This Will Be An Interesting Debate

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the debate that will happen in Congress at some point to decide whether any part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) savings should be returned to the taxpayer. I emphatically say, “YES!” The taxpayers were not responsible for the fraud and reckless spending–Congress was supposed to be exercising oversight. Let’s give taxpayers a portion of the savings and cut some Congressional perks to make up some of the difference.

The article reports:

Some House Republicans say they would rather use Department of Government Efficiency savings to pay off the national debt than to hand out the funds to taxpayers.

President Donald Trump floated giving $5,000 stimulus checks to taxpaying households in February, saying: “We’re thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens, and 20% down to pay back debt.”

Investment CEO James Fishback first proposed the idea of a one-time payment of $5,000 for eligible taxpayers. The checks were to be funded with 20% of the $2 trillion in federal budget cuts Elon Musk said could be achieved, meaning around $400 billion split between 79 million taxpaying households.

What about the other 60 percent?

The article continues:

Fishback “continue[s] to advise the effort from the outside and will fight to ensure that a chunk of identified savings are sent back to hard-working American,” he told The Daily Signal in an email.

But fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives would rather see DOGE savings entirely go toward paying off the debt, some tell The Daily Signal.

The article concludes:

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also said paying off the debt is the highest priority.

“Let’s focus on tackling our $36 trillion debt, while also helping hardworking Americans prosper by making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and spending less of their tax dollars,” Lee told The Daily Signal.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, agreed that the “big beautiful bill” is the best way to deliver on promises to voters.

“DOGE savings coupled with tax cuts will ensure Iowans and Americans can keep more of their hard earned money in their pockets while also restoring fiscal sanity and addressing deficit spending,” Hinson told The Daily Signal.

Why should the taxpayers have to pay for the government’s corruption and inefficiency?

A Very Perverted View Of Justice

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the murder of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, in Washington on May 21. Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Illinois man, is the alleged murderer.

The article reports:

A segment of the Democratic Socialists of America has thrown its weight behind an open letter declaring that Elias Rodriguez, the alleged murderer of two Israeli embassy staff, was “fully justified” in killing the couple because he intended to prevent “genocide.”

The Palestinian activist group Tariq El-Tahrir released the letter Monday. The Democratic Socialists of America Liberation Caucus signed it, while other parts of the DSA condemned Rodriguez. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a candidate for New York City mayor, condemned the letter and urged his opponents in the primary to do likewise.

“Elias Rodriguez’s targeted attack on two israeli diplomatic staff on May 21, 2025 was a legitimate act of resistance against the zionist state and its genocidal campaign in Gaza,” the letter states (the author appears to have intentionally lowercased both “Israeli” and “Zionist”). Rodriguez reportedly shouted, “Free Palestine,” and confessed to killing Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

The letter frames the shooting as a “fully justified” response to “twenty months of non-stop apocalyptic violence wrought by the zionist movement.” It accuses Israel of advancing a “supremacist world view” and “cementing the festering settler colony they have, temporarily, established on Palestinian land.” It claims international law sanctions violent attempts to prevent a “genocide.”

It is amazing to me that the people who are accusing Israel of genocide seem to overlook the events of October 7, 2023.

The article notes:

The Democratic Socialists of America did not support the letter, but one of the party’s caucuses, the Liberation Caucus, did.

“Excellent statement that we are proud to add our name to,” the DSA Liberation Caucus posted on X. “Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners.”

Elias Rodriquez is not a political prisoner–he murdered two people in cold blood.

The article also reports:

The Democratic Socialists of America claims to have more than 92,000 members, following the presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The party endorsed many Democrat politicians, helping to secure victories for Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., among others. Notably, the party withdrew its support for Ocasio-Cortez last year, citing her vote for a resolution affirming Israel’s “right to exist.”

The New York City DSA chapter condemned the violence of Rodriguez’s actions, but many DSA members condemned this denunciation of violence, The Free Press reported.

Political parties that justify murdering innocent people should not exist in America.

The Story From Someone Who Was There

There are a number of debates going on right now as to whether or not Planned Parenthood should receive federal or state money. The people who want them to receive money claim that their facilities provide necessary healthcare services. The people who oppose giving them money claim that they are simply an abortion mill. There is also the question of selling aborted baby body parts, but that has been addressed in previous articles.

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about funding Planned Parenthood from the perspective of someone who worked there for a number of years. The author of the article believes that Planned Parenthood should not get federal or state funding.

The article reports:

One of the legal points being addressed on Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is whether South Carolina officials have a right to refuse Medicaid funding—that is, taxpayer dollars—to the two Planned Parenthood centers and other abortion facilities in their state.

Underlying that legal concern, being presented to the court by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, who are representing the state, is a more basic question: What is Planned Parenthood really about, and what are taxpayers really funding?

If you want a short, simple, and accurate answer to that question, ask someone who saw firsthand how Planned Parenthood functions and who understands its priorities.

From 2000 to 2017, I worked at every level of Planned Parenthood, from the front desk to the labs, doing everything from showing videos to managing up to three centers at a time across Arizona. What started out for me as a job with good benefits that would let me help my people (I was born in Mexico) and serve women in need ended up as something altogether different—a front-row seat for the big business of killing babies.

The article also notes:

I took a lot of those calls. Almost every day, we heard from women who were experiencing incredibly more pain than the medical staff had promised … who were bleeding out over a bathroom floor … who were horrified to find themselves trying to flush a baby’s corpse down the toilet.

“Just go to the ER,” we were instructed to tell them. “And make sure you say it’s a miscarriage.”

Nothing was allowed to stop the push for abortions. If a woman’s blood pressure was too high or her iron count too low for the procedure, nurses kept rechecking the numbers until they found what they wanted to see. If a woman in the surgical room had serious second thoughts about killing her baby, a doctor would go in and talk to her until she agreed to go through with it.

