Monthly Archives: December 2025

Just To Set The Record Straight

Posted on by

When the lawfare against President Trump was at its peak, do you remember some pundits saying, “You can’t arrest a sitting President”? Well, evidently you can. It has been done–only once–but it was done.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine in an article posted on March 31, 2023:

When police officer William Henry West pulled over Ulysses S. Grant for speeding in a horse-drawn carriage on the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1872, he issued the president a warning. The very next day, however, West caught Grant in the midst of another race with his friends.

Looking like “a schoolboy who had been caught in a guilty act by his teacher,” as West recalled to the Evening Star in 1908, Grant reportedly asked, “Do you think, officer, that I was violating the speed laws?” Answering in the affirmative, West replied, “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.”

I am not in any way suggesting that President Trump should be arrested–he has never been found guilty of a crime. President Grant was obviously breaking the law. It is interesting to me that politics in Washington, D.C., at that time was honest enough for the arrest of the President to happen.

Behind The Scenes In North Carolina Republican Politics

Posted on by

There is a Senate race in North Carolina. There is also an interesting U.S. House of Representatives race in recently redistricted District 1. It is possible with the redistricting that District 1 will be represented by a Republican after 2026. There are a number of Republicans getting into the race.

First, the Senate race. President Trump’s candidate is Michael Whatley. My candidate is Don Brown. I believe Don Brown will represent North Carolina. I believe that Michael Whatley will represent Washington, D.C. Michael Whatley is a little too close to the Washington establishment for my taste. I am looking for someone who will represent North Carolina and will not be afraid to take a stand that benefits North Carolina. Don Brown is a former military Judge Advocate General. He thinks like a lawyer and knows how to debate and make his points.

In the First District House of Representatives race, President Trump’s candidate is Laurie Buckhout. Again, I support President Trump, but I totally disagree with him on this choice.

On Thursday, The Daily Haymaker noted:

Conservative Republican Congressional candidate and Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck was true to his direct approach when commenting on the announcement that Laurie Buckhout, the loser in the 2024 1st Congressional District election, was entering the race for the 2026 Republican nomination.  

“They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same losing formula again and expecting a different result, and the loser of the last election saying she’s the best choice this time is insane. But Laurie Buckhout’s behavior over the past few weeks may be the new definition of insanity. Her strange behavior in an attempt to manipulate the Republican Primary is puzzling.   She believes running for Congress is Big Business and cares more about special interest money than the people of Eastern North Carolina. That’s why she has earned the name Laurie Sellout.”

The article also notes:

The day following Buckhout’s second phone call, Buck discovered that Buckhout had called another candidate in the Republican Primary, State Senator Bobby Hanig, and told him the White House was encouraging her to run, and if he would drop out of the race, she would make him her Chief of  Staff in Washington.

 “She went from telling me she had health issues and didn’t want to run, to the next day saying she was running and offering somebody a position in her mythical Congressional office if they would drop out of the race.  I was astounded,” Buck said.

Asa Buck and Bobby Hanig are both good candidates and both would do a good job. I tend to favor Bobby Hanig because he was the fighter who made the difference in ShrimpGate. He and three other North Carolina Senators (and many Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives) fought against a law that would have ended the shrimping industry in North Carolina. He would be a fighter in Congress.

Finding The Missing Children

Posted on by

It was bad enough that the borders were wide open during the Biden administration, but it was really awful that so many unaccompanied minor children crossed the border and went missing.

On Friday, The Daily Wire reported:

The Trump administration has found more than 129,000 migrant children who went missing under the Biden administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on X Friday that federal authorities located the children after “the Biden administration lost them” and that “too many … were exploited, trafficked and abused.”

“We will continue to ramp up efforts and will not stop until every last child is found,” Noem said.

Federal officials combed through immigration court records and data kept by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to find the children, a federal government source familiar with the operation told The Daily Wire. They only counted those who showed up for their immigration hearings.

It was a massive undertaking since the Biden administration kept poor records on the children after they crossed into the United States, said the source, who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

“Under the Biden administration, the data was so bad, and our ability to find where these cases went was so bad, we just had to comb through every single agency to see if these kids [had] ever stepped in front of another agency,” the source explained.

“The kid had to be present [in court] for us to count it,” the source added.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration revealed it had located roughly 62,000 of the missing migrant children.

The article concludes:

Under the Biden administration, roughly 500,000 migrant minors crossed the border unaccompanied. Many of them were released to poorly vetted sponsors who, whistleblowers say, never had to appear in person to prove the children were going to safe homes.

The vetting concerns were also corroborated in an inspector general’s report released last year.

Whistleblowers said they believed some of the sponsors were traffickers and gangbangers.

Roughly 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children were never given their court dates, the government watchdog found.

Another 32,000 migrant children who had future court dates never showed up to their hearings, according to the report, which tracked cases from October 2018 to September 2023.

This is not acceptable. In July, I posted an article about some of the unaccompanied minors working on a marijuana farm in California (article here). Many of these children have been sold into sex trafficking or child labor. No civilized country should be a party to this.

The Democrats Used To Be For Working Americans

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Democrat-led states to block President Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. In addition to bringing money into America, the fee will help open up technology jobs for Americans. Many of these jobs are currently being filled by the visa recipients because the recipients demand a far lower salary than American workers. Also, a large number of the recipients send money back to their home countries so that the money they earn never goes back into the American economy.

The article reports:

A coalition of Democrat-led states announced a lawsuit earlier in December to block the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, claiming that U.S. employers are in need of the “highly skilled” labor provided by the H-1B visa system. American tech workers — many of whom are unable to find employment or have left the industry entirely out of frustration — say the lawsuit is the latest sign that the Democrat Party is no longer representative of the everyday working man.

