Can The Economy Prosper When Taxes Are High?

On Monday, The Washington Examiner posted an article with the following headline:

Debunking the myth that the US once prospered despite extremely high taxes

The article explains how the tax system in the 1960’s was very different from the tax system today:

Left-wing politicians who demand higher taxes on the rich argue that the U.S. had previously prospered when tax rates were very high, proving that high taxes do not harm the economy. And it is true: In the 1950s and early 1960s, the top federal personal income tax rate in the U.S. was a horrendous 91%, after which it was lowered to 70%. Under former President Ronald Reagan, it was then successively reduced to 28% by 1988 (before being raised several times and then lowered again under former President Donald Trump).

However, as Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early show in their book The Myth of American Inequality, “The top income tax in 1962 was 91 percent. After deductions and credits, only 447 tax filers out of 71 million paid any taxes at the top rate. The top 1 percent of income earners on average paid 16.1 percent of their income in federal and payroll taxes while the top 10 percent paid 14.4 percent and the bottom 50 percent paid 7.0 percent.”

Even when the top tax rate was lowered to 70%, not much changed. Only 3,626 out of 75 million taxpayers actually paid taxes up to 70%. Interestingly, the actual percentage paid by the top 1% of earners in the U.S. was only 16.1% in 1962, when the top marginal rate was 91%. However, in 1988, when the top rate was only 28%, the percentage paid by the top 1% of earners had risen to 21.5%! As the top tax rate fell by two-thirds, the percentage of their income that the top 1% of tax filers paid in federal income and payroll taxes rose by a third.

The article concludes:

This growth was a direct consequence of Reagan’s deregulation and tax reform policies in conjunction with falling oil prices. The growth rate in the 1980s was higher than in the 1950s and 1970s, though substantially below the growth rate of 5% following John F. Kennedy’s 1964 tax rate cuts of 30%.

This growth, along with the elimination of numerous deductions and exemptions, led to a sharp increase in tax revenues. Exactly what Reagan had predicted now came to pass: At a press conference in October 1981, Regan quoted the 14th-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldūn’s foreshadowing of the Laffer Curve theory, as this effect is called in economic jargon: “In the beginning of the dynasty, great tax revenues were gained from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, small tax revenues were gained from large assessments.” Reagan added: “And we’re trying to get down to the small assessments and the great revenues.”

So the myth that the U.S. experienced strong economic growth when the top marginal tax rate was high is false. In fact, the top marginal tax rate was only nominally high because there were so many exemptions, loopholes, and deductions.

Higher taxes slow economic growth. The Laffer Curve is real.

A Practical Way To Institute School Choice

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a program proposed in Oklahoma to provide school choice in a way that does not penalize public schools, but allows parents control of their child’s education.

The article reports:

While conventional school choice programs typically involve vouchers administered by the state, Oklahoma is set to create a tax credit-based initiative to fund education outside the public school system.

The state’s school choice program, which would create a refundable tax credit program for all families that can be used on homeschooling and private education expenses, is tied to legislation that would increase funding for public schools and give teachers a pay raise and create a refundable tax credit, Oklahoma officials told the DCNF. The bills passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Wednesday in 75 to 25 and 78 to 23 votes, sending the legislation to the state Senate where it is expected to pass.

“What we did was we give a $5,000 tax credit, but it’s refundable,” Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In other words, you can get $5,000 to move and go to a school of your choice. That’s the great thing about it is now we’re funding students, not necessarily the system or the zip code where you happen to live. It’s gonna allow you to be more flexible with where the kids go and have the dollars follow the kid whether it’s to a private school, another public school, it doesn’t really matter. That’s the exciting thing about it and there’s no income limits to it.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It sounds like this bill will give parents the right to opt out of a school if they feel that their children are not learning the basic skills they need. It also gives parents a choice if they disagree with the values being taught at a particular school.

About The 2022 Hurricane Season

The experts told us that the 2022 hurricane season would involve many severe storms due to global warming. Actually that didn’t happen. The Global Warming Policy Foundation has released its report on that season.

This is the executive summary:

It is widely believed that hurricanes are getting worse as a consequence of climate change. This belief is fuelled by the media and some politicians, particularly when a bad storm occurs. This belief is reinforced because the damage caused by hurricanes is much greater nowadays, thanks to increasing populations in vulnerable coastal areas and greater wealth more generally. But is this belief correct, or is it a misconception? This study has carefully analysed official data and assessments by hurricane scientists, and finds:

2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980.

The apparent long-term increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observational practices over the years, rather than a real increase.

Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.

Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many hurricanes were not spotted prior to the satellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.

Globally there are also no trends in hurricanes since reliable records began in the 1970s.

Evidence is also presented that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of measurement.

The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is simply a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

These findings are in line with those of hurricane scientists generally, as well as official bodies such as NOAA and the IPCC.

So go ahead and plan that beach vacation and enjoy life. Hurricanes have always been with us. They can do considerable damage, but we can predict them and take precautions. We are also fortunate to live in a country where charitable organizations show up after a hurricane to help clean up and provide food and water for those who need it.

