From my friends at Townhall:
Monthly Archives: May 2023
Comments On The Debt Ceiling Deal
One of the people in Washington that I trust to analyze financial things accurately is Larry Kudlow. On Tuesday, he posted an article at The Daily Caller explaining his views on the Debt Ceiling Deal.
The article reports:
Former Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said on Tuesday during his Fox Business program that the debt ceiling deal negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was “a fiscal win” because it contains many conservative priorities, including regulatory provisions and work requirements for welfare.
McCarthy released the text of the Fiscal Responsibility Act on Sunday evening, which increases the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025, taking it past the 2024 presidential election. “Let’s not forget there are no tax hikes, period, full stop,” Kudlow said. “So, I think this is a political win for Republicans and conservatives. It’s a fiscal win. It is a free-market capitalism win. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Save America, pass the bill.”
I understand some conservatives’ reaction to the bill, but do they really believe that they can get anything better? The bill has to get through the Senate and be signed by the President. Compromise is the only way that is going to happen.
The article notes:
The law freezes discretionary spending on non-defense budgetary items at Fiscal Year 2022 levels, adds reforms to permitting for energy projects and includes new work requirements for some welfare programs. Many of those provisions were in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which passed the House of Representatives by a 217-215 vote on April 26.
The reforms to permitting for energy projects were promised to Senator Manchin by the Democrats if he voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. After the vote, the Democrats reneged on that promise.
The bill also has some other good things:
“Student loan payments will be restarted to the tune of $5 billion a month and Joe Biden’s massive regulatory assault on energy and business will be stopped with a pay-go provision that says any executive branch regulatory costs must be offset by regulatory cost reduction,” Kudlow said. “By the way, Biden’s modern socialism regulatory assault has cost something in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion.”
It’s not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill.
Baggage Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
On Monday, The American Thinker posted an article addressed to the people who are complaining that President Trump has too much baggage to run for President in 2024. I would like to note that a lot of the ‘baggage’ that President Trump carries is media-created–Russiagate, impeachment used as a political tool, imaginary connection to the riots on January 6th, various sexual charges, mostly unproven, that have had minimal consequences to past presidents. Yes, he does do main tweets, but that has to do with his ability to fight back rather than play dead like most Republicans.
The article notes:
The eminent thinker and military historian Victor Davis Hanson enumerated the “baggage” that President Trump doesn’t have but the Democrats do.
1) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by destroying federally subpoenaed emails and devices in order to hide evidence.
2) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by sending classified government communications on her own, through an unsecured home-brewed server.
3) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiring a foreign national, who is prohibited from working on presidential campaigns, to compile a dossier to smear her presidential opponent.
4) Trump did not violate federal campaign laws, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiding her payments (as “legal services”) to Christopher Steele through bookkeeping deceptions.
5) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, use a crony to search out a high-paying New York job for a paramour in order to influence her testimony before a special counsel.
6) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, receive a $500,000 “honorarium” for speaking in Moscow while his wife, our secretary of state, approved a longstanding and lucrative desire of the Kremlin for North American uranium to be sold to a Russian consortium.
7) Trump did not, as did Obama, promise Putin that he would be “flexible” on “missile defense” if during his own reelection bid Putin in return would give him “space”. That quid pro quo arrangement led to the U.S. abandonment of key joint missile defense systems with Poland and the Czech Republic, and, reciprocally, less than two years later a Russian invasion, mostly unopposed by the United States, of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea.
8) Trump did not boast publicly, as did Joe Biden, that he used U.S. foreign aid monies as leverage to have the Ukrainian government fire a prosecutor who may have been looking into the Biden family’s efforts to sell influence to corrupt Ukrainian interests.
9) Trump did not, as the Bidens did, set up a family consortium to leverage monies from Ukraine, Russia, and China, on their shared expectations that he might soon run for and be elected president and become compromised. Trump is not mentioned, as is Joe Biden, in family business communications as a recipient of a 10 percent commission on such payoffs.
10) Trump did not, unlike Biden, remove presidential papers—without any authority to declassify them—and leave them scattered and unsecured in a garage and various residences and offices.
11) Trump did not, as did private citizen and former Secretary of State John Kerry, meet clandestinely while out of the office with Iranian officials to help them resist current U.S. policy toward Iran—or what the Boston Globe characterized as “unusual shadow diplomacy” to “apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.
12) Trump did not, unlike Biden patronizingly call Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
13) Trump did not, unlike Biden dismiss two black journalists, respectively with the putdowns “you ain’t black” and “junkie.”
