What Are We Teaching Our Children?

On Monday, Newsbusters posted an article about a recent game the students played in a Texas school.

The article reports:

A Texas mother who is a self-described former “woke” liberal got some sense knocked into her and decided that the woke mob wasn’t so fool-proof after all.

Laura Maria Gruber said she recently removed her 13-year-old from a San Antonio school after finding out the child had been asked to play the role of a “seducing hooker” in her middle-school class. 

Honestly, based on the standards the public school system is setting these days, this news is far from surprising. 

The game was called “Bear-Hooker-Hunter,” according to Daily Mail, and is essentially an adult version of rock-paper-scissors. The young teens were reportedly told to strike poses at the front of their classroom and pretend they were a “hunter” with an imaginary gun, a “bear” with hands in a paw-like formation, or a “seducing hooker” with one of the child’s hands on his or her hip and the other hand behind the ear. When played against the hunter, the hooker character “seduces” him and wins.

While Gruber’s daughter refused to participate, other students were allegedly bribed with candy into playing the game.

The article notes:

The school did admit the game occurred, but four different levels of school administration “denied the game sexualized kids.” Said officials claimed the game was out of the school’s predetermined curriculum but that they had “no proof” that it was inappropriate, either “intentionally or unintentionally.”

I feel like having a kid present as a hooker is pretty sexualizing in and of itself, but good try.

In the end, the school did eventually apologize and claimed the game did not meet its “bar of excellence.”

“While we always chase excellence as a core value, sometimes we stumble,” the principal wrote in a letter to parents.

I think they should stick to rock-paper-scissors. The answer to this problem is for parents to get involved or when possible, remove their children from public schools.

There Seems To Be A Slight Discrepancy In The Rules

On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about the charges against President Trump that may result in his arrest. It seems as if this sort of misbehavior has come up before in other campaigns by other candidates.

The article reports:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is essentially using the same legal theory to potentially indict former President Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was fined for, argued former United States Attorney Brett Tolman.

Tolman asserted Saturday that Bragg’s legal theory that Trump tried to hide a campaign expenditure by using his then-lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential elections would have applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the phony Russian pee dossier against Trump as “legal fees.”

Former New York City police officer and conservative pundit John Cardillo tweeted, “Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 and no one cared.” Tolman tweeted in response, “And the Hillary Campaign was actually fined for hiding the Steele Dossier payment under ‘legal fees’ — essentially the same legal theory on the Stormy Daniels payment the DA is running criminal investigation of Trump.”

The article concludes:

Although Bragg cannot bring charges against Trump for federal violations, Turley said he could bring state charges under Section 175 for falsifying business records, based on the claim that Trump concealed the hush-payments as “legal expenses” to violate federal election laws.

As Turley noted, a Section 175 charge would normally be a misdemeanor, but Bragg could try to convert it into a felony by showing that “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” The crime, Turley speculated, is that the federal election violations, which he noted the Justice Department previously declined to charge.

Epoch Times show host Hans Mahncke — who followed the Russia collusion hoax closely — also agreed with Tolman: “Probably the most important thing anyone has said since the pending arrest reports came out. Hillary claimed the Steele reports were legal fees. That’s not just essentially the same as what Trump is being charged with, it is the same.”

I wonder if the people who are planning to arrest President Trump are having second thoughts. We shall see.

Changing The Numbers By Redefining The Terms

On Monday, Issues & Insights posted an article explaining how the Biden administration can claim to have cut the number of illegal border crossings simply by changing the definition of the words.

The article reports:

The Biden administration’s bulletin board, also known as the Washington Post, featured an article last week headlined: “Biden takes heat for border measures, but illegal crossings are down.”

Various other news outlets echoed this theme, using terms such as “plunged” and “plummeted,” to describe what is, in fact, a record-high number of illegal crossings in both January and February.

How did the administration pull off this “plunge”?

Basically, by narrowing the focus and by redefining what counts as an illegal border crossing.

This is the new way to do things:

“The Biden administration has started using its port parole program shell game to feign ‘lawfulness’ and distract from the true numbers of illegal aliens entering the U.S. each month,” reports the Daily Signal.

Joe Biden started this parole program for Venezuelans, and in January expanded it to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. People from those nations can get into the country – without a visa – if they show up at a port of entry and agree to some minimal rules under a supposed two-year parole.

“The administration has directed would-be illegal aliens of numerous nationalities to use the CBP One app to make an appointment at a port of entry, where they will be paroled into the country,” the Daily Signal explains.

The Customs and Border Patrol reports that illegal crossings by people from those four countries fell from 84,190 in December to 2,050 during February.”

Well, no kidding. Why cross illegally when you can tap an app and get into the country without having to follow the rules to enter legally?

“The administration calls this process a ‘lawful pathway,’ but mass paroling tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens through the ports make neither the process, nor the aliens using it, lawful,” notes the Daily Signal.

There is no way the number of people crossing our border every day can be assimilated. They won’t be able to grasp the concept of America quickly enough to become good citizens. The Biden administration’s border policies are truly a threat to the survival of America as we know it.

Is Anyone Surprised?

The bailout of the Silicon Valley Bank was a little odd–depositors are going to be paid for bank deposits above the $250,000 limit of the The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). That’s very interesting when you begin to examine who these large depositors are.

