Monthly Archives: June 2023

Beware Of Carbon Taxes

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On Wednesday, The Post Millennial posted an article about the impact of a carbon tax the Washington State legislature passed.

The article reports:

Gas prices in Washington State passed California as the most expensive in the country with many blaming a new carbon tax passed by local Democratic lawmakers.

According to data from AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded was at $4.89 on Monday in the Evergreen State, an increase from $4.81 the previous week.

The Center Square reported that the latest increase marks the 20th consecutive week of rising fuel prices for Washingtonians since the new carbon tax was implemented earlier this year.

The most recent increase was in the opposite direction from the national average, which decreased from $3.59 to $3.57 per gallon during the same time period.

The article concludes:

Myers also noted that the Department of Ecology has scrubbed the agency’s web page of claims that the fuel prices would not increase and “…significantly increased the estimated impact of the tax on CO2 emissions on Washington’s economy.”

Despite warnings that the tax would increase gas prices, some in the media “fact-checked” those claims using information from the Washington Department of Ecology in an effort to debunk the theory that gas prices would increase.

So much for fact checkers.

 

Changes Made Due To Being Under Scrutiny?

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On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a grant that was part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) that was rescinded.

The article reports:

House Republicans have voiced worries about the Biden administration’s energy-related spending, questioning a Department of Energy (DOE) official about how a Chinese-owned battery manufacturer was on pace to get hundreds of millions in taxpayer money before the Biden administration yanked the money away last month.

That company, Microvast, somehow qualified for a $200 million grant to build a battery separator facility in Tennessee as part of spending doled out through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).

The Department of Energy announced the decision in October 2022 as part of $2.8 billion in what its announcement repeatedly described as “funded projects” for the American battery sector.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the money would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made.”

“Shortly after the announcement, Microvast’s association with the Chinese Communist Party became apparent,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said in his opening statement at the June 21 hearing.

“According to Microvast’s own SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] filings, the government—referring to the People’s Republic of China—’exerts substantial influence over the manner in which we must conduct our business activities, and may intervene at any time with no notice,’” Griffith continued.

“Uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal system could limit the legal protections available to you and us,” that same filing states. It also describes the firm’s receipt of Chinese government subsidies and states that “most of [Microvast’s] current customers” are in China.

The article notes:

At the June 21 hearing on Microvast, Griffith and his colleagues questioned David Howell, principal deputy director of the DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains.

The Virginian asked Howell how companies are vetted by the DOE for funding.

The DOE official said “detailed negotiations are started” over BIL grants after selections are made.

“Most of us did not understand that, because it appeared from the press statements that these people were awardees,” Griffith said.

“The in-depth vetting began the day after those announcements,” Howell said, before stating that previous “in-depth vetting” of the applicants focused on “technical capacity and capabilities of the companies.”

Griffith pressed Howell on the official’s assertion that Microvast is “a majority-U.S. owned company.”

“If they’re majority U.S.-owned, how can the Chinese Communist Party through the Chinese government say … why would they say that they could be stopped or change course because of what the government said in China?” he asked.

“Simply because Microvast’s major production operations are in China,” Howell answered.

“All of the other companies that you vetted do not have that problem?” Griffith asked.

“That is correct,” Howell responded.

We have a budget deficit. We have tons of money that we have borrowed from China. Why in the world would Congress be passing laws that benefited the Chinese economy?

The Commentary Continues

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The results of the five-year investigation of Hunter Biden are stunning. I am sure it is purely coincidental that the results were released about the same time President Trump was indicted. I guess what I don’t understand is how Hunter Biden totally avoids jail time while January 6th prisoners are still in jail for lesser offenses, many in less than wonderful conditions awaiting trials.

On Tuesday, NewsMax posted an article containing some commentary on the Hunter Biden case.

Some highlights of the article:

Francey Hakes, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and Jay Town, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told Newsmax on Tuesday that U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ case against first son Hunter Biden should not have taken five years and that the statement about the investigation being “ongoing” is “bogus.”

“The statement that the investigation is ongoing … that certainly caught my attention, but it wouldn’t be normal for a prosecutor, at any level, to allow a plea … and still have an ongoing investigation into that individual,”

…”Unfortunately, the only body probably left investigating anything to do with Hunter Biden, and the influence that he may or may not have been peddling in Washington, D.C., is going to be the United States Congress. To some extent, that’s pretty feckless, because all they can do is refer charges to a Biden Justice Department,” Town said. “So, I tend to believe we’re at the end of the Hunter Biden saga here.”

Hakes said that the charges are not reasonable, given the evidence.

“We have an entire laptop full of evidence of other crimes and a five-year investigation that has now resulted in what? A couple of misdemeanor pleas and pretrial diversion?” she said. “That is not how ‘Joe Man on the Street’ would have been treated.”

The fact that the Justice Department thinks the American people are okay with this is frightening. This is so blatantly political that even someone who does not follow politics can look at it and see a double standard.

Is Anyone Listening?

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John Durham testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Trending Politics posted part of his testimony on Wednesday.

This is part of that testimony:

CLINE(Representative Benjamin Lee Cline who has served as the U.S. representative for Virginia’s 6th congressional district since 2019): “FBI leadership continued the investigation even when case agents were unable to verify the evidence, correct?”

DURHAM: “That’s correct.”

CLINE: “The FBI did not interview key witnesses in Crossfire Hurricane, correct?”

DURHAM: “Correct.”

