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The Cost of War

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War is expensive. It costs lives, loss of infrastructure, problems with the food supply, and a basic disruption of everything when it occurs. Unfortunately, it is also profitable for some people. It should also be noted that those who declare war are rarely the people called to fight the war they declare.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Since that time, America has given roughly $175 Billion dollars to Ukraine to fight that war. President Trump is now in the process of attempting to end that war.

Who is profiting from that war? Obviously, the defense industry’s weapons making business is doing well—they have to replace the weapons being used. But there seem to be other people profiting from the war as well. President Zelensky claims that Ukraine has only actually received $75 Billion. I have heard reports that the difference is simply a bookkeeping technicality, but I am not necessarily convinced of that.

Let’s look at some of the things that made it possible for Russia to invade Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The price of a barrel of oil in February 2022 was $107.69. To provide some perspective, in January 2021, when President Biden took office, oil was selling for $63.68 a barrel. Because of the Biden administration’s energy policies which ended American energy independence, by February 2022 the price of a barrel of oil was $107.69. The Russian economy is dependent on oil exports. Oil prices are determined internationally. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has some control over oil prices, but that control lessens when America is exporting oil. Because the Russian economy is dependent on oil exports (and thus dependent on the cost of a barrel of oil), when the price of oil falls, Russia experiences fiscal deficits, a weaker economy, and a weaker currency. When President Trump was in office, the price of oil was low, and Russia could not afford to invade Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine had to do with a weak President (President Biden), but it also had to do with the escalating price of oil. That is no longer the case. Oil prices today are roughly $70 a barrel.

It is quite possible that we will see the war in Ukraine end in the coming weeks. To some degree that is due to the negotiating skills of President Trump, but it is also due to the economic and energy policies of President Trump. We are learning that putting a man in the White House with business skills will help all Americans economically as well as pave the way for peace by using economic leverage.

View from the Lair

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Senate Stupidity

Just how stupid are the Marxists in the Senate? Note I didn’t ask how stupid can they get. The first question (somewhat rhetorical) prescribes a measurement, the second is usually taken as a challenge.

If using intelligence as a basis, likely many of them will show up in negative numbers. Others will perform around room temperature, typically that of a walk-in cooler. The HALT (Halt All Trafficking of Lethal Fentanyl) passed the senate with 16 members voting “nay.” This bill closed the loophole on trafficking fentanyl analogs that are similar in effect and chemical composition but not precisely fentanyl. This prevents traffickers from skirting the law by selling something that is just as lethal as the original but technically legal.

The 16 included all of the usual suspects: Cory Booker (Dummy, NJ), Adam Schiff (Dumber, CA), Raphael Warnock (Stupid, GA), Fauxcahauntas (Delirious, MA), and  Mazie Hirono (Dumbest, HI.).

Their excuses for not supporting the bill? It would “disproportionately affect minorities”. It wouldn’t allow for research to be sure that some analogs might have beneficial properties (The bill DOES provide for that, proof that not only some are stupid but also illiterate. Or too lazy to actually read the bill. Or DO THEIR JOB! Please excuse the shouting. My patience with stupidity is wearing thin.)

Another excuse is that it actually wouldn’t reduce the availability of the drugs. While that statement is true, that isn’t the purpose of the bill. The purpose is for law enforcement to arrest the traffickers without them having a lethal loophole. They claim it will lead to “mass incarcerations”. No one, however, mentioned that this is the same bill that was passed in 2018, due to expire this month. Did they cite the “mass incarcerations” that resulted since 2018? Another rhetorical question, apparently.

So, what is the real reason for opposing the bill? Just to be contrary? Likely. To display their “social justice” bona fides? Rather than “real justice” bona fides? Or has the collapse of the Act Blue fund-raising scam threatened to reveal another source of indirect funds, such as the very cartels that smuggle this poison into our country? Or the Chinese manufacturers of the raw materials that deliver them to the cartels? Certainly, such honorables as US Senators would be above accepting money derived from such nefarious sources.

Wouldn’t they?

Wouldn’t they?

ciao,

The Snark

TRY SAYING “HO-HO-HO” WHILE GRITTING YOUR TEETH 

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Chronicling The Battle With Dementia

Author:  Jerry Schill

I ended last month’s post with Pam “surrendering” her car keys, which means I’m now a chauffeur for shopping, doctor appointments, and so on. Getting groceries was an interesting experience as she would reach for items we didn’t need. At first I didn’t notice because she would put them in the shopping cart while I wasn’t paying attention. Rather than creating a scene I would just leave it go. I think at one time we had a half dozen jars of olives in the pantry! I started paying more attention when we shopped, and at first would let her know we don’t need what she put in the cart, but that would sometimes lead to “unhappiness,” so I would just put the item back on the shelf when she wasn’t watching. Most of the shopping now is done when a caregiver stays with her. I’m not one that likes to “shop.” Rather, I got to buy what I need and get out of the store. There are times when I reflect on the “good ‘ol days” when Pam would drive to the store and do all of the shopping.

In January 2023, after family discussions and advice of her primary physician, she started additional testing including oral memory tests, blood work and brain scan over a period of several months. The waiting time was a bit long to see the neurologist, so that was in July. I thought it interesting that I could surmise what the diagnosis was by looking at her patient portal in advance of the appointment with the doctor. The new diagnosis was Alzheimer’s. Labels don’t really mean much. The official diagnosis does not change your experiences in dealing with it.

