Monthly Archives: December 2022

Going On Offense

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On Sunday, Jonathan Turley posted an article at The New York Post indicating how the political left is preparing for the Congressional investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop that will surely occur after the new House of Representatives is sworn in. We need to remember that the political left is good at preemptive strikes.

The article reports:

Just when you thought our politics could not get more poisonous, a recent meeting in California suggests the past is mere prelude. The Washington Post, which revealed the powwow, described it as Biden family “allies” planning an offensive to blunt any investigation into the Bidens’ alleged multimillion-dollar influence-peddling schemes.

Republicans will see it more like the gathering of the Legion of (Democratic) Doom. Some of the most controversial political operatives are involved in the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect the Bidens.

The California meeting’s host was none other than Hunter Biden’s friend, agent and lawyer Kevin Morris. After Hunter was placed under investigation for, among other possible charges, tax evasion, Morris reportedly paid off as much as $2.8 million in back taxes for Hunter.

Morris, per the Washington Post, called for a “more aggressive” response to those seeking to investigate the alleged influence peddling. That plan includes hitting critics, such as Fox News, with possible defamation lawsuits. (For full disclosure, I appear as a legal analyst on Fox News.)

The paper also reported Morris “outlined extensive research on two potential witnesses against Hunter Biden — a spurned business partner named Tony Bobulinski and a computer repairman named John Paul Mac Isaac.” “Spurned” is hardly the sole or most relevant description of Bobulinski: The businessman was recruited by the Biden family to manage foreign deals and later directly contradicted President Biden’s claims that he knew nothing of those dealings. His testimony could present a serious threat in the coming House investigation in establishing not only the president’s knowledge but his possible receipt of proceeds from the deals.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

This move goes right along with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Rule number 9 states, “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. ” and Rule number 13 states, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. ” I suspect we will see many examples of those two rules after the new House is sworn in.

The Problems With Depending On China For Manufacturing

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the slowdown in America of solar installations in the third quarter.

The article reports:

U.S. solar installations fell in the third quarter of 2022 and are projected to fall by nearly 25% in comparison to 2021 after the Biden administration began blocking Chinese solar imports from Xinjiang, a region where Uyghur Muslims are allegedly being forced to work, according to a Tuesday report.

The U.S. installed 4.6 GW of solar capacity in the third quarter of 2022, a 17% decrease from 2021’s third quarter and a 2% decrease from the second quarter of 2022 as the government continues to impound Chinese solar panel products under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), according to a Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie report. The act, which Congress passed in December 2021, bans imports from Xinjiang due to the allegations that Uyghurs are forced to manufacture polysilicon, a key input in solar panels, exacerbating supply chain constraints and meaning that the total number of solar installations in 2022 is projected to decline by 23% compared to 2021 levels.

The article notes:

China dominates solar panel manufacturing and is responsible for 80% of polysilicon production, according to an International Energy Agency report. In June, President Joe Biden waived tariffs designed to protect domestic businesses from unfair competition in order to get more Chinese solar panels on the market and accelerate his “clean energy” transition.

The Biden administration wants to generate all of the country’s electricity from green energy, such as solar or wind power, by 2035, up from just 40% in 2020. To achieve this objective, the yearly rate of solar installations may need to more than double, according to the Energy Department.

Dependency on green energy is similar to the search for the perpetual motion machine. There may actually be an answer in nuclear fusion, but we are not there yet. Countries like Iceland make use of geothermal energy very successfully, but they also live on top of the volcanoes that produce that energy. I am not sure I like that trade-off.

A Truly Amazing Statement

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On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that included a quote from Senator Mitch McConnell that tells us more about the workings of Washington than I suspect he meant to tell us.

This is the quote:

“Our ability to control the primary outcome was quite limited in 2022 because of the support of the former president. Hopefully in the next cycle, we’ll have quality candidates everywhere.”

The article includes a loose translation of the statement:

Unless and until the Republican Party can figure out how to get around the voting, installing the correct type of Republicans will always be problematic.

Sir, the problem is not with the voters–it is with the people like you who are supposed to represent them who are not representing them.

The article also notes:

Earlier today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell discussed the greatest problem for the Republican Party as it exists with voters. Allowing people to vote is not in the best interests of the Republican Party. If the politicians could just devise a government system that didn’t need voters to support it, things would be much better.

Senator McConnell does not mind being the Minority Leader as long as he does not have to deal with President Trump or President Trump’s supporters. That is sad. The fact that Senator McConnell seriously underfunded the candidates that President Trump supported indicates a lack of commitment to the Republican Party and the wishes of the voters.

Something To Watch

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On Monday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

A judge overseeing Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s electoral lawsuit ordered Lake, Secretary of State and Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors officials, and others to appear at a court hearing on Tuesday.

Judge Peter Thompson, in issuing the (pdf) order, wrote that the court has “reviewed” Lake’s “verified statement of election contest” and said the “matter will be set on an accelerated basis.” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates were also ordered to attend the hearing, which will start at 2 p.m. ET.

