Tag Archives: The Washington Examiner

Exactly Who Is Opposing This Nomination?

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Considering that President Biden’s Secretary of Health of Human Services was a man dressed as a woman, I find the opposition to RFK, Jr. rather interesting. How many Republicans voted for Rachel Levine?

First, let’s look at Rachel Levine (President Biden’s HHS Secretary).

In May 2020, Newsweek reported:

Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine confirmed on Tuesday that she recently moved her 95-year-old mother out of a personal care home.

Outbreaks in Pennsylvania long-term care facilities make up nearly 70 percent of the state’s coronavirus-related deaths and 21 percent of the state’s positive cases of the virus.

In March 2021, The Washington Examiner reported:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York was not the only state leader to have directed nursing homes to admit patients who had been hospitalized for COVID-19. Governors from Michigan, California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, all Democrats, enacted similar policies last year as fears grew that hospitals would be overwhelmed with new patients and too few healthcare providers.

So as Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary, Rachel Levine moved Covid patients into nursing homes while removing her mother from the danger. She was approved by Congress as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Breitbart reports:

A “committee” widely cited in the media as opposing the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services turns out to be a Bill Gates-backed “Astroturf” organization that accepts fake signatories.

The “Committee to Protect Health Care,” cited by NBC News and others, published an open letter declaring that doctors are “appalled by Donald Trump’s reckless decision” to appoint Kennedy. Thousands are said to have signed.

However, there is no verification process for signatories. (Breitbart News was able to sign up as Dr. Donald Duck, OG, of Disney World, FL, specializing in podiatry.) The anti-Kennedy petition simply accepts any signature from anyone.

The article notes:

The Committee to Protect Health Care is a 501(c)4 organization, meaning that it does not have to reveal its donors.

However, a related 501(c)3 charity, The Committee to Protect Health Care Fund, does have to reveal its donors. It is funded in part by the “left-of-center Sixteen Thirty Fund (1630 Fund) and Hopewell Fund.” The Hopewell Fund, in turn, has “hired Arabella Advisors, a leading national philanthropy services firm, to manage its project hosting and fiscal sponsorship services.” The Sixteen Thirty Fund is likewise managed by the Arabella Advisors organization.

Arabella’s donors include “Bill Gates, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg,” according to the Capital Research Center: “Each of them has given a tremendous amount of money to (or through) the main network of Arabella Advisors-managed nonprofits and used it to create policy advocacy projects for their favorite pet sociopolitical issues.”

Sometimes all you need to know about a nominee is who the people are who oppose him!

Trying To Take The Teeth Out Of A Good Law

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The Laken Riley Law passed the House of Representatives on January 7, 2025. It was received in the Senate on January 8, 2025. The Laken Riley Act originally passed the House of Representatives in March 2024, but Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer refused to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate. Since the Democrats lost the majority in the Senate in the last election, the bill has now been brought to the floor. What are the Democrats doing to avoid passing a bill they don’t like? They are attempting to amend the law so that it will have little impact.

On Monday, The Washington Examiner reported:

Bipartisan legislation to more easily deport migrants in the country illegally cleared a second procedural vote Monday evening as Democrats searched for a path forward on proposing amendments.

The Laken Riley Act overwhelmingly advanced in an 82-10 vote that brought the bill one step closer to final passage after passing a test vote in the upper chamber last week. It would require federal authorities to detain illegal immigrants charged, arrested, or convicted of theft-related crimes until deportation.

But the measure, which cleared the Republican-controlled House last week, is far from being passed in the GOP-led Senate and will eventually require buy-in from at least seven Democrats to clear another 60-vote filibuster.

“We have to have amendments. This bill does not work as-is. It creates more problems than it solves,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the Democratic architect of a bipartisan border security bill last year. “It is a massive, unfunded mandate.”

Since when do Democrats care about unfunded mandates?

The article notes:

Several Senate Democrats declined to say what specific changes would need to be made to secure their support on final passage, citing a lack of clarity from party leaders on which amendments they should prioritize. Some filed their own amendments Monday, including from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) to allow certain illegal immigrants to enlist in the armed forces and for the DHS secretary to establish a veterans visa program for those who were deported to return to the U.S.

I suspect that this is the way the Democrats are going to try to block the agenda of the Republican majority–keep adding amendments, slow-walking votes, and generally failing to cooperate. I hope Democrats in states that voted for the Trump agenda find themselves facing a primary opponent in the next election.

Rules For Thee But Not For Me

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The people who are in a panic about climate change often encourage us to use public transportation, live in smaller houses, buy more efficient cars, travel less, etc. They are seriously concerned about our carbon footprint. Yet, somehow, they seem to be much less concerned about their own carbon footprint.

On Saturday, The Washington Examiner reported:

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has spent around $415,000 on private jet flights since 2021.

The money was doled out by her campaign committee, with the most spent in 2022 during her reelection campaign against former Rep. Lee Zeldin.

A pilot experienced in private aviation told the New York Post that Hochul’s use of a private jet is “very wasteful.”

“It’s very wasteful, especially for an elected official,” he said. “There is no reason why any elected official in New York should be taking a private jet. Nearly everywhere in New York or upstate has a [commercial] airport that will take you anywhere in the country.”

Private jets are known to be especially wasteful, considering the small amount of passengers they carry. A 2021 report from the European Federation for Transport and Environment found that private jets are five to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than trains.

Hochul utilized two private-airline companies, Zephyr Jets and Apollo Jets, and spent no less than $5,000 on each flight while her most expensive journey was $38,594.00.

I have less patience with a politician using campaign money for private jets than I do with someone who is financially successful using one. At least a business person flying a private jet has earned the money for the trip. Hochul was using campaign funds that could have easily been more efficiently spent.

