About That Corruption Thing In Ukraine…

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

A top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly admitted that corruption is so rampant in the wartorn former Soviet state that officials are “stealing like there’s no tomorrow”.

Speaking anonymously to Time magazine, what is alleged to be a top presidential advisor to Zelensky said that the Ukrainian government’s efforts to stamp out corruption have proved fruitless, given that they were implemented too late to have any impact, including the firing of Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov.

“People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow,” the top advisor is said to have told the publication, saying that officials do not “feel any fear” of engaging in corruption because the firing of Reznikov and others took over six months after Zelenksy was warned that the Defence Ministry was drowning in graft.

Another advisor is reported to have told the magazine that by the time Zelesnky acted “it was too late” and that the corruption scandal had not only become known in Western capitals but also among soldiers on the frontline, where troops reportedly began making lewd jokes about “Reznikov’s eggs” — a reference to the accusation that the Defence Ministry had vastly overpaid for basic items such as eggs and coats for soldiers.

The article concludes:

For his part, in an interview with Time, President Zelensky has claimed that battling corruption is one of his chief aims but asserted that the issue is being weaponised to cut off funding.

“It’s not right for them to cover up their failure to help Ukraine by tossing out these accusations,” he said.

A top official told the magazine that Zelensky has begun to feel betrayed by his backers in the West for merely providing enough assistance to survive rather than sufficient weaponry to win the war against Russia.

However, another said that Zelensy “deludes himself,” adding: “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

The publication went on to claim that officials in Kyiv are beginning to believe that due to heavy casualties over the past year and a half, there may no longer be enough soldiers left to win the war.

Even if the United States were to supply all the weaponry needed, one aide said: “We don’t have the men to use them.”

This is not a winnable war. All we are doing is funding corruption. It’s time for the peace negotiations that the Biden administration blocked at the beginning of the war.

This Green Energy Thing Just Isn’t Working

On Friday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the current state of green energy.

The article reports:

Wind and solar are both terrible methods of generating electricity, both expensive and unreliable. The one thing that can make the situation worse is the drive to electrify everything, including motor vehicles. The impracticality of this “green” vision has become blindingly obvious, and the “green” movement has begun to fall apart.

The article cites a few recent articles on the subject.

From the Telegraph: “Electricity prices ‘must rise by 70pc to pay for more wind farms.’”

No new wind farms will be built off Britain’s shores unless the Government lets operators earn more money from the electricity they produce, the chief of the nation’s biggest generator has said.

Tom Glover, country chair of RWE’s UK arm, said the price offered by the Government to wind farm operators must rise by as much as 70pc to entice companies to build.
***
His warning follows the disastrous result of the last offshore wind allocation round in September, which ended in a humiliation for ministers with not one company offering to build new offshore wind farms.

From Robert Bryce: “Ford Lost $62,016 For Every EV It Sold In 3Q.”

The bloodbath in Ford Motor Company’s EV division continues. On Thursday, Ford reported an operating loss of $1.3 billion in its EV division during the third quarter. That translates into a loss of $62,016 for each of the 20,962 EVs it sold during the period.

That’s a smaller loss than the company recorded in the second quarter, when it lost $72,762 for each EV and the $66,446 it lost per EV during the first quarter.
***
In its October 26 press release, Ford provided an additional comment on the EV losses, saying, “According to the company, many North America customers interested in buying EVs are unwilling to pay premiums for them over gas or hybrid vehicles, sharply compressing EV prices and profitability.” …

That’s a truth bomb of the first order, one to which veteran observers of the EV hype should rightly reply, “ya think?” Consumers, that is, consumers who aren’t part of the Benz and Beemer crowd, have been unwilling to pay premiums for EVs throughout the century-long history of the EV business. The question that Ford shareholders should be asking the company’s management, and CEO Jim Farley in particular, is obvious: “What the hell took you so long to recognize that customers aren’t willing to pay high prices for EVs?”

I don’t know if I can ever forgive Ford for what it did to the Mustang!

This is what happens when the government interferes in the free market.

Taking Out The Cartels   

Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D      

Israel is again fighting for their existence against a terrorist force that not only wants to eliminate the state of Israel but also all Jews. Hamas has been acquiring advanced weapons, principally from Iran, for several years. When your enemy arms itself it never turns out well. The situation with the so-called drug cartels is similar in a lot of ways.   Let’s take a look at our options to deal with them. 

First, we need to recognize the threat that the drug cartels present to our country.   Estimates are that over 100,000 of our citizens die each year due to drug overdosing–especially fentanyl.  At that rate we will have over one million drug deaths within 10 years.  In comparison, there were 36,634 Americans killed during the Korean War and 56,220 Americans killed in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, there were massive protests throughout this country. Where are the protests against the drug cartels, and what is happening as a direct result of Biden’s open border policy? I am certain that we all have friends or family members that have been impacted by drug overdose deaths.  Just because it happens individually does not minimize the threat to our country. Most of these lethal drugs are manufactured and smuggled into our country by the drug cartels. The second obvious threat from the drug cartels is their encouragement, control and profiting from illegal immigration. The amount of money they are making is staggering. Estimates are that over 8 million illegals have come over the border since Biden took office. This is more people than 38 of our 50 states!  At an estimated $6,000 dollars profit on each illegal that they funnel across our border; that amounts to billions of dollars to the drug cartels. Much of this money is used to purchase weapons that are making the cartels a formidable fighting force. The recent attack on a Mexican police station killing half of their personnel shows where this is going.   

