Monthly Archives: October 2020

When Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Talking Point

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The Washington Examiner posted an article today that highlighted one of many lies told by Joe Biden in last night’s presidential debate.

The article reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said during the final presidential debate Thursday night that there is “no evidence” raising the minimum wage kills businesses.

“There is no evidence that when you raise the minimum wage, businesses go out of business,” Biden told Trump. “That is simply not true.”

The article notes a few statistics:

In 2017, a Harvard study concluded that a San Francisco minimum wage increase resulted in some businesses closing their doors.

According to the Heritage Foundation, minimum wage increases not only kill jobs, up to 400,000 in California alone, but also “disproportionately hurt low-income, low-skill workers and families.”

The article also includes some screenshots of some tweets. Here are a few lines from those tweets:

.@JoeBiden: “There is no evidence that when you raise the minimum wage, businesses go out of business. That is simply not true.”
A new study shows his plan to do just that could kill 2M jobs by 2027.

…Joe Biden just lied again. After raising minimum wages, fast food restaurants fired a lot of people after raising minimum wages

The above tweet notes that a bill to be introduced to the New York City Council would require employers to provide a justifiable cause to fire fast food workers.

Another tweet states:

The city’s (Seattle) escalating minimum wage has meant a slight increase in pay among workers earning up to $19 per hour, but the hours worked in such jobs have shrunk, a study commissioned by the city found. It estimates there would be 5,000 more such jobs without the Seattle law.

Part of the problem is the misunderstanding of the purpose of the minimum wage. The minimum wage was never meant to be an income that would meet the needs of an independent working person. The minimum wage was meant to allow young people to enter the workforce and learn the basic skills of being a productive worker–courtesy, working as a team, showing up on time, leaving on time, developing a work ethic. These are the skills that allow workers to move past minimum wage. If we have a society where people are remaining at minimum wage, maybe we need to look at our education system that produces those workers.

How To Handle A Biased Media

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The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that President Trump will release the full video of his interview with Lesley Stahl. The interview was conducted for “Sixty Minutes.”

The article notes:

President Trump sat down with Lesley Stahl from “60 Minutes” for a much anticipated interview that will air on Sunday — ten days before the November election.

“60 Minutes” is notorious for cutting and editing their interviews with conservatives to make them look their worst.

Please follow the link to the article to watch the entire interview.

Peace Comes To More Of The Middle East

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Just the News is reporting that President Trump has brokered a deal that will normalize relations between Israel and Sudan. As part of the deal, the United States will remove Sudan from a list of countries it considers to be state sponsors of terrorism. Formerly, Sudan’s inclusion on that list has prevented the struggling country from receiving certain forms of international aid.

The article reports:

President Trump tweeted early this week that he would remove Sudan from the state sponsors of terror list as soon as its government deposits $335 million in compensation for victims of two bombings at the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which occurred in 1998 and 2000 respectively. On Thursday, Sudan’s Minister of Information said the money had been deposited into an escrow account.

The historic arrangement between Sudan and Israel illustrates a complete revision of the African nation’s former attitude toward peace with the small Middle Eastern nation. In 1967, following the Arab-Israeli war, Sudan hosted the Arab League summit in Khartoum, where the eight participating nations agreed to the concept of the “Three Nos”: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.

President Trump has mastered the art of using the economic clout of the United States rather than the military clout to get things done. I am totally impressed at what he has accomplished in the Middle East. The breakthroughs he has made have previously been considered impossible.

A Disturbing Campaign Ad

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Yesterday Trending Politics posted an article about a campaign ad put out by the Biden campaign.

The article quotes the ad:

“America was an idea, we hold these truths to be self-evident, we’ve never lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it before. And I think we just have to be more honest with our kids know as we raise them, what actually did happen. Acknowledge our mistakes,” Biden says in his ad.

Really. Did we live up to it when we stormed the beaches of France to stop a genocide? Did we live up to it when we fought a Civil War to end slavery in America? Did we live up to it when we ended segregation in America and fought to give equal rights to all Americans?

It is sad that a person running for the highest office in the land has this perspective. It is even sadder than many Americans share his view.

We are not perfect, but we are ‘the last best hope’ for freedom that the world has. It’s time to celebrate that. We should work on our faults, but not be defined by them.

The Biden Economic Policy

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about Joe Biden’s economic plan if he is elected President.

The article reports:

On his campaign website, Biden has a long document of his economic plan that reads like it was torn from any union membership guidebook. Dubbed “THE BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING WORKER ORGANIZING, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND UNIONS,” it almost reads like a worker’s manifesto. One telling sentence in the midst of this collectivist screed explains it all: “Yet employers steal about $15 billion a year from working people just by paying workers less than the minimum wage.”

When your platform is rooted on the concept that a business owner who retains their own money is “stealing” it from employees you have already revealed that the economy is not your focus. Donald Trump would do well to expose Biden’s plan for all the flaws it presents, with three targeted topics.

The three topics listed in the article are:

TAXES

Before he called a lid on this week Biden was involved in an earnest battle to explain away his proposed tax increases to pay for his various pipe dreams. The president has run ads declaring Biden is hiking rates on most Americans but Joe is battling this back — with the help of a compliant media — by insisting that he will not raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000. 

