Exactly What Does The Big Beautiful Bill Do To Medicaid?

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill on Medicaid.

The article reports:

Signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, the GOP’s sweeping tax and spending package projects over $1 trillion in savings from Medicaid reforms. While Democrats have portrayed the changes as an unprecedented assault on the health care system, they ignore the explosive surge in Medicaid spending over the past decade and mischaracterize reforms that mainly target a widely exploited funding loophole and nonworking, able-bodied enrollees.

“What we’re seeing from the left and special interest groups are blanket fear-based arguments against the proposal,” Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, director of the Center for Health and Welfare Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “These are just common-sense changes that tighten up the existing structure of the Medicaid program, weed out fraud, waste and abuse, and help the system function better.”

The article explain one way the Medicaid system is exploited:

Just a day before the bill’s passage, a rural hospital in Nebraska announced that it would be shutting down, citing “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid.” Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont warned it would be the “first of many hospitals to close” because of the “horrific cuts.”

Yet, many of the key reforms — including the crackdown on “provider taxes,” which critics describe as a gimmick used by states to inflate Medicaid costs and extract more federal dollars — will not take effect until 2028.

The federal government matches a portion of each state’s Medicaid expenditures. To maximize this match, many states tax hospitals and other healthcare providers, then return that money to them as Medicaid payments, creating the appearance of higher state Medicaid spending.

“Provider taxes are basically funding gimmicks and legalized money laundering that allow states to scheme federal taxpayers into footing the bill for bailouts to hospitals,” said Dublois.

The article concludes:

Democrats such as New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have claimed that work requirements “will result in millions of Americans losing health care coverage and getting sicker due to bureaucratic paperwork requirements,” while some corporate media outlets have argued states would struggle to build systems to track compliance.

However, with implementation still years away, Dublois said states have a “lengthy runway to get this done,” adding that “[Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] provides guidance to those states well in advance of when those work requirements need to be implemented, and there will be CMS grant funds available to states to help implement them.”

State Medicaid agency data obtained by the FGA through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that 62% of non-elderly, able-bodied individuals on Medicaid did not work. Additionally, the American Enterprise Institute found in May that Medicaid recipients who do not work spend 4.2 hours per day — or 125 hours a month — watching TV and playing video games, more than 50% above the 80-hour work requirement.

“It’s the common-sense parts of the bill that are hard for liberals to argue against, so they don’t want to look at what’s actually in the bill,” said Schaefer. “A lot of the fearmongering out there is saying, ‘We just want the status quo to run as is. Let’s keep our heads in the sand and let’s not worry that we’re spending a trillion dollars on a program that is supposed to be for very low-income people.’”

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I believe that people who are able to work and do not have small children should be required to work in order to receive government benefits. The rest of us are required to work to pay those benefits.

It’s Time To Make The Cuts

The amount of fraud and waste discovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is amazing. It’s time to see the waste they discovered removed. If you found termites in your basement, you would call an exterminator. Somehow not all of Congress wants to deal with the termites!

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

Speaker Mike Johnson is putting pressure on Senate Republicans to pass President Donald Trump’s rescissions package.

Johnson told reporters Monday that clawing back just $9 billion in funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid should be an easy vote for Republican senators. The speaker’s remarks come as several GOP senators have said they oppose some of the proposed cuts and signaled they will vote against the rescissions request if the package is not amended.

If the Congress wants to remain in Republican hands, they need to respect the wishes of the voters and cut!

The article concludes:

Collins and other GOP senators, including Lisa Murkowski of Alsaka and Mike Rounds of South Dakota, have expressed concerns about the potential impact of cuts to public broadcasting programs for rural areas in the respective states.

“I hope you feel the urgency that I’m trying to express on behalf of the people in rural Alaska and I think in many parts of rural America where this is their lifeline,” Murkowski told White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought during an appropriations hearing in June.

The White House and congressional leadership have countered that the proposed cuts are necessary to begin making headway on the country’s $37 trillion national debt.

“This is supposed to be the lower hanging fruit,” Johnson continued. “As usual, I asked them [the Senate] not to modify our work.”

Trump has said that he will not take kindly to the Senate weakening cuts to public broadcasting within the rescissions package.

“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Rescissions Bill,” Trump wrote Thursday on the social media platform Truth Social. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”

If Public Broadcasting were an unbiased network supplying unbiased news and programming to Americans, it might be worth funding. But that is not what it is. Also, it is time we got back to funding the things that the Constitution tells the federal government to fund and defunding everything else. That would surely balance the federal budget quickly!

We Don’t Need To Import Terrorists–We Have Them Here

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that ten people have been charged in an attack on a Texas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

The article reports:

Police released mugshots Monday of suspects in a foiled Texas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility ambush, revealing a cast of characters who fit the familiar profile of left-wing extremists.

The federal Department of Justice (DOJ) charged 10 people in connection with the July 4 attack on an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, that left a local police officer shot in the neck, according to the DOJ’s criminal complaint.

Johnson County Jail released photos of seven of those suspects to a local Fox affiliate, showing gaunt, pale figures such as Nathan Baumann and Zachary Evetts, along with a portly, pasty-looking woman identified as Joy Gibson.

