Monthly Archives: October 2022

Looking For The Root Causes

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted the following headline:

Biden Admin Still Working On ‘Root Causes’ Of Immigration Crisis As Border Crossings Remain At Record High

Is O.J. Simpson still looking for his wife’s killer?

The article reports:

Top officials from the Biden administration and the Mexican government met Thursday to discuss their work on border security, as illegal border crossings and cross-border drug trafficking remain at historically high levels.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Rodriguez held a press conference after meeting in Washington on Thursday to tout their progress on reining in drug trafficking, human smuggling and illegal arms sales across the southern border.

The Biden administration has continued to stress that it is focused on addressing the “root causes” of the border crisis, but the fruit of that labor isn’t evident to Americans yet.

Has it occurred to the Biden administration that one of the root causes of the border crisis might be that fact that there is no border wall to make crossing the border more difficult?

The article concludes:

Further complicating matters, the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico isn’t entirely copasetic. One journalist asked Blinken and Ebrard about recent comments from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blaming President Joe Biden for a “lack of control” at the southern border and criticizing the West for shipping arms to Ukraine.

Mexico has also blamed the U.S. for cartel gun smuggling. Blinken said the comments and actions gave him no doubts about the strength of the U.S. relationship with Mexico and the two countries’ ability to continue working together. But as the administration continues to stress the long game, polls show that Americans’ immigration concerns aren’t fading.

The cartels are currently controlling America’s southern border. That is not good for either Mexico or America. If the Biden administration were to come up with a workable plan to control the border, I suspect that Mexico would be willing to cooperate with that plan.

Guard Your Parents’ Rights

Posted on by

On Friday, NewsMax reported that Democrat Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman has proposed a bill that would add parents who refuse to affirm their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation to the state’s definition of child abuse and neglect. What is the world? Frankly, I think that any parent who allows their under-eighteen child to undergo any medical treatment that delays puberty or any surgical procedure that will have permanent consequences should be charged with child abuse.

The article reports:

“If the child shares with those mandated reporters, what they are going through, we are talking about not only physical abuse or mental abuse, what the job of that mandated reporter is to inform Child Protective Services,” Guzman said. “And then that’s how everybody gets involved.

“There’s also an investigation in place that is not only from a social worker but there’s also a police investigation before we make the decision that there is going to be a CPS charge.”

When asked what consequences parents could face, Guzman said, “Well, we first have to complete an investigation. It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”

She also denied potential accusations that the legislation “is criminalizing parents,” saying, “No, it’s not. It’s educating parents because the law tells you the do’s and don’ts. So this law is telling you do not abuse your children because they are LGBTQ.”

I guess this comes down to the definition of abuse. If my child comes to me and tells me that she is a cat and I refuse to provide a litter box, is that abuse? Wouldn’t it be better to provide psychiatric counseling?

Ms. Guzman concludes:

“You know, we all have a commitment to God and for those believers out there, we know that there’s life after life, and there is going to be a conversation between that person and God and that’s what we’re after — to go by what the Bible says. It is not my job to judge anyone. It is my job to help people.”

The Bible calls us to love one another, but it also has some pretty harsh words for some of the practices Ms. Guzman is trying to protect. If you are going to use the Bible as a justification for what you are doing, you might want to read the entire book.

UPDATE:

On Saturday, The Epoch Times reported:

A Democrat Virginia state delegate has backed down from introducing a bill to expand the definition of child abuse to include inflicting “physical or mental injury” on children due to their gender identity or sexual orientation.

…On the same day, Virginia House Minority Leader Don Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said that he spoke to Guzman, and she had assured him that she wouldn’t introduce the reported bill. In addition, he called the bill “unnecessary” and “a distraction” to key Congressional races in Virginia.

Stacy Langton, a Fairfax County mother of six and a Republican, has been fighting to remove obscene books in the county school libraries. She told The Epoch Times, “I would like to take this moment to thank Delegate Guzman for committing the Terry McAuliffe gaffe for the 2022 midterm elections.”

When you shine sunlight on some of the radical ideas of the Democrats, they tend to back down. We need to keep doing that.

Moving Toward The Country The Founding Fathers Envisioned

Posted on by

On October 13th, CBN posted an article about an important Supreme Court decision that got lost in the chaos of the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.

The article reports:

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade it was easy to miss, but the court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA delivered a major blow to the federal bureaucracy.

The case considered the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. President Obama couldn’t get his plan to drastically change the nation’s power grid known as “Cap and Trade” through Congress, so he famously acted on his own.

“I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward,” the president said before a 2014 cabinet meeting and on a number of other occasions. 

