Tag Archives: The Daily Caller

Understanding The Value Of A Team

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Washington state.

The article reports:

A federal court handed Washington state Christians a major legal victory by allowing churches to exclusively hire members of their own faith for jobs beyond strictly ministerial roles in one of the least religious states in the country.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Washington state’s interpretation of its Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) in a unanimous ruling. The Yakima Union Gospel Mission can prefer and hire “co-religionists for non-ministerial roles.”

As any corporate executive can tell you, a corporation (or company) functions best when everyone has the same goals. That rule also applies to churches and ministries. Division in the ranks can easily derail any program.

The article notes:

The WLAD “prohibits employment discrimination based on several protected grounds, including sexual orientation,” according to the ruling’s summary. However, Union Gospel required workers to abide by Christian beliefs and practices regarding abstinence from sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and woman. The organization sued, alleging the WLAD violated its First Amendment protection under the Religion Clauses, a claim the court agreed with.

“Today’s ruling is especially significant because it answers an under-explored First Amendment question: Does a religious organization’s right to hire fellow believers extend to all staff positions, or only to ‘ministerial’ ones?” said Kristen Waggoner, head of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented Union Gospel. “In what we believe to be the first federal appellate court ruling of its kind, the Ninth Circuit explicitly held that the First Amendment protects faith-based hiring for all staff — not just ministerial employees.”

The article concludes:

A 2024 Pew Research study found Washington state was tied with New York as the 37th least religious state in the U.S., with only 25% of Washingtonians considering themselves “very religious,” according to MyNorthwest.

Only 51% of Washington residents identified themselves as Christians, with 38% of Washington adults claiming they had no ties to any faith, MyNorthwest reported.

Although Union Gospel aims to hire those who share its religious beliefs, no discrimination or moral requirements are placed on recipients of its aid, according to the AFD press release.

Letting Children Freeze For The Sake Of Your Agenda

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It is generally common knowledge that batteries do not respond well to cold weather. They tend to lose their charge quickly. That is one of many reasons I am skeptical about electric cars and electric school busses in areas of the country that have real winter. Well, my skepticism has been proved to be warranted.

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

This is a classic example of bureaucratic blindness to unintended consequences and projects that might sound rational in theory but end up absurd in practice.

New York has mandated that all school bus purchases must be entirely electric by 2027, citing cleaner air, “better academic outcomes,” a quieter, more peaceful ride for students and staff, among other seemingly bogus reasons. Now that schools across the state are making the transition, one school district in western New York, the Lake Shore Central School District, is confronting a downside: heating.

WIVB News 4, a local news outlet in Erie County, New York, has received several calls from parents alleging that their kids come home freezing cold because drivers turn down or completely turn off the heat to save energy for the electric engines.

“The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself,” Scott Ziobro, a local parent, told the outlet. “They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself.”

…Another parent said an electric bus broke down, leaving kids stranded in the cold.

“The bus broke down en route,” parent Chris Lampman told the outlet. “They deployed a substitute bus, and the bus was more than 30 minutes late. My son stood outside for over 35 minutes waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming. Some of those kids are on there for upwards of a half hour or more while the bus makes its route. There’s no reason that the kids should freeze for all that time.”

The people who make the rules need to be subject to them. Let’s make every legislator or school board member who supported the electric buses ride them to work!

The Democrats Used To Be For Working Americans

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Democrat-led states to block President Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. In addition to bringing money into America, the fee will help open up technology jobs for Americans. Many of these jobs are currently being filled by the visa recipients because the recipients demand a far lower salary than American workers. Also, a large number of the recipients send money back to their home countries so that the money they earn never goes back into the American economy.

The article reports:

A coalition of Democrat-led states announced a lawsuit earlier in December to block the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, claiming that U.S. employers are in need of the “highly skilled” labor provided by the H-1B visa system. American tech workers — many of whom are unable to find employment or have left the industry entirely out of frustration — say the lawsuit is the latest sign that the Democrat Party is no longer representative of the everyday working man.

“This is liberal states itching to ‘stand up to Trump,’ married by convenience to the Indian lobby and Big Business,” John, a cybersecurity professional in the Seattle area who has struggled to land a job for a year, told the the Daily Caller News Foundation about the lawsuit. John said Democrat claims about labor shortages in higher education are “crap” and that American citizens could “easily” be hired for these positions.

Like all five of the current and former tech workers who spoke to the DCNF, John wished to only go by his first name out of fear of reprisal from potential employers.

The article concludes:

“These corporations buy these politicians to bring in this cheap foreign cheap foreign labor, illegal and legal, to depress American wages,” Joseph continued. “It’s a worker issue, not a MAGA issue, so that’s the biggest thing.”

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention was a pivotal moment cited by Joseph and the other American workers who spoke to the DCNF about the changing political landscape. As president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the largest labor union on the continent, O’Brien made history as the first union leader to address the GOP convention and has since forged closer ties with national Republicans.

Many struggling tech workers said they aren’t looking for handouts from either party, but simply want political leaders to give them a chance to earn an honest day’s work.

“The H-1B program was created in order to cheapen the value of tech labor,” Riley, who left the tech industry entirely due to issues finding work, told the DCNF. “We’ve never had a shortage of tech labor in the United States, and so I don’t see the program continuing to be a good thing.”

The corporations bought the politicians, and the politicians did what was right for the corporations–not what was right for the country.

