Tag Archives: The Daily Signal

Getting Around The Illegal And Dangerous Border Crossing

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On September 21st, The Daily Signal reported that 221,456 illegal aliens have flown directly into America from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua thanks to a program set up by the Biden administration.

The article reports:

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, or FOIA, Bensman (Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies) says, he learned of the federal government’s “CBP One” mobile application parole program, which “permits inadmissible aliens to make an appointment to fly directly to airports in the interior of the United States, bypassing the border altogether.”  

The Biden administration introduced the CBP One mobile app to illegal aliens as a way to schedule an appointment at a port of entry and be paroled into the interior of the United States. (The acronym CBP refers to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security.)

President Joe Biden said the program was part of an effort to form “lawful pathways” for illegal aliens to enter the country and seek asylum. Illegal border crossings between ports of entry at the southern border appeared to decline in June as more illegal aliens presented themselves at a port of entry.  

But, according to Bensman’s findings, migrants also are presenting themselves at ports within the interior of the country.

One of the “least noticed, mysterious, and potentially the most controversial of the new rechanneling programs that use the CBP One app allows migrants to take commercial passenger flights from foreign countries straight to their American cities of choice, flying right over the border—and even over Mexico,” Bensman writes in the Center for Immigration Studies report titled “New Records: Biden DHS Has Approved Hundreds of Thousands of Migrants for Secretive Foreign Flights Directly Into U.S. Airports.”  

According to Worldometers, the United States 2023 population is estimated at 339,996,563 people at mid year.

Keep in mind that the number of people flown in by airplane is only a fraction of the number coming over the border every day. According to The New York Post, 820,500 illegal aliens had crossed our southern border in 2023. Even if they were here legally, that is a tremendous number of people to assimilate. How many of those people will have to be supported by American taxpayers who are already struggling because of inflation?

Misusing The Office Of The Presidency

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article detailing how the Obama administration used secret information to undermine the incoming Trump administration.

The article reports:

Heavily redacted documents from the National Security Agency tell at least part of the story of a final-month rush by the outgoing Obama administration to torpedo the incoming presidency of Donald Trump. 

The Daily Signal obtained 217 pages of documents from the NSA through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents reveal that Obama administration officials, from Vice President Joe Biden down to several ambassadors and many officials in the Treasury and Energy departments, gained access to secret information about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Trump’s choice for national security adviser.

The article includes screen captures of many of the documents.

The article continues:

In May 2020, then-acting Director of National Intelligence Rick Grenell declassified information and provided Congress with a list of names involved in the Obama administration’s “unmasking” of Flynn, Trump’s original pick for national security adviser, who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years under Obama.

Senate Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin released the list of Obama admnistration officials. 

“Unmasking” is the practice of disclosing to political appointees the identities of U.S. citizens referenced or recorded in intelligence surveillance of foreign nationals. Names of citizens typically are redacted, or obscured, from such reports, unless a specific request is made to “unmask” those citizens. 

NSA emails about most such requests from Obama officials regarding Flynn bear this message: “The identities of the named U.S. persons and organizations is required for full understanding of the intelligence in the report.” 

Several of the NSA documents note Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, including the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” The amendment to the Constitution also requires warrants “upon probable cause.”

The Obama administration and the Biden administration have consistently ignored the Constitution. Rarely have the other two branches of government pushed back. Some recent decisions by the Supreme Court have undone some unconstitutional laws, but we need the Republicans in Congress to stand up for our Constitution.

Investigating Government Policies On Covid-19

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I seriously doubt that there was a perfect solution for handling Covid-19 when it appeared in 2020. However, I also wonder if the government actually got anything rights. An investigation into the government’s handling of the pandemic would be very useful in developing a template for handling future pandemics.

On January 19th, The Daily Signal posted a checklist for the House of Representatives committee that is investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.

The article notes:

After three years, and more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. associated with COVID-19, a comprehensive, sober, and detailed investigation into the federal government’s response is a necessary precondition for restoring Americans’ trust in federal public health agencies.

Specifically, that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.  

A Heritage Foundation analysis of the federal public health performance identified 13 pandemic-related topics that deserve detailed congressional inquiry. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Here are some of the things that need to be investigated:

  • Why did the CDC, despite statutory requirements dating back to 2006, fail to modernize and upgrade its systems of data collection and dissemination? Dr. Deborah Birx, former coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Trump, has already told Congress that “the No.1 public health issue in the United States today is that there is no comprehensive database or integration of data from laboratories, public health institutions, and clinics.”  
  • Why did federal public health authorities send out confusing messaging on the value of masks and mask mandates? Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC and then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams initially insisted, very publicly and sometimes vehemently, that masking was unnecessary or ineffective. Previous studies on masking indeed failed to provide strong support for cloth masking, let alone mask mandates. Between February and April 2020, however, top federal officials did a U-turn, and insisted on the value of a masking policy that they previously opposed. What was the new scientific evidence, then available in the professional literature, for such a dramatic policy reversal in that brief period? Congress should find out.
  • Why did federal officials attempt to impose a set of unprecedented vaccine mandates on tens of millions of Americans without weighing the risks and benefits of vaccination for different cohorts of the population, based on age, the acquisition of natural immunity, or an underlying vulnerability to the virus?  Young and healthy persons faced little danger of severe illness or death from COVID-19. Robust findings in the professional literature demonstrated the strength of natural immunity. Recent research on vaccine boosters for young adults concludes that potential harms outweigh the benefits of the vaccination.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. America is supposed to be a representative republic–our elected officials are supposed to represent us and answer to us–it’s time they did.

