The Dismantling Of America

The two-plus years of the Biden administration have not been a roaring success. Despite the fact that the administration tells us the economy is strong and doing well, there seem to be a few problems, two or which are very obvious when you go to the grocery store or fill up your gas tank. There is another problem looming that is far more serious than the two I just mentioned.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Joe Biden is dethroning King Dollar in real time. The US dollar’s financial dominance is under siege from a uniquely bad combination of foreign and domestic policies, and Americans should be deeply concerned by the fallout if the dollar loses its 80-year reign as the world’s reserve currency.

In just the past weeks, China conducted the first major LNG sale in renminbi instead of dollars, struck a major deal with Brazil to conduct trade in their own currencies, and just announced the sale of 65,000 tons of LNG to France denominated in yuan. This dovetails with the Biden administration’s inflationary policies and ham-handed sanctions on Russia that accelerated foreigners’ flight from the dollar at the very moment the world doubts if the dollar remains a safe and reliable store of value.

Since the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 and the petrodollar deal in 1945, the dollar has enjoyed preeminent status around the world, especially for international trade and exchange. This created huge demand for dollars abroad and allowed the US to export inflation, to spend beyond our means and leaving foreigners to soak up the extra.

As the Federal Reserve created billions for the government to spend in the 1960s, it threatened America’s gold reserves. At the time, all major currencies were redeemable for dollars, and dollars were redeemable for gold. When “guns and butter” policy led to a run on gold, President Nixon ended the dollar-gold-exchange standard with what was supposed to be a temporary measure.

The article concludes:

If the de-dollarization progresses what becomes of the trillions of dollars accumulated around the world since 1944?

If foreigners no longer want them for trade, central bank reserves, private wealth funds, and the official currency of about a dozen countries, all those dollars have nowhere to go but back to us in a flood like our country has never seen. This flood will compete for goods and services in the US against the dollars already here as decades of accumulated trade deficits come flooding back all at once.

At that point, hyperinflation will not be hyperbole.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. My only investment advice is “PRAY.”

Justice?

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted a report about the trial of one of the Proud Boys involved in the January 6th protest.

The article reports:

At least one Proud Boys member on trial over the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol had a previously-concealed FBI informant set to appear as a witness in their case, a defense attorney said Wednesday.

Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola are all on federal trial after being accused in a June 2022 indictment of conspiring “to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force.” The government revealed Wednesday that a witness scheduled to appear in the defense case Thursday had been an FBI confidential human source from April 2021 to at least January 2023, Rehl’s lawyer Carmen Hernandez said in a court filing obtained by American Greatness’ Julie Kelly.

The article concludes:

The FBI declined the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
This is beyond disgusting. There are real questions as to the role the FBI played in instigating the violence on January 6th, and now we see that the FBI was spying on the defense of those charged with crimes on that day.
Every single person currently in jail for their actions on January 6th needs to be freed immediately. If our major cities are freeing hardened criminals, Washington, D.C., should at least have the courtesy to free prisoners who are simply political prisoners whose constitutional rights have been seriously violated.

A Doctor Recognizes The Truth

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about Dr. Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist and pioneer in child gender dysphoria treatment. The Doctor was interviewed by The Daily Caller and stated that she now opposes the popular model of affirming children’s transgender identities and putting them on puberty blockers–something she once supported.

The article reports:

Bradley started a pediatric gender clinic in 1975 aimed at treating children with gender dysphoria — a deep sense of discomfort with one’s body and biological sex — in which she offered a therapy-focused approach; most patients outgrew their feelings of being transgender over time, she told the DCNF. Around 2005, the clinic began prescribing puberty blockers to gender-dysphoric children as a way to alleviate their distress, a model which has since become widely adopted by medical establishments around the world, including in the U.S.

Bradley, who is now in her early eighties, expressed regret that the clinic had participated in the administration of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, which she now believes can cement a child’s sense of confusion out of which they would likely otherwise grow. She also expressed concern about the drugs’ side effects.

“We were wrong,” she said. “They’re not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth.”

The article notes:

Bradley believes transitioning is beneficial for some adults and says some patients consider it the best thing they’ve ever done for themselves, but that the metrics of success, even in terms of patient satisfaction, are complicated. One of her patients transitioned from female to male, married a woman who had been a childhood friend and seemed happy and satisfied, but later in life pursued a very costly phalloplasty surgery; despite appearing “very masculine,” the patient was never fully satisfied and was always pursuing further bodily improvements, according to Bradley.

Another patient Bradley worked with transitioned from male to female but eventually told the psychiatrist he was no longer trans and was in a relationship with another man. This made Bradley question if transitioning was really just about seeking acceptance for some patients.

The article concludes:

Advocates for medical gender transitions for children argue that puberty blockers can diminish the distress a gender dysphoric child experiences as a result of puberty and can reduce the need for later surgeries or hormonal interventions by preventing the acquisition of some traits associated with their biological sex, such as a deep voice in a male patient.

“Anxiety drains away,” Dr. Norman Spack, a leader in the push for puberty blocker use in gender dysphoric patients, told The New York Times. “You can see these kids being so relieved.”

