Tag Archives: The Washington Times

Lied To Again

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In an article posted Tuesday at Power Line Blog, John Hinderaker noted:

Joe Biden’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over a million jobs were created in the second quarter, a heartening statistic that no doubt helped the Democrats in November. But now, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve says that those million jobs were almost entirely fictitious:

The article at Power Line Blog quotes a Washington Times article from December 16th:

The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.

Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.

The Washington Times also noted:

The BLS, a division of the Department of Labor, estimated net job growth of 1,047,000 jobs in the second quarter. The Philadelphia Fed now says its data shows that 10,500 net jobs were created in that period.

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida called the development “outrageous.”

“Wrong by a million jobs,” Mr. Scott tweeted Friday. “@JoeBiden’s admin has been lying to the American people about our economy to prop up his failed agenda & I won’t stand for it. I’m requesting an immediate meeting with the head of @BLS_gov. WE NEED ANSWERS NOW!”

President Biden had boasted about the second-quarter job numbers in the heat of the midterm election campaign, using the BLS report as proof that the nation wasn’t headed for a recession.

“In the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than in any quarter under any of my predecessors in the nearly 40 years before the pandemic,” Mr. Biden said on July 8.

The White House repeated the theme a few weeks later.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

One of the problems with perverting the federal bureaucracy, as the Democrats have done, is that pretty much everyone loses faith in the integrity of government. At this point, there is no reason to assume that government numbers are accurate and unfudged. We have been lied to, too many times.

It is sad, but that is where we find ourselves. Trust has been destroyed.

It should also be noted that the Workforce Participation Rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been slowly dropping since August. It will be interesting to see what December’s numbers are.

 

Perspective From A Brilliant Legal Mind

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On Monday, The Washington Times posted Alan Dershowitz’s response to the January 6th Committee’s final report. The Committee voted unanimously Monday to refer four charges to the Justice Department for prosecution: inciting the attack on the Capitol, obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the government, and making false statements on fake presidential electors. That is not a surprise considering that the Committee purposefully looked at only one side of the evidence and included only people who were out to destroy President Trump. Alan Dershowitz’s reaction was interesting in that he relied on the law as the basis for his statement–something the Committee chose not to do.

The article reports:

According to Mr. Dershowitz, the panel operated against the spirit of one of only two civil-liberties provisions in the original Constitution, before the Bill of Rights was added — a ban on “bills of attainder.”

That provision banned Congress from passing indictments of unpopular people by name.

…Mr. Dershowitz, a liberals who twice voted against Mr. Trump but has become a vocal critic of liberal attacks on him, suggested that “the Justice Department should reprimand Congress for even trying to suggest who should be prosecuted.”

He acknowledged, though, that the Justice Department under President Biden would likely not do that.

“I don’t expect it to happen. I would hope it would happen. I do expect that they won’t take it seriously,” he said before outlining what he thought a properly operating non-political Justice Department would do.

“Don’t tell us who to investigate and who to prosecute. You had a kangaroo hearing. One-sided. You didn’t allow a cross-examination. You didn’t allow any adverse witnesses, so don’t expect us to take seriously any recommendations you make about prosecution. The American public should make no conclusions based on this one-sided recommendation and it should ignore it as well,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

It’s “worthless. It’s a worthless piece of paper,” he added.

It’s a shame that taxpayer money was spent on this sham committee. There are a lot of unanswered questions about January 6th (such as the involvement by the FBI, why Speaker Pelosi refused extra security, etc.) that should be explored, but this committee worked very hard not to investigate those questions.

The Truth Matters

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On Thursday, The Washington Times posted an article about the federal trial of Igor Danchenko.

The article reports:

Democratic operative Charles Dolan Jr. testified Thursday that he lied to Igor Danchenko in 2016 when he claimed to have information from a GOP insider about why Paul Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign.

The false claim actually had been pulled from a cable news talking head, Mr. Dolan said at the federal trial of Mr. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was the primary subsource for the so-called Steele dossier.

The accusation ultimately found its way into that salacious unverified dossier of anti-Trump accusations compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and attributed to “an American political figure associated with Donald Trump.”

Let’s look at the consequences of this whole mess. The Steele dossier, which we now know was lies, resulted in the Mueller investigation. That investigation cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Paul Manafort got caught up in that investigation and wound up in prison in solitary confinement charged with bad business practices related to events long before the Trump campaign and mortgage fraud. Not a lot of people charged with bad business practices and mortgage fraud wind up in solitary confinement. That was one of many examples of the politicization of our justice system that had begun under the Obama administration.

The article concludes:

Kevin Helson, an FBI special agent who was Mr. Danchenko’s handler while he was a confidential human source for the bureau, testified that he was struck by the similarities between the Dolan email and what ended up in the Steele dossier.

“It would imply that Chuck Dolan was the source of that information,” he said, adding that he believed Mr. Danchenko provided 80% of the raw intelligence and half of the analysis in the dossier.

On cross-examination, Mr. Helson said Mr. Danchenko didn’t know the information would show up in the Steele dossier until it was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. Mr. Helson said that Mr. Danchenko was angry that the material was used in the dossier.  

The Steele dossier was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. FBI agents used the dossier to help obtain a warrant to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who was suspected of working with Russia.

Mr. Page was never charged with a crime, and no evidence emerged to support claims against him. The dossier was referenced three times when the FBI sought to reauthorize the surveillance warrant.

In 2020, the Justice Department acknowledged that those warrant applications did not meet their necessary legal standards.

This trial is important and has received very little coverage in the mainstream media. Please find alternative news sources and follow what is happening. It illustrates how the Washington establishment attacks anyone who is not part of their club and manages to be elected.

Does This Make Sense?

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On Tuesday, The Washington Times posted an article about vaccine mandates.

The article notes:

The Biden administration allowed hundreds of Afghans from last year’s airlift to disappear into American communities without getting COVID-19 or other vaccinations, an inspector general has revealed.

The information was released as the Biden administration was starting the process to fire government workers who didn’t get the coronavirus shots — including some employees at Homeland Security, the department that allowed the Afghans to go free.