So, what do we do about it? Clearly, the Biden administration intends to do nothing.  First we must secure our border. Second, during his administration, President Trump was able to coerce the Mexican government to deploy 26,000 of their troops on their side of the southern border. Clearly, the Mexican government has no plans to do the same now. They are facilitating this problem, not helping to correct it. Do we have a right and duty to protect our country from what is actually an invasion? Of course we do, but sadly it will not be done unless Biden is replaced.   

Assuming that happens, the Mexican government must be enlisted to assist with this problem. Unfortunately, it appears that the drug cartels have become so powerful that Mexico may not be able to deal with them even if they were motivated to do so. This may require our sending American forces to put an end to the drug cartels. Remember these cartels have members that have infiltrated into our southern states and other areas in the country. There is a precedent for this from 1915, when President Wilson authorized the sending of American troops into Mexico under General John J. Pershing to deal with the threat from Poncho Villa. Dealing with this current threat without sending our troops is preferable, but Mexico needs to get the message that either they deal with it or we will be forced to.    

Israel has learned a lesson from the Hamas attack; we must do likewise.   

Can I Get The Name Of The Realtor?

When it comes time to sell your house, everyone wants to sell their house for what it is worth. Sometimes in a tight real estate market, you can have a bidding war and sell a house for more than its actual value, but if there is a mortgage involved, the bank will quickly bring reality to the transaction. Well, that’s the way it works for us common people.

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

Joe Biden sold a house to a supporter for $1.2 million in 1996 – but it is only worth an estimated $1.65 million 27 years later, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The current valuation raised questions over whether Biden received an inflated price for the property from a donor nearly three decades ago.

It was purchased by an executive for a credit card company that, in the same year, also hired Biden’s son Hunter and then paid him for years.

I guess the pay-for-play started years ago.

The article notes:

During those years Joe Biden backed new bankruptcy legislation in Congress that would benefit credit card companies, even though it was opposed by a majority of Senate Democrats including Barack Obama.

At the time of the controversial house sale in 1996 a pollster for Biden’s Republican opponent in his Senate re-election race suggested that the price paid for the house had been too high.

That was vociferously denied by both Biden and MBNA.

A Biden spokesman said at the time that Biden had purchased the property when it was in a distressed state.

The spokesman said: ‘Over the 21 years that the Biden family lived in the home, they made considerable renovations.

‘There was absolutely no connection between the sale and campaign contributions or votes by Sen. Biden, and no one should dare suggest otherwise.’

MBNA also provided to the American Spectator magazine an appraisal from January 1996 that put the value of the property at $1.2 million.

However, the News Journal, a newspaper in Wilmington, went on to report that the appraisal listed as comparable properties two houses valued at just over $1 million.

Both of those properties failed to meet their asking price by more than $200,000, while Biden got the full list price.

Wow. Just wow.

Things The Media Forgot To Share

On Sunday, The Vigilant Fox at Substack posted a list of ten stories the media forgot to tell us this week.

This is the list:

10 – 97% of scientists don’t agree on ‘climate crisis.’

#9 – EU politician makes bold statements about Donald Trump.

#8 – Tucker Carlson declares, “The whole George Floyd story was a lie.”

#7 – Man gets dragged out of Hillary Clinton rally for asking about Bill Clinton’s trips to Epstein Island.

#6 – Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know that statin drugs are impairing brain function.

#5 – New research finds heart anomalies within 48 hours after the COVID-19 shot.

#4 – Florida Surgeon General drops eye-opening revelations on Biden admin’s booster push.

#3 – Swiss banker calls for arrest of Bill Gates and those responsible for “democide.”

#2 – Whistleblower reveals startling data linking tens of thousands of New Zealand deaths to the COVID jabs.

#1 – Pfizer hid nearly 80% of COVID-19 vaccine trial deaths from regulators in order to qualify for Emergency Use Authorization.

If you are still relying on the mainstream media for your news, some of this may be new to you.

 

The Political Spectrum Has Significantly Shifted

Our Founding Fathers had a very different political spectrum than the one commonly referred to by the media. Today’s media has a spectrum of right wing (conservative extremism) and left wing (what they endorse). Our Founding Fathers had a different political spectrum–it had anarchy at one end and tyranny at the other end. Their goal was to create a government midway between the two. Today the tyranny of the left wing goes mostly ignored (lawfare against political opponents, suppression of free speech, censoring information, etc.). but any standard held by a conservative is regarded as a threat to our democracy (we are a republic–not a democracy).

On Saturday, Newsbusters posted an article that illustrates how ridiculous our media has become.