The Obstruction Tactics Are Becoming Less Effective

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President Trump has an amazing learning curve. During his first administration, the Washington swamp pretty much controlled things. This time–not so much.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported:

Republicans will confirm a bloc of eight dozen Trump nominees as soon as next week following an attempted blockade by Senate Democrats.

Republican leadership planned Thursday to kick-off the procedural process to confirm 88 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a bloc vote, but were initially thwarted by Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who challenged the package for violating Senate rules. When Republicans refiled the package later on Thursday, the conference included an additional nine nominees, bringing the total to nearly 100.

Democrats blocked the group package because Sara Bailey — one of President Donald Trump’s nominees included in the package — was not eligible to be included.

When Republicans went nuclear in September to streamline the confirmation process over Democrats’ fierce objections, the conference did not allow cabinet-level positions or judicial appointments to be confirmed in a group package.

Bailey, a former Fox News contributor, has been tapped to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is a senior-level position on par with a cabinet secretary.

…The new package includes former Republican New York Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who has been appointed to serve as inspector general of the Department of Labor. Thirteen U.S. attorney nominees and dozens of lower-level executive branch nominees are also teed up for confirmation.

The article concludes:

The Senate has confirmed 314 civilian nominees as of Thursday evening, according to a tally by the Senate Republican Communications Center.

The 97-member bloc would bring the Senate to more than 410 civilian confirmations in the first year of Trump’s second term.

“That far outstrips total confirmations by this point in President Biden’s term, and in President Trump’s first term as well,” Thune said Thursday.

Thune also said that Senate Republicans have virtually cleared the nominations backlog. Before Republicans changed Senate precedent to allow for certain nominees to be confirmed in groups, more than 150 of the president’s picks were awaiting floor consideration.

The Senate approved a 48-member nominations package in September and an additional 108 of the president’s picks in a single group vote in October.

Bennet celebrated his short-lived blockade of Trump’s nominees Thursday before Republicans added more individuals to the resolution.

“I will not allow unqualified nominees, this White House, or the President to undermine the rule of law and our national security,” the Colorado Democrat wrote in a statement posted to social media.

It would be really nice if Congress would stop playing politics and do their job!

It’s The Economy, Stupid!

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article featuring some comments by Hugh Hewitt on how the Republicans need to frame the 2026 midterm elections. Currently, the Democrat word of the day is ‘affordability,’ but what the Democrats fail to realize is that for the working American, affordability is improving.

The article reports:

“I think if the message remains ‘Affordability decides elections,’ Republicans are going to like next November because most prices depend upon energy. And the energy production policies that you saw Secretary [Chris] Wright refer to there and Secretary Burgum over at Interior, are bringing the cost of oil and gas down,” Hewitt told host Bret Baier. “I was in Fort Worth this week. Gas costs $2.55 in Fort Worth this week. I was kind of surprised at how low it is. In the Beltway it’s about $3.50. And out in California, it’s almost $5, $5.50 on average, depends on where you live. But it’s going down.”

The national average for regular gasoline fell below $3 this week for the first time in four years, settling at $2.99 since Tuesday. Analysts say weaker demand, cheaper winter-blend fuel and lower crude prices near $60 a barrel are all driving the decline.

The article concludes:

“So we are bringing prices down. Way down. Beef is coming down now. We have done certain magic. Beef is coming down. We inherited horrible prices. We inherited, really, the worst, again, the worst inflation in history. We inherited that. When I came in, that was what he had, and we fixed inflation. And we fixed almost everything if you want to know the truth, including eight wars. We got one to go, including eight wars,” the president said.

After Democrats scored a string of prominent victories in November, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair told Politico that Republicans would redirect their messaging toward affordability ahead of the midterms. Blair said Trump knows economic recoveries aren’t instantaneous but believes the underlying indicators are improving.

“The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair told the outlet.

How many Americans had more money in their pockets to spend of Christmas this year?

This Is Upsetting

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In recent articles, I have mentioned the concept of a color revolution. A color revolution generally includes protest-driven political upheaval aimed at replacing the current government. Many of these revolutions are actually named after a color that is used as the name and symbol of the revolution (for example, the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the 2005 Cedar Revolution in Lebanon). Generally speaking, the results of these revolutions were not positive in the long run. A lot of recent events in America are following the sequence of a color revolution.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) agents in New York City.

The article reports:

Rioters in New York City attempted to block U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from leaving a parking garage Saturday, leading to at least 18 arrests.

As many as 200 people gathered outside, piling garbage and blocking the entrance to the garage with their bodies, The New York Times reported. New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch blamed ICE for the clash with the protesters, claiming the shows of force by federal agents placed police officers, citizens and the agents at risk, according to the New York Post.

The media has worked very hard to demonize ICE and the people who support their work. They have also demonized the police and the National Guard who are helping ICE and helping maintain order in some of our larger cities. One result of this is the recent murder of a young National Guardsman. Another result is the people protesting ICE. When did individual Americans have the right to decide which laws of our country should be enforced and which laws should be ignored? The real meaning of ‘illegal’ is ‘illegal.’

Now is the time to be aware of everything that is going on around you and not to participate in anything that undermines law enforcement in America. We all need to be part of the solution–not part of the problem.

Returning To Their Roots

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The root of the Christian Church is the Bible. However, sometimes the church gets caught up in the culture and wanders from its roots. It is always good news when the church speaks out about things in the culture that conflict with Biblical teaching. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently spoke out on one of those issues.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported:

Members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland, to ban the use of transgender medical procedures in Catholic hospitals across the nation.

