The Attack On All Parts Of Our Food Supply

On March 4th, The Epoch Times posted an article about a raid by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania.

The article reports:

In January, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, raided the Amos Miller Organic Farm, a longtime members-only organic farm in Lancaster County. Government agents took possession of many tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of food that had been produced on the farm for family and friends, people who rely on this farm for high-quality products that avoid factory methods, chemicals, and industrial processes.

This is the kind of food that many people around the country would love to buy but cannot because of the industrial cartels that control production and distribution in this country. Residents of Amish country are wildly fortunate to have such options, particularly as it pertains to raw milk products, which are widely considered to be more nutritious and delicious than processed milk. However, that truth is censored very heavily by YouTube, as part of the general censorship regime in operation now.

The article concludes:

What will save the food supply in this country is less government oversight and bullying and more of the free market that the Amish practice. It is highly dangerous for government powers to be deployed in harassing these people and thus further poisoning the food supply. I’m happy to admit that I was wrong on this subject for most of my writing career. But the COVID response taught me a thing or two. I learned that we cannot trust government oversight in any aspect of human health, particularly not that which affects our food.

And it’s not only about food. It’s also about religious freedom. Groups such as the Amish and so many others have thrived in the United States thanks to religious freedom. Their lifestyle and food choices are part of that. Take that away and you remove the whole guts of the whole basis of the American experience. It’s that serious.

Meanwhile, as government goes after raw milk, vast numbers suffer real injury from mRNA shots the government forced on millions of people. Pharma’s stocks continue to trade at high levels while true investigations get little attention by the captured corporate media outlets.

The Amos Miller Organic Farm deserves every passionate defense from anyone who values health and freedom. Make no mistake. The war on the organic farm is a war on all of us and only to the industrial benefit of large producers tightly connected to the cartel that runs agriculture in this country. The entire regulatory empire needs to be completely deregulated in the interest of the health and well-being of everyone.

Many of us wish we lived near a farm like the Amos Miller Organic Farm. The government is doing no one a favor by shutting it down.

America First: Military Defense Part II

Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

This is a follow-up to a prior article where I outlined how our foreign policy should return to the principle of America First, which was advocated by our Founding Fathers. This article focuses on specific actions that should be taken for our defense. While I am admittedly not a military planning expert, these suggestions are based on common sense; a characteristic sorely missing in many of our current defense leadership who seem more focused on their “woke” agenda.

We are living in a dangerous time. During the Cold War, we only had to worry about the Soviet Union from the standpoint of nuclear conflict. Now with China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, and soon Iran, having nuclear capability, the situation is far more complex and dangerous. First: one of the things that President Reagan wisely did was to encourage the development of an effective missile defense system. This was not continued by subsequent administrations. We need to return to developing a missile defense system. If we don’t, we will be at the mercy of any rogue country that decides to launch an attack. Second: we need to establish a satellite defense system that will protect our essential satellites without which a modern war cannot be fought. President Trump’s decision to create an effective Space Force needs to be strongly supported. Third: we need to fortify and secure our electrical power grid from sabotage or direct attack. This must also include protecting the computer programs that control these systems. One of the dumbest proposals from the Left is offshore wind farms. I cannot think of anything more vulnerable than a power system fifty miles away from our shores. Fourth, we need to consolidate our current military forces. According to a recent article in the Epoch Times, we have over 200,000 military personnel scattered all over the globe. We need to refocus these deployments and encourage our allies to support their own defenses. Europe, South Korea, and Japan for example, should not be relying on us for their defense. We are 34 trillion dollars in debt!. Fifth, we need to focus on ensuring that we have the strongest Navy in the world. We should use this force as needed and then return them to proximity to our shores where their vulnerability to attack is lessoned as compared to stationing naval fleets all over the world. Sixth, we need to return to the principle contained in the Monroe Doctrine that declared the Western Hemisphere to be off limits to our adversaries. Allowing China to infiltrate countries like Venezuela and Ecuador is contrary to our interests.

The last item is dealing with the drug cartels in Mexico. The weaponization of mass illegal migration, is a direct threat of our survival as a country. The influx of fentanyl is estimated to kill 100,000 Americans each year and is now the greatest cause of death of American men between the age of 19 and 45. We fought terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. When are we going to get serious and destroy the drug cartels? That is a fight worth having.

The above will require a refocusing of our defense efforts. However, continuing what we have been doing is no longer tenable.

Standing Up to the Climate Hoax

Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

It is becoming increasing apparent that not only is there no scientific evidence that manmade CO2 emissions are causing climate change, but that this hoax is being used by the Democrat Marxists to control us and limit our freedoms. It is also being used to enrich the elite at the expense the taxpayers and to raise energy bills dramatically higher.

A recent article in the Epoch Times revealed that the United Nation’s Convention on Climate Change deliberately altered their report so that any observed climate change would be falsely blamed on mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. Several scientists who objected to this unsubstantiated claim were ostracized and removed from the committee. World renowned physicist, Frederick Seitz, wrote in an article that he had never in his extensive career, including as President of the National Academy of Sciences, ever seen such corruption in the scientific review process and that no study to date has demonstrated that climate change is due to mankind’s use of fossil fuels. Recent reports by qualified experts have reported that rising CO2 levels are offset by increased plant growth and that CO2 levels do not increate warming, but rather the opposite. That is, rising climate temperature cycles caused by factors such as solar activity, produce an increase in CO2 and not the reverse.

