Tag Archives: The Daily Caller

The Results Of Really Bad Planning

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that the Air Force has reported that one of the evacuation flights leaving Kabul airport in the midst of the chaos of the American withdrawal carried individuals who “intended” on hijacking the aircraft.

The article reports:

Officials followed an intelligence tip that five people aboard one of the various commercial flights “intended to hijack the aircraft,” the report stated.

“Our team worked to get them clear of the NATO ramp, relocated to the north side away from friendly forces, then ultimately onto the south side where the situation was handled,” Lt. Col. Brian Desautels said, according to the Air Force statement.

No other details about the attempted hijacking were provided in the report.

The article also reports:

Two private flights leaving Kabul carrying nearly 800 people were stuck in Afghanistan for weeks after Sayara International, the development organization in charge of the departure and arrival of flights to the U.S., said negotiations between the Taliban and U.S. State Department prolonged, the Washington Examiner reported.

We have not heard anything recently about the school children stranded in Afghanistan when the evacuation was so poorly handled. I suspect there are many Americans still in Afghanistan living in nightmarish conditions. Meanwhile the Biden administration is having ‘civil’ negotiations with the new Taliban government of the country. This is not a good look for America.

Who Decides?

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the Taliban’s request for representation at the United Nations. The article includes a list of the countries that will decide whether the current Afghanistan Ambassador to the United Nations remains in place or the Taliban gets to seat its Ambassador. The nine countries which will make this decision are the United States, China, Russia, Sweden, the Bahamas, Bhutan, Chile, Namibia and Sierra Leone.

The article reports:

The Islamic militant group wrote the U.N. Secretary-General, Portugal’s Antonio Guterres, Monday to request permission to participate in the ongoing gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, according to The Associated Press. Five days prior, Afghanistan’s current ambassador to the U.N., Ghulam, Isaczai, provided Guterres with a list of the Afghan government’s delegation for the proceedings.

The Taliban letter was written with the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” and was signed by the Taliban’s appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ameer Khan Muttaqi, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The letter said that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was removed from power by the Islamic militants Aug. 15, and that the global community no longer recognized him or his government as the leaders of Afghanistan. As a result, Muttaqi said, Isaczai could no longer represent Afghanistan at the U.N.

It should be noted that if the Taliban is seated in place of the current Afghan Ambassador, the Taliban inherits Afghanistan’s seat on the U.N. Women’s Rights Commission. I suspect that I am not the only person that has a problem with that.

Showering Terrorists With Cash

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The Daily Caller reported yesterday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will be sending $64 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to address the “compounding effects of insecurity, conflict, recurring natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.” That makes my head hurt. How about sending $64 million in aid to America to house our homeless veterans and improve healthcare for our veterans?

The article reports:

The funding will come from USAID and the State Department, and will be distributed through the United Nations and independent aid groups, the agency said in a press release. The humanitarian aid will help provide vulnerable Afghans with “critically needed food, health care, nutrition, medical supplies, protection, hygiene supplies and other urgently needed relief.”

USAID also said it has created a Disaster Assistance Response Team to lead the U.S. government’s humanitarian response in Afghanistan and work with partners on the ground to provide assistance.

Does anyone actually believe that the money will be used for humanitarian purposes and not to arm terrorists in the Middle East?

The article concludes:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Afghanistan’s neighbors to keep their borders open to refugees and promised to ensure the Taliban does not block humanitarian assistance, particularly to groups such as women and girls.

“The United States will also work with the international community to help ensure that the Taliban follow through on its commitments and advance unhindered humanitarian access, freedom of movement for aid workers of all genders, safety and security of humanitarian staff, and safe passage for all those who wish to leave Afghanistan,”  he said in a statement.

I think it’s time to remove the State Department from our government. They obviously do not work for us.

 

We Still Have Friends Who Remember

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that Buckingham Palace played the U.S. national anthem Saturday morning at the “changing of the guard” to commemorate 9/11. That is touching.

The article reports:

“Just as they did at Buckingham Palace twenty years ago to show solidarity with our US allies, the Band of the @WelshGuards this morning played the US National Anthem at changing of the guard,” tweeted the British Army in London.

Many American institutions are commemorating the 20 year anniversary of 9/11. The Boston College football team will wear special uniforms Saturday to honor a 9/11 hero. The Florida Gators will also be wearing patriotic helmets to recognize the 20 year anniversary.

The British have been dependable allies for a long time. Hopefully that will continue.

A Little Gratitude Would Be Appreciated

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about an Afghan interpreter referred to as Mohammed.

The article reports:

An interpreter who reportedly helped save Joe Biden and Antony Blinken after their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing during a snowstorm was left behind in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday.

“I can’t leave my house. I’m very scared,” the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed, told WSJ. Mohammed added that although he, his wife, and his four children were able to make it to the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), his wife and children were denied entry.

Mohammed was serving at Bagram Air Base in 2008, when a pair of Black Hawk helicopters carrying then-Democratic Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and then-Republican Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, was forced by a snowstorm to land in a valley that was near the site of a recent battle. Blinken, then a foreign policy adviser to Biden, was also on the trip, according to CNN.

The translator joined the 82nd Airborne Division, driving into the mountains to rescue the group.

