Your Tax Dollars At Work

On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

Since the fall of Afghanistan, the U.S. has forked over funds to groups under the brutal Taliban regime to the tune of $2.35 billion. 

That’s according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), released to the public on Tuesday. 

Another $1.7 billion ‘remained available for possible disbursement’ at the time of the report, dated July 30.

Why are we giving money to people who hate us? Can’t they hate us for free?

In May 2023, U.S. News reported:

The Taliban’s return to power has affected all citizens. In December 2022, for example, the government reinstituted public floggings and executions. But Afghan women, in particular, have seen decades of hard-earned rights stripped away during less than two years of Taliban rule. Though the Taliban initially promised to uphold women’s and minority rights, they have instead imposed strict restrictions. The most recent blow to women’s rights came in April, when women were banned from working for the United Nations, further limiting their participation in the workforce and day-to-day life.

The article at U.S. News includes a timeline of how the Taliban has taken away women’s rights since they took control. Why are we sending these people money (that we don’t have)?

The article at The U.K. Mail concludes:

UN experts say 20 years of progress for women and girls were undone with the takeover of the Taliban in 2021. Women have now largely been banned from attending high school and driving or working outside the home. 

Sopko [John Sopko, head of SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction)] noted in April that in addition to the $2.35 billion, another $3.5 billion is slated to come in to Afghanistan through an international fund.

‘I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them,’ Sopko told the committee. ‘The information we’re getting — again, not from the State Department who isn’t talking to us or USAID … is that the Taliban are already diverting funds.’ 

‘I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV, they seem to be fat dumb and happy. I see starving Afghan children on TV.’

‘If the purpose is to help the Afghan people we have to have effective oversight,’ Sopko said, blaming an ‘over-reliance’ on international agencies he said have been ‘horrible’ about providing his agency with information.

It would be interesting to know who is responsible for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. It would also be interesting to know why we are giving the country that kind of money as they are eliminating the rights of women? Do we care about women’s rights overseas?

Moving Toward Election Integrity

On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about H.R.4494, introduced by Republicans to promote election integrity, voter confidence, and faith in elections by removing Federal impediments to, providing State tools for, and establishing voluntary considerations to support effective State administration of Federal elections and improving election administration in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes.

The article reports:

The 224-page package contains nearly 50 standalone bills. It would, in part, give state and local elections officials access to the Social Security death list to help them glean the names of the deceased from voter rolls.

…The legislation would incentivize states enact election security measures similar to Georgia’s – require voter ID, conduct post-election audits and enact other checks on voter eligibility. If they did so, they could be eligible for more election funding through federally funded HAVA Election Security grants.

Under the package Congress would take the reins on Washington, D.C.’s election administration – requiring the city to ask for voter ID and banning non-citizens from voting.

…Since the 2020 election, Georgia, Iowa, Florida and Texas have enacted new election security measures like limiting drop boxes and tightening voter ID requirements, while California, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington have rolled back certain voting requirements. 

The Georgia law standardized voting hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. It required two Saturdays of early voting instead of one and made two Sundays optional for early voting. It continued to allow absentee voting without offering a reason but requires a state-issued ID to request a ballot. The bill also banned political groups from handing out water and food to voters waiting in line at the polls and shortens runoff elections from 9 weeks to 4 weeks.

It  also limited ballot drop boxes, requiring them to be placed at early voting locations and only available while the precinct is open. 

After that law was enacted about 56.9 percent of registered voters showed up to vote in the 2022 midterm election – roughly the same percentage as four years earlier in the last midterm election. More people than ever cast ballots overall but the percentage stayed the same due to population growth. 

It is time to clean up our voter rolls and to make sure that the person casting their ballot is who they say they are. That is simply common sense. Unfortunately, there is no way this bill will pass either the Senate or be signed by the President.

Forgetting The Value Of Life

One of the never-mentioned side effects of abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy is that it implies that the life of the child has no value. Because that life has no value, it is assumed that it is okay to dispose of that life. Recently I posted an article illustrating how that idea has taken hold in the Netherlands where the government is allowing citizens who are mentally handicapped to be euthanized. That is a slippery slope that Canada has not embarked on. When you walk away from the principle that all human life is valued by God, bad things happen.

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

Army veteran Kelsi Sheren was a fresh-faced 19-year-old when she first set foot on the combat field in Afghanistan. It proved to be a life-altering experience. 

…The experience, she says, ‘broke part of my brain’. It took witnessing that horrific death ‘for the reality of what we were doing to hit’. She was plagued by the memory of scrubbing her comrade’s remains off her hands – all the while ducking heavy fire. 

Once home, she turned to therapy – and realized she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Sheren made it her mission to help other veterans and has been an outspoken critic of the Canadian government’s relaxed attitude to euthanasia – including its push to make it available to veterans plagued by PTSD.

‘It’s disgusting and it’s unacceptable,’ she said, arguing that authorities would rather euthanize a soldier than foot the bill for their recovery.

Canada has the world’s most permissive assisted suicide program. The country is on track to record some 13,500 state-sanctioned suicides in 2022, a 34 percent rise on the 10,064 in 2021, according to Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s analysis of official data. 

Canada’s politicians are currently weighing whether to expand access to include children and the mentally ill. 

The article concludes:

Euthanasia, a lethal injection administered by a doctor, is legal in seven countries — Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain — plus several states in Australia. 

Other jurisdictions, including a growing number of US states, allow doctor-assisted suicide — where patients take the drug themselves, typically crushing up and drinking a lethal dose of pills prescribed by a physician.

The numbers of people opting for assisted suicides has risen steadily in the countries where it’s allowed. 

The Netherlands in 2002 became the world’s first country to allow doctors to kill patients, at their request, if strict conditions were met. 