CLINE: “And individuals within the FBI abused their authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, correct?”

DURHAM: “Correct.”

This is more of that testimony from the article:

CLINE: “Right. So investigators relied on misstatements by the confidential human source ignored exculpatory statements made by Papadopoulos in submitting the FISA application to surveil Carter Page, correct?”

DURHAM: “That’s correct.”

CLINE: “Is it true that an FBI employee fabricated this evidence? Can you expand on that fabrication and the reliance to support that FISA application?”

DURHAM: “In connection with one of the agents who had come on board wanted to be certain that there was information that, was there information as to whether or not Carter Page had been a source of information to the CIA, and pressed Kevin Clinesmith, in the General Counsel’s Office of the FBI, on that point. Clinesmith got a hold of people at another government agency, intelligence agency on the issue, and that person indicated, not indicated, said that yes, in the FBI parlance, Carter Page was the source, and put that in writing. When Clinesmith talked to the agent who was saying, we want to be sure on this, was he or was he not a source, Clinesmith said, no, he said he’s not. He said, did we get that in writing? Clinesmith said yes, and they said, well, I want to see it. And then Clinesmith altered the other government agency document to reflect this, to say that Page was not a source, when he in fact was a source. That’s the gist of it.”

Notice that so far no one who is guilty of weaponizing the federal government against political opponents has gone to jail.

Does This Surprise Anyone?

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On Tuesday, Townhall reported that the California wild fire that was blamed on climate change was actually the result of arson.

The article reports:

Last summer, a large wildfire that came to be known as the Oak Fire scorched its way across California’s Mariposa County and threatened Yosemite National Park. First reported on July 22, 2022, the Oak Fire burned more than 19,000 acres of land, cost more than $90 million, and evacuations forced the displacement of thousands of Californians and visitors in the fire’s path as it rapidly expanded.

“Experts say dry air, strong winds, parched trees and grass and soaring temperatures caused the Oak fire to expand rapidly through the rugged foothills in recent days. The area has experienced nearly two weeks of triple digit temperatures and low humidity,” The Guardian reported of the Oak Fire as it spread. “All this comes at a time when the state is seeing increasingly destructive and deadly blazes and the climate crisis creates conditions ripe for destruction.”

Taxpayer funded (in part) PBS emphasized that the Oak Fire was one of the “devastating consequences” of the “global climate crisis.”

Not so fast.

The article quotes the Washington Free Beacon:

Authorities busted a Democratic donor for allegedly starting a “ginormous inferno” in Yosemite National Park. Democratic politicians had insisted climate change was to blame for the blaze, which destroyed more than 100 homes and injured several firefighters in July 2022. 

Edward Fredrick Wackerman (his actual name) of Mariposa, Calif., faces a number of charges including aggravated arson following his arrest on Friday.

By the numbers: The arson suspect has donated $1,775 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2020, government records show, including a $1,000 donation to Tim Ryan’s failed U.S. Senate campaign in 2022 and $400 to the Lincoln Project, a disgraced liberal super PAC.

The article notes that all of the restrictions being put on Californians in the name of climate change would not have stopped the Democrat donor who used a match to make it appear that climate change was a major threat. People who have no regard for the property or the welfare of their fellow Americans are a bigger threat.

Reparations: Death Knell To The Republic

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

A very wise political historian once stated that: “Democracies (and Republics) can exist only until the people with power, realize that they can obtain money from other taxpayers through legislation.” Abraham Lincoln once declared that if America is to be destroyed it would not be by a foreign enemy but rather from within. Well, we are facing both these circumstances in the form of the growing movement towards reparations for slavery to black Americans for the injustice of slavery and subsequent discrimination.

Certainly, no one can deny that slavery in this country was an abomination. It was a common practice in almost all countries at one time or other but that does not mean it was not evil. The question becomes when does a country redeem itself from the guilt of slavery? The Civil War, fought essentially by white soldiers, eliminated slavery and did so at the very high price of 600,000 deaths–far more than we lost in any other war. Admittedly, the war did not end the difficulties for black Americans. Progress over the years however is undeniable as shown by the two time election of a black president. True racial harmony can only be obtained when all Americans are given equal opportunity to succeed regardless of their skin color.

The increasing call for reparations not only threatens to reverse the progress that has been made, but will destroy the fabric of our nation by going backwards and using skin color as the basis for so-called justice. This is happening in several cities and a couple of states that have enacted or are considering setting up task forces to develop programs for reparations. These include the usual suspects: California, New York State, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. It is estimated that the cost of the proposed reparations in California alone would total nearly $800 billion at the rate of $1.2 million per recipient. Some of the advocates of reparations are not satisfied with individual states and cities enacting reparations legislation, but want federal reparation laws since the federal budget currently has no limit on what can be spent as the recent debt raising debacle has shown.

Besides the financial aspect, there is also the issue of justice. Is it just for a generation of Americans who did not profit from slavery to be held accountable for prior generations, most of which were not slave owners? My family, as immigrants from Europe in the early 1900s like many Americans, did not even live in this country during the years when slavery existed. This would be equivalent to making a person pay now for his great grandfather robbing a bank over one hundred years ago!

If you believe, as I do, that the Marxist Left in this country is out to destroy America, then this is a great way to do it. Just at a time when we need to unite to face the external threats from China and other foreign adversaries, the last thing we need is more division. What will it benefit the advocates of slavery reparations, when the outcome is the destruction of America where they truly have the best chances of leading a free and successful life?

