Tag Archives: Power Line Blog

Looking Beyond The Hype To Find The Reason

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On Wednesday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog detailing the reason for 2023 being one of the warmest years on record. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the result of anything people did!

The article reports:

Warmists were ecstatic over the 2023 increase, which they attributed to “climate change.” (It makes no sense to say that a change was caused by change, but put that aside for the moment.) As to the subsequent decline, they were almost entirely silent.

It seemed obvious to me that the most likely explanation was the extraordinary eruption of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcano in January 2022. That eruption, unprecedented in recorded history, sent vast quantities of water vapor into the atmosphere. Water vapor is, of course, the principal greenhouse gas.

The article quotes an article posted at WattsUpWithThat on December 30:

We have been fortunate to witness the largest climate event to occur on the planet since the advent of global satellite records, and possibly the largest event since the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. It is clearly a naturally occurring, externally forced climate event. However, mainstream climate scientists are not treating it appropriately. This is because climate science does not function like other sciences and is subject to strong confirmation bias. The first step to learning from the 2023 event is accepting its exceptional nature, which many fail to do.
***
According to Occam’s razor, a climatic event of unparalleled magnitude in modern records requires an exceptional cause. The factors responsible for normal climate variability are insufficient. The only extraordinary factor preceding the 2023 event was the explosion of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcano.
***
For anyone who is not committed to the explanation of climate change due to the radiative properties of greenhouse gases, the Hunga Tonga eruption is currently the best explanation for the 2023 climate event. In July 2025, I analyzed that “if Hunga Tonga is responsible for the 2023-24 warming event, a clear prediction is that we should observe most of this warming disappear in 3-5 years.“[21] This projection does not arise from any of the other considered causes. By December 2025, four years after the eruption, this prediction had come true: the ocean temperature anomaly in November was only 0.05°C higher than in November 2021, before the eruption. 90 % of the ocean warming from the 2023 climate event has disappeared.

Sorry to disappoint, but man is simply not important enough in the grand scheme of things to change the earth’s climate. We have a responsibility to take care of the earth, but we also have a responsibility to do what we can to create civilized societies. Balance is the key.

One Person Can Make A Difference

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The Minnesota government fraud case has been in the headlines nationally recently. Power Line Blog has been reporting the story for years, but one young journalist is partially responsible for getting the story to the public.

On December 29, Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog about the corruption.

The article reports:

Bill Glahn, Lou Raguse, and other members of the local Twin Cities press have been covering the massive public-programs fraud committed by a large cast of almost exclusively Somali perpetrators for a while now. For those just tuning in, Bill points out — to take one example — that KSTP’s Jay Kolls knocked on alleged daycare doors in this January 2025 story.

YouTuber Nick Shirley has brought the daycare story to a national audience with the video he posted last week. Bill posted the video here on Power Line. The delayed detonation of this story represents another rendition of the Rufo effect. Like Chris Rufo’s linked City Journal column, the Shirley video implies that something must be done. An investigation must be conducted. Perpetrators must be held to account. This implication does a disservice to what has been done by the federal authorities to date. I tried to add this perspective to the story in “Minnesota’s Somali fraud problem.”

Shirley has a local guide named David. David alludes to frauds centered on St. Paul’s Grigg’s-Midway Building. One wouldn’t know from the video that the FBI executed search warrants and the United States Attorney brought an initial set of charges arising from the Griggs-Midway Building. I wrote about the searches here in July (“Another massive Minnesota fraud”) and the charges here in September (“The fraud this time”). The linked September post includes a video of the press conference announcing the charges.

Shirley acknowledges a recent FBI raid on an Eagan or Minneapolis office building at about 26:10 of the video. You can see the FBI at work lugging boxes of evidence removed from the building. Shirley also checks out the Griggs-Midway Building itself at 29:20 of the video.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Now that the reporting of the fraud has gone national, those responsible need to be held to account. I think all of us are tired of hearing about massive government fraud, and then the story goes away. I am looking for orange jumpsuits!

A Positive Move To End A Mental Health Epidemic

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

Leaving Out Important Information For Political Purposes

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President Trump has been in office for less than a year. When he stepped into office, the economy was not gaining jobs at the rate that had been previously reported, and inflation was going through the roof. The Biden administration’s push for green energy had sent energy prices soaring, and the killing of massive numbers of chickens resulted in a dramatic increase in the price of eggs. Overall, the American worker was getting squeezed by rising energy and food costs. Things have gotten better under the Trump administration–the price at the gas pump is down, egg prices are down, and the rate of inflation has slowed. Unfortunately, once prices go up, they rarely come down, but we have seen some prices actually come down.

On Thursday, Power Line Blog posted an article about one approach the Democrats are attempting to use to win voters. If the voters are paying attention, there is no way this will work.

The article includes a screenshot of an X post by the senior United States senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobucher:

Note that X posted additional context to her post.

