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John Bolton On The Revived Iran Deal

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Yesterday NewsMax posted an article about the Biden administration’s plan to revive the nuclear deal with Iran.

The article reports:

The Biden administration is seeking to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – Obama’s Iran nuclear deal – but the connected administrations have “no idea how flawed the deal is,” according to former National Security Adviser John Bolton on Newsmax.

“It’s based on near-religious fixation that they want to get back to what Obama did,” Bolton told Monday’s “John Bachman Now.” “The Obama team views the Iran nuclear deal as their second term equivalent to Obamacare in the first term.

“Although they don’t like to say it publicly, it rests on the assumption that if they could just calm the Ayatollahs down and convince them that they don’t need to worry about the United States and Israel, they can solve the nuclear program, Iran will behave like a normal nation, and sweetness and light will break out in the Middle East.

“It really is a fantasy, and it’s a dangerous fantasy.”

It is very obvious that the Biden administration is planning on doing the reverse of anything the Trump administration did. That is unfortunate because a lot of what the Trump administration did made the lives of Americans better and the world safer. However, in the Biden administration, the polices of the Obama administration rule and need to be brought back. Never mind that those policies caused slow economic growth and slow wage growth for Americans and made the world less safe–the Biden administration is going to bring them back!

The article notes:

President Joe Biden’s pushing to resume JCPOA talks – after former President Donald Trump decertified it – is an “extraordinarily dangerous” way to stem nuclear proliferation, Bolton added to host John Bachman.

“They think it was working, and they’re just completely wrong on that,” Bolton said. “They have no idea how flawed the deal is, and they see it as something that can be a model really for their nonproliferation efforts around the world, and it’s extraordinarily dangerous.

“Israel sees it. The gulf Arab states see it. They do not.”

Trump rejected the JCPOA because it merely slowed and did not stop Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

“They’re determined to get nuclear weapons, and any idea that the Biden administration has to get back into this deal really is surrendering to an idea about Iran’s conduct that sadly is not going to come true,” Bolton said.

“It’s going to leave the United States, it’s going to leave our friends in the Middle East, and really around the world at risk of this very dangerous regime.”

Changing a policy that worked simply because it was put in place by a different political party is not a good way to run a country. The Iran deal was one of the few things President Trump and John Bolton agreed on. President Biden needs to learn from President Trump’s successes.

Rules For Thee, But Not For Me

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There has been an awful lot of discussion lately about racism. In some areas of our society, people are actually moving back to segregation. Some of our colleges now have exclusive dormitories for minority students. Back in the twentieth century that was illegal. It should also be noted that Country Clubs and certain exclusive clubs have generally ended exclusive policies prohibiting blacks and Jews from joining. President Trump literally fought City Hall to make Mar-a-Lago open to membership for blacks and Jews (article here). However not all clubs have embraced the idea of membership for everyone.

Yesterday MRC TV posted an article about Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and a club he belongs to. The club is an ‘all-white’ exclusive club.

The article reports:

Nearly four years ago Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) claimed “it would be nice if they changed a little bit,” when asked about the all-white Bailey’s Beach Club of which he’s a member.

This past weekend, GoLocal asked if any new minority members had been admitted over the last few years.

“I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse replied.

…Whitehouse has been outspoken on the issue of systemic racism, claiming that America must “root out systemic racism in its many forms and meet America’s full promise of justice for all.” 

GoLocal notes that Bailey’s Beach Club is not considered an average private club, it has been described as the most exclusive club in America.

I would have more faith in his statements that America is racist if he began to change his own behavior to be more inclusive. Discrimination based on race is against the law. Where is the Rhode Island Attorney General?

Please follow the link to the article to see the video of Senator Whitehouse successfully avoiding a reporter’s very good question on why Bailey’s Beach Club still has no minority members.

Something To Watch Very Closely

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Politico posted an article today about the election reform bill now making its way through the Senate.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are set to block Democrats’ sweeping elections and ethics reform bill on Tuesday. Just hours before the vote, Sen. Joe Manchin, the last Democratic holdout, announced he would approve advancing the legislation.

The Senate will vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to consider the legislation, a top priority for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With the bill guaranteed to fail, the path forward is murky at best on an issue that Democrats say they need to resolve before the 2022 midterms. While Manchin’s vote won’t save the bill, the unified Democratic vote will both help the party’s political messaging that the GOP is stonewalling them and likely intensify progressives’ push to end the filibuster.

As I have said before, Joe Manchin only votes against the Democrat agenda when his vote doesn’t count (article here). It is a mistake to rely on him to protect the filibuster or to protect states’ rights in the voting process.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today stating:

Progressive leftists will want Chuck Schumer to get rid of the filibuster and use a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass the “Take Away The Right to Vote” legislation.  However, if the Democrats fail in cheating on a massive scale in 2022, they could lose the Senate and House, and SB1 could be reversed and leave Biden to stand alone vetoing the bill to undo the election takeover.

It’s a calculating game of political scheme and fraud, where the DC elites (both parties) are trying to determine their odds of pulling off the plan while simultaneously keeping the American electorate from seeing what they are doing.   Pelosi has the military defenses around the Capitol prepared to keep back any revolting peasants; but that security only works if the politicians don’t leave DC.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously sequestered the Senate in December of 2009 to block any senator from returning to his/her state where they would face the fury of their electorate and likely recant support for Obamacare.  Unfortunately, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the benefit of the calendar to jail the senators from leaving DC, and simultaneously tensions at home in every state are unseasonably hot.

