Ignoring The Root Of The Problem

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted an article about Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s announcement of a partnership with a far-left non-profit to advance his proposal of a government-owned grocery store, which he argues is needed for the sake of “racial justice.”

The article reports:

Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a press release this month that the city-owned grocery store — which would be the largest of its kind in the U.S. — is needed to address the exit of corporate grocery stores and promote “food equity.”

“[F]ood access and security link directly to environmental and racial justice,” Johnson’s office said in a press release, adding that “37% of Black residents and 29% of Latine/x residents are food insecure, compared to 19% of residents overall.”

The mayor’s office argued that “historic disinvestment has led to inequitable access to food retail across Chicago,” and noted that “existing inequities have been exacerbated as at least six grocery stores closed on the South and West sides over the past two years.”

Indeed, as Chicago continues to reel with violent crime and large-scale theft, corporate grocery stores like Walmart and Amazon-owned Whole Foods have recently packed up and left Chicago.

There  is so much here that is totally backwards. Does anyone trust the city of Chicago to run a grocery store without major corruption? Has anyone noticed that the lack of grocery stores in some areas could be changed by enforcing laws that would prevent crime in those areas? How about leaving criminals in jail so that the citizens of Chicago are safe?

For example, Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in America. However, in 2022, Chicago topped 600 homicides and 2,600 shootings in 2022, according to new Chicago Police Department data (source here). I suspect if Chicago dealt with the crime problem the lack-of-grocery-stores problem might solve itself.

The article concludes:

“We are not spending any taxpayer dollars, right?” she told CBS Chicago. “What we’re also going to be able to access is the funding that exists at the national level and the state level.”

Moreover, the mayor’s office has already acknowledged that this project, if completed, will also use economic grant money, which, too, comes from taxpayers.

Critics have said this grocery store proposal is akin to “Soviet-style central planning.” Detractors have also highlighted the city’s penchant for corruption and the city’s half-a-billion dollar deficit to question how the store could be efficient. There are also still questions about how prices would be set, how this would be superior to private grocery stores, and how it would affect private enterprise.

We all need to remember that grant money comes from taxpayers. There really is no free lunch!

Exactly Where Do We Go After Roe v. Wade?

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was a constitutional victory as well as a moral one. The federal government has no business getting involved in abortion. Of course the federal government is involved in a lot of things it shouldn’t be involved in (according to the Tenth Amendment), so I guess it was not unusual that it would be involved in abortion. It is a difficult issue, and pro-life Republicans need to proceed carefully when speaking about it. I believe that the ‘pro-life’ position is the correct one, but again, we need to be careful when we speak. A Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion would be as unconstitutional as Roe v. Wade. This is truly a matter that should be left to the states.

On Monday, The Daily Wire posted an article about a recent interview of President Trump by NBC’s Kristen Welker.

The article reports:

“The radical people on this are really the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth, you’re allowed to terminate the baby,” Trump told Welker during the interview.

“Mr. President, Democrats aren’t saying that,” Welker responded.

Moments later Trump said, “I said with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, ‘rip the baby out of the womb’ in the ninth month. You’re allowed to do that, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

“Again, no one is arguing for that. That’s not a part of anyone’s platform, Mr. President,” Welker said.

Besides the untold number of abortion activists who advocate for abortion on demand up to birth, a slew of states currently allow abortion at any point in the pregnancy.

Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. all allow abortion with no gestational limits.

While high-profile Democrats often hedge on whether they support any gestational limits on abortion, some have come right out and admitted they support abortion up to the moment of birth.

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) was direct about his stance during a Fox News segment in June.

“Is there a cutoff for you before [the due date]?” host Shannon Bream asked Cardin.

“No, to me, it’s a reproductive, it’s a health care decision. It’s up to women to make that decision,” Cardin responded.

If President Trump had not had the information at hand about abortion, the viewers would have been left with the impression that he was not telling the truth. Truth is only one on many ways to fight the abortion lobby.

Killing The Alaskan Economy

On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted an article about some new Biden administration policies that will destroy the economy of Alaska.

The article reports:

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would be canceling oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve and move to ban drilling in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. 

The announcement from the Department of the Interior means that seven leases for drilling given during the Trump administration will be rescinded and that 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve will be off limits for drilling if the proposed rule is approved. The leases were held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and encompassed 365,775 acres. 

“Alaska is home to many of America’s most breathtaking natural wonders and culturally significant areas. As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. 

The announcement was opposed by top Alaskan officials, including Governor Mike Dunleavy and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. 

“Today the Biden Administration announced that it is cancelling legally-issued oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge section designated for oil and gas development. The leases AIDEA holds in ANWR were properly acquired in a sale mandated by Congress,” Dunleavy posted on X. “It’s clear that President Biden needs a refresher on the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine. Federal agencies don’t get to rewrite laws, and that is exactly what the Department of the Interior is trying to do here.”

The article concludes:

Despite the fact that Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline expansion and aggressively pushed green energy, climate activists are still angry at Biden after he allowed the Willow oil project in Alaska’s North Slope to go forward, which could end up yielding 180,000 gallons of oil per day. The decision to end the leases and block drilling comes as gas prices across the country remain high. 

