Monthly Archives: May 2025

Disturbing Actions By The Biden Administration

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Just the News reported the following:

The Biden administration authorized federal law enforcement four years ago to target Americans engaged in “concerning non-criminal behavior” in the name of fighting domestic terrorism, with a specific eye on those serving in the military, owning firearms, or spreading what officials considered to be “xenophobic” disinformation, according to newly declassified documents.

The stunning breadth of the mandate was disclosed when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently released a fully unredacted version of the prior administration’s “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.”

The June 2021 memo exposed for the first time the law enforcement and intelligence framework that led the FBI to monitor and probe conservative Catholics and parents who protested against some school board policies and justified Homeland Security to engage in censorship or debanking of Americans the administration considered to be potential enemies of the state.

The directives provided to the Justice Department and FBI by the National Security Council, which developed the memo, said the agencies should “drive…executive and legislative action” to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, rein in “ghost guns,” monitor active-duty service members for possible terrorism recruitment and “mitigate xenophobia and bias.”

They weren’t looking for enemies of the state–they were looking for people who simply disagreed with the policies of the Biden administration. Why wasn’t there someone in the FBI that exposed this at the time? Where were the people who take an oath to uphold the Constitution?

The article notes:

Legal experts and lawmakers told Just the News on Tuesday they were deeply concerned the Biden-era memo substantially lowered the standard to “concerning” behavior instead of criminality, potentially jeopardizing civil liberties and giving license to weaponize police powers against Americans who had different views than the governing administration on issues like the Second Amendment and COVID-19.

The article concludes:

One whistleblower, agent Garrett O’Boyle, testified that the bureau issued guidance in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade to investigate pro-life groups for threats against the Supreme Court, even though, at the time, it was pro-choice groups that were protesting — sometimes disturbingly — outside conservative justices’ and their families’ homes. 

O’Boyle said he was tasked with talking to a pro-life informant “about the threats to the Supreme Court,” much to his bewilderment. 

“I was like, why would this person know about those threats? He’s pro-life. Like, he’s not the one going and threatening the Supreme Court Justices,” O’Boyle said. 

In the now-infamous “Catholic Memo,” the FBI detailed plans to develop a source network in conservative and traditional Catholicism, and splinter Catholic Churches over fears that they served as a nexus for the development of extremist ideology. A separate whistleblower provided evidence to Congress that FBI counterterrorism assets were involved in the investigation of parents protesting school policies.

Some of the policies of the Biden administration are concerning; however, the fact that we are just hearing about some of them now is even more concerning.

View From The Lair

Posted on by

Beyond Belief

Like many people, I have certain consistencies. I get up, feed the cats, start the coffee, start reading my morning list of web sites. A very quick perusal of FoxNews Online to ascertain that another Marxist hasn’t assassinated POTUS, then a list of comics. I like to start the day off with coffee and a chuckle. As soon as I get to the news I’m going to get pissed off, so why not start the day with a smile? I ease into that process with Jeff Childer’s Coffee and Covid (yes, before RightWingGranny. Sorry, Mary.  That’s next because my pissed off process will then begin.) Jeff is a conservative attorney in Florida. I know that is usually an oxymoron, but I actually do know a conservative attorney.

Usually, Jeff can ease me into the tension of the day. Not last Saturday. His lead off was about a covid vaccination study entitled “Twelve-Month All-Cause Mortality after Initial COVID-19 Vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech or mRNA-1273 among Adults Living in Florida.”  I invite you to look it up. You may have to look hard. Jeff includes the credentials and details of the study. The results are astounding.  When filtering for all causes of mortality of those who got the shot (it is obviously NOT a vaccine) they were able to determine that there was a 40% higher chance from dying if you got the Pfizer injection than if you got the Moderna. 40% HIGHER!

Wouldn’t one think that such a finding might inspire a bit of curiosity among the various news organizations? After all, this would seem to be an important bit of news to those who were inspired, cajoled or threatened into getting this opportunity to shorten their life span? If this information could be spun into a stab at PDJT the Marxist news media would screaming this from the rooftops 24/7. But what do we hear? Crickets. Nothing.

I have confessed before that I was briefly a part of this noxious endeavor called “Lame Stream News.” The nausea that this little revelation produces without even the NY Post screaming it from 40 point type is debilitating.

The study gives great detail as to whom is at greater risk. And those over 60 were in the greatest risk of many ways of attaining room temperature. Especially cardiovascular and stroke events. Seeing that I AM in that age group (though so far, no unusual – for me – cardiac events or TIA’s) and that I had two jabs, I can’t say that I am encouraged. I think – think- that I had the Moderna shot. I didn’t save my vaccine card. But while I don’t have (yet) any issues I can correlate to the shots, I certainly do know people who have had devastating results. Such as needing three coronary stents installed within three weeks of the injection with no prior cardiac issues. Or multiple bypasses in the same fashion. This therapy is NOT inexpensive. So, who pays? The insurance companies? Sure. Where do they get their cash? From premiums. Who pays those? I do. You do. If you are on Medicaid, then I do as well as everyone who isn’t on Medicaid.