The problem: Even as the press struggles to back this claim they give evidence that there will be higher payments for most. Even those nominal brackets that get small increases are going to also feel it as prices rise, and other expenses are called into play. Plus there is the convenient wordplay involved. While Joe is not raising taxes on that sub-400K group he has pledged to repeal the Trump tax cuts. These have been real benefits felt by over 80 percent of Americans. Those cuts led to a number of benefits, from higher paychecks to lowering the unemployment rate, and even had unforeseen results such as lowered utility bills for citizens. So while Joe is not technically raising taxes, he is raising the burden on many workers.

TARGETING CORPORATIONS

No shock that Joe’s union-driven economic plan is hostile toward businesses. That language of demonizing companies as stealing from the employees is peppered throughout his plan, and the entire goal laid out is rather apparent — union jobs are more important than driving the economy. Looking past his promise to raise the tax rate on corporations and to close loopholes and other benefits for companies, this proposal completely targets businesses and does so repeatedly in the name of union stewardship. 

Collective bargaining is prioritized and there is a lengthy list of penalties, done entirely for the repeated promise to “Check the abuse of corporate power over labor.” From top to bottom Biden’s plan continuously mentions how companies will be penalized. He also targets right-to-work states where employees are NOT required to join unions, going so far as to promise to “Ban state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers.” (Federalism? Who wants that?!) 

…AB-5

In California last year they passed a new employment law based on state Assembly Bill-5, which was targeting the gig-economy, independent contractors, and freelance workers. The intent of this union-derived bill was to target the workers at Uber, Lyft, and food delivery companies. It was said to be an effort to move these workers to full employment status so they could receive higher salaries and benefits, but what it actually was designed to do was shift these independent workers onto company payrolls so they could in turn become unionized.

None of these proposals would actually help ‘working people.’ They would actually strengthen unions and the elite who run them, raise the cost of living for the average person, and generally weaken the economy. The economic proposals of Joe Biden would simply undo the economic progress we have made in the past four years.

Corroborating Evidence

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The Federalist reported yesterday that Secret Service records confirm the travel dates and trips taken by Hunter Biden that were reported in the emails posted by The New York Post last week. That is not good news for the Democrats attempting to claim the emails are fake and are based on attempts by foreign governments to interfere with our election. Actually, the release of the emails was done by people who want to make sure American voters understand the history of one of the candidates for president.

The article reports:

In one email reported by the Post, sent from Hunter Biden to his business partner Devon Archer dated Apr. 13, 2014, Hunter refers to a trip to Houston slated for “tmrw.” Secret Service records released by Johnson and Grassley corroborate details of the trip with a travel entry from Hunter Biden for Apr. 13, 2014 to Apr. 14, 2014 to Houston.

In another email published by the Post, senior Burisma adviser Vadim Pozharski allegedly wrote on May 12, 2014 of a trip to Como Lake. Secret Service records reported a travel entry for Hunter Biden to Lake Como, Italy just more than a  month earlier dated Apr. 3 to Apr. 6.

“Other reports indicate that, in May 2014, Mr. Biden and Mr. Archer may have been in Doha, Qatar,” the senators wrote. “USSS records contain a travel entry for Hunter Biden to Doha, Qatar on May 11, 2014 – May 14, 2014.”

So far the attempts by people supporting Joe Biden for President to debunk the emails have failed. The biggest question in my mind is, “If the FBI took possession of the computer in December, why did we have to wait almost a year for anything on the computer to become public?” The FBI really does not look very unbiased right now.

The article notes:

The Biden campaign has not disputed the authenticity of the Post’s reported emails.

At Some Point This Story Will Have To Be Reported On Honestly By The Mainstream Media

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Today Just the News posted an article about a different area of concern regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.

The article reports:

Rudy Giuliani, one of President Trump’s private attorneys, has reported to Delaware police concerns that materials on a laptop purportedly tied to Hunter Biden contained evidence of possible child endangerment.

Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney and New York City mayor, confirmed Tuesday night he went Monday to a local police department in Wilmington to report his concerns of children endangerment and sexual exploitation. Giuliani told Just the News that former New York Police Department commissioner Bernard Kerik joined him when he delivered photographs and text messages to the New Castle County Police Department.

“I told them other details about what appears to be an inappropriate sexual relationship,” he said in an interview. “They told me it would be investigated.”

I suspect we are about to find out how deep the corruption in our government is.

The article continues:

Giuliani said the materials he gleaned from the controversial laptop — which a Delaware computer shop owner alleges was left with him by Hunter Biden — gave him concern for the welfare of a minor girl. Giuliani declined to identify the alleged minor victim or who was in the photos.

“There are many texts which I gave to them that point out that family was concerned about the safety of the child,” Giuliani said. “I will tell you the evidence I gave them states it was reported to Joe Biden. What did he do about it?”

Kerik confirmed Wednesday he joined Giuliani in reporting the materials to police, suggesting the laptop content “raises serious questions as to Joe Biden‘s national security vulnerability.”

The article reminds us:

“The conduct falls under the mandatory reporting requirements for child endangerment,” Giuliani said. “If I was the U.S. attorney or the mayor or Bernie was still the commissioner, it would have been a crime for us not to report what we had.” 

