When The Numbers Don’t Add Up And The Politicians Don’t Care

Today’s Washington Free Beacon posted an article about the Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, vetoing a bill that would require investigations of jurisdictions in the state whose voter rolls contain more registered voters than citizens who are eligible to vote. Now I don’t claim to be a genius at math, but it seems to me that a jurisdiction that has more registered voters than citizens who are eligible to vote might have a problem with its voter rolls.

The article reports:

The bill, first introduced by Republican state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, was prompted by a report that shed light on eight Virginia counties that had more registered voters on their voter rolls than eligible voters.

Obenshain’s bill would require “the local electoral boards to direct the general registrars to investigate the list of persons voting at an election whenever the number of persons voting at any election in a county or city exceeds the number of persons registered to vote in that county or city,” according to its summary. “The Department of Elections is required to provide certain data to any general registrar conducting such an investigation for the registrar’s use during the investigation. The local electoral boards are required to make reports of the findings to the State Board. These reports are public documents.”

Why would any elected official of either party be okay with more registered voters in a jurisdiction than there are citizens eligible to vote? I would hope that all elected officials would support the idea of honest elections.

Governor McAuliffe made the following statement when he vetoed the bill:

“By requiring 133 individual general registrars to conduct an investigation of voters under undefined standards, this bill raises serious constitutional questions,” McAuliffe said in a statement. “It could expose eligible and properly registered Virginians to the risk of improper disenfranchisement.”

“Further, Senate Bill 1105 would increase the administrative burden on local election officials. Rather than imposing unnecessary investigative requirements on those officials, we should focus attention and resources on the Commonwealth’s proven and efficient methods of list maintenance, which serve as a national model.”

At some point we need to remind people that any illegal vote disenfranchises the vote of a legal voter. Keeping honest voting rolls is not an unnecessary investigative requirement–it is the job of the election officials.

The article reminds us of some discoveries during the last election:

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based group that litigates to protect election integrity, released the report last year that sparked Obenshain’s bill.

PILF’s report found 1,046 aliens who were illegally registered to vote in a small sample of eight Virginia counties that responded to its public records requests.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the group, said it is reasonable to ask questions about voter rolls with more voters than citizens.

“It is entirely reasonable to ask questions when a voting jurisdiction has more registered voters than citizens,” Churchwell told the Washington Free Beacon. “The Justice Department for the past eight years refused to perform similar studies using powers it was already vested with. Virginia lawmakers and private parties like PILF were forced to pick up the slack. It’s astonishing to see a sitting governor calculate political blowback when voter roll integrity is at stake.”

“As PILF previously reported, these eight problematic jurisdictions had more than 1,000 alien voters removed from the rolls in years past with roughly 20 percent casting ballots before being caught.”

“There’s smoke, fire, and damage right in front of Governor McAullife’s eyes. When will he stop playing politics with Virginians’ voting rights?”

Honest elections are the backbone of our representative republic. We need to make sure our elections follow the basic rules of common sense. The number of registered voters in an area should not exceed the number of eligible voters. If it does, something is wrong.

Americans Are Actually Unified On Some Things

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an editorial written by David Schoenbrod, a Trustee Professor of Law at New York Law School. The editorial is titled, “Washington’s War Against The People.” Professor Schoenbrod makes a few very good points in his editorial. He reminds us that the percentage of Americans who trust Washington to “do the right thing” “just about always” or “most of the time” was 76 percent in 1964. In 2015, that percentage had fallen to 19 percent. So what happened? Those in power in Washington learned a few tricks to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and to increase their own power and wealth. Meanwhile, they began to ignore the wishes and well being of the American people.

The editorial lists some of the ways that those in Washington promise good things while avoiding the blame for bad things:

  1. The Money Trick lets them get credit for tax cuts and spending increases, but shift the blame for the inevitable tax increases and spending cuts to their successors in office when the deficits and debt will become unsustainable.
  2. The Debt Guarantee Trick lets them get support from the too-big-to-fail financial giants whose profits they increase by guaranteeing their debts at little or no cost, but shift the blame for the inevitable bailouts to their successors in office when the speculation encouraged by the cheap debt guarantees will trigger another fiscal crisis and economic crash.
  3. The Federal Mandate Trick lets them get credit for the benefits they require the state and local government to deliver, but shift the blame for the burdens required to deliver those benefits to state and local officials.
  4. The Regulation Trick lets them get credit for granting rights to regulatory protection, but shift the blame for the burdens required to vindicate those rights and the failures to deliver the protection promised to federal agencies.
  5. The War Trick lets members of Congress get credit for having a statute that requires them to take responsibility for going to war, while colluding with the president to evade responsibility for wars that might later prove controversial.  So members of Congress can march in the parade if the war proves popular, but otherwise put the entire blame on the president.
The editorial points out that many Americans believe that Washington insiders have misled or tricked them. That explains why Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, both outsiders, received more votes in 2016 than anyone expected.

The current battle is between Washington insiders and the American people. Both Republicans and Democrats have forgotten who they represent. Some elected officials still try to represent the voters, but they are few and far between. The problem is across party lines. The only solution is well-educated voters (which will be a challenge because the mainstream media supports the Washington insiders). However, if it is possible to drain the swamp, I suspect it will have to happen in the next two years. I believe that is the size of the window Donald Trump will be given to accomplish anything.