But who isn’t really paying? Fauci. He’s getting paid. A VERY healthy retirement and royalties from the “research” he was involved in. While a government employee.

HEY ELON! Let’s look into THAT scam a little closer.

Meanwhile. please pass the Pepto Bismol.

ciao,

The Snark

Undermining Property Rights Leads To Poverty

Posted on by

In 2010, I wrote an article about the relationship between private property rights and the wealth of a country. The conclusion of the article was that enforcing property rights and the rule of law breeds prosperity. We need to remember that as a country.

On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a recent series of events in California.

The article reports:

A pair of vacant properties in Hollywood, CA started making news 10 days ago after residents complained a large group of squatters had taken over the homes and were creating a nuisance in the neighborhood.

…The drugs, noise, nudity and criminal behavior were a nuisance but when the police were called out, nothing seemed to change. The squatters would just disappear and then come back when the police were gone. The source of all this activity was another house next door which was receiving money from the city to house the homeless. Some of the homeless would hang out all day on the porch of their free housing and then jump the fence into the abandoned properties at night. But beyond all the nuisance this created, the real danger was the fires.

…Finally, there was enough media attention that L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto Martinez issued a statement saying he was working to have the site declared a nuisance.

…So sometime later this month, the city would have held a vote and then eventually taken action to tear the building down. But as it turned out, the homeless squatters beat them to it. Last Thursday the building caught fire again and this time was heavily damaged.

…I can’t prove it but my guess is the city was happy to plod along at its usual pace when this was just a big nuisance for neighbors, but once the building was a danger to the homeless, who might have gone back in after the fire, they acted immediately to tear it down.

The councilman who had promised to have the site declared a nuisance got an earful when he showed up at the site after the fire.

…Meanwhile in Sacramento, just a day after the fire in Hollywood, Democrats voted down a bill which would have made it easier to evict squatters.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the story. California is going bankrupt. Unfortunately, I suspect the rest of the nation may be forced to bail her out. The inability or unwillingness to protect the property of homeowners who live there is one of many reasons people are leaving the state. As the people who have the money to leave move to other places, there won’t be enough people who are fiscally stable to pay off the taxes and massive state government expenses. The State of California will collapse financially.

Things Are Never As Simple As We Would Like

Posted on by

On Saturday, WattsUpWithThat posted an article about the sudden growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS), which gained mass at an unprecedented rate between 2021 and 2023.

The article reports:

A groundbreaking study published in Science China Earth Sciences has unveiled a stunning reversal in the fortunes of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS), which gained mass at an unprecedented rate between 2021 and 2023. This marks the first significant ice growth in decades, challenging the prevailing narrative of relentless ice loss and highlighting the complex interplay of natural variability and climate dynamics. Using data from NASA’s GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry missions, the findings offer a nuanced perspective on Antarctica’s role in global sea level changes and raise critical questions about the drivers of ice sheet behavior.

The study, led by Dr. Wei Wang and Prof. Yunzhong Shen at Tongji University, reports that the AIS gained mass at a rate of 107.79 ± 74.90 Gt/yr from 2021 to 2023, a dramatic shift from prior decades of decline. As the article states, “From 2002 to 2010, the AIS has experienced a mass loss with a change rate of -73.79 ± 56.27 Gt/yr, which nearly doubled to -142.06 ± 56.12 Gt/yr for the period 2011-2020.” This earlier mass loss, driven primarily by intensified depletion in West Antarctica and parts of East Antarctica’s Wilkes Land-Queen Mary Land (WL-QML) region, contributed significantly to global sea level rise—0.20 ± 0.16 mm/yr from 2002-2010 and 0.39 ± 0.15 mm/yr from 2011-2020. In contrast, the recent ice growth has had a “negative contribution, offsetting global mean sea level rise at a rate of -0.30 ± 0.21 mm/yr” from 2021-2023, effectively slowing the rise of global sea levels.

The turnaround is particularly pronounced in East Antarctica, where four critical glacier basins—Totten, Moscow, Denman, and Vincennes Bay—reversed their mass loss trends. The article notes, “The four key glacier basins in WL-QML region… exhibited mass loss intensification with a rate of 47.64 ± 8.14 Gt/yr during 2011-2020, compared to 2002-2010, with the loss area expanding inland.” Yet, between 2021 and 2023, these basins showed significant mass gains, attributed to “anomalous precipitation accumulation.” This surge in snowfall appears to have counteracted the factors previously driving ice loss, namely surface mass reduction (72.53%) and increased ice discharge (27.47%).

