Tag Archives: Power Line Blog

The Dangers Of Climate Change

Posted on by

On Friday, Steven Hayward at Power Line Blog posted an article about deaths caused by climate change since the 1900’s. The numbers are very interesting. The three graphs included in the article are posted below:

The article notes:

Meanwhile, you know the leading climate-related case of death is? Cold weather, especially when you can’t keep your house warm because of expensive (or intermittent) “green” energy. Here is The Economist magazine’s projection of elevated death rates in Europe this winter because of costly or rationed energy:

Lied to again. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

The Golden Turkey Awards

Posted on by

From 1975 through 1987, Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire sent out monthly press releases announcing his Golden Fleece Awards, given to the most outrageous spending projects in Congress. The Senator passed away in 2005, but the concept is still with us in the form of the Golden Turkey Award given by  American Experiment.

On Thursday, Power Line Blog posted an article about the latest winner of the Golden Turkey Award.

The article reports:

This year we had some remarkable nominees: our state government paid children to play outdoors; it spent tens of thousands of dollars promoting folk remedies for covid like burning sage and eating sauerkraut; and it paid random citizens stipends of $6,000–e.g. a stripper who was paid to continue stripping.

But if you have been following the Feeding Our Future scandal, it can come as no surprise that the Minnesota Department of Education was voted this year’s Golden Turkey. I presented the award to the Department of Education at their headquarters on a cold, windy afternoon.

…One more thing: we presented the award at 3:30 in the afternoon. It says on the front of the building that it is open until 4:30 every weekday afternoon, but when we were there, the place was deserted. The Department of Education building was dark, and there was not a single car in the vast parking lot, other than ours. Is no one working at the Department of Education? Frankly, that might be an improvement. But at the very least, it suggests another area where the State of Minnesota could save money: the Department of Education’s budget.

This is the video:

It’s time taxpayers at all levels of government held their elected officials accountable for reckless spending.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line Blog about the gender pay gap that President Biden pledged to close during his 2020 election campaign.

The article reports:

During his 2020 campaign and after taking office, Joe Biden has been happy to retail the favorite leftist cliche of the “gender pay gap,” in which women only earn 83 cents for every dollar a man earns. Biden pledged to “close the gender pay gap,” and ostentatiously signed a list of commitments to “Advance Pay Equity and Support Women’s Economic Security.” Biden also signed an executive order that called on the Office of Personnel Management to review compensation packages and report back to the president on how to advance equal pay.

The chart below illustrates that gender pay gap in the White House:

The article concludes:

This isn’t a new story for the Sniffer-in-Chief. The Washington Free Beacon notes:

For Biden, a gender pay gap among his staffers is nothing new. Over his 35-year Senate career, Biden paid women lessthan men every single year—at one point, women working for Biden were paid just 44 cents for every dollar paid to men.

It’s always better to clean up your own backyard before yelling at a neighbor for an untidy yard.

Florida, Again, Takes The Lead

Posted on by

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

Florida: Covid Vaccines Are Dangerous to Young Men

The article reports:

Yesterday, Florida’s Surgeon General issued a new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines: he said that young men between the ages of 18 and 39 should not be given such vaccines for covid:

This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

An 84% increase in cardiac-related death is stunning, although in this age group the numbers would be low. As I understand it, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA, while the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines are not.

…Given the tiny risk that covid poses to young men, it seems reasonable for young men to avoid covid vaccines altogether, pending further information.

I don’t know whether the findings of the Florida study will hold up, or how the debate over the risks and benefits of various types of vaccines will ultimately be resolved (assuming it is resolved at all). But what should be blindingly obvious is that it was outrageous for the Centers for Disease Control, the federal government generally, and the government’s social media minions to try to suppress discussion of the need for, efficacy of, and risks associated with, covid vaccines. The idea that the public health establishment knew all there was to know about covid vaccines in a flash of revelation, and that any dissenting opinion or any pointing to contrary data constituted “misinformation,” is an affront to the scientific method. This is also a valuable reminder of why free speech is so important.

It is time to remove vaccine mandates and to caution people about the dangers of the vaccine. A friend of mine recently developed Bell’s Palsey after getting her booster shot. Her doctor advised her not to get any more boosters. No kidding.