The article includes the photos. These are troubled people. According to journalist Andy Ngo, they are members of a North Texas antifa “terror cell.  Two of them suffer from gender dysphoria. The ten are facing charges including attempted murder, attempted murder of a federal officer, discharging a firearm during a violent crime, and aiding and abetting, according to the DOJ.

Many Americans have lost sight of the fact that ICE is doing its job of enforcing the law. People who come here illegally have broken the law. If a stranger comes into your house and proceeds to camp out in your living room, chances are you are not going to allow them to live there. Our country is no different.

Adding Insult To Injury–And It’s Beautiful

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!

Did He Really Say That?

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the recent comments made by New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The article reports:

Republican strategist Scott Jennings showed receipts after calling out CNN host Omar Jiminez and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona on Sunday, saying they were ignoring the race-based tax plan that Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani of New York City placed in his platform.

Mamdani called for increasing taxes on predominantly white neighborhoods of New York during his campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Democratic Mayor Eric Adams of New York City. Jennings accused Jiminez, who described the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as “mostly peaceful,” of using a “playbook” similar to that of former Vice President Kamala Harris while later dropping receipts to disprove his claim.

…Cardona chimed in as Jiminez was disputing Jennings’ statements during the exchange.

“He literally wrote it in a statement, Omar! He literally wrote it down! Are you letting him get off the hook? Why?” an incredulous Jennings asked Jiminez, who responded, “No, I’m saying I am saying that he said that, but not on the basis of race specifically. I’m not saying he didn’t say that.”

“He did say that!” Jennings shot back.

The article concludes:

Jennings posted a screenshot from Mamdani’s campaign site targeting “whiter neighborhoods” on X Sunday after the exchange with Jiminez.

“Feel the need to show the receipts here,” Jennings said, adding screenshots of headlines from the Jerusalem Post and New York Post about Mamdani’s desire to target certain neighborhoods.

It is going to be interesting to see if the people of New York City elect him. If former governor Cuomo, Eric Adams, and Curtis Sliwa all stay in the race, there is a good chance that Mamdani will win.

Making America Healthy Again

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some coming changes to the food that America eats.

The article reports:

Major food brand General Mills will remove all artificial dyes from its products by 2027, the company announced Tuesday.

The company also announced plans to remove “certified colors” from all of its American cereal brands and all of its products in school lunches by summer 2026, they said in a press release.

Foodbev.com has further details:

Food giants Kraft Heinz and General Mills have this week announced they will commit to removing artificial colours from all of their US food products by the end of 2027.

The announcements come amid increasing scrutiny of artificial dyes and other synthetic food additives in the US, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr calling on all major food companies in the country to remove the dyes from their products by the end of his term in 2029.

This aligns with Kennedy’s Make America Health Again agenda, seeking to address chronic health issues by reforming dietary practices. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already banned the use of the synthetic Red Dye 3 after it was linked to cancer in laboratory rats. Other synthetic colours have been linked to potential adverse health effects, such as hyperactivity in children, fuelling growing concerns over their use.

The article at foodbev.com concludes:

Jeff Harmening, chairman and CEO of General Mills, said: “Across the long arc of our history, General Mills has moved quickly to meet evolving consumer needs, and reformulating our product portfolio to remove certified colours is yet another example”.

He added: “Knowing the trust families place in us, we are leading the way on removing certified colours in cereals and K-12 foods by next summer. We’re committed to continuing to make food that tastes great and is accessible to all.”

The company has made several moves to enhance the health of its offerings in recent years, including addressing sugar reduction, doubling vitamin D in its cereals by 2023 and reducing sodium by 20% across key product categories since 2019.

This is good news for all of us.

We Are Back To “Mostly Peaceful” Protests

I may be going out on a limb on this, but I think most Americans don’t want to watch their cities being burned down. The majority of Americans like the idea of law and order and frown on groups of people attacking police or federal officials. This may be another area where the Democrat party and the media might want to reconsider their messaging.

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

Legacy media outlets have framed violent unrest that began Friday in Los Angeles, California, over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids as “protests,” despite extensive vandalism, arson and attacks on police.

Riots commenced on Friday after ICE raids in Los Angeles County, prompting President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard to the city on Saturday. Despite the violent and destructive nature of the demonstrations, several legacy media outlets opted not to describe them as “riots.”

Protesting is legal and is as American as apple pie. Burning property and attacking people is illegal.

The article notes:

For instance, The Associated Press published a Sunday piece noting that protesters impeded access to a significant freeway and set fire to self-driving cars, but neglected to use the terms “riots” or “rioters” when describing the demonstrations.

In fact, the story even compared the Los Angeles riots to previous riots in the city in what appeared to be an attempt to downplay the violence. “The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which [Democratic California Gov. Gavin] Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops,” the AP wrote.

The article reports:

Moreover, ABC7 Los Angeles anchor Marc Brown on Sunday appeared to downplay the riots as the outlet showed footage of a car burning downtown.

“It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators,” Brown said.

CBS News also published a Monday piece that neglected to use the terms “riots” or “rioters,” while reporting on the anti-police violence that occurred on Sunday.

“[S]ome of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway,” the outlet wrote. “Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.”

