Monthly Archives: November 2024

A Familiar Story

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Recently, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supervisor was fired for telling workers to avoid houses with Trump signs. Now, Marn’i Washington, the fired employee, is saying that she is a scapegoat and the problem is much higher up. Before we dismiss this as the complaint of a disgruntled ex-employee, there are some things we should consider.

On Wednesday, Issues & Insights posted an article reminding us:

And the New York Post reported yesterday that:

A former FEMA official backed up Washington’s claims, telling The Post that the practice of skipping Trump-supporting houses is an open secret at the agency that has been going on for years.

The rest of the mainstream press seems utterly uninterested in this new revelation. We couldn’t find a story in either the Washington Post or the New York Times about it in the past 24 hours.

If this all sounds familiar, it should.

Those who’ve been around a while will remember the IRS scandal during President Barack Obama’s tenure, when the IRS was caught red-handed targeting conservative groups in the run-up to the 2012 election by holding up their applications for non-profit status.

At first, the IRS claimed it was the work of two rogue agents in its Cincinnati office. That turned out to be a lie, as evidence started to emerge that the instructions were coming from officials in Washington, D.C., all the way up to the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt division, Lois Lerner.

…And when it turned out there was a coordinated effort – one specifically designed to thwart conservative attempts to get out the vote in 2012 – the press buried it and moved on as quickly as possible.

As a result, the Justice Department let Lois Lerner skate – she retired on a full pension. The head of the IRS at the time, John Koskinen, who lied and stonewalled a congressional investigation, served out his term. Obama dismissed it as a “phony scandal.”

And in the end, nothing was done to root out the politicization of this agency. In fact, as soon as Democrats had a chance under President Joe Biden, they showered the IRS with an additional $80 billion to hire more enforcement agents.

The article concludes:

…And like the IRS scandal under Obama, and the FBI scandals under Trump, the media will show zero interest in finding out just how high this weaponization of government goes or how many other agencies are infested with political vermin who are willing to use their powers to coddle liberals and attack conservatives.

Nope. Instead, they are writing stories about how terrified government staffers are at the prospect that Trump will finally carry out his plan to drain the swamp of political hacks masquerading as non-partisan government bureaucrats.

And that is the reason President Trump was elected.

Time to Stand Up

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.  

The recent election was very positive for freedom loving Americans at the national level, but not so much at the local level. Case in point is the struggle to ensure that our public education system follows the guidelines and principles that made this country great. Clearly, many of us believe that the public school system in North Carolina has been on the wrong path. The evidence in part is the large numbers of parents who are electing to send their children to private, charter or home-schools.   The demand for school choice has grown substantially.

The results of the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction should set off alarm bells for all those who were hoping for change. The defeat of conservative Michelle Morrow by a left learning Mo Green, as well as the election of a Democrat Governor and Lieutenant Governor, will ensure that no significant improvement in the public schools will come from the state level. When asked what he would do if elected, Green is reported to have said he would keep things on the same path.   After serving 8 years as superintendent of Guilford County schools, he became the director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a notoriously leftist organization that is committed to supporting “social, economic, and environmental justice.” Sound familiar? In spite of spending 10 times the amount on the election than did Morrow, Green narrowly won by 119,000 votes.  It should be noted that Green opposes school choice and Opportunity Scholarships. Instead of a rational debate of the issues, Green’s campaign engaged in what all Democrats do–that is, personal attacks without any basis in fact. This is their typical strategy, and unfortunately, it frequently works.

So, faced with this situation, what can be done? A review of the General Statutes that govern the role and authority of local county Boards of Education does provide some glimmer of hope. For example, the local Boards of Education may:  provide training for teachers; make rules concerning conduct and duties of teachers and staff; obtain and select books and material not adopted by the state Department of Public Instruction; and regulate extracurricular activities such as athletics. The question now becomes whether the local Boards who want to return to traditional learning and stop the “Woke” indoctrination of our children will step up to the challenge, even if it means confronting the state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Many of the local Boards have Republican majorities. Let’s hope they have the courage to step up to the plate. If not, even more parents will take their children out of the public schools. I would not blame them.

States Matter Too!

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On Tuesday, The Federalist posted an article about what happened in various state elections on November 5th. Unfortunately, the elections in North Carolina did not go as well for conservatives as they did in some other states. Much of of the North Carolina Council of State went Democrat. Although the Democrats won the governorship, the lieutenant governorship, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Republicans won the positions of State Auditor, Treasurer, Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Labor, and Commissioner of Insurance. They lost their veto-proof  majority in the North Carolina House of Representatives, but gained a veto-proof majority in the North Carolina Senate.

The article at The Federalist shares the results from some other states:

In Arizona, Republicans are on track to maintain their majorities in the state House and Senate, preliminary election results from the New York Times suggest. Republicans could potentially expand their majorities in both chambers as well. The outcome marks a huge defeat for leftists, who spent millions of dollars to flip or “reach ties” in state legislatures including in Arizona, as The Federalist previously reported, where a slim GOP legislative majority separates the state from a Democrat trifecta takeover.

In South Carolina, unofficial results indicate Republicans won a veto-proof supermajority in the state Senate and held onto their supermajority in the state House of Representatives. Similar trends are also reflected in Iowa’s preliminary results, which show the state GOP is already projected to expand its majority in the state House.