Because the information on the dangers of this vaccine has been suppressed, we all need to do our own research. Too many people have had serious health complications from the vaccine. It’s time to assess the risk of the vaccine as well as the risk from the disease.

Have We Reached Banana Republic Yet?

Posted on by

On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about recent legal activities that appear to be political.

The article reports:

A hallmark of banana republics is that those who lose power are apt to wind up in prison, or on the wrong end of a firing squad. Even more advanced countries, like Israel, sometimes have a regrettable tendency to prosecute former political leaders.

It is hard to think of anything more destructive to a democracy, and yet the Democrats are going down that path. It seems clear that they intend to bring criminal charges against President Trump over his keeping some White House documents at Mar-a-Lago–a trivial offense, as far as anyone knows.

And that’s not all. The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to a large number of people who were associated in some way with the Trump campaign or administration. They generally seek information about efforts to challenge the reported election results in several states. A copy of one of the subpoenas, with the name of the person who was served redacted, is linked below. Take a look at the scope of the documents the subject of the subpoena is required to produce:

594129794-Redacted-Subpoena

In case you are wondering about John Hinderaker’s background in making the above statements, John Hinderaker practiced law for 41 years, enjoying a nationwide litigation practice. He retired from the practice of law at the end of 2015, and is now President of Center of the American Experiment, a think tank headquartered in Minnesota. He and two other lawyers founded Power Line Blog in 2002.

The article concludes:

So far, of course, no criminal investigations have been launched into Joe Biden’s shipping of illegal aliens to many points across the country, often in the dead of night, for the last year and a half.

More examples could be multiplied. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon likely will go to jail for contempt of Congress, the same offense that former Attorney General Eric Holder was held to have committed by a bipartisan 255–67 vote of the House of Representatives. But unlike Bannon, Holder was not prosecuted. He now makes millions as a partner in a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm.

Given the thorough corruption of the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland, there is a reasonable possibility that the Democrats will move to imprison both Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans. I suppose they think they are secure, because Republicans would never follow such a third-world precedent when they regain power. I don’t know about that. In any event, there is a more fundamental question: are the Democrats trying to trigger a civil war, as they did in 1861? Judging from their actions, I think the question must be taken seriously.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is frightening to see how corrupt the Justice Department has become.

The Further Destruction Of The Federal Bureau Of Investigation

Posted on by

On Friday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the current priority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The article quotes a recent article at PJ Media:

Current and former FBI agents have come forward saying the Biden administration is deliberately exaggerating the danger posed by white supremacists. They claimed that high-ranking FBI officials were pressuring field agents to fabricate domestic terrorism cases and label people as white supremacists in order to “meet internal metrics.”

John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog states in the article that he has never met a white supremacist. Since moving to North Carolina, I have met two. On the surface they seemed to be ordinary people, but when you talked to them, their ideas were scary. However, I don’t believe in either case they will ever act on those ideas.

The article at PJ Media notes:

“The demand for white supremacy” coming from FBI brass “vastly outstrips the supply of white supremacy,” one agent told the Washington Times. “We have more people assigned to investigate white supremacists than we can actually find.”

The FBI agent, who requested anonymity in order to discuss internal bureau politics, said that top officials in the FBI “have already determined that white supremacy is a problem” and established a policy to prioritize investigations into racially-motivated domestic extremism.

“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” he said. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”

It is sad that the FBI is wasting their time on this nonsense when there are serious threats facing America. Our millennial gets most of its news from social media–including TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese, who do not have our best interests at heart. How many of our college professors have been accused of spying for the Chinese? How trustworthy are the people currently negotiating the nuclear treaty with Iran?

As long as a white supremacist does not act on his beliefs, he is entitled to believe anything he wants to. If he wants to cut himself off from some really special Americans, that is his privilege. However, if he is not harming anyone, he is allowed to believe anything he chooses, and he also has the right of free speech. We don’t have to agree with what he says, but we can agree that he has the right to say it.

When The Problem Comes Home

Posted on by

On Friday, Power Line Blog posted an article about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s shipping of illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard. Martha’s Vineyard is a beautiful place, and I am sure that the immigrants were glad to land there. Unfortunately, the people who live on Martha’s Vineyard were not particularly excited to see the illegal aliens.