 

Moving Back To Fossil Fuel

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On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted the following:

Two of Europe’s largest energy firms are pivoting from green energy back to their core oil and gas businesses, a move that industry experts tell the Daily Caller News Foundation signals a willingness to take political hits as oil and gas continue to be major sources of revenue.

Both Shell and fellow U.K. energy firm BP opted against further cuts to oil production recently, in a bid to restore investor confidence as their renewable ventures struggled, according to Bloomberg. While the moves were met with criticism from climate-focused investors — activist investors and protestors attempted to storm the stage at Shell’s annual shareholder meeting in late May — the companies are likely to stay the course despite criticism, thanks to the reliability of oil and gas to drive profits despite the emergence of green energy, Dan Kish, senior research fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

“Smart energy executives looking at the long term recognize that politics are fleeting,” Kish said. “Politicians may be flighty and distracted by today’s shiny objects, but real business sense combined with a knowledge of engineering and physics shows that real energy makes good business because it is what people need and want.”

The article concludes:

“The EU’s oil majors have an even harder time than America’s trying to remain politically correct while continuing to produce the energy the world needs and make sufficient profits to satisfy shareholders and invest in new production,” Ebell told the DCNF. “They are faced with the reality that renewables produce little energy at a high cost.”

While Shell re-committed to its target of net-zero emissions by 2050 in a Wednesday press release, it also said in a footnote that such a change was dependent on societal factors. There would be “significant risk that Shell may not meet this target” if society at large had not made a shift to net zero by then, the company said.

Shell and BP did not immediately respond to a DCNF request for comment.

At some point, as a businessman, you have to do the things that work for the benefit of your company. It should also be noted that the western countries have generally reduced carbon emissions with the use of scientific ways to limit pollution. The countries that are still polluting are not tightly bound by climate accords–China, India, and Russia.

Making Friends With Our Enemies And Betraying Our Friends

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On June 19, msn.com posted the following:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised eyebrows Monday, telling reporters the US “does not support Taiwan independence” after meeting in Beijing with officials including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Blinken’s statement ruffled the feathers of many Republicans in Congress, who viewed the statement – and the secretary’s inability to re-establish military-to-military communications – as an inappropriate kowtow to America’s greatest adversary.

“Blinken flew to Communist China to appease Xi Jinping and state the Biden administration does not support Taiwan’s independence,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on Twitter. “Why won’t this administration stand up to bullies and stand for freedom?”

The Taiwan issue is among the most contentious in the US-China relationship, with Xi making it his No. 1 priority to “reunite” Taiwan with China — though the island about 100 miles off the country’s southeastern coast has never actually been part of it.

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) tweeted that Blinken’s statement was a “dangerous display of weakness towards our adversaries on the world stage.”

Follow the money. I realize that a lot of the allegations against the Biden family have not yet been proven, but there are very few countries in the world that could support the lifestyle that the Bidens enjoy.

The article continues:

Washington’s “One China policy,” which has been critical for maintaining peace in East Asia since it took effect in the late 1970s, holds that the US acknowledges – but does not necessarily agree with – Beijing’s opinion that Taiwan is its sovereign territory.

Instead, the policy holds that the US considers Taiwan’s sovereignty status unsettled, and successive presidential administrations have held that the US favors no change to the “status quo” of relations between China and Taiwan.

However, the US also allows for its military to come to Taiwan’s defense should Beijing attempt to take Taiwan by force, something both the Trump and Biden administrations stated repeatedly as US-China tensions began heating up in 2016.

The article concludes:

Members of the bipartisan House Select Subcommittee on Countering the Chinese Communist Party last month issued a “ten for Taiwan” report laying out policy strategies lawmakers should consider to push back against China.

In part, it says that the US should pass legislation that would state its official position in a more straight-forward manner.

“[T]he United States, alongside its allies and partners, should publicly oppose any attempts by the CCP to resolve the status of Taiwan’s sovereignty by intentionally misusing, misinterpreting, and misleading others on the underlying purpose of … the United States’ One China Policy,” the subcommittee said in its report.

“The United States and its allies need to strengthen and better coordinate collective planning for how they will deter or would respond diplomatically and economically to a crisis over Taiwan.”

Maintaining the freedom of Taiwan is considerably more important than fighting for Ukraine.

Come, Mister Tally Man, Tally Me Banana

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We have officially reached banana republic status.

Townhall reported the following today:

According to The Washington Post’s reporting on court papers filed Tuesday morning, Hunter Biden has reached a “tentative agreement” to “plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail.”

This sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden would still require validation by a federal judge at such time Hunter appears in court to enter his plea.

According to the Washington Post:

The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the agreement that are not yet public. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed.

Additionally, Biden plans to admit to illegally possessing a weapon following his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he expects to be entered in a diversion program, a less punitive form of sentence typically applied to people with substance abuse problems. In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people said.

Has anyone questioned where Hunter Biden got the money that the $1.2 million taxes were owed on? Does anyone doubt that they money would never have been paid were it not for the public pressure surrounding this case?

The Hill reported today:

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) vowed on Tuesday to continue investigating Hunter Biden, despite his “sweetheart plea deal” reached with federal prosecutors.

“These charges against Hunter Biden and sweetheart plea deal have no impact on the Oversight Committee’s investigation,” Comer said in a statement. “We will not rest until the full extent of President Biden’s involvement in the family’s schemes are revealed.”