It comes as Lake stated Monday that her lawsuit is, in part, fueled by alleged whistleblower claims who have come forward.

“We’ve had three whistleblowers from Maricopa County reach out and say the system is seriously flawed,” Lake told Just the News on Monday, days after the suit was filed with a Maricopa County court. “They were throwing out tens of thousands of signatures saying they were scribbles that in no way matched. But somewhere between there, the ballots were being completely tossed out and they got looped back into the system and counted as if they were fine.”

Lake said that about 25,000 “additional ballots and early voting ballots were discovered two days after Election Day,” adding that they “just showed up.” She continued: “It shows the whole system has serious problems.”

“We believe that up to 135,000 ballots were pushed through that should not have been pushed through,” Lake added, without elaborating. “We’re asking a judge to let us take a look at all of the envelopes and compare signatures, so that we can find out for sure how many bad, fraudulent ballots got through in that way, of basically cheating or breaking the rules.”

This case is important to Arizona, but it also important nationally. None of the evidence collected regarding problems with the 2020 election has ever made it into court. Admittedly, that horse has left the barn, but this case could mean that in the future, when there is rampant cheating in a national election, the evidence will at least be looked at.

The article concludes:

Lake stated that long lines and printer issues adversely affected Election Day voters on Nov. 8. Maricopa officials that day confirmed there were printer errors and told voters to place their ballots inside dropboxes, while they later said no voters were disenfranchised.

“Lake received the greatest number of votes and is entitled to be named the winner,” her lawsuit claimed. “Alternately, the election must be re-done in Maricopa County to eliminate the effects of maladminstration and illegal votes on the vote tallies reported by Maricopa County.”

In November, Lake also filed a public records request to seek additional information about both counted and uncounted ballots that might have been mixed during the election. Following the Nov. 8 midterms, she has also often posted videos of voters who gave accounts of long lines and other alleged election maladministration in Maricopa County.

Other than Lake, Abe Hamadeh—a Republican who is running for attorney general, and Mark Finchem—a Republican running for secretary of state, filed separate lawsuits on Dec. 9. Candidates have five days following certification to contest an election under Arizona state law.

Fighting Extradition

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On Monday, MSN posted an article about the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas. He is fighting extradition to America. It should also be noted that his arrest will prevent him from testifying before Congress. Hmm. I suspect, based on the information that has leaked out about where his money went, that the Democrats’ (and possibly some Republicans) worse nightmare is to have this man questioned by Congressmen who actually care about law and order.

The article reports:

A day after he was arrested at a luxury apartment in the Bahamas, Sam Bankman-Fried declared he would fight extradition to the United States, where he faces charges by multiple federal agencies, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, securities fraud and conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. The founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX told Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt that he would not waive his right to an extradition hearing.

In the Bahamas Magistrate Court on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried’s local attorney Jerone Roberts urged the court to grant bail; citing a lack of jurisdiction and that Bankman-Fried is a permanent resident of the Bahamas, according to the Nassau Guardian. (Bahamian media has previously questioned whether the FTX founder is a permanent resident.) Prosecutors argued Bankman-Fried posed a flight risk, and should not be granted bail. Bankman-Fried’s parents were reportedly present; at one point, police escorted a family member to his residence in Albany to retrieve his medication.

Neither Roberts nor Bahamian government officials could be reached for comment at the time of publication.

The article concludes:

At the same time as Bankman-Fried’s court appearance, new FTX CEO John J. Ray III testified before the House Financial Services Committee for a hearing on the crypto investigation. Ray claimed that while his investigation is ongoing, the downfall of FTX “appears to stem from the absolute concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company that is entrusted with other people’s money or assets.

Bankman-Fried was also scheduled to appear before the congressional committee but was arrested hours prior. Forbes obtained and published his written testimony, in which he blamed numerous associates for the fall and decline of FTX, including Ray, who he claimed had shut him out of attempts to restore FTX US customer funds.

I don’t expect that he will ever actually be questioned by Congress, but that is simply a guess.

Not Everyone Who Appears To Be For Transparency Actually Is

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On Sunday, Trending Politics posted an article about the suppression of information relating to Hunter Biden’s laptop. Those of us who follow alternative media understood that the laptop was real and that it was probably very damaging to the Biden family. What we didn’t know was that some of our favorite conservatives refused to report on the laptop or its content.

The article reports:

During an interview with Newsmax over the weekend, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed that he gave Hunter Biden’s laptop to prominent Republicans who refused to report on it.

The comments were shocking to say the least considering the information was available in 2019 but several conservative news outlets failed to report on it despite having the evidence.

The names of these Republicans include John Solomon, Sean Hannity and Mike Pompeo.

The article includes some major quotes from the article:

Giuliani was former President Donald Trump’s private attorney and was shocked to have learned Justice Department Attorney General Bill Barr had Hunter Biden’s laptop in late 2019.

“And then Barr buried it in January of 2020, and I didn’t know that Barr has the hard drive,” Giuliani continued to host Rita Cosby. “He covered up the hard drive.”