The article reports:

The strategy of Greg Abbott and others to send illegal aliens to sanctuary cities around the country was a stroke of genius. Not that it was original: for at least the last five or six years, a friend has been emailing me to the effect that illegals should be sent to Marin County, Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco mansion, and, above all, Martha’s Vineyard. That, he said, would bring the open border problem to a screeching halt.

And it may. Ron DeSantis’s master stroke of sending two planeloads of aliens to Martha’s Vineyard has made liberal heads explode. The irony is evident to everyone. These places are “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens, but if they actually see a few of them they panic. Their yards boast “All Are Welcome Here” signs, but it turns out that some are more welcome than others.

Rasmussen finds that most people approve of Governor Abbott’s shipping illegals to sanctuary cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., by 52% to 36%. Those 36% are diehard Democrats who think it is fine for Texas to try to deal with one million aliens, but an outrage if a liberal city has to take on a few hundred.

Unlike most Americans, liberals don’t appreciate the irony. Their reaction has been priceless.

The meme below is posted at the bottom of the article:

The article concludes:

Members of the West Tisbury Select Board were told about the unexpected development during a Wednesday night meeting at which Town Administrator Jennifer Rand said she’d been receiving “furious texts” from residents, the MV Times reported.

I’ll bet they were furious! Not just anyone can live on Martha’s Vineyard. Maybe the Vineyard folks can ship the unwanted illegal aliens to a more downscale location, like the Hamptons. Or else the illegal immigrants, of whom there are only around 50, could all stay at Barack Obama’s $12 million estate. There is plenty of room there, and I understand his mansion has 10 bathrooms. That would be more than enough. But don’t hold your breath.

In all seriousness, if there is anything that could motivate Democrats to accept United States sovereignty, this is probably it.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that Governor Abbott also bused around 100 illegals to Kamala Harris’s Washington, D.C., residence, the Naval Observatory. This was in response to Harris’s absurd claim that the southern border is “secure.” No way, say the illegals themselves: the border is “open!” Let’s have more of this, until the Democrats say “Uncle.”

UPDATE: Will the Obamas come through for their illegal friends? Some are doubtful:

The Inflation Reduction Act

Posted on by

The Inflation Reduction Act has passed through Congress and will undoubtedly be signed into law by President Biden by the time you read this. So what exactly does this law do? Well, for starters it does not reduce inflation and it will not impact the climate. However, it will help China’s economy (they dominate the green energy field) and it will let Democrats celebrate that they passed something through Congress. It will also raise the cost of living for all Americans in the form of increased energy costs and some tax increases.

On Monday, The New York Post reported:

An analysis by the CBO estimates those earning less than $400,000 — the group on which Biden promised not to raise taxes — will pay an estimated $20 billion more in taxes over the next decade as a result of the Democrat-pushed $740 billion package, which also sets aside $80 billion to hire 87,000 IRS agents.

The bill has yet to be scored in its entirety by the CBO — which typically gives each piece of legislation a price tag before it is voted on — but the agency scored the impact of the IRS expansion on middle-class taxpayers on Aug. 12 after a provision from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) sought to exempt those making under $400,000 from increased IRS scrutiny.

Crapo’s proposed amendment would have kept those taxpayers from being targeted by the new IRS hires, but his provision was shot down 51-50 in the bill passed by the Senate last week.

On Monday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog reported the following:

Democrats quickly gave up on the Inflation Reduction Act, since they couldn’t sell the idea that another $700+ billion in deficit spending would somehow reduce inflation. So now it is alleged to be a climate control act, instead.

But the bill won’t affect the climate any more than it would have reduced inflation. Even if you assume the UN’s inflated estimate of the impact of CO2 emissions on global warming, the bill’s impact is nil:

[W]e get somewhere between 0.028 and 0.0009°F reduction in temperature by 2100 for about 400 billion dollars in climate spending contained in the bill.

But the oceans will stop rising! Which, by the way, they have been doing for the last 15,000 or so years.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

So the Democrats’ prize legislation is an exercise in futility. Unless, of course, you are one of the many Democratic Party constituents who will be cashing the checks that add up to more than $700 billion, with a little over half ostensibly going to benefit the climate.