Fixing Our Schools

By: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

We are all aware, or should be, that the public school system in N.C. is an expensive failure. The 2022 test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that 34% of eighth graders failed to meet basic reading skills and 39% failed to meet math skills. This in spite of spending about $10,000 per student per year. We are not getting what we are forced to pay for, and the trend is getting worse.

The recent election placed more Republicans on local Boards of Education. What changes should we expect? Here are my recommendations: (1) Re-focus on basic academic skills such as reading, spelling, writing and math by eliminating other subjects until the fourth grade. No point in teaching social studies, history, geography, etc. until basic skills have been mastered. (2) Remove lap-tops, tablets, etc., and go back to paper and printed material. Children need to learn cursive writing and spelling so they can communicate effectively in English. Electronic learning is distracting and distances teachers from the student’s performance. (3) Eliminate Critical Race Theory, Social Equity Learning and other harmful indoctrinary teaching. (4) Implement strict discipline in the classroom without which learning cannot effectively occur. The ability to remove incorrigible, disruptive children to alternate programs is needed. (5) Establish an independent, interview process that would determine why teachers are leaving. For example, the Craven County school system currently has an estimated 75 teacher vacancies. We must know the reasons why teachers are leaving so that retention can be improved. (6) Start a pilot program of video cameras in classrooms that allows monitoring of the classroom environment and potentially allow parents to observe the educational instruction their children are receiving. (7) Reduce the funds for non-teaching administrative positions by at least 20%. Studies have shown that funding of administrative positions have been increasing substantially more than funding for classroom instructors. (8) Re-introduce programs that recognize and reward academic achievement. The goal should be to encourage every student to maximize their potential not some socialist nonsense of equal outcomes.

You may have noticed that most of these recommendations reflect a return to the traditional methods of educating our children. The truth is that the traditional methods were much more effective than what is being followed now, which accounts for the declining academic performance of our children. The question becomes, “Do local Boards of Education have the wisdom and courage to make bold changes?” We will see.

Of course, support of school choice and vouchers for public, private, charter and homeschools must be the basis for improving education in North Carolina. Parents must be given the authority to choose the educational option that they deem best for their children. Without parental control, no meaningful improvement will occur in the public schools

 

Hang On To Your Gas Stove

Despite repeated claims that the Biden is not going to take away your gas stove, the Biden administration is preparing regulations that will take away your gas stove.

On Ssturday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

A new regulation proposed by the Department of Energy (DOE) would block half of current gas stove models from the market, an analysis by the federal agency shows.

In a proposed regulation published at the beginning of February, DOE set a maximum annual gas consumption of 1,204 thousand British thermal units (kBtu), also known as the EL 2 standard, for all gas cooking tops.

If the new regulation is finalized, only half of gas cooking tops will be able to meet the new standard, i.e., half of the products currently on the market will be blocked.

“DOE estimates that nearly half of the total gas cooking top market currently achieves EL 2 and therefore would not be impacted by the proposed standard, if finalized,” DOE said in an updated analysis (pdf).

DOE issued the updated analysis mainly because it excluded certain types of gas cooking tops in the previous analysis that was published on Feb. 1 (pdf).

Only 4 percent of the gas cooking tops in 2027 could meet the EL 2 standard if the new standard was not implemented, according to DOE’s projection in the previous analysis.

The article continues:

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) said they’re “very concerned” about the direction of the DOE.

“They have released the most stringent proposal for gas ranges, which only a sliver of the market can meet,” Jill Notini, industry spokesperson for AHAM, told The Epoch Times. “It’s very concerning what they’re doing with gas products. We believe that there should be consumer choice and that consumers should be able to make a decision on whether they would like to purchase a gas or electric product.”

“Clearly, the Department of Energy’s intentions are to eliminate gas products from the market. And they should just say that instead of releasing a deceptive and flawed analysis to justify their proposal,” Notini added.

We let the government ruin our showers, our dishwashers and our washing machines. Are we going to let them ruin cooking?

 

Congratulations On Your Twisted Logic

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted President Biden’s explanation of why his mishandling of classified documents was different than President Trump’s. It’s an interesting stretch of logic. Obviously, the first problem is that President Biden’s documents were found in multiple locations. President Trump’s documents (which he claims he had declassified) were in a secured location. But wait–there’s more.

The article reports:

“You and the former president are both now under investigation by the Justice Department for the discovery of these classified documents,” Muir (David Muir ABC News) said. “I know that you believe these two cases are very different. But I do remember something you said after the discovery at Mar-a-Lago, you said, ‘I thought data that was in there may compromise sources and methods and names of people who help and it’s just totally irresponsible.’”

“Can you assure the American people that none of the documents discovered in your garage, or your old office, compromised sources or methods or U.S. intelligence?” Muir asked.

