Monthly Archives: April 2021

An Administration That Does Not Enforce The Law

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On Tuesday Judicial Watch posted the following in its Corruption Chronicles section:

States Say ICE Stops Issuing Detainers for Illegal Immigrant Convicts, Revokes Them for Dozens

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long complained about police in sanctuary cities that fail to honor its detainers, instead releasing serious criminals in the U.S. rather than turn them over to get deported. Now two states are suing the Homeland Security agency for failing to issue detainer requests for convicted felons in the country illegally, forcing local authorities to free them after completing their sentence rather than turning them over to the feds for removal. It seems that the tables have turned under the Biden administration, according to the lawsuit, filed this month by officials in Texas and Louisiana.

The states claim that ICE has reversed a Trump era policy and is not issuing detainer requests for dangerous illegal aliens imprisoned in their jurisdiction. “As a result, many convicted criminal aliens have been released to society after their sentences, contrary to Congress’s mandate that they be detained pending their removal from the United States,” according to their complaint, filed this month in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Victoria Division. Besides ICE, the defendants include the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and various officials at the DHS agencies. The lawsuit begins by stating that “the Biden Administration is refusing to take custody of criminal aliens despite federal statutes requiring it to do so.” Instead, the document reads, defendants “have issued and implemented unlawful agency memoranda that allow criminal aliens already convicted of felony offenses to roam free in the United States. Such aliens belong in federal custody, as Congress required.”

Adding insult to injury, officials in the Lone Star State reveal in the court document that the Biden administration has taken the extra step of revoking ICE detainer requests for a multitude of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies and serving sentences in prisons operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Many were found guilty in a U.S. court of serious drug offenses, including possession, manufacturing, and sale. “President Biden’s outright refusal to enforce the law is exacerbating an unprecedented border crisis,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “By failing to take custody of criminal aliens and giving no explanation for this reckless policy change, the Biden Administration is demonstrating a blatant disregard for Texans’ and Americans’ safety. Law and order must be immediately upheld and enforced to ensure the safety of our communities. Dangerous and violent illegal aliens must be removed from our communities as required by federal law.” In 2019 Texas housed nearly 9,000 undocumented criminal aliens at a cost of more than $152 million, according to the lawsuit.

In Louisiana ICE is not removing individuals subject to mandatory deportation, the complaint says, causing convicted felons incarcerated in state facilities to be released in local communities throughout the Bayou State. Louisiana, more than any other state, has greater risk due to the large number of local jails that are used to house detainees prior to removal, according to Attorney General Jeff Landry. “The President’s refusal to enforce the law only worsens an already dire border crisis,” Landry said. “Law and order must prevail; dangerous and violent criminal aliens must not be allowed to roam free in our communities.” Both states assert that the administration is violating binding agreements with DHS to assist in immigration enforcement and national security missions as well the Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and Administrative Procedure Act, which require the government to post proposed substantive rule changes in the Federal Register and allow the public to comment on them before enacting them.

For years ICE has slammed sanctuary cities nationwide for refusing to honor a local-federal partnership known as 287(g) that notifies the agency of jail inmates in the country illegally so that they can be deported after serving time for state crimes. Before Biden became president, ICE repeatedly issued statements reminding sanctuary cities and states that when law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets, it undermines its ability protect public safety and carry out its mission. The agency even launched a billboard campaign seeking the public’s help in capturing felons released by one state’s sanctuary policy.

The actions of the Biden administration are not contributing to public safety. The lawsuit is necessary. Hopefully the states will win their case.

 

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum

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Yesterday The New York Post reported:

Police officers in Chicago may soon require permission from a supervisor before pursuing a suspect on foot, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday.

Lightfoot promised to disclose details “soon” about a police policy change, Fox 32 Chicago reported.

“No one should die as a result of a foot chase,” the mayor said.

Police methods have faced new scrutiny recently following the release last week of video footage from the March 29 police shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. The case has sparked new debate on police use of deadly force.

City Alderman Brian Hopkins told FOX 32 that city police already need a superior’s permission to launch a vehicle chase for a suspect. A new policy on foot chases would simply make the same policy apply to all chases.

At least the City Alderman acknowledged what the result of that policy might be:

Hopkins acknowledged the most obvious criticism that such a policy would likely attract: that a suspect on foot could be long gone in the time it would take an officer to get the required approval.

This sort of thinking does not make our cities safer–it makes them more dangerous. If a bank robber has a getaway car a block away and can outrun the officer, he is home free.

The death of Adam Toledo is tragic, but there are still a few facts that have to be considered when evaluating the situation. What was a 13-year old doing out a 2 am? Why did a 13-year old have a gun? Was the 13-year old a gang member? Did the 13-year old act in a way that was a threat to the policeman’s life?

I truly believe that the first problem we have to deal with is the 13-year old probable gang member out on the street at 2 am. I suspect that if we deal with that problem, many other problems will be solved.

When The Spin Does Not Line Up With The Facts

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We have all recently heard many of our politicians claim that America is a ‘systemically racist country’ and that the police kill African-Americans at a much higher rate than they kill white Americans. There are a number of statistics that prove both of those claims false.

First of all, if America is systemically racist, why do we have many African-Americans in leadership positions?  The United States Congress includes 57 African-American Representatives and 3 African-American Senators. The states include 7 Lieutenant Governors, 6 Attorneys General, and 3 Secretaries of State who are African-Americans. More than one-third of America’s top 100 cities is governed by an African-American. America elected an African-American President twice. We currently have a bi-racial Vice-President. Many of our military leaders have been African-American–Colin Powell, Allen West. Many African-Americans have served in cabinet-level posts in our government since 1966. Many of our major cities have diverse police forces with various races represented and in charge. If we are systemically racist, we are not doing a very good job of it.