Mohammed reportedly fought in more than 100 firefights along with American troops.

“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lt. Col. Andrew R. Till wrote in support of Mohammed’s Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan is a disgrace. The military strategists who approved this plan need to be relieved of their positions. The difference in what has happened under President Biden and the fact that no American was killed in Afghanistan for eighteen months under President Trump is the concept of ‘Peace through Strength.’ When America projects strength, she can protect her people and innocent people around the world. When America has a weak President, the entire world is in danger. It is my hope that American and the world can survive the Biden administration.

A Kinder, Gentler Taliban?

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The Daily Caller is reporting that Afghans who helped America or American allies in any way are getting letters pinned to their front doors at night (“night letters”) telling them to attend a Taliban-conducted court or face death.

The article reports:

One of those to receive a warning was Naz, a 34-year-old father-of-six whose construction company helped the UK military build roads in Helmand and the runway at Camp Bastion.

He had applied for sanctuary in Britain under ARAP, the Afghan relocation programme, but had been rejected.

Naz said yesterday: ‘The letter was official and stamped by the Taliban. It is a clear message that they want to kill me. If I attend the court, I will be punished with my life.

If I don’t, they will kill me – that is why I am in hiding, trying to find a way to escape. But I need help.’

Another victim, a former British military translator, was warned he was a ‘spy of the infidel’ and must give himself up or pay with his life.

A third night letter warned the brother of an interpreter that he had been sentenced to death for sheltering him while a fourth was found in the shoe of an ex-British military translator as he left prayers at a mosque.

The letters are a traditional Afghan method of intimidation. They were used by mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation and then by the Taliban as both a propaganda tool and a threat. Often used in rural communities, they are now being widely circulated in cities.

A related article in the U.K. Daily Mail reports:

For Naz, the letter was specific. It named his father and their village and was stamped by the Islamic Emirate. 

The warning said he had been a ‘slave’ of Nato forces and had ignored warnings to stop working with them.

He was ordered to ‘present yourself’ to the court otherwise it would be ‘forwarded to the Sharia Court of Appeal where the judgment of death penalty will be passed in your absence. This would be the path you have chosen for yourself’.

Naz said: ‘The message of night letters is clear: you must comply or die. We have moved but we can’t keep moving. We must escape.’

There is no good news in this surrender. It was time to leave Afghanistan, but we could have done it very differently.

I Wish They Would At Least Get Their Stories Straight

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One of the various methods police use to catch criminals is to separate the people apprehended at a crime scene and have them tell their stories separately without being able to hear each other. Generally the truth will be found somewhere in the contradictions. Right now we seem to be getting a number of contradicting stories from the Biden administration on Afghanistan.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about one of those contradictions. In this case, the story and the contradiction both came from the same person.

The article reports:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed Sunday that the United States had not given lists of American citizens and allies to the Taliban.

Blinken joined “Meet the Press” with NBC’s Chuck Todd and disputed the accuracy of reports indicating U.S. officials had handed over lists of people the Taliban should allow through checkpoints and into the airport in Kabul. Just moments later, however, Blinken appeared to concede that U.S. officials had handed over passenger manifests for busloads of Afghan allies who were supposed to be allowed through security.

…“Chuck, it’s simply not the case. The idea that we’ve done anything to put at further risk those that were trying to help leave the country is simply wrong. And the idea that we shared lists of Americans or others with the Taliban is simply wrong,” Blinken immediately pushed back.

“What was shared?” Todd pressed.

Blinken went on to detail the lists of people U.S. officials had given to the Taliban in order to ensure their safe passage.

“When you’re trying to get a bus or a group of people through and you need to show a manifest to do that — particularly in cases where people don’t have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them — then you’ll share names of the lists of people on the bus so they can be assured those are the people we’re looking to bring in. By definition, that’s exactly what’s happened,” Blinken said.

“We’ve gotten 5,500 American citizens out of Afghanistan,” Blinken continued, saying again that the U.S. had provided passenger manifests or verified the names of individuals — especially those who might not have proper documentation on them.

“But the idea that we put anyone in any further jeopardy is simply wrong,” he concluded.

If you were dealing with humane, rational people who are willing to help you evacuate Americans and friendly Afghans from Afghanistan, that might be a reasonable course of action. However, if you are dealing with people who routinely cut people’s heads off for any minor slight or infraction, you might want to reconsider giving them a list of  your allies. I really can’t believe that the people in our State Department are that naive. Unfortunately if they are not that naive, this is being done on purpose. That thought is even more scary.

Creating Further Division In America

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On June 16th, I posted an article about Biden administration’s plan “to create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government, in an effort to fight domestic terrorism.” I am sure that the idea that your family and neighbors (or children for that matter) could report you for anything you say will help bring Americans together ((note sarcasm).

Well, it’s getting worse.

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported the following:

The FBI took to Twitter Sunday to encourage families to watch out for “homegrown violent extremism.”

“Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism,” the FBI’s tweet read in part.

Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism. Visit https://t.co/bql36iSbig to learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the #FBI.

This is the tweet:

The article continues:

The link included in the tweet takes readers to the 2019 edition of the Homegrown Violent Extremism Mobilization Indicators report.

The report separates extremism into three groups based on whether the action is highly, moderately, or minimally diagnostic on its own.

