From my friends at The Patriot Post:
Monthly Archives: May 2026
Why Is This A Partisan Matter?
Yesterday, Hot Air posted an article about the US Senate Homeland Security Committee testimony of James Erdman III.
The article reports:
James Erdman III is testifying today before the US Senate Homeland Security Committee, and he is blowing the whistle on the CIA’s willingness to bow to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s insistence that COVID did not originate in lab leak, likely tied to gain-of-function research.
No surprise there, I have to say. At the time, the CIA agreed to withhold its conclusion that the most likely explanation for COVID’s spread was a lab leak, although it has subsequently stated that the lab leak was likely.
Yesterday MSN reported:
No Democrats attended a committee hearing Wednesday featuring a whistleblower who accused former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Facui of covering-up details about the origins of COVID-19.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee James Erdman III appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to testify about Fauci’s alleged role in covering-up the origins of COVID-19, with no Democrats on the committee being present.
“No Democrats showed. They don’t care to dismantle the deep state,” Gabrielle Lipsky, the deputy communications director for Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Hot Air notes:
This tale, as far as I can tell, is more about the willingness of bureaucracies to cooperate to cover up their own role in disasters than the CIA’s participation in causing this particular one. There is no indication that it played any role itself, but rather that it bowed to political pressure from Fauci et al to cover up their own.
Covid was something that impacted all Americans in some way. Lying to the American people about its origins did nothing to help any of us. The fact that the Democrats did not bother to show up for this hearing is concerning. Their constituents was as impacted by Covid as those of the Republicans.
Ending The Chinese Police In New York City
In the past I have posted two articles about the Chinese police quietly operating in New York City to monitor the activities of Chinese citizens in America (here and here). At least one of those undercover police stations in New York City has been shut down.
On Wednesday, The Epoch Times reported:
A jury has found the Chinese American who ran Beijing’s undercover police station in New York City guilty of being a foreign agent for China.
He was also found guilty of obstructing justice by deleting WeChat messages documenting his direct communications with his contact in the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
Lu Jianwang, 64, community leader and former president of the America ChangLe Association, was convicted on May 13 in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The jury found him not guilty of conspiring with others as a Chinese agent.
Lu ran the Overseas Chinese Police Service Center out of the offices of the hometown association on East Broadway in New York City’s Chinatown.
Lu is now being held accountable, and the police station has seen its “sinister purpose disrupted,” Joseph Nocella, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
The article notes:
The New York City branch run by Lu was just one of 30 stations launched on Jan. 10, 2022, by the Fuzhou Ministry of Public Security.
Prosecutors said the station was part of a larger campaign of transnational repression to monitor and intimidate Chinese people living abroad.
“I think if you’re a member of a community that originated in another country, you have to be very, very, very careful how you deal with people from your home country,” said Lu’s attorney, John Carman. “That should make everybody very nervous about reaching out and doing good things when there’s somebody who’s a government official from another country.”
Carman also said Lu would be appealing the verdict.
The charge of not registering as a foreign agent for the Chinese regime carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. The maximum sentence for the obstruction of justice charge is 20 years in prison. A date for sentencing has not yet been set.
Communism does not allow freedom–even when you leave the communist country.
About Term Limits
On the surface, term limits seems like a good idea to break up the bureaucracy the inhabits the Washington swamp. However, when you look more closely at term limits, they are not really a viable solution.
On Wednesday, American Greatness posted an article about term limits.
The article reports:
Attempts to restructure government at the federal level are mostly on the Democrat agenda. Pack the US Supreme Court. Elect presidents via popular vote. Turn Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, into states with two senators each. Implement national mail-in voting, automatic voter registration, legalize ballot harvesting, lower the voting age to 16, let felons vote, let noncitizens vote. And, of course, end the Senate filibuster. If they could, Democrats would do all of this.
Meanwhile, however, there is a growing bipartisan movement to implement term limits for members of the House and Senate. A bill has been introduced in the 119th Congress, and President Trump has supported term limits consistently since he first ran for president in 2016. But federal term limits would do more harm than good. Explaining why offers insights into how an entrenched bureaucracy gains power in democracies, and California is a prime example.
Term limits came to California back in 1990 via a ballot initiative, because it was the only way the state’s Republicans, still relatively influential, could get rid of Willie Brown. For decades, Assembly Speaker Brown controlled everything that happened in the state legislature. If Brown didn’t support your bill, your bill was dead. As a 25-year veteran member of the Assembly, Brown virtually ruled Sacramento by 1990. Every piece of legislation required his imprimatur. And every aspiring Democrat, including Brown’s protégé Kamala Harris, went through Brown on their way to prominence in state politics.
The consequences have been enormous. Brown may not have been a Republican favorite, but he got things done. By virtue of his many years in the Capitol, Brown knew how every lever of power worked, and he knew every bureaucrat, every union official, and every lobbyist. He was a perennial player; he knew the game backwards and forwards, and when something had to happen in California, Brown was there to make it happen. Say what you will about his politics or his party; back then, California had a government that worked.