The article reports:

Washington Post associate editor and New York Times columnist freaked out on Friday’s PBS NewsHour at the news that Republicans selected Mike Johnson to be the new Speaker of the House by portraying him as a “far-right” religious extremist out to impose “Christian nationalism” on the country.

Noting Johnson’s relative obscurity, Capehart (Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post) predicted, “And the more information we find out about him and the more information the American people find out about him, the more I think they’re going to be uncomfortable, from his pushing for a national abortion ban, to introducing legislation for a federal so-called Don’t Say Gay Bill, his comments on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.”

Just for the record, as a Christian, I do not support a national abortion ban. Legally, a national abortion ban would be no different than Roe v. Wade–it would be unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment.

The article concludes:

Brooks (David Brooks, writer for The New York Times), again declining to live up to his billing as Brooks and Capehart’s conservative half, agreed with his liberal colleague, “You know, for me, the bad news about Johnson is the wing of the evangelical world he emerges from.”

Elaborating, Brooks explained, “And so, for example, one of the people he’s praised is a pseudo-historian named David Barton. And Barton has been — has a powerful bloc in a subculture of the evangelical world that has been arguing, falsely, that our founders never believed in separation of church and state, that Thomas Jefferson was an ardent Christian who wanted to make this a Christian nation.”

One doesn’t have to defend the anti-historical view that Jefferson, who cut portions out of the Bible he didn’t like, was an ardent Christian to defend the larger point. As for Johnson, Brooks proclaimed, “he is coming from a world where Christian nationalism is very much in the air. And so that’s got to be concerning if he’s coming from this world.”

Nobody who freaks out about “Christian nationalism” ever seeks to define it. Is it just being pro-life or forbidding elementary school teachers to talk about sexual orientation and gender ideology as Capehart mentioned earlier? Mostly, it is just a phrase people like Brooks throw out to scare voters.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., would not have been welcome in today’s Democrat party–he would be considered radically conservative!

This Is Simply Incredible

In July, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asked for Secret Service Protection after his April announcement that he was running for President. As I reported on September (article here) that request was pending even after someone was arrested for carrying a gun at a place where RFK, Jr. was speaking.

On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

RFK Jr. Reiterates Plea to Biden Administration for Secret Service Protection

This will be his third request for Secret Service Protection. The request comes after a suspect is arrested twice in the same day for trespassing on his property.

The article reports:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has refused twice to authorize Secret Service protection, Mr. Kennedy noted Oct. 25 on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“It’s not right for the President to provide protection to his family and political favorites while denying it to political rivals. During his first week as Attorney General, my father assembled all the DOJ’s senior prosecutors to tell them that he would not tolerate any politicization of law enforcement,” Mr. Kennedy posted on Oct. 27.

“I don’t spend time worrying about my personal safety. I do worry about the safety of my family and their sense of well-being and about the safety of bystanders if there is a more serious incident. I’m most troubled by the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies to serve political agendas,” Mr. Kennedy wrote.

President Biden is a mean-spirited, petty little man holding on to power by a thread. He maintains that hold by weaponizing the government against anyone he sees as a challenge.

Obvious Consequences

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the consequences of commuting the sentences of criminals rather than having them remain in jail. Commuting sentences was a common practice during the Covid-19 epidemic to prevent the disease from spreading through jails. However, to me it would have been more logical simply to limit the access of prisoners to people from the outside to avoid bringing in the virus.

The article reports:

Many of the criminals who Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear released under executive commutation during the COVID-19 pandemic went on to commit new crimes, a report from the state’s government showed.

The report examined the criminal records of the approximately 1,700 criminals that Beshear had released in April and August of 2020 to reduce the prison population during the pandemic. Of those released, roughly 70% went on to commit crimes, with 50% committing felonies within less than a year of their release. 

“I believe the last round of commutations was fairly successful at getting people back in society and making sure they are healthy, and we are looking for the same here,” Beshear said after releasing a second round of inmates in August 2020, according to ABC13 WBKO. “I wish each of those individuals a better life moving forward, one that is constructive, one that they can find purpose in, whether that be faith, family or a good job. Let’s help make sure we can work with these individuals and give second chances.”

…Crime spiked in 2021 following Beshear’s commutation order and remained above pre-pandemic levels until 2023, the report showed. Overall crime in April 2021, which marked the crime level peak in Kentucky, reached record levels which was higher than the previous record high by 36%, although the report noted that a relatively small number of released offenders contributed to the jump in crime.

Anyone who has raised children knows that if there are no serious consequences for bad behavior, that bad behavior will continue. There is really no reason to assume that if you let a criminal out of jail before he has completed his sentence, he will immediately become an upstanding citizen. It does happen, but it requires a lot of work by a lot of people who know what they are doing. Otherwise, it’s a disaster.

We Need Fiscal Responsibility In Washington

On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about this year’s budget deficit. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the numbers is that so far electing Republicans to the House of Representatives has not had any impact (actually that’s because the lame-duck Democrat Congress passed bills that limited the 2023 Congress’ ability to curtail spending). However, now we have a speaker who seems to be less likely to continue previous shenanigans. The next few weeks are going to be very interesting in terms of the budget process.

