Monthly Archives: March 2023

The Dismantling Of America

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The two-plus years of the Biden administration have not been a roaring success. Despite the fact that the administration tells us the economy is strong and doing well, there seem to be a few problems, two or which are very obvious when you go to the grocery store or fill up your gas tank. There is another problem looming that is far more serious than the two I just mentioned.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Joe Biden is dethroning King Dollar in real time. The US dollar’s financial dominance is under siege from a uniquely bad combination of foreign and domestic policies, and Americans should be deeply concerned by the fallout if the dollar loses its 80-year reign as the world’s reserve currency.

In just the past weeks, China conducted the first major LNG sale in renminbi instead of dollars, struck a major deal with Brazil to conduct trade in their own currencies, and just announced the sale of 65,000 tons of LNG to France denominated in yuan. This dovetails with the Biden administration’s inflationary policies and ham-handed sanctions on Russia that accelerated foreigners’ flight from the dollar at the very moment the world doubts if the dollar remains a safe and reliable store of value.

Since the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 and the petrodollar deal in 1945, the dollar has enjoyed preeminent status around the world, especially for international trade and exchange. This created huge demand for dollars abroad and allowed the US to export inflation, to spend beyond our means and leaving foreigners to soak up the extra.

As the Federal Reserve created billions for the government to spend in the 1960s, it threatened America’s gold reserves. At the time, all major currencies were redeemable for dollars, and dollars were redeemable for gold. When “guns and butter” policy led to a run on gold, President Nixon ended the dollar-gold-exchange standard with what was supposed to be a temporary measure.

The article concludes:

If the de-dollarization progresses what becomes of the trillions of dollars accumulated around the world since 1944?

If foreigners no longer want them for trade, central bank reserves, private wealth funds, and the official currency of about a dozen countries, all those dollars have nowhere to go but back to us in a flood like our country has never seen. This flood will compete for goods and services in the US against the dollars already here as decades of accumulated trade deficits come flooding back all at once.

At that point, hyperinflation will not be hyperbole.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. My only investment advice is “PRAY.”

The Chess Game Continues

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The only thing in Washington that is bi-partisan is the establishment. The main goal of the Washington establishment is to maintain the status quo–the Washington establishment gets rich and more powerful and Americans pay the price. The biggest threat to that establishment is President Donald Trump. Why? Because he has the resources to fight them, and no one owns him. He is also not afraid to call things what they are. The establishment needs to make sure that President Trump never has enough power in Washington to undo the status quo that makes the Washington establishment rich and powerful.

Two seemingly unrelated things happened on Thursday–the indictment of President Trump and the rescheduling of a committee vote in the Florida legislation.

On Friday, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Timing is everything, and the timing here is simultaneously transparent and inappropriate.

Today the Florida Senate scheduled a change via committee vote of the “Resign to Run” law for next Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 2:00pm. The intent of the change is almost certainly to permit Governor Ron DeSantis to formally announce his 2024 candidacy without having to resign his job as governor.

The indictment of President Trump will probably guarantee that he will be the GOP nominee for President, but it could make it difficult for him to be elected. That would be good news for the Washington establishment. However, if the indictment gives the nomination to Governor DeSantis (because of the Florida law change), that would also be good news for the Washington establishment. If a Democrat wins, the status-quo will be maintained. A close look at the people backing Ron DeSantis tells us that if Governor DeSantis wins the nomination (and the election), the status-quo will be maintained. It’s a win-win for the Democrats.

Remember, a win for the Washington establishment is a loss for America.

A Truly Sad Day In America

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On Thursday, The New York Post reported:

The NYPD is beefing up its presence as newly indicted former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender early next week, sources told The Post Thursday.

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office — which filed an unprecedented indictment against Trump, 76, related to hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels — wanted him arraigned Friday, sources said.

But Trump’s lawyers wouldn’t agree to that and instead, he’ll turn himself in next week, possibly as early as Monday, the sources added.

My first reaction to this is a message to all Americans–DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PROTEST OR REACT. That is what the forces behind this indictment are hoping for–an excuse to arrest anyone who supports President Trump and might be likely to vote for him. To me, his indictment means that all of us need to get behind President Trump and vote for him for President in 2024–otherwise, those who do not respect our Constitution have won, and our Republic is gone. Please be careful how you react.

Why is President Trump indicted when Hunter Biden, whose own laptop shows criminal activity still walking around? Why are all of the people involved in the Epstein chronicles with Ghislaine Maxwell not only still not revealed and still not charged with anything?

