong consequences. Eating goldfish was also a fad at one time. It was not necessarily smart, but it generally did not have lifelong consequences.

There is a reason we do not allow teenagers to smoke or drink before age 21. Why in the world are we letting them make permanent life-altering decisions before they are mature enough to understand fully the consequences of those decisions?

Freedom To Travel

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Americans have become accustomed to traveling where they want to go when they want to go. That is part of the automobile culture that has developed in this country. An automobile represents freedom of movement. Americans are also used to being able to travel abroad without many restrictions (safety concerns, diplomatic issues can occasionally limit that freedom, but generally we go where we want to go). That may be changing shortly.

On June 5th (updated June 6th), The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

WHO Adopts European-Style COVID-19 Vaccine Passports as Part of New Global Digital Health Certificate

There are some health issues that should be considered when a person is traveling overseas–if a person has a serious cough or a high fever, they probably should not be allowed on an airplane, but I strongly object to global health certificates–particularly after seeing vaccine mandates implemented during the Covid pandemic. What government agency is going to determine who is eligible to receive a global digital health certificate? What vaccines or shots will be required in order for a person to receive this certificate? Will natural immunity be considered?
The article reports:
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it will take up the European Union’s digital COVID-19 vaccine passport framework as part of a new global network of digital health certificates.

The WHO said in a June 5 statement that it had entered into a “landmark digital health partnership” with the European Commission (EC), the European Union’s executive body.

As part of this new joint venture, Europe’s existing framework of digital vaccine passports will serve as the first building block of a global network of digital health products.

The article concludes:

Journalist Nick Corbishley, who writes about economic and political trends in Europe and Latin America, has warned that vaccine passports can lead to the implementation of a global digital identity scheme that will threaten privacy and freedom across the world.

“It’s like this checkpoint society. Wherever you want to go, you have to show your mobile phone, your identity … even if it’s just to go into a supermarket or go into a shop,” he said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”

Corbishley described the negative aspects of a global digital identification scheme as a kind of “digital gulag” in which people could be “effectively banished from society.”

“That is a terrifying vision,” he said.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Various people are encouraging reading 1984 as a guide to where we are headed. Personally, I recommend the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

Blind Justice? No Way!

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

I am sure you all remember the symbol of justice in this country, a statue of a blindfolded lady holding a set of scales, sometimes called Lady Justice. Well, impartial justice no longer exists. The justice system from law enforcement, prosecutors, grand juries to judges is no longer made up of weighers of facts issuing objective opinions, but is full of ideological hacks.

We can no longer trust our judicial system.

The most glaring example, of which there are many, is the comparison of the George Floyd death and that of Ashli Babbitt who died on January 6, 2021 during the Capitol Hill protest. Criminal history: George Floyd had an extensive history of criminal activity and in fact, committed a robbery the very day he was being arrested. Ashli Babbitt had no known criminal history. Background: Unmarried, George Floyd was black, had a checkered past with no steady employment and multiple arrests and history of drug addiction: height above average at six feet six inches and weight approximately 250 lbs. Ashli Babbitt was married, white and a veteran of the Air Force who served honorably as a security airman achieving the rank of E-4. She had no known drug addictions. Average weight and height. Actions at time of incident: George Floyd was actively resisting arrest and refusing to comply with orders from the police. He was suspected of committing a robbery just previously. He showed clear symptoms of being high on drugs which was later confirmed by autopsy. Ashli Babbitt was standing outside a locked door at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. with other protestors. She was not under the influence of drugs, did not pose a threat of violence to police and was not resisting arrest. Cause of Death: George Floyd after a considerable struggle resisting arrest was pinned to the ground by the knee of officer Derek Chauvin. No firearm was used. Ashli Babbitt was shot through the glass of the door by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd as she attempted to climb through the broken door glass. She was unarmed and did not pose a direct threat of violence to the police officer who shot her.

Having reviewed all of the above facts, any reasonable person would conclude that the actions taken against George Floyd were clearly more reasonable than that taken against Ashli Babbitt. As we all know, that conclusion was not reached by our so-called justice system that gave a 21 year sentence to Derek Chauvin and totally exonerated Michael Byrd. This could never happen in a truly objective justice system. Did the race and politics of the individuals involved have anything to do with the outcome? It certainly appears so. Was it the policy of the Capitol Police Dept. to shoot unarmed civilians who are trespassing? How about the venue of where the incident occurred. One famous defense lawyer recently stated that you could “ indict a ham sandwich in Washington or New York City”!

Another glaring injustice is the way individuals who were present at the Capitol on January 6th have been treated as political prisoners. Many of them have been kept in solitary confinement over bogus trumped up charges. How about the FBI raiding the home of Donald Trump and not doing so to Joe Biden who had classified documents for years in several locations including his garage.

