Dozens of House Democrats joined Republicans on Thursday to pass legislation that would prevent the Biden administration from selling any more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to China or Chinese-owned companies. The House easily passed the bill in an 331-97 vote. Every Republican voted for it, and 113 Democrats — more than half of the House Democratic Caucus — joined the GOP.
It was the second vote this week that saw large numbers of Democrats help House Republicans pass legislation. Two days earlier, more than two-thirds of House Democrats voted with Republicans to create a committee to address U.S. strategic competition with China.
The bill was brought up by Republicans after the Biden administration’s decision last year to sell nearly 1 million barrels of oil from the SPR to Unipec America, a U.S.-based company owned by China. The Department of Energy announced that sale in April, and Republicans warned on the House floor that it makes no sense to deliver vast energy resources to entities controlled by America’s largest competitor.
“America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant for true energy supply disruptions, like those caused by hurricanes and natural disasters, not to help China,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the new Congress.
House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, passed legislation on Thursday that would prevent Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales to China. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Draining our strategic reserves for political purposes and selling portions of it to China is a significant threat to our national security,” she said. “The administration is not just hurting our own ability to respond to emergencies and national security events, they are actively bolstering the oil reserves of our most dangerous geopolitical adversary: the Chinese Communist Party.”
The Biden administration has released more than 200 million barrels from the SPR to ease rising energy prices in the U.S. over the last year, and McMorris Rodgers said those releases were designed to “cover up his failed policies driving our energy and inflation crises.”
She added that some of the oil that was not sold directly to Chinese-owned entities ended up in China’s hands.
“As we know, much of that oil went to China because our refineries and pipelines are full. It now has nowhere to go here,” McMorris Rodgers said. “Millions more barrels went to overseas traders who eventually sent it to China. We also know that China is ramping up its purchases of crude oil from Russia and the U.S. to boost its own reserves.”
President Biden has overseen a historic reduction of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
The bill says the energy secretary shall not sell SPR reserves to any entity under the control of the Chinese government, “except on the condition that such petroleum products will not be exports to the People’s Republic of China.”
While most Democrats voted for the bill, the debate featured only Democrats who tried to dismiss it by saying sales to China are the GOP’s fault because congressional Republicans in 2015 lifted the long-standing ban on crude oil.
“As a result, our exports of crude oil to China surged, averaging a half billion every day during the last year of the Trump administration,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.
Republicans countered that this policy change happened under the Obama administration, when Republicans were working with that administration to “unleash American energy” and export it around the world. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said that plan continued under President Donald Trump, under which “record production” of energy took place.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the new Congress, and urged lawmakers to pass her bill to stop Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales to China. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
However, Guthrie said this has changed under the Biden administration and during the last two years of the Democratic Congress, which have been pushing to reduce energy production even as they support record withdrawals from the SPR.
“The problem we’re facing today is because of President Biden and the Democrats’ in Congress war on American oil,” Guthrie said. “That’s the problem we’re here to address.”
SPR reserves have remained well above 600 million barrels since the turn of the century, but fell below that level in early 2022 as the Biden administration began selling off reserves. The reserve level fell below 400 million barrels late last year.
Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.
A college soccer player allegedly punished by her coach for refusing to kneel in support of the Black Lives Matter movement has won a settlement worth $100,000.
Kiersten Hening, a former soccer player with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, will receive at least $100,000 as part of a recently reached settlement, according to reports.
At issue was the reported harassment she received from Virginia Tech Hokies soccer coach Charles “Chugger” Adair when she refused to kneel when a “unity statement” was read during a game against the University of Virginia in 2020. Hening claimed that Adair verbally abused her for refusing to kneel during the statement, benched the starting player and even pressured her to leave the team as a result.
According to the court documents cited by Fox News, while Hening “supports social justice and believes that black lives matter,” she “does not support BLM the organization,” expressing opposition over the organization’s “tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police.”
The settlement didn’t include an admission of wrongdoing from either side.
For his part, Adair posted a statement to Twitter last week claiming victory, saying that he was “pleased that the case against me has been closed and I am free to move forward clear of any wrongdoing.”
“The people I care about and whose opinions to me matter know the truth. They know my coaching decisions are based purely on getting our team in a position to win,” Adair continued.
“Hening was starting in a different position and had been replaced by a player who also stood during the ACC Unity Statement. It’s unfortunate, but this ordeal was about a disappointment and a disagreement about playing time.”
Adam Mortara, an attorney who represented Hening, responded to the tweeted statement by noting, “Kiersten Hening was benched for her free speech and you paying a giant settlement proves it.”
“If by clarity you mean you are paying my client six figures in a settlement then you’re right that’s pretty clear. Honestly, Coach, read the Court’s opinion. You are paying. Defendants don’t pay in cases that have no standing,” Mortara tweeted.
In March 2021, Hening filed a complaint against Adair in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Roanoke Division, accusing the coach of punishing her for her political views.
“Hening’s coach is a state actor,” read the complaint. “Hening’s refusal to kneel is protected by the First Amendment. … The Constitution gives college students like Hening ‘the right to be free from [such] retaliation’ for their protected expression.”
“As a result of her coach’s actions, Hening can no longer play the game she loves, despite having two more years of NCAA eligibility. This Court should vindicate Hening’s constitutional rights and award her legal and equitable relief.”
Last month, U.S. District Judge Thomas T. Cullen issued a memorandum opinion in which he denied Adair’s motion for summary judgment and allowed the lawsuit to proceed to trial.
“The court concludes that there is sufficient evidence in the record supporting Hening’s claim that Adair’s actions, whatever his motives, adversely affected her First Amendment rights,” wrote Cullen.
Cullen also rejected Adair’s attempt to use qualified immunity, or the legal doctrine that says government officials are not liable for violating an individual’s rights unless it was a clearly established constitutional right or statute.
Cullen wrote, “it has long been the law that state officials cannot retaliate against individuals or groups, including college students, for exercising their First Amendment rights.”
The Roanoake Times reports that before the settlement, the school claimed it would present evidence showing that two other players also declined to kneel but were not met with any negative consequences.
“Coach Adair’s explanations have been consistent — Hening’s play contributed to his decision for a line-up change,” the university’s lawyers argued in court filings cited by The Times.