On Saturday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article revealing who some of the depositors in the Silicon Valley Bank whose money will be paid back are regardless of the supposed limit.

The article reports:

Prominent tech companies, liberal news outlets, and a Democratic politician’s vineyards are among the thousands of businesses that breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday when the Biden administration moved to bail out Silicon Valley Bank.

It’s good to have dishonest friends in high places.

The article continues:

Silicon Valley Bank maintained $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits, making it the 16th-largest bank in the country. It was the second-largest bank to fail in American history when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took control of the institution on Friday.

President Joe Biden has insisted that the FDIC’s move was not a bailout, and claimed his administration is working to protect “American workers and small businesses.” But average Americans won’t benefit the most from the bailout. Ninety-three percent of the bank’s depositors kept more than $250,000 in the bank.

While the California bank was famous for its rolodex of tech clients, it happily accepted deposits from all manner of people, including some of the individuals and institutions involved in pushing the Biden administration’s bailout.

Here are some of the companies and individuals involved:

Gavin Newson

BuzzFeed

Vox Media

Black Lives Matter

The Green Energy Racket

The article concludes:

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure could have delivered a seismic blow to the climate change industry and the more than 1,550 technology companies that specialize in solar, hydrogen, and battery storage solutions that held funds at the bank, had Biden not bailed the institution out.

Still, the bank’s failure will have lingering effects for the industry, with insiders warning that Silicon Valley Bank was often the only institution willing to lend funds for their projects.

“Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways a climate bank,” Kiran Bhatraju, the chief executive of the nation’s largest community solar manager, Arcadia, told the New York Times. “When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage.”

Wedbush Securities technology sector analyst David Ives added that the bank’s failure is a “major blow to early-stage and even late-stage tech startups.”

Please follow the link to read the details. Hard-working Americans are bailing out people who make more money than most of us every dreamed of. President Biden really doesn’t want the rich to ‘pay their fair share.’

This May Be The Way To Stop The Current Nonsense

On Saturday, The Daily Wire reported that Layla Jane, an 18-year-old who claims she was rushed into transgender medical treatment, is suing the doctors who treated her.

The article reports:

A teenager is suing a health care company and the doctors who put her on controversial puberty-blocking drugs at age 12 and removed her healthy breasts in a double-mastectomy surgery when she was just 13 years old, accusing them of “intentional fraud and concealment.”

Layla Jane, an 18-year-old detransitioner represented by attorney Harmeet Dhillon, claims in a letter of intent to sue that she was rushed into the life-altering medical services while she and her family were not properly informed of risks and other vital information, such as the rate of desistence for childhood gender dysphoria.

The article notes that the age restrictions on the medical procedures magically disappeared:

“Layla immediately started puberty blockers and testosterone at age 12, and had a double mastectomy at age 13,” the legal letter states.

“Two of Layla’s initial providers advised that per Kaiser’s official policies, Layla could not start cross-sex hormones until she was 16 and advised that surgery was not permissible until age 18,” the letter claims. “But, soon thereafter, Layla ended up in the hands of Dr. [Susanne E.] Watson, Dr. [Lisa Kristine] Taylor, and Dr. [Winnie Mao Yiu] Tong. These doctors immediately approved Layla for cross-sex hormones and a double mastectomy at ages 12-13, without performing an adequate evaluation and treatment of Layla’s extensive mental health co-morbidities.”

“I don’t think I should have been allowed to change my sex before I could legally consent to have sex,” Layla said during a Fox News appearance this past week. “I don’t think I’m better off for the experience, and I think transition just completely added fuel to the fire that was my pre-existing conditions.”

The article concludes:

Chloe Cole, another detransitioned 18-year-old woman, announced last month the first official lawsuit in the U.S. against the same health care group, which, too, facilitated her medical gender transition as a minor.

Gender dysphoria is a disease. It should be treated as a disease–not encouraged as a lifestyle.

Waking Up–One State At A Time

On Sunday, The Epoch Times reported that two more GOP-led states are withdrawing from the national voter verification coalition.

The article reports:

Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state rumored to be mulling a run for the U.S. Senate in 2024, announced the decision in a letter (pdf) to the director of the coalition, called the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).

“I cannot justify the use of Ohio’s tax dollars for an organization that seems intent on rejecting meaningful accountability, publicly maligning my motives, and waging a relentless campaign of misinformation about this effort,” LaRose wrote.

LaRose’s letter came soon after member states that are part of the coalition held a meeting on Friday and a proposal to reform some of the coalition’s bylaws failed.

“ERIC has chosen repeatedly to ignore demands to embrace reforms that would bolster confidence in its performance, encourage growth in its membership, and ensure not only its present stability but also its durability,” LaRose wrote.

He argued that the coalition has transformed from a “previously bipartisan organization to one that appears to favor only the interests of one political party.”

The article also notes:

ERIC was set up to let elections officials from different states cross-check data when seeking to confirm their voter rolls. It lets states know when voters move or die so that voter rolls can be kept up to date.

It also generates data on people who may be eligible to register to vote but have not, while requiring states to contact such would-be voters.

But the coalition has been under fire from Republicans in several states in the wake of 2021 allegations by Gateway Pundit that the coalition was “a left-wing voter registration drive disguised as voter roll clean-up.”