The purpose here is to buy votes, obviously, and the Democratic Party press is ecstatic over the idea that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer finally have a “win” to brag about. But I wonder. I haven’t seen much evidence that the Democrats’ deficit spending extravaganzas are especially popular outside the precincts of those who cash the checks. (And, by the way, the number one beneficiary of this particular $700 billion will be the Communist Chinese, who dominate “green” energy.) My guess is that most Americans have caught on to the Democrats’ game, and understand that this legislation will no more dictate the Earth’s climate than it will bring our crippling inflation under control.

That’s where we are, folks.

It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

Posted on by

Inflation impacts every American. We see it mainly at the grocery store and the gas pump, but it also shows up in movie prices, concert prices, the cost of dining out, etc. In terms of the impact on food prices, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog reports on one of the most amazing comments by the White House on the price of food.

The article reports:

White House Economic Council Director joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the July 26 press briefing last week. The White House has posted the transcript here. Talking up the strength of our economy by comparison with others, Deese (White House economic adviser Brian Deese) actually said this:

Well, look, I think that our — our economy is more resilient to the — to the types of challenges that we’ve faced. For example, you know, with respect to food, we’re a net exporter of agricultural commodities. And, obviously, the high prices are hitting Americans very hard, but they’re — that — in a way that is different from some places that are facing famine, for example.

So what I hear in that statement is that the Biden administration really doesn’t care that the high price of food is seriously impacting Americans, we should be glad we are not facing famine.

We can’t get the Biden administration’s hands off of any public policy power they have soon enough.

Some Mistakes Are Irreversible

Posted on by

On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog wondering if anyone would ever be held accountable for the damage done by the transgender movement.

The article reports:

The “trans” fad has devastated the lives of many people, especially children. Will there ever be an accounting? In the U.K., there are signs of one: the National Health Service’s Tavistock gender identity clinic for children is being shut down.

The NHS is shutting down its gender identity clinic for children after a review found that it failed vulnerable under-18s.
***
It will be replaced by regional centres at existing children’s hospitals offering more “holistic care” with “strong links to mental health services”.

Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic has been accused of rushing children into life-altering treatment on puberty blockers.

The paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading a review of the service, issued a series of recommendations today for a radical overhaul of how the NHS treats young people who are questioning their gender identity.

She found that the Tavistock clinic was “not a safe or viable long-term option” and that other mental health issues were “overshadowed” when gender was raised by children referred to the clinic.

Basically, Tavistock was run according to a “trans” activist ideology, and therefore destroyed many lives.

Much of the treatment given to adolescents to help them transition to another sex is irreversible. There are also some serious side effects that can occur as a result of the treatment.

The article quotes an article at Liberty Unyielding:

Researchers have also found that puberty blockers stunted the height and impaired the bone mass density of children who wished to change gender. There is also evidence that puberty blockers have an adverse impact on cognitive functioning in children, with two studies finding that IQ may drop as a result of the medication. But perhaps most alarming, when a child takes puberty blockers at Tanner stage 2 (the first signs of puberty) and proceeds to cross-sex hormones, they will be sterilized (never able to have children) and never be able to achieve an orgasm.

Teenagers are not yet able to make wise decisions on many things–sex change included. The article at Liberty Unyielding includes examples of teenagers who regret being led down the path to sex-change medication and surgery through peer pressure and social media, but are limited in their options to undo the damage that has been done to their bodies.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

How has this horror show come to be? I confess to puzzlement. Generally the Left is not hard to figure out. Leftists want power and money, and if you examine their policies with this in mind, they pretty much always make sense. But today’s gender hysteria is hard to understand within that framework. Unless the “trans” fad is essentially nihilistic: maybe the point is to discredit thousands of years’ worth of civilization, to alienate millions from the most basic elements of our culture, and to create a large army of dysfunctional, mentally, physically and emotionally crippled people, so that self-reliance becomes a thing of the past and government control is seen as the only alternative.

 

Welcome To The Biden Economy

Posted on by

Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog reported on Wednesday that in June prices rose 9.1 percent above last year. That is a forty-year high.

The article reports:

Inflation hit a new four-decade high in June as prices rose 9.1 percent from last year — 1.3 percent from the prior month — according to the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. The BLS’s “all items index increased 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.”

