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Monthly Archives: January 2025
This Is What Spin Looks Like
On Wednesday, MSN posted the following headline:
Republicans renew efforts to limit people in US illegally from census count
The article reports:
Republican efforts to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from numbers used to divvy up congressional seats among states have begun anew, with four Republican state attorneys general suing to alter the once-a-decade head count even before President Donald Trump’s second term in office began Monday.
Trump joined in the battle immediately upon returning to office, signing an executive order on Monday that rescinded a Biden administration order and signaled the possibility of a push by his new administration to change the 2030 census. Those efforts may get a boost from the GOP-controlled Congress, where Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards from North Carolina earlier this month re-introduced legislation that would put a citizenship question on the census form.
During his first term, Trump signed an order that would have excluded people in the U.S. illegally from being included in the 2020 census numbers used to allot congressional seats and Electoral College votes to each state. The GOP president also mandated in a second order the collection of citizenship data through administrative records. A Republican redistricting expert had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
This is not political, regardless of who benefits–it is common sense. In a representative republic, who is represented?
The question here is rather obvious, “Who are our Congressmen (and women) supposed to represent?” If a district gets an extra representative or two because of people who are non-citizens and are here illegally, the representation for people who are citizens is impacted. For example, California gets one of two extra representatives because of the number of illegal aliens that live there. Since there are only a limited number of representatives (435), a state with more citizens and fewer non-citizens will not get as many representatives. American citizens are entitled to representation in Congress. Non-citizens are not. There is no country in the world with a democracy or representative government that has a government that represents people who are not citizens. This is common sense, and the representation for illegal aliens and non-citizens needs to end.
Stopping Green Energy
Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.
The re-election of Donald Trump provides an opportunity to correct the devastating agenda of the green new deal extremists. Inexpensive and ample supplies of energy are essential to the progress of our economy. Solar and wind will never produce sufficient reliable energy to fuel a modern society. Impossible, as the Europeans have found out.
It is very discouraging to realize that many of our elected Republicans believe the man-made climate change hoax and are therefore willing to support things like carbon neutrality. There is no reliable scientific evidence that man’s consumption of fossil fuels has altered the environment! The environmental extremists base their scare tactics about manmade global warming on computer models generated by their fellow believers. The truth is that the earth’s temperature has varied substantially long before there were enough human beings to impact the CO2 levels. There have been at least eight ice age/warming periods over the earth’s history going back several million years. We are now in a global warming cycle from the last ice age that occurred over 10,000 years ago. So the first thing we need to do is to ensure that our lawmakers are not taken in by the climate change extremists. We also need to stop indoctrinating our children with the man-made climate hoax.
As President Trump has advocated, we need to “drill baby drill” for oil and natural gas, both of which we are fortunate to have an abundant supply. We also need to return to coal burning plants since we have the technology to ensure that coal is burned efficiently and cleanly; instead of shipping our coal to China, which is greatly expanding their coal fired plants and doing so with little concern for the environment. President Trump’s recent announcement of our withdrawal from the globalist so-called Paris Accords which are detrimental to America is a step in the right direction. Remember, that cheap and abundant energy will enhance our ability to compete with other countries in manufacturing.
All government subsidies and tax incentives for solar, wind and electrical vehicles need to be stopped immediately. Wind farms off our coast are an environmental hazard that only enriches China. A recent study conducted by the conservative John Locke Foundation estimates that continued movement towards wind and solar will produce an enormous increase in energy prices in our country. Not only are wind and solar expensive and produce unreliable energy, but due to their intermittent energy production, extensive battery storage capacity (or more likely backup fossil fuel plants) will still be needed. Experts have recently predicted that a full implementation of Artificial Intelligence will require a threefold electrical capacity increase nationwide.
The final solution to energy production is nuclear power. Due to the environmental extremists scare tactics and excessive regulation, there has not been a nuclear power plant built in North Carolina since the Shearon Harris plant near Raleigh was completed in 1987. This despite the improved safety and ability to produce nuclear power plants of smaller size, which could be located closer to customer demand. The European Union is planning on increasing their nuclear plants due in large measure to the ineffectiveness of wind and solar. Currently, France generates over 70% of their electricity from nuclear reactors.
The bottom line is that we need to do away with the move towards wind and solar and go back to the common sense approach of relying on fossil fuels and nuclear power. If we do not, we will be unable to maintain our economy and grow for the future. Our conservative lawmakers need to make this happen.
Gaslighting At Its Best
President Biden’s pardons caused a bit of controversy. The concept of preemptive pardons is rather unique. However, the Democrats’ and the media’s response to the preemptive pardons is interesting.
On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about Senator Warren’s explanation of why President Biden had to issue the preemptive pardons.
The article reports:
..But at some point, Anderson Cooper asked her about the familial pardons Joe Biden issued about 15 minutes before leaving the White House and heading off to Shady Pines or wherever they sent him.