Hening contends that she had started since her freshman year, and there was no reason to explain why she spent more time on the bench after she refused to kneel.
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A Las Vegas family is mourning the loss of a teenager who died “suddenly and unexpectedly” after suffering from cardiac arrest. Jordan Brister, 17, was at school on Jan. 3 when he experienced sudden cardiac arrest. He was found inside one of the school’s bathrooms after gym class, his family told KSNV-TV. School officials provided lifesaving support, and Brister was transported to a nearby hospital. But he died on Sunday, five days after his medical emergency.
“The Brister family has suffered a tremendous loss, a loss none of them were prepared for,” the GoFundMe explains. “Jordan Tyler Brister suddenly and unexpectedly suffered cardiac arrest while at school with no explanation as to why.”
Brister’s mother, Savanna, said in a statement that her son planned to join the military.
Jordan was a selfless, respectful, Southern gentleman who was kind to everyone. He was witty and charming. He wanted to join the military to become a para rescue jumper to save others. In the end, he saved others through donation of organs, so his dream was somewhat fulfilled. He was a wise, older brother who cared deeply for his brother and sister. Jordan was truly everything you could ask for and more. He had a heart of gold.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office is investigating Brister’s death. An official cause of death has not yet been announced.
High school student found unresponsive remembered with honor walk at Las Vegas hospital www.youtube.com
Brister’s sudden medical emergency happened just two days before another Las Vegas teenager, 16-year-old Ashari Hughes, suddenly died after she suffered a “medical emergency” while playing a game of flag football.
The corner said Hughes “died from anomalous origin of the right coronary artery from left coronary sinus of valsalva,” KVVU-TV reported. The death was reportedly declared “natural.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
When young people die, Leftists say they died from SADS: sudden adult death syndrome. Here’s the reason:
Leftists love their euphemisms, and SADS works out perfectly when you don’t want to admit that people died from a big Covid lie. In this case, the lie of the vaccines. With everything we now know about vaccine deaths and vaccine injuries, no one should be surprised that Moderna, Pfizer, and their financial enablers wanted the data about deaths and injuries hidden for 75 years.
The recent heart attack suffered by Damar Hamblin illuminated the need for investigation in this mess. While Leftists scumbags promoted these death pokes as “safe and effective”, others sounded the alarm bell.
Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rogers spoke out against vaccinations. In light of what happened to Hamblin, you can bet that he feels vindicated. However, there are many examples of great athletes who suffered mightily after getting the jab.
Little coverage was given to 38-year-old pro-vax ex-Baltimore Raven Uche Nwaneri. The former offensive lineman collapsed in the bedroom of his wife’s home in West Lafayette, and he never recovered. The cause of his collapse was an “enlarged heart with acute heart failure.” Sound familiar? For those who wonder if his death was Covid-vaccine-related, check out this tweet from Nwaneri:
I wonder if his family realizes who the “stupid ass” is now?
The “dewormer” works and the vaccine kills. But don’t expect much media coverage on the death of this outspoken vaxxer. In fact, as I read multiple articles about his untimely SADS death, I saw nothing about his death being related to Covid.
This despite Nwaneri’s obvious mocking of the unvaxxed in his tweet.
What professional athletes do you know who die at the age of 38 and from issues we know to be those from which people die from after taking Covid vaccines? “Enlarged heart with acute heart failure.”
Nwaneri fell for the BS of Anthony Fauci and his boss Joe Biden. His death is on their hands.As for Hamblin, his NFL career is over. And he too has Fauci, Biden, et al to blame for this.
But how many other non-descript people’s lives have been ruined, all because Leftists don’t have the balls to tell the truth about Covid vaccines?
While House Democrats’ first act of the 118th Congress was to demand a vote on their unsuccessful abortion up-until-birth in all 50 states legislation, House Republicans, keen to defend the nation’s most vulnerable, committed to using their newfound majority to pass two pro-life measures.
Neither of the legislative acts limits abortion in any way as the GOP’s previously proposed 15-week abortion ban would have done. Yet, Democrats and their allies in the corrupt corporate media, still reeling from the end of Roe v. Wade, shunned the legislation and smeared Republicans for daring to use their congressional power to curb Democrats’ abortion for all agenda.
“House Republicans turn their attention to restricting abortion rights,” the Washington Post wrote.
“Republican-controlled House pushes for new abortion restrictions,” the Guardian reported.
“House Republicans Are Already Voting On Anti-Abortion Bills As GOP Eyes Even More Restrictions,” one Forbes headline blared.
The first, a bill dubbed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, doesn’t just seek to mandate life-saving medical care and legal protection for babies who survive botched abortions. The legislation also criminalizes abortionists’ failure to administer proper care and treatment for infants who are born alive.
The GOP’s belief that “Every baby is a precious life that must be protected,” however, was not shared by their Democrat colleagues. Instead of agreeing with Republicans’ attempts to give newborns who survive abortions proper care, Democrats defended the gruesome act of dismembering a delivered baby. Despite claiming the bill is unwarranted because infanticide is illegal, talking heads and leftist mouthpieces smeared the legislation as “extremist, dangerous, and unnecessary” and committed to obeying Democrat leadership’s orders to vote against it.
Democrat Sheila Jackson defends partial birth abortions, in which the abortionist “deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until…the entire fetal head is outside the mother’s body” before snipping the baby’s neck.
The second GOP-led action is a resolution designed to condemn the more than 100 attacks, firebombings, and violent acts of vandalism that plagued pregnancy centers, churches, and other pro-life organizations following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
Additionally, the resolution urges the Biden administration, the FBI, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the politicized Department of Justice, which focused on targeting peaceful pro-life protestors instead of violent pro-abortion vandalists, to “take action now to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
“Who could be opposed to that?” the resolution’s proponent Rep. Mike Johnson asked from the House floor on Wednesday.
My @HouseGOP resolution on the floor today is simple and important.