The article concludes:

This development underscores the complexity of Antarctica’s ice system and the pitfalls of oversimplified climate narratives. The interplay of precipitation, potential volcanic influences, and regional variability suggests that short-term fluctuations can significantly alter long-term trends. The unexpected AIS rebound challenges policymakers and researchers to integrate this new data into their understanding of climate dynamics, moving beyond one-size-fits-all assumptions about ice loss and sea level rise.

When the ice melts in a drink, the glass does not overflow. How does melting ice in the ocean raise the water level? I don’t claim to be a scientist or a physicist, and I would love to have someone explain that to me.

We Have Totally Gone Down The Rabbit Hole

Posted on by

On Friday, Fox News reported the following:

The controversial “60 Minutes” interview at the center of President Trump’s high-stakes lawsuit against CBS News is now an Emmy-nominated program.

The nominations for the 46th News & Documentary Emmy Awards were announced Thursday.

“60 Minutes” landed several nods, most notably in the Outstanding Edited Interview category for its primetime special featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Other nominees in that category include CBS’ interviews with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the late Pope Francis, as well as NBC’s interview with Celine Dion and ABC’s interview with Brittney Griner.

…Last fall, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit (it has since been increased to $20 billion) against CBS News and its parent company, Paramount Global, for what he alleged was election interference with how the network handled its Harris interview in the days leading up to the presidential election. 

The lawsuit stems from an exchange Harris had with “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t “listening” to the Biden administration.

Harris was widely mocked for the “word salad” answer that aired in a preview clip of the interview on “Face the Nation.”

It’s sad that the Emmy Awards are now political. They probably have been for a long time, but this is over the top. The interview was edited because Kamala Harris was a very unlikable candidate who was not good at giving logical answers when she was not scripted. President Trump has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth, but I am beginning to believe that when it does that it is very purposeful. Vice-President Harris simply was not good at making clear, concise statements about her ideas of policies that she would propose, so CBS helped her. I believe that is a problem.

I believe that President Trump’s lawsuit is valid and am somewhat amazed that the Emmy Awards did not consider that in their nomination process.

A Short Note On The Kentucky Derby

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about this year’s Kentucky Derby. The article noted that all of the horses in the Derby were descendants of Secretariat.

The article reports:

Every horse that ran the 151st Kentucky Derby on Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky, is reportedly descended from one American champion.

Pedigrees apparently show those horses are descended from Secretariat, the horse that in 1973 ran the fastest mile-and-a-quarter in the derby’s history, the Louisville Courier Journal reported Saturday.

Looking back six generations of most horses will reportedly show they are descended from a champion such as Secretariat or Northern Dancer, the outlet said.

According to derby contending trainer Whit Beckman, “It’s one of those stats. It’s bound to happen at some point with how much he shows up in every single pedigree. It’s really cool. Very cool.”

Secretariat was a thoroughbred racehorse that became the first in 25 years to win the Triple Crown in 1973, per History.com. According to the site:

In 1974, Secretariat was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. In 1999, he was the only non-human included among ESPN’s 50 greatest athletes of the century and he became the first thoroughbred to be honored with his own U.S. Postal stamp. Outside the paddock at Belmont Park now stands a statue of Secretariat with both his front feet in the air.

An article in HorseyHooves in June 2023 listed a number of interesting facts about Secretariat.

This is the fact that I thought was the most interesting:

Not only was Secretariat was known for being kind-hearted, but he also had a big heart in the literal sense.

After Secretariat was euthanized on October 4, 1989, at the age of 19, veterinarian Thomas Swerczek performed a necropsy. Swerczek discovered that Secretariat’s heart weighed between 21-22 pounds, two and a half times bigger than an average horse heart.

“We just stood there in stunned silence. We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect. There were no problems with it. It was just this huge engine,” said Dr. Swerczek.

That might have had something to do with his incredible performance on the racetrack.

This Was Totally Predictable

Posted on by

On Saturday, BizPacReview posted an article about the women’s races at the U.S. Masters Swimming Spring National Championship in Texas. Ana Caldas, age 47, won five races in the 45-49 year-old category, including the 100-yard individual medley, the 50- and 100-yard breaststroke, and the freestyle. Ana Caldas was born a man.

The article reports:

“Ana Caldas, a man pretending to be a woman, recently won ALL FIVE RACES he entered in the WOMEN’S division for the US Masters Swimming Spring National Championship in TX. INSANITY,” the account wrote.