The Delaware Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act mandates reporting by “any person, agency, organization, or entity who knows or in good faith suspects child abuse or neglect.”

It is interesting that the laptop is said to have been in the FBI’s possession since December 2019. Why did they choose to ignore what was on it?

Stay tuned.

 

Information We Need Now

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Yesterday Issues & Insights posted an article about some things that we won’t learn until after the election. I am posting the list. Please follow the link to the article to read the details.

The article reports:

1. Biden is a far-left liberal with a big agenda.

2. Biden doesn’t have any plans to solve the COVID-19 problem.

3. The economy has been doing much better than the public had been led to believe.

4. There are some “concerns” about Biden’s mental abilities.

5. Hate-filled politics wasn’t caused by Trump.

The article concludes:

Make no mistake, whoever espouses limited government, lower taxes, greater individual freedom – even if they have the demeanor of Mr. Rogers – will be branded as a hate-mongering fascist worthy of censorship, bullying, and violence.

This is all speculation, of course. But it’s speculation based on decades of observations.

There is one thing we know for certain. If Trump wins against all expectations, Democrats will say he cheated, that the Russians helped him, that he should be immediately impeached. And there will be riots across the nation.

Unfortunately, that is true. It is also quite likely that average Americans will rebel against what they are being fed by the elite media and vote for President Trump.

Does Anyone Believe That Campaign Ads Tell The Truth?

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We all understand that campaign ads are skewed to achieve a specific purpose. When a candidate is accused of voting against a bill that would help voters, it is always wise to look up the bill and see exactly what is in it. There are other tricks too–taking words out of context, finding an unflattering picture, etc. Every now and then though, there is a campaign ad that takes the concept of misleading to new levels.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about one such ad.

The article reports:

Last night, during the Browns vs. Steelers game, Joe Malcoun, co-owner of the popular “The Blind Pig” bar in Ann Abor, MI, home to Univ. of Michigan, appeared in a new Joe Biden television ad, where he blamed President Trump for Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to shut down businesses during the COVID pandemic.

In the “The Blind Pig” ad, Joe Malcoun is simply identified as “Joe.” The Biden campaign ad never mentions that Joe’s a wealthy business owner or that he frequently hosts big-ticket fundraisers for high profile Democrats in Michigan

The article points out a few facts that contradict the ad:

On April 17, President Trump implored MI Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer to reopen Michigan’s economy. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” he tweeted.

On June 8, Michigan’s Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that after months of being shut down, bars in her state would be allowed to reopen with restrictions.

Only 23 days later, on July 1, Governor Whitmer announced that she would again shut down bars in lower and central Michigan, after over 100 cases of COVID were reportedly traced to Harper’s bar in East Lansing, MI, a popular spot with Michigan State University students.

On October 1, The Michigan Supreme Court ruled against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s unconstitutional executive orders, saying she lacked the authority to extend the state of emergency she passed after April 30, when her first state of emergency declaration expired.

The article notes:

Like Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, Malcoun never explains Joe Biden’s plan to deal with the COVID pandemic. Malcoun simply accuses President Trump of not having a plan, and that seems to be sufficient reason for the “average Joe” to vote for “Crooked Joe.”

So far, the ad has been viewed over 1 million times on Twitter and over 366,000 times on YouTube and is running again tonight, on Monday Night Football.

Voters, pay attention, your future depends on it!

A Step Toward Something Antithetical To Our Republic

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Fox News posted an article recently about an idea being suggested by some Democrats to form a South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission after President Trump leaves office.

The article notes:

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted Saturday that such a commission would “erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.”

Sounds like granting permission to the ‘cancel culture.’ This sounds more like revenge than like moving the country forward.

The article quotes author JD Vance, who appeared on the Tucker Carlson show last night:

Vance added that the idea would not only damage the country, but shows how “whiny” liberal Democrats still are about Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election loss.

“Instead of trying to win the next election and moving on with the life of American democratic politics, they want to go backward and punish everybody,” Vance said.

It’s a pretty safe bet that creating a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would further divide the country–not unite it.

 

Some Of Our News Media Is Not Telling Us The News

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Just the News posted an article today about some recent censorship by Twitter. They are getting really good at suppressing news that does not agree with the current liberal narrative. It might be time to examine the protected status they have had that prevents them from being sued for censorship.

The article reports:

Twitter has censored a post from White House adviser Dr. Scott Atlas last week arguing that masks and mask mandates are ineffective in stopping the coronavirus.

Atlas, who joined the White House coronavirus team in August as a science adviser tweeted: “Masks work? NO,” and said the widespread use of masks is not supported.

The tweet apparently violated a Twitter policy that prohibits the sharing of false of misleading information pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic.

In such instances, Twitter disables the account of the individual until the person in question deletes the post.

“I don’t understand why the tweets were deleted,” Atlas told the Associated Press. He told the wire service that his tweet was meant to show that “general population masks and mask mandates do not work,” clarifying that his stance is that masks should be used when social distancing cannot be enforced.

Atlas noted that infection rates soared even in places where masks were mandated, including Los Angeles, Hawaii, Miami, the Philippines and Japan.

