Monthly Archives: March 2019

Comparing Apples To Apples

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Most of us understand that the media is biased and slants its articles accordingly. The challenge for voters is to look past the obvious to make sure what they are reading is actually true. One recent example of misrepresenting a basic fact is the way the Trump tax cuts are being reported.

On February 13th The Daily Signal posted an article illustrating the fake news regarding the tax cuts.

The article includes the following tweet:

The article explains the problem with her statement:

This is simply the latest episode in a long-running campaign to demagogue tax cuts that let the vast majority of Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.

Some of the biggest cuts are actually being enjoyed by the lowest-income Americans. A typical family of four got a $2,917 tax cut this year.

…So what’s the complaint about?

In an early sample of tax returns, the IRS has reported that average refunds are down $170 from last year and that they hadn’t changed much from 2017, the year before.

But this is not relevant, for two reasons.

First, the sample of tax returns cited by the IRS is very small, and some analysts expect refunds will actually go up this year.

But second, and more importantly, tax refunds have nothing to do with the size of anyone’s tax cut. A refund is what you get back if you’ve paid too much in taxes throughout the year. Your tax cut is the drop in total taxes you owed to Uncle Sam last year. The two are not connected.

Employers across the country already gave us our tax cuts by withholding less money from our paychecks every pay period. Americans saw a bump to their paychecks in February 2018.

Of course, withholding is never perfectly accurate, so your refund or tax payment at the end of the year is simply a last-minute adjustment. But that refund does not cancel out the overall bump in take-home pay due to the tax cut.

Do you remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the tax cuts “monumental, brazen theft,” or when former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the tax cuts would kill 10,000 people every year? This most recent round of hysteria is just more of the same.

Be prepared for more false stories as the 2020 election grows closer.

Sometimes States Get It Right

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Townhall is reporting today that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission has dropped its lawsuit against cake artist Jack Phillips. The article reports that the move that came after new evidence emerged of the state’s religious bigotry, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the conservative legal-defense group representing him.

The article reports:

The latest chapter in Colorado’s ongoing targeting of Phillips came after the state targeted him for not making a gender transition cake, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in his favor in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2017.

“We’re pleased that the state will be dismissing its case against Jack,” said ADF Senior Vice President of U.S. Legal Division Kristen Waggoner. “This is the second time the state has launched a failed effort to prosecute him. While it finally appears to be getting the message that its anti-religious hostility has no place in our country, the state’s decision to target Jack has cost him more than six-and-a-half years of his life, forcing him to spend that time tied up in legal proceedings.”

Phillips called the case’s dismissal a “win for freedom” and said he looked forward to serving his customers once again.

“When I set out to build my dream of opening my own cake shop, combining my love for art and baking in a family business, I never imagined this chapter would be part of the Masterpiece Cakeshop story,” he said in a statement. “I have and will always serve everyone who comes into my shop; I simply can’t celebrate events or express messages that conflict with my religious beliefs. The Supreme Court affirmed that government hostility against people of faith is unconstitutional, and that Colorado was hostile to my faith. That hostility cost me 40 percent of my business and the wedding work that I love to do.”

The state was unwise to go after Jack Phillips after the Supreme Court ruling, but I guess they decided they could still make an example of him. I am grateful for the work of the ADF and the fact that they are working to fight religious discrimination.

If It Walks Like A Duck And Quacks Like A Duck…

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The New York Post posted an article about the crisis at our southern border yesterday written by its editorial board. The Democrats are saying that there is no emergency at the border and that it is a ‘made up crisis.’ The facts show otherwise.

The article reports:

More than 76,000 migrants crossed the southern border illegally last month, the highest number in 12 years. So much for all those media “fact checks” arguing that there’s no emergency to justify President Trump’s wall.

Immigration officials say the number is only going to increase, creating what Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan warns is “a border security and a humanitarian crisis.”

Why are they coming in such vast numbers? Because smugglers have put them wise to how to take advantage of recent court decisions to claim asylum and remain here indefinitely.

They’re coming (mainly from Guatemala) in ever-larger groups, mostly families as opposed to individuals. They’ve been told that if they cross the border illegally, they only need cry “asylum.” And adults traveling with children have a better chance to stay.

The article explains why the migrants are coming:

Consider: Officials say the biggest “pull factors” for migrant families are court settlements that not only bar deportations without lengthy proceedings, but also prevent the detainment of families for more than 20 days.