The article reports:

The United States is increasingly losing the war against red ink.

Per new Treasury Department figures, the U.S. government is courting a worsening fiscal crisis. Officially, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the federal government ran a $1.7 trillion deficit for fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30. That’s up from a $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit posted in 2022.

But as highlighted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Yellen’s math ignores another $300 billion in debt incurred by President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellations, bringing the actual total of the deficit under the president to a full $2 trillion. Fix that adjustment for fiscal 2022, and that year’s deficit amounted to a little less than $1 trillion.

This means that in just one year, sans recession and sans war, the federal government under Biden managed to double the deficit by more than $1 trillion. And in large part, it’s all thanks to his embrace of inflation, or at least inflationary spending.

Broadly speaking, the explosion of our national debt, which is now the size of the nation’s annual GDP, is primarily driven by our growth of government spending. While the rest of the nation pays handsomely for inflation with their paychecks, reduced in real terms of purchasing power, our wealthiest generation profits from the pockets of taxpayers. Thanks in large part to the cost-of-living adjustments for our entitlement programs, the three greatest categories of federal budget outlays — Social Security ($1.4 trillion), Medicare ($848 billion), and Medicaid ($616 billion) — grew by 11%, 12%, and 4%, respectively, from just last year.

The article concludes:

The stratospheric surge in bond yields should serve as a warning to Washington that even if the Fed won’t force the government to slow down the spending, the nation’s creditors will not continue to bankroll Uncle Sam without him paying a hefty premium for the privilege. While underlying demographic trends and the inherent, gerontocratic structure of entitlements predestined the nation to a certain fiscal fiasco long before the pandemic, the bipartisan embrace of wartime borrowing, and then Biden’s decision to double down on inflationary policy, have put the country on the path where not even the Fed can fight the deficit disaster on its own.

If Washington won’t listen to the Fed, perhaps it will begin to listen to creditors as the coffers continue to run dry.

We can’t afford to fund wars all over the world. The defense contractors love it, but the country will be destroyed by the debt incurred.

This Could Get Very Interesting

On Friday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the upcoming trial of President Trump regarding the events of January 6h.

The article reports:

Former President Donald Trump’s defense team filed a new motion on Thursday indicating that the former president will present classified information exposing foreign interference in both the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Presidential elections.

The article includes an excerpt from one of the court documents in the case:

The Indictment in this case adopts classified assessments by the Intelligence Community and others that minimized, and at times ignored, efforts by foreign actors to influence and interfere with the 2020 election.

President Trump will offer classified information at trial relating to foreign influence activities that impacted the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as efforts by his administration to combat those activities.

President Trump will also present classified information relating to the biased and politicized nature of the intelligence assessments that he and others rejected during the events in question.

Collectively, this evidence will undercut central theories of the prosecution and establish that President Trump acted at all times in good faith and on the belief that he was doing what he had been elected to do.
The article concludes:

According to Halper-Hayes ( Dr. Jan Halper-Hayes, a former Global Vice President of Republicans Overseas UK), Trump had chosen not to disclose such evidence early to prevent civil unrest, believing it could lead to a civil war.

“I sit on a task force at the Department of Defense, and the thing is, they’ve got the goods. They’ve got the goods. And Trump knew that if he presented any of the goods early on, we’d have a civil war, that he really felt that the people needed to see how bad it could get,” said Halper-Hayes.

“See, the thing is, think about Edward Snowden and all the information he had. Think about the fact that our military, our Department of Defense Space Force, if you think that they don’t have the actual real results from the election, then you’re fooling yourself,” said Halper-Hayes.

Dr. Halper-Hayes further delved into Executive Order 13848,” enacted by Trump on September 12, 2018, arguing that it was designed to combat foreign interference in U.S. elections, with a focus on the 2020 elections.

“Now, let me say something about this 2020 election, is that Biden is the legitimate president, but he’s the legitimate president of what is now the bankrupt US. Corporation and that was a treaty in 1871,” said Halper-Hayes.

She continued, “Well, on September 12, 2018, Trump created an executive order. Within that, he outlined in future elections any kind of foreign or domestic interference specifically for the 2020 election. So we say, how did he know some of these things were going to happen? Election integrity on both sides of the aisle is tough. It’s really tough. But what this has done is it opened the door for Trump to present his case.”

It will be very interesting to see if this case ever makes it to trial.

 

Why Is The Government Even Involved In This?

On Tuesday, Fox News reported that the Biden administration is considering a ban on menthol cigarettes. Haven’t they got more important things to deal with? This is happening at the same time states are legalizing recreational marijuana use. I guess the marijuana lobby is spending more money than the tobacco lobby at this point. Also, why simply ban menthol cigarettes, why not just ban cigarettes? All you are doing by banning menthol cigarettes is make smoking less pleasurable for smokers, you are not doing anything to help them deal with their tobacco addiction.

The article at Fox News is actually concerned about the impact the ban will have on President Biden’s election chances in 2024.