A Coup We Never Knew

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On January 6, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The Daily Signal about the changes we have seen in America over the last two years.

The article begins:

Did someone or something seize control of the United States?

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas, furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

That is just the beginning. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race? How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus? Whose idea was it to reboot racial segregation and bias as “theme houses,” “safe spaces,” and “diversity”? How did that happen in America?

How did a virus cancel the Constitution? Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity? Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare to a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we never knew.

It’s time to join or to start a local grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the rights and structure defined in the U.S. Constitution. We have a number of organizations like that in eastern North Carolina. Hopefully there are some where you live.

What Happens When There Is No Oversight

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The House Judiciary Committee is supposed to provide some oversight into the activities of the Justice Department. Unfortunately, so far during the Biden administration the House is controlled by the Democrats, so there has been little if any oversight. The result of that was recently illustrated in an article in The American Thinker on Thursday.

The article quotes The Daily Signal:

The Justice Department has been targeting pro-life activists through the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act as a response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, according to Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta.

Gupta delivered remarks at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s 65th Anniversary earlier this month. The associate attorney general described the overturn of Roe v. Wade as a “devastating blow to women throughout the country” that took away “the constitutional right to abortion” and increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s work—including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

The article at The American Thinker reports:

So, crisis pregnancy centers are being vandalized and burned, and churches are being attacked, and all she’s willing to do is target pro-life activists, in junk cases, for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances for arrest. She’s scored 26 notches in her lipstick case for that one, while utterly ignoring the violent and real violations of the act coming from the other side.

One such example of her 26 scalps is the case of Mark Houck, a pro-life rosary-sayer who got into an altercation with a clinic “escort” in front of an abortion clinic, after the latter began shouting at and intimidating and violating the space of his 12 year-old son. It happened several years ago, and even Pennsylvania’s woke prosecutors declined to prosecute the case because it was so flimsy. But Vanita Gupta, enraged at the decision on Roe, had a partisan agenda, and instead of prosecute the leftist clinic escort who got in the child’s face (turns out he had quite a previous rap sheet), which also would have been applicable under the FACE act, she sent in the SWAT team with 15 squad cars to haul Houck away in front of his terrified kids. I wrote about that travesty here.

There is something very wrong when she is allowed to keep her job after exhibiting that much bias in enforcing the law.

The Cancel Culture Continues

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On November 2nd, The Daily Signal posted an article about a conference held last month by The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM).

The article reports:

Medical organizations in the birthing field have vocally endorsed abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. A prominent group of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists found itself excluded from a national midwifery conference over its views on abortion, The Daily Signal can exclusively reveal. The pro-life group is also raising the alarm about the potential decertification of medical professionals who refuse to toe the line on abortion.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) held its Midwifery Works Conference last month, but the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) had no presence there for the first time in six years.

AAPLOG, a nonsectarian organization, operated as a “special-interest group” within the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) for 40 years before ACOG discontinued the designation. Now, ACNM, ACOG, and the organization responsible for certifying OB-GYNs, the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ABOG), have embraced pro-abortion stances.

“One of the greatest threats to maternal health care is the rabid pro-abortion activism currently being displayed by both ABOG and ACOG,” AAPLOG CEO Dr. Donna Harrison told The Daily Signal. “Three national studies have revealed that somewhere between 75% and 93% of OB-GYNs do not perform abortions in their practices.”

…Harrison also raised the alarm about a July statement from ABOG, which she characterized as a threat to decertify pro-life OB-GYNs.

“Physicians and midwives who care for both of their patients, both the pregnant mother and the human being in her womb, are being systematically bullied and eliminated from being able to practice medicine, at a time when maternity care deserts are worsening around the country,” Harrison added. “ACNM has recently joined in the bullying by refusing to allow midwives who care for their in-utero patients to even speak or exhibit at the recent ACNM national conference.”

The article concludes:

Harrison, the AAPLOG CEO, predicted more struggles ahead.

“The threats to decertify OB-GYNs who do not participate in killing their patients will not only worsen the existing maternity care deserts but also completely ignore the fact that many women do not want to be treated by an abortion provider,” Harrison told The Daily Signal. “Many women want a physician who cares as much about the human being in their womb as they do, so that they can trust that the recommendations for treatment are being given in consideration of the best outcome for both the mother and her child. This is good obstetrical care.”

I don’t think killing babies is good medical practice nor is it good for society as a whole.

Rejecting Covid-19 Vaccinations For Children

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the states that are refusing to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for children.

The article reports:

At least 11 states have rejected or are expected to reject a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that pediatricians give COVID-19 shots to children along with other vaccines.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously decided Thursday to add COVID-19 shots to the children’s immunization schedule, which some schools and states use to create vaccination requirements. Many states, however, have laws in place that prohibit schools from requiring a COVID-19 vaccination for students.

Some of the states who are not including Covid-19 vaccines in their vaccine requirements for children are Wyoming, Iowa, Oklahoma, Montana, South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, and Arizona.

On October 14th, a website called NewsTarget posted the following:

Kaiser Permanente (KP), a well-known insurance company and healthcare provider, has commissioned a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine against the dominant omicron subvariants.

The KP study revealed that those who are triple-vaccinated are more likely to be infected with COVID-19. Shockingly, or maybe not, they were also more likely to suffer severe illness and die from coronavirus.

According to a report by investigative journalist Daniel Horowitz, one chart on page 30 of the KP preprint study found that vaccine efficacy against the omicron subvariants dropped significantly 14 to 30 days after vaccination.

