Monthly Archives: May 2025

Getting Rid Of A Really Dumb Car Feature

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On Tuesday, The New York Post posted an article about a common-sense decision by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

The article reports:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin hinted Monday that he’s preparing to roll back one car feature that every driver “hates.”

“Start/stop technology: where your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate participation trophy,” Zeldin tweeted Monday in a post that has since racked up more than 8 million views.

“EPA approved it, and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it.”

The feature kills internal combustion engines at red lights and has been touted by proponents for being able to conserve fuel and cut down on pollution.

Critics have questioned whether the feature can wear down the car’s battery or engine more quickly.

The “off-cycle CO2 reducing” tech has its origins in a federal rule proposed under President Barack Obama in 2012 — but didn’t take effect until new fuel economy standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions five years later.

Between 2012 and 2021, the number of vehicles produced with a stop-start feature due to the carbon credits surged from 1% to 45%.

Up to 65% of vehicles had the technology included in new models by 2023.

For those of us who grew up driving clunkers while in high school, this feature is nerve wracking. The carburetor in my 1954 Lincoln used to jam causing the engine to stall. This often happened at stop lights. When my husband’s car shuts off at stop lights, it brings back really bad memories. There were times when we shoved a board into the engine to unstick whatever it was that stuck! That’s what I think of every time we are stopped at a traffic light–I am ready to get the board out of the trunk and go to work!

A Chance For Peace In The Middle East

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On Wednesday, Robert Spencer posted an article at PJ Media about President Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The article reports:

On Wednesday morning, during his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who from 2017 until January of this year, was known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Al-Sharaa was the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the “Syrian Liberation Group,” a Sunni jihad group that had been linked to al-Qaeda and was working to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In January 2025, HTS finally attained its goal. Assad fled to Russia. Al-Julani took control in Damascus and announced that he was establishing a regime that would respect the rights of all Syrians. He insisted that he had broken with al-Qaeda years before, and to signify that he was a new man, he shed his nom de guerre and reverted to his birth name. He trimmed his beard, took off his fatigues, and donned a suit.

…In many ways, Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa is as momentous, and could be more momentous, than his first-term overtures to Kim Jong Un. The two meetings come from the same wellsprings: Trump is attempting to break longstanding logjams and end the status quo that the foreign policy establishment, both inside the U.S. and elsewhere, had come to take for granted.

…So Trump wants to make peace with old foes based on mutual economic interests. He is giving al-Sharaa a chance to demonstrate that he really is no longer a jihadi and wants to build a stable and prosperous Syria. It could happen. The global jihad, although it is ignored everywhere, continues nevertheless. It never goes away. Individuals and states, however, can and do put it aside for considerable periods in order to pursue other interests.

The article concludes:

Nevertheless, Trump’s attempt to create peace based on common interests and move beyond the present logjam is as welcome as it is audacious. Once again, Trump appears to be way ahead of everyone else, as he was when he established the Abraham Accords even as John Kerry was confidently telling the world that such a thing was impossible.

The establishment will howl at Trump’s meeting; that’s only to be expected. The president, meanwhile, is moving ahead with astonishing vision, immense confidence, and considerable imagination. The peace and stability of the Middle East, and of the entire world, are riding upon his success.

President Trump is essentially saying to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, “Put up, or shut up.” I have no doubt that continuing on the path of murdering Syrians that oppose the regime or aligning with terrorist forces in the Middle East will have dire consequences for Syria. This is their chance to become a successful and prosperous country.

If you are unfamiliar with Robert Spencer, here is his background:

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 30 books, including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, The Critical Qur’an, and Muhammad: A Critical Biography. His latest book is Antisemitism: History and Myth, and coming in Nov. 2025 is Holy Hell: Islam’s Abuse of Women and the Infidels Who Enable It. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy.

I Love The Welcome Saudi Arabia Gave To President Trump

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On Tuesday, Red State reported the following:

President Donald Trump rolled out his favorite songs, “Y.M.C.A.” and “God Bless the USA,” during his speech in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, and those in attendance loved it.

On Tuesday, Trump attended the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh and spoke to a room full of Saudi business investors with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, in attendance. President Trump spoke about America’s plans for success under his administration and his vision for a peaceful and prosperous Middle East.

Trump opened his speech with Lee Greenwood’s famous patriotic song playing. As the entire song played, the president stood on the stage before he took to the podium.

And as the final line in the song, “God Bless the USA” played, those in attendance went crazy.

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy said the audience, made up of prominent businessmen from Saudi Arabia and the U.S., “didn’t take their seats” during the entire song.

After his speech, the president was joined on stage by the Saudi Crown Prince as the Village People’s 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.” played in the background. Those in the room gave the president a standing ovation.

There is a lot going on here. The Saudis were ostracized during the Biden administration. The Biden administration simply could not overlook the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was a prominent dissident and critic of the Saudi government. He is also alleged to have had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that during the Arab Spring was planning to bring down the House of Saud and takeover Saudi Arabia. The plan was to turn the countries in the Middle East that were ruled by dictators into countries run by the Muslim Brotherhood. For a short time, they were successful in Egypt. Considering the relationship between the Biden administration and the Obama administration (which supported the Arab Spring), the Biden administration’s attitude toward the Saudis was not surprising.

During President Trump’s visit, the Saudis also set up a mobile McDonald’s at a press center for covering the event in Riyadh, an apparent nod to the president’s love of the burger restaurant. (article posted at Breitbart)

What we saw in Saudi Arabia was the equivalent of the ostracized middle school student being asked to sit at the ‘cool’ kids’ table at lunch.

When You Put People In Leadership Who Don’t Belong There

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The Democratic National Committee is in the process of removing David Hogg as its Vice-Chairman. He was elected on February 1, 2025. He has simply not worked out well in that position.

His past actions should have been a clue for the Democrats.

In April 2024, NewsMax reported:

The PAC started by gun activist David Hogg, whose stated mission is “electing young progressives,” instead burned through $1.4 million — representing nearly half the money raised — on travel, political consultants, and legal fees in 2023.

In fact, the Leaders We Deserve PAC spent less than $235,000 toward its mission of electing Gen Z candidates to office, according to a Breitbart report that scrutinized the organization’s FEC filings.