Although most Catholic hospitals were already not offering such procedures, the change became permanent as the bishops issued an “authoritative guidance” for the healthcare facilities, according to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). They approved an updated text for the Ethics and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services in a vote with 206 in favor, 8 voting no and 7 abstaining.

Part III of the text tells Catholic healthcare providers not to offer interventions “that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex,” according to the NCR.

The directive instructs workers to “employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria,” while respecting “the fundamental order of the human body.”

The article concludes:

“Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent,” Francis (Pope Francis) continued. “Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.”

The Catholic Health Association of the United States said it will review the directives and called them consistent with its policy, noting 1 in 7 U.S. patients receive care from a Catholic hospital daily, according to a statement .

“Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender,” the statement continues. “We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalized.”

All of us need to treat everyone who is transgender with respect. We also need to realize that encouraging someone to transition is encouraging them to do something that will have permanent consequences.

When Politics Is More Important Than What Is Good For Americans

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent vote taken in the Senate.

The article reports:

Almost all Senate Democrats rejected a bipartisan bill Friday evening to pay active-duty troops and federal employees reporting to work, including Capitol Police officers, during the 38-day government shutdown.

Lawmakers voted 53 to 43 to advance the federal worker pay bill, falling seven votes short of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. The failed vote marks the second time a majority of Democrats have blocked legislation to pay some federal workers during the funding lapse.

I guess they really care about the well being of working Americans.

The article notes:

“Let me be clear about what a ‘no’ vote means,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-highest-ranking Senate Republican, said during floor remarks Friday. “A NO vote is a vote to refuse to pay air traffic controllers who are working. Refuse to pay TSA agents who are working. Refuse to pay military members who are serving around the world. Refuse to pay Capitol Police officers who are here in this building working.”

The article concludes:

GOP lawmakers have been adamant throughout the 38-day shutdown that they will not negotiate on health care policy until Democrats vote to fund the government.

“Democrats want to give $35 billion next year to insurance companies for subsidies with no fraud controls and to benefit the wealthy. Hard no, Chuck,” Senate Republicans’ X account wrote, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

President Donald Trump called on the Senate to stay in session over the weekend to hammer out a deal. If lawmakers do not come to an agreement, Trump called on Republicans to invoke the nuclear option and kill the Senate’s legislative filibuster to pass a funding measure on their own.

Thune told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that Republicans lack the votes to nuke the longstanding procedural rule.

“Not even close,” the majority leader said of the whip count.

As the shutdown continues, I suspect there may be more senators willing to end the filibuster. This is ridiculous!

A Change Of Heart

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a change in the immigration policy of Germany.

The article reports:

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is now planning to send thousands of Syrian refugees back to their home nation after suppressing the speech of right-wingers who have long advised the same.

Merz said on Monday that he will begin discussing repatriation of Syrians in Germany after a new government under Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa ousted Bashar al-Assad in late 2024. Currently, there are roughly 1 million Syrian refugees in Germany, most of whom were fleeing the devastation of their country’s civil war.

“The civil war in Syria is over,” Merz told reporters Monday. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can begin repatriating people.”

Merz has previously refused to work with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been at the forefront of anti-immigration policy in the nation’s parliament. In fact, Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), instead formed a coalition government with the left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD).

…Germany has long struggled with an influx of Syrian refugees, some of whom were responsible for terrorist attacks and plots in the nation. Across Europe, the influx of refugees prompted political backlash, emboldening right-wing, anti-immigration parties and pressuring liberal governments to crack down on immigration.

Vice President JD Vance criticized Europe’s pervasive censorship laws during the Munich Security Conference in February, while also voicing support for AfD during his visit.

A number of European nations have had second thoughts about their open borders. Immigrants flowing in from Muslim countries do not always have values that are compatible with western countries.

In September 2024, Newsweek reported:

The Swedish government has said it will start offering certain migrants up to 350,000 Swedish kronor ($34,000) in exchange for returning to their countries of origin from 2026.

In September 2024, EuroWeekly reported:

Sweden´s incentive comes as other European countries offer repatriation grants to encourage migrants to go home and stricter immigration laws come into place. Today, Denmark pays more than €13, 532 per person to leave the country, Norway offers €1,263, France offers €2,526, and Germany, in which border controls have been increased, proposes €1,804. 

Unbridled immigration from places that do not share cultural values is generally not a good thing for a country.

Not All Democrats Support The Government Shutdown

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about one union that is not supporting the current Schumer Shutdown.

The article reports:

Senate Democrats were dealt a severe blow on Monday morning when the country’s largest federal workers union called for a swift end to the government shutdown.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing more than 800,000 government workers, released an open letter calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus to vote for a House-passed bipartisan spending bill to reopen the government. Schumer and a majority of Democrats have voted against a clean funding measure to reopen the government a dozen times — and will vote on a spending bill to end the shutdown for a 13th time as soon as Tuesday.

“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today,” AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a statement. “No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay — today.”

The article notes:

Monday marks Day 27 of the government shutdown that continues to stretch on despite mounting financial distress for Americans who receive federal paychecks or depend on federal food aid programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Congress has passed 36 continuing resolutions to fund the government rather than following the regular budget process since January 2009. During the Biden administration Congress passed 13 continuing resolutions. Trump derangement syndrome is about to cost people their food stamps and government checks.