Behaviors that are considered highly diagnostic include taping a martyrdom video or last will, preparing travel in order to join a terrorist group, or “communicating intent to engage in violent extremist activity,” especially on social media. (RELATED: DOJ Considering New Domestic Terrorism Laws Aimed At Violent Domestic Extremism)

In June, Attorney General Merrick Garland said white supremacy was the greatest “domestic violent extremist threat” facing the U.S. as he announced President Joe Biden’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

This is frightening. We currently have an open southern border allowing members of MS-13 and other violent gangs to enter America and the FBI is worried about politically incorrect opinions being expressed on social media. Wow.

I realize that a lot of this is a reaction to what happened on January 6th, when some unarmed people forced their way into the Capitol. However, I firmly believe that January 6th is being used as an excuse to shut down any opposition to the current administration–on social media or elsewhere. We have watched the media censor news they didn’t like (Hunter’s laptop, election fraud, coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in various states, etc.). What is being proposed here is the next step to creating a one-party government which punishes political dissent.

Yesterday The Epoch Times noted:

Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence, wrote that the FBI’s tweet “is outrageous” because the agency “has a growing credibility problem and this type of sinister snitching is clearly unhelpful.” Several Republican lawmakers also criticized the tweet, saying the FBI is encouraging Americans’ family members to spy on one another.

“In both Cuba & China, they also ask children to spy on their parents,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote.

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-Texas) wrote: “These people protected Hillary, abused NSA surveillance databases against Americans, used known, unreliable DNC-funded propaganda to spy on Trump, perpetuated the Russia hoax, & lied to the FISC repeatedly. And now they tell you that you should spy on your family.”

It’s not clear if the FBI posted the tweet in reference to the Biden administration’s campaign against “domestic violent extremists” or the longstanding intelligence operations against Islamist terror groups. Officials at the agency didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment by press time.

 

This Will Not Keep Our Country Safe

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent report on domestic violent extremism.

The article reports:

Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun suggested to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday that a report on domestic violence extremism placed disproportionate interest on the pro-life movement in a “wild attack” that identified “abortion-related violent extremists” as a principal threat.

Garland testified before a Senate subcommittee Wednesday where Braun brought up a declassified intelligence report on domestic violence extremism released by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March. That report, Braun said, identified abortion-related violent extremists as a principal threat.

I don’t think the burning and looting of major cities last summer had anything to do with abortion.

The article continues:

“To me this seemed like kind of a wild attack on the pro-life community,” Braun said. “It did not list groups like BLM and Antifa, who have had a clear recent record of violent acts.”

“So can you explain what that was about?” Braun asked. “Why there would have been focus on that, and has there been a rash of incidents related to it?”

Garland said that the report described leading threats that were racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, particularly white supremacists, adding that he doesn’t know where pro-life activists fit on the “threat matrix.”

What we are watching is the criminalization of political thought. It’s okay to burn down cities, destroy businesses and loot if you are on the political left, but if you hold conservative views, you are suspected of being potentially violent. This is a serious threat to our freedom in America.

The article concludes:

The DNI report specifically mentions that abortion-related violent extremists have ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs. The declassified report does not make specific mention of Antifa or Black Lives Matter, though it explains the category that Garland mentioned — anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists, a category which includes militia violent extremists, anarchist violent extremists, and sovereign citizen violent extremists.

DNI declined to comment for this story.

An Upside Down Department Of Justice

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the priorities of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The article reports:

Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged Wednesday that the Justice Department is prioritizing prosecuting those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over those who rioted and looted during last summer’s social justice demonstrations.

“I think it’s fair to say in my career as a judge and in law enforcement, I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Mr. Garland said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “There was an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of power.

“If there has to be a hierarchy of things that we prioritize, this would be the one we would prioritize because it is the most dangerous threat to our democracy,” he continued.

It should be noted that on April 15th, MSN reported:

Federal prosecutors in Portland, Ore., have moved to dismiss almost half the cases they charged in connection with violence accompanying last year’s protests over racial injustice, as authorities grapple with how to tamp down politically motivated unrest that has arisen since then.

Of 96 cases the U.S. attorney’s office in Portland filed last year charging protesters with federal crimes, including assaulting federal officers, civil disorder, and failing to obey, prosecutors have dropped 47 of them, government documents show. Ten people have pleaded guilty to related charges and two were ordered detained pending trial. None have gone to trial.

The penalties levied so far against any federal defendants, most of whom were arrested in clashes around federal buildings in Portland including the courthouse, have largely consisted of community service, such as working in a food bank or encouraging people to vote.

On January 3rd, The Daily Caller reported:

  • At least $4 million in physical damage was done to businesses downtown during the first month of protests, according to the Portland Business Alliance.
  • The riots cost downtown Portland another $18 million in revenue, according to the PBA.

I think it’s time for the Attorney General to re-examine his priorities. Those who participated in the riot at the Capitol deserve to be punished, but none of the rioters had weapons and the only person killed was killed by the Capitol Police. The destruction and threats to human life in Portland were far more serious. The only reason for the priorities the Attorney General is stating is political bias. No wonder many Americans have lost faith in the legal system in our country.

Undermining American Sovereignty

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On Friday The Daily Caller reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will no longer collect fines for illegal immigrants who fail to leave the United States. So let’s just encourage people to break out laws.