The article concludes:
Imagine what Washington, DC, already gripped by a deep-state bureaucracy, would be like if elected politicians were termed out of office right about the point where they’d acquired enough experience to navigate this swamp. Whatever oversight is still possible, whatever reforms and restructurings that might be in the interests of the American people would no longer have advocates who had mastered the details and could exercise long-term leadership. Of course, many members of Congress become swamp rats, entrenched, bought, manipulated, and indifferent to their constituents. But our obligation as citizens is to expose them and ensure that they lose the next election. If they’re such a problem, we must find a candidate to oppose them who can earn a majority of the votes in their district. That’s how you term-limit a bad politician. You beat them in an election.
When you eliminate the bad politicians, you also eliminate the good ones. You turn the machinery of government over to people who have spent decades learning how to control elected politicians, many of whom come into Congress without any previous experience in government. It is easy to disparage all politicians and, therefore, wish to control them by sticking a revolving door into the system and pushing everyone in and out after 12 years. But be careful what you wish for.
If you term limit the elected officials and leave the bureaucrats, you will have a swamp run by bureaucrats. The real solution is for more Americans to get involved in primary elections and give us better candidates to vote for.
Ignoring The Will Of The Voters
President Trump was elected by a large majority. Congress (particularly the Senate) does not seem to understand that. The Senate has been blocking the SAVE Act which 80 percent of Americans support, but it has also been blocking President Trump’s nominations.
On Tuesday, Amuse on X noted that the Senate has been in pro forma session rather than go into recess and let the President make recess appointments.
The article at Amuse on X reports:
The pattern, until recently, was easy to describe. Pro forma sessions, when used to prevent recess appointments, were always an opposition-party weapon. Senate Democrats used them to block George W. Bush. Senate Republicans used them to block Barack Obama. Each side learned the tactic from the other and used it to constrain a president of the rival party. By the standards of American constitutional practice, that was ordinary politics. The branches fought, the parties fought, and the alignment was predictable. The president and his Senate majority stood on one side. The opposition Senate used scheduling to deny him appointments power on the other.
Donald Trump broke that pattern, although not by his own action. The Senate broke it for him. In August 2017, Scripps News reported that Senator Mitch McConnell’s Senate held nine pro forma sessions during the August work period, sessions which by their structure prevented President Trump from making recess appointments during a stretch of weeks in which his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, appeared at risk of being replaced. Axios and the Voice of America described the calendar in similar terms. The legal effect of the schedule was unmistakable. By breaking the long summer break into intervals of less than four days at a time, the chamber denied the president a constitutionally qualifying recess. The Republican majority’s calendar, not the Democratic minority, was what made the difference.
The article concludes:
This is not a high-minded defense of the Senate. It is obstruction wrapped in procedural Latin. A Republican leader who genuinely believed in advice and consent would be moving heaven and earth to schedule the floor time, change the rules where needed, and confirm the President’s people. He would not be reading scripts into an empty chamber for the express, well-understood purpose of denying the President a recess. Donald Trump did not invent this constitutional collision. He is simply the first president in American history to absorb its full weight from his own side, after the Supreme Court made the relevant law clear, and at the precise moment the voters had handed his party the unified government that was supposed to make obstruction like this impossible. The voters did their part. Leader Thune has not done his.
It’s time to replace John Thune.
Refusing To Learn From History
Minneapolis raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2017. I have previously posted articles about the results of increasing the minimum wage (here and here). Those of us who understand economics knew exactly what the results of that increase would be. Unfortunately, the writers for The Minnesota Star Tribune had no idea.
A Townhall article from Tuesday quotes The Minnesota Star Tribune (Townhall added the emphasis_:
When the Minneapolis City Council approved a controversial $15 minimum wage in 2017, no one knew what would happen next.
Workers and business owners made dueling predictions of boom or bust that would result from the citywide wage hike. Cities with similar policies were still phasing in the $15 minimum, so it was impossible to say who was right.
Nearly a decade later, businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul — which passed its own similar law in 2018 — say they’re stretched thinner than ever, and both cities have lost thousands of jobs.
Pressure on the hospitality industry is particularly acute. Restaurants and other leisure-related businesses say shrinking margins have left them less able to weather economic shocks, such as the federal immigration crackdown that forced many to temporarily close this winter.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which has studied the effects of the $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis since 2018, recently reported minimum wage policies have resulted in higher hourly pay but fewer available hours and positions. That has meant lower earnings: Between 2017 and 2021, the average decline in wage earnings across all industries was 1% in Minneapolis and about 2% in St. Paul. The research controlled for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and unrest after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
The article at Townhall notes:
We all knew exactly what would happen. Because we have years of minimum wage hikes that demonstrate the same pattern.
You don’t have to be a genius to predict that despite the empirical evidence that minimum wage hikes don’t help workers, more cities and states will implement them in the near future.
This Is NOT Normal Politics!