This is not acceptable behavior, and unlike what happened during the ‘summer of love’ in 2000, anyone who broke the law needs to go to jail. No charges should be dropped; no bail accepted.

The Trump Presidency And Your Wallet

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the impact of the Trump economy on personal income.

The article reports:

Americans’ personal income in the first four months of 2025 is “almost triple the expectations,” making for a “great” start of the year, CNBC’s Rick Santelli exclaimed on the air, urging viewers to “give credit” to the Trump administration.

The longtime CNBC editor revealed the “powerful” numbers on Friday morning, sharing that personal income increased 0.8 percent in April. 

“This is a great four-month start to any year,” he said.

“When you look at income, for the first four months of the year, they’re powerful numbers — up 0.6 in January, up 0.7 in February, up 0.5 last month, up 0.8 this month. This is a great four-month start to any year.”

Santelli also lauded the fact that 0.8 percent is the “strongest” income month-over-month jump since May 2021, when it was 1.9 percent.

He went on to lament how the Trump administration is “criticized for just about anything under the sun,” despite the president’s “transparency” and positive accomplishments.

The article concludes:

“This administration is criticized for just about anything under the sun. I’ve never ever in my lifetime had glimpses into the politics of an administration in the form of transparency like this one. Why don’t we… give credit where credit is due?”

Part of the reason for the increase in consumer spending power is the lowering of the rate of inflation.

On Friday, The Daily Caller reported:

President Donald Trump achieved an economic victory after a prominent inflation reading dropped to its lowest reading in four years.

The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, one of The Federal Reserve’s primary inflation measurement models, showed a decrease in inflation in April 2025 to a level not seen since March 2021, according to a Commerce Department report.

The index, which measures goods and services spending, showed an increase of $47.8 billion, or 0.2%, with major gains in housing and health care the report stated.

In April, the PCE and Core PCE, which measures without noting volatile food and energy prices, both rose by only 0.1% from the previous month, according to the report. The consumer price index also indicated a drop in inflation to a four-year low as well, with a seasonal adjusted 0.2% in April, as reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation earlier this month.

This is the economic relief Americans needed. If Congress would just pass the spending cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Americans would enjoy more financial freedom.

The Problem With People Who Refuse To Leave The Stage

On Friday, former President Biden gave a speech in Delaware to celebrate Memorial Day. That’s very appropriate–former Presidents are often asked to speak at various celebrations around the country. The speech was typical of his speeches–more about himself than anything else.

Friday night, The Daily Caller posted an article about President Biden and his various speeches since leaving office. The article was less than kind.

The article reports:

Former Democrat strategist Dan Turrentine said Friday on “The Ingraham Angle” that it appears no one in his party will tell former President Joe Biden to stop publicly speaking about the 2024 election, adding that the former president is holding the party back.

After delivering a Memorial Day event speech in Delaware, Biden said he was “very proud” of his “record” prior to dropping out of the race, appearing to suggest President Donald Trump had been “last” in favorability. While discussing Biden’s comments, Fox News host Laura Ingraham told Turrentine that the former president had been “pushed out” of the 2024 race.

“One of the ironies is that as Donald Trump’s poll numbers went down earlier this year, our poll numbers didn’t go up,” Turrentine said. “One of the reasons that they didn’t go up is that we are struggling to move forward, and Biden keeps pulling us backwards.”

Just for the record, President Trump’s approval record has not dropped below 44 percent since he took office. He began his term at about 50 percent. Considering the press coverage he gets, anything above 40 percent is amazing. When he left office, former President Biden’s approval rating was about 40 percent, amazing when you consider the press coverage he got. The current Democrat party rating is at about 35 percent favorable. That might have something to do with their stand on many issues that Americans oppose–open borders, medicaid for people who are here illegally, transgender surgery for minors without parents’ knowledge or permission, and shrinking the government bureaucracy, etc.

Currently the most popular people in the Democrat party are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg. Right now, that is the future of the Democrat party.

No, It’s Not Illegal

On May 14th, The Daily Caller posted an article including Attorney Alan Dershowitz’s comments on whether or not President Trump should accept the gift of an airplane from Saudi Arabia.

The article reports:

Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday detailed two reasons President Donald Trump would probably be able to keep a 747 reportedly being gifted to the United States.

Qatar offered Trump the $400 million Boeing 747-8 for modification into a VC-25 configuration to serve as Air Force One, with the jet being donated to Trump’s presidential library after his term in office ends. Dershowitz, on “The Dershow,” noted that the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” something cited by some critics, actually would not prohibit the gift to the United States government.

“Okay, here’s what the Constitution says: No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States,” Dershowitz said. “In other words, we don’t have sirs and knights, or anything like that. So we can’t grant titles of nobility and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, that means the president, shall without the consent of Congress, and this is the key, without the consent of Congress, accept any present, emoluments, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state. Now, obviously, Qatar has the king. Oh, I guess he’s the emir, doesn’t say emir, he’s the emir, I know, I met him three times, the emir of Qatar, I know he’s an emir and I guess he comes under the category of king, prince or foreign state.”