“This is liberal states itching to ‘stand up to Trump,’ married by convenience to the Indian lobby and Big Business,” John, a cybersecurity professional in the Seattle area who has struggled to land a job for a year, told the the Daily Caller News Foundation about the lawsuit. John said Democrat claims about labor shortages in higher education are “crap” and that American citizens could “easily” be hired for these positions.

Like all five of the current and former tech workers who spoke to the DCNF, John wished to only go by his first name out of fear of reprisal from potential employers.

The article concludes:

“These corporations buy these politicians to bring in this cheap foreign cheap foreign labor, illegal and legal, to depress American wages,” Joseph continued. “It’s a worker issue, not a MAGA issue, so that’s the biggest thing.”

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention was a pivotal moment cited by Joseph and the other American workers who spoke to the DCNF about the changing political landscape. As president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the largest labor union on the continent, O’Brien made history as the first union leader to address the GOP convention and has since forged closer ties with national Republicans.

Many struggling tech workers said they aren’t looking for handouts from either party, but simply want political leaders to give them a chance to earn an honest day’s work.

“The H-1B program was created in order to cheapen the value of tech labor,” Riley, who left the tech industry entirely due to issues finding work, told the DCNF. “We’ve never had a shortage of tech labor in the United States, and so I don’t see the program continuing to be a good thing.”

The corporations bought the politicians, and the politicians did what was right for the corporations–not what was right for the country.

There Is Rampant Fraud In Government Programs

Posted on by

We have all been hearing about the fraud in Minnesota–food stamp fraud, college loan fraud, etc., but Minnesota is not an isolated example.

On Thursday, Red State reported (quoting a New York Post article):

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating whether Colorado providers helped nearly 3,000 people swindle taxpayer money from Uncle Sam, The Post has learned.

The investigation comes after an internal HUD audit found that benefits were granted to 221 dead people, while another 87 were otherwise ineligible.

The department also said that another 2,519 beneficiaries will need to undergo additional verification.

“From deceased tenants to individuals receiving HUD housing benefits who were never supposed to, the Department has questions for HUD-supported housing providers in Colorado, and we expect prompt answers and enforcement action,” a HUD spokesperson told The Post.

The apparent fraud took place in most of the Rocky Mountain State’s 59 public housing agencies (PHAs) and was particularly pronounced in the Denver Housing Authority, a source said.

HUD officials are set to demand PHAs perform additional verification of beneficiaries and remove both deceased tenants and ineligible beneficiaries from their rolls.

The New York Post article states:

HUD has also been scrutinizing other states.

Earlier this week, the Washington Examiner reported that the department plans to dispatch investigators to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., to assess the state of housing programs there.

While the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority spends about $108 million a year on housing assistance, St. Paul only spends $46 million.

HUD’s plans to send staff to Minnesota comes against the backdrop of the $1 billion Feeding Our Future fraud scandal that has roiled the state and follows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations focused on the Twin Cities.

The article at Red State concludes:

What is it with these blue cities? Something in the water?

It’s more likely that these kinds of things are going on because the fraudsters have gotten away with it doing it for so long. In Colorado, so the housing providers have to pay back any benefits wrongly received. Fine, fine. But what about the people who lied? Who cheated the taxpayers out of billions?

Until there are some publicized trials and prison sentences, this kind of fraud will just keep happening. It looks like some people in Minnesota may be going to jail; that, at least, is a start.

Until we start putting people in orange jumpsuits, the fraud will continue.

A Positive Move To End A Mental Health Epidemic

Posted on by

On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about a rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will prevent hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding—i.e., all of them–from performing “sex-rejecting procedures on children.

The article reports:

While the proposed rules do not appear to be public yet, Kennedy’s Declaration in support of the rules is here. And this process implements President Trump’s Executive Order directing HHS to take such actions, among other things.

The principal legal authority for the proposed rules appears to be Sec. 1861 of the Social Security Act, (e)(9), which defines an eligible hospital, inter alia, as one that ” meets such other requirements as the Secretary finds necessary in the interest of the health and safety of individuals who are furnished services in the institution.” On the basis of this and other statutory provisions, 42 CFR § 1001.2 provides that “when the Department has declared a treatment modality not to be safe and effective, practitioners who employ such a treatment modality will be deemed not to meet professionally recognized standards of health care.”

This is a welcome development. It can, of course, be reversed by a future Democratic administration, but it will put the brakes on pediatric sex-change procedures for at least the next few years, by which time the entire “trans” enterprise may be so discredited internationally that the issue will become moot.

Sex-change procedures in children provide patients for life for the medical community. After a young person is given medical treatment to create the illusion of a sex change, they are a patient for life. The body keeps trying to go back to what it was created to be, so the necessity of drugs never stops. All of the medical procedures and hormones do not change the person’s DNA.

About The November Jobs Report

Posted on by

On Tuesday, CNBC reported that delayed jobs numbers show payrolls rose by 64,000 in November after falling by 105,000 in October. That’s good news, but there is even better news in the details of the report.

A Press Release from U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer states:

“November’s jobs report shows our economy continues to gain momentum despite the economic mess President Trump inherited from the Biden administration and the reckless Democrat shutdown. With 64,000 jobs added in November, more and more Americans are coming off the sidelines and working in the private sector. Investment has been booming thanks to the President’s America First policies, leading to strong nonresidential construction growth.

“Importantly, the growth we are seeing is concentrated in the private sector and among native-born Americans. Federal employment has retreated to the lowest level in over a decade, completely reversing the previous administration’s federal hiring frenzy.