 

When Congress Passes Laws And The Biden Administration Ignores Them

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On Friday, The New York Post posted an article about the Biden administration’s ignoring the Taylor Force Act. The Taylor Force Act prohibits certain FY2018-FY2023 economic support assistance that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority (PA) from being made available for the West Bank and Gaza unless the Department of State certifies that the PA, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and any successor or affiliated organizations:

The article reports:

An even more distressing irony: President Joe Biden recently launched a first-ever National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism amid a spike in Jew-hatred, yet at the same time — in defiance of Congress’ intent — his team continues to provide material support for the PA, even as it not only spouts antisemitic speech but funds anti-Jewish terrorism through its “pay-for-slay” program.

Congress clearly determined that PA terror payments encourage violence, which is why it passed the Taylor Force Act, barring economic assistance that “directly benefits the Palestinian Authority” until it “stops all payments incentivizing terror.”

In recent months, the West Bank has seen a spate of fatal Palestinian terror attacks, with each of the perpetrators and their families then eligible for PA payments.

Among other things, the law urges our UN representative to “use the voice, vote and influence of the United States at the United Nations” and the State Department “to use its bilateral and multilateral engagements” to highlight the issue of pay-for-slay and push for governments to stop funding the PA.

The Biden administration is violating these requirements.

It has renewed aid to Palestinian and Palestinian-funding entities, like the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, potentially subsidizing the pay-to-slay program.

Money is fungible, so if the PA doesn’t need to spend money because of an UNRWA program, it can allocate more funds to pay-for-slay payments.

I don’t like to think of my government as subsidizing terrorism, but in defying the Taylor Force Act, that is exactly what it is doing.

The Patriot Act

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I apologize for the length of this article, but all of it is important information.

On June 14th, The Epoch Times posted an article about surveillance of American citizens by our government. This surveillance has reached the point when none of us really have any privacy. One example of the lack of privacy is the government collecting data from The Bank of America on anyone who made credit card purchases in the Washington, D.C. area on January 6th.

The article reports:

Congressional debates about whether to renew Section 702 are coming amid numerous reports that the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies have abused the surveillance authority granted to them by this law. Critics say there is mounting evidence that federal agencies have been using laws, which were intended to target foreign terrorists, to conduct extensive, long-term domestic spying campaigns on U.S. citizens.

“To prevent Section 702 from being used as an end run around [Fourth Amendment] protections, Congress did two things: It required the government to minimize the collection, sharing and retention of Americans’ personal information … and it required the government to certify to the FISA court on an annual basis that it is not using Section 702 to try to access the communications of particular known Americans,” Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told conference attendees.

“What has become abundantly clear over the last 15 years is that these protections are not working,” Goitein said. “All agencies that receive Section 702 data have procedures in place, approved by the FISA court, that allow them to run electronic searches … for the purpose of finding and retrieving the phone calls, text messages and emails of Americans.”

A report by the Brennan Center for Justice states that “since 2006, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans from some of the largest telecommunications providers in the United States, via a series of regularly renewed requests by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

In addition, the report states that “over the past six years, the NSA has obtained unprecedented access to the data processed by nine leading U.S. internet companies. This was facilitated by a computer network named PRISM. The companies involved include Google, Facebook, Skype, and Apple.”

Below is a paraphrase of an email I received this morning from a friend:

Congress is repealing the Patriot Act or at least portions of it. The FISA process needs to be repealed. Some will say it can be fixed; however, I am proffering it can not and must be shut down. The process is based on two fundamentals: 1) if anyone lies, the process will catch it and 2) groups of people will not collude to abuse the process against a group of people because again, the process will catch this. Based on the last eight (8) years both of these fundamentals have been proven wrong. When President Obama spied on Candidate Trump it demonstrated these fundamentals are no longer true. When fundamentals are violated, the structure built upon these will surely fail and this has been demonstrated. Thus, as a former NSA systems engineer, I am asking Congress to cancel this. Besides, based on the abuses, intelligence must relearn how to do the job the hard way before this privilege was granted by the Congress.The process in my mind is not just the obtaining of a warrant through a FISA process but adding the back end processes where every query into an intelligence data repository is audited, auditors review the queries to ensure these are not potential abuses, investigating when there could be and reporting to Judicial, logs of who is allowed to access intelligence repositories along with the lifestyle security back ground security clearance, logs tracking who received intelligence product created from access to the intelligence data repositories, and a strict process and logging on unmasking of US persons.