These incidents are not consistent with a free republic and an insult to our country. What to do? First, elect a conservative president who will clean house at the Department of Justice. Second, set review standards and practices that will hold corrupt prosecutors and judges accountable. This must be stopped.

The 79th Anniversary Of D-Day

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Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day.

History on the net tells us:

The Normandy Invasion consisted of 5,333 Allied ships and landing craft embarking nearly 175,000 men. The British and Canadians put 75,215 troops ashore, and the Americans 57,500, for a total of 132,715, of whom about 3,400 were killed or missing, in contrast to some estimates of ten thousand.

The foregoing figures exclude approximately 20,000 Allied airborne troopers. Extensive planning was required to move all these troops.

The U.S. VII Corps sustained 22,119 casualties from 6 June to 1 July, including 2,811 killed, 13,564 wounded, 5,665 missing, and seventy-nine captured.

American personnel in Britain included 1,931,885 land, 659,554 air, and 285,000 naval—a total of 2,876,439 officers and men. While in Britain they were housed in 1,108 bases and camps.

The Allied forces for Operation Overlord comprised twenty-three infantry divisions (thirteen U.S., eight British, two Canadian); twelve armored (five U.S., four British, one each Canadian, French, and Polish); and four airborne (two each U.S. and British)—for a total of twenty American divisions, fourteen British, three Canadian, and one each French and Polish. However, the assault forces on 6 June involved two U.S., two British, and one Canadian division.

Air assets included 3,958 heavy bombers (3,455 operational), 1,234 medium and light bombers (989 operational), and 4,709 fighters (3,824 operational), for 9,901 total and 8,268 operational. Allowing for aircrews, 7,774 U.S. and British Commonwealth planes were available for operations on 6 June, but these figures do not include transports and gliders.

AccuWeather notes:

One of the most important weather forecasts in world history would occur in early June 1944, as Allied meteorologists prepared to deliver the final word for the long awaited D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Thousands of lives and the tide of the war depended entirely on teams of Allied meteorologists who determined what constituted suitable weather conditions for the invasion in a small time window.

“The Allies had decided that they wanted to go in at low tide on the landing beaches and that the airborne needed basically a full moon to have the proper dropping conditions,” Historian and Author John McManus said.

High winds and rough seas could impede the amphibious assault and low clouds could block vital air support. The weather factors that would play a significant role in the invasion would be wind, visibility and cloud cover according to met.ie.

“On the Allied side, six meteorologists working in three different teams were responsible for the D-Day forecasts,” according to a report by James R. Fleming, president of the International Commission on History of Meteorology.

By June 3, the forecasting team determined the June 5 would not be an ideal day for the invasion as high pressure over France and low pressure northwest of Ireland would maintain strong southwesterly winds in the [English] Channel, meaning seas too rough for landings and cloud coverage too thick for bombing operations, according to met.ie.

Years of preparation were at stake, but on June 4, hours before the launch of D-Day operations amid an approaching storm, British Group Captain James Stagg urged General Eisenhower for a last-minute delay, according to the History Channel.

…“June 5 becomes quickly off the table because of a terrible storm that is coming in and it’s going to make any invasion basically impossible,” McManus said. “So, Ike has to postpone it a day and then he has to sift through dozens of weather reports to ultimately decide on June 6 as a kind of an opening in the system that allows weather that’s at least good enough, while nowhere near ideal.”

We look back at D-Day is the turning point in the war in Europe, but there were no guarantees that the landing would be successful; and even if the landing was successful, the casualties would be high. We owe our freedom to the brave men who landed on the beaches of France on that day.

Is Anyone Paying Attention?

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The facts about voter fraud in the 2020 election are slowly being revealed. As it becomes obvious that fraud occurred, nothing will change, but hopefully the information revealed will help prevent fraud in the 2024 election. Recently, some of the testimony from postal workers who delivered ballots across state lines has surfaced.

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following;

As The Gateway Pundit reported in 2020, election fraud whistleblowers came forward in December following the controversial election, including one who witnessed the shipping of an estimated 144,000-288,000 completed ballots across three state lines on October 21.

The new information was made public at a press conference by the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, a national constitutional litigation organization.

The Amistad Project said that they have sworn declarations that state over 300,000 ballots are at issue in Arizona, 548,000 in Michigan, 204,000 in Georgia, and over 121,000 in Pennsylvania.

They claim that their evidence reveals multi-state illegal efforts by USPS workers to influence the election in at least three of six swing states.

The whistleblower statements include potentially hundreds of thousands of completed absentee ballots being transported across three state lines, and a trailer filled with ballots disappearing in Pennsylvania.

Attorney Phil Kline said, “130,000 to 280,000 completed ballots for the 2020 general election were shipped from Bethpage, NY, to Lancaster, PA, where those ballots and the trailer in which they were shipped disappeared.”

Truck driver Jesse Morgan was present at the press conference and spoke for 9 minutes about his unbelievable ordeal. Morgan was tasked with delivering completed ballots to Pennsylvania from New York State.