The efficacy continues to fall in the following months until it reaches negative territory after five months. This suggests that the recipients are more likely to get coronavirus than the unvaccinated.

Additionally, the study results indicate that triple-vaccinated individuals are at greater risk of getting COVID-19 after five months than those who only received two vaccine doses. (Related: Study finds 84% increase in incidence of cardiac-related DEATH among men under 40 following mRNA vaccination.)

Horowitz, who has reported on the negative efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine for the past year, added that it’s possible that the vaccines “prime the body to respond with a version of the virus that has long since changed, thereby making the natural immune response misfire.”

The article at NewsTarget also notes:

Meanwhile, British government data found that adults aged 40 to 74 who have received mRNA booster shots are twice as likely to be hospitalized as those who haven’t been boosted.

In June, an analysis of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trials by British Medical Journal Editor Dr. Peter Doshi and other medical experts revealed that people who received the mRNA vaccines were more likely to be in the hospital than get protection “from a severe adverse event.”

It’s time to recall the Covid vaccine and go back to the drawing board!

 

Retribution For Speaking Out

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On Wednesday, Red State posted an article about a father who complained about a male in his high school daughter’s locker room.

The article reports:

Remember earlier this month when the news broke about a Vermont high school allowing a biologically male student to use the girl’s locker room? Well, there has been a new and disturbing development in this saga. A father who works at the school was suspended for speaking out against the policy after his daughter was made uncomfortable by the male student.

The situation began when the Daily Signal reported that two girls who are members of the Randolph High School’s volleyball team asked the boy, who identifies as a girl, to leave the locker room after he made an inappropriate comment. The school responded by essentially banning girls from the girl’s locker room to cater to the male student’s delusion about his gender identity as it launched an investigation into the matter.

But they were not investigating the conflict. Instead, they are “launching a harassment investigation” into the girls who complained rather than the 14-year-old boy who chose to use their locker room. The Daily Signal spoke with parents whose children attend the school. Predictably, they were outraged that the school would prioritize the biological male over their daughters.

“We allowed a child who is biologically the opposite sex, male, go in a locker room where biologically girls were getting fully changed,” one of the girls’ mothers said. “The biological child was not changing and sat in the back and watched girls getting changed. That made girls feel uncomfortable, made girls feel violated and not protected.”

“When parents and kids went to the school principals they were told it was a law—nothing they could do about it,” she continued. “The law gives them room to protect all and they did not.”

The article continues:

But now, the school is taking further action to defend this practice. The Daily Signal reported that Travis Allen, who coaches girl’s soccer at Randolph Union Middle School, was suspended for speaking out about the matter:

Travis Allen has been suspended without pay from his job as the Randolph Union Middle School girls soccer coach, Orange Southwest School District Superintendent Layne Millington said in a Tuesday letter. His suspension follows a Daily Signal report highlighting his daughter’s discomfort at a biological male using her locker room while she was changing.

The superintendent, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal, said that Allen was being punished because he “misgendered a transgender student in our district.”

Biological males do not belong in a high school girls’ locker room–particularly when they are just sitting there watching and not changing! Every parent of a daughter needs to speak up about this. Schools may have to create separate spaces for transgender students, but that is a small price to pay for protecting our daughters.

Voting In Person Works

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article with the headline, “Popularity of mail-in voting plummets in 2022.” One can only hope that it stays unpopular in 2024. I recently watched the movie “2000 Mules” by Dinesh D’Souza. I don’t claim to understand all of the technology involved, but the movie makes a good case for the fact that there was massive ballot drop box fraud in the 2020 election.

The article at Hot Air notes:

Even with all of the chaos that was seen in 2020 because of massive amounts of mail-in voting during the pandemic, congressional Democrats have continued to push “voting reform” bills that make it permanent on a federal level. We were repeatedly assured that too many people were having a hard time voting, and ubiquitous voting by mail would boost participation because people simply like it better. They may want to take a fresh look at that theory following the first rounds of primary voting heading into this year’s midterms. While total turnout has been fairly typical or even slightly elevated thus far in the early voting states, the Associated Press finds that the lion’s share of votes cast thus far have been in person. By contrast, the number of people opting to mail in their ballots has sunk like a stone. This is starting to look like yet another case of the Democrats failing to read the room.

…The five states where primary voters put this theory to the test were Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, and West Virginia. Numbers are not yet available for Nebraska, but the other four showed a decisive trend. In Georgia’s primary in 2020 there were almost one million people who voted by mail. This year, 85,000 requested mail-in ballots. That’s not even one-tenth of the previous primary numbers. And it’s still not known how many of the ballots that were mailed out were actually returned, but obviously, not all of them were.

The ratios in Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia were similar. While we saw a flood of mail-in ballots during the lockdowns, that number has returned to a trickle. Granted, the states who have voted already were mostly red-to-purple states. Perhaps the percentage will be higher in some of the upcoming blue states. But I’ll be deeply shocked if any of them see even half the number of mail-in ballots that they did two years ago. Of course, that tide could still turn in the other direction. Some analysts that the AP spoke to suggest that it’s just too soon to say.

The article concludes:

In-person voting is the norm. It’s always been the norm and it needs to continue being the norm. It’s far easier to conduct a recount (if required) when all of the physical ballots are submitted straight from the voter’s hand in a centralized location for each precinct. The more boxes, bags, and hands of “agents” a ballot has to pass through, the less confidence the voters will have in the outcome.

On November 20, 2020, The Daily Signal reported:

They (the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission) called on states to increase voter ID requirements; to be leery of mail-in voting; to halt ballot harvesting; to maintain voter lists, in part to ensure dead people are promptly removed from them; to allow election observers to monitor ballot counting; and to make sure voting machines are working properly. 