As of right now, it is pretty obvious that lady justice has taken her blindfold off and is working to turn America into a one-party country where taking a stand that does not agree with the powers that be will get you indicted. America needs our prayers; she is in deep trouble.

The Wheels Of Justice Move Slowly

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On Thursday, The Conservative Brief reported the following:

Jacob Chansley, who became infamous for being referred to as the “QAnon Shaman” from the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been released from prison.

Chansley pleaded guilty in November 2021 to one felony charge regarding his involvement with the Capitol riot and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

His lawyer, Bill Shipley, early Thursday morning: “For the record: Jake is out on schedule. I told him 16 months ago in our first conversation it would be Feb. or Mar. 2023. BOP math. I didn’t do anything extraordinary–this was always the schedule, I just understood it and could explain it to him. He was expecting 12 more mos.”

But this is why the trust level between us is solid. I told him the truth, and I told him what would happen. We made several decisions after long discussions. He’s exactly where we both expected he would be. The Tucker revelations are significant but Jake can’t get the time back. Understanding the schedule, we agreed to not rush our next step. Let’s get accurate info on the videos, evaluate our options, then make a plan. I could have rushed it out and run to the cameras. But that wasn’t the right choice,” he added in subsequent tweets.

The arrest of Jacob Chansley and his treatment in jail were unconstitutional from the start. The tapes shown on Tucker Carlson Tonight simply underlined that problem. None of the January 6th prisoners have been granted the speedy trials or the right to confront their accusers that are supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution.

I am glad that Mr. Chansley is out of jail, but the fact that he was in jail and the fact that he and the other prisoners were treated so horribly is a disgrace to America.

 

When The Department Of Justice Decides To Enforce Only Some Of The Laws

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On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the protests outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices after the leak of the Dobbs decision.

The article reports:

Freshman Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) exposed an inconvenient truth Tuesday during a budget hearing. Attorney General Merrick Garland was questioned during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing about the fact that U.S. Marshals guarding the homes of Supreme Court justices have been instructed not to arrest protesters even though Garland previously claimed that the marshals have a free hand when it comes to making arrests.

Senator Britt came with proof that the marshals are instructed in the training package that arrests of protesters outside of the homes of Supreme Court justices are not priorities. The protests are regularly held outside the homes of the conservative Supreme Court justices in response to the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v Wade. Ever since a draft was deliberately leaked last spring that indicated the Court would overturn Roe v Wade, protesters have violated a federal statute that outlaws protesting at a judge’s home with the intent to influence a ruling. That is exactly what the protesters are doing.

In today’s highly-charged political atmosphere, such protests have the potential to turn deadly. Last June, local police arrested an armed man who traveled from California to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in suburban Maryland with the intention to kill him. He told police he was angry about the Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and guns. He was charged in federal court with seeking to assassinate the Supreme Court justice. That incident highlighted the potential danger the justices and their families are in while they are in their homes. Congress approves additional security for the justices.

There are a number of problems with the protesters at the justices’ homes. First of all, protesting at a judge’s home to influence a ruling is illegal. Secondly, Justice Roberts created a problem when he voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Because his vote made the decision a 5-4 decision rather than a 6-3 decision, it sent a message to the abortion lobby that all they need is one justice to reverse the decision. That was a bad move on Justice Roberts’ part and may result in violence against one of the other justices. Meanwhile the protesters breaking the law don’t have to worry about the fact that they are committing a crime.

The Cost Of Not Securing The Border

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One of the problems with the number of people who are in America illegally is that many of them drive illegally. Unfortunately, many of them have accidents while driving, some of them drive while drunk, and some have no insurance to cover the damage they cause. That happened in my community a few years ago when someone ran their car into one of the pillars leading into the community. Because the person had no license or insurance, the community had to pay for the repairs. The person who did the damage did not pay. As a result of some of the problems with illegal aliens driving without a license, some states have decided to issue licenses to illegal aliens.

On Monday, Breitbart reported:

Providing thousands of eligible illegal aliens with driver’s licenses is set to cost Massachusetts taxpayers some $28 million, Gov. Maura Healey (D) reveals.

Last year, Massachusetts joined a swath of other states after voters approved a new law that will make driver’s licenses available to potentially 85,000 illegal aliens living across the state.

Just for the record, according to those numbers, illegal aliens make up approximately 1.2 percent of the population of Massachusetts.

The article also notes:

After previously estimating the new law would cost taxpayers less than $10 million to implement, Healey’s office now reveals that it is likely to cost close to $30 million.