After that period, families must be allowed to settle here while their cases wind their way through immigration court.

In other words, once they make it across the border, we can’t reject them and we can’t hold them. That situation, McAleenan warns, is “unsustainable.”

The article then reminds us that it is up to Congress to fix the broken immigration laws. As much as Congress may resent the President using his emergency power to build the wall, the blame for the crisis falls on Congress. The blame falls on those Republicans, bought and paid-for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in search of cheap labor, and the Democrats, who want illegal aliens to vote. Both sides need to be voted out of office. Otherwise we will lose what is America. We cannot sustain this level of immigration and remain the republic our Founding Fathers created. We have only to look to Europe to see the consequences of allowing mass migration.

 

Campaign Finance Violations On Steroids

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about some campaign finance violations by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. The violations listed are not minor violations, there are some major amounts of money involved here.

The article reports:

Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

…The arrangement skirted reporting requirements and may have violated the $5,000 limit on contributions from federal PACs to candidates, according to the complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.

Campaign finance attorneys described the arrangement as “really weird” and an indication “there’s something amiss.” They said there was no way of telling where the political donations went — meaning they could have been pocketed or used by the company to pay for off-the-books campaign operations.

PACs are required to disclose how and when funds are spent, including for expenditures such as advertisements, fundraising emails, donations to candidates, and payments for events and to vendors.

The private companies to which Chakrabarti transferred the money from the PACs are not subject to these requirements.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article for the details.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Was it a rookie mistake or was it planned corruption? Is this coming out now because AOC has become a problem for the Democrats–she is so far left that she may cost them votes in 2020?

The article concludes:

Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, said he has never seen such an arrangement. “It’s a really weird situation,” he said. “I see almost no way that you can do that without it being at least a reporting violation, quite likely a violation of the contribution limits. You might say from a campaign finance angle that the LLC was essentially operating as an unregistered committee.”

Chakrabarti declined to comment on the FEC complaint or provide details about his companies’ financial activities. Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, declined to comment.

Zeynab Day, communications director for the Brand New Congress PAC, said Chakrabarti was not currently affiliated with the group and that it recently went through a “transition period.” She referred questions about the LLC to Chakrabarti. “I’m unable to answer any questions about the LLC … I am not informed about them. We are not an affiliated group,” she said.

A spokesperson for Justice Democrats said he did not know why the PAC paid so much money to Chakrabarti’s LLCs. When asked what the Justice Democrats PAC does on a daily basis, he said, “It’s very clear what we do,” but declined to elaborate.

Chakrabarti founded Brand New Congress PAC, in April 2016. According to a statement released by Justice Democrats PAC last May, Chakrabarti “was the only controlling member” of the company Brand New Congress LLC and “took no salary.” The statement added: “Saikat is lucky to have a small side business that generates him enough income that he is able to do all of this work as a volunteer.”

If this story is accurately reported, it is bound to get more interesting!

Racism In School Admissions Policies

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There was a time in America when schools were segregated and black children did not have the educational opportunities that white children had. Now schools are integrated, and generally opportunities are more equal. Cultural differences impact the education that children receive, but generally speaking, opportunities are equal. Some cultures put a greater emphasis on academic achievement than others, and that has become obvious to our college admissions boards and to some of our specialty high schools. Those among us who care more about equal outcome than equal opportunity have tried to change their admissions policies to compensate for those cultural differences. New York City Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza have attempted to change the admissions policies for New York City’s specialized high schools.

The New York Post posted an article about the changes on March 2.

The article reports:

Last December, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York (CACAGNY) filed a racial-discrimination lawsuit against the city after Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza announced changes to admissions to New York’s specialized high schools, eight of which measure academic ability only through the SHSAT, an objective, competitive test open to every student in the city. Wai Wah Chin, the president of CACAGNY, explains why she’s determined to fight their moves, which she says discriminate against Asians …

The article reminds us of the results of this testing program:

In 1971, New York state mandated an admissions test to the city’s specialized high schools to ensure meritocratic admission. Called the SHSAT, the test knows no race or ethnicity; privilege and wealth count for nothing. All that matters is each student’s own ability.

Because of this, a Holocaust refugee who arrived in America with no English, no wealth and no privilege could take the test two years later, enter Stuyvesant and go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981. His name: Roald Hoffmann.

Chancellor Carranza says no other high-school admission system in the country relies on a single test. Well, no other admission system produced 14 Nobel Prize winners in science either.