In New Hampshire, Republicans are on track to maintain trifecta control of state government, according to early results. The GOP is projected to win the governor’s mansion and a supermajority in the Senate and could also expand its majority in the House compared to 2022 results.

Many Americans are unhappy with the impact our open southern border is having on cities and states. Crime has skyrocketed, housing has become more expensive and harder to find, and the cost of providing food and housing to people who are not here legally has been enormous. Many of the states that have been hit the hardest by the unlimited migration of people who have not been vetted voted for change.

Sometimes The Bias Is In What Is Left Out Of The Story

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When the mainstream media is talking about the appointment of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, they are describing him as a Fox News host (and sometimes mentioning that he is a veteran) and not citing any reason he is qualified for the job. Although I hesitate to use Wikipedia as a source, its biographical information on conservatives tends to be accurate.

This is the information on Pete Hegseth at Wikipedia:

Hegseth was born in Minneapolis and raised in nearby Forest Lake.[6] He attended Forest Lake Area High School, where he graduated in 1999 as the valedictorian. Hagseth played football and basketball.

Hegseth went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in politics at Princeton University in 2003.[7] While there, he wrote for the Princeton Tory[8] and played basketball for the Tigers under coach John Thompson III.[9][10] Their team made the NCAA tournament in 2001. They were knocked out in the first round by North Carolina, then captained by Brendan Haywood.[11][12]

In 2013, he received a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[13]

…Following graduation from Princeton in 2003, Hegseth joined Bear Stearns as an equity capital markets analyst and was also commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard.[15] In 2004 his unit was called to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where he served as an infantry platoon leader with the Minnesota Army National Guard. His unit was under the operational control of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Shortly after returning from Cuba, Hegseth volunteered to serve in Baghdad and Samarra, where he held the position of infantry platoon leader and, later in Samarra, as Civil–Military Operations Officer. During his time in Iraq, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, and a second Army Commendation Medal.[16][citation needed]

He returned to active duty in 2012 as a captain. He deployed to Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard and acted as a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul.[citation needed]

To me that sounds like a pretty good resume’ for a Secretary of Defense. It’s amazing how very little of those qualifications are being mentioned by the mainstream media. Generally the comment is ‘he’s a Fox News commentator and a veteran.’ None of the other qualifications are mentioned.

I Don’t Seem To Remember This Happening Before

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On Sunday, The American Thinker posted an article about some informal meetings now taking place at the Pentagon (as reported by CNN).

The article reports:

If this story of a cabal of Pentagon officials meeting to undermine the incoming constitutional commander-in-chief of the U.S. military had been a rumor circulating on X or I’d received in an email from some random source, I would have discounted it. But that’s not the case; it comes from CNN. This suggests that something is deeply wrong in the Pentagon—the same Pentagon that “forgot” to send absentee ballots to U.S. troops serving overseas, a gross violation of their civil rights, and one that ought to result in courts-martial all the way up to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to CNN, Pentagon officials are trying to figure out how to block any orders Donald Trump might issue to protect the Southern border or remove from U.S. soil the millions of unvetted illegal aliens currently occupying the U.S.:

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

Trump in his last term had a fraught relationship with much of his senior military leadership, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president-elect, meanwhile, has repeatedly called US military generals “woke,” “weak” and “ineffective leaders.”

Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

I believe that the President is required by the Constitution to uphold the law. Border security is part of that law. It is my hope that any military or civilian personnel that interferes with the carrying out of immigration law will be shown the door (or worse) very quickly.

Christians and Politics

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.

As a practicing Christian, I have frequently been troubled by the seemingly low interest in politics in churches. Since this country was founded on Judeo/Christian principles, it is essential that those principles be proudly and consistently displayed and promulgated. If Christians would consistently vote in high percentages in every election, then those who want to remove Christian principles from our schools and culture would fail. In fact, John Adams, one of the original Founding Fathers, wrote that our country would not be successful if the people did not continue to practice Christian principles.

Let me give you an example. While attending church service a couple of weeks ago, I reminded the congregation that the upcoming election was crucial and that they should get out and vote and base their candidate selection on which candidate(s) advocated Christian principles. I did not specify any particular candidate.  A week later, I was informed that a married couple told the pastor that they would never again attend that church because politics were mentioned. Now you have to ask yourself, if practicing Christians do not stand up for Christian principles and values, who will? Fortunately, our pastor was not intimidated by the couple leaving and advocated exercising our constitutional right to vote and to select candidates with biblical teachings in mind. Good for him.

How did we ever get to this point? Throughout most of this country’s history, pastors routinely discussed what was happening in the political arena because they realized our freedom and welfare depended on who was elected. In 1954, Democrat Lyndon Johnson (who later as President would author The Great Society, a leftist program that destroyed the black family structure as well as making people dependent on the federal government welfare programs) introduced an amendment to a spending bill that prohibited churches from advocating for specific political candidates or they would lose their tax-exempt status. Note that even though no church has ever lost their tax-exempt status since the restriction was enacted, the majority of churches have caved in and restricted their own freedom of speech. The amendment only prohibits churches from formally endorsing or raising money for a specific candidate. The impact, however, has been the silencing of many churches on any matter that even appears in anyway to be political.