“The last-minute pardons by then President Biden to his family members, you know there were pardons earlier this morning which were reported on, but these last-minute pardons, he chose to, I mean, make it last minute when there wouldn’t be as much attention, obviously, and they wouldn’t kind of overshadow the ride to the capitol — was that a mistake?” Cooper asked.
Initially, Warren replied with a simple statement: “The president — President Biden — should answer for himself.”
Fair enough. But she couldn’t leave it at that. Not only did she not leave it for Biden to “answer for himself,” but she also went on to blame someone else for these sneaky, last-minute pardons: Donald Trump.
Warren explained that poor Biden is just a kind-hearted old family man who had no choice but to make these pardons out of fear that Trump might try to use his sweet little family against him just because Trump doesn’t like him.
The media and the political left seem to forget that President Trump has been in office before. During his time in office, he did not use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies–that is something President Biden did.
There is, however, a new twist in the story. President Biden did not pardon himself, and there are reports of a $240,000 bank deposit going directly to him with no explanation. This could get interesting.
Common Sense Is Arriving Quickly
The claims that CO2 is a pollutant responsible for climate change may be coming to an end. On Wednesday, The American Thinker posted an article about some changes in the narrative regarding CO2. We need to remember that some farmers pump CO2 into their greenhouses in order to help the plants grow.
The article reports:
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions (methane, nitrous oxide, and some other stuff) are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that the government has the authority to curb them.
Since then, the world has been subjected to numerous climate-related laws and treaties, along with assorted governmental, academic, and corporate pressures — all serving to hype the “existential threat” that is climate change. The number-one culprit all along has been atmospheric carbon dioxide.
There is nothing inherently wrong with qualitative versus quantitative statements, but there has been an inordinate amount of hand-waving to explain away the failure over the last 50 years of global temperatures to rise nearly as fast as predicted by the climate alarmists.
“Watts Up With That” claims to be the “world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change,” for which Collister Johnson recently wrote a short but powerful article with an unassuming title: “The saturation effect questions the prevailing narrative on CO2.”
Over that last decade, several pedigreed scientists have performed qualitative analyses and experiments to disprove the assumption that “increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause a linear and dangerous increase in global temperatures.”
…In recent years, other prominent scientists have performed studies that confirm that this saturation effect causes minimal increases in temperature as CO2 levels rise. There is no linear relationship between rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures. This explains why the Earth “has never experienced runaway warming in the past when CO2 levels were 5–10 times more concentrated than today.” The planet was, however, more lush with vegetation than it is today.
CO2 is our friend. It will help us feed the world’s population. Maybe that’s the reason the zero population people are so against it.
Discover The Networks
The latest hoax designed to slow down the Trump administration is the smear against Pete Hegseth to try to prevent his confirmation.
Breitbart posted an article on Tuesday revealing some of the details of the people behind the charges.
The article reports:
Danielle Dietrich, the estranged ex-sister-in-law of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is now claiming he abused his ex-wife, is a lifelong Democrat who is represented by a lawyer working for a prominent Democratic Party-connected firm.
Dietrich is represented by Leita Walker of Ballard Spahr, which “has a strong financial connection to Biden and some Democratic politicians,” according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. The news outlet reported:
Individual attorneys at Ballard Spahr have been politically active for at least the last three decades, according to data from Open Secrets. And their giving has skewed to Democrats.
But the firm’s political largesse nearly quadrupled in the Trump era. The previous high was $272,000 in 2008. In 2016, the firm’s attorneys gave $846,000. By 2020, political giving increased to more than $955,000, including $148,450 from a newly active political action committee.
The story continues:
NBC News reported that Senate Armed Services Committee committee staffers were in contact with Dietrich “for several days” before she submitted the affidavit and that she had chosen to come forward in response to a January 18 letter from Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the committee, seeking “a statement attesting to your personal knowledge about Mr. Hegseth’s fitness to occupy this important position.”
The court documents and statements by Pete Hegseth and his wife are contrary to the charges:
Hegseth’s ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth, has denied the allegations herself. She wrote in an email to NBC News:
First and foremost, I have not and will not comment on my marriage to Pete Hegseth. I do not have representatives speaking on my behalf, nor have I ever asked anyone to share or speak about the details of my marriage on my behalf, whether it be a reporter, a committee member, a transition team member, etc.
She added, “I do not believe your information to be accurate, and I have cc’d my lawyer.”
When she was asked what information was not accurate and for comment on the affidavit, she replied on Tuesday:
There was no physical abuse in my marriage. This is the only further statement I will make to you, I have let you know that I am not speaking and will not speak on my marriage to Pete. Please respect this decision.
Next, the Democrats will be pulling quotes out of Pete Hegseth’s high school or college yearbook.
From my friends at Townhall:
Skewed Compassion
The message Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde gave at the National Cathedral Prayer Service was not only inappropriate, it was not Biblical.
Jesus was compassionate when He was faced with sinners. When He faced the woman caught in adultery, He spared her life, but He also told her, “Go and sin no more.”
