An Interesting Turn Of Events

The House Oversight Committee that is investigating the amazing wealth that seems to have flowed to the Biden family in recent years has been meeting strong headwinds. For whatever reason, American banks have been unwilling to allow Congress access to the Biden family information. However, the Committee is getting cooperation from an unlikely source.

On Monday, Breitbart reported the following:

A bank founded by Chinese-Americans that facilitated many Biden family transactions voluntarily provided Republican investigators with Biden family bank records, a stark difference from the current practices of U.S. banks, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) revealed Sunday.

Cathay Bank, which has offices in the U.S. and communist China, voluntarily provided Johnson’s investigation with 200 bank records from 2017 and 2018 showing how the Biden family moved money through a complicated web of entities. The specific records revealed transactions between Hunter Biden-linked business entities and Chinese energy firm CEFC, whose top company lieutenant was the “spy chief of China,” according to Hunter Biden.

In contrast, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has not received such easy cooperation from U.S. banks that have records of the Biden family business.

During his probe, Comer has launched a number of subpoenas to obtain the Biden family’s bank records. One of those subpoenas compelled damning information to come to light that showed the Biden family members collectedly received a $1.3 million cut from a $3 million wire transfer from CEFC, according to Comer.

The article notes a possible reason for the cooperation from Chinese banks:

“That is a very interesting development right there,” Johnson told Fox News. “That bank from China [Cathay Bank]. Let’s face it, the Communist Party controls those types of institutions. They willingly gave us the documents that backed up the Treasury records [Suspicious Activity Reports].”

Johnson questioned why a bank linked to China would be more willing to provide bank documents to investigators than U.S. banks under the control of U.S. banking regulators.

“Is that the Chinese Communist Party, is that a shot across President Biden’s bow saying, listen, this is some of the information we have. If you don’t toe the line, if you don’t do things that displease us, we’re going to even provide… more information?” Johnson questioned. “So we obviously have a multiple-tier system of justice.”

Stay tuned.

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.

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.

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.”

 

 

There Are Many Forms Of Gun Control–None Of Them Constitutional

The Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Let’s put this in context. This is part of the Bill of Rights–a document that protects the God-given rights espoused in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is a document that limits the rights of government and protects the God-given rights of citizens. The right to bear arms was inserted to keep the people armed to prevent another tyranny like the one they had just escaped. The Second Amendment limits the government–not the citizens.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported:

Beginning in April 2023, Discover will become the first credit card issuer to track gun purchases made by their cardholders.

On September 11, 2022, Breitbart News noted that Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a new sales categorization. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit cards also agreed to flag gun sales.

On March 2, 2023, the Independent Journal Review (IJR) reported that Discover will be first among credit card companies to track gun sales, inasmuch as the company will begin doing so in April.

Make no mistake–this is not a good thing. First of all, criminals who commit gun crimes do not generally purchase their guns legally using a credit card. This will only track legal gun owners, who are highly unlikely to commit gun crimes.

In 2016, The National Review reported:

In the study, led by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, researchers partnered with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to trace the origins of all 893 firearms that police recovered from crime scenes in the year 2008.

They found that in approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else. The researchers were primarily interested in how these guns made their way from a legal purchase — at a firearm dealer or via a private sale — to the scene of the crime.

So what is the usefulness of tracking legal gun sales? Why would anyone want to do that? That is a very good question.

How Much Money Does China Funnel Into Congress Every Year?

I don’t have concrete information that China funnels money into Congress; however, that is the only logical explanation for some of the decisions that Congress makes.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s efforts to block China from buying up farmland in her state were thwarted this week when a supermajority of state Senators rejected her proposal.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Noem had proposed a bill that would “create a state-level version of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)” in order to curtail foreign Chinese entities from buying agricultural land in her state:

Currently, CFIUS is a federal board that approves or disapproves of foreign entities engaging in major U.S. transactions. Noem’s proposal would establish a CFIUS-South Dakota, or CFIUS-SD, which would review proposed transactions in the state where foreign entities including but not limited to Chinese entities seek to purchase land. The board, if established — which would require the legislature to pass Noem’s proposal — could block such land sales as it sees fit.