So where does all this bring us? The only rational conclusion (in spite of what the environmental extremists and those making a huge profit from solar and wind farms) is that there is absolutely no need to restrict the use of fossil fuels. It is estimated that that the current effort to replace fossil fuels is costing the average American over $2,000 per year and rising. This will devastate our economy for absolutely no valid reason.

Here in North Carolina, we can fight back against this leftist agenda in at least two ways. First, repeal HB 951 passed into law in 2021 that requires electricity generating power plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and achieve carbon emission neutrality by 2050. Second, pass a law prohibiting the construction of offshore wind farms near Kitty Hawk and Bald Head Island that is being pushed by Governor Cooper. It should be noted, that solar and wind farm components are obtained from China while they continue to construct coal burning plants at an alarming rate.

The Republican controlled General Assembly needs to step up to the plate and stop this disastrous program before it is too late. Any candidate for office who does not recognize the danger posed by the Left’s extremist environmental program and is not willing to stand up against it does not deserve our support.

What Was Actually In Those Documents?

Putting aside the fact that a Senator or Vice-President shouldn’t have classified documents in his home or garage, let’s take a look at what some of those documents were and how they might be related to other issues.

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported:

President Joe Biden retained documents related to Ukraine that were classified as “secret” and “confidential,” according to a report by Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Hur, released on Feb. 8.

The 388-page report states that the FBI found a folder labeled “VP Personal,” containing two documents—a telephone call sheet and talking points for a call with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which occurred on Dec. 11, 2015—marked as “secret.”

There is a handwritten note from President Biden in the upper-right corner of the sheet asking his executive assistant to “get [a] copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” The document was labeled “confidential” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.”

Additionally, one appendix in the report states that President Biden kept a memo with the subject line “U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine,” from September 2014. The results of the classification review indicate the memo was “confidential.”

President Biden served as vice president under the Obama administration at the time. His son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of directors of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings in May 2014.

Nothing like breaking the law to help and unqualified family member in his job.

The article concludes, reminding us:

Burisma contacted the source to seek assistance in buying a U.S. company to merge with, in the hope that it could go public in the United States.

After the disclosure of an investigation into Burisma by Ukraine’s prosecutor general Viktor Shokin in 2016, the source informed Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, that it could negatively affect the company’s prospective initial public offering.

Mr. Zlochevsky replied that Mr. Hunter Biden “will take care of all of those issues through his dad,” according to the document. Mr. Shokin resigned in March 2016.
President Biden in 2018 bragged at the Council of Foreign Relations that he got Mr. Shokin dismissed.

“‘We’re leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” he said about his interaction with Ukrainian officials, referring to a $1 billion loan guarantee he threatened to withhold. “Well, son of a [expletive]. He got fired.”

Mr. Shokin has said that the threat was cited when he was ousted. He said in a sworn statement that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked him to resign because of “pressure from the U.S. presidential administration, in particular from Joe Biden.”

But as of now, there will be no consequences for President Biden ignoring the laws he should have been enforcing.

Does America Have A Justice System?

On Thursday, The Epoch Times reported that Special Counsel Robert Hur has announced that President Biden will not be charged for mishandling classified documents. I suppose it would be petty to point out that as a Senator or a private citizen he was not entitled to have those documents in his personal possession, but I guess that really doesn’t matter.

The article reports:

Among the reasons stated for not pressing charges was that Biden would present to the jury ‘as sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’

I would like to point out that this elderly man with a poor memory is President of the United States. I also question the ‘well-meaning’ part.

The article continues:

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Mr. Hur wrote in a 388-page report to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The materials, stated the report, included “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” The FBI collected these items during a search of President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence last year.

This is  unbelievable. President Trump’s house gets searched, and he gets charged while President Biden (because he is essentially considered a senile old man) gets away scot free. They searched Baron Trump’s room. Shouldn’t someone have searched Hunter Biden’s room?

I don’t know how (or if) we recover from the banana republic we have become.

 

The Government’s Misplace Priorities

On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about some changes being made to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The article reports:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to raise its enforcement personnel by 40 percent by the end of this fiscal year, with revenue agents seeing the largest workforce increase.

For fiscal year 2024, the IRS plans to boost enforcement staff by a net 5,462 employees, according to a Jan. 29 report by IRS watchdog Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). This would take the total number of enforcement personnel at the tax agency to 18,960 by the end of fiscal 2024, which is 40 percent higher than the staffing at the beginning of October 2023.

Out of the 5,462 net additions, 4,704 will be revenue agents who are tasked with conducting “face-to-face audits of more complex returns.”

The tax agency intends to add a net 493 special agents for the year, who are armed officials investigating “potential criminal activities.” Staffing of revenue officers will rise by 265 employees. Revenue officers are tasked with collecting delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns.

First of all, I do not believe that IRS agents should be armed. Secondly, the idea of an apolitical IRS went out the window when Lois Lerner decided to target conservative groups to delay their 501c3 tax status requests.

The article notes:

By fiscal 2024-end, revenue agents will comprise close to 70 percent of the enforcement personnel. Armed special agents will make up 13.5 percent and revenue officers will account for 16.4 percent.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided the IRS with $79.4 billion in supplemental funding that is available for the agency until September 2031. By the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023, the agency had used $3.5 billion of the funds.

As long as we are arming federal employees, let’s send them to our southern border to enforce our immigration laws.

Filing A False Report To Get The Preferred Narrative

On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the killing of Ashli Babbitt on January 6th, 2021.