The article reports:

At the direction of Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rescinded two delegation orders relating to financial penalties. The fines, which were first put in place in 2018 by the Trump administration, collected “civil financial penalties for noncitizens who fail[ed] to depart the U.S,” according to the press release.

ICE Delegation No. 006-2020, “Delegation of Authority to Administer Certain Provisions Relating to Civil Penalties for Failure to Depart,” was deemed as counterintuitive “to the agency’s best interests.”

So what incentive does an illegal immigrant now have to leave America?

The article notes:

Mayorkas and Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson agreed the fines were “not effective” and “had not meaningfully advanced the interests of the agency.”

The DHS press release also stated that ICE would work with the Department of Treasury to cancel the existing debts of those who had been fined.

“The rescission marks ICE’s latest move toward focusing its limited resources on those posing the greatest risk to national security and public safety in accordance with the current guidance on civil immigration enforcement and removal priorities,” the statement concluded.

How many people have to come to America illegally before we realize that is a threat to our national security?

 

Undoing The U.S. Constitution

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On January 30th, The Daily Caller posted an article about the possibility of Washington, D.C., becoming a state. The article asks the question as to whether or not statehood for Washington, D.C., requires a Constitutional Amendment.

On Friday Breitbart reported that the House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on whether or not to make Washington, D.C., a state.

The article reports:

The House of Representatives will vote Tuesday on whether to make Washington, D.C., a State.

The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), voted the bill, H.R. 51, out of committee by a vote of 25-19 to create D.C. statehood Wednesday.

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs has stated that the move is unconstitutional and simply a partisan power grab.

The article reports:

Biggs’ view is supported by legal scholars, who opposed D.C. statehood’s feasibility without a Constitutional amendment to the 23rd Amendment. The Office of Legal Counsel in 2007 believed it was unconstitutional, the Justice Department under former President Reagan and former President Carter stated the transformation was unconstitutional, and so did Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, when he sat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Additionally, twenty-two state Attorneys General sent a letter Tuesday to President Joe Biden and Congress arguing Washington, D.C., cannot transition into a state via legislation, but only through the method of a Constitutional amendment.

The primary arguments against D.C. statehood are:

  1. Our nation’s capital was always meant to be unique. The Framers established in the Constitution’s District Clause that the nation’s capital is a federal district, existing beyond the borders or influence of any state.
  2. H.R. 51 is doubly unconstitutional, violating both the plain meaning of the District Clause as well as the necessary implications of the Twenty-Third Amendment.
  3. Even those who support D.C. statehood admit district residents enjoy special benefits due to where they live and would enjoy an outsize influence in Congress.

The Founding Fathers purposely avoided making Washington, D.C., a state. If our current legislators want to change that, they need a Constitutional Amendment (which can be difficult to do–further proving that our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing). If this is passed, I suspect court cases will quickly follow. I would feel better about that if I trusted the courts.

 

Fighting Back

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Yesterday Trending Politics reported that 13 states are suing the Biden administration because of the clause in the Covid Relief Bill that prevents states from lowering taxes if they receive aid.

The article quotes The Daily Caller:

The Daily Caller reports: “The 13-state coalition argued that the provision included in the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package preventing states from cutting taxes if they accept relief from the federal government is unconstitutional. The coalition, led by Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, Morrisey said, “Never before has the federal government attempted such a complete takeover of state finances. We cannot stand for such overreach.”

…The lawsuit explains that the tax provision is “one of the most egregious power grabs” in U.S. history, adding that the Tenth Amendment doesn’t allow the federal government to stretch their authority like the Biden Administration is doing.

The lawsuit is needed. The provision in the bill is definitely government overreach.

When You Think Your Zoom Meeting Is Private But It’s Not

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Yesterday The Hill posted an article about the recent resignations of the members of the board of trustees for the Oakley Union Elementary School District. It seems that the private Zoom meeting they were having was not private, and they made some comments that were both inappropriate and offensive.

The article reports:

In the call, part of which was posted to Twitter by NBC News Bay Area reporter Bigad Shabad, trustee Kim Beede could be heard saying, “Are we alone?” before adding, “B—- if you’re going to call me out, I’m going to f— you up.”

The president of the school board, Lisa Brizendine, then went on to describe the criticism they have received in letters from parents pushing for schools to return to in-person classrooms. The elementary school district is currently only allowing distanced learning amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

Brizendine said in the call, “They forget that there’s real people on the other side of those letters that they’re writing,” and then added, “It’s really unfortunate that they want to pick on us, because they want their babysitters back.”

Another school board member, Richie Masadas, then chimed in that his brother had a delivery service for medical marijuana and that his primary clients were parents with school-age children. 

“When you got your kids at home, no more smoking,” he added.

Beede eventually could be heard saying, “Uh-oh. We have the meeting open to the public right now.”

“Nuh-uh,” Brezendine responded, after which the meeting was then switched to private.

Lest we forget, I would like to remind you of the list of demands from the Los Angeles Teachers’ Union that they required met before they return to school. The information below is from an article in The Daily Caller on July 13, 2020:

The United Teachers Los Angeles union called for the defunding of police, a moratorium on new charter schools, new wealth taxes on California’s millionaires and billionaires and Medicare-for-All at the federal level in a research paper issued Thursday.