“The Trump Administration remains laser-focused on making life more affordable for all Americans. Average private sector weekly earnings are on track to rise 4.2 percent during the President’s first year in office, providing working families with more purchasing power as wages outpace inflation. We will continue to double down on our efforts to put American Workers First by building a Golden Age of economic prosperity.”

We have no workforce participation rate figures from October because of the government shutdown. In September the rate was 62.4; in November it was 62.5. That is a number that changes very slowly, but it is moving in the right direction. It was 62.4 in February, President Trump’s first full month in office.

One thing to notice in this press release and in the President’s speech on Wednesday night is the statement about the economic mess created by the Biden administration. Many Americans suffered under Biden economics. Because of the economic policies of President Trump, many Americans are now climbing out of the hole they were in because of the economic policies of the Biden administration. We need to send businessmen to Washington–not politicians.

When Our Justice System Is Perverted

Posted on by

On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about Charles Foehner, a former resident of Kew Gardens, who is now facing four years in jail for saving his own life.

The article reports:

Foehner is a retired doorman with the gift of gab, a devoted wife, and a habit of saying “groovy.” He spends his time watching naval history videos on YouTube.

While there are many violent criminals with rap sheets the length of a CVS receipt walking our streets, Queens DA Melinda Katz decided to throw the book at this senior citizen, after he pleaded guilty to owning unlicensed guns.

…Foehner first collided with our criminal justice system in May 2023, when he went out for a pack of cigarettes in the early hours of the morning. Crime in his Kew Gardens neighborhood became a problem after a now-shuttered seedy hotel had opened in 2017, so Foehner took a revolver with him for protection.

In an eerie twist, Foehner had complained to this very paper about the disorder in 2020.

“This isn’t our nice little neighborhood anymore,” he told The Post at that time, noting the brazen drug deals taking place.

But on that fateful night, he returned from buying smokes and saw an unhinged man banging on the door of his building. It was Cody Gonzalez, who then menacingly approached Foehner, demanding a cigarette and his phone.

“He kept coming closer and clearly he was going to attack me.” Foehner said he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the ground. But Gonzalez didn’t stop. He motioned toward Foehner’s neck with an object and the senior’s instincts kicked in. Foehner shot the man dead. The ordeal was caught on security camera.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He left me no choice,” said Foehner.

He called 911 and cooperated with authorities.

Gonzalez had at least 15 priors dating back to 2004 and a history of mental illness. Conversely, Foehner had no criminal history. But he is a lifelong gun enthusiast and a doomsday prepper, who had amassed a stockpile of approximately 26 weapons that the police found. Only a few were licensed.

It seems to me that a suspended sentence or household arrest would have been a lot more appropriate. How much money die Foehner save the State of New York by killing this person who already had 15 prior arrests? Doesn’t the Second Amendment grant Americans the right to bear arms?

The Value Of Having An Armed Population

Posted on by

The Crime Prevention Research Center has released a report showing the impact of armed citizens on attempted mass shootings. The figures cited at The Crime Prevention Research Center are very different from the figures released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The numbers were recently posted on Facebook:

Obviously, an armed citizen would have made a difference in Australia, which has very strict gun laws that discourage citizens from owning guns, and an armed citizen would have made a difference at Brown University, which is a gun-free zone. We see how well that worked out.

The problem is not the gun. Rob Reiner and his wife were killed by a mentally unbalanced son who used a knife. Some of the Christmas market attackers in Europe used vehicles to run people over. The problem is with the person, not the weapon of choice. Gun-free zones only make things safer for the attacker–not the victim.

Should We Forgive The Student Loans Of People Who Don’t Exist?

Posted on by

On Tuesday, The Federalist posted an article about another scandal in Minnesota involving government funds.

The article reports:

In Minnesota, home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the U.S. and the site of numerous fraud investigations, fraudsters received $12.5 million in student loan and education grant money, according to a letter Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The letter calls on Walz to resign, and states that a new fraud prevention system at the department has found over $1 billion in “attempted financial aid theft,” including by international fraud rings and artificial intelligence (AI) bots.

“[Y]our careless lack of oversight and abuse of the welfare system has attracted fraudsters from around the world, especially from Somalia, to establish a beachhead of criminality in our country,” McMahon wrote. “As President Trump put it, you have turned Minnesota into a ‘fraudulent hub of money laundering activity.’”

It is disturbing to me that international bad actors are taking advantage of the lack of accountability in spending American taxpayer money.

The article concludes:

In June, the Department of Education announced a “nationwide effort to eliminate identity theft and fraud in the federal student aid programs for the fall 2025 semester,” and a requirement for institutions of higher education to verify “certain first-time applicants who are enrolled in the summer term,” as an immediate effort to combat fraud.

“Federal Student Aid (FSA) data indicates that the rate of fraud through stolen identities, particularly involving technologically advanced fraud rings, has reached a level that imperils the federal student assistance programs,” the department stated at the time.

Another obvious safeguard, also announced by the Education Department in June, required first-time student aid applicants to “present, either in person or on a live video conference, an unexpired, valid, government-issued photo identification to an institutionally authorized individual and the institution must preserve a copy of this documentation.”

As the department has noted, the Biden administration removed verification capabilities for student loans and “diverted resources from fraud prevention toward its illegal loan forgiveness efforts,” opening the door for massive fraud.

I think it is time to turn the student loan program back to the states and back to private banks. I suspect that will end a lot of the fraud. Private business will always do a better job than the government. Note that it is the people from private industry put in place by President Trump that are finding the fraud.

Let’s Make The Chaplain Corps Great Again!