The article reports:

Within a minute after firing the fatal bullet that struck Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd broadcast a radio report claiming shots were being fired at him in the Speaker’s Lobby and he was “prepared to fire back,” a federal lawsuit alleges.

The previously undisclosed radio dispatch is also contained on an audio recording obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times of the “OPS2” dispatch channel used by Capitol Police on Jan. 6.

Information on the recording is contained in a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 5 by Ms. Babbitt’s widower, Aaron Babbitt of San Diego. Mr. Babbitt, backed in his lawsuit by Judicial Watch, is seeking $30 million from the U. S. government for wrongful death.

According to the lawsuit, Mr. Byrd fired his Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, then announced that he was being fired upon and was ready to return fire.

“In fact, no shots were fired at Lt. Byrd or his fellow officers,” the lawsuit stated. “The only shot fired was the single shot Lt. Byrd fired at Ashli. He heard the loud noise of the gunshot. He saw her fall backward from the window frame.”

The article also notes:

The DOJ report absolving Mr. Byrd from culpability included numerous errors and incorrect statements.

The report says that after the glass in the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby was smashed out, rioters “were then able to reach through the broken glass and push the chairs off the top of the barricaded furniture.”

Video shot from the hallway does not show anyone toppling chairs from the makeshift barricade, either before or after Ms. Babbitt was shot.

The report quotes Jason Gandolph of the House Sergeant at Arms office saying he and several Capitol Police officers “attempted to keep the demonstrators from advancing toward the Speaker’s Lobby after the Capitol was breached.”

The article also includes a transcript of the Mr. Byrd’s conversation with dispatch. It also includes a timeline of the events related to the murder of Ashli Babbitt. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

 

Return of Frankenstein?

Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D 

We all remember the Frankenstein story where the main character attempts to create life from the remnants of the deceased in his laboratory. It did not turn out well. The Epoch Times (a great conservative weekly newspaper), recently published an article about laboratory created meat that is being produced in a couple of laboratories in this country as well as few other countries.   

The article related that the FDA (Federal Drug Administration), recently gave its approval for the labs to market and sell this artificially created meat to Americans on the open market. The exact process of creating this involves taking cells of real meat and somehow adding other components to resemble real meat. I assume the actual details of the process are proprietary and not public knowledge.   

Why is this being done you might ask. The reasons, as with a lot of things that have the potential to destroy our country as we know it, are based on preventing that ongoing hoax: manmade climate change. Apparently, the environmental extremists do not like raising real animals for meat since they exhale CO2As with all of the other climate change solutions this will have a severe negative impact on not only the farmers and ranchers who raise animals but on the transportation, animal feed. and food processing industries putting millions of people out of work. Moreover, the laboratories which produce this artificial meat will require extensive electrical energy to operate. Having raised beef cattle and chickens myself, I can assure you that they require little other than green grass and access to pastures. As this absurdity expands, undoubtedly with extensive taxpayer subsidies, our food supply becomes concentrated into large factories that are more easily subject to attack and disruption that the widespread farming industry. So far, there are only two places, namely, Singapore and the United States, which have sanctioned artificial meat products.   Singapore does not have extensive pasture land like we have and may therefore be excused for this absurdity. I am reminded of a movie named “Soylent Green” starring Charlton Heston, where the bodies of the deceased were being processed into food for the masses. Under Biden, the impossible is becoming probable. Scary. 

This is another, scary example of an out of control bureaucracy that must be reined in!  Another example, is the recently announced plan by the Biden regime’s Department of Transportation to require all auto manufacturers to install electronic control devices in your vehicle which will monitor your location and control your speed to conform with the speed limit of the road you are traveling. In addition, they are planning to mandate fuel efficiency standards that are impossible to meet with internal combustion engines thereby moving to all electric vehicles without actually issuing a mandate. A recent article in the Epoch Times estimates that for every electric vehicle that sells for $53,000 that we the taxpayers contribute $47,000 in subsidies and tax breaks. Sound fair to you? 

If you value your freedom and your country as you have known it, this has to be stopped. Biden has the gall to attack President Trump as a threat to our democracy and freedom while he and his minions are the greatest threat this country has ever seen. We must fight back. Get involved before it is too late. 

2024 Is Going To Be An Interesting Year

Will 2024 be the year when Americans get their total freedoms back? I hope so. The Internet is heavily censored now–the research I used to be able to do in about 30 minutes now takes about an hour and a half due to censorship. I like my gas stove and my gasoline car. I would also rather eat beef than bugs.

On December 30th, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article at The Epoch Times about the continuing effort to silence President Trump. The problem is that President Trump is saying things that agree with the ideas of a majority of the American people.

The article reports:

Donald Trump has been slandered and libeled thousands of times.

Each time a news reporter, media commentator, or judge refers to Trump as an “insurrectionist,” or claims he’s guilty of “insurrection,” it’s another blatant case of defamation. Same with the other Jan. 6 attendees and participants.

Insurrection is a serious federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison under Title 18 U.S. Code 2383. Even with Trump’s enemies in charge at the Department of Justice and other law enforcement bodies, and with all of the scheming and operations they’ve mounted against him, nobody has convicted him of “insurrection.” Under our system of governing, no judge or election authority has the power to unilaterally accuse and convict any American of a crime, let alone with the accused denied any opportunity to present a defense or to appeal.

Yet that’s just what’s happening when courts and officials in Maine and Colorado remove President Trump from presidential election primary ballots for “insurrection.” It’s the ultimate defamation. And many are supporting it because, well, they don’t like President Trump.

