From my friends at Townhall:
Monthly Archives: August 2023
The Laffer Curve At Work
On Tuesday, Just the News posted the following headline:
Federal revenue falls $416 billion from this time last year despite passage of IRA
This is the Laffer Curve:
What is illustrates is the fact that after the government raises taxes past a certain amount, tax revenues fall. That is because the people whose taxes have been increased have more incentive to find ways to move their income to places that are taxed less.
For example, 93.1FMWIBC reported the following in April 2021:
Mr. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, routed their book and speech income through S corporations, according to tax returns the couple released this week. They paid income taxes on those profits, but the strategy let the couple avoid the 3.8% self-employment tax they would have paid had they been compensated directly instead of through the S corporations.
Questionable, but probably legal.
Just the News reports:
Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, told Just the News that some of the tax credits in the IRA, like the clean vehicle credit and solar tax credit, are in effect right now and will cost billions. “In the short term, the IRA is generating little new revenue because of the delays in implementing the 15% minimum tax so the green energy credits are costing taxpayers billions,” he said.
Hodge pointed out that the IRS enforcement plans were delayed because of the debt ceiling deal reached by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, adding that the IRS hasn’t fully implemented the 15% minimum corporate tax until the agency finalizes the enforcement rules.
“If we look at Treasury’s monthly report, the drop in individual income tax receipts is the biggest factor for the overall decline in federal receipts. They are down by $438 billion alone,” Hodge told Just the News.
“My guess is that much of that may be due to the slower economy and lower capital gains tax collections because of the slumping stock market. Corporate income taxes are higher than last year as are payroll taxes such as Social Security, so those are not a factor,” he added.
There is a tipping point. When corporate taxes get too high in America, corporations go elsewhere.
The Best News Money Can Buy
On Wednesday, The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:
The Associated Press, the country’s top wire service, is now bankrolled in part by millions of dollars from left-wing foundations, including one founded by “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.
The news organization last year announced a series of “partnerships” to subsidize reporters covering climate change, race, and democracy. A review of the donor roster shows that the vast majority fund left-wing political causes, while none are supporters of conservative initiatives.
The Ida B. Wells Society, founded by “1619 Project” lightning rod Hannah-Jones, has teamed up with filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s Hearthland Foundation, for example, to foster “more inclusive storytelling” at the Associated Press.
In some ways, it was a natural partnership: The AP’s global investigations editor, Ron Nixon, serves on the Ida B. Wells Society’s board of directors. In others, it may prove more problematic, given that Hannah-Jones’s own reporting has been disputed by historians, who have argued—among other things—that her account of the motivations of the American revolutionaries is factually inaccurate.
The funding, much of it from these sorts of overly political actors, will make it more challenging for the Associated Press to swat away accusations of political bias. In one high-profile example, critics blasted the organization for revising its style guide to instruct reporters to avoid the use of terms like “the French,” which the AP indicated was “dehumanizing.”
The article lists some of the organizations that are now part of this ‘partnership.’
Here are a few:
The Ida B. Wells Society, founded by “1619 Project”
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation
The Outrider Foundation
The Public Welfare Foundation
Please follow the link to the article to get a better idea of the political leanings of these foundations.
The article notes:
AllSides, a group that tracks media bias across the industry, last year changed its rating for the AP from “center” to “leans left,” citing what it said was an increase in “word choice bias” and “bias by omission of views” in its coverage. AllSides says it closely monitors the Associated Press’s content because the AP’s content is “broad and far-reaching.”
Being Kind To Our Enemies While Dissing Our Friends
It is no secret that the Biden administration would like to reach a nuclear deal with Iran some time in the next year. The administration sees that deal as a potential ‘feather in its cap.’ The fact that the deal would not be worth the paper it would be printed on is purely incidental. The fact that it would not only give Iran a green light to create a nuclear bomb, but also require American taxpayers to fund that bomb is also not to be mentioned. After all, a feather in a cap is a feather in a cap.
On Wednesday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article a recent U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) symposium on deterrence.
The article quotes a Washington Free Beacon Newsletter:
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Making plans for a symposium on deterrence, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) decided that a top Iranian official cum Princeton professor, Hussein Mousavian, would make a good keynote speaker. Mousavian last made headlines when he was captured on Iranian television smirking about the regime’s threats to assassinate U.S. officials. He showed up in Nebraska to lavish praise on the defunct nuclear agreement and urge mutual nuclear disarmament. Our Adam Kredo has the story.