I am going to revert back to the spring of 2011, or 3 years prior to us noticing Pam’s memory loss. That was the year our daughter and son in law, Sarah and Butch Midgett opened a retail toy store in Nags Head, NC. Pam and I help them prepare the store doing some painting and using our truck and trailer to deliver store fixtures. Their grand opening was in April and sometime in the summer they asked if we would portray Santa and Mrs. Claus after Thanksgiving. Why not? We both had the right hair color! They rented the outfits so the Saturday after Thanksgiving we were the Claus couple for about 4 hours. We enjoyed it so they purchased the outfits for us for 2012. Over the next several years we wore the suits at the toy store and a few events in Craven and Pamlico Counties. We purchased new outfits and had a great time. Pam was an excellent Mrs. Claus, with children reaching for her when they were too frightened to go to that scary Santa.

About 2016 we noticed changes in how she portrayed Mrs. Claus as she would be vocal, times if a child was not behaving or if one in diapers needed a diaper change. Let’s just say Mrs. Claus was not very jolly at times. Santa is supposed to be a jolly old elf and Mrs. Claus is expected to be so as well. In 2017 Santa was solo at the toy store while our son took Pam out for lunch and shopping. It might not sound like a big deal but that took an emotional toll on me because it forced me to realize things will never be the same. We were Santa & Mrs. Claus in downtown New Bern for a couple of years as part of Beary Merry Christmas, but her last year there was 2022. While I no longer go downtown, I continue as Santa at churches, community events, an occasional parade and home visits. The kids help out a lot in the Christmas season taking care of their Mom, and when they cannot I depend on paid workers or volunteers to stay with her.

The combination of looking like Santa even without the red suit during the Christmas season and dementia adds a bit more pressure. Santa is expected to be jolly at all times with no exceptions, so when things get challenging out in public, one needs to be aware of who may be watching! It’s hard to exclaim “Ho-Ho-Ho” while gritting your teeth!

Next month we’ll write about the challenges with the care-giving issue.

The Actions Of A Nasty Little Man

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On Saturday, Townhall posted an article illustrating one way the Biden administration was involved in the lawfare against President Trump. There were many aspects of the actions of the Biden administration that were clearly illegal.

The article quotes Fox News:

The Biden White House turned over government cellphones belonging to President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence to the FBI in May 2022 as part of a bureau probe into the aftermath of the 2020 election, tying Trump to that investigation without sufficient predication, Fox News Digital has learned.

The FBI did not need a warrant to physically obtain the government phones from the Biden White House.

But after acquiring the devices, agents began drafting a search warrant to extract the phones’ data, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital.

“The Biden White House played right along with the FBI’s ‘gotcha’ scheme against Trump,” a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital. “Biden’s Office of White House Counsel, under the leadership of Dana Remus and Jonathan Su, gave its blessing and accommodation for the FBI to physically obtain Trump and Pence’s phones in early May 2022. Weeks later, the FBI began drafting a search warrant to extract the phones’ data.”

The phones were obtained and entered as evidence as part of the FBI’s original anti-Trump 2020 election investigation, which eventually was taken over by special counsel Jack Smith. That case was known inside the bureau as “Arctic Frost” and was opened April 13, 2022, by anti-Trump former FBI agent Timothy Thibault.

Thibault, according to whistleblowers, broke protocol and played a critical role in opening and advancing the bureau’s original investigation related to the 2020 election, tying Trump to the probe without sufficient predication. Thibault broke protocol by taking action to open the investigation and involve Trump despite being unauthorized to open criminal investigations in his role. Only special agents have the authority to open criminal investigations.

There were a lot of rules and policies ignored in the treatment of President Trump during the Biden administration. It would be nice to see the people who ignored those rules and policies held accountable. Unfortunately, if the case of Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith is any indication, there will not be serious consequences for their actions. Clinesmith lied on the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) application. His lie resulted in the illegal surveillance of President Trump and his campaign and to the Russia Hoax. Clinesmith in August pleaded guilty to “one count of making a false statement within both the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the U.S. government, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of five years and a fine of up to $250,000.” He was given 12 months probation, 400 hours of community service, and no fine.

Accountability in Public Schools

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 Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.

Let’s face the truth. The public school system in this country (including North Carolina) is not meeting reasonable expectations. For example, recent reports show that nationally reading proficiency is being met by less than 40% of students in public schools:  4th grade, 31%; 8THgrade, 30%; and 12th grade, 37%. The results for basic math proficiency are equally discouraging. This in spite of the cost per student of public education in this country being one of the highest, if not the absolute highest, of any other country, at a shocking average of $17,187  per year. With, say an average of 20 students per class, the cost is $242,740 per class per year. I would be happy to sign up as a tutor for that kind of pay. Proficiency in reading is such a basic and fundamental component of education; that overall educational achievement, must be profoundly negatively affected. Another shocking statistic is that of the approximate 10 million staff working in public education in the United States, less than 50% are teachers!

There are only two possible explanations for the poor performance:  either the people in charge of public education in this country, do not know how to teach or are not motivated to ensure that effective teaching practices are being followed. Obviously, there is no effective accountability in the public school system, and throwing more money at the problem will not fix it. No private business could afford to operate this way, unless like the public schools, they had no effective competition.

The NC General Assembly will be considering a bill this session that is designed to increase teacher pay. While increasing pay may be positive for teacher recruitment and retention; the question is, will it improve the academic performance of the students, which of course should be the main objective? Here is where the concept or meritocracy enters the picture.  Should pay increases be granted to existing teachers across the board, or rather, depend on the teacher’s effectiveness instructing their students?  Most private businesses award pay increases and bonuses based on an employee’s demonstrated ability to do their job. When I first started working for the N.C. Department of Correction in the 1970s under Republican Governor James Holshouser, supervisors could only grant pay increases to a percentage of their employees and were required to rank order the employees based on job performance. When Democrat Governor Jim Hunt was elected that system of awarding pay increases based on merit was eliminated and replaced by across-the-board salary increases. Supervisors were no longer able to reward their employees according to their work performance.