“In support of this new law, H.1 adds $28 million in funding to expand service hours at select RMV locations … new applicants will pay the standard transaction fees at the Registry, bringing in additional revenue that will largely offset these implementation costs,” Healey’s office noted in a budget memo.

The article explains why people who support open borders support driver’s licenses for illegal aliens:

Driver’s licenses for illegal aliens are vital for the open borders lobby because often when illegal aliens are pulled over by local police, driving without a driver’s license is the first criminal charge that can put them in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for arrest and deportation.

In Fiscal Year 2022, states scored more than 17,500 drunk driving convictions for illegal aliens who were later arrested by ICE agents. Another nearly 11,500 traffic offense convictions were settled against illegal aliens turned over to ICE.

If people break the law to come to America, why do we expect them to respect the law after they get here?

Remembering The Yugo

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On Tuesday, Issues & Insights posted an article titled, “EVs Are The Yugo Of The 21st Century.” I think they are on to something.

The article reports:

Way back in the mid-1980s, communist Yugoslavia exported the Yugo, a compact car that sold for around $4,000. It was so poorly made that bumping into a pole at 5 mph could total it.

Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car’s been driven only a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren’t cheap imports from some godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an average sticker price of $55,000.

Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.

As Reuters reported recently, “For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents,” which means the only viable option is to replace the battery, which represents about half the cost of the car.

The article notes:

A replacement battery for a $44,000 Tesla Model 3 can cost up to $20,000.

One expert told Reuters that Tesla’s Model Y has “zero repairability” because its battery is built into the structure of the car.

The article concludes:

EV advocates say not to worry. Car makers, they say, are designing batteries to be more modular and replaceable. They promise that repair costs will eventually come down, and all will be well.

Maybe so, but that’s why force-feeding this technology is so reckless.

In a normal market, carmakers would work out such kinks before mass producing a vehicle, much less converting their entire fleets over to a new and relatively untested technology. If they couldn’t resolve problems of affordability, reliability, and repairability to consumers’ satisfaction, automakers would scrap the effort and move on to something else.

But our elites think they know better. And they want new cars to be 100% electric within a decade. So, carmakers feel like they have little choice but to plow ahead.

Which brings up another way that today’s EVs are like the Yugos of yesteryear.

One auto critic said of the Yugo that it “had the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint.”

That was probably literally true in the case of the Yugo. But it is essentially the situation with EVs today. Consumers aren’t banging on dealership doors demanding EVs. Ford reported last week that its e-car division is losing billions of dollars a year.

Car companies are pouring money into electric cars only because the government is holding a gun to their heads, saying build EVs or die.

About the same time the Yugo came out, the first Hyundai arrived in America. My husband and I bought the first Hyundai that arrived in New England. Hyundai was made in a free country under the free market; Yugo was made in a communist country where free enterprise was not the way things were done. Hyundai is still going strong. My husband actually drives a Hyundai today. Where is the Yugo?

Is Lying To The FBI Only Important Sometimes?

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On Monday, Just the News posted an article about a recent development in the Special Counsel John Durham investigation.

The article reports:

Special Counsel John Durham is revealing new smoking gun evidence, a text message that shows a Clinton campaign lawyer lied to the FBI, while putting the courts on notice he is prepared to show the effort to smear Donald Trump with now-disproven Russia collusion allegations was a “conspiracy.”

In a bombshell court filing late Monday night, Durham for the first time suggested Hillary Clinton’s campaign, her researchers and others formed a “joint venture or conspiracy” for the purpose of weaving the collusion story to harm Trump’s election chances and then the start of his presidency.

“These parties acted as ‘joint venturer[s]’ and therefore should be ‘considered as co-conspirator[s],'” he wrote.

Durham also revealed he has unearthed a text message showing Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann falsely told the FBI he was not working on behalf of any client when he delivered now-discredited anti-Trump research in the lead-up to the 2016 election. In fact, he was working for the Clinton campaign and another client, prosecutors say.

The existence of the text message between Sussmann and then-FBI General Counsel James Baker was revealed in a court filing late Monday night by Durham’s team. Prosecutors said they intend to show Sussmann gave a false story to the FBI but then told the truth about working on behalf of the Clinton campaign when he later testified to Congress.