It seems to me that Dr. Atlas as a doctor has a basis for his statement. His statements should have as much validity as Dr. Fauci’s statements. The fact that Twitter is censoring Dr. Atlas because he does not agree with the current narrative should be concerning to all Americans.

Somehow I Don’t Expect To See This In The Mainstream Media

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Today One America News posted an article about the information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.

The article reports:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has said Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. In an interview Monday, he called out Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for claiming such.

Ratcliffe stated the Intelligence Community does not believe Schiff’s claims because there is no intelligence to support them. The Republican also has said the laptop is in the jurisdiction of the FBI and the Intelligence Committee has not been involved in the matter.

The emails in question detail Hunter’s ties to corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs and Chinese officials who paid him for introducing them to his father when he was vice president.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) fired off a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, urging him to disclose if the agency is probing emails reportedly from Hunter’s laptop.

Johnson has asked Wray to inform the panel if the agency has taken any action regarding those emails. The lawmaker also questioned what the FBI knew about Hunter and when they knew it, while noting it speaks to a “larger issue.”

This comes as outrage surrounding the emails continues to grow.

The article includes the following Tweet:

The media is trying to bury this story. Hopefully they will not succeed.

Science vs. Politics

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Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line Blog today about the ongoing politicization of science. The article raises the question of whether the horse or the cart is leading.

The article reports:

Vaping is an alternative to smoking. It’s a way in which nicotine addicts can access that drug without exposure to the harmful tars and chemicals in cigarettes that cause cancer, heart disease, and other maladies. It therefore presents the possibility of saving millions of lives.

However, much of the left hates vaping. So it’s not surprising that “science” has been marshaled against it.

Last year, the Journal of the American Heart Association published a study finding that vaping posed as great a heart risk as smoking does. According to Wesley Smith, that study fueled public policies that stifled the industry, damaging or destroying many small businesses and denying smokers the leading alternative to cigarettes.

But now, the study in question has been been retracted.

The article notes the problems with the study, then observes that the study was published despite concerns about its findings.

The article concludes:

Anyone can make a mistake. However, publishing an article even though the questions of reviewers have not been addressed seems like more than just a mistake.

And these kinds of “mistakes” always seem to cut in favor of the left’s agenda. Coincidence? Probably not. Smith points out:

. . .[S]cience journals have grown increasingly ideological. Nature has endorsed Joe Biden for president and promised to publish more political science — which isn’t “science” at all. The New England Journal of Medicine should change its name to the New Ideology Journal of Medicine. Science has endorsed “nature rights.” The list goes on and on.

It’s enough to make you wonder whether establishment science follows the data wherever it leads or, instead, is often influenced by political and social agendas. And once you wonder about that, you really shouldn’t blindly “follow the science” — or at least “science” produced after the left’s march through our institutions reached reached the scientific establishment.

Some of these scientists are the same people who are selling us the equivalent of chain link fences to block out mosquitoes when they praise homemade cloth masks.

About That Voter Fraud Thing…

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On October 16th, Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:

New Judicial Watch Study Finds 353 U.S. Counties in 29 States with Voter Registration Rates Exceeding 100%

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a September 2020 study revealed that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study found eight states showing state-wide registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The September 2020 study collected the most recent registration data posted online by the states themselves. This data was then compared to the Census Bureau’s most recent five-year population estimates, gathered by the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2014 through 2018. ACS surveys are sent to 3.5 million addresses each month, and its five-year estimates are considered to be the most reliable estimates outside of the decennial census.

Judicial Watch’s latest study is necessarily limited to 37 states that post regular updates to their registration data. Certain state voter registration lists may also be even larger than reported, because they may have excluded “inactive voters” from their data. Inactive voters, who may have moved elsewhere, are still registered voters and may show up and vote on election day and/or request mail-in ballots.

Judicial Watch relies on its voter registration studies to warn states that they are failing to comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to make reasonable efforts to clean their voter rolls. Judicial Watch can and has sued to enforce compliance with federal law.

Earlier this month, Judicial Watch sued Colorado over its failure to comply with the National Voter Registration Act. In Judicial Watch’s new study, 42 Colorado counties—or two thirds of the state’s counties—had registration rates exceeding 100%. Particular data from the state confirms this general picture. As the complaint explains, a month-by-month comparison of the ACS’s five-year survey period with Colorado’s own registration numbers for the exact same months shows that large proportions of Colorado’s counties have registration rates exceeding 100%. Earlier this year, Judicial Watch sued Pennsylvania and North Carolina for failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from their rolls as required by federal law. The lawsuits allege that the two states have nearly 2 million inactive names on their voter registration rolls. Judicial Watch also sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

“The new study shows 1.8 million excess, or ‘ghost’ voters in 353 counties across 29 states,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.”

Judicial Watch’s study updates the results of a similar study from last year. In August 2019, Judicial Watch analyzed registration data that states reported to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in response to a survey conducted every two years on how states maintain their voter rolls. That registration data was compared to the then-most-recent ACS five-year survey from 2013 through 2017. The study showed that 378 U.S. counties had registration rates exceeding 100%.

Judicial Watch is a national leader for cleaner elections.