Congress must condemn the recent attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches following the Dobbs decision. pic.twitter.com/brCe2l7JJE
Yet, Democrats were more than willing to brush off the history of political violence against pro-lifers in exchange for pushing more support for abortion.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D), arguing against a resolution condemning attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers:
"We have to make sure that people who are pro-life and pro-people who support abortion rights, and we support life, are included in opposing violence." pic.twitter.com/9uwhISGUlJ
Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe last summer, pro-life laws all around the nation have saved more than 10,000 lives. Despite House Republicans’ best efforts to pass pro-life legislation on the national level to expand life-saving measures, the Democrat-controlled Senate does not plan to advance the legislation.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
As different states and municipalities across the country adopt ranked-choice voting, it’s become obvious this mind-boggling election system deserves a new name: rigged-choice voting.
After nearly two months of tabulation, Alameda County, California, — one such ranked-choice voting (RCV) adoptee — announced it got the count wrong for its Nov. 8 election. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the California county admitted it made systemic errors while tabulating ballots. As a result of the snafu, an Oakland School Board race flipped: The top vote-getter (and certified winner) must now hand his board seat over to the third-place finisher.
While gross negligence on the part of some Alameda County election officials is not only probable but likely, RCV’s Byzantine election system must also take the blame. In it, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his voters are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. The process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes. For the Oakland mayor’s race, it took nine baffling rounds of RCV for one candidate to receive the narrow majority. The local NAACP chapter demanded a manual recount but scrapped it due to the expense.
In the case of the Oakland School Board election, officials blame a software configuration problem for the error (even the machines were confused about how to count the RCV-way). But is it right for a candidate who receives a plurality of votes on the first go-through to eventually lose to someone who finishes last? Often, the victors that emerge from ranked-choice voting are not the candidates a majority of voters favor. Case-in-point: Democrat Mary Peltola won Alaska’s lone congressional seat despite nearly 60 percent of voters casting their ballots for a Republican.
What’s behind the RCV takeover? As The Federalist has previously reported, partisan Democratic activists and moderate Republicans are pushing RCV as a legal mechanism to push out more revolutionary (read: populist) candidates in favor of establishment-backed contenders. As Project Veritas has documented, the moderate, nominal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was behind the campaign to change Alaska’s primary to an RCV system, ensuring the defeat of her Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Had Alaska not implemented RCV, Tshibaka likely would have defeated Murkowski in the primary.
There is a myriad of problems with RCV, as the Alameda County debacle shows. The Foundation for Government Accountability notes that ranked-choice voting causes ballot exhaustion (when a ballot is cast but does not count toward the end election result), diminishes voter confidence, and lags election results. It can take weeks or even months for a ranked-choice race to be counted, threatening the security of the process.
If Americans desire democracy and election integrity, rigged-choice voting is clearly not the way to go.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
Arecession is coming in 2023, concluded more than two-thirds of the economists at big financial institutions recently surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Inflation is also likely to remain high. Measuring year-over-year inflation by the U.S. government’s 1980s methodology put it at 15.23 percent in November 2022 instead of the government’s claimed 7.11 percent, according to economist John Williams.
Many commentators, including me, were wrong when we previously claimed our grandkids will be paying off America’s massively unaffordable welfare state. We are all paying for it right now and are likely to be for much of our lives in inflation and other economic devastation.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman’s maxim that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — meaning, inflation is always caused by government overspending — predicts continued inflation for at least the next five years, if not longer.
That’s because government entities are continuing to engage in seriously inflationary actions. They’re doing this partly because of ideology, partly to buy votes, and partly because they prefer eating away Americans’ savings to paying off the unprecedented government debt that politicians have accumulated in the last 70 years enriching their friends and buying off voters.
Inflation Means Politicians Stealing from You
A 2021 Politico profile of a former U.S. Federal Reserve member noted, “Between 2008 and 2014, the Federal Reserve printed more than $3.5 trillion in new bills. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly triple the amount of money that the Fed created in its first 95 years of existence. Three centuries’ worth of growth in the money supply was crammed into a few short years.”
That dissenting former Federal Reserve committee member, Thomas Hoenig, “was worried primarily that the Fed was taking a risky path that would deepen income inequality, stoke dangerous asset bubbles and enrich the biggest banks over everyone else,” the profile says. “He also warned that it would suck the Fed into a money-printing quagmire that the central bank would not be able to escape without destabilizing the entire financial system.”
Essentially, the Federal Reserve has been helping Congress manufacture money to buy up the public debt they contracted by promising Americans more stuff than we can pay for. That’s been ongoing since the 1960s Great Society, which basically paid Americans with unaffordable entitlements to shut up about the steady loss of their constitutional freedoms, according to scholar Christopher Caldwell.
The Borrowing Will Go On Until It Can’t
In 2021, 41 percent of federal spendingdependedon borrowing. In 2022, 22 percent did. This means raising the cost of debt by hiking interest rates, as the Fed is now doing, could provoke a crisis because it would make Congress’s unsustainable behavior even more painful.
As a Manhattan Institute analysis by economist Brian Riedl notes, “rising interest rates risk pushing government interest costs, annual budget deficits, and total government debt to unsustainable levels … once the debt surges, even modest interest-rate movements can impose stratospheric costs.”
This would call years of government bluffing about the state of federal finances and institutions. It would require Congress not only to stop spending but to cut programs, which means angering voters. It would usher in the unavoidable and painful new era of managing America’s decline.
“Once a debt-and-interest-rate spiral begins, it is nearly impossible to escape without drastic inflation or fiscal consolidation,” Riedl notes.
However this ends, it is likely to include a lot of economic pain, one way or another. Here are just a few of the many indicators that inflationary times are not going away fast.
1. ‘Covid’ Overspending Continues Until at Least 2024
The funds for the sixth waste-packed “Covid relief bill” will be distributed to big-government donors, states, and local governments through the end of presidential election year 2024. Yes, the American Rescue Plan Act from Covid-tide sends states and local governments $350 billion that is still being rolled out — by design.
That law’s total spending comprises more than 100 times states’ 2020 budget shortfalls, and many state and local governments can hardly figure out what to do with all the money. As they take years to spend it, that money will keep juicing inflationary pressure. A similar effect is occurring with all the so-called Covid relief bills, which together sent $6 trillion spinning through the economy, devaluing our currency. Much of this wild inflationary deficit spending has been electronically printed through the Federal Reserve.