We have two major political parties. Theoretically both parties want what is best for America–they just have different ideas as to what that is and how to get there. Lately that doesn’t seem to be the case. I used to be a Democrat. I believed in ideas that I thought the Democrats believed in–equal rights (even though the Democrats were the ones who filibustered the Civil Rights Act), a strong safety net (which has been majorly abused), and equal pay for women (which according to the statistics is now a fact). However, somewhere along the line, the Democrat party got lost. They don’t seem to have a platform now except hate Israel and get President Trump. At best that is unattractive, at worst it is just plain stupid.
On Tuesday, Just the News reported:
In the final weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency, FBI agents tied to Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation memorialized anew their belief that President Donald Trump broke the law in contesting the 2020 election and secretly arranged to preserve their evidence until 2030 in memos that raise alarm they could revive their prosecution after Trump leaves office.
The FBI memos and emails closing out the controversial Arctic Frost investigation – obtained by Just the News – show the bureau chose not to relinquish the evidence it gathered after Smith went to court to dismiss charges against Trump, even though that is the normal practice for agents. Instead, they created a preservation order keeping the evidence in FBI custody for two years after Trump’s second term ends, claiming it was necessary to do so because of ongoing litigation, the memos show.
Do the charges still make sense with all of the evidence now showing serious voter irregularities in swing states?
The article notes:
FBI emails and memos obtained by Just the News dating back to early 2025 show how the FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who had been working on the criminal prosecutions aimed at Trump and his allies worked to close the 2020 election-related case against the incoming president, while also seemingly leaving open the door for the criminal case to be revived once Trump leaves office and a Democrat again holds the reins at the Justice Department.
“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”
Following Trump’s victory in November 2024 over Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Smith sought to dismiss his case against Trump “without prejudice” – leaving open the possibility that the charges could be refiled in the future.
Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is not acceptable behavior on the part of the Biden Justice Department.
Refusing To Use The Power You Have
It seems that every time the Republican party gets control of Congress, it forgets to do anything with that power. We are a year and a half into the second Trump administration, and Congress has passed the Big Beautiful Bill and very little else. At least 80 percent of Americans support the SAVE Act, and the Republicans in Congress can’t get it passed. That is ridiculous. The blame for that falls on both Republicans and Democrats–if Americans support the bill, who does Congress represent?
On Monday, The American Thinker posted an article titled, “Kill the Filibuster—or Make Them Talk.” We know that if and when the Democrats take control of Congress they will end the filibuster and push their agenda through, yet the Republicans sit on their hands waiting for that to happen. If that is their attitude, why in the world should I vote for a Republican?
The article reports:
Five words: Power unused is power surrendered.
That’s the reality Senate Republicans now face.
With a narrow majority and a nation increasingly concerned about election integrity, Republicans face a choice: act decisively or allow procedural relics to dictate policy outcomes. At the heart of this dilemma is the filibuster — not a constitutional safeguard, not a sacred institution, but a Senate rule that has evolved into a minority veto.
And in its current form, it’s not even honest.
Today’s filibuster is a shadow of its former self. Senators no longer need to stand on the floor, speak for hours, or defend their obstruction before the American people. Instead, they merely signal an intent to filibuster, and legislation effectively dies unless 60 votes can be mustered for cloture. No speeches. No effort. No accountability.
That’s not deliberation. That’s abdication.
The filibuster is often spoken of in reverent tones, as if it were handed down alongside the Constitution. It wasn’t.
The article concludes:
Republicans can preserve the current charade and watch their agenda die under silent filibusters, or they can restore accountability by forcing senators to speak and defend their obstruction before the American people.
And if Democrats eventually regain full power—as they inevitably will—they have already signaled that they will eliminate the filibuster entirely to advance their agenda.
Republicans must decide whether they intend to govern or merely to occupy office.
Power unused is power surrendered.
If the Republicans intend to hold power in the midterm elections, they need to show the voters that they understand how to use power.
Tracking Down The People Harming Our Children
On Sunday, Breitbart reported:
Hundreds of child sexual abuse victims were located and over 350 child sex abuse offenders arrested in April as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Operation Iron Pursuit.
Officials located over 200 children, and 350 child sex predators were arrested during the operation that ran from April 1 until April 30, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York announced Friday.
“All 56 FBI field offices and U.S. Attorneys, offices around the country participated in the coordinated takedown effort, including the Buffalo FBI Field Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York,” the press release said.
The news comes after Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel said his agency has been working to modernize and restore trust as it protects American citizens, while also moving over 1,000 agents and Intelligence Analysts out of Washington, DC, and into the field, Breitbart News reported.
Following the close of Operation Iron Pursuit and additional operations, Patel said drugs and firearms were also seized, according to Breitbart News.
The article concludes:
In December, Breitbart News reported a DOJ crackdown on child sex predators across the nation saw 293 sexual abuse offenders arrested and over 200 children located.
This is much better use of the Department of Justice than monitoring parents who go to School Board meetings!
About That Kill Switch
On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a mandate that every 2027 model car have a kill switch. The mandate was included in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. I am willing to bet that at least half of the Congress that voted for that bill had no idea that mandate was in the bill. Efforts to kill the mandate have failed so far.