The article lists the Mayor’s solution to bringing diversity to the specialized high schools:

But de Blasio holds that meritocracy must have a predetermined, racially balanced outcome. So when East and South Asians get 50 percent of the offers to the specialized high schools while making up 16 percent of the students, he cries “Stuyvesant doesn’t look like New York City” and devises schemes to exclude them, his Asian Exclusion Act of the 21st century.

In one scheme, he arbitrarily takes 20 percent of the seats away from each Specialized High School to limit seats available to Asians. Then, he sets aside that 20 percent for students who took the SHSAT but failed to get into any of the eight schools, and applies eligibility criteria carefully crafted to exclude as many Asians as he can.

In another scheme, he brings back Harvard’s odious “geographic diversity,” limiting admission from each middle school to just 7 percent of its students, knowing full well that Asians are concentrated in a few middle schools.

These schemes impose a targeted racial balance. What’s more, they would lead to a significant portion of the student body being unprepared for the pace and levels at which the Specialized High Schools currently operate. Such social reverse engineering is the opposite of meritocracy.

If Mayor de Blasio is able to implement his ideas, it is a pretty safe bet that the number of Nobel Prize winning scientists coming out of these schools in the future will decrease drastically. I hope the CACAGNY wins their lawsuit.

I Never Knew Earthquakes Were Racist

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Channel 4 in San Antonio posted an article in January (sorry I missed it at the time) about some recent signs posted in Portland, Oregon.

The article reports:

A new city policy requiring public signs on brick buildings warning they might collapse in an earthquake is part of a long history of white supremacy aimed at forcing black people to move out of neighborhoods, the NAACP of Portland, Oregon, says.

The group on Thursday decried the policy affecting some 1,600 unreinforced masonry buildings that are on average 90 years old, many in areas with a predominantly black population, The Oregonian/OregonLive reports .

The policy “exacerbates a long history of systemic and structural betrayals of trust and policies of displacement, demolition, and dispossession predicated on classism, racism, and white supremacy,” the group said.

The NAACP said the policy will make it tougher for owners of brick buildings to get loans and will discourage investment. It says that means buildings will have to be sold, and that developers will demolish and redevelop, increasing the cost to live there and forcing current residents out.

“It speaks to our houses of worship and everything about the black presence in the North-Northeast area,” said the Rev. E.D. Mondaine, a pastor at Celebration Tabernacle Church in north Portland and president of the Portland NAACP chapter.

City officials say the ordinance approved in October is part of an effort ultimately aimed at upgrading old buildings to withstand an earthquake, though seismic upgrades likely wouldn’t be required for at least 20 years. Such upgrades could cost brick-building owners millions of dollars.

I guess my question to the NAACP would be, “Do you want black people to die in an earthquake or are you willing to make some effort to solve the problem?” I understand that there is an expense involved, but it seems to me that the city should be willing to work with the people involved to come up with a plan to make the buildings involved more likely to withstand an earthquake. I understand that the locations of the buildings in poor neighborhoods may be a problem, but it will be more of a problem if the buildings collapse. The NAACP needs to work with the city government to find a solution–not just yell ‘racism.’

I Don’t Usually Do Movie Reviews, But…

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Recently I watch Bohemian Rhapsody. Imdb.com describes the movie as follows:

The story of the legendary rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury, leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).  

The movie is rated PG-13. Frankly, I would want a child to be a least 16 or 17 before they saw it–it shows some details about Freddie Mercury’s life that are somewhat unseemly.

The music was fantastic, but more importantly, there were some very positive life lessons illustrated in the movie. First of all, creativity without self-control or self-discipline often leads to self-destruction. Second of all, creative people working together, with all of their friction, create a better product than one creative person working alone. Thirdly, forgiveness leads to better things than holding grudges.

There was one other interesting aspect of the film. One executive producer in the film refused to allow “Bohemian Rhapsody” to be released as a single because it was too long and too unique. The members of the group felt strongly enough about the song being released as a single that they left that producer. The dynamic is simple–the producer was making a decision on basic knowledge and facts–radio stations were not in the habit of playing records six minutes long. He didn’t understand the group’s focus on creating new things rather than repeating past successes. He made a fact-based decision when dealing with people who were more creative than fact-based.

How much of the film is actually factual I do not know. However, it paints a sympathetic picture of a very creative, complex man with many flaws and many positive traits. It is a movie worth seeing (and the music was fantastic!).