We paid the staff who did abortions more than we paid other workers. We gave them bigger Christmas bonuses. When I presented ways of expanding or converting our facilities to accommodate a wider array of non-abortion services, I was reminded—again and again—that that’s not where the money was.

And when I kept expressing my concerns about all of this, I was fired.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Abortion is not healthcare and it kills the most vulnerable. It has been said that if the abortion clinics were killing puppies instead of babies, the public outcry would have closed them by now. I am not sure what that says about our culture.

Let’s See Some Action To Go With The Hearings

The Republicans in Congress are really good at holding hearings. Look at all the hearings they held investigating the Biden family and other corruption. Also look at the fact that none of these hearings have resulted in anyone being charged with anything or held accountable in any way. Well, they are holding hearings again. Let’s see what happens.

On Friday, The Daily Signal reported:

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would be holding hearings as early as next week on recent judicial rulings against actions undertaken by the Trump administration.

The announcement comes as several members of Congress are filing articles of impeachment against the federal judges who have stepped in to prevent Trump administration policies from taking effect. 

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., announced last month that he will be filing articles of impeachment against Chief District Judge John McConnell Jr. for the District of Rhode Island. McConnell has blocked an Office of Management and Budget order that would have frozen all federal grant, loan, and financial assistance programs

Since when does the judiciary control the executive branch. This needs to go to the Supreme Court (even though I don’t trust the Supreme Court).

The article notes:

Boasberg (Chief District Judge James Boasberg for the District of Columbia) ruled that the Trump administration had to return Venezuelan migrants that had been deported. Gill contended in a press statement that Boasberg, who was appointed in 2011 by Democrat President Barack Obama, is seeking to prevent the president from enforcing the Alien Enemies Act.

“Judge Boasberg has gravely overstepped his authority, usurping the constitutional power of the commander in chief. President Trump is securing America’s neighborhoods; restoring safety for men, women, and children who call this nation home. We will not tolerate radical, politically motivated judges illegally and unconstitutionally stopping the president from carrying out his mandate,” Gill said in a press statement.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., told The Daily Signal that the judiciary was not responsible for making public policy.

“The judicial branch is not the [human resources] department of the federal government, nor does it set national or foreign policy. It solely interprets the law, and certainly should never engage in judicial insurrection,” Perry said.

This is ridiculous.

There Are Financial Reasons Some Judges Are Fighting President Trump

Om Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article detailing the background of some of the judges opposing the agenda of President Trump.

The article notes:

Federal judges ruling against President Donald Trump’s recent executive actions have been almost entirely appointees of his two Democrat predecessors.

Some were previously activists, others were steeped in Democrat politics, and one is a former clerk for then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor. These judges have issued rulings to block Trump’s policies on immigration, federal spending, the Department of Government Efficiency, and other matters. 

Plaintiffs have been “forum shopping” to attain more favorable rulings, said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice. Forum shopping means they search for specific parts of the country where judges are more likely to be liberal and sympathetic to their case.

Here is some information on some of the judges involved:

A one-time major Democrat donor, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island, recently sided with a group of Democrat state attorneys general in a lawsuit to block Trump’s attempted funding freeze for numerous federal grants to nongovernmental organizations. 

From 2000 until when President Barack Obama nominated him to the federal bench in 2010, McConnell contributed about $60,000 to Democrat candidates. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed his nomination, noting his long career as a lawyer who sued over lead paint and tobacco, Forbes reported

…In a separate case targeting the order on the funding freeze, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan of the District of Columbia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, imposed a restraining order on the freeze. AliKhan was previously on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the D.C. solicitor general. 

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali of the District of Columbia, a Biden appointee, enforced a restraining order to prevent the spending freeze on foreign aid disbursed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2020, Ali contributed $1,500 to Biden’s presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org. He also made modest contributions to numerous other Democrat candidates. 

…U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland, an Obama appointee, blocked the Trump administration from conducting immigration raids and arrests at certain houses of worship. 

During much of Obama’s time in office, Chuang was the deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security. Before that, from 2007 to 2009, he was the deputy chief investigative counsel for the Democrat majority on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He was also a past contributor to several Democrat candidates, including giving $750 to Obama’s 2008 campaign and $1,250 to the 2004 presidential bid of Democrat John Kerry. 

You get the picture. Please follow the link above to the article for information on some of the other judges involved. None of these judges can realistically be expected to be objective.

Books Banned In Prison, But Not In Schools?

On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article reporting that books that were banned in prisons by The Texas Department of Criminal Justice are allowed in schools.

The article reports:

A Texas mother is looking to pass several bills through the state legislature this session after discovering what she calls “vulgar,” “profane,” and “indecent” books in public school libraries across the state.

Bonnie Wallace, a member of the Llano County Library Advisory Board and mother to a former Llano County Independent School District student, began warning parents, school officials, and lawmakers about the inappropriate content available to children in public schools after she found dozens of “bad books” at her local high school library. 

“Someone showed me a picture from a book, and the book is called ‘Gender Queer,’ and it’s by … an author named Maia Kobabe … and it was in our library,” Wallace told The Daily Signal.

“Gender Queer” contains graphic depictions of sex and discusses topics such as “gender identity” and sexual preference. 

During her investigations into Texas public school libraries, Wallace said she found books containing QR codes that link to online sex shops, Planned Parenthood, and a website called “F***ing Trans Women.” 

The article notes:

“The Texas Department of Criminal Justice that handles all the prisons in Texas and protocols, they have a list of 10,800 books that they prohibit Texas prisoners from accessing,” Wallace told The Daily Signal. “Any sex act that is illegal in Texas cannot be in a book that’s sent to a prisoner in Texas. … By the way, I have books in high schools and junior highs that have all of these things. It’s shocking.”