So why are we hearing this now? Remember, the news is controlled by the Democrats. They do not want Joe Biden to run for President in 2024. I would say based on this story that they also do not want Hillary Clinton to run for President in 2024. The news media is clearing the way for someone–I have no idea who. I have a few guesses, but at this point they are merely guesses.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Then as yourself why this information was not available before 2020. Then ask yourself if the corruption is all through the Democrat party or if the Clintons were an isolated example.

A Police State?

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Matt Taibbi is a journalist who has been reporting on the Twitter files released by Elon Musk. Matt Taibbi is not a conservative and is considered an objective journalist. As anyone who has followed the story is aware, the Twitter files show a lot of illegal activity in the collaboration between Twitter and a number of government agencies. Obviously, the deep state is not happy about this information being revealed to the public. Telling the truth has consequences.

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported:

An IRS agent showed up at the home of ‘Twitter Files’ journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he testified before Jim Jordan’s Committee on Weaponization of the Federal Government.

How convenient.

On March 9, Matt Taibbi dropped a Twitter Files ahead of his testimony to Congress: THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger appeared before Congress later that day.

The FTC had already been harassing Elon Musk and demanding he “identify all journalists” granted access to the Twitter files.

The article notes:

The IRS agent just showed up to the journalist’s home unannounced!

The Wall Street Journal reported:

Democrats are denouncing the House GOP investigation into the weaponization of government, but maybe that’s because Republicans are getting somewhere. That includes new evidence that the Internal Revenue Service may be targeting a journalist who testified before the weaponization committee.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.

The article concludes:

Mr. Taibbi has provided the committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.

He says the IRS initially rejected his 2021 return, which he later refiled, and it was rejected again—even though Mr. Taibbi says his accountants refiled it with an IRS-provided pin number. Mr. Taibbi notes that in neither case was the issue “monetary,” and that the IRS owes him a “considerable” sum.

There is a desperate need to clean house in Washington.

 

 

An Interesting Turn Of Events

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The House Oversight Committee that is investigating the amazing wealth that seems to have flowed to the Biden family in recent years has been meeting strong headwinds. For whatever reason, American banks have been unwilling to allow Congress access to the Biden family information. However, the Committee is getting cooperation from an unlikely source.

On Monday, Breitbart reported the following:

A bank founded by Chinese-Americans that facilitated many Biden family transactions voluntarily provided Republican investigators with Biden family bank records, a stark difference from the current practices of U.S. banks, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) revealed Sunday.

Cathay Bank, which has offices in the U.S. and communist China, voluntarily provided Johnson’s investigation with 200 bank records from 2017 and 2018 showing how the Biden family moved money through a complicated web of entities. The specific records revealed transactions between Hunter Biden-linked business entities and Chinese energy firm CEFC, whose top company lieutenant was the “spy chief of China,” according to Hunter Biden.

In contrast, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has not received such easy cooperation from U.S. banks that have records of the Biden family business.

During his probe, Comer has launched a number of subpoenas to obtain the Biden family’s bank records. One of those subpoenas compelled damning information to come to light that showed the Biden family members collectedly received a $1.3 million cut from a $3 million wire transfer from CEFC, according to Comer.

The article notes a possible reason for the cooperation from Chinese banks:

“That is a very interesting development right there,” Johnson told Fox News. “That bank from China [Cathay Bank]. Let’s face it, the Communist Party controls those types of institutions. They willingly gave us the documents that backed up the Treasury records [Suspicious Activity Reports].”

Johnson questioned why a bank linked to China would be more willing to provide bank documents to investigators than U.S. banks under the control of U.S. banking regulators.

“Is that the Chinese Communist Party, is that a shot across President Biden’s bow saying, listen, this is some of the information we have. If you don’t toe the line, if you don’t do things that displease us, we’re going to even provide… more information?” Johnson questioned. “So we obviously have a multiple-tier system of justice.”

Stay tuned.

Killing A Giant

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The Covid-19 epidemic changed America in many ways–it showed parents what their children were learning in school, and it illustrated the danger of government overreach. The epidemic showed us that the freedoms that we take for granted as Americans were not as solid as we thought they were. In many places, our right to worship in our churches was taken away. One of the forces behind the government overreach was The National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Fauci served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022. He was a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), A lot of the policies during the Covid epidemic was directed by Dr. Fauci.

On Saturday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be divided into three separate operational divisions with presidentially appointed leaders serving time-limited terms under legislation (pdf) introduced in Congress by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).

The proposed NIH Reform Act would divide NIH’s current National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Dr. Anthony Fauci managed for more than 38 years—longer than J. Edgar Hoover oversaw the FBI—by creating three new, separate institutes, one for allergic diseases, a second for infectious diseases, and a third for immunological diseases.