This is the video of the speech:
The article concludes:
…The idea that military personnel sat there and listened to it at their invitation is…disturbing.
Quotable quote (former State Department Special Advisor for the Iran Action Group Gabriel Noronha): “The decision to invite former Iranian ambassador Mousavian to speak to STRATCOM is unimaginably foolish. He is a pawn and propaganda agent of the Iranian regime, which explains why he is allowed to travel back to Iran.”
We are giving the people who hate us the weapons to destroy us.
Knowing History Pays Off
On Tuesday, Red State posted an article about a child who attends the The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who was kicked out of class because he had a Gadsden Flag patch on his backpack.
The article reported:
According to one of the school staff, the famous flag wasn’t allowed in the school due to its “origins in slavery and the slave trade.” A revelation that clearly amused Jaiden who clearly knows more about his nation’s history than his own school.
The flag was one that was popularly displayed during the Revolutionary War as a symbol of the people’s resistance toward the tyranny under the British monarchy which had used and abused the American people, sparking the war that gave birth to what would eventually become the United States.
…Then Yocum (Director of Operations of the Vanguard School, Jeff Yocum) claimed Jaiden was breaking a rule by displaying the flag because students were prohibited from displaying things that referred to “drugs, tobacco, alcohol, or weapons.”
If it feels like Yocum was scrambling in desperation to find justification for this false and clearly biased take on a patriotic flag, then you’re not alone.
Jaiden attempted to take his story to the local press but they declined to interview him.
Thankfully that is not the end of the story.
On Wednesday, Red State reported:
First, we’ll start with the hero of our story. Jaiden remains undeterred and has decided he’s going to walk back into the school with his bag and patch still attached. Jaiden says he will refuse to remove the patch and will conduct a school sit-in if it comes down to it.
According to Connor Boyack, who first reported on this story, two law firms have now offered to assist Jaiden and his family if it comes down to lawfare, and will fight this clear discrimination against Jaiden and his beliefs. The story has also reached Colorado Governor Jared Polis who posted about the story seemingly taking Jaiden’s side but there has been no word on Polis actually doing anything about it.
The more recent article includes the tweet below:
The article concludes:
In a very surprising turn of events, the members of the school board called an emergency meeting and affirmed their respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In doing so, they also decided that the Gadsden patch is a valuable part of American history and that Jaiden may keep it on his backpack if he so chooses.
It’s worth noting that this probably goes a different direction without the reach of social media and conservative sites like RedState. Without the immense amount of eyes placed on this story, who knows if the school board even meets at all? Congrats to Jaiden and to those who publicized this story so that the required amount of pressure was applied.
Wow.
About Those RICO Laws…
RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) Laws were originally put in place to deal with organized crime. I suspect that the people who put them in place never dreamed that organized crime would make its way to the White House.
On Tuesday, Just the News reported the following:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday wrote to White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the pair account for reports that a staffer in special counsel Jack Smith’s office repeatedly met with Biden White House officials.
Isn’t that special?
I thought that the purpose of the special counsel was to have an investigation free of interference from within the government.
The article notes:
“According to recent reporting, Jay Bratt—a Department of Justice employee and top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith—met with White House officials multiple times, just weeks before Mr. Smith indicted former President Donald Trump,” Jordan (House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan) wrote to Zients. “This new information raises serious concerns regarding the potential for a coordinated effort between the Department and the White House to investigate and prosecute President Biden’s political opponents.”
The letter then proceeds to document the various meetings between Bratt and White House officials between 2021 and 2023. It further highlighted allegations that Bratt, in particular, “improperly pressured” a lawyer representing a Trump employee to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the former president.
The article concludes:
“These facts reinforce the serious concern that Mr. Smith is not running an impartial and unprejudiced investigation and prosecution,” Jordan insisted. “The Committee has a significant interest in examining how the Department runs its Special Counsel investigations to inform potential legislative reforms concerning the Department’s Special Counsel practices and operations.”
Jordan demanded that Zients and Garland provide the Judiciary Committee with documents related to Bratt’s myriad visits as well as any communications between the Department of Justice and the Biden White House related to Smith’s operations.
Does anyone believe that if President Biden were a Republican, he would still be in office?
A New Definition of Chutzpah
As America continues to pour money into Ukraine, it seems as if very little questions are being asked as to what we are supporting. The government we are supporting is looking less and less like a republic or a democracy.
On Monday, Breitbart reported:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that taxpayers in the United States and European Union send the country even more aid if the West wishes for elections to be held next year.