Repeal It Or Go The Way Of The Whigs

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the repeal of ObamaCare. The editorial made some very important points. First of all, the writer reminded us that the demonstrations opposing the repeal of ObamaCare were planned by the Democrats shortly after the election. There are some people who want to keep ObamaCare, but despite what you see on the news, they are a minority.

The editorial reminds us:

Imagine that Democrats announced a health care reform plan that would force millions to cancel health plans and leave the doctors they like, drastically reduce choice and competition in the individual market, cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket, blow billions of taxpayer dollars creating faulty “exchanges” and failing co-ops, leave millions of middle-class families stuck with higher deductibles and higher premiums, cause massive industry losses, slow the economy, cost jobs, and increase the deficit.

Those are the results ObamaCare’s critics predicted and, without exaggeration, what it has produced. Does anyone honestly believe ObamaCare would have ever made it to Obama’s desk if its backers had been honest with the public?

Yes, the uninsured rate has come down, but as IBD noted, the “20 million gained insurance thanks to ObamaCare” claim is a wild exaggeration, and the gains that did occur are entirely due to the expansion of Medicaid — a terrible and financially troubled program — and other government insurance programs, not ObamaCare’s individual market “reforms.”

ObamaCare will implode on its own in a year or so, but the chaos it will leave will take years to undo. It makes much more sense to repeal it before it collapses.

There is another aspect of this mentioned in the editorial–the trust of the voters. First Republicans said, “Give us the House, and we will repeal ObamaCare.” Voters did that, and ObamaCare was not repealed. Then Republicans said, “Give us the House and the Senate, and we will repeal ObamaCare. Voters did that, and ObamaCare was not repealed. Then Republicans said, “Give us the Presidency, and we will repeal ObamaCare.” Well…

During the Obama Administration, Congress took numerous votes to repeal ObamaCare. It was a safe vote–Congressmen knew that President Obama would veto anything that actually got through the Senate, and nothing would happen. Now that a vote to repeal ObamaCare would actually mean something, Congress is stalling.

I have not given up on the repeal of ObamaCare. However, I have pretty much given up on the Republican party. If they choose not to repeal ObamaCare, how are they any different from the Democrats? How can their platform say that they support smaller government and their actions say something else? In plain English, it is time for the Republicans in Congress to put up or shut up.

When You Think You Dodged A Bullet, But You Didn’t

In January 2015, Politifact reported:

Obama’s record for losses, at least through the 2014 midterms, is historically bad having overseen two horrible midterm elections for Democrats. Overall, Sabato wrote, Democrats during Obama’s presidency lost 11 governorships, 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 913 state legislative seats and 30 state legislative chambers. (Our analysis of legislative seats is off from Sabato’s (Larry Sabato, a political expert at the University of Virginia Center for Politics) by three. The small discrepancy is likely due to run-offs and recounts.)

The shedding of U.S. House seats, state legislative seats and statehouse control is at least twice the average two-term losses from Truman through George W. Bush, Sabato  said.

There were further losses in the past election, including the presidency. So where do the Democrats go from here? Well, I don’t think they actually have that totally figured out yet.

Yesterday, The American Thinker posted an article about Tom Perez, the newly-elected Democratic National Committee Chairman. Conventional wisdom says that the Democratic Party dodged a bullet by not electing Rep. Keith Ellison, who has some rather interesting radical associations in his past and present. However, the article disputes the conventional wisdom by claiming that Perez is as radical as Ellison, just more quiet about it.

The article reports:

Perez had a actual track record. It could be summed up as one damaging-to-democracy act after another, all in the name of advancing he Democratic Party’s partisan interests. What it means is that he places party over state, same as Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez did.

Interestingly enough, CASA de Maryland, a Soros-funded group dedicated to helping illegal immigrants flout U.S. immigration law that Perez headed up, took a $1.5 million donation in 2008 from the Venezuelan dictator. Perez seems to have taken Chavez’s philosophy along with it, which isn’t that surprising: His dad was a well-known henchman for Rafael Trujillo, the bemedaled, mirrored-sunglassed Idi-Amin-style thug dictator of the Dominican Republic who used to throw his opponents literally into the shark pools over his 30-plus years rule. Trujillo was the grotesque dictator featured in Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s Feast of the Goat. One cannot control who one’s relatives are, of course, but Perez is notable for lying about it, not just in denying the relationship but in saying it was the opposite of what it was.

Admittedly, you can’t choose your relatives, but combined with his association with CASA de Maryland, Perez does not appear to be a moderate alternative to Ellison.

The article further reports:

As for his (Perez) own division of DOJ, a 250-page internal DOJ Inspector General’s report blasted it for its hothouse atmosphere of racial grievance mongering, “with several incidents in which deep ideological polarization fueled disputes and mistrust that harmed the functioning of the Voting Section.”  Some leadership.

This is the work of a rabid activist who sees advancing the leftist agenda and the party that has adopted it as the goal. The party’s supremacy is his goal and the law is an obstacle. Sounds a heckuva lot like the Obama administration, which he exerted considerable influence over. Will the voters go for same-old, same-old? The current state of the Democratic Party seems to think there’s a need for more of it.