Hogg and his partner, Kevin Lata, raised more than $3 million in the first year of the PAC’s existence from a wide array of donors with a goal of electing more “youthful, audacious, and charismatic trailblazers.”

…However, according to Breitbart, disbursements went out to just four candidates, including one, Rep. Maxwell Frost, for whom Lata was campaign manager.

Further, Hogg and Lata disbursed nearly $125,000 to a transgender Democrat in Alabama whose opponent in October 2023 won the special election with 65% of the vote, Breitbart reported.

Meanwhile, Hogg paid himself $40,000 while Lata’s take was $50,000 for a few months’ work in 2023; the PAC launched late summer, according to the report.

Actually, he should fit in very well with some of the Democrat party leaders.

On May 13, Townhall reported:

We obviously have no dog in this fight, though some have noted the Soviet-style treatment David Hogg is getting at the Democratic National Committee. This party is a total mess, and the vote to put his ouster as vice chair on the fast track only added another chapter to the ongoing ‘Dems in disarray’ soap opera.

The credentials committee paved the way to remove Hogg, though they claim it’s not about politics. It is—it seems this was done to appease the Native American woman who lost to Hogg (via Semafor):

The DNC’s credentials committee will meet virtually on May 12 to consider the challenge from Kalyn Free, a Native American attorney and party activist who lost a vice chair spot to Hogg at the party’s Feb. 1 meeting.

In her complaint, shared with Semafor by a Democratic source, Free argued that she lost a “fatally flawed election that violated the DNC Charter and discriminated against three women of color candidates,” and asks for “two new vice chair elections.” In February, after several rounds of voting, the race came down to five candidates – Kenyatta, Hogg, Free, and two other women. Kenyatta and Hogg claimed the open spots.

Now you know the rest of the story. I am sure it has nothing to do with David Hogg threatening to primary any Democrat Congressman who did not agree with his attempts to ‘reform’ the party.

The End Of Nationwide Injunctions?

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a case the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing on Thursday.

The article notes how the political opponents of President Trump have repeatedly used the courts to try to prevent him from implementing his agenda:

Since President Trump took office, federal district courts have issued 37 nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch.  That’s more than one a month.  By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued two nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch, both of which were vacated by the Ninth Circuit.  And according to the Department’s best estimates, courts issued only 27 nationwide injunctions­ in all of the 20th century.

Some say this proves that the Trump Administration is lawless.  Not surprisingly, I disagree.  And I would point out that the only case litigated on the merits in the Supreme Court—the so-called “travel ban” challenge—ended with President’s policy being upheld…

The Constitution empowers Congress to create lower federal courts, and in designing a system of 93 judicial districts and 12 regional circuits, Congress set clear geographic limits on lower-court jurisdiction. In our system, district-court rulings do not bind other judges, even other judges in the same district…

Nationwide injunctions not only allow district courts to wield unprecedented power, they also allow district courts to wield it asymmetrically. When a court denies a nationwide injunction, the decision does not affect other cases. But when a court grants a nationwide injunction, it renders all other litigation on the issue largely irrelevant. Think about what that means for the Government. When Congress passes a statute or the President implements a policy that is challenged in multiple courts, the Government has to run the table—we must win every case. The challengers, however, must find only one district judge—out of an available 600—willing to enter a nationwide injunction. One judge can, in effect, cancel the policy with the stroke of the pen.

The article reports:

And the era of nationwide injunctions could come to an end later this week when the Supreme Court hears a case on birthright citizenship. The case probably won’t decide whether birthright citizenship is legal under the 14th Amendment. What the case is really about is the nationwide injunctions different courts have used to block Trump’s executive order on the topic.

I firmly believe that one of the things President Trump is trying to do is to bring America back to the country our Founding Fathers created. We have wandered so far from our Constitution that the road back is going to be bumpy and clogged by people who are making too much money the way things currently are. It would be wonderful if President Trump could bring us closer to the system of government our Constitution created.

No, It’s Not Illegal

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On May 14th, The Daily Caller posted an article including Attorney Alan Dershowitz’s comments on whether or not President Trump should accept the gift of an airplane from Saudi Arabia.

The article reports:

Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday detailed two reasons President Donald Trump would probably be able to keep a 747 reportedly being gifted to the United States.

Qatar offered Trump the $400 million Boeing 747-8 for modification into a VC-25 configuration to serve as Air Force One, with the jet being donated to Trump’s presidential library after his term in office ends. Dershowitz, on “The Dershow,” noted that the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” something cited by some critics, actually would not prohibit the gift to the United States government.

“Okay, here’s what the Constitution says: No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States,” Dershowitz said. “In other words, we don’t have sirs and knights, or anything like that. So we can’t grant titles of nobility and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, that means the president, shall without the consent of Congress, and this is the key, without the consent of Congress, accept any present, emoluments, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state. Now, obviously, Qatar has the king. Oh, I guess he’s the emir, doesn’t say emir, he’s the emir, I know, I met him three times, the emir of Qatar, I know he’s an emir and I guess he comes under the category of king, prince or foreign state.”

This is how Attorney Dershowitz applies the law:

“Now this means no person shall receive the gift,” Dershowitz said. “We know that gifts are given to governments all the time… when you go to the Oval Office, where the White House, you see all over the place, gifts that have been given by foreign governments to the White House, great portraits of Winston Churchill and other things that are gifts the British government or other governments have been given to the United States. But when the incumbent president or any officer leaves, he doesn’t take the gifts with him, he leaves them. There have been a couple of occasions where the presidents of taken a few gifts, for example, letters they take letters now letters could be worth a fortune… I think presidents have taken some of those, but mostly they go to the Library of Congress or to the Smithsonian or to the presidential libraries.”

“Now presidential libraries are not the property of the president himself or of the former president,” Dershowitz continued. “They are the property of the Smithsonian Institute, the archives. They are the property of the United States of America, and so, if the emir of Qatar or the Qatari state gives the president of the United States a $400 million dollar airplane, that is not a violation of the emoluments clause, it’s perfectly constitutional.”