The article also notes:

The Gateway Pundit later discovered that rather than investigate this massive alleged crime, US Attorney General Bill Barr called up investigator Tony Shaffer and KILLED the investigation!  He never lifted a finger to investigate this enormous act of election fraud!

Please follow the above link to read the entire article. The level of corruption in the 2020 election is chilling.

Losing Your Neutrality

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On June 5th, PJ Media posted an article about some recent remarks by former FBI director James Comey. The partisanship of the former director is an example of how corrupt and political our Department of Justice has become in recent years.

The article reports:

It is now well established that the FBI has become thoroughly and possibly irreparably corrupt and politicized, serving as a thuggish arm of the Leftist establishment rather than any kind of law enforcement agency. Its decline accelerated during the tenure of the intensely partisan Leftist apparatchik James Comey as FBI director, but in the six years since Donald Trump removed Comey from office amid a storm of controversy, the lanky corruptocrat has shown not the slightest hint of introspection, much less regret. Instead, he just went on MSNBC to warn that a new Trump administration could see the president weaponizing the justice system. Well, Comey certainly knows all about weaponizing federal agencies for partisan purposes.

Former Biden explainer and current MSNBC host Jen Psaki said to Comey, “You’ve said that Trump poses a near-existential threat to the rule of law, and, and this is something, similar language, that I hear privately from national security officials, some people you and I both know, who will say this, privately, about what a second term could mean. But tell me a little bit about the specifics of what he could try to do. What do you mean by that?”

Comey’s answer is hilarious when you think about the things the FBI did during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations:

Comey answered: “Well, think about what four years of a retribution presidency might look like. He could order the investigation and prosecution of individuals who he sees as enemies — I’m sure I’m on the enemies list — because the president constitutionally does oversee the Executive Branch entirely, which includes the Department of Justice, prosecutors and investigators. And so he could commission, direct, that individuals be pursued. He could also direct all kinds of other conduct that people would maybe take to court to try to stop, but who enforces court orders? Mostly the United States marshals service, which is in — part of the executive branch, and reports to the president. And so President Trump could say, ‘I don’t care what the Supreme Court says or these district judges say, I’m tellin’ the marshals service, Don’t enforce the court order.’”

James Comey is obviously a little short on the quality of self-awareness.

The Truth About The Jobs Report

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Robert DuChemin is a writer at substack. He is a Florida attorney who does great research and is very adept at analyzing information. Recently he posted an article that included some good perspective on the recent jobs report.

The article notes:

…Today’s Labor Department press release claims once again to have “created” more than 360,000 new jobs. I read the entire release and nowhere in the release did they mention the total number of people employed in the USA last month.

It is not like they don’t have those numbers. After a little digging, I discovered from the Labor Department’s own files that 160,721,000 Americans were employed last month. In April, 161,031,000 Americans were employed (shockingly, they adjusted this number after last month‘s release). There is no way anybody using regular math can claim that a loss of about 700,000 jobs was an increase of 360,000 jobs. No wonder they left the total numbers out of their press release.

But it is worse than that. Prior to the pandemic, in February 2020, there were 162,800,000 Americans gainfully employed.

So, with all of his claims of “creating” more jobs, in 2 1/2 years and a $5 trillion increase in debt, Joe still has not replaced all of the jobs lost to the Wuhan Flu disaster. He remains 2,000,000 jobs short.

It drives me crazy that nobody in the broadcast or cable news is discussing this outright lie. Does everybody think Americans are too stupid to read a basic spreadsheet?

Also horrible was the government adding more than 50,000 jobs last month while the number of private-sector jobs decreased. As any first year economics student could tell you, private sector jobs expand the free market economy, government jobs contract the free market economy.

Joe is also going to claim the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 as a Democrat victory even though he has yet to read the actual bill passed by Congress. He gets the bill tomorrow. As I have previously explained, the fact that they won anything was a huge GOP victory because China Joe promised several times that he would “not negotiate,” “not budge one inch,” not give in to people who want to make America great again. The GOP, only 4 people shy of having zero control of any part of our government, was able to negotiate substantial reductions and recover previously allocated money for the first time in US history. There is no way this was a Democrat victory.

Joe’s plans to destroy this country are on life-support, and the GOP can easily pull the plug during this year’s appropriations.

A good statistician can make numbers say anything he wants them to say. It seems as if the only people in the Biden administration who are actually good at their jobs are the ones that know how to lie with statistics.

Common Sense Won

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On Saturday, The Conservative Review posted an article about a recent court settlement regarding a transgender young man in a high school girls’ locker room.

The article reports:

Blake Allen, then 14, was suspended from school and her father Travis Allen lost his coaching position after both spoke out against a biological male using the girls’ locker room at Randolph Union High School.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Allens’ records will be cleared of references to the disciplinary action; Travis Allen will be reinstated as a middle school soccer coach, and the district will pay the family and their attorneys $125,000.