From the first allegations of Russian collusion to the Trump campaign to the presidential elections and now the deadly war in Ukraine, Americans could have known the truth in 2019, if they had just listened to Giuliani, he continued.

“I’ve been living with this for 3.5 years when I first put out the information about Biden’s bribery in Ukraine, and I lived through that,” Giuliani said. “I got up every morning from the first moment I got that hard drive, saying to myself, ‘How can I get this to my fellow citizens? Because, you just read a just a little bit of that, you realize the candidate of the Democratic Party was a lifelong criminal, and I mean, there are 50-60 crimes outlined there and I’m not saying that lightly.”

Something is terribly wrong with our current system of justice and our current media.

This Is Not Good For America

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the signing ceremony for the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” which enshrines gay marriage and mixed-race marriage into federal law. The only reason mixed-race marriage was added to the bill was to make it look like a civil rights bill–it’s not. One of the people invited to the signing was a non binary drag artist named Jean-Pierre. How does that illustrate respect for marriage?

According to an article posted in The Hill:

The Republicans in the upper chamber who backed the bill were Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Todd Young (Ind.).

Breitbart notes:

The White House previewed a massive signing celebration at the White House on Tuesday for a bill making gay marriage federally legal.

“Tomorrow is going to be a really important day for many Americans, millions of Americans across the country,” Karine Jean-Pierre said at the daily briefing on Monday. “And I think we cannot forget that.”

She said that the White House expected “thousands” of invited guests for President Joe Biden’s signing ceremony of the bill, including prominent gay and lesbian couples and “musical guests.”

“There will be musical guests and performances to celebrate this historic bill,” she said.

Marriage between one man and one woman has been the foundation of our society since Colonial times. This bill tears away at that foundation. The Republicans who voted for this bill need to face primary challenges in their next elections.

Bias Is What You Report As Well As How You Report It

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On Sunday, The New York Post posted an article about the mainstream media’s reporting of the Twitter files that Elon Musk has been releasing. The mainstream media has pretty much chosen to ignore the story totally. When they actually report it, their reporting is not accurate.

The article reports:

Whatever happened to “All the news that’s fit to print,” and “Democracy dies in darkness,” the respective mottos of the two most influential newspapers in the country, the New York Times and the Washington Post?

Every morning, these august organs set the narrative for newsrooms across the country, and yet, time and again, we see them ignore stories that don’t suit their own agenda as propaganda purveyors for the Democratic Party and the security state.

This has been obvious in their non-coverage of Elon Musk’s Twitter Files, four batches over 10 days so far, which have revealed a chilling censorship regime at the social media giant, which no doubt is replicated across Big Tech, including at Facebook and Google.

We see evidence of what we long suspected, despite Twitter former CEO Jack Dorsey’s lies to Congress: Conservatives and medical professionals were silenced, as part of a crackdown on effective dissent against the government. From The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories and criticism of the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s bogus edicts on masks, lockdowns and the origins of COVID, censorship has been the order of the day. That should be a story of interest to journalists at the Times and WaPo.

The article cites a few examples of how the information has been treated:

Over at the Washington Post, resident disinformation expert Taylor Lorenz went on TV to falsely claim that Elon Musk had laid off the staff who monitored child sexual exploitation material. The opposite is the case. On taking over Twitter, Musk declared his “priority #1” was to remove such material and, in two weeks, did more to cleanse Twitter of child abuse content than previous management had done in a decade.

The WaPo also reported that Musk was being investigated by San Francisco authorities for creating makeshift bedrooms at Twitter HQ for employees to sleep in, which he denied.
It was the same ignore-and-smear game across the leftie media-sphere.

“Old news” was how The Atlantic dismissed the Twitter Files.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is discouraging to know that the people who depend on the mainstream media for their news are either uninformed or misinformed. Since China owns large portions of American media, profit is no longer a motive–loss of viewers or readers is not an issue, so the mainstream media is no longer subject to the rules of the marketplace. That is not a good thing.

We Don’t Have A Free Press

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On Saturday, Don Suber posted an article on his website titled, “We Don’t Have A Free Press.” Don Surber describes himself as a retired newspaperman who lives in West Virginia.

This is Don Surber’s list of reasons we don’t have a free press:

If we had a free press, 30 reporters would never pose with Nancy Pelosi as if they were her ladies-in-waiting.

If we did, Hillary’s 30,000 emails sent to a trucking company in Red China would have stopped her presidential bid.

If we had a free press, Seth Rich’s murder would have been bigger than George Floyd’s overdose death.

If we had a free press, journalists would not seek the approval of John Podesta (Hillary’s henchman) as we learned in the DNC emails leaked by Seth Rich.

If we had a free press, Hillary’s fake charity which laundered bribes from foreigners would have landed her in prison.

If we had a free press, the FBI spying on Donald Trump would have landed Barack Obama in prison as well.

If we had a free press, Jim Comey would have been Obama’s cellmate.