During Friday’s meeting and vote, two initiatives failed. One of them—previously proposed by LaRose—would have allowed member states to decide what to do with data produced by ERIC. The other would have tied the requirement to contact eligible unregistered voters to a report that helps states identify double voting.

Iowa and Ohio are the sixth and seventh GOP-led states to opt out of ERIC, with media speculation that others might soon join. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and West Virginia have all dropped out of the coalition.

Voter integrity is important. Every effort should be made to encourage every eligible voter to vote, but every effort should also be made to take every ineligible voter off of the voter rolls.

The Risk Of Upside-Down Priorities

On Saturday, Red State posted an article with the following headline:

As China’s Blue-Water Navy Continues Massive Expansion, US Navy Secretary Says Climate Is His ‘Top Priority’

Wow. Doesn’t that make you feel well-protected?

The article reports:

Let’s begin with a sobering — to the sane among us — reality.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surpassed the U.S. Navy in fleet size sometime around 2020 and now possesses roughly 340 warships, according to the Pentagon’s 2022 China Military Power Report, released in November. Moreover, China’s fleet is expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025.

Meanwhile, the U.S. fleet consists of fewer than 300 ships, with a Pentagon goal of 350 manned ships by 2045, according to the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan 2022, released last summer.

Incidentally, a blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans. While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, the constant is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at long range. In other words, the more dominant a nation’s blue-water navy, the better chance that nation has of controlling the world’s strategic sea lanes.

So, what is the U.S. Navy under Joe Biden doing about this sobering reality?

As reported by the Washington Examiner, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has said, multiple times, that fighting climate change has been one of his biggest priorities since taking office. During a recent trip to the Bahamas to meet with Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis, the two men talked at length about… wait for it… climate change, and what the United States is doing to fight it. Here’s Del Toro:

As the Secretary of the Navy, I can tell you that I have made climate one of my top priorities since the first day I came into office. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps team has been working on climate and energy security for a long time, and we are accelerating and broadening those efforts.

If they were truly working on energy security, they would be telling the government to resume drilling in America. It would be really nice if the Secretary of the Navy cared about protecting America from foreign aggression. His priorities as he explains them are upside-down.

A Sad Day In America

On Saturday, Legal Insurrection reported the following:

There have been reports swirgling the last couple of days that Donald Trump will be charged and arrested next week by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on charges relating to payments to Stormy Daniels. The exact nature of the charges and the basis is not known yet, but based on prior leaks to the media, it appears that Bragg has come up with a novel theory that an otherwise lawful payment become criminal if it is accounted for incorrectly, a so-called falsifying business records offense. Even the NY Times noted this is highly unusual:

In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law. While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, under the theory that because the money silenced Ms. Daniels, it benefited his candidacy.

Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.

Alvin Bragg is a deeply destructive D.A elected with the help of a Soro-funded polical PAC:

The article concludes:

The charges, if not more substantial than described so far, are a fraudulent abuse of power aimed at manipulating the politicial process as we enter a presidential election cycle. Make no mistake, this has happened before and cost Republicans politically, including the fraudulent prosecution of then Senator Ted Stevens, which was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct but not before Stevens resigned setting in motion events that gave Democrats the votes they needed to pass Obamacare.

The abuse of prosecutorial power by Democrats will, to paraphrase Chuch Schumer’s attack on the Supreme Court, unleash the whirlwind. We just don’t know in which direction it will hit. I think there are several things going on here, including Democrats hope for violence that will allow a J6 crackdown on Trump supporters more far reaching than the prosecution of people for “parading” because they peacefully attended a protest where other committed violence. I also think that keeping the Trump prosecution (with more to come) front and center as he (likely) leads the Republican primaries is a political strategy – it’s no wonder the charges are coming now.

Meanwhile there seem to be no consequences for the Biden crime family and their drug-addicted son.

Caving to the Left

Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

To any clear thinking American patriot, it should be abundantly clear that the Left is out to destroy America as we have known it. It is also clear, that the Left destroys everything it touches. The list includes everything from the open border and economic prosperity, to the Boy Scouts and public education. What is so disappointing is how organizations and corporations just cave-in to the demands of the Left, which is actually a minority in our country. 

The latest example is the Left’s attack on the primary source of our moral standards: religion.  Take what is happening with the United Methodist Church (UMC).  The UMC was formed in 1968 when the existing Methodist Church combined with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.  The Methodist movement was originally founded in the mid-1700s by John Wesley.   The UMC has consistently followed traditional Judeo-Christian principles (see Social Principles of the United Methodist Church) including marriage between a man and a woman.  For some reason unknown to me, the leadership of the UMC has chosen to cave-in to the woke Left and are endorsing homosexual marriage. This has resulted in a crisis and the splitting of the UMC by vote of their members who support or oppose these changes.   

What is most disturbing, is how an organization allows a small minority to control their principles and their integrity. For example, in a recent poll only 6.4% of women and 5% of men claim to be homosexual. Of these, only 10% are in a homosexual marriage. So, the UMC, is allowing its organization to be potentially destroyed by trying to accommodate the demands of an extremely small group of people most of which are not members of their congregations.   Hard to understand. 