As the Democratic Party moves left, they may find themselves representing fewer and fewer Americans. We have seen the fruit of an overreaching and overspending government, and we want our country back. I am not sure how many generations that will take, but it can be done.

It will be interesting to see if the election of Tom Perez stops the losses of the Democratic Party. I have a suspicion that it will not.

Some Of The Names Have Changed, But The Actions Of The Mainstream Media Have Remained Consistent

Breitbart posted an interview with Linda Tripp today. Linda Tripp was a major player in one of the many scandals that surrounded the Clintons during Bill Clinton’s years as President.

The article reports:

During a radio interview broadcast on Sunday, Linda Tripp, who was famously portrayed by John Goodman on Saturday Night Live during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, blasted SNL for what she described as a political campaign to “make me into a villain” instead of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Tripp says she was prompted to go public about the issue in response to the NBC comedy sketch show’s negative portrayal of President Donald Trump and top White House officials. She charged the show and the mainstream news media were engaged in a deliberate “campaign of disinformation, confusion, and essentially propaganda.”

Tripp also opened up about the personal toll she said the media’s negative portrayal had on her, describing how she banned television from her house for three years in the late 1990’s and at times engaged in binge eating as a coping mechanism.

The media has been turning people they did not agree with into villains for a long time. The only thing that has prevented most Americans from seeing President Trump as a total villain is the alternative media. The attacks on Linda Tripp were meant to take away her credibility and portray the Clintons as innocent victims. Fortunately because of the Drudge Report and Monica Lewinsky‘s blue dress, it became obvious that Bill Clinton was guilty of exactly what he was accused of.

The article also makes some observations about how the mainstream media continues to operate:

Meanwhile, Tripp said during Sunday’s interview that she sees SNL’s current negative portrayal of Trump and top administration officials, including Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway and White House Spokesman Sean Spencer, as part of a larger news media campaign aimed at discrediting the president and his policies.

“Now I think what is going on on SNL is a part of it,” she said. “It’s all of a piece, though. It’s almost a psychological warfare tactic. I worked with special operations for many years. And I can’t overstate the effectiveness of this campaign that they are waging.

“You have to understand that the media backed one candidate. And after she was defeated and after a campaign where the so-called mainstream media, which is a true misnomer, advocated essentially as an arm of the DNC. After her defeat, they have done nothing but double down in an attempt to take down what they perceive as their opponent. Because he had the nerve to actually win. When, if you will recall, virtually everyone in the mainstream media laughed on air about even the possibility of his winning.”

Tripp called the rampant anti-Trump media coverage a “campaign of disinformation, confusion, and essentially propaganda.”

“It is a sabotage of the truth. And it’s on a grand scale. And for me it is painful to watch because even though the president has a bully pulpit, even he is at the mercy of what people refer to as the mainstream media. A private citizen has no chance. But even the president will face obstacles because this is an orchestrated effort.”

Political divisions have always been part of America and will continue to do so. However, the job of the press is to report the news objectively. Editorials belong on the editorial page. Unfortunately, at the moment, honest reporting is the exception–not the rule.

I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article. I don’t blame Ms. Tripp for removing the television from her house. I am wondering if I should follow her example.

 

Pay Attention To The History Of The Person Leading You

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about one of the organizers of the next women’s march.

The article reports:

Instead of milling around Washington, organizers have in mind a “general strike” called the Day without a Woman. In a manifesto published in The Guardian on Feb. 6, the brains behind the movement are calling for a “new wave of militant feminist struggle.” That’s right: militant, not peaceful.

The document was co-authored by, among others, Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a convicted terrorist. Odeh, a Palestinian, was convicted in Israel in 1970 for her part in two terrorist bombings, one of which killed two students while they were shopping for groceries. She spent 10 years in prison for her crimes. She then managed to become a US citizen in 2004 by lying about her past (great detective work, INS: Next time, use Google) but was subsequently convicted, in 2014, of immigration fraud for the falsehoods. However, she won the right to a new trial (set for this spring) by claiming she had been suffering from PTSD at the time she lied on her application. Oh, and in her time as a citizen, she worked for a while as an ObamaCare navigator.

You can see why she’s a hero to the left. Another co-author, Angela Davis, is a Stalinist professor and longtime supporter of the Black Panthers. Davis is best known for being acquitted in a 1972 trial after three guns she bought were used in a courtroom shootout that resulted in the death of a judge. She celebrated by going to Cuba.

A third co-author, Tithi Bhattacharya, praised Maoism in an essay for the International Socialist Review, noting that Maoists are “on the terrorist list of the US State Department, Canada, and the European Union,” which she called an indication that “Maoists are back in the news and by all accounts they are fighting against all the right people.” You know you’re dealing with extremism when someone admits to hating Canada.

Do these people represent a large portion of American women? If they do, we are in serious trouble.

The International Women’s Strike is scheduled for March 8. That’s a Wednesday. The people who actually make this country work will be at their jobs. The strikers have been instructed to block roads and bridges, abstain from ” domestic, care, and sex work,” to boycott pro-Trump businesses (how do they know which ones are pro-Trump?), and to wear red to show solidarity. I’m sorry. These women do not represent me, and I am not sure who they represent.