The article concludes:

Senate Democrats, however, show few signs of relenting from their hardball tactics that have kept the government shuttered for one of the longest durations in American history. Schumer continues to demand an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies — in addition to a bevy of costly left-wing priorities — in exchange for reopening the government.

Just three Democratic caucus members have crossed party lines to vote for the bipartisan spending measure. Republicans must get buy-in from an additional five Democrats in order to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for government funding bills and end the shutdown.

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has consistently voted against the bipartisan funding measure, arguing the bill does not do enough to cut spending.

A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The Numbers Are Out

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the economic impact  that immigrants from Somalia have had on the Dutch economy.

The article reports:

Immigrants are no longer expected to melt into American culture. In fact, even the suggestion of it is supposedly racist.

A wide-ranging data set out of the Netherlands is going viral this morning. It shows that immigrants from Somalia end up being a net drain on the Dutch economy. At the same time, it shows that North American and Japanese migrants are a net gain for the economy.

In fact, most everywhere that doesn’t have a native Western culture ends up being a massive net drag on the economy. Arab, African, Southwest Asia (Afghanistan et al.), all the Arab states. All in the toilet as far as becoming contributing members of the Dutch economy.

One estimate put the lifetime cost of the roughly 43,000 Somalis living there at around €50 billion, with a B.

People … noticing … these data were also throwing U.K. data around.

Only one in ten Somalis in the U.K. is employed. More than a quarter of Eritreans and just over one in five Somalis are in prison in Scotland.

And what about the U.S.? Did you see the story about the depressed Pennsylvania town with a population of 4,000 that imported 2,000 Haitians to work in a factory? The company defaulted. The factory closed. There are now 2,000 unemployed Haitians with no legal status living in a small Pennsylvania town. 

The article concludes:

We’ve been told two things over and over and over again. 1. Low-skilled, quasi-legal or outright illegal immigration is a net boost to the economy. 2. Forcing immigrants to learn English and adopt Western culture is racist.

I don’t think either of those things is true.

You know what they will do in spades though — as they’re flooding communities and draining economies — vote Democrat.

There is a difference in cultures. Expecting people from non-western cultures who come here in large groups to assimilate is not realistic. As individuals they might assimilate, but in large groups they can stay within their own people and never become assimilated American citizens.

Misplaced Priorities

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the spending priorities in the state of Oregon.

The article reports:

Oregon will spend more in its current budget period on free health care for immigrants regardless of legal status than on state police by $500 million or more, according to state officials and budget documents.

Oregon officials expect to spend $1.5 billion in combined state and federal taxpayer dollars on a program that offers health benefits to illegal aliens from 2025 to 2027. They expect to spend $717 million on Oregon State Police over the same period, the documents indicate.

The state’s health agency, the Oregon Health Authority, said in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the state expects to allocate $1.2 billion to the program — originally named “Cover All People” and now called the “Healthier Oregon Program” (HOP). Oregon lays out budgets in two-year “bienniums.”

The federal government will supply 25% of the funding to provide health benefits to illegal aliens in Oregon, the OHA told the DCNF.

The data emblematizes some of the Democratic stronghold’s policy priorities — facilitating illegal immigrants’ access to health care and reducing criminal crackdowns. These very policies have touched off a government shutdown in Washington, D.C., and protests in Portland.

Medicaid — the joint federal-state program that traditionally provided health services to children, pregnant mothers and disabled adults — formally bars illegal immigrants from receiving benefits.

But some blue states have innovated creative accounting methods to extract federal dollars without the federal restrictions, according to the Paragon Health Institute, a non-partisan policy research group. Blue states will issue taxes on Medicaid insurers and providers, obtain a bundle of federal matching dollars for those funds, then return the taxed money to those institutions, the think tank points out.

The article concludes with some information on what is happening in Portland:

Meanwhile in Portland, nightly protests continue outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

Attorneys for the state of Oregon and city of Portland have argued in court against the deployment of the National Guard, saying that violent crime in Portland is significantly down.

But on Wednesday, the Portland City Council heard testimony from several small business owners who argued in support of an initiative to revive Portland storefronts amid break-ins, fires, graffiti, shoplifting, public drug use and visible mental health crises.

“I’ve replaced a total of nine windows, three locks from attempted break-ins, I’ve been spit on, I’ve been punched twice, once resulting in a black eye. I had a man masturbating in my window. I’ve had a gun pulled on me twice — once was last week. I’ve had a knife pulled on me,” said Steve Cook, owner of Portland business Vinyl Resting Place. “When I’m found dead in my shop, I’m gonna be like ‘I told you so.’”

The voters in Oregon need to take a good look at where their money is going and whether or not they want to be safe in their homes.

The End Of A Boondoggle

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported that the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert will be shut down next year.

The article reports:

Boosted by $1.6 billion in taxpayer-backed loans in 2011, the gargantuan project was hailed by President Obama’s first energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, as “an example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy.”

Instead, it has become yet another example of central planners squandering taxpayer money on an ill-conceived green-energy boondoggle. Covering five square miles of the sun-drenched Mojave Desert, 65 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Ivanpah features three 459-foot towers and 173,500 computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats. “The mirrors reflect heat from the sun to a receiver mounted on top of the tower,” energy consultant Edward Smeloff told the New York Post. “That heats a fluid. It creates steam [that spins] a conventional steam turbine. It is complicated.”