In an interview published by the president’s office on Sunday evening, Zelensky said that he would be willing to hold elections despite the ongoing martial law amid the war with Russia, so long as the U.S. and EU bankroll the voting process.
The Ukrainian leader said that elections during peacetime typically cost around 5 billion hryvnia ($135 million) but did not speculate as to how much more they would cost during a war, though presumably it would be much higher.
The article also notes:
Currently, elections are prohibited while the country is under martial law, the renewal of which takes place every 90 days. The next expiration date of martial law is set for November 15th, meaning that it is unlikely that parliamentary elections will be held during their typically scheduled October.
Under normal circumstances, the next presidential election would normally be held in March of next year. In addition to the uncertainty around the vote itself, it also remains to be seen if President Zelensky will lift the ban of several opposition parties he imposed last year under the pretence of them being pro-Russian.
In Sunday’s interview, Zelensky went on to describe some of the logistical challenges of holding elections, noting that millions of Ukrainians are currently living abroad, principally in the European Union, and therefore he said EU countries would need to set up polling stations for the refugees.
I suspect he will get the money. I also suspect that he has enough negative information on every western leader to make sure that he gets the money. This sounds like blackmail to me.
What Does This Man Do For A Living?
As the President’s son, Hunter Biden is entitled to Secret Service protection. I understand that. However, because of where Hunter Biden has chosen to live, that Secret Service protection is costing taxpayers $16,000 a month simply to have the Secret Service rent a place to stay across the street from Hunter. Hunter is renting a small place in Malibu, California, for $15,800 month.
On Sunday, Chicks on the Right reported:
The astronomical cost of Hunter’s home is raising serious questions and much speculation. Hunter is partially funding his lifestyle from the sale of his paintings with New York gallerist George Berges.
Hunter has also received help fighting his financial and legal problems with help from someone who critics call his “sugar brother” identified as Hollywood mega-lawyer Kevin Morris.
Morris earned the nickname as a major Democratic donor as well as a strategic adviser for the scandal-plagued Biden family.
The article concludes:
These reports have led to renewed scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s business dealings and his relationship with his father. While Hunter Biden faces multiple federal charges, Morris not been charged with any crimes or wrongdoing.
“Morris has helped Biden maintain his allegedly lavish lifestyle, according to several reports, covering at least some of the first son’s rent and living expenses,” Fox News reports.
Morris controls Skaneateles LLC, which holds Biden’s 10% stake in BHR, Fox News reports.
The company should be called shenanigans!
How Many Other People Were Involved?
The Biden family corruption scheme seems to be constantly adding more people to its criminal circle. The latest addition is not surprising considering the list of business partners, but it is interesting that it has taken us so long to get here.
On Monday, PJ Media reported the following:
…It turns out that Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry mere weeks before Shokin (Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin) was fired in 2016, according to a report from Fox News:
Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired on March 29, 2016, less than four weeks after Archer met with Kerry at the State Department in Washington, D.C., according to a State Department email.
“Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3:00pm – need someone to meet/greet him at C Street,” reads the redacted email on March 2, 2016, which was previously released via the Freedom of Information Act.
Fox News Digital can confirm that “S” refers to Kerry, based on multiple other email communications. However, it is unclear what Archer and Kerry discussed at the meeting or whether Burisma came up in conversation.
At the time of the meeting, Archer and Hunter Biden had been sitting on the board of Burisma for about two years, and then-Vice President Joe Biden had recently wrapped up a trip to Ukraine where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukrainian officials didn’t fire Shokin, claiming he was too lax on prosecuting corruption.
When the email was first released in 2019, Sens. Grassley, R-Iowa and Johnson, R-Wis., expressed concerns about the meeting and sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Pompeo requesting all records from the meeting in addition to other meeting, including Hunter’s 2015 meeting with Blinken.
It may well be that one of the reasons there seems to be so much difficulty in actually holding anyone responsible for the corruption of the Biden family is that the Biden family was careful to make sure there were enough other people in high places involved so that there would never be any consequences for their actions.
Summing It All UP
On Monday, Don Surber at Substack posted an article putting President Trump’s mugshot in perspective. The article compares the mugshot to another mugshot from 2005 of Tom DeLay where Tom DeLay was smiling. I need to mention that the mainstream media was very upset with the fact that he was smiling. I also need to mention that a jury trial found Tom DeLay innocent. Of course the accusations ruined his career (just as they ruined the career of Bob MacDonald whose guilty verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court). There is a pattern here–it’s called lawfare and is used by the Democrats to get rid of their political opponents. President Obama used a variant of it in 2004 when he managed to get the messy divorce records of his main primary opponent unsealed and leaked to the press. I have no doubt that somewhere behind all of the prosecution of President Trump you will find puppet strings pulled by President Obama or his associates.