Nearly 60,000 opted for the procedure between 2012 and 2021, official figures show

These numbers do not represent progress for the human race–they represent people who believe they can play God by determining who lives and who dies and when people die. This is not a step in a good direction.

Public Pressure Works!

On Thursday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about a new book by Mark Levin that is going to be released in September. The book’s title is ‘The Democratic Party Hates America.’

The article reports:

Target has made a stunning reversal after Fox News host Mark Levin called out the retail giant for not carrying his new book ‘The Democratic Party Hates America’ because it ‘may offend certain customers.’

Levin blasted the retail giant on Wednesday saying: ‘Target has informed my publisher, Simon & Schuster, that it will not carry my new book when it is released on September 19.

‘It claims that certain customers might be offended by the title. Imagine that! So, the corporatist leftwing censorship begins. I will discuss this in more detail on this evening’s radio show.’

…Within 24 hours however, Levin’s book was destined for shelves in what appeared to be an overnight U-turn by the retailer. 

‘We’ve been offering this book for pre-sale since mid-June,’ a Target spokesperson said to Fox News

‘As we have with Mark Levin’s past books, many of which are currently available for sale at Target, we’ll offer his newest title for sale when it is available on September 19.

The spokesperson said that the company had initially taken issue with the book’s title in which it uses the term ‘hate.’

‘The use of the word ‘hate’ in the title caused our team to reach out to the publisher, but as stated, we are continuing to offer this book for pre-sale now, and it will be available for sale on its release date,’ they added. 

‘We regret any confusion this situation caused.

As Mark Twain reportedly said, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Mark Levin does not buy ink by the barrel, but he has a pretty substantial radio and television audience. Also, I suspect his comments on censorship echo the feelings of many Americans. The left yells ‘censorship’ when parents try to protect their children from reading trash, yet they are perfectly content with censoring any literature that does not agree with their beliefs. Most Americans easily see through that!

Living In A Really Bad B Movie

For what it is worth, I believe that the Democrat plan is to remove President Biden from office some time before the end of summer and put their preferred 2024 candidate in as Vice-President. The deep state has played this game before. That is how the Republicans got President Ford. I have no idea what the details of the plan are, but I feel as if we are trapped in a really bad B-Movie that is being totally orchestrated behind the scenes.

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

IRS whistleblower says he was STOPPED from pursuing leads into ‘big guy’ Joe in the Hunter investigation

  • IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley claimed Hunter did receive special treatment 
  • Said he was prevented from taking routine steps in probe into president’s son
  • House Republicans released more WhatsApp messages Tuesday between Hunter Biden and a Chinese business associate

All of the information we are hearing now about the millions of dollars flowing into the Biden family from overseas is not new. I am sure Washington insiders have been aware of it for decades. It was kept quiet in order to elect Joe Biden to carry out President Obama’s third term. Hillary Clinton was supposed to do that, but the vote manipulators underestimated the popularity of President Trump.

There is a quote that has never been denied that is in a book written by Donna Brazile.

This is the quote from election night 2016:

According to Bill Still’s source — an unnamed “NBC associate producer of the forum” — Hillary was so enraged that, after the forum, she went into a ballistic melt-down, screaming at her staff, including a racist rant at Donna Brazile, calling Brazile a “buffalo” and “janitor”. Brazile recently turned against Hillary — now we know why.

…She screamed she’d get that f**king Lauer fired for this. Referring to Donald Trump, Clinton said, ‘If that f**king b***ard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished, and if I lose, it’s all on your heads for screwing this up.’

You don’t generally hang from a noose after you lose an election (at least no so far in America). What did she mean by that, and isn’t it time someone looked into it?

Some Interesting Facts Are Dripping Out

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about the recent release of Jeffrey Epstein’s calendar. It’s not as interesting as the release of his client list would be, but it’s a start.

The article reports:

Jeffrey Epstein‘s newly-released private calendar revealed he had scheduled meetings with a slew of prominent individuals, including the current CIA director, after he was convicted as a sex offender. 

The documents contain emails and scheduled meetings with now-CIA Director William Burns, Bard College president Leon Botstein, Obama’s White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and professor Noam Chomsky.

The meetings were scheduled between 2013 to 2017 after the pedophile had served time in jail in 2008 for sex crimes involving a teenage girl. 

The purpose of the meetings was not revealed in the trove of documents, which were obtained by The Wall Street Journal and published on Sunday. 

The article concludes:

All of the meetings with Epstein happened before federal investigators accused him with a slew of sex-trafficking crimes. The charges happened after media reports of his sweetheart deal in Florida in 2008 that saw him quietly serve time for sex crimes.

The reports sparked backlash and fervor over the deal with Epstein.

Prosecutors then charged and arrested Epstein. He was found dead in his federal jail cell as he awaited trial on the latest charges. Officials ruled his death a suicide, but there have been questions raised on if foul play was involved.

Epstein’s mistress, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of crimes related to the sex ring and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is appealing her conviction.

Virginia Roberts also sued Prince Andrew for his alleged role in Epstein’s sex ring. The case ended when a settlement was reached in February 2022, with Andrew paying a reported $12million.

These meetings happened after Jeffrey Epstein had served his time in jail. All that can really be concluded is that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of very powerful contacts who were willing to meet with him. Because the client list has never been released (and probably never will be), we have only suspicions–no evidence. There are too many people in high places involved for the truth to ever come out!

The Scourge Of Fentanyl

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that Joanne Marian Segovia, 64, the executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, has been charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

The article reports:

Starting in 2015, Segovia had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from India, Hong Kong, Hungary and Singapore with manifests that listed their contents as ‘wedding party favors,’ ‘gift makeup,’ ‘chocolate and sweets’ and ‘food supplement,’ according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

In at least once instance she is accused of using her work computer and address and the police union’s UPS account to ship the drugs within the U.S.