The article concludes:

Hochul is facing immense internal pressure from New York Democrats who want to oust her for the 2026 gubernatorial race. She faced previous criticism for down-ballot House losses in 2022 but recovered some ground during the 2024 elections, winning several seats back.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is one of her main detractors. He has his eyes on the governor’s office in just a few short years.

“When it comes to combating climate change, the governor is conspicuously failing to practice what she preaches. New Yorkers viscerally resent hypocrisy, and the governor’s hypocrisy here is as staggering as her carbon footprint,” Torres told the New York Post.

Kathy Hochul is simply one more example of a politician who refuses to practice what she preaches.

Rand Paul’s 2024 ‘Festivus Report’

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On December 23rd, Rand Paul released his 2024 ‘Festivus Report,’ his list of ridiculous things that the government spends American taxpayers’ money on. The Washington Examiner posted some of the highlights.

The first item listed:

Ice-skating drag queens for climate change

Paul revealed that the government provided funds for a drag queen ice-skating performance warning about the dangers of climate change. The National Endowment for the Arts gave the Bearded Ladies Cabaret in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, $10,000 for its  “Beard on Ice” performance to promote climate change alarmism. The artistic director for the self-described “queer cabaret arts organization” provided the following statement regarding the performance: 

“It’s so impossible, the issue of climate change and climate anxiety right now—almost as impossible as drag queens learning how to ice skate. So if we can get these drag queens to ice skate, maybe, just maybe, we can solve the climate crisis.”

Incidentally, the production was forced to cancel its opening-night performance due to poor ice conditions at the outdoor ice rink in which it was held, according to reports.

Followed by:

Millions of dollars on border security – for Paraguay

The “Festivus Report” also found that the State Department spent $2.1 million on border security—for Paraguay. This is particularly troubling because it meant that the U.S. government gave millions of dollars to another country for border security while ignoring the many failures and problems along the U.S. border. Millions of dollars in taxpayer money was sent to a South American country to help ensure people were not entering it illegally—while a record number of people were doing so in the U.S. 

Rats, cocaine, and loneliness

Cocaine is a terrible drug and the country has devoted a significant amount of resources in trying to prevent people from using the narcotic. Yet, apparently, more work was needed on the topic.

The Festivus Report identified a government study in which researchers injected rats with cocaine to analyze the impact of the drug’s addiction. The Department of Health and Human Services “spent $419,470 to determine if lonely rats” sought cocaine at a greater frequency than happy rats. These funds were used by researchers to observe and “see if rats placed in positive environments would be more likely to abstain from cocaine than rats in negative and isolating environments.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the results were predictable and as what one might suspect.

Using pandemic relief funds to buy an island

The report identified the misdeeds of a Florida businessman who reportedly used COVID-19 relief funds to purchase Sweetheart Island off the coast of Florida. An investigation into the purchase found that the swindler used funds obtained from pandemic assistance to “help finance the island purchase,” according to reports. 

The person who tried to buy the island fraudulently received $7.8 million in emergency pandemic aid by submitting over 30 deceitful applications. He was eventually busted, convicted for his crimes, and sentenced to over five and a half years in federal prison, and agreed to return the $7.8 million in aid he received.  

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the list.

I agree with Warren Buffett’s solution to balancing the budget. He has suggested that he could end the deficit by passing “a law that says anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. I could vote for that!

I Didn’t Leave The Party–The Party Left Me

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There are a number of Democrats leaving the democrat party. On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about one of them.

The article reports:

Another longtime Texas Democrat has switched parties, joining the Republican Party, this time in the border county of Webb.

Webb County flipped red in November, joining other border counties that flipped red for the first time in over 100 years, The Center Square reported.

The region has been a Democratic stronghold since Texas became a state in 1836. The majority of residents and voters in south Texas are Hispanic. For the first time in Texas history, nearly all border counties voted for Donald Trump, including Webb County.

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina this week announced he was leaving the Democratic Party, saying like many others before him that “the party left me, and the people of South Texas, behind.”

In a Facebook post, he said, “As Webb County Judge, I have fought to protect our shared values here in South Texas – hard work, faith, family, and freedom. Unfortunately, the radical National Democrat party no longer stands for these values, and I want to be a part of a party that not only stands for these values but also protects them.

Policies have consequences. Were it not for the decision of Governor Abbott to send the illegals to sanctuary cities in the north, the situation in Texas would have been considerably worse. The Democrat party rule has had a negative impact on lifestyles and the cost of living in the past four years. There is no reason to continue to vote for them.

I Bet President Biden Didn’t Count On This

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On December 2nd, The Washington Examiner posted an article detailing some of the unintended consequences of President Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden. The consequences will occur if the House of Representatives chooses to continue its investigation into influence peddling by the Biden family.

The article reports:

Hunter Biden may no longer have the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent if called to testify under oath for his actions over the past 11 years after President Joe Biden pardoned the first son, legal experts say.

The pardon, announced Sunday, not only absolves Hunter of his recent legal troubles but also grants immunity for any crimes he may have committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024. The time frame covered by the pardon is essential to Republican-led investigations into Hunter Biden’s foreign lobbying and financial dealings, raising questions about the extent of the president’s involvement in his son’s business interests.

In the hours since the pardon, Republicans, along with legal experts, have elevated the significance of what the younger Biden’s pardon means for their long-standing investigations, contending that it opens up the playing field for lawmakers to question him on nearly everything he has now been pardoned from over the past 11 years.

Under the Fifth Amendment, people can refuse to answer questions if their responses might incriminate them in criminal cases. However, with all criminal liability now erased by the pardon, Hunter Biden could face contempt charges if he refuses to testify before congressional panels.

“Well, this now makes it much easier for a GOP Senate/House to call Hunter as a witness about his and his dad’s connections to Ukraine, etc. because the pardon prevents Hunter from asserting the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself,” Mark Smith, a constitutional attorney and host of the Four Boxes Diner legal analysis show, wrote on X.