…The UTLA also called for a moratorium on new charter schools, saying that the charter schools already operating in the city of “double-dipping” by accepting federal CARES act funding while also receiving state funding, which did not decline amid the pandemic.

I think we need to examine the actions and motives of our teachers and school board members and work to put people in administrative roles whose priority is actually to educate our children.

 

The Tide Is Slowly Turning

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The last election showed a number of Americans moving away from the radicalism of the current Democrat party to what has become a more inclusive Republican party. Although the establishment Republicans do not approve of President Trump, he is responsible for the new diversity in the party. Meanwhile, the establishment Republicans are working very hard to shoot themselves int he foot.

Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

More than a hundred former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.

The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.

More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of ‘principled conservatism,’ including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law – ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

Most of the leadership of the Republican party is not conservative and never have been. They are part of the deep state that allows lobbyists to write the laws, supports endless wars overseas, supports more government regulation, and generally overtaxes and overspends. This is an attempt to go back to the uni-party status quo. If it works, it will be the end of the Republican party.

Meanwhile, The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday from Bryan Dean Wright, a Former CIA Officer. The article explains why left the Democrat party.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

For years, Democrats like me have watched with increasing alarm as our own political leaders and activists – from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to media outlets like MSNBC – have used an endless stream of hateful, violent and ultimately un-American rhetoric that has resulted in billions of dollars in economic damage and given birth to a violent national movement. 

…In all, over 700 federal, state and local law enforcement officers sustained injuries in violence perpetrated by Leftist rioters. That includes retired St. Louis police Captain David Dorn, who died defending the city he loved from those encouraged by the Democrat Party’s incitement.

To be clear, the list of victims of Leftist hatred and violence is only set to grow.

In the past several months, Democrats have stepped up an already audacious smear campaign against the Republican Party in an effort to target conservatives.

The article concludes:

Despite the Leftist narrative accusing the GOP of being racist, misogynistic or homophobic, the Republican Party attracted the most diverse coalition of voters since 1960. Diving into the numbers, Trump added more Black, Latino, Asian and gay voters to the conservative populist movement than any other president or nominee in the party’s recent history.

And no matter what one thinks of Trump the person, the message and populism he advocated for resonates with voters. It was and remains unapologetically America First, anti-war and pro-worker, focused on merit-based opportunity, judicial reform, strong borders and an unwavering commitment to law and order. To state the obvious, the Trump coalition came up short in 2020. But the vision of an America that lives up to our national motto – “Out of Many, One” – did not.

So this Democrat will take the same sensible step as others before me. It’s time to leave the hateful, violent and un-American Democrat Party.

The populist GOP is my new political home.

Please follow the link above to read the entire Daily Caller article. It illustrates how people who are paying attention are reacting to what is happening in America.

Allowing The Trojan Horse Inside The Gates

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported the following:

The Biden administration quietly withdrew a rule proposed by the Trump administration that would have required American schools and universities to disclose their partnerships with Confucius Institutes, which some U.S. officials allege are front groups for Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

The Trump administration submitted a proposed rule to the Department of Homeland Security on Dec. 31, 2020, entitled “Establishing Requirement for Student and Exchange Visitor Program Certified Schools to Disclose Agreements with Confucius Institutes and Classrooms.”

Around 500 K-12 schools and 65 colleges in the U.S. have partnerships with the Confucius Institute U.S. Center, a U.S.-based affiliate of the Beijing-based Confucius Institute Headquarters. The institute, also known as Hanban, is affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education.

The rule was withdrawn on January 26th.

The article concludes:

In August, the Trump administration labeled the Confucius Institutes U.S. Center a “foreign mission” of the Chinese Communist Party, a designation typically used for foreign embassies and consulates.

The Foreign Missions Act applies to entities that are “substantially owned or effectively controlled by a foreign government.”

Trump administration officials said that the Chinese government used the Confucius Institutes as part of its propaganda and influence efforts in the U.S.

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, who spearheaded many of the Trump administration’s China initiatives, said on Aug. 13 that the Confucius Institute was “an entity controlled by the PRC that advances Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.”

The Confucius Institute U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One Congressman recently stated that it was going to take 20 years to purge
America of domestic terrorists (such as Trump supporters). Isn’t it an incredible coincidence that it will take about 20 years to brainwash the younger generation into ideas compatible with the values of Chinese communism?

At Least Someone Is Fighting This Policy

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the Western Energy Alliance. This group sued the Biden administration Wednesday alleging that the pause on oil and gas leases on federal land and waters exceeds presidential authority.

The article reports:

As part of President Biden’s ultimate goal of eliminating fossil fuel as a power source by 2035, and from the entire U.S. economy entirely by 2050, Wednesday’s executive orders direct agencies to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels, to pause new oil and gas leases on federal lands and water. It aims to conserve 30% of the country’s lands and ocean waters in the next 10 years and requires federal agencies to move to all-electric vehicle fleets.

It carries significant risks and opposition.