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Senate this week. If the Democrats get what they want, the voters lose. I wouldn’t count on Joe Manchin to save the country,

 

Your Tax Dollars Are Paying Dead People Social Security

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On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about a final audit report of the Social Security Agency by the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

The article reports:

This week’s Golden Horseshoe goes to the Social Security Administration, which paid an estimated $79 million to the deceased in just three states over a 10-year period, according to a final audit report by the agency’s Office of Inspector General. 

“We estimate SSA issued approximately $79 million in payments after death to 1,127 beneficiaries and four representative payees who died in Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois between January 1978 and December 2018,” the report found.

The watchdog identified an additional 53,486 deceased non-beneficiaries in those states whose death information was not in the SSA’s Numerical Identification System.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes examples of payments made to people who have been dead for years.

The article notes:

“In October and November of 2020, we referred to SSA all identified beneficiaries and representative payees who may have received improper payments after death,” the IG reported. “Identifying and correcting these discrepancies will prevent approximately $14 million in additional improper payments after death over a 12-month period.”

The audit was conducted from April to November 2020. As of April 2021, the SSA terminated payments to 832 deceased beneficiaries and four deceased representative payees. 

The agency has initiated the recovery of $35 million in improper payments it sent out, the IG reported.

The SSA established the Electronic Death Registration for states to electronically submit death reports to the agency to prevent payments after death. Once states submit through the EDR, if the deceased data matches the agency’s records, then SSA posts the information to its Numident file and terminates payments. SSA also receives death information from other sources aside from EDR, including family members and funeral directors.

It is time for the government to stop wasting taxpayers’ money. If the people who work for the government cannot do a better job of keeping track of who is receiving payments, they should either get a new computer system or new employees. No private company would tolerate that kind of wasteful spending.

Why Would Anyone Want To Defund The Police?

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On Saturday The Epoch Times posted an article (updated Sunday) about the movement to defund the police. Anyone who looks past the spin understands that defunding and decreasing the police will not make our streets safer. The proponents of the idea claim that it will prevent the murder of black people. However, those black people who live in black neighborhoods do not support the idea of defunding the police. Most residents of black neighborhoods want more police presence in their neighborhoods in order to lower crime rates. So what is going on here?

The article reports:

“Defund the police” has become a popular phrase among leftist activists, gaining momentum during a rash of Black Lives Matter protests and riots last summer following the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020.

As news of these protests spread through the media, local governments across the country quickly started acquiescing to the demand. Cities such as New York and Los Angeles significantly cut funding for their police departments, while Minneapolis City Council went further, introducing a measure to try and outright abolish and replace its police department.

According to former Arizona police officer Brandon Tatum, author of the upcoming book, “Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege,” there is a broader agenda behind the “Defund the Police” movement.

“I believe it’s an agenda to completely destroy and dismantle local police departments so that the government can have control of law enforcement in this country and push a nationwide agenda,” Tatum told Jan Jekielek, host of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Tatum explained that if law enforcement is federalized and there are unconstitutional mandates or restrictions, such as those involving vaccines or guns, the federal government will be able to enforce those directives more easily.

In most counties in America, the Sheriff (Office of the Sheriff) is the chief law enforcement officer in the county and is only answerable to the voters. He takes an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Your local sheriff is actually the only thing standing between you and the government in terms of gun confiscation and mandatory vaccines. If the police were to be defunded, the local sheriff would not be far behind. All law enforcement would be left to the federal government, and we know how well they do things. That is the ultimate goal of Black Lives Matter and the defund the police movement–the end of states’ rights and the end of many of our Constitutional freedoms.

Losing Our Justice System One City At A Time

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While no one is paying attention, charges are being dropped against those ‘protestors’ who looted and burned down cities last summer and those who entered the Capitol Building on January 6th are being kept in solitary confinement with questionable legal representation. Seems a little uneven. Meanwhile, The U.K. Daily Mail reported yesterday that out of the 603 were arrested in Manhattan and the Bronx during the most intense days of looting last June, 295 of the cases have been dropped completely.

The article reports:

Now Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr and Bronx DA Darcel D. Clark are facing tough questions about why hundreds walked free after the looting rampage caused an estimated tens of millions in damages.

Business owner Jessica Betancourt, whose Bronx eyeglasses shop was destroyed last summer, vented her outrage at the situation.

‘Those numbers, to be honest with you, is disgusting,’ she told the NBC affiliate. ‘They could do it again because they know they won’t get the right punishment.’

In Manhattan, the NYPD data shows there were 485 arrests connected to last summer’s riots, which saw mobs smashing stores and holding a ‘looting dance party’ in SoHo.

Of those cases, 222 were later dropped and 73 saw convictions for lesser counts like trespassing, which carries no jail time. Another 40 cases involved juveniles and were sent to family court, and 128 cases remain open. 

In the Bronx, 118 arrests were made as mobs smashed shops along the borough’s commercial corridors.

Since then, the NYPD says District Attorney Clark’s office and the courts have dismissed 73 of those cases, well over half the total. 

Eighteen Bronx cases remain open and there have been 19 convictions for mostly lesser counts which carry no jail time.

One of the excuses given is that there is not enough evidence to prosecute the looters. That’s an interesting statement considering a lot of the looting is recorded on the security cameras of the businesses involved (and the news cameras of local television stations).