Tom Saggau, a spokesperson for the police union in San Jose, said Segovia has worked for the union since 2003, planning funerals for officers who die in the line of duty, being the liaison between the department and the officers’ families and organizing office festivities and fundraisers.

He said that federal officials informed the union last Friday that Segovia was under investigation and that no one else at the union was involved or knew about Segovia’s alleged acts.

The revelation shocked her colleagues, Saggau said.

‘We didn’t have any reason to suspect her,’ he said, adding that the union’s board of directors has pledged to fully support the federal investigation.

Federal prosecutors said that in 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a parcel being sent to her home address that contained $5,000 worth of Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, and sent her a letter telling her they were seizing the pills. 

The next year, the CBP again intercepted a shipment of Tramadol valued at $700 and sent her a seizure letter, court records showed.

But federal officials didn’t start investigating Segovia until last year when investigators found her name and home address on the cellphone of a suspected drug dealer who is part of a network that ships controlled substances made in India to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. 

The article concludes:

Fentanyl has now infected almost every major city in America, turning once-thriving streets in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia into wastelands.

Scenes of zombified addicts shooting up or smoking the drug in front of children increasingly becoming a part of everyday life.

Many people who die of overdoses do not know they are taking fentanyl and the drug has partially been blamed for America’s sharp decline in life-expectancy.

Experts have described the drop in life expectancy from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021 as ‘dramatic’ and ‘substantial’.

Officials in Washington state have said that they’ve run out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drug tears through local communities.

We need harsh penalties for drug dealers and treatment programs for addicts. However, the problem with treatment programs is that they don’t work unless the person is willing to let go of their drug habit.

Sad News For Those Of Us Who Love American Muscle Cars

I will admit that I am not a Chevy fan–I drive a Mustang. However, I respect the role that Chevy has played in the muscle car arena. The Chevy Camaro is an important part of American automotive history.

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production.

General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of the car, which is raced on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit murky. GM says another generation may be in the works.

Please don’t every make an electric Camaro–the electric Mustang is enough of an insult.

The article continues:

‘While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,’ Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said in a statement.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off. When the current generation Camaro came out in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 of them. But by the end of 2021 that number fell almost 70 percent to 21,893. It rebounded last year to 24,652.

The article concludes:

Stellantis, will stop making gas versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger and the Chrylser 300 big sedan by the end of this year. But the company has plans to roll out a battery-powered Charger performance car sometime in 2024.

Electric cars, with instant torque and a low center of gravity, often are faster and handle better than internal combustion vehicles.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 by combining Fiat Chrysler and France´s PSA Peugeot, earlier this week announced the last of its special edition muscle cars, the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The company says the car can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 1.66 seconds, making it the fastest production car on the market.

In addition, Ford rolled out a new version of its Mustang sports car in September.

The Camaro was first introduced in 1966, two years after Ford’s wildly popular Mustang.

GM retired the Camaro nameplate in 2002, but revived it as a new 2010 model with hopes of appealing to enthusiasts and younger buyers. The 2010 version was similar to its predecessors, with a long, flat front and side ‘gills’ that evoke the original, while still sporting a modern overall design.

Sad news.

An Amazing Story

There are advantages to having a Pastor who listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit and who was once a policeman. The parishioners at All Creation Northview Holiness Family Church in Ferguson, Missouri, were grateful for the quick action of their Pastor on Sunday.

On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported:

A pastor used the power of prayer to stop a potential armed robbery and shooting after spotting four armed men sitting in the pews of his church.

Marquaello Futrell, a former St. Louis police officer, was in the middle of Sunday service at All Creation Northview Holiness Family Church in Ferguson, Missouri when the group walked in wearing masks.

Noticing the young men had guns in their waistbands, Pastor Futrell used divine intervention and policing instincts to intervene.

‘I immediately just had the hairs [stand] on the back of my neck. I’m like, ‘OK, something’s about to happen,” Futrell said to KSDK. 

‘Me being a former police officer, I immediately noticed their waistbands. I’m like, ‘There’s something there.”

The chilling encounter from February 12 was captured on camera as Futrell streams his services online.

Futrell instructed his media team to train their cameras on the four men who were sitting towards the rear of the church.

He then summoned the congregation to pray for the group while directing staff to lock the church doors and call the police.

Futrell can be heard telling the men they are on ‘Holy Ghost turf’ before informing them that ‘God’s changing the plot’, while the rousing sounds of gospel music is played live on a church organ in the background.

He then made his way over to where the group were sitting and began interrogating them over the church’s microphone.

‘Who sent ya’ll here? Just saw the church and decided to come?’ Futrell asked. ‘Talk to me.’

‘Let’s praise God for them coming. I said praise God that God sent them here!’ Futrell proclaimed as he encouraged the congregation to applaud. 

‘Don’t you play with me – I still got a cop anointing and I still know what’s going on and I still know what’s about to happen. 

‘God is about to change the plot of the enemy. Lift your voices and shout unto God for what he’s about to do!’ Futrell said with a rousing tone. 

After summoning up the courage to speak with the men, he then asked members of his congregation to surround them and pray for them – with some even placing their hands on their heads and shoulders.

‘Would you guys permit me to pray for you? Do you mind if I pray for you?’ Futrell said.

The gunmen bowed their heads in silence as the entire congregation sang and said their prayers in earnest.

‘See, that wasn’t so bad, brothers,’ Futrell told the men. ‘Thank you all for letting us pray for you. And we’re thankful that for whatever reason, the Lord let you all come here. That when you walked on the ground, you walked on Holy Ghost turf.

‘We are thankful that for whatever reason the Lord let you come here and I believe that you will never be the same again,’ Futrell said to applause from his congregants. 

The men were in the church for 20 minutes before they left and police are still searching for them

‘I just heard the Lord say, “This is what happens when you illegally trespass,”‘ Futrell said as a final thought during the service. 

Wow. Please follow the link to the article for further details.