I Missed This Story Entirely

Townhall posted an article today about the Trump Administration’s war on sex trafficking. This is a story I totally missed, and I suspect that I am not the only one who missed it.

The article reports:

Since President Donald Trump has been sworn in on Jan. 20, authorities have arrested an unprecedented number of sexual predators involved in child sex trafficking rings in the United States. This should be one of the biggest stories in the national news. Instead, the mainstream media has barely, if at all, covered any of these mass pedophile arrests. This begs the question – why?

As a strong advocate for sex crime victims, I’ve been closely following the pedophile arrests since Trump took office. There have been a staggering 1,500-plus arrests in one short month; compare that to less than 400 sex trafficking-related arrests in 2014 according to the FBI. It’s been clear to me for awhile that Trump would make human trafficking a top priority. On October 8, 2012, Trump tweeted:

“Got to do something about these missing children grabbed by the perverts. Too many incidents – fast trial, death penalty.”

So where is the media on this? This is important.

The article further reports a February 23rd press conference:

…Trump gave a press conference from the White House addressing how human trafficking is a “dire problem” domestically and internationally. He gave further confirmation when he said: “Dedicated men and women across the federal government have focused on this for some time as you know — it’s been much more focused over the last four weeks.” Trump’s press conference was barely a blip in the mainstream media and the massive arrests have been almost completely ignored by the MSM altogether.

The article goes on to list the sex trafficking rings that have been broken up since President Trump took office. The article also postulates that the lack of reporting of this has to do with political leanings, not the idea of sharing important information with the public.

This is a story that should be shouted from the rooftops. It should put those people who engage in this horrendous activity on notice that their days are numbered–the authorities will be paying them a visit. Please share this story with everyone you can. Also, follow the link above to read the entire article.

This Is Not A Surprise

If you are over forty, aren’t you glad there was no one around with a cell phone when you said or did stupid things? Unless you are a really amazing person, you have probably at some time in your life said or done something stupid, rude, classless, and just awful. If you tell me you haven’t, I would seriously doubt it. Unfortunately, in the age of cell phones, there moments can be immortalized and brought out at the most inconvenient time. It’s the modern-day equivalent of your mother showing your naked baby pictures to your boyfriend. Well, some new information has come out about a sneak attack using an old event.

Breitbart reported Thursday on some recent discoveries about an audio tape that was supposed to end the Donald Trump campaign for President.

The article quotes a New York Post story:

The infamous “Access Hollywood” tape — in which President Donald Trump bragged about grabbing women by the hoo-ha — was an inside job, leaked by an NBC News staffer on Billy Bush’s own “Today” show, multiple sources tell Page Six.

“The tape was leaked by the NBC News division, by somebody at the ‘Today’ show,” says one source. “NBC News knew for a while about the existence of the tape. Billy himself had told them about it. People in the news division became frustrated that ‘Access Hollywood’ was taking too long to air it and decided it had to come out.”

“Access” had been working on airing a sanitized version of the tape, which revealed Trump’s comments but protected Bush by editing out his. But the full tape, which was leaked to the Washington Post, featured Bush goading the president. The leak got Bush fired from “Today,” which was, according to the source, part of the plan.

“The leaked tape served a dual purpose: It helped get Bush out of the way — Matt Lauer didn’t like him and felt he was a liability — and NBC thought it would derail Trump,” says the source. “But all it did was crush Billy, and, ironically, his own network was behind it.”

This is an example of major media trying to bring down a presidential candidate. Fair and balanced? I don’t think so.

I am very grateful for the internet–I can read different news sources and form my own opinion. I don’t know how the mainstream media got so biased, but it is now no longer worth paying attention to. Hopefully more Americans will begin to realize that what they hear in the mainstream media is only a small part of any story.

Laws Have Consequences

On February 14, 2015, the Gatestone Institute posted the following:

  • Forty years after the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogenous Sweden into a multicultural country, violent crime has increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%. Sweden is now number two on the list of rape countries, surpassed only by Lesotho in Southern Africa.
  • Significantly, the report does not touch on the background of the rapists. One should, however, keep in mind that in statistics, second-generation immigrants are counted as Swedes.
  • In an astounding number of cases, the Swedish courts have demonstrated sympathy for the rapists, and have acquitted suspects who have claimed that the girl wanted to have sex with six, seven or eight men.
  • The internet radio station Granskning Sverige called the mainstream newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen to ask why they had described the perpetrators as “Swedish men” when they actually were Somalis without Swedish citizenship. They were hugely offended when asked if they felt any responsibility to warn Swedish women to stay away from certain men. One journalist asked why that should be their responsibility.

The article further reports:

In 1975, the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the former homogeneous Sweden into a multicultural country. Forty years later the dramatic consequences of this experiment emerge: violent crime has increased by 300%.

If one looks at the number of rapes, however, the increase is even worse. In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620. That is an increase of 1,472%.

Sweden is now number two on the global list of rape countries. According to a survey from 2010, Sweden, with 53.2 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants, is surpassed only by tiny Lesotho in Southern Africa, with 91.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants.