Human nature being what it is, workers are much more likely to be motivated to do a good job if their pay depends on their performance.  Actually, the school system could easily initiate a performance-based pay system since student learning is assessed using standardized tests.  Any fair system would have to take into account the existing differences between students’ proficiency. This could easily be done by testing all students at the beginning of the school year and then using year end testing to evaluate their level of improvement. This difference would provide a reliable measure of the effectiveness of individual teachers and serve as the basis for salary/bonus increases. Such a system would encourage teachers to improve their own teaching skills as well as experiment with new instructional techniques.  Not only would the teachers be accountable and rewarded for their performance, but school principals and administrators could be evaluated in a similar fashion.

Accountability and rewarding the effort and effectiveness of teachers is critical to improving a public school system that should not be allowed to continue failing.

The Stories We Have Been Told

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On Thursday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at Front Page Magazine about the myths we have been told about Ukraine.

He reminds us of much of the history of Europe:

Fable one: Trump is appeasing Russia?

Who wiped out the Wagner group in Syria? Who sold offensive weapons to Ukraine first? Who warned Germany not to become dependent on the Russian Nord Stream II deal?

Who withdrew from an unfair missile deal with the Russians? Who cajoled and berated NATO members to meet their military investment promises made following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine?

Fable two: A trade war?

President Donald Trump is not wildly slapping tariffs on Europeans.

He is simply saying that 1945 is now 80 years past and that the asymmetrical tariffs that Europe imposes on U.S. imports should be corrected. The massive trade surpluses Europe accumulates each year should give way to fairer, more balanced trade.

Fable three: America is bullying Europe?

The U.S. does not actively interfere in European elections and politics.

In 2024, Europeans, especially the British Laborites, bragged about sending over campaign “volunteers” to work against Trump and, earlier, his conservative predecessors.

British subject Christopher Steele sought to sabotage an entire American 2016 election with a falsified “dossier.”

The Ukrainian ambassador in 2016 wrote an op-ed all but endorsing Hillary Clinton and trashing her opponent.

Fable four: Negotiating with Putin is selling out?

In the long history of Western diplomacy with mass-murdering tyrants, Putin doesn’t even rank among the worst. Just ask his former reset partners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

FDR fueled mass-murdering “Uncle Joe” Stalin’s Red Army as a way to defeat Nazi Germany.

Richard Nixon flattered and cajoled the greatest mass murderer in history, Mao Zedong, to triangulate China against the Soviet Union.

Fable five: Europe is going to save Ukraine?

Europe rushed to congratulate and celebrate with Zelenskyy after his pre-planned White House blow-up. They are loudly announcing that a supposedly isolationist and appeasing U.S. — which has sent more aid to Ukraine than all nearby European nations combined — will now be supplanted by a “new” muscular and rearmed Europe.

We sincerely hope so.

The article concludes:

Aside from all the present posturing and mock-heroics, the only way to save Ukraine is for the U.S. president, Donald Trump, to reflect joint Ukrainian, American, and European interests in stopping the war, forcing Putin as far back eastward as possible where he started in 2022, and creating a credible deterrent along with a DMZ/industrial corridor tripwire to stop another 2008, 2014, and 2022 invasion.

Anything else is empty carnival barking.

Hopefully, the current negotiations will finally end the war.

Appointed On Purpose?

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It’s okay to be whatever you want to be. Just don’t always expect others to go along with your delusion. As a child, I wanted to be a movie star or a singer (I can’t sing or act). I played cowboys and Indians (I think that’s illegal  now). We played pirates. But we knew we were playing and didn’t necessarily expect the grown-ups to go along with our game. Things have changed.

On Thursday, American Greatness reported:

An Oregon mental health advisory board includes a member who identifies as turtle.

JD Holt, who goes by the name JD Terrapin on Facebook, advises Oregon’s Health Authority Council (OHA) on best practices and policies in mental health.

Holt allegedly identifies as a terrapin and uses “they, them and turtle” for her pronouns.

Despite this glaring defect, Holt is one of roughly two dozen consumer experts on the OHA panel, where she helps advise the state on mental health services.

The article notes:

Members of the council, according to Fox News, are appointed by OHA Director Dr. Sejal Hathi, who was appointed by Gov. Tina Kotek (D.).

“Hello everybody, it’s JD. I use they, them and turtle for my pronouns. I’m in the Springfield-Eugene area and I get to be part of the council,” Holt said during a Dec. 20 virtual OCAC meeting.

This is not a joke. I wish it were. The members of the committee are appointed by the Oregon Health Authority Director. The Oregon Health Authority Director appointed someone to the Board who believes that they are a turtle. Let that sink in.

What Hypocrisy?

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a judge who is listed as a fellow in Columbia University’s human rights program. The judge seems to have a limited understanding of human rights.

The article reports:

A British jury convicted United Nations Judge Lydia Mugambe on Thursday of forcing a Ugandan woman into domestic servitude after luring her to the U.K. under false pretenses.

Mugambe, who also serves as a high court judge in Uganda, brought the victim to Britain under the guise of securing her a job in a diplomatic household — only to make her work as an unpaid maid and nanny. She confiscated the victim’s passport and visa, leaving her trapped until she was able to contact a friend, who alerted authorities, according to a Thames Valley Police statement.