Holding On To Our Freedom By A Thread

On Monday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted the following headline:

Is THIS the key to tackling climate change? Scientists claim World War II-style RATIONING of petrol, energy and meat could help countries slash their carbon emissions ‘rapidly and fairly’

Does anyone really believe that the quest to end our carbon emissions will be fair? Let’s start with private jets–it’s much less damaging to the environment to let people travel in airplanes that hold more than five or six people–sort of like mass transit only in the air. Are we going to limit the size of people’s houses–how many square feet do the Obamas and Bidens have? Should they be forced to take in people to average out their square footage? Don’t hold your breath.

The article reports:

Climate change could be tackled with the help of a World War II-style rationing of petrol, meat and the energy people use in their homes, UK scientists say.

They claim that this would help countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions ‘rapidly and fairly’.

Researchers from the University of Leeds also said that governments could restrict the number of long-haul flights people make in a year or ‘limit the amount of petrol one can buy in a month’.

A population that can’t travel anywhere is much easier to control.

The article notes:

In much the same way as during World War Two, the researchers argue that carbon rationing would allow people to receive an equal portion of resources based on their needs, therefore sharing out the effort to protect the planet.

Lead author Dr Nathan Wood, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Utrecht University’s Fair Energy Consortium, said: ‘The concept of rationing could help, not only in the mitigation of climate change, but also in reference to a variety of other social and political issues – such as the current energy crisis.’

The researchers add: ‘Rationing is often seen as unattractive, and therefore not a viable option for policy-makers. 

‘It is important to highlight the fact that this was not the case for many of those who had experienced rationing. 

‘It is important to emphasise the difference between rationing itself and the scarcity that rationing was a response to. 

‘Of course, people did welcome the end of rationing, but they were really celebrating the end of scarcity, and celebrating the fact that rationing was no longer necessary.’

I had not realized how far down the road to socialism we actually are.

There Are Some Downsides To Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles have a few glitches that have not yet been worked out. The batteries rapidly lose their charge in cold weather, and drivers need to be cautious driving through flooded ares after rainstorms. However, there have also been a few instances of the vehicles catching fire for no obvious reason.

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

Firefighters used 6,000 gallons of water to extinguish a Tesla Model S that spontaneously burst into flames on a busy highway outside of Sacramento on Saturday. 

The driver, who was not injured, was on Highway 50 in Rancho Cordova at around 3pm when smoke started to come out from the front of the car. 

…The horrific blaze wasn’t the first Tesla S fire that Metro Fire of Sacramento officials had to extinguish. 

A white Tesla model burst into flames in a Rancho Cordova wrecking yard in June after the car had spent weeks sitting there after a collision.

Firefighters arrived at the wrecking yard to find the Tesla fully engulfed in flames. Each time the firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, the Tesla’s battery would reignite the fire.

The fire department posted an Instagram video of the ordeal, saying that even when firefighters moved the Tesla onto its side to spray the battery directly, the car would burst into flames again ‘due to the residual heat.’

Eventually, the firefighters dug a pit near the Tesla and moved the burning car into it and then filled the pit with water, ‘effectively submerging the battery compartment.’

The technique worked, and the fire department was able to put out the fire with no injuries and 4,500 gallons of water used – about the same amount of water used for a building fire.

As I have previously stated–green energy is not entirely ready for prime time. We have a lot to learn before we leave our fossil-fuel-based economy.

Common Sense Rears Its Ugly Head

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted the following headline:

Trump warns Republicans not to cut Social Security or Medicare in their debt ceiling battle – and instead focus on ‘foreign aid, cracking down on migration and BILLIONS spent on climate extremism’

I think history has proven that giving excessive amounts of money to people that hate us has not caused them to hate us less. Migration is costing millions in health and dental care for illegal aliens, and the climate change people have gone over the edge with their war on gas stoves.

The article reports:

Former President Donald Trump waded into the debt ceiling impasse on Friday, urging Republicans to protect hardworking Americans and seniors by not cutting money from entitlement programs.

‘Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security to pay for Joe Biden‘s reckless spending spree,’ Trump said in a video message. 

It comes as House Republicans flex their muscles, warning Democrats that they will only help head off a crisis and raise the debt ceiling if it comes with sweeping cuts to spending programs.

Just for the record, Social Security is not an entitlement program–the people currently collecting it have paid into it all of their working lives. Had they been allowed to invest the money themselves (and done it prudently and faithfully), they would have a whole lot more money to spend. Also consider the fact that if someone paying into Social Security dies before collecting, the money they put into Social Security is not inherited by their family–it is simply paid out to someone else.

The article continues:

In a two-minute policy video, Trump makes clear his opposition — channeling his 2016 campaign, when he distanced himself from small-government, spending-cut conservatives.

Instead he suggests his party’s lawmakers should target foreign aid, money spent on climate change and migration. 

‘While we absolutely need to stop Biden’s out-of-control spending, the pain should be borne by Washington bureaucrats, not by hardworking American families and American seniors,’ he said in the video first obtained by Politico.

‘The seniors are being absolutely destroyed in the last two years. 

‘Cut the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars going to corrupt, foreign countries. 

‘Cut the mass releases of illegal aliens that are depleting our social safety net, and destroying our country. 

‘Cut the left-wing gender programs from our military. Cut the billions being spent on climate extremism.

‘Cut waste fraud and abuse everywhere we can find it.’

Love him or hate him, President Trump is an astute businessman who solves problems. I wish he were in the White House now.

So What’s In The Bill?

Congress is set to pass the omnibus spending bill before the end of the year unless common sense intervenes. On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article detailing some of the things in the bill.