So complicated, in fact, that the project ran with breathtaking inefficiency. Since going into operation in 2014, Ivanpah, built at a cost of $2.2 billion, never came close to meeting its boosters’ lofty expectations. In the world of solar energy, Ivanpah found itself unable to compete with conventional photovoltaic installations, which themselves are unable to meet the soaring demands of electricity-hungry artificial intelligence (AI).

The solar farm was a very efficient bird incinerator:

But whatever its shortcomings in producing electricity, Ivanpah has been a super-efficient killer of birds. The light generated from the mirrors’ reflection of the sun can reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees. Birds unfortunate enough to fly over the “clean-energy” facility could be burned alive in the intense heat. According to the Association of Avian Veterinarians, Ivanpah is believed to be responsible for at least 6,000 bird deaths each year,” the Post reported.

The article concludes:

America’s creaky electric grid desperately needs reliable baseline energy to power the nation’s homes and businesses. Energy-hungry, AI-driven data centers require gobs of electricity 24/7/365 that is best generated on-site by small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Furthermore, the U.S. can flex its muscles by exporting its abundant oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), and even coal, to eager customers worldwide. In this emerging world, there should be no place for subsidized, intermittent wind and solar power, much less the soon-to-be shuttered Ivanpah monstrosity in the Mojave Desert.

And if the powers that be in Beijing still want to be the global leaders in green energy, let them.

Drill, baby, drill.

Common Sense From An Interesting Source

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I will admit I was not impressed when John Fetterman was elected to the Senate. His total ignoring of the dress code seemed tacky to me; and for a while, he didn’t really seem to know much. However, he has definitely become a light in a very dark party.

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman had a blunt message for members of his own party amid tense negotiations over a potential government shutdown.

Democratic lawmakers returned to Washington Monday and vowed to keep the government open, even as they voted against a GOP spending bill in the Senate that would temporarily fund operations. Fetterman had a blunt suggestion for Democrats holding the line in government shutdown talks: “win elections,” he reportedly said, according to CNN’s Manu Raju, who posted the quote Monday on X.

He may be the only Democrat who understands this principle. Actually, the lack of understanding in the Democrat party might partially be the result of the behavior of the Republicans in the past–they rolled over and played dead anytime the Democrats challenged them. Well, things have obviously changed. The Republicans have found their spine!

The article notes:

“John Fetterman, pushing back on Dems’ hardline over shutdown talks, says he has a suggestion for his party as it demands changes on health care policy as part of spending talks: ‘Win elections,’ he told us,” Raju wrote.

Democrats said a government shutdown could impact their constituents. Most of them, though, stood by their vote to block a Republican-led plan to keep the government open.

…President Donald Trump met with congressional leaders Monday in a last-ditch effort to prevent a government shutdown. Both sides left the White House without a deal. Democrats continued to demand health care concessions. Republicans pushed for a clean funding extension.

One of the major health care concessions is funding medical care for illegal aliens. I believe that the Democrat party is on the wrong side of that issue–most Americans have enough trouble paying for their own health care.

There Need To Be Severe Consequences For Political Violence

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It’s been a tough few weeks. We had a church shot up with children in it. We had Charlie Kirk assassinated. Now we have a young person shooting up an ICE facility. Something is very wrong. For whatever reason, people are evidently forgetting their debating skills and resorting to violence.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported:

A suspect who fired shots near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Wednesday morning in Dallas, Texas, left “anti-ICE” messages on rounds, FBI officials said.

Police found the shooter dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the suspect shot three victims, killing two, officials said at a Wednesday press conference. “Early evidence that we’ve seen from rounds that were found near the suspected shooter contain messages that are anti-ICE in nature,” said Joseph Rothrock, special agent in charge at the FBI’s Dallas field office.

The early reports say that the shooter fired from the rooftop of an adjacent building. FBI Director Kash Patel posted the following on X:

I did read a report that the shooter was a young man in his late 20’s. If that is true, I wonder what we are teaching our young people.

Extortion Or Negotiation?

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the ongoing budget negotiations in Congress. The House of Representatives has passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) which represents a ‘clean bill’ which generally continues things as they are rather than adding additional items. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is demanding some major Democrat additions to the CR that represent Democrat priorities in order to pass the CR (which needs 60 votes in the Senate). If the CR does not pass, the government shuts down.

The Daily Caller reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York’s demand that Congress allocate $500 million for certain media outlets Friday, saying, “We’re not doing that.”

The House of Representatives passed both a short-term funding measure and a resolution honoring assassinated Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Friday. Democrats have demanded that the stopgap funding measure add over $1 trillion in funding for various priorities, including reversing the rescission of funds for public broadcasting.

…“He (Senator Schumer) also wants to make sure, he wants to reinstate health care to be provided free by American taxpayers for illegal aliens. We’re not going to do that either,” Johnson continued. “He also wants to add $500 million to prop up left-leaning media organizations. We’re not doing that either.”

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has identified $206 billion in savings since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, despite drawing fire from Democrats over various cuts it identified, including the closure of the United States Agency for International Development.

A CR is not really the answer to America’s financial problem. We need to get back to the legal budget process. The Congressional Budget Process is supposed to involve individual budget requests for each area of the government. Those requests are to be passed individually. We have not correctly followed that procedure since 2008. It is time to get back to the way the law is written.

When Groucho Marx Gets It Right

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The video below is from the 1932 Groucho Marx movie “Horse Feathers.” It perfectly illustrates the situation described below the video.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about discussions currently going on in Congress about passing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded until November 21.