“The settlement of Blake and Travis Allen’s case is a resounding victory for freedom of speech,” Phil Sechler, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Signal.

The article notes:

The lawsuit stemmed from 2022 incident in the girls locker room at the school. According to Blake and some of her peers, a biological male who identifies as transgender entered their locker room while the girls were in various states of undress.

“A male was in our locker room when volleyball girls were trying to get changed,” Blake told the Daily Signal back in October.

“And after I asked him to leave, he didn’t, and later looked over at girls with their shirts off. And it made many people uncomfortable and feel violated. And I left as soon as I could in a panic,” Blake also said, adding that she did not blame the trans student. Instead, she called out the school board’s failure in allowing the situation to happen at all.

Blake was suspended after she allegedly referred to the trans student as “literally a dude” in a conversation with a peer during French class, and also said “he does not belong in the girls’ locker room.” According to the lawsuit, the trans student was not present in the class when she used the phrase.

In addition to Blake’s two-day, out-of-school suspension, the school also required her to submit to taking part in a “restorative circle” with the school’s “Equity Coordinator” to avoid additional punishment.

Travis was reportedly suspended without pay from his job as the middle school girls’ soccer coach after “misgendering” the trans student in a Facebook post by referring to the 14-year-old biological male as a male.

Common sense tells you that teenage boys do not belong in teenage girls’ locker rooms regardless of what they say their gender is. Schools are going to have to start providing separate locker rooms for transgender students or getting the students the counseling they need to get over their gender dysphoria.

That Was Then, This Is Now

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I dread the 2024 presidential election. It will be nasty and full of lies told by both the candidates and the press. There is no way the campaigns will be covered fairly, and I don’t believe enough Americans are looking through the lies of the mainstream media to be informed voters. A recent article illustrating the level of misreporting accepted as news appeared in The Washington Free Beacon.

The article contrasts the reporting of President Trump slowing walking down a ramp with President Biden falling during a public appearance.

The article reminds us of the reports on President Trump’s slow walk down a ramp:

CNN: “Why the Donald Trump-West Point Ramp Story Actually Matters”

1) Trump is 74 …

2) Trump’s medical past is a total mystery …

3) Trump makes his opponents’ health a major issue …

So yes, of course, the president’s tentative and slow walk down a ramp is a story. Donald Trump made it one.

Washington Post: “Trump Tries To Explain His Slow and Unsteady Walk Down a Ramp at West Point”

In addition, Trump wrote that he “ran down” the final stretch of the ramp. Video footage of the episode shows the president picking up his pace slightly for the final two steps, but that would hardly be considered a run or a jog by any standard definition…

MSNBC: Unsteady Appearance Prompts New Scrutiny of Trump’s Health

Contrast that with the reporting of President Biden’s fall:

Reuters: “Biden Trips and Falls During Graduation Ceremony, Recovers Quickly”

President Joe Biden tripped and fell after handing out the last diploma at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado on Thursday, but got up quickly and walked back to his seat.

The 80-year-old U.S. president fell forward, caught himself with his hands, then got up on one knee while helped by three people. He walked back to his seat unassisted.

After Biden was helped up, he pointed behind him, seeming to indicate that he had tripped over a sandbag used to hold the teleprompter in place. He mingled with other officials afterward, smiling and giving a “thumbs up” sign.

CNN: “White House Says Biden Is Fine After Tripping on Sandbag and Falling on Stage at Air Force Academy Commencement”

Just for the record, I don’t recall seeing a sandbag anywhere in the videos of the incident.

Please follow the link to the article to read the full reporting.

This Is Not Good News For America

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Today, NewsMax posted an article about the most recent meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The article reports:

OPEC and its allies met on Sunday to try to agree further cuts in production, sources told Reuters, as the group faces flagging oil prices and a looming supply glut.

The group, known as OPEC+, delayed the start of formal talks by at least three and a half hours due to members’ discussions on the sidelines of production baselines, from which cuts and quotas are calculated, sources said.

OPEC’s most influential members and biggest Gulf producers led by Saudi Arabia were trying to persuade under-producing African nations such as Nigeria and Angola to have more realistic output targets, sources said.

“Talks with African producers are proving to be difficult,” one OPEC+ source said. Gulf producer, the United Arab Emirates, was meanwhile seeking a higher baseline to reflect its growing production capacity, sources said.

OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, pumps around 40% of the world’s crude, meaning its policy decisions can have a major impact on oil prices.

Four sources familiar with OPEC+ discussions have told Reuters that additional production cuts were being discussed among options for Sunday’s session.

“We are discussing the full package (of changes to the deal),” one of the four sources said.

Three out of four sources said cuts could amount to 1 million bpd on top of existing cuts of 2 million bpd and voluntary cuts of 1.6 million bpd, announced in a surprise move in April and that took effect in May.