I put it this way: We see it everywhere and every day. The BLS puts it this way: “The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors.”

If anyone tries to tell you it’s not as bad as it seems, note that the more plausible case belies it: “The energy index rose 41.6 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1980. The food index increased 10.4 percent for the 12-months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending February 1981.”

Every American is paying more to eat, travel, and have a place to live. This is the direct result of policies put in place by the Biden administration. There has been no move by the Biden administration to change any of the policies that caused this–if fact they are considering using the reconciliation process to pass a bill that will make things even worse–the increased taxes and increased spending in that bill will definitely move us from inflation to a recession.

If you want things to change, your only hope will be to change Congress so that the Biden administration cannot pass its economic policies. The economic policies of the Biden administration will bankrupt all of us.

 

Labels Matter

Posted on by

On Sunday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the double standard used in reporting protests.

The article notes:

The Left has a rather schizophrenic attitude toward protests and demonstrations. Some are wonderful, like the George Floyd riots, which were not, in fact, protests at all. Or like arson and other destruction committed at pro-life facilities. Others are detestable, like the Dutch farmers’ protests, or the French “yellow vests,” or the Canadian truckers. Some protests, too, can only be ignored, like when hundreds of thousands of pro-life citizens show up for their annual march in Washington.

Currently the Left is “demonstrating” against the Supreme Court justices who concurred in the Dobbs decision. A few nights ago, as Scott has noted, left-wingers harassed Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other diners at the Morton’s steak house in D.C. Liberals viewed this effort as a triumph–Kavanaugh reportedly had to exit out a back door–and a pro-Democratic Party organization is now offering cash bounties to anyone who sees a conservative justice out in public in time for a flash mob to assemble.

When asked about such tactics, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was nonplussed. These are peaceful demonstrations, she replied, the very essence of democracy!

Creating an intimidating environment for political opponents is a sign of a tyrannical government. Protesting political figures at private locations that have nothing to do with their jobs is a form of intimidation.

The article concludes:

And, of course, all of this discussion takes place in the context of at least one assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh, the same man who was falsely and relentlessly smeared by the Democratic Party during his confirmation hearings. I think the leaders of the Democratic Party are well aware that their over-the-top attacks on conservative justices, and the kinds of harassment we have seen in recent days, are likely to lead to more assassination attempts. I think leaders of the Democratic Party hope that one or more conservative justices will be assassinated while Joe Biden is still (at least nominally) president, so that he can appoint a left-wing successor. I think this is why Attorney General Merrick Garland refuses to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 1507, which bans demonstrations at the homes of judges that attempt to influence their decisions. And I think this is why the Biden administration cheers on the mobs who harass conservatives in public places.

If this assessment seems harsh, ask yourself: what other hypothesis is consistent with the Democrats’ actions?

So, are protests and demonstrations good or bad? I think they are good–that is to say, consistent with our Constitution’s framework of ordered liberty–when they are peaceful (not “mostly peaceful”), when they are conducted in public places with proper permitting, and when they do not explicitly or implicitly threaten anyone. Citizens have a right to assemble peaceably, not to form themselves into mobs. They do not have a right to commit mayhem, to destroy property, or to threaten, menace, or unreasonably inconvenience others. Unfortunately, the “protests” that the Left likes most usually fall in the latter category. Let’s just hope they don’t result in even more catastrophic violence than we have already witnessed.

So far, the violence we have witnessed seems to be mainly on the liberal side–January 6th was not a totally peaceful protest, but did not include lighting fires, burning business, throwing molotov cocktails into police cars, or killing those trying to protect their businesses. If the violence on the political left, including antifa, BLM, etc., is not reined in, I fear that there will be violent pushback from the political right. That is a recipe for the destruction of America.

As Florida Moves To Protect Young Children…

Posted on by

On July 4, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the law passed in Florida to protect young school children from inappropriate teaching about sex.