“I’ve been advised by the council, let the Justice Department make that decision, to not try to alter the case in any way, there have been very few documents that have been confiscated, found, in my possession that are in, other than, in my possession, meaning in my ho–, all the stuff that was moved out of my Senate office over the years, I’m told there are a couple things that were from 1973 or 74, the documents were marked classified,” Biden responded. “I don’t know of anything, maybe. I don’t know if anything that is marked like it was, you know, top secret, highly class–, etc. But I am told not to comment on that, because I don’t even know what they are able, what they confiscated.”

First of all, as a Senator, Biden was not supposed to remove classified documents from the skiff. He was not allowed to have them in his personal possession. That is a problem.

The article continues:

Muir then highlighted Biden’s reaction to the news last year that federal officials had found classified material in Trump’s possession.

“One word you used, when you hear about boxes in your garage or in your old office, you called the Trump discovery ‘irresponsible,’” Muir said. “Is there something irresponsible here though, too?”

“You know, you’re a good lawyer, but you’re trying to make a comparison. What, there’s degrees of irresponsibility, that are, they can be significant degrees of responsibility,” Biden claimed. “What, the way in which the boxes were packed up from my office, apparently, not everything was gone through as meticulously as it should have.”

“But there was no intention,” Biden claimed. “I opened up my home, all my homes. My homes, my home at the beach and the home, my permanent home. And they spent hours and hours going through everything, personal, everything I had. And that’s a fundamentally different thing. There’s nothing for me to hide.”

The contrast between the way these two situations has been handled is chilling. This is one of many glaring examples of unequal justice under the law.

Why Is The Government Shooting Cows From Helicopters?

I’m an animal lover. I can’t say that I am particularly fond of cows, but generally I love animals. The idea that our government is shooting cows from helicopters because they are feral cows is offensive to me.

On Saturday, Townhall reported the following:

This weekend, cows roaming in southwest New Mexico’s Gila National Forest are being hunted from helicopters after the United States Forest Service (USFS) decided to move forward with plans to use “lethal methods” to “remove…approximately 150 head of cattle” in Gila National Forest’s second chopper hunt in as many years.

The article goes on to explain that the cows that are shot will be left to decompose naturally unless they are near water, a hiking trail, or a ‘culturally sensitive area’ whatever that it. So I have a question. If you are going to shoot the cows, why not take them to a meat processing plant, have the meat processed and use it to feed people who are hungry? We are always hearing about the problem of hunger is America, wouldn’t giving the people who need food this beef help with that problem?

The article concludes:

Beyond the cruelty Sullivan [Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) Property Rights Committee Chair Shad Sullivan] accused the U.S. Forest Service of employing, he said a larger issue “may be the unchecked power by unelected bureaucrats within governmental agencies setting a precedent for how federal officials handle authority” and the fact that area cattle ranchers are “contending that the USFS isn’t abiding by its own regulations.”

Apparently, this weekend’s hunt has been “decades in the making” according to local cattle growers:

Over the years, by over-regulation or otherwise, allotment owners have left or have been removed from the area, leaving the land vacant and without proper management. This resulted in remnants of cattle herds being left behind. With no plans by USFS to reactivate vacant allotments and lengthy and unsuccessful contract applications for a more humane cattle removal plan, the decades-long problem has come to a head. 

Sullivan further cited “pressure from environmental groups” as weighing on the Forest Service’s decision to use helicopter hunters to put down the cattle. He and R-CALF USA maintain their call for the USFS to “consider other options, such as seeking applications for private individuals to gather the cattle over time or, at least, putting the meat from the estray cattle to good use such as for feeding people in need.”

So, your tax dollars at work: funding chopper cow hunters that will leave some 65 tons of otherwise good beef to decompose in a national forest because otherwise 150 cows might trample some grass in the three million acre reserve. 

Government overreach at its finest.

 

Misplaced Blame From The Mainstream Media

The Democrats have reached the point where if President Biden trips going up the stairs on Air Force One, it’s President Trump’s fault. He obviously made the steps too high. We are seeing this dynamic at work in the aftermath of the train disaster in Ohio. Not only has the Biden administration been slow to respond, some Democrats and media are blaming President Trump for the crash. The fact that up until January, the Democrats for two years controlled Congress and the Presidency does not seem to play into their thought process. Anyway, The Washington Examiner posted an article on Saturday that provides clarification on what is being said.

The article reports:

Facts are stubborn things. So, the best way for Democrats to push a good partisan narrative is to ignore them entirely.

That’s what many on the Left are doing right now in the aftermath of a disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. They’re attempting to pin the blame for the ensuing chemical disaster on former President Donald Trump and “deregulation” more broadly, arguing that the Trump administration repealed an Obama-era safety rule that could’ve prevented this tragic accident.

…Progressive voices ranging from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the White House to the popular “Pod Save America” hosts and huge liberal social media pages such as Occupy Democrats have made this accusation or insinuation.

…There’s just one problem: It’s complete nonsense. We can debate the pros and cons of that regulation, but it has nothing to do with the current controversy. As a simple matter of fact, it would not have applied to the train that derailed in East Palestine.