Jesus’ Christianity as revealed in Paul’s letters calls for an obedience to government–stating that governments are put in place by God. Paul also refers to the sin of homosexuality. The Bible also states that God made man and woman. Last time I checked, God doesn’t make mistakes. In the context of Christianity, sin can be forgiven if there is repentance and change, but it is still sin.
The comments of Bishop Budde regarding people in fear are interesting. Is it possible that much of the fear is due to the misreporting of our mainstream media? What about the fears of the people who now have people in their cities who are here illegally that routinely break the law by stealing, driving without a license, drunk driving, murder, etc.? Are their fears valid? The comments about the hard-working illegals seem to overlook the fact that they broke the law to get here. There are legal ways to come and work in America. Should we simply eliminate the consequences for breaking the law?
We need to reform our immigration system, but that is not an excuse to ignore the current laws. Painting a picture of people who broke the law fearing enforcement of the law as a bad thing does not reinforce the rules of a stable society.
I don’t expect an apology, although an apology would be a positive reflection of the Christianity Bishop Budde claims to espouse. I just think that what she did was highly inappropriate. People go to church to grow in their faith–not to be lectured.
Another Reason To Stop Funding And Leave The United Nations
The role of the United Nations in the Middle East is questionable at best. The fact that Hamas and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency had many of the same members should have been a wake-up call. Now, there is new news coming out of Gaza that confirms the corruption of the United Nations.
On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit reported:
On Sunday, three Israeli hostages, Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher, were released and handed over to the Red Cross.
The young women have now been reunited with their families.
However, disturbing details of their ordeal have surfaced, including that the three women were held for at least part of their 471 days in captivity within United Nations shelters.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared on X, “Former hostages Romi, Emily, and Doron were held in United Nations shelters in Gaza, which were meant for civilians. The UN refuses to condemn Hamas for hiding hostages in civilian spaces.”
The revelation underscores President Trump’s decision to suspend funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as part of a decision to suspend any foreign assistance for 90 days pending reviews.
In August 2024, The Gateway Pundit reported that UNRWA admitted that nine of its staff members may have been involved in the heinous Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
This admission is not just a minor oversight; it highlights a disturbing pattern of complicity and negligence within an organization that claims to uphold humanitarian values.
Hostage-taking is considered a war crime. The United Nations has participated in a number of war crimes in Israel and Gaza. The fact that UNRWA employees took part in the October 7th attacks and the fact that hostages were held in United Nations shelters should be enough to remove America from the United Nations and remove the United Nations from America. Depending on the condition of the building, the United Nations headquarters could be converted into really nice luxury condominiums. The tax revenue would help balance the budget in New York City and might even make the congestion tax unnecessary! The view of the river is beautiful.
Another Day, Another Lawsuit
On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union filed to prevent President Trump from being able to fire federal employees.
The article reports:
President Donald Trump’s order removing job protections from federal officials violates federal law, according to a Jan. 20 lawsuit.
Trump’s order, signed earlier on Monday, reclassifies certain employees into the same category as political appointees, thereby removing some job protections.
“The President’s Executive Order is unlawful and ultra vires because it exceeds statutory authority and is contrary to congressional intent,” the lawsuit, filed by the National Treasury Employees Union in federal court in Washington, states.
There is no way that government waste can be cut without having the right to fire people!
The article notes:
“The President’s Executive Order is unlawful and ultra vires because it exceeds statutory authority and is contrary to congressional intent,” the lawsuit, filed by the National Treasury Employees Union in federal court in Washington, states.
In the order, Trump said that “accountability is sorely lacking today” because removing federal employees has been too difficult. He said it is important to ensure that officials in “policy-influencing positions” are accountable to the president.
He noted that in recent years, there have been some federal officials who have resisted executive leadership.
The order states in part: “Employees in or applicants for Schedule Policy/Career positions are not required to personally or politically support the current President or the policies of the current administration. They are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President. Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal.”
If you work in a private company and are working against the agenda of management, you will be fired. There is no reason the government should have a different standard of behavior.
The article concludes:
The suit is one of several launched within hours of Trump taking office.
Multiple suits targeted the Department of Government Efficiency, which is tasked with examining ways to make the government more efficient. Another lawsuit challenged Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship for some future babies born on U.S. soil.
We May Have To Review The Chain Of Command
President Trump has been elected as President. He is the head of the Executive Branch of government. That position has authority over the Justice Department and the Departments in the Justice Department.
On January 22, Red State reported:
A day after President Trump issued pardons or sentence commutations for all January 6 defendants (Promise Kept: With the Stroke of a Pen, President Trump Issues Mass Pardons for J6 Defendants – RedState), a large number of them remained confined in the DC jail.
…The authority to hold these prisoners expired at midnight on Monday. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly states that the government can’t “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Instead, they were subject to unlawful detention that is nearly indistinguishable from kidnapping or abduction.
This is from RedState columnist and former contributor Bill Shipley, who represented several dozen January 6 defendants and who is not given to hyperbole:
I’m just now getting up to speed on the problems at DOC in the District.