14) Trump did not, unlike Biden refer to two prominent people of color as “boy.”
I think that pretty much sums it up.
Will There Be Consequences?
We have watched for a number of years as the Department of Justice reacted differently to crimes according to the political alignment of the person who committed them. Unfortunately, we may be about to see that happen again.
On Tuesday, Townhall reported the following:
The Republican Majority on the House Oversight Committee announced it would be taking further action against the Biden FBI on Tuesday after the agency again refused to provide unclassified documents responsive to a committee subpoena regarding an alleged criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.
In a statement, Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had informed his committee “that it will not provide the unclassified documents subpoenaed by the Committee,” defying the House’s oversight powers on a matter of significant interest to members of Congress and the American people.
“The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable,” Comer continued. “While I have a call scheduled with FBI Director Wray tomorrow to discuss his response further, the Committee has been clear in its intent to protect Congressional oversight authorities and will now be taking steps to hold the FBI Director in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena,” he explained.
The article concludes:
As Katie reported previously on the FBI’s refusal to turn over the unclassified documents related to the whistleblower allegations that the agency had knowledge of this alleged criminal scheme between Biden during his time as VP and an unknown foreign national:
The document in question allegedly shows then Vice President Joe Biden taking bribe money in exchange for changes in U.S. foreign policy. Earlier this month a whistleblower, who is now protected under federal law, came forward with the bribery allegation in testimony to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley.
The FBI missed a deadline to turn over the document two weeks ago and sent a letter justifying their belief Congress isn’t entitled to the information.
“I can’t speak to the specific document. We are committed to working collaboratively with both committees but we also have to balance sources and methods and ongoing investigations,” Wray recently said during testimony on Capitol Hill. “I really can’t get into the specifics here.”
The only thing that I can conclude here is that Christopher Wray thinks that the consequences of not handing over the document will be less severe than the consequences of handing over the document. That simply adds fuel to the idea that the document is important. It also adds fuel to the idea that we are watching carefully orchestrated theater that will eventually remove President Biden from the 2024 presidential race.
Removed For Telling The Truth
The truth is not always pretty, and sometimes telling the truth will get you in trouble. On Thursday, WUNC posted an article reporting that Representatives Keith Kidwell and Jeff McNeely have resigned their leadership roles in the North Carolina legislature after the GOP leadership team asked them to step down.
The article reports:
During a May 17 debate on legislation to dramatically expand the state’s private-school voucher system, McNeely asked Democratic Rep. Abe Jones, a former trial judge, about attending Harvard University and Harvard law school.
McNeely asked Jones whether he would “have been able to maybe achieve this if you were not an athlete or a minority or any of these things, but you were a student trapped” in a low-performing school.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives complained at once about the question. Speaker Tim Moore cut off McNeely, who later apologized to Jones, saying it “did not come out right.”
The night before, during another tense debate on whether to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill banning most abortions after 12 weeks, Democratic Rep. Diamond Staton-Williams discussed growing up attending church and how it influenced her views.
WRAL-TV reported that a station’s reporter sitting on the floor overheard Kidwell making an aside that Staton-Williams must have meant the church of Satan.
Representative McNeely asked a valid question. Harvard has been taken to court because of admission policies that discriminate against white American and Chinese students. Regardless of the phrasing, it was a good question. As for Keith Kidwell, a non-public statement was used to remove someone who is something of a thorn in the side to all of the wishy-washy Republicans who inhabit the North Carolina legislature. It should also be noted that the Bible makes it pretty clear that abortion or killing babies is not acceptable to God.
Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV / states:
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
I think that’s pretty clear.
I would like to remind the North Carolina Republicans that when a squirrel stays in the middle of the road, it usually gets run over. There are many Republican voters who are at the point where they will leave a blank space on their ballot rather than vote for a Republican who is a “Democrat lite.”
Choosing a President
Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D
We will soon be faced with choosing a presidential nominee and then voting for president. What factors should we consider in making these crucial decisions? We can gain some guidance from examining the characteristics of prior presidents who have fostered the success of this country. Let’s take a look.
Belief in the principles that helped create this country is a good place to start. Political power resting with the people and not some group of elite in Washington is critical. Reigning in the increasingly large federal government and following the constitution are necessary. As Reagan said the federal government is not the solution to our problems, they are the problem. A good president must be willing to not only reduce the size of the federal government but have the courage to curtail agencies such as the FBI, Environmental Protection Agency, DOJ, IRS that are out of control and threatening our basic freedoms.