Investigators couldn’t say exactly how many Afghans avoided vaccination. They said the Homeland Security Department reported that fewer than 600 walked away without the shots in the early weeks of the evacuation, but dodgy records made it impossible for the inspector general to evaluate that claim.

Others walked out of military base camps before final clearance — a process that was supposed to ensure they were vaccinated, as well as acclimated to their new homes.

“Some Afghan evacuees independently departed safe havens without completing medical requirements,” the inspector general concluded — though again, because of poor records, it was impossible to say how many evaded the vaccines.

Actually, I am not as concerned about the evacuees that departed safe havens early without completing medical requirements as I am concerned with how many evacuees left before they could be accurately screened for ties to terrorism.

The article notes:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas used his parole powers to clear 77,000 Afghans into the U.S. during the airlift.

The inspector general said 8,600 evacuees never made it to the camps set up to process them at eight military bases in the U.S. Another 11,700 went to the camps but walked off without full processing.

Homeland Security created a task force to try to track down the evacuees who never made it through processing, but even there, the government bungled, the inspector general said. The task force tracked down only Afghans who walked away from Washington Dulles International Airport. It didn’t track down the thousands who went to the military base camps but departed without completing their processing.

Homeland Security insisted the task force was fulfilling the exact mission it was given, but the inspector general said the administration’s documents showed that the task force was supposed to be tracking down everyone.

At the time of the evacuees’ arrival, the U.S. had a near-blanket policy at international airports requiring visitors — those arriving without immigrant visas in hand — to prove they had been vaccinated.

Those who came in on parole, as well as asylum-seekers and refugees, were exempted.

It is an unsettling thought that this many Afghans are roaming around America without having been vetted.

He Said What?!

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On Thursday, The Washington Times posted an article about a recent statement by Dr. Bhavik Kumar, medical director for primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. At a House committee hearing on abortion restrictions, “Examining the Harm to Patients from Abortion Restrictions and the Threat of a National Abortion Ban,” the Doctor was asked if men could become pregnant.

The article reports:

Dr. Bhavik Kumar, medical director for primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, replied in the affirmative after being asked by Rep. Andrew Clyde, Georgia Republican, if men could become pregnant.

“So men can have pregnancies, especially trans men,” Dr. Kumar told the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

The doctor did not elaborate on which cisgender men could become pregnant or how.

Mr. Clyde sought clarification, asking, “So are you saying that a biological female who identifies as a man and therefore becomes pregnant is, quote, a man? Is that what you’re saying?”

Dr. Kumar pushed back, telling him such questions are “really missing the point” at a hearing about abortion, before affirming his response.

“Somebody with a uterus may have the capability of becoming pregnant, whether they’re a woman or a man,” Dr. Kumar said.

Mr. Clyde was unpersuaded. “OK, we’re done. We’re done. This isn’t complicated. Let me tell you, if a person has a uterus and is born female, they are a woman,” he said.

Democrats have struggled with how to define men and women as the transgender rights movement seeks to redefine gender based on self-identification, leading to memorable comments at hearings such as then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson declaring in March that “I’m not a biologist.”

Mr. Clyde, an Iraq and Kuwait combat veteran who owns a firearms business, proceeded to give a biology lesson to Dr. Kumar, a board-certified family medicine physician.

“That is not a man, and the vast majority of the world considers that to be a woman because there are biological differences between men and women,” Mr. Clyde said. “I mean, clearly, any high school biology class teaches that men and women have different chromosomes. Females are XX chromosome and males are XY chromosome. I can’t believe it’s necessary to say this, but men cannot get pregnant and cannot give birth regardless of how they identify themselves.”

Why does an abortion organization need a medical director for primary and trans care? Has planned parenthood branched out?

The party that constantly yells ‘follow the science’ needs to read a basic biology textbook.

 

Coming Here To Give Or To Take?

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America was built by immigrants. Immigrants who came here to work and to build a country and a new life. A lot of the beautiful buildings in our cities were built by foreign craftsmen skilled in brick laying and various other trades. These immigrants came here to work. The early English settlers were often second sons coming to make their way in the new world (according to British inheritance laws, the first son inherited everything). Unfortunately, today’s immigrants are not all coming here to work. Some of them are coming to take advantage of America’s safety net. At some point that net is going to break, but the Biden administration does not seem overly concerned about that.

On Thursday, The Washington Times reported the following:

Homeland Security on Thursday announced it has adopted a new lenient policy on immigrants’ use of welfare, tossing a Trump-era policy that would have been far stricter.

Under the new system, known as the “public charge” rule, immigrants will only be penalized for potential welfare use if the government believes they will eventually become “primarily dependent” on government payments.

By contrast, living in government housing, using Medicaid for health coverage or accepting food stamps wouldn’t count against an immigrant.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the new rule will deliver “fair and humane treatment of legal immigrants.”

“Consistent with America’s bedrock values, we will not penalize individuals for choosing to access the health benefits and other supplemental government services available to them,” he said.

The concept of the public charge rule is that immigrants should be able to pay their own way and not be a burden on Americans. A public charge policy has been in place dating back to the late 1800s.

I am willing to let illegal immigrants access any government benefit they choose AFTER we find homes and whatever treatment is needed for America’s homeless population. I am willing to let illegal immigrants access any government benefit they choose AFTER we have provided all necessary medical and other assistance to America’s veterans. I am willing to let illegal immigrants access any government benefit they choose AFTER we balance the budget and pay off the national debt.

The combination of open borders and a generous social welfare program is a recipe for bankruptcy. Remember that as you evaluate the policies of the Biden administration.

Our Culture Has Fallen, Our Country May Be Next

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There are a lot of signs of a dying republic–high taxes, corruption in high places, lack or basic morality, the end of the middle class, etc. Unfortunately, America currently exhibits all of them. The one I am most concerned about presently is the total cultural rot that has accelerated in America since the mid-1960’s.

On Friday, The Washington Times reported the following:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday she’ll appear on an episode of a popular drag queen show.

Mrs. Pelosi, a California Democrat who represents San Francisco, will make “a special Pride Month appearance” on episode five of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7,” aides said Friday.   