Anyone who remembers Junior High School or High School understands the problem leaving these books in the library poses. School libraries have a responsibility to give students access to good literature and books that will help them become contributing members of society. The types of books mentioned above will not advance that goal.

Reversing A Bad Decision

There are still a lot of questions about the Covid-19 vaccine. There are questions about its effectiveness and its risks. It was rushed through as an emergency measure with the claim that we had no effective cure for Covid. It seems that there may have been a cure that was squelched. I am not a doctor, so I can’t say for sure, but many reputable doctors have claimed that ivermectin cures Covid. The restrictions that were put on the unvaccinated were unfair. The masks were ineffective, and according to one pulmonary specialist I have talked to, interfered with basic immune function and led to a spike in pneumonia cases. So the bottom line is that we have more questions than answers. That is what makes President Trump’s Executive Order on funding schools with vaccine mandates a reasonable action.

On Friday, The Daily Signal reported:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday cutting off federal funding to schools that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine, fulfilling a promise he made repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“OK, that solves that problem,” said Trump after he signed the order in the Oval Office.

The order prohibits “federal funds from being used to support” any educational institution “that requires students to have received a COVID-19 vaccination to attend in-person education programs.”

In many places, the vaccine was reserved for the elderly and those who had some sort of medical condition. School-age students generally were able to survive Covid, develop natural immunity, and go on with their lives.

The article concludes:

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who has emerged as one of the Senate’s most passionate supporters of Trump’s and Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, told The Daily Signal that he wholeheartedly supported the move to grant parents more control over their children’s health care.

Mandating the COVID injections for anyone, much less children, was an outrage and violated the principle of informed consent,” said Johnson. “Ending what never should have happened is obviously welcome.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who in 2021 voted to block then-President Joe Biden’s attempts to mandate vaccines for millions of workers, likewise praised the move.

“I fully agree with President Trump’s decision to stop federal funds from going to schools that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine,” said Lummis in a statement given to The Daily Signal. 

“This type of unscientific overreach is a blatant violation of Americans’ personal freedoms and has no place in schools supported by the American taxpayer,” she said.

Because the government was able to send the American people into a panic, many of our Constitutional freedoms were ignored. We cannot let that happen again.

Running The Government Like A Business

President Trump has been a successful businessman for years. There have been a few hiccups along the way, but overall, he has done very well. He has the mindset of a businessman–keep costs down, eliminate waste, and make a profit. The federal government is not necessarily supposed to make a profit, but keeping costs down and eliminating waste is a pretty good idea. That’s what the Washington establishment fears.

On January 30th, The Daily Signal posted an article about the firing of the 17 inspectors general. The article points out some of the reasons they were fired.

The article reports:

There is a very strong argument to be made that those inspectors general failed to do their jobs during the past four years. Their failures provide Trump with all of the “due cause” he needs.

Just two examples suffice: their failure to investigate the misbehavior of their departments in attempting to interfere in the 2022 and 2024 federal elections and in using government resources to violate the First Amendment rights of American citizens and censor their opinions and social media accounts.

…In 2021, Joe Biden issued an executive order directing all federal agencies–including every one of the agencies whose inspectors general were fired–to get involved in state election administration. The agencies had to implement “strategic” plans to use agency personnel and resources to persuade and “assist” members of the public who interacted with those agencies to register and vote in federal elections. That included providing access to “vote-by-mail ballot applications,” identification documents, and multilingual voting materials.

…Think about that for a moment. What possible business is it of the Energy or Commerce or Transportation Departments to play a role–any role–in our elections? Zero. Zip. Zilch.  

…Congress never appropriated any funding for any federal agency in the executive branch to engage in voter registration and ballot activities, with only one exception: the Federal Voting Assistance Program office at the Pentagon that helps overseas military personnel and their families.

Yet not a single inspector general investigated any of these illegal activities and illegal spending of taxpayer funds at any of their agencies. Why not? 

The article also cites other examples where the government violated the civil rights of its citizens and the inspectors general sat on their hands. Please follow the link above for further details.

The Lawsuit Filed Against The Effort To End Birthright Citizenship

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the lawsuit that has been filed to stop President Trump from ending birthright citizenship. In recent years, birthright citizenship has been the camel’s nose under the tent to allow children of other nations to attend colleges here and to pave a way for their parents to come here legally through chain migration.

The article lists four of the problems with the lawsuit against ending the practice:

 

Error #1: The citizenship clause merely adopted the pre-Dred Scott common law rule that everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen.

In 1856, the Supreme Court held in the infamous case of Dred Scott v. Sandford that the U.S.-born descendants of African slaves were not and could never become citizens, even though under the traditional common law rule, a person automatically became a citizen of the nation on whose soil he or she was born. The plaintiffs contend that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was intended to restore this earlier common law rule of universal birthright citizenship.

They support this claim with a single, highly edited quotation from Sen. Jacob Howard, a Republican from Michigan, who was instrumental in drafting the citizenship clause: “This amendment … is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is … a citizen of the United States.”

Error #2: This is an unprecedented action—the executive branch has long recognized that it can’t deny citizenship to children based on the immigration or citizenship status of their parents.

This assertion is only true if history begins in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, it doesn’t. In the decades following the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the federal government regularly articulated a view of the citizenship clause that’s remarkably similar to that espoused in Trump’s order, and the executive branch issued citizenship documents accordingly.

Error #3: The Supreme Court confirmed in Wong Kim Ark that the citizenship clause automatically bestows citizenship on the U.S.-born children of noncitizen parents.

Contrary to popular assertions, this is not what the Supreme Court held in the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark v. United States. The question decided by the court in that case was far narrower: whether a child born in the U.S. to lawfully present and permanently domiciled immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen. And the court concluded that, indeed, the U.S.-born child of this narrow and specific subset of noncitizen parents is a citizen.