The reform proposal provides presidentially appointed directors for each of the three new NIH institutes, with Senate confirmation required for no more than two consecutive five-year terms. By contrast, Fauci was appointed to head NIAID by then-NIH Director James Wynngaarden in 1984.

Sounds like a very good idea.

This is the most disturbing part of the article:

Fauci has also been a lightning rod for criticism as a result of NIH’s controversial policy allowing employees to receive royalties from pharmaceutical manufacturers for their assistance in developing new drugs. The amounts of the royalties, as well as who paid and who received them, have until recently been kept secret by NIH.

Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak conceded during a recent congressional hearing that such secret royalty payments create the appearance of a conflict of interest, although he insisted that the agency has sufficient internal safeguards to prevent such an occurrence.

The secret royalties were exposed by Open The Books (OTB), a nonprofit government watchdog that filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Those requests were ignored by NIH until OTB took the agency to federal court.

When a federal judge ordered NIH to release the information to OTB, it was learned that payments totaling in excess of  $134 million were paid to more than 1,600 NIH executives, scientists, and researchers by outside firms, thought to be primarily from the pharmaceutical industry, between 2010 and 2014. The matter was first reported by The Epoch Times in May.

Royalty payments went to at least three of the top echelon of NIH leaders, including Dr. Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, who got 14 payments. Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight.

It’s time for reform.

Ten Lies That Fueled The Covid Crisis

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On March 6th, Newsweek posted an article by Scott W. Atlas, MD, the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Co-Director of the Global Liberty Institute, Founding Fellow of Hillsdale’s Academy for Science & Freedom. The article lists the ten lies that formed the basis for the American government’s response to Covid-19.

The article reports:

Here are the 10 biggest falsehoods—known for years to be false, not recently learned or proven to be so—promoted by America’s public health leaders, elected and unelected officials, and now-discredited academics:

1. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the flu by several orders of magnitude.

2. Everyone is at significant risk to die from this virus.

3. No one has any immunological protection, because this virus is completely new.

4. Asymptomatic people are major drivers of the spread.

5. Locking down—closing schools and businesses, confining people to their homes, stopping non-COVID medical care, and eliminating travel—will stop or eliminate the virus.

6. Masks will protect everyone and stop the spread.

7. The virus is known to be naturally occurring, and claiming it originated in a lab is a conspiracy theory.

8. Teachers are at especially high risk.

9. COVID vaccines stop the spread of the infection.

10. Immune protection only comes from a vaccine.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

The article concludes:

None of us are so naïve as to expect a direct apology from critics at my employer, Stanford University, or in government, academic public health, and the media. But to ensure that this never happens again, government leaders, power-driven officials, and influential academics and advisors often harboring conflicts of interest must be held accountable. Personally, I remain highly skeptical that any government investigation or commission can avoid politicization. Regardless of their intention, all such government-run inquiries will at least be perceived as politically motivated and their conclusions will be rejected outright by many. Those investigations must proceed, though, if only to seek the truth, to teach our children that truth matters, and to remember G.K. Chesterton’s critical lesson that “Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it.”

Covid killed Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. We need to do better in responding to our next health crisis.

A Very Important Policy Change

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On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about a rather subtle change in American foreign policy recently voiced by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley.

The article reports:

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Andrea Stricker tuned in to Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley’s testimony before the House Appropriations Committee this past Thursday. Stricker quotes Milley stating that the United States “remains committed, as a matter of policy, that Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon.” Stricker observes that this statement, as well as a similar comment by Milley last September, suggests the Biden administration is prepared to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands provided the weapon is not “fielded” — that is — deployed. Perhaps it depends on the meaning of “fielded.”

…Stricker reminds readers that a shift in U.S. policy from one of nuclear weapons denial to one of preventing deployment — but not their production — would reflect a major departure. President Joe Biden has said repeatedly that the United States will “never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon” on his watch. Former President Trump insisted, “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Former President Obama declared, “Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.”

I take it that it’s all blather and that the United States is okay with Iran’s development and deployment of nuclear weapons. It would surely be more hazardous to act after Iran has fielded such weapons. The Milley modification, if that is what it is, should probably be clarified, not that the clarification would be believable either.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This is NOT good news.

Just In Case You Wondered…

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Who is behind the push to get Ron DeSantis to run for President? Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse posted a video on Sunday that confirms what a lot of us have been thinking.

Here is the video:

The article reports:

Put a fork in the opposition denials to what was increasingly obvious; it’s over.