But what about police targeting black people? Yesterday Trending Politics posted some very interesting graphs.

The graph above shows the perception (created by the media).

The article  notes:

The bars are color-coded to reflect the estimation in each political ideology category. Very Liberal respondents were the furthest from reality: 14.29% said ‘about 10,000’ unarmed black males were killed by police, while 31.43% said ‘about 1,000.’ Liberals were slightly closer at 6.67% saying ‘about 10,000’ and 26.67% saying ‘about 1,000.’ According to the database at Mapping Police Violence, this number was actually 27.

The article also includes a chart of arrests sorted by race:

As you can see, the media is creating a false narrative.

The article concludes:

Amidst a rising “epidemic” of violent crime, the radical left wants to slash police funding. Many cities are already paying the price. Portland cut police funding and saw a startling 2,000% surge in murders. New York City, under Mayor de Blasio, reduced police funding and experienced a 127% increase in shootings. Minneapolis cut police funding by $8 million, while early 2021 crime data show a 250% spike in gunshot victims. In February, the Minneapolis city council backtracked and unanimously approved a $6.4 million boost in police funding.

“Initial data from the FBI and major cities across the U.S. suggests homicides increased by about 30% in 2020, and murder rates remained high into early 2021,” ABC reported. “Many cities that slashed police resources last year because of the protests, the pandemic, or both have poured money back into law enforcement to cope with a sudden surge of violence.”

There is no “epidemic” of police shooting unarmed black men in the United States. But there is an “epidemic” of ignorance and an unwillingness to check basic facts. This ignorance is leading Americans to adopt disastrous policies, such as ‘defunding the police.’

There is an element in our media and among some elected officials that would like to ‘reset’ our country into an image where they have more power and average people have no power. One way to do this is to disrupt totally the current paradigm. That is the reason the reporting and actual numbers are so out of sync. All Americans need to do their own research before believing anything they are told!

 

Exactly What Is Our History?

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Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog today refuting the often made claim by the left that America is a systematically racist nation. Among other things, the article notes that the United States is alone in the history of the world in its foundation on the principle of equal rights.

The article quotes “Original intent and the American soul.” by Harry Jaffa (paragraphs added for clarity by Scott Johnson):

In 1987 Justice Thurgood Marshall refused to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution because, he said, it was a racist document that enshrined slavery. Quoting Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), he said that the original Constitution regarded black people “as so far inferior that they had no rights that white people were bound to respect.” It is this view of the Constitution that has justified liberals, in their own minds, in rewriting the Constitution to conform to their own opinions of what it ought to be….

The original Constitution, and hence original intent jurisprudence, can only be defended if one distinguishes the principles of the Constitution from the compromises of the Constitution. The framers made concessions to slavery because they believed that the Constitution would not be ratified without them.

Had the Constitution not been ratified, slavery would have been in a far stronger position. Instead, the new Constitution created a government strong enough to deal with slavery when the crisis finally came. Moreover, the future of the Union as a guardian of the cause of human freedom throughout the world depended upon this distinction between the Constitution’s principles and its compromises.

But the Constitution itself does not make this distinction. Although it guarantees to every state of the Union a republican form of government, it does not say what the principles of this form are. These principles are spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, which the United States Code lists as the first of the Organic Laws of the United States.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We are not a racist nation, and there is no valid reason to ac

Watchdogs In Education In North Carolina

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On Monday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article reporting some good news about education in North Carolina.

The article reports:

A North Carolina education advocacy group launched a website this week to help whistleblowers expose radicalism in K-12 schools.

Education First Alliance launched its Schoolhouse Shock watchdog site on Monday to help parents and teachers call attention to radicalism in the classroom. Users can anonymously upload videos, photos, and documents from their child’s class to catalog critical race theory-based lessons being taught in schools.

“Our new statewide whistleblower program, Schoolhouse Shock, will add to our toolbox in the fight against the onslaught of racially inflammatory and sexualized curriculums that children are being immersed in all over North Carolina,” Sloan Rachmuth, Education First Alliance president, said in a statement.

The North Carolina Board of Education in February adopted radical curriculum standards built around critical race theory—the idea that American economic and political systems are inherently racist. Critics including the Education First Alliance and North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson (R.) say the politically charged standards undermine students’ education.

Rachmuth, an investigative reporter, established Education First Alliance in January. The nonprofit opposes the use of anti-American ideologies like critical race theory and antiracism in classrooms and pushes “for the equality of dignity and of opportunity for all K-12 students.”

Although remote learning has been a problem for many children, in many cases it has allowed parents to pay closer attention to what their children are being taught. I believe that the Education First Alliance provides a way for parents to put their concerns into action.

The article notes:

Education First Alliance charts the rise of critical race theory in education on its blog. The group reported on a nine-week-long “Culturally Responsive Teaching” training that instructed teachers to “disrupt” the education system with critical race theory. The group also documented a series of tweets in which James Ford—a North Carolina state education board member who was hand-selected by Democratic governor Roy Cooper—lauded anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright.

The organization uncovered documents that instructed North Carolina public school teachers to ask students about their sexual orientations and more. Middle school students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district were asked about their sexual preferences. Sixth graders at Innovation Academy, a school south of Raleigh, were given a survey that asked students to count the number of genders and sexual orientations they believe exist, as well as whether they believe the gay community deserves rights.