There is no way his blanket pardon protects him from Contempt of Congress charges if he refuses to appear as a witness, and we have recently seen two people charged with Contempt of Congress do actual jail time (Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon). Karma could get really interesting in the next few months.

What A Difference A Few Days Make

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the pre-election plans of Senator Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer was looking forward to a Democrat White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Thankfully, he was overly optimistic.

The article reports:

Schumer’s top priority in the new Harris administration would have been to eliminate the legislative filibuster that has long protected minority rights in the Senate. That way, even if the Senate were tied between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, those 50 Democrats, with the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Tim Walz, could enact far-reaching legislation without any input at all from Republicans. Washington would have true one-party rule, and the minority party would have no say in things whatsoever.

…Schumer believed 2024 would be the year Democrats could finally erase any Republican power in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema were both leaving the Senate, Schumer explained at his talk in Chicago. Manchin’s seat would be won by a Republican, so it still would be unavailable for Democrats. But Sinema’s seat would be won by Democrat Ruben Gallego, Schumer said, and Gallego would go along with the party on the filibuster. That would give Democrats the 50 votes they needed, provided there was a Vice President Walz to break the tie.

Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned.

This is what hjappened last week:

So this week, Schumer went to the well of the Senate and addressed some remarks to his Republican colleagues. “Another closely contested election now comes to an end,” he said. “To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith: Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it has consistently backfired on the party in power. So, instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan. If we want the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation.”

The short version of that is: Please don’t do to us what we were going to do to you. Schumer is obviously concerned that Republicans might embrace a scheme to eliminate the filibuster and pass all sorts of consequential legislation with no Democratic input at all. That wouldn’t be bipartisan! Fortunately for Schumer, Republicans have been more principled than Democrats when it comes to the legislative filibuster, and to the filibuster in general. Republicans realize that even though they will have the majority for the next two years, they might be back in the minority at any time after that. So Schumer will not get it good and hard the way he planned to give it to Republicans.

It is amazing how quickly Senator Schumer changed his tune. However, if the Republicans are smart, they will quickly confirm ALL of President Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions and department heads.

Let The Hand-Wringing Begin

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The uproar over President Trump’s Cabinet picks is somewhat humorous. Some of the people in the Biden administration were not particularly competent at their jobs and definitely did not represent mainstream America. Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation oversaw one of the worst rail disasters in American history–also one of the most poorly dealt with. Sam Brinton was caught stealing other people’s luggage. Rachel Leland Levine is an American pediatrician who served as the United States Assistant Secretary for Health. She was born a man and changed her gender. She also supported gender changes for children. President Biden’s Cabinet was the equivalent of the Star Wars bar scene.

On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the choice of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

The article has a few interesting observations:

WHAT THE HEGSETH NOMINATION MEANS. On Tuesday evening, President-elect Donald Trump shook up Washington by announcing that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. “Pete is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University,” Trump said in the announcement. “He is an Army combat veteran who did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For his actions on the battlefield, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars.” During his years as co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, Hegseth has focused extensively on military and veterans affairs. This year, he wrote a bestselling book, War on Warriors, in which he decried the new woke military.*

…The fact is that despite his impressive qualifications — Princeton, Harvard, two Bronze Stars, and professional success — Hegseth does not have the resume one would expect from a secretary of defense, most notably the management experience to run one of the largest bureaucracies in the world, with an $841 billion budget this year. But Trump clearly wanted a change in direction. 

Trump can look at past secretaries who had the right resumes and didn’t work out. Bill Clinton picked a Democratic member of the House named Les Aspin, who had decades of experience overseeing the Pentagon and turned out to be a terrible secretary of defense. George W. Bush picked Donald Rumsfeld, who had vast experience in government and had even been defense secretary before, and Rumsfeld made grievous errors in the job. Barack Obama had problems with the Pentagon, and Trump himself struggled to find the right man to run the Department of Defense, going through five secretaries or acting secretaries in the first Trump administration.

The article concludes:

So now, Trump is proposing a radical change at the top of the civilian leadership of the military. It could be a breakthrough success, rebalancing the military as a fighting force above all else. Or it could be a failure, and everyone will be asking what Trump was thinking when he put Pete Hegseth in charge of an $841 billion bureaucracy. But if voters sent any message in the election, it is that they want a change from the Biden administration and that they approve, in a big-picture sense, of Trump’s leadership in his first time in office. So now, Trump is, as promised, bringing change.

“All the criticism of him is that he’s not the expected Washington pick, and I’m just saying to you that the American people just voted against the expected Washington pick,” CNN resident conservative Scott Jennings said Tuesday night. Yes, Hegseth will have to run the confirmation gauntlet in the Senate, Jennings continued, and will have to show that he has the knowledge to do that job. “But we ought to give this man a chance, in my opinion.” That’s what the election was about.

What we are doing isn’t working, let’s try something different.

The Death Of Another Terrorist

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a strike in southern Gaza. He has been described as the man behind the October 7th attacks on Israel.

The article reports:

Although Israelis and Palestinians have both suffered from Sinwar’s war, the terrorist himself directly profited from the conflict. Sinwar had been Hamas’s commander in the Gaza Strip but was promoted to lead the group after Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh in a daring strike in Iran in July 2024. Sinwar rose in prominence within Hamas after he plotted the abduction and murder of Israeli soldiers in the late 1980s. He was particularly infamous for his role in killing Palestinian “collaborators” — that is, those Palestinians who objected to Hamas’s brutal, authoritarian rule. Sinwar was later caught and jailed in an Israeli prison for his crimes. He even received life-saving treatment for brain cancer while he was incarcerated. Tragically, the nephew of Yuval Bitton, the Israeli doctor who saved Sinwar, would be among those murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7.