The article at Power Line Blog also included the following screenshot:

Note that these are past due balances. How long have these balances been past due, and how many of those balances have actually been created since President Trump took office?

Just another day in sleazy Democrat politics. It’s easier to blame President Trump for everything that is currently wrong than it is to take responsibility for your own bad policies.

Another Step Away From The Constitution

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article reporting that a Minnesota judge has thrown out a jury’s guilty verdict.

The article reports:

We’ve told you quite a bit about Minnesota’s ongoing fraud problems, the vast majority of them stemming from the large Somali population in and around Minneapolis. The state has paused Medicaid payments over fraud concerns (and that fraud has led to at least one death), and millions of dollars were laundered through the Feeding Our Future program and state housing programs, too. A lot of that money ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, the largest terrorist group in Somalia.

Despite all the evidence of fraud, a Minnesota judge has just overturned a jury’s guilty verdict in one Medicare fraud case, paving the way for all the other fraud convictions to be overturned as well.

The jury heard that Yusuf and his wife were charged and the jury learned his “home health company” was operated out of a mailbox at an address where multiple other “home health companies” als operated. The state showed they spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury items.

The jury quickly found the couple guilty. Now, a judge in Hennepin County, Sarah West, has overturned that verdict.

“It’s reversing or overturning a jury’s verdict,” said defense attorney Joe Tamburino. Tamburino was not affiliated with Yusuf’s case but looked at the judge’s decision.

According to Tamburino, Judge West said the state’s cased relied “heavily on circumstantial evidence” and that the state did not “exclude other reasonable, rational inferences.”

“That, in fact, there could’ve been other reasonable theories other than guilt in this case. That’s what it comes down to,” Tamburino said.

Remind me again why we have juries.

There are a number of legal cases working their way through the courts involving Feeding Our Future. The writers at Power Line Blog have followed these cases (some recent examples here and here). The amount of fraud is unbelievable and people need to be held accountable.

About That Affordability Thing…

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Affordability is the new buzz word of the day. The attempt is being made to use it as a hammer to bludgeon President Trump. Interesting, since he hasn’t even been in office for a year yet.

On Tuesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog reported:

Normally I wouldn’t do anything so facile as to blame inflation on a particular politician, but given that the Democrats are pinning their hopes on hanging the “affordability crisis” around President Trump’s neck, a little historical perspective is in order. Thus, from the Unleash Prosperity Hotline:

We went back to January 2020 when the pandemic started. We found that 13.5% of cumulative inflation (prices are 24% higher today) has happened under Trump, while 86.5 percent of cumulative inflation happened under Biden.

So the “affordability crisis” is the hangover effect of Bidenomics when the White House dumped some $4 trillion of helicopter money out the windows.

The article includes the following chart:

Obviously prices are still rising, but there are a few good things in the future economically–the price of gasoline at the pump is trending down–that impacts everyone and everything. The price of energy should come down in the near future as America increases its energy independence, although some states may not experience the downward turn due to excessive regulation. Most food prices are also stabilizing or moving downward.

Affordability is improving, but it is going to take a while. Two things that will help with the cost of housing are to lower the demand by removing the illegals and to lower the interest rates. Overall, I am optimistic about the future, but there will be a price paid at some point for the excesses of the Biden administration.

One Phone Company Pushed Back

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There is a lot of information coming out lately about the government operation Arctic Frost. I am not sure any of the actions involved in this operation were in line with the U.S. Constitution, but there is one area that violated the Constitution that is very troubling.

On Wednesday, John Hinderaker posted the following at Power Line Blog:

Arctic Frost was the FBI investigation that tried to associate Donald Trump and many other Republicans with the January 6, 2021, Capitol protest. It was the basis for one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments of Trump. That indictment was dismissed. Senator Chuck Grassley has been on this case for a long time; whistleblowers approached him long ago to explain the corruption of the FBI and Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.

Arctic Frost can best be seen as a continuation of the Russia Collusion Hoax and the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which sought to prevent Trump from being elected, and then to cripple his administration after he won the 2016 election. Also the Dirty 51 scandal, which sought, successfully, to swing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Arctic Frost included service of 197 subpoenas in which Special Counsel Jack Smith sought incriminating information about hundreds of Republicans, including ten Republican senators and one House member. There was no basis for suspecting any of these individuals of criminal actions, and in fact, no criminality was found. Smith subpoenaed telephone records of those Republicans from various telecom vendors, and rogue Democrat Judge James Boasberg entered a gag order, directing the phone companies not to disclose the subpoenas to their customers–United States Senators–for one year. There is precedent for such orders in organized crime investigations.

The article quotes Fox News:

Verizon justified complying with the subpoenas, saying they were “facially valid” and contained only phone numbers, not names. Verizon said that with the “benefit of hindsight” and recent discussions with the Senate Sergeant at Arms, which handles congressional phone services, it has modified its policies so that it puts up more of a challenge to law enforcement requests pertaining to Congress members.