Some of us (and many New Yorkers) believe that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is so focused on finding President Trump guilty of something that they are ignoring their regular duties. Hopefully many of the people in that office will find themselves out of a job after the next election.

Doing The Right Thing (Even If It Is Years Late)

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Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about California’s plan to deal with forest fires.

The article reports:

California is adopting former Donald Trump‘s plan to thin out the state’s 33 million acres of forests with controlled burns and raking the woodland floor – after state officials essentially laughed off the former president’s idea a few years ago.

Trump had suggested in 2018 that the Golden State start sweeping its forest floors of debris that often aids in the spread of wildfires. 

But by Aug. 2020, at the peak of the state’s wildfire season, his suggestion became an ultimatum when he withheld wildfire financial aid on the basis of California’s failure to clear its forests of dead trees, branches and leaves, Politico reported at the time.

The frustrating part of this is that if the plan had been adopted in 2018 when it was suggested or even a year later, how many acres of forest (and homes) would have been spared? Instead, because President Trump suggested it while he was President, it wasn’t done until after he left office (so he couldn’t be given credit for it).

The article notes:

During the 2020 California wildfires, 31 people died and another 37 suffered non-fatal injuries due to 9,639 fires spread across the Golden State, according to the website Cal Fire, which tracks wildfires throughout the state.

Then-President Trump continuously blamed the Democrat-dominated state for not doing enough to prevent the widespread wildfires in 2018 and 2019 during his presidency, while threatening to withhold relief funds as environmentally-conscious Californians balked at his ideas.

‘I’ve been telling them this now for three years, but they don’t want to listen,’ Trump said at the August rally. ‘The environment, the environment,’ but they have massive fires again.’

At some point we have to learn to do the right thing regardless of who gets the credit!

There are, however, still some naysayers:

However, conservation director for Los Padres ForestWatch Bryant Baker warns that these kinds of controlled burns threaten the native plant areas of Southern California’s national forests.

‘There are issues with just assuming this is some sort silver bullet in changing overall fires in the state,’ Baker said. ‘Prescribed fire is not going to be the thing that stops very large wind-driven fires that are occurring.’ 

Gov. Newsom is already asking the state’s legislature to give him $2 billion more in an effort to accelerate the forest thinning process in the fiscal year starting July 1, according to Bloomberg. 

‘Wildfires don’t stop at jurisdictional boundaries. As we respond to wildfires in real-time this summer, improving coordination between the major stewards of California’s forested land will help us protect communities and restore forest health across California,’ Newsom said in a statement obtained by Politico. 

I’m sorry that the controlled burns threaten the native plant areas, but somehow I don’t think the native plant areas have done too well in the recent wild fires.

Closing The Barn Door After The Horse Has Left

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is poised to remove more than 100,000 “outdated” names from the state’s voter registration rolls unless those on the list take immediate action.

The article reports:

Some critics, such as Gerald Griggs with the Atlanta NAACP, described the move as a voter purge. Griggs said thousands of voters were improperly removed from the 2019 list. However, state officials noted the removals are required by law and that the maintenance occurs every two years.

Raffensperger’s office also removed 18,486 voter files of dead individuals based on information obtained from Georgia’s Office of Vital Records and the Electronic Registration Information Center.

“These people don’t live in Georgia anymore. Then, you have 18,000 people who passed. So, they are not going to be voting anymore. You need to have accurate voter rolls and proper list maintenance. It also helps your county election directors,” Raffensperger told WSB-TV 2.o

It needs to be mentioned here for those who are concerned that voting laws aimed at reducing voter fraud are disenfranchising voters, that every illegal vote cast cancels out the vote of a legal voter. Therefore, changing voter laws to prevent fraud is actually making sure that the votes of legal voters will be counted. If the people who are being removed from the voter rolls are no longer entitled to vote in Georgia, they need to be removed from the voter rolls. The only reason to keep them on the rolls is to commit voter fraud.

You Can Only Celebrate What You Are Told You Can Celebrate

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Yesterday Fox News posted an article about regulations regarding celebrations in Evanston, Illinois.

The article reports:

The city of Evanston, Illinois, located just north of Chicago, joined communities across the U.S. in celebrating their first in-person Juneteenth parade Saturday, but some have been left wondering why celebrations for the nation’s Independence Day have been canceled. 

The Evanston Fourth of July Association voted to cancel the town’s Independence Day events earlier in 2020 and opt for a virtual celebration instead — citing concerns over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

“Based on concern for public health due to the unpredictability of the pandemic’s impact, vaccination rates, and in cooperation with our local authorities, the Trustees…voted to cancel the Fun Run, Parade, Palatine Concert Band performance and Lakefront Fireworks show on July 4, 2021,” the board wrote in a statement.

But some took to social media to voice their frustration over the decision.

“My home town of Evanston, Illinois is having a Juneteenth Parade and a Gay Pride Parade, but is canceling the 4th of July Parade & Fireworks,” Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, wrote on Twitter.

The article explains:

“We made the decision in March based on the information that we had at that time,” Trustee and Celebration Manager Jamie Black told Fox News. “There are deadlines for permits and to secure the fireworks, as well as taking applications for the parade that happen early in the year.”

“We erred on the side of caution. If things weren’t better, we would have been criticized for being a super spreader event,” he added.

Wait a minute. How is it that the July 4th celebration application for permits had a deadline in March and the Juneteenth parade was put on with very short notice?