Posted on by

On Wednesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about changes Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is planning to make to the Chaplain Corps of America’s military.

The article reports:

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has pledged to toss “New Age notions” in America’s Chaplain Corps and make the military body “great again.”  

“In recent decades, its role has been degraded in an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism,” Hegseth said of the Chaplain Corps in video message released Tuesday night.  

“Chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers,” Hegseth said, adding “faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care.”  

…The Chaplain Corps was established in 1775 at the request of George Washington, who at the time was serving as general of the Continental Army. Washington established the corps to meet the spiritual needs of the men.  

“For about 200 years, the chaplain corps continued its role as the spiritual leader of our service members, serving our men and women in times of hardship and ministering to their souls, but sadly, as part of the ongoing war on warriors, in recent decades, its role has been degraded,” Hegseth said.  

The article mentions the current ‘spiritual guide’ (U.S. Army Spiritual Fitness Guide):

The 112-page document mentions “God” only once, does not mention “Jesus” or “virtue,” but does mention “feelings” 11 times and “spiritual” over 350 times.  

“The guide relies on New Age notions, saying that the soldier’s spirit consists of consciousness, creativity and connection,” Hegseth said.  

“The guide itself reports that around 82% of the military are religious, yet ironically, it alienates our war fighters of faith by pushing secular humanism. In short, it’s unacceptable and unserious, so we’re tossing it,” he continued.  

Hegseth has signed a directive to eliminate the use of the Army Spiritual Fitness Guide. The secretary also announced that military is simplifying the U.S. Military’s Faith and Belief Coding System, which is used to track religions and spiritual preferences within the military.  

The system currently has over 200 faith and belief codes, according to Hegseth, who added that the majority of the military uses only six of the codes, and 11 are not used at all.  

The article concludes:

“We are going to make the Chaplain Corps great again,” Hegseth pledged, adding, “Merry Christmas.”

According to artificial intelligence:

  • Approximately 70% of Americans identify as Christians.
  • About 1.9% of the U.S. population identifies as Jewish.

Our Chaplain Corps should reflect those numbers in its faith and belief codes.

A Veto That Should Not Have Been Overridden!

Posted on by

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a decision by the lawmakers in Maryland to override the Governor’s veto of a law establishing a commission to study reparations for slavery.

The article reports:

Maryland will form a commission to study the possibility of providing reparations for slavery after the state’s legislature reversed Gov. Wes Moore’s veto of enabling legislation on Dec. 16.

Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865 with the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was abolished in Maryland a year prior, in 1864, when the state amended its constitution to outlaw the practice. In 2007, the Maryland General Assembly and the Annapolis City Council issued official statements expressing “regret for the role Maryland played in instituting and maintaining slavery.”

Supporters of reparations benefits being paid to descendants of slaves say such benefits are justified because the harms that slavery inflicted on black Americans continue to be felt today, long after the practice was abolished.

Opponents say that no one who is alive today suffered under slavery and that it would be unfair to force Americans who had nothing to do with slavery to pay people who themselves did not experience slavery.

Blacks comprise almost 32 percent of Maryland’s population, the highest percentage in any state outside the Deep South.

Would you also consider reparation for the Irish who came to America as indentured servants, worked for seven years as slaves, then were thrown out into the streets? Slavery was horrible, but it was not unique to America. In fact, Britain and America were the two countries that worked to end slavery.

Instead of wanting to take money from people who had nothing to do with slavery and give it to people who were never slaves, why not put your efforts into ending modern slavery? Slavery exists in today’s world. It exists in America in the form of human trafficking–something exacerbated by four years of a porous border under President Biden. Slavery exists in some other countries in the form of forced marriage, child labor, and debt bondage.

In paying reparations, you are asking people to work to earn money to give to someone else who didn’t work for it. Isn’t that a form of slavery?

Undermining The Tax Cuts President Trump Put In Place

Posted on by

The Big Beautiful Bill provided tax relief for certain groups of people. A major portion of Social Security will not be taxed, tips will not be taxed and overtime pay will not be taxed. Those are targeted tax breaks given to the people who work hard (or have worked hard) and were hit hard by President Biden’s economic policies. Unfortunately, there are those in some states who really don’t care about helping those of us who work for a living.

On Monday, The Daily Signal reported:

The Trump/GOP “One Big, Beautiful Tax Cut” includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and a new tax-deduction for Social Security benefits. These promises helped Trump secure the White House and Republicans the U.S. House and Senate.

The GOP’s huge win in November 2024 gave Republicans a solid mandate to keep these promises. And they did.

Nonetheless, the Democrat-mismanaged states of Colorado, Illinois, Maine, and New York are rigging their tax codes so that this Trump/GOP tax relief does not reduce corresponding state levies. The same holds for Democrat-smothered Washington, D.C., which will keep higher taxes on 13 of the GOP’s 84 federal tax-cut provisions.

Colorado’s House Bill 25-1296, decoupled its state taxes from these federal tax reductions. So, next April 15, factory workers will have to render unto Democrat Gov. Jared Polis the overtime pay break that Trump and Republicans let them enjoy.

Among other things, this requires taxpayers to keep two separate records of taxable income. What a mess.

The article notes:

So, at last, Republicans deliver concrete relief to the “affordability crisis” that has become the Democrats’ latest obsession. The Trump/GOP tax cuts will help Americans pay their bills, buy groceries, fill their gas tanks, and maybe even get out of town, to pursue happiness. What could be more wonderful?

Rather than celebrate with everyday people, Democrats decrease taxpayers’ additional income and diminish their economic security. For Democrats, making Americans poorer is a bargain compared to the bonanza of denying Trump and Republicans any credit for feeling and easing the people’s pain.