The article concludes:

Western nations have accused OPEC of manipulating oil prices and undermining the global economy through high energy costs. The West has also accused OPEC of siding with Russia despite Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In response, OPEC insiders have said the West’s money-printing over the last decade has driven inflation and forced oil-producing nations to act to maintain the value of their main export.

Asian countries, such as China and India, have bought the greatest share of Russian oil exports and refused to join Western sanctions on Russia.

OPEC has denied media access to its headquarters to reporters from Reuters and other news media.

According to a U.S. News article written in January 2021:

MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) argues that nations with the ability to produce their fiat currency can issue as much money as they need, and as a result, they have no pressures when it comes to financing. In other words, the government cannot run out of money and it essentially has no financial constraints. While the government should have a budget, under this theory, the government doesn’t necessarily have to worry about the deficit because it can fund projects by printing new money from its central bank.

That seems to be the theory that the government is currently operating under. It is a theory that will prove disastrous for America.

Tyranny of Bureaucracies

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

In a recent article I wrote about how the Founding Fathers would be astonished at how we have allowed our freedoms to be curtailed by Big Government. If you have never read the novel, 1984 by George Orwell, now would be a good time to do so. Re-reading that book would also be useful if it has been awhile since you have done so. The theme of the book, written in the 1940s, relates how Big Government increasingly controlled people’s lives. With modern technology the effects can be even scarier.

One of the greatest threats is from ever expanding government agencies which actually have the power to implement rules and regulations that limit our freedom. For example, the Empire State Building in New York City was built in eighteen months. The approval process to build anything substantial today takes years; primarily, because of all the agencies that must give their approval. Consider the natural gas pipeline that that has been a part of the recent debt limit negotiations between the Biden administration and the Republican House of Representatives. The federal agencies that must review and give their approval consist of the Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, National Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, etc. There may also be state agencies that must approve. The review and approval process has no time frame. The construction may also be challenged in court by various groups. It is a wonder anything gets built in this country. Of course, this central control is right out of the Marxist playbook.

Let me give a more mundane example of bureaucratic tyranny. I own a 2016 Ram diesel truck that I use primarily for towing my RV. Two weeks ago, a warning code appeared on the dashboard indicating that the DEF (diesel emission fluid) system was not working properly and that I should take the truck to the dealer. I received an estimated repair cost of $3,000. Being somewhat of a do it yourself mechanic, I decided to fix it myself. Problem #1: no parts supplier in the New Bern area carried the DEF pump that I needed; nor could they order it from their usual vendor of repair parts. Problem #2: And this is the worst issue. The warning message stated that in 150 more miles the truck would not be able to operate at more than five miles per hour! Imagine being far from home and limping along at that speed–an almost guaranteed accident!

How did this restriction and control of the use of your own vehicle occur? Well, apparently, some government agency, (e.g. EPA) has required that manufacturers install computer programs that shut down your engine when you are violating one of their rules regardless of the negative impact on your safety and freedom to use your vehicle. Now this tyrannical control is only possible using modern computer modules. Add GPS monitoring, and they can control your speed, how far you travel, where you travel, etc.

This is where we are heading. We need to wake up and resist this tyranny. We need a president and elected officials who will fight this type of unconstitutional control of our lives. I am sure there are many other examples. President Trump, when he was in office, had the right idea when he instructed federal agencies under his control that they were required to eliminate two regulations for every new one they proposed. This was at least a start. Significantly cutting the budgets of these out of control federal agencies would also help. The Founding Fathers would never have put up with this. Why are we?

Are There Benefits To Being An American Citizen?

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the challenges facing Chicago as a sanctuary city.

The article reports:

Since last year, upwards of 10,000 immigrants have arrived in Chicago, most of them bused there by Texas officials through no choice of their own. This has presented a challenge for Chicago, which has made itself a “sanctuary city.”

Wednesday night, in order to deal with the influx, the Chicago City Council voted 34-13 to approve $51 million for immigrant housing. But this was no long-term fix; rather, that funding is only expected to last the city through the end of June. Since January, the city has spent over $100 million on the immigrant crisis.

And not everybody in the city was happy about the decision. At the meeting, longtime Chicago residents voiced their opposition to the funding. Fox Chicago reported, “Several groups in Chicago are asking how the city can suddenly come up with millions of dollars for new visitors, while local communities remain neglected.” Multiple people had to be escorted out of the meeting for their vocal opposition, and Mayor Brandon Johnson had to restore order after it became too raucous.

The sentiment behind the opposition makes sense. Chicago is a city that already has a million different problems. In 2022, crime spiked by 41%, and although shootings have actually slightly dropped in recent years, Chicago is still one of the top 10 cities when it comes to murders per capita. Just last weekend, 60 people were shot, and 12 were killed in holiday violence. There is also a significant homelessness problem, and dozens of schools in Chicago report zero students proficient in math or reading. Businesses are leaving the city at an alarming rate, all while it looks like taxes are about to become even more burdensome in order to raise additional revenue. In other words, Chicago is a complete mess right now.