The article reports:

Democrats are pledging to vote against a GOP stopgap funding bill and plunge the country into a partial government shutdown, but have struggled to express what they dislike within the spending measure they are lining up to oppose.

The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) spoke to 10 Democrats on Wednesday who railed against the seven-week funding bill — despite a majority of their caucus voting to extend government funding levels through short-term continuing resolutions (CRs) more than a dozen times when former President Joe Biden was in office. None could point to a specific provision within the 91-page bill they oppose.

“I’m not supporting the partisan CR,” Democratic California Sen. Adam Schiff told the DCNF on Wednesday as he made his way to an elevator following a Senate vote.

The DCNF then asked Schiff which provisions he opposed within the CR.

Schiff replied “Uh —” before letting the elevator doors close.

Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a short-term CR on Tuesday to fund the government through Nov. 21. The measure would fund the government at current levels while providing for additional security assistance for all three branches of government in the aftermath of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The speaker could put the bill on the floor as early as Friday morning.

The article notes:

GOP leaders have argued they see no reason to negotiate on a “clean” short-term funding measure that has no partisan policy riders attached. They have also made clear that the CR will not be held hostage to Democrats’ demands for a healthcare policy bill.

“Republicans have deliberately chosen to keep this CR clean to ensure that there can be no possible reason for Democrats to object to funding the government,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “There really is no possible way to call this a partisan CR with a straight face.”

Some Democrats have appeared to boil down their opposition to the CR to their animosity toward the president. Trump said Republicans should not work with Democrats to fund the government during a “Fox & Friends” interview on Monday.

“Donald Trump said he doesn’t want to work with us,” Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday. “And so if he doesn’t want to work with us then I wish him the best.”

The above statement can be translated as “Donald Trump is not doing things our way!”

Were the Democrats willing to work with the Republicans when the Republicans were in the minority? Elections have consequences. If this shutdown happens, it will be on the backs of the Democrats despite the media’s efforts to portray it otherwise.

I Have Mixed Emotions About This

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There has not yet been a successful move to stop insider trading by Congress. That might have something to do with the fact that Congress is the one passing the laws. However, someone with great entrepreneurial tendencies has come up with an idea to level the playing field. I’m really sorry I missed this when it was first reported.

On August 28, The Daily Caller reported the following:

When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that politicians’ stock returns would make “every hedge fund jealous,” he highlighted one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets: lawmakers such as Nancy Pelosi consistently beat the market using information ordinary Americans could never have access to.

Now, as Congress debates banning itself from stock trading, a new company called dub Advisors is pulling back the curtain on political stock portfolios. dub Advisors allows everyday investors to track, and copy, how politicians trade via the dub copy-trading platform, founded by 23-year-old Harvard dropout Steven Wang. The dub platform functions as marketplace for copying investment strategies built by others, including those built by dub Advisors, dub’s affiliated Registered Investment Advisor. dub Advisors is one of numerous creators that operate investment strategies on the platform, specializing in translating complex trades of public figures (such as Pelosi’s Nvidia options) into strategies that can be easily copied by the average American.

The dub platform arrives amid explosive revelations about congressional trading. Senator Josh Hawley’s “PELOSI Act,” named after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seeks to ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks entirely. The bill has gained momentum after President Trump told Time magazine he would “absolutely” sign such legislation, adding, “I watched Nancy Pelosi get rich through insider information.”

These aren’t baseless accusations. Politicians are required to disclose their trades under the STOCK Act, and analysis of these filings reveals patterns that raise eyebrows. Members of Congress routinely make well-timed trades before major legislative announcements, regulatory changes, or economic briefings that move markets.

The article notes:

As inflation erodes savings and traditional retirement security crumbles—the Senior Citizens League reports Social Security benefits lost 20% of purchasing power from 2010 to 2024—Americans need every advantage available.

“A decade from now, instead of picking stocks, we’ll be picking people to invest in,” predicts Wang. Until Congress finally bans its own trading, companies like dub ensure that the insider information that made politicians successful at trading is made available to all Americans.

The establishment may not like this transparency, but in a true free market, information demands to be free – and the 1.3 million Americans who have downloaded dub agree as they copy-trade their way towards their financial goals.

This is not a advertisement for or an endorsement of a product. It is just a salute to some very smart entrepreneurs.

Breaking Up The Logjam

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported that the Senate is planning to break up the logjam holding back President Trump’s appointments.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are on the verge of breaking Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stranglehold over the confirmation process, ending seven months of unprecedented obstruction that has sought to prevent President Donald Trump from staffing his administration.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to invoke the rarely-used “nuclear option” to reform Senate rules allowing for the simultaneous confirmation of lower-level executive branch nominees as early as Monday, a senior Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The historic rules change could grant the more than 100 civilian nominees who have been blocked from their postings due to Democrats’ persistent delay tactics a swift confirmation vote before the Senate is scheduled to go on recess on Sept. 19.

…Thune organized a working group in August after negotiations with Democrats to clear the backlog of executive branch nominees collapsed. The cohort included Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ted Budd of North Carolina.

The Senate is there to advise and consent–not to obstruct.

The article notes:

Senate Republicans’ imminent rules change comes after former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the “nuclear option” during former President Barack Obama’s second term to lower the threshold required to confirm executive branch and judicial nominees. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also invoked the “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees and cut debate time on most presidential nominees.

Though the proposed rules change is likely to benefit Democrats the next time they control the Senate and the White House, Senate Republicans have argued that Democrats’ nomination blockade is not sustainable. Despite Thune holding more votes than any Senate in 35 years, the Trump administration is on track to confirm the fewest nominees in recent memory.