Essentially, Senate Bill 185 would have granted the South Dakota governor the power to unilaterally veto any purchase reviewed by the panel. The state senate rejected the bill on Tuesday with an 11-23 vote.

“The bill faced opposition from nearly every agriculture industry group in committee testimony. But the proposal’s supporters on the Senate floor said any flaws would be rectified before it becomes law,” reported South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB).

The article concludes:

“What’s been interesting about the debate so far on this bill I’m proposing with help from a couple legislators,” she continued, “is that the opposition has not come to the table and given us other solutions and other things they think would work that would give us this kind of accountability and make sure that we have a review of land that’s purchased in South Dakota. They haven’t given us articulated reasons as to why they’re opposed to the bill, so for me, this is an issue the public has brought to me for many, many months. They care about this.”

Opposition to this bill makes no sense–letting a country that seeks to defeat us control the land that supplies our food is insanity. Controlling the food supply controls the population. That is a political tool of a tyrant.

The American Employment Situation Under The Biden Administration

It’s hard enough for the average family to deal with the current level of inflation, but there is another factor working against Americans looking for good jobs.

On Friday, Breitbart posted the following headline: “Biden’s Labor Market: 1.9M Fewer Americans Working, 2M Foreign Workers Funneled into U.S. Jobs.”

That is not good news for American workers.

The article reports:

At the end of 2022, 1.9 million fewer Americans were working than in 2019 before the Chinese coronavirus pandemic while President Joe Biden’s administration has funneled two million additional foreign workers into United States jobs.

A new analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that in the fourth quarter of 2022, close to two million fewer native-born Americans were working in jobs compared to the same time in 2019 while two million foreign-born workers have been added to the workforce compared to the same time period.

The thing to keep in mind here is that nothing happens in America without the approval of the uni-party. The uni-party is made up of corporate Republicans looking for cheap labor and Democrats looking for future voters. Bringing in foreign workers who will work for less and who may eventually become citizens satisfies both groups. Does anyone actually believe that if members of Congress wanted to solve the problem of people being imported to take American jobs that it wouldn’t be solved by now? It’s to the uni-party’s advantage to continue with open borders and an immigration policy that benefits those in both parties who want to maintain profits with cheap labor or maintain power with new voters.

The article notesL’

There has been a decades-long decline in the labor force participation rate of the U.S.-born of working-age (16 to 64), from 77.3 percent in 2000 to 73.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022. [Emphasis added]

If the labor force participation rate for the working-age U.S.-born in the fourth quarter of 2022 was what it had been in the fourth quarter of 2000, then 6.4 million more people would be in the labor force. [Emphasis added]

We need to close the southern and northern borders, create a sane immigration policy, and protect American jobs. We were on that path with President Trump. I would like to get back on that path.

Looking Behind The Numbers

On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article about some of the recent employment numbers.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden’s administration is growing the United States labor market by adding millions of foreign workers for employers to hire, leaving jobless Americans on the sidelines.

Data published in the New York Times shows that the Biden administration is aiding employers by adding millions of foreign workers to the labor force — ensuring wages stay stagnant — even as native-born Americans struggle to get back into jobs since the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

“The foreign-born workforce grew much more quickly than the U.S.-born workforce, Labor Department figures show,” the Times reports:

When the unemployment rate goes down, you would normally expect wage inflation to go up, but that’s not what’s happening,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “So there must be something else moving in the labor force, and there is a very likely explanation here that immigrants are coming in and taking jobs.” [Emphasis added]

But despite the resurgence in the foreign-born labor force — about four-fifths of it are people legally allowed to work in the United States, by one calculation — there are bottlenecks. [Emphasis added]

The article includes the following charts:

The article notes:

By focusing on adding foreign workers to the labor market, the Biden administration is ignoring efforts to get native-born Americans back into the workforce. The administration’s foreign competition addition to the labor force adds tremendous weight for the nation’s working and lower-middle class looking to find high-paying jobs with decent benefits packages.