…AT&T, meanwhile, did not comply with the subpoenas.

“When AT&T raised questions with Special Counsel Smith’s office concerning the legal basis for seeking records of members of Congress, the Special Counsel did not pursue the subpoena further, and no records were produced,” David Chorzempa, general counsel for AT&T, wrote.

The article at Power Line Blog notes:

Taken together, these Democratic Party scandals, from the Russian Collusion Hoax to Crossfire Hurricane to the Dirty 51 to Arctic Frost–and likely others that have not yet come to light–represent by far the worst political corruption in American history. There has never been anything like it.

The Republican voters have been patient, but when will the Republicans hold someone accountable?

It’s Time For A Change

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s term expires in May 2026. It’s a shame that he will be in charge until then. He claims to be apolitical, but his actions tell another story. On Saturday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s term.

The article reports:

We hear constantly about the importance of the independence of the Federal Reserve. Fine: but what if the Fed isn’t independent of politics, it is just independent of, and hostile to, the administration that is in power?

Some think that is the situation now before us. Stephen Moore comments on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s most recent pronouncements:

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was full of doom and gloom yesterday [Wednesday], forecasting 1.6% growth for this year and closer to 1.5% next year.

Was he talking about Afghanistan or the United States?

In the second quarter of this year, the U.S. economy grew by 3.3%, and with a few weeks to go in the third quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is forecasting above 3% growth – twice Powell’s anemic rate.

…Powell never mentioned that real household incomes are up $1,100 for the first seven months of 2025.

He attacks Trump’s tariffs and more restrictive immigration policies as restricting growth – and he’s right on that. But he never mentions the Trump tax cut, the immediate expensing for capital purchases (which has spurred an investment boom), the deregulations that could save up to $1 trillion this year, or that Trump’s pro-energy policies have increased U.S. production of oil and gas to record highs, or that the area where job growth is way down is in government employment – which is GOOD for the economy.

So Powell is hostile to the administration’s economic agenda, and–perhaps–has positioned the Fed in opposition to it.

Stephen Moore notes:

There’s also something almost comical of a Fed chair who let inflation soar by 21% and promised it was all “transitory” now terrified of an inflation rate of less than 3% this year.

The article notes:

Then, of course, there is the Fed’s Taj Majal, construction of which I believe President Trump has stopped. But that is a minor point, compared to the possibility that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is actively trying to undermine America’s economic policies. That isn’t independence, it is partisanship.

If you are unfamiliar with the history of the Federal Reserve, please watch the video below about the history and purpose of the organization.

The Federal Reserve is not what we were told it is.

Who Is Actually In Charge?

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On Monday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article asking the question, “Who Runs the Executive Branch?” During the past four years, that was a very appropriate question, but it is still an appropriate question.

The article reports:

Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is the executive branch. But over the years, Congress has tried to limit the power of the President by establishing a number of “independent” agencies–the SEC, the FDIC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and so on. In many cases, Congress has purported to limit the President’s ability to fire employees of those “independent” agencies, even though they are part of the executive branch and nominally under his control.

Democrats like this arrangement, since the agencies are staffed overwhelmingly by Democrats. They have served to undermine every Republican president of the last generation. Until now, Republican Presidents have generally put up with the fact that they do not effectively control the executive branch, but President Trump has moved to assert his proper constitutional authority in several ways.

Most notably, in February he issued an executive order which we wrote about here. It asserted, in several ways, his authority over the “independent” agencies. He has also fired a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve for cause, and, more importantly, he has fired other executive branch officials without cause, as should be his prerogative under Article II.

This has given rise to the vitally important case of Slaughter v. Trump. Rebecca Slaughter was a Federal Trade Commissioner. President Trump fired her without asserting any “cause,” even though the Federal Trade Commission Act says that a Commissioner can be removed by the President only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The administration takes the position–correctly, I think–that this limitation on the President’s control of the executive branch is unconstitutional.

The article concludes:

What is being teed up here is, ultimately, an epic battle between Congress and the President. Democrats are on the side of Congress, mostly because Congress has, in turn, ceded power to the Administrative State, which is overwhelmingly Democratic but which, as Professor Philip Hamburger among others has persuasively argued, is essentially unconstitutional. Republicans are now mostly on the President’s side, because the current President is a Republican, and because they have seen how the Administrative State has become a permanent and unaccountable fourth branch of government.

Of all the battles to which the Trump administration has given rise, this one may, in the end, be the most important.

The decision on this matter will determine whether or not we go back to the Republic our Founding Fathers created–do the checks and balances put in place in our Constitution still apply?

What’s In A Name?

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The word of the day is “gerrymandering.” It is a technique long used by the Democrat party to ensure that Republicans don’t get elected to Congress. Lately, the Republicans have figured out that they can play that game too.

On Thursday, the Tilting At Windmills website on Substack reported:

The term “gerrymandering” has become a big part of the recent news cycle. Mostly, it’s been a yawn for me. Both sides do some degree of gerrymandering, but it’s only a problem when the other side does it.