This is UNBELIEVABLE.
These defendants now have a civil rights suit against DC.
The pardon’s were dated yesterday – 1/20. Any lawful authority to keep a defendant in custody ended at 11:59 pm.
Beyond that it was an “unlawful seizure” in violation of the 4th Amendment.
Defendants are housed at DOC under a contract with the U.S. Marshal’s Service because there is not U.S. Govt holding facility in DC.
The U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia is a Presidential Appointee, and the USMS is part of the Justice Department. So, what is apparently happening now is the Trump DOJ has directed the USMS to go into the DOC and physically remove those J6 defendants still being held.
If I was giving the instructions, I would have DOC officials removed in handcuffs and taken across the river to EDVA to be held pending a investigation into Sec. 242 violations.
As Sen. Lee posted yesterday — maybe it is time for Congress to revisit “Home Rule” in DC.
People in our government are not laws unto themselves–they are subject to the laws of the land and the chain of command.
Racing Toward Irrelevance
I think most Americans are willing to let bygones be bygones in terms of the mainstream media. Americans are a forgiving bunch and have not yet totally tuned out the mainstream media yet. However, the mainstream media is not helping their cause.
On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article titled, “And the New Hoaxes Begin….” Unfortunately, that is an accurate title. Some of the mainstream media is already shouting that the Trump administration is made up of Nazis. I really am tired of everything the liberals don’t like being labeled ‘Nazi.’
The article reports:
Did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute at an inaugural rally with Trump supporters? In a sane world the question would be absurd to even consider, but we live in the Truman Show.
…If you believe the Pravda Media and the left-wing hoaxers, you might think he did. I took a quick break from watching X and the festivities to lie down yesterday afternoon and was greeted by a torrent of tweets insisting that Elon Musk has liberated his inner Nazi and spoke at the Nuremberg rally or something.
Here are some screen shots of the posts at X about the matter:
Note that the first screenshot is from PBS. We paid for that. It’s really sad that the mainstream media not only finds this necessary, but begins it hours after the swearing in of a new President. The other thing to watch for is the use of ‘Mr. Trump’ in reporting rather than ‘President Trump.’ That is still going on.
The Games Have Begun
On Tuesday, Yahoo News posted an article about some of the lawsuits filed against President Trump’s executive orders. President Trump won the popular vote and the Electoral College, but that is not going to stop the deep state from trying to limit his power.
The article reports:
The lawsuits started to roll in on Monday within minutes of Trump being sworn into office for a second term. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.
Here are the Trump initiatives that have been targeted so far:
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency came under swift legal attack shortly after Trump signed an executive order formally creating the group that aims to slash wasteful federal spending.
Advocacy organizations and public interest groups quickly filed a handful of lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against DOGE.
Three of four lawsuits filed argue that DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. DOGE, the lawsuits say, is not a federal department and should be considered a federal advisory committee subject to the FACA law.
…Another lawsuit, filed by several groups including the American Public Health Association and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, contends that DOGE is a “shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access.”
…A fourth lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity against the Office of Management and Budget, seeks to compel the government agency to hand over records related to DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act.
“These records are important for the public to understand the threats to numerous environmental protections embodied in rules and orders and how, when, and under what circumstances the new administration intends to act on these threats,” the lawsuit says.
Another major target of the lawsuit:
One of Trump’s executive orders targets the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. The order bars federal agencies from issuing documents recognizing the citizenship of babies born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally.
…The lawsuit says the order conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s provision that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
“This principle has enabled generations of children to pursue their dreams and build a stronger America,” the lawsuit says.
Please follow the link to the article for further details. The bottom line here is simple–the battle is not over–it has just begun.
Who Is Pulling The Strings?
On January 21st, PJ Media reported the following:
One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president was to commute the sentences of or pardon nearly every single Jan. 6 prisoner, setting them all free. But multiple prisons and halfway houses have resisted complying, with the D.C. gulag holding multiple prisoners hostage and refusing to release them.
Trump’s historic order commuted the sentences of about a dozen individuals and pardoned “all individuals convicted of offenses related to event that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” It ordered that those “currently held in prison are released immediately.” But the thugs who have so abused and trampled the rights of the J6ers under the Biden-Harris administration for four years are defying the law one last time. J6ers and friends reported prisons and halfway houses across America slow-rolling prisoners’ releases, and the infamous Washington, D.C., jail nicknamed the Gulag flat out refused to release multiple J6 hostages.
Even Elon Musk responded to families’ pleas, resharing a message urging them to bring Trump‘s pardon with them to the prison and requesting to be notified if they continued to encounter resistance in the release of their loved ones.
