Monthly Archives: November 2024

Consider The Source

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On November 22, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent statement by Andrew McCabe. As I am sure you remember, former FBI Director McCabe was at the heart of the crossfire hurricane scandal and other actions used by the deep state to cripple the first term of President Trump. Frankly, if justice were bi-partisan, Andrew McCabe would be in jail at the very least. However, he still considers himself relevant.

The article reports:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe expressed concern on Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump could name Kash Patel as FBI director.

Patel and former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan are the frontrunners to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed in 2017 after firing then-FBI Director James Comey. McCabe expressed nervousness about Trump potentially choosing Patel, a former Trump administration official, as Wray’s replacement, saying Patel would be more dangerous as the agency’s number two person.

“No part of the FBI’s mission is safe with Kash Patel in any position of leadership in the FBI and certainly not in the deputy director’s job. So just as a… as an example, the deputy director job in the FBI is unique because, of course, the director is a political appointee and the and the deputy director is typically a senior FBI agent, somebody who spent their entire career learning about the FBI, understanding its people and doing its work. So the deputy director actually runs the FBI on a day to day basis,” McCabe told CNN host Kaitlan Collins. “You’re essentially the chief operating officer.””

The article notes:

McCabe was fired as deputy director of the FBI in 2018 following an inspector general’s report that accused him of lying about leaks to the media, but the firing was reversed in 2021 following a legal settlement after President Joe Biden took office.

If McCabe is against the appointment of Kash Patel, then I support the appointment!

Voter Registration and Election Data Irregularities in the 2024 General Election in North Carolina

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Major Dave Goetze is Vice-President for Research at the Electoral Education Foundation. He has prepared a report given to the North Carolina General Assembly about the 2024 general election in North Carolina.

This is the recap of the report:

1. Same-Day Registrants (SDRs): 8,401 SDRs have been belatedly added to the Absentee Ballot Data File since Election Day.

2. Vote totals were switched back and forth in many contests between the two major party candidates after the counties involved had made their last upload to the NCSBE, indicating manual manipulation of data.

3. Of the more than 525,000 voters added to the rolls YTD, over 150,000 are reported as not having an NC Drivers License.

4. There are more than 2,000 Temporary Overseas Civilian registrants who did not provide an overseas mailing address for their ballot despite it being required on the Federal Postcard Application Form, so their location and eligibility to register and vote as such cannot be verified.

At the time I write this, the report referenced above has not been posted at the organization’s website. I am sure that it will be posted there in the future. There are other reports posted at the website that provide insight into some of the recurring problems with North Carolina elections.

The Biden Administration Continues To Get It Wrong On Israel

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Israel was brutally attacked on October 7th, 2023. At that time, Gaza was independently governed, Israelis were not present in Gaza, and many residents of Gaza were commuting to Israel for better-paying jobs. There was essentially a two-state solution. Obviously, Hamas was not satisfied with the status quo–they want control of Jerusalem. The Biden administration’s actions and policies toward Israel since that day have been a disgrace to our nation. Recently Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke out against the bad judgement of the Biden administration.

On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

Speaking to the Knesset today, Netanyahu ripped the guidance and pressure from Biden and Antony Blinken over the last thirteen months in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks. Every single strategic demand made by Biden and Blinken during that time turned out to be wrong, which echoes a warning made by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates about Biden’s supposed foreign-policy expertise.

…For those who don’t recall, Gates served both George W. Bush and Barack Obama as Defense Secretary. In his memoir Duty, Gates wrote that then-VP Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Biden has spent the last three-plus years proving Gates’ point, especially in his disgraceful rout out of Kabul and abandonment of 14,000 Americans to the Taliban. But Biden’s attempts to play general in Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies since the October 7 massacres provides ample proof of Gates’ insight as well. 

The article notes:

The Biden-Harris administration on Monday unveiled sweeping new sanctions on Israeli Jews, just days after it awarded another $230 million in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians. The back-to-back announcements signal that diplomatic relations between Israel and the outgoing White House will continue to sour until President-elect Donald Trump retakes office next year.

The new sanctions are the broadest to date, imposing unprecedented punitive measures on three Israeli organizations the administration accuses of fomenting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. They were leveled just days after a coalition of nearly 90 congressional Democrats petitioned the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions on Israel before leaving the White House.

The sanctions were announced just three days after the Biden-Harris administration awarded another $230 million in funding for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The American government has now sent more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree on Israel—even as critics warn this cash is keeping Hamas on life support.

The Biden administration is currently on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the God of Israel. That’s not a good place to be, and hopefully the Trump administration will change things quickly in January.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Plans For Public Health

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On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article listing five things Robert F. Kennedy plans to do if he is confirmed as head of Health and Human Services (HHS).

