Changing The Rules

On Friday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The New York Post detailing how the Democrat party has changed some of the basic rules of our Republic in recent years. It’s a long list.

Here are the highlights of the list:

1. When in control of the Senate, demand the end of the filibuster; when not, don’t.

2. Call for the end of the Electoral College — but only if it appears to recently favor the candidate of the opposition.

3. In an election year, change any state balloting laws deemed unhelpful through administrative fiat or court order to favor your political candidate.

4. Seek to flip electors from voting in accordance with the popular vote count in their states; indict as an insurrectionist any of the opposition who dare do the same.

5. Raid the home of any opposition ex-president who removed classified files; exempt any sitting president of your party who did the same.

6. Swarm the private homes of, and then bully and intimidate, any Supreme Court officials, politicians or citizens you oppose.

7. Appoint two special counsels: one to go after the current chief presidential opponent in an election year; the other to exempt and excuse the sitting president for the very crimes charged against his rival.

8. Lobby to remove any oppositional president through the 25th Amendment; smear anyone as ageist who suggests a cognitively challenged sitting resident of your party should be subject to similar invocations of the 25th Amendment.

9. Exempt thousands of arrested rioters from charges of 120 days of arson, looting, injuring 1,500 law enforcement officers, and assault — but only if they are radical supporters of your party.

10. Excuse any demonstrator or rioter for desecrating public monuments and cemeteries or shutting down bridges and freeways, or swarming and disrupting the Capitol Rotunda — but only if they agree with you and/or are pro-Hamas. Otherwise, ensure the charged face lengthy prison sentences.

That’s just the top ten. Please follow the link to the article to read the next ten. It’s amazing how far we have fallen in recent years. When you read the list of things that used to be considered out-of-bounds that have been done since 2016 or so, it is scary.

 

 

 

Peter Schweizer Has A New Book Out

Peter Schweizer is one of the few investigative reporters left. He has a new book out, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. The book is carefully researched and footnoted.  It’s available on Amazon and other places. On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about the book.

The article reports:

The Biden family bagged $5 million from the business partner of the “White Wolf,” a Chinese criminal gang leader who helped create the fentanyl pipeline now decimating the United States, Peter Schweizer detailed in his new book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans.

While Joe Biden was vice president, the Bidens developed a business partnership with a Chinese tycoon named Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC China Energy Co., which had strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout Ye’s relationship with the Bidens, he “showered” some members of the Biden family with money, Schweizer reported. Hunter Biden received a three-carat diamond worth $80,000; and in July 2017, Ye’s company gave the Bidens a $5 million, interest-free, forgivable loan.

Schweizer previously detailed the $5 million in his book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, as reported by Kristina Wong:

Furthermore, by July 2017, CEFC began making interest-free, forgivable loans to the Biden family. CEFC executive Zhao Running wrote that $5 million was intended as money lent to “the BD family,” not just Hunter Biden.

“This $5 million loan to the BD [Biden] family is interest free,” Zhao wrote.

Schweizer notes that “interest-free loans provide tremendous leverage because the lender can demand its money back if it is displeased by any action.”

Hunter spoke to Ye on a “regular basis” and Ye helped Hunter “on a number of his personal issues” including unspecified “sensitive things,” Hunter explained in emails. Joe Biden also attended a meeting with Hunter, additional business partners, and Ye, Hunter’s business partner Rob Walker told U.S. House of Representative investigators in 2023. “I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember being in Washington, DC, and the former vice president stopped by. We were having lunch,” Walker testified.

But Ye also enjoyed a partnership with the former leader of a Chinese triad called the United Bamboo Gang (UBG), Schweizer detailed in Blood Money.  Ye’s partner’s name was Zhang Anle or, as he is commonly known, the “White Wolf.”

This is a very interesting book.

The Perversion Of Justice Continues

When something is called a crime but has no victim and the people who were supposedly injured by the ‘crime’ say that they were not injured, what is the appropriate punishment? In New York the punishment is to destroy the person who didn’t commit the crime because you dislike his politics and he might become President.

On Tuesday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted the following screenshot and commentary:

So this is a pre-emptive penalty because no actual fraud occurred?

This quirk in New York’s appellate procedure certainly offers one explanation. Engoron and AG Letitia James want to use the process as the punishment, and want to denude Trump of his legitimate wealth right in the middle of a political campaign they oppose. The massive fine will force Trump to either leverage these properties — and with banks outside of New York, thanks to Engoron — or to sell them off and put a large chunk of his wealth into the hands of New York for years

Did Engoron deliberately scale up the judgment to put Trump in this position? Let’s just say that New York’s system incentivizes it — and based on his deportment in the trial, it’s a reasonable conclusion.