The Center for Addiction and Mental Health, formerly the Clarke Institute of Toronto, did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

There is stress involved in growing up. Learning how to deal with that stress is part of growing up. Dealing with that stress results in adults who know how to handle stress. We have done our children a great disservice by trying to protect them from stress.

Hidden (or not so hidden) In Biden’s Budget Proposal

On March 9th, The Daily Caller posted the following about President Biden’s budget proposal:

President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 proposes increasing funding to the FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ), and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to crack down on guns.

The funding, which draws from a $17.8 billion “investment” in the DOJ’s federal law enforcement capacity, will be used to further regulate the firearms industry, create gun trafficking strike forces, enforce background checks and implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, according to the budget. The ATF alone will receive $1.9 billion, a $200 million increase from the 2023 budget.

Alongside the DOJ and ATF, the FBI will receive $51 million to support the continued implementation of enhanced background checks required by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, implemented in 2022, provided funding for the implementation of red flag laws, expanded background checks and invested in state crisis intervention orders, according to the legislation.

The article concludes:

The ATF’s “zero tolerance” police has been criticized by Republican lawmakers and Second Amendment advocacy groups, as Federal Firearm License (FFL) revocations hit a 16-year high in 2022 under the rule. The increase in license revocations, 92 in 2022 alone, is due to the new policy and the updated procedure that the ATF follows, as they no longer always go through a multi-step process, often opting to pull licenses for a multitude of “willful” violations.

“That’s not how regulatory agencies are supposed to work in the sector that they’re supposed to regulate. They are supposed to help the companies, they’re supposed to ensure compliance but they’re not supposed to punish and destroy an entire industry based on just political opposition or political distaste,” Gun Owners of America’s director of federal affairs Aidan Johnston told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Many of the Democrats currently in power in Washington are working feverishly to overrule the Second Amendment and the freedom it protects. The only way to block this is through continuing court challenges to new regulations. There are a number of organizations that are pursuing these court cases as new regulations are put in place. Please do your research, find an organization challenging these laws, and support their work.

The Party Of Parents?

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article with the following headline:

JOSH HAMMER: The New GOP Is The Party Of Parents

The article notes the shift in recent years in the Republican party toward the party of working people and parents.

The article reports:

Some recent examples hint that the GOP may be moving beyond mere rhetorical platitude, and into the realm of concrete policy and action.

The No. 1 killer today of Americans aged 18-45 years old is fentanyl trafficked by Mexican drug cartels, as some Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans pointed out this week during a hearing with hapless Attorney General Merrick Garland. A recent Axios-Ipsos poll showed that a 37% plurality of Republicans surveyed consider opioids and fentanyl to be the single greatest threat to U.S. public health, and at least some in the party are coming around to acting accordingly. Besides securing the U.S.-Mexico border once and for all, perhaps the other single most effective action the federal government could take on this front would be to formally designate the cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Last month, a coalition of 21 red-state attorneys general sent a formal letter to President Joe Biden, exhorting him to instruct his State Department to do precisely that.

…The fights against transgender surgeries for minors and Big Tech addiction are two other powerful examples of what a more hands-on, culturally pugnacious, parents- and children-first GOP can, and should, prioritize. Whereas the older, corporate-centric GOP was a party of “openness” and eschewed using statecraft to impose limitations, the newer, parents- and children-centric GOP must embrace the more frequent imposition of legal limitations and outright bans in the name of the common good.

Just this week, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made the Magnolia State the eighth to fully ban “gender-affirming care” procedures for minors. On Thursday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee made the Volunteer State the first state to affirmatively ban drag shows in the presence of minors. (In Florida, DeSantis has at times revoked liquor licenses for venues hosting drag shows with minors.) And at the federal level, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has pushed for an investigation of The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital after a whistleblower provided viscerally shocking details to Bari Weiss’s The Free Press last month. Hawley’s related post-whistleblower Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act would helpfully create a private right of action for individuals who were harmed by “gender-affirming care” when they were minors.

It’s time for common sense to make a comeback and end some of the harmful things that have invaded our culture. I think most Americans still believe that what a person does in their own bedroom is their business, but when people try to push their non-mainstream views into the mainstream, parents and other people need to object.

Slowly The Truth Is Coming Out

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some information coming from a whistleblower regarding January 6th. Many of us have long suspected that there was an aspect of January 6th that was a false flag operation. It seems as if we were not far from the truth.

The article reports:

The FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) affirmed that there may have been “undercover officers” and “confidential human sources” inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to whistleblower testimony obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office requested the Boston Field Office open investigations into 140 individuals who took buses from Massachusetts to D.C. on Jan. 6., but denied the office’s request to see video proving those individuals were inside the Capitol, FBI whistleblower George Hill said during a Feb. 10 interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The office claimed they needed to “protect” the identity of possible undercover agents, according to Hill.

Why? They made no effort to protect the identities of anyone else involved. Some people who were simply at the rally and went nowhere near the Capitol have been harassed by law enforcement.