In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a voter-roll cleanup program that resulted from a Judicial Watch settlement of a federal lawsuit with Ohio. California settled a NVRA lawsuit with Judicial Watch and last year began the process of removing up to 1.6 million inactive names from Los Angeles County’s voter rolls. Kentucky also began a cleanup of hundreds of thousands of old registrations last year after it entered into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit.

In September 2020, Judicial Watch sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

Judicial Watch Attorney Robert Popper is the director of Judicial Watch’s clean elections initiative.

The press release also includes a list of the counties with more voters registered than residents. Please follow the link above to see that information.

It is possible that a lot of the extra voters are simply people who moved or passed away and the Board of Elections was never notified. However, not maintaining accurate voter rolls provides a pathway for voter fraud. One of the tricks of people who want to fraudulently vote is to read recent obituaries and pretend to be a person that recently passed away—assuming that the relatives would not have had time to notify the Board of Elections. Cleaning up voter rolls should be a priority in every state. All Americans want their vote to count–not to be cancelled by a fraudulent vote.

Can The People With A Vested Interest In This Story Remaining Untold Keep It Quiet Until After The Election?

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The Epoch Times is reporting the following today:

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is requesting a statement from FBI Director Christopher Wray about the veracity of details that were found on a laptop that purportedly belonged to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden after the New York Post published explosive new claims about the family’s business ties abroad.

Johnson, in a letter to Wray over the weekend, said a whistleblower contacted his committee on Sept. 24 about the laptop that was left at his business, saying he turned it over to the FBI. Johnson said that staff immediately asked if the agency can either confirm or deny details to validate the claim, but he said that the FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny the information that was found on the device.

“I have a responsibility to validate and verify the contents of any information produced to my committee,” Johnson said in his letter. “The committee must know if it receives information that could be fraudulent or not accurate.”

He mentioned that the information could be related to a foreign election interference campaign, saying that if that is the case, a defensive briefing is necessary. Johnson added that if the whistleblower provided false information, it could be a crime.

…“For these reasons, the committee must know whether the FBI has assessed the validity of materials the whistleblower has provided, and what, if any, actions the FBI has taken since obtaining this information,” Johnson said in the letter.

He also included a series of questions that the FBI should answer about the laptop, including whether the agency has material from the device, how they acquired it if they did indeed obtain the laptop, if the records on the hard drive have been altered or are genuine, whether the records were authored by Hunter Biden, or if the laptop was hacked in some way.

Unfortunately, Hunter Biden’s behavior is generally consistent with what was found on the laptop. He was discharged from the Navy for drug use, and he fathered a child with a stripper. However, we need to remember that the details of what is on the laptop matter. If Hunter was involved in selling access to his father, is his father also implicated? I don’t know. If the accusations about the money flowing to Hunter Biden from China and going to Joe Biden are true, it is an entirely different story. It will be interesting to see exactly what the FBI says about the information.

I Know This Is Simply An Incredible Coincidence…

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about Anna Makanju. Ms. Makanju is currently working for Facebook as the executive in charge of “election integrity on the platform.” Her last job before that position was special policy adviser for Europe and Eurasia to former US Vice President Joe Biden.

The article contains the following screenshot:

The article notes:

That’s right folks, the Facebook executive currently blocking all of the negative evidence of Hunter and Joe Biden’s corrupt activity in Ukraine is the same person who was coordinating the corrupt activity between the Biden family payoffs and Ukraine.

This is called the ‘deep state,’ and it has a lot of tentacles.

Benign-Sounding Policies Often Have Negative Consequences

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North Carolina is a battleground state in this election. After a responsible State Treasurer and a responsible State Legislature brought us into fiscal solvency, we are in danger of forgetting where we have been and what it took to get where we are. Because of an influx of people fleeing high tax states with bad weather (guilty as charged), it is possible that North Carolina will become a purple state instead of a red state. Many of those people coming into the state are attempting to implement the very expensive state policies that they fled. That would mean that the hard-fought income tax decreases passed by the legislators would be undone and spending would increase drastically as it had under previous Democrat legislatures. One of these items currently being mentioned in the gubernatorial campaign is Medicaid Expansion. Governor Cooper supports it and Dan Forest does not.

On September 22, 2020, The John Locke Foundation posted an article explaining what Medicaid Expansion would mean to North Carolina.

The article reports:

Expanding Medicaid in North Carolina is a misguided and costly plan for our state, and would not be free to state taxpayers, as Gov. Roy Cooper claims. New economic analysis released by the John Locke Foundation reveals that expansion would leave the state with a funding gap estimated between $119.3 million and $171.3 million in the first year alone.

The expansion funding gap would continue every year and could increase based on enrollment in the program and cost of the enrollees in the future. Multiple North Carolina expansion scenarios are detailed by JLF Health Care Policy Analyst Jordan Roberts in the report, Big Government, Big Price Tag: Medicaid Expansion = Funding Gap For State Government.

…Nearly 2.4 million people are currently enrolled in North Carolina’s program. Gov. Cooper and state Democrats have fiercely advocated for overloading Medicaid with 500,000 to 600,000 additional people. Nearly eight of 10 of the proposed expansion population are able-bodied, working-age adults with no children, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Gov. Cooper claims that adding this massive new group would not require any state money and that the state’s portion of costs would be paid for via taxes on hospitals and providers.