…Sinwar’s death is significant, both symbolically and otherwise. Israel has killed the “architect” of the worst slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. His demise is also the tip of the iceberg. In a span of months, Israel has eliminated the head of Hamas, Haniyeh, as well as top Hezbollah operatives, including the longtime leader of that Lebanese-based group, Hassan Nasrallah. And now Haniyeh’s successor is dead, too. Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s two most formidable proxies, are severely degraded. The overwhelming majority of Hamas’s “battalions” have been destroyed — and many of them, it must be noted, in Rafah, where Sinwar was killed and where the Biden administration attempted to pressure Israel not to launch operations.

Thank God for the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in continuing to fight terrorism despite the Biden administration’s trying to hinder his efforts.

Why America Needs To Be Energy Independent

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed not to increase its production of oil in October as it had planned. The price has dropped too low, and if the supply is lower, the price will go higher. It’s the basic law of supply and demand. It is also the reason America needs to be energy independent. How much money (tax revenue, lower energy costs for the government, transportation costs for oil, etc.) would we save if America was again a net exporter of oil and natural gas.

The article reports:

OPEC+ agreed to pause its planned oil output hike for October and November as prices have dropped to their lowest in months.

The oil-producing bloc revealed on Thursday that eight member countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman, have agreed to extending cuts.

The decision reverses a planned increase in oil production to 180,000 barrels a day in October. 

The eight countries have agreed to cut production by 2.2 million barrels per day through the end of November. These cutbacks will be phased out starting Dec. 1, according to the group.

In Thursday’s announcement, the group said two of the member countries, Iraq and Kazakhstan, have been overproducing barrels since January.

The article notes:

Crude oil prices, which had fallen to the lowest levels of the year in recent days, rose in reaction to the news that the production cuts would be extended. Benchmark Brent crude was up about 0.6% late Thursday morning.

Low prices have alleviated some pressure on consumers amid rampant inflation, keeping oil and gas prices top of mind for voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Industry experts warned that the production increase could have caused prices to drop even further, reaching as low as $50 a barrel, Bloomberg reported. 

It would be nice to see prices stay in a range that would give consumers a break.

 

Are We Looking At The Beginning Of A Third Political Party?

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Political parties were not part of the Founding Fathers plans for America. They didn’t like them–they felt that if political parties existed, a man’s allegiance to his political party might be more important to him than his allegiance to his country. We see their wisdom when we look at our current political situation.

On Monday, Tulsi Gabbard announced that she would be supporting President Trump during his 2024 election bid. Recently, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., joined the campaign team. President Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are all former Democrats. All of them have been treated badly by the current Democrat party. All of them have values much more in tune with the Democrat party of the 1960’s than they are in tune with the values of the Democrat party today.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner reported:

Former President Donald Trump plans to add Tulsi Gabbard to his presidential transition team just one day after the former House Democrat endorsed his White House bid, according to Trump’s campaign.

Gabbard will assist the former president in implementing new policies and personnel in a possible Trump administration, although her precise role has not been made clear. The announcement comes as Gabbard has been informally assisting Trump with debate preparation over the last few months, making her support for the former president official on Monday.

“As President Trump’s broad coalition of supporters and endorsers expands across partisan lines, we are proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team,” Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told the Washington Examiner. “We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness.”

Kennedy announced he was also tapped to join Trump’s presidential transition team during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday.

There are a lot of ideas that Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have that I do not agree with. However, I give them credit for taking a step toward unity in American politics.

One Specific Example Of The Need For A Secure Border

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article naming one of the people who came to America through our open southern border. That person was Gianfranco Torres-Navarro, the leader of a Peruvian crime gang and is thought to be personally responsible for 23 murders.

The article reports:

He (Gianfranco Torres-Navarro) is a notorious figure in Peru, where he is known as “Gianfranco 23,” clearly “a reference to the number of people he is alleged to have killed,” according to the Associated Press. He has a girlfriend who, also according to the Associated Press, “has a sizable following on the social media platform TikTok where she showed off their lavish lifestyle, including designer clothes, resort vacations and shooting targets at a gun range.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but Torres-Navarro’s gang is known as “Los Killers.”

Here’s why Americans should know who he is. On Wednesday, Torres-Navarro was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Endicott, New York, a village with a population of 13,667 about 190 miles north of New York City. Given that he is a wanted man, wanted for very serious crimes in Peru, one might ask how he made it to the United States.

The answer is: He just walked in. In May, Torres-Navarro crossed illegally into the U.S. near Roma, Texas, in the Rio Grande border sector. He was arrested by U.S. authorities who then…let him go. Like millions of other illegal crossers, he was given a “notice to appear” before an immigration judge at some point far in the future and then sent on his way.

The presence of Torres-Navarro in the U.S., free to go as he pleases, was a direct result of the border policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. You’ve heard about their policy of allowing millions into the U.S. unvetted. This is that policy in action. Torres-Navarro is the face of that policy. He is a one-man, walking illustration of the dangerous nature of the Biden-Harris border.

He was arrested in a small town in America. Would you be comfortable with this man living in your neighborhood? This threat to the safety of Americans has been brought to you be the Biden-Harris administration. Consider that when you vote in November.

Encouraging Future Bad Behavior?

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We should all celebrate the return home of the hostages taken by Russia. However, we should also examine the price that was payed for their return and what it will mean in the future.

On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the prisoner swap.

The article notes:

President Joe Biden deserves credit for the prisoner swap agreement that led to Russia releasing Americans Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, Paul Whelan, and other Germans and Russians on Thursday. While this deal carries a heavy risk of boosting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appetite for aggressive intelligence operations, it deserves support.

Biden and his key negotiator, CIA Director Bill Burns — I’ll write more on Burns in my next piece — deserve particular credit in terms of the parameters of the agreement. After all, Biden likely could have reached a deal earlier if it only involved Americans and some Germans detained by Russia. Instead, the deal included a significant number of German citizens, possibly including some German BND foreign intelligence service agents and officers, and prominent Russian dissidents. It would have been challenging to persuade the Kremlin to release political opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, for example. That bears noting amid prior claims by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he could have made a prisoner swap deal without significant U.S. concessions.