The article notes:

Fox News could not immediately reach the mayor’s office for comment on the decision to cancel the Fourth of July celebrations.

But in partnership with Evanston Present and Future — a nonprofit that supports community development and education surrounding Black history — the city of Evanston helped promote a Juneteenth parade followed by community-wide celebrations.

The Juneteenth parade – a celebration of the nation’s newest holiday recognizing the complete emancipation of enslaved people on June 19, 1865 – is not the only community-based celebration happening this summer.

Evanston Pride will host a car parade and community picnic later in June to celebrate LGBTQIA individuals — though attendees are encouraged to bring their own food as an extra health precaution.

Unless Americans begin to reclaim their rights by electing people who celebrate America, we will fail as a country.

Questionable At Best

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Yesterday Front Page Magazine posted a rather disturbing article about some of the Biden administration’s policies in the Middle East.

The article reports:

Iran and its proxies have targeted the US with missile strikes in Iraq. Its Houthi proxies have struck at Saudi Arabia from Yemen. So even as Biden is helping lubricate the flow of money to Iran’s terror machine, is pulling anti-missile batteries out of Iran’s way.

You’ll have to navigate some media spin for the story.

The Pentagon is pulling approximately eight Patriot antimissile batteries from countries including Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, according to officials. Another antimissile system known as a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad system, is being withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, and jet fighter squadrons assigned to the region are being reduced, those officials said.

…US forces in Iraq have come under fire from Iranian and proxy missiles. Either pull all the troops out of harm’s way or keep protecting them. Removing missile defenses while keeping thousands of American forces there just invites Iran to attack our troops.

…Iran is escalating. Biden is appeasing. As usual.

A senior defense official said the equipment withdrawals amount to a return to a more traditional level of defense for the region. Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. actively deployed defensive systems as well as troops, jet fighter squadrons and naval warships to support its maximum pressure campaign against Iran.

By traditional, the echo chamber spinners mean Obama’s old appeasement policies.

Sometimes I wonder if the Biden administration isn’t simply trying to see how much damage they can do to America in a short time.

This Is Not Surprising

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Yesterday Just the News reported that Smith & Wesson has announced record gun sales for this fiscal year.

The article reports:

Storied U.S. gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson this week announced a record-setting fiscal year amid an ongoing gun-and-ammunition frenzy in the United States that has persisted since last year.

Company CEO Mark Smith said in a company earnings call on Thursday that the gun manufacturer in the past fiscal year “surpass[ed] $1 billion in sales for the first time in our 169-year history.”

Smith said the company also posted “fourth quarter revenue of nearly $323 million,” which he said was “the highest quarter ever on record and marks the fourth consecutive record-breaking quarter for the company.”

He said the record year allowed the company to “completely pay off our $160 million debt, return over $8 million to shareholders through dividends and reduce our outstanding shares by over 14%.”

So what are the record gun sales about? It’s political and societal. As America watched lawlessness in our major cities escalate during last summer, many people felt the need to be able to protect themselves. As some people began to push for decreasing the police presence and activities in major cities, many people felt the need to be able to protect themselves. After President Biden was elected, many Democrats indicated that they were planning to limit the gun rights of Americans. Many people decided that now might be a really good time to buy a gun.

There is nothing wrong with having an armed citizenry. It actually is a deterrent to criminal activity when criminals know that their victims might be armed. Also, the idea of taking guns from law-abiding citizens does not make sense–unless you begin by taking guns away from criminals, you are going to create more crime–not less crime. It’s time for individual states to stand up to any possibility of limiting the Second Amendment. Many states already have. It needs to be all states.

When The Cancel Culture Meets The Internal Revenue Service

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent decision by the Internal Revenue Service regarding the tax-exempt status of a religious organization.

The article reports:

An IRS official denied tax-exempt status to a Texas group that encourages church members to pray for state and national leaders, regardless of their party affiliation, because it benefits “the private interests of the [Republican] Party.”

“You do not qualify as an organization described in IRS Section 501(c)(3). You engage in prohibited political campaign intervention,” wrote Stephen A. Martin, director of the IRS Office of Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements, in a May 18 letter (pdf) to Christians Engaged, the Garland, Texas-based prayer group recognized by Texas officials as tax-exempt.

“You are also not operated exclusively for one or more exempt purposes within the meaning of Section 501 (c)(3), because you operate for a substantial non-exempt private purpose and for the private interests of the D party.”

The “D party” is a reference to the Republican Party, according to a novel “legend” that Martin provided at the top of his letter to the Texas group.

The article then explains:

Martin also noted that the group’s activities “educate believers on national issues that are central to their belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.

“Specifically, you educate Christians on what the Bible says in areas where they can be instrumental, including the areas of sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations,” he wrote.

“The Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the D party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRS Section 501(c)(3).”

The D party in this case refers to the Republican party. This is a blatant attempt to keep Christian values (and those who hold them) out of the public discourse. It is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the group and should be treated as such.

The article includes the following:

First Liberty Institute is appealing Martin’s decision on behalf of Christians Engaged.

“The IRS states in an official letter that Biblical values are exclusively Republican. That might be news to President Joe Biden, who is often described as basing his political ideology on his religious beliefs,” First Liberty Institute counsel Lea Patterson said in the statement.

“Only a politicized IRS could see Americans who pray for their nation, vote in every election, and work to engage others in the political process as a threat. The IRS violated its own regulations in denying tax-exempt status because Christians Engaged teaches biblical values.”