“The governor’s statement is wrong,” said Roberts. “Our modeling is rigorous and uses varying enrollment numbers and expenditure data from respected sources. The most likely modeled scenarios result in the need for state appropriations. That means taxpayers.”

Beyond the fiscal implications for the state, Roberts worries about the fate of those currently enrolled. “If massive numbers of new people are added, it will be harder to access care. Many current Medicaid patients have multiple health issues; they’re our most vulnerable. The worst thing we could do is to push their needs aside.”

We need to provide a way for all Americans to get the healthcare they need. However, we need to do it carefully–providing what is needed to the people who need it. The welfare state has grown so large that there is no concept of individual responsibility included in allocating resources. There is also no incentive for the overgrown bureaucracy to decrease the number of people getting assistance. It is time to encourage all Americans to take responsibility for their own economic welfare. That may mean providing a path out of government dependence rather than bringing them deeper into it.

How To Skew News To Fit Your Agenda

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This article is not about the recent Biden scandals, although that is another example of what I am about to illustrate. It is about stating a fact which happens to be true without providing the background information that provides perspective. Last week various media outlets posted articles stating that ‘hundreds of the Notre Dame faculty signed a letter opposing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.”  Sounds a little fishy when you consider that most reports have said that she was highly regarded by both students and faculty at Notre Dame. Well, there is more to the story.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the letter.

The article reports:

Eighty-eight faculty members at the University of Notre Dame signed a letter criticizing their “colleague,” Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, though none of these faculty members are from Notre Dame’s Law School.

The letter calls on Barrett to halt her confirmation process until after the election, acknowledging that doing so might ultimately deprive Barrett of the Supreme Court vacancy.

None of the people who signed the letter are from the Law School. That might be the first clue that something is a little off.

The article continues:

Four of those on the list were gender studies professors, five were peace studies professors, nine specialized in English, and seven specialized in Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries.

Leaders at the University of Notre Dame have previously praised Barrett and expressed support for her confirmation.

“She is a person of the utmost integrity who, as a jurist, acts first and foremost in accord with the law,” Notre Dame President John Jenkins said in a statement. “I join her colleagues in the Law School and across the campus in congratulating her on the nomination, and wish her and her family well through what has become, sadly, a personally bruising confirmation process.”

“Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an absolutely brilliant legal scholar and jurist,” Joseph A. Matson Dean of the Law School Marcus Cole said in a statement following Barrett’s nomination. “She is also one of the most popular teachers we have ever had here at Notre Dame Law School. Judge Barrett is incredibly generous with her time and wisdom while mentoring her students.”

The Notre Dame faculty letter came after over 50 law professors sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday praising Barrett’s qualifications as “stellar” and expressing support for her confirmation.

It is a safe guess that those professors opposing the nomination were not registered as Republicans. Although the Supreme Court was intended by our Founding Fathers to be the least political branch of government, recent history shows that is not the case. The questions about healthcare were interesting–Congress is tasked with setting healthcare policy. If they are doing it right, why are they concerned about Judge Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court?

What Is The Goal Of This Man?

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The Washington Free Beacon reported the following yesterday:

Liberal billionaire George Soros has funneled nearly $70 million into the 2020 elections, tripling his previous record, new filings show.

The Democracy PAC, a super PAC created by Soros to fund left-wing groups working to defeat Republicans, has poured $68.5 million into electoral efforts this cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission. That sum is $46 million more than Soros’s previous high of $22 million, which came during the last presidential cycle.

The billionaire has amplified his election spending as deep-pocketed donors attempt to oust Trump from office and flip control of the Senate to Democrats. Soros’s cash is part of a spending blitz that has primarily benefited Joe Biden. So far this cycle, outside spending has exceeded $1 billion and is on track to shatter previous records.

Soros’s largest donations include $3 million to the Strategic Victory Fund, a super PAC tied to the Democracy Alliance donor club, of which Soros is a founding member; $1.5 million to both the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC and progressive women’s group SuperMajority, which is primarily bankrolled by the financier; and $1 million to the Working Families Organization. Soros’s PAC disbursed $23 million to left-wing groups from the beginning of July to late September.

The cash is part of a $275 million spending plan set forth by the Democracy Alliance, according to confidential documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon last year. Members of the donor network are pushing large sums into increasing voter turnout, targeting women and rural voters, and flooding battleground state efforts, among other initiatives.

The Democracy PAC is primarily funded by tens of millions of dollars transferred over from the Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit in Soros’s sprawling Open Society Foundations network. The fund reported $3 billion in assets on its most recent tax forms. This set up allows Soros to keep his name off the top of donor lists. The Democracy PAC is currently sitting on $6.4 million.

During a speech to the World Economic Forum earlier this year, Soros said the “fate of the world” is at stake in the 2020 elections. He also referred to Trump as a “con man” and “authoritarian.”

That’s an awful lot of money to throw into political campaigns. I would like to point out the George Soros was responsible for funding many of the candidates who won in the 2018 election in Virginia. I highly doubt that the residents of Virginia are happy with the legislation that followed that election. Money is important in elections, although if it were truly the deciding factor, we would have either President Jeb Bush or President Hillary Clinton. At any rate, voters need to know the type of person who is funding their candidates.