If we had a free press, Bob Mueller would have remained retired and enjoying his grandchildren.

If we had a free press, we would know the motive for Stephen Paddock’s massacre of 60 people and wounding of 413 other people at the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017.

If we had a free press, fact-checkers would have told us in 2008 that you can keep your doctor was a lie and not wait until 2013 when it was too late to undo the election and re-election of Barack Obama.

If we had a free press, there would have been at least one newspaper in West Virginia that endorsed Donald Trump.

If we had a free press, covid would be called the Wuhan Flu.

If we had a free press, the covid shots would never be mandatory for anyone except those in a nursing home.

If we had a free press, the Democrat riots of 2020 would have been called the George Floyd riots instead of mostly peaceful protests.

If we had a free press, Twitter never would have been able to censor conservatives or ban the president.

If we had a free press, Trump’s rally at the National Mall would have been the news on January 6, not the people lured into the Capitol by FBI informants and the Capitol Police.

If we had a free press, ballot harvesting would land people in jail instead of electing John Fetterman to the Senate.

If we had a free press, there would have been no impeachments.

If we had a free press, Hunter Biden’s laptop would have cost his father the election.

If we had a free press, General Milley’s admission that he called a Red Chinese general without DOD approval would have landed him in the brig.

If we had a free press, the raid on Mar-a-Lago would have led to an investigation of the FBI for abuse of its power.

If we had a free press, the hammer attack of Paul Pelosi would still be in the news.

Finally, if we had a free press, I would defend it.

Is anyone else tired of being manipulated and lied to?

Justice Comes To Loudoun County

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On Monday, National Review reported the following:

Loudoun County Public Schools former superintendent Scott Ziegler and public information officer Wayde Byard were indicted by a special grand jury amid an eight-month investigation into the district’s mishandling of two sexual assault cases. 

A Loudoun County judge unsealed the indictments on Monday. 

Ziegler was charged with one count of false publication, one count of prohibited conduct, and one count of penalizing an employee for a court appearance. The special grand jury issued indictments against the former superintendent on June 14 and September 28 for offenses that allegedly happened June 7 and June 22. 

Byard was charged with a count of felony perjury. The indictment against Byard was issued September 28 for an offense that allegedly happened on August 2.

The case involved the sexual assault of a female student by a ‘gender fluid’ male student that happened in the ladies’ room. The male student was then transferred to another school where he forced a female student into an empty classroom and sexually assaulted her. Obviously, if the first case of sexual assault had been properly handled, the second case would not have happened.

The article concludes:

“There were several decision points for senior LCPS administrators, up to and including the superintendent, to be transparent and step in and alter the sequence of events leading up to the October 6, 2021 BRHS sexual assault,” the grand jury report reads. “They failed at every juncture.”

The grand jury found the second assault “could have, and should have, been prevented.”

The initial assault in the girls bathroom drew attention to the district’s policy of allowing transgender students to access bathrooms and locker rooms that align with “their consistently asserted gender identity.” The policy was not officially adopted until shortly after the alleged bathroom assault.

The victim’s father spoke out against the policy at a school board meeting, where he was told there was no record of a sexual assault occurring in the bathroom. The father was forcibly escorted out of the meeting by police.

It’s up to parents to protect their children. It is becoming obvious that in the name of political correctness our schools are putting our children at risk.

The Blame Game

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Republicans did not do as well in the mid-term elections as was predicted. There were a lot of reasons for that–some of them surprising.

On Sunday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

Karl Rove Who Ran PAC Ads Supportive of Top Democrat Candidate and Held a Fundraiser for Adam Kinzinger Blames Trump for Midterm Losses

Karl Rove is a member of the uniparty. He hates President Trump because President Trump is the ultimate disruptor of the Washington establishment. Americans have a very simple choice to make during the next two years–do you want more endless wars, sweetheart deals for China, and tax deals that hurt Americans and American manufacuring or do want a President who supports Main Street–not Washington or Wall Street? You may not like President Trump’s style or personality, but he did more for the average American in four years than the last five presidents.

The article goes on to note that after working against some of the Trump-supported candidates, Karl Rove blamed President Trump for the poor mid-term performance by the Republicans. This is all part of the effort to take President Trump out of the 2024 primaries so that the uniparty can run a Republican who will not change things in Washington.

Good News For Parents

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On Saturday, The Epoch Times reported that a federal appeals court has permanently blocked the Biden administration’s bid to force doctors and insurers to perform or pay for gender-transition procedures even if they object on grounds of conscience and medical judgment, with the court basing its decision on constitutional protections of religious freedom.

The article reports:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit issued a unanimous ruling (pdf) on Dec. 9 blocking the controversial U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) transgender mandate.

Issued in 2016, the mandate interpreted the Affordable Care Act in a way that required doctors to perform gender-transition procedures on any patient, including children, even if the doctor was convinced the procedure could harm the patient.

The procedures being used to perform gender-transition have long-term effects. Children need to be left alone to go through the challenges of puberty and high school. If a child is struggling with not being accepted by their peers, then counseling may be needed, but not life-altering surgery or medication.