It’s tough to overstate the absurdity of this situation. Appellate courts exist to allow citizens to seek redress for injustices in trials, both criminal and civil, that would result in ruination otherwise. This stands that process on its head. To seek redress for an injustice in a New York courtroom, the citizen must participate in his ruination just to knock on the door — even if an injustice has truly occurred. 

Please follow the link to the article to see exactly what is going on. I firmly believe that this verdict will have a chilling effect on business growth in New York in the coming years.

 

Things The Media Left Out

On Saturday, Breitbart posted an article about the recent verdict in the defamation case against President Trump. In some ways the charge of rape against President Trump bears a striking resemblance to the charges brought against Justice Kavanaugh–the ‘victim’ can’t remember exactly when it happened, there is no corroborating evidence, there were no contemporary witnesses, and generally speaking there is no actual evidence. Somehow these cases were taken seriously while cases with contemporary evidence were not (Juanita Broderick, Tara Reade).

The article at Breitbart reports:

Here are some facts about Carroll’s story that the establishment media do not want the public to know:

1.  Bergdorf Goodman has no surveillance video of the alleged incident.

2.  There are zero witnesses to the alleged sexual attack.

3.  Carroll first came forward — conveniently — with the allegations while promoting her book What Do We Need Men For? in 2019, which featured a list of “The Most Hideous Men of My Life.”

4.  Carroll was unable to remember when this alleged attack even occurred. She told her lawyer in 2023, “This question, the when, the when, the date, has been something I’ve [been] constantly trying to pin down.” She has jumped years — originally beginning with 1994, then moving to 1995, and even floating to 1996. She cannot remember the season in which the alleged attack occurred either.

5.  The Donna Karan blazer dress she claims to have worn during the alleged incident was not even available at the time of her claims. Trump Attorney Boris Epshteyn told reporters, “She said, ‘This is the dress I wore in 1994.’ They went back, they checked. The dress wasn’t even made in 1994.”

“And that’s why the date’s moved around. This is the 80s. Is it the 90s? Is it the 2000s? President Trump has consistently stated that he was falsely accused, and he has the right to defend himself,” he added.

6.  She never came forward with these allegations over the years despite constantly being open about sexuality, posting things that were very sexual in nature on social media — many of which Trump has shared. They include remarks such as “How do you know your ‘unwanted sexual advance’ is unwanted, until you advance it?” and “Sex Tip I Learned From My Dog: When in heat, chase the male until he collapses with exhaustion … then jump him!”

7.  She said she was never raped, telling the New York Times podcast, The Daily, “Every woman gets to choose her word. Every woman gets to choose how she describes it. This is my way of saying it. This is my word. My word is ‘fight.’ My word is not the ‘victim’ word. I have not — I have not been raped,” she continued. “I have — something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”

8.  She named her cat “Vagina.” “Her dog, or her cat, was named ‘Vagina.’ The judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in — all of these things — but with her, they could put in anything: Access Hollywood,” Trump told CNN.

9.  Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Trump, pointed out in May 2023 that Carroll’s entire story has incredible similarities to a 2012 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In that episode, titled “Theatre and Tricks,” an individual talks about a rape fantasy in Bergdorf Goodman — the same department store where Carroll claims the incident took place.

10.  Speaking of shows, Carroll loved Trump’s show The Apprentice.

11.  Carroll made a joke associating sex with Bergdorf Goodman in a November 1993 edition of Elle, which was before the alleged Trump attack took place.

12.  Carroll is financially backed by anti-Trump Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman, who has openly admitted to visiting convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

13.  Democrat party activists back her as well, as Breitbart News detailed:

14.  The lawsuit was only able to proceed after Democrats created the Adult Survivors Act in 2022. She conveniently pursued this suit in November following the law going into effect, which allowed her to avoid the statute of limitations for this case.

15.  Carroll once said, “Most people think of rape as sexy.”

We live in a dangerous world when a woman can simply accuse a man of a sexual crime with no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise and walk away with millions of dollars.

The Silence Is Deafening

On Thursday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the media’s ignoring the hostages that are currently being held by Hamas. President Biden invited the families of American hostages to the White House on Monday.

The article reports:

CNN reported that: “Ruby Chen, whose son Itay is a reservist missing since the militant group’s October 7 attacks on Israel, said a number of the families of American hostages were in Washington, D.C., this week, and had reached out to the White House asking to attend the reception but were not invited. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.”

The White House then scrambled to have these families meet President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Biden isn’t the only one who doesn’t seem to care much about these hostages. The press has been weirdly quiet about their plight and seems content to wait for Biden to “negotiate” their release. If they’re even still alive.