Avoiding Changing The Rules In The Middle Of The Election

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Early voting began in North Carolina yesterday. Recently the Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections attempted to change the rules regarding absentee ballots just before voting began. The Epoch Times reported yesterday that the effort has failed.

The article reports:

A federal judge on Oct. 14 ruled that absentee ballots in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina must include a witness signature.

District Judge William Osteen in Greensboro on Oct. 14 issued an injunction essentially prohibiting voters in the state from be able to “fix” an absentee ballot they had already sent in if it didn’t have a witness signature.

Osteen was reversing a Sept. 22 directive by North Carolina officials that had made it possible for state voters to return an affidavit verifying that the absentee ballot without a witness signature had been signed by them, and not somebody else.

The judge said the September directive conflicts with a ruling he issued in August upholding the overall witness requirement in state law, but requiring that voters be given due process to fix, or cure, minor ballot errors.

…Last week, Osteen raised concerns that eliminating the witness requirement for absentee ballots could open the door to ballot fraud. He suggested that someone could skip having a witness entirely, but then have their vote counted anyway by sending an affidavit to county officials.

“Judge Osteen was right to stop the … elimination of the absentee ballot witness requirement,” Sen. Phil Berger (R-N.C.) said in a statement in response to the ruling.

Republicans are fighting similar legal battles related to mail-in voting across the United States with the goal of preventing voter fraud. Democrats argue that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent and are fighting against various requirements they say make it hard to cast votes by mail. Democrats’ efforts involve at least 600 lawyers, and dwarf those of Republicans.

Absentee and mail-in ballots are the place where there seems to be the most voter fraud. There are also incidents of ballots not being delivered in a timely manner and also occasional instances where ballots are found in trash bins or discarded on the side of the road. This judge has made a decision that will help ensure the integrity of the election.

Please Consider This Before Voting

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In the October issue of The AMAC (The Association of Mature American Citizens) Magazine included an article titled, “The Accomplishments of President Donald J. Trump.” The list is too long to include in this article, but I would encourage you to follow the link for the entire list. It is an impressive list.

Here are a few highlights:

Building Economic Prosperity

    • Created an historic economic expansion that benefitted all Americans and will do so again following the interruption caused by coronavirus
    • Passed historic tax cuts, providing much-needed relief for American families and putting American businesses on a level playing field.
    • Created Opportunity Zones to spur investment and job creation in forgotten communities.
    • Restored American manufacturing, putting in place policies to bring supply chains back from overseas.
    • Preserving and Protecting social security for seniors.

Historic Deregulation

    • Cut regulations at a historic pace to free up American businesses— meeting and far exceeding the promise to cut two regulations for every new one.
    • Ended the Obama Administration’s war on coal as promised, rolling back the so-called Clean Power Plan, WOTUS (waters of the United States), stream protection rule, and other overregulations.
    • Replaced the Obama Administration’s disastrous CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards and rolled back burden- some Dodd-Frank provisions, as promised.
    • Regulatory relief will save Americans $377 billion per year, or $3100 per households.

Lifting Up American Workers and Families

    • Put in place policies to lift up working families, including releasing the first presidential budget in history to include a national paid family leave plan.
    • Invested in workforce development to ensure American workers are prepared to gain high-paying, family-supporting jobs.
    • Promoted school choice to ensure all families have access to quality education for their children.

Achieving Fair and Balanced Trade

    • Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to protect American jobs.
    • Negotiated monumental new or revised deals with Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, and other countries to put American workers first.
    • Confronted China’s decades of trade abuses, placing tariffs of hundreds of billions of dollars on Chinese goods.
    • Put in place tariffs on foreign steel that was undermining critical American industries.

Unleashing American Energy

    • Freed American energy producers to conduct their business, leading to record oil and natural gas production and expanded energy exports.
    • Followed through on his promise to approve new pipelines, including the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines.
    • Withdrew from the job-killing Paris Agreement.
    • The typical American family now saves an average of $2500/year on their energy bills.

Protecting Our Nation

    • Rebuilt our military with historic investments in our defense and provided our troops the largest military pay raise in a decade.
    • Defeated ISIS’s territorial caliphate and brought terrorist leaders to justice, including ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
    • Restored American leadership in space and established the Space Force.
    • Took action to ensure America leads the way on the technologies of the future, like AI and 5G.

Restoring American Leadership on the World Stage

    • Ended the disastrous Iran deal and reimposed strong sanctions on the regime.
    • Stood up for our ally Israel and followed through on the pledge to move the American embassy to Jerusalem.
    • Released a vision for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
    • Successfully urged our NATO allies to increase their defense spending to meet their obligations.
    • Reversed the Obama Administration’s disastrous Cuba appeasement policy.

Even this small portion of the article highlights some awesome achievements. Before you vote, consider the contrast of the impact of eight years of Obama-Biden versus almost four years of President Trump.

Why Are We Still Doing This And What Does It Accomplish?

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On October 7th, Newsweek reported the following:

More than 6,000 scientists have signed an anti-lockdown petition saying that coronavirus policies are causing “irreparable damage.”