Dershowitz said that even if Trump were to keep the plane for his personal use, which would possibly make the plane a gift and thus conflict with the constitutional provision, critics of the gift still faced an additional hurdle beside the legal merits when it came to bringing the case in court.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. The bottom line is that this is much ado about nothing–typical for the Democrats.

I’m Skeptical, But I Would Love To See This Work

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On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is going to meet with the Syrian Foreign Minister on Thursday in Turkey.

President Trump will greet Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Riyadh tomorrow. 

My favorite quote from the article:

Trump will talk to anyone who sincerely wants to talk to him. It’s like his magic power.

Ahmed Al Sharaa has been serving as President of Syria since January of this year. He is from a Sunni Muslim family.

The article notes that he has not been an exemplary leader so far:

By the beginning of March, it was pretty clear a jihadi leader now using his given name – Ahmed Al Sharaa – in a $4000 suit was still a jihadi at heart. Al-Sharaa’s boys were having themselves the rampaging adventures of a lifetime, systematically exterminating Druze and Alawite communities all over northern Syria with impunity. Oh – and trying to find the five or six Jews left in the country.

We haven’t heard much out of the area since, except for reports that detail American and Israeli strikes on targets in the area. Most associated with the ongoing cat and mouse game the Houthis had been playing and the assorted Iranian militias supporting them, who operate freely all through the southern portion of Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, as President Trump noted during his speech in Saudi Arabia today.

I applaud President Trump providing an avenue for Al-Sharaa to reform, but I am skepticall. Any time you are dealing with an Islamist, you need to consider the Islamic concept of taqiyya. This is a concept in Islamic law that translates as “deceit or dissimulation,” particularly toward infidels. It is generally described as lying for the sake of Islam.

However, there may be some possible rewards for making nice to Syria.

To quote Shaun Maguire on X:

The article at Hot Air notes:

This also helps keep Turkey on the spot because, should Al-Sharaa start to see the fruits of cooperation with the US pay off and Syria begins to rise from the dead, he becomes a hero, and there’s nothing more these egotists love than being loved. He won’t let Erdogan interfere with that, whatever he owes him.

The other is the pressure from Saudi Arabia on Syria now. They facilitated this come to Trump moment. The crown prince would take it ill if the jihadi reappeared after making a public spectacle of the Saudis’ belief that he was worth cultivating and his country worth saving.

The Saudis do not take embarrassment lightly.

This is going to be interesting to watch. It would be wonderful to see the Middle East break out in peace.

Creating A Gaza Strip In Texas

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Anyone who has read the Koran has encountered verses that instruct Muslims to kill the infidels (non-Muslims). The Koran instructs its followers to take control of the lands they enter and place the inhabitants of those lands under Sharia Law. Coexistence is not part of the platform.

On Monday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about EPIC City, a city being constructed near Dallas, Texas, to house the Muslim community. There will be Mosques, Muslim schools, and an infrastructure that will make it possible for the Muslims who live there never to have to mingle with non-Muslims.

The article reports:

There is no construction taking place.

The state of Texas has launched about a half dozen investigations into this project.

That includes criminal investigations.

And, the US Department of justice is also investigating.

This matter, and similar matters, are taken very seriously, and actions are being taken to address all concerns.

…The EPIC City is the brainchild of the East Plano Islamic Center. From KERA News:

The 402-acre development would be in unincorporated Collin and Hunt counties roughly 40 miles northeast of Dallas near the city of Josephine, and would include a new mosque, more than 1,000 single and multi-family homes, a K-12 faith-based school, senior housing, an outreach center, commercial developments, sports facilities, and a community college.

In an interview in December, Yasir Qadhi, a resident scholar at the Plano mosque, said the idea for EPIC City came as the Muslim population continues to grow in the region.

“We need more space, and there are people coming from across the country,” Qadhi said. “Dallas is now known to be a hub of people of our faith, coming not just to the city, but specifically to our mosque.”

The first 450 plots sold out within days of its announcements on the mosque’s website, Qadhi said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) demanded that the DOJ investigate the city for possible First and Fourteenth Amendment violations by preventing those of other faiths from living there.

Community Capital Partners claimed the community would be for “people of every background, faith, and culture” who “can live together in harmony.”

The company admitted, though, that “Islam will be at the center of the development.”

This is not like Baptists building a community. Baptists do not murder non-Baptists. This has the potential to become something like what the Gaza Strip devolved into. Muslims need to be encouraged to assimilate. If they choose not to assimilate, they might consider living elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with keeping the traditions of the place you lived before you came to America. However, if you live here, you need to swear allegiance to our Constitution and follow our customs. If you are not willing to do that, please move to someplace that has rules you like.

Moving Toward The Country Our Founding Fathers Envisioned

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Under our Constitution, there are three branches of government–Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Each branch has specific duties. The legislative branch is supposed to make the laws. The legislative branch is held accountable for the laws they make by the election process–the House of Representatives every two years, the Senate every six years. The Founding Fathers did not want an elected Senate–they wanted Senators appointed by the states to make sure the Senators represented their home states. The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, began the direct election of Senators. Currently, most of our laws are not laws–they are regulations created by unelected bureaucrats. That was never the intention of the Founding Fathers. It seems as though Congress may be getting ready to reclaim its responsibility.

On May 12, The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) reported the following:

While President Donald Trump has made reining in the unelected federal bureaucracy a top priority of his second term, the Republican Congress has thus far largely failed to get in on the action. But that could be set to change with a new bill that strikes at the heart of the Deep State and runaway executive power.

The Regulations From the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act , which Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced in the Senate earlier this year (Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) also introduced a companion version in the House)(H.R.3058) requires that all federal regulations with an economic impact greater than $100 million be passed through Congress. As Politico put it, the REINS Act “would turn Congress into a gatekeeper for certain major rules and allow lawmakers to roll back countless regulations for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.” The outlet further described the legislation as a “rule-busting bill” and “rule-shredding proposal.”

While Democrats like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois have criticized the bill as a “war on regulations” (a criticism that will no doubt read as high praise to conservatives), Republicans argue the REINS Act is a long-overdue check on the power of the unelected bureaucracy to impose regulations that have an enormous impact on the economy. “For those who say it would make a radical change, a radical departure from the status quo of rulemaking, I’d say, ‘Thank heaven above for that,’” Lee said.