U.S. Masters Swimming also acknowledged the backlash in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“USMS is aware of allegations regarding the eligibility of a swimmer who competed at our Spring National Championship. We have received an eligibility review request and will follow our formal process to make a determination,” their statement read. “USMS exists to empower adults to improve their lives through swimming. The health and fitness benefits of swimming are the primary focus of that mission, but we also strive to create a community that values fairness, competition, and inclusion. In that spirit, USMS has had a longstanding policy on transgender swimmers that was created, and periodically reviewed and updated, by relevant member committees with input from subject matter experts. The policy includes procedures to address questions of eligibility.”

The article notes:

The organization’s eligibility requirements would allow a transgender athlete to participate in the event, provided they follow some stipulations including a “hormonal therapy appropriate for the female gender has been administered continuously and uninterrupted in a verifiable manner for a sufficient length of time, no less than one year, to minimize gender-related advantages in sport competitions” as well as proof of low testosterone levels.

However, this could run into some trouble as in 2023, Texas passed the Save Women’s Sports Act which bars biological male athletes from competing in women’s sports, requiring them to compete as the gender listed on their birth certificate. It is also unlawful to change information on birth certificates, such as switching genders, unless it is to correct a clerical error.

It’s not news that there are some basic biological differences between men and women that would give men an advantage in women’s sports. It’s a shame those in charge are not always willing to admit this.

This Is Wonderful News

Posted on by

On Sunday, Breitbart reported:

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced the closure of the agency’s last remaining beagle experiment lab over the weekend after former NIH physician Dr. Anthony Fauci’s horrific beagle-testing scandal was exposed.

“It’s very easy, for instance, to cure Alzheimer’s in mice. But those things don’t translate to humans,” Bhattacharya told Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Sunday:

…“So we put forward a policy to replace animals in research with technological advances, AI and other tools, that actually translate better to human health.”

When he made the announcement that “We got rid of all of the beagle experiments on NIH campus,” Campus-Duffy said, “Amen.”

NIH confirmed the move on social media, saying it has enacted an “initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research, including getting rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus.”

A years-long investigation by medical watchdog group White Coat Waste revealed that the NIH killed over 2,100 beagles in “brutal septic shock experiments” since 1986.

The article concludes:

The Trump administration has been stepping away from animal testing within other agencies as well, with animal rights group PETA praising the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for “helping spare tens of thousands of animals each year.”

There are better ways of gathering information than torturing animals. The experiments carried out on beagles during the time Dr. Fauci was in charge were horrific. I am truly glad to see experiments on animals end. Scientists need to find better ways to collect the information they need.

A Small Sliver Of Our Budget Problems

Posted on by

This is basically the equivalent of someone stealing the change from your loose change jar, but it is still indicative of the lack of accountability in our government.

On May 4th, Just the News reported the following:

A former State Department senior budget analyst embezzled more than $650,000 from the agency over a two-year time period, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. said.

Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64, of Montgomery Village, Maryland, pled guilty to embezzling the money between March 2022 and April 2024 while working in the department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol.

“She issued 60 checks payable to herself and three checks payable to another individual with whom she had a personal relationship. She printed and signed each check and then deposited all 63 checks, which totaled $657,347.50, into her personal checking and savings accounts,” the Justice Department said in a news release.

It is disturbing that she seemingly made no effort to hide her crime–that is pretty blatant embezzlement. Even though it was over a two-year period, that amount of money flowing out to a personal account should have been noticed. Do routine audits happen in government agencies? If they don’t, they should. This dishonesty should have easily been picked up by a good auditor.

Not Everyone Supports Women’s Rights

Posted on by

On May 3rd, The Associated Press reported the following:

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of supporters of an Islamist group rallied in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday to denounce proposed recommendations for ensuring equal rights, including ones related to property, for mainly Muslim women.

Leaders of the Hefazat-e-Islam group said the proposed legal reforms are contradictory to the Sharia law. More than 20,000 followers of the group rallied near the Dhaka University, some carrying banners and placards reading “Say no to Western laws on our women, rise up Bangladesh.”

The group threatened to organize rallies on May 23 across the country if the government didn’t meet their demands.

Mamunul Haque, a leader of the group, demanded that the interim government’s reforms commission be abolished and its members punished for the proposed changes. He said they hurt “the sentiments of the majority of the people of this country” by labeling the religious laws of inheritance as the main cause of inequality between men and women.

Sharia law provides justification for mistreating women. Sharia law includes such things as honor killings, wife beating, and equal rights for women. There are currently 85 Sharia law courts in Great Britain. Some American states have banned the use of Sharia law in their states, but it is not universally banned, and there is an effort by some pro-Islamist organizations to bring Sharia law to America. Where are the feminists in this battle?