Texas, however, was engaging in a little bit of it that would oust Rep. Jasmine Crockett and help Republicans snag a few more seats in the midterms, where the president’s party typically loses a bit of ground.

And people lost their minds over it, acting like this has never happened anywhere else, and that it’s somehow the most horrible thing in the world despite the pile of examples of Democrats doing it.

Politico, however, went a slightly different direction in their headline for a story about the situation that reads, “Democrats try to separate their tactical use of redistricting from that of Republicans.”

That’s right, it’s not gerrymandering that Democrats do. It’s “tactical use of redistricting.”

And understand, the word “tactical” isn’t anywhere else in the piece, so that’s Politico’s choice of words there, not a quote from someone like JB Pritzker or some other Democrat trying to deflect.

No, that’s their covering fire.

On August 6th, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted a chart showing the impact of gerrymandering:

The chart shows why gerrymandering is important and how it impacts Congress. Let’s end tactical use of redistricting!

Adding Insult To Injury–And It’s Beautiful

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On July 1st, The Hill reported:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the official end of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday, after rapidly dismantling the government’s foreign aid arm since President Trump’s return to the White House.

USAID’s official shutdown comes following a study published Monday in the Lancet Medical journal projecting that more than 14 million additional deaths could occur globally as a result of the U.S. aid reductions, including 4.5 million deaths among children. 

Wow! Millions of deaths could result around the world if America stops funding one supposedly non-governmental agency. How is it a non-governmental agency if the government is funding it? I didn’t realize our government was so powerful.

On June 30th, Power Line Blog noted:

There are something like 195 independent nations on the planet, and not a single one, other than America, is capable of helping any of the others. No one. Not a single Euro, Yen, pound, franc, peso, etc., can be freed up to prevent mass genocide on a biblical scale.

…America contains just over 4 percent of the world’s population and generates about 24 percent of the world’s economic output. Yet a single U.S. government agency that you hadn’t even heard of before January 2025 was providing 40 percent of global humanitarian aid and single-handedly sustaining life on earth.

…It also bears mentioning that the Lancet, once a respected medical journal, is now a left-wing rag that loves to publish specious “studies” like this one.

On July 1st (this is the icing on the cake) The Daily Caller reported:

The FBI will relocate its moth-eaten headquarters from the Hoover Building to the Ronald Reagan Building downtown after the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) vacated the complex, officials announced Tuesday.

The shuffle caps nearly 20 years of bureaucratic waffling over where to park the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. By opting for a ready-made federal property — freshly emptied when USAID officially shuttered operations Tuesday — the Trump administration says it will save taxpayers billions while giving agents a secure, modern workplace.

This is one of many reasons we elected a businessman as President!

Stating The Obvious

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War is a horrible thing, but sometimes it is necessary. The Bible notes that there is, “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” I am not sure that this is the time for peace in the Middle East, and evidently I am not the only person feeling that way.

On June 16th, John Hinderaker posted the following at Power Line Blog:

With respect to Israel and Iran, talk of peace is in the air. We are beset with calls from various quarters to “de-escalate” the situation there, lest wider war break out. President Trump, who partnered with Israel in deceiving Iran prior to Israel’s preemptive strike, is now talking about making another deal with Iran.

I hope he doesn’t mean it. The last thing Israel, or anyone else, should be thinking about is another agreement with the mullahs. Israel now controls the skies, has largely degraded Iran’s missile capability, and can do pretty much anything it wants, militarily. It was delightful to see that Israel wiped out the regime’s state broadcaster.

So this is a golden opportunity, almost certainly the best one Israel ever has had, or ever will have, to bring about regime change in Iran. The mullahocracy needs to go. Neither Israel nor the rest of the world will ever be safe, as long as Islamic extremists control Iran. Israel has already demolished Iran’s proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and, to a lesser extent, the Houthis. But if Iran’s regime is allowed to stay in place, it will readily rebuild its terrorist infrastructure, just as it will eventually rebuild its nuclear capability.

I agree with the idea of removing the Iranian theocracy, but I am concerned about what will replace it. First of all, America, covertly or openly, should not be involved in any regime change in Iran. Our track record there is not good–we installed the Shah, and that did not turn out well. I am not sure that we ever fomented a color revolution anywhere that actually turned out well. The Iranians need to be free to choose their own future without outside interference.

Common Sense Has Arrived

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Hamas has worked very hard to turn public opinion against Israel despite the horrific attack of October 7th of last year. The United Nations has worked very hard to ignore the role that some employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) played in that attack. Well, justice may be coming for the victims of that attack.

On April 25th, Power Line Blog reported:

It would be easy to miss today’s good news, which comes via the Trump Department of Justice. The headline of the Jewish Chronicle spells it out: “US scraps Unrwa’s legal immunity in major reversal of Biden-era policy.” Subhead: “The decision could see the UN agency, which has been accused of employing Hamas operatives, hit with significant claims from the relatives of terror victims.”