This is very unfortunate since issues in the political realm frequently reflect values and principles that are prohibited by the Bible. For example, homosexual marriage, abortion at any stage of pregnancy, and transgender mutilation of children are contrary to Judeo/Christian values and teaching, but are now rampant in our increasingly secular society. And we are the worse for it. A recent survey reported that 94% of atheists voted Democrat in the last election. It is past time for Christians in general and pastors in particular to stand up for the values and principles that are essential to the survival of this country. The invasion at our borders by people who do not share our values will destroy this country just as it destroyed other countries throughout history. This invasion is being facilitated by Non-Government Agencies (NGOs) many of which are religious organizations that are being paid to assist the flood or aliens into this country.

It is time for true Christians to stand up against this.

Ignoring The Majority Of Americans

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Below is a map showing the results of the 2024 presidential election:

As you can see, the majority of states voted for President Trump. Logically, the Congressmen who represent these states should vote in ways that reflect the fact that the voters in their state supported President Trump (and we can assume, support his policies). If these Congressmen represent their districts, shouldn’t they then support President Trump’s policies? Well, not so fast. Yes, I know that some of the Congressmen from these states are Democrats, but shouldn’t their votes in Congress represent their voters? That is why the direct election of Senators passed in 1913 was such a bad idea.

On November 12th, Breitbart reported:

House Democrats are trying to assemble a battle plan to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from implementing his America First agenda, a report Monday claimed.

The Democrats’ initiative to immediately “resist” Trump might compound their election losses. Democrats are not aligned on why they lost the election, and they do not seem to have a national leading voice to coalesce behind.

Democrats, however, will not give up. House Democrats will meet this week to brainstorm how to slow down the incoming Trump administration while keeping “some control in Washington,” Axios reported Monday:

The talks mainly involve members of the Progressive, Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Equality caucuses, according to multiple lawmakers engaged in the discussions.

Ramirez said the conversations center on figuring out “what are the things [where] we have any powers to protect the communities that we know will be most harmed as a result of a Donald Trump election.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) confirmed to Axios “there are conversations that are taking place where people are tying to figure out if there are some steps that can be taken that can reduce the damage.”

What damage? How about reducing the damage the Biden administration policies have caused to middle America in the past four years? After a while, you begin to wonder who the Democrats work for.

The Democrat establishment has created three explanations for the loss of the Presidential election:  1. Hispanic and black voters are misogynists. 2. The loss had nothing to do with Trump and more to do with Democrats being victims of inflation. and 3. Democrats lost because President Joe Biden did not step aside soon enough to allow for an open primary.

Actually, they lost because their policies lost. Americans are getting tired of inflation, legal discrimination against average Americans, men in women’s sports, and being lied to by the media. If those things change, maybe the Democrats will start winning majorities again.

 

Actions Have Consequences–How President Trump Got The Amish Vote

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On November 12th, The New York Post posted an article explaining how President Trump got the Amish of Pennsylvania to vote for him. There was a serious get-out-the-vote effort on the part of Republicans, but there was also some government overreach on the part of the Biden administration that sealed the deal.

The article reports:

The effort kicked off days before Election Day, when Burwell-Perry took, in her words, “17 seconds” to whip up a flyer with phone numbers to call for free rides to the polls, launching what she called “Operation Help Thy Neighbor” from her Bainbridge church basement.

A longtime area resident, Burwell-Perry knew that Amish weddings typically last from dawn to dusk, with a brief break between church services — offering just a short window of opportunity for wedding guests to get to the polls.

But the time-consuming nature of transportation by horse-drawn carriage made even that challenging to accomplish.

With this knowledge — and “a lot of prayer” — Burwell-Perry said she spent her November mortgage payment printing out 10,000 copies of her flyer and paying locals to drop them off at farms and slip them into buggies parked across the southern Pennsylvania counties home to the majority of the state’s Amish.

Elon Musk’s America PAC later pledged to reimburse Burwell-Perry, and rented her little-operation-that-could about 30 computers and a Starlink device so she and her fellow local activists could run a call center from a church basement.

By the morning of Nov. 5, the organizer had gathered and vetted 200 drivers to offer rides and dozens of phone bank workers to take calls. But first, Burwell-Perry had to find the weddings.

Like Amish church services, Amish weddings are often held in farmhouses, the locations of which are kept tightly secret — with fathers of the brides usually announcing their daughters’ wedding details only by word-of-mouth in church.

With the help of some Amish neighbors, Burwell-Perry learned of just a handful of weddings happening on Election Day.

She then tapped Lancaster County residents Brenda Biesecker Clair and Joe Goody to act as scouts Tuesday morning, looking for Amish families heading to local farms in their Sunday best — a dead giveaway they were headed to a marriage ceremony.

There was also the issue of farmers protecting their rights:

According to dozens of Amish, Mennonite, and ex-Amish who spoke with The Post this week, many of the groups’ deepest-held beliefs — including limited government and freedom of religion, went hand-in-hand with Republican campaign platforms.

For John Henry Smucker, 28, it was Trump’s anti-establishment beliefs that resonated. Growing up on an Amish dairy farm, he saw his family repeatedly raided by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators searching for raw milk products.

“My dad was a farmer who sold all his own products from the farm, so we made cottage cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and we sold raw milk,” he told The Post. “And so I experienced the government overreach myself. We would get raided. We never got stuff taken out, but we would get threats.

The policies of the Biden administration are responsible for their election loss.

The Tone Deafness Will Continue For The Next Two Months

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The Biden administration seems to have been tone deaf to Americans during the entire administration. They did not respond to the pleas to make energy more available and thus, cheaper. They didn’t have an answer for rising grocery prices. The elites in the Democrat (and Republican) party were not greatly impacted by inflation, therefore, it didn’t really matter.