The article reports:

The Biden administration’s proposed menthol cigarette ban could become a thorn in the president’s side during the 2024 elections, political operatives planning to run ads attacking him have told Fox News Digital.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initially proposed rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars in April 2022 to “prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers” and to “help adult smokers quit.” After missing its August deadline, the agency said it remains a top issue, and they are nearing the end of the process.

“Finalizing these two product standards remains a top priority for the FDA,” Brian King, the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, told Fox News Digital. “The posting of both rules on the [White House’s Office of Management and Budget] website means they have reached the final step of review for regulatory documents.”

The proposed ban has faced worries from critics who say it could lead to heightened border problems with Mexican drug cartels saturating the U.S. black market with the prohibited products. Politico reported that it has also divided Black leaders, with some arguing it would lead to over-policing against the community.

The article notes:

“Criminalizing cigarettes as the Biden administration promotes heroin injection sites is bad policy and bad politics,” Brian Colas, a Republican operative and former campaign manager to Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, told Fox News Digital. “Expect to see targeted campaign ads aimed at shop owners, law enforcement and those impacted by the pending ban.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Remember when adults had the right to do stupid things without government interference?

Confirmation Of An Earlier Article

Yesterday I posted an article that included an interview of Representative Matt Gaetz. The interview included claims that former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy had undermined the selection of a new speaker in the quest for regaining the speakership. Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article with similar claims by Representative Nancy Mace. If nothing else, the two articles illustrate that the Washington swamp is deep and wide and if the American people want to take back their government, it will not be easy.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

It took several votes by House Republicans before a Speaker was chosen and agreed to by the caucus.

Now we know why. According to Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace, McCarthy was working behind the scenes to derail any potential candidate for Speaker including Jim Jordan, arguably the most popular Republican in Congress.

The following quote is from Representative Mace:

…This thing didn’t need to last through three weeks. So the first thing that McCarthy and his allies did was prolong it and delay it and recess us and adjourn us every time they possibly could to drag this thing out and make it as painful as possible. For the eight of us who held the line and kicked McCarthy out of the speakership, that’s number one. Number two, there was a concerted and orchestrated effort at the hand of McCarthy that every time someone ascended, they got knifed in the back, including America’s favorite Republican congressman in Jim Jordan. I mean, our conference couldn’t even elect the best and favorite congressman in this country, Jim Jordan, because of what McCarthy and his allies were doing behind the scenes and orchestrating his failure.

This is another example of a Washington insider putting his own ambition ahead of the needs of America.

Hudna?

In a recent article, I explained the concept of “hudna.” Basically, the principle is “please stop attacking me so that I can re-arm.” Another tenet of Islam is “taqiyya” which says that it’s okay to lie to infidels for the sake of the advancement of Islam. We are seeing both of these concepts at work after the horrific attack on Israel on October 7th.

On Thursday, The American Thinker reported:

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report, identifying an arms-trafficking scheme in which “Iran and its allies” have been smuggling heavy weapons and small arms to the jihadi terrorists occupying certain areas of Israel; see the lede below:

Long before Hamas militants burst out of their Gaza stronghold to massacre scores of civilians with handguns and assault rifles, Iran and its allies had accelerated efforts to smuggle weapons into a different part of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank.

What was most explosive though, given current circumstances, is that the arms flowing from the terrorist regimes to the smaller terrorist groups, often comes disguised as aid packages. The authors of the Journal item recount that after the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Iran “began hauling large quantities of weapons to Syria” in shipments disguised as aid; as we see, a “humanitarian crisis” or an “emergency” is a great cover for arming terrorists.

On a separate and totally unrelated note… From a Politico report last week:

The U.S. will send $100 million in aid for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

‘This money will support more than 1 million displaced in conflict affected Palestinians, including emergency needs in Gaza,’ Biden said Wednesday during a speech in Tel Aviv.

We are arming the enemies of Israel while we claim to be supporting them.

 

A Gag Order That Allows The Other Side To Lie

President Trump has been placed under a gag order to limit his comments about one of the lawfare cases against him. However, the Special Counsel continues to leak lies to the media. There is a glaring recent example of that dynamic reported by various news sources.

On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Remember, on August 21st, in another ridiculous Lawfare operation, Special Counsel Jack Smith told ABC that Mark Meadows testified that President Trump never attempted to declassify any information {Go Deep}.   That report was transparently false, yet the media ran with it and multiple alternative media promoted it.  Pure nonsense.

In this latest Lawfare effort, again from Special Counsel Jack Smith, again to ABC news, again about former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the claim is the Special Counsel granted Meadows immunity (that’s the hook), and that Meadows told President Trump the 2020 election was not rigged or stolen.

Now remember, Mark Meadows wrote about the rigged and stolen 2020 election in his book, so why would he undermine his own story by saying something completely the opposite to Jack Smith that is only coming out now?   The Occam’s razor answer is, he didn’t.  This lawfare story is all made up, fictitious, anonymous sources, manufactured to create a public impression.