The money is going to be spent on people who are here illegally. Why are we not shipping them back to their home countries or demanding that their home countries pay part of the bill? How much foreign aid are we giving their home countries as we pay to take care of their citizens? I don’t mind helping people, but why are we putting the welfare of people who are here illegally above the welfare of people who are legitimate citizens?

Holding People Accountable

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On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about a recent common-sense ruling by the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

Alternate headline: Pottery Barn rules apply to walkouts. In an 8-1 decision in which only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fully dissented, the Supreme Court ruled today that unions have to reimburse employers for damages caused by striking workers. The National Labor Relations Act does not confer immunity to unions or workers — the latest ruling from a court that has stiffened the boundaries for labor activities in the last few years:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that federal labor law did not protect a union from potential liability for damage that arose during a strike, and that a state court should resolve questions of liability.

The majority found that if accusations by an employer are true, actions during a strike by a local Teamsters union were not even arguably protected by federal law because the union took “affirmative steps to endanger” the employer’s property “rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk.” It asked the state court to decide the merits of the accusations.

The opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Three conservative justices backed more sweeping concurring opinions. A single justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

The case involved Teamsters who created truckloads of cement and then walked off the job–leaving the trucks full and no one to offload the trucks. Obviously, if the cement was left in the trucks, it would ruin the trucks. The Supreme Court (with the exception of one Justice) held the Teamsters liable for the damage they had caused. Striking is legal–damaging property is not.

The article also notes two important aspects of the case:

The Teamsters argued that they can’t be responsible for hypothetical risks to employer property in the absence of workers. Barrett emphatically rejects that, and concludes that the union organized the walkout specifically to create the highest potential risk of catastrophic damage when they had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent it…

…Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to deal with labor disputes, not property torts. The latter are matters for civil litigation separate from labor-management negotiations. It’s this argument from KBJ that has Thomas call for an end to the Garmon precedent, and which Alito et al expressly reject in their concurrence. To think otherwise would be to create an Open Season on employers’ property under the guise of ‘negotiations.’

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes some very interesting arguments.

Protecting The Guilty While Pursuing The Innocent

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On Thursday, American Greatness reported the following:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) refuses to hand over requested communications between Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden’s staff.

Just The News reports that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by America First Legal (AFL) has been rejected by NARA, which is claiming an exemption that allegedly includes communications between the president and his advisors, as well as communications between advisors.

On Wednesday, AFL released the emails that it had received from NARA, which were heavily-redacted. Despite handing over some emails, NARA confirmed the existence of additional communications that it refused to release.

One of the points of interest in AFL’s request is an email from Hunter Biden’s business partner at the time, Eric Schwerin, sent to the Office of the Vice President (OVP), concerning an alleged “China Lunch” that took place ahead of an official visit from Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011. NARA claimed that releasing this particular email “would disclose confidential advice between the President and his advisors, or between such advisors.”

We all remember the following YouTube video (which is currently difficult to find). The current spin is that President Biden wanted the prosecutor fired because the prosecutor wasn’t moving fast enough. Sorry, I just don’t believe that.

At any rate, would we have the requested correspondence if the situation involved President Trump?

A Realistic Look At The Debt Ceiling Bill

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I am not a regular reader of substack, but there is an awful lot of really good content there. One of my favorite contributors is Florida lawyer Robert DuChemin, Sr. On Thursday, Attorney DuChemin posted an article about the agreement reached and passed by Congress on the debt ceiling. The article presents a very realistic view of the bill.

The article states:

I am quite disappointed in the way many Republicans are discussing the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. It was a GOP win. Period. If one is playing a football game and your guy kicks a field goal with three seconds remaining to win the game, you won. The fact that you threw four interceptions and should have won by much more doesn’t really matter at that point. You won.

FSU blew a 14-point, fourth-quarter lead against LSU last year. Yet we still cheered when FSU blocked the tying PAT with no time remaining for the win.

…And this was actually a very big victory. It is the first time in history where Congress has retrieved funds, any funds, that it previously had appropriated. Among the funds recovered was a $400 million gift to the National Institutes of Health to fund more “gain-of-function” research. Yes, that is the same research that brought us the Wuhan Flu (Covid-19 to the wokies) and caused Russia to invade Ukraine after they discovered we were doing the same thing on their border.

The same goes for the reduction in the IRS funding. I will admit it is not as much money as I wanted but is sufficient to terminate China Joe‘s plans to expand the IRS this year. When next year‘s appropriation comes up, the GOP can simply cut out more.

Although future guarantees are like frosting on the cake, they are worthless. If the federal government had a nickel for every time a politician went back on their promise, we wouldn’t be in this situation because the federal government would no longer be in debt. Should the Democrats keep the Senate and pick up only four seats in the House, they will simply refund everything in 2025.