The is the place where the uni-party is revealed. The Democrats want future voters; the country club Republican (the Chamber of Commerce party) want cheap labor for their corporate allies. No one is looking out for the middle class right now. The influx of foreign workers, both legal and illegal, creates downward pressure on wages. Corporations are out to make a profit, and many of those corporations have forgotten their scruples. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is destroying the middle class. Remember, a strong middle class is necessary for the survival and growth of our republic.

 

Where Do The Parts For Green Energy Come From?

On Sunday, Breitbart reported that Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives want to reverse President Biden’s tariff waivers for suspected Chinese companies that are reportedly funneling their solar panels through other countries to evade United States trade rules.

The article notes:

In June 2022, Biden announced a 24-month tariff moratorium on solar panel imports from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Commerce Department officials suspect that the solar panels are actually made in China or by Chinese companies but have been routed through the four southeast Asian nations to evade tariffs.

The tariff moratorium came even as Biden’s Commerce Department found that BYD Hong Kong rerouted its production through Cambodia, Canadian Solar and Trina through Thailand, and Vina Solar through Vietnam to specifically evade U.S. tariffs on China-made solar panels.

Already, about 80 percent of solar panels installed in the U.S. are made in China or by Chinese companies.

The article concludes:

Those massive job losses have coincided with a booming U.S.-China trade deficit. In 1985, before China entered the WTO, the U.S. trade deficit with China totaled $6 billion. In 2019, the U.S. trade deficit with China totaled more than $345 billion.

While skyrocketing U.S. trade deficits have led to devastation across America’s working and middle-class communities over the last two decades, tariffs would be a boon for reshoring jobs and boosting wages, studies show.

A recent study from economists at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, for instance, finds that tariffs on nearly all foreign imports would create about 10 million American jobs while boosting domestic output.

I have very mixed emotions on tariffs. I will concede that tariffs are probably needed on the large amount of Chinese goods that make their way into America. However, looking at history, we can’t ignore the impact of The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised the United States’s already high tariff rates. That tariff contributed to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail. It planted the seeds for the Great Depression. The world’s economy is not in a really good place right now, and we need to consider carefully the impact of any tariff we pass.

Sometimes It Takes A While For The Facts To Get Out

On Sunday, Breitbart reported the following:

President Joe Biden’s Energy Department quietly published a congressionally mandated report in December showing the president revoking the Keystone XL Pipeline federal permits cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.

The report — Keystone XL Extension Permit Revocation: Energy Costs and Job Impactsbrought attention to the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline could have had if Biden did not revoke the federal permits for it hours after being sworn into office.

…Energy’s report indicated the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,468 jobs annually for a two-year period, which is up from a 2014 report sponsored by the department that showed it would have only created 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs over a two-year construction.

The article concludes:

The Keystone XL would have delivered roughly 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada to the U.S. through the pipeline. Additionally, a labor agreement signed by four unions with TC Energy in August 2020 promised the project would have created 42,000 American jobs and 2 billion in total wages.

Following Biden revoking the permits, Keystone XL was no longer a viable project and its builder, TC Energy, moved on from it, confirming its termination in June 2021. Federal judges tossed a challenge from almost two dozen states asking the court to reinstate the pipeline’s permits.

The repercussions of canceling the pipeline go beyond the economic cost. The cancellation of the pipeline was part of President Biden’s efforts to undo anything President Trump had done (whether it was good or bad) and was part of President Biden’s war on fossil fuel. That war has international as well as national consequences. America’s energy independence would put a very different light on the end of trading oil in American dollars that is rapidly approaching. However, it has been two years since we were energy independent. I don’t know how long it will take to get that independence back or even if it is possible. Energy independence would also make a big difference in the war in Ukraine. Russia’s war machine is being financed by the high price of oil. According to the law of supply and demand, if America were energy independent, the cost of oil would be significantly lower (and inflation would be significantly lower). There has been a high price paid by the American consumer for the election of President Biden. Hopefully we can stop paying that price in two years.

 

What Laws?

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

President Joe Biden’s Justice Department reportedly permitted the president’s personal attorneys to search for classified documents in separate locations without security clearances or the FBI present.

…According to the Wall Street Journal, the initial search, authorized by DOJ, involved people with no security clearance looking for potentially classified material. “Mr. Biden’s legal team prepared to search his other properties for any similar documents, and discussed with the Justice Department the prospect of having FBI agents present while Mr. Biden’s lawyers conducted the additional searches,” the report said.