In my last years at NSA, the rules for accessing intelligence data repositories changed; NSA no longer controls those accesses . Each agency now creates their own policies, and the strict back ground security clearance is no longer required. Further Compliance activities have shortened the length of time data and data logs are retained–some as long as only two (2)years, one House of Representative term. There is no way an audit could be done now of the spying which did occur in 2016; all those logs are gone as of 2018. Pleas were sent asking Congress to send an order to retain; but alas, Congress refused to do this.Why is this important?  The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects all U.S. citizens anywhere in the world and within the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures by any person or agency acting on behalf of the U.S. Government. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the interception of electronic communications is a search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This is a fundamental right of all US Persons, most of whom are Americans.FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) permits electronic surveillance in two situations. First, the President is authorized to use warrantless wiretapping for the protection of the US against a potential grave attack, sabotage, or espionage, on the condition that the government does not tap any U.S. citizen. Second, federal law enforcement officials must obtain a warrant for foreign taps that does not meet the criteria of the first situation. To obtain the warrant, the FISA court (also created by the Act) must find probable cause the individual targeted is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power and a foreign power is likely to use the place to be tapped. So, within law and policy there are a series of governance for the FISA (Court) must abide by as do the Intelligence and Law Communities. The reason for strict adherence is when presenting a FISA warrant, the person being targeted is not afforded the right to counsel. Only the Judges and Agents seeking permission are present in the court room. Again, the procedures, instructions, and guidance built to ensure the law is followed are based on assumptions. Again, the first assumption is if any one lies, it will be caught by the process. Again,a second is if a group of people collude to seek violating someone’s rights it will be caught by the process. With LTG Flynn, the FBI IG report shows that these fundamental assumptions are no longer true.Thus, the question of should FISA stay or go is based on whether you think processes can be modified to overcome flawed base assumptions or do you think it is better to rebuild the system with new assumptions. Our Federal Representatives will be asked to participate and vote on fixing the current system. It is proffered, perhaps shutting FISA down and rebuilding with new fundamental assumptions people will lie is a better way ahead than trying to find out all the places the fundamental assumptions have failed. Congress needs to repeal this process (BTW: it pains me to take this position – but it is imperative).

 

Linking To This Article Got My Two Groups Restricted On Facebook

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When I do my early morning research for this blog, I often post articles that I want to read later in two Facebook groups–Right Wing Granny and Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association. Both groups are open for anyone to join and posts made in those groups can be seen by everyone. I was a little surprised that linking to the following article got both of the groups restricted (my link went against community standards), but I suspect the tweet is the reason why.

On Monday, The Independent Journal Review posted the following headline:

James Woods Re-Writes Fox News’ Headline for Network – And It’s a Lot Better Now

The article at the Independent Journal Review reports:

Just like the American justice system, is Fox News using kiddie gloves when it comes to Hunter Biden now too? Or are they just sexists?

Hollywood legend James Woods thinks it’s squarely the latter as he blasted the beleaguered news network over a headline involving the incumbent president’s son.

The article includes the following screenshot:

By using the headline they used, the article immediately paints the picture of Biden’s son as almost an innocent bystander being attacked by someone is not considered worthy of respect.

The article notes:

The issue, however, was that the story also happened to display a headline that read: “Biden’s son dragged into court as fiery child support battle against ex-stripper heats up.”

Woods wasn’t a fan of that headline.

“He’s called ‘Biden’s son,’ but she’s dismissed as ‘ex-stripper,’” he pointed out. While the linked article above sports a different title, internet archives do show that Fox News featured that headline on Saturday morning.

“This is journalistic sexism at its lowest,” Woods said, before proceeding to fix it for Fox.

“Why couldn’t the headline just as easily read, ‘Ex-crack addict dragged into court by mother of his child?’” Woods said, making the headline better by significant margins on a couple of levels.

The child involved has been ignored by the Biden family. That may work to the child’s benefit considering some of the antics of the Biden family.

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE)

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On Saturday, The Federalist posted an article about an election integrity group known as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE).

The article reports:

It’s no secret by now the 2020 election was fraught with complete chaos and confusion. In addition to leftist billionaires pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into local election offices to alter election operations, the contest was marred by Democrat-backed groups’ orchestrated legal campaign to change state election laws in their favor.

Regime-approved media were even running stories months before the election forecasting such a strategy. In February 2020, for instance, Politico ran an article detailing how “a constellation of left-leaning groups” were “spending millions of dollars” to launch “an avalanche of voting-rights lawsuits against state laws they say suppress participation in elections.” The lawsuits were widespread in nature, targeting provisions related to voter ID requirements, voter-roll maintenance, ballot signature verification, and more. Whether it was Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, or Michigan, states all over the country were barraged with Democrats’ legal blitz.

In order to prevent similar chicanery from continuing in future electoral contests, an election integrity group known as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) is launching its counterstrategy ahead of the 2024 election. While speaking with The Federalist, RITE President Derek Lyons described how his organization is employing a three-pronged game plan to halt the left’s legal jihad, the first of which involves protecting existing statutes to ensure states have “the best election[s]” possible.

Their goal is to “protect the integrity of the ballot box from dilution, mismanagement, errors, [and] fraud,” Lyons said. They also want to make sure election integrity laws “are well defended and that they’re in place and operational for the upcoming election.”

The group is working to support voter ID laws and to assist in legal cases where left-funded groups are attempting to interfere in elections.

The article concludes:

According to Lyons, the final prong of RITE’s election integrity game plan involves “taking tools” out of leftist attorneys’ toolboxes so they don’t have “as many litigation options when it comes to elections.” Specifically, the strategy is aimed at limiting “abuse” of the “materiality provision” of the Civil Rights Act, which according to Lyons, has become Democrat lawyers’ new “favorite tool to get into federal court to try and dismantle state election laws.” Cases involving the provision normally deal with absentee ballot issues, such as witness certification, signature matching, and the dating of ballots, according to Lyons.

“At the end of the day, elections are a critical component to our democracy,” Lyons said. “It’s the instrument that normal, everyday Americans have at their disposal to try and shape the outcome of this country and it’s vitally important that they believe that it’s an effective tool for doing that.”

Additional information on RITE’s ongoing election litigation can be found here.

This Is What We Are Up Against!