Bolstering the likelihood that Meadows gave no such testimony, Meadows lawyers, when contacted by media, said the story is fake news.   Yet again, everyone falls for it.  This is how Lawfare succeeds, and this is how Trayvon Martin’s fake and fabricated ear-witness girlfriend becomes the key witness and embarrasses the prosecution on the stand.

The article includes the following Tweet:

The mainstream media isn’t even trying to hide its lies anymore. Thank goodness for journalists like Catherine Herridge who are willing to tell the truth.

 

The House Of Representatives Has A Speaker

On Wednesday, The Conservative Treehouse reported that Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. That is good news. On the same day, The Conservative Treehouse also posted an interview of Representative Matt Gaetz by Steve Bannon. During that interview, Representative Gaetz explains the backroom deals attempted by Representative Kevin McCarthy to regain the speakership.

This is the video of that interview:

I realize that this is a long video, but there is a lot of insight in it about how the  Washington swamp works.

We are about to find out if Republicans are capable of governing according to their platform and principles. They only have one branch of government, but they have the power of the purse!

 

America’s Actions Are Not Helping End Terrorism

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about Israel’s delay in its attack on the Gaza Strip.

The article reports:

The story about why Israel has yet to make a ground invasion of Gaza is becoming clear, and it is yet another embarrassment for the United States under Joe Biden.

Israel has been prepared to enter Gaza to eliminate Hamas, but the ground invasion keeps getting delayed. The reason why?

The US is unprepared to defend US military installations in the area.

If that is true, then every one of our current military leaders ought to be relieved of command.

On October 23rd, The National Review reported the following:

The IDF is getting antsy that further delaying the ground invasion of Gaza could hinder its goal of destroying Hamas, while the Biden administration is putting pressure on Israel to wait even longer for ongoing hostage negotiations to play out.

A ground invasion of Gaza has been reported as “imminent” for weeks following the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians, leading to swirling speculation about what the hold-up was; but a clearer picture is starting to emerge.

The Times of Israel on Monday reported that

the Israel Defense Forces believes that in order to attain the objectives of the war against Hamas, laid out by government officials, the military must begin its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip sooner rather than later. . . .

After 16 days of airstrikes, the IDF has told the government that it is fully prepared for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, and believes it can achieve the goals set out for it, even at the risk of heavy casualties to soldiers, and amid repeated attacks by Hezbollah in the north, The Times of Israel learned.

The new excuse by the Biden Administration looks utterly pathetic because it is an admission that despite decades of having troops and assets in the region, our military is not prepared to defend our interests.

That is quite the reality if true, and quite the message to our enemies if either true or false.

Do we want Israel to deal with the terrorists in Gaza or do we want more terrorism around the world?

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We need a new President.

The Consequences Of Bad Government

On Tuesday, The New York Post posted an article about the number of people who are leaving New York State. I personally can attest to that–I currently have one relative planning to leave this year and two who left last year. New York State is becoming a place that is very expensive to live in addition to rising crime and expanding restrictions put on law-abiding citizens rather than criminals.

The article reports:

It’s an Empire State of decline.

Beset by high taxes and quality of life woes, 545,498 New Yorkers left for other states in 2022, according to US Census data.

Top destinations included Florida — the most popular choice — followed by New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania as well as more distant states like Texas and California.

The exodus was partly offset by more people moving to the Empire State in 2022 than any year over the last decade, with 301,000 new residents making the transition.

Despite that uptick, New York still suffered a net population loss of 244,000.

The departures have yet to impact New York City housing costs, with median rents continuing to hover near all-time post COVID-19 highs.

It’s interesting to see that many New Yorkers are choosing to remain in the same general area–New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, all of which are generally headed in the same direction as New York.

The article also notes:

The number of New Yorkers moving to Texas surpassed 30,000 for the first time in 2022 — up from 18,000 in 2019 for an increase of 67%, the data show.

North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia and Georgia rounded out the top ten destinations.

The least popular choices were Wyoming, Montana, Iowa, Mississippi and South Dakota which all saw less than 500 people move from New York in 2022.

South Dakota was the least preferred, with just 52 people scampering to the Mount Rushmore State last year.

…A Post analysis of the census bureau’s state-to-state migration figures shows a steady decline from New York each year since 2012, with departures vastly outpacing inbound moves and roughly 4.6 million people waving goodbye to New York over the past decade

Roughly 2,700,000 people relocated to New York over that span — resulting in a net population loss of 1.9 million residents.

It will be interesting to see if the New Yorkers that move to states with more conservative values adapt or try to recreate what they left.

You Get More Of What You Subsidize And Less Of What You Don’t Fund

On Tuesday, The Gatestone Institute posted an article about the European funding of Hamas.