The article continues:

The mandate also required the vast majority of private insurance companies and many employers to cover the costs of gender-transition therapy or face penalties.

The HHS’s own panel of medical experts acknowledged that gender-transition procedures can be harmful and in many cases not medically justified, with HHS determining that Medicare and Medicaid should not be forced to cover such procedures.

Research has shown that gender-transition procedures carry significant risk for children, including loss of bone density, heart disease, and cancer.

The article also notes:

Besides the Religious Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra, Becket also represents plaintiffs in a separate but related case initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

In that case, known as Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, the Texas court issued a preliminary ruling in December 2016 that the mandate was a likely violation of religious freedom but stopped short of issuing an order that would have blocked the policy from being applied.

After an appeal by the challengers seeking a permanent injunction to block the mandate, the court agreed in 2021 to grant permanent relief to doctors and hospitals.

The Biden administration appealed but lost.

On Aug. 26, 2022, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s decision and issued a permanent injunction that allows doctors and hospitals to decide whether to carry out gender-transition procedures based on their conscience and medical judgment.

“The government’s attempt to force doctors to go against their consciences was bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for religious liberty,” Goodrich said in a statement.

The Biden administration has made transgender issues a key policy pillar, advocating strongly on behalf of people seeking gender-transition procedures and therapies and opposing policies like so-called “conversion therapy,” as it’s dubbed by critics, and “change-allowing therapy,” as it’s often referred to by advocates.

Transgender surgery or medication is not a harmless way to help our children deal with adolescence. It is a current fad that will have many negative results in the future.

Polling Site Malfeasance

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

This country continues to struggle with voting irregularities most of which are caused by excessive reliance on absentee ballots. However, another means of affecting voting is through mismanagement of the polling sites. The recent evidence that in Arizona up to 52% of ballots were rejected by the tabulating machines in Maricopa County because the ballots were not printed correctly, resulting in excessively long lines and citizens giving up on voting on Election Day. On Election Day this year, similar outcomes were observed at polling sites in Craven County, although for different reasons. Let me explain.

I have worked as an electioneer (handing out voting information) at the Fairfield Harbour polling place in Craven County for ten years. During that time, I never observed the chaos at the local voting poll that occurred this past Election Day. I was at the poll in Fairfield Harbour from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM when the poll closed. The problems I observed were (1) excessively long lines all day resulting in waits of 45-60 minutes ; (2) the waiting line extended into the parking lot traffic pattern causing a dangerous safety issue; (3) curbside voting waits of up to 1 1/2 to 2 hours; (4) confusion at curbside voting resulting from mingling with the handicapped parking spaces; (5) and inability to access the public restrooms. What was the result of all this chaos? Predictably, many voters left without voting resulting in voter suppression.

It is essential to note, that none of these problems existed at any other election I witnessed during my prior electioneering at the same location. What was the cause? Well, according to the Chief Polling Judge and, importantly, a member of the Craven County Board of Election who came by the poll that day, these problems were the result of recent decisions by the Craven County Board of Election (BOE). The only reason provided by the BOE member was a concern that electioneers may distribute election material in the restrooms at the polling site! This is totally absurd. First, no case of this ever happening has been reported for the FFH site that I am aware of. Second, why would any electioneer stay inside the restroom in order to access the small percentage of voters who may use a restroom, when all voters can be accessed as they enter the polling place? When asked about people not being permitted to use the restrooms, the answer I received was “”…the BOE is not in the restroom business”.

It should be noted that none of the restrictions imposed on Election Day at the Fairfield Harbour polling site were in effect at the early voting site at 406 Craven St. Question: Were these changes done purposely to suppress the Election Day vote of Republicans, who vote overwhelmingly on Election Day, by a BOE controlled by Democrats? You decide. Does make one wonder.

At the Board of Election meeting on Dec 7th, I reported these problems to the Board. Their response was they would look into them , but that voters should consider voting absentee or early voting instead of waiting for Election Day. My response was the Board should make voting all of the three options efficient, safe, and convenient and not favor any specific option especially given the potential problems with absentee and early voting.

A Total Misuse Of Taxpayer Dollars

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The Biden administration has blazed new trails in wasting taxpayer money. Aside from pouring millions into the war in Ukraine to support a dictator who recently has banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after having nationalized television news and restricted political opposition, they have now decided to bail out the pensions of their union friends.

On Thursday, The Epoch Times reported:

President Joe Biden will announce the injection of $36 billion in funding to bolster the multi-employer Central States Pension Fund and prevent “drastic cuts” to the pensions of more than 350,000 union workers and retirees on Dec. 8.

According to the Biden administration, the funding was approved by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and is the largest-ever amount of federal aid awarded to a pension fund.

The funding will be sourced from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package Biden signed into law in 2021.

“Without the historic Special Financial Assistance program included in President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, these workers and retirees—who have already earned these benefits—would have faced estimated benefit reductions of roughly 60 percent in the next few years,” according to a White House fact sheet previewing the announcement. “The Central States Pension Fund estimates that it will now be able to pay full benefits to workers and retirees through 2051.”