The show is described as “a group of talented drag queens who compete in challenges to impress host RuPaul, the world’s most famous drag queen, to win a cash prize along with a crown and the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.”

The article concludes:

So-called family-friendly drag performances have popped up across the country, including in Dallas, Texas; Palm Beach, Florida; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington to commemorate Pride Month. 

The acts have drawn outrage from critics who say the performances appear sexual and should not be viewed by children. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state’s child endangerment laws could be invoked if there are drag shows for children, although he did not comment specifically on the Palm Beach event.

Mr. DeSantis slammed the Dallas “Drag your kids to pride” event, which took place earlier this month at an adult venue decorated with neon signs laced with sexual innuendo. Video went viral of drag queens dancing with the children and taking money from them.

“That is not something children should be exposed to,” Mr. DeSantis said Thursday. 

Drag entertainment is something that is going to happen, and some people are going to go to it. I understand that. However, I expect more from our so-called political leaders.

If You Believe This…

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On Tuesday, The Washington Times posted an article ‘explaining’ how a “typo” in an email led investigators in 2016 to believe that false allegations linking former President Trump to Russia’s Alfa Bank came from the Department of Justice rather than from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

The article quotes testimony from the trial of Michael Sussmann.

FBI Agent Curtis Heide, who along with agent Allison Sands authored the internal communication, said the inaccuracy, sent out just weeks before the 2016 election, was simply a mistake.

“We may have conflated the Office of the General Counsel and the Justice Department,” Mr. Heide said on the witness stand. “I don’t know how that information got in there.”

On Monday, jurors in the criminal trial of Mr. Sussmann were shown the electronic communication sent in September 2016 by top bureau officials to field agents marking the opening of the case. The communication said the investigation was based on a “referral” from the Justice Department, rather than a tip from Mr. Sussmann.

On Tuesday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog reported the following:

I was skeptical that the Sussman prosecution would tell us much that is new, but some significant nuggets have come out. Like this one: “FBI brass were ‘fired up’ about now-debunked Trump-Russia ties.”

FBI leaders, including then-Director James Comey, were “fired up” about a potential connection between the Trump campaign and Russia — which ultimately was proven false, text messages and court testimony revealed Tuesday.

On Sept. 21, 2016, two days after Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann gave then-FBI General Counsel James Baker info about a supposed digital back channel between the Trump Organization and Moscow-based Alfa Bank, agent Joe Pientka texted colleague Curtis Heide: “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”

So there was zero evidence of any connection between presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Alfa Bank, or any other Russians of note, and all one of Hillary Clinton’s lawyers had to do was waltz into the Bureau with some fabricated “data” and FBI Director James Comey and others were “fired up.” The lust to defeat the interloper Trump and elect Hillary Clinton is palpable.

It’s a shame that they were not nearly so ‘fired up’ over the security problems involved in Hillary Clinton’s secret server.

A Short History Lesson

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is being hailed as the first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. That’s nice. In recent history we also had the first black president. We saw how that worked out (the problems created had nothing to do with the color of his skin–the problems created had to do with his ideas). But about that first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court thing–there needs to be an asterisk next to that statement.

A Washington Times article of February 1, 2022, reminds us of the following:

President Biden wasn’t always a supporter of Black women on the federal bench.

While serving in the Senate, Mr. Biden filibustered the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — twice — before she was finally approved in 2005 after a two-year fight.

His staunch opposition to Judge Brown, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, prompted allegations of hypocrisy after he reiterated last week his vow to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court following Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement.

…A former California Supreme Court justice, Judge Brown was nominated by President George W. Bush and retired from the court in 2017. She was seen as a potential Supreme Court pick for the 2005 opening that was ultimately filled by Justice Samuel Alito.

On Wednesday, Breitbart listed five takaways from Tuesday’s hearing on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

These are the five points, please follow the link to read the entire article:

1. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) nailed Jackson on the “1619 Project,” Critical Race Theory, and her sentencing record.

2. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) exposed the fallacy of Jackson’s professed commitment to “originalism.” 

3. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) fought Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) over terror detainees. 

4. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) showed that Judge Jackson is unwilling to state what a “woman” is.

5. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned Jackson closely about her record on sex offenders.

These are all valid questions that the American people deserve answered.

Do They Get Their Jobs Back Now?

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On Thursday, The Washington Times reported that the Senate voted Wednesday to end the vaccine mandate on health workers at places that receive federal funding. There is serious doubt as to whether the measure will actually get through the House of Representatives (which is controlled by the Democrats), although that may depend on whether or not the Democrats are reading the polls.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court struck down a broader mandate that required large companies to regularly test workers who refuse to get vaccinated. However, the justices upheld the health-worker mandate.

Republicans say the mandate is bad policy because it could lead to staffing shortages at hospitals and punish workers who served on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle for two years and choose to remain unvaccinated.

The GOP is betting that forcing Democrats to defend COVID-19 mandates will help Republicans retake the House and the Senate in November’s elections.

One of the really sad aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic is that both political parties attempted to use to crisis for political gain. There was a time when both parties totally ignored the science. Now we are beginning to see that lives could have been saved if we had pursued early treatment as hard as we pursued a vaccine. We know now that early treatment works. We can’t say the same about the vaccines.

Americans are done with mask and vaccine mandates. I was recently told by a pulmonary specialist that when the masks come off we can expect an uptick in pneumonia cases–not because the masks were protecting us, but because wearing a mask interferes with your natural immunity system. After mask wearing, your immune system is not as strong as it would be without a mask, so you are more prone to illness. That’s not good news for the elderly who have been told to keep wearing their masks. Consider not wearing a mask to be like sending a child out to play in the dirt. The germs the child comes in contact with in playing in the dirt strengthen the child’s immune system. Walking around bare-faced exposes your immune system to germs and strengthens it. Also, the fibers in the mask are not close enough to each other to block virus germs. The masks were to make us feel better and to control us. Medically they were not helpful.

When The Actions Just Don’t Match The Words

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On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about a particularly odd comment in President Biden’s State of the Union address.

The article notes:

President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to call on Congress to “secure the border,” after his administration allowed roughly 1.5 million migrants to pour across the southern border in his first months in office.