Last summer we saw the fingerprints of the professional republican apparatus all over the construct that was creating the Ron DeSantis 2024 effort.  The data was all going in one direction, all of the constructs were identical to the Karl Rove playbook with the single addition of the Republican Governor’s Association as a participant.   As the months moved forward the Rovian elements became more and more clear.  The DeSantis supporters tried to deny it, but the truth of the issue is just too obvious.

Now, insider republican political pundit Mark Simone admits that Team Bush and Karl Rove are the specific organizers of the DeSantis 2024 effort.   Appearing on Fox Business, Larry Kudlow asks directly, “who is behind the DeSantis campaign?”   Simone admits, “yeah, it’s Karl Rove – Karl Rove has been advising DeSantis, that’s why he’s been getting a little bit better every week.”

If you like the Washington establishment, Ron DeSantis is your choice for President.

Fear vs. Courage

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Author:   R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D       

Decisions in life are best made by rational thought that weighs the facts and potential outcomes and the best alternative is chosen. I believe most people would agree with that statement. When emotions enter the decision making process errors and mis-judgements are the result. There is plenty of evidence that the Marxist Left is trying and in many ways succeeding in destroying the foundations of this country.  A blind man can see it. 

  Why are they being so successful?  I believe it is through the use of fear and intimidation. Franklin Roosevelt did many things that in the long run put this country on the wrong path. There was one thing he got right when he warned the American people during the Great Depression and leading up to World War II, when he said “… the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”.  It turns out that fear is one of the most powerful emotions, and when given into, prevents people from rational thought and deliberation.  The Democrats have utilized the Marxist playbook to capitalize on the use of fear to destroy our freedoms. The sad part is how easily we have allowed them to do so. One obvious example was their exploitation of the fear of the China virus to assume emergency powers that we would never have tolerated except to the fear factor. Extensive lockdowns, closing schools, closing private businesses, mandatory vaccines and etc., would never have been tolerated without the excessive use of fear.    

Similarly, the destruction of our energy independence and resulting runaway inflation are based on the fear of irreversible and catastrophic climate change as the result of the consumption of fossil fuels. The scare tactics are focused on the most vulnerable and susceptible to fear, namely, our children and the ill informed. Public schools and colleges are hotbeds of leftist indoctrination of climate change fear mongering none of which is based on valid, scientific facts and truth. The fact that the earth has had multiple warming and freezing cycles that occurred way before mankind was consuming fossil fuels is of course disregarded and not taught.     

The Left is constantly calling conservatives ”neo-Nazis”, when in reality they are the ones who use Nazi style tactics.   For instance, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister in charge of the media in Nazi Germany, stated that all it takes is to tell a lie often enough and loudly enough to convince the people that it is true. The mainstream media in this country (including most social platforms) are controlled by the Left and are nothing more than shills for Marxism. It should also be remembered that the Nazis  (National Socialist Party) were socialists not conservatives.  

We must fight back with the truth and stand up before it is too late. The antidote to fear is courage. We need to show it ourselves, teach our children to think for themselves and ensure that our elected officials stand up for conservative principles or vote them out of office. There is not much time left.  We cannot compromise with evil. 

Is Anyone Comfortable With This?

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On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the video included in the Tweet below.The video shows a toddler abandoned by the smuggler who was supposed to get him into America. The smuggler did get him into America, but had the Border Patrol not acted swiftly, the child might not have been alive for very long.

The article reports:

The crisis at the southern border has only intensified since Biden has taken office and further restricted Border Patrol’s ability to expel migrants. Notably, Biden early on made changes to circumvent Title 42 — used by the Trump administration during the pandemic to expel migrants on the basis of public health.

“Beginning April 21, 2022, OFO will increase its capabilities to process noncitizens potentially amenable for an exception to Title 42,” a memo from sent to Border Patrol reportedly said. “Factors weighing in favor of an exception include the following: a physical or mental illness, disability; pregnancy; lack of access to safe housing or shelter in Mexico (under 21 years old or younger or over 70, including families); and an indication that an individual has been threatened or harmed in Mexico.”

The administration has long been seeking to lift Title 42, but that is currently working through the courts. Border experts have warned the removal of the policy will exacerbate the crisis at the southern border.

Biden has recently tried to claim that his administration and Democrats are really the ones who want border security, while Republicans are trying to block it.