Grassroots opposition to leftist indoctrination is on the rise. In North Carolina, Robinson in March created the F.A.C.T.S. Task Force, which provides parents another way to share radical education materials and other examples of “indoctrination” in schools. The national, nonpartisan Parents Defending Education launched in March to provide resources—including a tip-line and instructions for filing public records requests—to parents who want to protect their child’s education from “activists promoting harmful agendas.”

North Carolina’s education board began revising the state’s K-12 history curriculum in 2019. Early drafts of the standards called for teaching students as young as kindergarten terms like “systemic racism” and “gender identity.”

What we teach out children about America will determine the future of America. Parents need to be paying attention.

Is This Even Possible?

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Yesterday Breitbart reported that U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter is doing his part to end the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.

The article reports:

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday ordering the city and county of Los Angeles to ensure that every homeless person living in the notorious Skid Row district has housing by October 18 this year.

The article quotes The Los Angeles Times:

Judge David O. Carter granted a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs in the case last week and now is telling the city and county that they must find single women and unaccompanied children on skid row a place to stay within 90 days, followed by helping families within 120 days and finally, by Oct. 18, offering every homeless person on skid row housing or shelter.

“Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, and highway systems due to the inaction of city and county officials who have left our homeless citizens with no other place to turn,” Carter wrote in a 110-page brief laced with quotes from Abraham Lincoln and an extensive history of how skid row was first created.

The article at Breitbart notes:

Elsewhere in the decision, the Judge Carter — a Bill Clinton appointee — cited claims of “systemic racism,” and argued that homelessness is partly a result of historical racial discrimination.

In an unusually complex set of instructions, Judge Carter also ordered $1 billion earmarked by the city for spending on the homeless, announced Monday evening as part of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “Justice Budget,” to be placed in an escrow account. He also ordered a 90-day audit of city and county spending on the homeless, and a 30-day “audit of any funds committed to mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment.”

I am no expert, but there seems to be something missing here. Unfortunately a lot of homeless people are homeless because of mental health issues or substance abuse. It seems to me that until you help people deal with those issues, putting them in houses won’t matter. It’s nice that they are calling for an audit of funds for mental health and substance abuse, but they really need to look closely at how that money is spent. You can house homeless people, but unless you deal with the issues that caused them to live as homeless people, you will accomplish very little.

A Good Narrative

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Yesterday Sara Carter reported the following:

Washington, D.C.’s chief medical examiner has ruled that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick sustained two strokes and died of natural causes one day after he engaged against rioters at the January 6 Capitol attack, The Washington Post reported Monday afternoon.

Monday’s ruling will probably make it challenging for prosecutors to file homicide charges in Sicknick’s death. A pair of men are accused of assaulting Sicknick by employing a powerful chemical spray meant for bears at him during the riot and have been charged with assaulting the 42-year-old officer with a deadly weapon, but the two haven’t been charged with homicide.

A good narrative doesn’t necessarily have to be true. A good narrative simply needs to be a believable collection or chain of events that tells a desired story. A good narrative can also have the purpose of furthering a political agenda or possibly preventing another narrative from coming to light. Right now I am convinced that since January 6th Americans have been subjected to a very well-crafted narrative about the events of that day.

I don’t know if some of the events of January 6th were false flag events. However, when I look at some of the narrative surrounding the events of that day and what followed, I wonder. Who gave the order to the police to let people into the Capitol building? Why did it take until now for the public to know the cause of death of Brian Sicknick? If it was an ‘armed insurrection,’ why was the only person shot that day an unarmed civilian? Why, as is the custom, wasn’t the name of the policeman who shot the unarmed woman released? Has anyone else noticed that the events of January 6th pretty much ended any meaningful discussion of or reporting of election fraud?

As I said at the beginning of this article, I have no idea how much of the events of January 6th were choreographed by people with a political agenda. I do know that a lot of the narrative that we were fed about that day has proven to be false. Many of the eyewitness accounts do not line up with the media narrative.  At some point, you have to wonder what was gained by that false narrative and who was actually behind it.

Safety For Me, But Not For Thee

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As Democrats call for a defunding of the police, they seem very willing to call on the police to insure their own safety. Breitbart is reporting today that Representative Maxine Waters requested a police escort to attend the riots in Minneapolis over the weekend where she encouraged more rioting. First of all, Minneapolis is a long way from her district. Why was she there? Secondly, exactly what did her presence there do to calm things and bring peace to that troubled city? Thirdly, was she acting as part of the problem or part of the solution?

The article reports:

Townhall obtained and published the document on Monday appearing to show the request with Waters’ name listed as the primary protectee and “Police escort In & Out” listed underneath special requests.

“Waters flew from Dulles International Airport to Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday, April 17, just days ahead of a verdict in the George Floyd, Officer Derek Chauvin trial,” the report said.

Video footage showed Waters surrounded by protesters and reporters outside the police station in Brooklyn Center where she told citizens to hit the streets unless Chauvin was convicted for murder.

“We’re looking for a guilty verdict,” she said. “And we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice.”

However, Waters claimed Monday she is “nonviolent” in response to criticism after her call to protesters to “get more confrontational” if Chauvin is cleared in Floyd’s death, Breitbart News reported.

Was she in the courtroom? Has she reviewed all of the evidence? Why in the world was she there?

Pouring Gasoline On A Raging Fire

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Yesterday Fox News reported that the Judge in the trial of Derek Chauvin was not pleased with the recent remarks made by Representative Maxine Waters.