Jurisdiction Matters

Posted on by

On May 45h, PJ Media reported the following:

When President Trump returned to the White House, he didn’t just get to work cleaning up Joe Biden’s mess—he set his sights on dismantling decades of entrenched bureaucratic bloat, waste, and corruption. With a relentless series of executive orders and policy directives, Trump reignited his mission to drain the swamp—this time with laser precision and zero patience for the status quo.

Predictably, the left went into full-blown panic mode. Liberal legal groups immediately launched a barrage of lawsuits, cherry-picking friendly courts in a shameless attempt to stall Trump’s agenda. They’re terrified of losing control over the bloated regulatory state they’ve used for years to push policies they could never pass through Congress.

But that strategy just hit a major roadblock. In a landmark ruling on Saturday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a decisive legal victory—one that could fundamentally change how activist judges and forum-shopped cases interfere with executive authority. 

“This is a huge victory for President Trump and his Article II powers granted in the United States Constitution. It’s also a victory for US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and VOA,” Kari Lake told Fox News Digital. Lake now serves as a USAGM senior advisor to the Trump administration. “We are eager to accomplish President Trump’s America First agenda which has always been to modernize and make our government efficient while cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Kari Lake told Fox News

The appeals court’s 2-1 ruling Saturday emphasized the judiciary’s deference to executive authority in matters concerning federal employment and contractual decisions.

The court noted that the district court likely lacked jurisdiction to interfere with the administration’s personnel actions and funding decisions, particularly regarding grant agreements with non-federal entities like Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

This ruling  Trump’s March 14 executive order (EO), which aimed to dismantle USAGM operations.

The article at PJ Media concludes:

The significance of this decision extends far beyond these specific cases—it establishes clear jurisdictional parameters that could affect dozens of pending lawsuits against Trump administration policies. While the administration won’t prevail in every case, this ruling suggests courts may need to more carefully consider their jurisdictional authority before issuing sweeping injunctions against executive actions.

The D.C. Circuit Court just handed Trump a game-changing victory that will help him clean house in 2025.

Let’s hope that this is the first of many good decisions by the courts.

Who Are The Migrants Being Arrested?

Posted on by

On May 2nd, The Daily Caller reported:

During the week marking President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, ICE agents carried out a series of high-profile arrests of migrants with criminal records, according to a document first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Starting the week of his 100-day mark, booking photos of illegal migrants with convictions or pending charges were displayed along the White House north lawn’s perimeter. Throughout the week,ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO made major arrests across the country, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) releasing details and photos of five of their most significant cases.

The article has pictures and brief details of five of the most significant cases:

ERO Detroit arrested Ludwig Ivan Castaneda-Gonzalez, a 33-year-old Mexican national, this week in Holland, Michigan. According to DHS, Castaneda-Gonzalez’s criminal history includes a conviction for criminal sexual conduct involving a person aged 13 to 15, which encompasses all sex offenses under Michigan law.

In Texas, ERO’s Houston team arrested Jesus Arriaga-Gamez, a 61-year-old Mexican citizen, for his record of aggravated sexual assault of a child. While DHS documents did not outline his full criminal history, they confirmed his conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a child in Cameron County, Texas.

In the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, ERO agents arrested Christian Robles-Andrade, a 34-year-old Mexican citizen. Robles-Andrade, pictured with tattoos covering his body, is described as an active gang member with ties to the 8th Street Gang and goes by the nickname “Tiny.” According to DHS documents, his criminal history includes a conviction for voluntary manslaughter in Los Angeles.

In another sanctuary city on the East Coast, ERO Boston arrested Mario Alexander Ochoa-Lemus, a 33-year-old citizen of El Salvador. His criminal history includes convictions for rape and abuse of a child, child pornography and witness intimidation in Boston.

…On Thursday, DHS announced the arrest of Kwadwo Boaitey Frimpong, a 32-year-old citizen of Ghana, who was detained by ERO Baltimore on Tuesday. Frimpong entered the U.S. in 2019 on an F-1 visa but has since been convicted on seven counts of possession of child pornography, according to DHS. The agency stated he will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of removal proceedings.

These people entered our country illegally. Is there any logical reason to want to keep them here?

Looking At Some Of The Past History Of Deportations

Posted on by

It’s no secret that President Trump is not the first President to deport people who are hear illegally. He is, however, the first President to have the courts fight the removal of non-citizens. The idea of the courts granting the rights of American citizens to people who broke the law to enter the country is somewhat illogical.

In December 2023, UCLA Law posted the following:

Data show that tens of thousands of children have been ordered deported, most without legal representation or a fair day in court

…Los Angeles, CA – A damning new report released today by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law finds that the Biden administration has failed children in immigration court under its watch. Despite taking important steps in its early days, the report details how the administration’s policies have led to grave injustices for children facing immigration court proceedings in the United States, and resulted in tens of thousands of children ordered deported, most without legal representation or a fair day in court. 