The situation at our southern border is a disaster because Congress is letting it remain a disaster. If the Republicans or the Democrats wanted the border crisis solved, it would be solve. The Democrats want the future voters; the Republicans want cheap labor. Until we elect people to Congress who actually love America, this situation will continue.

The Biden Tax Increases

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On Thursday, Real Clear Markets posted an article about the tax increase in President Biden’s proposed budget.

The article reports:

With his new budget proposing an incredible $4.7 trillion in tax increases, President Biden has secured his legacy as history’s biggest tax increaser. The size and scope of his tax increases are unprecedented, with Treasury’s explanation running 226 pages, and if ever enacted would put us on a path to long-term economic stagnation and decline.Biden’s tax increases are a perfect reflection of Washington Democrats’ philosophy of bigger government, redistributing income, and punishing success, increasing taxes to levels not seen in years.Under his budget, annual taxes collected each year would increase from  $4.8 trillion in 2022 to nearly $8 trillion in 2033, a 63% increase. Taxes as a share of the economy would increase to 20.1%, well above the 50- year average of 17.2%, and a level exceeded only once in our history in 1944.

Individual taxes as a share of the economy would increases to 10.5%, the highest level ever since the income tax began in 1913. The top individual tax rate would reach nearly 45%, the highest level since 1986.Corporate tax receipts would increase by $2.7 trillion over the next ten years, an increase of 56%. Corporate taxes as a share of the economy would increase from 1.7% to 2.6% in 2025, the highest level since 1979, and more than 50% higher than the modern average. The corporate tax rate would be raised to one of the highest in the world, higher than China and every other country in the OECD.

The article notes that the Biden tax increase is comparable to the tax increases proposed by President Hoover in 1932 as the economy was sinking into a downturn.

It is a pretty safe bet that if these tax increases are passed into law, the American economy will rapidly continue its downhill slide.

The Value Of School Resource Officers

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The ‘Defund the Police” move was generally supported by a number of liberal mayors in America. That hasn’t worked out well for them, and now the Democrats are trying to convince Americans that “Defund the Police” was a Republican idea. Good luck with that. However, there was also an idea floating around that removing police from schools would decrease the possibility of violence in those schools. That was done in some schools in order to placate the Black Lives Matter movement. That makes about as much sense as taking all of the cashiers out of stores and letting the customers check themselves out without any oversight or supervision. At any rate, the results are in.

On Saturday, Townhall posted an article about the impact of removing police in three particular schools.

The schools are Denver Public Schools—Colorado, Alexandria City Public Schools—Virginia, and Montgomery County Public Schools—Maryland.

The article notes what happened in each of the three schools:

Denver Public Schools—Colorado

Two years after a high school in Denver, Colorado, removed all law enforcement officers from school grounds based on the belief that arresting “Black and Brown students for minor school infractions” perpetuates the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a black gunman, who was an expelled student, shot two school administrators Wednesday. Sadly, it’s a disturbing yet predictable trend we’re seeing in schools across America that have rid themselves of on-campus police to appease Black Lives Matter activists.

Alexandria City Public Schools—Virginia

In the summer of 2021, the Alexandria City Council voted to end the decades-old SRO program at Alexandria City Public Schools and reallocate police funding towards “mental health resources.” By the fall of that year, the city council reversed course, approving the temporary reinstatement of police in school hallways. “Our students are sending us warning shots, literal warning shots,” Alexandria City High School’s principal Peter Balas said at the council meeting. “My staff, the students—we’re not okay.”

Before the reversal, the 2021 academic year was marred by a wave of violent incidents, including the triggering of an ACHS lockdown when a student was found in possession of a handgun, an all-out brawl inside the ACHS cafeteria, which was captured on cellphone camera, just two days after school started, and a fight inside George Washington Middle School. The recording of the GWMS melee was posted by a since-deleted Instagram account, “gwmsfights2022,” dedicated to posting student fights.

Montgomery County Public Schools—Maryland

According to data presented at an MCPS Board of Education meeting in February 2022, the district has seen an increase in cases of students bringing weapons to school compared to the 2019 and 2020 school years. An MCPS spokesperson also observed the district has seen an uptick in physical violence since students have restarted in-person learning, WUSA9 reported.

At the time, ABC7 News documented 102 sex assaults, 87 assaults, 82 school threats, 76 controlled substance incidents, 57 weapon-related incidents, 57 conflicts, 35 mental health incidents, 28 property crimes, and 4 robberies since August 2021.

Please follow the link above for further details. Ninety-nine percent of police are honest, hardworking people who care about their communities. Taking School Resource Officers out of the schools jeopardizes the safety of the students.

