The Washington Post Fact Checker Gets It Right

On September 4th, The Washington Post posted an article checking the veracity of one of the statements the Biden campaign is making about President Trump. The statement has been made often enough that I see it frequently posted by my friends on Facebook.

The article reports:

“The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration just released an analysis of Trump’s planned cuts to Social Security. Under Trump’s plan, Social Security would become permanently depleted by the middle of calendar year 2023. If Trump gets his way, Social Security benefits will run out in just three years from now. Don’t let it happen. Joe Biden will protect Social Security.”

— Voice-over in a new ad by Joe Biden, “Depleted,” released Sept. 3

Without fail during a tough election season, Democrats bring up Social Security. The ads are often ubiquitous in states with high percentages of senior citizens who rely on Social Security as their main source of income.

Trump gets mentioned in this ad three times. But there is no such Trump plan.

The article explains the false basis for the claim:

The president gave the Democrats an opening with a series of confusing remarks after he signed an executive order that would suspend the payment of payroll taxes until the end of the year.

The executive order would halt collection of the 6.2 percent payroll tax imposed on wages for Social Security, starting Sept. 1. In theory, taxpayers would still be liable for the taxes at a later date, but the executive order says “the Secretary of the Treasury shall explore avenues, including legislation, to eliminate the obligation to pay the taxes deferred pursuant to the implementation of this memorandum.”

While the Trump White House has suggested this is similar to a payroll tax holiday in the Obama administration during the Great Recession, that law had a provision saying Social Security would be made whole with transfers from general funds (regular tax revenue). This executive order does not say that, but one would presume that any forgiveness would be accompanied by such transfers.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It details exactly what is being said and what has been said. Just for the record, Congress has been raiding Social Security since the 1960’s.

 

 

 

 

This Is Frightening

Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about some information declassified and released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe yesterday.

The article reports:

Not only were Russian officials aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset, top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe disclosed to congressional officials on Tuesday. Before they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, intelligence agencies learned that Russia knew of Clinton’s plans to tarnish Trump with the collusion smear.

At one point, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials that Russia assessed Hillary Clinton had approved a plan on July 26, 2016, “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to Brennan’s handwritten notes.

Fired former FBI Director James Comey and fired former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok were even sent an investigative referral on September 7, 2016, regarding Russia’s alleged knowledge of Clinton’s plans to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian agent, Ratcliffe wrote. Rather than investigate at the time whether Russian intelligence had infiltrated the Clinton operation’s anti-Trump campaign and sowed Russian disinformation within it, the FBI instead used unverified gossip from a suspected Russian agent to obtain federal warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

There is no evidence the FBI ever investigated the Clinton campaign’s documented use of Russian agents and intelligence assets to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, raising questions of whether the top federal law enforcement agency may have itself interfered in the election by using its powers to arbitrarily target the campaign of the outgoing administration’s political enemy.

The article concludes:

Clinton personally pushed the Russia collusion claims on multiple occasions. Following her surprising defeat, she immediately pivoted to a campaign of blaming Russia for election meddling with Trump’s assistance. Within the last few weeks, Clinton has repeated her claim that Trump stole the election from her with Russia’s help.

While Comey, Strzok, and other Obama-era FBI officials have claimed that the investigation of Trump was legally predicated, U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the propriety of the entire Crossfire Hurricane operation, has publicly stated, based on evidence he has obtained, that he does not necessarily believe that to be the case.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This abuse of federal power is something that needs to be dealt with. It is a safe bet that if Joe Biden wins the election, all of this corruption will be buried and the same techniques used against any opponent of the Democrats. At that point we will no longer have a recognizable America. The voters need to know what happened before the election. Unfortunately the deep state will prevent that from happening in order to continue its war against the American people.

Facts vs. Lies

There were some very misleading lies told in the Presidential Debate last night. I would like to highlight a few of them. Unfortunately, many of those lies were told by the moderator Chris Wallace. It is also true that those lies painted a negative picture of President Trump. I do not believe that Chris Wallace was a neutral moderator. These lies are not necessarily in any particular order. This is the link to the transcript.

Lie number one:

Chris Wallace: (19:34)
You talk about the economy booming. It turns out that in Obama’s final three years as president more jobs were created, a million and a half more jobs, than in the first three years of your presidency.

The facts:

When President Obama took office in January 2009, the workforce participation rate was 65.7. When President Obama left office in January 2017, the labor participation rate was 62.8. That was the rate when President Trump took office. The labor participation rate before the coronavirus was 63.4 (February 2020). With the lockdown, the rate dropped to 60.2. At the end of August it was 61.7.

Lie number two:

Chris Wallace: (25:43)
No, less than you have. Let’s please continue on. The issue of rice(sic). Vice-President Biden, you say that President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville three years ago, when he talked about very fine people on both sides, was what directly led you to launch this run for president.

This is a Democrat talking point. The quote is taking totally out of context. This is the exact quote:

You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

Lie number three:

Chris Wallace: (32:21)
This month, your administration directed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity training that addresses white privilege or critical race theory. Why did you decide to do that, to end racial sensitivity training? And do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country, sir?

Breitbart notes:

Trump banned a specific kind of racial insensitivity training, which involves “Critical Race Theory.”

…Critical Race Theory is the idea that the major institutions of the United States are tainted by slavery and racism because they were founded when slavery was still legal in parts of the country. According to the late Derrick Bell, who founded Critical Race Theory, the very institution of private property is tainted by racism because of slavery. Even the Civil Rights movement was regrettable to some extent, Bell believed, because it created an illusion of racial equality. Only a massive redistribution of wealth, driven by the creation of socioeconomic rights, can cure American society of its systemic racism, the theory holds.

On a practical level, Critical Race Theory teaches that social interactions are guided by “white supremacy,” and that society is corrupted by “systemic racism,” according to which black Americans must always be victims — even if unconsciously so. Critical Race Theory is the ideology animating the Black Lives Matter movement that has brought unrest to America’s cities.

These are just some of the issues. One of the other things that really bothered me was the comparison between the Trump children and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. There has never been any evidence that the Trump children are guilty of anything. There is significant evidence that Hunter Biden has continually been involved in questionable business dealings.