The UMC is just one example of organizations caving in to the Left. The Disney Corporation, Gillete, Coca Cola, and Direct TV are other examples of organizations that  have done the same thing. Fear of the Left and negative publicity may explain some of these actions.  Allowing small minorities to control our country over the wishes of the majority must be stopped. We can register our objections by complaining, not purchasing their products and canceling services. Going along with this is what the woke Left expects us to do. Let’s disappoint them. 

 

Let Children Be Children

I was a tomboy as a child–I played softball, I climbed trees, I roller skated, I was always moving. I am sure many of the women who are reading this could say the same thing. Thank God no one ever tried to convince us that we were boys. I wonder if it’s safe to be a tomboy today.

On Friday, Townhall reported the following:

At this point, nothing should be shocking regarding the Biden Administration, not even when it means pushing young kids to undergo life-alternating procedures. 

Assistant Secretary of Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rachel Levine promises that medically changing children’s gender will be fully “normalized” soon.

And if that isn’t twisted enough, Levine continued to say that “gender-affirming” treatment of transgender kids is supported “at the highest levels” of President Joe Biden’s administration.

“I can say that the children, their families, and you all as their providers have support at the highest levels of the federal government,” Levine said while speaking at the Pediatric Grand Rounds session in Hartford. “President Biden supports you … Vice President [Kamala] Harris supports you. Across the administration, the departments support you,” Levine said, adding that she talks “about this topic everywhere I go.”

The woke Biden official claimed that critics who aim to end the progressive push of transgenderism on minors are “ideologically and politically motivated,” calling them “unconscionable.”

The article notes:

Levine claimed that “gender-affirming” care is necessary and that hormone and puberty blockers are safe and effective, although research supporting this idea is extremely weak. 

However, critics are pushing back against the Left’s radical push to indoctrinate children. 

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a House Doctors Caucus physician member, told Fox News that it is “reprehensible for a government official — let alone the assistant U.S. secretary of HHS — to promote the genital mutilation of minors as becoming a standard practice.”

The inmates are running the asylum.

The Proper Response

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported that Bill Shipley, the lawyer representing Jan. 6 defendant Jacob Chansley, has started the process of requesting the court to vacate Chansley’s jail sentence.

The article reports:

Shipley said he intends to file a vacate-conviction motion pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 2255 (remedies on motion attacking sentence) next week, pending government response to a letter he sent to the DOJ on Friday requesting information about Chansley’s case. That provision in the law states that a “prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

On Friday, Shipley sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall to ask about the factual basis of the government’s representation of Chansley’s case in a separate lawsuit. He said he’s “prepping the battlefield” for a prospective filing to request the court to vacate Chansley’s conviction.

…“The newly aired CCTV videos appear to be materially exculpatory to Mr. Chansley on the question of guilt, as well as with respect to potential mitigation of sentencing. As such, the [Government] was obligated to produce them to the defense pursuant to the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland,” Shipley’s letter reads. He cited Brady v. Maryland, a 1963 case in which the Supreme Court held that prosecutors must make available to the defense counsel exculpatory evidence.

“Production is also mandated by Justice Manual Section 9-5.001 and DC R.C.P. 3.8,” he noted, citing legal guidance for prosecutors on issues related to discovery.

In the letter, Shipley noted that Chansley and his former attorney, Albert Watkins, both did not see the tapes aired on Fox featuring Chansley prior to their broadcast on Fox.

Hopefully, this will be a first strike against the politicization of our justice system. The January 6th prisoners have been consistently denied their constitutional rights. All of their cases should be dismissed.

How To Stop Government Medical Overreach Regarding Covid

On Thursday, David Horowitz at The Conservative Review posted a list of ten bills that would put an end to the government overreach that was part of the response to the Covid pandemic.

Here is the list:

1. Hold pharma executives liable for concealing info on vaccine safety

2. Ban health departments from issuing public health edicts that violate liberty

3. Block all federal public health edicts from enforcement within the state

4. Ban mRNA vaccines

5. Keep mRNA out of food and other products

6. Report vaccine injury

7. Ban vaccine status discrimination

8. Prohibit vaccines that did not undergo human trials

9. Unquestionable religious exemption from all vaccines

10. End abuse of emergency powers

Please follow the link above to read further details. I believe we all think that some of the actions taken during the pandemic were not scientifically based. Why were churches closed and casinos left open? Why were big box stores open and small businesses closed? The actions taken by our government during Covid resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in the history of America. The middle class got poorer and the elites got richer. The rules during the Covid pandemic were the dream of the Washington elites. Let’s not do that again.

A New Venture

Many of us have appreciated the efforts and successes of Project Veritas in recent years. I was stunned when James O’Keefe was suddenly removed from the Board of Directors. Well, you can’t keep a good man down for long.

On Wednesday, Just the News reported the following:

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe on Wednesday announced his latest project following his departure from the group.

In a video posted to Twitter, O’Keefe announced the creation of the O’Keefe Media Group, which will include a handful of dedicated journalists with whom he has long collaborated.

“I spent 14 years creating the most effective, non-profit newsroom this country has ever seen,” he said. “And in paving the way to establish citizen journalism, I have been defamed, arrested, raided, and ultimately removed from the organization I spent so much time developing the credibility of.”