It’s Hard To Figure Out Who To Believe

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The mainstream media lies. We could debate whether they lie or are simply misinformed, but the fact remains that they do not do a good job of informing the public on current events. Today Fox News posted an article that illustrates the problem with discerning the truth.

The article reports:

The Washington Post was among many news organizations to denounce President Trump’s claim of tape being used to silence women during illegal border crossings — but a subsequent New York Times article revealed the president wasn’t making things up after all.

Back on Jan. 25, the Post published an update to a piece headlined, “Trump again mentioned taped-up women at the border. Experts don’t know what he is talking about.” It claimed the president’s “new favorite anecdote” was about tape covering the mouths of migrant women.

Post reporter Katie Mettler wrote that Trump, in pushing for a border wall, was claiming “without evidence that traffickers tie up and silence women with tape” before illegally crossing the border. The Post called Trump’s claims “salacious and graphic,” even providing a timeline of Trump’s taped-women rhetoric.

“Yet human-trafficking experts and advocates for immigrant women have said they are perplexed by this increasingly repeated story in Trump’s repertoire — and are at a loss for where he got his information. It was not from them, they say; in fact, they have no idea what he is talking about,” Mettler wrote.

Not so fast. Last week, The New York Times published a piece headlined, “Yes, there was duct tape: The harrowing journeys of migrants across the border.” The piece – part of a limited-run series on border crossing – reveals that tape is used during border crossings.

The Times report said that women are “tied up” and “bound,” featuring first-hand accounts from several women who experienced the brutality themselves.

“For weeks, President Trump has been criticized for exaggerating the brutality experienced by migrant women on the border as he makes his case for a wall,” the Times wrote. “But there is some truth to the president’s descriptions of the threat of sexual assault and of women who have been duct-taped and bound.”

Building a border wall will not put an end to all of the evil that is happening at the border. However, we do need to acknowledge that there is a lot of evil happening at the border. The situation at our border is a national emergency with caravans of people breaking into our country. It is time Congress stopped ignoring the safety of Americans and of those in the caravans and got behind President Trump to build the wall.

This Would Be Beneficial On A Number Of Levels

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CBN News posted an article today about an innovative energy source that would be beneficial for both energy production and for the environment. The article hits close to home because it involves an issue North Carolina has been discussing for a number of years.

First of all, I need to say that I know very little about hog farming and hog waste. However, it does make sense that some of the by-products of hog farming might create an environmental problem. However, there seems to be an answer that will be profitable for everyone.

The article reports:

In fact, to Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy, converting hog manure to natural gas for powering homes and businesses has a sweet smell of success.

“We think it’s a lot simpler, and we think it will change the face of how manure is handled and turned into energy going forward,” Kraig Westerbeek, senior director of Smithfield Renewables, told CBN News.

…So how does it work – turning this waste into energy? Often called biomethane, renewable natural gas is pipeline-quality gas that comes from organic matter like hog waste.

CBN News went to North Carolina to tour Circle K II Farms, a Smithfield pilot project.

“Manure actually is a positive thing,” said Westerbeek. “It creates value, and it helps fertilize crops; it helps produce energy. It’s not a bad thing. We view manure as an opportunity.”

Kraig Westerbeek explains how the process moves from the hog buildings to a huge covered lagoon called a “digester.”

“The product, natural gas, is actually a product of digestion of the solids by bacteria, so for that reason, it’s called digestion,” he said.

…The manure is funneled under the large plastic cover of the lagoon, and it’s mixed over and over. Bacteria break it down, producing what’s called biogas, which causes the cover to bubble up. That gas is 65 percent natural gas.

The biogas produced at farms then moves through gathering pipes to a gas-upgrading unit. That’s when Dominion Energy steps in.

“Where we come in – you see this plant back here – we’re gonna lend our engineering expertise to create a process that’s as efficient as possible in creating clean, renewable natural gas that customers can use,” Childress said.

At the gas upgrading system, the natural gas from the farm is refined. When it leaves there, it is 99.1 percent natural gas. It then enters a pipeline and is funneled to homes and businesses.

The article concludes:

This project involves partnering with local farmers like Dean Hilton, who’s been raising hogs for nearly 15 years. He calls it the “wave of the future.”

“After meeting with Kraig on the trial site, we realized that there’s a lot of opportunity in the fact that we can actually reduce our manure in our current lagoons, as well as turning the solids, the new solids into renewable energy,” Hilton said.