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This is a screenshot from a Facebook group I belong to. I have blocked out the names because I have not asked anyone permission to use it. The answers to the question asked are troubling.No one wants to add to the struggles of someone who has had a stroke, but there are some real questions as to the impact of that stroke.

Below is a video of Senator Fetterman’s comments on the collapse of the bring on Route 95:

I truly doubt that this man is capable of handling the job of Senator.

Tying The Hands Of President Trump’s Legal Team

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Based on everything I am seeing, I am convinced that the threat President Trump represents to the Washington establishment must be monumental. The political establishment has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at him since he came down the escalator and announced that he was running for President. I will admit that I did not take him seriously as a candidate. I was also not sold on his ability to make necessary changes to our government. I was wrong. We need to bring him back to finish what he started–understanding that he now has a much better understanding of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

On Saturday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article detailing the deep state’s latest effort to stop President Trump from becoming President again. I am posting a lot from the article because much of it is legalese that I do not fully understand.

The article reports:

One of the ways you can immediately detect federal Lawfare deployment is to look at how media articles are written when they outline court filings without direct citation for review.  The Hill began SEE HERE. The New York Times is similar, SEE HERE.

Notice both national publications talk about a DOJ court filing, presumably made under seal, that limits President Trump’s defense access to materials and documents used in the case against him.  Notice the media do not say how they gained insight into the details of the sealed filing itself; nor do they provide any source context for how their reporting is structured.  Nothing like, “according to sources with familiar with the matter” or anything similar. Just nothing; no attribution at all.

That media context is a BIG red flag indicating the need to ‘create a narrative’ is more important than the actual substance of the evidence material underpinning it.

Notice that the media seems to have access that is being denied to President Trump’s defense. Are we supposed to think that is fair?

The article also notes:

Both stories hit on the issue of the DOJ filing a (presumably sealed) motion with the Florida court, to place limits, rules and restrictions on evidence against President Trump, that limits his ability to review it, talk about it and/or provide context for it.  THIS IS A LAWFARE MOVE.  This is what happens in the prosecutorial star-chambers where they hide information in order to create the appearance of something nefarious, where nothing nefarious exists.

When we see this legal approach, we can be assured the case that uses the evidence is built upon fraud and pretense.  Do not be afraid to tell your family, friends and others about this dynamic.  President Trump is being accused of the crime of violating 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, a violation of the espionage act, and the DOJ is requesting that President Trump must not permitted to defend himself by discussing the evidence against him.

The DOJ wants to limit public knowledge of the material evidence, not because it would harm national security – but rather because the nature of the evidence itself would highlight to the nation how fraudulent the targeting is.  This is the guaranteed DOJ motive, that’s why everything is under seal and even the media will not talk about how they are gaining their leak knowledge.  This is LAWFARE narrative engineering at its apex deployment.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. We are definitely descending into a banana republic scenario here.

Have We Considered The Long-Term Consequences?

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Green energy is the fad of the hour. It sounds wonderful—as good as the perpetual motion machine scientists have attempted to invent since the Middle Ages. However, what happens when the windmill blades and the solar panels wear out? Have we considered that?

On Saturday a website called America First Report posted an article about this problem.

The article reports:

The United States currently has an estimated 149.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed nationwide. In the first quarter of 2023, the country installed 6.1 GW of solar capacity, which is its “best first quarter in history,” according to a June 8 press release by research firm Wood Mackenzie. Over the next five years, Wood Mackenzie expects America’s total installed solar capacity to hit 378 GW by 2028.

…Last year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) withheld 1,642 electronic shipments valued at $841 million, including solar panels, due to the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act that sought to counter the use of forced labor when sourcing from China. In March, the CBP released 552 pieces of equipment worth $345 million.

The stalled import of solar panels from China caused delays in solar project development programs. But with the release of part of the withheld shipments, the Chinese solar panels will now make their way into American projects.

Besides the human rights issue in the manufacturing process, the solar industry has another hurdle that is yet to be resolved and which is soon touted to be a global ecological nightmare.

The article notes:

Most solar panels have a lifespan of around 25 to 30 years. As these panels stop working or are retired, they pose a significant challenge as countries have to make sound arrangements to deal with the massive amounts of solar panel waste.

…Based on numbers from Yale School of the Environment, solar panels due to retire by 2030 in the United States would cover around 3,000 American football fields.

In a May 13 interview with CNBC, Suvi Sharma, the CEO of Texas-based Solarcycle, stated that solar energy is “becoming the dominant form of power generation” while citing an EIA report which said that 54 percent of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in the United States this year will come from solar.

However, nothing has been done to make the solar industry “circular,” Sharma said, referring to recycling. At present, there are over 500 million solar panels in America, with tens of millions expected to be added in the coming years.

Recycling is a problem:

Solar panel waste presents a substantial pollution problem. The panels consist of numerous toxic chemicals like cadmium telluride, lead, hexafluoroethane, and more. A chemical created as a byproduct of solar panel manufacturing is silicon tetrachloride which can lead to burns on the skin.

Putting solar panel waste in landfills presents a long-term risk to the environment as the toxic minerals and metals can end up seeping into the ground.

However, this is what is being done right now. At present, around 90 percent of defective or end-of-life solar panels are sent into landfills. This is because the costs of recycling solar panels are far higher compared to just dumping them.

According to Sharma, this gap will be “closing over the next five to 10 years significantly” due to a “combination of recycling becoming more cost-effective and landfilling costs only increasing.”

We need to do some serious thinking about what we consider ‘green energy’ before we get too far down this road.