“We are going to build an army of investigators and exposers. They have awakened a sleeping giant. I’m back,” he declared.

I am looking forward to James O’Keefe’s reporting in the future. He has done a lot of work to expose things Americans need to know about.

Breaking The Law When You Are Supposed To Be The Law

On Sunday, The Western Journal posted an article about evidence tampering in the trials of the January 6th protesters.

The article reports:

The FBI has been accused of doctoring evidence against a defendant who was involved in the Capitol incursion.

The controversy erupted last week after an attorney for Ethan Nordean, a Proud Boys member facing charges over the events of Jan. 6, 2021, said “hidden” messages between FBI agents had been found in a document presented to the court by FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller, according to Newsweek.

“[A] close examination of the agent’s sheet revealed over one thousand hidden Excel rows of messages,” a court document said.

“Nordean must be permitted to cross-examine Miller with the hidden Lync messages to determine whether defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights have been violated through government collection of attorney-client communications about trial strategy,” said the court filing by Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith.

The disclosure resulted in a pause on the trial of several Proud Boys members until next week, including Dominic Pezzola, a co-defendant of Nordean’s who is facing obstruction and conspiracy charges.

The article notes:

Roger Roots, an attorney for Pezzola, explained the significance of the find.

“There are a couple of emails between FBI agents casually discussing altering a document and destroying hundreds of pieces of evidence. It’s very disturbing and right now we have more questions than answers,” Roots said, according to the Epoch Times.

Roger Roots has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Dominic Pezzola.

The article concludes:

The motion also cited footage from Jan. 6, 2021, aired by Fox News host Tucker Carlson in the effort to dismiss the charges. The footage showed protester Jacob Chansley walking through the Capitol in the company of Capitol police, who were not making any physical effort to remove him.

“This footage is plainly exculpatory; as it establishes that the Senate chamber was never violently breached, and — in fact –was treated respectfully by January 6 protestors. To the extent protestors entered the chamber, they did so under the supervision of Capitol Police,” the motion claimed.

Please follow the link to the article for further details of the FBI’s misconduct.

 

 

Misplaced Priorities?

On Tuesday, The Federalist posted an article about some of the financial activities of the Silicon Valley Bank. Admittedly, the Biden economy has made life for banks more challenging, but that should encourage careful use of depositors money–not reckless spending by banks.

The article reports:

Silicon Valley Bank might have been able to make good on $74 million promised to customers had it not pledged the money to leftist causes.

According to a new database by the conservative Claremont Institute, the collapsed bank donated or pledged to donate nearly $74 million to groups related to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, told The Federalist that SVB’s failure on the heels of its left-wing activism “is yet another indication that SVB was focused on woke virtue signaling instead of protecting their customers’ deposits.”

“Time after time we see the same pattern: companies that are the most concerned with ESG scores and woke politics do the worst jobs serving their customers,” Hild explained. “The rest of corporate America should learn from SVB’s failure now, before they are the next company to make headlines for comically poor management.”

Public reports published on the company’s website offer a window into the bank’s leftist corporate apparatus that prioritized Wall Street’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards over its fiduciary duty to shareholders.

Robert DuChemin at Substack points out:

Something that is suspicious about Joe’s (Biden) behavior is that on Monday morning he guaranteed repayment of depositors such as Roku (that had $580 million on deposit in Silicon Valley Bank). On Monday night Joe had a “private” fundraiser in the neighborhood, at which executives of RoKu and other Silicon Valley Bank depositors were present.

So, on Monday morning China Joe gave them hundreds of millions of dollars from government funds and on Monday night they gave some of that money to the democrat party. Nothing to see here.

BTW, Roku only has 1,600 employees worldwide. There is no way in hell they needed $580,000,000.00, to make payroll this month. It is just one more lie from the Biden Administration, a gang that lies every time they speak.

This is corruption on a level that could even make Hillary Clinton jealous.

It’s where we are, folks.

A Non-Solution

President Biden is again trying to limit gun ownership in America. He has announced a new Executive Order relating to guns (parts of which violate the U.S. Constitution).

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported:

White House officials summarized the order saying the move would push the U.S. closer to universal background checks without additional legislation, hold the gun industry “accountable,” and drive law enforcement efforts to identify and apprehend shooters.

Actually, the only part of that statement is true is the part that says the law will hold the gun industry “accountable,” a questionable concept. The problem is not the gun or the gun manufacturer any more than the problem with drunk driving is the car–the problem is the person holding the gun. Unfortunately, the law’s impact will actually be on legal gun owners–criminals do not follow laws.

The article continues:

“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’ll hear him call on Congress to take action and not to stop … that we need to continue.”

The move comes after Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year, where he called on members of Congress to take additional steps to reduce gun violence. Lawmakers passed the legislation in an attempt to prevent mass shootings and incentivize states to pass more “red flag” laws and expand background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds looking to purchase a firearm.

“Again and again, he has called for Congress to act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” the statement reads.

Red flag laws are unconstitutional–you cannot take someone’s property without giving them a chance to defend themself. What qualifies as an assault weapon? Are certain guns assault weapons because they are scary looking? How many high-capacity magazines have actually been used to commit crimes (experienced gun handlers will tell you that high-capacity magazines are more likely to jam and therefore are not highly recommended)? This Executive Order is an example of a law written by someone who is interested in appearing to do something, but is short on actual knowledge of guns and crime statistics.