Together, 2020s federal spending allegedly in response to Covid was more than double the inflation-adjusted federal response to the 1930s Great Depression. We’re already seeing the inflationary effects of all this so-called Covid spending, and it’s not over yet.
2. Democrats and Republicans Recently Went on Even More Inflationary Spending Binges
In conjunction with Democrats’ mega-spending “infrastructure” and “green energy” bills soon after Covid that also helped them win Congress and the presidency in 2020, all this extra spending is projected to increase the federal debt by an unprecedented $6.5 trillion, costing more than the 20 years of U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Riedl.
“In other words, the U.S. government is in the early stages of what is projected to be the largest government debt binge in world history,” Riedl notes.
That doesn’t even include the massive federal spending expansions to support a large army of grifters profiting off the human suffering of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. Congress spent more on the first four months of Ukraine’s war than it did on the first five years of its undeclared war in Afghanistan.
Atop all this, more deficit spending is likely to come. In August 2022, Democrats confirmed yet again that historic levels of inflation that year were no impediment to their big-spending aims when Biden announced that he’d force taxpayers to assume up to nearly $1 trillion in student loans taken on by largely higher-income professionals. That spending is tied up in court and could be allowed at any time.
This all means that the source of inflation — government overspending — is at an unprecedented rate and pace, and even with the House Freedom Caucus’ negotiated limits on congressional spending activity, trillions in new spending is already locked in.
3. Build Back Bankrupt Shoveled Yet More Out the Door for Years to Come
In 2022, the Biden administration managed to get its top-priority grab-bag of increased government spending signed into law. By spending more money the government does not have and imposing more taxes, the ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act is likely to increase inflation, said a Tax Foundation analysis.
“By increasing spending, the bill worsens inflation, especially in the first four years, as revenue raisers take time to ramp up and the deficit increases,” the foundation’s analysis says. “We find that budget deficits would increase from 2023 to 2026, potentially worsening inflation.”
Continuing to shovel money to cronies while ignoring major structural problems in the U.S. economy and federal budget process has become a hallmark of Congress in the 2000s. This has to end at some point, but until that point comes reasonable people can only expect such legislation to continue to pass, and to continue to worsen inflationary pressures.
Given how reckless both parties have been for decades on fiscal matters, it is likely this norm of spending money Congress can’t actually appropriate will continue until a major disaster ends their ability to fake.
4. Federal Officials Are Destroying the People’s Trust
Inflation happens “When money is no longer a trustworthy measure of value,” note Steve Forbes, Nathan Lewis, and Elizabeth Ames in their 2022 book, “Inflation.” Inflation is at least partly about a crisis of confidence in government — a warranted one, usually, because major inflation occurs as a result of politician malfeasance. Unfortunately, U.S. government officials are doing nothing to restore the people’s lost confidence in them — in fact, just the opposite.
In 2022, federal officials spent months denying inflation was happening. They also denied the United States was in a recession, insisting the traditional definition of two economic quarters in contraction was false when it was applied under Democrat rule. They’ve switched how they measure inflation to hide a large part of it.
U.S. leaders also refuse to stabilize our currency, instead taking actions that further erode Americans’ ability to put food on the table and get ahead through legitimately productive honest labor (as opposed to bullsh-t jobs). This does the opposite of what is needed: restore confidence in our markets by announcing strong steps to strengthen the U.S. dollar. They are also engaging in other activities that only erode confidence in the U.S. financial system, such as monetizing the federal debt and refusing to stop massive deficit spending.
Because politicians have created this situation and keep refusing to actually address it, Americans increasingly don’t trust their government or our debt-driven financial system. Polling shows public trust repeatedly hitting new record lows for every social and political institution. That’s an economic problem as well as a political and cultural problem, because a lack of confidence in markets can trigger economic growth, recession, and panics.
Usually, such crises build under the surface for a long time and then burst out into the open all of a sudden. As Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane said during a panel discussion, “Debt crises are like the Spanish Inquisition; no one expects them to come. If you knew they were coming, they would have already happened.”
5. The U.S. Federal Government Is Effectively Bankrupt and Inflation Helps It Hide That
The on-books U.S. national debt of $31.5 trillion is just the tip of the iceberg. Our entitlement systems are about to start going bankrupt, adding trillions in additional financial burdens on taxpayers. Riedl notes, “The U.S. government is projected to run a staggering $112 trillion in budget deficits over the next three decades, driven mostly by Social Security and Medicare commitments that are already set in law.”
If one adds unfunded and other liabilities that government officials keep off the books such as Federal Reserve debt, the amount the U.S. national government owes is more than $200 trillion. That doesn’t include what state and local governments owe, and many of them are also bankrupt or getting there.
“No matter what interest rate you use, the U.S. needs to immediately and permanently raise every federal tax by at least one third to pay, through time, for what our government plans to spend,” Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff wrote with fellow economist John Goodman in 2021. “The alternative? Massive spending cuts. And, no, the Federal Reserve can’t make this problem go away by printing the money needed by the Treasury. This would end where it always does — in hyperinflation.”
U.S. debt, deficits, and unfunded liabilities — which together form a total picture of U.S. national economic entrapment — are the largest ever measured in world history. Besides Japan, which isn’t spending the majority of its debt on entitlements like the United States is, “Greece and Italy are the only other OECD countries with a total government debt exceeding that of the United States,” Riedl notes. Greece and Italy have had major sovereign debt crises that have destroyed their standards of living and brought their economies into long-term decline.
“When you look at these numbers, you realize we’re Argentina in 1910,” Kotlikoff told CNBC in 2018, before the alarmist Covid response and Biden presidency made things much worse. All it will take for these scary structural problems to become visible and impossible to ignore is a financial panic or another major event like a war. Oh, look, Congress is also pushing us ever-toward open war with Russia instead of toward peace. Brilliant.
6. Child Scarcity Will Drive Higher Prices
In March 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported the opinion of retired British central banker Charles Goodhart that global structural factors will drive higher inflation for years to come. Goodhart helped Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher break inflation in the 1980s. He told the Journal that the rising global crisis of child scarcity will also push inflation up for decades.