The article concludes:

The urgency of addressing regulatory burdens is further highlighted in a 2024 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The conservative think tank found that regulations under the Biden-Harris administration imposed $15,000 in annual costs on the average American household. That’s a serious number, particularly when the median household income is only $80,000 per year.

Congress has an opportunity to lower costs for American consumers and fuel an economic boom by passing the REINS Act – it should seize the chance now.

It would be really great if Congress would pass this bill.

More Data That Upends The Theory Of Global Warming

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On Friday, BizPacReview posted an article about rising CO2 levels and melting polar ice. The former is working toward man’s benefit, and the latter is not happening.

The article reports:

The world is told daily that rising CO2 levels are melting polar ice, shrinking crop yields, and pushing humanity toward extinction. “Institute radical decarbonization or we’re all dead!” is the cry of our enlightened overlords, as if swapping incandescent bulbs for LEDs and banning gas cars would spare us from their predicted apocalypse. They demand immediate economic hara-kiri to avoid weather predictions based on pseudoscience and outright deception.

Real-world data – from Brazil’s record harvests to the rebound of Antarctica’s ice – expose the climate crusade for the baseless hysteria that it is.

Brazil’s agricultural triumph

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics projects cereals, legumes, and oilseeds to reach more than 325 million metric tons of production this year, an 11% increase over 2024.

Production of soybeans, another cornerstone crop of global food security, is expected to hit 161 million metric tons in Brazil, a 6% jump from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Brazil’s National Supply Corporation forecasts total grain production to be more than 322 million metric tons, up over 8% from the prior harvest, as rice leads with an increase of nearly 10% in planted area.

What does this mean for you? These numbers are evidence of a thriving agricultural sector that feeds millions worldwide. Brazil’s success challenges dire warnings from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of rising CO2 and temperatures disrupting agriculture.

Warmer climates and higher CO2 levels are enhancing plant growth, as warmth extends growing seasons and CO2 acts as a natural fertilizer, facts that are evident across the globe.

…Far south of Brazil, in the freezing landscape of Antarctica, another climate myth is derailed. A poster child of climate disaster forecasts, Antarctica is adding to its inventory of ice for the first time in decades. Recent data reveal that Antarctica’s ice sheet is growing. Between 2021 and 2023, Antarctic ice gained mass at a rate of approximately 108 metric gigatons per year, driven by anomalous precipitation accumulation.

In March 2016, I posted the following from Investor’s Business Daily:

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.

That is the bottom line.

The Lies We Have Been Told About Taxes

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As Congress debates “one big, beautiful bill,” they need to consider the benefits of the 2017 tax cuts and the impact of not extending them. On Sunday, The American Thinker posted an article about the lies the media is publishing about the 2017 tax cuts.

The article reports:

Lie #1: Saying numerous independent analyses have shown anything. There is not one independent analysis that could have shown what they say in the paragraph.

Lie #2: Saying it was skewed for the rich. Every taxpayer benefited, and the poor and middle class got bigger percentage reductions than the rich. The rich got penalized greatly with the limits on state and local tax deductions. The rich pay a bigger share of taxes than they ever have.

Lie# 3: The tax cuts drove up deficits and debt. That is the most obvious lie. Federal revenues have risen substantially for the eight years following the rate cuts, and higher revenues do not raise debts and deficits. Only increasing spending much faster than revenue increases causes debts to rise.

Lie #5: The tax rate cuts failed to deliver on their promises. This is another obvious lie.

The promise was that the cuts would help the economy and help people have higher real wages. And the cuts’ results were that poverty hit record lows and real wages were rising for everyone, especially those at the bottom and people of all races:

Real median household income increased by $4,400 in 2019, reaching an all-time record high of $68,700. This represents a 6.8 percent one-year increase, which is the largest one-year increase in median income on record. Since 2016, real median household income has increased by 9.7 percent (after adjusting for a Census survey redesign in 2017).

Income gains in 2019 were largest for minority groups. Real median income grew by 7.9 percent for black Americans, 7.1 percent for Hispanic Americans, and 10.6 percent for Asian Americans (see Figure 1). These one-year increases were all record highs, and the new income levels reached in 2019 were all record highs, as well.

Lie #6: The tax bill is unpopular with the public. According to a poll, 85% want the tax rate cuts extended. That is pretty popular.

The article concludes:

Another lie that we constantly hear is that extending the tax rates will cost $4.5 trillion. Keeping the rates the same costs nothing, and revenues will continue to rise. Only in the DC fictional world will raising rates back to 2017 rates raise $4.5 trillion when the lower rates have provably raised more money.

The higher rates would slow down the economy and further destroy Americans’ purchasing power, especially among the poor and middle class, people whom the media and other Democrats only pretend to care about. All they really care about is more power and money for the government.

Conclusion: Don’t ever believe any organization that pretends to be a non-partisan think tank. These organizations have an agenda, and they don’t care how many lies they have to tell to intentionally mislead the public.

Don’t you wish people’s pants did catch fire when they lied?

The View From The Lair

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Sweating Blood

A few weeks ago, I commented on the effects that PDJT’s tariffs would have on the world’s economy, especially China’s. Like most everyone, I underestimated our esteemed President Trump. Chairman Xi started out by putting up a strong face. That is very important to many cultures, especially in the orient. Keeping “face” is essential to maintain dignity, to present strength and composure, to display courage and conviction. To do less than this is to invite shame. In some instances, death is preferable to shame.

Shaming is a tool used by our Marxist enemies to generate a reaction to their taunts and abuses. It is effective only against those with a conscience and who can hold shame. Alas, they are invulnerable to the same tactics used against them because they have neither shame nor conscience.

I projected that the tariffs might take over 60 days to show some effect. The Chinese stated that they would “fight to the end” to oppose the US tariffs. Apparently, the end is nearer than they thought. Now, the Chinese are lowering their retaliatory tariffs on some microchips as well as other products. There are as many as 16 million Chinese factory jobs at risk of being lost due to the tariffs. Container ships are reportedly being turned around. Which means a LOT of already manufactured products will not be paid for. Note: there is no unemployment in China. No work, no pay. No pay, no food. Things go downhill from there. Think of 1932 USA but with over a billion people.