Looking at the evidence today, it’s reasonable to hypothesize that, among all the other conspiracies President Trump’s enemies devised, they also conspired in advance to set up his Jan. 6, 2021, rally and the U.S. Capitol breach that followed as an “insurrection” that could serve as their insurance policy to provide grounds to keep him from ever running for president again.

The article concludes:

The real meaning of what’s being done to President Trump is this: They think he’s going to win. He’s like Christmas, and his enemies are like the Grinch. Despite the impeachments, improper wiretapping, censorship, intel agency conspiracies, criminal charges, civil lawsuits, and turncoats operating against him on the inside—President Trump’s popularity has increased. They haven’t stopped him from coming to the fore in 2024. He came! He came without Twitter. He came without Facebook. He came without Snapchat or Discord or Stripe. Somehow or other, he came just the same!

Pulling President Trump off ballots is the establishment’s latest attempt to censor a candidate that they clearly believe will win—if the people are left to decide. We’ve reached a dangerous and scary point when so many are willing to look the other way because their preferred candidate isn’t the one under attack.

To end where we began—President Trump potentially has actionable defamation claims against all those who continue to label him an insurrectionist. That includes judges on the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. But that’s likely not a battle he could win. The 2024 race? That’s another matter.

How Safe Is The Manufacturing Of The Vaccine?

On Sunday (updated Monday), The Epoch Times posted an article about manufacturing violations in the production of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

The article reports:

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors uncovered problems at a Moderna plant used to manufacture a substance that is part of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a newly released document.

Moderna failed to meet multiple requirements, including rules aimed at minimizing the potential for contamination, according to the document.

FDA inspectors performed inspections at the plant in Norwood, Massachusetts from, Sept. 11 to Sept. 21, visiting nine times in total.

They found that equipment used to manufacture the substance was not cleaned properly before usage, that a mock cleaning done for manufacturing did not adequately simulate the actual process, that written alarm procedures were not followed, and that neither the equipment nor the plant were designed in a way that would make contamination less likely.

Inspectors also learned that Moderna used materials beyond their expiration date.

“There are more than two thousand expired items stored in your … warehouse and cold storage at time of inspection,” Unnee Ranjan, the FDA’s lead investigator, wrote in a summary of the inspections.

The article concludes:

Another part of the FDA report, dated Sept. 21, described how the Norwood facility did not have adequately designed air handling systems to “assure appropriate air quality in the … cleanroom in which the mRNA drug substance is manufactured.”

Inspectors also said they found positive air pressure was not “consistently maintained” between cleanrooms and airlocks and that monitoring data showed the cleanroom pressure turned negative between January and September. That development was “not assessed for potential impact,” they said.

“At face value, it appears multiple controls designed to prevent contamination were deficient,” Mr. Lynn said.

Another recently released document, produced by the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network on orders from a federal judge, showed the FDA detected in Andover, Massachusetts, issues with the manufacture of a substance used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Pfizer said in response it had taken actions to correct the issues.

The government is still putting ads up on television encouraging Americans to take the vaccine, even after there have been numerous reports of serious side effects. Now we find out there are manufacturing problems also? It’s time for the Covid vaccine to go away.

 

 

Policies Have Consequences

Recently, The Epoch Times posted an article about the village of Ilion, New York. For two centuries, Ilion has been the home of a Remington Arms Co. manufacturing plant.

The article reports:

In the village of Ilion, New York, 80 miles west of the state capital in Albany, residents are mourning the departure of gunmaker Remington Arms Co. after two centuries of continuous operation.

Without fanfare, the company announced last month that the manufacturing plant would be closing its doors on March 4, 2024.

“I feel like a family member has died,” Ilion Mayor John Stephens told The Epoch Times. “My dad raised four kids on a paycheck from there for 37 years. He walked to work and carried his lunch every day.”

Mr. Stephens said no one expected the announcement a week after Thanksgiving that the plant was set to close.

On Nov. 30, at 3:26 p.m., the company notified village officials of the decision by email. The message noted that “all separations” with the village would be completed by March 18, 2024.

Likewise, the company notified its 270 employees that they would soon be out of a job.

The article notes:

Publicly, the company attributed the plant closure in part to a hostile political climate in Albany regarding firearms production.

“I am writing to inform you that RemArms LLC has decided to close its entire operation at 14 Hoefler Avenue, NY 13357,” Remington Arms said in a letter to employees. “The company expects that operations at the Ilion facility will conclude on or about March 4, 2024.”

The Georgia-based company said it would continue to make firearms at its facility in Huntsville, Alabama, which opened in 2014, a year after New York’s passage of the Safe Act, which created stricter gun laws.

The anti-gun political climate in Democrat-controlled Massachusetts prompted competitor Smith & Wesson to move from its longtime base in Springfield to Maryville, Tennessee. The company announced the opening of its new headquarters there in October.

The article notes that the town has been losing population in recent years:

Until recently, Remington Arms employed about 1,500 workers, whose wages helped support the local retail economy, said village public historian Mike Disotelle.

“At noontime, when the employees would go to lunch, there would be a flood of factory employees going to local businesses,” he said.

Mr. Disotelle said Remington Arms was one of the village’s largest employers and a centerpiece of the downtown economy. This remained true even as the village continued to lose residents over the course of several decades, he said.

In 1960, the village had 10,000 residents. Today, that number is down to about 7,700 and could drop below 6,500 by 2030 due to the slow economy, high taxes, and limited housing availability, Mr. Disotelle said.