The article concludes:

Many have speculated FBI agents were among the crowd on Jan. 6. In November, FBI Director Christopher Wray refusedto say whether or not the bureau had confidential human sources among Jan. 6 protestors when asked by Republican Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins. Executive Assistant Director of the FBI National Security Branch, Jill Sanborn, similarly dodged the question when it was posed by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at a Jan. 11, 2023 Senate hearing.

“Our whistleblowers are brave individuals who risk their reputations and livelihoods to expose wrongdoing,” House Judiciary Chair and Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There are already immense obstacles in place deterring whistleblowers from coming forward and we hope Democrat leaks and partisan criticisms don’t chill other whistleblowers from coming forward.”

The FBI declined to comment.

The more we learn, the more this looks like a total setup. I question the wisdom of holding a rally in Washington on that day, but I don’t believe President Trump was at all responsible for what happened next.

A Practical Way To Institute School Choice

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a program proposed in Oklahoma to provide school choice in a way that does not penalize public schools, but allows parents control of their child’s education.

The article reports:

While conventional school choice programs typically involve vouchers administered by the state, Oklahoma is set to create a tax credit-based initiative to fund education outside the public school system.

The state’s school choice program, which would create a refundable tax credit program for all families that can be used on homeschooling and private education expenses, is tied to legislation that would increase funding for public schools and give teachers a pay raise and create a refundable tax credit, Oklahoma officials told the DCNF. The bills passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Wednesday in 75 to 25 and 78 to 23 votes, sending the legislation to the state Senate where it is expected to pass.

“What we did was we give a $5,000 tax credit, but it’s refundable,” Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In other words, you can get $5,000 to move and go to a school of your choice. That’s the great thing about it is now we’re funding students, not necessarily the system or the zip code where you happen to live. It’s gonna allow you to be more flexible with where the kids go and have the dollars follow the kid whether it’s to a private school, another public school, it doesn’t really matter. That’s the exciting thing about it and there’s no income limits to it.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It sounds like this bill will give parents the right to opt out of a school if they feel that their children are not learning the basic skills they need. It also gives parents a choice if they disagree with the values being taught at a particular school.

Losing Our Religious Freedom

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a new Department of Education (DOE) proposal. This proposal illustrates one of many reasons we should defund the Department of Education.

The article reports:

The Department of Education (DOE) announced a proposal Tuesday rescinding a Trump-era policy that prohibited universities from receiving federal funding if they restricted religious student group activities.

The 2020 policy, initially signed by former President Donald Trump as part of an executive order in 2019, was proposed to prevent universities from censoring the speech of religious students on campus, according to the Washington Post. The DEO’s recent announcement indicates that President Joe Biden is looking to end the policy, claiming the protections caused an “unduly burdensome role” for the department.

“[T]he Department believes it is not necessary in order to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion given existing legal protections, it has caused confusion about schools’ nondiscrimination requirements, and it prescribed a novel and unduly burdensome role for the Department in investigating allegations regarding public institutions’ treatment of religious student organizations,” the announcement read. “We have not seen evidence that the regulation has provided meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations beyond the robust First Amendment protections that already exist, much less that it has been necessary to ensure they are able to organize and operate on campus.”

Free speech on college campuses has never been one of the political left’s favorite things. How many times have conservative speakers been shut down?

Here is the good news:

The public comment phase will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and remain open for 30 days for anyone to comment and provide their thoughts on the proposal, according to the announcement.

Please go to the Department of Education website and voice your opposition to this change.

Good News For Freedom

On Friday, The Daily Caller reported that a federal judge has ruled that the State of Vermont must reimburse parents who were denied state tuition benefits because they sent their children to religious schools.

The article reports:

Under the settlement, the state is prohibited from continuing to deny parents access to tuition based on a school’s “religious status, affiliation, beliefs, exercise, or activities,” and residents of districts that previously denied funds on this basis must be reimbursed. District Judge Christina Reiss cited the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in Carson v. Makin, a case that similarly found Maine could not exclude religious schools from its tuition program without violating First Amendment religious liberty protections.

Vermont’s town tuitioning program, like Maine’s, exists to help educate children in rural areas where public schools may not exist or cover all grade levels. Where the district has no available option in a town, it pays to send students to a private or public school of the parent’s choice.

The Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Founding Fathers wanted to prevent the establishment of a ‘state’ religion. Refusing to reimburse parents in a state reimbursement program because they choose to send their children to a religious school has nothing to do with establishing a ‘state’ religion–it is discrimination against religious people and is not allowed in the Constitution.

The article notes:

“Carson v. Makin made clear that the government cannot deny or restrict benefits to people based on religion,” Institute for Justice Attorney David Hodges told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Now that the question of Vermont’s tuitioning program has been settled, I am unaware of any state that is unconstitutionally restricting educational benefits in the same manner as Vermont.”

On Sept. 13, 2022, the Vermont Secretary of Education sent a letter to district superintendents instructing them that they can no longer deny tuition to religious schools “that meet educational quality standards” in light of the Carson v. Makin decision.

Religious schools are free to teach consistent moral values. Some of our public schools are reluctant to teach moral values. This ruling is good news for children and parents in Vermont.

Parents’ Voices Do Make A Difference

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about an Idaho school board policy that was canceled because of objections from the community.