The article reports:
Congress quietly passed an Orwellian regulation during former President Joe Biden’s term requiring all new cars to feature a “kill switch,” raising the alarm among some Republicans — but not all of them.
Republicans like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, and Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry have led the charge in the House to scrap the invasive regulation, calling it “impractical” and “Orwellian.” Yet in the most recent January vote to reverse the regulation, 57 Republicans joined nearly every Democrat to mandate that every 2027 model car have a kill switch.
This feature would use technology to assess the driver’s performance and determine whether they are impaired. If the car determines the driver is unfit to be behind the wheel, the kill switch would shut the car off, raising concerns about safety, surveillance, and implementation.
The article notes:d
One of the most powerful lobbying groups responsible for pushing the regulation is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a non-profit founded in 1980 by Candace Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.
Although the regulation is intended to minimize tragedies caused by drunk driving, lawmakers have raised concerns about its actual implementation. The language is technology-neutral, meaning it’s up to the car manufacturer to design and install a range of systems like sensors that assess driving, cameras that track the driver’s eyes, and self-driving software.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also proposed several technologies to assess if a driver is impaired, including a touch sensor that measures alcohol concentration using a touchpad on the car’s steering wheel or ignition switch. This sensor uses infrared spectroscopy to detect alcohol concentration in the capillary blood in the skin of the driver’s hand.
There is also talk of sensors that measure whether a driver is stressed. Imagine the following scenario: you are in the woods hunting, and a bear decides to chase you. You run to your car, hoping to drive away from the situation. You car’s sensors say you are stressed and will not allow you to start the car. You sit in the car as the bear tears the car apart to get to you. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.
From my friends at Townhall:
Something Simmering Beneath The Surface In The Senate Race
North Carolina will be voting for a new Senator in November. The former Governor Roy Cooper is running for that seat against Michael Whatley, who is not as well known in the state. The campaign is already getting very nasty. One group has gone after Michael Whatley because of his appointment of Harvey West to serve in various roles in the North Carolina Republican party. (source here) However, Roy Cooper is much more vulnerable for attacks because of his behavior as Governor during the Covid epidemic. Most of us remember that many of our constitutional rights were trampled. Among other things, pastors and family members were blocked from visiting dying relatives and parishioners, and churches were closed while other things remained open.
On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported:
The public still has unanswered questions about Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein securing early release for an untold number of criminals before his term.
Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper drew criticism since 2021 for the COVID-19-inspired inmate releases that Stein’s office negotiated while he was Cooper’s attorney general. Stein’s office played a crucial role by capitulating to leftist criminal reform groups who sued in 2020 over the pandemic’s effect on prisons, but he skated to the governor’s mansion in the 2024 elections without enduring as much controversy.
The list of inmates getting released included at least 51 parole-eligible criminals serving life sentences for murder and sex offenses, The Charlotte Observer reported. State officials under Cooper and Stein chose 3,500 inmates to release six months after the settlement, though they have been unclear about whose sentences the settlement actually shortened versus those who were slated for release regardless of the lawsuit.
Copper and Stein’s list captured national attention after surveillance footage was released in September that showed a man — identified as repeat arrestee Decarlos Brown Jr. — fatally stabbing 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train. The state included Brown on its list of 3,500 releases before his latest arrest, but later claimed that his armed robbery sentence was set to end anyway, meaning he was not released early.
An upcoming GOP-led investigation state lawmakers announced in April could bring unwanted attention on the COVID settlement for the widely popular governor, whom The Washington Post called “the brightest star” for Democrats to run for president in 2028.
Please follow the link above to read the entire article. I would like to point out that Harvey West has served his time and was interacting with adults in the roles he was appointed to. Some of the criminals Roy Cooper let out were violent and should have remained in jail.
It is no secret to North Carolina that both Roy Cooper and Josh Stein are soft on crime. It remains to be seen if that will impact the Senate election.
Medicaid Fraud Comes To North Carolina
The North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek has been doing an awesome job. According to artificial intelligence (AI), his initiatives have reportedly saved millions in taxpayer dollars. Recently, he has turned his attention to Medicaid.
On Saturday, AOL posted an article from Fox News. The article reported:
As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek told Fox News Digital the problem is very real in his state, especially when it comes to autism therapy, an area that has been highly scrutinized in Minnesota.
Boliek is sounding the alarm on potential waste, fraud and abuse within the state’s Medicaid program, specifically noting in an interview with Fox News Digital a 47,000% explosion in autism therapy billings he has flagged since taking office last year.
“Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy,” Boliek said. “But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud and abuse prevention. So, we’ve dug down into that and are in the middle of that.“
The article concludes:
In terms of next steps in North Carolina, Boliek says his office is working with lawmakers to strengthen fraud enforcement by increasing financial accountability, expanding investigative and Medicaid audit resources and investing in staff and technology to recover misused funds.
Boliek explained that one important tool to crack down on fraud is artificial intelligence.
“Look, we’ve got to pour jet fuel on artificial intelligence in the area of state auditing because the fraudsters are using AI and if we’re not using AI to combat the fraud, then we’re going to be on our heels and the taxpayer isn’t going to be protected.”