You don’t have to take my word for it; take it from the New York Times, hardly a pro-Trump or anti-regulation source.

This is the major quote from the article:

“Since the Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio, some lawmakers and activists have pointed to a 2015 safety regulation adopted by the Obama administration as an example of the changes that they say are needed to make railroads safer. … But after lobbying by the railroad industry, the Trump administration repealed the rule in 2018,” the New York Times reports . Yet it goes on to admit that: “Had the rule remained in effect, it would not have applied to the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine.”

The New York Times’s source for this is Jennifer Homendy, a Democrat and head of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the article. It is quite possible that some regulations need to be looked at in an effort to prevent another ecological disaster like the one that occurred in Ohio, but no regulations impacting the train involved have been changed.

Sanity From The Medical Profession

On Thursday, The  Epoch Times posted an article about a recent statement by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

The article reports:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is warning about “unknown and unknowable long-term risks” it says are inherent to “gender-affirming care” in minors, adding that the consequences of gender transition surgery are irreversible.

“Gender-affirming” procedures include so-called puberty blockers, sex hormones, and surgery, such as castration, penectomy, and mastectomy, the nonpartisan professional association noted in its Feb. 20 official statement outlining its stance on “gender-affirming care” for children.

The AAPS warns that gender transition procedures are “generally irreversible and have a high probability of causing sterilization.” The procedures also “commit a patient to a lifelong need for medical, surgical, and psychological care.”

Such procedures in minors also are medically and ethically contraindicated due to a lack of informed consent, the AAPS stated.

“Physicians and medical professionals should refuse to be mandated or coerced to participate in procedures to which they have ethical or scientific objections or which they believe would harm a patient.”

Founded in 1943, the organization represents doctors in all specialties nationwide and seeks to preserve the practice of private medicine. Over the years, the group has been a strong proponent of patient autonomy and freedom of discourse in medicine.

The article notes:

The association maintains that while medical, surgical, and other methods can be used to alter the physical appearance of a person’s body, they can’t change a person’s biological sex.

Biological sex is determined at conception by genotype, and with the exception of rare circumstances that could result in ambiguous genitalia, biological sex is “indeed obvious” and is correctly identified at birth, the AAPS states.

Biological sex, or genotype, then determines the role of a person in reproduction.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It represents some common sense in a time when those who consider themselves trendy are doing harmful things to our children.

Powered By Unicorns

On Friday, Front Page Magazine posted an article about the future of green energy. There are a lot of things that the people who are trying to turn all of America’s power ‘green’ are either ignoring or unaware of.

The article quotes an article from The New York Times posted on Thursday:

PJM Interconnection, which operates the nation’s largest regional grid, stretching from Illinois to New Jersey, has been so inundated by connection requests that last year it announced a freeze on new applications until 2026, so that it can work through a backlog of thousands of proposals, mostly for renewable energy.

It now takes roughly four years, on average, for developers to get approval, double the time it took a decade ago.

And when companies finally get their projects reviewed, they often face another hurdle: the local grid is at capacity, and they are required to spend much more than they planned for new transmission lines and other upgrades.

Many give up. Fewer than one-fifth of solar and wind proposals actually make it through the so-called interconnection queue, according to research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

So we can create all of the solar and wind energy we want, but if we have no way to distribute it, it is useless.

 

How It Happened

On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted an article detailing the actual cause of the train wreck that has created the ecological disaster in Ohio. After reading the article, I am not sure what could have been done to prevent the accident or what needs to be done in the future to prevent another accident like this.

This article reports:

The catastrophic February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, was caused by an overheated wheel bearing on the 23rd of 149 rail cars, according to a preliminary report issued Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Norfolk Southern Railway train derailment led to a decision to burn more than a hundred thousand gallons of highly toxic chemicals, leading to concerns the air and water in and around the town of 4,700 could be badly contaminated. While it was already believed the wreck was caused by a malfunctioning wheel, the NTSB report revealed new details.

…The tracks are equipped with “hot bearing detectors” that assess the temperature conditions of wheel bearings on passing trains, alerting crews if wheel bearings exceed 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The train that derailed passed three sensors before it derailed, with the doomed wheel bearing first registering 38 degrees above ambient temperatures, then 103 degrees, and finally 253 degrees above ambient temperatures, the report stated.

The sensor system transmitted a critical audible alarm message directing the crew to slow and stop the train. The engineer did so, but ​once the train stopped the crew saw fire and smoke from derailed cars and notified the Cleveland East dispatcher of a possible derailment.

By February 5, chemical fires sparked by the tanker cars colliding during the derailment were under control, according to the report. But with five cars carrying 115,580 gallons of highly volatile vinyl chloride on the derailed train, and the temperature rising in at least one of them, the decision was made to execute a “controlled burn” of the chemicals, sending a black, toxic plume into the skies above East Palestine.

The people in East Palestine need our prayers. I can’t imagine living in a place where breathing the air hurts.