 

Some Progress In An Ongoing Investigation

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported that the Treasury Department will comply with the request of the House Oversight Committee’s request to hand over the suspicious activity reports (SARs) generated by the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions.

The article reports:

The Treasury’s compliance to disclose the SARs is a massive development in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business to determine if President Joe Biden is compromised by communist China. The committee is investigating the Biden family business for nine violations, including wire fraud and money laundering.

U.S. banks have flagged over 150 SARs from Hunter and James Biden that included “large” amounts of money tagged for further review by the Treasury. SARs “often contain evidence of potential criminal activities, such as money laundering and fraud,” according to a 2020 Senate report.

The suspicious records will provide details about how the family business operates and desired transparency on Hunter, James, and Frank’s foreign business transactions, along with knowledge of whether Joe Biden remains compromised by foreign governments through his family’s business.

The article concludes:

In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism.

Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a ten percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.

I guess the deep state really doesn’t want President Biden to run for re-election in 2024.

The Lies Are Being Revealed

Even though the January 6th tapes were released to Tucker Carlson’s staff, we haven’t seen any of them since last Monday. Finally last night, a small bit of tape was shown to illustrate the injustice in the way one of the prisoners is being treated. As the tapes are shown, the parts that we have seen tell a very different story than the story told by the House Committee charged with investigating the events of that day. One example of the discrepancy is the treatment of Ray Epps contrasted with the treatment of many other people who were there that day.

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

On January 11, 2022, then Rep. Adam Kinzinger defended likely FBI cut-out Ray Epps.  Kinzinger claimed Ray Epps, the one person caught on video directing Trump supporters to break into the US Capitol, did nothing wrong.

…In his testimony before the sham January 6 Committee on January 21, 2022, Ray Epps insisted “I don’t break the law” and “It’s not in my DNA.”

The article notes:

Ray Epps is a free man.  He was NEVER arrested after encouraging Trump supporters to rush the Capitol Police — And we have evidence that several Americans are now serving time for a criminal act Ray Epps was involved in on January 6th.

Patty McMurray at 100 Percent Fed Up discovered this video months ago.

In this damning video, Ray Epps is filmed hoisting the massive Trump sign with several other Trump supporters. Epps was likely leading the efforts as he led the crowd when they breached not just the first set of barriers to the US Capitol but also the second set of barriers to the US Capitol that day. (another crime)

Please follow the link to the article to see the pictures and video posted that show the actions described. It is very obvious that Ray Epps was not held to the same standard of justice as the protesters who have been in jail for years. The obvious reason for that, since there have been pictures of Ray Epps leading illegal actions, is that he was working for the government. He needs to go to jail and the current January 6th prisoners need to be set free.

Actually, The Tax Payers Are The Ones Who Paid For This

Om Saturday, CNBC posted an article about the Silicon Valley Bank.

The article reports:

  • Silicon Valley Bank employees received their annual bonuses Friday just hours before regulators seized the failing bank, according to people with knowledge of the payments.
  • The payments were for work done in 2022 and had been in process days before the bank’s collapse, these people said.
  • On Friday, SVB CEO Greg Becker addressed workers in a two-minute video in which he said that he no longer made decisions at the 40-year-old bank, according to the sources.

Who made the decision?

The article continues:

On Friday, SVB CEO Greg Becker addressed workers in a two-minute video in which he said that he no longer made decisions at the 40-year-old bank, according to the people.

The size of the payouts couldn’t be determined, but SVB bonuses range from about $12,000 for associates to $140,000 for managing directors, according to Glassdoor.com.

SVB was the highest-paying publicly traded bank in 2018, with employees getting an average of $250,683 for that year, according to Bloomberg.

After its seizure, the FDIC offered SVB employees 45 days of employment, the people said. The bank had 8,528 employees as of December.

A spokesman for the FDIC declined to comment on the bonuses.

There are two sides to this discussion–the employees did earn their bonuses in the prior year and it was customary to pay them at this time, but essentially the taxpayers all over the country were responsible for paying those bonuses. Those are pretty generous bonuses for a business that failed.

On Monday, The New York Post noted that despite what we are being told, the taxpayers will be bailing out the Silicon Valley Bank.

The New York Post reports:

The cost of bailing out two banks that catered to the tech industry will likely be paid by average Americans in the former of more fees, less service and potentially higher taxes — despite President Biden’s pledge otherwise, experts warned Monday.

The dire predictions came as the price of regional bank stocks fell due to fears of further collapses, with trading in more than a dozen of them paused during a massive market sell-off.

The extraordinary rescue announced Sunday night will use the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Deposit Insurance Fund to make whole all customers of the Silicon Valley Bank and Manhattan’s Signature Bank, which did business with tech startups and the cryptocurrency industry, respectively.

But the fund gets its money in quarterly payments from FDIC-insured banks, which will likely make customers shoulder the burden of any added costs, said William Luther, director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project.

Hold on to your wallet–President Biden is in the White House.