The article reports:

A lawyer defending Derek Chauvin, who is on trial for the death of George Floyd, cited Rep. Maxine Waters’, D-Calif., comments to Minnesota protesters over the weekend in court on Monday.

“And now that we have [a] U.S. representative … threatening acts of violence in relation to this specific case, it’s it’s mind boggling…,” Attorney Eric Nelson said, as he attempted to argue that the jury may have been unduly influenced by external factors.

Judge Peter Cahill said that he wished elected officials would stop referencing the case “especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law” so as to let the judicial process play out as intended.

He added, however, that he did not believe the comments unduly influenced the jury as they had been told not to watch the news.

I hate to be cynical here, but does anyone actually believe that the jury followed the Judge’s orders not to watch the news? The jury in this trial should have been sequestered from the beginning (after the location of the trial was moved). There is no way this could ever be considered a fair trial–jurors know that if they return a not-guilty verdict there will be riots. There will probably be riots anyway, but I believe that the members of the jury fear for their safety if they produce a not-guilty verdict. Whatever the verdict is, it will probably be appealed and the country will go through more strife.

That being said, I have no idea what the correct verdict should be. I wasn’t in the courtroom. I would simply like to see rioters arrested and held in jail for a minimum of thirty days without bail so that they could cool off. That might discourage future riots. Meanwhile, I would like to know what stealing and burning buildings have to do with protesting.

Censored Again

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I have never actually spent time in Facebook jail. Even the Right Wing Granny group on Facebook where I post has never been blocked. From what I can tell, I and the group have on occasion been shadow-banned, but never actually blocked or put in Facebook jail. Unfortunately, there are legitimate mainstream news sources that cannot make that claim.

On Friday, Dan Bongino reported that Facebook had prevented users from sharing the recent article in The New York Post about the real estate purchases of the head of Black Lives Matter.

The New York Post responded in an editorial:

On Thursday, Facebook decided its users should not be able to share a New York Post article about the property-buying habits of one of the founders of Black Lives Matter.

This is the third time we’ve tangled with social media giants in the past year. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we published a column that suggested the virus could have leaked from a Chinese virology lab. Facebook’s “fact checkers” decided this was an opinion you weren’t allowed to have and blocked the article. Today, it’s a commonly discussed theory, with officials from former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield to CNN’s Sanjay Gupta saying it can’t be discounted. Even the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said it can’t be ruled out.

In October, we published a series of articles about a laptop Hunter Biden left at a Delaware repair shop. Twitter suspended our account. You probably know how that ended. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted to lawmakers months later it was a “total mistake.”

We were right both times. We’re right this time, too.

Please follow both links above to read both articles. Unfortunately, neither the American press or social media is doing a reasonable job of reporting in an unbiased manner or of keeping Americans informed. That is dangerous to our Republic.

 

Fighting Fire With Fire

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Objective observers realized very quickly that the media was not going to be fair in its coverage of President Trump, his administration, or the people working with him. Social media practiced censorship, news media was obviously biased, and whatever influence the entertainment industry has was turned against President Trump. Some of that vitriol still lingers. Many Republicans either ignored the attacks or apologized for electing President Trump. Very few Republicans stood up to the attack. Well, that may be changing.

Yesterday The Western Journal posted an article about a new conservative political group called the American Accountability Foundation. They are planning to use some of the tactics used against them against their political opponents. This should be very interesting.

The article reports:

The group leaked a video from the Zoom meaning in which a House Appropriations Committee aide told participants that while “the optics” of a lawmaker forwarding an earmarked contribution to a campaign donor might “look kind of bad,” it is allowed if family members are not involved, The Hill reported.

“I think what you’re saying is if you have somebody who’s building a [military construction] project, and his company contributes to your boss’s campaign, is that a conflict of interest?” Appropriations Deputy Staff Director Matt Washington told staffers during the virtual training.

“I think the optics are bad but the rules of the House would be sufficed because there is no immediate family interest.”

And we wonder how our politicians go to Washington as middle-class Americans and emerge as millionaires.

The article continues:

The group also passed on transcripts to Fox News that showed President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, organized a conference attended by radical anti-government activists.

The conference brought together students and activists in their support to free inmates, convicted for a variety of crimes including police killings, who are currently on death row.

Jones said the AAF is trying to use the same tactics that left-wing opposition research groups have used for years.

The article concludes:

“The left is very very well organized on this, very well resourced and has been effective for a number of years,” he said.

“They were very effective making life difficult for Trump nominees, and they’ve taken that infrastructure and transferred it into bolstering their nominees, but yeah we’ve certainly learned from them and seen their effort was effective from a professional sense — terrible for the country, but as a practical matter, professionally they do their job well.”

Bullies don’t like it when the tables are turned.

Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Figure

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On Friday, The Hill posted an article headlined, “Biden hits 59 percent approval rating in Pew poll.” Considering the crisis at the border, the diplomatic flubs, the end of energy independence, etc., that strikes me as amazing. This is the link to the methodology used in the poll.

This is a screenshot of the group polled:

That’s almost 2 to 1 Democrats polled. Isn’t it interesting that President Biden’s approval rating in the poll was roughly 2 to 1. Frankly, I think that all this poll shows is a nation divided on party lines.

The article at The Hill, of course, has a bit of a spin:

A majority of Americans — 59 percent — approve of President Biden‘s handling of his job as he approaches 100 days in office, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Friday.

The poll found Biden’s job approval is up 5 percentage points from 54 percent in March, while 39 percent of those surveyed said they disapprove of his work thus far.