One of the tenets of Sharia Law is that Muslim men can take infidel women as ‘sex slaves.’ Generally Sharia Law has little respect for the rights of women, but it has even less respect for the rights of infidel women. If a woman is not wearing ‘proper Muslim attire,’ she is open to sexual assault, This is part of the culture in Islamic countries. My question is simple–“How much of that are you willing to bring to America?”

An Unexpected Answer

Hot Air posted a very interesting article today on climate change. There is a theory from the University of Wisconsin that was included in the journal Nature.

The article quotes a press release from the University of Wisconsin:

Using evidence from alternating layers of limestone and shale laid down over millions of years in a shallow North American seaway at the time dinosaurs held sway on Earth, the team led by UW–Madison Professor of Geoscience Stephen Meyers and Northwestern University Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Brad Sageman discovered the 87 million-year-old signature of a “resonance transition” between Mars and Earth. A resonance transition is the consequence of the “butterfly effect” in chaos theory. It plays on the idea that small changes in the initial conditions of a nonlinear system can have large effects over time.

In the context of the solar system, the phenomenon occurs when two orbiting bodies periodically tug at one another, as occurs when a planet in its track around the sun passes in relative proximity to another planet in its own orbit. These small but regular ticks in a planet’s orbit can exert big changes on the location and orientation of a planet on its axis relative to the sun and, accordingly, change the amount of solar radiation a planet receives over a given area. Where and how much solar radiation a planet gets is a key driver of climate.

The article includes the following:

There is no doubt that the climate has gone through various changes over the centuries. We need to have a serious apolitical discussion about climate change to see if we have the power to influence or prevent it (or if we want to prevent it). This new information should be part of the discussion. This also might explain the period of global warming during the Middle Ages which was obviously not caused by carbon emissions.

The Consequences Of ObamaCare

We all know the obvious consequences of ObamaCare–higher premiums, people losing their insurance policies, people having health insurance but not being able to find doctors that accept their plans, etc. Well, there were also some other consequences.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that illustrates one consequence of ObamaCare that is sometimes not mentioned. The article mentions that Senator Harry Reid kept the Senate in session during the ObamaCare debate so that Democratic Senators would not hear the voters’ opposition to ObamaCare. The Democrats claimed that the Tea Party was astroturf. Was it?

The article includes the following chart:

Recently we have seen protesters at townhall meetings of Congressmen who want to repeal ObamaCare. These are protesters organized according to the Democrat’s Alinsky playbook. They can protest all they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that more Americans have been hurt rather than helped by ObamaCare. Those Senators who do not support the repeal of ObamaCare need to keep this in mind.

 

Putting Money Where It Is Needed

On Tuesday, Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall about a redirection of federal funds by the Trump Administration.

The article reports:

Speaking from the White House briefing room Tuesday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced the development of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement office focused on helping victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens. The office will also assist family members of victims and is part of President Trump’s recent executive action to bolster enforcement of immigration laws already on the books. 

“This office [Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office] will facilitate the engagement with victims and their families to ensure questions and concerns regarding immigration enforcement efforts are addressed,” Spicer said, adding that the establishment of the office fulfills a campaign promise.

I think the thing that is most annoying to the political establishment is that President is keeping his campaign promises.

The article further reports:

Further, Kelly (Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly) immediately ordered the Director of ICE to “reallocate any and all resources that are currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens to the new VOICE Office, and to immediately terminate the provision of such outreach or advocacy services to illegal aliens.”

We need to protect Americans who have been hurt by criminals who are here illegally before we help those who are here illegally. America does not have an endless supply of money, and we need to set priorities. I have no problem with providing enough aid to those who are here illegally to help them get home if they are willing to return home. However, we have veterans and citizens that need to take priority over people who are here illegally.

President Trump By The Numbers

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about President Trump’s first month in office.

The article reports:

On January 20th, the day of the Trump Inauguration, the US Debt stood at $19,947 billion.  On February 21st, a month later, the US Debt load stood at $19,935 billion.  Trump cut the US Debt burden by $12 billion and 0.1% in his first month in office!

On January 20, 2017, the US debt was $19.947 billion.
On February 21, 2017, the US debt was $19,935 billion.

By comparison, under President Obama, the US Debt burden increased by more than $200 billion in his first month in office. 

The article includes a chart showing the increase in the debt during the first month of President Obama’s presidency.

Federal spending has gotten totally out of hand. It will be wonderful if President Trump can continue moving in the direction of cutting spending. One of the reasons he is meeting so much resistance is that in the culture of Washington, D.C., money equals power. Both Republicans and Democrats will fight anything that diminishes their perceived power. President Trump represents that threat.

 

Why We Need Guantanamo

The Washington Times is reporting today that Abu Zakariya al-Britani, the suicide bomber who attacked a military base in Iraq this week, was a former Guantanamo Bay detainee freed in 2004 after Britain lobbied for his release.

The article reports:

He was one of 16 men paid a total of 10 million pounds (now worth $12.4 million) in compensation in 2010, when the British government settled a lawsuit alleging its intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Al-Harith was a web designer and convert to Islam when he set off on a visit to a religious retreat in Pakistan in October 2001. He says he was warned the country was not safe due to deep anti-British and American sentiment in the days before the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, and decided to return to Europe by land via Iran and Turkey.