This is the list:

1. Staff Changes

Kennedy believes little will change until giant or private corporations stop controlling the FDA, the CDC, and the Department of Agriculture.

2. Chemicals and Ultra-Processed Foods

A staunch advocate for regulating chemicals in food, Kennedy recently suggested that Americans should return to using tallow fat instead of seed oils. He has chastised food manufacturers for using ingredients such as artificial dyes.

3. Corporate Capture of Agencies

“Eighty percent of NIH grants go to people who have conflicts of interest,” Kennedy said on Aug. 23.

“These agencies, the FDA, the USDA, the CDC, all of them are controlled by giant for-profit corporations. Seventy-five percent of the FDA funding doesn’t come from taxpayers. It comes from pharma. And pharma executives and consultants and lobbyists cycle in and out of these agencies,” Kennedy said.

4. Vaccines

Cast as an “anti-vaxxer” by critics, Kennedy has consistently said that he isn’t against vaccines, but he believes in vaccine safety and informed consent.

During an interview with The Epoch Times last year, he explained his stance.

5. Fluoride

On Nov. 2, Kennedy wrote in a post on X that one of Trump’s first acts in office would be to advise U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.

Kennedy’s announcement was made as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under a federal court order to take action over potential health concerns, including that fluoride might lower children’s IQ “at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States,” stemming in large part from a report published by the National Institutes of Health.
All of of these proposals are perfectly reasonable. However, they are a serious threat to the status quo. Over the years, there have been a lot of people in our government who are not looking out for the interests of Americans. Many of those people have gotten extremely wealthy through their misdeeds. I look forward to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., beginning to change that dynamic.

This Is Not A Good Sign

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On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about what is happening to the Jewish population in Germany. The massive immigration of people from the Middle East into Germany and Europe has had a number of unintended consequences.

The article reports:

No doubt, there are plenty of wonderful Muslims who contribute in many ways to our society. I am not suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists or bad citizens, but if you can’t see that the mass importation of people who openly despise Western Civilization, declare their commitment to Islamizing our societies, and impose Sharia law on Westerners has turned out badly, I invite you to move to Iran or Syria.

America, due to its lack of proximity to the Middle East, has suffered the least from this self-imposed disaster. Europe, on the other hand, may collapse due to the idiocy of its elites. As a general rule, America does a better job of integrating migrants, and with a more dynamic economy, opportunities to rise up the socio-economic ladder made integrating a more realistic and attractive option than in Europe.

Germany and Sweden have helped lead the way in disastrous policymaking. And now, once again, Berlin has become unsafe for Jews and Gays.

Tolerance wins.

This is what is happening in Germany:

Jews and gay people should hide their identity in parts of Berlin with large Arab populations, the German capital’s police chief has warned.

“There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful,” said Barbara Slowik.

“There are certain neighbourhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups,” she said, adding that they were often “openly hostile towards Jews”.

She told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that “violent crimes against Jewish people are few and far between, but every act is one too many”.

A fortnight ago, a youth football team from Makkabi Berlin, a Jewish sports club, reported being “hunted down” by youths carrying sticks and knives after a match in an Arab neighbourhood of the city. The victims, aged 13 to 15, said they were spat at and insulted throughout the match.

Taking in large groups of migrants–too big to assimilate–from a place with a totally different culture is never a good idea.

Learning From Past Mistakes

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When President Trump took office in 2016, there were a lot of people in Washington who had a vested interest in the President not being able to accomplish all of his goals. Some agencies made sure that he did not have the people around him that he chose. One way that was done was to slow-walk the security clearances for the people President Trump wanted working in the White House.

On Monday, The Conservative Treehouse reported the following:

It should not come as a surprise to see the same methods deployed against President Trump in 2024 that were used by the FBI in 2016. The difference is now that President Trump understands the full power of his office in the security clearance process and that he doesn’t need the FBI.

In 2016 the FBI used their power to conduct security clearances as a tool to stall and block President Trump appointments. Historically this is one of the ways a very corrupt and political FBI interfere in any system that might be against the interests of the Intelligence Community that controls them. However, in 2024 President-Elect Trump and his transition team have already taken a different approach.

The article explains that the Trump transition team is using private companies to vet administrative appointees in order to avoid bureaucratic slowdowns.

The article concludes:

Because President Trump is making civics great again, it’s worth reminding everyone that President Trump has unilateral decision-making authority to grant anyone a security clearance. The President (atop the executive) can give anyone he chooses a top-secret security clearance status, simply by saying this person has top-secret security clearance. Yes, it really is that easy.

The President can choose his advisors and choose to share anything – even the most top-secret information in the country – with his advisors and cabinet members. That’s what we elect him/her to do; to use his/her judgement to make decisions.