Michael Shellenberger, the author of Apocalypse Never, said: “Climate change is not the most important environmental problem. Most of the trends are going in the right direction: Deaths from natural disasters are at an all-time low. Carbon emissions in the United States peaked over a decade ago; they’ve been going down ever since. They’ve been going down in wealthy countries for almost 40 years. We should continue to do what’s been working, replacing coal with natural gas and nuclear, but this is not the apocalyptic trend that people have been led to believe it is.”

Shellenberger, an environmentalist, a Democrat, and Biden voter, maintains that wind and solar produce their own environmental damage, adding, “They just gave permission, the federal government, to industrial wind farms to kill condors. This is, for people that are environmentalists, true conservationists — that’s bonkers.”

The article concludes:

Republicans will no doubt attack what they see as Democratic hypocrisy on the issue. Climate czar Kerry is known to fly on the Heinz Family Foundation’s private Gulfstream jet. Private jets consume roughly 40 times the carbon per passenger as commercial jets.

I support using the cleanest energy possible. However, the idea of running an economy entirely on green energy reminds me of the search for the perpetual motion machine. There are laws of physics that come into play when you are dealing with energy, the creation of energy, and motion.

We need to learn from the experience of Spain, as detailed in The Daily Caller on August 28, 2014.

Please follow the link to read the entire article in The Daily Caller, but this is the bottom line:

Spain has actually been scaling back its costly green energy agenda the past year or two in the face of high debt and unemployment. The country cut wind subsidies to major wind farms back in February and, in June, Spanish officials announced a new electricity rate schedule that effectively ended green energy feed-in tariffs.

The IER study also notes that Spain’s green agenda was not able to keep its carbon footprint from rising. Between 1994 and 2011, Spain’s carbon dioxide emissions grew 34.5 percent, despite the country’s green push which began in the 1990s.

“While the renewable policies themselves were likely not the cause of the emissions increase, the upward trend does prove that renewable energy policies were insufficient to reduce CO2 emissions over a roughly twenty-year period,” according to IER.

“is anything but the model for American energy policy,” reads the IER study. “The country’s expensive feed-in tariff system, subsidies, and renewable energy quotas have plunged a sizable portion of Spaniards into fuel poverty, raised electricity bills, all while having almost no meaningful impact on curtailing carbon dioxide emissions.”

We shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. We need to learn the lessons of those who already reinvented the wheel and discovered it needed to be round. To attempt to go down the same road as Spain, ignoring the lessons they learned, is folly.

What Did The Donations Pay For?

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On Saturday The Daily Caller reported the following:

President Joe Biden rode a record-breaking $145 million in “dark money” donations into the White House, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.

“Dark money” is donations from anonymous donors to outside groups backing a given candidate. Biden’s $145 million is the all-time record for a candidate challenging an incumbent president, according to Bloomberg. Former President Donald Trump received $28 million from such donations.

…Biden’s count tops former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s $113 million in dark money donations from his 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

Throughout the entire 2020 campaign season, Trump’s donations totaled $1.96 billion, compared to Biden’s $1.69 billion through November 23. Trump received a heavy fundraising boost between October 15 and November 23 thanks to his challenge to the results of the election.

That’s an awful lot of money to spend on an election. It seems to me that the money would have been better spent dealing with America’s budget deficit.

Can We Check The Bank Accounts Of The People Involved In This Decision?

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that the New York Stock Exchange is reversing the decision it made Thursday to delist three Chinese telecommunication operators.

The article reports:

“In light of further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities in connection with Office of Foreign Assets Control, NYSE Regulation no longer intends to move forward with the delisting action in relation to the three issuers which was announced on Dec. 31, 2020,” the Exchange announced in a press release Monday.

The NYSE had originally announced Thursday that it would delist three major Chinese telecommunications operators, including China Mobile, one of China’s most valuable NYSE-listed state-owned enterprises, in compliance with Executive Order 13959.

This decision is being made in anticipation of a China-friendly Biden administration taking control later this month. It is a reflection of the fact that under Biden China will go back to taking full advantage of America in every way possible.

The article concludes:

The NYSE’s reversal, coming in the twilight weeks of Trump’s presidency, highlighted the confusion surrounding the implementation and implications of a U.S. ban on Chinese firms deemed to have military links, Reuters reported.

Hong Kong-traded shares in the three companies had surged following the reversal’s news, according to further reporting from Reuters. The NYSE move also briefly raised the yuan to a new 30-month high, as markets saw it as a form of easing geopolitical tensions.

This is a true illustration of ‘follow the money.’ It would be interesting to see who was speculating on the rise of the yuan. That would tell us a lot.

Looking For The Science In This Decision

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks. Her restaurant is closed down due to the increased restrictions on businesses in Los Angeles. She has been forced to close down outdoor dining. Meanwhile, a film company working in an nearby area has set up outdoor dining in the same parking lot.

The article reports:

Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks, stated that she is no longer allowed to stay open with the new Los Angeles County order prohibiting outdoor dining. She also alleged that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti approved tents and tables being set up for use by a film company. 

“I’m losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me,” Marsden said in the video which has gone viral. “And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio … They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive. My staff cannot survive.”

There is nothing scientific about the decision to close down Ms. Marsden’s outdoor dining and open up outdoor dining in her parking lot for a film company. This is a blatant example of government overreach. Ms. Marsden’s restaurant could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, but the film company’s outdoor dining won’t. Where is the science in that?  If working people don’t begin to take back the freedom to work and to run businesses that the government has stolen, we will not survive as a country.