The ability to relate to the people is crucial. An effective president must be willing and able to communicate directly with the people in a clear and concise manner. Cannot hide in his basement or refuse to interact directly with the people or answer questions about his policies. People must trust what he says and believe that his primary purpose is to promote their interests and freedoms.
An effective president, is able to understand and advocate the economic principles of the free enterprise system that has make this country great. There is no room here for compromising with Marxist ideas that will destroy this country. People must understand that the government exists to assist them in being independent and responsible for themselves and not here to provide for their needs which has never and will never succeed. As president John F. Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.
Defending our country is the primary function of any president. To do that, he must project an image of strength and determination to other countries and to domestic threats. Closing the borders, sending back illegals, and backing law enforcement as well as the military are critical for our survival against enemies both foreign and domestic. Crime cannot be tolerated. To protect our country, a president must be willing to meet with foreign leaders and deal with them in a fair but firm manner. Negotiation from strength is critical to prevent wars brought on by uncertainty of our response.
Experience is an important factor in any leadership position. The current domestic and world situation does not lend itself to “ learning on the job”. Demonstrated capability to do the things that must be done to save this country is absolutely critical Courage to stand up to critics and biased press as well as unethical prosecutors is a characteristic that not all presidents possess.
Last but not least, is the ability to do the right things that need to be done for the country and not owing things to major donors is also essential to resisting the influence of the elite and powerful. We the people should be the focus of attention.
There are, of course, other factors to consider, but these are a few of the things that should be considered when we make our choices.
I Simply Do Not Understand The Logic Behind This Concept
On Sunday, Fox News posted the following headline:
Republicans’ work requirements ‘obsession’ is ‘offensive’ to poor people,’ CNN commentator complains
Quite possibly I am missing something, but it seems to me that one of the ways to get out of poverty is through work. The other way is through education or training in a useful skill.
The article reports:
Republicans’ “obsession” with work requirements are “offensive” to poor people and could produce a backlash, CNN political commentator Ashley Allison said on Sunday..
She appeared on a panel discussion during “State of the Union” to react to the news that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling after months of debate.
McCarthy has argued that while some Republicans were unhappy with the concessions in the agreement, there is “not one thing in the bill for Democrats.” One of the Republicans’ concessions, however, included removing work requirements for social programs like Medicaid and SNAP, something that Allison insisted is “offensive.”
The article concludes:
Allison’s comments echo, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who criticized the idea of work requirements in another segment of th show, saying that it would actually “hurt poor people.”
“We’ve seen reams of data that show that when you put these work requirements in, they’re really just administrative red tape that prevent the people who need help from getting help,” Jayapal said.
McCarthy claimed Republicans are largely in favor of the agreement. According to the House Speaker, the bill will sit for public review for 72 hours before finally coming up for a vote on Wednesday. The vote would come days before the new June 5 default deadline provided by the Treasury Department.
The people who need help are not prevented from getting help due to a work requirement. The work requirement has exemptions for people caring for children and for the elderly. There is no reason an able-bodied American can’t be required to work for his benefits.
Posted by a friend on Facebook:
Some Good News
On Friday, American Military News reported that the United States Marshals Service (USMS), with the help of state and local agencies, located 225 endangered missing children during a 10-week operation in states across the nation.
The article reports:
Operation We Will Find You is a nationwide effort to locate missing children, according to a USMS press release. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children supported the recovery of 169 children and the safe location of 56 children.
The USMS said it referred 28 cases to law enforcement due to suspected criminal activity, including drugs and weapons, sex trafficking and sex offender violations.
“The U.S. Marshals Service is fully committed to the important mission of protecting the American people, especially our most vulnerable population – our children,” Ronald Davis, Director of the Marshals Service, said in a statement. “The results of this operation underscore that commitment, but also highlight the necessity of these critical efforts. Our continued success can only be achieved through our collaboration with state and local law enforcement agencies, and partnership with NCMEC. Together, the USMS and NCMEC have recovered over 3,100 missing children since the passage of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act in 2015.”
The operation was held in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Michigan, Washington, Florida, California, Ohio, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Ten of the children located were found in Mexico, the USMS said.
The article concludes:
The USMS said the missing children located during Operation We Will Find You involved “high-risk factors” including victimization of child sex trafficking, child exploitation, sexual abuse, physical abuse and medical or mental health conditions.
Thank God for the dedication of the people who took part in this operation.
The Move Toward Global Government
There are a number of possible paths toward one-world government. One path is through the climate-change propaganda and another is through the threat of another global pandemic. On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) began a series of meetings which detailed their plan for one-world government. The only good news in the quest for one-world government is the hope that the various organizations vying to control that government will eliminate each other in their quest for power.