This is one of the powers within the office that cannot be challenged by any other silo, branch or institution. The security clearance rules are what President Trump says the security clearance rules are.

There is no outside silo in the Executive Branch, who can supersede the decision of President Trump.

Experience is the best teacher. How do you get experience? By making mistakes. In this case, in 2016 President Trump believed that Washington could work together for the good of the country. Now he knows better. That is a sad statement about our government.

 

Why We Need The Department of Government Efficiency

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article that included some examples of the way our government spends out tax dollars.

The article reports:

One of the studies highlighted by both Paul (Senator Rand Paul) and DOGE in involves seeing what makes a sunfish more aggressive: Gin or tequila. About $100,000 went toward that project.

The U.S. government also spent nearly one million on a study to see if cocaine makes Japanese quail more “sexually promiscuous.”

It does not end there, either. The U.S. government also spent $750,000 to determine if Neil Armstrong’s famed line was actually “One small step for man” or “one small step for ‘a’ man.” DOGE pointed out that the study was “inconclusive.”

The clip shared by DOGE also features Sen. Paul noting that $2 million was spent on the “construction of a kelp and shellfish nursery in Maine.”

Paul continued: “$1.5 million to encourage video gaming in New York. … We might be better off spending 1.5 million to discourage kids from a playing video games. … $388,000 for Columbia University … $249,000 for the Baltimore Symphony, give money to all the symphonies.”

The article concludes:

“Well, they can get rid of the bureaucrats, for sure. There’s certainly things that they can do on that front. But you know, as an example, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency. Congress created the Department of Education. Nothing says that they have to have 4,500 employees at the Department of Education,” he told Breitbart News Daily.

The post follows DOGE stating that they are looking for “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”

President Trump has promised to cut taxes. Cutting taxes generally grows the economy and helps draw down the deficit. Another way to draw down the deficit is to stop ridiculous spending projects. A third way to draw down the deficit is to increase energy production so that the cost of energy goes down. This results in consumers having more money to spend, more manufacturing in America, and tax revenue going up.

Planting A Land Mine As You Walk Out The Door

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Despite the talk of a smooth transition of power, the Biden administration has already planted a few land mines in the path of the incoming Trump administration. The agreement with the dock workers will expire three days after President Trump is inaugurated–hardly enough time to negotiate a settlement–putting a possible strike front and center in the first few days of the new administration. The Biden administration has about two months to plant a few more land mines, and one of the ones they have recently planted is going to be a serious challenge.

On Monday, The Epoch Times reported:

Anonymous U.S. officials have said that President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles provided by the United States to strike targets in the Russian region of Kursk, which is currently occupied by Ukraine in the ongoing war.

Ukrainian forces launched a significant cross-border operation into Russia’s region of Kursk earlier this year. Intense fighting is ongoing as Russian forces attempt to reclaim lost territory. Ukraine seized several settlements and is still holding strategic positions. In response, Russia has allowed 11,000 North Korean soldiers to amass in Kursk to aid its fight.

Last year, after North Korea supplied Russia with long-range ballistic missiles, the Biden administration responded by greenlighting Ukraine’s use of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System—with a range of about 190 miles—for targets within its territories, including in Russian-occupied Crimea.

There is a solution to this escalation of the war in Ukraine that is possible before the situation totally melts down (no pun intended). Through back-channels, President-elect Trump could make it clear to President Zelensky that any attacks into Russia would result in the total cutoff of aid to Ukraine as soon as President Trump takes office. In the past, President Trump has shown that he has the ability to use economic leverage to avoid using military force. In this case, it would have a good chance of working.

There are a few things to look at as consequences of a Trump presidency in Ukraine and in the Middle East. If ‘drill, baby, drill’ begins on day one, the price of oil will drop relatively quickly. OPEC will probably cut back their production in an effort to keep prices high, but in the long run that will not work. If America can flood the market with oil and natural gas, the income to Russia and Iran will drop drastically as oil prices drop. At lower oil prices, Russia cannot afford the war with Ukraine and Iran can not afford to fund terrorism to the extent it has been. Drill, baby, drill in America is part of a recipe for a more peaceful world.

This Might Have Some Impact If They Were Actually In The Majority

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the political left’s latest plan to make sure that the American economy fails under President Trump. The plan is about as smart as choosing a candidate for President that never received even one vote in a Democrat primary.

The article reports:

Leftists have a master plan to ensure that President-elect Donald Trump’s economy tanks: They are not going to buy anything.

Leftists across the country are still reeling from Trump’s historic comeback victory, which saw him sweeping all seven swing states, garnering 312 electoral votes and also winning the popular vote after making historic gains in traditionally blue areas.

There was a sizable shift in the electorate and a clear mandate for change, but some leftists ardently disagree and have a plan to tank what everyone anticipates to be a strong economy under Trump’s leadership.