As labor becomes more scarce, he maintained, workers will push for higher wages, in turn driving up prices. At the same time, businesses will manufacture and invest more locally to help offset both labor shortages and the nationalist and geopolitical pressures curbing globalized supply chains. That will increase production costs and local workers’ bargaining power. Global savings will fall as older people consume more than they produce, spending particularly on healthcare. All that will push up interest rates, he predicted.
A meeting of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in August 2022 for the first time since 2019 found the bankers publicly reflecting a similar assessment, the Journal reported. “I don’t think that we are going to go back to that environment of low inflation,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on a panel.
7. The People Who Did All This Are Still in Charge
This reality applies to nearly every major political problem: The same people who have created these messes are the same people who largely retain the power to respond to them. The same people writing massive spending bills that divert our economy away from productive labor and into rent-seekers’ pockets are still largely in charge of government spending.
There might have been a slight shift of power in the House, but there hasn’t in the Senate, nor in the presidency. The same guy who claims the power to “pen and phone” a trillion dollars in student loan bailouts is in office, and all his K Street and Wall Street buddies still have gleefully effective access. You can be sure this cabal of crooks isn’t going to be looking out for your best interests now that we’re about to have a potentially dangerous recession.
That may be the most significant systemic reason to expect our markets to be heading for an even rougher ride in 2023 than we’ve had from 2020 to 2022.
Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation Tuesday night that will enact a statewide ban on so-called “assault weapons” and place a limit on magazine capacities, according to CBS Chicago.
The bill, HB 5471, will outlaw the sale, manufacture, possession and purchase of “assault-style” weapons, assault weapon attachments and .50 caliber cartridges, while also limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns, according to the legislation. Pritzker signed the legislation late Tuesday night after the Illinois House of Representatives voted on revisions passed by the state Senate. (RELATED: Federal Judge Rules That Parts Of New Jersey Gun Law Are Unconstitutional)
“For a long time now, I and many other leaders in the Illinois General Assembly have prioritized getting the most dangerous weapons off our state’s streets. Today, honoring the commitment we made, we passed one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the nation, one I will be proud to sign.” Pritzker said in a press release before signing the bill.
“No Illinoisan, no matter their zip code, should have to go through life fearing their loved one could be the next in an ever-growing list of victims of mass shootings,” he continued.
The House voted 68-41 to approve the ban Tuesday afternoon, according to CBS Chicago. The bill passed 34-20 in the Illinois Senate on Monday.
Illinois residents who own guns that are now restricted under the law all be able to keep them, but will be required to register the firearms with the state police, according to the legislation. Magazines owned before the new capacity requirements take effect can also be kept, but the now illegal magazines and firearms must be used on private property.
Republican representatives urged Democratic lawmakers to vote against the bill, which was approved during the last day of the lame duck session, saying the law will penalize legal gun owners, according to speeches given during the state House’s session Tuesday.
Some Republican lawmakers suggested waiting until Illinois’s 2023 legislative session starts Wednesday.
All communities deserve to live free from gun violence. Banning assault weapons upholds our commitment to building true public safety for all, and will undoubtedly reduce the ways dangerous people can obtain weapons of war. Read more here. ➡️ https://t.co/IIN4YGLZERpic.twitter.com/n63QkuSj53
Republican state Sen. Chapin Rose said that the state already has gun legislation that mitigates gun violence, and the new law would penalize citizens who are already following the law, according to The State-Journal Register.
“Enforce the laws that already exist. We’re going to make felons out of taxpayers. Put the bad guys behind the bars, not the good guys,” he said, according to the outlet.
State Sens. Darren Bailey and Neil Anderson said the bill was an “affront” to the Second Amendment, and Bailey predicts that the Illinois Supreme Court will rule the new law to be in violation of the Constitution, according to the The State-Journal Register.
“You’ve got to know the actions that you are taking are tyrannous. You also must know that I and millions of other gun owners in this state will not comply,” Bailey said, the outlet reported.
Anderson called the bill “hypocritical,” saying Democratic lawmakers believe they are banning “weapons of war,” but fail to mention weapons used in war such as the M1 Garand and 1911 handgun, according to the The State-Journal Register.
“The hypocrisy that we are trying to ban so-called ‘weapons of war,’ but yet the weapons of war that you actually speak of are not weapons of war,” he said, later suggesting that those who are in favor of the bill should resign, according to The State-Journal Register.
Democratic Illinois Senate President Don Harmon countered Anderson, saying that the M1 Garand and 1911 were not included because they have small magazine capacities, according to The State-Journal Register. “The weapons on this list are designed to do one thing and one thing only: kill people in a horribly brutal, vicious way,” he said.
Pritzker did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Republican Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.) shot down MSNBC host Joy Reid on Tuesday for diminishing his accomplishments and reducing him to a mere “diversity” pick for House speaker.
A faction of 20 Republicans who opposed Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid briefly coalesced around Donalds for speaker. Across several ballots, Donalds earned 20 votes. Had he won the speakership, Donalds would have been the first black House speaker.
But Democrats have attacked Donalds, who is conservative. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), for instance, called him a mere “prop” who sides with white supremacy.
During a lengthy interview in which Reid repeatedly interrupted Donalds, the MSNBC host suggested that Republicans only supported Donalds to bolster their diversity push.
“Do you not believe that the idea was to make a diversity statement by nominating you?” Reid asked.
Donalds, just a two-term congressman, fiercely pushed back.
“That was not the idea, because I was in the room when the decision was made by people who chose to nominate me,” Donalds said.
“The reality is that a lot of members actually do believe in my ability to lead. They do,” he continued. “Am I to be despised for my youth because I served one term when members know I have the ability to engage other members? Listen, we were at an impasse in our speakership elections. We got that done. Kevin McCarthy is now speaker of the House. At the same time, I was working with members on both sides of our conference to make sure that we can get the job done, and we did. That’s the only thing that matters.”
GOP Rep. Byron Donalds and Joy Reid debate his House speaker nomination after one term youtu.be
Reid premised her inquiry by questioning Donalds’ “qualifications” for leadership. When Donalds told Reid his history of serving in leadership at the state level, she questioned his knowledge about the role of House speaker. The motive for Reid’s condescending questions was to criticize the Republican Party for not being as demographically diverse as the Democratic Party.
“I don’t know that you said it, but [Republican] members have said is they wanted to highlight the diversity of the conference. There are four African-American members in the House caucus, the Republican caucus. There are 56 members in the Democratic caucus,” Reid said.