Prophecy News Watch posted an article about the WHO meeting.
The article reports:
On Sunday, the WHO kicked off its annual 10-day World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, described as the “decision-making body of WHO.” Concerns over the WHO’s actions have been steadily building since the beginning of the pandemic, when observers noted that the WHO’s deference to China arguably worsened the spread of COVID.
In addition, observers are also pointing out that the Biden administration is working to enable the organization to “centralize authority not just for pandemics, but for any health emergency in the hands of the director-general.”
Now, says Bachmann (former congresswoman Michele Bachmann), the current World Health Assembly is poised to increase the WHO’s mandate over the health care decisions of sovereign nations.
“There’s a dual track process that they’re following,” she explained during an on the ground report from Geneva on Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “One is through a global pandemic treaty that they’re calling an ‘accord.’ The second is through a package of about 300 amendments to the international health rules. Both lead to the same result. Both lead to the creation of a platform for global governance through health care. And it is a web that locks us in … the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”
As Bachmann went on to observe, the potentially massive ramifications of the decisions being made at the World Health Assembly are happening with surprisingly little fanfare.
“There were no members of Congress here,” she pointed out. “I was actually shocked because this has been a big issue that a lot of their constituents have rightfully been very concerned about. … There was no American press here. So how would anyone even know what was going on unless they tuned in and they watched for themselves?”
We need to keep in mind that many of the rules imposed during the Covid pandemic were not only unconstitutional, they allowed a dramatic increase in mail-in voting–the voting method most likely to be impacted by fraud. Please follow the link to read the entire article. America needs to stand up for its sovereignty.
More Questions For The Federal Bureau Of Investigation
On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about the pipe bombs found at the Democrat National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021.
The article reports:
The FBI is continuing to stonewall congressional oversight of the agency’s investigation into a pair of pipe bombs found at the Democrat National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Wednesday, House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee re-upped demands for a comprehensive briefing on the two-year-old case over which the FBI has refused transparency.
…Earlier this month, an FBI whistleblower told the Washington Times the FBI identified the vehicle the suspect entered shortly after planting the bombs but has not pursued the individual.
“The FBI had surveillance video that showed the person entering a car with a visible license plate after exiting a Metro stop in Northern Virginia,” the Times reported.
Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the case, told the paper that the agency “tied whoever the person was that dropped the bombs with [surveillance] cameras all the way through the train and getting into a car with that license plate.” Seraphin also told the Washington Times that the two bombs were inoperable.
It is interesting to me that the two bombs were inoperable.
The more we know about January 6th, the more it looks like a false-flag operation. There were some people who behaved badly, but many of them were the people who were supposed to be upholding the law. It also should be noted that the events of January 6th prevented the questioning of the electoral votes in the presidential election. Based on what we now know, that was probably the purpose of the operation. Also remember that even since Speaker McCarthy supposedly released the video tapes of January 6th, we have seen very little of those tapes. Also note that the person who aired those tapes was fired. There is a lot about January 6th that just doesn’t add up.
Equal Justice Under The Law?
On Friday, The Conservative Treehouse reported that the Department of Justice has dropped all charges against Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, of Chesterfield, Missouri, who attempted to crash a U-Haul truck through the security perimeter of the White House.
The article reports:
Oddly, during the event the Capitol Police never called the bomb squad, never moved the crowd or media back away from the truck, and simply opened the vehicle and started placing the contents -including a swastika flag- on the ground for the media to photograph. The entire event, including the way the authorities handled the truck, was seriously sketchy.
Kandula was then federally charged with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a president, vice president or family member, assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, destruction of federal property, and trespassing, according to U.S. Park Police. However, yesterday the DOJ dropped all the charges except depredation of federal property.
Considering that J6 attendees have been charged and locked up for simply parading around the Capitol Hill building, the contrast of the way the authorities are handling Sai Varshith Kandula is rather stark.
Initial reports accused Mr. Kandula of being a white supremacist, but that narrative was dropped as soon as his picture was published. This whole incident seems really odd–particularly the part about dropping most of the charges. People who make threats to the President generally go to jail, particularly if they have taken any action relating to the threat.
The War Against Americans
On Wednesday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness detailing how the political left has escalated the war on everyday Americans. The article cites numerous examples.
The article notes:
Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.
The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath. They misled Congress. They altered court documents and deceived federal judges.
…The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.
The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multiyear audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden’s purported tax irregularities.
The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden’s appointee Merrick Garland.