The article concludes:

Alex Carlile, Britain’s former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that al-Harith’s case was settled to avoid disclosing sensitive documents in a court battle.

“Plainly he was a terrorist and he was a potentially dangerous terrorist,” he told the BBC. “The issue was the legal disclosure rules. If someone brings a civil action for damages they are entitled to disclosure of material, some of which may be national security material.”

The issue will raise questions about how a person clearly on the radar of security officials might have left Britain and traveled to the Middle East without raising signals from the security services.

Arthur Snell, a former head of the Prevent program, which is part of the Britain’s counter terrorism strategy, said the authorities clearly had lost track of him.

“It’s obvious that collectively, the authorities — and obviously I have some personal responsibility there — we failed to be aware of what Fiddler was up to,” the told the BBC.

We cannot afford to continue making this sort of mistake. The prisoners at Guantanamo need to stay there. The likelihood of these prisoners ever living their lives as productive citizens is very slim. Guantanamo is not a horrible place, and they need to spend the rest of their lives there. There are being given diets following the religious guidelines and have access to recreational and educational facilities. I realize that it would be nice for them to be free, but how many innocent lives are you willing to sacrifice for their freedom? Keep in mind that Abu Zakariya al-Britani was a suicide bomber. How brainwashed do you have to be to blow yourself up in the name of Allah? How many more of the prisoners at Guantanamo would be willing to do the same thing if released?

I Wonder What They Think Of Latin

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some recent insanity at one of our college campuses.

The article reports:

An “antiracist” poster in a college writing center insists American grammar is “racist” and an “unjust language structure,” promising to prioritize rhetoric over “grammatical ‘correctness.’”

The poster, written by the director, staff, and tutors of the University of Washington, Tacoma’s Writing Center, states “racism is the normal condition of things,” declaring that it permeates rules, systems, expectations, in courses, school and society.

Sounds like a junior high student who is tired of diagramming sentences.

The article further reports:

In an article accompanying the poster, the University of Washington, Tacoma revealed Friday that Dr. Asao Inoue, director of the writing center, is behind the new push for social justice.

On his Tacoma faculty page, Inoue states that he does “research that investigates racism in writing assignments.” Meanwhile, the professor’s Twitter presence indicates no love for President Donald Trump:

“[The statement] is a great example of how we are striving to act against racism,” said Dr. Jill Purdy, Tacoma’s vice chancellor of undergraduate affairs. “Language is the bridge between ideas and action, so how we use words has a lot of influence on what we think and do.”

The Tacoma Writing Center’s prioritization of social justice over grammar resembles previous concerted efforts to legitimize incorrect speech, such as Ebonics, “inventive spelling,” and “whole language.”

The purpose of language is communication. Using ‘inventive spelling’ may actually cause your message to be misunderstood. Legitimizing incorrect speech will only make effective communication more difficult. As the article states, “Language is the bridge between ideas and action…”  However, if your language is incorrect and misunderstood, the actions resulting from that language may not be what you had in mind.

The majority of Americans speak English, and as far as I know, some degree of English is taught in our schools. Taking away correct English will not only create problems in our communication with each other, it will prevent students from reading the classic literature that forms the basis of our society. Hopefully that is not the actual goal of this particular Professor.

Americans Have Common Sense, Do Our Leaders?

Yesterday The Hill posted an article about sanctuary cities. There is a surprising amount of public support for President Trump’s deportation of criminal aliens.

The article reports:

The poll shows that President Trump has broad public support in his effort to crack down on sanctuary cities.

A survey from HarvardHarris Poll provided exclusively to The Hill found that 80 percent of voters say local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with.

As it stands, hundreds of cities across the nation — many with Democratic mayors or city councils — are refusing to do so.

Trump has signed an executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to find ways to starve these sanctuary cities of federal funding. A Reuters analysis found the top 10 sanctuary cities in the U.S. receive $2.27 billion in federal funding for programs ranging from public health services to early childhood education.

We need to deal with our own citizens who are living in poverty before we open our borders to more dependents.

The article includes the following graph:

If we are to be a nation of laws, we need to enforce our laws.

Why Would We Do This?

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about Social Security benefits being payed to people without Social Security numbers. What? Having a Social Security number means that you have had money taken out of your paycheck to pay into Social Security. Not having a Social Security number is an indication that you have not paid money into the system. What brand of insanity is this?

The article reports:

The Social Security Administration paid $1 billion in benefits to individuals who did not have a Social Security Number (SSN), according to a new audit.

The agency’s inspector general found errors in the government’s documentation for representative payees, otherwise known as individuals who receive retirement or disability payments on behalf of another person who is incapable of managing the benefits themselves.

The audit released Friday found thousands of cases where there was no SSN on file.

Over the last decade, the agency paid $1 billion to 22,426 representative payees who “did not have an SSN, and SSA had not followed its policy to retain the paper application.”

“Furthermore, unless it takes corrective action, we estimate SSA will pay about $182.5 million in benefits, annually, to representative payees who do not have an SSN or paper application supporting their selection,” the inspector general said.

The inspector general also found the agency paid $853.1 million in benefits since 2004 to individuals who had been terminated as representative payees by the agency.

Social Security has enough trouble paying its bills without paying people who never paid into Social Security.