The article reports:

An Idaho school board canceled any further action on a proposed policy that would allow the use of bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex, following community uproar.

Caldwell School Board put its gender identity policy on hold on Monday after community backlash caused a previous meeting to abruptly end. The pause comes as Idaho’s Senate Education Committee introduced legislation that would require Idaho students to use bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of biological sex, according to KTVB 7.

The also notes:

In January, the school board proposed the policy which advises teachers to call students by their preferred pronouns. The school board shut down the meeting early after those protesting the policy failed to listen to the board’s warnings regarding conduct.

“It is always okay to have concerns, especially when regarding the safety of your child,” a Caldwell student said at the January meeting. “But, it is also unfair to ignore the concerns of others, including the children that policy that 3281 was written for.”

Because the community said ‘no’, the policy was put on the back burner. There is no promise that the policy will not come out in the future, but for now, common sense rules the day. All of us have to learn to stand up against our school boards and other community leaders who are advocating for things that pose a risk to our children. I don’t want to see any child bullied or made fun of, but I also don’t want to see children harmed by rules put in place by well-meaning school boards who did not consider the consequences of those rules.

When Money Controls The News

‘Store-bought’ news is not only a problem in America, it is also a problem in Britain.

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

The BBC is defending its decision to create propaganda content for the Chinese state media and commercials for Huawei, according to a Deadline investigation published Monday.

The BBC’s Executive Vice President Sean O’Hara said that the tax-payer funded broadcast service depends on Chinese contracts for funding international journalism, Deadline reported after a detailed investigation into the contracts.

“The commercial income generated from advertising provides vital investment in BBC News, ensuring that we are able to sustain our global network of journalists and continue to bring independent and impartial news to the UK and beyond. I’d like to assure you that it has no influence on our editorial output,” O’Hara said in a memo to British lawmaker Lord David Alton, according to the outlet.

Am I honestly supposed to believe that the fact that China is funding major portions of advertising on the BBC has no impact on their content? That illustrates one of the many reasons this site does not have ads–I don’t ever want to have to choose between someone who buys and ad and an article I want to print.

The article also notes:

Sources at the BBC are “uncomfortable with these relationships” with China. BBC StoryWorks has partnered with at least 18 different Chinese clients, nine of which were affiliated with the CCP.

Journalists have questioned the thought processes behind working with Chinese propaganda companies, such as CGTN, who have previously been accused of creating “perilous” working conditions for British reporters.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have also reaped profits from relationships with Chinese state media and the Communist Party. In one instance, The Washington Post touted China’s Communist Party as a means of bettering the lives of citizens, but made no mention of China’s oppression and genocide against the Uyghur population.

Mainstream media news needs to be viewed skeptically. Even if they report the story, they will leave out the parts that do not fit the desired narrative.

What Are We Teaching Our Children:

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the curriculum being used in our schools to celebrate Black History Month.

The article reports:

  • Several of the nation’s schools are preparing to celebrate “Black Lives Matter at School” week which features curriculums on “restorative justice” and “globalism.” 
  • With lesson plans, reading, documentaries and activities, students learn about activism and “structural racism.” 
  • “Any education leader interested in building awareness on the history and struggles of the African American community should seek meaningful policy solutions rather than virtue-signaling,” Wenyuan Wu, executive director of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a group that focused on combating racial discrimination, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Teaching children that they are victims does not do anything to encourage learning or to help them deal with the world they see around them. Teaching them that because their ancestors were treated horribly they are entitled to money they did not earn does not help anyone. It divides people along racial lines and prevents the country from unifying to solve problems. Could a unified America actually solve problems? Is a unified America a threat to the deep state?

The article notes:

Milwaukee Public Schools is hosting events in honor of “Black Lives Matter at School” week including “BLM Family Night” where families can participate in “cultural experiences” at the Black Holocaust Museum, according to the school website. Shoreline Public Schools in Washington plans to celebrate the week in order to help students “understand inequities based on race” and to “affirm that the lives of people of color matter,” the school district website showed.

BLM at School raised more than $103,000 for its national week of action as of Friday, according to its website. Several teachers unions have backed the week-long event in the country’s schools including the National Education Association, Chicago Teachers Union and the Virginia Education Association.

The article concludes:

“Giving the BLM brand legitimacy in public schools is handing ideologies, radicals and groomers a license to harm our next generation,” Wu told the DCNF. “Any education leader interested in building awareness on the history and struggles of the African American community should seek meaningful policy solutions rather than virtue-signaling.”

BLM at School, San Diego Unified School District, Howard County Schools, Milwaukee Public Schools and Shoreline Public Schools did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

If I thought the children were actually learning the reading, writing and mathematics skills they need, I might be somewhat less bothered by this. My question to teachers is, “Why are you wasting time of this garbage when your students can’t read or do math?”

Integrity Isn’t Racist!

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about Princeton University’s Honor Code.

The article reports:

A Princeton University student argued in a Sunday night opinion article that the school’s Honor Code unfairly impacts racial minorities, citing parallels to the U.S. criminal justice system.

The Ivy League school’s Undergraduate Honor Code lays out standards for student conduct that all undergraduate students must abide by and prohibits students from plagiarizing or cheating, according to its website. Emilly Santos, author of the op-ed and Princeton University student, likened the code to the United States criminal justice system to propose that it “disadvantages” minority students.