Who are these hostages? Who are the families? What are they going through? It’s possible there have been news reports telling the world about the seven American men and possibly one American woman who are being held captive by these murdering, butchering, raping terrorist thugs. But we couldn’t find any. Even Biden’s unbelievable invitation foul-up was given ho-hum treatment.

This is in stark contrast to other such stories, where the press devotes endless amounts of ink to personalizing and humanizing victims — if they’re the right victim of the right sort of crime, that is.

This media blackout is not for lack of trying by the families. USA Today notes that these families have a public relations firm representing them. And several told CNN that “they wanted the international community – both governments and the Red Cross – to push more forcefully on behalf of their loved ones, to speak out against the terrible conditions they’re experiencing and for their release.”

Where is the outrage?

 

A Different Perspective On The Riots

Many of us have looked at the Marxist roots of Black Lives Matter (as well as the fact that they freely funnel money into Democrat coffers) and considered the current riots as a push toward social disruption that will usher in socialism as a means of equity. What is not mentioned by those who espouse socialism is that it totally eliminates the middle class and leaves two classes–the elites in charge and the equally poverty stricken. Unfortunately our schools are not teaching the lessons of history regarding socialism. However, there is another take on the current unrest that is very interesting.

On July 1st, Sohrab Ahmari posted an article at The Spectator about the current riots.

The article notes:

America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of globalization were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and conservative-nationalist options.

This deposition explains the storm of unrest battering American cities from coast to coast and making waves in Europe as well. The storm’s ferocity — the looting, the mobs, the mass lawlessness, the zealous iconoclasm, the deranged slogans like #DefundPolice — terrifies ordinary Americans. Many conservatives, especially, believe they are facing a revolution targeting the very foundations of American order.

But when national institutions bow (or kneel) to the street fighters’ demands, it should tell us that something else is going on. We aren’t dealing with a Maoist or Marxist revolt, even if some protagonists spout hard-leftish rhetoric. Rather, what’s playing out is a counter-revolution of the neoliberal class — academe, media, large corporations, ‘experts’, Big Tech — against the nationalist revolution launched in 2016. The supposed insurgents and the elites are marching in the streets together, taking the knee together.

I believe the following is the most important paragraph in the article:

They do not seek a radically new arrangement, but a return to the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit status quo ante which was working out very well for them. It was, of course, working out less well for the working class of all races, who bore the brunt of their preferred policy mix: open borders, free trade without limits, an aggressive cultural liberalism that corroded tradition and community, technocratic ‘global governance’ that neutered democracy and politics as such.

The rioters do not understand that they are being used by the very people who choose to keep them in poverty by shipping jobs overseas and undercutting wages by opening  borders.

The article continues:

Does anyone seriously believe the American establishment — Walmart, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, the trustees of Ivy League universities, the major sports leagues, even Brooks Brothers, for God’s sake — would sign on to a movement that genuinely threatened its material interests? And yet these and many other firms and institutions are falling over themselves to express solidarity with the ‘uprising’, some going so far as to donate millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter, an outfit that lists among its objectives the abolition of the nuclear family.

Over the past four years, every trick in the book has been used to end the ‘nightmare’ of national conservatism and populism. The methods deployed by the elite reflect its tendencies and preferences as a class. Just think of recent skirmishes. A decisive majority of British voters resolved to leave the EU and then had to spend three years fighting a political establishment that marshaled all its vast resources to thwart Brexit. It failed. In America the liberal establishment tried harder, failed harder, but learned more. From the minute Trump won the presidential election, Democrats, elements of the security apparatus, and their media allies set out to undo the result. The marquee events were the ‘collusion’ probe and an impeachment push that was perhaps the single biggest insult ever to the intelligence of the American people. There were also countless smaller attempts to unseat Trump and destroy his entourage.

The article concludes:

Which social class most excels at politically correct manners? That would be the professional-managerial class, the laptop class. Its children learn the patois for discussing ‘issues of race, gender and sexuality’ from an early age. They’re expected to have mastered it by the time they take their entry-level jobs. It’s a skill that private schools are doubtless teaching already.

Working-class people, meanwhile, are most likely to struggle with this language. Even when they mean well they don’t always get it right, not least because the rules constantly shift with the vagaries of critical race theory and LGBTQ acronyms. By fortifying the requirements to speak and think correctly — and raising the stakes for failures — the neoliberal class has now built a repressive new mechanism for staying at the top and keeping the oiks down. Especially those who voted the wrong way in 2016.

So whatever you do, don’t call it a leftist revolution. With the flags, the protests, the kneeling and the new language, it’s a counter-revolution. The outcome remains uncertain, but the class war is well and truly under way.

This is a very interesting perspective.