Established in 1955, the Central States Pension Fund is one of the country’s largest multi-employer pension plans and provides benefits to union members in the trucking, car haul, warehouse, construction, food processing, dairy, and grocery trucking industries.

According to its website, the fund pays out more than $2.8 billion in pension benefits annually and $5.7 million more per day than it receives in employer contributions.

On June 13, 2010, I posted the following:

The reference for this story is a May 25 article in the Washington Examiner.  The article deals with the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).  Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), introduced S. 3157 in late March.  According to Thomas.gov, the bill is currently in committee.  The bill is called “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010.”

The bill would back union pension funds with federal tax dollars.  The article in the Washington Examiner points out that in 2006, before the recession, only six percent of these union pension funds were doing well.  In a column in the Washington Examiner in April, Mark Hemingway pointed out that the average union pension plan had only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations.  Pension plans that are below 80 percent funding are considered “endangered” by the government; below 65 percent is considered “critical.”  Union membership is declining, which means that less people are paying into these funds.

In July 2009, the PBGC bailed out the pension liabilities of auto parts manufacturer Delphi ($6.2 billion). In 2007, the PBGC had a deficit of almost $1 billion. They are expected to assume $86 billion in liabilities by 2015. This is not good business practice.

The government has no business bailing out pension funds.

Who Is Funding Illegal Immigration?

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The question that should be asked is, “Who is funding the illegal immigration that is funding the Mexican Cartels?”

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained data showing about 30,000 unique mobile devices at 35 NGO centers and one Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility stationed along the United States-Mexico border.

Ultimately, the investigation “confirmed that a host of NGOs are actively facilitating” large scale illegal immigration into the U.S. interior as CBP transfers border crossers and illegal aliens en masse to NGOs, funded by taxpayers, which then provide transportation services so arrivals can be sent to all 50 states.

“Devices that were at these NGO facilities later appeared in all but one congressional district in the United States,” the investigation states:

The investigation confirms that Biden border crisis affects all of America and that NGOs are playing a central role in the mass resettlement of illegal aliens in the United States. Worse, this flow of illegal immigration helps enable cartels to bring terrorists, criminals, and deadly drugs like fentanyl into the United States. [Emphasis added]

The article concludes:

More than other administrations, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has enlisted NGOs to take on the role of sheltering border crossers and illegal aliens at the border before transporting them into the U.S. interior via domestic commercial flights and buses.

For months, House Republicans have urged Biden to disclose the number of border crossers and illegal aliens that have been flown into American cities, the cost to taxpayers, and how much money is being paid to NGOs facilitating the Catch and Release process.

Most Americans, in an August poll, said they believe there is an “invasion” occurring at the border as the Biden administration is set to have apprehended a record 2.3 million by the year’s end and is projected to apprehend another record 2.6 million next year.

Since February 2021, at least 1.4 million border crossers and illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. interior.

Every state in America is now a border state. Any American who voted for an incumbent in the mid-term election (with very few exceptions) voted to keep the southern border open.

More Intrigue At Twitter

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On Wednesday, The Western Journal posted an article about a recent comment by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. Whenever you read anything about the current goings on at Twitter, it is probably a good idea to go to The Conservative Treehouse and read the articles related to Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. The articles explain the relationship between Twitter and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Western Journal notes:

The dramatic revelations coming out of the “Twitter Files” haven’t stopped yet, and the developing side stories are a look at just how far the Democratic National Committee and other powerful forces wielded their influence over social media platforms to shape narratives and influence elections.

The most recent evidence that there is something yet to be uncovered came in a peculiar request from Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, to its new CEO, Elon Musk. Dorsey suggested that instead of releasing a limited number of internal documents over a period of weeks, it would be better to release them all now.

“If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now,” Dorsey tweeted Wednesday.

The article notes:

An investor group called Elliott Management, which Dorsey described as an “activist” group, tried to force him out of Twitter starting in 2020.

In a series of text messages between Dorsey and Musk that were released as part of Twitter’s previous lawsuit against Musk when he backed out of the purchasing deal earlier this year before eventually going through with it, Dorsey expressed great interest in getting Musk on Twitter’s board.

“Back when we had the activist come in, I tried my hardest to get you on our board, and our board said no,” a March text from Dorsey to Musk read.

Dorsey explained in another text why he believed the board wouldn’t go for it. “I think the main reason is the board is just super risk averse and saw adding you as more risk, which I thought was completely stupid and backwards,” Dorsey wrote.

The question remains: Does Dorsey want something from that turbulent time to be released for public consumption? It sure sounds that way.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There seems to be (and to have been) a lot going on behind the scenes at Twitter.

Private Schools Are Not Exempt From Grooming

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Project Veritas released a video about what is going on at an elite private school in Chicago.

The video posted on YouTube includes the following explanation:

[CHICAGO – Dec. 7, 2022] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing a high-ranking private school official, Joseph Bruno, who admitted that he teaches underage children about sex with items such as “butt-plugs” and “dildos.”