“Lydia Mugambe used her position to exploit a vulnerable young woman, controlling her freedom and making her work without payment,” Eran Clutliffe, an attorney for the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, said.

The 49-year-old judge, who was studying for a doctorate at the University of Oxford at the time, according to her profile on the U.N.’s website, was found guilty on four charges, including forced labor, an immigration offense and conspiracy to intimidate a witness. Mugambe is also listed on Columbia University’s website as a fellow in their human rights program. Prosecutors argued she “exploited and abused” the victim’s lack of knowledge about her rights to keep her in a state of servitude.

Mugambe leveraged her connections within the Ugandan High Commission in London to secure a visa for the victim, presenting it as an official employment opportunity, according to court testimony. Instead of placing the woman in a diplomatic household, however, Mugambe brought her to her private residence and forced her to work without pay.

…Mugambe, who was appointed to a U.N. international court in May 2023, denied all charges. She is scheduled for sentencing May 2.

A United Nations judge guilty of having a slave. Wow! It really is time to get America out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of America.

Speaking of hypocrisy at the United Nations, the United Nations has also appointed Saudi Arabia as the head of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69). I understand that the government of Saudi Arabia is moving to expand the rights of women in their country, but making Saudi Arabia the head of a commission on the status of women is like asking a fox to design a hen house.

This Is Beyond Ridiculous

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The things that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finding that we are spending taxpayer money on are totally ridiculous.

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cancelled several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday, including over half a million dollars going to a “pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys.”

DOGE, led by tech mogul Elon Musk, revealed in a late night X post that NIH had just ended the following grants:

– $620K for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys”

 – $699K for studying “cannabis use” among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals”

 – $740K for examining “social networks” among “black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey”

 – $50K for assessing “sexual health” among “LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community”

 – $75K for researching “structural racism”

The article notes:

The latest NIH grant cancellations come just a week after DOGE announced the cancellation of grants from the agency that were geared toward transgender experiments on animals, Breitbart News reported.

Keep those cancellations coming!

Forgetting Your Mission

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On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about preparations for the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil. You know, one of those climate summits where everyone flies in on their private jet while telling all the rest of us that we need to shrink our carbon footprint. Well, their large carbon footprint is not the only hypocrisy involved.

The article reports:

Why let protecting the Amazon rainforest get in the way of “environmental” activism?

In the lead-up to the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, a new four-lane highway is cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest.

The event, to be held in November, is expected to host more than 50,000, including world leaders and high-profile activists who will surely fly on private jets and traverse a road that has been scarred into the pristine landscape.

The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

Any time you cut a road through a forest there is going to be environmental impact–animals have to find new homes, the temperature of the area is impacted, the amount of carbon dioxide recycled by the trees is altered, and it is possible that streams or ponds may be impacted.

The article concludes:

A local resident, Claudio Verequete, told BBC, said he used to earn his living from harvesting berries from the tress that used to be there.

“Everything was destroyed,” he said. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”

Adler Silveira, the state government’s infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 projects happening in the city to “prepare” and “modernise” it.

Silveira added it would provice “a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way.”

The article includes the following post on X:

They really could hold their climate conference somewhere else.

Every Little Bit Helps

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On Wednesday, CNBC reported that the inflation rate went down in February.

The article reports:

  • The consumer price index for both all-items and core increased 0.2% in February, slightly below expectations.
  • On an annual basis, headline inflation was at 2.8%, while core was at 3.1%. Both also were 0.1 percentage point below the Wall Street consensus and the previous month’s levels.
  • The report provided some relief as consumers and businesses worry about the looming impact tariffs might have on inflation

The article concludes:

“The February CPI (Consumer Price Index) release showed further signs of progress on underlying inflation, with the pace of price increases moderating after January’s strong release,” said Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “While the Fed is still likely to remain on hold at this month’s meeting, the combination of easing inflationary pressures and rising downside risks to growth suggest that the Fed is moving closer to continuing its easing cycle.”

The Fed meets next week and is widely expected to hold its key borrowing rate in a target range between 4.25%-4.5%.

Economic growth is trending negative in the first quarter, according to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker of incoming data. The measure has pegged Q1 growth at a 2.4% decline, which would be the first negative growth quarter in three years.

I would like to remind everyone that even though President Trump has been ‘flooding the zone,’ we are only less than two months into the Trump presidency. Gas prices are going down and egg prices are going down. Both of those are good things. As far other economic new is concerned, I don’t necessarily believe the initial figures when they come out. Remember the revisions on job creation during the Biden administration. The people who told those lies may still be working for their government, and I suspect their goal is not to make President Trump look good.

The Federal Reserve has not been America’s friend for a long time. It didn’t even start out that way. If you read The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, you will find out that the true purpose of the Federal Reserve was to concentrate America’s wealth among the New York City banks. They should lower interest rates slightly, but I doubt they will.

What Some Voters Don’t Know

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The mainstream media isn’t doing its job. That’s not a surprise to many of us. Every day we hear about the poor government employees losing their jobs and how horrible that is. But somehow, the mainstream media isn’t saying much about how much waste the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has found and how much their proposed cuts could mean to the average American taxpayer (or the positive impact shrinking the government could have on inflation). If you have ever worked in the private sector, you understand that there are times a company has to cut its workforce to decrease costs. That’s not fun, but sometimes it is necessary. If you have never been impacted by that, you are fortunate.

On Wednesday, Newsbusters reported the following:

Once a hero of the enviro-left for his electric Tesla cars, the broadcast networks have turned Elon Musk into a boogeyman who is heartlessly firing federal employees and endangering the public with cuts to food and airline safety programs. 