Anyone who votes Democrat at this point is simply not paying attention!

Making Our Roads Safer

Posted on by

On Tuesday, The Gateway Pundit reported:

Secretary Kristi Noem announced that a joint 287(g) operation between ICE and the Indiana State Police resulted in the arrest of 223 illegal aliens along Indiana highways near the Illinois border, including 146 truck drivers. The operation, conducted in Northwest Indiana as part of Chicago-based Operation Midway Blitz, targeted individuals involved in offenses including DUI, drug trafficking, burglary, assault, child abuse, domestic battery, prostitution, and fraud. More than 40 of those arrested had been issued commercial driver’s licenses, primarily from Illinois, California, and New York.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also conducted roadside enforcement actions in multiple states, including New York, detaining drivers holding valid commercial licenses issued by other states. Federal and state officials said these operations were intended to address public safety risks associated with illegal aliens operating commercial vehicles and cited recent fatal crashes as justification for coordinated enforcement, particularly in and around sanctuary jurisdictions.

The enforcement actions followed federal audits that identified widespread CDL fraud and improper issuance practices across multiple states. Federal officials estimate that as many as 130,000 undocumented truck drivers may be operating in the United States, with tens of thousands believed to have obtained licenses through illegitimate means.

The article concludes:

Multiple bribery and test-taking fraud schemes have also been prosecuted nationwide, involving DMV employees, trucking school owners, and professional test-takers. In California, a scheme involving multiple trucking schools and DMV employees led to 20 convictions after hundreds of commercial driver’s licenses were issued to applicants who had not taken or passed required tests. School owners acted as brokers, collecting payments and bribing DMV employees to enter false passing results into state databases.

In Massachusetts, former State Police Sergeant Gary Cederquist was convicted on 48 counts for providing false passing scores to 40 CDL applicants in exchange for bribes, including cases of Fiji Water, Arizona Iced Tea, and Swedish Fish. Prosecutors said Cederquist and his co-conspirators used the term “golden handshake” to mark applicants who would automatically pass, even if they failed or skipped the skills test.

Again, I am looking for some orange jump suits!

Using Healthcare To Infringe Upon The First Amendment

Posted on by

On Monday, Just the News reported that a judge, who was formerly a CNN reporter, is attempting to end the Little Sisters of the Poor’s religious exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.

The article reports:

Religious liberty law firm Becket filed its opening brief on behalf of Little Sisters of the Poor with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the summer ruling by U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone, nominated by Obamacare’s namesake. 

Paul Clement, who has argued 100-plus cases before SCOTUS, is the star lawyer on the brief.

“The fourteen-year legal crusade” against the order, with Pennsylvania and New Jersey taking the baton from the Obama administration after its successor finalized a religious exemption, “has been needless, grotesque, and un-American,” said Becket President Mark Rienzi. Mother Loraine Marie Maguire prays that the states “end this needless harassment.”

The article concludes:

Congress never imposed a mandate by statute, the original regulatory mandate has four explicit exemptions for both religious and secular activity, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s own actions belie their arguments, the brief says: The Keystone State still lacks a comparable state mandate and the Garden State’s religious exemption is even broader. 

“Indeed, the States’ entire case is premised on the availability of a range of state programs that do provide contraceptives,” which contradicts any argument that forcing nuns to do it is the least restrictive means, the nuns told the appeals court. 

People and organizations should be able to decide for themselves what their health insurance will cover and what it will not cover. There should be a variety of plans available with different coverage. The demand being made of the nuns makes as much sense as forcing retired people to pay for juvenile dental care. A policy providing that coverage should be available, but not required.

The Corruption Was Known, Visible, And Ignored

Posted on by

It is interesting to me that the Charity Navigator, supposedly a guide to the administrative costs of charities and the amount of good that they do, rates the Clinton Foundation at the Navigator’s highest rating. The rating includes accountability, tax filings, revenue and expenses, etc. The Charity Navigator gives them a 100% rating. Operation Blessing has a 99% rating, and Samaritan’s Purse has a 100% rating. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) might not totally agree with the rating of the Clinton Foundation. It is possible that the Clinton Foundation has cleaned up its act, but the Foundation has had some questionable activities in the past.

On Sunday (updated Monday), Just the News posted an article about the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

A top Republican senator has provided Just the News a timeline written by FBI investigators laying out the repeated political obstruction those agents faced from their own bosses and the Justice Department during the 2016 election and beyond as they probed whether Hillary Clinton engaged in a pay-to-play corruption scheme involving her family foundation.

“Field agents were frustrated. But HQ would not let it go forward,” the newly-released and lengthy investigative timeline reveals. “We were trying to explore the [Clinton] Foundation, and we were told ‘NO’ by FBI HQ.”

…This follows Patel (FBI Director Kash Patel) unearthing a shorter timeline, written in 2017, which also chronicled the extensive stonewalling that bureau investigators in three cities faced from the Obama-era DOJ and FBI during the 2016 election.

FBI agents tried to get the help of federal prosecutors to determine whether or what crimes occurred while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, most notably, because at that time, her family foundation solicited hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign and U.S. interests with business before her department.

“Shut it down!” then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is quoted as demanding in the shorter timeline of the politicized barriers that agents in New York City, Little Rock, Ark., and Washington D.C. reported. 

The shorter timeline — written by a DOJ lawyer assigned to the FBI under former bureau Director James Comey — was secured by top aides to Patel and was obtained by Just the News earlier this year. The newly-released and longer timeline was handed over to Grassley’s office by the FBI along with a host of corroborating internal emails and was recently provided to Just the News.