Working through the EPA on executive authority he expanded the Clean Air Act, written in the 1960s, to reduce toxic emissions. Instead of addressing individual power plants as the law had been applied, Obama went after the entire fossil fuel industry in a way that would have transformed the U.S. power grid, and for that, the Supreme Court called a foul.

“The court said Congress has to say specifically what they want EPA to do if they’re going to do something that has such a monumental impact,” said Derrick Morgan, executive vice president of The Heritage Foundation.

He says the court’s action is significant as presidents increasingly wield their executive pens to get their agendas passed around Congress.

Essentially, this forces Congress, elected by the people, to make the laws and be held accountable for the laws they make. The President has the choice to sign or veto the laws and should also be held accountable. This may help deal with some of the garbage regulations coming out of Washington. This ruling may also serve to protect the free speech rights that many in Congress are trying to limit.

The article concludes:

Also, look for more guidance from the Supreme Court. Chad Squitieri, an expert in administrative law at The Catholic University of America, says the court seems primed to examine whether the administrative state has drifted too far from the separation of powers which is a bedrock of America’s Constitution.

“The Major Questions Doctrine which was applied in West Virginia v EPA is sort of, I like to say, scratching at the non-delegation itch. It’s not the full-fledged non-delegation doctrine, but I think it’s something of a halfway measure and I think these types of questions – looking at different ways courts may police how Congress delegates authority to the agencies – is going to be a recurring theme in the years to come,” he told CBN News.

“I think it’s because the current court is more prepared than courts in the past to enforce the original understanding of the Constitution – what we would call the original public meaning of the Constitution, particularly the separation of powers and federalism,” he continues.

It will be a relief to many Americans who want to be governed directly by the people they elect and are eager to rid themselves of what they see as a gross overreach by unelected bureaucrats.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is a really good decision.

Keeping Americans’ Wages Low

Posted on by

In September 2022, the Workforce Participation Rate was 62.3, slightly down from 62.4 in August. Part of that is due to the end of summer jobs, but even at that, the number is not where it needs to be. In February 2020 (before the pandemic), it was 63.4. That is the highest number since June 2013. Our economy is struggling right now, and Americans are struggling under the burden of inflation.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

President Joe Biden is set to import nearly 65,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take blue-collar American jobs as roughly 11.6 million Americans remain jobless.

This week, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor Department announced that the administration would be allowing businesses to import a few less than 65,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take nonagricultural jobs in construction, meatpacking, and landscaping, among other industries.

This is in addition to the 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers that the Biden administration has already allowed into the United States labor market to take blue-collar jobs.

…The big business lobby is praising the inflation of the U.S. labor market as a victory but also suggested in a statement that they want more legal immigration overall so companies can rely on a steady stream of cheaper foreign workers as opposed to hiring unemployed Americans.

This is one example of the uni-party. Big business Republicans want cheap labor, and Democrats want new voters.

The article concludes:

When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.

Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the labor market every year, many on work permits given to them by the federal government.

Until we elect people who actually support American workers, this will continue.

Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Posted on by

Remember the victory lap the Biden administration took for avoiding a possible rail strike. Well, evidently the celebration was a little bit premature.

On Tuesday, Townhall posted an update on the possible rail strike.

The article reports:

As Townhall covered last month, months of negotiations between America’s railroad companies and rail unions ran until the eleventh hour and narrowly averted a massive, economy-crippling strike at the time, a supposedly positive resolution that the Biden administration sought to take credit for after intervening to force a tentative agreement. 

Declaring victory for his administration in the matter — despite the fact that rail worker unions still hadn’t voted to approve the latest agreement — Biden said that the near-shutdown of America’s railways was “validation” that “unions and management can work together for the benefit of everyone.”

In his September remarks, Biden also claimed the tentative contract agreement was a “win for America” to go along with what Biden claimed are other “signs of progress in lowering costs” that have come through his administration’s work to “rebuild a better America.”

All that bluster over a tentative agreement that delayed the strike at the time, as Vespa pointed out earlier, did not mean that a strike was entirely averted. Now, weeks since Biden bragged about the greatness of unions and his administration’s negotiating prowess, a strike is back on the table and looming as a greater threat by the day. 

On Monday, members of America’s third-largest rail union voted against the negotiated contract. For those who remember this song and dance from September, all 12 unions agreed to strike in solidarity unless every union agreed to a deal.

Hopefully new negotiations will be able to avert a strike. Regardless, the celebration occurred before the deal was ratified, misleading Americans. I am very tired of being mislead.

The Truth Matters

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Washington Times posted an article about the federal trial of Igor Danchenko.