If all students are required to adhere to the standards of the Honor Code, how is it racist?

The article continues:

“Princeton’s Honor Code, tasked with holding students accountable and honest in academic settings, mirrors the criminal justice system in its rules and effects,” Santos wrote. “It is harmful to the entirety of the Princeton community: the fear it instills in students fosters an environment of academic hostility. But it is often most damaging for first-generation low-income (FLI) students — students who also often belong to racial minorities.”

Honor Code violations include “tampering with a graded exam,” “claiming another’s work to be one’s own” and obtaining a exam materials prior to the examination date, the website reads.

Students who violate the Honor Code may be reprimanded, suspended, placed on probation or expelled, according to the university’s website. Students who are suspended for a semester are not eligible for university financial aid for the repeated semester, according to the university, however Santos argues this harms FLI students who rely on financial aid and would be plunged further in debt.

If you are that easily intimidated by ‘academic hostility’, maybe you should go to a less expensive school where you are under less pressure to achieve. We used to teach children that cheating was wrong. I would hope that we will continue to do that.

Why The Two-State Solution Is A Fallacy

As I have stated in a previous article:  When Israel became a nation in May 1948, it was promptly invaded by all of its Arab neighbors. Israel was not able to maintain control of the entire city of Jerusalem, and part of the city fell into Arab hands and was controlled by Jordan. From 1948-1967 Jews were denied access to their holy sites by the Jordanians. In 1967, when Israel regained control of the entire city of Jerusalem, Christians, Jews, and Muslims were all given access to their holy sites. That is one illustration of the difference in the way Jews treat Arabs and the way Arabs treat Jews.

That article included the following picture of a Palestinian kindergarten class:

These children are being trained to grow up and be martyrs and drive Israel into the sea.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller reported:

An Israeli father and son were both critically injured after a 13-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly shot them in Jerusalem Saturday, one day after an attack on a synagogue killed seven. 

The father and son, ages 47 and 23 respectively, were reportedly shot in the historic district of the city by a 13-year old boy who was himself overpowered and shot by two armed passers-by who witnessed the incident, according to the Associated Press.

Police quickly swarmed the area and escorted the wounded teen away from the scene on a stretcher and transported him to a hospital where he is currently being detained, the outlet reported.

The boy who did the shooting was 13. If you would like to understand how a child terrorist is trained, I would suggest reading THE BLOOD OF LAMBS by Kamal Saleem. Mr. Saleem came to America as a terrorist and is now a Christian sharing how his life was dramatically changed by caring Christians in Tennessee. Mr. Saleem was trained as a child terrorist and actually sent on a suicide mission as a child. He also met Yasser Arafat as a child. The only hope for peace in the Middle East is people like Mr. Saleem who trade their terrorism for peace.

 

Friends With Whom?

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the people involved with the World Economic Forum. It is an unseemly group.

The article reports:

The World Economic Forum (WEF), whose annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, kicked off Monday, partners with multiple Chinese state-owned companies and several Chinese tech firms the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has allegedly weaponized against civilians, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

WEF, a non-governmental organization located in Geneva, Switzerland, partners with Alibaba Group, Huawei Technologies and TikTok, according to the group’s list of partnerships, all of whom are allegedly tied to the development of various technologies the Chinese government uses for intelligence or military and intelligence purposes. WEF’s board of trustees also features an individual who’s worked with Chinese organizations allegedly involved in Chinese influence operations, the DCNF found.

WEF’s partner Alibaba, an e-commerce and media firm, reportedly holds a significant financial stake in Megvii and SenseTime, two Chinese tech firms which the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security blacklisted in 2019 for allegedly developing racial profiling facial recognition technologies that the Chinese government has used in relation to China’s ongoing genocide to track ethnic minorities in China’s western province of Xinjiang, according to an ESPN report from April 2022.

This is not a group that any American leaders should be willing to embrace. Unfortunately, a number of American politicians attended this years meeting (article here).

The World Economic Forum is not a group that will ever support either America’s sovereignty or its freedom. Sending anyone from America who claims to love America to Davos is simply a waste of time and money.

Protecting The First Amendment

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The amendment was put in place to protect free speech and to prevent the government from forming a national church such as the Church of England. It was to protect Americans’ right to worship freely. Separation of church and state appeared in a letter from Thomas Jefferson after the Constitution was adopted and was not part of the Constitution.

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent court case involving religious universities.

The article reports:

An Oregon federal district court ruled Thursday that students are allowed to use federal aid to attend religious universities that operate according to their religious beliefs.

The case Hunter v. the U.S. Department of Education (DOED) was initially filed in March 2021 after 40 LGBTQ former and current students, who had applied to multiple religious schools, sought to amend Title IX’s provision allowing religious universities to discriminate based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity and receive federal funding, according to the opinion. A judge ruled late Thursday to dismiss the case, effectively upholding the right of religious schools to practice their faith and obtain federal funding.