President Trump Is Definitely Seen As A Threat To The Washington Establishment

Eric Swalwell is not a shining example of a Congressman. Sleeping with a Chinese spy did not get him removed from the House Intelligence Committee. He’s so deep in the swamp, he’s on a first-name basis with the alligators. Now he has sponsored a bill that he hopes will pass to make sure the swamp stays intact and avoids any future dismantling by President Trump.

On Wednesday, The Political Insider reported the following:

California lawmaker Eric Swalwell is co-sponsoring a bill that would ban Donald Trump and several allies of the former President from entering the United States Capitol.

The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 17th by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA). The sole co-sponsor of the legislation is Swalwell (D-CA).

The resolution seeks to prohibit “President Donald Trump and certain other individuals who attempted to undermine and overturn the 2020 presidential election from entering the United States Capitol.”

It reads as if it were written by a CNN intern, and includes the requisite lie that the January 6th riot at the Capitol “claimed the lives of five law enforcement officers.”

It didn’t. No police officers died that day, nor did any die as a direct cause of the actions that took place that day. Democrats, however, want you to think they did. It’s all part of making January 6th the newest National Myth.

The bill seeks to enlist the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms and the U.S. Capitol Police in preventing Trump and his colleagues from ever setting foot in the Capitol.

How in the world is this bill even constitutional? This is simply another indication of how frightened the swamp is of a Trump presidency. If Trump were elected in 2024, he would be a lame duck to begin with. He would not have to consider his political future in his decisions. He would be free to do whatever was needed without concern for re-election. That would be a good thing. I personally would like to see him elected because I feel that he would do a good job and that he was cheated in the last election. There are a lot of things just now coming to light about voting irregularities in the 2020 election, and most of them are in places that made the difference in the Electoral College. We can’t do a do-over of that election, but I believe we can make things right by electing Trump in 2024. The swamp is terrified of that possibility.

Do These Regulations Look Familiar?

The mid-term elections are behind us and even though it is way too early, attention has turned to the 2024 presidential election. One of the challenges to whomever the Democrat candidate is will whether or not the crisis at our southern (and now northern) border is resolved. The Biden administration has a plan for that. Actually, it bears a striking resemblance to the Trump administration plan.

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported:

The Biden administration proposed a new restriction on asylum seekers that closely resembles a policy from the Trump administration.

The new rule would prevent migrants who do not use already available legal pathways to asylum and do not seek asylum in a third country from applying for asylum in the U.S. Biden Administration officials said the rule was proposed in response to the end of Title 42 immigration restrictions. It also closely resembles a Trump administration policy which similarly banned asylum seekers who did not first seek asylum in another country.

The article concludes:

After a public comment period, the new restrictions will go into effect on May 11th, the same day that the Biden administration intends to end the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies. Title 42 restrictions, which allow authorities to turn migrants away due to public health concerns, are also scheduled to end then.

The new restrictions closely resemble a similar asylum ban implemented by the Trump administration. Those restrictions, referred to as both “asylum bans” and “transit bans,” were highly controversial and bitterly fought over in the courts from the beginning of former President Trump’s term. The Trump-era bans were blocked by the courts in 2018 and 2020; the final rule was implemented on Trump’s last full day in office, but a judge struck that down as well.

Democrats and immigration advocates decried the new rules because of the similarities to Trump policies. But the Biden administration dismissed those criticisms, and noted that they have provided alternative pathways for migrants to seek asylum. In January, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the comparisons, saying that his plan was based on “a rebuttable presumption of ineligibility. And there’s a marked difference between the two,” he said, via The Hill.

The South American refugees coming through Mexico are a much better fit for asylum in Mexico than in America. They share the Spanish language and culture. Mexico needs its patriots and those willing to join its patriots to stand up to the thugs that are attempting to take it over. I realize that is easier said than done, but we need both a strong border and a strong Mexican government to put an end to the refugee crisis.

How Much Money Does China Funnel Into Congress Every Year?

I don’t have concrete information that China funnels money into Congress; however, that is the only logical explanation for some of the decisions that Congress makes.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s efforts to block China from buying up farmland in her state were thwarted this week when a supermajority of state Senators rejected her proposal.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Noem had proposed a bill that would “create a state-level version of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)” in order to curtail foreign Chinese entities from buying agricultural land in her state:

Currently, CFIUS is a federal board that approves or disapproves of foreign entities engaging in major U.S. transactions. Noem’s proposal would establish a CFIUS-South Dakota, or CFIUS-SD, which would review proposed transactions in the state where foreign entities including but not limited to Chinese entities seek to purchase land. The board, if established — which would require the legislature to pass Noem’s proposal — could block such land sales as it sees fit.

Essentially, Senate Bill 185 would have granted the South Dakota governor the power to unilaterally veto any purchase reviewed by the panel. The state senate rejected the bill on Tuesday with an 11-23 vote.

“The bill faced opposition from nearly every agriculture industry group in committee testimony. But the proposal’s supporters on the Senate floor said any flaws would be rectified before it becomes law,” reported South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB).