The article reports:

The Biden administration has taken strong exception to Florida’s anti-grooming law, which requires that public school teachers wait until kids are in the fourth grade before inculcating them with LGBTQTrans ideology. Biden intends to fight for grooming to the last man nonbinary person:

[T]he White House claims there will be federal intervention in opposition to the anti-grooming law. Moves for federal mediation include “monitoring” by the Department of Education and calls for people to file formal complaints about the law’s restrictions with the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Deprivation of the right to groom five to eight year old children. I suppose we shouldn’t laugh, next time there is a liberal majority on the Supreme Court, they might find such a right hidden where they have come up with abortion and others.

[T]he Biden White House claims the law is “part of a disturbing and dangerous nationwide trend” and is “cynically targeting LGBTQI+ students, educators, and individuals to score political points.”

Children in early grades of elementary school need to be allowed to be children. They need to be allowed to maintain some modicum of childhood innocence.

The article concludes:

Federalism is the forgotten value that inspires our Constitution perhaps more than anything else, and I would argue that it is more essential today than ever. With our country more deeply divided than at any time since the Civil War–and in some ways, the divisions are even wider now than then–disunion is a real possibility. Another possibility is tyranny imposed by one side or the other. The Biden administration is working hard on that one. The optimal solution is to let blue states be blue and red states be red, and to preserve the constitutional powers of the states.

It’s not a perfect answer–before too long, just about everyone would want to live in the red states–but it is infinitely preferable to the alternatives.

It really is time to get rid of the federalization of education. Our schools did much better when they were locally controlled and our children scored much better on achievement tests. The federal intrusion into our schools has been a disaster and needs to end.

The Harassment Continues

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about Attorney John Eastman. Attorney Eastman has an impressive record as an attorney. He is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute. He is a former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law. He is also a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

His phone was recently seized by the FBI as he was leaving a restaurant. He was not shown a warrant for the seizure until after his phone was taken.

On Monday, The Washington Times reported:

Eastman said the agents who approached him identified themselves as from the FBI but appeared to be serving a warrant on behalf of the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which he contends has no jurisdiction to investigate him since he has never worked for the department. He said the cell phone that was seized contains emails that have been the subject of a months-long dispute between him and the House panel.

“That litigation has received extensive media attention, so it is hard to imagine that the Department of Justice, which apparently submitted the application for the warrant at issue here, was not aware of it,” wrote his lawyers, Charles Burnham and Joseph Gribble. 

There is little doubt that Attorney Eastman’s phone was seized because of his work on behalf of President Trump to investigate election fraud.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

The AP covers the story here. Orin Kerr takes up the legality of the search and seizure in a Twitter thread here. We remain to be illuminated on the criminal law for which the FBI claims it has probable cause against Eastman. Late in the thread he notes that the warrant does not extend beyond the seizure of John’s phone (i.e., it covers seizure only).

Eastman’s close encounter with the FBI last week was obviously coordinated with the close encounters of Trump Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark and Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald. The FBI appears to have taken up the role of the ruling party’s enforcement arm.

We are rapidly approaching banana-republic status if we have not reached it already.

 

 

The Abortion Ruling Has Been Released

Posted on by

On Friday, John Hinderaker reported at Power Line Blog on Friday that the Supreme Court had released its decision on the Dobbs case.

Townhall posted a similar article on Friday.

John Hinderaker reported:

The Supreme Court released its opinions in the Dobbs case this morning. Consistent with the leaked draft by Justice Alito, it overrules the Roe and Casey decisions. You can read the opinions here. I haven’t had time yet to review Alito’s majority opinion to see how closely it conforms to what was leaked.

The vote was 6-3, with Chief Justice Roberts concurring in the result. He would have upheld the Mississippi statute without entirely overruling Roe. Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh wrote concurring opinions.

Townhall reports:

The Supreme Court issued an opinion Monday morning in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. Justices ruled 5-4 to uphold Dobbs, which limits abortion to 15-weeks in Mississippi, effectively overturning Roe v. Wade and returning abortion law to the states. The majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito. 

“Now today, the Court rightly overrules Roe and Casey—two of this Court’s “most notoriously incorrect” sub- stantive due process decisions,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

The ruling comes more than a month after a draft opinion of the case showed five justices planned to overturn Roe, with Justice Samuel Alito writing about the decision. The draft opinion is nearly identical to the final ruling. 