This is how Attorney Dershowitz applies the law:

“Now this means no person shall receive the gift,” Dershowitz said. “We know that gifts are given to governments all the time… when you go to the Oval Office, where the White House, you see all over the place, gifts that have been given by foreign governments to the White House, great portraits of Winston Churchill and other things that are gifts the British government or other governments have been given to the United States. But when the incumbent president or any officer leaves, he doesn’t take the gifts with him, he leaves them. There have been a couple of occasions where the presidents of taken a few gifts, for example, letters they take letters now letters could be worth a fortune… I think presidents have taken some of those, but mostly they go to the Library of Congress or to the Smithsonian or to the presidential libraries.”

“Now presidential libraries are not the property of the president himself or of the former president,” Dershowitz continued. “They are the property of the Smithsonian Institute, the archives. They are the property of the United States of America, and so, if the emir of Qatar or the Qatari state gives the president of the United States a $400 million dollar airplane, that is not a violation of the emoluments clause, it’s perfectly constitutional.”

Dershowitz said that even if Trump were to keep the plane for his personal use, which would possibly make the plane a gift and thus conflict with the constitutional provision, critics of the gift still faced an additional hurdle beside the legal merits when it came to bringing the case in court.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. The bottom line is that this is much ado about nothing–typical for the Democrats.

Who Are The Migrants Being Arrested?

On May 2nd, The Daily Caller reported:

During the week marking President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, ICE agents carried out a series of high-profile arrests of migrants with criminal records, according to a document first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Starting the week of his 100-day mark, booking photos of illegal migrants with convictions or pending charges were displayed along the White House north lawn’s perimeter. Throughout the week,ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO made major arrests across the country, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) releasing details and photos of five of their most significant cases.

The article has pictures and brief details of five of the most significant cases:

ERO Detroit arrested Ludwig Ivan Castaneda-Gonzalez, a 33-year-old Mexican national, this week in Holland, Michigan. According to DHS, Castaneda-Gonzalez’s criminal history includes a conviction for criminal sexual conduct involving a person aged 13 to 15, which encompasses all sex offenses under Michigan law.

In Texas, ERO’s Houston team arrested Jesus Arriaga-Gamez, a 61-year-old Mexican citizen, for his record of aggravated sexual assault of a child. While DHS documents did not outline his full criminal history, they confirmed his conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a child in Cameron County, Texas.

In the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, ERO agents arrested Christian Robles-Andrade, a 34-year-old Mexican citizen. Robles-Andrade, pictured with tattoos covering his body, is described as an active gang member with ties to the 8th Street Gang and goes by the nickname “Tiny.” According to DHS documents, his criminal history includes a conviction for voluntary manslaughter in Los Angeles.

In another sanctuary city on the East Coast, ERO Boston arrested Mario Alexander Ochoa-Lemus, a 33-year-old citizen of El Salvador. His criminal history includes convictions for rape and abuse of a child, child pornography and witness intimidation in Boston.

…On Thursday, DHS announced the arrest of Kwadwo Boaitey Frimpong, a 32-year-old citizen of Ghana, who was detained by ERO Baltimore on Tuesday. Frimpong entered the U.S. in 2019 on an F-1 visa but has since been convicted on seven counts of possession of child pornography, according to DHS. The agency stated he will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of removal proceedings.

These people entered our country illegally. Is there any logical reason to want to keep them here?

When The Actual Numbers Are Different Than The Report

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It seems that the numbers that are being reported are not actually accurate.

The article reports:

National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) both received significantly more taxpayer funding in Fiscal Year 2023 than they had indicated on their tax returns, according to an OpenTheBooks report published Thursday.

On a tax return for the fiscal year ending in September 2023, NPR reported that it received just $40,000 from American taxpayers, which came from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP), a nonprofit organization that invests in public broadcasting, according to OpenTheBooks’ analysis. That amount made up just 0.04% of the $98.57 million in grants NPR received from “all parties” during that period, according to the report.

Meanwhile, at the end of fiscal year 2023, NPR had $388.5 million in total assets, OpenTheBooks’ report found.

Moreover, PBS’ tax return showed it received $22.74 million from the government, according to OpenTheBooks’ analysis. OpenTheBooks found that at the end of fiscal year 2023, PBS had $641.23 million in total assets, an increase of $52 million from the year prior. 

PBS CEO Paula Kerger earns $1,055,135 in salary and $113,526 in “other compensation,” while three other PBS employees make over $500,000, according to OpenTheBooks. Meanwhile, NPR spent $5.18 million on payroll for its officers and key employees, according to the report.

It’s amazing how much a corporation is willing to pay people when it’s not their money and they don’t have to make a profit.

I would just like to comment that if PBS had had good negotiators and good lawyers during the height of Sesame Street’s popularity, they could have set the corporation up for life with the royalties from Tickle Me Elmo, Rubber Ducky, Oscar the Grouch, and Big Bird. not to mention Bert and Ernie. A private enterprise would have done that. That is the difference between a government-run company and a company that needs to make a profit to stay in business.

Making Schools Work

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about what has happened in the Mississippi schools since 2013, when they were ranked the second-worst state in fourth-grade reading to first in the country in 2024.