One might wonder what President Biden’s legal team was looking for.

I seem to recall that the Trump classified case was handled very differently. On December 1, 2022, The New York Post reported:

A federal appeals court halted a former Brooklyn federal judge’s review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort by FBI agents in August. 

In a major blow to Trump, the three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon had erred in appointing Raymond Dearie to scrutinize the documents for privileged information over the objections of the Biden Justice Department.

“The law is clear,” the judges wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”

At least the person appointed by the court would have had the appropriate security clearances. If we continue to have two separate systems of justice–one for those in power and one for those out of power, we will lose our country.

The Insanity In Washington Continues

On Monday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Introduces Bill Criminalizing ‘Conspiracy to Commit White Supremacy,’ Criticism of Non-White People

I need to understand this. If you criticize non-white people, you are committing ‘conspiracy to commit white supremacy,’ what about if you criticize white people? If one is a crime, and the other is not, isn’t that racist?

The article reports:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) introduced a House Bill criminalizing “conspiracy to commit white supremacy,” which includes criticism of non-white people which influences an individual to commit a hate crime. 

The legislation, H.R.61 “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023,” introduced last Monday by Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, seeks to “prevent and prosecute white supremacy inspired hate crime and conspiracy to commit white supremacy inspired hate crime.”

How do we know it’s a hate crime, and how do we know it’s influenced by white supremacy?

The article states:

The congressional bill, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, states that someone engages in a white supremacy inspired hate crime “when white supremacy ideology has motivated the planning, development, preparation, or perpetration of actions that constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.”

Accordingly, “conspiracy” to engage in white supremacy inspired hate crime entails the publishing of material “advancing white supremacy, white supremacist ideology, antagonism based on ‘replacement theory’, or hate speech that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-White person or group.”

It also calls for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “authority to conduct operations and activities pursuant” to what it deems “necessary and appropriate to interdict, mitigate, or prevent such action from culminating in violent activity.”

The bill would grant the department authority to “prosecute” persons engaged in such actions, with “records of white supremacy inspired hate crimes” maintained and annual reports provided.

I fear that we are setting up a system where people will be prosecuted for their opinions if their opinions don’t agree with whomever is in power at any given moment.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Congress.gov had posted no summary for the bill.

The Constitution Provides A Way To Protect Gun Rights Currently Under Fire

On Saturday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

The Congressional Review Act Gives GOP House Opportunity to Stop ATF Stabilizer Brace Rule

The article reports:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) announced the finalization of its stabilizer brace ban on Friday, and within hours, members of Congress were talking about using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to block it.

The CRA was put in place in the 1990s as part of Speaker Newt Gingrinch’s (R) “Contract with America.” It grants Congress the ability to review a major rule and vote to block the implementation or effectiveness of the rule.

…The U.S. Government Accountability Office explains the CRA thusly: “The CRA allows Congress to review ‘major’ rules issued by federal agencies before the rules take effect. Congress may also disapprove new rules, resulting in the rules having no force or effect.”

Keep in mind that according to the Constitution, rules and laws were made in Congress and only in Congress.

The article reminds us that the ATF has attempted this ban in the past:

In July 2021, when the pistol brace rule was at the proposal stage, Rep. Richard Hudson (R) led 140 members of Congress in suggesting the proposed rule was a tax on “disabled combat veterans.”

Hudson called for the stabilizer brace proposal to be withdrawn, noting that the ATF had many times explained its position that such braces were “legitimate”:

The ATF has repeatedly stated, “the brace concept was inspired by the needs of disabled combat veterans who still enjoy recreational shooting but could not reliably control heavy pistols without assistance. Consequently, ATF agrees that there are legitimate uses for certain ‘stabilizing braces.’” If this is the stance of the ATF, then…[the proposed AR-pistol rule] is not an attempt to curb gun violence as suggested by this proposed guidance, but a direct tax on disabled combat veterans.