 

It’s Amazing How This Works

On August 10, 2020, The Wall Street Journal posted an article (if you can’t get into the article, try opening it up in a private window) about Joe Biden’s taxes. While Joe Biden (and the rest of the Democrats) are criticizing President Trump for the amount of taxes he paid (there is no indication that President Trump did anything other than follow the laws that were written by Joe Biden and his pals in Congress), it seems that the Bidens also believed in paying as little in taxes as possible.

The article reports:

Joe Biden responded to President Trump’s partial suspension of payroll-tax collections with a statement calling it the “first shot in a new, reckless war on Social Security.” He continued: “Our seniors and millions of Americans with disabilities are under enough stress without Trump putting their hard-earned Social Security benefits in doubt.”

Mr. Biden’s objections might be more persuasive had he and his wife, Jill, not gone out of their way to avoid funding seniors’ entitlement benefits. According to their tax returns, in 2017 and 2018 the Bidens and his wife Jill avoided payroll taxes on nearly $13.3 million in income from book royalties and speaking fees. They did so by classifying the income as S-corporation profits rather than taxable wages.

The Bidens did pay themselves “salaries” from their corporations—CelticCapri Corp. and Giacoppa Corp.—of nearly $750,000 between them over two years, and they paid full taxes on that income. But they circumvented the payroll tax on the nearly 95% of their income that remained. A tax expert interviewed by the Journal in 2019 called the Bidens’ scheme “pretty aggressive”; another told the paper it served solely to avoid the payroll taxes.

The article notes:

According to the Urban Institute, a couple featuring one high earner and one average earner, retiring this year, will have paid a total of $209,000 in Medicare taxes during their working lives. The Bidens avoided paying nearly twice that much in Medicare taxes during two years. The maximum payroll tax affected by Mr. Trump’s suspension is $1,984—less than 1/250th of the amount the Bidens avoided in 2017-18.

Seems like a bit of hypocrisy.

 

 

 

 

President Trump And Health Care

Yesterday Dr. Ben Carson posted an opinion piece at Fox News about President Trump’s policies regarding healthcare.

Dr. Carson notes:

The Trump administration has an impressive story to tell on health care. For nearly four years, President Trump has championed policies that brought desperately needed reforms to American health care.

Despite the media’s refusal to attribute proper credit, the president has delivered tangible health care results on behalf of the American people – resulting in better care, more choice, and lower costs.

The historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act removed the widely unpopular individual mandate tax penalty in ObamaCare. The ObamaCare mandate forced Americans into buying health insurance.

Unfortunately, this mandate disproportionately harmed middle-class and lower-income Americans for years, coercing those individuals into purchasing care that they did not want.

As a result of President Trump’s substantial reforms to ObamaCare, premiums declined over the last two years for the first time since the flawed law was enacted.

A staple of President Trump’s approach to health care reform is rooted in returning the choice to individuals as opposed to government bureaucrats.

One of the prime examples of this is President Trump expanding health care options for terminal patients. Every year more than 1 million Americans die from a terminal illness.

In 2018, President Trump signed “Right to Try” legislation, allowing certain experimental drugs to be administered to the terminally ill who exhausted all other options. President Trump moved the government out of the way and gave Americans who had seemingly no hope a chance to survive.

Over the summer, President Trump worked to solve a problem that had sadly proved too difficult for his predecessors – lowering prescription drug prices. The president signed an executive order ensuring the United States pays the lowest price available in economically advanced countries for Medicare Part B drugs.

This order is finally reducing the inflated prices that so many Americans pay for Part B medications. Even before that specific action, prescription drugs saw their largest price decrease in over a half century in 2018 thanks to President Trump’s commonsense approach – his executive order will only bolster that progress. Where previous administrations ran into the same old obstacles, President Trump cleared them out of the way and delivered for the American people.

Obamacare did not work. If you liked our doctor or our insurance plan, you couldn’t keep them, despite what President Obama promised. Heath insurance premiums skyrocketed. The penalty for not having health insurance hurt people financially. The worse part of ObamaCare was requiring people to pay for healthcare options they neither needed nor would use–young men in their twenties were paying for pediatric dental care and women in their sixties were paying for pre-natal care. The only people who profited were the insurance companies  who helped write the bill (their numbers would go up because everyone would be required to have insurance). Obamacare was a failure, and President Trump is beginning to repair some of the damage it caused. Look for Joe Biden to praise Obamacare at the debate tonight.

Undermine Or Steal–The Democrat’s Plan

Election fraud is an issue. Mail in ballots or absentee ballots that are harvested are a problem The spotlight right now is on two states that are attempting election fraud.

Yesterday American Greatness reported:

A Biden Campaign operative in Texas is attempting to rig the 2020 election with the help of others in a massive ballot harvesting scheme, according to two private investigators who testified under oath that they have “video evidence, documentation and witnesses” to prove it. With the help of mass mail-in ballots, the illegal ballot harvesting operation could harvest 700,000 ballots, one Harris County Democrat operative allegedly bragged.

The investigators—a former FBI agent and former police officer—claim that Biden’s Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts have been “hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots” and ordering operatives to them fill out for people in Harris County illegally, “including dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election,”  Patrick Howley of the National File reported.

While law enforcement agencies are reportedly investigating these potential crimes, nothing will be done about it until “well after the November 3, 2020 election” the former FBI agent said.

Dallas Jones was appointed the Biden campaign’s Texas Political Director in late August.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis, Project Veritas uncovered a massive ballot harvesting scheme.

I am posting the two undercover videos before the censors take them down:

I have had some negative experiences recently with videos that show liberals in a bad light mysteriously disappearing from the Internet. That is the reason these two videos are embedded in this site.

Project veritas reports:

James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real and it has become a big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”

O’Keefe said, “We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities—but, it’s not me saying—we have the operators on tape saying it all themselves.”

Our investigation found that among three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle,  where the scheme operates: the Riverside Plaza apartments,  the senior citizen community at Horn Towers and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.

Mohamed (Liban Mohamed )continued: “Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here period. You know what I am saying.”