The article reports:

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves detailed how conservative education reform led his state’s school system to achieve some of the best outcomes in the country, a phenomenon dubbed the “Mississippi Miracle,” in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.

The Associated Press in 2023 referred to the state’s skyrocketing test scores for fourth graders as the “Mississippi Miracle,” explaining, “Mississippi went from being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for fourth-grade reading to 21st in 2022.”

An updated National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card from 2024 shows Mississippi leading the nation in demographic-adjusted 4th- and 8th-grade scores and it went viral on social media.

…Reeves credits getting “back to the basics” for his state’s soaring educational outcomes. In 2013, while Reeves was serving as lieutenant governor, Mississippi passed sweeping education reform legislation, including the “Third Grade Reading Gate,” mandating that schools hold back children who don’t meet certain reading standards before the end of third grade. The state reintroduced phonics — teaching students to sound out words — in its reading education and spent $15 million a year on reading coaches.

The percentage of students who both failed the test and were held back from advancing to the third grade decreased from 9% in 2019 to 6.5% in 2023.

“The other side went crazy … they said, ‘well, we’re going to have to hold back half of our students,’” Reeves recalled. “No, we raised the level of expectations and Mississippians did what Mississippians do — they rose up and they met those increased expectations.”

The article concludes:

“By the way, our high school graduation rates during this time have risen from 72% of our kids graduated from high school to, last year, 89.9% of our kids are graduating high school,” Reeves added.

In addition to the new testing requirements, Mississippi also added new charter schools, created an Educational Savings Account (ESA) program for parents of children with disabilities so they can put their children in programs designed to meet their needs, and followed Florida in providing letter grade ratings for public schools.

“It’s really not a miracle at all,” the governor asserted. “It’s really a result of conservative reforms implemented in public education — they’re making a huge difference for kids.”

We need this in North Carolina.

Where The Money Has Gone

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about taxpayer dollars wasted annually on outdated federal buildings.

The article reports:

Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who leads the Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency (DOGE), opened the hearing by slamming federal agencies for maintaining a bloated real estate footprint. She pledged to continue pushing to “right-size” the federal government’s real estate portfolio.

“Here in D.C., [the Government Accountability Office] found in 2023 that the vast majority of federal agency headquarters buildings were less than 25% occupied — some much less,” Greene said. “Meanwhile, from 2022 to 2024, the backlog of deferred maintenance on the aging buildings the government owns grew from $216 billion to $370 billion. That’s more than one-third of a trillion dollars it will cost to restore them — if we don’t sell them.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has flagged federal property management as a “high-risk” area since 2003. Yet despite two decades of warnings, the Biden administration allowed billions to be spent not only to maintain vacant offices but also on lavish furniture purchases, according to the subcommittee’s review.

The article notes:

David Marroni of the GAO echoed the concern over dysfunction and inertia inside the federal property apparatus.

“The pandemic shined a spotlight on these long-standing problems,” Marroni told lawmakers. “The federal government has held on to too much space and has been too slow in shedding underused properties … Progress has been slow. Agencies were in a wait-and-see mode for too long.”

Marroni said that, for the first time, agencies are being forced to begin tracking actual building utilization data starting this summer.

The  Democrats, as usual, are resisting the cost-cutting measures:

Democrats on the panel said the Trump administration’s rapid disposal plan was ideologically driven and economically reckless.

For the Democrats, even disposing of buildings that are barely used is political. That is why Republicans get elected.

The article concludes:

Republicans fired back. Texas Rep. Pat Fallon cited GAO findings that 17 of the 24 largest federal agencies used less than 25% of their office capacity. Republican South Carolina Rep. William Timmons said the goal was to offload waste and inject new life into dead office space. They cited reforms under the Federal Property Management Act and the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016 as a roadmap for future consolidation.

“I guarantee you that a developer — a big bad developer — is going to come in,” Timmons said. “They’ll build this massive building, put housing in it and pay taxes. That’s the highest and best use.”

Greene said the DOGE subcommittee intends to introduce legislation aimed at streamlining the disposal process for surplus federal property and imposing stricter accountability measures for future real estate acquisitions. She also said the subcommittee would work closely with the White House and the GAO to accelerate selloffs and lease terminations.

Just One Example Of A Major Problem

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about Maryland’s new renewable energy subsidy program. There are a few problems with renewable energy subsidy programs. Many of the companies subsidized with taxpayer money go broke (Solyndra). Many of the people who profit from these programs oddly enough are the people passing the laws that fund these programs. Renewable energy needs to move to the free market where competition can freely find the best and cheapest way to develop and use it.

The article reports:

Democratic Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson is backing legislation to strip trash incinerations from the state’s renewable energy subsidy program — a policy shift that could directly benefit the solar company that now employs him.

Lawmakers are quietly folding the proposal into a broader energy package set for a vote before the legislature adjourns Monday. If it passes, millions in taxpayer-funded renewable energy credits could be redirected from waste-to-energy plants to solar firms like CI Renewables, where Ferguson took a job last year.

Isn’t that a surprise?

The article concludes:

Incinerator operators and labor unions argue the Wheelabrator plant provides union jobs — 65 jobs as of 2019, according to The Real News Network — helps reduce landfill waste and generates baseload electricity, Maryland Matters reported. Removing it from the subsidy program, the operators and unions say, could push the facility toward closure, eliminating local jobs and increasing trash exports to other states.