Musk has been so villainized by the media that his once-beloved Teslas are being vandalized by the left. 

There is another narrative that the lefties at ABC, CBS, NBC refuse to tell: How Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have already saved the hard-working American taxpayer billions of dollars by canceling boondoggle government contracts. 

In 32 days of coverage (February 8 – March 12) ABC, CBS, NBC (on their evening and morning news shows) spent a total of (4 minutes, 43 seconds) citing specific dollar amounts that DOGE or President Donald Trump claimed to have saved the American taxpayer. 

The article lists some of the announcements the mainstream media has ignored:

On March 10, DOGE re-posted Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement: 

After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

…On March 7, DOGE re-posted Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announcement:

CANCELLED: $600,000 grant to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men”

…On March 5, DOGE announced:

Yesterday, @NIH cancelled seven grants for transgender experiments on animals including:

– $532K to “use a mouse model to investigate the effects of cross-sex testosterone treatment”

The article lists several more instances of wasteful spending. None of these was covered by CBS, ABC or NBC. The American public deserves better journalism than that.

The Need For Responsibility

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During the Biden administration, we heard a lot about the ‘proper’ handling of classified material. Mar-a-Lago was raided, President Biden’s garage was not. President Trump was charged; the case against President Biden was not charged because he was an old man with a faulty memory. Justice was not blind. However, both incidents brought up the issue of responsibility. In every business there is one person (or group of people) who represent the final authority. That person or group is held responsible for policies withing the business. In America, that person is the President; rightly or wrongly, he is held responsible for inflation, the stock market, energy prices, and a lot of other things he has no control over. But there are some things he does have control over.

On Wednesday, Just the News reported the following:

Briefing materials for President Barack Obama, subjects and times for White House Situation Room meetings and discussions about sensitive conversations with foreign leaders and even fallout from leaked National Security Agency intercepts were forwarded to Joe Biden’s private pseudonymous email accounts when he was vice president, according to a new tranche of documents turned over to Just the News by the National Archives. 

Security experts and lawmakers, who reviewed the records, said they were disturbed by the nonchalant transmission of sensitive government information to Biden’s insecure private email accounts and believed it put national security at risk.

“The new set of emails from Joe Biden’s time as Vice President are very troubling and are more evidence that Biden believed he did not have to abide by classification and document handling regulations,” former CIA analyst and former Trump National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz told Just the News. 

Several hundred pages of emails from 2011 to 2015 were released to Just the News and its public interest law firm partner the Southeastern Legal Foundation as part on an ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation.

The article notes:

Applicable federal regulations aren’t limited to classified material, and instead strictly limit federal employees’ use of commercial email to conduct government business.

As for the contents, each federal agency has its own definition of “sensitive.” The U.S. Air Force, for example calls it “controlled unclassified information” in a memo about email, while the U.S. Department of Labor is even more restrictive, directing federal employees to “NOT use your personal email or social media accounts for official matters. This raises record-keeping issues and potentially puts confidential information at risk.”

Why were both the Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) and the Vice-President using fake names and private emails to do government business? That is the question I would like answered.

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

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On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about the recently passed Continuing Resolution (CR). The article might explain part of the reason we are having so much trouble bringing down the federal deficit.

The article reports:

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) revealed on The Alex Marlow Show that one Republican lawmaker bristled about how the stop-gap spending did not have any earmarks, including his own.

Perry spoked to Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Marlow as the House passed the stop-gap spending bill, otherwise known as a continuing resolution (CR), that freezes government spending for six months.

The Pennsylvania conservative argued that the advancement of the CR is a victory in itself, as it blocked congressional leadership from advancing an omnibus spending bill.

“What’s different and the context about this is that we didn’t get our appropriations done, but our leadership wanted to do an omnibus. They wanted that four corners deal. The CR is not the four corners deal. They don’t want the CR; they’ve been forced into it by people like me and quite honestly, the president,” Perry said.

The former Freedom Caucus chairman also cheered the CR’s lack of earmarks.

“There are no earmarks in this thing,” he said.

I am not a fan of CR’s (although I believe this one is necessary), but I am a fan of no earmarks.

The article concludes:

“I had a Republican member complaining to me at a meeting this morning. He’s grumbling, well I guess I have to vote for this, but you know, my earmarks aren’t it. I’m thinking, you’re talking to the guy, brother,” Perry said.

“I’m not into that,” he said.

The Keystone State conservative also noted that America has not seen a normal congressional appropriations process. He said that the last time Congress went through the “normal” appropriations process was in 1996.

“We have to find a new way to do business,” he argued.

No, you have to go back to the old way of doing business–the “normal” appropriations process.

Some Useful Information From A Trusted Source

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Author:  Michael Speciale

Sponsoring Bills – What Does That Mean?

There are times when our elected Senators or Representatives indicate that they support a bill. They will use several different terms such as Primary Sponsor, Sponsor, and Co-sponsor. Each means different things, and they require various levels of participation from the General Assembly member.

A primary sponsor is the one who has the bill written and he/she is the one who submits it for consideration. A bill number is assigned, and, on first reading, the Speaker assigns it to the committees where the bill needs to be passed to work its way to the House or Senate floor for a vote.

A Sponsor is any of an additional three members who can have their names put on the bill along with the Primary Sponsor. The Primary Sponsor decides who can add their name to his/her bill. These three Sponsors may have collaborated diligently with the Primary Sponsor to get the bill written, or they may have done nothing but simply asked the Primary Sponsor to add their name to the bill because they support it.