One prisoner reported on the events:
Early Tuesday morning, Lang (Jake Lang) posted an update: “Hey @elonmusk they are STILL HOLDING me & 20 other J6 Political Prisoners hostage inside the Washington DC Jail Gulag & WONT LET US LEAVE!!!” He reiterated the accusation of assault. “I was swarmed & assaulted by prison officials including Lt. Allen & his Emergency Response Team (ERT) Thugs last night while sitting all packed up to leave!!!! Our were families are standing outside in below freezing 10° weather until 1am when they released 2 hostages, there are still 20 of us in here!!! [sic]”
The article concludes:
This is completely unacceptable and illegal. Prison authorities are openly defying presidential pardons and orders. This is one more disgusting and shameful illustration of how abusive, dishonest, biased, and vindictive our prison system is in America now. Biden pardoned or commuted the sentences of literal murderers, Chinese spies, and pedophiles, but when Trump pardons innocent patriots, the jails hold them hostage.
All those involved in preventing the release need to be charged with a crime and arrested.
Change Is In The Air
Even before he took office, President Trump was having an impact on the financial sector of America. It was obvious to everyone that climate policies were going to be eliminated.
On January 10th, The Daily Caller reported:
Asset management behemoth BlackRock wrote a letter to institutional investors Thursday announcing its exit from an emissions-focused investor group, according to the Financial Times (FT).
The firm, which manages over $10 trillion and has been a leader in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, has left the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) coalition — a United Nations–sponsored collection of financial services companies that have pledged to achieve net-zero portfolios by 2050 or sooner, the FT reported. The move comes less than two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who plans to embrace fossil fuels in his second term, takes office, and follows the exits of a slew of other corporations, including Goldman Sachs Group, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Obviously, financial survival is more important to these companies than actually having principles (even if those principles are misguided).
The article notes:
The firm began its ESG initiative in 2020, with CEO Larry Fink stating that “climate risk is investment risk” and that climate change would spark a “fundamental reallocation of capital.” However, the world’s largest asset manager exit has been backpedaling on its ESG efforts as of late, only supporting about 4% of the 493 environmental and social investment proposals shareholders put forward between the end of June 2023 and the end of June 2024, down from a rate of 47% in 2021.
Lest we forget, this is a quote from an article I wrote in 2016:
If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.
Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
So what is the goal of environmental policy?
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.
Hang in there–reasonable energy and finance policies are coming!
The Price Of Ignoring The Law
We have watched in recent years as criminals who committed serious crimes were released from jail without bail. We have seen the constitutional rights of the January 6th defendants ignored. We have seen justice administered unevenly for a number of years now, so it should be no surprise that on his way out the door, President Biden thumbed his nose at our justice system.
On January 20th, CBN News reported the following:
During his final hours in office, and with President-elect Donald Trump set to be inaugurated as his successor today, President Biden has issued preemptive pardons for some controversial figures who have dominated headlines in recent years.
Though none of them have been convicted of crimes, Biden announced he’s pardoning Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and everyone involved in the January 6 congressional investigation, which would include outspoken Trump critics like ousted Rep. Liz Cheney.
Biden says he took the extraordinary step to prevent the Trump administration from prosecuting those people because he’s concerned they’ll be targeted with “unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
To refresh your memory, the people involved in the January 6 congressional investigation destroyed evidence and withheld evidence from their fellow Congressmen and from the American public. There is nothing unjustified or politically motivated in prosecuting them for their crimes.
General Milley has gone on the record as having called a secret meeting at the Pentagon during which he instructed senior military officials not to take orders from their Trump unless he (Milley) approved them. He also reportedly reassured the Chinese that he would tip off Beijing in case of an impending attack by President Trump (article here). Under normal circumstances, that behavior would result in a court martial at least. There would be nothing unjustified or politically motivated in prosecuting the general for those actions.
The preemptive pardons may not stand up to court challenges. Whether they stand up or not, they provide a preview of the talking points of the political left. Any action against the crimes of people who were allies of President Biden during his administration will be characterized as political. Any actual crimes will be ignored and not mentioned. It is up to Americans whether or not they want to see the laws of America and the Constitution upheld. All of us need to make noise when those laws are ignored.
When The Punishment Doesn’t Fit The Crime
On Saturday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about Asif Rahman, a former CIA officer, who has been arrested and has pleaded guilty to sharing classified documents about Israel’s plans to launch a missile strike on Iran.
The article reports:
A former CIA analyst arrested in November and charged with leaking highly classified records showing Israeli plans to launch a retaliatory strike on Iran pleaded guilty Friday in a federal court in Virginia.
Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of transmission of national defense information, according to court records.
Rahman faces up to 10 years in prison for the first count and up to three years for the second count. His sentencing was set for May 15.
Rahman admitted to accessing and printing out two documents regarding Israel’s retaliatory strike plans on Oct. 17 and transporting them to his residence, where he later uploaded images of them and provided them to “multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them,” according to the plea agreement.
He later took various steps to try and conceal his involvement in the leak, even as authorities were able to track him down remarkably quickly given he was the only individual found to have printed out the documents, according to logs reviewed by investigators.
On Friday, Ynet news noted:
Rahman, a Yale University graduate, faces up to 20 years in prison under the Espionage Act. However, a plea deal under negotiation could limit his sentence to six and a half years. Federal prosecutors reportedly agreed to the reduced penalty after Rahman took responsibility for his actions and expressed a desire to resolve the case.