Error #4: The president’s order will leave many children deportable and stateless.

It would rarely, if ever, be true that a U.S.-born child of illegal or nonpermanent resident aliens would be left stateless simply because he or she isn’t automatically granted U.S. citizenship. Virtually every nation (including the United States) recognizes some manner of citizenship “by blood,” under which a child is automatically eligible for citizenship when one or both parents are citizens, even if that child is born abroad.

Please follow the link above for further details. This battle will probably eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It will be interesting to see how the Justices rule.

 

Shutting It Down Isn’t Really Shutting It Down

Right now the mainstream media and the Democrats (actually the same thing) are trying to scare Americans with the idea of a government shutdown. Somehow they fail to mention that in a government shutdown, only about 17% of the government actually shuts down. The rest remains open to provide Social Security checks, military pay, and other essential services.

On Friday, Mark Levin posted an article at The Daily Signal.

The article reports:

Hey, Republicans. The sky will not fall if there’s a government shutdown. The government was shut down six times during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Over 20 times since 1974. Yet, recent presidents have avoided it like the plague.

The nation survived, Reagan won massive landslides, and, in the end, the public didn’t give a damn despite all the media-Democratic Party hype at the time.

The bureaucrats wound up getting their money. Social Security checks and Medicare payments continued without a hitch. So did veterans’ benefits. The active military was unaffected.

…When you think of it, since the biggest entitlements are unaffected and they make up the overwhelming majority of government spending, it makes sense. And, by the way, no one, and I mean no one, will discuss reforming any of the big entitlement programs. Not even the self-anointed fiscal conservatives.

We are talking about a pittance in relative terms. Nonetheless, the Republicans need to take a stand somewhere. At least it’ll be a beginning. And they should explain to the people that the Democrats (and too many of their fellow Republicans) spend, borrow, and steal like pirates—which will bankrupt the country for their children and grandchildren; further drive up inflation, including the cost of food, clothing, and energy; destroy the value of their paychecks and pension checks; eventually collapse the government altogether—and that this drug-like spending addiction must be broken before it’s too late, which it already may be.

The Republicans shouldn’t act defensively or out of fear but boldly and proudly. They should speak up and speak to the people.

Government shutdowns (and the threat of government shutdowns) are a political strategy that needs to end. We have seen this play before.

Shut down the government if necessary, but please do not continue to spend American into oblivion.

Lied To Again

On Monday, The Daily Signal posted an article about an ABC News article about Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. secretary of education. The article at ABC stated that McMahon has no formal education training and little experience.

The article reports:

On Dec. 11, ABC News’ Jay O’Brien reported false information about Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. secretary of education, on “ABC News Live Prime.” 

In the first minute of an eight-minute overview, O’Brien stated that McMahon has no formal education training and little experience:

“If she receives Senate confirmation, McMahon, who has no formal teaching training and little experience in education, will be tasked with setting policies for the nation’s schools.”

This is patently false. 

While receiving a bachelor’s degree in French at East Carolina University in the late 1960s, McMahon earned a teaching certificate after completing a teacher preparation program at the school. This information has been available publicly for years, reported in outlets like The Washington Post and USA Today, was confirmed in a Hartford newspaper in 2011, and has been listed in official statements from East Carolina University.

The article concludes:

This is not the first time ABC News has published false information about members of the Trump transition team. On Dec. 14, ABC News agreed to pay a $15 million settlement after falsely asserting on air that Trump was guilty of rape.

In addition to her teaching certification from East Carolina University, McMahon served as a member of the Connecticut Board of Education and has served as a member of the Sacred Heart University board of trustees since 2004.

ABC News did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment, nor did it confirm if its news team has standards for reporting accurate information about story subjects.

I don’t really care what her teaching credentials are–I just want to know if she can shut down a department of the government that is unconstitutional–the Department of Education.

When The Mistakes All Go The Same Way

On Wednesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about an investigation by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee into the last census. Populations in blue states were over-counted and populations in red states were under-counted. Congress wants to know if that was simply an incredible coincidence or something more.

The article reports:

The head of the U.S. Census Bureau is set to face questions from Congress on Dec. 5 regarding its overcounting of residents of blue states and undercounting of those in red states. Such errors could aid Democrats politically by giving blue states a larger share of Electoral College votes as well as more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Daily Signal first reported in September that the House Oversight and Accountability Committee opened an investigation into the potential politicization of the population count and miscounts in 14 states. 

The December Oversight hearing will review the Census Bureau’s 2020 Post-Enumeration Survey, or PES. The hearing will also look at the bureau’s preparations for the 2030 Census. 

The article notes some of the miscounts:

The Biden administration’s Census Bureau revealed in May 2022 that it undercounted the Republican-leaning states of Arkansas by 5%, Florida by 3.4%, Mississippi by 4.11%, Tennessee by 4.78%, and Texas by 1.92%. The Census Bureau undercounted one Democratic-leaning state, Illinois, by 1.97%.

The Census Bureau overcounted Biden’s home state of Delaware by 5.45% as well as other Democratic-leaning states: Hawaii by 6.79%, Massachusetts by 2.24%, Minnesota by 3.84%, New York by 3.44%, and Rhode Island by 5%. It also overcounted two Republican-leaning states, Ohio by 1.49% and Utah by 2.59%.

A more accurate census gives us a more representative House of Representatives and a more accurate Electoral College. We need to get this right.

This Story Could Have Ended Very Differently

On Monday, The Daily Signal posted an article about Amaya Price, a 20-year-old who was going to share his struggles with gender dysphoria in high school and how he overcame them at an event about social change for a class at Berklee College of Music, a private music college in Boston. The college forced him to cancel the event, but the MIT Open Discourse Society allowed Amaya Price to host his lecture on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The article reports:

“I feel like I’ve given a lot of these parents hope, because I’m here today, I’ve been through this, I came out the other side, and I’m OK,” he said, “That’s what a lot of these parents need. They need hope. And right now how it is in Massachusetts, especially, there aren’t a lot of places to look.”