Understanding The Change

Before he became a Republican and ran for President, Donald Trump was loved by the political elite. He attended weddings, social events, and was welcomed and sought after by the people who now claim he is the devil incarnate. He has written a book titled, “Letters to Trump,” which intentionally or otherwise shows how drastically things changed for him when he ran for President and won.

Breitbart posted an article on Sunday about the change.

The article notes:

Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that his forthcoming book will show readers that he has had a “very fascinating life” and that many of the powerful people who attack him now used to adore him before he ran for president.

The book, titled Letters to Trump, is the former president’s second book release since leaving office in January 2021. The first one, Our Journey Together, was a collection of historic photos from Trump’s time in office. This book collects letters that Trump sent and received from interesting, famous, powerful, and influential people over the years, both during his time as president and for the decades leading up to his historic White House run in 2016.

Letters to Trump is being published by Winning Team Publishing, which has the book available for pre-order ahead of its April 25 release now on its website.

The book includes correspondence with such wide-ranging figures as royal world leaders like Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana; cultural figures like Clint Eastwood, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jackson; sports stars like Shaquille O’Neal; and former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. It also has correspondence Trump had with foreign leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

…Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. said that the tone of all of these elites changed when his father ran for office as a Republican.

“My father has lived an amazing life and has been around some of the most interesting people in the world,” Trump Jr. told Breitbart News. “It’s amazing how quickly their adoration of him changed when he ran for office as a Republican. Letters to Trump shows you exactly how they felt about him and how phony their newfound disdain truly is.”

Washington is a swamp. As President Truman said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

 

 

A Doctor Recognizes The Truth

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about Dr. Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist and pioneer in child gender dysphoria treatment. The Doctor was interviewed by The Daily Caller and stated that she now opposes the popular model of affirming children’s transgender identities and putting them on puberty blockers–something she once supported.

The article reports:

Bradley started a pediatric gender clinic in 1975 aimed at treating children with gender dysphoria — a deep sense of discomfort with one’s body and biological sex — in which she offered a therapy-focused approach; most patients outgrew their feelings of being transgender over time, she told the DCNF. Around 2005, the clinic began prescribing puberty blockers to gender-dysphoric children as a way to alleviate their distress, a model which has since become widely adopted by medical establishments around the world, including in the U.S.

Bradley, who is now in her early eighties, expressed regret that the clinic had participated in the administration of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, which she now believes can cement a child’s sense of confusion out of which they would likely otherwise grow. She also expressed concern about the drugs’ side effects.

“We were wrong,” she said. “They’re not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth.”

The article notes:

Bradley believes transitioning is beneficial for some adults and says some patients consider it the best thing they’ve ever done for themselves, but that the metrics of success, even in terms of patient satisfaction, are complicated. One of her patients transitioned from female to male, married a woman who had been a childhood friend and seemed happy and satisfied, but later in life pursued a very costly phalloplasty surgery; despite appearing “very masculine,” the patient was never fully satisfied and was always pursuing further bodily improvements, according to Bradley.

Another patient Bradley worked with transitioned from male to female but eventually told the psychiatrist he was no longer trans and was in a relationship with another man. This made Bradley question if transitioning was really just about seeking acceptance for some patients.

The article concludes:

Advocates for medical gender transitions for children argue that puberty blockers can diminish the distress a gender dysphoric child experiences as a result of puberty and can reduce the need for later surgeries or hormonal interventions by preventing the acquisition of some traits associated with their biological sex, such as a deep voice in a male patient.

“Anxiety drains away,” Dr. Norman Spack, a leader in the push for puberty blocker use in gender dysphoric patients, told The New York Times. “You can see these kids being so relieved.”

The Center for Addiction and Mental Health, formerly the Clarke Institute of Toronto, did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

There is stress involved in growing up. Learning how to deal with that stress is part of growing up. Dealing with that stress results in adults who know how to handle stress. We have done our children a great disservice by trying to protect them from stress.

The Cost Of Green Energy

On March 2nd, WND posted an article about the cost of energy in states that rely on wind energy.

The article reports:

United States electricity prices are rising rapidly, up 18.1% over the last two years. Renewable-energy advocates claim that wind and solar installations produce cheaper electricity than traditional power plants, but power prices are rising as more wind and solar is added to the grid. In fact, electricity prices are soaring in leading wind-energy states.

Over a 12-year period, from 2008 to 2020, U.S. average electricity prices rose only 8%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This was much lower than the inflation rate of 20% over the same period. But power prices rose 5% from 2020 to 2021 and an additional 12.5% last year. Most of this rise was due to rising U.S. inflation, but the share of electricity generated from wind also rose, from 8.4% in 2020 to 10.2% in 2022.

Headlines announce that electricity generated from renewables is lower cost. Scientific American stated in 2017, “Wind Energy is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It’s Getting Cheaper.” In October 2020, Bloomberg announced that “Wind and Solar Are the Cheapest Power Source in Most Places.”

…Electricity prices in states with the highest penetration of wind systems are rising faster than the national average. U.S. average electricity prices rose 27% from 2008 to 2022. But in eight of the top 12 wind states, power prices rose between 33 and 73% over the 14-year period. Prices rose in Iowa (36%), Kansas (54%), Illinois (33%), Colorado (37%), California (73%), Minnesota (53%), Nebraska (37%) and Washington (35%), which are the number 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 and 12 leading states in terms of electricity generated from wind, respectively. Price increases were lower than average in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota and New Mexico, the other four leading wind states. The data shows that deployments of wind systems produce higher electricity prices.