The article reports:

Democratic operative Charles Dolan Jr. testified Thursday that he lied to Igor Danchenko in 2016 when he claimed to have information from a GOP insider about why Paul Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign.

The false claim actually had been pulled from a cable news talking head, Mr. Dolan said at the federal trial of Mr. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was the primary subsource for the so-called Steele dossier.

The accusation ultimately found its way into that salacious unverified dossier of anti-Trump accusations compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and attributed to “an American political figure associated with Donald Trump.”

Let’s look at the consequences of this whole mess. The Steele dossier, which we now know was lies, resulted in the Mueller investigation. That investigation cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Paul Manafort got caught up in that investigation and wound up in prison in solitary confinement charged with bad business practices related to events long before the Trump campaign and mortgage fraud. Not a lot of people charged with bad business practices and mortgage fraud wind up in solitary confinement. That was one of many examples of the politicization of our justice system that had begun under the Obama administration.

The article concludes:

Kevin Helson, an FBI special agent who was Mr. Danchenko’s handler while he was a confidential human source for the bureau, testified that he was struck by the similarities between the Dolan email and what ended up in the Steele dossier.

“It would imply that Chuck Dolan was the source of that information,” he said, adding that he believed Mr. Danchenko provided 80% of the raw intelligence and half of the analysis in the dossier.

On cross-examination, Mr. Helson said Mr. Danchenko didn’t know the information would show up in the Steele dossier until it was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. Mr. Helson said that Mr. Danchenko was angry that the material was used in the dossier.  

The Steele dossier was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. FBI agents used the dossier to help obtain a warrant to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who was suspected of working with Russia.

Mr. Page was never charged with a crime, and no evidence emerged to support claims against him. The dossier was referenced three times when the FBI sought to reauthorize the surveillance warrant.

In 2020, the Justice Department acknowledged that those warrant applications did not meet their necessary legal standards.

This trial is important and has received very little coverage in the mainstream media. Please find alternative news sources and follow what is happening. It illustrates how the Washington establishment attacks anyone who is not part of their club and manages to be elected.

Is Accountability Coming?

Posted on by

On September 30, Yahoo News posted the following headline:

The FDA Misled the Public About Ivermectin and Should Be Accountable in Court, Argues the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

Wow. I have no idea what the motive of the FDA was (although I could make some educated guesses), but people died because of their actions. They do need to be held accountable.

The article reports:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) filed its motion and amicus brief Thursday evening with the federal district court in Galveston urging it to allow the lawsuit to proceed against the FDA for its misleading statements against ivermectin. In Apter v. HHS, a group of physicians sued to hold the Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency within the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), accountable for its interference with physicians’ ability to treat Covid-19.

“Defendant FDA has improperly exploited misunderstandings about the legality and prevalence of off-label uses of medication, in order to mislead courts, state medical boards, and the public into thinking there is anything improper about off-label prescribing,” AAPS writes in its amicus brief to the court. “Not only is off-label prescribing fully proper, legal, and commonplace, but it is also absolutely necessary in order to give effective care to patients.”

Yet the FDA published multiple statements and sent letters to influential organizations to falsely disparage ivermectin, implying that it was not approved for treating Covid-19. Many, including courts and state medical boards, were misled by the FDA into thinking that its lack of approval for this treatment meant that ivermectin should not be used to treat Covid-19.

“It has never been proper for the FDA to interfere with that essential part of the practice of medicine, and the FDA knows it,” AAPS informed the court. The FDA “insisted and continues to insist on interfering with the prescription of this safe medication by physicians in treating Covid-19,” AAPS added.

The article notes that AAPS General Counsel Andrew Schlafly stated that once the FDA approves a medication as safe, then physicians have full authority to prescribe it to treat any illness.

People died because of the actions of the FDA.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line Blog about the gender pay gap that President Biden pledged to close during his 2020 election campaign.

The article reports:

During his 2020 campaign and after taking office, Joe Biden has been happy to retail the favorite leftist cliche of the “gender pay gap,” in which women only earn 83 cents for every dollar a man earns. Biden pledged to “close the gender pay gap,” and ostentatiously signed a list of commitments to “Advance Pay Equity and Support Women’s Economic Security.” Biden also signed an executive order that called on the Office of Personnel Management to review compensation packages and report back to the president on how to advance equal pay.

The chart below illustrates that gender pay gap in the White House:

The article concludes:

This isn’t a new story for the Sniffer-in-Chief. The Washington Free Beacon notes:

For Biden, a gender pay gap among his staffers is nothing new. Over his 35-year Senate career, Biden paid women lessthan men every single year—at one point, women working for Biden were paid just 44 cents for every dollar paid to men.