Children make up a significant number of those facing removal proceedings. In the first five months of Fiscal Year 2022, almost one third of all new cases in immigration court involved children, including tens of thousands of children under the age of five.  Some of these children are “unaccompanied” because they arrived alone. Others are in proceedings with their families, including on a much-criticized fast-track “Dedicated Docket” for families seeking asylum. 

“While the administration should be lauded for its efforts to provide children and families access to the court system, its failure to ensure legal representation has produced a massive due process crisis,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. “It should be obvious that immigration court proceedings are far too complex for children to navigate without legal representation, especially when the consequences are so dire. The Biden administration must take swift action to ensure legal representation for all children in immigration court.”

How soon we forget. Please read the entire article. I don’t remember the press being in an outrage at the time.

The Economic Quest For Peace

Posted on by

One of the things that President Trump does very well is the waging of economic wars. He understands the leverage America has because it represents large market opportunities for all of its trading partners. That is one of many reasons so many countries are willing to negotiate the President’s tariff policies. One way to encourage peace in countries that don’t necessarily want to make peace is to pull the rug out from under them economically. For example, oil prices today are generally between $58 and $78 a barrel, coming down from a high of $113.90 on March 25, 2022. Russia needs oil prices to be consistently about $80 a barrel in order to support its economy and the war in Ukraine. America’s reach for energy independence presents a challenge to the Russian economy and Russia’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, President Trump is beginning an economic war against Iran.

On Thursday, Just the News reported:

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the United States will impose secondary sanctions on all countries or individuals that purchase oil or petrochemicals from Iran.

The announcement comes a day after the State Department sanctioned seven entities it accused of trading Iranian oil and petrochemical products. 

The president confirmed the new secondary sanctions in a post on Truth Social, warning countries they would not be allowed to do business with the U.S. if they purchase oil from Iran.

The article concludes:

The moves are part of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran to help weaken its terrorist activities in the Middle East, including through its use of proxy forces.

The domestic economic problems these sanctions will cause will also create unrest in Iran. A regime change would be nice, but remember, history tells us that regime change does not always go in a democratic direction. Currently, we have the example of Syria. I would strongly recommend that America not meddle in any internal affairs in Iran. Our record of bringing regime change and bringing in new leadership in foreign countries is far from stellar.

When The Actual Numbers Are Different Than The Report

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It seems that the numbers that are being reported are not actually accurate.

The article reports:

National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) both received significantly more taxpayer funding in Fiscal Year 2023 than they had indicated on their tax returns, according to an OpenTheBooks report published Thursday.

On a tax return for the fiscal year ending in September 2023, NPR reported that it received just $40,000 from American taxpayers, which came from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP), a nonprofit organization that invests in public broadcasting, according to OpenTheBooks’ analysis. That amount made up just 0.04% of the $98.57 million in grants NPR received from “all parties” during that period, according to the report.

Meanwhile, at the end of fiscal year 2023, NPR had $388.5 million in total assets, OpenTheBooks’ report found.

Moreover, PBS’ tax return showed it received $22.74 million from the government, according to OpenTheBooks’ analysis. OpenTheBooks found that at the end of fiscal year 2023, PBS had $641.23 million in total assets, an increase of $52 million from the year prior. 

PBS CEO Paula Kerger earns $1,055,135 in salary and $113,526 in “other compensation,” while three other PBS employees make over $500,000, according to OpenTheBooks. Meanwhile, NPR spent $5.18 million on payroll for its officers and key employees, according to the report.

It’s amazing how much a corporation is willing to pay people when it’s not their money and they don’t have to make a profit.

I would just like to comment that if PBS had had good negotiators and good lawyers during the height of Sesame Street’s popularity, they could have set the corporation up for life with the royalties from Tickle Me Elmo, Rubber Ducky, Oscar the Grouch, and Big Bird. not to mention Bert and Ernie. A private enterprise would have done that. That is the difference between a government-run company and a company that needs to make a profit to stay in business.

The Numbers Tell The Story

Posted on by

A few days ago, the mainstream media was melting down because the GDP for the first quarter of 2025 had dropped .3%. In decimal, that’s .003. That’s hardly a significant number. Meanwhile, some of the other first-quarter statistics are coming in, and they tell a rather different story.

On May 2, Breitbart reported:

Employers in the United States added 177,000 workers to their payrolls in April, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent, defying predictions of labor market sluggishness following President Trump’s announcement of tariffs.

Economists had been expecting 130,000 jobs and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2 percent. The prior month’s jobs figure was revised down to 185,000 from 228,000

The strength in hiring came from the private sector, which added 167,000 jobs. Economists had expected private employers to add just 125,000 workers. This was nearly unchanged from the downwardly revised 170,000 jobs added in March.