The videos are long, but you don’t have to watch much of them to realize that there is some serious voter fraud going on. The goal of the Democrats is either to delegitimize this election or to win in by fraud. The Democrat’s best case scenario is that somehow the Presidency would be decided by a vote in the House of Representatives, where they hold the majority. Please pray that voter fraud would be discovered and dealt with before the election.

Where Is The Media?

Joe Biden is running for President. On September 26th, Just the News posted an article that should make anyone think twice about voting for him.

The article reminds us:

…Biden always knew how to make people laugh. He had the common touch. But these weren’t common people — it was an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, and Biden was trying to impress them with a story about himself as a man who got things done. It is easier to get things done using the resources of the U.S. government.

Biden was talking about a trip he made to Kiev to speak with Ukrainian officials. “I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee,” Biden said. He said that he had a commitment from the Ukrainian president and prime minister to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian company that paid his son more than $80,000 a month. Unlike his father, who made many business trips to Kiev, Hunter never visited.

The Ukrainian heads of state and government tried to deflect Biden’s demands. “We’re not going to give you the billion dollars,” Biden told the Ukrainians. “They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.'” Biden dared them to call Obama. “I said, call him.” The Manhattan audience laughed again. “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

Where is the media? He admitted guilt in his own words and was obviously not troubled by what he had done. Please follow the link to read the entire article. There are a number of people who should be in jail.

Gradually The Truth Emerges

The treatment of retired General Flynn by the FBI has alarmed many Americans. It has become increasingly apparent to people who don’t rely on the mainstream media for their news that the treatment of the General was an attempt to cripple the Trump administration. Information on what was actually going on has remained secret because career people in the FBI have a vested interest in hiding the truth. On September 25th, The Epoch Times posted two articles highlighting information that is coming from people involved in the investigation (here and here).

The first article reports:

FBI agent William Barnett told government investigators last week that he heard other FBI agents at the special counsel’s office (SCO) “comically talk about wiping cellular telephones,” according to a summary of the interview released as part of the court proceedings in the case involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“Barnett had a cellular telephone issued by the SCO which he did not ‘wipe.’ Barnett did hear other agents ‘comically’ talk about wiping cellular telephones, but was not aware of anyone ‘wiping’ their issued cellular telephones,” the summary (pdf) states.

The article also notes:

Two well-known members of the Mueller team, FBI attorney Lisa Page and Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, mentioned sending and clearing iMessages from their SCO iPhones on more than one occasion.

“Clear imsg …” Strzok wrote to Page on June 5, 2017, and again on June 8.

The records officer, who isn’t identified in the documents, noted that Strzok’s phone contained “no substantive texts, notes or reminders.” Page’s phone went missing under questionable circumstances after she left the Mueller team. When it was recovered more than a year later, the device was already wiped.

The second article reports:

An FBI agent assigned to the investigation of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn wanted to be taken off the case, he recently told FBI investigators, saying the prosecution of Flynn was being used as a means to “get Trump.”

FBI agent William Barnett was assigned to the Flynn case shortly after it was opened in August 2016, as part of the FBI’s probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which was dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.” But the case was “opaque,” lacking much detail of specific evidence of any crimes, Barnett told FBI and DOJ investigators on Sept. 17 (pdf).

The case theory was “supposition on supposition,” he said.

The second article concludes:

The lawyers were convinced Trump aide K.T. McFarland was the “key to everything” who had conveyed Trump’s orders for Flynn to talk to Kislyak. The “ground just kept being retreaded,” but it was just “astro projection,” he said. No evidence was found.

On multiple occasions, when Mueller lawyers interviewed people from Trump’s circle, it was Barnett who stepped in with clarifying and follow-up questions, such as, “Do you know that for a fact or are you just speculating?”

One time, the lawyers tried to kick Barnett off a McFarland interview. He had to threaten he’d report them to the inspector general before they allowed him in. When he started to ask clarifying questions, he said, they paused the interview and warned him, “If you keep asking these questions, we will be here all day.”

He called the lawyers in question the “obstruction team.”

In one interview, Flynn said something that suggested Trump knew about the calls to Kislyak. Barnett had the impression Flynn was just trying to say what the lawyers wanted to hear. He had to step in with a follow-up question and Flynn clarified that Trump wasn’t aware of the calls.

Flynn said in court papers his lawyers told him after the first special counsel interview that the investigators weren’t happy with his answers. For the subsequent session, his lawyers coached him to use words he wouldn’t have used himself, he said. He eventually fired the lawyers and accused them of ineffective counsel due to a conflict of interest.

The dismissal of his case is scheduled for a hearing on Sept. 29 before District Judge Emmet Sullivan after Flynn’s bid to have a higher court force the judge to accept the dismissal without further proceedings failed in August.

The FBI is out of control and will remain so until some of the people involved in this scandal are held accountable. So far only Kevin Clinesmith has been charged with anything. This is a disgrace.

Shenanigans In North Carolina

North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger posted an article on Friday detailing the recent illegal actions of the North Carolina Board of Elections.

The article reports:

Meeting minutes from the Sept. 15 closed session of the State Board of Elections reveal a bombshell. The collusive settlement “negotiated” between the Democratic attorneys with the Board of Elections, the N.C. Department of Justice and national Democrats went way beyond the bounds of what the state Board of Elections had originally authorized.

At the very beginning of the meeting, Democratic attorneys falsely told Republican Board members that “privilege” forbade them from speaking to anybody about the collusive settlement. This apparent effort to muzzle the Republican members further supports the fact that Democrats went to great lengths to conceal their secret negotiations with Marc Elias.

Minutes clearly show that Board of Elections members authorized settlement terms that included keeping the witness requirement on absentee ballots and prohibiting unmanned ballot drop boxes.

But that’s not what the conclusive statement reported:

But the collusive settlement announced this week does the exact OPPOSITE of what the Board authorized. If accepted by a judge, the settlement would violate state law by allowing absentee ballots with no witness information. All the “voter” would have to do is sign a form, which also does not require a witness. That effectively eliminates the witness requirement.