California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit. Yet it flirts with an $800 billion-dollar “reparations” payout to the state’s black residents.
…Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis—all outside Florida—have the highest black murder rates in the nation.
Florida in contrast, with a black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident!
Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits.
The culprit was its former corrupt leadership.
The article also notes:
In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions.
They are systematically destroying decades of progress that sought to ensure parity between men and women’s sports.
Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria. Companies are apparently now hellbent on destroying their brands, profits, and net worth.
Under pressure from the LGBTQ activists, the Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium.
Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation because the group’s notoriety hinges on its sexualized and often pornographic mockery of Catholic ritual, the Holy Trinity, and Christian faith.
The supposedly courageous group would never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus.
Please follow the link above to read the entire article. As Americans, we have been asleep, and we are paying a price for it. No one involved in the government interference in the past two presidential elections is sitting in jail. Meanwhile, people who simply walked through the Capitol on January 6th have not yet had their day in court. We are losing our nation.
This Could Get Very Interesting
On Wednesday, Fox News posted the following headline:
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna seeks $16 million fine against Adam Schiff for ‘lies’ about Trump-Russia collusion
The fine is roughly half the cost of the Trump-Russia probe, which found no collusion
If there are supposed to be consequences for lying to Congress, shouldn’t there be consequences if Congressmen lie to Congress?
The article reports:
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., introduced a resolution that would fine Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., $16 million for his claims that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Luna says that amount is about half of the cost of the federal investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion, which was debunked by special counsel reports from both Robert Mueller and John Durham.
“The GOP Conference agrees that Adam Schiff has betrayed the trust of the American people, purposely abused positions of extreme authority, lied continuously, and as such, must be held to account,” Luna said. “Accordingly, the resolution requires Rep. Schiff to pay a $16 million dollar fine, half of the cost American taxpayers were forced to pay for the Russia hoax investigation.”
…Luna’s resolution said as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Schiff had a position of “extreme trust” that gave him access to sensitive information not available to other members, but Schiff “abused this trust” by citing evidence of collusion that later special counsel reports showed did not exist.
“By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution said. It noted that Schiff “lent credibility” to the Steele dossier, supported a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Trump aide Carter Page, and publicly accused Page of being a Russian collaborator.
“Representative Schiff exploited his positions on HPSCI to encourage and excuse abusive intelligence investigations of Americans for political purposes,” it said. “Representative Schiff used his position and access to sensitive information to instigate a fraudulently based investigation, which he then used to amass political gain and fundraising dollars.”
I believe that there are a number of people who should be in jail for misusing the Justice Department for political purposes, but that has been going on since J. Edgar Hoover. However, the people who kept the hoax going and covered up the hoax should pay a price.
Grooming Our Children
In 2021, Gallop posted the following chart:
Right now in the American media culture, there is a push to accept non-traditional lifestyles as desirable. I don’t believe many Americans understand the end result of this effort.
In December 2021, Census.gov reported:
The year 2021 is the first time since 1937 that the U.S. population grew by fewer than one million people, featuring the lowest numeric growth since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began annual population estimates.
Apart from the last few years, when population growth slowed to historically low levels, the slowest rate of growth in the 20th century was from 1918-1919 amid the influenza pandemic and World War I.
What these two charts tell us is that unless the current numbers change, the population of America will not grow in the future. Meanwhile, media efforts continue to move our children toward non-traditional sexual roles.
On Wednesday, The Epoch Times reported:
A nonbinary robot on the cartoon series “Transformers: Earth Spark” has generated a heated debate on social media with the controversy spilling over to national TV talk shows.
In a recent episode of the cartoon, Nightshade—the name of the androgynous automaton—tells a teenage girl it encounters that its preferred pronouns are “they/them.”
The girl, who is donning a purse with rainbow-colored handles and gender affirming pins, reveals that she is nonbinary too.
…In episode eight of season five of of Netflix’s “Ridley Jones,” Fred, the main character—a child bison—comes out as nonbinary to his grandmother.
The show, which is aimed at preschoolers, was canceled in March shortly after the episode aired.
In 2021, in celebration of Pride month, Hulu introduced a non-binary character in its Madagascar: A Little Wild, a spinoff of the popular movie franchise.
Odee, the character, has both zebra and giraffe attributes and consequently decides he is non binary. The cartoon saw its last episode last June, ending just before Pride month.
The article at The Epoch Times concludes:
Lori Clark, a Texas mom, told The Epoch Times, she almost “fell out of her shoes” when she happened to be walking by the television while her son was watching one of his favorite shows “Gecko’s Garage” and saw two mommy trucks in a romantic scene.