Don Surber notes:
Craig Smith wrote in Newsweek, “In the early ’90s, I was a militant activist and bank robber. I saw myself as a black Robin Hood, stealing from white-owned banks to fund black cultural events. I was caught and sentenced under then-Senator Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill to an unheard of 52 years, though I was a first time offender and no one was hurt during any of my robberies. And I was released by Trump’s 2019 criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act, thanks to Trump’s prodding of Congress to reverse many of the draconian laws written and supported by our current president.
“The former president freed 5,000 incarcerated people like me from outrageous sentences. Yet he is now facing the possibility of serving a sentence of his own. As I watched former President Donald Trump get perp-walked and mugshot at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia, I couldn’t help but notice the deep irony: The same criminal justice system that Trump made radical reforms to is now being used to discredit him and hamper his chances of winning the presidency for a second time.
“None of us who have benefited from Trump’s radical reform of the criminal justice system under the First Step Act are blind to that irony. But it goes beyond that: Trump’s repeated run-ins with the law, and what seems like an unfair obsession with catching him and punishing him disproportionately for his so-called crimes, reminds a lot of us of what was done to us.”
…Smith ended his column, “At the end of the day, these repeated arrests may end up having a very unintended consequence. Instead of proving to the country that Trump is unelectable, it may have removed a barrier in the form of him being unrelatable. These arrests have made Trump relatable to the 5 million people in America under some form of supervision by the U.S. criminal legal system.
“In 2020, President Trump got the votes of 18% of black men. Don’t be surprised if he gets more in 2024 if he’s the GOP nominee for president. Now that he’s suffered the indignity of what Joe Biden’s crime bill put so many of us through, he will be an even bigger champion of our cause.”
The defiance in Trump’s mugshot has turned the tables on the press and the rest of the sociopaths who want Trump and his supporters dead. He has become Liam Neeson in Taken.
It’s time for Americans to wake up and see what has happened to justice in this country.
A New Definition Of Security
On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about a recent statement made by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
The article reports:
Praising Biden’s historic green energy funding and 100% clean electricity goal by 2035, Granholm said “With all this electrification, we could slash our net crude oil imports by almost 60%, and that strengthens energy security.”
Granholm, who appeared with Vice President Kamala Harris also said Harris “has been amazing inside the White House as the champion for clean energy.”
One of the most common critiques of Biden’s green agenda is that it has thus far achieved the opposite of energy security. Regulators claimed in May that more than 66% of the country is vulnerable to summer blackouts because of “new environmental rules” cracking down on fossil fuels.
The regulators explained that the government is causing a spike in energy demand at a pace faster than renewables can match.
I don’t have a problem with cutting crude oil imports–if we open up American drilling and regain energy independence, we can be a net exporter of oil again. The world economy is based on oil. It is the commodity that fuels our manufacturing, our transportation, enables trade, and makes the lives of people who live in countries with ample energy much more pleasant. A number of European countries have switched away from green energy because they discovered that it could not meet the energy needs of their population.
The article also notes:
Center for Industrial Progress President and founder Alex Epstein wrote that “Joe Biden’s escalating bans on domestic fossil fuel production, combined with mandates of unreliable solar and wind overwhelmingly produced by unreliable China, are an existential threat to our energy security and therefore our national security.”
This isn’t the first time Granholm has made this claim. In April, she also stated of her trip to Japan that Biden’s green agenda will “address how the acceleration of the clean energy transition will help strengthen global energy security.”
Green energy is the modern equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. It’s a great idea, but I suspect that it will always remain just slightly out of reach.
What About Unemployed Americans?
On Sunday, BizPac Review posted an article about a new job assistance program that New York Governor Kathy Hochul is putting into place.
The article reports:
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new job assistance program to benefit the illegal aliens who have descended on the state at a time when 380,000 of her own citizens are out of work.
The Democrat-controlled sanctuary state has been the nation’s top beneficiary of President Joe Biden’s open-border immigration policies, with the majority of the tens of thousands of new arrivals who have mostly settled in New York City, overwhelming the local government’s ability to house them.