Amaya Price’s presentation highlighted the hate he says he has received on social media since announcing his event and his journey from identifying as trans to accepting his biological sex. He ended with the reminder: “No child is born in the wrong body.”

The article notes:

Amaya Price, who has been diagnosed with autism, said he experienced social ostracism and a mental health crisis in ninth grade, leading him to decide his problem was that he actually was a girl.

He told his therapist, who affirmed his gender dysphoria and referred him to Boston Children’s Hospital for hormones and surgeries. His pediatrician told Amaya Price’s father he could choose between having a “dead son or a living daughter,” and that the then-14-year-old would kill himself if denied hormones and surgery.

Amaya Price’s father immediately shut down the possibility of a medical “transition,” which his son now says is “the best thing he could have done.”

Amaya Price calls himself a “desister,” someone who identified as transgender but decided to live in accord with his biological gender instead of undergoing medical interventions.

Blackmailing parents by telling them their child will commit suicide if they are not allowed life-changing medical treatments that will permanently alter their lives should be considered medical malpractice. Children who change genders generally have a higher rate of suicide. That might be because the gender dysphoria might be a symptom or a deeper problem rather than being the problem. Also, a child who changes their gender will be on hormones for the rest of their life as their body attempts to go back to where it was. No trans surgery can change DNA.

Please follow the link to read the rest of the article. It offers hope to parents dealing with this issue.

What Law?

Some federal judges are stepping up to stop the abuses of power by the Biden administration during the past four years. Immigration is one area where our laws have been ignored or stretched beyond the point of reality.

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent immigration policy that was overturned.

The article reports:

Two days after the election, a federal court in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s latest unauthorized scheme to subvert immigration law: “parole in place” for illegal aliens who are the spouses of U.S. citizens.

In a 73-page decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas upheld a challenge by 16 states to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to create the parole program by administrative rule. 

Introduced by Biden back in June, “parole in place” for spouses was built on a legal house of cards, as my BorderLine column explained at the time.  In promulgating the order, Biden’s government created another administrative runaround to dodge the lawful visa process.

Congress mandated a three-year bar from returning to the U.S. for those who have been here illegally between six to 12 months, and a 10-year bar for those present for more than a year.

But illegal aliens who are spouses of American citizens may apply for a waiver to these bars from a DHS subagency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; many of them are approved every year.

Parole in place was a backdoor amnesty for half a million or more aliens living illegally in the United States. It would have treated an alien who is paroled the same as someone who was admitted legally, thus eliminating the three- and 10-year bars to return.

Once paroled, roughly a half-million alien spouses could have applied for green cards and later become U.S. citizens. This would have encouraged yet more illegal immigration, fraud, and access to already overextended federal and state benefits.

I truly believe that our current immigration policies are a disaster and need to be overhauled. However, ignoring them or rewriting them without the proper legal process is not the answer. We need some courageous legislators to sit down and work together to create a reasonable immigration plan that would allow people who want to come here and work to come (in numbers that would be able to assimilate). Immigrants would be required to have either a sponsor or a job and would be barred from receiving public assistance for a period of ten years. The numbers would be limited to a number that would allow the immigrants to be easily integrated into the communities where they settle.

Ruining Our Relationships With Our Allies While Aiding Our Enemies

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted about the recent sharing by the U.S. government of the Israeli surveillance in Iran. Those plans were shared with Iran directly from the U.S. government.

The article reports:

The Pentagon is looking into the leak of intelligence information related to an upcoming Israeli attack on Iran. It was America’s responsibility to keep the information safe, officials say. 

The leak likely has “deeply” damaged U.S.-Israeli relations during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, says Victoria Coates, Heritage Foundation vice president in charge of the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. The leak is “very, very concerning,” she says.

After Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles Oct. 1 at Israel, the Jewish state announced that it would respond. The leaked documents don’t include specific targets that Israel plans to strike, but do include surveillance information. 

The article notes:

Release of that information “definitely” has changed Israel’s original response plan, Coates says. 

The Iranians clearly have this information,” she says. “We don’t know what other information they have, and so I think Israel can and should take the time they need to develop an alternative plan.”

The article includes a podcast regarding the leak. Please follow the link above to hear the podcast.

It is bad enough to refuse aid to an ally when they are fighting for their survival, but to supply information to their enemies is beyond the pale.

The Biggest Cases Coming Up For The Supreme Court

On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article listing the biggest cases that will be decided by the Supreme Court in the upcoming session (which began Monday).

This is the list of the controversial cases:

  1. The case is called United States v. Skrmetti, and it involves a Tennessee law that bans giving children hormone treatments or genital surgeries to change a child’s body to match his or her chosen “gender identity.” That is, giving testosterone to and cutting off the breasts of girls who think they’re boys, and giving estrogen to and cutting off the penises of boys who think they’re girls.
  2. Americans have been handcrafting their own guns for hundreds of years. And for all those hundreds of years, nobody ever thought it was illegal. Even Democrats thought it was legal until just recently.What changed? Well, the Biden-Harris administration realized that it might be able to end this ancient tradition by deploying a slur. What were once handcrafted guns are now “ghost guns,” and with a name that spooky, they must be banned.
  3. The case is Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, but don’t get confused by the plaintiff’s name. This case doesn’t involve a noble fight against Big Tech censorship or a righteous stand against a screaming campus mob. No, this case is brought by pornographers hiding their smut behind the banner of free speech.Pornography rots brains, especially children’s brains, so Texas joined 19 other states and prudently passed a law saying that pornographic websites must verify that their users are over 18 years old. Texas, being a free state, wanted to strike the balance of allowing adults the freedom to make the self-destructive choice of watching pornography while protecting children who are too immature to fully appreciate the consequences of that choice.
  4. The Biden-Harris administration is obsessed with telling us that anyone who disagrees with it hates democracy. But at the same time, members of the administration are obsessed with doing end-runs around Congress and local elected governments to impose their will on the country.Their latest end-run is so egregious that even San Francisco is fighting back. The case is San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, in which a super-lefty presidential administration has gotten on the last nerve of a super-lefty city.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. The last case is particularly interesting. If you don’t tell someone what a limit is, you can make a lot of money when you accuse them of going over it!