“So just — it’s more diverse,” she gleefully declared.
A first-grade teacher who managed to save her entire class after she was intentionally shot in the hand and chest by a 6-year-old student as she taught at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, has been hailed as a “hero” for her bravery in the face of danger. At a press conference Monday, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said the teacher, Abigail Zwerner, 25, is hospitalized in stable condition after the shooting last Friday, but the first thing she asked him about when they met was how her students were doing.
“When I met with Abigail’s family on Saturday, and they took me up to her [hospital] room, she asked me first question, ‘Do you know how my students are?’ She was worried about them,” Drew said.
“And then today … she again asked me, ‘Do you know how my students are?’ And that touched me, her family and her mother. Abigail wanted me to tell you all, but primarily her students and the parents of her students, she is in stable condition and she is thankful for the thoughts and prayers that have gone out to her. The people that have reached out not only here locally but across our state and across our nation. She is very, very appreciative of the support that she is getting. And continues to get,” he explained.
Drew said at about 1:59 p.m. last Friday, police received a call from the school that a teacher had been shot with no other information. Officers “from different areas” quickly converged on the school and at 2:04 p.m., two sheriff’s deputies entered the classroom where the shooting took place and found a 6-year-old male student being physically restrained by a school employee.
“The child was physically combative and struck the employee that was restraining him,” Drew said.
“Officers then took control of him and escorted him out of the building [and] placed him in a police car with an officer inside and outside of that building. Once that had occurred there was a systematic evacuation of rooms and hallways for safety as they didn’t know what they were dealing with,” he said.
Police later recovered one spent shell casing, a backpack, a cell phone, and a 9mm Taurus firearm from the scene.
“The firearm was recovered close to the student’s desk where the shooting occurred,” Drew said.
Zwerner was reportedly teaching when the 6-year-old boy brandished the firearm, pointed it at her and fired one round.
“There was no physical struggle or fight. She was providing instruction to her class,” Drew said.
The police chief said Zwerner took a defensive position where she raised her hand after the student fired the gun at her.
“The round went through her hand, exited the rear of her hand and into her upper chest,” he said.
He said when police reviewed security video from the scene, Zwerner’s bravery was on full display.
“She suffered a gunshot wound but she was still able to get all of her students out of that classroom. From the video surveillance we have of the hallway, you can see the students running out of that classroom across the hall into — about 17-20 students — of that classroom into other classrooms,” Drew said. “Ms. Zwerner was the last person to leave that class. She made a right turn and started down the hallway and then she stopped. She turned around. She turned around to make sure that every one of those students were safe.”
Drew said police later interviewed the boy and his mother and discovered that the gun was a legally purchased firearm that he hid in his backpack and brought to school.
“We determined that the firearm was in the residence where they lived and the child obtained that firearm, placed it in his backpack and brought it to school. He was brought to school that day by his mother later that morning,” he explained.
As the hero teacher continues to recover, Hannah Zwerner, her twin sister, launched a GoFundMe campaign on Monday to raise $250,000 to help with her with medical and living expenses. More than $60,000 had been raised as of Tuesday.
“Abby, my family, and I are humbled by the outpouring of support we’ve received in the days following the event. Thank you for all of the prayers, well wishes, and words of kindness,” Zwerner’s sister said in a statement on the campaign. “If you’re looking for ways to help, I am creating this fund to help aid in Abby’s healing. Its purpose is to cover future living expenses as Abby recovers from this tragedy.”
Drew said Zwerner’s shooter was taken into custody for evaluation at a local hospital. He was later ordered to be temporarily detained by a judge so he can receive treatment at a medical facility while an investigation into the shooting continues.
“I’d like to reiterate that this shooting was not accidental. It was intentional. I believe, I told her today, I believe Ms. Zwerner, Abigail. She saved lives on Friday,” Drew said. “She is a trooper. She is a hero”
DNA evidence has now shown with greater than 99.9998% probability that Bryan Kohberger was the man who murdered four University of Idaho students in the early morning of Nov. 13, 2022, beautifully illustrating why there will be no more serial killers. As the world gets worse in so many ways, here’s one way it’s better. (Unless the ACLU gets its way.)
Between the ubiquity of surveillance cameras and DNA, any budding Ted Bundy can commit one hideous murder, but then he’ll get caught. No more victims cut down in the prime of their lives, destroyed families or terrified communities. Monsters like Kohberger get one shocking crime, not a series.
It’s nearly impossible not to leave your DNA on something, particularly in the middle of a frenzied attack. It seems that Kohberger, a Ph.D. student in criminology, left his DNA on the button of a knife sheath, found next to one of the dead bodies. By following Kohberger and examining his trash, forensic scientists were able to establish that his father was 99.9998% likely to be the father of the person who committed the murders.
Good luck poking a hole in that, ACLU!
There were loads of other clues, but those would have gone unnoticed without the DNA pointing to Kohberger in the first place. Moreover, the other evidence might be enough to convince any non-O.J. juror, but would have led to decades of law professors, nuns, chubby coeds, New York Times reporters and other murder activists howling that Kohberger was “innocent.”
E.g.:
— Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra was seen on camera speeding away from the crime scene on a quiet residential street shortly after 4:20 a.m. on the night of the murders.
Thousands of people in Idaho drive white Hyundai Elantras!
— Cellphone data showed Kohberger going past the murder house a dozen times in the three months before the crime and, most suspiciously, again at 9 a.m. the next morning, before the police had even arrived.
So? He’s a driving enthusiast.
— Kohberger started wearing surgical gloves after the murders.
Duh! Heard of the pandemic? He’s just a dutiful citizen.
— Police observed him fanatically cleaning his car after the murders — he didn’t “miss an inch.”
He’s tidy.
— He put his family’s garbage in the neighbor’s bin.
Anyone could get confused about garbage bins late at night. That doesn’t make him a murderer.
But with science proving beyond doubt that Kohberger’s DNA was on the knife sheaf found next to the corpses, the fantastical excuses of the murder lobby are so much hot air.
So why aren’t the police and FBI bragging their heads off about the forensic genealogy that got them to focus on Kohberger?