On Monday, Just the News posted an article about President Biden’s energy policies.

The article reports:

The Biden-Harris administration had been a champion of an extensive climate agenda. Not only did Democratic candidate Kamala Harris lose the presidential election to former President Donald Trump, a man who has called “climate hysteria” a “hoax,” voters in two Harris stronghold states rejected anti-fossil fuel measures. 

In 2019, Berkeley, California, became the first city in the U.S. to ban natural gas hookups in new construction. The Sierra Club, which is managing $1 billion from billionaire Michael Bloomberg to fund a campaign to prevent consumers from accessing fossil fuels, hailed the move and kept a running tally on other California cities that followed with similar legislation. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ban, and then rejected a request for a rehearing in February, effectively killing the law. 

Undeterred, the City of Berkeley initiated a voter ballot measure this election that would have taxed the owners of buildings over 15,000 square feet based on the amount of natural gas it used annually. Voters rejected the measure 68% to 32%. Alameda County, where Berkeley is located, voted for Harris 72% to 25%, showing that even fervent Harris supporters aren’t given to anti-fossil fuel regulations. 

In Washington state, where the vote for Harris currently stands at nearly 58%, voters passed ballot measure No. 2066, which repeals part of a state law expediting the state’s transition from natural gas to electricity. The ballot measure also prohibits cities and counties from banning or penalizing the use of natural gas. 

I believe that most Americans have enough common sense to realize that our economy and way of life are built on fossil fuel. We have an obligation to make the use of fossil fuel as efficient as possible. We need clean air and clean water, but we also need civilization.

Civics At Home

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.

A very unusual thing happened to me on Election Day, as I was providing voter information outside the election site.  A man walked up with his grandson who looked about ten years old. He asked me if I would explain to his grandson how the voting process worked and why it was important.  I responded with a short summary of how our government is controlled by the people and how important it was for all citizens to vote.  After a short discussion, the man took his son inside to observe the voting process and to vote himself.

I did not ask the man why he felt a need to do this, but he volunteered that he was not certain that the public schools were teaching his grandson the civics he had learned when he was a student.

This incident, which I found refreshing, reminded me of an article I read recently about a patriotic family and how they observe Constitution Day.  Most of us may have heard of Constitution Day, but most likely do not celebrate or recognize it. What the family in the article does is gather as a group and take turns reading the U.S. Constitution from start to finish.   They have been doing this for several years with family members taking turns reading. Takes about 30 minutes.

Both of these events demonstrate that we, the parents and grandparents, can make sure that children not only are exposed to the essential elements of our country but they learn that we as adults believe that these things are vitally important.

Given all the woke nonsense that children are exposed to, we cannot be certain that civics is being taught and emphasized in the schools. The recent election of Mo Green, leftist Democrat, as the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, is not reassuring to me; quite the opposite.

When my grandchildren visit me for Thanksgiving, I plan to do a group read of the Constitution. You might want to try it yourself.

According to the North Carolina Civics Coalition:

NC requires one high school civics course for graduation.
Several states also have a middle school civics class. NC
does not. In K-5, social studies often shares instructional
time with science and is rarely taught daily.

Unfortunately the requirement for a high school civics course is not actually being enforced. Rather than have a separate civics course, schools are including civics in other courses. In most cases, the subject of civics is not getting the individual attention that is needed.

NOTE:

In 2011, The North Carolina legislature passed The Founding Principles Act, House Bill 588. This bill required local boards of education to teach a semester course, “American History I – The Founding Principles” to includes at least the following:

    1. The Creator-endowed inalienable rights of the people.
    2. Structure of government, separation of powers with checks and balances.
    3. Frequent and free elections in a representative government.
    4. Rule of law.
    5. Equal justice under the law.
    6. Private property rights.
    7. Federalism.
    8. Due process.
    9. Individual rights as set forth in the Bill of Rights.
    10. Individual responsibility.

A passing grade in the course shall be required for graduation from high school.

Is your school board following the law?

Why The Census Matters

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The  Census matters. It impacts our elections by determining the number of electors a state gets in the Electoral College. If non-citizens are included in the census, certain states will get more Electoral College votes (and more representatives in the House of Representatives) than they are actually entitled to.

On Friday, The Daily Wire posted an article explaining how the census impacted the 2024 presidential election.

The article reports:

There is no doubt that President-elect Donald Trump has won a sweeping victory, becoming only the second U.S. president to be elected to a second, non-consecutive term in one of the most remarkable political comeback stories in American history. But his victory in the Electoral College would’ve been even bigger if two factors hadn’t cheated him out of the additional votes he should have received. 

Why do I say this? Because of the jarring errors the Census Bureau admitted it made in its population numbers for multiple states, and its unfair inclusion of aliens in the population used for congressional apportionment. That inclusion dilutes the votes of U.S. citizens, distorting representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Electoral College.

The article notes:

First, the costly errors. In 2022, the Census Bureau issued a report in which it announced that a post-census survey revealed that its count was wrong in 14 states. It undercounted the populations of Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas, while overcounting the populations of Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Utah. The errors ranged from a low of 1.49% to a high of 6.79%. 

I realize that this is just an incredible coincidence, but only one of the under-counted states, Illinois, voted for Vice-President Kamala Harris, and only two of the over-counted states, Ohio and Utah, voted for President Trump.