The article concludes:

But John Durham’s 2023 special counsel report said that his appointment order by then-Attorney General Barr did not include the Uranium One saga within its scope, with the Durham report stating that “we have not interpreted the Order as directing us to consider matters addressed by the former United States Attorney for the District of Utah.”

The differences in how the Justice Department and FBI handled cases related to Clinton and Trump were stark — publicly exonerating Clinton for her mishandling of classified information when using a private email server as Secretary of State and not even allowing the Clinton Foundation investigation to get off the ground, while at the same time launching a sprawling inquiry into the Trump campaign and the candidate (and then the president) himself on the now-proven-false pretext of Russian collusion.

Special Counsel Durham later pointed out that “the immediate opening of Crossfire Hurricane as a full investigation contrasts with the care taken in connection with the investigation of the Clinton Foundation and other matters.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is long, but worth it. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the orange jump suits. Will anyone ever be held accountable for government corruption?

A New Level Of Insanity

Posted on by

On Sunday, The Epoch Times posted an article reporting that the National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a lawsuit stating that the ballroom construction project at the White House violates several federal statutes. Does anyone think this lawsuit would be filed if it were anyone other than President Trump doing the construction?

The article reports:

The National Trust is also asking for an injunction to halt work on the project “until the necessary federal commissions have reviewed and approved the project’s plans; adequate environmental review has been conducted; and Congress has authorized the Ballroom’s construction,” according to the complaint.

The National Trust describes itself in the complaint as a private, charitable, educational nonprofit corporation that Congress chartered in 1949. Its purpose is “to further the historic preservation policy of the United States and to promote the public’s awareness of and ability to comment on any activity that might damage or destroy our nation’s architectural heritage.” The trust has filed preservation lawsuits against several presidential administrations, the complaint said.

The lawsuit lists several federal agencies and those who head them as defendants.

The defendants are: the National Park Service and its acting director, Jessica Bowron; John Stanwich, superintendent of the White House and President’s Park; the Department of the Interior and its secretary, Doug Burgum; the General Services Administration and its acting administrator, Michael Rigas; and Trump.

The complaint said the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for the ballroom facility began in late October without congressional approval or approval from federal commissions responsible for development oversight in the nation’s capital. The federal government did not carry out required environmental studies, nor did it give the public an opportunity for comment, the complaint said.

In other words, let’s delay the project until President Trump is out of office. The project does not use taxpayer money and provides a ballroom that is desperately needed. I also suspect that all building permits are in order. That should be the end of the discussion.

Interpreting the Constitution

Posted on by

Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.   

Even though the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founding Fathers to be a permanent and long-lasting guide to the governance of this country, it was also written to address issues pertinent at that time. The Supreme Court Justices should take this into account when applying the original constitution and subsequent amendments to issues currently facing our country. This does not mean, as some of the far Left believe, that the Constitution is a “living document” subject to all kinds of interpretations, but rather we must fully understand the conditions and context at the time it was written to ensure we are accurately interpreting the intention of the authors.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take a case brought by the Trump administration concerning so-called “Birth Right Citizenship,” which is the notion that allows anyone born in this country to be a citizen. This has been a problem for years and is becoming more so as more people move to this country. There are cases where women from other countries who are already pregnant, travel to this country in order to have their child born here. Illegal aliens give birth to children in this country to ensure that not only the child but its parents and relatives can stay in this country. These are obvious manipulations of the Constitution. It should also be noted that no other country allows this to happen in their country. The Fourteenth Amendment was written and approved right after the Civil War. The intent was to ensure that all persons previously held in slavery would be granted full U.S citizenship and that individual states could not abridge their rights. There is no mention of allowing the children born of persons who are here temporarily or illegally granted automatic citizenship. There is a clause that states: “…and subject to the jurisdiction of (the United States).” One can clearly argue that a person here temporarily or illegally is not under the jurisdiction of the United States since they are citizens of their country of origin. Hopefully, when the Supreme Court rules on this issue this spring, they will rule correctly and restrict birth right citizenship only to children born to American citizens.

Another issue is freedom of religion. Although not yet before the court, we are facing an issue with the growing population of legal and illegal immigrants who are Islamists. The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the federal government from establishing a state religion (i.e. like the Church of England) and interfering with the practice of any religion. In subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to the free practice of religion must not interfere with public morals or an overriding government interest. For example, the Mormons were prohibited from legally practicing polygamy, which was a key element of their religion, and states are allowed to force inoculation of children to protect public health. It is pretty clear to me that Islamists advocating and practicing Sharia Law are interfering with public morals to the extent that Sharia Law conflicts with American law and morals. Surely when the Founding Fathers advocated for the ability to practice one’s religion, they had in mind religions that reflected Judeo/Christian principles and not any and all religions that existed in the world, or would be created in the future. The lslamist Quron (the basis for Sharia Law) states in several places that its followers can convert you or kill you. That concept is definitely in conflict with public morals. The mass demonstrations in some Islamist countries shouting “Death to America” as well as the brutal killing of Jews in October 2023 by Hamas shows the reality of the threat posed by Islamists.

The solution is to limit the number of immigrants from Islamist countries and require them to renounce their commitment to Sharia Law. If they are not willing to renounce Sharia Law, they should remain in their country of origin. Also, all Islamists here illegally should be deported along with all other illegal aliens. President Eisenhower did this in the 1950s and we must do it now. If we fail to take appropriate action, we will end up like many European countries which are losing their cultural identity. We only want immigrants who want to become Americans since it is the only way to preserve what has made this country great. Also, we should do all we can to encourage natural born American citizens to have more children in order to reverse the declining birthrate, so we do not have to rely on immigrants to maintain our labor force.