The article concludes:

The Congressional Review Act is in place for moments such as this and is apropos if, in fact, the stabilizer brace ban meets all the criteria of a “major” rule.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office explains: “The CRA allows Congress to review ‘major’ rules issued by federal agencies before the rules take effect. Congress may also disapprove new rules, resulting in the rules having no force or effect.”

A rule passed by un-elected bureaucrats who are not accountable to the voters should be immediately null and void.

 

Another Special Prosecutor

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

Special Counsel Robert Hur, appointed Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to probe President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified information, was among those at the Justice Department who had knowledge about the Russia hoax perpetrated on former President Donald Trump.

According to a Justice Department document, Hur is a former DOJ official “who handled, participated in, or have personal knowledge of the FBI’s relationship and communications with” Christopher Steele, who authored the infamous dossier that paved the way for the Russia hoax.

Hur began his career by clerking for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist after graduating from Harvard and Stanford. Hur was then hired as the principal associate deputy attorney general, “serving as the top aide to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under President Donald Trump. Before that, he had also been special assistant to Christopher A. Wray, who was leading the Justice Department’s criminal division at the time and went on to become the FBI director,” according to the Washington Post.

Rosenstein announced Hur’s appointment in a press release, praising him as having “experience and judgment [that] will advance our efforts to deter crime, promote the rule of law, and ensure equal justice for everyone.”

I hope no one minds if I don’t hold my breath waiting for equal justice for everyone.

It is very possible that this is the beginning of the strategy either to remove President Biden from the White House or discourage him from running for a second term. At any rate, I can guarantee that there is a strategy behind this move and that strategy is be orchestrated by someone other than Merrick Garland.

Kevin McCarthy Elected Speaker Of The House

Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House on the 15th ballot. Regardless of how you may feel about this, it’s an improvement over Nancy Pelosi. Hopefully Speaker McCarthy will not embarrass the nation by tearing up a State of the Union speech.

Breitbart reported Friday night:

McCarthy received 216 votes, House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) received 212 votes, and six Republican members voted “present.”

…The roughly 20 members who had been voting against McCarthy throughout the week — many of whom are in the House Freedom Caucus — sought various structural changes to the House and other commitments from the leader, aiming to shift power away from leadership and to rank-and-file members and Freedom Caucus members specifically.

Their asks included, among many items, bringing the motion to vacate down to a one-member threshold and putting more members of the Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee, as well as budgetary provisions and vows to bring votes on certain legislation to the floor.

The article includes the following screenshot:

With the exception of the first item, these are all good ideas. The problem with the first item is that it will be misused to halt legislation the Democrats don’t want. It should also be noted that the power of the House of Representatives will be somewhat limited by the fact that the Democrats hold the Senate and the White House. It should also be noted that the Republicans talk a really good game when they are not in power. Somehow when they are in power, things seem to change (remember the promise to repeal Obamacare).

The article at Breitbart concludes:

With McCarthy’s election, the House is expected to adjourn in the early hours of Saturday morning and then vote on a rules package as its next order of business.

Watch the vote on the rules package carefully, it will tell us everything we want to know about the future of the Republican party.

The Economy Is Not Doing Well

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about The S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for December.

The article reports:

The S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell at the fastest rate since May 2020 in December, a continuing sign that the manufacturing sector is on the decline, S&P Global reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Manufacturing PMI posted a 46.2 in December, down from 47.7 in November and solidly below 50, which signals that the sector is contracting, according to S&P Global. Production levels contracted in back-to-back months, with new sales plummeting at the end of December at the fastest pace since 2007, as companies cited weakening demand amid “economic uncertainty” and inflation weighing on customers.

The article concludes:

The broader labor market remains incredibly tight, with hiring far surpassing investor expectations in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). However, even as the market remained tight, the BLS estimated that manufacturers added just 14,000 jobs in November, while private payroll firm ADP estimated that manufacturers actually lost 100,000 employees in November.

“While unemployment is a lagging indicator, manufacturing often lags less than the labor market as a whole,” said Antoni. “For manufacturing to bounce back, we need to see DC scale back the taxing, spending, and—perhaps most importantly—the regulating.”