“Trump will not have a good economy because we don’t have to let him. I myself plan on paying my bills and saving every penny beyond that. I will not contribute to this economy in any other way,” one leftist X account with the handle @PrezLives2022 said to 127.1K followers, previewing plans to strategically purchase clothing “before he takes office and make sure I have everything I need for the next four years.”

This individual is also pledging to refrain from eating out “unless it is an emergency that cannot be avoided.” Further, there will be no going to the movies, sporting events, “or any local attractions.”

Oddly enough, many Americans were not able to afford a lot of the things listed above because of the inflation during the Biden administration.

And I was naive enough to think only two-year olds threw temper tantrums.

Even The Washington Post?

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The election is over. At least we thought it was. However, Bob Casey, Jr., is trying to steal the Senate seat that has been awarded to Dave McCormick. Even the Washington Post has had enough of the Democrats ignoring the decisions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding legal votes.

Townhall reports:

The Washington Post’s left-leaning editorial board published a scathing article about Pennsylvania Democrats who voted to count invalid ballots during the Senate race recount between Bob Casey (D-PA) and his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick.

On Sunday, Townhall quoted The Washington Post:

“Democrats thumb their nose at the rule of law in Pennsylvania”

The mere attempt to defy judicial rulings is corrosive to democracy and invites similar behavior in future elections. Democrats would surely protest if a Republican commissioner made the same statement to justify tipping the scales for their party’s Senate nominee — and they would be right. Elections need rules established in advance of the voting, and those rules must be applied equally and consistently.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, by the way, includes five justices elected in partisan elections as Democrats and just two elected as Republicans. Even if that partisan balance were reversed, however, the court’s authority would be equally legitimate.

I don’t know what the solution is when one political party refuses to abide by a decision made by the Court regarding the rules of an election. It seems to me that the voters in Pennsylvania need to get new election officials. The judges got it right, the officials chose to ignore the judges.

UPDATE:

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the counting of ballots to stop immediately. We will see if the Democrats are ready to obey the law.

What A Difference A Few Days Make

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the pre-election plans of Senator Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer was looking forward to a Democrat White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Thankfully, he was overly optimistic.

The article reports:

Schumer’s top priority in the new Harris administration would have been to eliminate the legislative filibuster that has long protected minority rights in the Senate. That way, even if the Senate were tied between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, those 50 Democrats, with the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Tim Walz, could enact far-reaching legislation without any input at all from Republicans. Washington would have true one-party rule, and the minority party would have no say in things whatsoever.

…Schumer believed 2024 would be the year Democrats could finally erase any Republican power in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema were both leaving the Senate, Schumer explained at his talk in Chicago. Manchin’s seat would be won by a Republican, so it still would be unavailable for Democrats. But Sinema’s seat would be won by Democrat Ruben Gallego, Schumer said, and Gallego would go along with the party on the filibuster. That would give Democrats the 50 votes they needed, provided there was a Vice President Walz to break the tie.

Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned.

This is what hjappened last week:

So this week, Schumer went to the well of the Senate and addressed some remarks to his Republican colleagues. “Another closely contested election now comes to an end,” he said. “To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith: Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it has consistently backfired on the party in power. So, instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan. If we want the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation.”

The short version of that is: Please don’t do to us what we were going to do to you. Schumer is obviously concerned that Republicans might embrace a scheme to eliminate the filibuster and pass all sorts of consequential legislation with no Democratic input at all. That wouldn’t be bipartisan! Fortunately for Schumer, Republicans have been more principled than Democrats when it comes to the legislative filibuster, and to the filibuster in general. Republicans realize that even though they will have the majority for the next two years, they might be back in the minority at any time after that. So Schumer will not get it good and hard the way he planned to give it to Republicans.

It is amazing how quickly Senator Schumer changed his tune. However, if the Republicans are smart, they will quickly confirm ALL of President Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions and department heads.

The Quiet Hero Of The 2024 Election

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On November 18, Don Surber posted an article at Substack about the person who actually changed the debate about our open southern border. That person was Texas Governor Greg Abbott. When Texas began shipping the illegal aliens that were flooding into its border towns north to ‘sanctuary cities,’ he forced those cities to put their money where their mouth was. New York City Mayor Adams was one of the first to cry ‘uncle’ and was investigated by the Biden administration when he did so. When Florida Governor DeSantis sent a group of fifty illegal immigrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard on a Wednesday, the residents of the island had them moved off of the island by Friday. (article here) I guess being a sanctuary city was great until someone actually took sanctuary there.

The article reports:

Donald Trump’s re-election had many heroes. Trump voters praise Charlie Kirk, Scott Presler, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, and rightly so. They earned it.