The IRS believes that Biblical values are exclusively Republican. Wow. Considering the role that Biblical views played in the founding of our nation, that idea should send Americans to the polls to vote for Republicans. Stay tuned. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of this.

Bad News For Everyone

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The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that President Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

The article reports:

Fast forward a little more than a year, Joe Biden meets with Putin, gets eviscerated and embarrassed by the diplomatic smack-down from the Russian President, and suddenly Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

Politico is reporting today:

The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring.

The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.

The National Security Council directed officials to put the package together, as Washington grew increasingly concerned over a massive Russian military buildup near the border with Ukraine and in the Crimean Peninsula, according to three of the people, who like the others asked not to be named in order to speak candidly about internal discussions. Officials at the State Department and Pentagon worked to assemble the proposal.

But officials on the National Security Council ended up putting the proposal on hold after Russia announced it would draw down troops stationed near Ukraine and in the lead-up to President Joe Biden’s high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Trump was impeached because he was falsely accused of withholding military assistance from Ukraine because of a ‘special’ relationship with President Putin. It seems to me that it is time to take a closer look at some of the Biden family’s relationship with President Putin.

If You Ever Wondered About The Insanity Of The Media…

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Recently MSN reported that the personal finance website WalletHub has named New Jersey as the best state in the nation in which to live. Just for the record, New Jersey was one of sixteen states that lost population in the 2020 census. (article here).

The article at MSN reports:

The report evaluated states based on five equally weighted categories — affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life and safety.

Of all 50 states, New Jersey placed number one in safety, fifth in the “Education and Health” category, and seventh for quality of life. The state did not rank as high in the other two categories: it took 32nd place for its economy and came in second-to-last for affordability. 

So a financial site chose as the best state in the nation to live in a state the came in 32nd for its economy and second-to-last for affordability. Wow.  Somehow I don’t think that choice reflects fiscal responsibility. I am sure they could have found states with reasonable numbers in safety, education and health that are more affordable.

The article at MSN continues:

Following New Jersey, the study rated Massachusetts and New York the second and third-best states to live in, respectively. Idaho and Minnesota rounded out the top five. The worst? New Mexico, aka The Land of Enchantment.

Massachusetts and New York both lost population in the 2020 census.

If nothing else, this article shows the contrast between the point of view from the ‘experts’ and the people who actually work for a living and live in America.

Who Gets Taxed

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Somehow those making or changing the tax laws always seem to be able to write them in a way that does not increase their own taxes. Well, it;s happening again.

Yesterday (updated today) The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about President Biden’s idea for increasing the revenue from capital gains taxes.

The article reports:

President Biden has promised not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 but plans to end an inheritance loophole could do just that, according to a new analysis that suggests a widow with nothing to pass on to her children but her home could be badly hit by proposals that would leave the Bidens’ personal fortune untouched.

Tucked away in Biden’s American Families Plan is a revision to the way capital gains taxes are paid on estates when people die.

Critics have dubbed it a ‘middle-class death tax’ and say it will mean thousands of people having to sell assets to meet tax bills they would not get under existing law.

‘The American Families Plan as proposed would impose a new death tax that would punish middle class individuals who chose to invest in America and leave something for their children rather than spend every dollar, said Hank Adler, associate professor at Chapman University and co-author of the new study.

‘The plan does not move the goal posts, it totally changes the rules of the game.’

The article explains how the current tax system works and what President Biden proposes to change. On the surface it looks as if the taxes would only apply to the rich, but when you look into it, middle class families would also be negatively impacted.

The article explains:

At present, capital gains tax is generally imposed on profits when assets are sold.

But for estates worth more than $11.7 million the tax is imposed on what are called ‘unrealized gains’ – that is the increase in value of homes, shares and other assets even if they are not sold.

That means estates worth less than that can be passed on and the increase in home value is reset, so the beneficiary is taxed only when they sell that asset and only on the increase after they inherited it.

Biden last month called this the ‘trust fund loophole.’

‘We need to make a choice to eliminate the loophole,’ he said.

How quickly do you think the value of an estate could be moved down to $1 million or so–a number that in some of our major cities would mean owning a house, a car, and a relatively small stock portfolio. This tax would hit hard to people who have lived in the same house all their lives and had the value of the house increase significantly due to inflation. However, for people like the Bidens, there would be little additional tax because they bought their properties fairly recently. Therefore they would not pay significant tax on their property.

The article notes:

They built their Wilmington, Delaware, home on land bought for $350,000 in 1996. It is now estimated to be worth $2 million.

Their Rehoboth Beach house, also in Delaware, cost $2.7 million in 2017.

That means the total appreciation is likely to be less than the $2.5 million couple’s exemption.

And their estate would pay nothing. 

Meanwhile, a New York widow who had lived in the same house for fifty years would leave her children a house and a ridiculous tax burden:

Suppose a widow buys a house in New York for $250,000 in the 1970s.

She never remarries and by the time of her death her only asset is the home.

She leaves her house, now worth $2.5 million, to her children.

Under current law, the estate faces no capital gains tax.

Her children inherit the house at a value of $2.5 million and would only pay capital gains on its sale.

Under Biden’s proposals, the estate would be subject to capital gains tax.

Its increase is $2.25 million, less a $1.25 million exemption, leaving a taxable amount of $1 million.

At 40.8% that would bring a $408,000 tax bill.