The northeast is losing its luster because of high taxes, limited housing, and the high cost of living. There is an exodus from blue states to red states. We just need to remind people not to bring their blue politics into red states.

Crippling The Free Enterprise That Made America Great

I am currently involved in a book study of a book called The 5000 Year Leap. The book is about the founding of American and the role that free enterprise played in the success of America. Just for the record, what we have now resembles crony capitalism more than it does free enterprise. Both Jamestown and Plymouth we started as socialistic societies which almost failed before they switched to a free market system. As flawed as America’s healthcare system is, when it is allowed to be a free market, it flourishes. Now the Biden administration is working to change that.

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Biden administration has proposed a new rule that would allow federal authorities to seize the patents of costly drugs that were developed using taxpayer dollars and to let third parties use those patents to make the drugs available more cheaply.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, on Dec. 7 published a set of draft guidelines for government agencies to evaluate when it might be appropriate to invoke what are known as “march-in” rights under the legal framework of the Bayh-Dole Act.

The Bayh-Dole Act, which is shorthand for the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, grants the government the authority to suspend the patents of products of inventions that were developed with federal funding if those products or inventions are not made available to the public.

I agree that Americans pay too much for drugs, but this rule would have a serious impact on research and development and would eventually cause a downward spiral of healthcare in America.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I realize that the pharmaceutical industry has not behaved well in recent years, but we need to clean up the industry–not destroy it.

Will The Jury Listen To The Evidence?

On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the ongoing trial of President Trump in New York. It seems that the evidence doesn’t fit the charges.

The article reports:

“Financial reporting misconduct is a very important part of any course that I teach,” said Mr. Bartov (Eli Bartov, professor of accounting at NYU’s Stern School of Business and an award-winning researcher,). Being able to detect financial fraud early can be rather profitable, he explained, such as the famous case of Enron.

…Though the judge allowed him to testify as an expert in financial accounting and credit analysis, it came after lengthy objection from the state attorneys, who argued the professor had expertise in valuing publicly traded companies, not Deutsche Bank’s decisions. Mr. Kise commented that the state attorneys have objected to this one witness more than any of the others, “which tells me they’re terrified of this witness.”

Mr. Bartov said that after reviewing the lawsuit against the Trump Organization, “the most important evidence is the credit reports of Deutsche Bank.”

Those reports, rather than the Trump statements of financial condition (SFoCs), “really tell you the whole story,” he explained. “You can spin it any way you want, but everything is there.”

Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.

“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”

“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.

The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”

“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”

Mr. Bartov concluded:

Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.

“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”

“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.

The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”

“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”

Is the jury listening? Will the mainstream media report this? The answers to those two questions will tell us (if we don’t know already) whether or not this is a witchhunt.

Using Taxpayer Money To Attack American Warships

In February 2023, Antony Blinken at The U.S. State Department posted a Press Release that included the following:

Today, I am announcing our contribution of more than $444 million, exemplifying the continued generosity of the people of the United States for the people of Yemen.  As one of the largest donors, this brings our total to the humanitarian response in Yemen to over $5.4 billion since the conflict began.  The United States’ commitment to alleviating the suffering of millions from the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains resolute.

Our additional humanitarian assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)  and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) will enable our partners on the ground to deliver life-saving aid to Yemen’s most vulnerable people.  To date, our support, combined with the continued benefits and relative calm created by the UN-brokered truce, enabled 2.2 million Yemenis to avoid experiencing acute food insecurity and tens of thousands of others to avoid slipping into famine-level conditions.

While today’s pledges are important, much more is needed.  We urge all donors to give generously to help raise the $4.3 billion the UN will require to provide humanitarian assistance to Yemenis.  Two-thirds of Yemen’s population – 21.6 million children, women and men – need vital aid.  Last year, funding gaps forced the UN to scale back or cut over half of its life-saving programs, including emergency food assistance.  That means intense hunger or life-threatening starvation for more than two million children facing deadly malnutrition.

Humanitarian assistance must also be complemented by economic and development support.  More than eight years of conflict have pushed Yemen’s economy and institutions to the brink.  Families have been left unable to buy basic goods, provide for their children, or access healthcare.  The United States continues our efforts to help stabilize Yemen’s economy and restore basic services and livelihoods.

That’s nice.

On December 3rd, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Several commercial vessels were attacked on Dec. 3 in the Red Sea, the Pentagon confirmed.

“Today, there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea. These three vessels are connected to 14 separate nations,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Over the course of around five hours, the Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer USS Carney responded to multiple distress calls from the ships and provided assistance, while also taking preventative action against UAVs launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen toward the U.S. warship.

How much more humanitarian aid are we going to send to places where it may be taken from the people it was intended for and used to fight against us?

Protecting The Privacy Of Americans

One of the things that happened after January 6th was that bank transactions and credit card transactions in the Washington, D.C., are were tracked to see who was in Washington on that day. One person I know who went to the rally and then went back to her hotel had her business’ PayPal account canceled essentially because she used her credit card to buy a hamburger. She was never anywhere near the Capitol building. How did PayPal know she was in Washington?

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has subpoenaed Bank of America (BoA) for information over the company’s alleged sharing with the FBI of private customer data from around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, events in Washington.

The subpoena is part of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government’s probe “into major banks sharing Americans’ private financial data with the [FBI] without legal process for transactions made in the Washington, DC, area around Jan. 6, 2021″—the day that supporters of President Donald Trump breached the U.S. Capitol as Congress was certifying the 2020 election, which the former president has called rigged and stolen. Politico first reported the Nov. 16 development.