They also wanted the media to refrain from calling elections too early and from touting exit polls. 

All of this may sound eerily similar to the issues in the prolonged presidential election battle of 2020. But these were among the 87 recommendations from the 2005 report of the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission. 

The bipartisan commission’s co-chairmen were former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican who served in the George H.W. Bush administration. 

If only we had listened.

How To Restore The American Economy

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article listing three basic ways to restore the American economy.

The article reports:

1) Make the 2017 tax cuts permanent: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has been one of the most successful pieces of legislation in recent years. Despite that, many of its critical provisions are set to expire in 2025 if Congress does not act soon.

For most Americans, the most important aspect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that is set to retire is the individual income-tax cuts. That provision cut taxes for 80% of Americans, saving individuals an estimated $1,400 annually, with lower- and middle-income Americans benefiting the most.

If Congress lets this provision of the act expire, middle-class families are likely to pay over $1,000 more in taxes annually.

…2) Eliminate special tariffs: Politicians continually peddle the falsehood that tariffs help working-class Americans, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Tariffs are an inherently regressive form of tax that places an undue burden on lower- and middle-income families.

Since 2018, Americans have paid more than $280 million in extra taxes to buy washing machines and washing machine parts from abroad. That has directly contributed to the steep rise in prices of laundry equipment, which was up 7.9% year-over-year in January.

Unfortunately, that was not the only sector negatively affected by tariffs. Americans have paid more than $12 billion in tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel since 2018.

Steel and aluminum are crucial inputs for countless manufactured goods, but the automotive industry has been one of the hardest hit. The price of new vehicles rose more than 12% year-over-year in January.

…3) End the war on conventional fuels: The damaging effects of bad policy might not be more obvious in any other area of the economy than in the energy sector.

Energy prices rose nearly 27% year-over-year in January, based on the Consumer Price Index, with gasoline and natural gas rising 40% and 23.9%, respectively.

Washington’s war on conventional fuels is clearly contributing to the rapid increase in prices of basic sources of energy that Americans use every day to heat their homes and get to work.

Not only has Washington made it harder to transport fuel (for example, by canceling or slow-walking new pipeline construction), but it has also made it more difficult and expensive to produce natural gas, coal, and oil here in the United States, creating an avoidable reliance on foreign imports.

The administration has proposed or issued new regulations burdening nearly every aspect of conventional energy markets, from financing to consumer use.

Other holdover policies—some decades or even a century old—are increasing costs and inefficiency in energy markets. For example, unnecessary regulations and mandates have increased the costs of gasoline and have put economic pressure on refineries, some of which have had to close or downsize.

Please follow the link to the article for further information.

Homeschoolers, Pay Attention

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On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a proposed law in Maryland.

The article reports:

If we have learned anything about left-wing cultural revolutionaries over the past few years and decades, it’s that they insist that all conform to their view of “diversity.”

All are welcome, except for those who disagree.

That’s why it’s so troubling to see government authorities rope in, and attempt to control, people attempting to maintain their independence.

Maryland Delegate Sheila Ruth, a Baltimore County Democrat, recently proposed legislation in the Maryland House of Delegates that would create a deeply worrisome “advisory council” to watch over and gather data on homeschool families.

The 16-seat council would be staffed by four political appointees, four government officials, and eight members of the homeschool community. It would “gather information on the needs of homeschool parents and homeschool umbrella schools,” and would effectively sweep homeschool parents under the wing of a government agency.

This is precisely the sort of thing many homeschool parents wanted to avoid when they chose that path for their children in the first place.

The article notes:

The advisory council—whatever its current stated intent—could easily be used to browbeat homeschool families.

“They’ll pass more restrictive rules on us and say, ‘It was suggested by homeschooling families themselves! We have a council!’ (That they chose.),” Mandel wrote.

The Home School Legal Defense Association, a legal support group for homeschoolers based in neighboring Virginia, also warned about the potential for abuse by the proposed advisory board.

“This bill would create a quasi-official source for information on homeschooling, which would, in turn, minimize the effectiveness of grassroots homeschool groups and individual advocates,” HSLDA noted in a statement.

Homeschooling has thrived for decades without government assistance. Instead of creating a new bureaucratic entity to gather information on the needs of homeschool programs, HSLDA encourages government entities and actors to respect homeschooling programs by preserving liberty and avoiding unnecessary regulation.

The legislation was so worrisome that a group of members of the Maryland General Assembly called for the bill to be withdrawn.

The article concludes:

An agency constructed to “gather information” and staffed by political appointees could quickly turn into a governmental hammer to bludgeon homeschool parents into looping their children into the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It should be no surprise that this effort comes as parents around the country have begun to protest the curriculums and policies of public schools, both for their embrace of critical race theory—or whatever they want to call its associated ideas—and absurdly restrictive COVID-19 policies.

The left’s attitude is that they have an inherent right to indoctrinate your children. Any attempt to stop them from doing so, from within the public school system or from without, is treated as illegitimate.

That’s why what’s happening in Maryland is so concerning and a sign of things to come.

They want you and your family to comply with the cultural revolution that’s sweeping our institutions. They won’t let you go. They don’t want you to have a choice until all your choices are the same.

This is a law that needs to be buried permanently.

Losing Our Rights As Parents

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On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article showing a frightening lack of  perspective on the part of some Americans.

The article reports:

Democrats were more than twice as likely as other voters to favor harsh government restrictions being placed on unvaccinated people’s lives, ranging from fines to loss of child custody, according to a recent poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute.