Sure, they were looking for a guy with a white Hyundai Elantra, but there are 22,000 white Hyundai Elantras registered in Idaho alone — and Kohberger’s wasn’t one of them. He lived 10 miles away, across state lines in Washington. Why were the police looking at his cellphone data, his behavior and his trash, and not that of the other 22,000 Elantra owners?
As Heather Tal Murphy writes in Slate: “Though multiple news outlets, including CNN and ABC News, reported that forensic genealogy helped with the case, none have explained exactly how it was used or why it did not appear in the affidavit.” (Emphasis mine.)
I think I know why they haven’t explained! Law enforcement doesn’t want to sic the murder lobby on whichever genealogy service helped catch an infamous murderer.
In a sane world, these genealogists would be taking a bow, accepting the eternal gratitude of the victims’ parents and everyone living in Moscow, Idaho, as well as the dozens of future victims this butcher will never be able to kill now.
Instead, they’re about to have the murderer lobby screaming at them for violating a psycho killer’s “privacy.” The pro-murder crowd has already intimidated the largest DNA database, Ancestry.com (owned by Blackstone Group), into refusing to help law enforcement solve murders. 23andMe also refuses to cooperate with murder investigations.
All this so that some jackass on a law faculty can say, Hey, congratulate me! I just hamstrung the police in their ability to catch the provably guilty!
Just know that, while you are sleeping peacefully tonight, secure in the knowledge that a thrill killer has been taken off the streets, liberals are hard at work to make sure the next one gets away.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Covid shots, according to newly released White House emails.
President Joe Biden’s administration actively pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Covid shots, according to internal White House communication records obtained by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
In an email dated April 14, 2021, then-senior adviser to the president’s Covid response team, Andrew Slavitt, voiced dissatisfaction to a Facebook official that a video of Carlson questioning the left’s universal demand that people get the Covid jab was “Number one” on the platform, to which said official responded that they’d look into the matter. Later that same day, the Facebook representative informed the White House that while the “Tucker Carlson video does not qualify for removal under [Facebook’s] policies,” the company would label the clip with “a pointer to more authoritative COVID information” and work to limit its reach on the platform.
Facebook’s efforts did not meet the administration’s demands for greater censorship, however. In response to the representative, White House Director of Digital Strategy Robert Flaherty questioned how Carlson’s video didn’t violate Facebook’s existing policies and pressured the company to turn over information on the efficacy of its censorship practices.
“How was this not violative? The second half of the segment is raising conspiracy theories about the government hiding that all vaccines aren’t effective,” Flaherty claimed. “Moreover, you say reduced and demoted. What does that mean? There’s 40,000 shares on the video. Who is seeing it now? How many? How effective is that?”
“Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection,” Flaherty added in an apparent reference to the platform’s handling of claims pertaining to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and subsequent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But the Biden White House’s habit of using Big Tech to silence dissenting voices on Covid-related information didn’t just stop at Carlson. A separate batch of emails released by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general reveals a concentrated endeavor between the administration and Facebook to reduce the “virality of vaccine hesitancy content,” even if such posts contained factually accurate information.
“As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation,” a Facebook representative told Slavitt in a March 21, 2021, email. “This is often-true content, which we allow at the post level … but it can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking. We’ll remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content.”
In addition to Facebook, Twitter was also a major player in the collusion efforts between the federal government and Big Tech to further squash free speech online. In an email dated August 11, 2022, Flaherty admonished Twitter for allowing posts contradicting White House claims to circulate on the platform, writing that “if your product is appending misinformation to our tweets[,] that seems like a pretty fundamental issue.”
Flaherty separately accused Twitter in a December 2021 email of “Total Calvinball” and “bending over backwards” to tolerate disfavored speech after the company refused to comply with demands from the administration to censor a video.
“This case is about the Biden Administration’s blatant disregard for the First Amendment and its collusion with social media companies [to] suppress speech it disagrees with,” said Missouri AG Andrew Bailey in a statement. “I will always fight back against unelected bureaucrats who seek to indoctrinate the people of this state by violating our constitutional right to free and open debate.”
The bombshell emails come as a result of an investigation launched last year by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and then-Missouri AG and now-U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt to uncover collusion efforts between the federal government and Big Tech companies to censor Covid-related posts they deemed misinformation. In addition to obtaining communication records unveiling such corruption, the investigation has scored numerous legal wins allowing Louisiana and Missouri to depose high-ranking administration officials such as Anthony Fauci under oath about their role in these efforts.
According to a transcript of Fauci’s November testimony, the man claiming to “represent science” somehow couldn’t recall relevant information about his role in the federal government’s disastrous Covid response “at least 174 times.” The deposition ranged from topics such as Fauci’s bid to smear authors of “The Great Barrington Declaration,” to his role in attempting to “discredit any theory” that Covid resulted from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Minnesota’s teaching licensure board will soon require all teachers to be card-carrying Marxists. The card will literally say “licensed teacher,” but recently approved revisions redefine state licensure in expressly Marxist terms: Academic knowledge is out, and power struggle among the classes is in. To be licensed in Minnesota starting in 2025, every teacher must not merely teach about, but personally advocate, the core tenets of critical race theory and transgender ideology.
The state’s insistence that every teacher positively affirm homosexual behaviors and transgendered identities understandably aggravates consciences among moral traditionalists, but the issues run deeper than the “culture war.” What is at stake is the nature of knowledge, the future of liberty, and the prospects for a sustainable social order. In a word: civilization.
A perfunctory hearing on Aug. 24, 2022, and the resulting order for implementation with slight revisions by a solitary administrative judge in December cemented the new regime. The revised Standards of Effective Practice require radical changes to teachers’ curriculum selection, classroom management style, and self-understanding of the teaching vocation. The education departments at colleges and universities also must document their fulfillment of the new standards or else have their program certifications rescinded by Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB).
The new requirements require teachers to positively affirm extremist leftist positions about human nature and sexual practices in order to be allowed to teach in government schools.
Teachers will be required to choose “anti-racist” — i.e. critical race theory — instructional strategies for students. An administrative judge told the state to amend No. 4 here requiring teachers to expose children to sexual identities. It will likely still go into effect, with slightly different language.The new license requires teachers to affirm transgenderism.