A Co-sponsor simply goes on his computer and looks up the bills that have been recently assigned a bill number and puts a check in the box allotted to indicate that he/she supports the bill as written. There is no limit to the number of Co-sponsors who may check support for the bill. Co-sponsors have no input into the writing of the bill, and because many bills do not make It to the Chamber Floors, Co-sponsoring a bill lets folks know that the bill, as currently written, is supported by the Co-signers.

Not all bills submitted are intended to be heard because some members will submit a bill to placate a constituent, but the members will not push to have the bill heard in committees or on the Chamber Floors. Press your member on what they are doing to move a bill through the committees if they have submitted one at your request, or if you simply want to see a bill passed regardless of whether the member submitted it at your request.

U.S. Trade Deficit Analysis 

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D. 

What is a trade deficit and why it is bad for America? This is an important question and explains in large part why President Trump is implementing new tariffs. Let’s take a look.

A trade deficit refers to the difference between the value of the goods that one country imports (i.e. buys) compared to what that country sells to a particular country. So, for instance, the United States, in December 2024, purchased 50 billion dollars’ worth of goods from China and they purchased 12 billion dollars’ worth of goods from us, resulting in a trade deficit of 38 billion dollars. An analogy would be if you had chickens and sold eggs to a neighbor worth 20 dollars each month, and in turn, bought 30 dollars’ worth of vegetables each month from that neighbor. If so, you would have a trade deficit of 10 dollars each month or 120 dollars in a year. The neighbor would be 120 dollars richer at the end of the year. In ten years, it would be 1200 dollars. In 2024, the United States had a trade deficit of 280 billion dollars with China alone. Our total trade deficit worldwide was 971 billion dollars in 2024. This is not good and significantly diminishes our total wealth. Instead of getting richer from trade with other countries, we are getting poorer.

The problem is not just with China’s 280 billion. We also had a trade deficit with the European Union of 236 billion; Mexico 152 billion; Vietnam 104 billion; Japan 71 billion; and Canada 68 billion. You get the picture. A large part of the problem is that we have allowed our manufacturing to move overseas and consequently we have to purchase most manufactured goods from other countries. Estimates are that over 70,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the U.S. over the last 50 years, many of which have occurred since China was given most favored trade status by President George Bush in 2001.  Not smart.

Historically, nations have tried to eliminate trade deficits in many ways. The most notorious was what Great Britain did with China in the mid-1800s. As tea drinking expanded in Great Britain, they found themselves importing increasing amounts of tea from China. However, they were not selling significant amount of their manufactured goods to China resulting in a large trade deficit. In order to reduce the trade deficit, Great Britain began trading opium for tea. The result was an explosion of “opium dens” and resulting drug dependencies within the Chinese population. Sounds somewhat like what China is now doing to us with the fentanyl crisis we are facing. While also addictive, opium does not have the lethality of fentanyl. In the early 1900s China took action to halt the opium problem, in part, by implementing the death penalty for any of their citizens engaging in the opium trade.

Granting favored trade status to a communist regime by President Bush was apparently done with the naive hope that engaging in free trade would move China towards democratic practices.  No such thing has occurred.  In fact, all we have succeeded in doing is enriching a communist country that is determined to defeat us both economically and militarily. The trade deficit we are continuing with China is sowing the seeds of our own destruction.  We finally have a president who has the wisdom and courage to address this issue. We must return manufacturing to this county.  Reducing unnecessary regulations, doing away with expensive and handicapping wind and solar energy, imposing tariffs that even the playing field, as well as safe guarding our technological advances are all needed to solve our trade deficit crisis. Let’s hope that Congress will support President Trump in getting this done. It is long overdue.

Where Did The Money Actually Go?

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On Sunday, The Epoch Times reported that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered 5,593 loans made by the Small Business Administration (SBA) worth $312 million given to borrowers age 11 or under at the time of the loan.

The article reports:

“While it is possible to have business arrangements where this is legal, that is highly unlikely for these 5,593 loans, as they all also used [a Social Security number] with the incorrect name,” the post reads.

DOGE and the SBA are now working to investigate the matter, according to the post. The Epoch Times contacted the SBA for comment on March 9 but did not receive a response by publication time.

Also on March 8, DOGE wrote in a separate post that it found that the SBA issued 3,095 loans for $333 million to borrowers whose age was listed at more than 115 years old. Those borrowers, it stated, were listed as alive in the Social Security database, and in one instance, a person recorded as being 157 years old received loans worth $36,000, including under the Paycheck Protection Program and as an Economic Injury Disaster Loan.

Also on March 8, DOGE stated that a Department of Agriculture contract worth $10.3 million that was for “identifying unnecessary contracts” had been canceled, noting that it was one of 162 nonessential contracts that had been terminated.

I am happy that DOGE has found the questionable loans. I will be happier when the people responsible for the fraud are put on trial.

This Has Not Been Widely Reported

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On March 7th, NewsMax posted an article about the February Jobs Report. The media is ignoring the shift from foreign-born workers to American workers. That is good news.

The article reports:

President Trump praised the February jobs report for indicating that American-born workers gained 284,000 more jobs, while jobs held by foreign-born workers contracted by 87,000, Brietbart reports.

“Big gains for native-born Americans,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Friday. “For the first time in 15 months, the job gains for native-born Americans, people born in America, exceeded job gains for migrant and foreign-born workers.”

The article reminds us:

During the Biden administration, when inflation rose a cumulative 21.3%, Americans lost earning power in the labor in the labor and housing markets, as well as workplace productivity and training.

White-collar jobs and factory jobs were outsourced, while local communities became unstable due to progressive policies such as Defund the Police and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, says Steve Camarota, a researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Further, as expanding blocs of migrants-turned-ethnic-voters demanded benefits, native-born Americans lost political power, Camaraota says.