Westerbeek admits turning manure into renewable natural gas is “fairly expensive”.

“You have an investment in a digester like you see in the background, and then the gathering pipelines to gather the gas from different farms and bring it to a central location,” he explained.

“And then one of the more expensive parts of this is actually cleaning the gas from its form as biogas from this digester into pipeline-quality natural gas,” Westerbeek continued.

Both he and Childress along with their bosses believe it’s a worthy investment leading to clean energy, plus economic benefits for their companies, rural America and the general public.

This seems like a win-win situation. Now if we can just do the same thing with cows…

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Posted on Twitter:

That was before Michael Cohen had his office raided by the FBI and other misconduct by the Mueller investigation. We have entered the age of the secret police, and unless someone stands up and says ‘enough’, we will continue in that direction.

The Catholic Church Gets It Right

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The Catholic Church has been the leader in the pro-life movement ever since abortion was declared legal. They have set the example, and many other churches have followed. Not enough, but many. On Friday, CNS News reported that Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who heads the Committee on Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has stated that politicians voting to expand abortion must not present themselves for Holy Communion, and that while “we are not able to judge their souls,” we do know “there will be a Judgment Day.”

The article reports:

In his statement, A Concern for Catholics in Public Life, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said, “Recent efforts to perpetuate and expand abortion in state laws have illuminated the deplorable actions of some Catholic public officials and advocates. Their efforts to support and even celebrate such legislation will result in killing many more unborn children, as well as the spiritual and emotional wounding of their mothers and fathers.”

“Advocating for intrinsically evil acts, like abortion, is a serious immoral act,” he said, “one that involves grave matter, the prerequisite for the commission of a mortal sin. While we can object to the actions of these public officials, we are not able to judge their souls. At the same time, we know there will be a Judgment Day.”

“Conscious and unrepentant mortal sin endangers our eternal souls and places ourselves on a path to Hell,” said the archbishop.

“To receive our Eucharistic Lord, while in a state of mortal sin, only further jeopardizes the eternal fate of our souls,” he said. “Sincere repentance, a conversion of heart, and a genuine effort to make amends for the harm caused by our sin, are essential to be able to receive God’s mercy.”

The archbishop heads the archdiocese of Kansas City.

The article concludes:

Archbishop Naumann concluded, “I invite all Catholics to pray for spiritual healing for all those involved in or advocating for legalized abortion. When we truly repent, God is always eager to lavish us with His mercy.”

Abortion is murder. It is a forgivable sin, but needs to be acknowledged as murder. Hopefully Archbishop Naumann’s statements and policy will cause some people to rethink their position on abortion.

One Way To Trim The Federal Budget

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Breitbart is reporting today that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than 3.8 million people dropped off food stamps since President Donald Trump’s first full month in office.

The article reports:

The latest USDA data revealed that food stamp participation dropped to 38,577,141 in November 2018, down by 3,899,257 since Trump took office in February 2017, when 42,134,301 Americans received food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Food stamp enrollment also dropped to its lowest level in a decade. The last time overall food stamp participation was this low was in November 2009, when 38,184,306 people were on the government dole, according to USDA data.

Overall food stamp participation had consistently declined since 2013 when the Obama administration was in power and enrollment in the program reached its highest levels in the nation’s history.

After 2013, SNAP enrollment plummeted once state legislatures passed laws requiring food stamp recipients to work, attend school, volunteer, or participate in job training for a set number of hours per week to receive benefits.

Another cause for the drop in food stamp participation was a proposal to tighten regulations regarding recent legal aliens. Food stamp participation by people who immigrated to the United States during the past five years has dropped by 10 percent. This is in response to a proposal that immigrants who received food stamps or other welfare benefits would not be granted permanent residency in the United States.

We cannot be the free lunch for anyone in America or the world who does not want to earn a living. Food stamps should be a temporary safety net–not a permanent solution. Work requirements and limitations on non-citizens using food stamps are a way to make sure the food stamp program is not misused.

The Killjoys Who Want To Control Everything

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High school proms are a major event. I think they have gotten a little out of hand since my day, but even then they were a major event. Today they may include hotel rooms, limousines, and hotel ballrooms. We had the high school gym and my future husband’s ’53 Ford convertible. That was it. I do think that high school proms have gotten out of hand, but to me that is an issue the parents need to have to courage to deal with.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a new policy at Lakeland Regional High School regarding the senior prom.