“By the end of the 119th Congress (1/2/2027), the Senate is on track to confirm just 426 nominees, the fewest in history, and less than half of what other Presidents have averaged since 2000,” Britt, a member of the working group, wrote on X on Wednesday.

This is not the kind of history we need to be making.

The article concludes:

“We have never seen a time where the opposition party has literally blocked and forced the president and his team and us here as the majority in the Senate to go through all the machinations of trying to get a nominee across the finish line,” Thune said during a Senate GOP leadership press conference on Wednesday. 

“So this is of the Democrats’ making,” Thune continued. “There isn’t anything right now that they want to vote for that he has his fingerprints on, and getting his team in place is absolutely essential. It’s part of governing this country, and we’re going to move forward.”

Sometimes You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the nationwide “Workers Over Billionaires” protest on Labor Day. Oddly enough, the protest was funded by billionaires. How does that make sense>

The article reports:

Billionaire backers were behind the nationwide “Workers Over Billionaires” protest on Labor Day, which took aim at the Trump administration’s policies and called for an end to what organizers described as a “billionaire takeover.”

More than 1,000 protests across the country on Monday drew over half a million people, according to May Day Strong, the coalition that organized the events. Despite the protests being promoted as grassroots movements of working-class Americans, one of the coalition’s central organizers — the Working Families Organization Inc. — is itself heavily funded by billionaires, including the Soros family.

We need to remember (particularly as the mid-term elections approach) that today’s protesters are paid. They hold signs that often are professionally printed. I am a child of the 1960’s–no one paid us and we had to make our own signs. We protested because we cared about something. The protesters of today may care about what they are protesting, but somehow it seems a little less genuine if they are being paid to protest.

The article notes:

Yet, the Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire megadonor George Soros, has doled out $23,700,000 to the Working Families Organization since 2016, according to the foundation’s website. 

The organization has also received $950,000 since 2021 from Democracy Fund Voice, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit funded by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, tax filings show. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’s Open Philanthropy also gave $1.44 million to the Working Families Organization in 2019, and another $1.5 million in 2021. 

The Working Families Organization has also received millions from Democrat-aligned “dark money” groups, which funnel hard-to-track dollars into liberal political organizations and advocacy groups. For example, the Tides Foundation has directed over $65 million to the group since 2018, while the Sixteen Thirty Fund has also contributed hundreds of thousands to the group, according to financial disclosures. 

It is going to be hard to convince me that your protest is sincere if I know that you are being paid to protest.

Rewriting History For Political Purposes

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The problem with inflation is that once the prices go up, they don’t always come back down to where they were. Although gas at the pump is comfortably low, a lot of other things that became more expensive under the Biden administration’s runaway inflation have not yet come down to their previous level. Americans are still feeling the impact of the Biden administration’s economic policies. It is wise to keep in mind that President Trump has only been in office since the end of January, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article giving us a preview of the rhetoric we will encounter in the run up to the mid-term elections.

The article reports:

CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings reminded former Democratic New York mayoral candidate Michael Blake on Thursday that the affordability crisis began under former President Joe Biden.

Blake claimed that Democratic Iowa state Sen.-elect Catelin Drey defeated the Republican incumbent in the state’s special election because Republicans “cannot articulate a policy agenda” to make Americans’ lives more affordable. Jennings mocked Democrats for sounding the alarm on the affordability crisis when inflation soared to record levels under Biden.

“Well it doesn’t make me very nervous to hear Democrats, with a straight face, looking into a television camera and saying ‘boy, how did we get to this affordability crisis’ given that we all know how we got there over the last four years,” Jennings said.

When Blake blamed President Donald Trump for the inflation under Biden, Jennings said, “So you’re saying we had no affordability crisis during the Biden years? Where did the inflation come from?”

The article notes:

Prices rose more than 20% during Biden’s term in office, jumping from 1.4% at the beginning of Biden’s presidency to its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, the highest annual rate since 1981. Inflation fell below 3% for the first time in two years in July 2024.

Many economists blamed the soaring inflation on the Biden administration spending $1.9 trillion and $750 billion on the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law early in his term.

The article concludes:

Jennings said that Democrats tend to perform better in special elections, which contributed to Drey’s victory.

“It’s absolutely true. Democrats now have more voters who are regular voters in non-traditional elections. Specials, off-year, what have you. That’s absolutely true, and so you’ve seen a pattern of Democrats doing better in these elections that don’t happen outside of a regular occurrence,” Jennings added.

It will be interesting to see where the economy is by next November, and if voters want to go back to the inflation numbers we had in the Biden administration.

The Coast Guard Is Doing Its Job

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As our southern border is made more secure, it becomes more difficult for the cartels and other nefarious people to smuggle drugs into America. Our coastlines provide one opportunity. Years ago, some of southermy friends actually found a mysterious package on Atlantic Beach. When they called the police, and the police investigated, it was a bundle of marijuana that evidently had fallen off a smuggler’s boat. Drug smuggling is not a distant problem.

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported:

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) announced a stunning seizure of illicit narcotics seized from “transnational criminal organizations,” including 23 million potentially lethal doses of cocaine, offloading the massive haul in Port Everglades — the largest quantity in Coast Guard history.