The article concludes:

“What’s been interesting about the debate so far on this bill I’m proposing with help from a couple legislators,” she continued, “is that the opposition has not come to the table and given us other solutions and other things they think would work that would give us this kind of accountability and make sure that we have a review of land that’s purchased in South Dakota. They haven’t given us articulated reasons as to why they’re opposed to the bill, so for me, this is an issue the public has brought to me for many, many months. They care about this.”

Opposition to this bill makes no sense–letting a country that seeks to defeat us control the land that supplies our food is insanity. Controlling the food supply controls the population. That is a political tool of a tyrant.

The Pfizer Trials Of The Covid Vaccine Were Rigged

On Tuesday, The Conservative Review reported the following:

According to new provisional data from the Scottish government, there were 7,314 deaths registered in January 2023, an increase of 17.7% compared to the average of 6,212. For the second week of January, there were more deaths in Scotland than ever before, including during the peak of the pandemic. Concurrently, there were 4,159 births registered in January 2023, a decrease of 6.8% compared to the average of 4,463. In other words, between a dearth of births and a plethora of deaths, there were roughly 1,400 fewer souls, the equivalent of roughly 86,000 in the United States. This is long after COVID. Why is there zero concern?

What on earth will it take to pull these death shots from the market?

Die Welt, a paper based in the home country of Pfizer partner BioNTech, revealed last week in a long expose what many of us have long known. All those sudden deaths, heart attacks, and strokes we’ve been witnessing over the past two years were indeed observed during the Pfizer clinical trial that supposedly showed the shots to be 100% safe and effective. The company simply covered up the severe adverse events by kicking those participants out of the trial and/or suggesting without evidence that the deaths had nothing to do with the experiment.

So why is our government still encouraging people to get Covid shots?

The article concludes:

Amid all the existential threats to our security, civilization, culture, and economy – and there are certainly many – can you think of anything that matches the severity of this issue? From died suddenly to plummeting birth rates, how is the vaccine issue not the top concern of all public policy, given that it was injected in 5.5 billion people and officials are on the cusp of approving more mRNAs? So we’re now supposed to believe Moderna’s own published phase 3 trial results of its RSV shot that it’s 84% effective and absolutely no serious adverse events occurred? Within months, if we don’t stop it, this shot will be in the arms of every senior and then, eventually, in the arms of every newborn baby.

After Pfizer purposely fabricated its clinical trial, the company must now be on the hook for a different sort of trial – one Steve Deace and I lay out in “Rise of the Fourth Reich.” Unless we begin holding pharma companies accountable and erecting legal firewalls to protect the people from their endless experimentation, they will do this again and again.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It lists specific instances of serious consequences from the vaccine.

Now They Tell Us

On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about some recent discoveries regarding Dominion voting machines.

The article reports:

Dominion Voting Systems employees have acknowledged serious problems with the company’s technology, saying, for example, that a bug led to “INCORRECT results,” according to discovery cited in the defense brief in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion for defamation after becoming a target of alleged conspiracy theories regarding its voting machines being hacked and flipping election results.

In a legal brief made public Thursday, the news outlet cited information obtained from Dominion through discovery. 

In a 2018 email Fox News obtained from Dominion Director of Product Strategy and Security Eric Coomer, he acknowledged the company’s technology was marred by a “*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results.”

“It does not get much worse than that,” he later added.

…In another 2019 email, Coomer wrote, “we don’t address our weaknesses effectively!”

Less than a week before the 2020 presidential election, Coomer conceded in an email that “our sh-t is just riddled with bugs.”

Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, testified in a deposition that “other parties ‘have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly’ in the past,” according to the defense brief.

“Beckstrand,” the brief continues, “identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was ‘hacked’ in Michigan” and “confirmed that these security failures were ‘reported about in the news.'”

After the 2020 election, “a security expert told the media that Dominion ‘software should be designed to detect and prevent th[e] kind of glitch’ experienced in Antrim County, Michigan,” according to the defense, and “Coomer told Dominion Vice President Kay Stimson: ‘He’s not entirely wrong.'”

A conspiracy is only a conspiracy until it turns out to be true.

Losing Our Religious Freedom

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a new Department of Education (DOE) proposal. This proposal illustrates one of many reasons we should defund the Department of Education.

The article reports:

The Department of Education (DOE) announced a proposal Tuesday rescinding a Trump-era policy that prohibited universities from receiving federal funding if they restricted religious student group activities.

The 2020 policy, initially signed by former President Donald Trump as part of an executive order in 2019, was proposed to prevent universities from censoring the speech of religious students on campus, according to the Washington Post. The DEO’s recent announcement indicates that President Joe Biden is looking to end the policy, claiming the protections caused an “unduly burdensome role” for the department.

“[T]he Department believes it is not necessary in order to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion given existing legal protections, it has caused confusion about schools’ nondiscrimination requirements, and it prescribed a novel and unduly burdensome role for the Department in investigating allegations regarding public institutions’ treatment of religious student organizations,” the announcement read. “We have not seen evidence that the regulation has provided meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations beyond the robust First Amendment protections that already exist, much less that it has been necessary to ensure they are able to organize and operate on campus.”