Forty-eight percent of Democratic voters said the government should be able to fine or imprison those who publicly question the COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy, while only 27% of all voters supported the proposal, according to the poll results.

Don’t the people who want to fine or imprison those who question the vaccine’s efficacy want to ‘trust the science’?

The article continues:

Fines against those who refuse to take the vaccine were viewed favorably by 55% of Democratic voters and just 19% of Republicans, and 59% of Democrats favored a policy requiring unvaccinated people to stay inside their homes at all times, except for emergencies, the poll found. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans opposed a house arrest policy for unvaccinated people.

Forty-five percent of Democratic respondents favored the government forcing people into “designated facilities” until they get the vaccine—a measure opposed by 71% of all voters.

…Twenty-nine percent of Democratic voters said the government should take people’s children from them if they refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a measure viewed favorably by 7% of Republicans and 11% of unaffiliated voters.

What in the world has happened to the Democrat party? Have they forgotten the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

How Things Actually Work

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On November 5th, The Daily Signal posted an article about the proposed child care subsidies and universal pre-kindergarten.

The article reports:

Proposed federal spending on these two early-childhood programs add up to $400 billion through 2028, a large chunk of the newest framework of the so-called Build Back Better legislative package released by the Biden administration totaling about $1.75 trillion.

The universal preschool provision would fund and regulate government-approved pre-K available for all 3- and 4-year-old children in states that apply for the funding. The child care subsidies cap the amount that families would pay at no more than 7% of their income on day care by giving families certificates to pay for government-approved providers.

While these policies are undesirable for all parents and children for many reasons, one of the arguments from those who favor universal pre-K and child care programs is that the costs will be more than offset by the tax dollars paid by mothers who will then be able to join the formal labor force and who otherwise would not have.

Note that only government-approved providers will be subsidized.
I wonder if that will include church-related daycare. The argument that these programs would pay for themselves does not take into account the fact that many mothers would prefer to stay home with their children. Unless the program provided for that option, it could be considered discriminatory against stay-at-home mothers. The obvious question is, “Why does the government want to be the one to raise our children?”

The article concludes:

Gallup polling shows that half of mothers with a child under the age of 18 would prefer to stay home with their children if they could. And 57% of families prefer for a parent or relative to be the main source of child care.

These new programs stack the deck against those preferred options.

Speaking of what parents want, families of about 1.5 million school-aged kids decided they want more control of K-12 education and less government interference in schooling.

The recent winning gubernatorial campaign of Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia pressed hard on the pain point parents have with their government-run schools. All of the evidence points to a desire for less government intervention in the lives of their children, not more.

Of course, any talk of child care programs should center around children. And the same 2008 Quebec study that government child care proponents tout for finding positive effects on the maternal labor force also finds significant negative health and behavioral outcomes for the participating children.

The notion that central planners have found a “free lunch” in child care and pre-K is not supported by the evidence. Universal pre-K and child care subsidies would be bad for children, families, and taxpayers.

The main beneficiary would be the teachers unions, who would have a steady new supply of union members, thanks to what would effectively amount to the K-12 system becoming a P3-12 system.

This is another example of follow the money. The teachers’ union funnels a lot of money into Democrat campaign coffers. They are looking for a return on that investment.

 

It’s Only Money

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted a list of “10 Absurdly Wasteful Items Tucked Into Democrats’ $3.5 Trillion Tax-and-Spend Monstrosity.”

Below is the list. Please follow the link to the article for the details:

1) $25 Million for ‘Anti-discrimination and Bias Training’ at HHS

2) $200 Million for Presidio Trust, aka ‘Pelosi’s Park’

3) Welfare for Journalists

4) $1.25 Billion for Activists, Bureaucrats to Go After Landlords

5) $4.5 Billion for Federal Housing Plan Takeover

6) $26.5 Billion for Left-Wing Transportation Programs

7) Extra Funding for Bureaucrats, Ad Campaigns

8) $197 Million to Subsidize Hiring Local Teachers

9) $7.5 Billion ‘Community’ Slush Fund

10) 2 Decades of Funding for Obscure Tech Accounts

The article includes the following:

Number 5 is particularly dangerous to the American dream–it is part of the attack on single-family dwellings begun by the Obama administration. The federal government should not be in charge of local zoning–that is what the goal of this plan is. Local governments are better equipped to see the needs of their communities and to meet those needs. The Tenth Amendment states that any federal powers not enumerated in the Constitution are left to the states. We need to have our Representatives and Senators spend some time reading the Constitution and then following it.

 

Different Standards For Illegal Immigrants?

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the Biden administration’s policy of dealing with illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

The article reports:

Federal immigration officials no longer will view unlawful entry into the country as the sole basis for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, under a new Biden administration policy. 

The policy will limit deportation to what immigraion officials call aggravated felons, such as violent gang members and others who commit violent crimes. 

Critics of President Joe Biden’s new policy as stated by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas note that it will allow those who commit domestic violence, drunk drivers, and others convicted of crimes to stay in America—amid an ongoing border crisis. 

Just what America needs–more people who enter the country illegally, remain in the country illegally, commit domestic violence, drive drunk, and commit other crimes.

The article concludes:

Arthur (Art Arthur, a former federal immigration judge) said he also is concerned about a part of the Mayorkas memo regarding domestic violence. That section reads:

The broader public interest is also material in determining whether to take enforcement action. For example, a categorical determination that a domestic violence offense compels apprehension and removal could make victims of domestic violence more reluctant to report the offense conduct. The specific facts of a case should be determinative.