“[Incineration and solar] are both called renewable energy under the current paradigm in Maryland, but the waste-to-energy incineration issue has been something I’ve been very much against since it started,” Ferguson continued. “I was first elected in 2011 and it was one of the first bills I ever voted on against leadership was when incineration was added as a tier-one renewable source.”

Behind the scenes, lobbyists for waste-to-energy companies are preparing to mount a last-ditch effort to block the bill’s inclusion in the final energy package, according to Maryland Matters.

Politics as usual.

Working For Food Stamps

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some changes Republican leaders want to make to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The article reports:

GOP lawmakers are proposing major reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), including work requirements for a vast swathe of eligible participants, the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) has learned.

Republican Oklahoma Rep. Josh Brecheen and Utah Sen. Mike Lee will reintroduce the SNAP Reform and Upward Mobility Act (SRUMA) Thursday. The legislation would impose work requirements on food stamp recipients between the ages of 18 and 64, including individuals with children of six years of age or older

Able-bodied adults with no dependents between the ages of 18 and 54 are currently eligible for three months of SNAP benefits over three years before work requirements start to kick in, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the program.

The article notes:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans support work requirements for individuals receiving SNAP benefits, according to a 2023 poll conducted by the Axios-Ipsos American Health Index.
Eight in ten registered Republican voters told the survey they back work requirements for SNAP or Medicaid recipients.

Brecheen and Lee’s proposal to rein in the cost of the entitlement program comes as GOP lawmakers are aiming to slash trillions in federal spending to help offset the cost of the president’s tax and spending priorities Congress is currently negotiating.

More than 42 million Americans received monthly SNAP benefits in fiscal year 2023, according to USDA data. Since the 1990s, federal SNAP spending has risen from less than $20 billion to more than $110 billion, according to information shared by Brecheen’s office.

Another suggested revision to the SNAP program is to prohibit the use of SNAP benefits to purchase soft drinks and most junk food. I may be cynical, but I suspect that if that rule is put into place, we will see a lot of food products suddenly renamed to avoid the restriction.

Change is needed. I don’t mind helping a person buy food in a time of need, but I also believe that people who are able to work should be required to work at least part time to get government benefits.

Slowly Moving Toward Justice

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that President Trump had pardoned Devon Archer. Devon Archer is a former business partner of Hunter Biden.

The article reports:

President Donald Trump pardoned Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer on Tuesday.

Trump signed the pardon on Tuesday, saying that Archer was a victim of a “crime” and treated “very unfairly.” Archer had been facing a year and a day in prison for his role in defrauding a Native American tribe and other clients by fraudulently issuing and selling over $60 million worth of bonds.

“Devon Archer was a former business partner of the Biden family. He was prosecuted relating to a fraud investigation, but notably, the tone and tenor of that prosecution changed dramatically after he began to cooperate with congressional investigators and serve as a witness against Hunter Biden and the Biden family. We believe that was an injustice, and therefore we’re asking you to pardon him,” White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf told the president, showing him the executive order.

The article concludes:

Both Hunter Biden and Archer are former Burisma board members, and both made over $80,000 per month at one point while working for the company during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, bank records show.

Archer testified that the former president had spoken with Hunter Biden’s former business associates around 20 times and specifically described a spring 2014 dinner with Russian oligarch Elena Baturina and a spring 2015 dinner that the former president attended with Burisma executive, Vadim Pozharskyi.

Trump promised Archer a pardon on Saturday, according to the New York Post, when the pair met at the NCAA Wrestling Championship. President Biden issued a full pardon to his son and other family members before leaving office.

The Biden family will probably never be brought to justice for their influence peddling, but at least the people the Biden family used the justice system to attack can be pardoned.

The Lies Told In The Quest For Clean Energy

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a study of the carbon footprint of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The article reports:

The Biden administration deliberately buried a final draft version of a study that would have undermined its January 2024 decision to pause approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, according to four Department of Energy (DOE) sources.

Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and former President Joe Biden announced the LNG freeze in January 2024, stating that it would remain in place until the DOE could conduct a fresh study of the climate and economic impacts of LNG export growth. The Biden DOE finalized a draft of the study in 2023 and subsequently buried it because the initial version’s findings would have contradicted the administration’s rationale for the LNG freeze, according to four sources inside the Trump DOE granted anonymity by the Daily Caller News Foundation to freely discuss a sensitive matter.

“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told the DCNF. “They were prioritizing their own political ambitions over the interests of the American people, and the administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.”

The article notes:

While the September 2023 and December 2024 versions of the paper bear the same name, the final version released to the public did not include a specific type of analysis of LNG exports known as the consideration of market effects, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That particular analysis — included in the buried September 2023 version of the study, but not the final product — found that U.S. LNG exports would bring down global emissions by displacing more polluting sources of energy abroad, and its absence from the December 2024 version allowed the Biden DOE to skew the final report’s findings against increasing LNG exports.