He emphasized that these steps, especially enhancing oversight of programs like Medicaid, are aimed at holding individuals accountable and returning taxpayer dollars for more effective use.
The State Financial Officers Foundation, a group of financial officers that collectively oversees more than $3 trillion in state funds, released a report earlier this year outlining how the organization safeguarded more than $28 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in 2025 alone.
“Every wasted dollar is a dollar that can’t be spent on a person who actually needs service,” Boliek said.
There need to be severe consequences for Medicaid fraud.
Winning At Track Is Easy When You Are A Guy Competing Against Girls
On Saturday, Fox News reported the following:
A California postseason track meet on Saturday opened with a “Save Girls’ Sports” rally outside the gates and ended in familiar fashion, as one athlete again separated from the field in the jumping events, highlighting growing concerns over competitive fairness in girls’ sports.
Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division 3 preliminaries in Yorba Linda drew attention before competition began, with demonstrators protesting California’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports.
Inside, the focus turned to the jumping events, where biological male AB Hernandez, a senior from Jurupa Valley, competed against women and finished first across all three competitions with dominant performances.
First, let’s get our terms right–he is NOT a biological male–he is a male. His gender was NOT assigned at birth–when he arrived in this world, his parts determined his gender. Without major surgery, there is no way to change those parts.
The article concludes:
Hernandez competed under rules California has allowed for more than a decade. Those rules remain at the center of a growing conflict between state officials and federal leaders over Title IX and women’s sports. That battle has now moved into the courts, with the Department of Justice suing California over its transgender athlete policies.
In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office distanced the governor from the lawsuit, emphasizing he was not personally named while defending the state’s existing law.
Saturday’s prelims in Yorba Linda added more data to the growing push to keep biological males out of girls’ events.
The protest set the tone early, and by day’s end the argument had moved off the sidewalk and onto the results board, where the outcome carried real consequences.
In the long jump, Hernandez was able to jump a foot more than his female competitors. I wonder how he would have done against male competition. Female sports is not the place for mediocre male athletes.
Solving the H-1B Visa Problem
Some corporations have been using the H-1B Visa program to avoid hiring and paying American workers the wages they deserve. The H-1B Visa program was set up to allow American corporations to import workers to do jobs Americans might not be qualified for or able to do. Unfortunately, some corporations have used it as a way to bring in cheaper labor from overseas and avoid paying American workers a living wage.
On Friday, The Dallas Morning News reported:
An entry‑level software engineer in San Francisco would need to be paid $162,000 a year to qualify for an H‑1B visa under a Trump administration proposal — almost 30% more than today. In Dallas, the minimum would jump by a similar rate to $113,000 and in New York to $132,000.
Those are the types of pay increases potentially in store for immigrants using the most popular path for white-collar workers to enter or stay in the US. It’s part of changes to the H-1B program that the Trump administration says will help prevent foreigners from undercutting Americans’ wages.
The plan to boost minimum salaries would cost the biggest employers of white-collar foreign talent at least $18 billion in the first 12 months, according to an analysis by immigration data companies Lawfully and Threshold. Within three years — when most existing H-1B visas will have to be renewed at the higher level — the annual cost could reach as high as $43 billion, the study found.
The H-1B Visa program has been abused in order to lower the cost of employee salaries. The other problem with the program is that much of the money earned by the people in the program is sent out of America to other countries and never enters the American economy. It is a drain on our economy rather than a part of our economy. It truly is time to reform the program.
What An Incredible Coincidence
On Thursday, The New York Post posted an article about the cancellation of a ‘Muslim only’ event at a taxpayer funded waterpark in Texas.
The article reports:
The head of a Texas Islamic group that rented out a taxpayer-funded waterpark for an event that was advertised as “Muslim only” runs a childhood education center with the exact same unfortunate ‘Learing Center’ typo first seen at an infamous daycare in Minneapolis.
The “Excellence Early Learing Center,” as its misspelled website header reads — located in the Fort Worth suburb of Hurst — offers a variety of programs for youngsters from infants to pre-K, and promises to provide children with “the loving, personal care that they need to thrive and feel confident.”
The center boasts “multiculturalism, small classroom sizes, healthy eating and a warm, loving environment that feels like home” and staff with degrees in “education, accounting, biology, pharmacology, science, nursing and mathematics from their home countries.”
Its owner, head operator and curriculum designer is Aminah Knight, who boasts a master’s degree fro the University of Southern California and a doctorate from Vanderbilt University.
Earlier this week, Knight and her DFW Epic Eid organization drew massive criticism for a flyer advertising an event at Epic Waters in Grand Prairie billed as “Muslim only” and requiring modest swimsuits for all attendees.
Epic Waters, a sprawling, 80,000-square-feet indoor waterpark opened in 2017 at a cost of $88 million — funded by a 0.25% sales tax hike residents approved at the ballot box in 2014.
The FAQ for the third-annual event, which was being held to celebrate the Muslim holiday Eid, initially proclaimed “the entire waterpark has been exclusively reserved for Muslims.”