The article lists the things that collusive statement would approve:

1. Permit anonymous outdoor absentee ballot drop boxes. The law forbids anybody other than a voter or a voter’s near relative from delivering an absentee ballot and requires the Board of Elections to record who returns every ballot. But the collusive consent order filed today allows outdoor “absentee ballot drop-off stations” and says, “a county board may not disapprove a ballot solely because it is placed in a drop box.” The Democratic-controlled Board was kind enough to require signs on the drop boxes that tell ballot harvesters they’re not really supposed to use them.

2. Eliminate witness requirements for absentee ballots. State law requires one witness to sign an absentee ballot and legibly include his or her name and address. But the collusive consent order submitted today effectively eliminates that requirement. If an absentee ballot is submitted without the required witness information, the Democratic-controlled Board of Elections will just mail a form to the address to which the ballot was sent, and the form can be returned with no witness information. The form can be returned nine days after the election.

3. Extend the time period in which an absentee ballot can be received by the Board to nine days after the election. State law requires absentee ballots to be received no later than three days after Election Day. This is to allow for a timely vote count and eliminate the possibility of “finding” enough “new” absentee ballots to sway the outcome of the election. But the collusive consent order unilaterally rewrites state law to provide nine full days of uncertainty and opportunity for gamesmanship after Election Day.

This is an invitation to election fraud and needs to be stopped in its tracks.

Forgetting You Education Or Lying About It?

The New York Post posted an article today about a recent claim made by Presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The article reports:

Delaware State University has denied that Joe Biden has ever been a student there — after the presidential candidate’s claim that he “got started” at the historically black college.

The 77-year-old Democrat made his claim while praising historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) during a town hall event last October before the South Carolina Democratic primary, video shows.

“I got started out of a HBCU, Delaware State,” he told pupils at Wilson High School in Florence, which was founded in 1866 by the Freedmen’s Bureau for Black children seeking an education.

“Now, I don’t want to hear anything negative about Delaware State. They’re my folks,” he told the pupils to chuckles.

…He went on to study at Syracuse University College of Law — where he failed a class after being accused of plagiarism.

His career since then has been dogged by accusations of misleading voters, including others over his education.

I think it’s time to take a serious look at Joe Biden as a candidate. His memory seems to be faltering at times, and he seems to be losing his train of thought very easily. I seriously wonder who will actually run the country if he is elected.

It Begins On October 12th

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today reporting the planned schedule for the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.

The article reports:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham on Sunday laid out the timeline of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation process.

“More than half of the Supreme Court justices who have had hearings were done within 16 days or less, so we’ll start on Oct. 12,” the South Carolina Republican said on Fox News.

“We’ll have a day of introduction. We’ll have two days of questioning, Tuesday and Wednesday, and on [Oct. 15] we’ll begin the markup.”

“We’ll hold it over for a week, and we’ll report her nomination out of the committee on Oct. 22,” Graham continued. “Then it will be up to Sen. [Mitch] McConnell as to what to do with the nomination once it comes out of committee.”

There are a few things that should be noted about the upcoming confirmation hearings. Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on May 8, 2017, and confirmed on October 31, 2017, by a 55 to 43 vote. Three Democrats voted with the Republicans–Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly. That was less than three years ago. She has been vetted. Senator Donnelly is no longer in the Senate, but Senator Manchin and Senator Kaine are still Senators. Senator Manchin has stated that he will vote against the nomination. Senator Kaine is also expected to vote against the nomination although I could not find a specific statement from him to that effect. It seems to me that the Senators would welcome the opportunity to fill the Supreme Court seat with someone who has recently been vetted and has done an outstanding job on the Seventh Circuit Court. However, I would be totally wrong to assume that. Stay tuned for the circus and pray for this lady and her family.

Received In My Email From A Friend (I Know It’s Long, But You Need To Read It)

I know this is long, but it is important.

This was received in my email today:

The Ugly Underbelly of Senate Bill S.2657

This is a simplified tale of how good intentions were cleverly hijacked by self-serving special-interest parties — with little publicity, and to the detriment of the public, the environment, our economy, and our national security.

When Senator Murkowski initially proposed an energy bill (S.2657), it was strictly about geothermal. The title was: Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019.

Some of the main reasons that this good legislation had this narrow focus were because deep-drilling geothermal (what the bill refers to as enhanced or advanced):

1) is a reliable, non-intermittent electrical energy source,

2) is projected to be genuinely cost competitive with conventional electrical energy sources (e.g. see this MIT study),

3) is our energy future (e.g. the initial bill stated that: “The Department of Energy has determined that geothermal could represent a large part of the U.S. energy mix by 2050, rivaling the growth of solar, wind, and hydraulic fracturing”), and

4) there is no currently financially successful deep-drilling geothermal business, so R&D is necessary to get this beneficial energy source going.

These are solid reasons, but legislation doesn’t get passed because it makes sense(!). Instead there needs to be political reasons to pass a bill — e.g. large stakeholders who will benefit from such legislation, and who make it a priority to their representatives.

As there is no strong geothermal lobby in DC, the bill languished, and was presumed to be deceased. However, devious renewable energy proponents apparently said: “why don’t we piggyback wind and solar onto this bill, so that we can get even more than the $100+ Billion of federal handouts (e.g. PTC) that we’ve already pocketed.” (FYI, this is probably the first measure promoted by this new lobbying behemoth.)

As a result, in March of 2020 — while most of us were dealing with COVID-19, etc. — they stuck wind and solar into S.2657. They not only awarded themselves the pro-posed geothermal benefits, but (since few were watching) they added many more. (See some details in the Congressional Record: search over wind as well as solar.)

Of course the wind and solar lobbyists’ argument is just what you heard in kindergarten: if geothermal gets handouts, why not them? Well let’s look at the original reasons for geothermal, and see if wind and solar are actually equivalent:

1) wind and solar are unreliable, intermittent electrical energy sources,

2) after decades of preferential treatment, wind and solar are not genuinely cost competitive with conventional electrical energy sources (e.g. see this study),

3) our energy future is SMRs and geothermal, not wind and solar, and

4) wind and solar are very successful businesses (e.g. here) — and supposedly mature — so no taxpayer funded R&D is appropriate.