This is a direct quote from the speech (via CNN):

And if we are to advance liberty and justice, we need to secure the Border and fix the immigration system.
We can do both. At our border, we’ve installed new technology like cutting-edge scanners to better detect drug smuggling.
We’ve set up joint patrols with Mexico and Guatemala to catch more human traffickers.
We’re putting in place dedicated immigration judges so families fleeing persecution and violence can have their cases heard faster.

We’re securing commitments and supporting partners in South and Central America to host more refugees and secure their own borders.

On December 9, 2021, The Washington Times reported:

If anyone is dismantling the immigration system, it is the Biden administration. While it systematically reversed the most successful border security policies ever created, it has been lying to the American people and projecting its failures onto its predecessors.

Within the first few days of taking office, Biden discontinued the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), better known as the Remain in Mexico program. He ended it even though it was the most successful border security program ever created and resulted in a significant decrease in illegal immigration. Even after officials from the Trump administration, including myself, consulted with his transition teams on multiple occasions about the risks of ending MPP along with the data that show it was a game-changer, Biden dismantled it anyway.

He also ended the Safe Third Country agreements the Trump administration had put in place with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the homelands of a majority of the illegal migrants entering the U.S. This policy was also effective at stemming unlawful immigration into the U.S. and helping to prevent thousands of fraudulent asylum claims. This policy made it possible for migrants who claimed to be fleeing fear and persecution from their home government to claim asylum in the first safe country they entered.  

The Biden administration then dismantled the deportation process by placing a moratorium on all deportations. To end consequences for illegal behavior only brings more illegal behavior. The proof can be seen in the caravans and accelerated flow of migrants since Biden assumed office.  

Securing the border is a really good idea. Americans are being killed not only by the illegal drugs coming across the border, but by illegal aliens driving drunk, and stealing from and assaulting American citizens. President Biden needs to undo the Executive Orders he put in place that have made our country less secure.

The Biden Administration Ignores Another Law

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If President Biden were a Republican, he would have been impeached by now. His administration blatantly ignores laws they do not like. On Tuesday, The Washington Times posted an article citing another example of a law that is being ignored.

The article reports:

The Biden administration is flouting a law that requires it to produce a report on the number of jobs lost by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, in addition to describing how its action may have affected energy costs.

The roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in November included a provision mandating the Department of Energy to produce a report to Congress detailing the impact to American jobs and energy as a result of Mr. Biden’s decision to end the pipeline.

The legislation allowed Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm 90 days to provide the information to Congress. But that Feb. 13 deadline came and went last week with no response from Ms. Granholm, according to several Republican lawmakers who have since pressed for answers.

The article also notes:

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy acknowledged the senators’ letter and added that they “continue to make progress on this report as we prepare to deliver the final version to Congress.” They did not address questions regarding a delivery date and why it had not been disclosed on time.

The Keystone XL pipeline was slated to stretch from Canada to Nebraska, where it would connect with a pipeline that extends to the refineries on the Gulf Coast. It would have been able to carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day.

The multibillion-dollar project was more than a decade in the making, with numerous legal challenges along the way from environmental groups and American Indian tribes, who fiercely opposed the pipeline because of potential harm to the environment. Proponents argued it was a jobs creator that would drive down energy costs.

Keeping a longtime campaign promise, Mr. Biden issued an executive order during the first hours of his presidency that revoked a key permit for construction that had been approved by former President Donald Trump. Mr. Biden’s directive forced the Canadian energy company behind Keystone XL to cancel the project months later, in June 2021.

Does anyone want to start a pool with dates on it guessing when that report will be released? My guess is late January 2024.

If This Stands, It Sets A Dangerous Precedent

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On Tuesday, The Washington Times reported that the families of nine victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have successfully sued Remington Arms for $73 million. According to The Associated Press, the gun used in the attack was the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle, manufactured by Remington Arms.

The article reports:

“This victory should serve as a wake-up call not only to the gun industry, but also the insurance and banking companies that prop it up. For the gun industry, it’s time to stop recklessly marketing all guns to all people for all uses and instead ask how marketing can lower risk rather than court it. For the insurance and banking industries, it’s time to recognize the financial cost of underwriting companies that elevate profit by escalating risk. Our hope is that this victory will be the first boulder in the avalanche that forces that change,” Mr. Koskoff added.

…The families pointed to one of the company’s advertisements that showed the rifle with the phrase, “Consider Your Man Card Reissued,” according to AP.

The gun company had argued that their marketing had nothing to do with the shooting and that federal law gave the gun industry immunity. But the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed under state law.

The article concludes with some legal opinions on the case:

Kenneth Abraham, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said it’s uncommon for settlements to include the release of company documents and for gun manufacturers to be held liable in situations like the Sandy Hook massacre. 

“This is unusual. It may well provide a basis for suits against firearms manufacturers in similar situations in the future,” Mr. Abraham said. 

Nora Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University, said that while the multimillion-dollar settlement is notable, the fact that company information will be shared is important. 

“Many scholars believe that the greatest benefit of public health litigation is the information such litigation can bring to light. Information is critical, as it can help regulators regulate, and it can steer consumers to safer, not shoddier, goods,” she said. “This litigation could end up being important, not just for the precedent it set but for the information it unearthed.”

But Timothy D. Lytton, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, warned that lawsuits like this are still a long shot until the Supreme Court weighs in on the matter. 

“This is not a floodgate story. This is a maintaining momentum story,” Mr. Lytton said, referring to lawyers who bring claims against gunmakers. “These lawsuits are still a long shot.”

To me, this is the equivalent of a family killed by a drunk driver speeding in a sports car suing the car manufacturer. The car is not the problem–the person operating the car is the problem. In the case of Sandy Hook, the gun was not the problem–the person using the gun was the problem. However, this is a legal settlement within the State of Connecticut, so hopefully it will end there.

Disturbing News

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On Sunday, The Washington Times posted an article about the potential invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The article reports:

Americans in Ukraine will be on their own if Russia invades so the U.S. government is advising them to take the earliest commercial flight possible out of the country.