The Israelis are said to have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. They have, at times, been forced by circumstances to alter that policy, but have generally remained steadfast. The problem with negotiating with terrorists is simple–it encourages them to take more hostages in the future.

The article concludes:

As Putin now escalates his sabotage and assassination plots in the West, and as he threatens ever more dastardly consequences for Western support for Ukraine, the U.S. should recognize Putin for what he is: a leader who is bold and opportunistic, but also one who makes decisions based on how his opponents have previously responded to his pressure tactics.

The next time an American is taken hostage or U.S. interests are otherwise attacked by Russia, the first U.S. response should not be to enter a long process of negotiations. Instead, the U.S. should escalate in riposte.

Putin and other dictators and terrorists are not stupid. They can easily look at the price they paid (or didn’t pay) for taking hostages to trade for warriors. Let’s make taking hostages uncomfortable and unprofitable.

Unequal Justice Strikes Again

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

At least 11 anti-Israel protesters arrested in Washington, D.C., had their misdemeanor charges dropped Thursday evening, one day after protesters scrawled graffiti across federal property and burned an American flag in the nation’s capital.

The charges for the 11 protesters who had their cases dropped included crossing police lines and disorderly conduct at the protest attended by thousands in Washington on Wednesday, according to the Washington attorney general’s office. Additionally, at least seven people charged by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington were released pending their next court hearing, according to Washington Superior Court records obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The protesters given release conditions face charges such as assault on a police officer, attempted assault with a deadly weapon, making threats, and attempted second-degree theft, and they have been issued a “Stay Away” order to avoid the Union Station grounds until they head to preliminary hearings in late August.

How many January 6th political prisoners are in jail still awaiting trial?

The article notes:

Protests against Netanyahu’s appearance in the District of Columbia marked the largest violent protest in the area since the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, where thousands of supporters of Trump descended on the complex and entered the building in anger and frustration over his 2020 election defeat.

More than 1,424 defendants have been charged since the Jan. 6 protest, the Justice Department said in May, and about 350 people from the event were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, including approximately 110 people who used a deadly or dangerous weapon to cause serious harm to a law enforcement officer. At least 145 people have been sentenced to prison terms over 151 months and roughly 172 defendants have been sentenced to periods of home detention, including approximately 31 who were sentenced to a period of incarceration.

The dropped charges against anti-Israel protesters come as critics have accused the Justice Department of cracking down more harshly on Jan. 6 defendants than on protesters who engage in similar conduct but whose causes align with the Left.

Welcome to our banana republic.

The Legacy Of The Biden Presidency

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On Saturday, The Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece evaluating President Biden’s legacy as President. It wasn’t a real positive article.

The article notes:

Leaving aside whether or not the country needed saving from Trump, Biden has not “done an excellent job as president,” as claimed by the sweetly generous New York Times. If he is “one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history,” as the dulcet-tongued Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said when he asked Biden to step aside, those consequences have been overwhelmingly negative.

I guess Schiff believes that flattery will get you everywhere.

The article continues:

Biden could have been remembered as a president who united the country and passed the baton to a new generation of leadership. To do this, he needed to govern as a commonsense centrist and then stick to his word and pass the baton. The economy was already adding 1.4 million jobs a month before Biden was sworn into office. If he had simply speeded the reopening of the economy after the COVID shutdowns, he would have presided over strong, equitable economic growth.

Instead, he allowed fawning historians to convince him he could be the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt. This manipulated by the Left, he pushed for massive and unneeded spending on a purely partisan basis, sending inflation through the roof and thus punishing vulnerable workers. As a direct result of Biden’s partisan overspending, consumers have accumulated $12.8 trillion in housing debt, $1.62 trillion in car debt, and $1.1 trillion in credit card debt, all record highs. According to the latest Federal Reserve Economic Well-Being survey, inflation has worsened the finances of 65% of people, including 19% who said it was “much worse.” Almost one-fifth of adults, 17%, said they could not pay all their bills in the month before the survey was taken.

No wonder voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy by 20 points.

The article concludes:

It is hard to see how Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, a politically rushed maneuver that got 13 American service members killed, did not encourage Russian aggression. And while Biden has done some good in managing NATO’s response to the invasion of Ukraine, he has been slow and indecisive in getting Ukraine the weapons it needs to push invading Russian troops out.

Then there are the divisive actions Biden has taken on forcing women’s dorms and bathrooms to take in men, forcing consumers to buy electric cars, and selectively prosecuting his political opponents.

There is a reason — indeed many reasons — that Biden has the lowest approval rating among presidents at this point in his presidency: He is a bad president. No amount of flattery from the New York Times or Democrats eager to push him out of his reelection campaign is going to change that.

Biden must go not because his legacy is splendid but because he has been an unmitigated calamity for America.

That pretty much sums it up!

We Need To Rethink Coastal Wind Farms

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I am not going to go into details on the number of dead whales found on the East Coast since exploration for wind farms began. I am going to focus on the more basic problems caused by off-shore wind farms. On Saturday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about some of the problems with the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC (Atlantic Shores) project planned for the New Jersey Coast.

The article reports:

While the Biden administration and other environmental activist groups boast that the Atlantic Shores South project, nearly nine years in the making, is another milestone in the country’s harvesting of green energy, a former U.S. Department of Energy engineer raises alarm bells that not only is this project detrimental to tourism, the ocean’s ecosystem, but it will actually raise energy costs to as high as 80% over the next 20 years.

…“Project 1 and Project 2 are expected to generate up to 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power close to one million homes with clean renewable energy,” according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. 

And while Atlantic Shores South says this project will generate $1.9 billion in economic benefits for the Garden State, an analysis by Edward P. O’Donnell with Whitestrand Consulting found that consumers from residents to commercials to industrial all across the state will see a massive hike in their electric bills. 