The USCG seized 76,140 pounds of illicit narcotics, valued at $473 million, in 19 interdictions conducted in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, according to the USCG announcement Monday. The haul constituted 61,740 pounds of cocaine and around 14,400 pounds of marijuana, with patrols intercepting drug-laden vessels as far away as the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador and other remote parts of the Pacific.

The article notes:

President Donald Trump has made a push to crack down on the drug trade, designating a slew of Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organizations and authorizing the military to target the groups. Additionally, more military assets are reportedly set to deploy to the southern Caribbean to intensify the fight against cartels and the drug trade.

The real solution to the drug smuggling is to eliminate the American market, but that may not be possible. Many communities, including the county I live in, make an effort to encourage people caught with illegal drugs to go to a treatment center instead of jail. Unfortunately, drug treatment centers don’t work unless the person wants to end their dependence on drugs. We need to stop drug smuggling, but we also need to find a way that works to help the people addicted to drugs.

The Quest For Honest Elections

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On Monday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

President Donald Trump said in a Monday Truth Social post that he will lead the movement to get rid of mail-in ballots and “inaccurate” voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Trump wrote that he plans on signing an executive order on the matter to help bring “honesty” to the upcoming midterm elections. The president added that elections “can never be honest” if they include mail-in ballots.

Getting rid of mail-in ballots is not a new idea. In April 2020, The Wall Street Journal reminded us:

‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.

There are times when mail-in ballots are necessary, and allowances need to be make for those times–military personnel stationed away from their home states, people who are not physically able to make it to the voting places, etc. However, in some instances in recent elections, the number of mail-in ballots was greater than the number of eligible voters in an area. That should never happen.

It’s time to get back to elections we can trust.

Putting The Blame Where It Belongs

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On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the problem of rising energy prices under President Trump. As the expression goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” President Trump has been in office for less than six months, he is still dealing with the multi-dimensional mess he walked into.

The article reports:

The corporate media is suggesting that President Donald Trump and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are responsible for rising electricity prices rather than the aggressive green energy policies of Democrats and former President Joe Biden, who himself presided over a major spike in prices.

Several major corporate media outlets have linked Trump’s OBBBA to climbing energy prices, despite data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showing that electricity bills were already on the rise, shooting up during the middle of the Biden administration. Energy experts, grid watchdogs and operators have long warned that the Biden-era green energy push threatens grid security and drives up electricity costs, as power demand also surges from the booming artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

“Electricity prices have been increasing since the grid became burdened with unreliable and expensive wind and solar. The problem has recently worsened as electricity demand has increased because of the explosion in AI-driven data center energy needs that wind and solar just can’t meet,” Steve Milloy, senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Demand will likely continue to increase and will only be satisfied by more fossil fuel and nuclear baseload power. The BBB will make more baseload power possible by discouraging utilities from adding more unreliable and pointlessly expensive wind and solar.”

The article concludes:

“Democrats committed arson on electricity prices and now they have the nerve to accuse Trump of playing with matches. In Trump’s first term, electricity prices rose by less than 1% per year. Under Biden, electricity prices rose 22%. I think the American people will trust President Trump’s energy policies more than hypocritical Democrat finger-pointing,” James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute and the founding director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy, told the DCNF.

The Department of Energy (DOE) warned in its July 7 report that blackouts could increase by a factor of 100 by 2030 if the U.S. keeps retiring power plants without adequate replacements, the grid will be unable to meet the soaring demand from energy-hungry data centers in the coming years. It continued to single out wind and solar as key contributors to declining grid stability and argued that dispatchable generation from sources like coal, oil, gas and nuclear are vital to meet American power needs.

Like it or not, the economy and infrastructure of the globe runs on fossil fuel. Until the free market invents something considerably more reliable and ecologically sound from start to finish, our reliance on fossil fuel will continue. Wind and solar at this time are simply not practical.

Applying The Statute Of Limitations

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article explaining how the Statute of Limitations applies to the potential case against the former Obama intelligence officials who obstructed the investigation and concealed evidence in the Russia Hoax.

The article reports:

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Sunday that the clock began “ticking” on a potential case being brought against former Obama intelligence officials for obstruction the moment “deliberately concealed evidence” was discovered by the Trump administration.

The Russia investigation, which alleged President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election in his favor, received new scrutiny in July after the FBI reportedly placed former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan under criminal investigation. With allegations and new intelligence surfacing about how Comey, Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper played a role in targeting the Trump campaign, Jarrett was asked by “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo if he believed the Department of Justice (DOJ) “will act” and whether “the statute of limitations apply to conspiracy or not.”

“I would say yes to all three. This does look like a broad criminal conspiracy by unscrupulous officials, dishonest people. I would look at conspiracy to defraud the government, deprivation of rights under color of law, but importantly, obstruction of justice and the cover up,” Jarrett said. “The elaborate cover up has been going on for years, as Stephen Miller pointed out, which extends the statute of limitations in any conspiracy case against malign actors. That’s because the clock begins ticking when deliberately concealed evidence is discovered, which is actually quite recently.”

“So, for example, you were talking about the burn bags that were discovered incriminating documents hidden at the FBI, as well as other records, hard drives squirreled away under lock and key by Comey recently found,” Jarrett added. “So attempting to conceal or destroy evidence relevant to investigations, that’s obstruction. The last overt act in a conspiracy starts the clock anew. So that’s the value of bringing a conspiracy case that includes obstruction.”

If the information we are receiving is proven to be correct, the people involved belong in jail. If we do not deal with this type of illegal behavior, it will continue. There have to be consequences for the illegal actions.