The Cost Of Bidenomics

On Monday, The Daily Signal posted an article that provides some insight into the actual state of the American economy.

The article reports:

Small-business bankruptcies are up 61% on the year. It is a cackle-nomics miracle.

The data comes from bankruptcy analyst Epiq, which reports that commercial filings for Chapter 11 bankruptcies soared to 4,553 so far this year.

Meanwhile, total corporate bankruptcies are also rising, hitting the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, which is hitting especially hard in retail, with a parade of chains going under this year, including Red Lobster and its beloved endless shrimp. Never forget what they have taken from us.

What’s causing it? Simple: Inflation, high interest costs, and COVID-19 loans.

Inflation, of course, drives up business costs to the point they have to hike prices, which chases consumers out.

High interest rates are well-known to strangle business. In fact, that’s why the Fed does them, to strangle household spending enough that federal spending has inflation all to itself.

And then the COVID-19 loans: During the pandemic, the Small Business Administration pumped out 4 million loans—worth about $380 billion—in so-called economic-injury disaster loans. Note these were separate from the Paycheck Protection Program loans, where $800 billion were handed out to bribe voters into lockdowns.

While many of the PPP loans were fraudulent—actually, most of them, according to NPR—96% of those loans were forgiven.

Incidentally, one gang member recently killed in a Baltimore shootout had, it turned out, an outstanding PPP loan for a nanotech company. Not a joke.

Thing is, those $380 billion in injury loans actually do have to be paid back.

And it turns out a lot of companies can’t. Eighty percent are still outstanding—$300 billion—so, we’re probably just seeing the tip of the injury-loan bankruptcies.

As Tim Walz stated at a recent Pennsylvania rally, “We can’t afford four more years of this!”

Please follow the link above for further details.

Imaginary People Making Real Donations

On Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the funding for ActBlue. ActBlue was founded in 2009 to help Democrats in fundraising. The organization serves as a conduit for left-wing donors, with two more arms—ActBlue Charities and ActBlue Civics—funneling money to 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) clients, respectively.

The article reports:

Paging Dr. Adrienne Young, M.D. 

The good doctor is listed online as an “internist” in McKees Rocks, a borough in western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, known locally as “the Rocks.”

Campaign finance filings report Young’s practice is located on Heckel Road in McKees and list a 412 area code phone number. But her office does not appear to exist at this address and the number is not in service. Moreover, none of the receptionists attached to doctors’ offices located in close proximity to Young’s office address in McKees have ever heard of her. That’s peculiar in and of itself. But a search of campaign finance records only adds to the intrigue. 

Someone identified as Adrienne Young has been making substantial contributions to a left-of-center political action committee known as ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. 

…Restoration News is still attempting to contact the individual listed in campaign finance documents as Adrienne Young. Records list her residing on Leet Road in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. These records show that since 2017, Young has made 17,342 in contributions to ActBlue totaling $209,670.06—which averages seven contributions per day. 

Evidently the doctor is doing very well.

The article notes:

Smurfing” involves repackaging large sums of money into smaller, individual transactions to appear less suspicious and avoid scrutiny from law enforcement officials. Is “Adrienne Young” a cover for such an operation, benefiting Democrats?

While it is indisputably the case that ActBlue is ringing the bell with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, it’s not evident the smaller contributions that translate over time into larger sums are coming from an individual donor.

One of the more recent contributions to ActBlue leading back to the donor identified as Young came on March 16, 2023, in the amount of $1196.50. That’s not an unusual amount for an individual, but what is unusual is folding that amount into more than 17,000 contributions made over the span of several years. The donor identified as Young was actively contributing to ActBlue at least through part of this year with a donation of $429.00 made on April 30, 2024. If a smurfing operation is underway, it may not be limited to what’s flowing into ActBlue. 

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This sort of cheating needs to have serious legal consequences.

On Friday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article with the response of the Former Chief Impact Officer at ActBlue.

This is the response:

In a recent interview with an OKeefeMedia Citizen Journalist, Geri Prado former Chief Impact Officer at ActBlue, downplayed concerns about the organization’s suspicious fundraising practices. Prado attempted to brush off allegations by describing ActBlue merely as “a payment processor for campaigns, but it’s not a campaign,” and likened it to PayPal, citing credit card fees as a standard issue.

When asked about potential money laundering, Prado dismissed the concern, “No… It’s a very hard thing to do,” downplaying the likelihood of any illegal activity. However, she admits, “There are other problems,” hinting at other issues within the organization.

This comes amidst reports that Federal Election Commission (FEC) records are inaccurately reflecting senior citizens as having made donations far beyond their actual contributions.

It will be interesting to see what the current Department of Justice does with these allegations.

How You Draw The Districts Determines The Vote

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent decision by the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals regarding voting districts. There was a county is Texas where a voting district was carved out specifically to make sure a minority-race Democrat would be elected. The Court ruled that was not acceptable.

The article reports:

In Petteway v. Galveston County, the full appeals court concluded that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not protect or “authorize coalition claims, either expressly or by implication.” Coalition districts are districts in which no single minority group constitutes a majority of the voters. Instead, in those districts, there is a combination of different minority racial, ethnic, or language groups that make up a majority of voters. 