There is room for more improvement for native-born Americans in the labor market, as current data shows that the share of Americans with jobs remains at historic lows.

For instance, Camarota notes, the labor force participation of U.S.-born men without a bachelor’s degree between the ages of 18 and 64 is 75.6%, down from 80.6% in 2006 and nearly 90% in the 1960s, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unfortunately, the Workforce Participation Rate has continued to drop slightly since September of last year, but hopefully that can be turned around quickly.

The Definition Of Insanity

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Although we don’t actually know who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” there is a lot of truth to that saying. We are seeing that truth in action in Syria right now.

With few exceptions, one of them being the American revolution, revolutions seem to bring to power people worse than the ones who were ousted. America is not guiltless in playing a part in some revolutions in the past century. In 1953, America installed the Shah of Iran. We saw how that worked out (actually it did for a while). In 2011, the Arab Spring was supposed to bring freedom to the oppressed Arabs in the Middle East. In 2011, we helped overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya. That didn’t work well. Also in 2011, we helped remove Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, resulting in a temporary take-over of the country by the Muslim Brotherhood, followed by a military coup. Now we are dealing with the consequences of a Syrian revolution. The carnage that is the result of that revolution is unimaginable, but was not unpredictable.

In December 2024, Fox News reported the following:

The Biden administration has lifted a $10 million bounty on the head of Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

In exchange, al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, agreed to a U.S. demand not to allow terrorism groups in Syria to threaten the U.S. or Syria’s neighbors. 

“We had a good, thoroughgoing discussion on a range of regional issues,” Barbara Leaf, the U.S.’s top envoy to the Middle East, told reporters of her Friday meeting with al-Sharaa. 

In January 2025, former al Qaeda member Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, was named as Syria’s president for a transitional period.

There was a reason for the bounty. Al-Sharaa is a Sunni Muslim who was formerly a member of Al Qaeda under Abu Musab al-Zarqari.

According to a Reuters article of March 10th:

Sharaa, in a speech on Sunday, said remnants of the Assad government, supported by external parties, were seeking to create strife and drag Syria back into civil war with the aim of dividing it.

He promised to form a fact-finding committee and said its findings would be made public, vowing to bring to account anyone involved “in the bloodshed of civilians” or mistreating them.

He has also announced the formation of a committee aimed at preserving civil peace, which would be tasked with communicating with the people of the coast and providing them with the support they needed to guarantee their protection.

In a Reuters interview, Sharaa said mass killings of Alawites were a threat to his mission to unite the country, and promised to punish those responsible, including his own allies if necessary.

In evaluating the above statement, you need to consider the Islamic concept of taqiyya. This is a concept in Islamic law that translates as “deceit or dissimulation,” particularly toward infidels. It is generally described as lying for the sake of Islam.

The mainstream media has been rather quiet about the genocide going on in Syria. That genocide should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with    the history of Al-Sharaa.

Islamic terrorism is not dead, and America needs to be very aware of its intentions both here and internationally.

A Very Logical Argument

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On Sunday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the Continuing Resolution (CR) now working its way through Congress.

The article reports:

What’s the argument for opposing the new CR being introduced by Speaker Mike Johnson this week? Other than being a continuing resolution, of course, which stink on ice. Congress has gotten into a bad habit over the past 20 years of failing to budget normally and properly. This year is no different, but in that same sense, this CR is both a necessity and better than all of the alternatives. This has been dysfunctional all along, but this isn’t a time to amplify it.

First off, we’re stuck with the CR process. That ship sailed last year, when Democrats controlled the Senate, Joe Biden was president (ostensibly), and House Republicans spent the year forming circular firing squads. Yes, we could write an entirely new budget instead of a CR for FY2024-25, but we’re nearly halfway through that fiscal year already. We’d have to start that process nearly from scratch too, which means we’d still need a CR to get enough time to work on it. That would take another couple of months at least under regular order — meaning the proper committee process, etc — by which time the rest of the fiscal year would be closer to a fiscal quarter. 

What would we gain from that process? We’d be unlikely to move the needle much at all on spending, and create even more time for splits to emerge in the House Republican caucus with less time to resolve them. That effort is better applied to the FY2025-26 budget, where real opportunities exist for capturing significant spending cuts through DOGE. 

He makes a very good point. Let’s get past the CR and get on with the work of finding fraud and waste in government spending. Let’s end the foreign campaign contributions funded through ActBlue, and let’s end the campaign donations and other donations made to Congressmen (and women) from companies who have legislation before Congress. Let’s look at how much the pharmaceutical industry has donated to Congress in recent years and see how that relates to legislation passed.

Let’s be done with the CR and move on to better things.

This Is A Game-Changer

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In recent years, America’s courts have been used for many things that they were not originally intended to be used for. We have seen the courts used to target political opponents, to put laws in place that were never voted on, and also be used to promote a social or political agenda. Some of that misuse may be coming to an abrupt halt.

On Saturday, The Patriot Journal reported the following:

Americans expect their government to work efficiently. They want policies implemented without needless delays. They expect the administration they voted for to be able to govern.

But what happens when unelected officials and special interest groups repeatedly obstruct the will of the people?

The cost to taxpayers is enormous. The damage to effective governance is incalculable.

President Donald Trump has had enough. In a bold move to protect American taxpayers and restore constitutional order, Trump signed a memo on Thursday directing government agency heads to hold activist groups financially accountable when they sue the government.

The directive specifically instructs federal agencies to ask judges to require financial guarantees from groups seeking to block government actions through preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders.