It’s always better to clean up your own backyard before yelling at a neighbor for an untidy yard.

Giving Away Important Technology

Posted on by

On Wednesday, The Daily Wire reported that the Department of Energy’s Inspector General is investigating why the Biden administration gave promising green energy technology to China instead of creating manufacturing jobs in America.

The article reports:

The Department of Energy’s Inspector General is reviewing why the Joe Biden administration gave promising battery technology, developed by taxpayer dollars, to a Chinese company instead of making the batteries in the U.S.

China is now reportedly building one of the largest battery grids in the world using the technology, which could store huge amounts of solar energy without degrading over time or requiring lithium, mitigating a major environmental impact of current green technology that ends up in landfills.

The article continues:

In 2021, there was an “illicit Department of Energy (DOE) transfer of a fifteen million dollar, taxpayer-funded advanced battery technology to China,” Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) wrote in a letter to the DOE’s internal watchdog.

The company that received the license “plainly stated on their official website that they planned to manufacture the batteries in China,” even though the license included “a requirement that the batteries be ‘substantially manufactured’ in the U.S. As these stipulations were continuously violated, DOE never raised any concern,” they wrote.

“We are concerned that this is an overt dereliction of duty by DOE, and that this case may be emblematic of a department that routinely and flippantly permits government-funded technology to be transferred to China,” the senators concluded.

The article explains exactly what happened:

In 2017, Yang (Gary Yang, one of the scientists who helped develop the technology, so that he could commercialize it) — an American citizen who was born in China — obtained a sublicense from the DOE to allow a Chinese firm to make the batteries. In 2021, he transferred the license outright to a Dutch company called Vanadis Power, which said it would make the batteries in China but eventually move production to Europe to comply with European rules.

America had those rules too, but seemed less strict about enforcing them. On July 7, 2021, UniEnergy emailed a government manager at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to request approval to transfer the license to Vanadis, and within 90 minutes, the government granted approval, even though Vanadis’ website said it would make the batteries in China.

Unnamed DOE officials told NPR they often rely on “good faith disclosures” — in other words, the honor system.

I would love to see a list of Americans who are in some way involved in the finances of the Chinese company involved.

The Left’s Destruction Machine Goes Into Action

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Fox News posted the following headline:

Treasury Department inspector general to audit DeSantis migrant flight spending

The article reports:

The Treasury Department inspector general confirmed in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that the agency is planning to audit whether spending by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on migrant flights was improper.

The lawmakers asked the Treasury Department to look into whether Florida improperly used American Rescue Plan funds for the migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, which drew widespread media attention.

Florida lawmakers authorized a $12 million migrant program funded with interest earnings from the federal Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund, according to documents.

The article concludes:

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., celebrated the announcement Wednesday, taking credit for spurring the Treasury Department into action.

“@USTreasury responded to my letter, confirming that it will investigate [Gov. DeSantis’] use of Covid relief funds to cruelly transport immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under false pretenses and without any consideration for their personal dignity or basic needs,” Markey boasted.

Fox News Digital has reached out to DeSantis’ office for comment.

Who is paying for the federal government to move illegal immigrants around the country in the dead of night (article here)? Note that the investigation is being done at the request of a liberal Democrat. I am sure that is simply an incredible coincidence.

This is another example of the use of a federal agency to intimidate anyone who challenges the misdeeds of the Biden administration. I suspect there are many more relevant things that the Inspector General should be looking at.

Moving Toward More Honest Elections

Posted on by

Periodically I post articles that I do not understand. This is one of them. I am posting it because I think it is an important step to end some of the problems that we have had in recent elections.

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated an appeals court decision that required Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots even if there is no date on the envelope.

“The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot,” wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson (pdf), siding with David Ritter, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a judgeship.

They also threw out a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that allowed the counting of mail-in ballots in the race that Ritter had sought to remove because voters did not write the date on the ballots. Ritter lost his 2021 bid to serve on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas after 257 mail-in ballots that didn’t have dates were counted.

Pennsylvania Republican legislators and conservatives filed amicus briefs saying the 3rd Circuit’s ruling threatened the integrity of the 2022 midterm elections.

But the Supreme Court’s action on Tuesday means that the 3rd Circuit ruling cannot be used as a precedent in the three states covered by this regional federal appellate court—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware—to allow the counting of ballots with minor flaws such as the voter failing to fill in the date. Vacating the ruling does not change Ritter’s loss in his race.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

In the months preceding the 2020 election, many states altered their voting laws because of the fear generated during the Covid pandemic. Many of those laws were changed in ways that were not in compliance with the constitutions of their state. A number of court cases since the election (and some before the election) have reversed those changes and required the states involved to follow their own constitutions.