The citizen population of Galveston County is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black. Although the black population is concentrated in the center of the county, the Hispanic population is evenly dispersed throughout. The county commission consists of five seats: four elected from specific districts and one elected at-large. Neither the black nor the Hispanic population of Galveston County is large enough and concentrated enough to draw a single commission district in which either group constitutes a majority of the voters in that particular district.

As a result, in 1991, the county drew one coalition district that combined the black and Hispanic population in one district, which was represented by a black Democrat as of 2021. The other seats were all held by Republicans, including a black Republican. However, in the 2021 redistricting, the county eliminated the coalition district, which had a black citizen population of 31% and a Hispanic citizen population of 24%. 

The NAACP and the Justice Department led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, along with a number of individual plaintiffs, sued Galveston claiming that this was a violation of federal law because coalition districts are required by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

This case is not the only one involving coalition districts. Please follow the link to the article for further details.

The States Are Taking Action Because Congress Is Not

On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article about eight states that are going to put citizen-only voting on their ballots in November.

The article reports:

States set to vote on whether to amend their constitutions to prevent noncitizens from voting are Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.

In previous election cycles, such amendments to state constitutions passed overwhelmingly.

It will be interesting to see how the voters vote this time.

The article notes:

The House last month passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would require that states obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship from someone before he or she may register to vote. The bill would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter law.”

The Democrat-controlled Senate, however, is unlikely to take up the House bill.

In the states, the proposed constitutional amendments in effect would prevent local governments from expanding voting rights to noncitizens, as has occurred in California, Maryland, and Vermont. 

“States can take action constitutionally to protect citizen voters,” Kerri Toloczko, executive director of the Election Integrity Network, told The Daily Signal. 

“Opponents [of banning noncitizen voting] say it’s already illegal for foreign nationals to vote. It’s also illegal to steal a car,” Toloczko said. “There are so many loopholes in the National Voter Registration Act.”

As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” there have been numerous adjudicated cases of foreign nationals registering to vote and voting in past elections. 

A 1996 federal law specifically prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections for president or members of Congress. However, the law doesn’t dictate what local governments can do.

In addition, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires voter registration at states’ motor vehicle departments and social services agencies. 

There are some cities in America that allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, but what happens when a local election is included on a national ballot? When America was first founded, only land-owners were allowed to vote. The idea was that they were ‘stakeholders’ and were going to protect their own interests. What interest does someone who is not a citizen have in America’s success?

More Lies

On Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article about one of the lies that has been told multiple times Kamala Harris during her brief campaign for the presidency.

The article reports:

A campaign official for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris acknowledged Wednesday that the vice president is deliberately misleading voters about Project 2025.

CNN first reported the stunning admission as part of a fact-check article accusing Harris of making false claims about Project 2025 and former President Donald Trump’s stance on Social Security. CNN’s Daniel Dale revealed:

A Harris campaign official said the campaign has ‘made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump’s policies’ as ‘Project 2025,’ since they believe ‘it has stuck with voters.’

The article also notes:

CNN, for example, examined Harris’ comments at her first campaign rally Tuesday about Project 2025:

When you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act. And take us back, then, to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions.

After reviewing “Mandate for Leadership,” the Project 2025 book of policy recommendations, CNN concluded:

One of Harris’ claims about Project 2025 is false, while another is at least misleading. The Project 2025 document does not show that Trump intends to cut Social Security; the document barely discusses Social Security at all and does not propose cuts to the program. In addition, contrary to Harris’ suggestion, Project 2025 does not call to ‘end’ the Affordable Care Act or eliminate its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

If a campaign thinks it has to lie about its opponent to get votes, why should anyone vote for the campaigner?

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

The mainstream media is desperate to distract the public from the failing health of our current President. I honestly feel sorry for the man, but I also believe it is time for him to retire–NOW–not in the future. I understand the consequences of that, but he’s obviously not running things right now. All his retirement would mean is replacing Jill Biden with Kamala Harris. So what is the shiny object put forth to distract us–Project 2025, a suggested policy framework for the Trump administration if President Trump is elected. The lies are flying fast and furious.

On Tuesday, The Daily Signal listed some of the current lies:

1. ‘Terminates the Constitution’

Ironically, the Biden campaign claims that Project 2025 “terminates the Constitution.” While the campaign backs up some of its claims on the website with drop-down menus and explanatory bullet points, it doesn’t even bother backing up this particular claim.

Contrary to Biden campaign spin, Project 2025 actually represents an attempt to restore the Constitution, not terminate it.

Bringing the administrative state more firmly under the control of the president, whose authority traces directly from the Constitution, could not be further from terminating this quintessential founding document.

2. Gives Trump ‘More Power Over Your Daily Life’

With no sense of irony, the Biden campaign claims Project 2025 aims to “give Trump more power over your daily life.”

That’s completely false. Project 2025 aims to weaken the bureaucracy that churns out tens of thousands of pages of rules every year. A more restrained administrative state translates into less control over Americans’ daily lives, not more.

3. ‘Guts Democratic Checks and Balances’

The Biden campaign claims Project 2025 “guts democratic checks and balances on presidential power,” but the fine print on the website makes a consequential admission about these checks on Article II powers.

The website claims that the project will empower a president “to fire and replace independent civil servants across the government with extreme MAGA loyalists—turning independent government employees with specialized technical expertise, such as the people who keep our food safe, working for the American people into political creatures implementing his extremist agenda.”

The article concludes:

The Biden campaign’s lies come across as a desperate attempt to distract Americans from the president’s horrific debate performance last month and from the many ways that the Left has twisted the administrative state to its purposes.