Good Idea

Yesterday Just The News reported that President Trump has frozen U.S. funding to the World Health Orgainization (WHO). This move illustrates the difference between having a businessman or a politician in the White House. A businessman fires someone who is not doing their job in a satisfactory manner. A politician generally does not.

The article reports:

President Trump said Tuesday that the United States was cutting funding to the World Health Organization, saying the body put “political correctness above life-saving measures.”

Trump said the WHO’s decision to recommend not banning travelers from China early on during the coronavirus crisis “accelerated the pandemic all around the world.”

“Many countries said ‘We’re going to listen to the WHO,’ and they have problems the likes of nobody can believe,” Trump said, claiming that “countless” lives could have been saved if the WHO had recommended quickly implementing travel bans from China, where the coronavirus originated.

The article concludes:

A University of Southampton study suggests the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% had China moved to contain the virus three weeks sooner. 

Most Democrats have a favorable opinion of the World Health Organization’s handling of coronavirus, while most Republicans have an unfavorable view, according to the Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen

The poll found 55% of Republicans had a “Very Unfavorable” or “Somewhat Unfavorable” view of the WHO, while just 20% of Democrats felt the same.

On the reverse side, just 38% of Republicans had a “Very Favorable” or “Somewhat Favorable” view of WHO, compared to 70% of Democrats. Independents were evenly divided. Additionally, most of those with strong positive views are Democrats, while most with strong negative views are Republicans.

I believe that the coronavirus has shown a light on the true cost of the partisanship in Washington. Congress was not able to pass a bill that would simply help solve the problems caused by the shutdown–the bill could not pass without millions of dollars of added pork. There was not consideration given to the fact that at some point in the future the cost of that pork would have to be paid for by our children and grandchildren–instead the passing of the bill was held up until the Democrat’s pet projects were funded–even though those projects had nothing to do with the problem at hand. Until we elect people who put the interests of the country above the interests of their party, we will not thrive as a country.

A New Level Of Chutzpah

Breitbart posted an article today about some recent comments by Senator Schumer.

The article states:

Democrats have a new talking point in their attack on Senate Republicans, ahead of a House vote on the impeachment of President Donald Trump later this week: the Senate is denying Trump a “fair trial.”

That is the line taken by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Monday, as he insisted that Republicans allow Democrats to call four witnesses who did not appear during the House inquiry.

Three of those witnesses were subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, and declined to appear. Rather than wait for the courts to decide, Democrats passed an article of impeachment on “obstruction of Congress.”

One of the witnesses — former National Security Advisor John Bolton — was never even subpoenaed by the Intelligence Committee, for the same reason: Democrats decided that impeachment simply could not wait.

It would be odd to grant Democrats their requests for witnesses after they themselves decided to impeach Trump before the witnesses could be made available — or, in Bolton’s case, without having even called him in the House.

And Senate Republicans are unlikely to grant Schumer’s request — not after Democrats flouted precedent, due process, and basic fairness in the House, launching a closed-door inquiry in which Republicans were often silenced and were never permitted to call any public witnesses that had not already been called by the Democratic majority.

After the kangaroo court in the House of Representatives, Senator Schumer has reached a new level of chutzpah in complaining the the Senate rules may be unfair. What this dialog illustrates is that this impeachment is a totally partisan affair and because different political parties control each branch of Congress, the process is only going to get worse.

When Politics Gets In The Way Of Solving A Problem

Farming in the Central Valley of California, once the breadbasket of America, has almost ceased entirely because of environmentalist trying to protect a fish that may not even be a unique species, much less endangered.

In February 2014 I posted the following quote from the Herald and News in 2009:

“Thousands of people have also become unemployed or lost the ability to farm, which adversely affects both local and national economies.

“In addition to the California drought, there has been court-ordered protection of a 2-inch smelt fish that has stopped the pumping of water from the delta that is necessary for agriculture in central California. If it is listed as an endangered species, it’s likely that California agriculture, which supplies a third of the nation’s food supply, will be permanently changed.”

I also included the following vacation picture:

Fast forward to the present. One America News posted the following video on YouTube on  November 27th:

Meanwhile, some of the most fertile land in the country lies idle. Common sense has taken a vacation.

We’ve Heard This Song Before

Fox News posted an article today that details some of the dire predictions we have heard in the past regarding the future of the earth. The article is in response to some of the recent claims made by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other pseudo-scientists.

The article reports:

An Associated Press headline from 1989 read “Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials.” The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000.

Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” That claim came from an “international team of specialists” cited by The New York Times in 1978.

.Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that “another ice age” was imminent. “Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest,” the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.”

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, “Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century.” The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist’s claim that the world could be “as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age.”