After the backlash, Knight modified the advert to omit the exclusionary language, and acknowledged to The Post in an email that the original messaging wasn’t intended to bar non-Muslims.
When asked, Knight stated that her goal was simply to provide an atmosphere where “individuals and families who value modest dress and a modest environment can come together and feel comfortable enjoying a recreational space.” I can agree with the idea of requiring modest dress, but you can’t restrict the use of a publicly-funded waterpark to a specific religious group. I’m sure you could rent a private waterpark and limit the people allowed to use it on a specific day, but that wouldn’t be pushing the envelope, which is what I suspect was originally happening here.
An Interesting Contrast
On Wednesday, Newsbusters posted an article contrasting the news coverage of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) activities in Minnesota in January and the anti-fraud actions in Minnesota.
The article includes two illustrations of the contrast:
The article reports:
The following is the sum total of broadcast evening news show coverage on the April 28 raids:
TOM LLAMAS: In Minnesota tonight, federal and state agents executing more than 20 search warrants at businesses across the Twin Cities, raids linked to a growing fraud scandal that has reached the steps of The White House. Maggie Vespa has been following this one for us and has this story.
MAGGIE VESPA: Tonight, new raids rocking Minnesota, with video showing federal and state authorities executing more than 20 search warrants at sites across the Twin Cities, including autism centers, child care facilities and at least one senior center. All, federal authorities say, tied to allegations of widespread welfare fraud within Minnesota’s large Somali community.
NICK SHIRLEY: It’s just a simple question: where are the children at?
VESPA: Allegations reignited by this viral video posted four months ago by a right-wing influencer claiming multiple Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota were fraudulently collecting state subsidies while sitting empty. But according to the state agency in charge, those centers were operating “as expected.” Today’s raids marking the boldest move yet by a White House fraud task force led by Vice President Vance.
JD VANCE: You have families who need these services, who are unable to get them, because people are getting rich off of fraud schemes.
VESPA: The Trump administration repeatedly citing the fraud allegations as cause for launching high-profile immigration raids in Minneapolis earlier this year, during which at least two U.S. citizens were shot and killed. Governor Tim Walz denouncing the ICE operations but applauding today’s raids. And the Minnesota Department of Human Services saying they’re “fed up” with people taking advantage of the system.
LLAMAS: And Maggie, you’re at one of the centers raided today. You just talked to an employee there. What’d they tell you?
VESPA: Yeah Tom, that’s right. She just came to this door behind me, she told me she’s been turning parents away all day, and that the owner right now isn’t here to comment. It’s worth noting we reached out to him as well as two other centers. So far, no response. We also mentioned Governor Walz in that piece. He dropped his reelection bid amid this fraud scandal. He’s set to give his final State of the State tonight. Tom.
LLAMAS: Maggie Vespa for us. Maggie, we thank you.
What would the current budget deficit look like without the fraud?
From my friends at Power Line Blog:
Finding And Plugging The Leaks
On Thursday, Just the News posted an article about the investigation into possible leaks of classified information by Democrats or their staffs on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The article reports:
The NSA made the referral last summer concerning reports, including one in The New York Times, earlier that year during Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation process that quoted information from an intercept of two Hezbollah terrorist figures who claimed Gabbard, during a 2017 trip to Syria, had met with the “big guy.”
The Times suggested the reference was taken by some to mean Gabbard had met with a top Hezbollah terrorist leader, a claim she adamantly denied.
NSA concluded the leak accurately contained information from one of its intercepts but that Gabbard had not in fact met with Hezbollah leaders.
…Over the last 15 months, that crackdown has led to major indictments by the Justice Department of figures ranging from former National Security Advisor John Bolton to a former Army employee accused last month of leaking to a journalist.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has been the focus of past major leaks probes, including a case in 2018 that eventually led its former security chief James Wolfe to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his leaks of nonpublic information to a reporter.
Unfortunately, there are people in our government agencies that truly believe it’s okay to do anything as long as it damages President Trump. That idea forms the basis for many of the bogus claims against the President that frequently show up on Fake News.
It we are going to move forward as a country, we need to stop playing silly games and learn to support each other.
This Seems To Be A Strange Sort Of Ceasefire
On Thursday, Breitbart posted the following headline:
Trump: Iranian Attackers ‘Destroyed’ After Firing on U.S. Destroyers — Ports Struck; Ceasefire Holding
I don’t mean to be picky, but if people are firing weapons at each other, how is it a ceasefire?
The article continues:
President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iranian attacking forces were “completely destroyed” after Tehran fired missiles, drones, and fast attack boats at three U.S. Navy destroyers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, prompting U.S. Central Command to carry out retaliatory “self-defense strikes” on Iranian military targets and port areas as the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran again came under strain.
U.S. Central Command said its forces intercepted what it described as “unprovoked Iranian attacks” as the USS Truxtun, USS Rafael Peralta, and USS Mason transited the Strait of Hormuz toward the Gulf of Oman.
The article reports:
“Our three Destroyers, with their wonderful Crews, will now rejoin our Naval Blockade, which is truly a ‘Wall of Steel,’” he wrote.