On Sunday, State Department officials said they didn’t know if Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to send tanks across the border but insisted such a move could come “at any time.”

“The U.S. government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency,” a senior State Department official told reporters in a briefing. “Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine will severely impact the U.S. embassy’s ability to provide consular assistance.”

So why aren’t we providing military flights to get Americans out of the country now? The government has issued a “do not travel” advisory because of the coronavirus, but has not ordered American citizens to leave the country.

The article concludes:

Although repeatedly pressed by reporters in Sunday’s briefing, State Department officials wouldn’t say how many U.S. citizens are believed to be in Ukraine.

“It’s a number we are not able to share because we don’t have a solid number (and) it’s not ‘helpful’ to share estimated numbers,” an official said.

U.S. officials wouldn’t comment on British reports that Russia is planning to invade and replace Ukraine’s government in Kyiv with one that could be controlled by Moscow.

“We’re very concerned about attempts to destabilize (Ukraine) internally,” the State Department official said. “We have been concerned and have been warning about those kinds of tactics for weeks. That is very much part of the Russian playbook.”

Remember when America was respected around the world to the point that our citizens were not in danger when they were in other countries?

I heard an interesting commentary on this situation on Saturday. There are well-informed people who believe that Russia is simply posturing in order to get more favorable trade agreements. I have no idea if that is true, but I like that idea much better than the idea of going to war.

 

 

Our Tax Dollars At Work

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the government spending related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The article reports:

The federal government’s coronavirus spending spree turned out to be a snow job — literally.

One Utah county spent more than $200,000 of its COVID-19 cash to make snow on a hill for sledding.

Auditors said Uintah County bought six snow guns at $20,000 each, along with snowcats and pipes, and paid $3,000 in shipping costs, all authorized by a single county commissioner. Local politicians told the Uintah Basin Standard they were coming up on a deadline to either use the cash or give it back to the state, so they needed a reason to spend. And they decided on snow.

Sen. Joni Ernst on Monday dedicated her December “Squeal Award,” which highlights ridiculous government waste, to Uintah and other state and local governments that found creative Christmas-style ways to waste COVID-19 money.

That includes Connecticut, where West Haven city officials spent federal coronavirus money on Christmas decorations.

The CT Mirror said Christmas wasn’t the only holiday city officials blessed with federal cash. They also rented a 20-person band to march in the Memorial Day parade with $7,000 of Uncle Sam’s money.

The article concludes:

A number of states used money to run tourism campaigns.

Auditors in local governments reported money allocated to holiday ornaments or bonuses to employees, both of which seemed at odds with the intention of the funds.

Ms. Ernst, in her Squeal Award, said at a time when Americans are facing soaring inflation and struggling to buy Christmas presents, it’s unseemly for governments to blow taxpayer dollars on boondoggles.

“There are too many struggling families and small business owners who are desperately trying to survive while untold amounts are being squandered because of inadequate guidance and oversight,” the senator said.

One of the COVID-19 projects Ms. Ernst exposed Monday involved plans by the town of Westfield, New Jersey, to buy 2,000 tote bags emblazoned with “Shop Local, Shop Safe, Shop Westfield.” The point was to encourage people to patronize local businesses struggling amid the pandemic during last year’s Christmas season.

But the bags weren’t actually distributed before Christmas.

Months later, they were discovered in unopened boxes in a warehouse, Ms. Ernst said.

Wasteful spending is neither a Republican nor a Democrat problem–both parties are guilty. We need American voters to keep track of what their representatives vote for and boot out the representatives that support wasteful spending. Inflation is a byproduct of wasteful spending. If we can get spending under control, we at least have a chance of getting inflation under control.

Shouldn’t We Be Alarmed At This?

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On Thursday American Greatness posted an article about a recent statement by President Biden about Israel’s Six-Day War.

The article reports:

Either Joe Biden’s faulty memory or his lifelong habit of padding his resume was on display Wednesday during a menorah lighting at the White House in celebration of Hanukkah.

During his remarks before the lighting, Biden bragged about “the many times” he’d been to Israel, and then decided to alter history and insert himself as an important player in the Six-Day War.

“I have known every — every prime minister well since Golda Meir, including Golda Meir,” Biden said to applause. “And during the Six-Day War, I had an opportunity to — she invited me to come over because I was going to be the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez, and so on and so forth.”

This would be an impressive story, except Meir wasn’t Israel’s prime minister during the Six Day War of 1967 (she was PM from March 17, 1969 to June 3, 1974), and Biden was still in law school at the time, (where he ranked a dismal 76th in his class of 85).

Golda Meir became Prime Minister in 1969. Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister from 1963 to 1969.

The article at American Greatness quotes a National Review article from December 2 of this year.

The National Review article reports:

Biden did indeed meet Golda Meir in 1973 — six years after the Six Day War — but that is . . . not how the Israelis remember that meeting, at least according to a contemporaneous classified Israeli memo from that time:

Biden warned that Israel’s actions in the territories it had captured during the Six Day War, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were leading to “creeping annexation.”

Since he believed Israel was militarily dominant in the region, he suggested the Jewish state might initiate a first step for peace through unilateral withdrawals from areas with no strategic importance.

The official said Biden criticized the Nixon administration for being “dragged by Israel,” complaining that it was impossible to have a real debate in the Senate about the Middle East as senators were fearful of saying things unpopular with Jewish voters.

Meir rejected Biden’s call for unilateral steps, launching into a speech about the region and its problems (possibly the spiel Biden alluded to in his own comments years later).

The official added his own personal impressions regarding the young senator at the bottom of the document, saying Biden was full of respect toward the Israeli leader and repeatedly said he had come to learn, “and yet while speaking displayed a fervor and made comments that signaled his lack of diplomatic experience.”

In August 2021, The Washington Times reported:

You have to give President Biden credit for consistency. Unfortunately, he has been consistently wrong. As Robert Gates, former defense secretary in the Obama administration, once put it, Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Unfortunately President Biden is the person currently leading our country.

Does Your Government Work For You?

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about President Biden’s $1.75 trillion expansion of the federal safety net.