Biden is so insistent on defending the status quo because the Left has already done what he claims Trump is trying to do—leverage the “expertise” of the administrative state to shove its agenda down Americans’ throats without a single vote. Contrary to his spin, reversing this is both democratic and constitutional, not to mention in the best interests of the American people.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. The current mainstream reporting on this is fear-mongering, and we need an informed public to make sure it doesn’t work.

Did They Wake The Sleeping Giant?

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the impact and possible consequences of the Democrat’s lawfare against President Trump and his supporters.

The article notes:

It is perhaps hackneyed to observe that, in convicting and seeking to incarcerate a former president and current leading presidential candidate, we have “crossed the Rubicon.” Well …

Did we not cross a Rubicon when the demonic Obama administration sued the nuns—yes, literal nuns—of the Little Sisters of the Poor to try to force them to subsidize abortifacients?

Did we not cross a Rubicon when Democrats threw out 4,000 to 5,000 years of “innocent until proven guilty” civilizational norms to try to derail the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh?

Did we not cross a Rubicon when then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris solicited funds to bail out anarchic Antifa-Black Lives Matter street hooligans?

Did we not cross a Rubicon when the American Stasi—sorry, the FBI—raided Mar-a-Lago over a document dispute?

Did we not cross a Rubicon when myriad Trump attorneys, including the renowned scholar John Eastman, were prosecuted for practicing the legal profession?

Did we not cross a Rubicon when Peter Navarro or Steve Bannon (just now) were ordered to jail?

The article notes that the Democrats have laid the groundwork for a new era in politics:

Ruinous or not, however, their precedent has now been set. And that raises the obvious question: For Democrats, will all of this, and especially their multifront anti-Trump lawfare, prove to be worth it?

That obvious question, in turn, has an equally obvious answer: absolutely, positively not.

The article notes three things that their lawfare has brought the Democrats–first, they did not get the expected bump in the polls after the verdict in the Trump trial. Second, the trial seriously eroded the faith of Americans in the justice system. And third, the continued lawfare woke up the sleeping political right.

The article concludes:

My friend John Yoo, the Bush-era Justice Department official and law professor normally a bit less pugnacious than yours truly, opined: “Repairing this breach of constitutional norms will require Republicans to follow the age-old maxim: Do unto others as they have done unto you.”

Megyn Kelly, the influential broadcaster who has had a complex relationship with Trump going back to the 2016 GOP presidential primary, said after the verdict: “I’m going to utter words I never thought I would utter in my life: We need Steve Bannon.” The famously combative Bannon appears headed for an unjust four-month prison sentence in a few weeks, but her point stands.

Democrats have no idea what they have unleashed. Perhaps worse, they don’t even care.

Stay tuned.

 

Economic Growth Has Significantly Slowed

On Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the revised downward economic growth in the first quarter of 2024. America is not doing well economically.

The article reports:

The U.S. economy grew less than previously thought in the first quarter of 2024 amid a slowdown in consumer spending, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Thursday.

Gross domestic product was revised down in the first quarter from 1.6% to 1.3% year-over-year in a sign that the economy is not as strong as initial estimates indicated, according to a release from the BEA. Economists originally expected growth in the first quarter to be around 2.2%, more in line with the above trend growth seen in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, which were 4.9% and 3.4%, respectively.

The revision was due to new information that shows that consumer spending, private inventory investment, and federal government spending were lower than initial estimates, while state and local government spending, nonresidential and residential fixed investment, and exports were slightly greater than original tallies, according to the BEA.

Current-dollar GDP was also revised down to 4.3% from 4.8%, and real gross domestic income totaled just 1.5% in an initial estimate from the BEA.

Consumer spending is down because consumers are being forced to spend more on necessities and less on extras.

The article concludes:

In an attempt to bring inflation back down to around 2%, the Fed has placed its federal funds rate in a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, a 23-year high, which has put pressure on consumers and businesses to slow spending. The hike in the federal funds rate has increased the cost of credit across the board, making it more expensive to take out debt, such as through credit cards.

The cumulative amount of debt held by Americans totaled $17.69 trillion in the first quarter, with $1.12 trillion of that being on credit cards. The share of people who were behind 90 days or more on their credit card payments in the quarter jumped to 10.7%, outdoing the pandemic high of 10% in the first quarter of 2021.

Job growth has also slowed as of late, with the U.S. adding just 175,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in April, far lower than the 242,000 that were expected, while the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 3.9%. In April, there were fewer gains in government jobs than in previous months, contributing largely to the slowdown, with March adding 303,000 new jobs.

This problem was government-caused and can be government-solved. Cut taxes and cut spending–that is the solution if Congress ever has the integrity to do it.

Why Are Chinese Crossing Into America Illegally?

In an article posted Sunday, The Daily Signal lists six reasons why so many Chinese are crossing into America at our open border.

These are the six reasons:

1. San Diego Infrastructure

2. Money Motivates Cartels

3. Because They Can

4. ‘A Better Life’

5. Chinese Influence on America

6. Marijuana Farms

There are some things to keep in mind when reading this list. Urban San Diego is a very easy place for illegal migrants to blend in. The Mexican drug cartels are selling immigration packages to the Chinese–for a little more money, the Chinese illegal migrants get legit legal travel documents so that they could fly on domestic airlines in Mexico. Because the Biden administration has left the southern border wide open, there is nothing to stop Chinese illegal aliens. The Chinese economy is struggling, so many Chinese are coming here for better economic opportunities. With an increasing Chinese population, Chinese influence on America will increase. Finally, China is running drug-producing factories in Mexico and marijuana farms in America. The legalization of marijuana in some states has made it a taxed product., The higher taxes have resulted in a flourishing black market.

The bottom line is simple–some Chinese are coming here simply to find a better economic life, but some are coming for nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing at this point which are which.