Chairman Xi is presently chairman for life. That position does not state how long the term actually is. With the economy beginning to collapse his term may not be as long as he had expected.

Sending out the military against factory workers in cities all across China will be…problematic. Tiananmen Square situations in multiple cities would certainly be bad optics. Mao had no problem with killing millions of his people, but they mostly succumbed to starvation, primarily due to ignorance and central planning. Bad central planning…which it almost always is.  There were no cell phones, no way to document the tragedy.  Seeing the army slaughter civilians because they are rioting for pay and food might be a different situation.

A government coup in China will likely be different from what the Marxists pulled off with Biden. Regardless of what they wished they could do, putting a bullet in Biden’s brain (not that he or anyone else would notice) would not be as acceptable to the news vultures as doing the same to PDJT.

It has been said that war is a result of poor diplomacy. But diplomacy takes different forms. Chairman Xi wants to take Tiawan. Tiawan isn’t interested. The Chinese have already embarked on a very aggressive program to build an enormous army, navy and air force. They have constructed new islands with military bases on them. The invasion of Tiawan wouldn’t require this…but to fight us as well certainly would. With his economy faltering and civilian unrest, how does he pay for the military buildup? Buy guns or butter? Can he afford both? His population growth has also stalled. Who will support both the economy and the military?

POTUS is using economic warfare to replace military warfare. He can starve the military buildup and prevent a shooting war. And in doing so, return basic manufacturing capacity to the US. He’s still playing 5D chess; everyone else is playing tiddlywinks.

ciao,

The Snark

Why Some Imported Products Are Cheaper

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There are a lot of reasons for the decline of manufacturing in America. Many of those reasons are related to trade deficits and the desire for cheap goods, but some are related to the cost of doing business in America. For better or worse, corporations in America who choose to operate within the law are required to pay their employees a minimum wage. We can debate over what that wage should be, but the fact of the matter is that a minimum wage exists. Some other countries have no qualms about employing slave labor or paying people very low wages. The Chinese have used Muslims as slave labor for years. So why would a manufacturing company want to locate in America? There are a number of incentives (in addition to the lowering of the corporate tax rate). America has dependable energy and is moving toward lowering the cost of energy. America protects property rights–the state cannot come in and simply take your business away. Innovation is also protected by patent and copyright laws. America represents a stable environment in which to do business. Changing the structure of tariffs also has moral component.

On May 12, The Federalist reported:

…But Trump’s tariffs were not just economic, they were moral. Rather than relying on foreign countries, particularly China, that benefit from abusive labor practices, Trump put America first by deciding the U.S. must stop pretending inexpensive products come with no human cost. 

…During Trump’s first term, his administration repeatedly highlighted human rights abuses abroad, especially in regions like China’s Xinjiang province, where the Chinese Communist Party is running forced labor camps filled with Uyghur Muslims. More than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been detained by China and sent to reeducation camps in what is called the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Zone” for a range of reasons, including attending religious services, having more than three kids, or texting verses from the Quran. 

China forced many of its religiously and ethnically targeted workforce to toil away in factories, making products distributed and sold across the globe. Muslim slaves in China produce countless store shelves worth of goods, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, such as textiles, hair products, and aluminum, among many other things. They get extremely low pay, can’t contact or visit their families (unless, in some circumstances, they are heavily surveilled by the government), and they can’t leave. 

The article concludes:

Yes, U.S. prices may go up a bit in the short term. Maybe American girls will find two dolls under the Christmas tree instead of 30, as President Trump suggested Sunday on Meet the Press. Maybe U.S. students will sharpen five pencils instead of hoarding 250 like mini office supply tycoons. But maybe underpaid workers in China won’t have to literally slave away making those dolls or pencils for someone else’s kid in a distant Land of the Free. 

President Trump believes temporary price fluctuations are a trade-off worth making in the interim, and he is doing what no other president had the guts to do. There is short-lived pain before lasting progress, and Trump is willing to take the heat now to put human rights and American prosperity over easy profits. 

Good News For America

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On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about a recent announcement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The article reports:

Butterfly pea flower extract, Galdieria extract blue, and calcium phosphate have now received approval or expanded approval for use in a variety of snacks and beverages, the latest step forward in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s plan to substitute synthetic dyes.

“For too long, our food system has relied on synthetic, petroleum-based dyes that offer no nutritional value and pose unnecessary health risks,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We’re removing these dyes and approving safe, natural alternatives – to protect families and support healthier choices.”

In April, the FDA and HHS announced a phaseout timeline for petroleum-based food additives – which are correlated with several health problems in children – and promised to accelerate the approval process of natural alternatives to assist the transition.

The American food industry has until the end of 2025 to remove Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2 from their products, as The Center Square reported.

A website called foodbabe.com has a few pictures showing labels of American foods and the labels of those same foods in other countries. There are a lot of ingredients in American foods that are banned in other countries.

Here are two examples:

I consider ketchup one of the basic food groups. It is available locally with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. However, generally speaking, the stuff you get in restaurants is the high fructose corn syrup variety.

The article at Just the News concludes:

Calcium phosphate, a natural compound found in bones and teeth, is now approved for use of white colorant in ready-to-eat chicken products, white candy melts, doughnut sugar, and sugar for coated candies.

“On April 22, I said the FDA would soon approve several new color additives and would accelerate our review of others,” FDA Commissioner Martin Makary said Friday. “FDA staff have been moving quickly to expedite the publication of these decisions, underscoring our serious intent to transition away from petroleum-based dyes in the food supply and provide new colors from natural sources.”

I am looking forward to having to read fewer labels when I shop!

Oddly Enough, War Is Supposed To Have Rules

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According to Britannica:

The development of the Geneva Conventions was closely associated with the Red Cross, whose founder, Henri Dunant, initiated international negotiations that produced the Convention for the Amelioration of the Wounded in Time of War in 1864.

…Because some belligerents in World War II had abused the principles contained in earlier conventions, an International Red Cross conference in Stockholm in 1948 extended and codified the existing provisions. The conference developed four conventions, which were approved in Geneva on August 12, 1949: (1) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, (2) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, (3) the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and (4) the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

These are supposed to be “the rules of war.” Hamas does not follow them, and humanitarian groups choose to overlook that fact.