The article notes:

The final result with these corrections? As this article was being written, Trump had 295 Electoral College votes to Harris’s 226, with Arizona and Nevada still outstanding. But adjusting for the errors and inclusion of aliens means that Trump actually should have won 304 votes and Harris should only have 220 (not including Arizona’s 11 votes and Nevada’s 6 votes). In a close election, even those numbers could make a difference. 

This fundamental injustice ought to be fixed. There is no excuse for what happened at the Census Bureau. It needs a major review of its personnel, procedures and policies, to determine the cause of its mistakes. It did not make this large a substantive error in the 2010 Census, in which the Bureau’s post-census survey disclosed a mere 0.01 percent overcount. 

We need to require a more accurate census. Also, the census needs to include only American citizens. Our government should not be representing people who are not citizens.

We Have Reached Peak Ridiculousness

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On November 11th, Breitbart posted an article about a recent recall by the Food and Drug Administration.

The article reports:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered the recall of nearly 80,000 pounds of butter produced in Texas for Costco. The agency ordered the recall because the product packaging contained no “Contains Milk” allergy statement.

Food & Wine reported that the FDA issued a Class II recall on November 7 for 79,200 pounds of Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter (salted and unsalted). The FDA claimed the butter packaging lists “cream” as an ingredient but does not bear the “Contains Milk” allergy statement.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines butter as follows:

People who are allergic to milk are generally allergic to cream. People who are allergic to milk have probably learned to read labels in order to avoid setting off their milk allergy.

The article includes some interesting screen shots:

As someone who is lactose intolerant (someone who has problems digesting milk), I think this is the dumbest recall ever. People who have the problem have learned to read labels.

Justice Without Revenge

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On Thursday, Roger Simon posted a very thoughtful article on Substack about what the appropriate response from the Trump team should be when dealing with all the government abuses aimed at President Trump during the past eight years. The article is titled, “After Trump’s Victory: ‘Justice Without Revenge.’”

Here are some of the highlights from the article:

So with G-d in mind, let’s address the looming question of the aftermath—how justice is served.

And let us do it in the spirit of the great Spanish playwright Lope de Vega who argued, in the title of one of the most famous of his many plays, that we administer “Justice Without Revenge.”

This is a difficult challenge going forward and must be handled well for the good of all citizens, even, maybe especially, for the heavily-indoctrinated who fail to acknowledge what has happened in front of their eyes.

Much must be accounted for. Arguably Trump’s most important appointment will be his attorney general. It is likely he will get the person he wants because of the new configuration of the Senate.

Let’s stipulate that our justice system has been thoroughly raped, misused to an extent never seen in our history in the name of a wretched relatively recent epidemic almost as bad as COVID-19 known as “lawfare.”.

This is comprised not just of wannabe Torquemadas like Jack Smith and tedious gasbags like New York City DA Alvin Bragg and New York State DA Letitia James, but also the upper reaches of our society by FBI director Wray and his attorney general Merrick Garland, not to mention myriad legal hacks from Georgia to Colorado.

This misuse of our legal system to destroy political opponents absolutely must end. The people who perpetrated it must be thoroughly exposed (not just in congressional hearings but in a court of law) and face legal consequences.

The article also notes:

But what of the senile Biden? He has already been judged non compos mentis by special counsel Robert K. Hur and the idea of this former president standing trial is a sideshow more than this nation should have to bear.

They should, however, learn the truth. What happened here? Exactly what payments were made to the Bidens and by whom? Of course these funds should be confiscated. A congressional investigation may not be the right venue. Something more seemingly impartial, a new special counsel appointed by the coming renewed Justice Department, might meet with Lope’s approval.

Truth, it is written in the Talmud and many other great texts, religious and otherwise, is the mightiest of all things.

It is the basis for a just society.

Toward that end, there is one other thing we must find out. Our electoral system demands it into the future. Most of us acknowledge that it needs fixing on multiple levels from paper ballots to voter ID.

A reckoning is in order, but we need to remove politicization from the justice system–not just reverse the targets.

This Is The Plan

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On Thursday, Townhall posted an article detailing President Trump’s plan to drain the Washington, D.C. swamp.

Here is a brief summary:

In arguably one of the most critical first announcements Trump has made as president-elect, he vowed to immediately reissue the 2020 executive order to restore the president’s authority to remove “rogue bureaucrats aggressively.”

Second, Trump said he would fire all of the corrupt individuals in the country’s national security and intelligence organization so that bureaucrats would no longer be able to target and persecute conservatives and Christians.

…Third, the incoming 47th president said he would reform FISA courts, and fourth, to expose the abuses of power done so by the left.

Trump then announced he would form a Truth and Reconciliation committee to “declassify and publish all documents on Deep State spying, censorship, and corruption.”

Trump also said he would crack down on government workers who collude with the left-wing media to create false narratives.

…Sixth, he plans to make every Inspector General’s Office independent from the departments they oversee to ensure they do not become a part of the Deep State.

Seventh, Trump will create an independent auditing system that will monitor intelligence agencies to make sure they are not spying on Americans or secretly running disinformation campaigns against them.

The president-elect also vowed to relocate parts of the federal bureaucracy to states other than Washington, D.C., or the District of Columbia.

…Ninth, he will ban federal bureaucrats from working at companies they regulate, such as big Pharma and big tech.

And tenth, Trump promised to establish a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on Congress members.