Biden’s 59 percent approval rating is 20 percentage points higher than that of former President Trump‘s in a Pew poll from April 2017 and is similar to the approval ratings of former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush in April of their first terms.

The article concludes:

The Pew poll surveyed 5,109 adults from April 5 to 11, which was days before the Biden administration recommended pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The poll has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.

Public polling in Biden’s first months in office has generally shown the public gives him high marks on his handling of the pandemic and his overall approval rating.

I wonder what President Trump’s approval ratings would have been had the media covered him fairly.

The Real Story On Voter ID

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about support for voter id laws. The information is surprising if you depend on the mainstream media for your news.

The article reports:

A coalition of black leaders on Friday came out strongly in support of voter ID laws, arguing that most black voters feel the same way and rebuking what they said was the “oblivious” and “opportunistic” denial of those opinions by progressive leaders. 

The coalition — which includes U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, former Texas state Rep. James Earl Wright, and former mayor of Cincinnati and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights Ken Blackwell — declares at RealClearPolitics that “liberal orthodoxy” dictates that “all Blacks think alike, and all Blacks support Black Lives Matter, and all Blacks oppose the recently enacted Georgia Election Integrity Act,” one that in part mandates voter ID at the polls.

I believe that every American wants every legal voter to be able to vote and to have their vote counted. Unfortunately, every illegal vote cancels the vote of a legal voter.

The article continues:

Yet the writers note that a recent Rasmussen Reports poll “found that 69% of Blacks and 82% of nonwhite minorities support voter ID,” while another recent poll “found that a full two-thirds of Blacks in Georgia support voter ID.”

At this point, you begin to wonder who is actually opposing the Georgia law and why.

The article notes:

“The data seems clear: A majority of Black Americans support voter ID laws,” they argue. Yet, they claim, “opportunistic activists like Stacey Abrams pretend the entire Black community stands behind them and the radical Democrat Party,” crafting a narrative in which black people “are either opposed to voter ID or, even more offensively, that Blacks are incapable of obtaining IDs.”

Realistically, most Americans know that an id of some sort is pretty much required to function in America today. You can’t buy cigarettes or liquor without an id, you can’t fill a prescription without an id, you can’t open a bank account or cash a check without an id, and you can’t receive medical care without an id. Do you know anyone who has not at some point engaged in one of the above activities? I don’t.

Voter id makes it harder to cheat. Why are some politicians opposed to that? That is the question.

 

A New Platform

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Sharyl Attkisson is reporting today that Mike Lindell’s new social media platform called “Frank” is set to launch.

The article reports:

Mike Lindell, founder of My Pillow Inc., is scheduled to launch his new social media platform called “Frank” this coming week. That’s according to a report in The Epoch Times.

Lindell’s stated mission is to provide a place for Constitutionally-protected free speech.

Lindell reportedly says he has taken steps to make sure the site is secure with its own servers, and will not be subject to censorship or the whims of big tech companies such as Amazon and Google.

Lindell clarified that threats of violence, pornography, and certain swear words will not be permitted on the site.

The new platform was reportedly created in response to big tech censorship of conservative viewpoints on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Mike Lindell has stated that he does not plan to make money on the site initially, but may introduce ads in the future. The article also notes that former President Trump is also planning to launch a social media platform.

Undoing The U.S. Constitution

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On January 30th, The Daily Caller posted an article about the possibility of Washington, D.C., becoming a state. The article asks the question as to whether or not statehood for Washington, D.C., requires a Constitutional Amendment.

On Friday Breitbart reported that the House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on whether or not to make Washington, D.C., a state.

The article reports:

The House of Representatives will vote Tuesday on whether to make Washington, D.C., a State.

The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), voted the bill, H.R. 51, out of committee by a vote of 25-19 to create D.C. statehood Wednesday.

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs has stated that the move is unconstitutional and simply a partisan power grab.

The article reports:

Biggs’ view is supported by legal scholars, who opposed D.C. statehood’s feasibility without a Constitutional amendment to the 23rd Amendment. The Office of Legal Counsel in 2007 believed it was unconstitutional, the Justice Department under former President Reagan and former President Carter stated the transformation was unconstitutional, and so did Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, when he sat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Additionally, twenty-two state Attorneys General sent a letter Tuesday to President Joe Biden and Congress arguing Washington, D.C., cannot transition into a state via legislation, but only through the method of a Constitutional amendment.

The primary arguments against D.C. statehood are:

  1. Our nation’s capital was always meant to be unique. The Framers established in the Constitution’s District Clause that the nation’s capital is a federal district, existing beyond the borders or influence of any state.
  2. H.R. 51 is doubly unconstitutional, violating both the plain meaning of the District Clause as well as the necessary implications of the Twenty-Third Amendment.
  3. Even those who support D.C. statehood admit district residents enjoy special benefits due to where they live and would enjoy an outsize influence in Congress.

The Founding Fathers purposely avoided making Washington, D.C., a state. If our current legislators want to change that, they need a Constitutional Amendment (which can be difficult to do–further proving that our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing). If this is passed, I suspect court cases will quickly follow. I would feel better about that if I trusted the courts.

 

Editing The News To Promote The Narrative

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There are two very dangerous narratives making the rounds right now. The first is that policemen are racially-motivated killers and the second is that gun control will end mass shootings. Both are false, but both are parroted endlessly by the major media. Recently a video was edited to add to the narrative (and change the entire scenario of the video).