The Moonbug Entertainment cartoon, which is aimed at toddlers, is about fixing trucks and cars. The two lesbian trucks are the mothers of a character called Baby Truck.
“They are sleeping this stuff right under the parent’s nose,” said Clark, who no longer allows her son to watch the cartoon.
I used to love watching Roadrunner cartoons on Saturday morning as a child. Now I don’t think I would let a child watch anything unless I was sitting there. There is a reason that the chart above shows such an increase in non-traditional sexual roles for Generation Z–they have been and are being programmed. That is not good for them, and it is not good for America.
Thank God For Mama Bears
Right now in America I am grateful for parents who are paying attention to what some people in our society are trying to do to their children.
On Wednesday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the backlash that has occurred since Target stores’ Pride Collection which prominently displayed bathing suits for children with Gender Dysphoria.
The article reports:
Target made “emergency” calls last week to managers and senior directors at the store after the company faced backlash for its Pride collection, which included “tuck-friendly” female swimwear and other products, according to a source inside the company.
The calls were to direct some stores to make their Pride products display less prominent in order to avoid a “Bud Light situation,” a Target insider told Fox News.
“We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage,” the insider reportedly said.
“We call our customers ‘guests,’ there is outrage on their part. This year, it is just exponentially more than any other year,” the source added. “I think given the current situation with Bud Light, the company is terrified of a Bud Light situation.”
The article concludes:
In response to the controversy, Target announced that it has also removed some products from its stores, which reportedly include a sweater that read “cure transphobia not trans people” and a “too queer for here” tote bag.
“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said on Tuesday. ”Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”
Gender dysphoria is a disease. It can also be a phase children go through and grow out of. We need to treat it as a disease or a phase–not encourage it. What happens when the children who have been chemically or surgically altered in some way get older and find out that they are not capable of having children because of decisions they were encouraged to make before they were mature enough to make them?
From my friends at Townhall:
About Those Electric School Buses…
On Wednesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education’s experience with electric school buses. First of all, I would like to note that most of the people who are knowledgeable about electric cars (or buses) say that they do not operate at their full capacity in cold temperatures. The decision by the Board of Education to buy electric school buses in Michigan’s climate is questionable at best.
The article reports:
Michigan’s fourth-largest school district is having “significant” performance issues with its expensive electric buses, issues that come after the Biden administration spent $1 billion to “transform America’s school bus fleet” with electric models.
During an April 19 presentation to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education, the district’s environmental sustainability director, Emile Lauzzana, highlighted a number of issues with the district’s electric bus fleet. Those buses, Lauzzana said, have “a lot of downtime and performance issues” and aren’t “fully on the road,” despite the fact that they are “approximately five times more expensive than regular buses.” The infrastructure upgrades required to use the buses, meanwhile, were “originally estimated to be only about $50,000” but “ended up being more like $200,000,” according to Lauzzana. “I have a number of colleagues in different states who are facing similar challenges,” the district official lamented. “For the school bus market, it’s been challenging for us.”
…Just months before Lauzzana’s admission, President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it awarded nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funds to “transform America’s school bus fleet” with “over 2,400 clean school buses that will accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles.” But problems with electric buses occurred long before the agency’s announcement.
Electric bus company Proterra, which the Biden administration has lauded as “pretty amazing,” saw Philadelphia remove 25 of its buses from the roads in 2020 due to structural problems. Those buses cost the city $24 million. Another Southern California city waited months in 2021 to repair nearly a dozen buses from its electric fleet, more than a third of which were out of service at the time. Ann Arbor Public Schools’ electric buses also use Proterra batteries and drivetrain technology.
Do all school districts have environmental sustainability directors? That might be part of the problem.
We are at a point in time when our government does not have the best interests of Americans at heart. The decision to go to electric vehicles does not benefit Americans–it benefits the Chinese companies that supply the computer parts and rare earth materials for the batteries. If Americans were smart, they would simply boycott electric vehicles and tell the government to go pound sand.
If you are interested in further information on the problem, please follow the link above.
Money Talks
On Monday, Newsbusters posted an article about some of the money flowing into the Associated Press from groups that promote environmental extremism.
The article reports:
The Associated Press has been running wild with leftist climate change propaganda while being paid millions by eco-extremist organizations. And yet AP still has the audacity to pretend it’s engaging in objective reporting.