The article reports:

An analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, estimates that President Biden’s $1.75 trillion expansion of the federal safety net could kill more than 103,000 jobs over the next decade and add $750 billion to the federal deficit.

The estimate is based on a thorough analysis of the White House’s spending “framework” and the corresponding 1,684-page bill text released by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. Experts from the Tax Foundation say the proposal would fall far short of White House promises.

“We estimate that the House bill would reduce long-run economic output by nearly 0.4% and eliminate about 103,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the United States,” the experts wrote. “It would also reduce average after-tax incomes for the top 80 percent of taxpayers over the long run.”

It should be shouted everywhere that according to a CNBC article posted in August 2021, more than 100 million U.S. households, or 61% of all taxpayers, paid no federal income taxes last year, according to a report from the Tax Policy Center. Think about that for a minute. If you are not paying taxes, why should you care how much the government is spending or how much the government is planning to raise taxes? This is not a good situation.

The article at The Washington Times concludes:

Mr. Biden is backing a 5% “wealth tax” on those with adjusted gross income above $10 million. The figure jumps to 8% on adjusted gross income over $25 million.

“I can’t think of a single time when the middle class has done well but the wealthy haven’t done very well,” Mr. Biden said. “I can think of many times, including now, when the wealthy and the superwealthy do very well and the middle class doesn’t do well.”

Despite the rhetoric, Tax Foundation economists say, the provisions would affect all workers by killing more than 29,000 jobs.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The report was released one day after Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, accused his colleagues of engaging in “budget gimmicks” to hide the true cost of the spending package.

“As more of the real details outlined … what I see are shell games and budget gimmicks that make the real cost of this so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be twice as high,” he said. “That is a recipe for economic crisis. None of us should ever misrepresent to the American people what the real cost of legislation is.”

Actually, the middle class did very well during the Trump administration. Trump administration policies helped increase the number of Americans in the middle class.

Does anyone remember the Luxury Tax of 1990.

On September 10, 2011, The American Enterprise Institute posted the following:

Flashback:Wall Street Journal editorial on January 6, 2003

“Most Americans celebrated as the ball fell in Times Square New Year’s Eve. But for auto dealers this new year is especially sweet. January 1 marked the expiration of the federal luxury tax on cars, the last vestige of the destructive luxury tax package in the infamous 1990 budget deal.

Starting in 1991, Washington levied a 10% luxury tax on cars valued above $30,000, boats above $100,000, jewelry and furs above $10,000 and private planes above $250,000. Democrats like Ted Kennedy and then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell crowed publicly about how the rich would finally be paying their fair share and privately about convincing President George H.W. Bush to renounce his “no new taxes” pledge.

But it wasn’t long before even these die-hard class warriors noticed they’d badly missed their mark. The taxes took in $97 million less in their first year than had been projected — for the simple reason that people were buying a lot fewer of these goods. Boat building, a key industry in Messrs. Mitchell and Kennedy’s home states of Maine and Massachusetts, was particularly hard hit. Yacht retailers reported a 77% drop in sales that year, while boat builders estimated layoffs at 25,000. With bipartisan support, all but the car tax was repealed in 1993, and in 1996 Congress voted to phase that out too. January 1 was disappearance day.

The end of any federal tax is such a rarity that it’s well worth celebrating. And the luxury tax lesson of economic damage is worth keeping in mind as politicians begin to wail that President Bush’s new tax proposals aren’t punitive enough on the rich.”

HT: Pete Friedlander

The recession that followed the 1990 luxury tax cost President George H.W. Bush re-election. The Democrats might want to keep that in mind.

 

Removing The Policy That Worked

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The Washington Times is reporting that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is seeking to cancel the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” border policy.

The article reports:

The move comes even as Mr. Mayorkas is trying to restart the program under a federal judge’s injunction.

In a lengthy memo, the Department of Homeland Security said the U.S. cannot assure the safety of people it pushes back across the border under the policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, and the government doesn’t want to spend the money needed to improve conditions in Mexico.

I realize that there is a humanitarian element to this, but we are not responsible for the people that are ‘pushed’ back across the border. That is like saying that if someone breaks into your house and you manage to get them out of your house you are responsible for their safety on the street. No. These people are breaking the law and coming into our country illegally. We owe them nothing except possibly a trip home. President Trump had the right idea in trying to help improve conditions in the countries the migrants are coming from. Until the corruption and lawlessness in these countries is dealt with, there is no point in sending the countries financial aid–it will only add to the corruption and lawlessness. However, if we can put strings on any financial assistance, we may actually be able to help some of the poorer countries in South America and Central America. Meanwhile, we simply do not have the resources to support the entire western hemisphere.

The article concludes:

But immigrant-rights groups said some legitimate asylum-seekers were pushed back and faced kidnappings, robberies and other abuse while waiting in Mexico.

The Biden administration had halted MPP (Migrant Protection Protocols) early in its tenure, and Mr. Mayorkas issued a memo in the spring attempting to cancel it altogether. But a federal judge in Texas ruled he cut too many corners.

In particular, the judge said Homeland Security in the Trump years had conducted a review of the program and found it to be a critical border tool. Canceling the program required more than Mr. Mayorkas‘ cursory dismissal of those findings, the judge said.

The judge ordered the program restarted, and the Biden team says it is negotiating with Mexico to do that — even as it works to undermine the program legally.

The new memo canceling the program runs to 39 pages of justification, arguing MPP is a misuse of resources at a time when the Biden team is trying to erase most of the Trump immigration legacy.

Mr. Mayorkas has promised a new system that he said will erase the incentives for illegal immigration while protecting legitimate asylum cases.

The thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between legitimate asylum and economic migration. Economic migrants need to work to find a way to improve conditions in their home countries. I realize that in many of these countries, corruption and lawlessness are a problem, but until someone stands up to the problem, it will continue to exist.

Policies Matter

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One of the successes of the Trump administration was the growth of small business and the growth of the middle class during his administration. There were a lot of reasons for that growth–the corporate tax cut caused all businesses to grow and the elimination of a lot of government regulation gave small and large businesses freedom to grow. The elimination of red tape took some of the load off of businessmen trying to start or grow a business. Unfortunately, the Biden administration seems to be blindly determined to undo anything the Trump administration did regardless of whether or not the Trump policies actually helped Americans and the American economy.