Having An Impact

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the role Justice Barrett may play in a gun ownership case that is currently making its way to the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a longstanding precedent on Nov. 24 that convicted felons are not permitted to possess firearms after Lisa M. Folajtar asked the court to decide whether Congress can prohibit individuals like herself who are convicted of tax fraud from legally owning a gun.

The appeals court ruled that they could find “no reason to deviate from this long standing prohibition in the context of tax fraud” and rejected her claim.

Folajtar pled guilty in 2011 to making false statements on her tax returns, according to the court’s ruling. While the crime carries a prison sentence of up to three years,  she was instead sentenced to three-years’ probation, among other sentences. However, current law says that people convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison are prohibited from owning a gun.

Folajtar sued in 2018, arguing that the law violated her Second Amendment right to carry a firearm. The court dismissed her claim, sending Folajtar to appeal to the Third Circuit. However, the divided court ruled that since the felony is a serious crime, she is not protected.

The article cites a similar case where Justice Barrett dissented from the majority:

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Kanter v. Barr in which the court upheld that Rickey I. Kanter was prohibited from owning a firearm because he committed mail fraud. However, Justice Barrett dissented, arguing that history does not support revoking Second Amendment rights to felons convicted of a non-violent crime.

“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” Barrett wrote in her 2019 dissent. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.  Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons.”

Barrett argued that Wisconsin, nor the U.S., has provided any evidence that the ban serves the governments’ “undeniably compelling interest in protecting the public from gun violence.”

“Neither Wisconsin nor the United States has introduced data sufficient to show that disarming all nonviolent felons substantially advances its interest in keeping the public safe. Nor have they otherwise demonstrated that Kanter himself shows a proclivity for violence,” Barrett dissented.

The Supreme Court has not ruled on a major gun rights case since 2008 and 2010, when they ruled that  law-abiding citizens can keep guns in their home for self defense.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibition on the possession of firearms by felons,” which could present a challenge for Folajtar.

I will admit that the idea of someone being prohibited from owning a gun because he lied on his incomes taxes is something I have never considered. It does make sense that someone who committed a non-violent crime and paid their debt to society should have the right to own a gun.

How To Skew News To Fit Your Agenda

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This article is not about the recent Biden scandals, although that is another example of what I am about to illustrate. It is about stating a fact which happens to be true without providing the background information that provides perspective. Last week various media outlets posted articles stating that ‘hundreds of the Notre Dame faculty signed a letter opposing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.”  Sounds a little fishy when you consider that most reports have said that she was highly regarded by both students and faculty at Notre Dame. Well, there is more to the story.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the letter.

The article reports:

Eighty-eight faculty members at the University of Notre Dame signed a letter criticizing their “colleague,” Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, though none of these faculty members are from Notre Dame’s Law School.

The letter calls on Barrett to halt her confirmation process until after the election, acknowledging that doing so might ultimately deprive Barrett of the Supreme Court vacancy.

None of the people who signed the letter are from the Law School. That might be the first clue that something is a little off.

The article continues:

Four of those on the list were gender studies professors, five were peace studies professors, nine specialized in English, and seven specialized in Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries.

Leaders at the University of Notre Dame have previously praised Barrett and expressed support for her confirmation.

“She is a person of the utmost integrity who, as a jurist, acts first and foremost in accord with the law,” Notre Dame President John Jenkins said in a statement. “I join her colleagues in the Law School and across the campus in congratulating her on the nomination, and wish her and her family well through what has become, sadly, a personally bruising confirmation process.”

“Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an absolutely brilliant legal scholar and jurist,” Joseph A. Matson Dean of the Law School Marcus Cole said in a statement following Barrett’s nomination. “She is also one of the most popular teachers we have ever had here at Notre Dame Law School. Judge Barrett is incredibly generous with her time and wisdom while mentoring her students.”

The Notre Dame faculty letter came after over 50 law professors sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday praising Barrett’s qualifications as “stellar” and expressing support for her confirmation.

It is a safe guess that those professors opposing the nomination were not registered as Republicans. Although the Supreme Court was intended by our Founding Fathers to be the least political branch of government, recent history shows that is not the case. The questions about healthcare were interesting–Congress is tasked with setting healthcare policy. If they are doing it right, why are they concerned about Judge Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court?

Chris Wallace Must Be Getting Heat For His Debate Performance

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about an interview on ” Fox News Sunday.” Chris Wallace, who hosts the show, was conducting an interview of Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons.

The article reports:

Wallace specifically asked Coons to weigh in on the idea of adding justices to the Supreme Court, and the Delaware Senator pivoted to argue that the Trump administration’s focus on filling judicial vacancies amounted to court packing.

For once, Chris Wallace got it right. The article notes:

“Let me just say — I’m just going to say, that’s a different issue than packing the court,” Wallace concluded. “If that’s the question, whether or not the court should — the Senate should vote to confirm Barrett, that’s different than changing the number of justices on the court. Senator Coons, I got to leave it there, thank you.”