When Political Leaders Humbly Tell The Truth

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On Saturday, Revolver reported the following:

Danielle Smith, the current premier of Alberta in Canada, has done something remarkable. She took the bold and unprecedented step of apologizing to unvaccinated Canadians who’ve faced unfair treatment from the government throughout the “pandemic.” But Ms. Smith actually went beyond just issuing an apology, Danielle actually made a promise: anyone who was terminated from their job due to their refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine will be reinstated.

Wow. We need some American politicians to follow suit.

The article concludes:

This apology and promise form Ms. Smith sends a powerful message to globalist elites: you were all wrong, and everybody knows it. Thanks to her humility, Danielle Smith has set a new standard in political leadership. Her acknowledgement of the horrors faced by the unvaccinated and her willingness to take responsibility for the government’s disgusting actions during the pandemic show she has the potential to be a good leader. However, the proof is in the pudding. The next time something like this happens — and you know it will — Danielle better be on the side of the people, not the government.

One of my daughters was fired for being unvaxxed.  Another daughter received the vaccine with no obvious side effects (thank God), and another daughter is self-employed and is unvaxxed having had the Covid virus before vaccines were available to her. All Americans should have the freedom to make whatever choices they want regarding any vaccine. What we saw during the Covid pandemic was medical tyranny, and we need to make sure that it does not happen again. The traditional vaccines that Americans routinely get have been tested and proven reliable for years. The Covid vaccines were rushed through and has questionable effectiveness and questionable safety. Americans need the freedom to weigh the risks and benefits of those vaccines and make individual decisions accordingly.

Senator John Kennedy Of Louisiana Speaks Out

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On Thursday, Red State posted an article with some comments by Senator John Kennedy about the bribery allegations against Hunter and Joe Biden.

The article quotes the Senator:

I think the FBI is the premier law enforcement agency in all of human history, and I’m not going to vote to abolish them or defund them. But you don’t have to be Euclid to know that over the past five years, there have been people at the FBI and at the Justice Department who have acted on their political beliefs.

…The FBI Director Comey investigated President Trump on evidence that the Hillary Clinton campaign gave to him. It was inevitable in light of President Trump’s prosecution that the issue of selective prosecution was going to be raised. What about Secretary Clinton’s e-mails, for example?

…Now Senator Grassley, who has a great deal of credibility, has received a document from a whistleblower inside the FBI based on a trusted informant that says President Biden has been bribed and that the people that bribed him have tapes. Now, I don’t know if all of that is true or not, but we’re entitled to see that document.

First, the FBI said, well, we can’t even tell you that it exists. And then they said, you can see it, but it has to be redacted. They won’t tell us whether they’ve even investigated the allegations.

The only people who can fix this are the head of the FBI and the attorney general. So the American people understandably have doubts and only Chris Wray and the attorney general can address those doubts. And you can’t find either one of them with a search party, and they just won’t answer.

And finally, my favorite quote:

I believe there’s a perception out there among the American people, there’s certainly a perception of that on Congress, and only the attorney general can address that. And Dog the Bounty Hunter couldn’t find the attorney general right now. He refuses to talk about it. So does the FBI director.

These are all fair questions. They’re not going away. For the integrity of the FBI as an institution and the Department of Justice, the two heads need to look the American people in the eye in front of God and country and tell them the truth. And until that happens, this isn’t going away.

Stay tuned.

 

Reining In The Federal Government

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On Thursday, Fox News reported that the House of Representatives had passed the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, or SOPRA, which would rein in the power of the executive branch to govern through regulation.

The article reports:

The House voted Thursday to overturn a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that Republicans say gave the executive branch too much power to impose regulations that cost Americans trillions of dollars each year.

Lawmakers approved the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, or SOPRA, in a mostly party-line 220-211 vote.

Republicans have argued for the last several years that the Supreme Court precedent set in the Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. case effectively told courts that they should defer to federal agencies when they interpret laws passed by Congress as they write regulations. Republicans say that since that ruling, courts have failed to do their due diligence in assessing whether those regulations can be fairly justified under the law.

We are supposed to be governed by laws–not regulations. Laws are supposed to be passed by elected Congressmen who can be held accountable for the laws they pass. The people in the executive branch who are passing regulations were not elected by anyone and cannot be held accountable by the American voters for what they do.

The article notes:

“Since 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute rather than what Congress intended, the executive branch has begun usurping the legislative branch to issue regulations with the force of law,” Fitzgerald said. “It is certainly not what our founders intended.”

He added that the cost of these regulations have piled up on Americans over the last several decades.

“The total annual cost of regulation is almost $2 trillion, or about 8% of the U.S. GDP,” he said. “If it were a country, for comparison, U.S. regulation would be the world’s eighth largest economy.”

The article concludes:

“While Congress sets broad policies, we delegate authorities to executive agencies because we do not have the expertise to craft the technical regulations ourselves, and we rely on these agencies to carry out the policies we enact,” he (Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee) said.

The bill is unlikely to move in the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House has said President Biden would veto it.

But the issue could be decided by the Supreme Court itself. In the fall, the Supreme Court is expected to hear a dispute between fishermen in New Jersey and the federal government over whether federal rules on fishermen are vastly exceeding what was allowed by Congress.

The fact that this law will probably never become law illustrates the need to get back to the government our Founding Fathers created.