In other words, wind and solar are the diametric opposites of geothermal, so there are zero legitimate reasons for them to be included in S.2657.

Regretfully, it’s worse than this. Wind and solar lobbyists have become so confident that they can easily manipulate state and federal legislators, that they decided to include major provisions beyond what were in the original geothermal bill!

For example, in addition to $600 Million in new US taxpayer handouts for wind, and $1.3 Billion for solar, this S.2657 amendment requires that:

“Renewable Energy Goal — The Secretary and the Secretary of Agriculture, through management of public land and administration of Federal laws, shall seek to issue permits that, in total, authorize production of no less than 25 Gigawatts of electricity from wind, solar, and geothermal energy projects no later than December 31, 2025.

”There was no mandate in the initial geothermal bill, much less this HUGE amount. (BTW, these shysters cleverly added geothermal into this requirement, knowing full well that no consequential amount of geothermal will likely be available by 2025, so this is strictly a national wind and solar mandate — the first ever!)

These are some considerations that wind and solar lobbyists don’t want citizens and legislators to factor in:

1 – When ALL their expenses are properly calculated and fully attributed (e.g. transmission, auxiliary support, etc., etc.), wind and solar are four to five times the cost of conventional electrical energy sources;

2 – Industrial wind energy can cause substantial environmental and eco-system liabilities;

3 – Solar panels can have toxic chemicals and carcinogenic materials (like PFAS) that can get into local aquifers, which can have very problematic health effects,

4 – Wind energy can produce more CO2 than gas by itself, so if CO2 savings are paramount, combined-cycle gas is a better choice (and is less expensive);

5 – It is well-documented that industrial wind turbines have caused a wide variety of problems to our military and national security;

6 – There are dozens of studies by independent experts that have concluded that wind turbines can cause severe health consequences to nearby citizens;

7 – Although wind is sold as a local financial boon to host communities, the reality is that a wind project can have a net negative economic impact on the community;

8 – the decommissioning and disposal of wind and solar panel waste will become an enormous environmental problem in the near future.

Once these realities are fully comprehended, the obvious question is: why should the US taxpayer pay more to enrich these inferior, expensive, unreliable sources of electrical energy?

As of this writing, Senator Murkowski (R) and Senator Manchin (D) are negotiating through 220+amendments. That number alone should make it very clear that there is a frenetic frenzied feeding of special-interests at the public trough as the word gets out.

Yes, there is some good buried in this morass, but why does every such major measure turn out to be a faustian bargain? The idea that for the public to get some benefits, that we must also except multiple serious liabilities, is simply insane.

S.2657 (and the 900± page H.R. 4447 House counterpart passed on 9-24-20!) will likely be the most problematic, far-reaching national energy legislation in decades — so we need to be aware of and publicly analyze every handout and concession made in what will likely turn out to be a 500+ page omnibus energy bill.

Along that line, please read this expert commentary on S.2657 — from a different perspective than I’ve written about here.

Since the Senate is immersed in the Supreme Court issue, there will be a strong inclination to want to clear the deck of pending legislation (like S.2657). Further, since Senator Murkowski is a swing vote on the Supreme Court matter, it is conceivable that Leader McConnell (ordinarily sensible about energy matters), will agree to look the other way while S.2657 passes, in exchange for Murkowski’s Supreme Court vote.

What to do? PLEASE contact your federal Senator TODAY. Send them this, and politely tell them to keep the geothermal parts of S.2657, but to extract any and all references to wind or solar, as well as all anti-fossil fuel and anti-Science measures.

john droz, jr. physicist North Carolina 9-27-20

Pay attention. As we are distracted by the nomination circus that will surround Amy Coney Barrett, there will be shenanigans. Our energy future is at stake.

A Wonderful Choice

One America News is reporting today that President Trump has nominated 48-year-old Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. If she is confirmed, she will be the youngest justice on the court.

The article reports:

“Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court,” he (President Trump) said. “She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”

Judge Barrett thanked the President and his administration for their kindness and the honor of being nominated.

“If the Senate does me the honor of confirming me, I pledge to discharge the responsibilities of this job to the very best of my ability,” she stated. “I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution.”

If she is appointed to the Supreme Court, she noted she will “be mindful of who came before me.”

“I am truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court,” added Barrett.

I hope that she will be more mindful of Justice Antonin Scalia than of Justice Ginsburg.

The article notes some highlights of Judge Barrett’s career:

Judge Barrett’s legal career began when she graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997.

She went on to clerk for late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, where she earned a reputation among her associates for “destroying flimsy legal arguments.”

Barrett then went on to practice and teach law in Indiana for the next 15 years.

The nominee has been a federal judge at an appellate court in Chicago for the past three years, where her reputation as a conservative has grown. The Catholic judge has become a well-known, staunch opponent of abortion.

She has hinted she would want to leave the basic right of abortion in place, but also allow states to make some abortions difficult to acquire.

“I don’t think the core case that women have a right to an abortion will change, but I think the question of whether people can get very late term abortions, how many restrictions can be put on clinics, will change,” she said.

Also prominent in Barrett’s list of policies was her stance on healthcare. In 2017, she denounced Justice John Robert’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. Experts have predicted she will pose a threat to Obamacare moving forward.

Regarding guns, Judge Barrett previously struck down a federal law that barred felons from owning guns. She is expected to be a firm advocate for the Second Amendment.

Hopefully we can have a civilized confirmation process. The Democrats didn’t do themselves any favors in the way they treated the confirmation hearings of Justice Kavanaugh, and they lost Congressional seats because of it. Hopefully they will be more courteous and more inclined to follow a more reasonable confirmation process this time.

Something To Consider Before You Vote

Yesterday Fox News posted an article that included some recent statements by Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The article reports:

Peaceful protests against racial injustice are critical for the nation’s progress and help to keep law enforcement in check, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Friday.

That is a perfectly valid statement. The original civil rights marches in the 1960’s were non-violent on the part of the protesters. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about some of the police. Now things seem to be reversed. Protesters think they can smash windows, steal things, and set things on fire. That is not a protest–that is a crime.