Free speech on college campuses has never been one of the political left’s favorite things. How many times have conservative speakers been shut down?

Here is the good news:

The public comment phase will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and remain open for 30 days for anyone to comment and provide their thoughts on the proposal, according to the announcement.

Please go to the Department of Education website and voice your opposition to this change.

The Environmental Hazards Of Green Energy

On Monday, The Conservative Review reported on a protest rally on Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey.

The article reports:

Hundreds of New Jersey residents gathered on Sunday to rally against offshore wind energy due to a recent uptick in whale deaths in the area, Fox News Digital reported.

Lawmakers, local officials, environmentalists, and residents attended the Sunday rally in Point Pleasant Beach. Attendees called on officials to “defund green energy” and requested a federal moratorium on offshore wind power.

Protesters claimed that the recent deaths of 10 whales discovered in New Jersey and New York might be linked to offshore wind energy construction. Those deaths included a 35-foot humpback whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach last week. Another 25-foot whale was found dead in Rockaway Beach, New York, days later. Since December, additional dead whales have been discovered in Maryland and Virginia.

During the rally, Republican Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey stated, “Today, the whales are sending us a tragic message that demands transparency and accountability — both of which has been sorely missing from Governor Murphy’s plan to use New Jersey’s coast as the prime location for the offshore wind industry in the U.S.”

Unfortunately, green energy is not quite ready for prime time. There are a lot of practical concerns and also ecological concerns. How ‘green’ is the mining of lithium in Africa? Were the rolling blackouts in North Carolina the result of the state’s quest for a higher percentage of green energy? The blades of windmills have a limited life span. How should we dispose of them? Solar panels have a limited lifespan and contain toxic chemicals. How should we dispose of them? What is the impact of the low level vibrations of windmills on the sonar of whales and dolphins? What is the impact of the low level vibrations of windmills on the neighboring population? On February 17, 2020, I posted an article reporting that the Plymouth, Massachusetts, Board of Health had declared the four wind turbines along Route 25 a nuisance. Please follow the link to read the details. I am not sure Massachusetts has learned its lesson yet, but the people who live near those windmills wanted them down.

 

Threatened With Exposure?

Adam Schiff has an interesting relationship with the truth. He claimed to have information proving collusion between President Trump and the Russians. Somehow that information never appeared. He created a fictional telephone call between President Trump and Ukraine that he wanted to be the basis for impeachment. And he sat on the January 6th Committee supposedly investigating the events of that day. So far he has never been held accountable for his lies. However, that may be changing.

On February 20th, I posted an article about 14,000 hours of footage from cameras around the Capitol complex from January 6th that has been released to Tucker Carlson. Red State posted an article on February 20th about Representative Schiff’s reaction to the release. Somehow the Representative is less than thrilled that the footage will probably be made public fairly soon.

The article notes:

“Kevin McCarthy turned over Jan 6 videos to right-wing propagandist Tucker Carlson,” Schiff huffed. “A man who spews Kremlin talking points. Suggests Jan 6 was a false flag. And spreads the Big Lie. Make no mistake: This isn’t about transparency, it’s about fueling dangerous conspiracy theories.”

It’s always a conspiracy theory until we find out that it is true!

The article notes:

So the man who lied his head off about the Russia collusion hoax is concerned about “dangerous conspiracy theories” when he helped to promote one?

How is the actual video footage that was shot a “dangerous conspiracy theory”? What Schiff is saying is he has a problem with the truth coming out, that the truth is “dangerous,” and that he fears it, that’s what he’s saying here. That’s why neither he nor Pelosi wanted this video out there, otherwise, he wouldn’t be so desperate to try to attack the release now. If he cared about the truth, he’d welcome the release. But to Schiff, the truth is just something to lie about, to achieve his political aims.

During the next few weeks, I suspect that the Tucker Carlson Tonight will have many ‘get-out-the-popcorn segments.’

Giving Away American Sovereignty?

On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

Biden Admin Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over US Pandemic Policies

The next line says:

New international health accord avoids necessary Senate approval

Is anyone else getting tired of the Biden administration’s total disregard for the U.S. Constitution?

The article reports:

The Biden administration is preparing to sign up the United States to a “legally binding” accord with the World Health Organization (WHO) that would give this Geneva-based UN subsidiary the authority to dictate America’s policies during a pandemic.

Despite widespread criticism of the WHO’s response to the COVID pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra joined with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in September 2022 to announce “the U.S.-WHO Strategic Dialogue.” Together, they developed a “platform to maximize the longstanding U.S. government-WHO partnership, and to protect and promote the health of all people around the globe, including the American people.”

These discussions and others spawned the “zero draft” (pdf) of a pandemic treaty, published on Feb. 1, which now seeks ratification by all 194 WHO member states. A meeting of the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is scheduled for Feb. 27 to work out the final terms, which all members will then sign.