This report is interesting considering the fact that according to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, President Biden was unaware that he had shut down LNG exports (article here). According to Speaker Johnson, the President was only aware that he had ordered a study. It is becoming obvious that in recent years, our government has lied to us about a number of things.

Moving Forward To Secure Our Borders

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the construction of the border wall on America’s southern border.

The article reports:

The first border wall contract of President Donald Trump’s second term, valued at approximately $70 million, was announced Saturday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it awarded the contract, worth $70,285,846, to the Watsonville, California-based Granite Construction Co., mandating the company to erect “approximately seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas, within the U.S. Border Patrol’s (USBP) Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector.”

The areas the new wall is expected to close off were “critical openings in the border wall that were left incomplete due to cancelled contracts during the Biden Administration,” according to CBP.

Many illegal migrants, human traffickers and drug smugglers exploited the RGV sector — a situation which necessitated completing the border wall there, CBP said.

The article concludes:

The Trump administration announced the completion of 450 miles of “new border wall system” in early January 2021, shortly before the Biden administration took office, the Department of Homeland Security noted at the time.

Former President Joe Biden terminated Trump’s 2019 declaration of a national emergency at the southern border and paused construction of the wall, dismissing walling off the entire stretch of the southern border as “not a serious policy solution” and the national emergency as “unwarranted”.

Missouri and Texas immediately sued the Biden administration, and Missouri obtained a court order compelling Biden to restore the $1.4 billion funding for the construction effort.

Congressional investigators later ruled the suspension of the border wall contract was legal — but the ruling drew objection from Republican lawmakers, according to CBS News.

Encounters at the southern border plummeted to lows not seen since the 1980s by the second month of Trump’s second term.

As President Trump said in his March 4th speech:

The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.

We are moving toward a safer America.

What Hypocrisy?

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a judge who is listed as a fellow in Columbia University’s human rights program. The judge seems to have a limited understanding of human rights.

The article reports:

A British jury convicted United Nations Judge Lydia Mugambe on Thursday of forcing a Ugandan woman into domestic servitude after luring her to the U.K. under false pretenses.

Mugambe, who also serves as a high court judge in Uganda, brought the victim to Britain under the guise of securing her a job in a diplomatic household — only to make her work as an unpaid maid and nanny. She confiscated the victim’s passport and visa, leaving her trapped until she was able to contact a friend, who alerted authorities, according to a Thames Valley Police statement.

“Lydia Mugambe used her position to exploit a vulnerable young woman, controlling her freedom and making her work without payment,” Eran Clutliffe, an attorney for the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, said.

The 49-year-old judge, who was studying for a doctorate at the University of Oxford at the time, according to her profile on the U.N.’s website, was found guilty on four charges, including forced labor, an immigration offense and conspiracy to intimidate a witness. Mugambe is also listed on Columbia University’s website as a fellow in their human rights program. Prosecutors argued she “exploited and abused” the victim’s lack of knowledge about her rights to keep her in a state of servitude.

Mugambe leveraged her connections within the Ugandan High Commission in London to secure a visa for the victim, presenting it as an official employment opportunity, according to court testimony. Instead of placing the woman in a diplomatic household, however, Mugambe brought her to her private residence and forced her to work without pay.

…Mugambe, who was appointed to a U.N. international court in May 2023, denied all charges. She is scheduled for sentencing May 2.

A United Nations judge guilty of having a slave. Wow! It really is time to get America out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of America.

Speaking of hypocrisy at the United Nations, the United Nations has also appointed Saudi Arabia as the head of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69). I understand that the government of Saudi Arabia is moving to expand the rights of women in their country, but making Saudi Arabia the head of a commission on the status of women is like asking a fox to design a hen house.

Predicted Catastrophes That Never Happened

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted a list of the Top 10 catastrophic climate predictions that failed.

Here is the list:

1) In 1970, S. Dillon Ripley, a wildlife conservationist who served as secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, warned that 75 percent to 80 percent of species would be extinct by 1995. Wrong.

2) In 1970, Kenneth Watt, an ecologist and professor at the University of California, Davis, warned that “there won’t be any more crude oil,” that “none of our land will be usable” for agriculture, and the world would be 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. False.

3) In 1970, biologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University warned that by the end of the decade up to 200 million people would die each year from starvation due to overpopulation, life expectancy would plummet to 42 years, and all ocean life would perish. Extremely false.

4) In 1970, Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, predicted that “world population will outrun food supplies” and “the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine” by the year 2000. Didn’t happen.

5) In 1971, Dr. S. I. Rasool, an atmospheric scientist at NASA, predicted the coming of a “new ice age” within 50 years. Incorrect.

6) In 1975, Ehrlich, the Stanford biologist, warned that 90 percent of tropical rainforests and 50 percent of species would disappear within 30 years. Erroneous. 

You get the picture. Please follow the link to the article to read the last four predictions. All of these predictions called for a change in behavior or more money to be taken from Americans. All of these predictions were wrong. We went along with many of them, either changing our behavior or paying more in various taxes or fees. Let’s learn from our mistakes.

The Impact Of Proposed Tariffs

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported that Honda will be moving some of its manufacturing from Mexico to Indiana as a result of President Trump’s tariff plans for Mexico,

The article reports:

Honda intends to move production of one of its best-selling car models to the U.S. from Mexico in an attempt to avoid potential tariffs, Reuters reported on Monday.