The article continues:

“Nothing that we have achieved that has been about progress, in particular around civil rights, has come without a fight, and so I always am going to interpret these protests as an essential component of evolution in our country — as an essential component or mark of a real democracy,” the vice presidential nominee said during the NAACP’s national convention.

She added that protests were “necessary” as “the people’s voices must be heard, and it is often the people who must speak to get their government to do what it is supposed to do, but may not do naturally unless the people speak loudly — and obviously peacefully.”

Harris also praised the “brilliance” and “impact” of “Black Lives Matter,” which has received media praise but also come under fire for promoting left-wing stances like opposing the nuclear family. “I actually believe that ‘Black Lives Matter’ has been the most significant agent for change within the criminal justice system,” she said.

Black Lives Matter has recently scrubbed their website. However, on September 8, I wrote an article that included some quotes from a “What We Believe” page that was then on their website. I apologize for not taking a screenshot (it didn’t occur to me that they would take down the page)–I just copied the quotes. That page no longer exists on their website. When you read the following quotes from the page, you might make an educated guess as to why:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

It has been widely reported that the people behind Black Lives Matter have Marxist roots. That is true. It is disturbing to see a candidate for one of the highest offices in the land support an organization that has Marxist ties. This candidate belongs to a political party that falsely accused President Trump of ties to Russia and tried to remove him because of those charges. Now they want us to vote for someone who openly supports a Marxist organization. That kind of double standard makes my head hurt.

A Newly Declassified Summary Report Has Been Released By The Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has declassified and released its summary report in a Press Release. Please follow the link and read the entire summary.

Here are a few of the highlights:

  • The Crossfire Hurricane team knew in December 2016 that Christopher Steele’s Primary Sub-source was an individual who the FBI had indicated in 2009 “could be a threat to national security.”
  • In May 2009, Steele’s source reportedly attempted to recruit two individuals connected to an influential foreign policy advisor connected to President Obama, offering that if the two individuals “‘did get a job in the government and had access to classified information’ and wanted ‘to make a little extra money,’ [Steele’s source] knew some people to whom they could speak.”
  • FBI databases revealed Steele’s source “had contact in 2006 with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers, [including contacting a known Russian intelligence officer] ‘so the documents can be placed in tomorrow’s diplomatic pouch.’”
  • One individual interviewed by the FBI noted that “the Primary Sub-source persistently asked about the interviewee’s knowledge of a particular military vessel.”
  • Significantly, the “record documenting the closing of the investigation [of the Primary Sub-source] stated that consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event that the Primary Sub-source returned to the United States.”

The Press Release continues:

Graham on Totality of FBI Crossfire Hurricane Failures:

“In light of this newly declassified information, I will be sending the FISA Court the information provided to inform them how wide and deep the effort to conceal exculpatory information regarding the Carter Page warrant application was in 2016 and 2017.

“A small group of individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held accountable for this fraud against the court.  I do not believe they represent the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women who work at the Department of Justice and FBI.

“The now famous email Susan Rice sent to herself on Inauguration Day where she states that President Obama said that everything has to be done ‘by the book’ has become highly suspect.  If this investigation is ‘by the book,’ then the book we’re using is the Kremlin playbook.

“It is up to the committee and Congress to reform the system so it never happens again.  It’s stunning to be told that the single individual who provided information to Christopher Steele for the Russian dossier used by the FBI on four occasions to obtain a warrant on Carter Page, an American citizen, was a suspected Russian agent years before the preparation of the dossier.

“The committee will press on and get to the bottom of what happened, and we will try to work together to make sure this never happens again.”   

The misuse of the government for political purposes has been investigated and prosecuted in the past. It needs to be dealt with harshly this time. It is unbelievable that those responsible have evaded punishment for this long.

About That Mail-in Voting Idea

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday listing some of the problems already encountered with mail-in and absentee ballots during this election.

The article reports:

The U.S. Postal Service has reportedly launched an investigation after mail—including absentee ballots—were discovered this week along a road in the swing state of Wisconsin.

“According to the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office, three trays of mail were discovered shortly before 8 a.m. Monday in a ditch along State 96 at Outagamie county CB in Greenville,” the Post Crescent reported. “The mail was on its way to the post office and the sheriff’s office turned it over to the postal inspector. The mail was mixed and did contain ‘several’ absentee ballots.”

In another instance:

The news comes after federal law enforcement officials discovered that some military ballots had been discarded in the swing state of Pennsylvania and that out of all the discarded ballots that had been opened, they all had voted for President Donald Trump.

“The FBI has recovered a number of documents relating to military ballots that had been improperly opened by your elections staff, and had the ballots removed and discarded, or removed and placed separately from the envelope containing confidential voter information and attestation,” U.S. Attorney David J. Freed said in a letter to Shelby Watchilla, Director of Elections of Luzerne County Bureau of Elections.

“Specifically, a total of nine (9) military ballots were discovered to have been discarded,” the letter continued. “Seven (7) of those ballots when discovered by investigators were outside of any envelope. Those ballots were all cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump. One (1) of those seven (7) ballots was able to be identified to an envelope that was recovered, and thereby potentially tied to a specific voter. Two (2) military ballots that had been discarded were previously recovered by elections staff, reinserted into what appeared to be their appropriate envelopes, and then resealed. Therefore, the votes cast on those two (2) ballots are unknown. Thus, is appears that three (3) of the nine (9) recovered ballots can be potentially attributed to specific voters. Six (6) of the ballots were simply removed and discarded, and cannot be attributed to a specific voter at this time.”

Yet another instance:

Also on Thursday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced more than 100 felony charges in an illegal ballot harvesting scheme in a Democrat Primary.

“It is an unfortunate reality that elections can be stolen outright by mail ballot fraud. Election fraud, particularly an organized mail ballot fraud scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in voter disenfranchisement and corruption at the highest level,” Attorney General Paxton said in a statement. “Mail ballots are vulnerable to diversion, coercion, and influence by organized vote harvesting schemes. This case demonstrates my commitment to ensuring Texas has the most secure elections in the country, and I thank the Gregg County Sheriff and District Attorney for their continued partnership. Those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas must be held accountable.”

We need in-person voting with voter id. Note that Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are both considered swing states.