…The X feed of Professor Eugene Kontorovich has helpful background and reflection on this change of policy. He comments: “UNRWA’s funding from primary donors Germany, France, EU, Sweden, Norway is going to dry up fast when they understand every cent is going to be needed to pay damages to Jewish victims.” So let it be written, so let it be done.

Professor Kontorovich also cites his own September 2024 New York Post column (with Mark Goldfeder) “Outrage as US DOJ defends UN staffers who collaborated in Hamas’ terror.”

Let the lawsuits begin! My only concern is that America funds a large portion of the United Nation’s budget–in 2023, America paid $13 billion to the United Nations (in my mind, that is one place spending could be cut totally). I don’t want to see American taxpayers having to pay the lawsuits against the United Nations. It would be nice to see the United Nations’ funding dry up completely. The have never been the instrument of peace that they supposedly set out to be.

DOGE And The Cloward-Piven Strategy

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The Cloward-Piven strategy was developed by two sociologists and activists (Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven) in 1966. It aims to overload the US public welfare system and replace it with a national guaranteed income. This theory was the basis for a lot of policy changes that have taken place in recent years. We have all heard the cries that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all going broke. Some recent discoveries by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may explain some of the reasons for those programs having financial challenges.

On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog quoted a post on X by Elon Musk reporting that in 2021, 270,000 non-citizens got social security numbers. In 2024, 2.1 million non-citizens got social security numbers. Human traffickers made $13-15 billion dollars during the time our southern border was open. Elon Musk has stated that DOGE is going to stop the Social Security payments that are going to illegals. Because these illegals have Social Security numbers, many of them have registered to vote and have voted. This is voter fraud.

I don’t know how the people responsible for this thought they were going to get away with this unless they planned on preventing any investigation of the fraud and keeping control of the Department of Justice indefinitely. Obviously, they have not been successful in either area.

The problem has now been identified. There are three steps that need to be taken. The first step is to stop any benefits being paid to people who are not American citizens. The second step is to identify the people behind the fraud and put them in jail. I don’t care how well-connected or powerful they are—they need to go to jail. The third step is to set up a system that will ensure that this never happens again. I have no idea how to do that, but I am sure that Elon Musk and his team of geniuses can find a way.

I suspect we may hear more about the discovery of this fraud in the near future.

The Impending End Of A Really Bad Idea

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On Sunday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about wind energy. The Trump administration is taking a good, hard look at the practicality and efficiency of wind energy.

The article reports:

One of the most felicitous aspects of the new Trump administration is its determination to drive a stake through the heart of the zombie wind industry. Because it is an absurdly inefficient and unreliable way to generate electricity, wind power was doomed from the start. But the Trump administration is seeing it off.

Robert Bryce, one of our top energy experts, has a long Substack post that is full of good news. You will have to follow the link to get it all, but here are some highlights:

A few days ago, Jason Grumet, the head of the American Clean Power Association (annual revenue: $62.3 million), told Heatmap News that “probably more than half” of all new wind projects under development in the US could be killed due to President Trump’s executive order requiring a “comprehensive assessment” of federal permitting. Heatmap explained that Trump’s policies pose “a potential existential threat to the industry’s future. Just don’t expect everyone to say it out loud.”

…[T]he offshore and onshore wind sectors are in full-blown panic mode. Trump’s executive orders, particularly the one requiring the federal government to assess the wind industry’s impact on wildlife — have had an immediate and chilling effect on wind projects onshore and offshore.

The article concludes:

I am not sure why solar energy is doing better than wind. It has the same defects that wind does: solar is ridiculously expensive, inherently unreliable since it can’t produce electricity at night, when it is cloudy, or when solar panels are covered with snow, and it is massively destructive of the environment.

So let’s drive the solar scam out of existence next. Or, rather, make it stand on its own two feet: no subsidies and no mandates. Let solar compete on even terms with nuclear, natural gas, coal and hydro power, and see who wins. Solar will die out, and the environment will only be better for it.

We have better, more efficient, and cheaper ways to produce energy. Let’s further develop them.

Looking Through The Lens Of History

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On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the Senate confirmation hearings. He notes that at the three hearings this week  the Democrats were hoping to stop the nominees, things did not necessarily move in that direction.

The article notes:

But now several of Trump’s most controversial nominees–controversial meaning that the New York Times and The Washington Post really, really hate them–have taken their turn. Today, Robert Kennedy, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard all testified in confirmation hearings. These are the nominees (along with Hegseth) that the Democrats are seriously determined to block, and you could see it in their hysterical, if sometimes hilarious, questioning.

I was able to watch only brief portions of today’s hearings and don’t have an opinion on how, in general, they went, other than the fact that the Democrats were in full howl-at-the-moon mode.