The article includes the government’s defense of the practice of paying benefits to people without Social Security numbers:

The government defended the issuance of benefits to noncitizens and persons without an SSN.

Representative payees play a significant role in many beneficiaries’ lives,” the SSA said. “We have approximately 5.7 million representative payees managing annual benefits for approximately 8 million beneficiaries. When appointing representative payees, we adhere to guidance in the Social Security Act (the Act).”

“Specific to this audit, the Act permits us to appoint, in certain circumstances, an undocumented alien, or applicant who resides outside the United States without a Social Security number (SSN) to serve as payee,” the agency said. “Specifically, the Act states we should verify a person’s SSN (or employer identification number) in our investigation of the payee applicant. However, the Act does not state that the applicant must have an SSN to serve as a payee.”

The “absence of an SSN is not a criterion preventing an individual from serving as payee,” the agency added.

First of all–the term ‘undocumented alien’ is a politically correct term for ‘illegal alien.’ Why in the world are we giving money to people who broke our laws to come here?

This is simply more of the swamp in Washington that needs to be drained.

There Are Still People Trying To Undo The Second Amendment

Yesterday I posted an article about the State of Connecticut‘s attempt to make gun ownership very expensive. Well, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has come up with its own idea of how to make using your gun very expensive.

The Daily Caller reported yesterday:

A gun bill in Massachusetts is looking to expand gun restrictions in the state through additional taxes on lawful gun owners.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Cynthia Creem, is one of many she said she has filed every state senate session in order to “to make it harder and harder” to obtain a gun, she told Wicked Local Newsbank.

Not only would the bill impose a 4.75 percent surcharge “on sales at retail of all ammunition, rifles, shotguns, firearms or parts thereof” on top of the licensing fees, the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax and the 11 percent federal excise tax; it would also require virtually all firearm sales to take place through a licensed dealer, with an additional charge for private gun sales, require gun owners to use fingerprint scanners to deactivate the weapon when the technology becomes available and bans .50 caliber weapons outright with a hefty fine and possible jail time if someone is found in violation of the law.

The money raised by this scheme would go into the Firearms Violence Prevention Trust Fund, which the bill establishes. Wow! Penalize gun owners to create more bureaucracy!

The article further reports:

Gun activists in the state are outraged by the sweeping legislation, especially since research shows that crime rates either are not affected or increase over time with more gun restrictions, according to the Crime Research Prevention Center.

“What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?” Jim Wallace, executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League, told Wicked Local Newsbank. “Is it political, perceived or real? It seems it’s always been political.”

Frustration with the legislation also includes the belief that lawful gun owners seem to be punished for the transgressions of criminals, people who would find an illegal way to obtain a gun no matter what the law says.

Okay. Let’s look at this a minute. When law-abiding citizens cannot afford guns because the State Legislature has made it very expensive to buy or own one, do you think criminals will still have guns? This is Massachusetts’ attempt at an end run around the Second Amendment. The way our government was set up, the states have the right to disregard a law that is made that does not comply with the U.S. Constitution, but what do you do when the state itself is attempting to undermine a freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?

Finally Some Common Sense

If I didn’t know the source of this, I wouldn’t believe it. It looks as if common sense has finally made a visit to some members of Congress.

Townhall.com posted at article today about some recent comments by Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD).

The article reports:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) rejects his colleague John Lewis‘ (D-GA) assertion that Donald Trump is not a legitimate president. Lewis led the inauguration boycott last month that left about 70 seats empty at his swearing in ceremony. 

Cummings has repeatedly suggested that is the wrong attitude – not to mention unproductive.

“I think we have to work with him,” Cummings said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’ve got people who — you know, I keep telling people, this is our president. He’s going to be our president for the next four years. I’ve got people in my community who are suffering from cancer. They need treatment. I’ve got people who need jobs, and I’ve got to work with this president, but at the same time, there’s nobody that has been tougher on this president than I have been,” Cummings said.

Wow! I would go a step further. If you honestly feel that President Trump is doing something that is destructive to America, oppose him with everything you have. Otherwise, support  him fully.

Hopefully there will be a meeting soon between President Trump and Congressman Cummings and possibly a meeting between President Trump and the Congressional Black Caucus. A lot of the problems in the black community are also problems in the white community. It would be a beg step forward if all of us could work on solving the problems in both communities!

 

Making Our Streets Safer

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about recent raids by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents.

The article reports:

The 680 seized in recent sweeps by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents represent just .07 percent of the 950,062 with deportation orders as of May 21, 2016.

…He  (Thomas D. Homan, currently the acting ICE director) said that ICE has custody of just 11,006, or 1 percent, of the 950,062 ordered deported.

The article includes some shocking statistics:

There are an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants with criminal records in addition to their illegal status and the administration has said it will make them a priority for removal. The numbers in the ICE answers could have adjusted but deporting criminal illegals was not a priority in the last months of the Obama administration, according to experts.

Immigration experts said that sanctuary cities are mostly to blame for the huge number of illegal immigrants with deportation orders who are not in custody.

The article explains that criminal aliens with orders to be deported are simply allowed to go free–they are either not required to check in with authorities or they are not complying with that requirement.