Here are some of the things in the omnibus bill:

$375 million for a new FBI building

$230 million for border security technology plus $1.56B in border processing funds that can’t be used for security 

$70 million for salmon 

$575 million for family planning where population growth harms the environment

$65.7 million for international fisheries commissions 

$2.6 billion for January 6 prosecutions

$410 million to enhanced border security in the Middle East 

$200 million for the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund 

$300 million to prepare for an influenza pandemic  

$7.5 million to study ‘domestic radicalization phenomenon’ 

$3.6 million for Michelle Obama trail 

$26 million fo the House of Representatives’ Office of Diversity and Inclusion  

$2 million for the ‘Great Blacks in Wax’ museum in Baltimore 

$3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York 

$3 million for bee-friendly highways 

$15.2 million for a Vaccine Injury Trust Fund

Designation of a Ukrainian Independence Park in Washington, D.C. 

Renaming of a federal building in San Francisco to the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building

Renaming an existing school lunch program the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program 

Renaming the Lake Champlain Basin Program as the Patrick Leahy Lake Champlain Basin Program

Renaming an FBI building in Alabama after Richard Shelby

Any Senator who votes for this bill needs to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

Knowing Who The Players Are


On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about Elon Musk’s firing of Twitter’s general counsel James A. Baker.

The article reports:

Chief Twit Elon Musk has fired Twitter’s general counsel James A. Baker, citing his alleged involvement in suppressing the release of internal documents regarding Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

‘In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,’ Musk wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

Musk added that Baker’s explanation of the events surrounding the laptop saga was ‘unconvincing.’ 

Journalist Matt Taibbi, who released the first batch of internal files about the Hunter saga on Friday, claimed that Baker had been fired in part for ‘vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.’ 

The article notes some of the previous work of James Baker:

Before joining Twitter, Baker was former FBI general counsel under Director James Comey, and played a key role in the saga surrounding the Bureau’s controversial probe into possible collusion between Russia and Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign. 

The article also notes:

James Baker has long been in the crosshairs of Elon Musk, who on October 27 became his boss.

Baker played a key role in a series of events that led to Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann going on trial in May, accused of lying to the FBI.

He was not accused of giving the FBI false information, but rather lying about who he worked for.

The saga began when Sussmann was given information from a group of data scientists who analyzed odd internet data they thought might suggest clandestine communications between a server for the Trump Organization and a server for Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.

Sussmann then texted Baker, at the time the bureau’s general counsel, to say he had information the FBI should be aware of.

‘I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the bureau,’ Sussmann wrote in his text to Baker.

Baker testified that he was certain Sussmann was acting as an individual, and would likely not have met him were he working for the Clinton campaign.

Sussmann, a cybersecurity specialist, had worked for the Democratic Party in the context of Russia’s hacking of its servers, and Russia publishing emails from the servers.

Sussmann was also connected to the Democrats via one of his partners at the law firm Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, who was representing the Clinton campaign and hired Fusion GPS.

Yet multiple people – including Elias – testified that Sussmann was indeed acting on his own accord, and argued that actually going to the FBI was not in the interests of the Clinton campaign, which would have preferred a New York Times story drawing attention to the assertions.

The FBI later decided the allegations of links between the Trump campaign and the Russian bank were unfounded.

Musk tweeted during the trial that he thought Sussmann had ‘created an elaborate hoax’ about Russia, in a bid to help Clinton.

I wonder if Elon Musk understood how much housecleaning needed to be done when he bought Twitter.

Lying Or Simply Not Knowing?

On Thursday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about a recent speech by President Biden.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden touted U.S. manufacturing gains Thursday on a trip to Syracuse – where he claimed gas prices were down compared to when he took office, when in fact they are higher.

‘We’re down $1.25 Since the peak this summer, and they’ve been falling for the last three weeks as well as well, and adding up real savings for families today.,’ Biden said. 

‘The most common price of gas in America is $3.39 down from over $5 When I took office,’ he continued.

The average cost of a gallon of gas on the AAA site was $3.76 Thursday. When he took office, it was averaging $2.39 – or about half what he said it was then – according to the Energy Information Institute.

President Biden has a very shaky relationship with the truth. Remember how the political left was always accusing President Trump of lying? Somehow that hasn’t happened to President Biden, even when he is lying.

Yahoo News recently fact-checked another of President Biden’s statements:

Joe Biden: “wages have gone up higher, faster than inflation”

PolitiFact’s ruling: Mostly false

Here’s why: President Joe Biden defended his record on the U.S. economy while attending the international climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Biden entered the United Nations’ COP 26 summit facing supply chain challenges and high levels of inflation back home. At a press conference, he said the U.S. is still in a better place than a year ago, when the coronavirus pandemic limited family gatherings and hampered the economy.

“This Thanksgiving, we’re all in a very different circumstance,” Biden said on Nov. 2. “Things are a hell of a lot better, and the wages have gone up higher, faster than inflation.”

On inflation and wages, Biden has a point for the most recent two months — August and September 2021. However, inflation outpaced wages by so much earlier in his presidency that these two months haven’t changed the overall picture much. All told, Americans are worse off on the comparison of inflation and wages than they were roughly a year ago. (The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.)

At least someone is noticing the lies.

When It’s Too Close To Home

It’s very easy to be in favor of unlimited immigration and sanctuary cities until 50 people show up in your neighborhood with no visible means of support. That is essentially what happened to the residents of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. However, the residents of Martha’s Vineyard, unlike most of us, have amazing political connections that can change things very quickly. The 50 illegal immigrants that arrived on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday were shipped off to a Cape Cod military base on Friday.

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported:

On Friday morning three buses pulled up outside of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown to take the mostly Venezuelan migrants on the first leg of their journey to the ferry.

They will be travelling from the elite island of billionaires with holiday mansions – including multi-million homes owned by the Obama’s and Oprah – to the military base on the mainland, escorted by police. 

Lisa Belcastro, a homelessness director in the area said on Thursday that the island cannot support the migrants – where the median home price is nearly $1m- because it is facing a shortage of affordable housing.