Some of the more dire predictions came from Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who famously urged population control to mitigate the impacts of humans on the environment. Ehrlich, in 1969, warned that “everybody” would “disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years,” The New York Times reported.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Ehrlich, warning of a “disastrous” famine,” urged placing “sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water.”

About the prediction of oceans rising and obliterating major cities–a science-oriented friend of mine pointed out that when ice melts in a glass of water, the water level stays the same–it doesn’t overflow the glass.

At any rate, the earth is in a warming stage. The earth periodically goes through warming stages. Warming stages have to do with sun spots, the earth’s orbit, and other natural occurrences. The earth went through warming stages before man even thought of burning carbon-based fuel. And last of all, man is simply not important enough to control the climate. However, the climate is important enough to be used by men to control a population that power-hungry politicians seek to control.

When The Press Works Hand In Hand With A Political Party

We have all heard examples of news articles being withheld until after an election or until the politicians involved can figure out a spin. (see article here). Well, someone blew the whistle on NBC recently. In an article posted at The Daily Wire today, investigative reporter Yashar Ali reported that the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC bullied him on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into holding a scoop that he broke yesterday. Think about that–the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC was helping the DNC.

The article reports:

“Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer who serves as managing editor of NBC/MSNBC politics,” Ali tweeted. “Dafna’s conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call? She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.”

“Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC,” Ali continued. “Yesterday morning I received a tip from a trusted source. The source told me the DNC would be announcing the dates of the first 2020 primary debates later that day. The source gave me the dates they would be announcing: June 26 and 27.”

This is the most interesting part of the story:

“I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position,” Ali continued. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders. I thought to myself ‘this is how people think it works.’ It’s not. But Dafna was doing it. She kept pressing me. Now I acknowledged, for stuff that isn’t about serious investigative reporting, there is no problem holding something. But I knew once others got the call.”

So much for objective reporting.

Somehow They Don’t Seem Overly Concerned

Optics do matter in politics. However, some of our politicians are so accustomed to the media covering up their antics that they don’t even worry about the optics anymore. This was obvious last weekend when thirty Democrats headed out for a fun weekend in Puerto Rico despite the continuing government shutdown.

On Friday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the weekend trip.

The article reports:

Some 30 Democratic lawmakers left the government shutdown behind Friday on a chartered flight to Puerto Rico for a winter retreat with 109 lobbyists and corporate executives during which they planned to see the hit Broadway show “Hamilton” and attend three parties including one with the show’s cast.

Those attending the Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC winter retreat in San Juan planned to meet with key officials to discuss the cleanup after Hurricane Maria at a roundtable Saturday.

But the weekend is packed with free time for the members and their families on the trip.

“We are excited for you to join us for CHC BOLD PAC’s 2019 Winter Retreat in San Juan, Puerto Rico! Each year, this retreat serves as a way for our CHC BOLD PAC Members and friends in the D.C. community to come together to escape the cold and discuss our shared priorities for a stronger and more prosperous country,” said a memo on the trip.

Some 109 lobbyists and corporate executives are named in the memo, a rate of 3.6 lobbyists for every member. They include those from several big K Street firms, R.J. Reynolds, Facebook, Comcast, Amazon, PhRMA, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, and unions like the National Education Association.

What chance does the average American citizen have in getting the ear of his Congressman when lobbying groups can do this sort of thing?

The press release regarding the event is predictable–it blames President Trump for the shutdown and explains that the event was scheduled months before the shutdown. President Trump is at least partially responsible for the shutdown, but another aspect of the shutdown is the refusal of Representative Pelosi to negotiate. Having thirty of your Democrat Congressmen running off to Puerto Rico to party when the government is shut down does not make good political optics. I wonder if the American people will notice.

Avoiding Shenanigans During An Election

I apologize in advance for the long length of this article, but I want to illustrate how events can be twisted for political purposes. North Carolina is currently a state with a Republican legislature and a Democrat governor. Needless to say, Democrats want to bring us back to 2012 when we were a one-party Democrat state. Some of their tactics aimed at unsuspecting and sometimes uninformed voters are a bit questionable. Fortunately the Republicans in the state legislature identified those tactics in advance and took action to keep things honest.

The story begins with an email sent out to many Democrats in Craven County, North Carolina. The letter was sent to encourage people to come out to a Townhall meeting hosted by State Representative Michael Speciale. I have left out the names of the author and recipient. The letter reads:

With less than a day’s notice given to their constituents and fellow lawmakers, legislative leaders called a surprise special session today with the sole purpose of changing election laws — all less than 90 days before voters will begin casting their ballots.

The legislature opened by suspending traditional rules so they could rush through two specific pieces of legislation that will leave voters with less information on their ballots this fall.