The Trump Effect

Posted on by

José Antonio Kast has been elected as the new President of Chile.

On Sunday, PJ Media reported:

You can tell what type of leader he’ll be based on the MSM headlines. I just did a quick Google search to see what people were saying, and all the usual suspects are calling him “far-right” and “ultra-conservative.” Let me interpret that for you.

Kast campaigned on being tough on crime and restoring law and order to the South American nation. That includes deploying the military to cities with high crimes, strengthening the country’s borders, mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, putting the interests of native Chileans first, and getting tough with cartels and terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua.

Gee, where have I heard this before? Many people have called him Chile’s Donald Trump. He and his supporters have even used the phrase “Make Chile Great Again” during his campaign.

That’s why the MSM is already labeling him with these little dog whistle phrases they use. In certain media circles, saying “far-right” and “ultra-conservative” essentially means “this guy is Hitler.”

The 59-year-old Kast is Catholic and also pro-family — he and his wife have nine children. He’s also a strong abortion opponent. Economically, he’s in favor of cutting billions in government spending and embraces marked-oriented reform.

President Trump has not yet been successful in implementing all of his policies. However, he has made moves in the direction of cutting spending and increasing revenue. He has enforced the immigration laws already on the books and is continuing to do so. Inflation is under control, and gradually, some of our major cities are becoming safer.

The article concludes:

Kast also supports Trump’s anti-drug trafficking activity in the Caribbean and does not consider Nicolás Maduro the legitimate leader of Venezuela. He even supports any U.S. action to get rid of Maduro.

I feel like I say this at least once a week, but it’s a sign of the times. Many Latin American and Caribbean countries are swinging to the right.

…Colombia and Brazil both go to the polls next year, and while the right remains fragmented in both countries, there’s always the potential for a change. Brazil is more of an uphill battle, as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva plans to run for another term, but after four years of an unpopular Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president in its history, I could see many voters in that country suffering from socialism and/or lunatic fatigue and voting for a right-winger if they have a good candidate.

People want good leadership.

Why You Should Never Trust The Mainstream Media

Posted on by

I used a search engine to see if I could actually find this story and had no luck. I gave up after about twenty pages. I could find the initial story with the accusations, but searching for the truth in the mainstream media was a futile effort.

Recently, photographs supposedly taken from the Epstein files were released. Some of the photographs show President Trump, President Clinton, and other famous people in the presence of Jeffrey Epstein. How many of you have been at an event with a famous person and had your picture taken? I personally have a selfie with Scott Brown. I realize that is not as impressive as President Trump, but I lived in New England forever, and that is the picture I have. At any rate, in one picture, the faces of the women in the picture are blacked out to imply that they might be under age. Well, there is an interesting story behind that picture.

On Saturday, The Post Millennium reported:

House Oversight Committee Democrats released images Friday that included two photos of Trump posing with women whose faces were blacked out. Unredacted versions later published by the New York Post showed Trump standing with adult female models. One of the women pictured said Trump was a “gentleman” and described his behavior as respectful.

“I was 22 years old and remember him being very nice. He was very gentlemanly, that’s the word to describe him,” she told The Telegraph. The outlet reported the women were models representing the suntan lotion brand Hawaiian Tropic at an event held at Mar-a-Lago. While the exact date of the photos are unclear, the photo is believed to have been taken in 1998.

During the 1990s, the now-president was running beauty pageants and owned the Miss Universe organization, which he bought in 1996 and sold his stake in 2015.

The image was posted on X by Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, who wrote, “Vile, disturbing new photos of Donald Trump that raise even more question about knowledge of abuses at Epstein’s estate.” Ansari added that Oversight Committee Democrats are “demanding the DOJ comply with our subpoena and release the full Epstein files. Stop protecting pedophiles. Survivors deserve justice now.”

How many Americans who depend on the mainstream media for their news will believe that these photos are an indication of illegal behavior? There needs to be a price paid by Congressmen for misleading the American public.

Another Serious Vehicle Accident Caused By A Non-English-Speaking Driver

Posted on by

America has a problem right now with people who cannot speak English getting Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDL’s). Not being able to read road signs or understand verbal commends impacts safety conditions on American roads.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported:

A Tennessee truck driver is dead after a Chinese national, who is not proficient in English and has a non-domiciled New York commercial driver’s license (CDL), allegedly crashed a tour bus — now federal transportation officials are investigating how he was cleared to drive.

“A Chinese national driving a motorcoach slammed into a vehicle in Tennessee, killing an individual and causing a major traffic jam this week,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote in a post on social media. “And to make matters worse: this driver had a non-domiciled CDL from NY and couldn’t speak English!”

Earlier this week, Huang Yisong, a 54-year-old Chinese national, allegedly slammed a tour bus he was driving into the rear of a tractor-trailer while watching videos on his cell phone, the New York Post reported. Yisong failed an English-proficiency test administered by Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers. His immigration status is not clear at this time.

The State of New York issued a non-domiciled CDL to Yisong.

“It’s outrageous,” a Department of Transportation spokesperson told the Post. “Our team is already investigating New York’s opaque licensing practices that enable dangerous, foreign drivers to kill innocent Americans.”

This is a safety issue and needs to addresses immediately.

The article notes:

However, earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring that trukers be proficient in English, Breitbart’s Nick Gilbertson reported in April.

“President Trump believes that English is a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers, as they should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station personnel, and provide and receive feedback and directions in English,” the document notes.