Is The Constitution The Basis For Our Government?

According the the website oaths.us members of Congress take the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The U.S. Constitution states:

Article VI 

    • Clause 3
    • The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

       

CNS News is reporting the following today:

Asked whether the U.S. Constitution bans the Senate from scrutinizing the religious beliefs of Supreme Court nominees, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she wouldn’t “get into anybody’s interpretation” of the Constitution.

On Thursday – two days before President Donald Trump is expected to announce a Catholic judge as his nominee to replace deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Pelosi, who supports abortion yet purports to be Catholic, was asked by a reporter whether the Constitution’s ban on religious tests for office extends to Supreme Court nominees:

First of all, the confirmation process takes place in the Senate–not the House of Representatives. She has no say. However, her statement says, in essence, that despite what the U.S. Constitution clearly says, she claims that the ban on considering a candidate’s religion is an ‘interpretation.’ Has she read the document that she has sworn to uphold?

Does The Truth Matter?

The death of Breonna Taylor is tragic. The fact that there is rioting by people who either don’t know the truth or don’t care about the truth is even more tragic.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today that illustrates some of the facts of the Breonna Taylor case.

The article notes:

The criminal law is not designed to address every human tragedy. That is the lesson of the tragic death of Breonna Taylor. It was also the theme repeatedly struck by Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron on Wednesday, in announcing the indictment of one of the three officers involved in the raid that lead to her death.

The article provides some background of the incident:

Much of what we’ve been told about the case turns out not to be true — another “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” urban legend of police brutality. Most prominently, Attorney General Cameron explained that the police did not execute a “no knock” warrant before entering Ms. Taylor’s apartment. They knocked and announced themselves as police before forcing entry shortly after midnight.

How they came to be at Ms. Taylor’s home, with a search warrant based on probable cause that evidence of narcotics crimes would be found, is the part of the story the social-justice warriors would have us omit. It needs telling.

When she was killed, Breonna Taylor was 26, a hospital emergency-room technician who hoped to become a nurse. But over the years, she had gotten involved with Glover, a 30-year-old twice-convicted drug dealer. Though she was never a targeted suspect, the New York Times reports that Ms. Taylor was entangled in the frequent police investigations of Glover. Taylor remained romantically involved with him though he had spent years in prison.

The article concludes:

Meantime, Hankison [Brett Hankison, then a detective (since fired)], who was in the parking lot outside the apartment, began firing when the commotion he could not have seen began. He sprayed the patio and a window with ten bullets — irresponsibly, to be sure, but fortunately without harming anyone. Hankison, who had a spotty disciplinary record in almost 20 years as a cop, was terminated when police officials judged that his conduct during the raid shocked the conscience.

And now he has been charged, which seems appropriate. What the mob wants, though, is murder charges against the two cops who shot Ms. Taylor. There is no conceivable legal justification for that. The police were properly executing a lawful warrant. There appears to have been more than adequate probable cause for the search in light of Glover’s ties to the apartment. Even if there were any doubt about that, the warrant had been duly authorized and therefore police were entitled to rely on it. And they were fired upon before reasonably responding with lethal force.

What happened to Breonna Taylor was a calamity. That is why the city of Louisville just paid $12 million dollars to settle the wrongful death lawsuit her family filed, rather than trying to fight it. Obviously, the money cannot bring her back to life, and will never be adequate compensation for her loved ones’ loss. But that could also have been said for the politicized filing of unprovable homicide charges. The legal system can only do the best it can; it cannot fully compensate for tragic loss, and its criminal processes are not equipped to address catastrophes that are not crimes.

The state of Kentucky was right not to opt for mob justice. Unfortunately, the mob has a different conception of “justice,” and it is ripping the country apart.

The shooting of this young woman is a tragedy. So are the lies and violence currently surrounding her death.

The Elections In North Carolina Just Ventured Into The Twilight Zone

North Carolina is seen as a swing state in the coming election. The eastern part of the state will vote Republican and the major cities will vote Democrat. There are questions about the integrity of the election process in some of the major cities. The citizens of the state voted for a state constitutional amendment in the last election to help prevent voter fraud. The voter id law was struck down by the state court. That decision has been overturned by another state court and is on its way to the state Supreme Court. That is only some of the shenanigans that have recently occurred. The North Carolina Board of Elections is changing the rules on absentee ballots weeks before the election. The Board has become a political entity under Governor Cooper, and this move is a further indication that the Democrats are not planning to play on a level playing field.

The following appeared on my Facebook page this morning:

Fox News posted an article today explaining exactly what is going on.

The article reports:

Both Republicans on the five-person North Carolina State Board of Elections submitted their resignations on Wednesday night, saying they were misled about the ramifications of the board’s recent legal settlement making rules governing absentee ballots less restrictive.

“Regarding the settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans against the State Board of Elections, attorneys from [Attorney General] Josh Stein’s office did not advise us of the fact that a lot of the concessions made in the settlement have already been denied in a prior case by a federal judge and another case by a state court three-judge panel,” Ken Raymond, who had served on the board since 2018, wrote in his resignation letter.

The shenanigans have been going on for a while.

Lt. Governor Dan Forest has written the following letter to Attorney General Barr:

This is only the beginning of what is going to be a very nasty election. What is happening in North Carolina is only one example of the reason we are going to see nine justices on the Supreme Court before the election.

Stay tuned.

 

Some Common Sense From The Senate

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about a Senate bill sponsored by Senator Kelly Loeffler. The Bill is titled The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2020. The text of the bill can be found here.

The essence of the bill is as follows:

1 SEC.2.AMENDMENT

2    Section 901 of the Education Amendments of 1972

3  (20 U.S.C. 1681) is amended by adding at the end the

4  following:

5     ‘‘(d)(1) It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for

6  a recipient of Federal funds who operates, sponsors, or

7  facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a per-

8  son whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program

9  or activity that is designated for women or girls.

10    ‘‘(2) For purposes of this subsection, sex shall be rec-

11  ognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology

12  and genetics at birth.’’.