This sounds like fun. However, I don’t agree with Congressional term limits unless you also term-limit Congressional staffs and high-level federal employees.

This History Should Not Be Repeated

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Amsterdam last week experienced the consequences of allowing large numbers of immigrants who do not share your values into your country.

On Friday, The New York Post posted an article detailing the events in Amsterdam.

The article reports:

Israeli soccer fans targeted in the horrific antisemitic attack in Amsterdam described Friday how they were chased through the streets along with Jewish women and kids and left with broken teeth and black eyes.

“It was a pogrom. If there had been Internet in ’38, that’s what Kristallnacht would have looked like,” a shaken victim told the Israeli media outlet Haaretz.

An Israel Defense Force officer in town for Thursday night’s soccer game told The Post that his friend was senselessly beaten by a group of 15 thugs till the bloodied pal shouted, “Free Palestine!’’

Just for the record, ‘Palestine’ was free before they attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005. That is assuming that there is an actual state of Palestine, which there never has been–most Palestinians are Egyptian or Jordanian. Yasser Arafat was Egyptian.

The article concludes:

But after Maccabi Tel Aviv’s stinging 5-0 loss to the Dutch team Ajax, the man quickly realized that the second night would be “worse than the first night,’’ he said.

“I saw a lot of attacks, I saw a lot of people trying to attack but a lot of fans trying to defend themselves,” the Israeli soccer fan said.

The assailants would gang up on victims 15 or 20 to 1, he said.

The soccer fan said he and his friends decided to form a rescue team and roam the streets in search of any lone Israeli who needed their help.

They found a group of four hiding out in a locked restaurant as armed thugs tried to break in and pelted the windows with rocks.

He and his buddies scared the group off and escorted the Israelis back to their hotel.

“The Amsterdam police didn’t really try to help us,” he said, and claimed that the police inaction was due to a mixture of antisemitism and “fear” of the city’s immigrant Muslim population.

“When you see the Jews getting attacked and you do nothing and you tell the Jews you need to go where I say until I decide you can leave but you don’t do anything to the Muslims, there is something problematic about it,” he said.

“Everyone was telling us that we need to go back to Israel, need to leave Amsterdam and go somewhere else in Europe, but we didn’t do anything.”

Israeli photographer Ami Shuman recalled having to walk through the sickening scenes with his son surrounded by a police escort as they tried to return to their hotel unscathed.

“We saw violence, we saw people with black eyes, deep cuts under their eyes,” he told the Times of Israel.

Maccabi fan Tomer Taliasn added to the outlet, “They didn’t distinguish between women, child, men or the elderly.

“They attacked everyone they saw as Israeli.”

This is sad. During World War II, there were many Christians  in the Netherlands who helped and protected the Jews. Anyone who has read the story of Corrie Ten Boom knows that the people of the Netherlands are wonderful people who would not condone this behavior. This is what happens when you allow people in your country who refuse to assimilate and do not share your values.

It’s Time To Protect The Children

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On November 9, Townhall reminded us what one of the first priorities of the Trump administration should be–locating and rescuing the children who have gone missing after crossing America’s southern border.

The article reports:

On Day One, President Trump must take immediate action to protect migrant children by completely overhauling the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. The current catastrophe has resulted in thousands upon thousands of children vanishing into the unknown, many into the hands of traffickers. The true number remains unknown as the government has lost track of so many of these vulnerable souls. Those in the current administration who have deliberately weakened or eliminated crucial sponsor vetting procedures must be removed. The safety of vulnerable children cannot be sacrificed for administrative expediency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with its extensive capabilities and expertise in immigration proceedings, should assume primary responsibility for vetting sponsors and monitoring these children’s whereabouts. Just as ICE successfully manages its Alternatives to Detention program through vetted contractors, similar frameworks could be established to track and protect unaccompanied minors. By leveraging ICE’s resources and coordinating with other agencies’ direct support, we can create a robust system that actually protects these children rather than abandoning them to potential traffickers.

The article concludes:

As we confront this ongoing crisis, our resolve must be stronger than ever. We must work together to create a world where no child is subjected to the horrors of trafficking or falls through the cracks of a failing system. This is more than a call for action; it’s a demand for justice and a plea to our collective conscience to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

Every day we delay, more children vanish into the shadows. Their fate will be our legacy. The time for action is now. Our government’s first duty is to protect the vulnerable. When it comes to migrant children, we’re not just failing – we’re actively enabling their exploitation. This must change, and it must change now.

Matthew 18:6 in the New King James Bible states:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

I’m not suggesting we drown anyone, but let’s hold the people who are exploiting these children accountable.

What A Difference A Day (Or Two Or Three) Makes

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On Saturday, Don Surber at Substack posts his highlights of the week. This weeks highlights were fun. Here are a few samples:

CNN reported, “Anti-Semitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans bring shame on Amsterdam, mayor says.”

Europe let millions of Muslims in and they brought pogroms with them. Who said Muslims don’t know European history?

…George tweeted with video, “Kash Patel just announced that massive declassification will occur in Trump’s Administration from the Epstein to the Diddy list. It’s all going to be made public.”

As a public service, I remind certain celebrities that Afghanistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, UAE, Andorra and Qatar have no extradition treaties with the USA.

…The Washington Times reported, “FBI brass ‘stunned’ and ‘shell shocked’ over Trump re-election.”

And we wonder how they could miss 9/11.