Until we elect a President who understands the impact of regulations on businesses, our economy will not recover from the damage done to it by the shutdowns and the economic policies of the Biden administration. Unfortunately, policies made in Washington have a major impact on how Americans live their lives. This was not what the Founding Fathers envisioned–they wanted each state to make the laws impacting the people within that state. The states were to act as laboratories–when something worked well in one state, it could be implemented in other states. Unfortunately, we are seeing too many examples of things that have not worked being implemented. We need state leaders who will stand up to the federal government and contest anything that does not fall within the purview of the Tenth Amendment.

Unfortunately, This Seems To Typical Of Congressmen

On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about Representative Liz Cheney, who is not officially out of Congress. The article notes that Congress was a very successful financial move for Representative Cheney.

The article reports:

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will vacate her congressional seat on Tuesday after becoming a wealthy woman during her six years of serving Wyoming.

Cheney, who lost her Republican primary by nearly 40 points in August, will depart Congress on January 3 and return home as a defeated 56-year-old never Trumper.

Cheney will not depart Congress empty-handed. During her six years in Congress, she has become very wealthy. Breitbart News reported in August that Cheney’s net worth ballooned from an estimated $7 million when she first took office in 2017 to possibly more than $44 million in 2020. Depending on the specifics of her latest financial disclosure form, Cheney’s net worth could have skyrocketed up to 600 percent in Congress.

According to her 2020 Personal Financial Disclosure form, Cheney declared a net worth between $10,422,023 and $44,140,000, stemming from assets valued between $10,432,024 and $44,155,000. She reported no earned income, gifts, or transactions. She did, however, declare she held three posts, including a trustee position at the University of Wyoming, membership of a holding company, and what appears to be a position in her family’s trust.

Admittedly, she was not middle class when she went into Congress, but it would be interesting to know how a person increases their wealth by 600 percent while serving in Congress.

Now that we have seen President Trump’s tax returns, maybe Congress needs to share theirs–with information on stock trades and their relationship to legislation members of Congress were involved in.

Cloward-Piven At Work

Study.com defines the Cloward-Piven theory as follows:

The Cloward-Piven Theory is a strategy devised in the 1960s to successfully provide welfare and attempt to solve political problems. The main steps of this strategy are to:

    1. Overload a system
    2. Create mass panic and hysteria as the system is overloaded
    3. Oversee the destruction of the system
    4. Replace the former system with a new system

This is the basic outline for The Great Reset.

In a June 2020 article, The Hill describes The Great Reset as follows:

At a virtual meeting earlier in June hosted by the World Economic Forum, some of the planet’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and activists announced a proposal to “reset” the global economy. Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs. 

The biggest obstacle to The Great Reset is America. We like our freedom and we like our prosperity. On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article that might illustrate how the Biden administration can easily overload the welfare system.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has officially reopened legal immigration to foreign nationals with a history of using American taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.

In early 2020, the Trump administration finalized a federal regulation known as the “public charge” rule that made it less likely for foreign nationals to secure green cards to permanently reside in the United States if they had previously used welfare programs like food stamps, Medicaid, or taxpayer-funded housing programs.

Almost immediately after taking office, Biden threw out the finalized public charge rule imposed by the Trump administration, blowing open the door for welfare-dependent legal immigration to the United States, for which American taxpayers will ultimately foot the bill.

First of all, why are laws being made by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats instead of Congress? Until we correct that, we are not really the representative republic that our Founding Fathers established. Secondly, why do we want to bring more people into America who will be welfare-dependent when we can’t even help the people who are already here. Until we find a way to get homeless veterans off the streets, we need to stop allowing people to come here simply to access America’s welfare system.

A Victory For Equal Access

For a few years, libraries across America have featured Drag Queen Story Hours for children. However, when actor Kirk Cameron asked to read his new children’s book at the Indianapolis Public Library’s main branch, he was turned down.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported what happened next:

“This was the largest event held at the library in its 137 years of existence,” Zac Bell with BRAVE Books, who is with the book’s publisher, commented. “The turnout was phenomenal! We were blown away.”

According to Bell, the Indianapolis Public Library “originally denied us the ability to book the reading. We sent them a letter that threatened legal action and they backed down.”

Meanwhile, Cameron and his publisher recently criticized libraries that will not allow a public reading of his book but offer “drag queen story hours” for children.