The article includes the following graph:

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Someone is making an awful lot of money on green energy while the consumers are paying the price.

The Shiny Thing That Hid The Truth

On Sunday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about January 6th. The title of the article is “The Parliamentary Motive Behind the J6 Fedsurrection.” The article points out how the events at the Capitol on January 6th prevented the much-needed questioning of the election results. Please follow the link to read the entire article. I will try to summarize it here.

The article reports:

Within the questions: the FBI and government apparatus had advanced knowledge of the scale of the J6 mall assembly yet doing nothing?  Why were the Capitol Hill police never informed of the FBI concerns?  Why didn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi secure the Capitol Hill complex, and why did she deny the request by President Trump to call up the national guard for security support?  Why did the FBI have agent provocateurs in the crowd, seemingly stimulating rage within a peaceful crowd to enter the Capitol building?  There have always been these nagging questions around ‘why’?

One possible explanation is provided by a Conservative Treehouse reader:

I think most, not all, but a large number of people, are totally missing what happened; and why this happened on Jan 6th.  I am going to try my best to outline the events that day, blast past the commonly held assumptions and get right down to the core corruption.

I will present this as a series of questions and answers.

♦ Q1: How do you prevent congress from delaying the certification of state electoral votes?

A: It requires a crisis. A crisis that creates an “emergency” …An “emergency” that invokes special house rules.

FACTS: Remember carefully, focus please. Just moments, literally 3 minutes before two representatives issued a vote for motions to suspend the certification, the House members were “informed” by capitol police and other “agents” that a protest was about to breach the chambers. It was at this time that key people: Pence, Pelosi, Schumer, Mcconnell can be seen being walked out and escorted from the chamber. This effectively halted the Entire Chamber Process.

♦ Q2: Why was it necessary to halt the chamber process?

A: The crisis was created to eliminate the motion challenges to halt the certification and to begin voting to look into voting irregularities and fraud

FACTS: The two motions were completely legal and constitutional under at least two constitutionally recognized procedures… procedures that would REQUIRE the house to pause the certification and then vote to determine whether the motions of suspend could move forward.

♦ Q3: What was so important to refuse this motion and the subsequent votes to suspend the electoral certification?

A: It was important to remove that process entirely and continue the fraud and certify the fraud with no detractors on record. This effectively gives no standing for a SCOTUS ruling appeal!  Understand this.  If those two motions, even just one had successfully been voted EVEN IF THE MOTIONS were DENIED IN VOTE, this gives those who presented them with STANDING FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL LEGAL ARGUMENT BEFORE SCOTUS. 

♦ Q4: Could this have been done some other way other than creating a crisis/protest?

A: Unlikely. In order to prevent those two motions, requires that speaker of the house, minority leaders, and the president of the congress (vice president of the United States: Pence), to NOT BE PRESENT IN THE CHAMBERS.

Once the capitol police and other “law enforcements agents” informed the speaker and these three other individuals, Pelosi UNILATERALLY UNDER EMERGENCY RULES, suspended the business of the congress. This protest was necessary. The crisis was created because there is no other way to suspend the business of certification UNILATERALLY. By creating a crisis invokes emergency procedures. No other circumstances other than war or mass simultaneous explosive diarrhea can create such unilateral speaker delivered suspension of the certification.

♦ Q5: Why did the motions, once that the speaker RECONVENED congress, move forward back again to the floor for votes? Why were members disallowed to even consider putting forward ANY motions to the floor in when the chamber business was reopened?

A: The Speaker initiated the NEW sessions under special emergency rules. These rules abandon and make it clear that the ONLY purpose of the new session was to EXPEDITE the certification and dismiss all prior regular session procedural rules. This is why those two motions to table votes to consider a debate and pause to the certifications of state vote electors never happened later that evening when the house business was reconvened!

♦ Q6: Other than new rules, emergency rules, what other peculiar things occurred when the speaker reconvened?

A: Members were allowed to “vote” in proxy, remotely, not being present.  You can use your imagination about what conditions were placed on ALL members during this time to prevent anyone from “getting out of line”.

Also clearly, it was at THIS NEW SESSION that VP Pence, President of Congress, would also have no ability to even consider pausing the electoral certification, because there were no motions of disagreements on the matter. So, in a technical legal claim, he is correct that he had no constitutional authority to address any issues of fraud or doubts about electoral irregularities. But this completely dismisses the FACT that congress created rules in this crisis/emergency that never allowed them to be floored!

Understand what happened in Jan 6, 2021.  Don’t get hung up on Viking impostors, stolen Pelosi computers, podium heists, and complicit capitol police. Understand the process and what happened and what WAS NOT ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.

This was a coup….it was a very organized and carefully planned coup. VP Pence without a doubt as well as most members of the house were quite aware of how the certification was going to be MANAGED.  It would require new rules to prevent the debate clause from occurring!  New rules that ONLY AN EMERGENCY CRISIS COULD CREATE! So, they created an emergency.

Unfortunately this is not an unrealistic scenario.