Hochul, who is pleading with the Biden administration to speed up the process of providing migrant work permits, rolled out the Empire State’s own jobs program, authorizing the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) to assist illegals by connecting them with employers to facilitate their hiring.
“Today, @NYSLabor is launching a process for asylum seekers to sign up for employment opportunities, so they can quickly find a job after attaining legal work status, and will also unveil a new process for employers to express their interest in hiring work-authorized migrants,” the Democrat leader wrote on Twitter/X on Thursday, the day that she delivered a livestreamed address on the migrant crisis.
As is mentioned in the article, 380,000 New Yorkers are out of work. Why is the work situation of the illegal aliens getting more attention than the work situation of legal Americans who live in New York?
The actions of Governor Kathy Hochul are not the actions of a governor who is working for the people of her state. She is neither protecting the sovereignty of her state or the residents of her state. I wonder how long it will be before New Yorkers wake up and vote her out of office.
Women Losing Their Right To Private Places
On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent district court decision regarding men in women’s college sororities.
The article reports:
A federal district court ruled Friday that a national sorority organization did not violate its own bylaws by allowing a biological man to live in a sorority house and dismissed the complaint from sorority sisters, according to court documents.
Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) sorority sisters sued the national organization in March for admitting a biological male into the University of Wyoming chapter, alleging that the national organization violated its bylaws and that 6 foot 2 biological male Artemis Langford, who identifies as trans, watched women in the house get undressed. Judge Alan B. Johnson of the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled that the national organization can interpret its own definitions as it wants to and didn’t breach its housing contracts by allowing a biological man to board with women, according to court documents.
The sorority sisters argued that KKG must enact new bylaws to define what a woman is and allow that into the sorority house, but the court disagreed. “Defining ‘woman’ is Kappa Kappa Gamma’s bedrock right as a private, voluntary organization – and one this Court may not invade,” the decision reads.
Situations like this used to be handled very easily by something called ‘common sense.’ Letting a man (I don’t care what he calls himself, he is a man) live in a sorority house is always going to cause problems. The only real solution the women in the sorority have is to leave the sorority, because obviously they are not going to have any privacy in the sorority house.
A Monologue Worth Hearing
As anyone who reads this website on a regular basis can easily determine, I am a Trump supporter. I don’t think the man is perfect, but I definitely think he is needed right now.
The following monologue by Steve Bannon is something all Americans need to hear:
If you love America, this is something you need to hear.
Working Together To Interfere In The Next Election
On Saturday, The New York Post posted the following:
The White House counsel’s office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents — raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden’s likely opponent in 2024.
Jay Bratt, who joined the special counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, took a meeting in the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, White House visitor logs show.
They were joined in the 10 a.m. meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office.
Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith’s office on June 8, 2023.
Bratt, 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was mired in negotiations with the National Archives, who were demanding the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate before a formal investigation had not yet been opened.
The article notes:
Bratt, a Harvard-educated attorney, is a longtime Department of Justice hand and has served as chief of its counterintelligence and export control section in the national security division since October 2018. The section focuses on investigating and prosecuting cases affecting the national security and foreign relations of the United States.
The article concludes:
In this capacity, Bratt visited Mar-a-Lago in June 2022 to inspect storage facilities at the property and personally interacted with Trump.
He later became a leading advocate for the unannounced FBI raid of the property in August of that year, the Washington Post reported.
Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta — who has also been charged by the special counsel’s office — accused Bratt in June of trying to coerce his client’s cooperation by floating Woodward’s past application to be a judge.
In a sealed filing obtained by The Guardian, Woodward alleged that Bratt floated his past judicial application to suggest it might be looked at more favorably if his client were to cooperate with the government against Trump.
The activities of the Biden administration and the deep state in their interference with the 2024 election is frightening. This alone should wake Americans up to what is happening. We truly are in danger of losing our republic if the weaponization of the Justice Department is allowed to continue.
When You Look At The Whole Picture, It’s Scary
On Saturday, The American Thinker posted an article titled,”Stop pretending this is normal.” What a great title. I agree.
The article notes:
The Constitution says we will have a national election in a bit more than a year. That is one of the more certain things and even that is being questioned.
Pundits are pretending that the coming election will happen and that it will happen with all the normal ups and downs. Polls are questionable in normal times. Prognosticating the future can be done with some accuracy in normal times. This is not a normal time.