The median house in Martha’s Vineyard is worth almost $800,000, according to the census, and the median household income is $77,370 – well above the national average of $67,521.

She told reporters that at ‘some point they have to move somewhere else’, because the island is suffering from a ‘housing crisis’.

The JBCC joint-use base home to five military commands training for missions at home and overseas, conducting airborne search and rescue missions, and intelligence command and control.

The article points out some of the hypocrisy:

Keith Chatinover, a Democrat county commissioner for the area, made comments previously that he would ‘love’ to make the area a ‘haven’ for immigrants.

His comments came in response to Sen Ted Cruz’s pushing a bill for Democrat-led areas to become post of entry for processing migrants.

But he now appears unhappy at having his wish granted, and has retweeted attacks against the Florida governor of being a fascist and human trafficker for sending migrants to the billionaires’ enclave.

He told the MVTimes in October 2021: ‘I would love Martha’s Vineyard to become a haven for new immigrants to this country, but Senator Cruz has no idea what he’s talking about regarding a ‘border crisis.’

But now he is being called out for the comments, after branding DeSantis a ‘fascist’ for escalating the immigration war with Democrat-run areas.

Cruz tweeted that he was ‘confused’ over Chatinover slamming DeSantis for flying the illegal immigrants into the area.

Chatinover tweeted that he does ‘support refugee resettlement’ but has an issue when they are not given ‘advance notice’ to ‘adequately help’ the migrants.

He added that the chaos of the situation for the Republicans to ‘prove a point’ was a ‘blatant disregard’ for human rights.

Chatinover retweeted someone else who called DeSantis ‘fascist scum’ who said he should be ‘prosecuted for human trafficking.’

This event has truly exposed the double standard of many of those who say they support open borders.

Is Anyone Comfortable With This?

On Sunday, The U.K Daily Mail posted the following headline, “FDA set to authorize updated COVID-19 booster shots for newer Omicron strains without completed human tests: Agency will assess new jabs based on mice research and older vaccines.”

The article reports:

New COVID-19 booster shots are set to be authorized this week by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and will be available to most Americans before human testing has even been completed.

The shots have been modified to target the latest Omicron variant, but won’t have finished testing in humans when the FDA makes the decision. Instead, the FDA is relying on data from other sources – like research in mice and older vaccines, the Wall Street Journal reported.

‘Real world evidence from the current mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, which have been administered to millions of individuals, show us that the vaccines are safe,’ FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a tweet last week. 

This is insane.

The article notes:

WILL THEY WORK BETTER?

No one knows. Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an FDA vaccine adviser, said the antibody jump from that earlier BA.1-tweaked candidate was ‘underwhelming.’

‘What the administration is asking us to do is to accept this bivalent vaccine as significantly better’ than another dose of today’s vaccine, he said. ‘It would be nice if there were data to support that.’

But while FDA hasn’t made a final decision, Marks said there’s evidence that the updated boosters are safe and that waiting for more study of their effectiveness would risk another mutant appearing before they could roll out.

They ‘essentially refresh the immune response,’ he said. ‘Granted, it’s still a bit of a guess how long it will last but, this is doing our best.’

Given how outdated the current shots are, an update makes sense, said Dr. Walter Orenstein of Emory University, a former vaccine director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While he’d like to see more data, he plans to get the new booster.

 A large percentage of Americans have had Covid. They have natural immunity. The shots did not prevent people from getting or spreading Covid, so why in the world should they get the booster. The current variant of Covid is not a danger to most Americans. The only reason to continue with the nonsense of creating vaccines that don’t work is financial, and that is not a valid reason to inject people with an untried vaccine.

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

There is value in education, but there is also value in real-world experience. Sometimes academics get so wrapped up in their theories that they forget that when you add people to an equation, things don’t always go as planned. On Thursday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article which might illustrate the problem of relying on academics rather than people with real-world experience.

The article notes:

  • Economists Stephen Moore and Jon Decker analyzed the work records and resumes of 68 officials, including Biden and his Cabinet members, advisers
  • They found that 62 percent of Biden appointees who deal with business matters – economic policy, regulation, commerce, energy and finance, have ‘virtually no business experience’
  • Only one in 8 were found to have ‘extensive’ business experience and their average business experience was 2.4 years

This is what happens when you use a quota system rather than merit to appoint your advisors and the people in your cabinet.

The article reports:

The report found that 62 percent of Biden appointees who deal directly with business matters – economic policy, regulation, commerce, energy and finance, have ‘virtually no business experience.’ Only one in 8 were found to have ‘extensive’ business experience and their average business experience was 2.4 years. 

‘These highest level people who are in charge of kind of keeping our economy on track of haven’t got the experience to deal with, you know, the logistics of managing $22 trillion economy,’ Moore told DailyMail.com in an interview.

‘You have basically lawyers and university professors and community activists that don’t have any experience with managing a big operation or steering the economy in the right direction.’ 

The lack of experience is pervasive in the Biden administration:

All you have is an administration right now that seems to be focused on two issues. One is, you know, income inequality and the other is climate change. And those aren’t high priority right now. That priority is getting America back to work.’ 

Biden and Harris both have 0 years business experience, as do Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack, Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen, Labor Sec. Marty Walsh and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, to name a few. There are a handful of exceptions, such as Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo who worked 11 years in venture capital and White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain who has 16 years’ experience after a career in venture capital.

The article concludes:

The authors found that the Biden administration is staffed by those who come from law backgrounds (20), politics and government (21) and academia or policy-making (12). Those whose main background is venture capital or investing is five.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

Dictionary.com describes kakistocracy as government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power. I think we are there.

This Is Just Wrong

On July 5th, The U,K. Daily Mail reported that President Biden shipped five million barrels of oil from the United States’ Strategic Oil Reserve to Europe and Asia. The President told the American people that the oil was being released to help bring down the price of gasoline at the pump and thus ease expenses for Americans. Evidently, that was not the whole story.