…The Jerusalem Post reported, “Qatar has reportedly clarified to the terrorist group Hamas, ‘You are not welcome here,’ KAN reported on Friday, citing a source familiar with the matter.”

It’s Qatar’s way of telling Israel, don’t tase me, bro.

…Liz Wheeler tweeted, “Trump is President-elect for two days:

    • Stock market hits record high
    • Migrant caravan at our border dissolves
    • Hamas calls for end to war
    • Bitcoin hits record high
    • Putin ready to end Ukraine war
    • Qatar kicks out Hamas leaders
    • EU will buy U.S. gas not Russian gas
    • Putin will sell oil in U.S. dollars
    • Zelenskyy phones Trump & Elon
    • NYC Mayor ends vouchers for illegals
    • Mexico to stop migrants at U.S. border
    • China wants to work peacefully with us
    • Big U.S. company to move out of China

“I repeat: Trump has been President-elect for two days.”

Nice, but what about fixing those McDonald’s ice cream machines?

…Breitbart reported, “A man who is apparently unhappy about President-elect Donald Trump’s victory said he is leaving America and relocating to Hawaii, a statement that has brought him all kinds of criticism.”

Hey, Democrats, we found your 2028 candidate.

…CNN reported, “Pentagon officials discussing how to respond if Trump issues controversial orders.”

The only proper response is to obey those orders from the commander in chief. Surely these men and women do not want to be hanged for mutiny.

It’s going to be an interesting four years.

Who Really Lost In The 2024 Election?

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On Wednesday, The Federalist posted an article about the losers in the 2024 election. Obviously, Vice-President Kamala Harris lost, but there was another bigger loser.

The article reports:

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, legacy news networks were already sliding toward 2016 levels of melting down about the increasingly definite prospect of a presidential victory by Donald J. Trump. For them, Harris’ stinging defeat is personal — because it’s just as much a defeat for them as it is for her.

The corporate media industrial complex has spent Donald Trump’s entire political career trying to destroy him. Hand-in-hand with triple-letter government agencies and Democrats, they ran a hoax painting Trump as a Russian stooge based on ridiculous rumors commissioned by his opponent’s campaign in 2016. They continued to spread the lie for the duration of his presidency, awarding each other Pulitzers for it. And they’ve only ramped up their efforts since then.

The problem they’re reckoning with tonight is this: those efforts didn’t work. They’re no longer able to control Americans by controlling their information intake, because their credibility is farther deep-sixed than the Clinton family’s enemies list.

It is a sad day when media members who lie are awarded Pulitzer Prizes and not forced to return them when it is revealed that they lied.

The article notes:

Since the last presidential election, the media have screeched incessantly about Trump “inciting an insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They made documentaries comparing Trump to the Ku Klux Klan. They portrayed Trump as the ringleader of a terrorist attack and not as a president who gave a speech and urged his supporters to protest peacefully.

Tuesday night’s results are a resounding indication that Americans didn’t buy it.

With help from a debunked story planted in The Atlantic, the media made Trump out to be a “fascist” and routinely compared him to Hitler. When Trump held a gangbusters rally at Madison Square Garden, they screeched that he and his supporters were obviously Nazis because they gathered at the same venue that Nazi sympathizers once rented — along with Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel, Beyoncé, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter.

The article concludes:

If the past eight years — and the first few hours of cope-streaming from TV Wednesday morning — are any indication, the legacy press isn’t planning on repentance. They don’t feel obligated to represent Americans; they feel entitled to control them. The loss of that control is making them apoplectic.

Kamala Harris is only the second-biggest loser of the night. Her media shills are nursing wounds that will take far longer to recover from. After all, they were always the ones fighting the hardest to bring Trump down — and after eight years of it, they’re skulking away weaker and more humiliated than ever.

Why should anyone trust anything the mainstream media says after the way they have behaved for the past nine years?

The New Republican Party

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At least for the moment, there is a new Republican party. It is not the party of the wealthy elite (that currently describes the Democrat party), but it is the party of the average American. On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about the new demographics of the Republican party.

The article reports:

In 2016, roughly 87% of Trump voters were white. But in 2024, nearly one in five Trump voters were black, Latino, Native American, or “people of color.”

The media were flabbergasted.

After all, the Democrats did everything they could to disrupt Trump’s momentum with minorities: They called him Hitler. They called him a racist. They called him a fascist. They called him a white supremacist.

But throughout all their hysterical name-calling, they overlooked one important thing: Illegal immigration was disproportionately injuring non-white Americans.

If you’re a rich white liberal, illegal immigration is a net positive. Hey, you got a nanny, a gardener, a pool guy, and a handyman for pennies on the dollar! And if you’re a business owner, illegal immigration is a cheap form of manual labor. 

What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, if you’re a young man or young woman who’s still struggling to make ends meet, you’re feeling the effects of illegal immigration directly: Under Biden’s watch, there were over 8 million “migrant encounters.” (The actual number of illegal immigrants in America is still up for debate.) 

Well, guess what? Those millions of people need to live somewhere. And if you’re getting pummeled by the spiraling costs of rentals and/or homeownership, you’re smart enough to recognize there’s a cause-and-effect correlation here.

The single most common, most universal mistake in the marketing world is marketing to yourself. Businesses do it all the time: They assume their biases and core beliefs are the same as everyone else and then go “Surprised Pikachu” when their marketing message fails to land.