In the opinion, Judge Ann Aiken stated in the opinion that Congress had allowed for a limited exemption for religious institutions if they can prove that it is a religious organization that operates under “religious tenets.” She further explained that after reviewing the claims presented, the plaintiff’s case did not have standing based on the merits.

The article concludes:

During the lawsuit, a judge allowed three Christian colleges, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to join as co-defendants and argue the necessity of Title IX’s religious exemption, according to an ADF press release.  Ryan Tucker, ADF senior counsel, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he was “very grateful” for the court’s decision.

“The government shouldn’t strip students of their financial aid just because they attend a school with widely held religious beliefs, and this case impacts everybody,” Tucker stated. “People of every faith would have to fall in line with government orthodoxy or suffer severe penalties according to the plaintiffs and what they were seeking, so the short version is religious students deserve the same access to financial aid as every other student.”

The DOED and attorneys for Hunter did not respond to DCNF’s request for comment.

Unfortunately, government money always comes with strings attached.

Violating The First Amendment

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the pressure put on Facebook to censor speech that did not conform to the government narrative regarding Covid and Covid vaccines.

The article reports:

  • Members of the Biden administration pressured Facebook on not censoring a video of Tucker Carlson that was critical of vaccines in April of 2021, according to documents published Monday by Louisiana State Attorney General Jeff Landry.
  • Facebook ultimately refused multiple calls to delete the video, despite one White House official insinuating that the company’s intransigence was responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots, according to the documents..
  • “Throughout our case, we have uncovered disturbing collusion between Big Tech and Big Government,” Attorney General Landry told the DCNF. “Today’s reveal is yet another example of the ongoing coercive efforts by the White House to pressure social media companies into censoring American citizens.”

Presidents and media have had an up and down relationship since we have had both. I am sure that if President Kennedy had been able to control what The New York Times was reporting about him, he would have. However, that is no excuse for the bad behavior of the Biden administration.

The article continues:

Officials in the Biden administration repeatedly questioned Facebook’s decision to not completely censor a video posted by Tucker Carlson criticizing COVID-19 vaccines, at one point insinuating that the company was encouraging violent behavior and responsible for the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” according to emails published Monday by Louisiana State Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Andrew Slavitt — at the time the Biden administration’s COVID-19 czar — wrote a message to Facebook staff on the morning of April 14, 2021, expressing frustration that a Tucker Carlson video that was critical of COVID-19 was the “[n]umber one” post on Facebook, according to the emails. A Facebook staffer responded to Slavitt’s request at nearly 11:00 p.m. the same day, informing him that while the Carlson video did not qualify for removal, it was no longer being recommended to users, had a label sending users to “authoritative” sources of information on the pandemic and was being “demoted,” according to the emails.

It is illegal for the government to ask a private corporation to do something that the government cannot themselves legally do. This is a perfect example of that. Everyone involved needs to be fired and put in jail. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is chilling.

Follow The Money

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower said the following (source: Yale Law School):

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

On January 5th, The Daily Caller reported:

Members of Congress raked in profits from defense contractor stocks after voting to send billions in military aid to Ukraine, according to financial disclosures and voting records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The U.S. has delivered more than $20 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, a month before Russia invaded, and Nov. 20, according to data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations, and Congress has approved billions more in spending on Ukraine. To make up for that aid, top defense companies have boosted production, and lawmakers trading on company stocks saw a financial windfall as a result, according to publicly available stock trading data.

Overall, Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon netted the highest average returns on defense company stocks since 2021 at 40%, according to a chart published Tuesday by Unusual Whales, a site known for exposing how members of Congress profit from trading related to legislative issues. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has voted against Ukraine aid, was the top Republican at 35.5%.

We are seeing what President Eisenhower warned us about.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted the following headline:

BlackRock Will Partner With Ukraine To Help Attract Investors, Rebuild Country, Zelenskyy Says

The article reports:

The Office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Wednesday that he had met with CEO Larry Fink of investment firm BlackRock, and that the two had agreed to coordinate their efforts to invest in Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Zelenskyy and Fink agreed to “focus in the near term” on efforts to attract investors for “the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy,” according to a statement by Zelenskyy’s office. The two parties previously met in September to discuss the terms under which BlackRock might offer the Ukrainian government pro bono investment advice, according to Kyiv.

On December 28, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about Blackrock and its future involvement in Ukraine.

The Conservative Treehouse reports:

BlackRock, Inc. (together with its subsidiaries) is a massive publicly traded multinational investment firm with over $8.68 trillion in assets under management [December 31, 2020 financial statement] in more than 100 countries across the globe.  To say that Blackrock is invested in globalism, climate change and leftist politics, would be a severe understatement {See Here}.  Larry Fink is the CEO and people like Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s attorney of record, are on the board.

The Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, the guy who tells the $8.7 trillion investment firm BlackRock where to put their money, is Tom Donilon; President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (before Susan Rice), and a key advisor to Joe Biden throughout his career in politics; who was also recently put in charge of U.S-China policy by the State Dept. {link}

The article at The Conservative Treehouse concludes:

We have written about the previous conflicts {Go Deep Here} and {Go Deep Here}. So, now we have the Biden administration positioning U.S. taxpayer funds going into Ukraine.  That DC money will now blend with Blackrock rebuilding money and come out of the laundry operation to provide financial benefits to Blackrock, Zelenskyy and the Biden family syndicate.