The article mentions something the Republicans complaining about the bill need to realize:

The Democrats are so much better at this than the Republicans. That is why 165 democrats in the House voted for the bill. The only Democrats that voted against it are from gerrymandered “safe“ districts. The other Democrats know they better claim it as a victory if they want to win next year’s election. The conservatives voting against the bill also are mostly from safe districts but their criticism is costing their brethren votes.

The conservatives are a minority in one branch of government. Until they control two branches, Washington will continue to do business as usual.

A Move Toward Transparency

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When the Democrats put together January 6th Committee, they didn’t plan on the Republicans taking over the House of Representatives. The idea was that the information and video that did not support the narrative of a violent insurrection would never see the light of day. However, that plan ran into a snag when the Republicans took control of the House of Rerpresentatives.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported:

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced Wednesday that the tapes showing the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol building would be released to more journalists.

John Solomon of JustTheNews.com, Julie Kelly of American Greatness and an unnamed outlet will receive “unfettered access” to the over 41,000 hours of video footage of the Capitol riot, the Georgia congresswoman posted on Twitter.

“As I promised the J6 tapes will be released. @SpeakerMcCarthy will give @jsolomonReports, @Julie_kelly2, and a third outlet unfettered access to the J6 tapes,” Greene tweeted. “Their reporting on it starts tomorrow!”

Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Speaker of the House, previously provided then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, access to the tapes, Axios reported. Previous reports indicated that the amount of footage was 14,000 hours.

I believe that showing the video tapes of January 6th was one of the reasons Tucker Carlson got fired. I also believe that the fact that only one or two sections of the video were ever shown on his show when he was granted access to the tapes was the result of pressure from Fox News not to show the video. It will be interesting to see if the media outlets that now have access to the videos have the courage to make them public.

Fighting The Deep State And Winning

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Facing a potential contempt of Congress vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray relented and has agreed to bring a subpoenaed document from the Biden family investigation to Capitol Hill for lawmakers to inspect on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Friday.

On Friday, Just the News reported:

Facing a potential contempt of Congress vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray relented and has agreed to bring a subpoenaed document from the Biden family investigation to Capitol Hill for lawmakers to inspect on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Friday.

The document in question, an FD-1023, contains uncorroborated allegations that an informant provided the FBI in June 2020 alleging that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, was engaged in a bribery scheme to change US policy in return for $5 million to his family’s businesses, lawmakers have said.

Congress was alerted to the document by an FBI whistleblower who raised concerns the allegations were never fully investigated. Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa demanded to see the document, and Comer followed with a subpoena.

As recently as Wednesday, Wray indicated he would not turn over the document in compliance with the subpoena, but would let lawmakers come read it at the FBI. But a deal was struck late Thursday for the FBI to bring the document to the Capitol, officials said.

“Chairman Comer will receive a briefing from the FBI and review the document on Monday,” his committee told Just the News in a statement. “Chairman Comer has been clear that anything short of producing the FD-1023 form to the House Oversight Committee is not compliance with his subpoena. This unclassified record contains pages of details that need to be investigated further by the House Oversight Committee.”

It will be interesting to see if the document is redacted or if the specific contents of the document are made public. Be aware of the timing of this release–if the Democrats want to run someone other than Joe Biden for President in 2024, they have to remove him as a candidate by August of this year in order to put together a proper campaign. Notice that there are currently a lot of negative things being revealed about the Biden family’s business dealings. Timing is never an accident.

Don’t Believe The Name Of The Group

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Ads keep showing up in my Facebook feed by a group called the Republican Accountability PAC. That sounds like a group I would support–hold wishy-washy Republicans accountable for their votes and replace them with conservatives. However, that is the exact opposite of what this group does.

An article from January 2021 posted at Open secrets is my source for the following information:

A new anti-Trump group helmed by Republicans announced Tuesday that it would raise $50 million to encourage lawmakers to break with President Donald Trump. Behind the project is Defending Democracy Together, one of the top-spending “dark money” groups in the 2020 election cycle. 

The new effort — the Republican Accountability Project — promises to use its cash to “ensure that ample resources are available for those principled Republicans who do the right thing and hold Trump accountable for inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol.” 

The campaign joins another never-Trump Republican group, super PAC The Lincoln Project, in its efforts to sway Republican who might otherwise hesitate to break from the president in order to avoid alienating Trump voters in their home states and districts. The Republican Accountability Project’s website offers scant detail about how lawmakers will be selected to benefit from the campaign, but promises to back “credible primary challengers” against “Republican members of Congress who have enabled or capitulated to Trump and Trumpism.”

The group promises Republicans who vote to impeach that it will provide them with political protection against primary challenges from Trump loyalists. The president’s campaign has raised $200 million since the election, which he could use against incumbent members of Congress who speak out against him. 