Somehow those making the tax laws always seem to be able to avoid paying more taxes.

 

What He Says To The Public vs. What He Says Privately

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Red State posted an article yesterday about a recently leaked telephone call by Joe Manchin.

The article reports:

A leaked phone call between Joe Manchin and a political advocacy group reveals the machinations being attempted by the West Virginian senator behind the scenes. Not only is Manchin signaling he’s open to abolishing the filibuster, but he’s also targeting specific Republicans to try to get the so-called January 6th commission passed.

…Regardless, the implications here are huge. If Manchin is now scheming to blow up the filibuster unless he gets Republican buy-in on Democrat priorities, that puts everything in a very precarious position, leaving Sinema as the last line of defense for Republicans. And while I generally like Sinema, she’s still a Democrat. Manchin’s position seems to be “let me cut your head off or I’ll cut your head off.” That’s not good news for a GOP that had been relying on him to hold the line given he’s from the reddest state in the union.

The article concludes:

Whoever leaked this probably did it precisely because they wanted to thwart Manchin’s plan. That’s the silver lining here for Republicans. Will Manchin walk all this back when asked? We’ll find out soon enough. Some reporter is going to be shoving a mic in his face the first chance they get.

Time will tell how reliable Joe Manchin’s statement that he would vote to keep the filiibuster is.

About That Mask Thing

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about the use of facemasks on children, a practice that has been common during the coronavirus epidemic.

The article reports:

We’ve been told for well over a year that widespread forced public masking should be implemented because, even if only moderately to slightly to negligibly effective at curbing the spread of COVID-19, there are ZERO drawbacks. 

“What’s the harm?” they ask.

“It’s only a minor inconvenience,” they bleat.

“If it saves ONE LIFE, it’s worth it!” they implore.

Meanwhile, we on Team Reality have not only continued to point to real-world data that shows masking to be entirely ineffective, we’ve also maintained that forced public masking, especially long-term, has negative societal and even health ramifications that the powers-that-be are all-too-happy to ignore in subservience to their newfound face mask god. 

…Well, one group of Florida parents sent a batch of masks worn by their children to a lab to find out. And yeah, you’ll probably need to make sure you aren’t eating dinner anytime soon before you digest THESE results.

They reported the results of their efforts in the form of a press release:

Gainesville, FL (June 16, 2021) – A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, concerned about potential harms from masks, submitted six face masks to a lab for analysis. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks, although the test is capable of detecting viruses.

The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

• Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)

• Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)

• Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)

• Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)

• Escherichia coli (food poisoning)

• Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)

• Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)

• Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)

• Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)

• Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling by children aged 6 through 11. One was worn by an adult. A t-shirt worn by one of the children at school and unworn masks were tested as controls. No pathogens were found on the controls. Proteins found on the t-shirt, for example, are not pathogenic to humans and are commonly found in hair, skin, and soil.

The article included the following graph:

I have no idea how to handle this information if you have a child in a school that requires them to wear an mask all day, but the data is frightening. What happens to a child with a weak immune system that is forced to wear a mask all day?

The Media Spin On Voter Fraud

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If you really listen closely to what the media is saying about the changes in voting laws some states are making to prevent fraud, you would think that any measure that disenfranchises fraudulent voters is anti-democratic.

CNS News posted an article today about the changes some states are making to their voting laws and the Democrat party’s reaction to those changes.

The article reports:

“We’re moving ahead on two very important issues, voting rights and Build Back Better,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Before the end of the month, the Senate will vote on crucial voting rights legislation. Republican state legislatures across the country are passing the most draconian voting restrictions since the beginning of Jim Crow, potentially disenfranchising tens of millions of Americans,” Schumer claimed:

So lets take a closer look at this disenfranchising idea. The article includes a list of some of these ‘draconian measures’ included in the Texas reform bill:

— Death certificates would be filed monthly with the voter registrar and secretary of state so fraudsters can’t vote in a dead person’s name.

— The bill protects poll watchers who must be close enough to “observe the conduct of an election and call to the attention of an election officer any observed or suspected irregularity or violation of law in the conduct of the election.”

— A voter may deliver a marked ballot in person to the early voting clerk’s office only while the polls are open on Election Day. A voter who delivers a marked ballot in person must present an acceptable form of identification. (In-person voting in Texas already requires ID, such as a Texas driver’s license, a government-issued identification card, a Texas handgun license, an election identification certificate, a U.S. military ID card, a U.S. citizenship certificate, or a U.S. passport.)

— A person, other than an election officer, who assists a voter at the polls — or who helps with mail-in ballots — must prove who they say they are, why they are helping, and their relationship to the voter. In-person assistants must take an oath, swearing that “I will not suggest, by word, sign, or gesture, how the voter should vote…” People who assist with mail-in ballots must say whether they received or accepted any form of compensation from a candidate, campaign, or political committee in exchange for providing assistance, which would be illegal.

— The bill makes it an offense to vote or attempt to vote in an election in which the person is ineligible to vote; knowingly votes or attempts to vote twice; votes a ballot belonging to another person or impersonates another person; votes or attempts to vote in Texas after voting for the same federal nominee in another state;

— The bill makes it an offense to alter ballots cast by someone else; cast a ballot under false pretenses; fail to count valid votes; count invalid votes; and mislead an election official.

— The bill bars compensation or any other benefit for vote harvesting and it bars solicitation and distribution of applications to vote by mail. Eligible voters wishing to vote by mail must request their own ballot applications.