The article reports:

The president faces accusations of a sneaky sleight of hand as it was revealed that between a fifth and a sixth of the reserve oil he bragged about releasing to boost supply made its way offshore to Europe and Asia in June.

Biden authorized the release of a million barrels a day from April onwards. But his action has done little to combat soaring gas prices, with the national average sitting at $4.74 as of Tuesday – still far above the $2.28-a-gallon average from just before he took office. 

Biden’s announcement about releasing the oil barrels was made in April, and saw him say: ‘These releases will put more than one million barrels per day on the market over the next six months, and will help address supply disruptions caused by Putin’s further invasion of Ukraine and the Price Hike that Americans are facing at the pump.’

But it has had little effect, with a closer look at the press release revealing that the oil released from the strategic reserve was always destined for the highest bidder – even if they were overseas.

That is due to strict international rules dictating the sale and supply of oil – although a regular American who listened to Biden’s proclamation in passing would likely have believed that the increase in supply would have been destined for domestic refineries, to lower US prices. 

‘Crude and fuel prices would likely be higher if (the SPR releases) hadn’t happened, but at the same time, it isn’t really having the effect that was assumed,’ said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler.

Government officials continue to defend Biden, and claim domestic gas prices would be even higher were it not for his release.  

The release of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve is at best a temporary fix. America was energy independent when President Biden took office and inflation was under control. The amount of money from American energy that was flowing into the tax coffers of America was also helping offset some of the out-of-control spending. The simplest way to deal with inflation and help middle-class Americans cope with rising prices would be to open up American energy development quickly. Unfortunately, as long as the Democrats control Congress and the White House, that will not happen. If Republicans take Congress in 2022, the noose around the American energy sector might be loosened, but it will take a Republican President in 2024 to bring us back to economic stability. Meanwhile, expect gimmicks before the mid-term election to try to drop the price of gasoline, but understand that as soon as the election is over, the President will go back to limiting American energy unless a Republican Congress is in place to stop him.

Breaking The Budget In California

On July 4th, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that California Governor Newsom has proposed a budget that offers all illegal immigrants in the state, regardless of age, health insurance. At the same time he is doing this, he is paying for ads in Florida encouraging Florida residents to move to California. California residents are also fleeing California for Texas.

Below is a chart from June 2019 posted by fee.org:There seems to be a pattern there.

The article at The U.K. Daily Mail reports:

The expansion in healthcare is part of Medi-Cal, which already offers coverage for illegal immigrants younger than 26 and over 50 – as well as recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Now, the state is expanding that coverage option to 700,000 undocumented residents in the Golden State between the ages of 26-49 starting January 2024.

Migration continues to surge at the southern border with the third straight month of increased crossings in May.

Thousands of migrants part of a caravan that started in southern Mexico ended their travels toward the U.S. border just two days after setting off when they were handed permits to stay in the country for 30 days.

Mexican officials handed out 3,000 temporary residence permits on Sunday and ended the march of mostly Venezuelans and Central Americans.

The move comes after a United Nations Missing Migrants Project report revealed that more migrants died in 2021 in America than in any other year since it started recording data in 2014.

How many American citizens don’t have health insurance because they can’t afford it? We need to take care of uninsured Americans and veterans before we insure people who are here illegally.

 

Who Is Crossing Our Southern Border?

On Saturday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about some recent statistics about people crossing into America via the open southern border.

The article reports:

More illegal immigrants on a terror watch lift have been caught crossing the southern border so-far this year than during the last five years combined, figures reveal.  

Since the fiscal year began in October, 50 migrants who appeared in the federal Terrorist Screening Dataset have been intercepted while trying to cross into the US between official checkpoints at the southern border, according to Customs and Border Patrol statistics. 

That’s up from just 15 for the 2021 fiscal year, three in 2020, none in 2019, six in 2018 and two in 2017 according to the enforcement statistics data released on Wednesday by CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection).

The article includes the following chart:

The article also notes:

The subject of potential terror suspects using the southern land border to enter the US unlawfully has gained increasing attention in recent months.

CBP only resumed publishing its data on the subject last month, following pressure from Republican lawmakers.

Soon after President Joe Biden took office, CBP stopped posting updates on terror watchlist encounters, labeling the issue ‘law enforcement sensitive’. 

These numbers not only need to be published, they need to be shouted from the rooftops by all Americans until Congress does something about our border security. If either party in Congress wanted to correct this situation, it would have been corrected by now. The Democrats want future voters and the Republican establishment wants cheap labor. Until we drain the swamp, we will not fix the border.

I Think The Fact-Checkers Went Home

President Biden and his administration members have been claiming for the past few days that inflation in America is lower than inflation in other industrial countries. The claim is made with the assertion that because America has lower inflation it can’t be President Biden’s fault. The only problem with the claim is that it isn’t true.

The chart below was posted by The U.K. Daily Mail on Friday.The article reports:

In an interview with the Associated Press that was conducted Thursday, he (President Biden) slapped back suggestions he is to blame.

‘Isn’t it kind of interesting? If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher? You ask yourself that? I’m not trying to be a wise guy,’ he told AP reporter Josh Boak in the Oval Office.

While prices having been rising across the globe, the inflation in the U.S. has been higher than the G7 nations and China for most of the year.

The United Kingdom with a four-decade high of 8.6 percent has only just surpassed inflation in the United States.

But nations including Germany, France, Japan and Canada are Sall still behind the U.S. when it comes to prices.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development from April 2021 until April 2022 shows U.S. inflation has been rising steadily above all other nations.

The data runs only until April as it is where the fullest data was available. 

It should also be noted that President Biden has consistently criticized the profit margins of the oil companies. A website called Macrotrends includes information of both oil company profit margins (and for comparison) the profit margin of Apple.