Hopefully the government of Alaska will bring a lawsuit that will go to the Supreme Court. This is government overreach.

Something To Watch

We all remember the horrendous nuclear deal the Obama administration attempted to broker with Iran. It looks like the Biden administration is attempting the same thing.

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

A group of 26 Republican senators raised concerns about the Biden administration bypassing congressional authority to agree to a nuclear deal with Iran. 

In a letter — signed by the majority of Senate Republicans last week and addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — the lawmakers voiced concerns with the Biden administration’s recent prisoner swap that sent $6 billion to the Iranian regime in a “secret negotiation.” 

When are we going to send $6 billion to Hawaii?

The article notes:

“When the Obama administration released $400 million in liquidated assets to Iran in 2016, we warned that this dangerous precedent would put a price on American lives. Seven years later, the current administration is providing a ransom payment worth at least fifteen times that amount to the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, in yet another violation of the United States’ long-standing ‘no concessions’ policy,” the senators wrote.

“The release of such a significant sum to the Iranian regime runs entirely counter to that claim and will only serve to encourage additional hostage taking for financial or political gain,” the letter continued.

The letter comes after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said earlier this month that the Biden administration’s prisoner swap with Iran involved a renewed Iran nuclear deal. The New York Times also reported that the agreement could increase the chances of Biden pursuing his goal of coming to the table with Iran over nuclear weapons. Last summer, Biden attempted to renew the Obama administration’s nuclear deal but ultimately failed. In 2018, former President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement he routinely criticized as “horrible” and “one-sided.” 

America is rapidly going bankrupt. Sending billions of dollars to countries that hate us is not a wise expenditure.

Ruby Ridge Redux?

Some of us are old enough to remember what happened in August 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. An FBI sniper killed Vicki Weaver while she was holding her baby daughter. If she was holding her daughter, how was she a threat? She was shot because the family refused to surrender to the authorities. The details of the siege and the killing are public information if you are unfamiliar with them. They are easy to find.

On Friday, The Daily Wire reported:

The 75-year-old Utah man who was shot dead by FBI agents on Wednesday morning for making online threats against President Joe Biden and other government officials was a pillar of his local church community and posed no real threat to anyone, a former neighbor and friend told The Daily Wire.

Tim Rich first heard of the incident through a neighborhood Facebook group, where households posted about hearing gunshots, and later that a SWAT team had raided the home of his friend, Craig Robertson. Rich immediately “had an inkling of what the nature” of the raid was — he was Facebook friends with Robertson and saw his political posts, which included one last week in which Robertson said he had to “dust off” his sniper rifle in preparation for Biden’s arrival in Utah for a political fundraiser.

That is a threat, and the man should have been arrested. However, I believe excessive force was used.

The article concludes:

Robertson was largely immobile — standing just about five feet six inches and weighing roughly 300 pounds — the elderly man would hobble around with a cane. He was known to drive to his church, which was only about 200 yards from his home. And law enforcement presumably knew all of these details — as Robertson had been under surveillance for months, and two agents had already interacted with him before the fatal Wednesday morning raid.

Rich believes that “busting in” to the home of a man that they knew had a defensive mindset was reckless.

“It seems like a much lower risk to detain or arrest in the middle of the day as he’s hobbling out of his vehicle or in a parking lot somewhere,” Rich said.

Is this an intimidation tactic? Again, the man should have been arrested, but breaking into his house was using excessive force.

We Have The Evidence, Will We Prosecute The Crime?

As President Trump achieves double digits in the number of indictments on spurious charges, the major media has chosen to ignore the overwhelming evidence presented to Congress regarding influence peddling by the Biden family syndicate. On Friday, Townhall posted an article about a document recently released to Senator Grassley and House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY).

The article reports:

After attempts from the Biden administration to restrict access to the FBI-generated FD-1023 form at the center of allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden was engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released the full document on Thursday afternoon to finally give the American people the full picture created by the unclassified document.

The document authorized for release to Grassley and House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has few redactions and provides the most information on these allegations against Biden to date. After releasing the FBI document, Grassley asked again: “What did FBI do to investigate serious claims from FBIs own trusted source??”

The article includes a transcription of the text of the FD-1023. Please follow the link to read the transcript.

The article represents proof of not only corruption on the part of the Biden family, but evidence of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation failing to do their job of enforcing the law equally.

The Democrat talking point on all of this information is that it has been debunked. It has not–in fact more and more corroborating evidence is revealed every day.

To add to the mix, on Thursday The Daily Wire reported the following:

A senior FBI official allegedly informed Twitter that the abandoned laptop believed to have belonged to Hunter Biden was real on the same day the New York Post broke news about the device’s contents in a story that Twitter went on to censor, according to newly-released testimony.

Laura Dehmlow, the section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), spoke with the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government this week, House Judiciary Republicans announced on Thursday.

Our government and our media are not working in the interests of the American people.

When Common Sense Arrives

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported that the Louisiana legislature has overridden Governor John Bel Edwards’ veto of the “Stop Harming Our Kids Act” that would prevent doctors from performing transgender procedures like double mastectomies on girls who identify as boys and administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children.