On Friday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about an investigation, conducted by the Henry Jackson Society’s Centre for the New Middle East.

The article reports:

The United Nations and its network of international NGOs have systematically whitewashed Hamas’s reliance on human shields in Gaza, sweeping aside mountains of evidence revealing how the terror group intentionally places civilians in harm’s way to maximize bloodshed, a new report finds.

The first-of-its-kind investigation, conducted by the Henry Jackson Society’s Centre for the New Middle East, presents “the ‘missing chapter’ in all the U.N. and NGO reports” issued since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Its authors reveal in detail how the terror group transformed civilian residences and infrastructure into military outposts, all while evading international scrutiny.

The article cites incidents such as placing mines among children’s toys and storing rockets in a child’s bed. Hamas has also reportedly hidden entrances to their tunnels in children’s bedrooms. The terrorist group has long been known to use civilians as shields. That is what makes it so difficult for Israel to fight Hamas without killing civilians.

The article notes:

Hamas members have admitted the terror group’s attitude toward civilian casualties in Gaza. The day after Oct. 7, for instance, Hamas official Ali Baraka told Russia Today TV that “the Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs.”

Terrorists’ admissions of their own tactics have not prompted the U.N. to acknowledge them. In one notable display noted in the Henry Jackson Society compilation, a U.N. official said “word count” prevented the international body from noting Hamas’s reliance on human shields in a June 2024 report on “Children and Armed Conflict.”

…High-profile human rights organizations that work alongside the U.N. have also downplayed—or outright ignored—Hamas’s intentional endangerment of civilians.

One such group, Amnesty International—known for its hostility to Israel—released a December 2024 report accusing the Jewish state of perpetrating a genocide in Gaza. The 296-page report, You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, barely mentions Hamas’s battlefield tactics, the Henry Jackson Society’s analysis shows.

Much like the ICJ’s filing, Amnesty International “deliberately omits any discussion of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network,” mentioning them only in the context of Israeli military operations.

A 2024 report from Human Rights Watch contained similar accusations of genocide without any discussion of Hamas’s tactics.

There are a lot of causes for the irrational anti-Semitism that is rampant around the world right now. A media that fails to report the truth is one of them.

Searching For Relevance

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It’s rather sad when people who should have left the spotlight years ago suddenly pop up and say ridiculous things, but it seems to happen frequently. Recently Al Sharpton spoke out against President Trump’s plan to grant asylum to refugees from South Africa who are in danger of being murdered for their farms. I understand that racism has been a problem in South Africa for a long time, but that does not justify murdering people because they own farms that have been in their family for generations. Unfortunately, the way the current laws in that country are written, penalties for murdering farmers are rare and lenient. The government of the country is essentially destroying any semblance of justice within the country.

On May 11, Red State reported:

In January 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed South Africa’s Expropriation Act 13 of 2024. It allows expropriation (seizure) of land without compensation. The law mandates “just and equitable” compensation in most cases, with judicial oversight for disputes. 

Ahh, “equitable.” As we’ve learned all too well, for the Democrat Party, “equity” — along with “inclusion” — doesn’t mean to the left what it means to the rest of us, or what it means in the dictionary.

In the wake of South Africa’s Expropriation Act, the Trump administration announced plans to bring more than 50 white Afrikaners to the United States, starting on Monday, saying they are “victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

Senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller told reporters on Friday:

What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is persecution based on a protected characteristic — in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.

Unfortunate to Al Sharpton, race-based persecution only matters when it is in one direction.

Red State reports:

Sharpton promptly and predictably trotted out his special kind of willfull ignorance over the administration’s plan, absurdly contrasting it with President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” of “the worst of the worst” illegal aliens — most of whom easily crossed the Southern Border during Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency — who had committed violent crimes in their respective countries or origin, including murder, rape, and child molestation.

…The white Afrikaners applied for asylum and Trump granted it, Al. 

Is the difference between people who legally apply for asylum based on valid reasons and people who illegally enter the U.S. really that hard to understand? No. Add in proven past criminal actions and convictions, and Sharpton looks even worse, if that’s even possible.

Mr. Sharpton, it is time to leave the stage.

Why The Palestinians Cannot Have Their Own State

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On Thursday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about a recent poll taken in the “West Bank.” The poll is disturbing to say the least.

The article reports:

Most Palestinians in West Bank support mass-murder, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israelis by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, a latest poll shows.

“59% of Palestinians polled in the “West Bank” still think that Hamas’ made the “correct decision” to torture, rape, burn alive, murder, and kidnap hundreds of hostages—even including children,” the media watchdog Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) observed, citing the poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Having learned nothing from the October 7 massacre and its aftermath, nearly 80 percent of all Palestinians were opposed to the dismantling of Hamas as a terrorist fighting force, poll numbers show. “77% of Palestinians overall (and 85% of Palestinians in the PA-controlled “West Bank”!) “oppose the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on Gaza,” the media watchdog added.

…The poll results should not come as a surprise if one recalls how thousands of Palestinians flocked to greet Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 as they rode back on their pick-up trucks after massacring and raping Israeli men, women and children —  brandishing their weapons and parading their captives.

The macabre display was not limited to Hamas-ruled Gaza; the Palestinian Authority-run West Bank witnessed hideous celebrations on the streets and in schools over the mass-murder of around 1,200 Israelis.

The article concludes:

The poll also showed that nearly half of Gaza’s residents would prefer to leave the Hamas-infested enclave. The mainstream media was outraged when President Donald Trump in February suggested relocating large number of Gazans to neighboring Arab states for the post-war reconsecration of the enclave to take place.

“Almost half of Gazans may be willing to apply to Israel to help them leave to other countries, according to a survey released Tuesday,” The Times of Israel reported. “The poll (…) showed that for the first time since the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, more Gazans thought Israel rather than Hamas would emerge victorious, though a plurality thought the war would end in a stalemate.”

Why would you form a nation of people who have so little regard for human life and the rules of civilization?

When The Rule Of Law Fails

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On Friday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about President Trump’s policy of relocating African farmers who are being threatened and who are losing their farms to violence to America.