That doesn’t sound like draconian voting restrictions to me–it sounds like common-sense measures to prevent voter fraud.

We Thought It Was A Joke

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During the folk music craze of the 1960’s, the Chad Mitchell Trio released a song called “The John Birch Society” which made fun of the organization and accused the society of finding Russians under every bed. I grew up in a house where that idea was accepted, and it wasn’t until much later that I learned that the John Birch Society was actually on to something.

These are some of the lyrics from the song:

[Spoken]
Do you want Justice Warren to be your Commissar?
Do you want Mrs. Khrushchev in there with the DAR?
You cannot trust your neighbors, or even next-of-kin

If mommy is a Commie then you gotta turn her in

Well, it took a few years, but here we are.

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

President Joe Biden’s administration announced their plans to create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government, in an effort to fight domestic terrorism.

In a conversation with reporters, one senior administration official explained the importance of stopping politically fueled violence before it started.

“We will work to improve public awareness of federal resources to address concerning or threatening behavior before violence occurs,” the official said.

The official cited the Department of Homeland Security’s “If you see something say something” campaign to help stop radical Islamic terror as a domestic possibility.

“This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence,” the official said.

Biden began his presidency with a stark warning in his inauguration speech about the “rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.” On June 1, Biden described the threat from “white supremacy” as the “most lethal threat to the homeland today.”

The Biden administration said it would also work with large technology companies on “increased information sharing” to help combat radicalization.

Increased information sharing–you mean like unmasking the phone calls of political opponents? You mean like putting people in solitary confinement because they were arrested on January 6th while dismissing the cases against people who looted and burned businesses in the name of Black Lives Matter last summer?

The article concludes:

The official added the Biden administration was taking the threat of domestic terrorism seriously and would redirect the focus of intelligence agencies on internal threats.

“We are investing many agencies of the government and resourcing them appropriately and asking our citizens to participate,” the official said. “Because, ultimately, this is really about homeland security being a responsibility of each citizen of our country to help us achieve.”

The lyrics should read, “If mommy is a conservative, you gotta turn her in.”

Sending Mixed Messages To Everyone Involved

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I am very confused by actions vs. words regarding the Biden administration’s border policy. The Vice-President says that she has been to the border. I must have missed that. The President says the border is closed. I guess I  missed that also. Meanwhile, the current spoken message of the Vice-President is, “Don’t come.” However, the actions of the Biden administration tell a different story.

Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about the difference between what the Biden administration is saying about the border and what the Biden administration is doing to encourage illegal immigration.

The article quotes a USA Today article:

Vice President Kamala Harris will host a roundtable Tuesday with a group of female immigrants [sic] who have temporary protection from deportation as the administration looks to revive a bipartisan push to grant them legal status through a pair of bills that have languished in the Senate. 

…The vice president will use the meeting to call on the Senate to pass two bills that cleared the House with bipartisan support earlier this year: the American Dream and Promise Act,  which would give DACA recipients the ability to live and work in the U.S, as well as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would enable more than 1 million undocumented farm workers to apply for legal status. 

Ai-jen Poo, co-founder and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who will also be in attendance, said the meeting ties the importance of immigration reform to economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic by highlighting immigrants who work as care professionals. 

The article concludes with a statement about the prospects of getting a bipartisan immigration bill through Congress:

It’s a coming failure.

The softest of these bipartisan senators on immigration — Sens. Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and others — have all said a deal is dead in the water until the border surge is controlled.  Politico has that story dating from March here.

Anyone see Kamala Harris at the border to halt the border surge, which would seem to be her job as border czar as well as a boon to help win Republicans in Congress over to her side?  I haven’t.  The surge hasn’t even peaked yet, as I wrote about here, and some 180,000 or so rolled in from countries well beyond Central America just last month.  More are expected in June.

Harris was presumably chosen by Joe to be his vice president because of all her congressional ties and capacities to cut compromises across party lines.  Yet right now, her failure to go to the border, or more importantly even halt the border surge, is precisely what’s keeping her from hammering out a deal with Republicans.

What we see now is the tiny light at the end of a tunnel…of an oncoming train.  She’s going to be defeated on this, too, same as she was in her pathetic bid for diplomacy.  But as for illegal border surgers, they’re hearing her message loud and clear, to keep coming.

Her lips say “no, no,” but her hands say “yes, yes.”  No wonder Willie Brown found her irresistible.

The Biden administration is not capable of solving the border crisis without going back to the policies of the Trump administration–something they will never do.

If You Believe The Media

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The media’s worst nightmare is to have President Trump hold rallies again. President Trump is still very popular with Americans who understand that his administration had a positive impact on the economic situation of average Americans. As average Americans watch the economic destruction caused by the Biden administration, they appreciate President Trump even more. The media hates that and is trying to change the narrative.

Yesterday MSN posted an article that is aimed at  establishing the media narrative on President Trump.

The article reports:

President Biden on Monday claimed the Republican party is “vastly diminished in numbers” after the January 6 Capitol riot and expressed disappointment in GOP senators who “know better” than to vote against an investigation into the riot but are “worried about being primaried.”

Biden’s remarks came in response to a question about whether NATO allies are shaken by the Capitol riot and the actions of former President Trump.

During a press conference after the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, Biden said that while other leaders may have seen things that “shock them and surprise them” they believe that the American people “are not going to sustain that kind of behavior.”