This ruling does not end legal abortion–it simply allows each state to make its own decision on the matter. The theory behind the federalism principles that our Founding Fathers embraced was that the people in the states, who were the closest to the voters, should be the people making the majority of the laws. Roe vs. Wade was unconstitutional as it ignored the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

We need to pay attention to the documents involved in the founding and establishment of America.

Maybe We Need To Rethink The Cause Of The Problem

Posted on by

On Saturday, Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog quoting a recent column by Stephen Hunter:

Possibly you’re old enough to remember the great massacre spree of 1964? Classrooms shot up, strip malls decimated, scout troops blown away, fast food restaurants turned into mortuaries.

And all because, in its infinite stupidity, the U.S. government dumped 240,000 high-capacity .30 caliber assault rifles into an otherwise innocent America.

The weapons clearly had a demon-spirit to them. Compared to anything else in the market, they had that murder-most-easy look. One glance at the sinister gleam of the walnut stock which caressed the military-gray receiver and barrel of the weapon, its magazine wickedly boasting of many cartridges ready and waiting, its photo- and Hollywood associations with war, and some went screwball. They had the overwhelming desire to use it as it was meant to be used. It was not powerful enough for deer and not accurate enough for vermin. It existed only to kill human beings.

Except there was no massacre spree of 1964, despite the fact that in 1963 the United States Army surplussed 240,000 M1 carbines via the NRA. They were available through the mail at $20. Not an NRA member? Eighty bucks, then, from any sporting goods store. Denver’s Dave Cook’s–“Guns Galore at Prices to Score”– had them by mail order, magazine and sling included, postage, $1.25.

What did happen next was remarkable. It was also simple: nothing. Firearms deaths in 1964 rose modestly, in accord with statistical norms. No spurt of slaughter can be documented, much less attributed, to the sudden presence of all these weapons of war.

The article concludes:

It was clearly our first assault rifle; its appearance is meaningless. The cartridge was as powerful as the iconic .357 magnum. It held either 15 or 30 rounds, depending on the magazine. It could be fired as quickly as the trigger was pulled — 30 shots in 10 seconds sounds about right– and reloaded in two or three seconds. It never jammed. It was light and handy with minimal recoil. Certain iterations had folding stocks, reducing the 35-inch length by a third, making concealment easy. Some had full-auto capacity. All had bayonet studs. It could do anything an AR-15 can do except kill groundhogs at 400 yards or penetrate a car door at 20. Either Peyton Gendron or Salvador Ramos could have employed it to the same results.

So in 1964, the guns were there — lots of them, everywhere, dirt cheap. But Gendron and Ramos were not. We must look elsewhere for the reason why.

It is time to look at some of the cultural influences at work today–violent movies, violent television shows, and violent video games. We should also examine the impact of the destruction of the American family due to government welfare policies.

What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Posted on by

On Sunday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about an event held Friday in a Texas gay bar. The event was called Drag the Kids to Pride. Follow the link at your own risk. You have been warned. The article includes two short videos of events at the bar. The activities involved are in no way suitable for the young children in attendance.

The article concludes:

One cannot imagine how parents can expose their young children to such nonsense. In general, children should be pulled out of the inept and failing public schools, which have now added perverse indoctrination to their other sins. But when parents go out of their way to inflict perversity on their kids, one can only despair.

I have no problem with teaching older children to be respectful of people who have an alternative lifestyle (yes, homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle) or to be respectful of their peers who struggle with gender dysphoria. However, these are lifestyles that are not mainstream and should not be encouraged to become mainstream. Before the growth of social media, gender dysphoria was very rare and generally young children outgrew it without any treatment. Unfortunately, social media has created an image of transgender as ‘cool’ and many teenagers having trouble adjusting to puberty are being caught up in the social pressure. This is a problem that will not in any way be helped by taking young children to a Drag the Kids to Pride event.

 

The Real Statistics On School Shootings

Posted on by

What happened in Texas this week is horrific. There were a number of mistakes made that allowed the incident to occur, but that will be sorted out later. It was a horrible event, and everyone’s heart goes out to the parents, grandparents and other family members impacted by the incident. The immediate calls for gun control are simply political grandstanding. Until we deal with mental illness among teenagers, we will not have a solution to gun violence.

On Wednesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article that provides some historical context to what happened this week.