Creating Uninformed Voters

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On Tuesday, Newsbusters reported the following:

On Thursday June 8, two massive political stories broke, but ONLY one of them got covered by the broadcast networks.

On June 8, former President Donald Trump was indicted by the Special Counsel in the classified documents case. That very same day it was reported that President Joe Biden had allegedly received $5 million dollars from an executive of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, the same company in which his son Hunter was involved.

Guess which one was exhaustively covered and which one was completely covered up by the networks?

Over four days (June 8-June 12) the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast networks predictably crammed their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows with a total of 291 minutes of coverage dedicated to the Trump indictment.

But how much did the Biden/Burisma alleged bribery scheme receive? 

Zero seconds. 

The article gives one example of the coverage:

George Stephanopoulos’s introduction, on the June 9 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, was representative of the tone of network coverage of the Trump indictment. The moderator of ABC’s This Week, co-anchor of Good Morning America and former Bill Clinton hack, shamelessly greeted his audience this way: 

The idea that no person is above the law is a bedrock principle of American justice. And it’s being tested never before now that Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to face criminal charges from the federal government. It’s in the latest in a litany of firsts for a former President; Impeached not once, but twice. Last month, found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial, indicted in state court for paying hush money to a porn star. His company convicted of tax fraud. And Trump still faces two more possible indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Another first? That former president, defeated for reelection once, is for now, at least the front runner for his party’s nomination. Our team is covering all the angles of this astonishing legal and political story.

Where were these comments when Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Mike Pence, and Joe Biden all did what President Trump did? Is everyone but President Trump above the law? This sort of news reporting is a disgrace, and it only serves to divide our country further.

The Lawsuit To Release The Records

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported that the Delaware Supreme Court will hear arguments on June 14th regarding the release of President Joe Biden’s Senate records.

The article reports:

The Delaware Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch against the University of Delaware for the release of President Joe Biden’s Senate records.

The university claimed public funds were not used to support the papers, arguing the documents requested in the April 30, 2020 Freedom of Information Act requests filed by both organizations were not subject to release. The DCNF and Judicial Watch filed an appeal brief with the Delaware Supreme Court in January 2023 after the Superior Court issued an opinion siding with the university.

“No more obfuscation. No more excuses. It’s time for the University of Delaware to answer for its refusal to release Biden’s Senate records,” said Michael Bastasch, editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The DCNF requested agreements relating to the storage of 1,850 boxes and 415 gigabytes of records from 1973 to 2009, communications between university staff and Biden’s staff, log sheets of individuals who have visited the collection along with the records themselves.

The article notes:

The FBI searched the University of Delaware collection in connection with its investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents in February.

The DCNF and Judicial Watch initially filed the lawsuit in July 2020.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) really doesn’t do anyone any good if the people holding the information can refuse to give up that information. I do wonder exactly what is in the records that the Bidens do not want the public to see. I also wonder if anything has been removed from those records since the initial lawsuit almost three years ago.

 

 

Biden Is Making You Poorer

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

In a prior article I mentioned how federal government agencies are taking away your freedoms by unnecessary and tyrannical regulations. The situation is about to get much worse as revealed in a recent article in The Epoch Times, a national newspaper that I strongly recommend for truthful news.

The effort by the EPA, (Environmental Protection Agency) to outlaw gas stoves is being followed by similar proposed draconian regulations by the DOE (Department of Energy). This time it is your household appliances they are after. The regulations will require substantial increases in efficiency ratings by cutting energy and water consumption by one-third, which can only be met, according to manufacturers, by reducing the size of the units (e.g. washing machines/dryers) and adding technology that will increase the cost by an average of $200 per unit. Shortages and decreased reliability can also be expected. Like most government schemes, you pay more but get less. By the way, top loading units will no longer be available. Other items like micro-waves, water heaters, air conditioners, and etc. will be similarly impacted. Manufacturers estimate that the availability of lower cost appliances will be the most impacted.

The EPA and DOE are also teaming up to implement vehicle emission standards that gas powered vehicles will not be able to meet, resulting in increased reliance on expensive, unreliable electric vehicles. Which is, of course, exactly what the Biden administration and the environmental fanatics have always wanted. The average EV costs $20,000 more than a similarly sized gas powered vehicle without the weight carrying ability or the range. What the EV advocates who tell you that EVs can go up to 300 miles without a charge don’t tell you, is that this can only happen when there are no passengers, no luggage or air-conditioner running. Importantly, the value of an EV drops dramatically when the batteries approach the end of their life cycle since they are so expensive to replace. Get ready to have your freedom to travel greatly restricted; also where you can live.

Is this the direct result of the Biden administration? You bet it is. In December 2022, the White House bragged about creating 110 new regulations that would impact the appliance and vehicle manufacturing industries. The environmental fanatics are getting everything they want from the Biden administration, and you, the average citizen taxpayer are going to get everything you do not want. It is not enough for the Marxist Democrats to allow technology to advance and have people exercise their inherent freedom to choose what they decide to buy; they want to tell you what you shall be allowed to purchase since they know what is best. What ever happened to our property rights as guaranteed in the Constitution? Show me where the Constitution gives the federal government, control over what we purchase. They can’t, because it doesn’t.

There is a glimmer of hope. The Republican controlled U.S House of Representatives is reportedly working on a bill that would require federal agencies to have proposed regulations approved by the House prior to implementation. This is long overdue and is only likely to be enacted when Republicans control the Senate and the White House; making the elections in 2024 even more critical to our freedoms.