UPDATE:  Pennsylvania says it will ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling (article here).

Things To Consider When You Vote

Posted on by

The following was compiled by Alan Harrop, who has previously posted articles on this blog:

Reasons to Vote for Republicans:

Inflation:  Reckless federal spending and restricting gas/diesel production has caused the 8-14 percent inflation.

Border Security:  No country has ever survived with open borders. Seal the borders–legal immigrants only.

Energy Independence:  No modern economy can survive on wind/solar. We cannot be dependent on others.

Crime:  Democrat controlled areas are no longer safe. Stop defunding police and letting criminals go free.

Schools:  Stop emphasizing race and transgender issues and re-focus on academic subjects.

Medicaid Expansion:  This move towards socialized medicine must be stopped. Socialized medicine has never worked.

Politicizing Federal Agencies:  The FBI, Department of Justice must be reined in. New 87,000 IRS agents must be cancelled.

Second Amendment:  Credit card companies monitoring purchases of firearms/ammo must be stopped.

Student Loans:  It is unjust and unlawful to make one person pay for another person’s loan. This must be stopped.

One Consequence Of An Open Border

Posted on by

Texas has been the state that seems to be most effected by America’s porous southern border. A recent report posted by the Center for Immigration Studies show the negative impact of that open border on the
State of Texas.

This is the summary of the report:

Activists and academics have been misusing data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in studies claiming that illegal immigrants have relatively low crime rates. These studies do not appreciate that it can take years for Texas to identify convicts as illegal immigrants while they are in custody. As a result, the studies misclassify as native-born a significant number of offenders who are later identified as illegal immigrants.

Facts About the DPS Data:

    • Due to delays in identification, the number of illegal immigrants arrested or incarcerated in Texas is undercounted at any given time.
    • Recently convicted illegal immigrants are the most likely to be undercounted.
    • Conversely, Texas is more likely to ascertain the immigration status of offenders who have served long prison terms for serious crimes.
    • The illegal immigrant conviction rate for “any crime” — which would be dominated by offenses requiring little or no prison time — is not meaningful due to undercount.

Properly interpreted, the DPS data suggests that illegal immigrants in Texas are convicted of homicide and sexual assault at higher rates than the state average. Significant uncertainties remain, however, especially regarding lesser offenses.

The report includes the following chart:

As illegal immigrants are being shipped around the country, these statistics are coming to your town. If you want the border closed, you need to vote for conservatives in November. Democrats and Country-Club Republicans will not close the border. If either party currently serving in Congress wanted the border closed, it would have been closed by now.

Amazing Progress

Posted on by

On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about Florida’s ongoing recovery from Hurricane Ian.

The article reports:

No one imagined this was feasible. Every expert put the timeline for repair at around a year.  However, the git r’ done crews and the Florida Dept of Transportation have accomplished a massive feat of reconstruction in phenomenal time.  Major kudos to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the construction crews who worked every hour of every day, day and night, for two straight weeks and have created/built a temporary bridge to Sanibel Island.

Trust me, having seen the aftermath, this is absolutely remarkable.  The causeway is made up of three bridge spans (A, B, and C) and three spoil islands.

The rapid response construction crews just kept bringing truck after truck of everything imaginable including rocks, concrete slabs, gravel, sand and more to fill in the missing parts of the roadway and spoil islands.  Then they surfaced the road and are now working on paving it in record time.  Today restoration emergency crews drove across the bridges, and they anticipate opening the causeway to residents of Sanibel for civilian use on October 21st.

Here are the pictures:

The article reports:

During a news conference Tuesday in Fort Myers, trucks were seen slowly driving across the bridge — beginning the journey to the island on the Sanibel Causeway.

“Ahead of schedule, it was supposed to be 3 o’clock today they thought they’d get it,” the governor said. “But we’re happy that is something that is being done.”

DeSantis explains the convoy now able to travel on Sanibel Island is a large group, including:

    • 200 bucket trucks
    • 150 line and pickup trucks towing 50 trailers
    • Two tractor trailers
    • First responders

This also includes crews from across the state, Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC), Florida Power and Light and members of the Florida Electric Cooperative Association.

After crews reach the island, the Florida Department of Transportation will be able to continue with repairs to restore access to the island for residents.

This isn’t the first time relief made its way to the island. DeSantis said barges were deployed last week to move equipment and supplies to the area to restore power and running water.  The governor’s office says barges continue to move daily to transport equipment, personnel and supplies.