However, “No more will the family of faith be shut out from the public square!” Cameron wrote in a social media post Wednesday.

Kirk Cameron will be reading his book at New York’s Scarsdale Library on Friday.

This is what the event in Indianapolis looked like:

Thank you, Kirk Cameron and Brave Books for standing up for the rights of parents to have access to events that build up their children.

 

 

 

Creating A New Pandemic

China is at it again. They are sending Covid-infected travelers around the world, spreading the disease again.

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Italy’s decision to take extra precautions with Chinese travelers paid off on Wednesday as two flights from China landed in Milan and half of the passengers tested positive for Covid-19.

Italy was one of four countries that announced they would impose coronavirus restrictions on Chinese travelers because a massive wave of coronavirus infections is ripping across China, racking up millions of cases in a single day — but the tyrannical Chinese government decided to abandon almost all of its disease control protocols with almost no preparation for the consequences, loosen up travel restrictions, and begin handing out passports just in time for the Lunar New Year holiday.

According to ycharts, as of December 13, 2022, China has a Covid vaccination rate of 89.35 percent. If that is true, why are they having so much trouble containing the Coronavirus?

The article at Breitbart continues:

A massive spike in Chinese internet searches for travel reservations and vacation packages occurred on Tuesday as international travel suddenly became available after years of travel prohibitions and citywide lockdowns. 

Italy was one of four countries to correctly deduce that China would not do a very thorough job of screening its outbound passengers for the highly contagious, vaccine-resistant sub-variant of the Omicron strain that has been spreading like wildfire through the vast and vulnerable Chinese population. 

The article concludes:

“Travel services companies Trip.com and Qunar said international ticket bookings and searches for visa information on their websites rose five to eight times after the announcement. Top destinations included Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States, Britain and Australia,” Sky News reported, fearing a “haunting repeat” of the 2020 worldwide pandemic.

The United States became the fifth country to impose special restrictions on Chinese travelers on Wednesday night, requiring negative Covid test results for travelers two and older beginning on January 5. U.S. health officials cited the lack of reliable data from China as one of the reasons for its travel policy.

We need to start testing now–January 5 will be too late.

The Twitter Saga Continues

In understanding any of what was going on at Twitter, it is a good idea to refer to a series of articles posted at The Conservative Treehouse describing Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. The basic premise of the articles about Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is that the business model for Twitter does not work unless various agencies prop it up. Twitter is the the U.S. government as Tik Tok is to the Chinese Communist government.

On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about some of the things we have recently learned about the collaboration between Twitter and various government agencies.

The article reports:

The CIA was among a number of security state agencies, including the State Department and the Pentagon, involved in censorship at Twitter, according to the ninth tranche of Twitter Files released by Elon Musk, via journalist Matt Taibbi.

Following the bizarre statement released by the FBI, calling the Twitter Files reporting “misinformation” spread by “conspiracy theorists” with the “sole purpose of discrediting the agency,” Taibbi posted a new tranche revealing much more widespread government involvement in censorship than previously known — adding, “Why stop with one [agency]?”

The ninth release of Twitter Files displays aggressive efforts by the CIA and other agencies in the security state to force Twitter’s hand in censoring various political opinions and speech, through constant contact with the company’s executives, one of whom Taibbi reveals is ex-CIA himself.

Taibbi writes that the FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter, describing the bureau as a “doorman” for the other agencies to connect with Twitter.

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship,” Taibbi writes, “encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

The article concludes:

Taibbi explains how the government would push Twitter according to its theories about “foreign influence” that Twitter did not see borne out in its own data. Twitter would respond to the government’s “constant pressure” that there was no evidence for their assertions, however, Twitter still surrendered its independence.

“The #TwitterFiles show execs under constant pressure to validate theories of foreign influence – and unable to find evidence for key assertions,” Taibbi writes, providing a number of examples.

“‘Due to a lack of technical evidence on our end, I’ve generally left it be, waiting for more evidence,’ he says. ‘Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution’,” Taibbi reports, adding, “Translation: ‘more aggressive’ ‘government partners’ had closed Twitter’s ‘window’ of independence.”