The article at The Daily Signal concludes:

“Title IX established a fair and equal chance for women and girls to compete, and sports should be no exception,” said Loeffler. “As someone who learned invaluable life lessons and built confidence playing sports throughout my life, I’m proud to lead this legislation to ensure girls of all ages can enjoy those same opportunities. This commonsense bill protects women and girls by safeguarding fairness and leveling the athletic field that Title IX guarantees.”

Regardless of what one thinks about the transgender movement or “gender identity” protections in other areas of life, fair athletic competition demands such a policy.

A similar bill was passed at the state level in Idaho this year (and was immediately challenged in court). But Title IX protected women and girls nationwide—and Loeffler’s amendment would do the same.

For that, Sen. Kelly Loeffler deserves a gold medal.

How many fathers of teenage girls are comfortable with teenage boys being allowed in the girls’ locker room? This bill seems to provide a much-needed dose of common sense.

 

This Seems Very Questionable To Me

The Hill reported yesterday that billionaire Michael Bloomberg has reportedly raised more than $16 million in an effort to help convicted felons in Florida register to vote.

The article notes:

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition estimated Bloomberg’s fundraising push has already paid off monetary obligations for 32,000 felons, Axios reported

“The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be denied that right,” a Bloomberg spokesperson told the news outlet. “Working together with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, we are determined to end disenfranchisement and the discrimination that has always driven it.”

Florida passed a law in 2018 reinstating voting rights for felons that dictated they could register only if they pay all fines, fees and restitution — sometimes totaling more than $1,000 — owed to the government. 

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Florida, last week ruled to uphold the law. 

Last week, several television networks also pledged to donate money to the cause. 

Bloomberg, who ran in the Democratic primary for president, has endorsed the party’s nominee, Joe Biden, and has donated at least $100 million to the former vice president’s campaign to defeat President Trump

This may not be illegal, but it definitely is sleazy. I wonder how the average resident of Florida feels about this.

 

 

When Fake News Is Forced To Apologize

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported that Newsweek was forced to issue a retraction of statements it made about possible Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. The attack on Judge Barrett was probably only a portent of things to come. It was a lie, but that won’t matter to many people who want to oppose her nomination because of her stand on abortion.

The article reports:

Newsweek magazine has issued a major correction to an article smearing potential Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, accusing the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge of belonging to a Catholic sect that “inspired” the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Initially, Newsweek claimed that “People of Praise,” a charismatic Catholic group to which Barrett reportedly belongs, “served as inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale,” adding that female members are forced to report to spiritual superiors known as “handmaids” and that the group stresses that “men have authority over their wives.”

The article continues:

The problem? People of Praise’s “handmaids” are little more than spiritual advisors, according to sources familiar with the 1,700-member group that spoke to The Daily Wire. And as National Review Online’s David Harsanyi points out, Barrett’s partner’s “authority” must be severely limited, given that her “knuckle-dragging misogynistic religious fanatic husband has only let the poor woman out of the house twice. Once, to serve a 15-year stint as a law professor at a highly prestigious university,” and the other to serve on the 7th Circuit.

Deeper than that, though, it turns out Newsweek’s story is actually completely wrong based on information from Atwood herself, which Newsweek points out in its “correction.”

The article notes that the author has also stated that the group was not the inspiration for the book:

“Correction: This article’s headline originally stated that People of Praise inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. The book’s author, Margaret Atwood, has never specifically mentioned the group as being the inspiration for her work,” the note read. “A New Yorker profile of the author from 2017 mentions a newspaper clipping as part of her research for the book of a different charismatic Catholic group, People of Hope. Newsweek regrets the error.”

“The clipping includes a spokesperson for the People of Hope sect based in Newark, New Jersey saying, ‘We’re all Roman Catholics. We differ in the sense that we are a Charismatic group, which would mean that we have prayer meetings, during which there is raising of hands, singing and speaking in tongues,’” the outlet notes. “People of Praise has never had a presence in the state of New Jersey.”

How many people have read the article but are unaware of the correction?

The Root Of The Problem

The Daily Signal posted an article today about the connection between Alicia Garza, one of three founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, and the left-wing San Francisco group known to carry water for China: the Chinese Progressive Association. Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, was interviews for the article.

Mike Gonzalez reports:

It’s best to think of her (Alicia Garza) as somebody who sits a top an expansive global revolutionary network. She founded the main Black Lives Matter organization. In fact, she came up with the slogan.

The other two women who co-founded Black Lives Matter are Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. All three of them are committed Marxists, anti-capitalist. Alicia Garza has said many times that she wants to smash capitalism, that one cannot reach liberation in capitalism.

And one of the adventures that she has is the Black Futures Lab. The Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco.

That is an outfit that was created in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution by a … paramilitary group called I Wor Kuen. I Wor Kuen was a Maoist outfit, created the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco. And from the start, the Chinese Progressive Association promoted the thoughts of Mao and the ideas of China’s revolution and the Cultural Revolution.

…if you click on the button of the Black Futures Lab, it tells you that the Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the CPA San Francisco.

A lot of the Black Lives Matter organizations do this. They’re fiscally sponsored projects of other groups that affords the Black Lives Matter organization a great deal of flexibility in not having to disclose how they spend their money. That’s at least what the critics say.

But the connections between Garza and the people who run the CPA San Francisco are stronger than that. Garza, for example, spoke at a LeftRoots meeting in 2015. I think she’s a member also of LeftRoots, I’ll have to double check that. And Pam Tau Lee, one of the founders of CPA San Francisco is also a member of LeftRoots.

…the Black Futures Lab does say it on its website, that it partners up with Black Lives Matter. Everything under Alicia Garza is the same, as I said, they’re ventures of the same empire. And the Black Futures Lab, I believe, is kind of a lobbying arm of the whole entire thing.

Black Lives Matter, I’m talking about the organizations—obviously, nobody disagrees with the sentiment—I’m talking about the Black Lives Matter Global Network partners with the Movement for Black Lives, partners with the Black Futures Lab, they all crisscross and coordinate their moves. And the Black Futures Lab says that on its website, that it helps the Black Lives Matter organization.

Please follow the link to read the rest of the article. Black lives do matter, but the organization by that name is not a positive influence on our political debate.