The first, House Bill 3, allowed the legislature to take control of writing captions for the six constitutional amendments that will appear on the ballot this fall. With its passage, House Bill 3 eliminates any chance voters will receive clear amendment explanations on the ballot. Instead, voters will only see the caption “Constitutional Amendment” and constitutional language approved by lawmakers this summer. Votes will be asked to vote “FOR” or “AGAINST.”
The second, Senate Bill 3, removes party labels from candidates who registered with that party less than 90 days prior to candidate filing. The bill would strip the party designation from at least one prominent Republican N.C. Supreme Court candidate, and, based on comments made during the session, appears designed to advantage another candidate.

Both are now headed to the governor for consideration. Rule changes today mean that the legislature could override gubernatorial vetos on the same day they’re issued.

Today’s costly convening is the latest in a long line of power plays at the expense of taxpayer dollars and our state’s democracy. It also underscores the need to stay informed about the proposals on the November ballot— and we hope you’ll join us in those efforts.

Sign the pledge to vote AGAINST anti-voter amendments on the ballot this fall and fight back!

We’ll be in touch soon with other ways to be involved, including events, actions, and volunteer opportunities in your area.

Together we can push back against attempts to hide the ball from the public when it comes to the proposed amendments — and ensure that North Carolina voters navigate all that’s on their ballot this fall.

Thank you,

So let’s look at what was actually done in that session. My source is the actual webpage for the state legislature because I wanted a neutral source.
The first bill (HB-3) deals with the naming of the Constitutional Amendments that will be on the ballot. Below is a screenshot of that law:
So what in the world is this about? Unfortunately the naming of these amendments has become politicized. One amendment that restores power to the legislature that had eroded in recent years was described on the ballot as a bill to limit the power of the governor. Nope. It has nothing to do with limiting the power of the governor; it has to do with restoring the checks and balances originally set in place. The bill passed in the session called on July 24 was not to confuse voters–it was an attempt to take politics out of the labeling of the amendments. There will be a short summary of each amendment on the ballot to allow voters to see exactly what they are voting for.
The second item, SB-3, deals with party identification in judicial races. The thing to consider when evaluating what you are about to read is whether this would be acceptable if the shoe were on the other foot.
HB-3 reads:
So what is this about? I am not naming names, although informed voters will know exactly what has happened. A Democrat candidate for judge changed his party affiliation to Republican at the last minute. He told colleagues that this was done to split the Republican vote in a particular race. The treasurer of his campaign is a Democrat, and all indications are that the ideas which previously determined his political affiliation have not changed. This was simply an effort to become a spoiler in the race. The law passed states that anyone who changes their party affiliation withing 90 days of an election will not have their party affiliation listed on the ballot. Sudden changes of heart are not necessarily viewed as valid.
This entire episode illustrates the need for informed voters. If someone simply read the misleading email sent out, they would have no idea of what is actually going on.

A Multi-Faceted Approach To Censorship

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a group, Mayday PAC, headed by Lawrence Lessig, supposedly formed to ‘take the money out of politics.’ While I admire their noble objective, sometimes it pays to look at the past actions of people supporting a point of view.

Last week Mayday PAC raised $5 million to elect politicians who will pledge to reduce the influence of money in the American political process. That sounds as if they are doing exactly what they are opposing.

The article gives us some basic facts about the group and its objectives:

Lessig pitched wealthy donors in the tech community last week on the utility of restricting corporate political speech, saying their political agenda would be much easier to advance if opposing forces were restricted from influencing the political process.

“We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable companies’ money in the political system,” he told TechCrunch. “If NN is your issue, then this is why you should see that politic$ is your issue too.”

…Lessig has been explicit about the ideological nature of his campaign finance reform position. Liberal political ideas would prevail, he insists, but for the ability of their detractors to spend money opposing those ideas.

Lessig took a similar tack with respect to climate energy policy. Environmentalists, Lessig said in 2012, spent “hundreds of millions of dollars … to get global warming legislation, and they got nothing.”

“If money didn’t buy results in Washington,” he said, environmentalists would have been able to achieve their goals by injecting substantially less money into the political process.

The article explains some of the ties between Lessig and Democrat organizations and operatives. The bottom line here is simple–most Democrats who are campaigning to ‘take the money out of politics’ do not include union money in that statement. The anger is there because with the Citizens United decision, the playing field of big money has been leveled–generally speaking corporations donate to Republicans and unions donate to Democrats. It used to be that all the big money in politics went to Democrats and came from unions.  A website called Open Secrets tracks campaign donations. Just for the record, there is still more money going to Democrats than Republicans.