Rahman’s sentencing is scheduled for May 15. Prosecutors indicated they might recommend further leniency if Rahman continues cooperating with authorities.
I don’t care if he took responsibility for his actions, there needs to be a much longer prison sentence.
View From The Lair
Equality and Equity
The Kommifornia wildfires have merged an unusual dichotomy. Pete Hegseth caused quite a consternation among leftists senators during his SecDef inquisition. He actually said that he would enforce equality in the armed forces.
HORRORS! The very thought of such chilled the blood of the leftists. I hope that all reading this are aware of the concept of equality – that everyone is created equal and treated the same. That everyone has the opportunity to succeed or fail based upon their own merits, work, determination and perseverance. Totally antithetical to marxist tenets. Marxist practices include “reforming” language to make their version of what they want the citizens hear to be more palatable to their ears. Thus, the term “equity”, what normal people think to be that all people are equal in the eyes of the law. (Eye rolls here.) Or a lack of favoritism toward side or the other. (Snickers are appropriate.) Or the old fashioned idea that it is the difference between the value of an asset and what might be owed on that asset.
Wrong.
In marxist language, equity means that everyone gets the same outcome, regardless of where they started. Came from a broken home, went to school in a bad district, learned how do something and built a business? Became successful? Shame on you! You didn’t build that! If you happened to be of a pale complexion you obviously suppressed someone and stole all that success.
Now look at what Los Angeles has accomplished. Janisse Quinones, director of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (scrimping with the miserly income of $750K) declared that she operates “through a lens of equity and social justice.” One might think that equity and social justice might be delegated to a flunky making only a paltry $400K. And that the director might look through a lens of delivering water and power to the citizens. HAH! With full support of the mayor Karen Bass (former US Congress Critter and former member of the marxist domestic terror organization that bombed the US Capitol in 1983) social justice and “equity” was the focus.
Then the fires started. The fires burned with equality. It didn’t matter if your home was a $650K starter home or a $28M mansion overlooking the Pacific. Palisades, Malibu, all the same. No one had water in the hydrants. The fire treated everyone equally. And when it finished (they’re still burning) the result was equity. All houses were reduced to a pile of smoldering cinders. The burned out husk of a Sub Zero resembled a scorched Whirlpool. The remains of a Lexis or Lincoln had the same scrap value per pound as a Kia or Mazda.
Exactly what Marxism delivers every time its tried. Destruction, devastation and death. Kommifornia. Marxism perfected.
Ciao,
The Snark
A Disturbing, But Not Surprising, Story
On Saturday, Red State posted an article about the workings of the Biden administration, including some comments by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
The article includes the following story:
JOHNSON: They wouldn’t let me meet with him, and his staff kept giving me excuses. This went on for like eight or nine weeks, “I’m sorry Mr. Speaker, he doesn’t have time.” What are you talking about? I’m second in line to the presidency, he has time. I need to talk to him. We had, I can’t say the classified parts, but we had some big national concerns at the time that I was losing sleep over. Finally, I just went to the whole press corps and said the president is not being allowed to meet with the speaker so they start putting pressure on him.
Long story short, they finally relented, they invited me to the White House, I show up and I realize it’s actually an ambush because it’s not just me and the president. It’s actually Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem, the CIA Director, and everybody, and then so I walk into the Oval, and I say, “Ah, I know what this is. They’re going to hotbox the Speaker on Ukraine funding.” That’s what it was.
This is probably the third week of January. We sit down, we’re in the midst of it and I’m saying, “We don’t need to have this conversation.” The president reaches over, just like this, we were sitting right next to the fireplace in the Oval, and he says, “The Speaker and I just need a couple minutes together. We y’all just leave us alone?” And I looked up on the faces of some of staff standing around the wall, and they were like, “No, he did it.”
He called it, he’s the commander in chief, so everybody leaves, and he and I are standing awkwardly in the middle of the Oval Office right over the rug by that coffee table, and I said, “Mr. President, thanks for the moments, you know, this is very important, I’ve got some big national security things I need to talk to you about that I’ve heard, and I think you know, but first, real quickly, Mr. President, can I ask you a question?”
“I can’t answer this for my constituents in Louisiana. Sir, why did you pause LNG exports? Liquified natural gas is in great demand by our allies, why would you do that? Cause you understand, we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you’re fueling Putin’s war machine?” And he looked at me, stunned, and he said, “I didn’t do that.” And I said, “Mr. President, yes you did, it was an executive order like three weeks ago.” He said, “No, I didn’t do that,” he was arguing with me.
The story continues:
That’s where things get even crazier. Biden went on to admit he signed an executive order, but he told Johnson that believed he had only authorized a study on the effects of LNG.
JOHNSON: I said, “No you’re not sir, you paused it, I have the terminal, the export terminal in our state, I talked to those people this morning. This is doing massive damage to our economy, to our national security.”
I thought, “We are in serious trouble.” Who’s running the country?” I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.