Kudos to a very effective Governor and to everyone else who worked hard to complete this task so quickly.

Correcting Serious Mistakes

Posted on by

On Friday, MSN reported that the Uvalde, Texas school district police force has been suspended.

The article reports:

The Uvalde, Texas, school district — still facing withering criticism over its police department’s failings both during the May 24 elementary school massacre and since — announced the suspension of the entire district police force on Friday.

Hours later, Uvalde school district Superintendent Hal Harrell announced he would be retiring. There was no timeframe given for Harrell’s retirement, but the transition will be discussed in a closed session of the school board on Monday.

The district said it’s requested more Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to be stationed on campuses and at extracurricular activities amid the police department suspension, adding, “We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition.”

The length of the school district police suspension is not clear.

The article concludes:

The school district said in Friday’s statement that “decisions concerning” the school district police department have been pending results of investigations from the Texas Police Chiefs Association and the private investigative firm JPPI Investigations, but “recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with department operations.”

Results of the JPPI investigation “will inform future personnel decisions” and the Texas Police Chiefs Association’s review “will guide the rebuilding of the department and the hiring of a new Chief of Police,” the statement said.

The school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August.

The shooting was a nightmare that no one was prepared for. We need to learn from the mistakes made. As we go forward, I am sure those mistakes will come to light.

Law And Order Matters

Posted on by

On Sunday The Western Journal posted an article about former Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Tom Knox.

The article reports:

A Philadelphia Democrat is swinging for a Republican in a red-hot Senate election.

Former Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Tom Knox endorsed Mehmet Oz on Friday, eschewing John Fetterman, his party’s nominee for the United States Senate.

Knox, who says he’s a “lifelong Democrat,” explained why he had decided to back Oz in a statement obtained by Townhall on Friday.

“I have met with John Fetterman, and I personally like him,” Knox explained.

“But I am sad to say, as a resident of Philadelphia, that our city has become increasingly dangerous, and John Fetterman’s policies on crime will make things much worse.”

Philadelphia broke the city’s 30-year homicide record in 2021.

Gun violence in the Democrat-dominated city has reached a point where the city’s cemetery workers have been unable to dig enough graves for the victims of shootings at times.

Knox pointed to what he sees as Fetterman’s soft-on-crime policies in his statement.

“His push as lieutenant governor to release more dangerous criminals — after we have already seen a gruesome increase in violent crime — and promote heroin injection sites in our neighborhoods are radical ideas that would make our streets less safe,” Knox said of the current Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor.

I am not going to make a prediction about this election. Pennsylvania is not known for its high degree of election integrity, and John Fetterman is popular in the state. However, when people go to vote, they need to consider the impact their vote will have on their personal safety. That was not as important an issue in the past as it is now, but currently it is one of the most important issues.

As The Truth Is Slowly Exposed…

Posted on by

There has been a lot of secrecy surrounding the surveillance tapes of the riot that happened on January 6th. There are also some questions as to whether it was actually a riot or simply a protest that got out of hand. (I am reminded of the reporter describing the burning of an American city as a mostly peaceful protest as the flames rose behind him.)  Congress has kept hidden a lot of the surveillance tapes from that day. Gradually, tapes and information are being leaked, and those tapes are telling a very different story from the narrative recited in the press.

On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an exclusive story about what some of the testimony about January 6th that we have not heard.

The article reports:

An FBI document being kept from the public under court seal undermines the government’s seditious-conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers, shows that the indicted members of the group “are not guilty,” and “proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury,” a former Oath Keepers attorney said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7.

Jonathon Moseley, who previously represented Oath Keepers defendant Kelly Meggs before his law license was revoked, said an FBI interview with a U.S. Capitol Police officer shows the Oath Keepers protected the officer from an angry mob near the Capitol Rotunda on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021.

“This document—together with a photograph of the moment inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6—proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury,” Moseley said in the statement (pdf). “No one who engages in seditious conspiracy or insurrection stops to come to the aid of the police against the mob.

“If the Oath Keepers were involved in any way in any insurrection or conspiracy to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, would they turn and stand between the U.S. Capitol Police against the mob?” Moseley asked. “This is not merely a good act. This is absolute proof that there never was any insurrection or seditious conspiracy. The prosecution’s entire case is a fraud upon the American people.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Innocent people have been treated horribly and our Constitution ignored in order to promote the political agenda of the ruling class in Washington. It’s time the people arrested on January 6th were set free (as have been all the murderers in our major cities) and our Constitution followed.

Misplaced Priorities?