The new policy almost certainly will make it less likely that domestic violence offenders will be removed from the country, Arthur contends. 

“This is going to turn the United States into a sanctuary city for domestic violence,” he said.

Where are the feminists?

A Representative Introduces Common Sense

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Yesterday The Daily Signal reported that North Carolina Congressman Ted Budd has introduced an amendment to remove all earmarks from a transportation spending bill slated for a House vote this week.

The article reports:

“Taxpayers across the country are getting their first look at what Washington is like in the new earmark era,” Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

“It’s not a pretty sight,” Budd said. “This transportation spending bill includes 1,474 examples of the Washington swamp saying they know best when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars. If an earmarked project is truly worthy of taxpayer funding, then it should be proposed individually on the House floor or as a competitive grant.”

The House is voting on the Invest in America Act, which Budd’s office says includes 1,473 earmarks. Together, those earmarks total $5.66 billion.

I wonder if Washington spending would be so out of control if Congressmen were forced to spend their own money.

The article concludes:

According to Budd’s office, “dozens of these earmarks have to do with Green New Deal priorities like greenways, electric vehicles, etc.”

Conservatives long have opposed earmarks, which direct taxpayer money to lawmakers’ special interests and projects through the budget. Lawmakers banned earmarks under House rules in 2010, but House Democrats voted to bring earmarks back in February.

Earlier this year, Budd and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., introduced the Earmark Elimination Act, which would permanently ban congressional earmarks.

In March, the North Carolina congressman led a coalition of 10 senators and 25 House members to send a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs voicing their “strong opposition to the formal return of pork-barrel earmarks.”

“Every taxpayer dollar is sacred and should be treated that way,” Budd said. “If this Congress really believed that, then we should remove this pork-barrel spending.”

If you haven’t investigated the Cloward-Piven strategy, now is a really good time to do that.

Things That Would Unite America

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Americans have a lot of political disagreements right now. We have some pretty wide divisions. However, there are some things that the majority of us agree on. Policies based on issues of agreement would unite us. On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an list of twelve principles that unite us as Americans. See if you agree with the list.

Here is the list:

1. Protect Our Vote.

2. Secure Our Border.

3. No More Debt.

4. Stand Up to China.

5. Don’t Raise Taxes.

6. Stop the Woke.

7. Cut Red Tape.

8. Sleep Safe at Night.

9. Stop Big Tech.

10. Deliver School Choice.

11. Empower Patients, Not Government.

12. Make Our Streets Safe.

Protecting our vote means making it easy to vote legitimately and hard to cheat. Securing our border means finishing the fence and enforcing present laws. No more debt, standing up to China, and not raising taxes are things that would obviously unite us. Stopping the woke means reminding Americans that we are all Americans regardless of race, color, ancestry, etc. We need to end any vestiges of racism in America–that does not mean simply supporting racism on the part of a different group. Cutting red tape allows the economy to grow more quickly and reduces the cost of living for everyone. Regulations are expensive to consumers. Sleep safe at night refers to keeping the level of America’s defensive forces high enough to defend us.

The last four items on the list are obvious. We have wandered into a world where we are spied on and manipulated by our government and by big tech. This needs to stop. We need school choice to insure that the upcoming generations will have the critical thinking skills to protect the freedom that we in America enjoy. Getting the government out of healthcare will decrease the cost for everyone and will provide a path for everyone to receive the healthcare they need. Making our streets safe includes not only making sure we have enough law enforcement, but teaching our children (and grownups) to respect the police and follow any instructions given by the police. Police shootings generally don’t happen unless someone is resisting arrest or shooting at the police. We need to remember that.

This list is very obvious, but it illustrates the fact that we have not done our job as informed voters. In the future we need to elect people who will work toward unifying principles–not ideas that tear the country apart.

Losing A Legacy

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On Aug. 28, 1963, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr., said the following:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Unfortunately there are many Americans who have chosen to ignore the wisdom contained in that statement. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached forgiveness and non-violence.

Today we are dealing with leaders in the black community preaching division and racism.

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about Critical Race Theory–something the government encouraging to have taught in our public schools. The premise of the theory is that all white are racist and all blacks are victims. Teaching the theory has a very negative impact on our children.

The article reports:

This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that officials are preparing to use taxpayer money for K-12 schools to advocate the idea that America is systemically racist, and anyone who thinks differently, children included, are part of the problem—whether students know it or not.

Since members of Congress reintroduced a legislative proposal this year to create national civics standards, the Education Department’s new rule would help shape the content of those standards around the intolerant ideas of critical theory.

In a proposed rule released April 19, federal education officials outlined new priorities for federal grant awards to K-12 educators for use on history and civics education in schools.

The content of these standards does not prepare or encourage children to become productive Americans.

The article reports:

The agency would prioritize grants that use critical theory, a worldview that says racism is everywhere and anyone who disagrees is oppressing other people. The Education Department’s announcement highlights The New York Times’ 1619 Project and civics content that the National Museum of African American History and Culture created as exemplary material for educators to use.

Yet the proposal does not mention that the Times’ editors issued a correction to the 1619 Project after high-profile criticism from scholars who said the project’s claims about colonists fighting the American Revolution to protect slavery were wrong. Nor does the federal register say anything about how project editors refused to correct other factual inaccuracies after criticism from Pulitzer Prize-winning researchers.

The federal proposal is even more problematic for parents and teachers who want children to learn attitudes and behaviors that will help them to be good parents, neighbors, employees, and community members when they grow up.

The announcement highlights educational material from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture without admitting that museum officials had to withdraw some content after widespread complaints over the museum’s message.