This is a roller coaster in a freezing tornado: Not normal. It is like the weather, a coupled, nonlinear chaotic not normal system. No prediction beyond the next sunrise is certain. We are in a “hold tight and ride” mode and we do not know when this ride will end. Maybe it will never end. No one can know. Knowing things with certainty is part of normal.
I do machinery vibration analysis. Just before a machine crashes into useless scrap metal, the vibration is said to go nonlinear. A bad military engagement might go sideways. Some say we are going full-Alinsky. We are nonlinear, sideways, full-Alinsky, on steroids and it is nothing like normal.
How not normal is it?
The article reminds us of all things that have happened in the past five years that have no precedent, such as a President who seems to have many age-related problems, a Vice-President whose ability to put a coherent thought together is often in question, corruption at the highest levels that is being ignored both by the Justice Department and the media, energy policies that are hurting Americans, and a totally political prosecution of a leading candidate for President who is not a member of the ruling class. These things are not normal.
The article concludes:
We have mostly-peaceful riots, parents locked out of their children’s medical decisions, and school boards that develop and implement secret curricula out of sight of objecting parents.
We have more than a thousand political prisoners held for years under minor charges for which they were not allowed access to exculpatory evidence. They are accused of an insurrection without weapons or organization.
Target has become a target, and Bud Light has become Bud Not.
The hottest song in America is a conservative protest song. Definitely not normal.
Accurate predictions require normal, and this is anything but normal. Prediction is impossible. It is a full random future. When people say President Trump cannot win or only Ron DeSantis can, or Biden will beat either, they are wild guessing because their guesses are based on normal, and this is anything but normal.
Almost anything is possible, and almost nothing is impossible. If there is something you want to happen, work toward it and hope it happens. It just might happen. No one knows.
Please follow the link to read the entire article. When you see all of what is happening listed together, it is chilling.
Do You Remember?
What Has Happened To Many Unaccompanied Minors Crossing The Border
On Wednesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about an investigation by the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General into violations of child labor laws involving unaccompanied minor children who have crossed the southern border into America.
The article reports:
It’s the latest development in a scandal involving the Labor Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House.
The New York Times first broke the story in April, when it showed documents proving the administration was quickly releasing unaccompanied migrant children into the country by the thousands. Many of those children ended up working grueling jobs, often for long hours and in dangerous conditions where they worked with chemicals and industrial equipment.
The probe comes amid rising cases of illegal child labor, Bloomberg reported:
Agency officials said in July that over the past 10 months alone, the DOL’s wage division has concluded 765 cases involving 4,474 children employed in violation of federal child labor laws. Overall, the department reported that it’s seen a 69% increase child labor violations from 2018 and 2022.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) slammed the Biden administration in June for its failure to address the widespread crisis.
“This administration has let tens of thousands of children be sold into slavery,” Hawley said. “They are doing nothing about it.”
How many times have you heard Democrats say that they were doing something ‘for the children”? Closing the southern border would be one thing that would definitely protect many children.
The article notes:
Five former HHS employees said they were pushed out of the agency after they raised concerns about children’s safety.
The Times report also implicated former domestic policy adviser Susan Rice. Rice and her team reportedly failed to act, even as administration staffers called for stricter vetting of the sponsors migrant children were placed with to prevent human trafficking. A week after the Times report, the White House announced that Rice would step down.
Has anyone in the mainstream media reported this?
Massachusetts Says Something Positive About The Second Amendment
On Wednesday, Bearing Arms reported the following:
As FPC (Firearms Policy Coalition) Action Foundation’s Cody J. Wisniewski said on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co yesterday, since the Bruen decision was handed down by the Supreme Court last year we’re starting to see lower courts around the country start to take the Second Amendment a little more seriously. While we’ve still seen some egregiously awful misreadings of Bruen over the past twelve months, we’ve also seen some major successes, including one case out of Massachusetts that addresses the fact that in many states, your right to keep and bear arms stops at the state line.
As The Reload’s Jake Fogelman reports, a Massachusetts judge recently concluded that the state’s prohibition on non-residents bearing arms for self-defense without first obtaining a temporary license to carry is a violation of their Second Amendment rights; a stunning development in a state where lawmakers are currently trying to obliterate the 2A rights of gun owners inside the borders as well.
“An individual only loses a constitutional right if he commits an offense or is or has been engaged in certain behavior that is covered by 18 USC section 922,” Judge Coffey wrote on August 3rd in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Dean F. Donnell. “He doesn’t lose that right simply by traveling into an adjoining state whose statute mandates that residents of that state obtain a license prior to exercising their constitutional right. To hold otherwise would inexplicably treat Second Amendment rights differently than other individually held rights. Therefore, the Court finds that GL. 269, sec. (10a) is unconstitutional as applied to this particularly situated defendant and allows the motion to dismiss on that ground.”