“Agencies must justify security amounts based on reasoned assessments of harm, ensuring courts deny or dissolve injunctions if plaintiffs fail to pay up, absent good cause,” the White House said in the fact sheet obtained by Fox News Digital.

…For too long, activist groups have used the court system as a weapon to obstruct policies they disagree with. They file lawsuits with little financial risk to themselves. The costs fall on American taxpayers—that’s you and me paying the bill for their political games.

The article notes that this directive will bring us closer to the government our Founding Fathers created:

The importance of this directive is highlighted by recent Supreme Court activity. Just Wednesday, the high court issued a 5-4 ruling on a case involving nearly $2 billion in foreign aid money.

Such cases demonstrate how litigation can impact major policy decisions and government operations. When activist judges issue nationwide injunctions, they effectively give a single district court power over the entire executive branch. Does that sound like what the Founding Fathers intended? I think not.

Trump’s memo represents a return to proper constitutional balance. It recognizes that while the judiciary has an important role in our system, it cannot be allowed to usurp the authority of the democratically elected executive.

By requiring financial guarantees, the administration is creating a powerful incentive for groups to bring only meritorious cases rather than using litigation as a political tool.

This is a step in the right direction to get our country back into the hands of the voters.

View From The Lair

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Clown Show

President Trump’s address to Congress last Tuesday was another opportunity for the dummycrats to display how childishly immature they really are. Rep. Al Greene took the lead role in the orchestrated “resistance” to President Trump’s success thus far; throwing a tantrum and waving his cane.

Interestingly, the cane can be easily turned into a weapon as Sen Charles Sumner discovered in 1856, when Rep. Preston Brookes (D,SC) used his to bludgeon Sumner almost to death. Leftists like to use violence against their enemies. If a Republican had performed like that in front of a dummycrat majority congress with a dummycrat president, he would have been charged with attempted assassination.

When a child throws a tantrum, the quickest and most appropriate method of halting such ridiculous behavior is splashing water in his face. While this certainly seems appropriate in this case, the remembrance of the water hoses dummycrat sheriffs used against civil rights marchers in the early sixties would likely result in cries of “racism.” Just having him justifiably removed was sufficient to have that result anyway.

Then the rest of the clowns began their portion of the show. The auction paddles popped up, signifying that the holder was an idiot. Granted, it didn’t require a paddle to identify the idiots, it merely reinforced the obvious.

Refusing to applaud any of the successes achieved thus far established beyond doubt that whoever is leading this flock of sheep (Hakim Jefferies?) is not just clueless, but is determined to commit political suicide. Even President Obozo promised to eliminate waste, fraud, and corruption. Another blatant lie, but that’s what they do. Slick Willy, Hillary’s husband, promised to reduce the size of the government. Remember “The age of big government was over?” Right. So, while POTUS actually achieved what their Messiah promised, it’s a bad practice. POTUS was correct in his assessment that they would refuse to applaud for him if he found a cure for the worst disease in the world.

We can hope that these morons will continue their course of behavior, maybe even run Kamala again in 2028. Usually when one finds themselves in a hole, the best choice is to stop digging. These clowns get an excavator.

ciao,

The Snark

This Is No Way To Run A Country

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On Friday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about some of the money spent on environmentalism during the Biden administration.

The article reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency has no ability to track or conduct oversight of more than $650 million in taxpayer funds that a Biden-backed green group wired to dozens of credit union accounts last month, the agency told the Washington Free Beacon.

In mid-February, the New York-based eco group Inclusiv—which received $1.9 billion last year as part of the EPA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program—transferred $651 million to 108 credit unions across 27 states and Puerto Rico. The group said the credit unions would use the funding to offer financing for green energy projects such as solar installations and electric vehicle chargers within their jurisdictions.

Inclusiv initiated the transfer on the same day that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin discovered that the Biden administration had parked $20 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund funding in accounts at an outside financial institution, limiting federal control and oversight of the money. In collaboration with the Department of Justice, Zeldin ultimately froze the accounts, but not before Inclusiv completed its transaction.

“The passthrough structure of these grants is a significant deviation from how EPA regularly conducts oversight of grantees,” EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou told the Free Beacon. “EPA has no visibility nor role into understanding how these taxpayer dollars are being spent on the ground.”

Traditionally, the EPA selects which projects to fund and distributes grants directly to developers. In this case, however, Inclusiv solicited grant applications from credit unions who will then select which projects the federal funds will finance and determine the terms developers must meet—a setup that takes the EPA entirely out of the loop.

The article concludes:

The scope of that funding dwarfs the amount of money Inclusiv previously handled. In 2023, Inclusiv reported $11.9 million in revenue and $10.1 million in expenses, according to the group’s most recent tax filings.

“This is borderline fraudulent. It is just like a money laundering scheme,” said Travis Fisher, the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute. Fisher is the author of a forthcoming report that concludes Biden-era green programs created “an overwhelming and undue burden on taxpayers.”

“I am frustrated to my core,” Fisher told the Free Beacon. “One thing that I think is even more frustrating is when we compile the entire spending of all of what the Inflation Reduction Act authorizes, it is such a staggering amount of money that the part that we’re talking about that is probably fraudulent, or at the very least shady and questionable, is a tiny fraction of the total spending.”

“By comparison to the rest of it, it seems small,” he continued. “They thought they could fly under the radar with that and we were essentially all fooled and caught flat-footed.”

Inclusiv did not respond to a request for comment.

Our government watchdogs have obviously not done a very good job in the past. The taxpayers want accountability. How much money given to the Environmental Protection Agency is actually spent on the environment?