The CIA did not respond for request for comment, Taibbi reports:

“The CIA has yet to comment on the nature of its relationship to tech companies like Twitter. Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by third parties, so what I saw could be limited.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. We are running out of conspiracy theories–they are all turning out to be true.

Don’t Let That Pesky Constitution Get In Your Way

One of the constant cries from the political left is that the political right is a danger to our democracy. First of all, we are a representative republic–not a democracy. Secondly, which political wing is ignoring the Constitution–that requires us to secure our borders, requires equal justice, limits the federal government to enumerated powers as stated in the Tenth Amendment? Today we have a new Constitutional breech.

Breitbart is reporting the following today:

The Democrats’ January 6 Committee will conclude its “investigation” on Monday by asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute former President Donald Trump, though the committee lacks constitutional authority to do so.

Congressional committees must be organized for a legislative purpose, not as part of a law enforcement action, which is a function of the executive branch under the separation of power in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, the January 6 Committee — in what is expected to be its final act before a Republican-led House takes over next month — is expected to ask the DOJ to prosecute Trump for what it says are multiple crimes.

I suspect that the one crime that President Trump is actually guilty of is being President Trump.

The article concludes:

Schiff saw no irony in accusing the former president of trying to overthrow the government when he himself had tried to overturn Trump’s administration through the “Russia collusion” hoax and a failed impeachment.

Neither of the two Republicans chosen by Pelosi for the committee was reelected to Congress; one Democrat retired, and one Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), was defeated in November by her Republican opponent.

The mainstream media has treated the January 6 Committee hearings as legitimate, despite the fact that they were scripted “show trials” — complete with TelePrompTers — and that they offered no representation to the other side of the argument. Several witnesses 466 that the committee lied about what they had said in closed-door depositions; some witnesses changed their stories to be more amenable to the committee’s agenda.

The committee’s request to the DOJ will come nearly two years after the Senate failed to convict Trump on similar charges, especially after evidence that he told a rally crowd to protest “peacefully and patriotically.”

There isn’t enough popcorn in the world to watch the ridiculous circus that the current session of the House of Representatives has become.

Some Democrats Don’t Want To Give The Money Back

On Friday, Breitbart reported that there are sixteen Democrats who do not want to return the campaign donations given to them by FTX since its former CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried was changed this week for violating campaign finance laws.

The article reports:

Some Democrats have refused to return the money to FTX and have instead donated or plan to donate it to charity. Donations to charity do not eliminate any potential claims of fraud, however. “The bankruptcy trustee could still ask that donations made by FTX donors be returned if courts determine Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives committed fraud,” Bloomberg reported.

This is the list:

  1. Election Denier Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
  2. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA)
  3. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)
  4. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)
  5. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
  6. Sen.-elect Peter Welch (D-VT)
  7. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)
  8. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA)
  9. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO)
  10. Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA)
  11. Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA)
  12. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY)
  13. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN)
  14. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA)
  15. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
  16. Reps. Chuy García (D-IL)

It is quite likely that the bankruptcy receiver will ask them to return the money regardless of what they have done with it.

This Is Not Good For America

On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the signing ceremony for the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” which enshrines gay marriage and mixed-race marriage into federal law. The only reason mixed-race marriage was added to the bill was to make it look like a civil rights bill–it’s not. One of the people invited to the signing was a non binary drag artist named Jean-Pierre. How does that illustrate respect for marriage?

According to an article posted in The Hill:

The Republicans in the upper chamber who backed the bill were Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Todd Young (Ind.).

Breitbart notes:

The White House previewed a massive signing celebration at the White House on Tuesday for a bill making gay marriage federally legal.

“Tomorrow is going to be a really important day for many Americans, millions of Americans across the country,” Karine Jean-Pierre said at the daily briefing on Monday. “And I think we cannot forget that.”

She said that the White House expected “thousands” of invited guests for President Joe Biden’s signing ceremony of the bill, including prominent gay and lesbian couples and “musical guests.”

“There will be musical guests and performances to celebrate this historic bill,” she said.

Marriage between one man and one woman has been the foundation of our society since Colonial times. This bill tears away at that foundation. The Republicans who voted for this bill need to face primary challenges in their next elections.