In other words, someone had used subterfuge to get the President of the United States to sign an executive order he didn’t even know he was signing. Those around him were weaponizing his senility to push through their far-left agenda, and Biden wasn’t even sentient enough to notice. That is the very definition of shocking.
There are four major points to note in this story:
1. President Biden’s staff was reluctant to have him meet with Speaker Johnson.
2. President Biden’s staff did not want him to meet with Speaker Johnson alone.
3. What President Biden signed was not what he was told he was signing.
4. Why did Speaker Johnson wait until now to tell this story?
Please Export This To America
On Saturday, The Geller Report reported that for the first time in 123 years, Argentina does not have a budget deficit! They actually have a surplus.
The article reports:
Under Milei’s leadership, Argentina turned a $7.94B trade deficit in 2023 into a record-smashing $18-19B surplus in 2024, surpassing the previous high of $16.89B in 2009.
The article quotes Reuters:
Jan 17 (Reuters) – Argentina brought in its first budget surplus in more than a decade in 2024, data published on Friday showed, marking a win for libertarian President Javier Milei and his sweeping austerity push in his first full year in office.
The nation’s budget surplus came in at 1.76 trillion pesos, or 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the full year, the economy ministry said. Meanwhile the primary fiscal balance, which excludes debt payments, was up to a 10.41 trillion peso surplus, or 1.8% of the GDP.
So it is possible. Keep in mind that the media did everything it could to keep Milei from being elected. He is popular with the people but not with the media or the previous government establishment. He has done in Argentina exactly what needs to be done in America.
An Interesting Inauguration Gift
On Saturday, PJ Media reported that a federal appeals court has declared DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) unlawful. We all knew that. I am not sure why it has taken so long for the courts to reach that decision. However, there is another side of the story. I personally know of a young (9 or 10) child who was brought here by her mother in the 1990’s. The child quickly became acclimated to America and never really progressed past third-grade level or so in her native language. That child is in her forties now and would probably be lost in her native country. There are many children like that. She has become a citizen and is a contributing member of society. Sending someone like her who has not become a citizen back to a country they don’t know would be cruel. However, if they decide to stay in America, they should be barred from receiving government benefits. That would encourage many people who are here illegally of every age to consider voluntarily returning to their home countries.
I would suggest that all illegals who were brought here by their parents and are currently under the age of 25 should be returned to their home countries along with their parents. The reason I chose that age is that unless they came here as babies, they probably have the language and cultural skills they need to return to their home country. If they are over 25, they probably are more American than anything else. I don’t think there is a really fair solution to this problem, but this might be a humane one.
The article at PJ media reports:
A federal appeals court on Friday declared the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy unlawful, casting a cloud of uncertainty over more than half a million unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A panel of judges before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found that a Biden administration rule to codify DACA violated U.S. immigration law. The 2012 Obama administration memo that originally created the policy has also been found to be unlawful by federal courts.
Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a catch. According to the article, “the panel of judges kept DACA alive for current recipients and closed to new applicants.”
The ruling is nevertheless long overdue. For over 12 years, DACA has granted hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came here illegally or overstayed their visas as minors the ability to live and work here without fear of deportation.
As I mentioned above, even Obama knew the program was illegal.
“Comprehensive [immigration] reform, that’s how we’re going to solve this problem,” Obama said in 2010. “Anybody who tells you it’s going to be easy or that I can wave a magic wand and make it happen hasn’t been paying attention to how this town works.”
It wasn’t the only time he said so, either. However, when the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act failed to pass Congress, Obama did, in fact, wave his executive pen and just created the program via executive fiat.
This is one of many very complicated messes that President Trump is going to be expected to clean up. Most of them have been caused by judges and others refusing to obey and defend the U.S. Constitution.
Drones Part III Chinese Threat
Author: R. Alan Harrop,Ph.D.
As I reported in the prior two article on this topic, drones are increasingly changing the nature of warfare. With the reality that China represents the greatest security threat facing our country, it is critical that we stay apprised of their actions in this area. Let’s take a look.
China not only has produced some of the most effective and reliable drones, but their production capacity far exceeds any other country including the United States. For example, their company, DJI Technology, dominates the U.S. market for commercial and recreational drones which is estimated to exceed 6 billion dollars. They produce 90% of the drones sold worldwide. China, like most other countries, has noted the effectiveness of drones for military purposes being used in the Russia/Ukraine war. In fact, it was just reported that the Chinese military has placed an order with DJI Technology, for almost one million drones. The potential impact of these “kamakaze” drones armed with explosives has proven very effective against tanks, artillery placements, naval vessels, and troop placements in the Russia/Ukraine war.