The ruling could have significant implications for determining the scope of the right to carry a firearm in public. It is one of the first legal decisions to address gun-carry rights across state lines since the Supreme Court recognized a general public carry right in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen last June. It could fuel gun-rights advocates’ push for the right to travel in all 50 states with firearms in public, also known as “national reciprocity.”
The defendant in the case, Dean Donnell, is a legal resident of New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a permitless gun carry state, meaning anyone 18 years of age or older who can legally possess a firearm may carry it in public openly or concealed. It also issues carry permits to residents for reciprocity purposes. However, Massachusetts does not honor New Hampshire permits.
Judge Coffey’s order does not specify whether or not Donnell had a valid New Hampshire permit, only that he “was in compliance with his home states laws on the possession of the firearm” when Massachusetts charged him. The law under which he was charged, GL. 269, sec. (10a), creates a mandatory minimum sentence of 18 months in prison for anyone convicted of possessing a firearm in public without a license.
Judge Coffey wrote that Donnell’s conduct was “clearly covered by the Second Amendment.” Therefore, under the standard of review set in Bruen, he said the Government of Massachusetts needed to show a historical tradition “relating to disparate treatment of nonresidents” to uphold the law.
Wow. Please follow the link to the article for further details. This is an amazing decision–particularly in Massachusetts.
Taking Off The Mask
There are a lot of people running scared about the coming 2024 presidential election in America. Most of them are running scared because they fear that Donald Trump will be elected. So exactly what might a Donald Trump administration look like in 2025?
I suspect that President Trump has a much better handle on who the good guys in Washington are (if there are any left). I also suspect that because there is no possibility of a second term, we will see a new dimension of ‘bull in a china shop.’ (Actually I think that would be a good thing.) But we would also see the reins of government given to an astute businessman who genuinely wants to help Main Street America instead of Wall Street America. President Trump’s tax policies benefited the Middle Class (article here). Another benefit of a second Trump administration would be making sure America retained its sovereignty. He would be a block against the creeping globalism. So where am I going with this?
On Thursday, Slay News reported the following:
A top World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser has called for an end to elections, arguing that they “are bad for democracy.”
WEF “agenda contributor” Adam Grant, who also serves as a senior adviser to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, insists that “eliminating elections altogether” would ensure that governments and public offices have “more integrity.”
The comments from Grant, who is also a senior adviser to the Department of Defense and Google, come amid concerns that Democrat President Joe Biden is preparing to enforce new Covid restrictions and even “climate lockdowns.”
If Biden were to declare a climate or Covid “emergency,” he would be awarded sweeping new powers to enforce restrictions that could disrupt the critical 2024 election.
In an article for the New York Times, Grant suggests that the taxpaying public cannot be trusted to vote and argues that elections should be scrapped.
The article explains the alternative:
To replace the current election system, Grant advocates for “randomly selecting” officials from a “pool of candidates.”
Globalist WEF official Grant is vague on the details regarding who forms the “pool” and how they are admitted, however.
Nevertheless, the pool would be formed by the no-longer-elected “guardians of our democracy.”
Wow.
Welding The Gates Open
On Monday, The New York Post reported that 114 massive gates along the Arizona border have been welded open by the Biden administration. Officials have stated that the reason for welding the gates open is to allow water to flow freely during the annual monsoon season and for the migration of an endangered species of antelope. If you believe that, I have a bridge in New York I would like to sell you. You can collect the toll revenue. Obviously, welding the gates open allows illegal immigrants to flow freely into America.
I have an idea. Let’s go to all the gated communities that our politicians live in and weld those gates open. Let’s see how long it is before those gates are magically closed again.
The article reports:
Smugglers are capitalizing on the floodgate blunder, driving migrants by the busload to the border and dropping them off as if they were casual tourists. Once across, they turn themselves in to border agents and say they are seeking asylum.
Border Patrol agents call them “give-ups.”
Last month, 42,561 migrants were encountered at the Tuscon border post, a huge jump over the June number of 27,294. Tuscon now tops traditionally busier border spots at El Paso and Laredo in Texas, where 24,352 and 26,627 border crossings, respectively, were reported in July.