The article reports:

“Today was a huge win for the children of Louisiana! I’m proud of my colleagues in the state legislature for standing up to protect the children of our great state. We made it clear today that our children are worth fighting for. This great victory would not have been possible without the prayers and support of parents, grandparents, pastors, and grassroots organizations from around the state who rose up and declared with one voice that ‘No one in Louisiana has the right to harm a child’. God Bless the families of our beautiful state!” Louisiana Republican Rep. Gabe Firment, the sponsor of the legislation, told The Daily Wire in a statement.

The House voted 75-23 to override the veto, with 69 Republicans being joined by six Democrats. In the Senate, lawmakers voted 28-11 to adopt the measure.

The article notes:

Before today’s vote, there have only been two successful vetoes of a gubernatorial veto since 1974, when the state adopted a new constitution, according to the Associated Press.

“This bill was ground zero for the veto session and will show up in every single race this year in Louisiana. The legislature sent a historic message, loud and clear, that in Louisiana, children are off limits. Anyone thinking about running for office here should take note,” Baton Rouge based Republican strategist Lionel Rainey III told The Daily Wire.

Let’s let children be children!

Loose Lips Sink Ships

“Loose Lips Sink Ships” was a popular phrase during World War II. If you are a fan of Tom Clancy novels, he often illustrated how a casual remark by someone could be very helpful to a foreign agent seeking information. In one example, a foreign agent wooing a secretary to a high official wanted to plan a getaway with the secretary of that official during the time her boss was away so that she would have time off. Thus he was able to figure out the travel schedule of her boss and set up an ambush. Anyone who works for the government and deals with sensitive information needs to be careful what they say. Unfortunately, President Biden evidently has not figured that out.

On Sunday, The Daily Wire reported:

President Joe Biden faced backlash on Sunday after he revealed sensitive U.S. military information during an interview that critics said could make America’s adversaries more aggressive.

Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the reason that he is giving cluster munitions to Ukraine is because the U.S. is running out of 155mm artillery shells.

…“The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition,” Biden responded. “The ammunition, that they used to call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions, and they are running out of that ammunition and we’re low on it. And so what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to, not permanently, but to allow for in this transition period where we have more 155 weapons, these shells for the Ukrainians, to provide them with something that has a very low dud rate. It’s about — I think it’s 150, which is the least likely to be blowing.

Why not work toward peace instead?

When You Are Beholden To People Who Want You Gone

On July 4th, The Daily Wire posted an article about gallium and germanium, two minerals needed for the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, military hardware, and more.

The article reports:

Communist China announced this week new plans to restrict the export of two minerals critical to the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, military hardware, and more.

The minerals — gallium and germanium — and dozens of other related metals will be subject to new export regulations that are aimed at punishing the West for restricting China’s ability to access advanced semiconductors.

China dominates the global market as leading producer for both of the minerals, an advantage that they gained by “suppressing the price,” according to Christopher Ecclestone, principle at the natural resource research firm Hallgarten & Co. When they stop suppressing the price, “it suddenly becomes more viable to extract these metals in the West, then China again has an own-goal,” Ecclestone said.

“For a short while they get a higher price, but then China’s market dominance gets lost – the same thing has happened before in other things like antimony, tungsten and rare earths,” he added.

The article concludes:

Some experts said that the move would have little-to-no impact — in terms of what consumers notice — over the course of the next year because existing stockpiles will fill the gap. They cautioned that if the dispute carries on longer than a year than a ripple effect will be felt.

Others said that the move will “will have an immediate ripple effect on the semiconductor industry, especially with regards to high-performance chips.”

The Biden administration’s relentless push for green energy makes America more dependent on importing the items necessary to support that industry. Many of the ‘green energy’ items require minerals that are mined in conditions that are more harmful to the earth than fossil fuel ever dreamed of being. Before we sell ourselves on ‘green energy,’ there are some things we need to think about–the impact of windmills on ocean life, the lifespan of solar panels and how to dispose of them, the lifespan of windmill blades and how to dispose of them, the impact of windmills on America’s bird population, and most importantly–the national security issues involved. America can be energy independent with the current fossil-fuel-based economy. Let’s not mess it up.

The End Of An Era?

Wikipedia (which I don’t generally recommend as a source) states:

Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.

Title IX gave women’s sports the boost it needed. It put women’s high school and college athletics on the map. It allowed many female athletes who couldn’t pay for college to attend on athletic scholarships. Likewise, the Miss America Pageant allowed women a chance to compete for scholarship money based on their talents and appearance. Well, not so fast.

On June 6th, The Daily Wire reported:

A man who was crowned “Miss San Francisco” will compete in the 2023 Miss California Pageant in July.

Monroe Lace, a man who identifies as a woman, won the Miss San Francisco pageant in March, qualifying the “beauty queen” to compete for the Miss California title next month. Lace is the first trans-identifying man to be crowned Miss San Francisco in the competition’s 99-year history.

“Every time I put on the sash, the weight of it reminds me of the weight of my job; of the responsibility I have to make a difference for young children,” Lace told CBS Bay Area.

Lace, 25, visits a different elementary school almost every day. In a video shown by the local CBS affiliate, Lace can be seen reading “Sparkle Boy,” a picture book about a boy who wants to wear women’s clothing, to a 4th-grade class at Tenderloin Community School.