The article reports:

Students and parents at a New Jersey high school plan to protest a new policy banning limos and party buses as acceptable transportation to and from the senior prom, CBS New York reported this week.

Under the new policy, Lakeland Regional High School prom-goers will be required to take the bus to the once-in-a-lifetime event on June 4.

“We have students from various. . . socioeconomic backgrounds, “ Superintendent Hugh Beattie told ABC 7’s Eyewitness News this week.

“And we wanted to provide an even playing field for all students,” he added.

The superintendent said the group decision by the administrative team was “based on the concern over the safety of all our students and in providing equity for all students so that they all could enjoy a shared ‘prom experience’ despite socio-economic status,” according New Jersey 101.5.

Students will reportedly pay $15 for a 45-minute, chaperoned bus ride from the Wanaque, New Jersey school to Rockleigh Country Club.

Parents and students have objected to upending the traditional pomp and circumstance of renting limos for transportation to the prom.

The article concludes:

“A prom is a school-sponsored function, a school district has the authority to make rules concerning the event,” New Jersey School Boards Association spokeswoman Janey Bramford told New Jersey 101.5.

The school does have control of the event, but do they have control of how the students arrive and depart from that event?  It is unfortunate that they are using that control to seriously curtail the fun for the seniors. I can’t imaging climbing into a chaperoned bus in a prom gown and being excited about it. I would also think that renting limos or party buses might avoid some of the consequences of teenage drinking and driving (which unfortunately does happen during prom season).

This ruling is a perfect example of how socialism works–since not everyone can afford this, you can’t have it. What about the kids who worked all year to save money for the limousine? Aren’t they entitled to the fruit of their labor? High school seniors are old enough to understand that not everyone has the same amount of money. Seeing kids in limousines at the prom might encourage them to work hard to become successful. I think this decision by the school board is ridiculous. If parents don’t want their kids to have limousines at the prom, they need to band together with other parents to discourage the practice. I think the school board is overextending their authority when they attempt to control how the students get to and from the dance. Again, would you want to climb on a school bus in your prom gown?

What Happened To Ethics In Science?

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Yesterday CNS News posted an article about research going on at the University of California at San Francisco. This research is so horrific I can’t even believe it is being done in America, much less being partially financed by the government.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services says it has granted a second 90-day extension to a contract it has with the University of California at San Francisco that requires UCSF to make “humanized mice.”

These creatures are made by implanting mice with human tissues taken from late-term aborted babies.

The HHS’s multi-million-dollar contract with UCSF that requires the construction of these “humanized mice” creates a demand–driven by federal tax dollars–for tissue taken from late-term aborted babies. According to an estimate it has published on its website, the National Institutes of Health (which is a division of HHS) will spend $95 million this fiscal year alone on research that–like UCSF’s “humanized mouse” contract–uses human fetal tissue.

Under the new 90-day extension, the contract—which the government calls “Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development”–will run through June 5.

HHS also is still in the process of conducting the “comprehensive review” it announced last September “of all research involving fetal tissue.”

It’s bad enough that we are killing the unborn. Now we are using them for scientific experiments. That is beyond repulsive.

The Democrats’ First Proposal Upon Taking Control Of The House Of Representatives

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The first bill introduced in the House of Representatives when the Democrats took over was H.R. 1. The bill was sponsored by Representative John P. Sarbanes of Maryland and is called the “For the People Act of 2019.” Great, only it’s really not for the people–it’s for bigger federal government and smaller state governments.

Politifact posted an article on February 8th about the bill.

The article mentions some of the demands the bill would make on states:

• Offer online voter registration;

• Establish automatic voter registration;

• Allow voter registration on the day of a federal election;

• Allow voters to correct their registration information at the polls;

• Restore voting rights to felons after they leave prison;

• Offer at least 15 days of early voting; and,

• Follow new rules before purging voters from registration lists.

The bill also has several measures related to campaign finance or ethics:

• Require super PACs to disclose donors who give more than $10,000;

• Require major online platforms to maintain an online public record of people who buy at least $500 worth of political ads; and

• Use public financing to match small dollar donations to House and presidential candidates.

There are also some other interesting items in the bill listed in a pjmedia article of January 10th:

It forces states to implement mandatory voter registration. If someone is on a government list — such as receiving welfare benefits or rental subsidies — then they would be automatically registered to vote. Few states have enacted these systems because Americans still view civic participation as a voluntary choice.