Open secrets also details the groups’ spending:

Targeted Candidates, 2022 Cycle

Outside Spending: Independent Expenditures, Electioneering Communication & Communication Costs by Targeted Candidate as of May 31, 2023:

Grand Total: $5,161,032
Total For Democrats: $639,718
Total Against Democrats: $0
Total For Republicans: $0
Total Against Republicans: $4,521,314

William Kristol is a founding director of Defending Democracy Together and chairman of the board for the Republican Accountability Project.

That tells you all you need to know.

 

Approaching Caveman Status

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From what we know, the cavemen lived in caves heated by firewood in the winter and naturally (somewhat) cooled in the summer. Based on what our government has planned for us in the future, we might want to consider similar options.

On Monday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the energy policies of the Biden administration.

The article notes:

The mark of a developed country is reliable, affordable energy. Despite this undeniable fact, the Biden administration and what Robert Bryce calls the anti-industry industry are rushing pell-mell to destabilize our electric grid, while charging Americans more and more for less and less electricity. This impoverishment of ordinary Americans is not an unfortunate by-product of liberal energy policies. Rather, it is the central goal of those policies.

Bryce writes at Substack about the deliberate devastation of our electric grid:

On May 4, members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission delivered stark warnings to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The agency’s acting chairman, Willie Phillips, told the senators, “We face unprecedented challenges to the reliability of our nation’s electric system.”

FERC Commissioner Mark Christie echoed Phillips’ warning, saying the U.S. electric grid is “heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability.”

The problem with the administration’s energy policies is that they are designed to change from fossil-fuel generated electricity to electricity generated by wind farms and solar farms. There are a number of problems with that–the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine–not to mention to disposal problems, the Chinese manufacturers and the children in Africa working in the mines. Brownouts will become a way of life for Americans if the Biden administration continues down this path.

The article concludes:

Exactly one week after that May 4 hearing, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed rule that could force the closure of every coal-fired power plant in America as well as most of the natural gas plants if they cannot cut their emissions by 90%. Here’s how Politico reported on it: The new rule will require, “most fossil fuel power plants to slash their greenhouse gas pollution 90% between 2035 and 2040 — or shut down.”

At the link, Bryce explains why that can’t possibly be done. We are on a collision course between “green” dreams and reality, and reality is going to win. The situation would be dire even if demand for electricity were to stay constant, but of course that is not what the Left has in mind:

[T]he top people and key agencies that oversee the operation of the electric grid — FERC, NERC, and PJM — are all warning that our most important energy network is becoming less reliable. That declining reliability is happening at the same time the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex is spending tens of millions of dollars on campaigns to “electrify everything.” Those measures include bans on natural gas for heating and cooking in homes and businesses. The alt-energy push also includes, of course, electric vehicles. And again, the timing matters. The EPA’s May 11 announcement about power plants came less than a month after the same agency announced pollution rules that could require up to two-thirds of all the new vehicles sold in the country to be electric by 2032.

We are driving off a cliff, and American prosperity–our status as a developed country–is at stake.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

A Possible Resolution To The Debt Ceiling Crisis

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On Sunday, Breitbart reported that Congress has released the details of the debt deal agreement that should avoid a government shutdown. As was to be expected, there are some good things and some bad things. There is also some griping from people who don’t want any compromise. Although I can identify with those people, I think the deal we got was the best we were going to get. The only thing that really will prevent a government shutdown by the Biden administration is the polls that are showing that the Biden administration would be blamed for that shutdown. The Democrats control two branches of government, so it makes it hard to blame the Republicans for much.

The article reports:

Congress released a bill package Sunday to increase the nation’s debt limit in exchange for a number of Republicans’ desired spending cuts and other concessions.

House lawmakers will have three days to review the 99-page bill, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act, before they are set to vote for it as soon as Wednesday. The bill can be viewed here.

House GOP leadership said in a statement that the legislation, which raises the debt ceiling through January 2025, included a “historic series of wins.”

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act does what is responsible for our children, what is possible in divided government, and what is required by our principles and promises,” the leaders said. “Only because of Republicans’ resolve did we achieve this transformative change to how Washington operates.”

The bill rescinds funds that have been allocated toward COVID, mandates student loan payments to resume in August, rescinds a portion of unused funding allocated toward the IRS, expands work requirements for certain welfare recipients, and tightens permitting processes under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The bill also caps discretionary spending for the next two years and includes a provision pushed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to force Congress into funding the government through 12 appropriations bills rather than one omnibus bill.

The good things I see are the resumption of student loan payments, rescinding COVID funds, and funding the government through appropriations bills rather than one omnibus bill. If those three things remain in the final bill, then we have made some progress.

UPDATE: The bill passed the House last night. It’s not a great bill, but it’s not an awful bill. It is probably the best we can do right now.