When you read the article at the Free Beacon, you discover that the reason for wanting to ‘take the money out of politics’ is to censor the opposing viewpoint. That is not what American is or should be about. The push to ‘take the money out of politics’ is more dangerous than any amount of money in politics. Censorship under any name is wrong and has no place in America.

What Are We Telling Our Graduates?

Heritage.org posted an article today about the difference in numbers between conservative and liberal graduation speakers. They also looked at the statistics on Democrat and Republican speakers.

The article reports:

Democratic governors set to speak outnumber Republican ones by a ratio of 11-6, reports Campus Reform’s editor in chief, Caleb Bonham, while Democratic senators overshadow Republican  senators by a 9-4 ratio.

The most heavily weighted group of invited speakers? Liberal political appointees and operatives are 21-5 over conservative counterparts.

…“The bullies’ vision of America is alarming to behold, with the values of peaceful coexistence turned on their head,” Jennifer A. Marshall, director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, wrote recently for The Foundry in a piece about the growing intolerance of the Left.”

What is the message that we are sending our young adults?

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Waking The Sleeping Giant

Last night the guest speaker at the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association (CCTA) was Dr. Timothy Daughtry, author of Waking the Sleeping Giant. The CCTA holds a non-partisan monthly public meeting to educate voters about issues facing North Carolina and America.

The mission statement of the CCTA is:

The Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association, a grassroots, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, advocates minimum government and maximum freedom. We are dedicated to the preservation of free enterprise and the United States Constitution.  Excessive taxation upon citizens is unconstitutional, immoral, and a complete contradiction of success through the free market system.  We are dedicated to serve our community, our state, and our country by oversight, research, public education and advocacy in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.

Dr. Daughtry pointed out that politically America is basically a center-right country, yet most legislation in the past one hundred years has been initiated by the political left. Generally speaking, conservatives are playing defense while liberals are on the offense with a long-range plan.

The mainstream of America can be described as believing in a Judeo-Christian worldview, personal responsibility, and a sense of independence. The political left generally believes in moral relativism, entitlement, and more government power. The book, Waking the Sleeping Giant, explains what the mainstream needs to do to take back America.

I strongly recommend reading Waking the Sleeping Giant, but I also strongly recommend attending the next public meeting of the CCTA on May 20 so that you can become a better-informed voter.

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The Season Of Stupid Politicians

As a conservative, I have been known to blame the press for the politics of personal destruction aimed at Republican candidates. However, the politics of destruction would be much more difficult if many candidates did not do really stupid things.

Bob McDonnell was a rising star in the Republican party. He did a good job as governor of Virginia. Why did he think he was getting those gifts?

CBN News quotes Governor McDonnell on the corruption charges against him:

“I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest, and I have apologized for my poor judgment for which I take full responsibility,” McDonnell said in response to the indictment.

“However, I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship. I never promised — and Mr. Williams and his company never received — any government benefit of any kind from me or my administration.”

I realize that Democrats do such things are raise campaign money in churches and pass (or not pass) laws the help their friends (see rightwinggranny.com), but Republicans can’t do that. The attacks on Chris Christie continue whether he did anything or not. Meanwhile, when was the last time you heard Hillary Clinton mentioned in the same breath as Benghazi? It’s just the way it is. Republicans have to be totally above board or they will be destroyed. Democrats–not so much.

The other recent stupid political mistake was made by Wendy Davis in Texas. If you can’t get your own life story straight, chances are remembering other fabrications is going to be a problem.

Both political parties need better candidates.

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The Foxes Are Guarding The Henhouse Again

Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday that included the following letter:

EnlargedLetterI realize that the letter is hard to read; you can find a larger copy at the link above. The bottom line here is simple–the person investigating the mistreatment of the Tea Party by the IRS (Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS’s Civil Rights Commission) is a significant donor to President Obama and Democrat campaigns. It is difficult to believe that Ms. Bosserman will conduct an investigation that will not be influenced by  her politics. It would have made so much more sense to choose someone who was not a political donor. The choice of Ms. Bosserman may be entirely unrelated to her politics, but like so many other things in the Obama Administration, it appears to be a conflict of interest.

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Political Speak In Massachusetts

Holly Robichaud posted an article in the Boston Herald today about the tech tax passed by the legislature and the governor earlier this year. It was repealed on Friday. It was understood from the beginning of the negotiations on the tech tax that the law would be confusing and detrimental to businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. However, the governor and the legislature chose to pass it anyway. Now the elected officials in the Massachusetts House and Senate find themselves in the embarrassing position of having to explain why they voted for the tax to begin with and why they repealed it.

Ms. Robichaud quotes many of the very interesting explanations in her article:

Rep. Danielle Gregoire was against the tech tax, for the entire tax package and then against the tech tax. To cover up her inconsistency and having more positions on an issue than John Kerry, Gregoire wrote to her local paper attempting to spin the record. According to her, opponents are “using parliamentary minutiae for political gain.”