But one guy who deserves applause is Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He won’t because many Trump supporters are ticked at him. I forget why, but I am sure some readers will remind me in comments.

The governor whose state suffers the most from the federal government’s refusal to enforce immigration laws — the same government that raided President Trump’s home under the guise of no man’s above the law.

Abbott decided at first to just slow traffic at the border, but as Vanity Fair declared, “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Border Security Stunt Has Been A Total Shitshow.

“The Republican governor’s protest of Biden’s immigration policy has led to an eight-mile backup for commercial trucks at the border that’s mangled supply chains and hurt businesses.”

How dare he screw up the supply chain. Just who does he think he is? That’s Paternity Leave Pete Buttigieg’s job.

The article includes a few news highlights of the week:

ITEM 2: Matt Wallace tweeted with a video of players dancing, “Rumors are circulating the NFL is considering banning the Trump dance after players have started using it like crazy.”

But they are dancing to the Y.M.C.A. song. Doesn’t that make the league Homosexualophobic?

(New word.)

ITEM 3: Tim Young tweeted with a video, “Incredible moment of respect when Jon Jones handed his UFC championship belt to President Trump. The culture is changing. I love this.”

I suspect people now buy tickets to UFC matches just to catch a glimpse of Trump at ringside.

ITEM 4: CEO of Elections tweeted, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. allegedly intends to require Coca-Cola to begin using Cane Sugar instead of High-Fructose Syrup as HHS Secretary.”

Someone said if he gets them to put cocaine back in it, he’ll be president in a landslide in 2028.

ITEM 5: Ian Jaeger tweeted, “The Pentagon has just failed its 7th audit and says it cannot account for what its $824 billion budget is spent on.”

The military fails audits like Kamala fails Bar exams.

I think the next four years is going to be fun.

Is Anyone Surprised By This?

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There has been some serious hand wringing about the creation of a new government department–the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. I am sure there are many bureaucrats in Washington that will say it is completely unnecessary. However, the numbers tell the story.

On Sunday, Red State reported:

It was reported on Friday that the Pentagon, the nation’s largest government agency, failed its seventh audit in a row, still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion budget. Worry not, suggested Pentagon officials, who stressed that they’re making “good progress” toward a clean audit in 2028.

Two thousand twenty-eight? Something tells me that in the minds of Elon and Vivek, more than four years isn’t good enough.

According to reports, the Department of Defense — led by often-under-fire Secretary Lloyd Austin –technically earned a disclaimer of opinion, meaning it failed to provide sufficient information to auditors to form an accurate opinion. 

First question: Why? I’ll venture a guess that the answer is because sufficient information was nowhere to be found, which raises the second question: Why not?

The article concludes:

Incidentally, the Pentagon has never passed an audit since the agency became legally obligated to conduct them in 2018. 

Without mentioning names, as I suggested earlier, I have a feeling that the Defense Department will be held fully accountable for both its expenditures and its initiatives long before 2028.

I think I’ll just leave it here, for now.

The next two years are going to be very interesting.

Grasping At Straws

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We all remember Bob McDonnell, Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and others who were smeared by the Democrats when they were moving up the ranks in the Republican Party. Some moved forward despite the false allegations. In the case of Herman Cain, the allegations disappeared as soon as he dropped his presidential campaign. In the case of Bob McDonnell, he was convicted of a crime, but the conviction was overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court. The purpose of all of the attacks on these people was to derail their careers. All of the attacks turned out to be much ado about nothing. That is the Democrat playbook. Right now the two biggest targets are Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz.

On Saturday, The Post Millennial reported:

President-elect Donald Trump‘s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has been targeted by the Associated Press for Hegseth having what the outlet claims is a tattoo associated with “white supremacy” despite the ink being a Christian slogan. Hegseth blasted the outlet for displaying “anti-Christian bigotry” by spreading the claim.

AP reporter Tara Copp posted on her X account, that Hegseth “was flagged as a possible ‘Insider Threat’ by a fellow service member due to a tattoo he has that’s associated with white supremacists,” adding a link to a report that she and others published in the post. 

The outlet cited an email that said a tattoo on Hegseth’s bicep that says “Deus Vult,” which is Latin for “God wills it” is associated with white supremacist groups. After JD Vance posted a response to the report, Hegseth chimed in and wrote that it was “anti-Christian bigotry in the media on full display.”

…Hegseth previously worked for the District of Columbia National Guard and was pulled from guarding Joe Biden’s inauguration after a fellow Guard member wrote an email to superiors saying that the “Deus Vult” tattoo made Hegseth a supposed “Insider Threat” from the military.

The attacks by the Democrats on President Trump’s cabinet picks are a bit much. The Republicans approved President Biden’s cabinet which was much less qualified than President Trump’s selections. There is a definite double standard at work here.