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about CBS’s airing of the video of the shooting death of Adam Toledo in Chicago. Adam Toledo was a thirteen-year-old young man shot by a policeman at 2 am. The entire video of the shooting shows Adam Toledo with a gun as the policeman is pursuing him. Somehow CBS edited out the frame of the video that shows the gun when they aired the video on television.

The article reports:

It’s horrible to watch, but Toledo was armed. It’s clear in the footage, but if you were to watch CBS News’ clip—that frame is omitted. It would seem the hatchet crew at the network went to work to construct yet another false narrative. They went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over a non-existent pay-to-play scheme involving Publix, the state’s largest grocery chain who contributed to his campaign, and a vaccine distribution deal. We’ve seen the full exchange between DeSantis and the reporter who tried to lob this grenade. It blew up in CBS’ face, but they’ve doubled down because they’re all terrible people. This instance is no different…

The article concludes:

Now is not the time to be playing games or trying to manufacture fake ‘woke’ narratives about policing. I know you good people already know this, but for some—like those in the liberal media—never let a crisis go to waste, even if it means fomenting a situation where a whole city is set ablaze over a lie.

It truly is time to back up and look at the big picture–a thirteen-year-old gang member is out with another gang member at 2am on a school night. I don’t know the child’s home situation, but it is probably a safe bet he does not come from an intact two-parent family. What is his school like? What sort of education is he getting? Why did he feel the need to be part of a gang? Are those the issues we need to begin to address rather than vilifying a policeman for shooting an armed suspect fleeing arrest? The death of Adam Toledo is tragic, but more tragic is the fact that the root causes behind that death are not being looked at and corrected.

Following The Money

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We have reached the point where very few of our representatives and so-called public servants in Washington have defining principles. If you want to know why a politician can change his stand drastically on an issue in a short period of time, all you have to do is look for the shift in the political winds or follow the money. It is not by chance that many Congressmen enter Congress as middle-class Americans and are millionaires within five years. The latest example of money vs. principles is the former Speaker of the House John Boehner. On Friday, Front Page Magazine posted an article about some of former Representative Boehner’s financial interests.

The article reports:

All that’s left is for Boehner to join the roster of ‘ex-racists’ touting Biden. When the slimy ex-speaker calls Biden a “good guy”, that’s not an endorsement anyone would want.

And when Biden quipped that he “loved” Boehner, that’s almost as bad.

What’s there to love? Let’s forget the booze and go right to the pot.

While Boehner can be found addressing the Bank of Montreal, the Edison Electric Institute (an electric company lobby), and a Portland life insurance company offering services to the “ultra-affluent” for pay, he’s better known for going to pot.

Boehner, who had opposed drugs as an elected official, received the high honor of heading up the National Cannabis Roundtable to lobby for drug legalization. The former House Speaker came by the position naturally since he was already on the board of Acreage Holdings.

Acreage Holdings has one of the biggest marijuana operations in America. As Democrats began to legalize drugs in select states, companies were formed to get in on the action. But despite all the hype, the marijuana business was a disaster. 

Legalizing and taxing pot just meant users buying cheap ‘illegal’ pot from drug dealers.

Acreage tried opening operations everywhere only to pull back. The marijuana company suffered $286 million in net losses in 2020. But there was some good news. 

Canopy Growth, a Canadian company, controlled by Constellation Brands, a liquor company which owns everything from Svedka Vodka to Robert Mondavi, has a deal to buy Acreage on the condition that marijuana is federally legalized in the United States.

And the only way that could happen is with a Democrat in the White House.

As one headline bluntly put it, “Canopy Growth Is Headed to $0 Without a Biden Victory”.

The article notes the financial windfall for Boehner if marijuana becomes legal federally:

Boehner had 625,000 shares of Acreage at the time the article was written and it noted that, “if his former colleagues in Congress help make marijuana federally legal, he’d be eligible to receive Canopy shares worth about $16 million.”

A New York Times article wrote that, “Boehner’s pro-weed epiphany coincides with the prospect of a payday as high as $20 million.”

That’s a lot of money. And to collect all that drug money, Boehner needs Republicans to lose.

Who was Boehner going to back in the election? Not the Trump administration which had tossed Obama’s pro-marijuana Cole memo which had been used to build a new drug industry.

And not Republicans who aren’t friendly enough to his new drug industry friends.

I am not someone who wants to see marijuana legalized. The marijuana of today is not the marijuana of the 1960’s, and we don’t know enough about the long-term effects. I also don’t think we need another chemical available that impacts brain function either short term or long term.

I Think Most Of Us Suspected This

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Just the News posted an article today about the news story that was circulating during the 2020 Presidential campaign that the Russians had put a bounty on American soldiers and were paying the Afghani soldiers to kill Americans. The media questioned the fact that President Trump had not placed sanctions on Russia for those actions and declared that the President was soft on Russia because he was Putin’s puppet. Well, the truth eventually does come out.

The article at Just the News reports:

On Thursday, the leaders of President Biden’s intelligence agencies declared they held little confidence in a New York Times’ story from last June that claimed Russia put bounties on American troops in Afghanistan.

It was the latest setback for the famous newspaper, which has seen its reporting on the now-debunked Russia collusion scandal be eviscerated by the FBI and its hit podcast series Caliphate retracted. 

Ashley Rindsberg, author of “The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’ Misreporting, Fabrications and Distortions Radically Alter History,” said Thursday’s setback follows a decades-long pattern of journalism failures. He questioned what the Times will do next with the Afghanistan fallout.