Almost every American is feeling the results of President Biden’s economic and open-border policies. These policies have had a detrimental effect on Americans in all ethnic groups. It is no wonder that these groups voted against the authors of these policies.

The People Speak

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On Wednesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about two referenda that were on the ballot in Arizona.

The article reports and the first ballot question:

Two controversial ballot initiatives concerning illegal immigration and abortion easily passed at the ballot box on Nov. 5 with broad support from voters.

Proposition 314, a statutory amendment referred by the Arizona Legislature, prohibits illegal immigrants from entering the state directly from a foreign country at any location other than a lawful port of entry.

The law effectively empowers Arizona law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants. It also bars illegal immigrants from knowingly submitting false documents to apply for public benefits or a job and makes it a class 2 felony for an adult to knowingly sell fentanyl that later causes the death of another person.

The article reports of the second ballot question:

Arizona was also one of 10 states that voted on the issue of abortion this election.

In a 62–38 vote, the state approved a citizen-led initiative to establish a constitutional right to abortion through fetal viability, and when a “health care professional” deems it necessary to protect the mother’s life or health.

Proposition 139 also bars the state from penalizing anyone who assists a woman in obtaining an abortion.

At present, abortion is legal in Arizona through 15 weeks of pregnancy, though the issue has been a matter of contention in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, which overturned the federal right to abortion.

The federal right to abortion was never in the U.S. Constitution. That fact was stated by none other than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the decision on abortion was correctly left up to individual states.

The article concludes:

“We did it!” the group wrote in an X post. “Arizona has overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion access! We proved, yet again, that Arizona is a state that values freedom and individual rights.”

Opponents of the measure argued that the inclusion of an exception for the mother’s general “health” could be interpreted to authorize late-term abortions for virtually any reason. They also held that it would prohibit health and safety regulations to protect women and minors while removing licensed physicians from the equation.

By the morning of Nov. 6, a petition was already circulating online asking Arizona state senators to either repeal the amendment or enact new legislation to “help decrease the actual number of abortions performed in our state.”

Stay tuned.

Who Is The Republican Party?

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On Wednesday, Real Clear Policy posted an article analyzing some aspects of the Republican victory in Tuesday’s election. The Republicans won the Presidency, the Senate, and probably the House of Representatives.

The article reports:

The Republican Party reveals itself as a national middle-class party. A party that is friendly to earned success and those in need looking for a hand up. A party where the middle, bottom, and top are not divided and play a zero-sum game but are instead united in the pursuit and possession of the ever-optimistic American Dream.

A patriotic party. A party that loves America — warts and all. A party with America First self-confidence and swagger on a global stage. Not chauvinism, but swagger. Which just happens to be good for everyone.

A party for men and women alike — from Elon and Tulsi to the forgotten women and men across our great nation. A party of equals who know what a woman is, what a man is, and celebrates the complimentary difference. A love, marriage, baby carriages, ‘worried about the cost of life and growing prosperity’ party.

A party that takes care of its own and defends its sovereignty. That takes full advantage of the natural resources to underwrite American prosperity at home and global peace and stability abroad.

A party that does not withdraw from the world, but leads it through good example and willingness to defend and enforce its clearly stated prerogatives. A party willing to make long term win-win deals. A party willing to use carrots and sticks to defend and pursue its interests.

A party that is dedicated to prudently guiding, funding, and restraining a military that is without equal.

Right now, the Republican party represents an America many of us grew up in–you understood that following the law was a good thing. People who broke the law were punished. You worked for what you got. No one gave you a free handout for any reason, much less because the entered the country illegally. We had borders and we had common-sense rules. The government stayed in their lane and the people stayed in theirs. No one invaded your house to kill your pet squirrel. That’s the America people voted for on Tuesday.

The Way Forward…How Do We Unite?

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The way forward has to include a change of direction. Many Americans have been negatively impacted by high inflation, high interest rates, and slow job growth. Hopefully, electing a businessman as President will help change the current situation.

One thing that will unite us is an honest media telling the truth. For example, ‘tax cuts for the rich’ is not only a lie–it is class warfare–a Marxist strategy. The Trump tax cuts benefited the lower and middle economic classes–not the rich. You can find the statistics here.

The biased press coverage by the mainstream media of the 2024 presidential campaign was a disgrace.

According to the Media Research Center:

…on ABC, CBS and NBC was 78% positive vs. 22% negative. For Trump, those numbers were flipped: just 15% positive press, vs. 85% negative coverage. Subtracting Trump’s positive press from Harris’s, the advantage to the Democratic nominee was 63 points, the greatest in the modern media age.

That bias was largely responsible for further dividing our country. Using the Department of Justice to intimidate and prosecute anyone with views opposite of the party in power also divides us. Law enforcement has no business raiding someone’s house because they were protesting abortion or investigating someone because they spoke at a school board meeting. Admittedly there are some political figures who should be prosecuted for their crimes, but not for their political views.

The people who hate President Trump because it is the approved thing to do in their social circles should consider not lying to their friends about what a Trump presidency means. President Trump has been President before. Did he put his political opponents in jail or use the judicial system the harass them? Were any Democrats disbarred or their assets seized during the Trump presidency (like John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani)? Were gay people mistreated or prosecuted? Yes, President Trump’s appointed Supreme Court Justices overturned Roe v. Wade, but even Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that Roe v. Wade was bad law.

The past predicts the future. During the first term of President Trump we had peace and prosperity. Can we unite in the hope of achieving that again?