Bruno, who works as the Dean of Students at an elite school in Chicago called Francis W. Parker, said that these were the items brought into the classroom by an LGBTQ+ group.

“So, I’ve been the Dean for four years. During Pride — we do a Pride Week every year — I had our LGBTQ+ Health Center come in [to the classroom]. They were passing around butt-plugs and dildos to my students — talking about queer sex, using lube versus using spit,” Bruno said.

The school administrator claimed that this educational practice is one of the reasons he enjoys his current employment.

“The kids are just playing with ‘em, looking at ‘em [butt-plugs and dildos] … They’re like, ‘How does this butt-plug work? How do we do – like, how does this work?’ That’s a really cool part of my job,” he said.

Bruno also said he has invited a Drag Queen to the school.

“We had a Drag Queen come in — pass out cookies and brownies and do photos.”

This is the video. I don’t recommend watching it, but I am posting it here in case YouTube takes it down.

This Seems A Little Uneven To Me

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On Thursday, NBC Chicago posted an article about a prisoner swap between America and Russia.

The article reports:

WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed from Russian custody as part of a prisoner swap, but many, including Griner’s family, were quick to point out another American name was not listed as part of the deal.

Paul Whelan.

Whelan is a Michigan corporate security executive jailed for nearly four years in Russia on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government has said are baseless.

Earlier reporting had indicated Whelan was part of the U.S.’ original offer to Russia, which sought both Griner and Whelan in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”

Biden said the U.S. hasn’t given up on Whealan and “we’ll never give up” fighting to get him home.

“This was not a choice of which American to bring home,” Biden said. “Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Britney’s.”

A former Marine who later worked as a corporate security executive, Whelan was arrested in Moscow in December 2018. His lawyer said Whelan was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didn’t know about.

Note to anyone traveling abroad during the Biden administration–this administration does not have your back. When America is weak, Americans traveling abroad can easily be detained on false pretenses. It should also be noted that Paul Whelan was not honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. However, that is no excuse for leaving him to languish in a Russian prison.

In an article posted on Thursday, NewsMax noted:

In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. Bout, whose exploits inspired a Hollywood movie, was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.

The Biden administration was ultimately willing to exchange Bout if it meant Griner’s freedom. The detention of one of the greatest players in WNBA history contributed to a swirl of unprecedented public attention for an individual detainee case – not to mention intense pressure on the White House.

We need better negotiators.

The Three Mistakes The Japanese Made At Pearl Harbor

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I know this article is a day late, but it is amazing. In 1941, God was watching over America. I pray that He continues to do that today.

Received in my email from a friend:

On Christmas Day, 1941, Admiral Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked.  As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?” Admiral Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.  Admiral Nimitz said, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.  Which do you think it was?”   Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, “What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?  Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one:

The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning.  Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.  If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk–we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two:

When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships.  If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired.  As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised.  One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three:

Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill.  One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

 That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or, God was taking care of America. I’ve never forgotten what I read in that little book.  It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it.  In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas — he was a born optimist.  But any way you look at it–Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

…The first attack wave consisted of 183 planes. Army radar picked up the incoming planes but presumed they were the scheduled arrival of six U.S. B-17 bombers.

U.S. servicemen on the ground identified the invading planes as Japanese because of the “meatballs,” what they called the large, red circle (the Rising Sun) on the bottom of Japanese planes.

The Japanese traveled 3,400 miles across the Pacific to execute their attack on Pearl Harbor. Ships and aircraft carriers were stationed approximately 230 miles north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

The United States’ aircraft carriers, the primary target of the attack, were not at the base at the time. Because of this, the Japanese canceled a planned second attack.

There were eight battleships at Pearl Harbor that day, which included all the battleships of the U.S. Pacific fleet except for one (the Colorado). All eight U.S. battleships were either sunk or damaged during the attack.

The USS Arizona exploded when a bomb breached its forward magazine (i.e., the ammunition room). Approximately 1,177 U.S. servicemen died on board.

The day before the attacks, the USS Arizona took on a full load of fuel, nearly 1.5 million gallons. According to the History Channel, the Arizona continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil a day.

After being torpedoed, the Oklahoma listed so badly that it turned upside down. A total of 429 crew died when the ship capsized.

To aid their airplanes, the Japanese sent in five midget subs to help target the battleships. The Americans sunk four of the midget subs and captured the fifth.

The attacks came in two waves. At 7:53 a.m., the first bomb fell at the foot of the seaplane ramp at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese withdrew around 9:45 a.m.

A total of 2,335 U.S. servicemen were killed and 1,143 were wounded. Sixty-eight civilians were also killed and 35 were wounded.

When Japanese Commander Mitsuo Fuchida called out, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”) upon flying over Pearl Harbor, it was a message to the entire Japanese navy telling them they had caught the Americans totally by surprise.

The attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning. It led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.”