The trans-identifying man told KRON 4 in March that he was “dreaming about this since I was 12 years old” and ran away from home.

Let’s take a look at this. Why is he visiting an elementary school every day and reading the children stories about a boy who dresses in women’s clothing? Also, note that he ran away from home as a 12-year-old. This does not sound like the sort of role model you want for your children. This was a confused child who was obviously not provided the help he needed to deal with gender dysphoria. So why are we rewarding his behavior?

Thank God For Mama Bears

Right now in America I am grateful for parents who are paying attention to what some people in our society are trying to do to their children.

On Wednesday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the backlash that has occurred since Target stores’ Pride Collection which prominently displayed bathing suits for children with Gender Dysphoria.

The article reports:

Target made “emergency” calls last week to managers and senior directors at the store after the company faced backlash for its Pride collection, which included “tuck-friendly” female swimwear and other products, according to a source inside the company. 

The calls were to direct some stores to make their Pride products display less prominent in order to avoid a “Bud Light situation,” a Target insider told Fox News. 

“We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage,” the insider reportedly said

“We call our customers ‘guests,’ there is outrage on their part. This year, it is just exponentially more than any other year,” the source added. “I think given the current situation with Bud Light, the company is terrified of a Bud Light situation.”

The article concludes:

In response to the controversy, Target announced that it has also removed some products from its stores, which reportedly include a sweater that read “cure transphobia not trans people” and a “too queer for here” tote bag. 

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said on Tuesday. ”Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

Gender dysphoria is a disease. It can also be a phase children go through and grow out of. We need to treat it as a disease or a phase–not encourage it. What happens when the children who have been chemically or surgically altered in some way get older and find out that they are not capable of having children because of decisions they were encouraged to make before they were mature enough to make them?

 

Someone Stepped Forward To Solve The Problem

On Monday, The Daily Wire reported that the child who had been denied a kidney transplant at Duke University Hospital because she was not vaccinated for Covid-19 will now be receiving a kidney transplant at another hospital.

The article reports:

The teen has a genetic kidney disorder that requires a transplant, but her family said last year that Duke was refusing to put Yulia on the kidney wait list because she is unvaccinated against COVID. Notably, the family says Yulia has already recovered from the virus.

…The Daily Wire reported last year that a phone call, the recording of which was obtained by journalist Alex Berenson, revealed a Duke health official telling the Hicks family that Yulia must get vaccinated against COVID before she could become a candidate for the kidney transplant.

“I can’t require you to do anything. I can recommend these things, but if you don’t follow our recommendations, then Yulia can’t be a transplant candidate here,” the Duke Health kidney specialist reportedly said.

“Being unvaccinated to the CDC recommended vaccinations based on her age is part of that,” the kidney specialist allegedly added.

Her family said Yulia has already contracted COVID and recovered, but doctors told them Yulia’s natural immunity was not enough, according to the recorded call.

“The virus has continued to mutate and so the natural immunity is not as good as if you had natural immunity plus vaccination,” one doctor said on the call.

Chrissy Hicks told The Daily Wire that Yulia was headed to the hospital on Monday morning for a pre-operational consultation. The surgery is scheduled for Thursday.

I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of vaccinated people who have been sick with Covid-19. Right now most of the cases I am aware of are people who are vaccinated–not the unvaccinated. Unfortunately, many of the people who have been vaccinated and many of the people who have recovered from Covid-19 have had the disease multiple times. The good news is that people who are currently getting the disease don’t seem to be as sick as people who caught the original virus. At some point, doctors might have to admit that the vaccine has not proven effective in preventing the disease.

Do Parents Have Rights?

Under the Biden administration’s policies, there are some real questions as to what the actual rights of parents are.

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted the following headline:

‘These Are Our Kids, They Belong To All Of Us’: Three Times The Left Trampled On Parental Authority This Past Week Alone

These are the examples cited in the article:

“There are more than 600 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation out there,” Jean-Pierre said at the GLAAD Media Awards. “A few hundred of them are anti-trans communities, and that matters because we have to call that out. And we’ve never seen this level. It’s historic in the number of pieces of legislation.”

Perhaps the response is “historic” because it seems like the Left is attempting to convince the world that child mutilation is good and changing “genders” is real for the first time in history en masse.

Regardless, Jean-Pierre continued, “I’ve met a lot of parents of trans kids in the past couple of months who have told me these devastating stories, whether they’re in Texas or Oklahoma or wherever they are, saying how they now have to seriously consider leaving their state to protect their child. That’s something that we have to call out and continue to be very clear about. These are kids. These are our kids. They belong to all of us.“ (emphasis added)

If these kids belong to all of us, how come no one ever offered to pay for my kids’ braces?

The article continues with two more examples:

Friday afternoon, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona tweeted, “Teachers know what is best for their kids because they are with them every day. We must trust teachers.” (emphasis added)

And finally:

But let’s check in on one teacher, a member of the public servant class that serves as the supposed voice of wisdom as praised by Cardona. Jenna Barbee, a fifth-grade teacher in Florida’s Hernando County School District, had some thoughts on when parental rights start and end this week.

Florida has a parental rights law that now bans education on gender identity and sexual orientation unless it is related to the curriculum. Barbee recently decided to show a film featuring LGBTQ themes. Parents obviously took umbrage with that — arguing it’s not Barbee’s job to teach that sort of stuff.