The petition, which is named the Great Barrington Declaration after the town in Massachusetts it was signed in, was written on October 4 and has signatures from at least 2,826 medical and public health scientists, 3,794 medical practitioners and over 60,000 members of the general public.

It was co-authored by Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard; Dr. Sunetra Gupta, a professor at Oxford University; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford University Medical School.

“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” the petition says in its opening line. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

…The petition also discusses its approach for vulnerable people, noting that implementing measures to protect this group “should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19.”

The petition offers a number of examples of how to protect vulnerable people, such as recommending that nursing homes use staff with acquired immunity and delivering groceries and other essential goods to those who are retired.

“Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,” the petition says.

It goes on to say that simple hygiene measures, such as handwashing and staying home when sick, can help achieve the goal of herd immunity, while also noting that young adults should work from home and advocating a full reopening of the economy.

Meanwhile, Just the News posted an article today contrasting the current economic conditions between red and blue states.

The article reports:

As Democratic candidates across the nation harp on the economic devastation they attribute to the Trump administration’s mishandled COVID response, a closer look at state by state unemployment data reveals something far different: a tale of two economies on starkly divergent paths out of crushing shutdown economics. In “red” states, economic recovery is in full roar. “Blue” states, meanwhile, lag far behind, still staggering under unemployment levels associated with the deepest recessions. Suspended somewhere between these two poles are politically mixed “purple” states muddling through with fittingly middling unemployment numbers.

Just the News reviewed  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment data by state for August (the latest data available).The national unemployment rate — which now stands at 7.9% — was 8.4% in August. However, the economic pain represented by that number was not spread evenly across red, blue and purple states — far from it. Fueled by broader, faster economic reopenings following the initial coronavirus crash, conservative-leaning red states are by and large far outpacing liberal-leaning blue states in terms of putting people back to work.

Just the News found that 9 of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates are are led by Republican governors (Montana, led by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is the lone exception). In startling contrast, 9 of the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates are led by Democrats (the exception being Massachusetts, led by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, a critic of President Trump).

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This article illustrates why local elections matter. The states whose voters put Republicans in their state government are doing much better than the states being run by Democrats.

Policies Matter

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Sara Carter posted an article today about the impact of President Trump’s policies on illegal border crossings on our southern border.

The article reports:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday published their Fiscal Year 2020 statistics for Southwest border migration and enforcement, reporting a substantial decrease in encounters with border crossers.

The amount of CBP encounters with those illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border shrunk by 53% in FY 2020. According to the report, CBP encountered 458,088 people illegally crossing the border this past fiscal year, a stark contrast to the 977,509 reported in FY 2019.

…The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the data was clear as day. A steep drop in border apprehensions was reported in April, with only 16,182 apprehended border crossers in comparison to the 30,389 in March. The numbers, however, neared 30,000 by July.

Notably, President Donald Trump on March 21 ordered CBP to prohibit “the entry of certain persons who potentially pose a health risk, either by virtue of being subject to previously announced travel restrictions or because they unlawfully entered the country to bypass health screening measures.”

In terms of demographics, the reports states that “single adult males from Mexico accounted for 56 percent of migrants encountered this year, a significant change from a FY19, when 64 percent of the encounters were individuals from the Northern Triangle countries.”

Not to mention, “single adults accounted for 77 percent of the total encounters this year, compared to 38 percent last year,” according to the report.

As the number of people illegally crossing the border decreases, the amount of illegal drugs coming across the border will also decrease. This is good news for America.

So Why Is This Required?

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The article reports:

On Tuesday Tucker Carlson opened his show by questioning the CDC rules and data on mask wearing and the COVID-19.

Earlier this week the CDC confirmed that mask wearing was ineffective and over 50% of US coronavirus cases were patients who were habitual mask wearers.

The article quotes a Breitbart article:

Mass communications are now controlled by a tiny number of people, all of whom have identical agendas. There is no modern Anti-Mask League, there couldn’t be a modern Anti-Mask League. Facebook and Google would shut it down the first day. The governors of Michigan and New Jersey would indict its leaders.

Dissent used to be a defining feature of American life, but no more. Now, we have mandatory consensus. Masks are good. Anyone who questions the utter goodness of masks is bad…

…So what is the science on masks? Well, as it happened, we have the latest for you tonight. And the science comes interestingly from the CDC whose Director has told you that masks were magic, more effective than vaccines.

But the numbers from the CDC suggests otherwise. A new study conducted by 11 medical institutions analyzed a group of people who tested positive for COVID during the month of July. Here’s the interesting part.

Among those who were infected, more than 70% reported they had quote, “always worn a mask” for the preceding 14 days. Another 14.4% said they had quote, “often worn a mask.” In other words, almost everyone, 85% who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask and they were infected anyway.

So clearly this doesn’t work the way they tell us it works. Clearly, someone has been lying to us, many people actually. How did this happen? Well, the short answer is we’re not sure how so many people got the coronavirus were wearing masks, but there are clues, clues that our leaders appear to be ignoring.

We are always hearing “Trust the science” from those who want mandatory masks. Well, this is the science. Why are we still wearing masks.

Just for the record, when Tucker Carlson posted the CDC statement that masks were ineffective, Facebook censored his post. At some point you have to wonder why the establishment is so determined to keep us masked.