How dare her political opponents protect the interests of the voters.

Another interesting explanation:

Rep. Carolyn Dykema, whom I have worked against, tweeted “impact of tech tax more broad than understood. Will have ripple effect across economy.” Dykema voted against holding a public hearing on the tech tax, then voted to strip the tech tax out of the bill, then voted three times for the tax package, and then voted to repeal the tech tax.

This makes my head spin.

And another one:

Rep. Diana DiZoglio went with the Clinton defense of blaming politics. “It is my hope that any political games over this would be stopped. My Republican colleagues and I were on the same page regarding this tax vote. Unfortunately, we differed on whether or not to sustain the governor’s veto.” Let me translate — Republicans knew to vote against overriding the veto and I caved to pressure from the speaker.

As long as the voters of Massachusetts keep electing these people, this will continue. We have the leadership we deserve.

A Conservative Voice Worth Hearing

This is the mission statement of the website Conservative Junction:

To unite Conservatives in order to win elections so that we can re-establish Constitutitional pinnciples and Conservative values to the Republican party. We will do that by supporting Conservative candidates who will uphold the Constitution and the laws provided therein.

We will seek to rid the nation of all such elected officials who are not responsive to their Constituents, but instead wish to write policy and act in a manner that is against the people in which they serve, in ways that are deemed to be beneficial to only their own self-interests or to the interest of a friend, family member or one that lobbies their office for favors.

This website and others like it are desperately needed right now. Please follow the link above to visit the website and see how you can help restore the role of the Constitution in America.

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Forbes Magazine Gets It Right

Yesterday Forbes.com posted an article that totally explains the lack of representation that the average American receives in Washington. The article talks about the “country class” of Republicans–identifiable by their opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes as opposed to those Republicans who side with the “ruling class“–those Democrats who support higher taxes and bigger government. Because of those Republicans who are now aligned with the “ruling class,” the ideas of many Americans are not represented in Congress.

The article states:

Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.

The author of the article seems to believe that the current crop of Republican and Democrat leaders will result in the formation of a new political party. As much as I don’t like that idea (it takes a long time for a third party to actually get people elected), I can see the roots of that in the Tea Party. America is well along the road to bankruptcy. We have Washington screaming about sequestration, when upon close examination you find out that sequestration does not cut spending–it only slows the rate of growth. Upon close examination, you also learn that all you would have to do to limit the potential damage that might be caused by sequestration is to give various government agencies control of where they cut the rate of growth. Why hasn’t either the President of Congress suggested that? This is a political issue–not a practical issue. If it ever gets out that sequestration is not a spending cut and that the panic we are hearing is totally unnecessary, Congress might not be able to raise our taxes. Make no mistake–even though we are being told that we need to raise taxes on the ‘evil rich,’ the eventual goal is to raise taxes on the middle class. Be forewarned. We are being played by some very smart politicians who reside in Washington.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article at Forbes. It is fascinating.

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Just In Case You Still Believe The Mainstream Media

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that John Dickerson, who Slate describes as its chief political correspondent is also the political director at CBS News. Why is this important? It isn’t unless you take a look at some of Mr. Dickerson’s writing for Slate. For example:

Go for the throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.

…The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat. …

Obviously, Mr. Dickerson is entitled to his personal opinion, but his rhetoric seems a little harsh to me. Why should I believe any political reports on CBS News if their political director is that biased?

I need to note here that it is okay for a reporter to be biased, as long as he or she is honest about that bias. The frustrating part of the mainstream bias is that it not only colors the stories they report, it causes them not to report the stories that would provide a balanced viewpoint.

The article at Breitbart.com concludes:

And yet, even as they do, even as they openly celebrate their left-wing biases out of one side of their mouth, out the other, they will claim they remain objective and unbiased.

The Big Lie has officially arrived.

And somewhere Dan Rather‘s thinking, “Oh, so now it’s okay!?”

Thank God for the internet and the alternative media.

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I Would Like To Hear A Logical Explanation For This…

This was posted on facebook by a friend:

In case you can’t read the small print, this shows that in St. Lucie County 141 percent of voters turned out to vote. These numbers were also reported at Townhall.com on Saturday. There needs to be an investigation. Have we become so divided as a nation that political parties do not support honest elections?

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Why You Should Not Believe Anything You See On Television

We are in the last days of the silly season for this election. We will be seeing news stories and pictures designed to change your mind. Some of them will be real, and some of them will be totally false. To illustrate the fact that things are not always what they seem, I am posting a YouTube video below:

Keep this video in mind as you watch the political ads making the closing arguments.

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