Here are portions of those charts:

I don’t think oil profit margins are the problem.

When Justice Depends On Your Political Views

On Wednesday, comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage during his Hollywood Bowl concert. Obviously there were thousands of witnesses. The attacker used a knife hidden inside a gun.

On Thursday, The U. K. Daily Mail reported the following:

LA’s woke DA George Gascon will not pursue felony charges against the attacker who stormed Dave Chappelle’s Hollywood Bowl concert with a bayonet, reducing the charges to misdemeanor instead. 

Isaiah Lee, 23, ran on stage at the show on Wednesday yielding the knife that was hidden inside a gun.  Chappelle, 48, was able to sidestep him and was unharmed. The attacker was then arrested at the scene, and taken to hospital with a broken arm. 

There were immediate questions over security at the event and how the man could have smuggled in the weapon. 

If the attack had been successful and the comedian killed, would it still be a misdemeanor?

The article notes:

But Gascon’s office – which is famously in favor of low-or-no-cash-bonds – is not pursuing the most serious line of punishment. 

Instead, they have referred the case to the LA City Attorney Mike Feuer,  recommending a misdemeanor charge because ‘the evidence as presented did not constitute felony conduct,’ according to ABC.

It means Lee, who is currently being held on a $30,000 bond for felony assault with a deadly weapon, may soon walk free. It’s unclear when he is next due in court. 

The article also includes a chart showing the impact of the changes District Attorney Gascon’s criminal policies have had on crime this year:

Maybe it’s time to rethink the District Attorney’s policies.

Is There A Grownup In The Room?

I love the idea of world peace–nations all getting along with each other. All of the nations embracing freedom for their people. I love the idea. However, history seems to indicate that a peaceful world consisting of free people is not likely to happen. Because of that, a world where force can be met by counter-force seems to be the best alternative. Nations need to be able to protect themselves. That should be obvious to most people. Evidently it is not obvious to some of our current leaders.

On Monday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that the US will no longer conduct anti-satellite missile tests. The theory is that the self-imposed ban will become part of a goal to make it an ‘international norm for responsible behavior in space,’ If we put our space weapons down, other countries will put their space weapons down. We have a current example of how well agreements like that work–in 1994 Ukraine signed a memorandum that stated that if it gave up its nuclear weapons, western countries would protect it from Russian aggression.

The U.K. Daily Mail reports:

The U.S. government will no longer conduct anti-satellite missile tests, making it the first nation to enact such a ban, Vice President Harris announced Monday.  

The Biden administration is setting the self-imposed ban as part of a goal to make it an ‘international norm for responsible behavior in space,’ Harris said. 

The new declaration comes after Russia in November conducted an anti-satellite missile test to destroy its Cosmos-1408 satellite, a soviet-era spacecraft that’s been in orbit since the 1980s. 

The explosion generated a cloud of at least 1,500 pieces of trackable debris that threatened the International Space Station. China conducted a similar test in 2007, as did India in 2019. Such tests are highly controversial due to the dangerous debris they can cause – debris from an anti-satellite missile test can travel at thousands of miles and even a small fragment can damage surrounding space stations. 

Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, made the announcement during a speech at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. While at the base, the vice president received a briefing on the Space Force and the U.S. Space Command. 

Does anyone actually believe that Russia and China will follow the lead of America on this issue?

Good News For Tennessee Students

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has invited Hillsdale College to open 50 charter schools whose anti-woke curriculum will teach students that America is ‘an exceptionally good country.’  What a wonderful idea. We can’t expect to raise children who want America to live up to its potential if we keep telling them that America is a bad country. We have our flaws, and we have made mistakes, but we have learned from those mistakes and moved forward. It should be noted that the mistake of slavery, which the political left does not seem to be able to forget, was a worldwide mistake that America played only a small part of. Unfortunately, much of the leadership in our education system is not willing to admit that.

The article reports:

Hillsdale College, which has close ties with former President Donald Trump,  developed the ‘1776 Curriculum’ and is eager to add to its network of charter schools with the curriculum that focus on ‘the centrality of the Western tradition.’

That curriculum – which spans 2,400 pages – was set up in response to the New York Times 1619 Project, which frames the founding of the United States through the eyes of slaves, and has been blasted for multiple inaccuracies.  

Note that the article felt it necessary to describe Hillsdale College as a conservative college and to tie the teaching of actual American history to former President Trump. This is a blatant example of mixing spin in with content in a news article.

The article notes:

The college’s ‘1776 Curriculum’ is currently being used in the two dozen member schools in about 13 states, as well as several dozen more across the country, per its website. 

It comes as battles continue to rage across the US about what is being taught in public schools. Many parents have been outraged by the push towards divisive ‘equity’ lessons based on the teachings of critical race theory, which opponents say is divisive, and teaches white children that they are ‘oppressors.’

Florida has also enacted the Parental Rights in Education Bill – the so-called ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, in response to reports of teachers encouraging children confused about their gender identity to hide it from their parents, and even move them towards medical treatment given to transgender people.  

Hillsdale has been criticized for its curriculum, which puts a spin on American history and provides a negative take on the New Deal and global warming.

…Hillsdale, which was founded in 1844 by abolitionists, does not accept state or federal funding, including no student grants or loans. 

The Times reported this move allows the school to ‘avoid some government oversight, such as compliance with federal Title IX rules governing sexual discrimination.’  

Instead, the school relies partly on donations from conservative benefactors that are fueled by aggressive fund-raising campaigns, the Times reported, including on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program before he died, and in Hillsdale’s widely circulated digest, Imprimis, including a 2017 piece in which President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was called ‘a hero to populist conservatives around the world.’ 

Again, note the spin. Charter schools run by Hillsdale College are a definite threat to the education establishment, which tends to lean left. As this plan moves forward, you can expect a multitude of negative articles from the American mainstream media.