Written under the banner of “the world together equitably,” the zero draft grants the WHO the power to declare and manage a global pandemic emergency. Once a health emergency is declared, all signatories, including the United States, would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments, government regulations such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates, global supply chains, and monitoring and surveillance of populations.

Let’s look back on the successes and failures of following the WHO policies during the Covid pandemic. Sweden refused the lockdown suggested by the WHO and (according to the BBC) suffered a death rate of 185.9 per 100,000 people. America locked down and suffered a death rate of 308.6 per 100,000. I don’t think the lockdowns had the desired effect.

The article continues:

The WHO pandemic treaty is part of a two-track effort, coinciding with an initiative by the World Health Assembly (WHA) to create new global pandemic regulations that would also supersede the laws of member states. The WHA is the rule-making body of the WHO, comprised of representatives from the member states.

“Both [initiatives] are fatally dangerous,” Francis Boyle, professor of international law at Illinois University, told The Epoch Times. “Either one or both would set up a worldwide medical police state under the control of the WHO, and in particular WHO Director-General Tedros. If either one or both of these go through, Tedros or his successor will be able to issue orders that will go all the way down the pipe to your primary care physicians.”

Physician Meryl Nass told The Epoch Times: “If these rules go through as currently drafted, I, as a doctor, will be told what I am allowed to give a patient and what I am prohibited from giving a patient whenever the WHO declares a public health emergency. So they can tell you you’re getting remdesivir, but you can’t have hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. What they’re also saying is they believe in equity, which means everybody in the world gets vaccinated, whether or not you need it, whether or not you’re already immune.”

This is an unacceptable loss of American freedom and American sovereignty.

Will There Be Accountability?

We have reached the point where some people will do anything to win an election. Inventing tales of foreign collusion, withholding information about a protest that got out of control, and releasing what were supposed to be ‘sealed’ records.

My earliest recollection of releasing ‘sealed’ records was the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.

In August of 2012, Townhall noted:

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader. But then the Chicago Tribune leaked the claim that Hull’s second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

Those records were under seal, but as The New York Times noted: “The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had ‘worked aggressively behind the scenes’ to push the story.” Many people said Axelrod (David Axelrod) had “an even more significant role — that he leaked the initial story.”

Fast forward to today. On February 19th, Just the News reported:

In an unprecedented breach, the Air Force improperly released to a research firm tied to Democrats’ congressional campaign arm the confidential personnel files of eleven members of the military, including one involving a retired lieutenant colonel running for office as a Republican that detailed how she had been sexually assaulted in the Air Force, Congress has been told.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer are demanding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explain how he will prevent future breaches of military members’ private information while pressing to know if there will be criminal prosecutions.

…In January, Green received a letter from acting Compliance Division Chief William J. Alexander Jr. acknowledging that her records were released “without proper redaction.”

“We found that your information was released by the Air Force [Personnel] Center to a third-party (‘Due Diligence’), a private company specializing in public record research without your consent via a SF-180 request,” he wrote. 

Coincidentally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $100,000 to the Due Diligence Group since 2021 (source OpenSecrets.org). Until people actually go to jail for this foolishness, it will not stop.

 

 

 

Holding On To Our Freedom By A Thread

On Monday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted the following headline:

Is THIS the key to tackling climate change? Scientists claim World War II-style RATIONING of petrol, energy and meat could help countries slash their carbon emissions ‘rapidly and fairly’

Does anyone really believe that the quest to end our carbon emissions will be fair? Let’s start with private jets–it’s much less damaging to the environment to let people travel in airplanes that hold more than five or six people–sort of like mass transit only in the air. Are we going to limit the size of people’s houses–how many square feet do the Obamas and Bidens have? Should they be forced to take in people to average out their square footage? Don’t hold your breath.

The article reports:

Climate change could be tackled with the help of a World War II-style rationing of petrol, meat and the energy people use in their homes, UK scientists say.

They claim that this would help countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions ‘rapidly and fairly’.

Researchers from the University of Leeds also said that governments could restrict the number of long-haul flights people make in a year or ‘limit the amount of petrol one can buy in a month’.

A population that can’t travel anywhere is much easier to control.

The article notes:

In much the same way as during World War Two, the researchers argue that carbon rationing would allow people to receive an equal portion of resources based on their needs, therefore sharing out the effort to protect the planet.

Lead author Dr Nathan Wood, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Utrecht University’s Fair Energy Consortium, said: ‘The concept of rationing could help, not only in the mitigation of climate change, but also in reference to a variety of other social and political issues – such as the current energy crisis.’

The researchers add: ‘Rationing is often seen as unattractive, and therefore not a viable option for policy-makers. 

‘It is important to highlight the fact that this was not the case for many of those who had experienced rationing. 

‘It is important to emphasise the difference between rationing itself and the scarcity that rationing was a response to. 

‘Of course, people did welcome the end of rationing, but they were really celebrating the end of scarcity, and celebrating the fact that rationing was no longer necessary.’

I had not realized how far down the road to socialism we actually are.