The article notes that there is a history of this sort of creating a false narrative and being slow to change the narrative once the truth is discovered:

“That’s what’s happened time and again: the big story break, and there’s a lot of hoopla, and there’s a lot of coverage, and the narrative gets cemented. And when the story turns out to be false, or mistaken, or what have you, there’s either a very small correction that’s printed at the bottom of the article that very few people will pay attention to, or nothing at all,” he said. “So I think in this case, we’ll see what happens, and hopefully the Times will do the right thing.”

I can pretty much guarantee that if you are still depending on the mainstream media as your primary news source you are either misinformed or uninformed or both.

Getting It Done

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Yesterday The Federalist reported that North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson has launched a task force to root out the indoctrination that is currently taking place in our schools.

The article reports:

The “F.A.C.T.S. Task Force: Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students” features a tip line where parents, students, and educators may submit examples of discrimination and unequal treatment related to an individual’s faith, ethnicity, worldview, or political beliefs.

“This is not an indictment on education,” Robinson emphasized at a March press conference. He said the new task force was inspired by complaints received from people who lamented that the schools had been taken over by left-wing activists who had effectively criminalized dissent. “We found ourselves besieged by folks who are complaining about things that their students and their children were having to learn in public school, that were contrary to their own beliefs.”

The task force seeks to empower those people with an avenue to air their grievances free of blowback.

“The primary goal of this task force is to allow the voices of concerned citizens to be heard regarding public K-12 education in North Carolina,” the website reads, emphasis included, “to provide a safe and secure setting where education professionals can transmit concerns regarding their school without fear of retaliation.”

The article concludes:

Parents who have been able to speak out against the progressive developments in their schools have begun to organize in other parts of the country. A new national nonpartisan group launched in March, Parents Defending Education, aims to connect parents and teachers in a grassroots effort while taking aggressive legal measures to resist indoctrination infecting the next generation.

“Through network and coalition building, investigative reporting, litigation, and engagement on local, state, and national policies, we are fighting indoctrination in the classroom — and for the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids,” the group’s website reads.

Parents have the ultimate responsibility for their children’s education. If they are not willing and unafraid to speak up, no one will.

How The Crisis On Our Southern Border Impacts All Of Us

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the impact of our open southern border on the rest of America.

The article reports:

Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, isn’t from a southern border state, but he says illegal immigration still adversely affects the Gem State.

“I mean, drug and sex trafficking impacts everyone,” Fulcher says.

“And we’re feeling the effects of that,” he adds. “Our citizens, our taxpayers as well. We have to pay for services through federal taxes that are being expended here. We have a very large dairy and egg industry. The dairy industry in particular has relied upon immigrants for a lot of the labor, and that’s not always been legal.”

During an interview, Representative Fulcher stated the following:

Sure. Well, I have this a belief that you should be following a law if you’re going to take advantage of some of the things that this country has to offer. And one of those things has to be insurance coverage and the coverages the U.S. government provides … typically for taxpayers.

And that’s basically what I was doing as I was taking issue with the fact that immigrants are getting some of these benefits by, in effect, as a result of breaking the law. And I just don’t think that is … right.

But in order to understand the entire picture, you have to understand what the Democrat motive is.

They want the open borders. They want people coming in, that they’re receiving government benefits, that are getting addicted to those government benefits, that they’re becoming dependent on those government benefits, because they are more likely over time to support the Democrats, put that in place.

That’s how they’re growing their party. That’s how they’re trying to get control in at a substantial margin over the course of time. And that’s at the root of this very problem.

The Democrat party in America has wandered so far to the left that many Americans are leaving the party. The easiest way for the Democrats to gain new voters is to import them. They will work out the detail on legal voting later.

What’s Really In Our Voting Machines?

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On Monday The Voter Integrity Project posted an article about voting machines in North Carolina. As I am sure you remember, one of the discussion points regarding the integrity of the 2020 presidential election was whether or not the voting machines were hooked up to the internet. In North Carolina we were assured that they were not. Well, not so fast.

The article reports:

April 13, 2021 (Raleigh) Demands for an audit of the 2020 elections has grown bigger after an April 9 Michigan court filing reported discovering a modem chip embedded in the motherboard of the ES&S 200, which is the same machine widely used across North Carolina.

…“A modem chip embedded into the motherboard of the the most popular voting machine in North Carolina greatly undercuts the State Board of Election’s claim that no tabulation equipment was connected to the internet,” said Jay DeLancy of Voter Integrity Project. “Now more than ever, we need the Legislature to step up and audit the 2020 elections.”

The NCSBE website says the ES&S DS200 is used all across the state, but they have never admitted the presence of modem chips.

According to evidence in a trial that included sworn testimony by aerospace engineer and former Michigan State Senator, Patrick Colbeck, the modem chip, the Telit 910 Cat. 1 Series, has the following capabilities:

    • Enable communication between voting system equipment and election servers
    • Designed to operate on a virtual private network
    • Testing has revealed that the same SIM card could be used in a separate wireless hotspot device. This device could then join the same APN as the ES&S voting machines.

“Election officials will probably deny and dismiss the presence of this capability,” DeLancy said, “and that’s we’re demanding for the Legislature to conduct their own independent audit as a function of their oversight authority.”

As New Hampshire voters have already discovered in the Windham incident, the quickest and most accurate way to see if the modem’s adjusted the vote counts is through a hand-eye recount. Such action resulted in a net vote swing of 1,300 votes, by giving one Democrat an extra 100 votes and penalizing four Republicans by 300 votes each.