Posted on by

The Biden administration has set new records for misplaced priorities. Rather than support the American oil industry, they are going hat in hand to dictatorships asking them to increase oil production. They are promoting green energy which uses numerous components that China has monopolies on, supporting the Chinese economy while ignoring American workers. Transgender indoctrination in our schools is replacing basic education and critical thinking. Now we have an amazing story about the priorities of the Department of Transportation.

On October 7th, The First reported:

The supply chain is still not fixed, airlines are a mess, roads and bridges are crumbling everywhere and our Transportation Secretary is worried about making sure the fish can get where they need to go. 

The article notes:

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg unveiled a new national strategy Friday to “replace culverts currently obstructing fish passages.”

“Today, we launched a national program to fix and replace culverts currently obstructing fish passages and leaving roads vulnerable to flooding. This will bring environmental and economic benefits here in the Pacific Northwest and across America,” posted Buttigieg on Twitter.

Making A Bad Situation Worse

Posted on by

As of April of this year, California had the highest gasoline taxes in the nation [51 cents per gallon (article here)]. Now Governor Newsom is going to do something that will increase the pain at the pump for Californians.

On Sunday, Townhall reported:

Just when Californians thought they were getting a break on high gas prices, they shot up again, hitting $7 in some areas. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif) called for an emergency session of the state legislature to propose a tax that will rip off what he calls the “greed of oil companies.” 

“I’m calling for a Special Session to address the greed of oil companies. Gas prices are too high,” Newsom tweeted, adding “time to enact a windfall profits tax directly on oil companies that are ripping you off at the pump.” 

The oil companies are not ripping you off at the pump. The higher gasoline prices are caused by the Biden administration’s war on fossil fuel and by The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) deciding to reduce production in order to keep prices high. The Biden administration has done what it could to limit lending to oil companies while also limiting their ability to drill for oil. It has also stopped pipelines that cheaply and safely move oil from one place to another. The rise in prices at the gas pump are simply a reflection of the economic principle of supply and demand. Governor Newsom either never studied economics or chooses to ignore what he learned.

Remember, corporations do not pay taxes–their customers do.

The article notes that the Governor was mocked on Twitter for wanted to raise the tax on oil companies. At least some people on Twitter understand the economics of the issue.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, California Assembly GOP leader James Gallagher and Vince Fong, the Assembly Budget Committee vice chair argued for Newsom to not call for the special session. 

They said that lawmakers should suspend the state’s gas tax if the governor does take this action. 

Stay tuned.

Florida, Again, Takes The Lead

Posted on by

On Saturday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted the following headline:

Florida: Covid Vaccines Are Dangerous to Young Men

The article reports:

Yesterday, Florida’s Surgeon General issued a new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines: he said that young men between the ages of 18 and 39 should not be given such vaccines for covid:

This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

An 84% increase in cardiac-related death is stunning, although in this age group the numbers would be low. As I understand it, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA, while the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines are not.

…Given the tiny risk that covid poses to young men, it seems reasonable for young men to avoid covid vaccines altogether, pending further information.

I don’t know whether the findings of the Florida study will hold up, or how the debate over the risks and benefits of various types of vaccines will ultimately be resolved (assuming it is resolved at all). But what should be blindingly obvious is that it was outrageous for the Centers for Disease Control, the federal government generally, and the government’s social media minions to try to suppress discussion of the need for, efficacy of, and risks associated with, covid vaccines. The idea that the public health establishment knew all there was to know about covid vaccines in a flash of revelation, and that any dissenting opinion or any pointing to contrary data constituted “misinformation,” is an affront to the scientific method. This is also a valuable reminder of why free speech is so important.

It is time to remove vaccine mandates and to caution people about the dangers of the vaccine. A friend of mine recently developed Bell’s Palsey after getting her booster shot. Her doctor advised her not to get any more boosters. No kidding.

Because the information on the dangers of this vaccine has been suppressed, we all need to do our own research. Too many people have had serious health complications from the vaccine. It’s time to assess the risk of the vaccine as well as the risk from the disease.

There Is More Than One Way To Influence An Election

Posted on by

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about Google’s suppression of Republican emails, beginning in September.

The article reports:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is accusing Google of suppressing more than 22 million campaign emails since September, by sending them to users’ spam folders, and is now considering legal action against the tech giant.

Google, which insists party affiliation plays no role in determining which emails get sent to the spam folder,  launched an FEC-approved program to ensure campaign emails reached users’ main inboxes under pressure from Republicans.

But the RNC, which shared data from its email campaigns with Fox News Digital, says this has not resolved the situation, with masses of emails getting spammed by Google at the end of every month.