Sad News For Those Of Us Who Love American Muscle Cars

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I will admit that I am not a Chevy fan–I drive a Mustang. However, I respect the role that Chevy has played in the muscle car arena. The Chevy Camaro is an important part of American automotive history.

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production.

General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of the car, which is raced on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit murky. GM says another generation may be in the works.

Please don’t every make an electric Camaro–the electric Mustang is enough of an insult.

The article continues:

‘While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,’ Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said in a statement.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off. When the current generation Camaro came out in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 of them. But by the end of 2021 that number fell almost 70 percent to 21,893. It rebounded last year to 24,652.

The article concludes:

Stellantis, will stop making gas versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger and the Chrylser 300 big sedan by the end of this year. But the company has plans to roll out a battery-powered Charger performance car sometime in 2024.

Electric cars, with instant torque and a low center of gravity, often are faster and handle better than internal combustion vehicles.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 by combining Fiat Chrysler and France´s PSA Peugeot, earlier this week announced the last of its special edition muscle cars, the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The company says the car can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 1.66 seconds, making it the fastest production car on the market.

In addition, Ford rolled out a new version of its Mustang sports car in September.

The Camaro was first introduced in 1966, two years after Ford’s wildly popular Mustang.

GM retired the Camaro nameplate in 2002, but revived it as a new 2010 model with hopes of appealing to enthusiasts and younger buyers. The 2010 version was similar to its predecessors, with a long, flat front and side ‘gills’ that evoke the original, while still sporting a modern overall design.

Sad news.

Women Of The Year

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On Friday, The Conservative Review posted an article titled, “You’ve Probably Never Been ‘Woman Of The Year,’ But These 9 Men Have.” Wow. I realize that I am old-fashioned, but I would think that one of the basic qualifications to be Woman Of The Year would be that you actually have to be a woman. But since there seem to be a lot of people in power who are not able to define what a woman is, I guess that qualification isn’t relevant anymore. Sure.

The article goes on to list some of the ‘women’ who recently have been recognized as outstanding women.

Here is the list:

Rachel Levine

Caitlyn Jenner

Laverne Cox

MJ Rodriguez

Laurel Hubbard

Ebony Harper

Cecilia Chung

Lia Thomas

It is amazing that after women fought so hard to be recognized for their achievements that they would allow men to receive awards that have been traditionally reserved for women.

Watching America Become A Banana Republic

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the latest January 6th conviction. My heart hurts for the people who have been unconstitutionally kept in jail in less than idea conditions for more than two years. Meanwhile, actual rioters during the summer of 2020 have had their charges dropped.

Just to refresh your memory, Real Clear Investigations has reported (posted September 9, 2021, revised and updated 2022) the following:

  • The summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 19 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 740 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.
  • Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases, and prosecutors and judges alike have weighed Capitol riot defendants’ political views in adjudicating their cases.
  • Dozens of accused Capitol rioters have been held in pretrial detention for months, where they have allegedly been mistreated.
  • In the summer 2020 riots, the vast majority of charges were dismissed, as they were in the Inauguration 2017 unrest. 

Meanwhile, Hot Air reports:

Riley June Williams has been sentenced to three years in prison along with three years of supervised release and a $2,000 fine. You’re to be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Ms. Williams since she isn’t exactly a household name, but she was one of the rioters who went into the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. She was just 22 years old at the time. Prosecutors had done their best to throw the book at the young woman, asking for more than seven years in prison. Her attorney requested one year and one day. The judge apparently felt that three years was a compromise. But as with so many of these show trials, a closer look at what Williams was actually accused of and the charges where they managed to obtain convictions doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a dangerous desperado.

…She eventually reached Pelosi’s office and, as mentioned above, she later claimed to have stolen a gavel from the then-Speaker’s desk. I did some shopping online and found that most of the really nice wooden gavels can be purchased for less than fifty bucks. But let’s just say that Nancy Pelosi had a really top-of-the-line gavel made of crystal. That’s still less than 200 dollars. With apologies to the prosecutors, there’s no such thing as Grand Theft Gavel. But while the AP article claims she stole the gavel, there is no indication in the Justice Department report that she was even charged with theft, to say nothing of being convicted. Given how desperately the prosecutors seemed to be trying to charge her with everything under the sun, why would they pass on the opportunity to take her down for theft? We may never know.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. I started this blog as an outlet so that I wouldn’t throw shoes at the television. This situation might drive me back to throwing shoes.