The article reports:

In a move that’s stirring the pot in global diplomacy—but receiving high praise from conservatives, nationalists, and realists alike—President Donald Trump’s administration is officially moving forward with plans to resettle increasingly racially persecuted white South Africans, specifically Afrikaners, in the United States.

The first group of refugees is expected to arrive in the United States any day now, The New York Times reports, citing several leaked government memos.

While the globalist media squawks, conservatives across the U.S. and Europe are hailing the move as a long-overdue response to the violent racial persecution of an ethnic minority left to fend for itself in a crumbling, post-apartheid South Africa. The victims? White farmers—the very backbone of South Africa’s food supply, many of whom trace their ancestry back to Dutch and French settlers.

“These people are being systematically targeted,” President Trump said, slamming the South African government’s land expropriation without compensation policies. “They’re not just being pushed off their land—they’re being erased from the future of their country.”

The land in South Africa is largely owned by the descendants of the Dutch and French settlers. They have not always treated the black Africans well. I get that. However, in the past few years, black Africans have been killing the owners of farms and their families and simply stealing their farms. The laws support the taking of an individual’s land without compensation under the guise of “public interest.” Somehow the “public interest” seems only to apply to taking farms away from white farmers. Needless to say, the white farmers are ready to leave the country and begin again.

The article notes:

But here’s what the mainstream press won’t tell you: interest in Trump’s offer has exploded. The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria confirmed it’s received a list of nearly 70,000 white South Africans expressing interest in the program. That list, passed along by the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., doesn’t even include formal applications—just desperate families searching for hope.

This is a true humanitarian effort.

Truth?:  Not a Leftist/Marxist Value

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.  

When I read the works of Karl Marx and his co-author, Frederick Engels, I find it readily apparent that they did not value truth. Moreover, using falsehoods to bolster their communist propaganda was part of their strategy to obtain and hold political power. This is always true for authoritarian governments. For Instance, the Nazis believed that if you repeat a lie often enough and long enough, the people will believe it. This is the reason government-owned media is dangerous to freedom. President Trump’s recent defunding of National Public Radio (NPR) was a crucial step in getting government propaganda and media control out of our lives. Let NPR compete in the free market place of ideas and use their own funding.

Let’s face the facts. We have been consistently lied to by the Leftist/Marxists that are increasing moving to control the Democrat Party. The most glaring and dangerous example is their hiding Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and reassuring the public that “…he is sharp as a tack.” Some of his own party are now admitting that they lied to the people, and in reality, we do not know who was actually running the Biden administration. There are two books, one co-authored by Jake Tapper titled “Original Sin,” that are due to be released any day now that reportedly reveal evidence of Biden’s decline and the efforts to cover it up. Given the immense power of the president (including the nuclear war codes), one could argue that this amounted to treason since a presidential administration supposedly run by an incompetent president but in reality run by unelected staff members, is usurpation of presidential power and authority. The use of an autopen device, makes it almost, if not actually, impossible to confirm whether the president actually signed and approved a document or presidential order.

Now if this were an isolated situation it would be bad enough. But the Leftist/Marxists consistently attempted to mislead the American people. For example, Alajandro Mayorkas, Biden’s secretary of homeland security, consistently lied to Congress and the American people when he testified under oath, that the borders were secure. Biden also lied when he said that he did not have the power to address run away illegal border crossings without Congress passing new laws. This lie was revealed when president Trump essentially closed the borders within the first 60 days in office. Another example was the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which not only increased inflation to record 40-year highs, but actually funded useless green energy projects, enriching their supporters and actually raising utility costs. Passing legislation that is not open to the public is another example. Remember what Nancy Pelosi said when asked about the contents of a bill, “We must first pass it before you can find out what is in it.” Another Leftist/Marxist lie was their labelling destructive gender-alteration procedures of children and calling it “gender-affirming care.” It is exactly the opposite. These are not the actions of true representatives of our free Republic. They are straight out of the Marxist playbook.

Is there any indication that the Democrat Leftist/Marxists have learned their lesson and are repentant? The answer is a resounding “No!” There has been recent evidence that the Democrats may attempt to run senator Bernie Sanders and/or Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president in 2028. An examination of their philosophies show that they are both affirmed Leftist/Marxists. But of course that fact is hidden from the American public by labelling them as “progressives.” The original Progressive Party was founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. As a true America first patriot, he would roll over in his grave if he knew that the Leftist/Marxists are now calling themselves progressives.

The bottom line is this. Never believe what the Leftist/Marxists are telling you; assume the opposite is true. The Democrat party should be honest and rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party. At least that would be an honest start.

How To Secretly Influence An Election

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Email is a powerful weapon in campaigns. Along with texting, it is a good fundraising tool in a world where elections cost to much and fundraising is important.

On Thursday, a website called Amuse posted an article explaining how Big Tech can quietly tip the scales in an election.

The article reports:

In an age obsessed with equity, a certain form of discrimination thrives unchallenged: algorithmic bias against conservative speech. While the platforms most frequently scrutinized are social media giants, the more insidious, less visible battleground is email. Long relied upon by Republican candidates, conservative advocacy groups, and grassroots organizers, email has become the new frontier where Big Tech quietly tips the scales.

To many, this claim might appear paranoid. After all, isn’t a spam filter simply a neutral tool designed to protect users from Nigerian princes and unsolicited coupons? That would be comforting if it were true. But the evidence, painstakingly compiled over multiple election cycles, paints a picture that is not only credible but damning.

The most rigorous academic investigation to date comes from a team at North Carolina State University. In a peer-reviewed study analyzing over 318,000 campaign emails sent during the 2020 U.S. election, the researchers created hundreds of fresh accounts across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, subscribing equally to Republican and Democratic mailing lists. Their finding was straightforward and alarming: Gmail, the most widely used email service on earth, flagged as spam nearly 77% of emails sent by Republican campaigns. In contrast, just under 10% of Democratic emails were filtered. The disparity wasn’t marginal. It was systematic, and it worsened the closer the calendar crept to Election Day.