MRC Business analysts found that from Feb. 15, 2022 through Feb. 15, 2023, The Associated Press (AP) pushed climate change alarmism and promoted woke environmental, social, governance (ESG) efforts across 64 climate-related stories after the legacy outlet received an $8 million grant from leftist nonprofit organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, Quadrivium (the activist organization of News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s estranged son and climate activist James Murdoch), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
AP announced Feb. 15, 2022, that it would “significantly expand its climate coverage” with the goal to “infuse” the media landscape with climate journalism backed solely by private interest groups. AP called the new development a “sweeping climate journalism initiative” and claimed in its press release that it would retain “complete editorial control of all content.” AP also claims on its “About Us” page that it is in the business of “unbiased news,” which is little more than a pathetic joke. The so-called “journalism” AP has been doing on climate involves behaving like the de facto mouthpiece for its major left-wing donors who have an obsession with pushing apocalyptic climate narratives on the internet.
The article also notes:
The Rockefeller Foundation’s history in supporting causes fixated on overpopulation is a case in point why AP’s monetary tie to the organization is extremely problematic. One Jan. 5, 2022, Rockefeller Archive blog ridiculously stated that “Issues of family planning and concerns over population growth have long interested the Rockefeller family and their philanthropies. But deciding how to give funding, and to which aspects of the ‘population problem,’ has not always come easily.” The article included a 1967 statement doom mongering about overpopulation from late Rockefeller Foundation president J. George Harrar:
It is doubtful whether there is any problem in the world more threatening in its implications than uncontrolled population growth. Its effects are already, either directly or indirectly, touching the lives of almost every man, woman, and child.
MRC Business previously reported in October 2021 how Murdoch in particular was already heavily invested in a climate reporting hub at AP. MRC Business analyzed that Murdoch’s Quadrivium gave a whopping $14,250,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) between 2013 and 2019. EDF is a left-wing “nonprofit environmental group known for its advocacy for public policies concerning global warming and a left-wing political agenda,” according to Influence Watch.
Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is frightening to think that money controls what we read that is supposed to be objective news, but unfortunately that is not a new idea for most of us.
Passing The Buck
On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article about the claim by IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel that the Department of Justice made the decision to purge an IRS whistleblower from the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden. I doubt we will ever know the truth about what actually happened in this instance, but it makes for an interesting story.
The article reports:
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told Congress the Justice Department (DOJ) made the decision to purge an IRS whistleblower from the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden, according to a letter sent to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO).
Werfel’s letter on May 17 responded to Smith’s May 16 inquiry about concerns that a high-ranking IRS agent faced retaliation for raising red flags about alleged political interference in the tax probe of Hunter Biden.
Werfel said the decision to remove a whistleblower from the tax investigation was at the DOJ’s direction, confirming what a second IRS whistleblower alleged Monday.
The article concludes:
The new whistleblower claimed leadership excluded his team from the case after it learned of “longstanding concerns” about the handling of the probe. The concerns allegedly angered a redacted “U.S. Attorney for the District…”
David Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, a Trump administration appointee, is the lead prosecutor in the case.
The whistleblower also alleged the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney’s office are responsible for his team’s removal from the probe.
In March, Garland told Congress that Weiss has the autonomy to recommend changes. Yet Biden’s attorney general also admitted he has the sole authority to sign off on the charges.
Even in a case as obvious as Hunter Biden and his laptop, the people who are supposed to enforce the law are not doing their job. The current level of corruption at all levels of our government is stunning.
Someone Stepped Forward To Solve The Problem
On Monday, The Daily Wire reported that the child who had been denied a kidney transplant at Duke University Hospital because she was not vaccinated for Covid-19 will now be receiving a kidney transplant at another hospital.
The article reports:
The teen has a genetic kidney disorder that requires a transplant, but her family said last year that Duke was refusing to put Yulia on the kidney wait list because she is unvaccinated against COVID. Notably, the family says Yulia has already recovered from the virus.
…The Daily Wire reported last year that a phone call, the recording of which was obtained by journalist Alex Berenson, revealed a Duke health official telling the Hicks family that Yulia must get vaccinated against COVID before she could become a candidate for the kidney transplant.
“I can’t require you to do anything. I can recommend these things, but if you don’t follow our recommendations, then Yulia can’t be a transplant candidate here,” the Duke Health kidney specialist reportedly said.
“Being unvaccinated to the CDC recommended vaccinations based on her age is part of that,” the kidney specialist allegedly added.
Her family said Yulia has already contracted COVID and recovered, but doctors told them Yulia’s natural immunity was not enough, according to the recorded call.
“The virus has continued to mutate and so the natural immunity is not as good as if you had natural immunity plus vaccination,” one doctor said on the call.