The labor market drew in more workers, growing the supply of labor in April. The participation rate rose to 62.6 percent from 62.5 in the previous month. The number of people employed in the month rose by 436,000 to 163,944,000.

The average workweek expanded to 34.3 hours from 34.2 hours, a sign that employer demand for labor grew in the month. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent. Compared with a year ago, average earnings are up 3.8 percent, significantly higher than the 2.4 percent gain in the consumer price index through March.

The rising wages combined with the falling inflation rate are good news for Americans. Most of us are seeing very nice changes at the gas pump. The job growth is in the private sector. Since President Trump took office, federal payrolls have contracted by 26,000. When the private sector grows, the economy grows.

According to the Government Executive Website:

President Biden has overseen a nearly 6% growth of the full-time, non-seasonal federal workforce during his four years in office, including a jump at nearly every major agency.

Most American consumers are very happy with the changes President Trump has made during his first 110 days.

The Deal Is Signed, Let’s See What Happens Next

Posted on by

On May 1, Zero Hedge reported the following:

Update(1740): After some last-minute hiccups which threatened to derail it, the US and Ukraine have finally signed the much-anticipated and controversial minerals deal.

“The deal will grant the US privileged access to new investment projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources including aluminum, graphite, oil and natural gas,” the breaking Bloomberg note says.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko signed it late in the day Wednesday in Washington, after the US side demanded that all aspects on the table be agreed to by Kiev. Below are some known details of the landmark agreement via Axios:

    • The government-to-government agreement would establish a joint fund, with each country contributing 50% of the financing and future U.S. military assistance to Ukraine counting as a contribution to the fund.
    • The fund will be governed jointly and will have three U.S. members and three Ukrainian members on its board.
    • The money in the fund will be used for investments in the extraction of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, oil and gas. The revenue will be split 50/50.
    • Kachka said the agreement gives the U.S. preferential access to investments in any operator that extracts rare earths in Ukraine and the first right of refusal for such investments.

Update(1045ET): Another minerals deal headline that wasn’t… not for the first time, a Ukrainian delegation’s plane may have been literally rerouted mid-air amid Wednesday reports that the Trump-backed deal was to be signed in Washington within ‘hours’. Financial Times reports:

Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, has flown to Washington to sign the deal with US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, said three Ukrainian officials. But problems arose as Svyrydenko’s plane headed to Washington, and Bessent’s team told her she should “be ready to sign all agreements, or go back home”, said three people familiar with the matter. 

Apparently the Zelensky government was not ready to sign onto all that the Trump administration required. This even after the US reportedly dropped conditions related to Ukraine paying back debt for prior US military or financial assistance.

I suspect that one of the purposes of this deal is to put pressure on President Putin to come to a peace agreement. For the sake of everyone in the region, that needs to happen.

About Those Tarriffs

Posted on by

When President Trump announced his reciprocal tariff program on April 2, 2025, he held up a chart illustrating the tariffs being charged America at that time. The chart below came from Newsweek.

This is the chart:

As you can see, the majority of the suggested tariffs America would charge are significantly less than the tariffs currently being charged America. In fact, many of the suggested tariffs are half of what the country involved charges America. So why all this meltdown from the political left, the Washington establishment, and the RINO Republicans? Because when you institute tariffs, you decrease the importance of the federal income tax and thus decrease the power of those who write the tax code.

According to the tax foundation:

There’s the literal statutes that Congress has passed (Title 26 of the U.S. Code). The Government Printing Office sells it spread over two volumes, and according to them, book one is 1,404 pages and book two is 1,248 pages, for a total of 2,652 pages. At perhaps 450 words per page, that puts the tax code at well over 1 million words. (By way of comparison, the King James Bible has 788,280 words; War and Peace runs 560,000 words; and the Harry Potter series is just over 1 million words.)

So how was our tax code formulated? It is a tribute to lobbyists and Congressmen who want to be re-elected. One illustration of that was what happened when President Trump during his first term limited the SALT (state and local tax deduction) on federal income tax forms to $10,000. Congressmen from state with lower property taxes celebrated (because they were no longer subsidizing states with higher property taxes), and Congressmen from states with high property taxes complained because they knew their constituents would not like paying a higher federal income tax. There is talk of increasing or ending the limits on the SALT deduction in the budget currently being debated in Congress. 

The war on President Trump is based on a number of factors. If his presidency is successful, it will prove that America does not need to elect a politician to be President–a businessman who is NOT connected to the Washington swamp can probably do a better job. If President Trump’s policies are enacted, Americans in the middle and working classes will thrive. Wall Street and the political elites might not do as well. If President Trump’s policies are blocked, I think the economic outlook for America is bleak.