…H.R. 1 would also force states to have extended periods of early voting, and mandates that early voting sites be near bus or subway routes.

…H.R. 1 also undermines the First Amendment by exerting government control over political speech and undoing the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision.

The proposal also undoes another Supreme Court decision. In Husted, a case arising out of Ohio, the Court ruled that federal laws — known as “Motor Voter” — do not prohibit states from using a voter’s inactivity from triggering a mailing to that voter to see if they still are living at that location. H.R. 1 would undo that ruling and prohibit states from effectively cleaning voter rolls.

For further information follow the link to the pjmedia article.

Article 1 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

States are given the authority to hold elections. To put the federal government in charge of elections is to open the door for fraud on a large scale. That is exactly what H.R. 1 does.

Legislation That Will Be Harmful To Americans

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Yesterday The Hill reported that Senator Cory Booker has introduced a bill in the Senate to legalize marijuana nationwide. The bill, S 597, is listed at Congress.gov, but the listing as of now does not include either the text of the bill or a summary of the bill.

The Hill reports:

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a bill Thursday to legalize marijuana across the country.

The 2020 presidential hopeful has made criminal justice reform and social justice issues central to his campaign and is framing the marijuana legalization bill as such.

“The War on Drugs has not been a war on drugs, it’s been a war on people, and disproportionately people of color and low-income individuals,” Booker said in a press release announcing the legislation. “The Marijuana Justice Act seeks to reverse decades of this unfair, unjust, and failed policy by removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances and making it legal at the federal level.”

A House version of the bill was introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who is co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.

The bill, known as the Marijuana Justice Act, would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances, where it is currently a Schedule I drug in the same class with heroin and LSD.

In case you think this is a wonderful idea, please read the following article posted on this site on January 26, 2019. Marijuana is not a harmless substance. The main reason for the push for legalization is the money involved. As states lose tax money from the sale of tobacco products, they can make up that loss by taxing marijuana sales. Just as tobacco proved harmful to public health, marijuana will prove detrimental to public health as well.

The article concludes:

Several of Booker’s most prominent challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination from the Senate are co-sponsors on the bill, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Ten states as well as Washington, D.C., have already legalized the recreational use of marijuana, with many more states legalizing its medicinal use.

Booker’s bill would also incentivize states to loosen their marijuana laws by using federal funds.

From the rightwinggranny.com article cited above:

After an exhaustive review, the National Academy of Medicine found in 2017 that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Also that “regular cannabis use is likely to increase the risk for developing social anxiety disorder.”

…These new patterns of use have caused problems with the drug to soar. In 2014, people who had diagnosable cannabis use disorder, the medical term for marijuana abuse or addiction, made up about 1.5 percent of Americans. But they accounted for eleven percent of all the psychosis cases in emergency rooms—90,000 cases, 250 a day, triple the number in 2006. In states like Colorado, emergency room physicians have become experts on dealing with cannabis-induced psychosis.

Is legalizing marijuana in the best interest of Americans?

A Very Interesting Twist On The Current Media Narrative

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Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about Michael Cohen, currently playing a role in front of the House Oversight Committee. The article reports that before the FBI raided his offices and threatened him with jail time, Mr. Cohen was trying to obtain a book deal for a book praising Donald Trump as President.

The article has a lot of interesting information, but there were a few things that really stood out to me.

The article reports:

Cohen was pushing a book with the working title ‘Trump Revolution: From The Tower to The White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump,’ that he proposed to write.

He sent his book to several potential publishers last year, and one, Hachette, reportedly was willing to pay him three-quarters of a million dollars for his wise words.

But Cohen, who is due to start a three-year prison term in May for crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress and making false statements, thought he could do better and continued to seek more money, DailyMail.com can reveal.

…His book proposal was in stark contrast to his words to the oversight committee and to two other Congressional panels which he addressed in private. On Wednesday he said Trump ‘is a racist, he is a con man and he is a cheat.’

‘I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,’ he added. ‘My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything: my family’s happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation, and soon my freedom.

Would someone please explain to this man that his predicament is the result of his own decisions as well as those of a crooked justice department out to unseat a duly-elected President. His choice to evade taxes, lie to Congress, and be involved in shady business deals has little to do with President Trump. The stupidest choice he made was to keep incriminating records in his office. His predicament is sad, but blaming it on the President is unfair. Why not blame it on those seeking to remove President Trump from office?