“What she’s missing and what these parents are missing is that they’re not in the school system,” Barbee said in response. “These conversations, these doors that she’s talking about, telling me that I’m stripping her rights as a parent — those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system because there are students talking about these things.”

Well, no parental rights end just because their children step into a public school.

Please take your children out of public school–right now it’s not a good place!

The House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

The House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government met on Thursday. It should not have been a political hearing, but it was. All Americans of both political parties should be concerned about using government agencies for political purposes. If you can use a government agency to silence your opposition, if your opposition ever gets control of that agency, they can use it to silence you. Think of Harry Reid and the ‘nuclear option.’ That is how we got three moderately conservative judges on the Supreme Court. I doubt that was Senator Reid’s goal.

On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the hearing. The article reports:

In an interim report, the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government revealed testimony from whistleblower FBI agents on the “abuses and misconduct in the FBI.” The report was first obtained by Fox News.

“The disclosures from these FBI employees highlight egregious abuse, misallocation of law enforcement resources and misconduct with the leadership ranks of the FBI,” the report says.

The whistleblowers accused the FBI of “retaliatory conduct” taken against the agents after they made “protected disclosures about what they believed in good faith to be wrong conduct.”

Two whistleblowers who say they were retaliated against appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday morning to testify to the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Former FBI special agent Steve Friend and FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen both told the committee that the FBI retaliated unjustly against them.

“It appears that I was retaliated against because I forwarded information to my superiors and others that questioned the official narrative of the events of January 6. As a result, I was accused of promoting conspiratorial views and unreliable information. Because I did this, the FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States,” Allen told the committee. He said he has been suspended from the FBI for the past year.

The article notes:

The report said that Friend was suspended after he made protected whistleblower disclosures about the FBI’s handling of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE) cases related to January 6. It added that the bureau manipulated DVE data connected to January 6 to make domestic extremism seem widespread instead of originating with a single event.

“According to whistleblower information, the FBI has manipulated the manner in which it categorized January 6-related investigations to create a misleading narrative that domestic terrorism is organically surging around the country,” the report says, according to The Washington Examiner. “Ordinarily, the FBI characterizes and labels cases according to the originating field office, with leads ‘cut’ to other field offices for specific assistance in that geographic location. With January 6 cases, however, the FBI has not followed its ordinary procedure, which would have resulted in the (Washington Field Office) leading the investigation and categorizing the investigations as WFO cases.”

There are a lot of questions about exactly what happened on January 6th. It appears that because Friend questioned the narrative that the Bureau, the Democrats, and the mainstream media set up, he was a threat. The FBI does need to be disbanded and replaced with an organization with much less power and under much closer oversight. There is a place for the FBI in America, but there is not a place for the political  organization it has become.

 

How The Political Left Could Take Over The Supreme Court

We have seen that the political left fought hard to prevent the seating of conservative justices on the Supreme Court. I suspect that we are now going to see the political left attempt to remove the conservative justices that now sit on the Supreme Court. They have already begun the process. President Joe Biden will be able to fill any vacancies that arise, and Kamala Harris will provide the necessary 51st vote (assuming all the Democrats are able to attend the Senate vote).

On Monday, The Daily Wire outlined the plan for the liberal takeover of the Court.

The article reports:

First, they push the idea that the current justices are deciding cases politically, rather than impartially. In other words, the justices are twisting and shaping the Constitution’s meaning to reach results that advance certain political interests.

We are already hearing this talking point in the mainstream media.

The article continues:

Second, the Left attacks Supreme Court decisions, and individual justices, that do not reliably advance liberal political interests, as partisan, corrupt, or unethical.

We have recently seen that with Justice Thomas. The next target is Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The article notes the third part of the plan, which is unconstitutional:

Having created this politically driven, faux ethics controversy, Democrats have introduced legislation to require the Supreme Court to produce a formal ethics code. That much might not sound serious, but because the Constitution, not Congress, created the Supreme Court, Congress does not have such authority.

All nine current justices signed a lengthy Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices explaining how they approach ethical questions, including in ways that necessarily differ from lower court judges.

The more serious problem, however, is that these bills would then allow anyone to file a complaint that a Supreme Court justice has allegedly violated some provisions of such a code.

Stay tuned. Unless the Republicans develop a plan to stop this, we are going to lose the checks and balances in our government that protect our God-given freedoms.

 

A Get-Out-The-Popcorn Moment

On Sunday, The Daily Wire posted an article with an interesting twist of the indictment of President Trump.

The article reports:

Leaked details about Donald Trump‘s indictment are grounds for criminal charges, a top official from the former president’s administration said on Sunday.

John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. congressman and federal prosecutor who served as Trump’s final director of national intelligence, reacted to reports that Trump faces around 30 counts related to business fraud as part of the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“The only felony of which we can be certain to come out of this Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York is the felony committed either by DA Bragg himself or someone on the grand jury that he’s using for this perversion of our justice system,” Ratcliffe told “Sunday Morning Futures” anchor Maria Bartiromo.