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the Biden administration’s plans for businesses in America.

The article reports:

President Biden accelerated the regulatory state on his first day in office by ordering agencies to consider aspirational but vaguely defined goals and benefits when imposing new rules on businesses large and small.

The order greenlighting regulations even when the benefits “are difficult or impossible to quantify” sent shudders down the spines of CEOs. They fear business growth will be smothered in pursuit of vague objectives such as “human dignity” and “the interests of future generations.”

“It is the most aggressive thing I’ve ever seen by an administration,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a right-leaning economic think tank. “It’s one thing to put out a bunch of regulations, but this changes the way regulation is done. It allows you to jam through any regulation you want regardless of the impact [on] the private sector.”

The order, which tosses out the government’s traditional cost-benefit analysis before approving a regulation, is among a slew of executive actions Mr. Biden has signed to curb the power of businesses.

Mr. Biden‘s regulations provide a road map for his plans to transform business and what he sees as anti-competitive business practices. Without the regulations, Mr. Biden said, businesses can stifle competition, raise prices and limit consumer choice. The regulations are also designed to give workers more power to demand higher wages and mobility, the president has said.

The article concludes with an example:

Mr. Holtz-Eakin sees it differently. He said the red tape combined with the administration’s rhetoric has created a “negative business environment.” He views Mr. Biden‘s talk and actions as a two-pronged approach to getting business to bend to the administration’s will.

Last month, Mr. Biden‘s agriculture secretary and top economic adviser accused the meat industry of illegal price-fixing and blamed it for soaring food prices. They vowed to investigate and restrict the industry in the name of protecting consumers.

An industry trade group accused the administration of scapegoating meat producers. It said the prices increased because of a nationwide labor shortage.

“I think that was relatively unprecedented,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin (Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum) said of the attack on the meat industry. “There have been other industries singled out by presidents, but that one was a surprise.”

What we need to be aware of is the fact that the Biden administration is moving us away from private enterprise to government control of businesses. It’s not a good direction to be headed. The only solution to this is to elect conservatives to Congress in 2022 and elect either President Trump of Governor DeSantis as President in 2024. Otherwise we will probably be a socialist country within five years.

The Dangers Of Incomplete Vetting

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about Chasib Hafedh Saadoon Al Fawadi, who entered the United States in 2016 when President Obama was resettling refugees from the Middle East. The problem is that Al Fawadi was a former member of an Iranian-funded Shiite militia.

The article reports:

Al Fawadi won refugee status for himself and his family by claiming he’d been persecuted by Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq for refusing to help them kidnap Sunni Muslims.

In fact, he has since admitted in court, he actually joined up with the militia, which American authorities say is funded by Iran and is known for its violent attacks on U.S. troops and for kidnapping Iraqis and Westerners alike.

“Al Fawadi lied to U.S. authorities to conceal his membership in, and support of, an Iranian-backed militia that has carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria,” Antoinette “Toni” Bacon, the acting U.S. attorney for northern New York, said when the charges were first brought last year.

Al Fawadi entered a guilty plea in the federal fraud case last week. He still faces first-degree rape charges in New York.

U.S. authorities have long struggled with vetting of migrants fleeing countries afflicted by terrorism and sectionalist violence.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, investigators are probing reports of men assaulting a female soldier at one Afghan holding center in New Mexico, and prosecutors have charged two men with sex crimes at another center in Wisconsin.

One of those men stands accused of beating his wife.

Al Fawadi, the Iraqi refugee, faces his own charges of raping and choking his wife, according to an indictment from Onondaga County, New York.

She also filed for divorce and won a decree last October.

According to court documents he applied for refugee status for himself and his family while in Turkey in 2015. They were approved and resettled a year later, among 9,880 Iraqis who were admitted to the U.S. in 2016.

In the just-ended fiscal year 2021, only about 500 Iraqi refugees were admitted, with most coming after Mr. Biden took office and vowed to increase refugees.

We need to understand something here. Regardless of past associations with the militia groups, the refugees we are importing do not live according to American social standards. They are coming from a culture where beating your wife or raping a women who they feel is inappropriately dressed is appropriate. We are allowing them to come here in such large numbers that assimilation will be difficult. If the Biden refugee policies continue, we can expect to see a spike in crimes against women in America by these refugees. Where are the feminists?

One Foreign Policy Consequence Of Afghanistan

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On Thursday Bill Gertz posted an article at The Washington Times reporting that as Afghanistan falls, China is already flexing its muscles against Taiwan.

The article reports:

China’s military stepped up flights of H-6 bombers near the southeastern tip of Taiwan, triggering air defense forces of the island state, the Taiwan defense ministry said Thursday.

The H-6 bomber incursion is the latest military demonstration by the People’s Liberation Army that also conducted large-scale war games near Taiwan this week and stepped-up propaganda criticizing both Taipei and Washington.

Two days ago, the PLA flew two H-6K bombers — those equipped for conducting long-range missile strikes — into the Taiwan air defense zone, along with several other warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft, including six J-16 jet fighters. The H-6 dispatched on Thursday was not identified by its variant letter.

The Taiwanese ministry said on its website that interceptor aircraft were launched and air defense missile systems were deployed in response to both bomber incursions. The bombers also were warned in radio communications, the ministry said.

The bomber flights come as China carried out large-scale, live-fire war games near Taiwan this week that the state media in Beijing said was directed at growing U.S.-Taiwan bilateral cooperation.

The article concludes:

In response to renewed Chinese saber-rattling and questions about American reliability, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said her country’s “only option is to grow stronger and become more united, strengthening our determination to protect ourselves. It is not our option to do nothing and only rely on others for protection.”

In a related development, the South China Morning Post reported this week that China is building an airport along the coast opposite Taiwan.

The airport will be built on reclaimed land between two islands and, once completed, could put Chinese military aircraft closer to Taiwan across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

Stay tuned.

Making Up The Rules As You Go Along

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On June 7th, CBN News reported the following:

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. due to humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents if they entered the country illegally. 

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.  