The article concludes:

As concerning as it is for Stern to see his electric bills go up, he’s worried about how this green energy project will impact marine animals like whales. 

“The underwater noise from all phases of this, the vessel surveys which use noise devices to characterize the seabed, then the noise from when you pile drive the foundations, and then ultimately the operation of these huge structures create a lot of underwater noise,” Stern said. “We’ve looked at it extensively and we believe it’s going to cause great harm to the whales, to the dolphins, particularly the whales that have to migrate to New Jersey to get where they’re going.”

But according to Stern it gets worse as commercial vessel traffic, military, and fishing boats won’t be allowed in the wind complex.

“So they’re going to be squeezed into these narrow corridors,” Stern said. “And it turns out that the corridors that they’re going to be squeezed into also happens to be a migration corridor for the whales. Now you’re creating, not only a hazard to the whales but a hazard to the vessels.” 

In the Bureau of Ocean of Energy Management’s Environmental Review, the agency acknowledged that the Atlantic Shores South would have a major impact on the North Atlantic White Whale, less than 400 remaining in the wild. 

Stern, who organized Save Long Beach Island in an effort to push back on the project, said there’s also a fear with community members that the windmills, a major eye sore just miles away from the coast, will negatively impact tourism. 

The Long Beach Island Chamber of Commerce said in an email that it was against the project, but did not want to make a comment. 

“What are we doing this for?” Stern said. “People come out and say we have to do this for climate change, but even the agency’s documents say it has a negligible impact on climate change because there is a much bigger dynamic going on there with the rest of the world.”

Stern, along with his comrades in Save Long Island Beach are not giving up and said they will be taking this to court. 

“This is an energy boondoggle,” Stern said. “Unfortunately, it’s also a hazardous boondoggle, and I believe the country will regret this.”

It’s time to re-evaluate.

 

Is The Basis Of Our Laws Unconstitutional?

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the new law in Louisiana requiring that a poster of the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom. The ‘separation of church and state’ hysteria was immediately triggered.

The article reports:

The response was predictable howling that the legislation violated the separation of church and state. The American Civil Liberties Union announced it would file a lawsuit against the new law and condemned it as “religious coercion.”

Landry, to his credit, declared he “can’t wait to be sued” and said if anyone wants to “respect the rule of law,” he must “start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”

The law seeks to overturn a 1980 Supreme Court precedent in Stone v. Graham, in which the court ruled that a similar statute in Kentucky violated the establishment clause of the Constitution. But as Justice William Rehnquist noted in his dissent, the Ten Commandments are not merely religious doctrine but the foundation for Western law.

“The Ten Commandments have had a significant impact on the development of secular legal codes of the Western world,” he wrote.

The article concludes:

At a time when a growing number of people are rejecting the basic moral truths that stealing is wrong, marital infidelity is wrong, and sometimes even that killing is wrong, the moral guidance of the Ten Commandments is needed more than ever.

If the ACLU has a problem with the Ten Commandments, it should sue to invalidate the long list of laws in force today that derive their moral foundation from the commands that God gave Moses at the top of Mt. Sinai, because clearly, any law informed by the Ten Commandments must violate the separation of church and state.

The headline of the article, “Louisiana rightly blends education and morality,” reminds us that moral education is a valuable part of education. It does no good to teach a child basic math and English skills if he does not have the moral education to use them wisely.

Where Did The Money Go?

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On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about how Washington is spending our money.

The article reports:

The Congressional Budget Office now projects that the federal deficit for fiscal 2024 will total $1.9 trillion, a $408 billion increase from its projection in February that the deficit would amount to $1.5 trillion. The culprit of this 27% increase in the projected deficit? President Joe Biden‘s bailouts of student loan debt and failed banks.

More than a third of the projected increase, or $145 billion, results from “revisions that the Administration made to the estimated subsidy costs of previously issued loans and from the Administration’s proposed rule to reduce many borrowers’ balances on student loans,” according to the CBO. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was directed by the White House to foot the bill for a series of bank failures even though not all the compromised accounts were insured by the independent agency, has failed to quickly recoup those losses, increasing projected outlays by another $70 billion. Together, Biden’s bailouts of the banks and of student loan debt contribute to a majority of the $408 billion increase.

More pernicious than all the student loan debt Biden is explicitly trying to cancel, often in violation of repeated pushback from the federal judiciary, is the debt taxpayers are clandestinely being forced to take on through the president’s income-driven repayment scheme for student loans borrowers are nominally expected to repay again after a multiyear pause.

This is an election year. President Biden is attempting to buy votes. However, younger voters are not necessarily buying what he is selling. Younger voters fresh out of college, trade school, or high school are discovering the high cost of housing, gasoline, and groceries. Some of the smarter ones are also looking at the lawfare against President Trump and not liking what they see.

If the November election is honest, it is going to be very interesting–many stereotypical voting blocs are changing rapidly.

Exactly Who Pays Our Taxes?

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On Monday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the progressive tax code in America. Just for the record, we are already overtaxing the wealthy.

The article reports:

The ultra-wealthy are paying the highest average share of taxes, according to a new analysis from a nonpartisan congressional committee.

The Joint Committee on Taxation found that the top 1% of earners pay an average tax rate of around 30% in combined income, employment, and excise taxes, double or more than the share of taxes that the bottom 80% of the country pays. Additionally, the top 5% of earners in the United States make up a whopping 46% of the country’s tax base.

According to the Economics Help page:

The Laffer Curve states that if tax rates are increased above a certain level, then tax revenues can actually fall because higher tax rates discourage people from working.

This is a picture of the Laffer Curve:

The Reagan tax cuts increased federal revenue. Unfortunately, the Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives offset those increases with increased spending. The Trump tax cuts also increased federal revenue, but again the House of Representatives increased their spending. At some point we need to realize that we don’t need more taxes, we need less spending.