I hope all three nominees are confirmed, although I could go either way on Kennedy. Even here, though, Kennedy came across as I expected. He is walking away from some of his more out-there positions of years ago, and is focused on “making America healthy again.” I think there is room for him to do considerable good as an advocate for more healthy lifestyles.

But I really hope that Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed. From my own (admittedly minimal) experience with her, I have a great deal of respect for Gabbard’s patriotism, her intelligence–she is very, very smart–and her military bearing. And, to be honest, in my dealings with Gabbard I just liked her.

America’s “intelligence community” is sick and throughly politicized. Tulsi is, I think, a great choice to set it straight. I don’t agree with all of her opinions–my view of the Iraq war is more positive than hers, for instance–but I trust her to oversee an objective, competent and non-politicized intelligence operation. Which is what Trump wants, and a huge improvement.

The article notes a bit of history often overlooked:

The Democrats can’t block any of the President’s nominees, so their grandstanding is directed mostly at their own base. I suppose they also hope to persuade four Republicans to vote against Gabbard and the others. That shouldn’t happen. Of this group, the only one who isn’t plainly an excellent choice is the eccentric Robert Kennedy. But Kennedy, too, is President Trump’s choice, and there is a clear rationale for why he might be a very good Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Beginning with the Clinton administration and until this year, I believe there were only two occasions on which any senator of a president’s party voted against any of his Cabinet nominees. That number grew from two to three when three Republicans voted against Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense. Let’s hope that Senate Republicans don’t continue to break with tradition.

If the Republicans are not willing to support their own President’s choices, why should they be considered Republicans? I am willing to support any primary opponent who runs against a Republican who opposes President Trump’s choices.

This Could Have Been Done Four Years Ago

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On Friday, Steven Hayward at Power Line Blog posted two charts illustrating the changes at America’s southern border in the past few days.

Here are the charts:

The illegal immigration at America’s southern border could have been totally avoided or totally stopped at any time during the last four years. During that time people on the terrorist watch list came freely into our country along with criminals let out of jail by other countries. During the past four years, the drug cartels have not only controlled our southern border, they have made more money than ever before doing it. Again, this was totally unnecessary.

As the border remains closed and the criminals are deported, the safety of Americans will improve. The senseless murders, the drunk driving, and driving without a license incidents should decrease significantly.

It is time to bring our nation back to a nation of law and order where people can safely go out for a walk or go to stores where the merchandise is not locked up for fear of looting.

About The Confirmation Hearings

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We have had a few days of confirmation hearings, enough to get a feel for what will be asked and how people will conduct themselves. So far, many of the questions asked have very little to do with the future and much to do with accusations or possible past mistakes. It is entertaining to watch some of the Democrats making accusations being reminded of their own actions.

On Wednesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the hearings.

The article lists his three main observations about the hearings:

First, Trump’s nominees have uniformly done well. Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio and Chris Wright have all come across as competent and likable, in contrast to most of their Democratic interlocutors, who have been shrill at best, and often dim-witted.

…Second, the main themes behind Trump’s nominations have come through. Trump nominated Pete Hegseth because he wants a soldier running the Pentagon–an idea to which I have enthusiastically come around. Pam Bondi will run a non-politicized Department of Justice. Marco Rubio will implement an America First foreign policy. And Chris Wright wants reliable, affordable energy. All of these themes are popular with the general public.

Third, the Democrats have played only to their hard-core base. Their questions often have focused on hobby horses that the general public has long lost interest in: Will you concede that Trump lost the 2020 election? Should the January 6 protesters be pardoned? And so on.

Somehow I don’t think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote ‘advise and consent.’

The article concludes:

Finally, all of Trump’s key nominees are going to be confirmed. Republicans control the Senate, and there is no sign that any Republican senators are wavering. Some nominees will sail through, like Marco Rubio, who not only benefits from a traditional senatorial privilege, but is genuinely popular with senators on both sides of the aisle. Others, like Pete Hegseth, will be the focus of Democratic opposition. But it won’t matter: Republicans have the votes, and Republicans are united behind the Trump administration. Democrats can howl at the moon, but they have no power to stop the administration from taking office and moving forward.

A Picture Of A Shift

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On Friday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the Senate elections in 2020 and 2024.

The article includes two illustrations:

The article concludes:

So the Great Sort continues apace. The GOP has a slight built-in advantage in the Senate, but that edge could be neutralized by the Democrats’ vast financial resources and their control over most of the means of communication and the federal bureaucracy.

The more fundamental question, which I won’t address for now, is whether the Great Sort renders futile the entire notion of a United States that includes both its red zones–pro-America, pro-Constitutional government, pro-free enterprise, indifferent to race–and its blue zones–anti-American, anti-Constitution, socialist and racist. On what basis, exactly, can we form a common polity?

That question may become acute much sooner than most observers realize.