The article concludes:
Meanwhile Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, said the way in which the open gates were so quickly exploited is a sure sign of cartel influence.
He told The Post: “Anytime you leave a spillway or a gate opened, the vast majority of people are not going to know it’s open and they’re not going to have the means to get there really, really quickly. Because the cartels are constantly surveilling what we do, the moment something gets left open, it gets exploited.
“In this particular case, it exploded almost immediately, which shows you how adept the criminal cartels are at exploiting any weakness at any time that we show them.
“The cartels know that all you have to do is cross the border illegally, claim asylum. If you’re with a family unit, if you’re from certain specific countries, if you meet those loopholes that go outside what Secretary Mayorkas has announced, then you’re going to get released and that’s what we’re seeing right now.”
“Every one of us [Border Patrol agents], we’re all left scratching our head on why an administration would allow this to happen.
“We’re seeing more and more that this President doesn’t care about what’s best for the country. He cares about what’s best for his re-election.”
I’m not sure this works in favor of the President’s re-election unless the illegal aliens vote. That remains to be seen.
The ‘Elephant’ In The Room
On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article about the question that was not asked during the Republican debate on Wednesday night.
The article reports:
The first Republican presidential primary debate hosted by Fox News on Wednesday featured no questions on election integrity, despite polls showing the issue is important to conservatives.
“Not one question about election Integrity tonight,” former Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake posted on X. “If we can’t talk about our broken elections, how are we ever going to be able to fix them?”
Could that possibly be that no one wants to fix them?
The article notes:
A recent poll conducted by the Honest Elections Project (HEP) from July 13-16 showed that the vast majority of U.S. voters support election integrity initiatives such as voter ID requirements and limiting mail-in voting, according to a report last month by the Federalist.
The poll found some 88 percent back voter-ID rules — including black (82 percent) and Hispanic voters (83 percent), according to the report. It also found three-fourths of voters think in-person voting is better than mailed-in ballots, and “overwhelming opposition” to noncitizens and minors voting in U.S. elections.
The article concludes:
Former U.S. Senate candidate for Pennsylvania Sean Parnell posted on X, “For the most part, this debate was not in anyway representative of where the base of the Republican Party is. Most of these candidates miss the moment. It’s not difficult to see why Trump is by far & away the front runner.”
None of the candidates on the state last night have any idea what Americans are thinking. This is illustrated by where their campaign money comes from. It is interesting that (according to The Daily Caller on August 3rd):
Over 80% of Trump’s campaign fundraising has been financed by small donors, contributing less than $200, which political experts say underscores his large advantage over DeSantis, who is reliant on wealthy donors.
According to The Tampa Bay Times on August 22nd:
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
Campaign’s cash on hand: $9 million
Cash on hand at super PAC supporting the candidate: $225,000
Portion of individual contributions that came from small-dollar donors: 52%
Notable facts: Ramaswamy personally loaned his campaign more than $15 million, providing by far the largest chunk of his campaign’s cash. His small-dollar donor percentage is high in part because the total sum of donations from individuals is only about $3 million. Still, the roughly $1.6 million his campaign has received from those small-dollar donors is comparable or higher than some other, more established political veterans.
Who is backing the majority of the Republican candidates? That is something that voters need to investigate before they vote?
This Really Isn’t A Good Look
The catastrophe in Hawaii is horrible. I can’t even imagine what the people there are going through. It would have been nice if the leader of the country had been more sensitive to their plight. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about President Biden’s total mishandling of the tragedy in Hawaii. The article lists nine missteps that could have easily been avoided.
Here is the list:
1. Lying on the Beach While Maui Burns to the Ground
2. “No Comment” While on Vacation
3. No Comments for a Full Week
4. Refused to Visit Maui for Two Weeks
5. Maui Residents Blast Biden’s Lack of Response
6. Biden Uses Maui Visit to Tell Unintelligible Jokes About “Hot Ground”
7. Biden Offers Devastated Maui Households a Cool $700 Each
8. Biden Uses Maui Tragedy to Lie About Nearly Losing His Home and Wife
9. Biden Dozes Off During Ceremony Honoring Maui Victims
Unfortunately, non of this is surprising from a President who seems to be in the throes of dementia. It is very obvious that President Biden needs to retire and live quietly at home. The Democrat party has been cruel not to allow him to do that. Impeachment, although probably deserved, is really not the right answer–the 25th Amendment should be used to remove President Biden. As much as I don’t think the current Vice-President is qualified to be President, at least she is basically coherent.