The major automaker decided to shift production of its next-generation Civic hybrid car to Indiana, three anonymous sources told Reuters. The news comes after President Donald Trump on Feb. 1 imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico alongside 10% tariffs on imported goods from China in an attempt to stop deadly drugs and illegal migrants coming into the U.S. from the countries.

The article concludes:

Ahead of Trump’s recent return to the White House, there were a growing number of reports of U.S.-based companies gearing up to shift their production out of foreign countries such as China in anticipation of the incoming Trump administration implementing new tariffs. Notably, Trump signaled on Feb. 19 that reaching a trade deal with Beijing was “possible.”

A spokesperson for Honda did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

There are other reasons for moving manufacturing back to the U.S. under the Trump Presidency. President Trump has shown in the past that he wants to reduce regulations and increase energy production. Less regulation and cheaper (and stable) energy attract manufacturing. Also, the corporate tax under President Trump (if Congress cooperates) will remain low. In the last Trump administration, many corporations brought their manufacturing back to America. If the Trump administration policies are put in place, that will happen again.

Don’t Let The Taxpayers Have Their Own Money!

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article spotlighting one Democrat’s reaction to the idea of refunding some of the money the Department of Government Efficiency saves back to the taxpayers–the people who paid it. I love the idea of giving money back only to those who actually pay taxes.

The article reports:

Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett could not comprehend the idea of the federal government handing out dividends to Americans over the money it has wasted for decades during a Thursday segment on ABC News.

President Donald Trump expressed interest in handing out $5,000 dividend checks to every taxpayer with the money saved by the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) downsizing of the federal government. Crockett said she does not believe $5,000 will help out the average American and appeared to ignore the fact that the federal government has wasted billions of dollars in spending for several years.

…DOGE reported on Monday that it saved $55 billion in federal spending by conducting mass layoffs and dismantling various government agencies. Trump’s newly established department dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Feb. 3 to end its spending on left-wing causes abroad, including a $200 grant to fund sex change operations in Guatemala and its $47,000 in spending on a transgender opera in Colombia, according to the White House.

The article concludes:

Musk, who is overseeing many of DOGE’s efforts, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday that the agency “must be over the target” for Democrats to be so upset about their efforts.

“I guess we must be over the target or doing something right. They wouldn’t be complaining so much if we weren’t doing something useful, I think,” Musk said. “What all we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president. What we’re finding is that there’s an unelected bureaucracy — speaking of unelected, there’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet.”

If she doesn’t want her check, I will gladly take it for her.

Representative Crockett was not in Congress when the three Covid stimulus checks were handed out. I can’t help but wonder if she would have approved.

Just A Small Part Of The Problem

Elon Musk shared this on X:

Image

These are the ages of people currently listed on the Social Security payment list. It is unclear how many of them are actually receiving Social Security checks. I personally would like to interview one of the 300-plus-year-old people to find out their longevity secrets.

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

“I’ve been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington D.C. swamp who are trying to fear monger the American people into believing that this administration is going after their hard earned tax dollars and their hard earned Social Security checks,” Leavitt (White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt) said to host Sean Hannity. “So I want to set the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the DOGE team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration.”

“They haven’t dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. So their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things,” Leavitt added.

…Leavitt went on to describe DOGE’s and Musk’s main goal regarding the SSA’s potential waste, saying that the “legacy fake news” was attempting to “fear” people into believing the Trump administration had other motives.

“Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them. Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money,” Leavitt said. “Number three, to protect the integrity of this system for hard working Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives. So, rest assured to all of the people watching your show tonight, if you paid into the system, honestly, you will continue to receive your Social Security tax checks.”

It is definitely time to make sure that everyone entitled to get payments from Social Security gets them and that everyone who is not entitled to get payments from Social Security does not get them.

Giving Freedom Back To Consumers

On Friday, The Daily Caller reported that President Trump will direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Lee Zeldin to begin reversing water standard regulations on household appliances including sinks, dishwashers, showers and washing machines. Notice that these are not laws that President Trump is amending–these are regulations passed by unelected bureaucrats.

The article reports:

“I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my Environmental Orders, which were terminated by Crooked Joe Biden, on Water Standards and Flow pertaining to SINKS, SHOWERS, TOILETS, WASHING MACHINES, DISHWASHERS, etc., and to likewise go back to the common sense standards on LIGHTBULBS, that were put in place by the Trump Administration, but terminated by Crooked Joe,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post. “I look forward to signing these Orders. THANK YOU!!!”

Former President Joe Biden introduced various green energy regulations as part of his signature climate agenda, including tightening energy efficiency regulations on a range of household appliances including dishwashers, gas stoves, light bulbs and water heaters.

The article concludes:

The president also signed an executive order on Jan. 20 to “unleash” America’s “affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.”

“In recent years, burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens,” Trump stated in the executive order. “These high energy costs devastate American consumers by driving up the cost of transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing, while weakening our national security.”

American consumers are perfectly capable of making their own decisions on stoves, water heaters, washing machines, etc. The government does not have to supervise their purchases.