The article posted a list of school shootings where four or more people are killed since 2000. Here is the list:

2022: 1
2021: 1
2020: 0
2019: 0
2018: 2
2017: 1
2016: 0
2015: 1
2014: 1
2013: 1
2012: 2
2011: 0
2010: 0
2009: 0
2008: 1
2007: 1
2006: 1
2005: 1
2004: 0
2003: 0
2002: 0
2001: 0
2000: 0

A school shooting is a serious thing, but it doesn’t look as if it is a common occurrence.

The article continues:

So mass school shootings are rare, a total of 14 incidents in more than 22 years. In a nation of 320 million, many more people die from bee stings, lighting strikes, and so on; yet, for understandable reasons, school shootings command national attention. But their very rarity makes it hard to know what to do about them, especially since most school shooters expect to die, which makes them more or less impossible to deter. How do you prevent something that happens, in crude terms, once every 480 million man-years?

The “solutions” proposed by Democrats are laughable, obviously intended for political gain rather than practical benefit. Banning “assault rifles,” while likely unconstitutional, would do zero good. In close quarters, handguns are better than rifles, even short-barreled rifles like AR-15s. In the worst school shooting rampage so far, at Virginia Tech, the murderer used handguns. And when the ill-fated ban on “assault weapons” expired in 2004, the homicide rate went down, not up.

But there are things we can do. Would-be mass murderers may be crazy, but they aren’t stupid. They nearly always strike in gun-free zones, including schools, because they want to be sure they are the only one with a firearm. Gun-free zones are an idiotic concept and should be abolished. And if every public school in America fired a diversity consultant and hired an armed guard, they would be vastly safer. Who stands in the way of such practical reform? Mostly the teachers’ unions, which bitterly resist improvements in school security, thus selling out, as they consistently do, the interests of American children.

After noting that the number of school shootings increased after the Covid shutdowns, the article notes:

The only plausible explanation for this increase is that covid-related shutdowns of schools and businesses exacerbated mental health issues in vulnerable young people. There is a great deal of data confirming such an effect, and in the extreme case, shutdowns evidently have have led to a dramatic increase in “active shooters.” Let’s not make that foolish mistake again.

Those solutions aren’t perfect, but they are practical and would reduce the already microscopically-low incidence of mass school shootings.

This certainly represents a more rational approach than taking guns away from law-abiding citizens.

If You Believe This…

Posted on by

On Tuesday, The Washington Times posted an article ‘explaining’ how a “typo” in an email led investigators in 2016 to believe that false allegations linking former President Trump to Russia’s Alfa Bank came from the Department of Justice rather than from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

The article quotes testimony from the trial of Michael Sussmann.

FBI Agent Curtis Heide, who along with agent Allison Sands authored the internal communication, said the inaccuracy, sent out just weeks before the 2016 election, was simply a mistake.

“We may have conflated the Office of the General Counsel and the Justice Department,” Mr. Heide said on the witness stand. “I don’t know how that information got in there.”

On Monday, jurors in the criminal trial of Mr. Sussmann were shown the electronic communication sent in September 2016 by top bureau officials to field agents marking the opening of the case. The communication said the investigation was based on a “referral” from the Justice Department, rather than a tip from Mr. Sussmann.

On Tuesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog reported the following:

I was skeptical that the Sussman prosecution would tell us much that is new, but some significant nuggets have come out. Like this one: “FBI brass were ‘fired up’ about now-debunked Trump-Russia ties.”

FBI leaders, including then-Director James Comey, were “fired up” about a potential connection between the Trump campaign and Russia — which ultimately was proven false, text messages and court testimony revealed Tuesday.

On Sept. 21, 2016, two days after Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann gave then-FBI General Counsel James Baker info about a supposed digital back channel between the Trump Organization and Moscow-based Alfa Bank, agent Joe Pientka texted colleague Curtis Heide: “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”

So there was zero evidence of any connection between presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Alfa Bank, or any other Russians of note, and all one of Hillary Clinton’s lawyers had to do was waltz into the Bureau with some fabricated “data” and FBI Director James Comey and others were “fired up.” The lust to defeat the interloper Trump and elect Hillary Clinton is palpable.

It’s a shame that they were not nearly so ‘fired up’ over the security problems involved in Hillary Clinton’s secret server.