Go figure.

There is a reason many politicians come to Washington as middle-class Americans and leave as millionaires. We are about to see that principle illustrated.

‘Woke’ Has Invaded The American Military

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article with the headline, “These Are The Top 7 Times The Military Went Woke In 2022.” That’s not encouraging.

Here is the list:

1. Teaching Critical Race Theory at service academies

2. Ditching male-centric training practices at Marine Corps boot camp

3. Creating a first-ever DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Committee

4. Helping airmen evade state-level transgender laws

5. Changing fitness standards to permit more women in the service

6. Scrubbing Confederate references from DOD constructions

7. Prioritizing climate change

None of these things make our military stronger, more cohesive, or more able to protect and defend America. Meanwhile China is doing the things to make its military stronger, more cohesive, and able to defeat any military on the planet. This will not end well.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

The Ending Of The Vaccine Mandate That Didn’t End The Vaccine Mandate

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the ending of the vaccine mandate for American’s military forces.

The article reports:

  • The Biden administration has officially rescinded the military COVID-19 vaccination mandate, but ongoing litigation will continue and unvaccinated servicemembers may still be subject to discipline and discharge, experts explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The Pentagon has 30 days to determine how to implement the mandate repeal.
  • “There’s nothing to repair what’s already happened. There’s nothing to address the improper handling of medical exemptions, the violations for Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what the future looks like,” R. Davis Younts, a military defense attorney, told the DCNF.

The article continues:

While the Biden administration has officially reversed the military COVID-19 vaccination mandate, servicemembers who escaped discharge for refusing the vaccine still risk retaliation and could be booted anyway, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ongoing class action lawsuits thwarted the military’s efforts to discharge thousands of troops who objected to the mandate before the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law Friday, overturned it. However, servicemembers may risk reprisal even after the deadline passes for the Department of Defense (DOD) to implement the repeal, staining the records of thousands of servicemembers for the remainder of their careers, experts explained to the DCNF.

“There’s nothing to repair what’s already happened. There’s nothing to address the improper handling of medical exemptions, the violations for Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what the future looks like, whether it’s for religious reasons or other reasons,” R. Davis Younts, a military defense attorney, told the DCNF.

It doesn’t sound as if anyone is paying attention to the law.

The article concludes:

The military vaccine mandate has been the subject of strong debate between the DOD, which asserts that full vaccination status is critical to ensuring the readiness of the force, and Republican lawmakers, many of whom argue that the mandate has exacerbated an ongoing recruiting crisis.

“Secretary Austin supports maintaining the vaccine mandate. The health and readiness of our forces is critical to our warfighting capability and a top priority,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told the DCNF in a statement earlier in December.

The NDAA allows the DOD 30 days to work out how to roll back the mandate. The department is “currently in the process of developing further guidance,” DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn told the DCNF.

“We have no idea” what the DOD’s policy will be moving forward, Younts told the DCNF.

It doesn’t sound as if the DOD is willing to follow the law passed by elected officials. In that case, some DOD officials need to be removed.

It’s important to remember that many of the heart problems associated with the Covid vaccine have occurred in men between the ages of 18 and 28. That is the age of a large percentage of our military. Why are our leaders putting our military at risk?

The Military-Industrial Complex Comes Roaring Back

One aspect of the Trump administration that has not been widely reported on is the fact that no new foreign wars were started during his Presidency. Generally the world was more peaceful than it is now. Defense contractors did not receive massive contracts in order to earn massive profits during the Trump administration. That may be one of many reasons why President Trump is so totally disliked by the Washington elites.

On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

  • Congress has placed massive orders for weapons and equipment amid war in Ukraine and fears of aggression from other U.S. rivals, intensifying pressure on the defense industry to meet those orders.
  • Business is booming for contractors today, but they will have to manage some ongoing obstacles to production if they are to meet demand, experts told the DCNF.
  • “Congress has been leaning in this direction for several years, and it is the mood of the Washington consensus right now to throw money at defense,” Eugene Gholz, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former senior Pentagon official, told the DCNF. 

The article continues:

Congress authorized a massive increase in spending on weapons and ammunition in 2023, signaling a willingness to continue providing defense contractors the funding they need to deliver on future Pentagon orders, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Department Of Defense (DOD) would receive a 9% boost in defense spending, with some of the largest increases occurring in weapons budgets, in 2023 as part of Congress’ yearly funding bill, which allocates a total of $858 billion for defense. Concern that the U.S. lacks the capacity to both support Ukraine and deter China from attacking Taiwan have intensified as the U.S. continues to send billions in aid to Kyiv, but contractors will have to negotiate production challenges in order to supply what Congress and the White House believe they need, experts explained to the DCNF.

…The war in Ukraine has severely depleted U.S. and European weapons stockpiles, generating heightened demand to replenish those reserves, while  countries are seeking to grow and modernize their capabilities to guard against the effects of Russia’s war and the increasingly belligerent China and North Korea. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Dec. 16 the Ukraine crisis had exposed existing vulnerabilities in the defense industrial base that would need to be addressed.