I believe that most voters rejected some of the strange ideas the political left has espoused in recent years such as ‘affirmative gender care’ for children and drag queen story hour. Those things may be okay in liberal cities, but they are not acceptable with mainstream Americans trying to raise children. Until some of the more extreme ideas of the political left are jettisoned, there will be little common ground. The extreme right also has its problems. We can’t legislate morality, but we can encourage it. Sometimes the right forgets the old expression that says you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. The political right needs to stand for the values that made this country great, but they need to do it with compassion.

When The Truth Leaks Out

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On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about a comment made by Vice-President Kamala Harris at a recent political event.

The article reports:

Vice President Harris in response to a heckler screaming that Israel is committing “genocide” “Listen, what he’s talking about, it’s real. It’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real and I respect his voice”

This is the video from X:

Israel is not the one committing genocide. Israel did not disrupt the peaceful existence between Israel and Gaza by killing innocent civilians at a music festival and in their homes. The October 7th invasion left Israel no choice but to defend itself against future attacks (which we now know were planned).

The article continues:

Whose side is Harris on? We think we know. It’s not Netanyahu she has a problem with, although she has a problem with him. It’s Israel and its defense of itself from the genocidal maniacs confronting the country on seven fronts whose ultimate source is Iran.

Levine quotes the former United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman:

“Kamala Harris just publicly validated the false and vicious accusation that Israel is engaging in genocide,” David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told The Post Saturday.

“Many, including myself, always suspected that she held this warped, antisemitic view of Israel’s self-defense against Hamas barbarism. But the cat is now out of the bag,” he added.

“Her view is as ignorant as it is malign. … To give credence publicly to this disgusting blood libel disqualifies Harris from holding any public office, let alone the presidency,” he said.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren comments on X:

A very dangerous precedent. I was disturbed to view the video in which Vice President Kamala Harris appears to confirm the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This is the first time that the White House has been linked to a libel which threatens Israel’s legitimacy and security. I call on the U.S. administration to issue an immediate and complete denial.

Vice-President Harris is condoning the same sort of anti-Semitism that led to the concentration camps of WWII.

An Outsider?

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On Wednesday, Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog about Kamala Harris campaigning as a Washington outsider. We all need to remember that she has been a major player in Washington for the past 3+ years, casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate and according to President Biden, she has been in agreement with all of his policies. Kamala Harris broke the record for Vice-Presidents casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate–she cast 32 votes to help pass President Biden’s agenda. (This figure comes from The New York Times).

The article reports:

Vice President Harris is running for president as though she is somehow an outsider running against the establishment rather than its hand-picked mouthpiece. She’s not only an insider, she’s the second ranking officer in the incumbent administration. She has previously campaigned on every one of the policies of the Biden/Harris administration that have wrought so much damage to the United States.

To take only one example, consider Biden’s opening of the border and his invitation to the whole wide world to come on in. Come on in, that is, and enjoy the freebies. Enjoy the freebies, that is, at the expense of American taxpayers. These are the policies that Harris herself promoted during her 2020 presidential campaign.

And yet Harris has adopted these campaign themes: She has “a new way forward.” We’re not “going back.” Oh, yeah, and “it’s time to turn the page.”

Harris pretends to resolve the contradiction by asserting that she’s “not Joe Biden.” However, not surprisingly, she’s on “the same page” as Joe Biden. What if “it’s time to turn the page”? Harris herself was unable to keep up the pretense or reconcile the contradiction in her appearance on The View yesterday.

When asked on The View what should would have done differently from President Biden during the past four years, she replied, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” So how is Kamala Harris going to ‘turn the page’ if she is elected after she and President Biden were on the same page for four years?

 

You Can Tell When Israel Is Winning–The United Nations Asks For A Cease Fire

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On Monday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the continuing war between Israel and the terrorists that surround it. It is unfortunate that the rest of the world does not understand that in defending Israel they are fighting worldwide terrorism.

The article quotes The Wall Street Journal:

Israeli special forces have been carrying out small, targeted raids into southern Lebanon, gathering intelligence and probing ahead of an expected broader ground incursion, people familiar with the matter said.
***
The Biden administration expects an imminent Israeli invasion of Lebanon, U.S. officials said.
***
An Israeli official said that, if there were to be a broader ground operation, it would feature “localized, limited raids against Hezbollah targets along the border with the objective of destroying the capabilities of the Radwan Forces,” the militant group’s special-operations unit. Israeli forces assess that the group is making preparations for an attack, as Hamas did before Oct. 7, including positioning clothes, weapons and other materials along the border.

The difference is that October 7th was unprovoked and aimed at civilians. Israel’s attack has been provoked by the constant rocket fire on civilians in Northern Israel, and Israel’s attack is aimed at Hezbollah–a terrorist group.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

So, what is the Biden administration’s role in these events? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have remained true to their policy of being utterly irrelevant, when they are not actually destructive, on all foreign policy issues. Biden’s greatest fear, apparently, is that Israel might actually achieve victory in its battle to the death with Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies:

President Biden starkly instructed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to abandon reported plans for an imminent invasion of southern Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah-held areas days after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah.