Last summer, the museum released an infographic describing “white culture” as oppressive, and said ideas such as “hard work” and efforts to “be polite” are evidence of systemic oppression.

Students should not be taught to “work before play” or “plan for the future” because these ideas represent systems of power, according to the museum. Museum officials issued an apology and removed the document in July.

I wrote about that exhibit last July (article here).

The article concludes:

Biden issued an executive order during his first week in office that is consistent with this latest proposal from the Education Department. If approved, the federal education agency’s new rule would ingrain critical theory in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the law governing federal actions on K-12 schools.

Washington is bringing critical theory’s prejudice to your child’s classroom, and whether or not you are a parent of a student, we all should reject the notion that the next generation should be trained in bigotry.

We are ruining the legacy of Martin Luther King. Jr. Let’s go back to raising children who respect authority and don’t judge people according to their race.

 

Who Is Coming To America?

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about what is happening at America’s southern border. The article includes interviews of the people who live and work in the border states.

The article reports:

A fourth-generation rancher, Ladd told me that the full truth about President Joe Biden’s border policies is rarely reported. “The caliber of people that are coming now are criminals, what we are getting are not maids and gardeners, these people are working for the cartel,” he said in an interview with me.

Ladd has been reliably informed by contacts with multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Southeastern Arizona Border Region Enforcement team of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office. “The illegals crossing now are in full camo. They pay $6,000 to get here, which only VIPs working with the cartel can afford … We got bad guys coming here.”

Law enforcement of all levels in areas around the border have been directed to release illegal immigrants seeking asylum and human traffickers into American communities under the Biden administration.

One southwestern border sheriff, who has a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold illegal immigrants who are criminals in his jail for an indeterminate amount of time, told me, “The U.S. marshals usually come to pick them up at some point, but not this time. We’ve been told to give them a bus ticket to wherever they choose in the U.S. and let them go.”

When asked if the destination communities to which the criminal illegal immigrants are traveling must be notified, he solemnly shakes his head and says, “No.”   

Another law enforcement officer I spoke with—a veteran Department of Homeland Security officer with border experience—remarked that under the Biden administration, felons who cross the border are no longer detained.

In a particular instance, an aggravated felon crossed into the U.S. through Mexico with a substantial weight of opioids. Typically, DHS would issue a detainer notice for the felon, who would be taken into custody as soon as he was released from court. However, under the Biden administration, detainers are not allowed, and the felon was released into the U.S.  

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is a disgrace. The first job of government is to protect its citizens. Obviously the Biden administration has chosen not to do that. In a sane world, what is being allowed to happen at our southern border would be an impeachable offense.

Where Is America Headed?

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Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The Daily Signal yesterday titled, “Are Americans Becoming Sovietized?” In the article, he lists ten traits of the Soviet Union that seem to have found their way into America. Please follow the link above to read the entire article, I am only going to list the ten things. The article contains the details of each.

These are the ten symptoms of Sovietism:

1. There was no escape from ideological indoctrination—anywhere.

2. The Soviets fused their press with the government. 

3. The Soviet surveillance state enlisted apparatchiks and lackeys to ferret out ideological dissidents.

4. The Soviet educational system sought not to enlighten but to indoctrinate young minds in proper government-approved thought.

5. The Soviet Union was run by a pampered elite, exempt from the ramifications of their own radical ideologies.

6. The Soviets mastered Trotskyization, or the rewriting and airbrushing away of history to fabricate present reality.

7. The Soviets created a climate of fear and rewarded stool pigeons for rooting out all potential enemies of the people.

8. Soviet prosecutors and courts were weaponized according to ideology.

9. The Soviets doled out prizes on the basis of correct Soviet thought.

10. The Soviets offered no apologies for extinguishing freedom.

The parallels are frightening.

Racism From The Federal Government

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about Christopher Baird, a dairy farmer near Ferryville in southwest Wisconsin. Mr. Baird is like many farmers; he has direct loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.

The article reports:

But the dairy farmer isn’t entitled to a new FSA loan-forgiveness program provided as part of COVID-19 relief in the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, legislation touted Wednesday night by President Joe Biden in his address to Congress. 

Baird is white. He joined four other white farmers Thursday in suing federal officials over being left out.

Only “socially disadvantaged” farmers may apply for some of the $4 billion in loan-forgiveness funds, which include direct payments to farmers of up to 20% of the value of the loan. Specifically, the law says those eligible must be “Black/African American, American Indian or Alaskan native, Hispanic or Latino, or Asian American or Pacific Islander.”

“There is a case for loan forgiveness for individuals,” Baird said, “but we shouldn’t be looking at the color of someone’s skin and saying, ‘This person needs more help or less help based on the color of their skin.’ That’s just wrong.”

Baird is among five white farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and South Dakota who are suing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux, alleging racial discrimination and violation of their right to equal protection under the Constitution.

The other Wisconsin farmer who sued, Adam Faust, said the federal government shouldn’t provide taxpayer money “just based on race.”

Baird, Faust, and the three other farmers filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Wisconsin’s Eastern District. 

The article concludes:

In short, the complaint says, the way “to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

The farmers suing the USDA argue that a program that excludes them is just more discrimination.

Faust owns a dairy farm near Chilton, in Calumet County. A double amputee, he milks about 70 cows and farms 200 acres for feed. Because he is white, Faust isn’t eligible for the loan-forgiveness program.

“There should absolutely be no federal dollars going anywhere just based on race,” Faust said. “The economic impact from COVID-19 didn’t hurt any race more than another as far as agriculture goes.”