“The accused, Donald Trump, and his lawyers, don’t know what’s in this sealed indictment. But for the past, what? Seventy-two hours, the American public has been discussing supposedly 30 or 34 felony counts,” he added. “Leaking grand jury information is a felony. And so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg’s team or members of the grand jury itself.”

…Ratcliffe isn’t the only person saying there could have been criminal leaks. Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz shared a similar view during an appearance on OANN, noting that such a violation of New York penal law could warrant up to five years behind bars.

Are we about to see another situation where Lady Justice takes her blindfold off? At what point do Americans wake up to the fact that the principle of ‘equal justice under the law’ supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution has been thrown under the bus?

Considering Some State Laws, This Actually Makes Sense

On Sunday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

NBA officials and the National Basketball Players Association reached a new tentative labor agreement over the weekend that no longer penalizes athletes for using marijuana and removes the substance from the league’s drug testing program.

Both parties reached the new seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement early Saturday morning, which still needs players and team governors to ratify the deal before becoming official.

Recreational use of marijuana is legal in twenty-one states, and medical marijuana is legal in many others. To prohibit athletes from using something that may be legal in their home states makes no sense. I disagree with the legalization of recreational marijuana, but banning the use of a substance that is legal in many states makes no sense.

The article notes:

Aside from changing its position on marijuana use, The Athletic details other negotiations in the tentative agreement, which include allowing NBA players to promote and/or invest in betting and cannabis companies, sign non-gambling endorsement deals with sports betting companies and invest in teams in NBA and WNBA teams via an NBPA-selected private equity firm — among other terms.

According to the outlet, the reversal would go into effect this summer through the 2029–30 season if both parties do not opt out by the end of the 2028–29 season.

The article concludes:

“The Band-Aid has been ripped off in the sports world,” Durant said. “It’s kind of an undercover thing that players use cannabis and use it throughout when they’re actively playing.”

Former NBA players, including Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Allen Iverson, have also been open about their cannabis use, according to Insider.

NBC Sports reported the National Football League reduced potential penalties for marijuana three years ago in a similar deal but did not completely exclude testing for the substance as more states started to legalize cannabis for recreational use — creating a conflict between the league and the law.

It will be interesting to see if this decision impacts the quality of play in the NBA. I do suspect that marijuana might be useful in dealing with the kind of pain that professional athletes deal with. Masking that pain might result in better athletic performance, but it also might result in further damage to whatever is causing the pain. Again, it will be interesting to see what impact this decision has on the National Basketball League during the upcoming season.

 

Is Anyone Comfortable With This?

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the video included in the Tweet below.The video shows a toddler abandoned by the smuggler who was supposed to get him into America. The smuggler did get him into America, but had the Border Patrol not acted swiftly, the child might not have been alive for very long.

The article reports:

The crisis at the southern border has only intensified since Biden has taken office and further restricted Border Patrol’s ability to expel migrants. Notably, Biden early on made changes to circumvent Title 42 — used by the Trump administration during the pandemic to expel migrants on the basis of public health.

“Beginning April 21, 2022, OFO will increase its capabilities to process noncitizens potentially amenable for an exception to Title 42,” a memo from sent to Border Patrol reportedly said. “Factors weighing in favor of an exception include the following: a physical or mental illness, disability; pregnancy; lack of access to safe housing or shelter in Mexico (under 21 years old or younger or over 70, including families); and an indication that an individual has been threatened or harmed in Mexico.”

The administration has long been seeking to lift Title 42, but that is currently working through the courts. Border experts have warned the removal of the policy will exacerbate the crisis at the southern border.

Biden has recently tried to claim that his administration and Democrats are really the ones who want border security, while Republicans are trying to block it.

The situation at our southern border is a disaster because Congress is letting it remain a disaster. If the Republicans or the Democrats wanted the border crisis solved, it would be solve. The Democrats want the future voters; the Republicans want cheap labor. Until we elect people to Congress who actually love America, this situation will continue.

The Letter

The New York case against President Trump keeps getting weaker. On Wednesday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the latest wrinkle in the case.

The article reports:

A five-year-old letter surfaced Wednesday that appeared to show President Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen lied to investigators about a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election.

The letter, dated February 8, 2018, was written by Cohen’s attorney Stephen M. Ryan to the Federal Election Commission about the payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels. In it, Cohen’s lawyer claims that Cohen used “his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford.”

“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly,” the letter said.

Cohen pled guilty six months after that letter was written to several charges in federal court, including campaign finance violations related to the payment to Daniels.

Cohen, who has since been disbarred, is a key figure in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office grand jury investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in that payment to Daniels. He has told investigators for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and testified to the grand jury that he made the payments at the direction of Trump.

I would like to point out that Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000. Whoever paid Stormy Daniels was obviously a much better negotiator. This is much ado about nothing, but it has kept the news about the Biden family corruption off of the front pages. It has therefore served its purpose.

This May Be The Way To Stop The Current Nonsense

On Saturday, The Daily Wire reported that Layla Jane, an 18-year-old who claims she was rushed into transgender medical treatment, is suing the doctors who treated her.

The article reports:

A teenager is suing a health care company and the doctors who put her on controversial puberty-blocking drugs at age 12 and removed her healthy breasts in a double-mastectomy surgery when she was just 13 years old, accusing them of “intentional fraud and concealment.”