To those who are protesting the deportation of these criminals, would you be so willing to let American citizen criminals roam the streets in these numbers?

What Would Be The Consequences?

On February 17th, The Washington Post posted an article about the controversy over childhood vaccines. The article was written by Daniel Summers, a pediatrician in New England.

The article reports:

The latest salvo against vaccinations came courtesy of Robert Kennedy Jr. and Robert De Niro. At a joint appearance this week, Kennedy offered $100,000 to anyone who could turn up a study showing that it is safe to administer vaccines to children and pregnant women, with a specific call out to concerns about mercury. De Niro was there to lend his endorsement and a patina of Oscar-winning gravitas.

Both men have an unreliable history when it comes to their views about vaccinations. Kennedy’s reference to mercury alludes to thimerosal, a preservative once used in vaccines, which he has long maintained can lead to autism. (It doesn’t.) A meeting earlier this year between then President-elect Donald Trump (who has hair-raising views of his own about vaccines) and Kennedy caused grave concern within the medical community, myself included. Kennedy claimed Trump asked him to helm a commission on vaccine safety (even though the United States already has a vaccine safety commission), but it has yet to materialize.

I found the following on Wikipedia (I am posting it because of the references):

A population-based study in Olmsted County, Minnesota county found that the cumulative incidence of autism grew eightfold from the 1980–83 period to the 1995–97 period. The increase occurred after the introduction of broader, more-precise diagnostic criteria, increased service availability, and increased awareness of autism.[40] During the same period, the reported number of autism cases grew 22-fold in the same location, suggesting that counts reported by clinics or schools provide misleading estimates of the true incidence of autism.[41]

 Barbaresi WJ, Katusic SK, Colligan RC, Weaver AL, Jacobsen SJ. The incidence of autism in Olmsted County, Minnesota, 1976-1997: results from a population-based study. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159(1):37–44. doi:10.1001/archpedi.159.1.37. PMID 15630056.

I am not a doctor and don’t know if vaccinations cause autism. I do know that America has almost entirely eliminated measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, and tetanus.

The article in The Washington Post further reports:

Conversely, a growing body of evidence suggests brain differences associated with autism may be found early in infancy — well before children receive most vaccines. Changes in the volume of certain brain areas found by MRI may help predict autism in infants with an older sibling who has the diagnosis, according to a recent study in the journal Nature. Other studies have found that alterations in brain cell development related to autism may occur before birth. These findings are clearly inconsistent with vaccines as a cause of autism.

But none of this emerging research seems to have dampened the fires burning within the anti-vaccine movement. I could resurrect Edward Jenner and Jonas Salk for joint TED talks about the benefits of vaccination, and somehow I doubt it would make any difference at this point. Despite Kennedy’s disingenuous plea for evidence of safety, it’s not evidence he really cares about. If it were, he could find more than enough for free.

Before we stop vaccinating our children, maybe we should look at some of the other factors that might be involved in the increase of autism. There are still a lot of things I don’t understand about how the human brain works.

Shall Not Be Infringed

A friend of mine who teaches social studies once pointed out to me that the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution (The Bill of Rights) are there to protect the rights of American citizens. They don’t give the government rights–they protect the citizens’ rights. In that context, the Second Amendment is there to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Seems pretty clear. Well, I think we are about to have a discussion on exactly what ‘infringed’ means.

Fox News reported today that the governor of ConnecticutDannel Malloy, wants to raise the cost of pistol fees in Connecticut. The state has a budget shortfall, and the governor thinks this might help close the gap.

The article reports:

The five-year renewal fee for pistol permits would increase from $70 to $300, first-time five-year permits would increase from $140 to $370 and fees for background checks would increase from $50 to $75.

The plan is expected to raise nearly $12 million per year in additional revenue, CBS News and The Associated Press reported.

Frankly, if I lived in Connecticut, I might consider those rather drastic increases.

The article further reports:

Gun-rights supporters and state Republican lawmakers said this increase would preclude many people from exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms, since the proposed fees would be among the highest in the country.

The National Rifle Association called the governor’s proposal “outrageous,” according to the report.

Malloy said the fees are in line with other jurisdictions and will cover the state’s administrative costs for gun permits and background checks.

To me, the size of the increase would qualify as ‘infringe.’ Making it expensive to own a gun is one way anti-gun politicians can legislate gun restrictions without actually legislating gun restrictions. I hope the governor’s idea is quickly shot down.

 

Another Way To Interfere With The Profit Margins Of Businesses

What you are about to read is not the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, but it is definitely close.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a recent statement by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The article reports:

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and world’s richest man, said in an interview Friday that robots that steal human jobs should pay their fair share of taxes.

“Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, Social Security tax, all those things,” he said. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”

How do you tax a robot? If he doesn’t pay his taxes, do you take out his battery?

This is another example of the government interfering in the free market. As some people in the government push to raise the minimum wage, certain businesses will have no choice but to replace human workers with robots.

The article further reports:

Recode, citing a McKinsey report, said that 50 percent of jobs performed by humans are vulnerable to robots, which could result in the loss of about $2.7 trillion in the U.S. alone.

“Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting for people to start talking about now,” Gates said. “Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the labor-saving efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK.”

Another example of the government finding new ways to take money away from people who have earned it.