Of the eight battleships targeted during the attacks, all but two were eventually repaired and returned to the U.S. Navy’s fleet. The USS West Virginia and the USS California had both sunk completely, but the Navy raised them, repaired them and reused them.

Knowing Who The Players Are

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On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about Elon Musk’s firing of Twitter’s general counsel James A. Baker.

The article reports:

Chief Twit Elon Musk has fired Twitter’s general counsel James A. Baker, citing his alleged involvement in suppressing the release of internal documents regarding Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

‘In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,’ Musk wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

Musk added that Baker’s explanation of the events surrounding the laptop saga was ‘unconvincing.’ 

Journalist Matt Taibbi, who released the first batch of internal files about the Hunter saga on Friday, claimed that Baker had been fired in part for ‘vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.’ 

The article notes some of the previous work of James Baker:

Before joining Twitter, Baker was former FBI general counsel under Director James Comey, and played a key role in the saga surrounding the Bureau’s controversial probe into possible collusion between Russia and Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign. 

The article also notes:

James Baker has long been in the crosshairs of Elon Musk, who on October 27 became his boss.

Baker played a key role in a series of events that led to Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann going on trial in May, accused of lying to the FBI.

He was not accused of giving the FBI false information, but rather lying about who he worked for.

The saga began when Sussmann was given information from a group of data scientists who analyzed odd internet data they thought might suggest clandestine communications between a server for the Trump Organization and a server for Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.

Sussmann then texted Baker, at the time the bureau’s general counsel, to say he had information the FBI should be aware of.

‘I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the bureau,’ Sussmann wrote in his text to Baker.

Baker testified that he was certain Sussmann was acting as an individual, and would likely not have met him were he working for the Clinton campaign.

Sussmann, a cybersecurity specialist, had worked for the Democratic Party in the context of Russia’s hacking of its servers, and Russia publishing emails from the servers.

Sussmann was also connected to the Democrats via one of his partners at the law firm Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, who was representing the Clinton campaign and hired Fusion GPS.

Yet multiple people – including Elias – testified that Sussmann was indeed acting on his own accord, and argued that actually going to the FBI was not in the interests of the Clinton campaign, which would have preferred a New York Times story drawing attention to the assertions.

The FBI later decided the allegations of links between the Trump campaign and the Russian bank were unfounded.

Musk tweeted during the trial that he thought Sussmann had ‘created an elaborate hoax’ about Russia, in a bid to help Clinton.

I wonder if Elon Musk understood how much housecleaning needed to be done when he bought Twitter.

A Broken Promise

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the Democrats reneging on their promise they made to Senator Manchin in order to obtain his vote of their Inflation Reduction Act which was actually about funding green energy. It was an awful bill loaded with pork, and without Senator Manchin’s vote, it would not have passed.

The article reports:

A top House Democrat celebrated Tuesday after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia’s permitting reform bill was excluded from the annual military spending package.

In August, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to help Manchin pass a bill that would accelerate federal permitting for energy and mining projects in exchange for his sponsoring of the Democrats’ climate spending bill.  However, after Congressional leaders chose to remove Manchin’s bill from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) due to a lack of votes, Democratic House Natural Resources Chair Raul Grijalva, who along with many more left-wing Democrats had opposed the bill, touted the defeat of Manchin’s legislation as a win for “environmental justice communities” across the nation, according to a Tuesday press release.

“Thanks to the hard-fought persistence and vocal opposition of environmental justice communities all across the country, the Dirty Deal has finally been laid to rest,” Grijalva said. “House Democrats can now close out the year having made historic progress on climate change without this ugly asterisk.”

The historic progress they made is likely to cause power brownouts this winter in the coldest areas of the country. People may not be able to heat their homes as a result of Democrat policies. The Inflation Reduction Act will not reduce inflation–it will only fund the special interests that are involved in green energy. It has nothing to do with inflation.

 

What New Insanity Is This?

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On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that the Boston Massachusetts city council has voted to let 16 and 17 year-olds vote in local elections.

The article reports:

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu will make the next move on the issue when the docket reaches her desk. If passed, it would move onto the state Legislature, which Mejia told WBUR could pose problems for them.

“We know what happens at the State House — most things go there to die,” she said.

“I believe that this is an opportunity for us to organize other municipalities across the state and then create the groundswell of support that this initiative deserves and that is led by young people,” Mejia added.

Boston Councilor Kenzie Bok said, “I think that if we give our young folks a chance to start forming that voting habit when they’re 16 or 17, when they’re still rooted in the communities that they lived their whole life in … that’s actually how you build that civic habit that really leads to lifelong civic engagement.”

I have news for the Boston city council–very few 16 or 17 year-olds are interested in voting. Those that are still in school are trying to graduate. Those who are no longer in school are trying to get an education or find a job that pays enough for them to eat and find a place to live in Massachusetts. I can’t imagine what a nightmare this law will create for the city of Boston. We don’t even allow young adults to drink or smoke until they are 21; they can’t join the military without their parents’ permission until they are 18. Why are we assuming that they will be informed,  responsible voters?