The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times reported the following yesterday:

The Department of Homeland Security will speed up work permits for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who claim they are victims of crime, the department announced Monday, saying the current wait, which can last up to five years, is too long to make people remain in economic limbo.

More than 160,000 people were waiting for the victim visa, officially known as the U visa, as of December.

Under the new rules, U visa applicants can be awarded work permits and deferred action, which is an official amnesty for deportation, once they have filed their petition, had their fingerprints taken and are deemed to have made a good-faith claim. The process is known as a Bona Fide Determination. Until now, they had to wait until their cases were further along in the process.

And we wonder why our borders are being flooded? All you have to do as an illegal immigrant is say that you are a victim of a crime and you will get a visa that allows you to work and live here indefinitely. I suspect that when their cases come up, many illegals will simply vanish into the general population, work legally or illegally, and go on with their lives. Meanwhile, American taxpayer will be paying to educate their children and provide for their medical needs. A nation cannot survive this sort of invasion. It will collapse the safety net. Please research Cloward-Piven if you have not already done so.

Ending Policies That Work

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about one of the Trump administration  policies that has been eliminated by the Biden administration.

The article reports:

President Trump gave an unprecedented voice to victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, creating an office in ICE to highlight their plight.

The Biden administration on Friday announced a new policy to expand the office’s purview in a way that victims say drowns out their voice.

What Mr. Trump dubbed the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office (VOICE) is now being changed to the Victims Engagement and Services Line, and it will handle calls from anyone who claims to be a victim, no matter what their immigration status or the status of the perpetrator.

And it will specialize in helping illegal immigrants who say they are victims of crimes get special visas to stay in the country.

The article also reports:

In addition to helping immigrants get U and T visas, which give legal status to illegal immigrant victims of certain crimes and human trafficking, respectively, the new office also will serve as a hotline for immigrants in detention to complain of their treatment.

The office also will serve as a notification system for immigration court cases.

Don Rosenberg, whose son was killed in a traffic collision by an illegal immigrant, said the lack of any focus on crimes committed by illegal immigrants was “conspicuous.”

“It is not ICE or the Department of Homeland Security’s function to ‘help’ illegal aliens,” Mr. Rosenberg, who is president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime, told The Washington Times. “This new office is another outrageous violation of our immigration laws and another ‘service’ to allow illegal aliens to remain in America.”

Mr. Trump gave victims and their relatives like Mr. Rosenberg an unprecedented voice in public policy. First as a candidate and then as president, Mr. Trump repeatedly met with them, invited them on stage at events and gave them a platform to highlight an often untold side of the immigration debate.

The article concludes:

Jon Feere, who served as chief of staff at ICE during the Trump administration, said the VOICE office was able to provide information about illegal immigrant perpetrators to victims. He said that’s important for victims trying to follow court cases and make sure people are brought to justice.

He said it’s not clear whether ICE will continue that service under the new VESL system.

“It was a well-functioning, apolitical, victim-centered office that did a lot of good in providing a needed resource,” Mr. Feere said. “This is a completely unnecessary change that trashes years of branding and outreach by career officials. If the Biden administration cared about victims, it would not have done this.”

Mr. Feere, now director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies, said with more criminal immigrants being released rather than deported by the Biden administration, there’s a pressing need for the work the VOICE office does.

Who is the Biden administration working for?

Were Lives Lost Because Of Politics And Greed?

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I think it’s time to ask if the political games the media played during the Trump administration and the conflict of interest in some members of the National Institute of Health resulted in the deaths of Americans. Hot Air posted an article today about s recent study on the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat Covid patients.

The article reports:

For most of us, the whole controversy over the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 patients seemed mostly political in nature and less so about the drug’s effectiveness. Once Donald Trump came out in support of it, the gloves came off. At least half of the country decided that HCQ was not a scientific treatment for the coronavirus because the bad Orange Man was an anti-science president. Never mind that it was Trump who expedited the vaccine process to historic speed with Operation Warp Speed. He put together a White House coronavirus task force before many people (especially on the left) were willing to acknowledge the pandemic that originated in China. When Trump announced that he was taking HCQ himself, he was roundly mocked. Nevertheless, others in the medical community studied the use of the drug during the pandemic and found some positive results.

The article notes that hydroxychloroquine costs under $10 for the course of a COVID-19 treatment and the drug being promoted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) during the Trump administration, remdesivir, costs about $3,500 per treatment. Hydroxychloroquine has been used for years with known side effects. The side effects of remdesivir are unknown.

The article suggests we follow the money and continues with the following excerpt from The Washington Times:

Although, many doctors around the world were finding success with HCQ, in February 2020 NIH started enrolling patients for a remdesivir COVID-19 trial, with Dr. Fauci overseeing its progress. He had the final say on all the press releases, and presumably was working closely with Gilead. On April 16 something funny happened with the trial — the endpoints of it were quietly changed and updated on the clinicaltrials.gov website. Instead of evaluating remdesivir’s ability to prevent death from COVID-19, the study was redesigned to evaluate how fast a patient recovered from remdesivir.

…On May 1, the NIH’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines panel members granted emergency use of remdesivir and stated HCQ could only be used in hospitals or in studies. Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson found 11 members of that panel had financial ties to Gilead. Two were on Gilead’s advisory board, others were paid consultants or received research support and honoraria. None of the members, however, had ties to HCQ, which is made by numerous generic manufacturers, and “is so cheap, analysts say even a spike in sales would not be a financial driver for the companies,” Ms. Attkisson reported.

Ms. Attkisson also found one of the authors of a small Veterans Administration trial that claimed HCQ caused increased deaths received a $247,000 grant from Gilead in 2018.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

You may remember that when Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19, he was treated with remdesivir and did, indeed, experience a speedy recovery. By the way, Gilead spent $2.45 million in the first quarter of 2020 lobbying the federal government.

The results of the latest study showing success with HCQ in patient recovery time for those on a ventilator is very encouraging. Perhaps the Follow the Science people should practice what they preach. How many lives were lost because of tunnel vision?

This is disgusting. All of the members of the NIH who had ties to Gilead should be fired. Lives were lost because they were greedy.