The article concludes:

In a statement to Fox News, Google spokesman José Castañeda insisted there was no bias in how emails are sent to spam folders, but did not explain the strange pattern of RNC emails getting suppressed at the end of every month.

“We enable political committees and other organizations to reach their constituents, donors, and key audiences via email. When Gmail users say that they don’t want to receive an email, we place the email in the spam folder, politics or political affiliation plays no role in this determination,” said the spokesman.

Somehow, I just don’t believe him.

It’s Not As Harmless As We Have Been Told

Posted on by

On October 4th, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

Sharp Rise in Marijuana-Related Psychosis: American Board of Pain Medicine President

The article reports:

As drug legalization groups and the cannabis industry lobby to legalize cannabis across the United States, with initiatives to legalize marijuana on the November ballot in five more states, many experts warn this will only increase the physical and mental harm from the unregulated, high-potency cannabis.

President of the American Board of Pain Medicine and a vice president of the International Academy on the Science and Impacts of Cannabis, Dr. Ken Finn, said high potency cannabis use is being linked to poisonings in young children, as well as psychosis and schizophrenia in an increasing number of regular users.

“A lot of my colleagues that work in psychiatry and emergency medicine are seeing a sharp rise in marijuana-related psychosis,” Finn told NTD’s The Nation Speaks in an Oct. 1 interview.

Data from Europe ties these mental health problems to high levels of the THC chemical in cannabis that causes people to feel high, Finn said.

“The European data shows that there’s a fivefold increase risk of first-episode psychosis with what they described as high potency THC, which generally is about 10%. So we are really in uncharted waters here [in Colorado, with THC potencies of between 40 to 60 percent], with all these states going down this pathway.”

The article notes that the marijuana industry is increasing the levels of THC in their product because existing users have developed a tolerance for the product. Marijuana is a drug, and people who take a drug over a period of time develop a tolerance for that drug and need higher doses to get the same result.

The article notes:

“They’ve so supercharged it [cannabis products] and changed fundamentally what it is, it’s become a really significant issue,” he (Ben Cort, author of “Weed, Inc.: The Truth About the Pot Lobby, THC, and the Commercial Marijuana Industry)  said.

While cannabis-induced psychosis won’t affect most people after they halt their use, for some, it can persist for weeks or months before things return to normal, Finn said. “So this is potentially a very dangerous product, particularly if there’s a young person that is exposed.”

There just aren’t enough placements available for the mental health care needed, he said.

“And in a very rare circumstance, sometimes [the psychosis] doesn’t reverse at all,” he added. “There’s a very strong correlation to cannabis use of high potency with schizophrenia, although it the link of a causal effect has not clearly been proven but it’s strongly suspected.”

Please follow the link to the article for further details. Legalization of marijuana is a threat to everyone not only because of the effect it has on its users, but also because of the people who remain involved in the illegal distribution of the drug even after it is available legally.

Pulling Out All The Stops

Posted on by

If the mid-term elections are a referendum on President Biden, the Democrats have a problem. They are well aware of that. They are also not above walking a fine line in terms of honesty to get what they want.

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted the following headline:

Dem Operatives Behind Network Of Fake News Pop-Up Sites In Battleground States: Report

I though conservative news outlets were the only one who engaged in fake news. The article reports:

Democratic operatives are flooding battleground states with more than 50 supposedly local media outlets that are really designed to promote liberal candidates, according to a bombshell investigation by Axios.

One man linked to the scheme is David Brock, the one-time conservative journalist who did a 180-degree turn and founded Media Matters For America, the controversial nonprofit that attacks conservative news sites. Axios’ investigative reporters Lachlan Markay and Thomas Wheatley say the operation uses a “patina of independent local news content designed to put a sheen of original reporting on partisan messaging.”

The 51 pop-up sites have names such as the Milwaukee Metro Times, Macomb Digest, Mecklenburg Herald, and the Tri-City Record, and are aimed at key swing states Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to the report.

…The sites’ “About Us” pages reveal they are owned by Local Report Inc., an Orando-based for-profit company formed last year.

Local Report has a relationship with The American Independent (TAI), whose current president is Matt Fuehrmeyer. Fuehrmeyer was a former senior aide at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and aide to the late former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

…Sites in the dubious media chain have run glowing stories about Democratic candidates including Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Michigan Secretary of State candidate Jocelyn Benson, as well as stories critical of their opponents and others, such as North Carolina GOP Senate candidate Ted Budd.

As previously stated, create your own list of reliable news sources and look carefully at any new news media that arrives in your city or town.