The committee subpoenaed relevant documents from the bank, including internal communications about the decision to transfer the information to the FBI, any communications that the bank had with the agency, and any other information. The lawmakers gave Bank of America a June 8 deadline to comply.

The article also notes:

Those who had used Bank of America accounts to purchase a firearm, regardless of when or where the transaction took place, were bumped to the top of that list.

The article includes a possible solution to this obvious invasion of privacy:

However, in a Nov. 16 letter to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, informing him of the subpoena, Mr. Jordan, who also chairs the Weaponization Select Subcommittee, wrote that, “it is unclear what ‘legal’ process permits the FBI or BoA to share the sensitive customer information of potentially thousands of BoA customers and implicate them in a federal law enforcement investigation without any clear criminal nexus.”

After all, the Ohio congressman wrote, “If such a lawful authority exists, as BoA asserts, for BoA to freely share private financial information without any legal process or specific nexus to criminality, Congress has a responsibility to consider reforms that adequately protect Americans’ information.”

This is something to keep an eye on.

The Court Gets It Right

On November 10th, The Epoch Times reported that the Minnesota Supreme Court has refused to take a case designed to remove President Trump from the ballot.

The article reports:

The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that sought to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot on Wednesday, after having heard arguments on whether they should take the case.

In a brief opinion and order written by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, the justices said the petition was dismissed without prejudice.

Free Speech for People, a liberal group, had sued on behalf of eight local voters, arguing that the secretary of state putting President Trump on the ballot would be an “error.”

The article notes the reason the group has tried to remove President Trump from the ballot:

The 14th Amendment grants citizenship and equal rights to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Ratified after the Civil War, it also included a section that prohibited those who had participated in “rebellions” or “insurrections” against the nation from holding office.

The Minnesota petition argued that, under section three of the 14th Amendment, President Trump is disqualified from holding elected office again because he engaged in an “insurrection.”

There are some problems with this. The most obvious is the fact that generally speaking insurrectionists have guns. The only people who had guns on January 6th were the police, and the only person who was shot that day was an innocent civilian. The second problem with this charge is the speech President Trump gave on that day. In his speech on January 6th, President Trump stated, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Those are not the words of an insurrectionist.

It’s Past Time For This!

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

The Time to Audit the Fed Is Here

A site called worldtraining.net explains some of the history of the Federal Reserve:

On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy’s order gave the Treasury the power “to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.” This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury’s vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.

        With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificates were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the government the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver.

        After Mr. Kennedy was assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued. The Final Call has learned that the Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an Executive Order and is still valid. Why then has no president utilized it? Virtually all of the nearly $6 trillion in debt has been created since 1963, and if a U.S. president had utilized Executive Order 11110 the debt would be nowhere near the current level. 

The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and then loans it to the government at interest. It’s a great scheme.

The Epoch Times reports:

This week, Sen. Rand Paul is pushing an amendment to a major spending bill that would finally do what should have been done decades ago. It should have been an annual undertaking for the past 100 years. He wants a thorough and external audit of the Fed, using prevailing accounting standards to figure out where the billions and trillions are coming from and where they’re going.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This needs to be done.

This Is Simply Incredible

In July, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asked for Secret Service Protection after his April announcement that he was running for President. As I reported on September (article here) that request was pending even after someone was arrested for carrying a gun at a place where RFK, Jr. was speaking.

On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

RFK Jr. Reiterates Plea to Biden Administration for Secret Service Protection

This will be his third request for Secret Service Protection. The request comes after a suspect is arrested twice in the same day for trespassing on his property.

The article reports:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has refused twice to authorize Secret Service protection, Mr. Kennedy noted Oct. 25 on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“It’s not right for the President to provide protection to his family and political favorites while denying it to political rivals. During his first week as Attorney General, my father assembled all the DOJ’s senior prosecutors to tell them that he would not tolerate any politicization of law enforcement,” Mr. Kennedy posted on Oct. 27.

“I don’t spend time worrying about my personal safety. I do worry about the safety of my family and their sense of well-being and about the safety of bystanders if there is a more serious incident. I’m most troubled by the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies to serve political agendas,” Mr. Kennedy wrote.

President Biden is a mean-spirited, petty little man holding on to power by a thread. He maintains that hold by weaponizing the government against anyone he sees as a challenge.

About That Equal Justice Thing…

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Federal prosecutors on Sept. 18 charged James Ray Epps Sr., who was shown on video encouraging protesters to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, with a single disorderly conduct count that carries up to a year in jail.

Mr. Epps, 62, was named in a criminal charging document (pdf) filed in Washington D.C. with one count of disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.

Mr. Epps’s case was assigned to Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The filing of a charging document—as opposed to a grand jury indictment—often indicates a defendant will take a plea deal, which is consistent with the docket in the case.

Mr. Epps will be arraigned at 3 p.m. EDT on Sept. 20 via Zoom before Judge Boasberg. The session is labeled on the docket as an “arraignment/plea agreement hearing.”

There have been multiple articles written about the treatment of other January 6th prisoners. It is an affront to any patriotic American who believes in equal justice in America that those prisoners are still in jail while the BLM rioters who burned down buildings and killed people were given a slap on the wrist. It is unthinkable that either party in Congress has allowed the imprisonment of the Jan 6th prisoners to continue. Those people who destroyed property or assaulted anyone should have been given a reasonable jail sentence. There is no excuse for imprisoning those who walked through the Capitol doors that police opened for them. This charge is further proof that Ray Epps was part of a false flag operation set up by the government.