Layla Jane, an 18-year-old detransitioner represented by attorney Harmeet Dhillon, claims in a letter of intent to sue that she was rushed into the life-altering medical services while she and her family were not properly informed of risks and other vital information, such as the rate of desistence for childhood gender dysphoria.

The article notes that the age restrictions on the medical procedures magically disappeared:

“Layla immediately started puberty blockers and testosterone at age 12, and had a double mastectomy at age 13,” the legal letter states.

“Two of Layla’s initial providers advised that per Kaiser’s official policies, Layla could not start cross-sex hormones until she was 16 and advised that surgery was not permissible until age 18,” the letter claims. “But, soon thereafter, Layla ended up in the hands of Dr. [Susanne E.] Watson, Dr. [Lisa Kristine] Taylor, and Dr. [Winnie Mao Yiu] Tong. These doctors immediately approved Layla for cross-sex hormones and a double mastectomy at ages 12-13, without performing an adequate evaluation and treatment of Layla’s extensive mental health co-morbidities.”

“I don’t think I should have been allowed to change my sex before I could legally consent to have sex,” Layla said during a Fox News appearance this past week. “I don’t think I’m better off for the experience, and I think transition just completely added fuel to the fire that was my pre-existing conditions.”

The article concludes:

Chloe Cole, another detransitioned 18-year-old woman, announced last month the first official lawsuit in the U.S. against the same health care group, which, too, facilitated her medical gender transition as a minor.

Gender dysphoria is a disease. It should be treated as a disease–not encouraged as a lifestyle.

A Non-Solution

President Biden is again trying to limit gun ownership in America. He has announced a new Executive Order relating to guns (parts of which violate the U.S. Constitution).

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported:

White House officials summarized the order saying the move would push the U.S. closer to universal background checks without additional legislation, hold the gun industry “accountable,” and drive law enforcement efforts to identify and apprehend shooters.

Actually, the only part of that statement is true is the part that says the law will hold the gun industry “accountable,” a questionable concept. The problem is not the gun or the gun manufacturer any more than the problem with drunk driving is the car–the problem is the person holding the gun. Unfortunately, the law’s impact will actually be on legal gun owners–criminals do not follow laws.

The article continues:

“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’ll hear him call on Congress to take action and not to stop … that we need to continue.”

The move comes after Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year, where he called on members of Congress to take additional steps to reduce gun violence. Lawmakers passed the legislation in an attempt to prevent mass shootings and incentivize states to pass more “red flag” laws and expand background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds looking to purchase a firearm.

“Again and again, he has called for Congress to act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” the statement reads.

Red flag laws are unconstitutional–you cannot take someone’s property without giving them a chance to defend themself. What qualifies as an assault weapon? Are certain guns assault weapons because they are scary looking? How many high-capacity magazines have actually been used to commit crimes (experienced gun handlers will tell you that high-capacity magazines are more likely to jam and therefore are not highly recommended)? This Executive Order is an example of a law written by someone who is interested in appearing to do something, but is short on actual knowledge of guns and crime statistics.

 

When Was The Last Time The House Of Representatives And The Senate Voted Unanimously On Anything?

On March 10th, The Daily Wire reported the following:

The House voted overwhelmingly on Friday morning to approve the declassification of all Biden administration intelligence on the origins of COVID.

The House voted 419-0 in favor of the bipartisan measure, according to Axios. The Senate voted unanimously last week to approve a similar measure. The bill would require the declassification and release of all intelligence related to the origins of COVID and the virus’ possible connections to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) within 90 days of receiving the president’s signature.

The article concludes:

The Department of Energy, with its network of national laboratories and specialists in biological weapons, is the latest member of the U.S. Intelligence Community to determine that the likeliest origin of COVID is a lab-related incident. Last month, the department reportedly shifted its conclusion from undecided to “low confidence” in the lab leak hypothesis with new information, though it is unclear what that new information is.

The FBI assessed in 2021 that the lab leak theory is most likely the correct theory with “moderate confidence.”

The National Intelligence Council and four agencies have ruled against the lab leak theory in favor of the natural emergence hypothesis that says COVID originated in an animal species and somehow made its way into humanity.

There are still many questions about the COVID pandemic and the government’s handling of it that remain unanswered. This is simply a beginning of the investigation. One thing to keep in mind is that the pandemic resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in American history–large company’s profits soared as many small companies were forced out of business. There are many questions that still need to be answered.

Congratulations On Your Twisted Logic

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted President Biden’s explanation of why his mishandling of classified documents was different than President Trump’s. It’s an interesting stretch of logic. Obviously, the first problem is that President Biden’s documents were found in multiple locations. President Trump’s documents (which he claims he had declassified) were in a secured location. But wait–there’s more.

The article reports:

“You and the former president are both now under investigation by the Justice Department for the discovery of these classified documents,” Muir (David Muir ABC News) said. “I know that you believe these two cases are very different. But I do remember something you said after the discovery at Mar-a-Lago, you said, ‘I thought data that was in there may compromise sources and methods and names of people who help and it’s just totally irresponsible.’”

“Can you assure the American people that none of the documents discovered in your garage, or your old office, compromised sources or methods or U.S. intelligence?” Muir asked.