For the record, packing the court means adding more justices to the Supreme Court in order to impact the balance of liberal and conservative judges. Filling judicial vacancies is one of the responsibilities of the President. Because of the increasing rancor in the Senate, a large number of the nominees of President Obama were not confirmed, and there were a lot of judicial vacancies when President Trump took office. He promptly began to fill these vacancies. Getting judicial nominees passed is much easier when the President and the Senate are held by the same party. Our Founding Fathers did not intend for that to be the case (they disliked the idea of political parties), but that is where we are today.

I give credit to Chris Wallace for at least correcting Senator Coons on his talking point.

And The Games Continue

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The Democrats are quietly trying to blunt the impact of the Republican National Convention on voters. Unfortunately, the people who put the Republic convention together had a better understanding of television production than the people who put the Democrat convention together. The latest effort by the Democrats was putting out a list of Republicans voting for Joe Biden. That was almost impressive until you looked at the list.

The Daily Caller posted the following today:

Nothing says “authentic” like a list of “Republican” supporters who aren’t Republicans.
That’s the sleight of hand Joe Biden just tried to pull. On Monday afternoon, his presidential campaign blasted out a “[h]uge list of Arizona Republicans … endorsing @JoeBiden today,” in an attempt to paint the Democratic ticket as bipartisan. We in Arizona were a little confused, though, because most of the endorsees on the list aren’t exactly what you’d call Republicans.
Right at the top of the list (you guessed it) is former senator Jeff Flake, who suddenly dropped out of his reelection race in 2017 after realizing that Republican primary voters didn’t like him — and neither did anybody else. Most of the time, the former senator is out of sight (and out of mind). But every now and then he’ll pop his head above ground to remind the media how woke he is and get a sniff of that “Strange New Respect.”
This week’s endorsement is just another example of that. In 2016, Flake announced that he wasn’t voting for President Trump. In 2019, he bragged that “I would support a Democrat” for president, adding: “… obviously Joe Biden comes to mind.” Finally, in early 2020, he reiterated that November “won’t be the first time I’ve voted for a Democrat.”

…Following Flake on Biden’s list is Jim Kolbe, who left Congress while George W. Bush was still in office. The former congressman soon after became an Obama appointee and subsequently crossed “Republican” off of his voter registration.
Following him is Grant Woods. You might be asking: “Who is that?” So are we.
Woods, a politician from the 1990s, gained a reputation as a liberal Republican before disappearing from the political world for a decade while working as a trial lawyer. He came out of the woodwork in 2010 to endorse Felecia Rotellini (now the Arizona Democratic Party’s chairwoman) for state attorney general and again in 2014 to endorse Democrat Fred DuVal for governor. Woods then endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 — he called her “one of the most qualified nominees to ever run” — and endorsed Democrats Hiral Tipirneni and Kyrsten Sinema in 2018 before formally changing his own voter registration to Democrat.
But, yes, definitely a Republican.

You get the picture. After a while you begin to wonder why President Trump is such a threat to the Washington establishment. Remember the statement by Hillary Clinton, “If That F-ing B*stard Trump Wins, We All Hang From Nooses.”

A video of the incident is posted at YouTube. Also here.

People who lose elections in America do not generally hang from nooses. This statement has always made me wonder what she was guilty of that put that thought in her mind.

As we continue through the political silly season, be aware that most of what you read from the mainstream media is simply not true or simply incomplete information. Be your own best fact-checker.

Slowly The Truth Becomes Available To The Public

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Based on the information that has already come out, many Americans (at least those who don’t depend on the mainstream media for their news) believe that there was a soft coup attempt on President Trump that began immediately after he was elected. As information is made public from various investigations, this is becoming more obvious.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about some of the latest information to come out.

The article reports:

  • The Senate Judiciary Committee released a newly declassified FBI document Friday showing that a New York Times report about contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence was riddled with errors. 
  • Peter Strzok, who served as FBI deputy chief of counterintelligence, spotted 14 errors in the Times story, published on Feb. 14, 2017. 
  • Strzok also critiqued Christopher Steele, saying that the dossier author was unable to judge the reliability of his network of sources.

The article continues:

An FBI document released Friday details at least 14 inaccuracies in a New York Times report from early 2017 that leveled shocking allegations of Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

The document shows then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok’s comments on a Feb. 14, 2017 article entitled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

Written by journalists Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, the story cited four current and former American officials who said that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies had intercepted call records showing that Trump associates had contacts with Russian intelligence in the year prior to the election.

Strzok, who was the lead investigator on the Trump investigation, spotted 14 errors in the article.

The article concludes:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who released the FBI documents on Friday, said in a press release that Strzok’s annotations on the Times article “are devastating in that they are an admission that there was no reliable evidence that anyone from the Trump Campaign was working with Russian Intelligence Agencies in any form.”

James Comey, the former FBI director, criticized the Times report shortly after he was fired in May 2017. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 7, 2017, that the story was “almost entirely” inaccurate.

The Times stood by the story despite the pushback from Comey.

“The original sources could not immediately be reached after Mr. Comey’s remarks, but in the months since the article was published, they have indicated that they believed the account was solid,” the paper said in a statement following Comey’s testimony.

The New York Times was driving the narrative that President Trump was a Russian agent. Their reporting was inaccurate from the beginning. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who still believe the fiction The New York Times was publishing. That is one of many causes for the divisiveness that we are currently seeing in America.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once stated, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”