Gun Laws Are Only For Some People

On September 21, The Epoch Times reported the following:

An armed man accused of posing as a federal marshal at an event attended by Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was charged with misdemeanors according to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office.

Adrian Paul Aispuro, 44, was initially booked on a felony gun charge Sept. 15 and is being held on $35,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Information Center.

According to the office of the city attorney, he is charged with carrying a loaded firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, and impersonating an officer, which all carry misdemeanors.

Are we supposed to believe that if this man had been at a Biden rally (if there is such a thing) that the charge would have been a misdemeanor? This happened in California where there are supposed to be strict gun laws. Aren’t there also strict penalties for violating those gun laws?

The article notes:

In July, Mr. Kennedy said his request for Secret Service protection as a presidential candidate was denied by the Department of Homeland Security.

“Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on X. “But not me.”

According to U.S. law under ”18 USC 3056A,” the U.S. Secret Service is tasked to provide protection to “major presidential and vice presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential election, the spouses of such candidates.”

The secretary of the Department for Homeland Security (DHS), currently Alejandro Mayorkas, is tasked with identifying “major” candidates in a presidential race in consultation with the Speaker of the House, the House minority leader, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one additional member selected by the other members of the committee, which as a whole isn’t answerable to the incumbent president.

DHS has yet to comment on its decision.

I really don’t like the way the Biden administration does things. Even if they don’t approve of a candidate, they should be giving him Secret Service protection–particularly considering the history of the Kennedy family.

Some ?Good? News About Covid

On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted an article about some recent research results about the Covid virus.

The article reports:

The new study, published in the August issue of The Lancet’s Microbe journal, shows that people who are sick with COVID-19 but don’t show any symptoms have a limited ability to spread the virus to other people.

Participants in the British study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, were unvaccinated healthy adults aged 18-30 who were intentionally infected with COVID-19.

The subjects were monitored under controlled circumstances while self-reporting symptoms three times per day, and researchers collected nose and throat swabs from them daily, checking for the presence of the virus.

The researchers also tested the inside of masks worn by the participants, checked their hands, and examined the air and surfaces of rooms that the subjects were kept in for a minimum of 14 days.

Ultimately, the researchers found that less than 10 percent of the viral emissions from infected participants took place before the first symptoms emerged.

“Very few emissions occurred before the first reported symptom (7%) and hardly any before the first positive lateral flow antigen test (2%),” the authors of the study wrote.

The new study—which takes the form of a rigorous, controlled “challenge study” rather than the earlier modeling studies that relied on subjective inputs and assumptions of researchers—contradicts earlier research that set the tone for much of the prevailing narrative. That early research appears to have inflated the perceived threat of presymptomatic spread.

The latest study, suggesting that silent transmission is far less significant, comes amid a growing drumbeat of alarm as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise—along with calls in some circles for renewed restrictions.

By contrast, many are calling for cool heads to prevail—or are urging civil disobedience if lockdowns or other mandates are reimposed.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Covid has morphed into an annual flu and should be treated with respect, but not with panic. There will be a reliable Covid vaccine as soon as there is a cure for the common cold.

Something To Think About If Your Live Near The Coast

I live in North Carolina. North Carolina is part of hurricane alley. We can count on at least one or two hurricanes during the hurricane season. The hope is that they will brush by without much damage or that they will come in over land and weaken before they get here. However, if you live near an ocean or brackish river in a place prone to hurricanes, there are some things you need to consider before climbing aboard the electric car bandwagon.

On Saturday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Hurricane Idalia and subsequent floods have created an electric vehicle (EV) fire risk in Florida as batteries exposed to saltwater become susceptible to combustion, based on statements from one of the fire departments in the state.

“WARNING. If you own a hybrid or electric vehicle that has come into contact with saltwater due to recent flooding within the last 24 hours, it is crucial to relocate the vehicle from your garage without delay. Saltwater exposure can trigger combustion in lithium-ion batteries. If possible, transfer your vehicle to higher ground,” Palm Harbor Fire Rescue (PHFR), Florida, said in an Aug. 31 Facebook post.

“This includes golf carts and electric scooters. Don’t drive these through water. PHFR crews have seen numerous residents out in golf carts and children on scooters riding through water.”

The issue with saltwater is that even if the water dries off, the residue can remain, potentially triggering electrical connections within the EV battery, which eventually sparks into a fire. In the post, PHFR pointed to two Tesla EVs in Dunedin that had caught fire.

The article concludes:

The problem of EVs catching fire was a major issue in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022. In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) following the hurricane, Florida CFO Mr. Patronis called the potential of EV fires a “ticking time bomb on our hands.”

“I joined North Collier Fire Rescue to assess response activities related to Hurricane Ian and saw with my own eyes an EV continuously ignite, and continually reignite, as fire teams doused the vehicle with tens of thousands of gallons of water,” he wrote.

“I was informed by the fire department that the vehicle, once again reignited when it was loaded onto the tow truck.”

According to the State Fire Marshal’s Office, 21 fires have been associated with electric vehicles following Hurricane Ian.

Even without being submerged in water, EV fires are now a major concern in several places. In New York, there were 220 fires last year due to electric batteries in e-micromobility devices, up from just 44 in 2020.

“These fires are particularly severe and difficult to extinguish, spreading quickly, and producing noxious fumes,” officials said in a news release.