This sort of differential treatment might be defensible if it could be accounted for by differences in content, formatting, or compliance. It cannot. The researchers controlled for those variables. They found that the political affiliation of the sender, rather than any objective feature of the email, was the primary predictor of whether it would land in the inbox or the spam folder.

Of course, Gmail is not the only offender. Outlook displayed a reverse skew in the same 2020 study, filtering a larger percentage of left-wing emails. Yahoo, while appearing more balanced in 2020, swung hard in the opposite direction by 2024. According to a 2024 study conducted by EmailToolTester, Yahoo flagged 22.3% of Republican emails as spam compared to only 6.3% of Democratic ones. AOL, now under the same corporate umbrella as Yahoo, filtered 32.5% of Republican emails while sparing all but 10.3% of their Democratic counterparts. In practical terms, this meant that conservative organizations faced triple the barrier in reaching their audiences compared to liberal ones.

Blocking political emails is wrong regardless of which political party does it. We need someone to oversee our techies to make sure this will not happen in the future.

Another Award Bites The Dust

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I am old enough to remember when the Pulitzer Prize meant something. In recent years it has been given to news outlets for being part of the Russia hoax with no intention of returning it after the hoax was revealed. I didn’t think it could go lower, but it has.

On May 6th, The Federalist reported:

On Monday The Washington Post announced that it won a Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for its coverage of the July 13, 2024, attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

The “coverage” in question?

That Trump was “taken away after loud noises at rally,” according to a July 13 headline.

According to the Post’s self-congratulatory write-up on its award, WaPo’s “live-updates file” — from which the aforementioned headline came — earned the paper what was once journalism’s top honor, the Pulitzer.

“The Post’s first report from Butler published almost immediately, at 6:21 p.m., in a live-updates file,” the article reads. “The source of the loud noises was not immediately clear.”

But they weren’t just “loud noises.” They were gunshots that ripped through Trump’s ear and killed firefighter and father Corey Comperatore, who died shielding his family from the assassin’s bullet. In fact, the Post knew the gravity of the situation because it published that headline with the featured photo showing blood pouring down the side of Trump’s face.

Yet, the Post still went with — and won an award for — that angle. Two days later, the paper’s Paul Farhi defended the media’s coverage that deliberately downplayed the horrific event, saying media outlets “reported cautiously about what had occurred” since “it wasn’t immediately clear what was unfolding.”

If you saw President Trump being rushed off the stage, then you saw the picture of the President with blood running down his face. How stupid does the Washington Post think Americans are?

The View From The Lair

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Replacing RINOS

What is wrong about Thom Tillis (R_INO-NC)? Yes, that is a rhetorical question. I have neither the column inches nor bandwidth to answer that question. Likely not the years left, either. What is right about Thom Tillis (R-INONC)? Actually…nothing. What is Left about Thom Tillis (R-INONC)? Pretty much everything. Remember when he was in the NC Legislature and he left to run for the US Senate? A lot of us thought that perhaps by shuffling him off to D.C. that his lousy efforts would be diluted by real conservatives. WTF were we smoking?

That’s like the people in Georgia promoting Jimmy “Peanut” Carter to be president to get him out of the state. I was there at that time. See how that worked out?

Thom (R-INO-NC) is a product of the NCGOP Good Ol’ Boys network. Remember Robin Hayes? I happened to be in Greensboro when the NC GOP convention censured Tillis for supporting the immigration bill. Voting to impeach PDJT wasn’t a welcome move, either.

To misquote the late, great Henny Youngman, when talking about RINO’s, “Take Thom Tillis. PLEASE!” (If you are too young to remember Henny Youngman, go to YouTube.com. While you’re there, look up “Who’s on first.” I’ll wait. When you catch your breath from laughing, come back.)

So, what is Thom up to now? He is blocking the approval of Ed Martin for DC District prosecutor. Martin is reputed to be the best pick for that position in our lifetime. The reason for his objection? Martin supported the defendants in the Jan.6 prosecutions. Remember them? When FBI informants helped to herd people into the Capitol while the Capitol Police waved them in?

Tillis was happy when grandmothers stepped into the building, gabbed a quick selfie them stepped out, and then were sentenced to prison. Without habeas corpus. In solitary confinement. When people were prosecuted for their cell phone was identified as being in the vicinity were arrested.

Trespassing in a Federal Building? 10 years to life ought to be sufficient.

So now what can we do? Well, guess who’s coming up for re-election next year? Yep, Good Ole’ Thom. He’s already sending out emails trying to demonstrate how conservative he is. Right.

Here’s the rub. Most Republicans don’t pay attention to the primaries. And that’s what kicks our butts. I didn’t have anything against Mark Robinson, other than I didn’t think he could win the general election. And he couldn’t. Primaries are the MOST important part of the election process. THAT’s how AOC was elected (besides the fact she was in NYC.) We need to pay attention, support a conservative candidate that can win the general election then work like HELL to see that he/she wins. It’s OUR country. We need to act like we care. We have a President who does care, who fights for us and need all the support he can get. That’s OUR job. The next election started last November 6th.

Remember, you can’t accomplish anything sitting on your butt.

ciao,

The Snark

One Of Many Problems With Government Spending

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On Tuesday, Red State posted an article that might explain how some of the government’s run-away spending comes to pass.

The article reports:

I didn’t have an opportunity to watch Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s testimony before the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee oversight hearing live. But looking back over some of the key moments, one was particularly jaw-dropping:

According to Bessent, over one-third of the 1.5 billion payments issued by the Treasury Department in the past year cannot be traced back to a corresponding appropriation. That’s 500 million payments (not dollars — individual disbursements) that cannot readily be matched for auditing or accountability purposes. 

The article concludes:

Of course we’re drowning in debt: We’ve got elected representatives who spend like drunken sailors — enabled by a Treasury Department intent on shoveling money out the door willy-nilly. Thank God President Trump and DOGE and grown-ups like Sec. Bessent are at least attempting to bring some order and accountability to bear.

Every day gives us another reason to be glad that we elected a businessman instead of a politician to be President. The government has gone so far from good business practices that it is amazing we have not yet gone completely broke. The payments that cannot be traced back to a corresponding appropriation like add up to billions of dollars. It’s time to spend taxpayers’ money wisely. Obviously that is not happening right now.