A Much-Needed Safety Measure

Posted on by

On Monday, The Hill reported that President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring commercial truck drivers in the United States to be proficient in English. This makes a lot of sense. The electronic signs along the side of the road often warn of impending traffic jams or accident scenes that require caution. Truck drivers need to be able to read these signs. Often, at the scene of an accident, law enforcement officers are giving verbal instructions. Truck drivers need to be able to understand these instructions. Requiring truck drivers to be able to understand English makes our highways safer.

The article reports the content of the Executive Order”

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” the order said.

Trump designated English as the country’s official language in an executive order in March. In his order Monday, the president said proficiency in English should be nonnegotiable for professional drivers.

“They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers,” the order said. “Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”

Under the order, a driver must be able to read and speak English “sufficiently to converse with the general public” to operate a commercial vehicle in the U.S.

“My Administration will enforce the law to protect the safety of American truckers, drivers, passengers, and others, including by upholding the safety enforcement regulations that ensure that anyone behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle is properly qualified and proficient in our national language, English,” the order said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will issue a new guidance on English proficiency testing and enforcement policies, according to the order. A violation of the English language proficiency requirement would put a driver “out-of-service,” the order said.

“You might not know, but there’s a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road with federal officials and local officials, as well, which obviously is a public safety risk,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing Monday.

The decision was celebrated by Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA).

will issue a new guidance on English proficiency testing and enforcement policies, according to the order. A violation of the English language proficiency requirement would put a driver “out-of-service,” the order said.

“You might not know, but there’s a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road with federal officials and local officials, as well, which obviously is a public safety risk,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing Monday.

The decision was celebrated by Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA).

This is something that has been needed for a long time. Congress needs to get moving and pass this Executive Order as law.

A Powerful Conservative Voice

Posted on by

On April 30, Front Page Magazine reported that David Horowitz, the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, has passed away from cancer at age 86.

The article reports:

The Freedom Center’s founder and guiding force was a relentless conservative warrior who survived a previous brush with death (chronicled in his book Mortality and Faith), confrontations with the Black Panthers, campus radicals, government investigations, death threats, and hate campaigns, some led by his former friends and allies, without ever considering giving up or letting up. Nothing short of the end that comes for us all could silence his voice. He continued writing, working, and steering the Center to the very last; his final article, “The Biggest Lie of All,” appeared earlier this month.

Although he was a giant in the conservative liberty movement for over 40 years, David was raised a Marxist and was one of the leading intellectuals of the New Left movement at Berkeley in the 1960’s. But David, along with his writing partner and Freedom Center co-founder Peter Collier, eventually had a political epiphany and joined the side of freedom in the early 1980‘s. They committed the second half of their lives and work warning Americans of the dangers of the Progressives whose intellectual roots and totalitarian aims they understood better than many Leftists themselves.

David’s legacy is vast and the number of people that he inspired, mentored, and impacted is incalculable. That we live in a world today where there is a fighting chance of defeating the Leftist utopians who would enslave us is due in no small measure to the rare courage and unflagging passion that exemplified David’s work these past 40 years.

Over the years, David became something of a Saul Alinsky for the conservative movement, shaking a complacent Right out of its sleep and reinventing it as a war machine, laying out the strategies and principles for defeating the Left in too many bestselling books, articles, and pamphlets to count.

David Horowitz’s book Radical Son was published in 1997. I remember reading it and being amazed at the thought transformation it represented. David Horowitz was a living example of the fact that people can radically change their views as they observe new things and process them. He will be missed by the American conservative movement.

Efficiency Makes A Difference

Posted on by

On Tuesday, American Greatness posted an article about a new automated payment verification system spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The article reports:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has blocked its first improper payment requests using a new automated payment verification system spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

DOGE announced Tuesday that Treasury identified and rejected $334 million in improper payment requests due to missing budget codes, invalid budget codes, and budget codes with no authorization.

Invalid budget codes include budgets that had already been fully spent. Unauthorized codes refer to payments not linked to the budget.

Prior to DOGE’s intervention, the Treasury’s accounting code was optional for the $4.7 Trillion in payments that go out each year, making traceability almost impossible.

The kind of bookkeeping in place before DOGE intervened would never be acceptable in a private company. The Internal Revenue Service would never tolerate that kind of sloppiness in a private enterprise.

The article concludes:

“This is a big deal,” DOGE Chief Elon Musk commented on X. 

Back in February, the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) became a required field, increasing transparency into where U.S. tax dollars are going.

Treasury went live with its new payment verification system last week, resulting in the rejection of over $300 million in fraudulent accounting entries.

Taxpayers should rejoice in this change.