According to Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers leader, Ed Naile, the machines used in Windham were NOT connected to the internet, but a motherboard modem would change everything. A forensic investigation is already underway to determine the root cause of the discrepancies.

“North Carolina lawmakers only require the presidential race to be verified in a random hand-eye recount,” DeLancy said, “so they now need to recount last year’s full ballot unless they want people to give up on the entire process.”

I am not a person who understands much about how computers work. However, I think everyone who uses a computer is aware of such things as hacking, viruses, and malware. It seems to me that a modem chip embedded in a machine could cause an endless amount of problems. The question becomes, “Why was it there?” and “Who put it there?” I think the answers to those two questions (if those questions are ever answered) would be very interesting.

A Weak American President Is A Danger To World Peace

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about the escalation of military activity near the Black Sea.

The article reports:

ANKARA (Reuters)—The United States has canceled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, Turkish diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, amid concerns over a Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.

Washington and NATO have been alarmed by the build-up near Ukraine and in Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Last week, Turkey said Washington would send two warships to the Black Sea, in a decision Russia called an unfriendly provocation.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara had notified Turkey’s foreign ministry of the move, the sources said, but did not provide a reason. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency later reported that no new notices had been conveyed to Ankara for potential deployments at later dates.

U.S. officials said that Turkey may have misunderstood the initial notification and the deployment was never confirmed.

They said the United States frequently notifies Turkey for potential access to the Black Sea. But a request does not necessarily mean its ships will pass through, but rather ensures that if they choose to, they already have the required approval.

Russia, which warned Washington to stay far away from Crimea and its Black Sea coast, says the build-up is a three-week snap military drill to test combat readiness in response to what it calls threatening behavior from NATO. It has said the exercise is due to wrap up within two weeks.

Does anyone want to guess how many days or weeks it will be before Russia invades Ukraine.

The article notes:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on Russia to pull back troops from Ukrainian borders.

Biden, in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, proposed a summit of the estranged leaders to tackle disputes and told Moscow to reduce tensions over Ukraine, the White House said.

The Conservative Treehouse also posted an article about the Russian buildup of military forces on the Ukraine border.

The Conservative Treehouse notes:

A Background Note – Additional leverage Putin holds goes back to the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline to supply the energy needs of Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was warned by President Trump not to go forward with the pipeline that creates a geopolitical leverage for Russia. Merkel went ahead despite the warnings, and adding salt to the issue, Germany never upheld their NATO funding commitments (2% of GDP). This was a major source of contention between Trump and Merkel.

…And don’t forget… the number one asset of Russia is energy (oil and gas); JoeBama’s energy policy has effectively assisted the Russian economy. So there’s that…

America under President Biden is consistently moving in the wrong direction.

Looking At Actions Rather Than Words

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Most of us who live in middle class America are not overly concerned with the limit placed by the Trump administration on the state and local tax (SALT tax) deduction on our federal income tax. Generally that deduction impacts people who live in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California and one or two other states. Generally speaking, the people who are impacted by the limitations placed on that deduction are among the high earners among us who own large homes and live in states with high real estate taxes. Limiting that deduction was a way to end the practice of fiscally responsible states subsidizing fiscally irresponsible states. Limiting that deduction should have jarred the states impacted into being more fiscally responsible. Not only did that no happen, the Democrat Congress wants to end that limit–thus providing a tax break for the rich–something they continuously accused President Trump of doing.

On Tuesday Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line Blog about the move to end the limits on the SALT deduction.

The article notes:

If you need proof that Democrats are really on the side of the plutocracy, look no further than New York’s Democratic House members, who today wrote to Speaker Pelosi threatening to vote against any of (P)resident Biden’s tax increase proposals unless the bill includes full repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction limitations that were part of Trump’s 2017 tax reform. The SALT limitation was the single most “progressive” tax increase on the rich in years, but chiefly in high tax states like California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey.

Read the letter for yourself and enjoy the casuistry: We need SALT repeal, the New York Dems day, so that our taxpayers won’t be “double-taxed,” but of course their citizens only face this problem because those states impose those extra high taxes. And most of the benefit of the SALT deductions go to high income people—the very people Dems are always telling us should pay their “fair share,” which they never define in any concrete way. “Fair share” just means “more.” Well, Trump delivered that, so what’s the problem?

I also like how the letter, in paragraph three, admits that cutting taxes on the rich will help spur job growth. I thought liberals didn’t believe in supply-side tax cuts?

This is the letter:

I guess the Democrats really do like tax cuts for the rich.

A Question I Would Like Answered

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The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article yesterday about an 82-year-old Scottish Grandmother who asked a question that I think all of us should be asking.

The article reports:

An 82-year-old grandmother has been fined £60 for attending a seven-person lockdown-breaching 70th birthday bash – even though every person there was fully vaccinated.

Maureen Hogg, from Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, was given the notice for antisocial behaviour after police broke up the celebration. 

All seven attendees received a fine for £60, even though each one of them had both doses of the Covid-19 jab.

The article quotes the million-dollar question:

Ms Hogg’s granddaughter Daisy Hogg, 17, said her grandmother questioned ‘why she needs to shield if she has the vaccine’.

If the vaccine works, what is the problem?

The article includes the following:

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: ‘We were called around 9pm on Sunday, 11 April, 2021 following a reported breach of coronavirus regulations at a property on Kirkton Drive, Eaglesham.

‘Officers attended, spoke to those involved and seven fixed penalty notices were issued.’

Have we reached the point where neighbors are tattling on neighbors? If so, I think we need to rethink this whole coronavirus thing.