The Biden administration is currently pushing for a tax on unrealized capital gains. The talking point is that it would only impact a very small number of taxpayers. Just for the record, this was the argument used to justify the establishment of a federal income tax in 1913.

Is This About Money Or About Doing Good?

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On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article which provided information on the charities that are profiting because of the illegal aliens entering America.

The article reports:

Communities throughout the United States are suffering while they try to find money to house, clothe, feed, educate, and provide medical care for millions of illegal immigrants caught and released into the country by President Joe Biden. However, the left-wing nonprofit organizations paid to serve migrants are profiting pleasantly.

According to an examination by the Free Press of three of the most prominent nonprofit organizations paid by the Biden administration for migrant services, their revenues have more than tripled since 2018, and each of their CEOs makes more than $500,000 a year.

The article continues:

One, Global Refuge, saw its revenue rise from $50 million in 2018 to more than $200 million in 2022. Documents show that Global Refuge housed more than 2,500 migrant children in 2019 at a cost of $30 million. It housed just 1,443 in 2022 at a cost of $82.5 million. In that same period, Global Refuge CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah saw her salary rise from $244,000 a year to $520,000. Before coming to Global Refuge, she served as former first lady Michelle Obama’s policy director.

Another nonprofit group, Endeavors, was awarded more than 1 billion dollars in 2022, of which it spent $533,000 on a music therapist, $4.6 million on “consulting services,” $1.4 million on conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists. Despite past scandals involving self-dealing among top executives, in 2022, Southwest Key Programs was awarded almost $800 million, of which it gave more than $1 million to its CEO.

Each nonprofit organization benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services’s Unaccompanied Children Program. When children are caught illegally crossing the border without parents, Border Patrol must, by law, turn them over to HHS, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with housing, feeding, and educating them until their parents or a sponsor can be found. HHS does not provide these services. They contract with nonprofit outfits that do, hence the big payouts to Endeavors, Global Refuge, and Southwest Key Programs.

At some point the communities where illegal aliens settle are expected to provide education for the children and medical care for the families, regardless of the involvement of a nonprofit. Local communities are dealing with overcrowded schools, diseases that Americans have not seen in years, and a serious strain on their financial resources. Children are being put in the care of people who are not relatives and may be subjected to human trafficking or other forms of slavery.

The open border is bad for our country, but it is also bad for the people coming here. There is no safety in making the trip and no guarantee of a better life once they get here. Right now the cartels are in charge of our southern border, and they are making a lot of money that they can invest in destroying America with drugs and violence.

Drastic change is needed.

Down The Rabbit Hole With The Trump Trial

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On Friday, Byron York posted article at The Washington Examiner about some of the insanity surrounding the New York trial of President Trump. A number of laws have been ignored in order to proceed with this trial, and Byron York lists a number of them.

The article reports:

Yes, we know that Trump is charged with falsifying business records of payments made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 and 2017. But falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, meaning prosecutors would be prohibited from charging Trump with that crime after 2019, which was five years ago. They obviously missed that deadline by a mile.

We also know that New York law allows falsifying business records to be upgraded to a felony if the alleged falsification was done with “intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” In that case, the statute of limitations extends to five years, which would have allowed prosecutors to charge Trump as late as 2022. Prosecutors missed that deadline, too.

Trump was indicted in 2023. How did that happen? Because of COVID-19, when New York extended its statute of limitations by a year. That allowed prosecutors to slip the charges in right before the new, one-time-only, six-year extended statute of limitations expired.

But here’s the thing. What was the “intent to commit another crime or aid and conceal the commission thereof” that prosecutors used to raise falsification of business records from a misdemeanor to a felony? In nearly every case of alleged falsification of records that has been charged as a felony in New York, the defendant was charged with another crime — that is, prosecutors made it clear what the other crime was. In Trump’s case, the indictment did not specify any other crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the law did not require him to specify the other crime.

So Trump faced felony charges without knowing what he was accused of doing. And the really amazing thing is that the trial is now underway and Bragg has still not specified what the other crime is. It is a key element of the case. Without it, the charges against Trump could never have been brought because they were misdemeanors long past the statute of limitations. It is the other crime that makes this whole prosecution possible. But the prosecutor has not specified what it is.

One of my lawyer friends tells me that a trial must deal with whatever the defendant is charged with in the indictment. The Fifth Amendment “requires a felony charge to be spelled out in an indictment whose criminal elements have been established by probable cause to the satisfaction of a grand jury.” In this case, the prosecutor has not even specified the crime that made the prosecution possible. Is there anyone in the New York State legal system who has actually read the U.S. Constitution?

Actions Have Consequences

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It sounds really compassionate to insist that the minimum wage be a wage you can actually live on, but is that really the purpose of the minimum wage, and what are the consequences of raising the minimum wage? California just found out.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner reported:

California’s fast-food minimum wage hike has been in effect for just one month, and the consequences are proving to be fewer hours and potentially fewer jobs for workers.

Pollo West Corporation, the largest franchisee of El Pollo Loco restaurants in California, has said that its franchises went from profitable to losing money overnight when the fast-food wage hike went into effect. It also said that the franchises have reduced worker hours by 10%. Meanwhile, the restaurants had raised prices in February to prepare for the wage hike, leading to a 3% decline in business.

In total, fast food prices have gone up in California by 10% since September, a larger increase than in any other state. Restaurants have already passed those prices on to consumers, as was expected, and are cutting hours and adding kiosks. Fewer hours for employees means less money, fewer sales to consumers means less business, which means fewer hours for employees, and automated kiosks mean a reduced need for employees, which means fewer hours (or jobs) for employees.

For those of us who are mathematically challenged, if you work 30 hours at $15 an hour, you make $450. If your hours are cut back to 20 hours but you make $20 a hour, you only make $400. That is not an improvement.

The minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. It was intended to be an way for unskilled workers to enter the workforce and learn good work habits–showing up on time, dressing appropriately, being nice to customers, etc. Ideally a minimum wage job provides an opportunity to learn skills that will enable a person to get a job that pays more than minimum wage. Somehow California has missed that concept.

Who Is Paying For The Lawsuits?

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On April 21, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the lawfare that the Democrat party is conducting against President Trump and other conservatives and conservative groups.

The article reports:

As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s transparently political prosecution of former President Donald Trump began last week, it is important to remember that the former president is not the only target of the Democratic Party‘s campaign to use government power to silence political dissent. 

The Left’s efforts to intimidate conservative activists this month included Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) delivering a congressional subpoena to Federalist Society Co-Chairman Leonard Leo. It was voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee last November without securing a single Republican vote. Durbin has not explained why the subpoena was not delivered for five months.

His attack on Leo comes as another elected Democrat, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, has also used his office to harass Leo. After a complaint filed by the dark money-funded Campaign for Accountability, Schwalb opened an investigation into Leo’s management of two nonprofit organizations. The Campaign for Accountability alleged that Leo used his control of these to enrich his consulting firm by millions of dollars.

Abusing nonprofit status to enrich oneself is a serious matter. We are sure there are many Washington, D.C., nonprofit organizations that deserve such investigations. But Schwalb isn’t investigating any of them. Nor is he investigating Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research after it blew through tens of millions of dollars in three years without producing anything of value.

One might point out that the Center for Antiracist Research is based in Boston and, therefore, out of Schwalb’s jurisdiction. But so are the two nonprofit groups connected to Leo that Schwalb is investigating. One is in Virginia, and the other is in Texas.

However, there is a connection between the Campaign for Accountability and the Senate Democratic investigation of Leo: far-left megadonor Stephen Silberstein, who has bankrolled Leo’s main inquisitor in the Senate, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and the nonprofit organization leading the investigation against Leo, ProPublica. Silberstein has also worked closely with the Campaign for Accountability. 

The article concludes:

Wealthy Democratic Party donors such as Silberstein are free to fund partisan nonprofit goons such as ProPublica to dig up dirt on political opponents. But when they corrupt elected Democratic officials to use the power of their offices to persecute those political opponents, they cross an ethical line. The Democratic Party must end its lawfare campaigns against Trump and Leo. It disgraces itself until it does so.

Dirty campaigns are not a good thing, but misuse of our legal system should have dire consequences.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

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On Thursday, The Daily Wire posted an article about the amount of taxpayer money that goes to federal employees that actually work for the unions that represent federal employees rather than the government but are paid by the federal government.

The article reports:

The federal government pays more than $100 million a year to employees who aren’t doing their actual government jobs, but rather working for unions representing government employees against management — with taxpayers essentially funding both sides of the bargaining table. 

For decades, the government has tracked and reported those figures, but the Biden administration has removed the reports.

Under the policy known as “official time,” hundreds of nominal government employees haven’t done anything but full-time union work in years, yet remain on the federal payroll. Not only is the policy expensive to taxpayers, but it also props up the power of unions by subsidizing their activities, giving them resources even if employees don’t support them enough to pay dues. Those unions fight against the firing of employees accused of misconduct, and advocate for policies that sometimes pit the interests of employees over the interests of taxpayers, such as resisting a return to in-person work.

The Office of Personnel Management has historically kept track of and published how the program is being used, including during the Obama administration. But the data has not been updated since 2019 — when the government shelled out for 2.6 million hours, or nearly 300 years’ worth, of employee time that was actually spent on union business.

The Biden administration has even been secretive about its secrecy. In December, The Daily Wire asked OPM why the page listing the reports was missing, along with all historical reports except 2019, which can only be located via the search function. A spokesperson said, “Previous reports on official time are not currently available because OPM is reorganizing our website to improve navigation and customer experience.”

The article concludes:

In 2014, the Washington Examiner found more than 500 employees who did no or almost no work for their actual government jobs, despite drawing a full-time salary from taxpayers, because of official time. That includes 271 employees on full-time union release with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and 201 from the IRS.

Then-Sen. Tom Coburn said “I just don’t think the federal taxpayers ought to be paying for that… That’s what union dues are for. What’s irksome to me is that we are paying someone to be a pharmacist or a nurse, but they’re not doing that. They’re doing union work.”

Washington is due for a really good cleaning out!

While We Were Watching Other Things…

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about what is currently happening in  Afghanistan. I’m not sure at exactly what point we totally botched our handling of Afghanistan, but we obviously did.

The article reports:

Over two years after the Biden administration abruptly pulled out of Afghanistan, China is sliding in with its eyes on the war-torn country’s natural resources.

China is being welcomed with open arms by the ruling Taliban government, according to a Pentagon audit.

What’s more, the Taliban are moving to warm relations with China, sending their first ambassador to Beijing, according to John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

“On December 1, 2023, the new Taliban ambassador to China, Bilal Karimi, arrived in Beijing, marking the first ambassador the Taliban have sent to another country since seizing power in 2021. While no country formally recognizes the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, China does maintain an embassy in Kabul,” Sopko’s latest audit for Congress and shared with Secrets said.

The audit suggested the Taliban are campaigning for more Chinese investment.

It said the Taliban have “reportedly asked” to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road Initiative.

Sopko said the Taliban’s acting commerce minister, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, has been very direct in wooing Chinese investment. He quoted Azizi saying, “China, which invests all over the world, should also invest in Afghanistan. … We have everything they need, such as lithium, copper, and iron.”

In the last year, China and the Taliban have inked a 25-year mining contract at Amu Darya, said to have the world’s third-largest oil and natural gas reserves. A Chinese firm is also investing in Afghan power generation and building a major cement factory.

For a number of years, China has been quietly creating a monopoly on the raw materials needed to support modern technology. This is another step in that direction.