The Insanity Continues

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On Friday, Breitbart reported the following:

Democrat Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) is so bereaved by Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss and President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks that he is suggesting Democrats take action and form a “shadow government,” operating to oppose the Trump agenda that the majority if the country voted for.

Nickel put forth his idea in an op-ed in the Washington Post, asserting that it is time for America to “borrow from our British friends and appoint a shadow cabinet to fight back against the worst excesses of a second Trump administration.”

First of all, President Trump has not even been sworn in yet. Second of all, the past determines the future. What were the excesses of the first Trump administration? Did he ignore rulings by the Supreme Court on student loan forgiveness? Did he neglect his responsibility to control America’s southern border? Did he involve us in a stalemate war that has cost up billions of dollars that no one can account for? Did he weaponize the Justice Department against his political opponents?

The article continues with a quote from Representative Nickel:

“If Trump attempts to weaponize the justice system against his political opponents with Matt Gaetz at the helm, we can see incoming Senator Adam Schiff as our shadow Attorney General, arguing against replacing our independent prosecutors with Trump loyalists,” he said, ignoring the great irony that Democrats have used the justice system to target their political opponents — Trump and his supporters — throughout the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration.

Does anyone still wonder why the country is divided? Statements and actions such as these are not helpful in bringing unity.

The article concludes:

Nickel also sounded the alarm over former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) leading the EPA, pitching Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to “protect the air we breathe and the water we drink.”

“And if Trump pushes to ban abortion nationwide, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro could step in as shadow Secretary of Health and Human Services to defend women’s right to choose,” Nickel continued, despite the fact that Trump has made it very clear he agrees with allowing the states to decide, as they now can do thanks to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

The Democrat congressman made it abundantly clear that the shadow Cabinet is for “opposing extreme MAGA attacks on our government” as well as “making clear what we stand for — not just what we’re against.”

Exactly what do they stand for?

 

There Used To Be A Penalty For Perjury

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On Wednesday, Just the News posted an article about the two pipe bombs that were discovered on January 6th, 2021. Somehow the federal investigators have been stymied in finding the person who put them there, but that may not be the complete story.

The article reports:

Cellular carriers have told Congress they possess intact phone usage data from the vicinity where two pipe bombs were planted during the Jan. 6 incident, directly disputing FBI testimony that agents couldn’t identify a suspect because the phone data was corrupted, a key House chairman tells Just the News.

The revelations from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee, adds new intrigue to a debate that has gripped Washington for nearly four years: Why can’t the FBI with so much evidence and manpower identify the suspect who planted the explosive devices at the Democrat and Republican Party headquarters hours before the Capitol was breached.

“In the days and weeks following January 6, 2021, the FBI opened an investigation into the pipe bomber and attempted to identify the suspect by analyzing cell phone data linked to the area surrounding the RNC and DNC,” Loudermilk told Just the News. 

…Last year, D’Antuono (the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steve D’Antuono, who oversaw the pipe bomb investigation) told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI did not a receive complete phone data from telephone carriers because some of it had been corrupted.

“We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just — unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers,” D’Antuono testified in a transcribed interview.

The article notes:

At a hearing earlier this year about assessing the law enforcement response to the pipe bombs, Loudermilk reiterated concerns about the FBI’s investigation.

“Despite the suspect’s appearance on numerous USCP CCTV cameras, and the FBI’s efforts interviewing over 800 individuals and assessing more than 300 tips, the suspect remains at large,” Loudermilk said.

“Unfortunately, FBI has failed to provide substantive updates on the investigation despite numerous requests from congressional committees. Today, they have declined to participate in our hearing,” he added.

As we get closer to a change of administration and control of Congress, I suspect a lot more information about January 6th will be forthcoming. I also suspect that a lot of that information will be different from what we have heard in the past.

Law Don’t Mean Anything Unless They Are Enforced

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the ongoing vote counting in the Senate election in Pennsylvania. So far those counting the votes have ignored court decisions regarding which ballots can be counted.

The following screenshots are part of the article:

The article reports:

The board’s legal team suggested the commissioners reject the ballots because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had given clear guidance about signatures being required for votes to count.

There were approximately 124 ballots that would not count because of missing signatures.

Republican Sen.-elect David McCormick won 48.93% of the vote and Democratic incumbent Bob Casey captured 48.50% of the vote, thus triggering a recount. 

However, as of Wednesday, there are approximately 80,000 left to be counted, including 20,000 mail-in and absentee ballots and around 60,000 provisional ballots. 

Counties must begin their recount on Nov. 20 and have until Nov. 27 to report their results to the Secretary of the Commonwealth. 

Casey, the third-term Senator, has not yet conceded the race. 