“The diversion of existing stocks of weapons and munitions to Ukraine and pandemic-related supply chain issues has exacerbated a sizeable backlog in the delivery of weapons already approved for sale to Taiwan, undermining the island’s readiness,” the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission recently found. The backlog of deliveries to Taiwan has reached $18.7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

For the second year in a row, the Pentagon has clocked an average 4.3% budget increase year over year after factoring in inflation, compared to 1% for the years from 2015 and 2021, according to an analysis the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments completed for The New York Times and shared with the DCNF. Defense spending is approaching levels not seen since the height of the wars in Iraq and Syria in real dollars.

We cannot afford to finance the war in Ukraine while we have homeless veterans and an undefended southern border in America.

Is Anyone Really Looking Out For Our Military?

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article listing the four Republican Senators who voted against the amendment to the defense authorization package that would have reinstated troops discharged for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

These are the four Republican Senators:

Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Rounds of South Dakota voted no on a last-minute amendment to the bill re-enlisting thousands of troops separated for refusing the vaccine mandate, collapsing the proposal 54 to 40.

That is a disgrace.

The article reports:

The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have separated at least 8,400 active duty and reserve troops for spurning the Department of Defense’s (DOD) August 2021 requirement that all servicemembers receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to information the DOD provided to the DCNF. While the bicameral defense bill released late Tuesday directs the Pentagon to rescind the mandate, it stopped short of requiring the military to restore discharged troops to their prior positions or provide reparations.

…Defense leaders continue to maintain that ensuring the overall health of individual servicemembers, including by receiving complete doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, is a “readiness issue.” The White House reiterated support for the vaccination mandate on Dec. 5, Fox News reported.

Republican Sens. Cruz, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr of North Carolina, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee did not vote in Thursday evening’s session.

There is evidence that the vaccine is not entirely safe on young males. Much of our military is in the category where there have been heart problems as a result of the vaccine. It seems to me that until the vaccine can be proven entirely safe for young adult males, our military should not be giving or requiring the vaccine. Stay tuned for lawsuits in coming years from young men who developed heart conditions after receiving the vaccine.

The Problems With Depending On China For Manufacturing

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the slowdown in America of solar installations in the third quarter.

The article reports:

U.S. solar installations fell in the third quarter of 2022 and are projected to fall by nearly 25% in comparison to 2021 after the Biden administration began blocking Chinese solar imports from Xinjiang, a region where Uyghur Muslims are allegedly being forced to work, according to a Tuesday report.

The U.S. installed 4.6 GW of solar capacity in the third quarter of 2022, a 17% decrease from 2021’s third quarter and a 2% decrease from the second quarter of 2022 as the government continues to impound Chinese solar panel products under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), according to a Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie report. The act, which Congress passed in December 2021, bans imports from Xinjiang due to the allegations that Uyghurs are forced to manufacture polysilicon, a key input in solar panels, exacerbating supply chain constraints and meaning that the total number of solar installations in 2022 is projected to decline by 23% compared to 2021 levels.

The article notes:

China dominates solar panel manufacturing and is responsible for 80% of polysilicon production, according to an International Energy Agency report. In June, President Joe Biden waived tariffs designed to protect domestic businesses from unfair competition in order to get more Chinese solar panels on the market and accelerate his “clean energy” transition.

The Biden administration wants to generate all of the country’s electricity from green energy, such as solar or wind power, by 2035, up from just 40% in 2020. To achieve this objective, the yearly rate of solar installations may need to more than double, according to the Energy Department.

Dependency on green energy is similar to the search for the perpetual motion machine. There may actually be an answer in nuclear fusion, but we are not there yet. Countries like Iceland make use of geothermal energy very successfully, but they also live on top of the volcanoes that produce that energy. I am not sure I like that trade-off.

A Broken Promise

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the Democrats reneging on their promise they made to Senator Manchin in order to obtain his vote of their Inflation Reduction Act which was actually about funding green energy. It was an awful bill loaded with pork, and without Senator Manchin’s vote, it would not have passed.

The article reports:

A top House Democrat celebrated Tuesday after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia’s permitting reform bill was excluded from the annual military spending package.

In August, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to help Manchin pass a bill that would accelerate federal permitting for energy and mining projects in exchange for his sponsoring of the Democrats’ climate spending bill.  However, after Congressional leaders chose to remove Manchin’s bill from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) due to a lack of votes, Democratic House Natural Resources Chair Raul Grijalva, who along with many more left-wing Democrats had opposed the bill, touted the defeat of Manchin’s legislation as a win for “environmental justice communities” across the nation, according to a Tuesday press release.

“Thanks to the hard-fought persistence and vocal opposition of environmental justice communities all across the country, the Dirty Deal has finally been laid to rest,” Grijalva said. “House Democrats can now close out the year having made historic progress on climate change without this ugly asterisk.”

The historic progress they made is likely to cause power brownouts this winter in the coldest areas of the country. People may not be able to heat their homes as a result of Democrat policies. The Inflation Reduction Act will not reduce inflation–it will only fund the special interests that are involved in green energy. It has nothing to do with inflation.