Trump also warned Tehran that if it does not quickly agree to the broader framework deal now under discussion, the United States would respond with far more severe military force in the future.
“A normal Country would have allowed these Destroyers to pass, but Iran is not a normal Country,” Trump wrote, blasting Tehran’s leadership as “LUNATICS,” who “would” use a nuclear weapon “without question” if given the opportunity.
“But they’ll never have that opportunity and, just like we knocked them out again today, we’ll knock them out a lot harder, and a lot more violently, in the future, if they don’t get their Deal signed, FAST!” Trump warned.
I am hoping that soon the Iranian tyrants will turn the government and the military of Iran back to the Persian people of Iran.
Saving America: Do the Opposite of California!
Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.
The founding fathers were wise in many ways. One of the best things they did was to allow states to operate pretty much independently of each other. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence, it is increasingly obvious that some states have gone in dramatically different directions. The result is being reflected in the mass migration from states like California and New York, to states like Florida and Texas. Let’s take a look at what California has done wrong.
Ever since we annexed California, it has been considered the finest state in the country. Starting with the gold rush of 1848, the climate, natural resources, fertile soil, and natural beauty attracted millions of people. These were people who were looking for a place that would allow them to profit from their hard work and provide a future for their families. California was called the “Golden State” for many reasons–not just the gold mines. During the Great Depression in the 1930’s, many people moved to California. Those people became the bedrock of an economy that grew to provide the highest standard of living in the country. By 1950, the population of California was 10 million. They were a reliable conservative Republican state that elected Ronald Reagan to two terms as governor. The public school system was rated the highest in the country, and the standard of living and affordability were unmatched. The hard-working middle class was thriving; it was close to paradise.
Okay, so where are they now and how did they get there? First, they became controlled by Marxist ideologues who fooled the people into accepting destructive ideas like open borders. The elite-like current governor, Gavin Newsom, began a policy of sanctuary cities that morphed into a sanctuary state. Always remember, Marxists do not believe in the sanctity of nation states, rather they believe in global governance where people should be free to relocate to any part of the world that they wish. The result was that the population of California is now over 40 million, many of which are illegal aliens from all over the globe. As expected, this has destroyed the public school system, which has to deal with students who not only do not speak English but have values inconsistent with traditional America. The flood of immigrants has ruined the middle class by working for lower wages and not paying taxes. One of the bedrocks of America is that every person should support themselves. President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight–and that he shall not be a mere passenger.” California’s leaders have not only ignored this principle, but have overtly made California into a refuge for the irresponsible, the drug addicts, the mentally ill, and other people unwilling or unable to pull their own weight. They are allowed to live in the streets, get free food, and prey on the public. What happened to vagrancy laws?
Another thing that has led to the demise of California is crime. Marxist DA’s refuse to prosecute law breakers and do not even arrest people who steal less than $1,000. California cities have some of the highest crime rates in the country. The cost of living has also risen to the highest in the country. The average price of a home is over twice as much as it is in other states. In addition to this is corruption, Dr. Oz recently reported that Medicaid fraud in Los Angeles is so rampant that one-third of all the funds spent in the entire country on Hospice Care by Medicaid are fraudulently expended in that one city! The total indebtedness of state and local governments in California is over $1.6 trillion. Given all this, is it any wonder that people are fleeing California at monumental rates? In 2025, 225,000 more people left California than arrived. Just hope that they have learned their lesson and do not vote for Marxist Democrats in the states they now reside.
So, the lesson is clear. We must uphold the values and beliefs that made this country successful for 250 years. As Lincoln once said; ”This country will never be defeated by another country, if we are to fall it will be from within.” We owe our children and grandchildren a country that can survive for at least another 250 years. Get out and vote! Support true-conservative, country-loving candidates. The Trump agenda will not survive if we do not get out and support him and his administration. It is very simple, if you voted for Trump in 2024, get out and vote again. You know what to do. Let us all pledge to do what is needed to save this country from Marxist communists.
At Some Point We Need To Admit That It Doesn’t Work
On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the Vineyard Wind farm, off the Nantucket coast.
The article reports:
In the middle of April came word that one of the two partners in the project, GE Renewables, a subsidiary of GE Vernova (which made the infamous blades used in the project), had declared itself no longer a player. It was walking away.
This caused much angst amongst everyone, especially the Vineyard Wind development (with its offshore parents, Iberola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), which declared the nearly complete $4.5 billion (with a ‘B’) project could not be finished without GE Renewables full participation. They filed a lawsuit to force GE into honoring the contract.
Within 24 hours, Vineyard Wind had a ruling from a Suffolk Superior court judge telling GE they could not walk away, and to get back to work, calling the GE complaints ‘fanciful,’
…As of yesterday, the Massachusetts judge has agreed to rehear the case because the wind farm is now supposedly ‘operational,’ which completely negates Vineyard Wind’s arguments against GE Renewables’ exit.
…What makes this tit for tat argument interesting are the details. What, exactly, is ‘operational’ in a wind farm?