Philadelphia City Commissioners also voted to count a “relatively small number of undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots.”

“Republicans filed a petition to the PA Supreme Court against all counties to attempt to stop all counties from counting these ballots,” Philadelphia City Commissioners said in a statement to Fox News. “They also filed a statutory appeal challenging Bucks County’s decision to count undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots. We are reviewing the filings.”

An RNC official told Fox News that the decisions made by the county election boards were “ridiculous.”  The GOP has filed two lawsuits against Bucks County and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to stop the counting of these ballots.

The article concludes:

Post-election legal maneuvering is hardly unusual in close races, and most of the time, Republicans do a piss-poor job of fighting against the sophisticated tactics the Democrats and lying scumbags like Marc Elias use to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat.

This year, though, Lara Trump and her crack team were prepared for the fight and won some big battles. In return, Democrats are now defying court decisions openly and on camera.

If you are a Democrat, do you support lawlessness? Should the rules for counting votes be applied evenly to both political parties?

Now That The Election Is Over…

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On Thursday, The New York Post reported that New York State Governor Kathy Hochul is restarting the congestion pricing plan. The cost of entering midtown Manhattan was originally set at $15, but the Governor has magnanimously reduced it to $9. She did wait until after the election so that voters wouldn’t be influenced by her adding the tax.

The article reports:

Hochul had abruptly paused the program just before it was set to go into effect in June with a base rate of $15 — and then relaunched with with the lower fee just before President-elect Donald Trump’s administration had an opportunity to block it.

Critics argue the first-in-the-nation toll — which was first approved by state lawmakers and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019 — is just a cash grab for the MTA that’ll saddle New York City drivers with yet another fee.

The article includes the details:

When does congestion pricing start?

Cars will be tolled beginning at midnight on Jan. 5, Hochul said.

How much will drivers be charged?

Standard passenger vehicles using an E-ZPass will be charged $9 per day for entering the tolling zone during daytime hours, defined as 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.

That base amount is set to increase to $12 in 2028.

Other types of vehicles, like motorcycles and trucks, pay at different rates as follows:

    • Motorcycles: $4.50
    • Small trucks and non-commuter buses: $14.40
    • Large trucks and tourism buses: $21.60
    • Taxi and Black Car Drivers: $0.75 per ride
    • Uber, Lyft and other rideshare drivers: $1.50 per ride

The toll is reduced by 75% during overnight hours, between 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., to around $2.25.

Drivers without an E-ZPass will will receive a bill via mail and pay an inflated toll amount, though it wasn’t immediately clear how much.

Where is the toll zone?

The toll zone encompasses all areas below 60th Street – effectively all of Manhattan south of Central Park.

The article concludes:

Currently, the Biden administration is on board with the congestion pricing program. A spokesperson for the Federal Highway Administration confirmed that it is working to sign off on Hochul’s revised plan and get the toll up and running by Jan. 5.

The incoming Trump administration will almost definitely feel differently, with the president-elect telling The Post that he considered the toll the “most regressive tax known to womankind.”

Hochul has previously said she believes the toll can survive court challenges, even at its reduced $9 base rate.

This is one more reason tourists might want to stay out of New York City.

Why Coming Together Might Be Difficult

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On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some recent comments by Actress Rachel Zegler. Because I am really poorly informed on popular culture, I had no idea who the lady was, but was told that she plays Snow White in a Disney production. That may explain a lot.

The article reports:

Actress Rachel Zegler wrote, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

In the post, she complained that her infant daughter may never get to have an abortion.

“I find myself speechless in the midst of this. Another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in. Leaning us towards a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in. Leaning us towards a world that will force her to have a baby she doesn’t want. Leaning us towards a world that is fearful.”

The actress said she is “here with you,” to “cry, to yell, to hug.”

This is sad. It was an election. President Trump won. There will be another election in four years. We all have to live in the country together (or leave it we choose to). Why not teach your daughter not to have sex if she doesn’t want a baby? Why not teach your daughter to wait until marriage to have sex? I realize that is a very old-fashioned concept, but wasn’t our society better off when that was the rule?

The article notes:

Zegler continued, “There is also a deep, deep sickness in this country that is shown in the sheer amount of people who showed up for this man who threatens our democracy. It is terrifying the number of people who stand behind what this man preaches. It is a foolish subscription to a false sense of security, of masculinity, of intelligence, of patriotism, and of humanity.”

“There is no help, no counsel, in any of them,” the actress continued. “I could go on. I won’t. I feel sad. You probably do, too. F-ck this.”

Zegler also took aim at X owner Elon Musk, telling fans to leave the app.

How is President Trump a threat to our democracy? First of all, we are a representative republic–not a democracy. Secondly, did he use the justice system to punish political opponents? Did he refuse to uphold the law regarding borders? Did he ignore the Supreme Court regarding student debt?