“Israel may now be launching a limited operation into Lebanon. Are you aware of that? Are you comfortable with their plan?” a journalist asked Biden at the White House.

“I’m more aware than you might know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” the president replied.

“We should have a cease-fire now,” he added.

There is a pattern here: whenever the Jews are winning, liberal Democrats want a cease fire to give the terrorists time to regroup and live to fight again another day. Happily, no one cares what they think.

If Mexico were firing rockets into Texas every day, would America want a cease-fire?

Where Was This Information In 2020?

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On Wednesday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about The New York Times’ reporting about Hunter Biden’s efforts in landing a Burisma deal.

The article reports:

Ken Vogel reports in the New York Times that “Hunter Biden Sought State Department Help for Ukrainian Company.” Subhead: “After President Biden dropped his re-election bid, his administration released records showing that while he was vice president, his son solicited U.S. government assistance.” The New York Post has an accessible account of Vogel’s story by Victor Nava in “Hunter Biden asked US embassy in Italy for help landing Burisma deal while Joe was VP.”

It’s interesting to see the lengths to which the government went to protect President Biden from the story. The Times had to bring a FOIA lawsuit to obtain the documents it suspected had been withheld from an earlier production. Vogel seems to be afraid that Republicans will “pounce” on this element of his story:

The Times challenged the thoroughness of the [State Department FOIA] search, noting that the department had failed to produce responsive records contained in a cache of files connected to a laptop that Mr. Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. The department resumed the search and periodic productions, but had produced few documents related to Mr. Biden until the week after his father ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Harris for the Democratic nomination.

The article concludes:

The more apt headline for Vogel’s story in the Times would be Now it can be told! I would like to say that Miranda Devine apparently could not be reached by Vogel for comment. On X, Devine drily observes of Vogel’s story “[t]his might all come as a surprise to @nytimes readers but @nypost readers have known the score for four years.”

Rush Limbaugh used to talk about low-information voters. Now we have voters who read the New York Times who are uninformed and often misinformed.

Kamala Harris Has Selected Tim Walz For Her Vice-President Running Mate

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On Tuesday, Breitbart introduced us to Tim Walz.

Here are some basic facts the article reports about the Minnesota Governor who has been Governor since 2019:

Below are seven things to know about Waltz’s record:

    1. A June report from Minnesota’s legislative auditor found that Walz’s administration “failed miserably in its duty to properly oversee millions of federal dollars it administered to nonprofits to feed children.” The report said that Walz’s alleged incompetence “created opportunities for fraud.” Axios reported: “The report highlighted several ways in which the Walz administration failed to rein in the fraud, undercutting the governor’s longstanding claims that his agency staff deserve credit, not criticism, for their efforts to catch and stop it.”
    2. Walz signed legislation to allow minors to get sex-change operations in Minnesota. He signed a bill to require schools to stock period products in boys’ bathrooms.
    3. Walz allegedly failed to anticipate and react to riots in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. Even the liberal mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, slammed Walz’s response to the riots.
    4. Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota gives free college tuition to illegal immigrants.
    5.  Walz signed a bill into law that will give driver’s licenses to potentially 77,000 eligible illegal aliens.
    6. Walz openly championed socialism last week during a “White Dudes” for Harris event.
    7. Waltz was also a radical member of the House of Representatives, with Heritage Action giving him a lifetime score of 13 percent

Honorable mentions:

    • Authorities arrested Walz for DUI.
    • Walz said it was “ageism for Americans to be concerned about Biden’s fitness for office.

Walz is considered to be politically somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.

On Tuesday, Steve Hayward of Power Line Blog posted:

First, the fact that a choice of running mate did not leak out prior to the announcement this morning likely means Harris didn’t make up her mind until yesterday. She’s indecisive.

Second, the Walz pick suggests the progressive anti-Semitic left successfully intimidated Harris out of picking Josh Shapiro. So she’s weak, too.

A confident Democratic nominee would have picked Shapiro. He could have helped Harris nail down the all-important state of Pennsylvania, and represented for Harris a “Sister Souljah” moment of repudiation to the progressive left that the newly “centrist” Harris badly needs. Shapiro, and perhaps Mark Kelly, would have been a move to add the veneer of ideological diversity (heh) to the ticket, like Michael Dukakis’s pick of Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, JFK picking LBJ in 1960, or Al Gore selecting Joe Lieberman in 2000. Instead she has doubled down on progressivism.

As Scott’s analysis reveals, Walz’s record is almost as target rich as Harris’s. Cue the Trump campaign ads displaying “Kamala’s San Francisco” and “Tim’s Minneapolis” from the summer of 2020. (By the way, will Trump’s nickname be “Tiny Tim”?) The only pick from the field that would have been better from a Republican point of view was Pete Buttigieg. The ghost of Lee Atwater smiles.

The election is going to need a LOT of popcorn.