Under the anticipated order, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will be directed “to rescind and replace guidance to strengthen inspection procedures for compliance with English proficiency requirements,” per the White House document.

This isn’t an immigration issue–it’s a safety issue.

Choosing To Preserve Your Culture

Posted on by

In its early days, America was truly a melting pot. People came here from many places, built lives and careers, and enriched the country with their various cultures. How many ethnic restaurants does your community have? A melting pot works very well when people assimilate but retain the individual cultural foods and other things that they remember from their previous country. It doesn’t work well when people do not respect the culture of their new country and refuse to assimilate.

On Saturday, Fred Fleitz posted an article at America Greatness about the challenges facing Europe because of unlimited immigration by people who do not share their culture.

The article reports:

Not surprisingly, a controversial prediction in the new Trump administration’s National Security Strategy that Europe is facing “civilization erasure” because of out-of-control mass migration infuriated European elites. The Economist attacked this reference as “shocking.”  The Independent, a UK newspaper, referred to it as a “sinister conspiracy theory.”

I want to set this aside for a moment and talk about European Christmas markets, especially in Hungary.

These markets are an old tradition where people gather to shop and socialize in the four weeks of Advent before Christmas at outdoor stalls, often in city squares, to purchase handmade goods, eat sweet treats and sausages, and drink mulled wine, a spiced wine cocktail served hot. The markets usually include Nativity scenes.  Some have small performances and people singing Christmas carols.

Unfortunately, this year, Christmas markets have been canceled in many European cities or are being held under intense police security. The reason is that in recent years, Islamist migrants, almost all of them military-age men, have tried to disrupt and ruin these celebrations, sometimes with terrorism. This included a deadly attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, last year, when an Islamist immigrant ran down revelers with his car, killing five and injuring over 200.

…There has been a flood of vandalism at European Christmas markets in recent years, including the theft of Nativity scene figures and the beheading of baby Jesus figures. This is on top of years of other Islamist violence in Europe against Christians, including church burnings and the 2016 murder by two Muslim immigrants of 84-year-old French priest Father Jacques Hamel in his church while he was conducting morning mass.

None of these disruptions is happening in Hungary. Hungarian Christmas markets, which feature traditional Hungarian food, handmade goods, and concerts, have not been cancelled, nor are they being held under high security. There have been no attacks on these celebrations by Islamist immigrants. Hungarians have not been run down at Christmas markets by Islamists.

The reason is clear. Unlike most other European countries, Hungary has refused to permit mass migration and will not admit unvetted migrants. Hungary defends its borders against illegal migrants and has conducted mass deportations and expulsions of foreigners who entered the country illegally or were staying there without permission.

Please follow the link to read the rest of the story. Hungary has been under intense pressure to allow the same mass migration that has created problems in the rest of Europe. Hungary has stood strong. That is the reason Hungary can still enjoy Christmas markets.

Getting Into The Weeds About The Tanker Seizure

Posted on by

This is a warning that the following information is definitely in the weeds. On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the taking of the Venezuelan tanker and the possible strategy behind it. It’s a long article. I suggest you follow the link and read the entire article. I will post some of the highlights. The taking of the tanker is another example of the ability of the Trump administration to wage economic war rather than kinetic war.

The article reports:

During President Trump’s first term, there was a brief moment in which the Maduro regime appeared close to being overthrown, but it was countered by support from Cuba. According to The New York Times reporters Michael Crowley and Edward Wong, that failure frustrated Trump, his advisers, and then Senator Rubio, who had backed regime change.

“Their theory of change involves cutting off all support to Cuba,” said Juan S. Gonzalez, who was President Joe Biden’s top White House aide for Western Hemisphere affairs. “Under this approach, once Venezuela goes, Cuba will follow.”

In a separate NYT report, journalists Anatoly Kurmanaev, Nicholas Nehamas, and Farnaz Fassihi explained that the seized tanker Skipper, which was carrying crude contracted by Cubametales, Cuba’s state-run oil trading firm, is a critical part of how Cuba benefits from its oil trade with Venezuela.

The article quotes The New York Times:

Two days after its departure, Skipper offloaded a small fraction of its oil, an estimated 50,000 barrels, to another ship, called Neptune 6, which then headed north toward Cuba, according to the shipping data firm Kpler. After the transfer, Skipper headed east, toward Asia, with the vast majority of its oil on board, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have for decades sent oil to Cuba at highly subsidized prices, providing a crucial resource at low cost to the impoverished island.

In return, the Cuban government over the years has sent tens of thousands of medics, sports instructors, and, increasingly, security professionals on assignments to Venezuela. That exchange has assumed special importance as Mr. Maduro has leaned on Cuban bodyguards and counterintelligence officers to protect himself against the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean.

In recent years, however, only a fraction of Venezuelan oil set aside for Cuba has actually reached the island, according to PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela) documents and tanker tracking data. Most of the oil allocated for Cuba has instead been resold to China, with the money providing badly needed hard currency for the Cuban government, according to multiple people close to the Venezuelan government.

The article concludes:

What’s likely happening is that the Trump administration is in the early innings of disrupting large volumes of crude that flow from Venezuela to Cuba to China. That strategy could trigger falling dominoes across the region, pushing Cuba’s economy deeper into collapse while also meaningfully weakening Venezuela and tipping the balance of power away from Maduro.

So far, Beijing has yet to lash out over the Skipper seizure and the resulting disruptions to crude flows to Asia. One has to wonder whether Bessent worked out a secret deal with Beijing; otherwise, this type of maneuvering by the Trump administration risks triggering turmoil that could derail any upcoming Trump-Xi talks.

Stay tuned.