This ‘lady’ needs to stick to acting.

Let The Hand-Wringing Begin

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The uproar over President Trump’s Cabinet picks is somewhat humorous. Some of the people in the Biden administration were not particularly competent at their jobs and definitely did not represent mainstream America. Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation oversaw one of the worst rail disasters in American history–also one of the most poorly dealt with. Sam Brinton was caught stealing other people’s luggage. Rachel Leland Levine is an American pediatrician who served as the United States Assistant Secretary for Health. She was born a man and changed her gender. She also supported gender changes for children. President Biden’s Cabinet was the equivalent of the Star Wars bar scene.

On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the choice of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

The article has a few interesting observations:

WHAT THE HEGSETH NOMINATION MEANS. On Tuesday evening, President-elect Donald Trump shook up Washington by announcing that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. “Pete is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University,” Trump said in the announcement. “He is an Army combat veteran who did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For his actions on the battlefield, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars.” During his years as co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, Hegseth has focused extensively on military and veterans affairs. This year, he wrote a bestselling book, War on Warriors, in which he decried the new woke military.*

…The fact is that despite his impressive qualifications — Princeton, Harvard, two Bronze Stars, and professional success — Hegseth does not have the resume one would expect from a secretary of defense, most notably the management experience to run one of the largest bureaucracies in the world, with an $841 billion budget this year. But Trump clearly wanted a change in direction. 

Trump can look at past secretaries who had the right resumes and didn’t work out. Bill Clinton picked a Democratic member of the House named Les Aspin, who had decades of experience overseeing the Pentagon and turned out to be a terrible secretary of defense. George W. Bush picked Donald Rumsfeld, who had vast experience in government and had even been defense secretary before, and Rumsfeld made grievous errors in the job. Barack Obama had problems with the Pentagon, and Trump himself struggled to find the right man to run the Department of Defense, going through five secretaries or acting secretaries in the first Trump administration.

The article concludes:

So now, Trump is proposing a radical change at the top of the civilian leadership of the military. It could be a breakthrough success, rebalancing the military as a fighting force above all else. Or it could be a failure, and everyone will be asking what Trump was thinking when he put Pete Hegseth in charge of an $841 billion bureaucracy. But if voters sent any message in the election, it is that they want a change from the Biden administration and that they approve, in a big-picture sense, of Trump’s leadership in his first time in office. So now, Trump is, as promised, bringing change.

“All the criticism of him is that he’s not the expected Washington pick, and I’m just saying to you that the American people just voted against the expected Washington pick,” CNN resident conservative Scott Jennings said Tuesday night. Yes, Hegseth will have to run the confirmation gauntlet in the Senate, Jennings continued, and will have to show that he has the knowledge to do that job. “But we ought to give this man a chance, in my opinion.” That’s what the election was about.

What we are doing isn’t working, let’s try something different.

What Law?

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Some federal judges are stepping up to stop the abuses of power by the Biden administration during the past four years. Immigration is one area where our laws have been ignored or stretched beyond the point of reality.

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent immigration policy that was overturned.

The article reports:

Two days after the election, a federal court in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s latest unauthorized scheme to subvert immigration law: “parole in place” for illegal aliens who are the spouses of U.S. citizens.

In a 73-page decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas upheld a challenge by 16 states to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to create the parole program by administrative rule. 

Introduced by Biden back in June, “parole in place” for spouses was built on a legal house of cards, as my BorderLine column explained at the time.  In promulgating the order, Biden’s government created another administrative runaround to dodge the lawful visa process.

Congress mandated a three-year bar from returning to the U.S. for those who have been here illegally between six to 12 months, and a 10-year bar for those present for more than a year.

But illegal aliens who are spouses of American citizens may apply for a waiver to these bars from a DHS subagency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; many of them are approved every year.

Parole in place was a backdoor amnesty for half a million or more aliens living illegally in the United States. It would have treated an alien who is paroled the same as someone who was admitted legally, thus eliminating the three- and 10-year bars to return.

Once paroled, roughly a half-million alien spouses could have applied for green cards and later become U.S. citizens. This would have encouraged yet more illegal immigration, fraud, and access to already overextended federal and state benefits.

I truly believe that our current immigration policies are a disaster and need to be overhauled. However, ignoring them or rewriting them without the proper legal process is not the answer. We need some courageous legislators to sit down and work together to create a reasonable immigration plan that would allow people who want to come here and work to come (in numbers that would be able to assimilate). Immigrants would be required to have either a sponsor or a job and would be barred from receiving public assistance for a period of ten years. The numbers would be limited to a number that would allow the immigrants to be easily integrated into the communities where they settle.