Discrimination on the basis of race is wrong regardless of what race you choose to discriminate against. Hopefully this case will make its way to the Supreme Court where the law should be declared unconstitutional.

Where The Money Went

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about how the money from the coronavirus stimulus package has been distributed.

The article reports:

The 591-page American Rescue Plan Act also changed Congress’ normal formula for appropriating money. Rather than scaling funding by population, the measure awarded taxpayer dollars based on which states had the highest unemployment rates in the fourth quarter of 2020.

That shifted $31 billion in funding, according to Open the Books’ analysis, so that 27 states gained by the allocation change and 23 states lost money they would have gotten from the normal formula.

“There is a $31 billion shift and it has shifted to blue states,” Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books, told The Daily Signal. “The big winners were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey. Obviously Florida, which kept their economy open [under] Gov. Ron DeSantis, they continue to flourish. They lost money on that allocation change.”

I would like to remind anyone reading this that no Republicans voted for this bill. When you look at how the money has been allocated, the reason for that becomes obvious. States that were fiscally responsible were short-changed. States with already bloated spending were rewarded. Essentially bad behavior was rewarded and encouraged.

The article cites a few examples of how the money was misspent:

DeSantis (Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida) is a Republican. Under the congressional legislation, $10.1 million went to Key West, Florida, even though the state as a whole didn’t fare so well. Other wealthy conclaves receiving federal tax dollars include Oyster Bay, New York, which got $32.7 million, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, which got $65 million. 

The city topping Bloomberg’s Richest Places index with a median income of $525,000—Atherton, California—scored $1.3 million from taxpayers. Scarsdale, New York, which is No. 2 on Bloomberg’s list and the wealthiest city on the East Coast—got $2 million. The third city on the list, Hillsborough, California, got $2.1 million.

It is time to clean house in Congress.

How The Crisis On Our Southern Border Impacts All Of Us

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the impact of our open southern border on the rest of America.

The article reports:

Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, isn’t from a southern border state, but he says illegal immigration still adversely affects the Gem State.

“I mean, drug and sex trafficking impacts everyone,” Fulcher says.

“And we’re feeling the effects of that,” he adds. “Our citizens, our taxpayers as well. We have to pay for services through federal taxes that are being expended here. We have a very large dairy and egg industry. The dairy industry in particular has relied upon immigrants for a lot of the labor, and that’s not always been legal.”

During an interview, Representative Fulcher stated the following:

Sure. Well, I have this a belief that you should be following a law if you’re going to take advantage of some of the things that this country has to offer. And one of those things has to be insurance coverage and the coverages the U.S. government provides … typically for taxpayers.

And that’s basically what I was doing as I was taking issue with the fact that immigrants are getting some of these benefits by, in effect, as a result of breaking the law. And I just don’t think that is … right.

But in order to understand the entire picture, you have to understand what the Democrat motive is.

They want the open borders. They want people coming in, that they’re receiving government benefits, that are getting addicted to those government benefits, that they’re becoming dependent on those government benefits, because they are more likely over time to support the Democrats, put that in place.

That’s how they’re growing their party. That’s how they’re trying to get control in at a substantial margin over the course of time. And that’s at the root of this very problem.

The Democrat party in America has wandered so far to the left that many Americans are leaving the party. The easiest way for the Democrats to gain new voters is to import them. They will work out the detail on legal voting later.

What’s In The Infrastructure Bill?

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Yesterday Breitbart shared the following Tweet by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:

That is the current definition of infrastructure in the Biden administration.

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article listing some basic facts about the infrastructure bill. Below is a short list. Please follow the link to the article to read the details.

1. Dishonest advertising: Less than 5% of spending goes to roads and bridges.

2. $2.75 trillion tax hike would stunt post-pandemic economic recovery.

3. Big spending won’t deliver promised job creation.

4. Federal takeover of local responsibilities.

5. Undercuts businesses by micromanaging economic development.

6. $700 billion in corporate welfare and tax credits.

7. Over $400 billion in welfare and health spending.

8. Wasteful $165 billion handout for transit and Amtrak.

9. $174 billion in subsidies for electric vehicles.

The article concludes:

The bottom line: Central planning and federal micromanaging doesn’t work.

Biden’s latest spending proposal demonstrates that he has an unshakable faith in the federal government to manage the economy and tinker with how Americans live their lives. This is exactly the wrong direction for a nation as large and as diverse as ours.

Congress should take a hard pass on the plan.

I really don’t think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.

The Lunacy Continues

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Remember high school biology. We were taught that females inherit an X chromosome from the father for a XX genotype, while males inherit a Y chromosome from the father for a XY genotype. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Well, evidently times have changed.

The Daily Signal is reporting the following today:

A Tuesday CNN news story stated as fact that “there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth” without attribution.

The CNN story, written by breaking news reporter Devan Cole, was about Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s battle with state lawmakers over HB 1217, a bill that seeks to ban biological males from women’s sports.

“?It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth,” Cole wrote, without attribution.

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

…The story further noted that “biological sex” is a “disputed term that refers to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates” as CNN reported Noem’s two executive orders, one to “protect fairness in K-12 athletics” and another to “do so in college athletics.”

Cole wrote that the executive orders “do not explicitly mention transgender athletes, they ?reference the supposed harms of the participation of ‘males’ in women’s athletics—an echo of the transphobic claim, cited in other similar legislative initiatives, that transgender women are not women.”

The idea that you can’t identify the sex of a baby at birth is ridiculous. Does that mean the phone calls from the excited father will say, “It’s a baby!”? It is very strange that the people who keep saying “follow the science” have chosen to ignore X and Y chromosomes.