Here are some of the highlights of the article:

    • Israel had not even buried its dead from the horrifying jihadist pogrom that Hamas terrorists unleashed on Israeli civilians in south Israel — beheading babies, burning them alive, torturing, raping, kidnapping, murdering — before the European Union decided to reward the terrorists by tripling its assistance to Gaza.
    • “The Commission will immediately increase the current humanitarian aid envelope foreseen for Gaza by 50 million euros,” European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen said. “This will bring the total to over 75 million euros. We will continue our close cooperation with the UN and its agencies to ensure that this aid reaches those in need in the Gaza strip.”
    • Oh really? How? The terrorist group Hamas, a proxy of Iran, the “worst state sponsor of terrorism,” is wholly in control of Gaza and will take what shows up and dribble it out slowly to a chosen few, mainly in their military. The idea that any of it will reach the million displaced souls who were urged by the Israelis to flee to southern Gaza to save their lives is charming, but woefully starry-eyed. Food and water — if that is really what is in the uninspected trucks, rather than weapons — will go to the Hamas foot soldiers to make sure they stay fit and loyal.
    • “Hamas are trying to prevent people leaving northern Gaza. And that is the point… Of course we want to minimize Palestinian casualties. We want to minimize Israeli casualties. We want everybody to respect civilians. But the real clear distinction is Israel are trying to get civilians out of danger; Hamas are trying to put civilians into danger, and that is a fundamental difference between the two.” — UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, October 15, 2023.
    • Sadly, massive injustices were done by the international media which, without checking, wrongly blamed Israel for firing at a hospital in Gaza, supposedly killing hundreds. Video evidence and a voice recording revealed that the real cause of the explosion at the hospital was a rocket, launched toward Israel by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that landed in the hospital parking lot. The media, it seems, could not wait to stick it to the Jews.

The European Commission will be working with the UN to make sure that the aid reaches only those in need in the Gaza Strip. Really, how? When it was suggested that the aid be stopped because of the terrorist attack on Israel, the Commission claimed, “The suspension of the payments – punishing all the Palestinian people – would have damaged the EU interests in the region and would have only further emboldened terrorists.”

Common sense is obviously on vacation.

Staying Safe While Putting Others In Danger

On Monday, Fox News reported the following headline:

Hamas terror chief exposed as living in London public housing project, funded by UK taxpayers

The article reports:

A Hamas leader was discovered living in a government-subsidized London home, despite previously running the terrorist group’s operations in the West Bank, U.K. media is reporting. 

Muhammad Qassem Sawalha, 62, is a designated Hamas member, according to Israel’s Ministry of Defense, who has been living in the U.K. for decades, a report from The Sunday Times detailed. Sawalha managed to flee to England in the 1990s and secure a British passport in the early 2000s, but continued working for Hamas, according to the report. 

Sawalha is a wanted man in Israel and would be arrested if he returns to the nation due to his designation as a member of Hamas. 

The report details that he and his wife, identified as Sawsan, 56, were granted a roughly $136,500 discount on a nearly $390,000 two-story state-funded home in London. 

On October 17th, The Boston Globe reported:

Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush issued a blunt demand to Afghanistan’s Islamist dictators, who had long sheltered Al Qaeda’s top officials.

“Turn [Osama bin Laden] over,” the president said. “Turn him over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over, destroy all the terrorist camps. … This is nonnegotiable.”

In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, President Biden should be issuing a similar message to Qatar. The rich Persian Gulf sheikhdom has for years underwritten Hamas’s control of Gaza, funded its killing operations, and shielded its senior leadership. That makes it a key collaborator in what Biden called the “pure, unadulterated evil” of the barbaric Oct. 7 slaughter of at least 1,300 Israelis and the abduction of at least 199 hostages.

Israel was the foremost target of the bloody Hamas rampage, but those killed by the terrorists included 30 US citizens too. As many as 13 Americans may be among the captives held in Gaza. Which means, as Biden said, that the campaign to destroy Hamas is necessary not just for Israel’s welfare but for “the security of the United States.”

The article also notes:

To begin with, Hamas’s main headquarters and top leaders are located in Doha, the Qatari capital. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, resides in Qatar. So does Izzat Al-Risheq, who oversees Hamas’s media operations. Neither the regime in Doha nor Hamas makes any secret of the fact that Qatar harbors some of the worst terrorists on earth. “Footage last week showed Haniyeh, 61, smiling and praying from the comfort of his air-conditioned Doha office to celebrate the slaughter of Israelis,” The Telegraph reported this week. “In the video, Haniyeh and 12 of his henchmen are seen dressed in freshly pressed suits as they watch the horror unfold on a widescreen TV.”

It’s time to reassert American energy independence and let the countries in the Middle East go bankrupt. That is one way to exert pressure without bloodshed.

What Happened To The Revenue?

On Tuesday, Issues & Insights posted an article about tax revenues under the Biden administration. The Laffer Curve is at work.

The article reports:

Friday afternoon, the Treasury Department reported that, despite a growing economy and low unemployment, the federal deficit shot up by $320 billion in fiscal year 2023. That’s unusual. But what’s really bizarre is why the deficit exploded.

According to the report, overall spending actually dropped by 2% compared with 2022 as the COVID-19 spending splurge abated.

What drove up the deficit this year was a sudden and completely unexpected 9% drop in tax revenues. Not only did revenues come up hundreds of billions lower than last year, but they were well below what everybody expected them to be.