China has developed a drone system that consists of a large “mother drone” that can be directed towards a target area and then releases multiple smaller drones to hit specific targets. The swarming effect of this system would be very difficult to stop to say the least. Combine this with low altitude flight patterns and difficulty detecting with radar and the threat increases dramatically. On a much larger scale, China is producing drones that are the size of fighter aircraft that are flown using artificial intelligence. The plan is to have a manned fighter/bomber accompanied by multiple unmanned drones overwhelm the target using missiles to deliver the explosives. The use of artificial intelligence as the drone control system eliminates the need for extensive training programs required by human pilots. China at a November 2024 air show unveiled a stealth drone not easily radar detectable that is 190 ft. long with a wing span of 175 ft. with a range of 4,000 miles. This is scary stuff indeed. Do we need any more evidence that China is preparing for future warfare? Financed, of course, with the money they make from trade with our country.
There are some of our lawmakers that are waking up to this threat. For example, Senator Rick Scott (R-Fl) has proposed a ban on the import of Chinese made drones. The ban is being resisted by people in this country who rely on these relatively inexpensive drones for commercial purposes. For example, for about $35,000 a farmer can purchase a Chinese drone to monitor and spray crops as compared to a ground sprayer that can cost up to $250,000. Clearly, like many items we get from China, we need to return to relying on our own domestic production. We cannot continue to rely on a communist adversary for essential products. Also, we must recognize that the only way to defeat new technology is with other new technology. For example, our military has been developing the use of high energy lasers to defend against missiles, artillery, drones, etc. This may be a solution to some of the challenges of drone warfare. Clearly, using expensive missiles that cost near one million dollars a piece is not the solution to the drone threat.
Hopefully, the new Trump administration will take whatever action necessary to defend our country and allies. Wasting money on green energy and DEI is not the answer.
From my friends at Power Line Blog:
I Guess They Have Different Priorities
On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about part of the confirmation hearings for Kristi Noem. Senator Blumenthal thought that he had laid the perfect trap for the nominee. Unfortunately for him, it totally backfired.
The article records part of the exchange; the rest is on X:
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: “Will you help me reunite children with their parents who were separated by Trump’s family separation policy?”
KRISTI NOEM: “What I’m alarmed by is the over 300,000 children that went missing during the Biden administration.”
BLUMENTHAL: “Let’s put aside the labels and what happened in the past. There are still 1,000 children who were separated and waiting to be reunited. I’d like your commitment to continuing the effort to reunite them with their parents.”
NOEM: “Well, I can’t put aside 300,000 children. Keeping families together is critically important to me and to this country. I’m concerned about Laken Riley’s family and that they no longer have her… We will uphold our laws and make sure we are doing everything we can to keep children safe from the trafficking and drug epidemics.”
One of the ways that the Trump administration was fighting child trafficking was to take DNA samples at the border to make sure that the child in question was indeed traveling with his/her family. One of the first things the Biden administration did was to end that testing.
The article notes:
For years, the Democrats have moved heaven and earth to enable the world’s biggest human trafficking operation and have been shipping at taxpayer expense unaccompanied minors to fake “relatives” who spirit them away to God knows where. They haven’t just let it happen; they have been subsidizing and encouraging it, along with the importation of fentanyl. Their policies have enriched the drug cartels to the tune of billions of dollars, and they are proud of it.
It’s time to close the border. But we do need to realize that part of the fentanyl problem is the users as well as the dealers. We need to find better ways to help drug addicts to save their lives and to get drugs off of the streets.
What Constitution?
Remember the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)? Well, as he leaves office, President Biden is proclaiming that the ERA is the law of the land and is part of the Constitution. Wow! Who knew!
On Saturday, PJ Media reported the following:
Remember the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)? It’s back, and Old Joe Biden, trying to do as much damage to the nation as he can before he slouches off to his taxpayer-funded Delaware beach house for good on Monday, now says that it’s the law of the land. What’s that? You didn’t notice that we suddenly have a new Constitutional amendment? Well, we may not, but on Friday, Old Joe’s joyful announcement that the amendment was a done deal added an eggbeater to already troubled waters.
The ERA was a central preoccupation of the 1970s when the outgoing figurehead was just beginning his storied career as a leftist prevaricator, character assassin (see Clarence Thomas for details), and premier corruptocrat in the United States Senate. Feminists bombarded Americans with propaganda slogans including “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and “A woman’s place is in the House… and the Senate.”
But when Congress approved the ERA on March 22, 1972, it set a deadline of seven years for the necessary three-fourths of the states to approve it. That deadline came and went on March 22, 1979, with only 35 states approving of the amendment. Thirty-eight were needed, so that was that. In 2017, however, as the #MeToo movement was cresting, Nevada became the 36th state to approve the ERA, with Illinois following in 2018 and Virginia in 2020.
So the amendment was over the line, with just one problem: the seven-year deadline had passed over forty years before Virginia ratified the thing. Even before Virginia ratified the ERA, Alabama, Louisiana, and South Dakota tried to head off its post-deadline passage, filing a federal lawsuit in 2019 to stop any other states from ratifying the amendment.
This is the statement from President Biden:
On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.
It passed all of the hurdles except being in compliance with the Constitution. That is a problem. There is no way this becomes the 28th Amendment unless the process begins again with a seven-year deadline.