According to Vineyard Wind, they still need GE around because they’re only partially operational, which sounds kind of like being only ‘mostly dead.’
The article quotes The Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power:
…When you see the blades spinning, the turbines do not engage the generator to produce power until 6 miles per hour. After 6 mph, they start generating, and they don’t produce full power until around 23 miles per hour. In other words, a 13 megawatt wind at around 12 miles per hour may only produce half its power. Additionally, the turbines are automatically shut down during storms due to high winds or shifting winds.
The average wind speed off Massachusetts is around 20 miles per hour.
The article at Hot Air notes:
According to the wind farm operator in court in their lawsuit against GE Renewables, it will never pay for itself over the – God willing – 20-year life of the project.
It will never come close.
Nonetheless, there are still silly cultists chanting the mantra, as yet another renewable boondoggle plays out in public.
The article concludes:
…Vineyard Wind’s Final Environmental Impact Statement concludes: “…it is anticipated there will be NO collective impact on global warming as a result of offshore wind projects.”
It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said for consumers’ wallets, the national budget, the ocean, or sea creatures in it.
See also a previous article on the environmental problems caused by the Vineyard Wind project. This project has been a boondoggle from the start.
What Our Children Are Learning In School
At an extended family gathering in Connecticut, we went on a tour in the East Windsor area. We learned about the fort that the English settlers had built there. It was an enclosure to protect them from a particularly vicious tribe of Indians that lived in the area. After a while, some of the neighboring Indian tribes were staying inside the fort to be protected from the one tribe of particularly vicious Indians. The American Indians did not necessarily get along with each other before or after the arrival of American settlers. However, that is not the story our children are being taught.
On Tuesday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog. The article includes the following X Post:
The article notes:
It is no surprise that those who trust our education establishment are the most ignorant. But the idea that one-half or more of Americans believe that Indians were peaceful until the white man came along is astonishing. It means that they know absolutely nothing about pre-Colombian American history, and they ascribe to natives virtues that the Indians never would have claimed for themselves.
Tribes like the Iroquois, to name only one, were in warfare among the most vicious peoples in history, ranking perhaps even worse than the Assyrians and the Mongols. Indian tribes were pretty much all proud of their martial prowess, and would be horrified to learn that, several hundred years after the fact, they are regarded as having lived in peace and harmony with their neighbors, whom they despised.
Just for the record, the Pilgrims settled in land that was not claimed by any Indian tribe. The tribe that had lived on the land had been wiped out by a flu epidemic a few years before the Pilgrims got there, and the other tribes were superstitious and did not want to settle there.
A Quick Look At The Moving Parts
As I write this on Thursday morning, crude oil futures are roughly $90 a barrel and trending lower. According to AI, Russia needs oil at $100 a barrel to continue the war in Ukraine. My earlier research said $80 a barrel, but evidently $100 a barrel is needed to cover some accumulated debt that Russia has taken on because of the war.
Saudi Arabia is limiting America’s use of the Prince Sultan Airbase southeast of Riyadh and is not allowing American planes to fly through Saudi airspace to support the efforts to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. One guess as to why Saudi Arabia is doing this is that the Saudi’s don’t want to attacked by Iranian missiles or drones. They do not want to be collateral damage in the war in Iran.
The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) has left The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (and OPEC’s limits on U.A.E. oil production) and has an oil pipeline that avoids the Strait of Hormuz. Look for an increased use of that pipeline.
One of the current leaders of Iran has met recently with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (days before President Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping). China does not want Iran destroyed or the current government of Iran overthrown. China has major investments in Iran. Is China putting pressure on Iran to make a deal? If Iran agrees to give up their nuclear program and enriched uranium, can we trust them to do it?
Aren’t you glad that you are not President Trump who has to sort all this out?
Good News For The Economy
Despite the fact that the war in Iran has created a drag on the American economy because of elevated gasoline prices, the American economy is doing well. As I write this on Wednesday, crude oil prices look like a teenager on a trampoline. I have no idea where they will eventually settle down or if they will eventually settle down.
On Wednesday, Breitbart reported:
American businesses ramped up hiring in April by the most in over a year, the latest indicator of firm demand for labor.
Private-sector payrolls climbed 109,000, ADP Research said Wednesday, with gains spread between the goods-producing and the services sectors.
The construction sector added 10,000, manufacturing added 2,000, and natural resources added 3,000.
Services sector employment climbed by 94,000. Health and education firms grew payrolls by 61,000, making it once again the fastest growing segment of the labor market. Trade, transportation, and utilities added 25,000. There were also gains in information, financial services, and leisure and hospitality.
Small businesses accounted for 65,000 of the jobs gained. Large businesses, those with over 500 employees, added 42,000. Medium-sized businesses, those with 50 to 499 employees, added just 2,000.
“Small and large employers are hiring, but we’re seeing softness in the middle,” said Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Large companies have resources to deploy, and small ones are the most nimble, both important advantages in a complex labor environment.”
As I write this, April’s workforce participation rate is not yet posted. It will be interesting to see if that rate changes.