Notice how the media narrative keeps coming back to January 6th in an effort to associate President Trump with the illegal entry into the Capitol. Somehow President Biden (and the media) choose to overlook the behavior of burning down American cities last summer. Was that acceptable?

The article continues:

“I think it’s appropriate to say that the Republican party is vastly diminished in numbers,” he said. “The leadership of the Republican party is fractured and the Trump wing of the party is the bulk of the party but it makes up a significant minority of the American people.”

He added, however, that the “consequence of President Trump’s phony populism” has been a “shock and surprise.”

“It is disappointing that so many of my Republican colleagues in the Senate — who I know know better — have been reluctant to take on, for example, an investigation because they’re worried about being primaried,” he said.

I think 2022 is going to be very interesting if election fraud is dealt with. Meanwhile, you can expect the above narrative to continue for the next three years.

Making Up The Rules As You Go Along

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On June 7th, CBN News reported the following:

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. due to humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents if they entered the country illegally. 

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.  

The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times reported the following yesterday:

The Department of Homeland Security will speed up work permits for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who claim they are victims of crime, the department announced Monday, saying the current wait, which can last up to five years, is too long to make people remain in economic limbo.

More than 160,000 people were waiting for the victim visa, officially known as the U visa, as of December.

Under the new rules, U visa applicants can be awarded work permits and deferred action, which is an official amnesty for deportation, once they have filed their petition, had their fingerprints taken and are deemed to have made a good-faith claim. The process is known as a Bona Fide Determination. Until now, they had to wait until their cases were further along in the process.

And we wonder why our borders are being flooded? All you have to do as an illegal immigrant is say that you are a victim of a crime and you will get a visa that allows you to work and live here indefinitely. I suspect that when their cases come up, many illegals will simply vanish into the general population, work legally or illegally, and go on with their lives. Meanwhile, American taxpayer will be paying to educate their children and provide for their medical needs. A nation cannot survive this sort of invasion. It will collapse the safety net. Please research Cloward-Piven if you have not already done so.

Looking Behind The Curtain

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When Merrick Garland was appointed Attorney General, it seemed a bit odd. It was an obvious slap in the face to the Republicans who had not brought his nomination to the Supreme Court to the floor of the Senate, but evidently there is more to the story. As you read this, remember that a lot of what have been called conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the reason behind the appointment of Judge Garland. The article provides some insight into what is happening behind the scenes in the Biden administration.

The article quotes a Reuters report:

Democrats overcame Republican opposition on Monday as the U.S. Senate voted to confirm federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, seen as a possible future Supreme Court nominee for President Joe Biden, to an influential appellate court.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 53-44 to approve Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. All those in opposition were Republicans, with three voting with Democrats to approve the nomination.

Biden nominated Jackson, a Washington-based U.S. district judge, to the D.C. Circuit to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the bench. That appellate court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court in the past, including for current Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. (read more)

What we have here is the deep state in action.

The article at the Conservative Treehouse explains:

The vote was 53-47 [link here] Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham voted with Democrats to support KBJ to the circuit court. This Deep State manuever was transparently predictable. {Go Deep}  This was the real reason why Biden elevated Merrick Garland to AG, to get him out of the way for Ketanji Brown Jackson to work her way to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Obama would then have another tool for total control.

Remember the names of the Republicans who voted for this. They need to lose in primary elections as soon as possible.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse concludes:

We all know that Biden is an avatar for Obama’s third-term. Hence the plan by Team Obama (BLM) and James Clyburn (AME) to use a cognitively impaired tool to secure the 2020 club nomination. They then inserted Kamala Harris as the useful radical to manipulate for actual policy objectives.

Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never return to that time before when you did not see them. It’s all a conspiracy theory until it’s proven accurate, then it’s racist…

The Democrats don’t have to pack the Supreme Court–all they need to do is replace a few traditional liberals with some radicals.

 

 

When Lying Kills People

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On Wednesday The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Indian Bar Association has taken legal action against the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for allegedly spreading disinformation on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

The association (IBA) served a legal notice (pdf) on Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

They further stated that Swaminathan, in her statements against the use of ivermectin, ignored research and clinical trials from two organizations—the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD)—who have presented solid data showing ivermectin prevents and treats COVID-19.

“Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has ignored these studies/reports and has deliberately suppressed the data regarding effectiveness of the drug Ivermectin, with an intent to dissuade the people of India from using Ivermectin,” the IBA said in a statement (pdf).

In a May 10 Twitter post that was deleted after Swaminathan received the notice, she wrote, “Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 except within clinical trials.”

On May 29, I posted an article about the impact of the use of Ivermectin in India. The article includes the following paragraph:

Marik was astonished. “If you were to say, tell me the characteristics of a perfect drug to treat COVID-19, what would you ask for?” he said. “I think you would ask firstly for something that’s safe, that’s cheap, that’s readily available, and has anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. People would say, “That’s ridiculous. There could not possibly be a drug that has all of those characteristics. That’s just unreasonable. But we do have such a drug. The drug is called Ivermectin.”

My question is, “Why are the WHO and those associated with it fighting so hard against a cure for the coronavirus and pushing so hard for universal vaccinations?” Is it about money or is there something more nefarious? The cost of this resistance to inexpensive drugs that have been successful in fighting the virus has been many lives that did not have to be lost. It is time that we hold those standing in the way of effective treatment for the coronavirus accountable.