At the start of the year, the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget projected revenues for fiscal 2023 at around $4.7 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office figured it would be $4.8 trillion.

The actual amount: $4.4 trillion.

In other words, there’s between $300 billion and $400 billion worth of missing tax revenues.

…In a normal world, a better-than-expected economy would result in more revenues for the federal government, not less.

Keep in mind, too, that it’s exceedingly rare for tax revenues to drop from one year to the next. In fact, it’s happened only eight times since 1960 – always around an economic downturn – and the average decline was just 4.7%. Even when the COVID lockdowns caused a massive recession, revenues only dipped by 1.2% in 2020. (Revenues plunged nearly 17% during the financial crisis.)

It’s also worth noting that revenues continued to climb after the Kennedy, Reagan and Trump pro-growth tax cuts went into effect.

The article concludes:

But that’s not what happened this year. The federal government is still tremendously bloated – spending in 2023 will be 43% higher than it was the year before COVID-19. The national debt now tops $33 trillion. Social Security and Medicare are racing toward insolvency. Biden is pushing Congress for another $100 billion to finance the never-ending war in Ukraine and provide aid to Israel.

Did the Biden administration overcount revenues in the past two years to paper over the colossal spending increases? Is the White House goosing employment and other economic data today to make the economy look better than it is? Is Biden’s budget team just hopelessly incompetent?

Preston Bashers of the Heritage Foundation speculates that the shortfall could be the result of a sharp drop in capital gains tax revenues, the explosion in “green” tax credits, and other factors.

Somebody in the Biden administration should be made to explain what happened.

In the meantime, we’re now deeper in debt than ever. Way to go Brandon.

I am not sure, but I don’t believe there is anyone in the Biden administration who has actually run a business. We need to go back to the days of putting a businessman in the White House–not a politician.

While We Were Distracted

On Sunday, Just the News posted an article about the latest developments in the Biden family scandals.

The article lists the latest updates:

1. Hunter Biden did do something wrong

2. Viktor Shokin was a threat to Burisma

3. Joe Biden changed “official” US policy

4. Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden’s business partners

5. Hunter Biden did make millions from China

6. Joe Biden did get financial benefits from his family’s ventures

The article provides details for each one of these claims.

The most recent bit of new evidence is included in the sixth statement on the list:

“In 2018, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from, Americore—a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator. According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans ‘based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections,” Comer said in an Oversight Committee post to X. Comer provided bankruptcy court documents and a record of the check exchanged between the brothers.

“On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Biden’s personal bank account – not their business bank account. On the same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden,” Comer added.

While significant circumstantial evidence built up over time that Joe Biden benefited from his family’s endeavors while he was the Vice President, and afterwards a public figure, this is the first piece of concrete evidence that Joe Biden recieved direct payments from family members. 

Congress has a copy of that check. It remains to be seen if any members of the Biden family will be held responsible for their actions. We all need to remember that when large amounts of money are exchanged it usually involves the transfer of goods or services. Since we know no goods were transferred, what services were offered?

 

Dispelling The Myths

On Monday, The American Thinker posted an article about two myths that are fueling the current war in the Middle East.

The first myth–The State of Palestine

The article notes:

The name Judea was changed to Syria Palaestina by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 135, following the Bar Kokhba revolt.  The revolt was a Jewish uprising against Roman rule, and Hadrian crushed it.  It resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews.  In an effort to suppress Jewish identity, Hadrian renamed the province.  The name “Palaestina” was derived from the Philistines, a people who had lived in the region centuries earlier.  The addition of the name “Syria” was intended to emphasize the province’s status as a Roman province.  

Renaming was an attempt to render extinct the Jewish nature and history of the land and to humiliate the restive Jews.  It was a reminder of the Roman Empire’s power.  The name Syria Palaestina remained in use until the 7th century, when the region was conquered by the Arabs.

The Arabs ruled until the Crusaders took land back, then lost it to Arabs, who lost it to the Ottomans (a Turkic people) in 1517.  

As a consequence of their loss in WWI, the Turks gave control of the region known as Palestine to the British n 1917.  

Between 1917 and 1920, Palestine was under the control of the British military after their conquest of the region.  

Before moving on:  

    • There never was a Palestinian state or country.  
    • There never was rule by anything called a Palestinian.  
    • The land of Mandatory Palestine was to be the Jewish national homeland in an area occupied continuously by Jews for millennia.  
    • Jewish rule and occupancy antedated the advent of the newcomer religion Islam by millennia.  
    • Mandatory Palestine, set aside for the National Homeland of the Jews, had its territory diminished by around seven eighths, in contravention of their mandatory obligations by the British to create Transjordan (now commonly known as Jordan).  

The second myth:

No state, no nation, no people.  Palestine never existed, hence Palestinians never existed, do not exist.  Full stop.  

…Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the Palestinian terror group As Saiqa, explained in a 1970 interview with James Dorsey for the Dutch newspaper Trouw why the “Palestinian people” had been invented:  

The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.

Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.  

Not knowing correct history has consequences.