Chrissy Hicks told The Daily Wire that Yulia was headed to the hospital on Monday morning for a pre-operational consultation. The surgery is scheduled for Thursday.
I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of vaccinated people who have been sick with Covid-19. Right now most of the cases I am aware of are people who are vaccinated–not the unvaccinated. Unfortunately, many of the people who have been vaccinated and many of the people who have recovered from Covid-19 have had the disease multiple times. The good news is that people who are currently getting the disease don’t seem to be as sick as people who caught the original virus. At some point, doctors might have to admit that the vaccine has not proven effective in preventing the disease.
The Firing Of A New York City College Professor
On Tuesday, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan college professor who threatened a Post reporter with a machete has been fired. Really??!
The article reports:
Shellyne Rodriguez was sacked by Hunter College just hours after the adjunct professor was caught on camera holding the blade to the veteran reporter’s neck while threatening to “chop” him up outside her Bronx apartment.
“Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action,” school spokesman Vince Dimiceli told The Post.
“Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.”
The unhinged art professor wielded the machete and spewed the menacing remarks after the veteran Postie approached her regarding a viral video that showed her flipping out on pro-life students at Hunter College earlier this month.
If this person is representative of the people teaching our children in school, we are in serious trouble.
Ford Cars Will Still Have AM Radios
On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about Ford Motor Company and their reversal of the decision not to put AM Radios in their cars next year.
The article reports:
The Ford Motor Company on Tuesday announced that it would not eliminate AM radio from nearly all of its new vehicles amid considerable pushback from lawmakers and consumers.
“After speaking with policy leaders about the importance of AM broadcast radio as a part of the emergency alert system, we’ve decided to include it on all 2024 [Ford] & [Lincoln] vehicles,” wrote CEO Jim Farley on Twitter. “For any owners of Ford EVs without AM broadcast capability, we’ll offer a software update.”
“Customers can currently listen to AM radio content in a variety of ways in our vehicles – including via streaming – and we will continue to innovate to deliver even better in-vehicle entertainment and emergency notification options in the future,” he continued. “Thanks to our product development and manufacturing teams for their quick response to make this change for our customers.”
The company had not originally planned to include AM radio in most of its new vehicles and had cited research indicating that less than 5% of in-car listening came from AM stations. The decision generated significant backlash from right-leaning pundits and lawmakers.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle noted that AM radio is a key component in the U.S. Emergency Alert System, with Wisconsin GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher and New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer urging Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell to assert the importance of maintaining AM radio in vehicles. Talk radio host John Catsimatidis and former Vice President Mike Pence also teamed up to create a public service announcement in support of AM radio.
AM Radio is also the home of a lot of conservative talk shows. There is a possibility that the company may have been under pressure to eliminate AM Radio as part of the continuing effort to squelch conservative speech.
Times Have Changed And We Have Lost Our Sense Of Humor
I was never a Monty Python fan, but I have to admit that some of the skits in their movies were funny. Some were controversial, but also very funny. On Monday, Steven Hayward at Power Line Blog posted an article about plans to create a stage musical based on The Life of Brian. However, there is a problem.
The skit below is the problem:
I think the skit is not only funny, it is very timely. The movie was made in 1979, but the above scene totally captures where we are today.
The article at Power Line Blog reports:
Well guess what? There is a stage musical version of Life of Brian in development, largely because of the success of “Spamalot,” the stage musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And guess which scene the producers have said must be cut out? Of course you don’t need to guess at all:
Cleese, 83, the prime mover in the revival, said: ‘I think Life Of Brian is our best film. We are going to do it in London in the second half of next year and I’ve changed certain things.’
One exchange which has had to come out is the discussion between People’s Front of Judea members Stan (played by Idle) and Reg (Cleese). Stan says that he wants to be known as Loretta and to have babies. ‘It’s every man’s right to have babies if you want them,’ says Stan. Reg counters: ‘But — you can’t have babies.’ At which Stan responds: ‘Don’t you oppress me.’
Cleese told an audience at his one-man show last week that when the scene (co-written with the late Graham Chapman) was performed at a read-through for the new show in New York last year, doubts emerged. ‘At the end, I said to the American actors: ‘What do you think?’ And they said: ‘We love the script, but you can’t do that stuff about Loretta nowadays.’
‘So here you have something there’s never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I’ve heard of, and now all of a sudden we can’t do it because it’ll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that? But I think there were a lot of things that were actually, in some strange way, predictive of what was actually going to happen later.’
We have lost our sense of humor.