“I’ve been advised by the council, let the Justice Department make that decision, to not try to alter the case in any way, there have been very few documents that have been confiscated, found, in my possession that are in, other than, in my possession, meaning in my ho–, all the stuff that was moved out of my Senate office over the years, I’m told there are a couple things that were from 1973 or 74, the documents were marked classified,” Biden responded. “I don’t know of anything, maybe. I don’t know if anything that is marked like it was, you know, top secret, highly class–, etc. But I am told not to comment on that, because I don’t even know what they are able, what they confiscated.”

First of all, as a Senator, Biden was not supposed to remove classified documents from the skiff. He was not allowed to have them in his personal possession. That is a problem.

The article continues:

Muir then highlighted Biden’s reaction to the news last year that federal officials had found classified material in Trump’s possession.

“One word you used, when you hear about boxes in your garage or in your old office, you called the Trump discovery ‘irresponsible,’” Muir said. “Is there something irresponsible here though, too?”

“You know, you’re a good lawyer, but you’re trying to make a comparison. What, there’s degrees of irresponsibility, that are, they can be significant degrees of responsibility,” Biden claimed. “What, the way in which the boxes were packed up from my office, apparently, not everything was gone through as meticulously as it should have.”

“But there was no intention,” Biden claimed. “I opened up my home, all my homes. My homes, my home at the beach and the home, my permanent home. And they spent hours and hours going through everything, personal, everything I had. And that’s a fundamentally different thing. There’s nothing for me to hide.”

The contrast between the way these two situations has been handled is chilling. This is one of many glaring examples of unequal justice under the law.

How It Happened

On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted an article detailing the actual cause of the train wreck that has created the ecological disaster in Ohio. After reading the article, I am not sure what could have been done to prevent the accident or what needs to be done in the future to prevent another accident like this.

This article reports:

The catastrophic February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, was caused by an overheated wheel bearing on the 23rd of 149 rail cars, according to a preliminary report issued Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Norfolk Southern Railway train derailment led to a decision to burn more than a hundred thousand gallons of highly toxic chemicals, leading to concerns the air and water in and around the town of 4,700 could be badly contaminated. While it was already believed the wreck was caused by a malfunctioning wheel, the NTSB report revealed new details.

…The tracks are equipped with “hot bearing detectors” that assess the temperature conditions of wheel bearings on passing trains, alerting crews if wheel bearings exceed 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The train that derailed passed three sensors before it derailed, with the doomed wheel bearing first registering 38 degrees above ambient temperatures, then 103 degrees, and finally 253 degrees above ambient temperatures, the report stated.

The sensor system transmitted a critical audible alarm message directing the crew to slow and stop the train. The engineer did so, but ​once the train stopped the crew saw fire and smoke from derailed cars and notified the Cleveland East dispatcher of a possible derailment.

By February 5, chemical fires sparked by the tanker cars colliding during the derailment were under control, according to the report. But with five cars carrying 115,580 gallons of highly volatile vinyl chloride on the derailed train, and the temperature rising in at least one of them, the decision was made to execute a “controlled burn” of the chemicals, sending a black, toxic plume into the skies above East Palestine.

The people in East Palestine need our prayers. I can’t imagine living in a place where breathing the air hurts.

Do These Regulations Look Familiar?

The mid-term elections are behind us and even though it is way too early, attention has turned to the 2024 presidential election. One of the challenges to whomever the Democrat candidate is will whether or not the crisis at our southern (and now northern) border is resolved. The Biden administration has a plan for that. Actually, it bears a striking resemblance to the Trump administration plan.

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported:

The Biden administration proposed a new restriction on asylum seekers that closely resembles a policy from the Trump administration.

The new rule would prevent migrants who do not use already available legal pathways to asylum and do not seek asylum in a third country from applying for asylum in the U.S. Biden Administration officials said the rule was proposed in response to the end of Title 42 immigration restrictions. It also closely resembles a Trump administration policy which similarly banned asylum seekers who did not first seek asylum in another country.

The article concludes:

After a public comment period, the new restrictions will go into effect on May 11th, the same day that the Biden administration intends to end the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies. Title 42 restrictions, which allow authorities to turn migrants away due to public health concerns, are also scheduled to end then.

The new restrictions closely resemble a similar asylum ban implemented by the Trump administration. Those restrictions, referred to as both “asylum bans” and “transit bans,” were highly controversial and bitterly fought over in the courts from the beginning of former President Trump’s term. The Trump-era bans were blocked by the courts in 2018 and 2020; the final rule was implemented on Trump’s last full day in office, but a judge struck that down as well.

Democrats and immigration advocates decried the new rules because of the similarities to Trump policies. But the Biden administration dismissed those criticisms, and noted that they have provided alternative pathways for migrants to seek asylum. In January, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the comparisons, saying that his plan was based on “a rebuttable presumption of ineligibility. And there’s a marked difference between the two,” he said, via The Hill.

The South American refugees coming through Mexico are a much better fit for asylum in Mexico than in America. They share the Spanish language and culture. Mexico needs its patriots and those willing to join its patriots to stand up to the thugs that are attempting to take it over. I realize that is easier said than done, but we need both a strong border and a strong Mexican government to put an end to the refugee crisis.