In a report on safety recommendations, the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) warned that “lithium-Ion batteries are known to unexpectedly reignite (without warning) minutes, hours, and even days after all visible fire has been put out.”

The batteries “can enter an uncontrollable, self-heating state. This can result in the release of gas, cause fire, and possible explosion.”

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

The Other Side Of The Story

On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about carbon dioxide and climate change.

The article reports:

International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth.

“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.

The article notes:

The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

“Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming,” the declaration said.

Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In March 2021, Science Daily reported:

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

Long-lost ice core provides direct evidence that giant ice sheet melted off within the last million years and is highly vulnerable to a warming climate

Date:  March 15, 2021
Source:  University of Vermont
Summary:
Scientists found frozen plant fossils, preserved under a mile of ice on Greenland. The discovery helps confirm a new and troubling understanding that the Greenland Ice Sheet has melted entirely during recent warm periods in Earth’s history — like the one we are now creating with human-caused climate change. The new study provides strong evidence that Greenland is more sensitive to climate change than previously understood — and at risk of irreversibly melting.

The article explains the value of carbon dioxide to the environment and also notes that the panic over ‘climate change’ is driven by faulty models. Please follow the link to read the entire article. It contains a lot of good, unreported information.

This Evidence May Become Useful In The Near Future

On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about documents recently obtained from the National Institutes of Health. It seems that masks were not really going to help limit the spread of the Covid virus.

The article reports:

In a recently obtained letter (pdf) sent in November 2021 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), top epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and seven colleagues informed the agency it was promoting flawed data and excluding data that did not reinforce their narrative.

The letter warned the agency that misrepresenting data on trusted websites such as the CDC and the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network—jointly created by the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)—would “damage the credibility of science,” endanger public trust by “misrepresenting the evidence,” and give the public “false expectations” masking would protect them from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

“We believe the information and recommendations as provided may actually put an individual at increased risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and for them to experience a serious or even life-threatening infection,” Mr. Osterhom wrote.

The authors urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe disease from its website and asked the CDC to reconsider its statements about the “efficacy of masks and face coverings for preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”

Osterholm also noted a pattern of selectively choosing data that supported the desired narrative that masks prevent severe COVID-19 disease and transmission—claims he said are unsupported by the scientific evidence provided by the CDC and IDSA on their websites.

The IDSA “Masks and Face Coverings for the Public” webpage appears to “focus on the strengths of studies that support its conclusions while ignoring their shortcomings of study design,” Mr. Osterholm wrote. “Studies that do not support its perspective are similarly downplayed.”

Maybe we need to find out who owns stock in the mask companies.

The article concludes:

The letter was part of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), an organization dedicated to “improving the American public’s awareness about the officials, decisions, and priorities of their government.”

“The story of official masking guidance should trouble the American public. Recall that Dr. Fauci at first said there was no need for masks. The cloth masks were all that stood between you and COVID. But as evidence against cloth masks appeared, the premiere scientific health organizations dug in their heels and refused to follow the science or listen to their trusted outside advisors,” FGI said in a statement (pdf).

“That Dr. Osterholm and his colleagues felt compelled to raise concerns about cherry-picked data and the danger it presented to the credibility of public health officials and the health of the public says that something was deeply dysfunctional in these agencies,” FGI stated.

The Epoch Times contacted the CDC for comment but did not receive a response.

At one point my husband and I were told by a pulmonary specialists that wearing a mask interferes with your body’s natural immunity building. He stated that after the masks come off, we could expect an increase in pneumonia cases because the masks had interfered with people’s natural immunity. Let’s not make this mistake again (I believe mask mandates are coming before the end of this year). This time, let’s just say “NO.”

What Supreme Court?

When our Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they put in place a system of checks and balances that would theoretically prevent one branch of government or one person from becoming too powerful. That system only works when it is followed.

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Department of Education announced Monday that it will begin notifying more than 804,000 borrowers that their $39 billion in federal student loans will be “automatically discharged in the coming weeks.”

“The forthcoming discharges are a result of fixes implemented by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure all borrowers have an accurate count of the number of monthly payments that qualify toward forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans,” said the administration in an Aug. 14 press release—a month after the forgiveness plan was announced.

The department said that the forgiveness program was part of fixes to address “historical failures” in which “qualifying payments made under IDR plans that should have moved borrowers closer to forgiveness were not accounted for.”

This is the Biden administration’s workaround the Supreme Court decision that declared the student loan forgiveness program unconstitutional. There are a number of problems with this program, but one thing that needs to be looked at is the fact that the government is interfering in a contract. When these loans were taken out, the borrower agreed to pay them back. The government should not and does not have the power to interfere in a private contract.

The article notes the cost of the plan:

According to an estimate by the Department of Education, the SAVE plan will cost $138 billion over a decade.

However, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton’s Budget Model predicts the cost to be more than three times that. “We estimate SAVE will incur a net cost of $475 billion over the 10-year budget window,” a July 17 post about the Budget Model said.

The article concludes:

In a June 30 statement, Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, slammed President Biden for criticizing the Supreme Court order striking down his student loan forgiveness plan and his vowing to find another way to push ahead with it.

“President Biden shamelessly failed to recognize a co-equal branch of government in his remarks,” Mr. Ortiz said. “Rather than respecting the court’s decision, Biden promised more executive overreach to forgive student loan debt. His proposals include expanded income-driven repayment plans and a 12-month grace period when payments are set to restart this fall.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes the details of how to apply and how the Biden administration claims to be within the law.