The revisions represent only the latest attack against American heritage in Minnesota’s public schools. In 2013, the state education department successfully removed the four presidents featured on Mount Rushmore from social studies standards.
Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan also got the ax that year, as did the Magna Carta. References to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were relativized, as students were to be instructed that those documents do not contain universal principles of ordered liberty, but merely the opinion of one powerful group of 18th-century men.
A decade later, the vanguard has advanced again. The revised teacher licensing rules strike the following from the mathematics standards: “addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentages.” They insert this for teachers of all subjects: “The teacher fosters an environment that ensures student identities such as race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, and religious beliefs are historically and socially contextualized, affirmed, and incorporated into a learning environment where students are empowered to learn and contribute as their whole selves.”
It no longer suffices simply to discuss the controversies of radical reform; teachers and students must also become advocates for change: “The teacher creates opportunities for students to learn about power, privilege, intersectionality, and systemic oppression in the context of various communities and empowers learners to be agents of social change to promote equity.” Minnesota’s Scandinavian ancestors must be turning over in their graves at this new smorgasbord of Marxist truffles.
The PELSB’s “Statement of Necessity and Reasonableness” for the licensure changes draws support from two states just as blue as Minnesota. From New York, PELSB gleans: “Inclusive curriculum and assessment … works toward dismantling systems of biases and inequities, and decentering dominant ideologies in education.” In Illinois, each teacher must internalize a Marxist mentalité: “The culturally responsive teacher and leader will explore their own intersecting identities, how they were developed, and how they impact daily experience of the world.”
Illinois has expressly abandoned what Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, called “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” In place of objective truth, “what is seen as ‘correct’ is most often based on our lived experiences.” As in New York, so also in Illinois — and soon in Minnesota — all teachers must practice what cultural Marxists preach: “Assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).”
But to whom? Neither the people nor their elected officials decided the matter. A solitary administrative judge, appointed by the governor, ordered the implementation of the radical licensure changes after merely recommending a few tweaks.
The labyrinth of administrative procedure affords limited opportunity for appeal, but one can hope that a teacher, a parent, or a teacher-preparation college will petition for declaratory relief. If nothing else, PELSB’s radical rewriting of human nature smacks of a state-imposed religion, in violation of the First Amendment’s no establishment clause, not to mention the dereliction of duty when schools jettison mainstream academic content in favor of extremist ideology.
If recourse to the courts should fail, another remedy remains, modeled for the free world in Norway in 1942. When the National Socialists ordered parents to enroll their children in indoctrination camps with just three weeks’ notice and required all school teachers to implement a Nazi curriculum, the people simply would not have it. Five out of every six teachers resigned.
A similar proportion of parents flooded the Norwegian education bureau with letters — literally, laundry baskets full of letters — registering their protests. Adolf Hitler’s henchmen were grossly outnumbered, and the Nazis’ outward control of state agencies never penetrated to the hearts and minds of the people. The fusion of Viking blood with Lutheran “here I stand” courage made otherwise docile Norwegians invincible. Whether the Minnesotans can muster similar resolve soon will become evident to all.
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CNN reporter Rosa Flores called out President Joe Biden on Monday for not actually seeing any migrants when he visited El Paso on Sunday. Biden visited the border city, an epicenter of the migrant crisis, on Sunday. It was his first official visit to the southern border. Still, the visit earned swift criticism because Biden did not actually witness any of the chaos that has plagued El Paso since migrants began flooding into the city. The areas where Biden visited were even cleaned up.
Speaking on “CNN This Morning,” Flores confirmed that Biden did not interact with migrants during his visiting and explained why it generated criticism from “both sides.”
“That’s why the president is being criticized by both sides, because of what he didn’t see,” she said, pointing to a “migrant camp.”
“You know, the immigration advocates here in El Paso and Gov. Greg Abbott usually don’t agree on much, but they do raise the same question,” Flores revealed. “If President Biden came here to El Paso to see the reality on the ground about the border, and he didn’t come here, what’s considered the epicenter of this crisis — did he leave with a clear understanding?”
Hear why Biden’s border visit is receiving bipartisan criticism www.youtube.com
According to Flores, the Biden administration excused his failure to interact with migrants by claiming there weren’t any with whom Biden could interact. But that’s not true, Flores explained.
“My colleague, M.J. Lee, asked the White House about the president not interacting or meeting with any migrants, and a senior administration official told her that it was because there were no migrants at the respite center at the time that the president visited, and that it was coincidental,” Flores said.
“But I checked the migrant dashboard that the city of El Paso has, and at the time when the president was here, there were nearly 1,000 migrants who were in federal detention,” she pointed out. “So, if the president really wanted to see conditions, I kind of doubt that the president of the United States would have been denied access.“
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser (D) denied the city was “sanitized” ahead of Biden’s visit. Rather, he claimed the cleanup was routine.
“The areas in which the migrants have gathered have been routinely cleaned by the City as a matter of practice. If we hadn’t been doing that we would have created a health hazard,” Lesser said in a statement.
“The difference wasn’t the President’s visit; the difference was the decrease in numbers of individuals crossing,” he added. “We’d seen days with crossings as high as 2,500 a day, and we are now seeing 500. The decrease in numbers leads to less crowded areas which optimizes our cleaning efforts.“
A high school in my area sent an email out a few days ago about a student who was involved in a single-car accident on the way to school. He passed away today. Our lives are fleeting vapors.
This life is fraught with constant uncertainty. Even in the midst of good times, heartache and tragedy may be a phone call or door knock away. Bad things happen and we all understand that they are just part of living. We take precautions and try as best we know how to insulate ourselves and loved ones from harm. The reality is that traffic accidents, natural disasters, crime, sickness, and other life-altering events are an eventuality if we live long enough.
Some things happen because of the evil intent of others while many events are accidental or natural. Regardless of the source, most of these tragedies are out of our control. Occasionally, someone does come along with a warning to prepare us for the inevitable. A skilled physician sees an anomaly during an exam. Through treatment, they are able to prevent the further spread of disease. But can you imagine the outrage if the physician failed to adequately warn the people they’re supposed to protect because they didn’t want to scare or offend patients? That is exactly what is happening as many preachers fail to warn people and the consequences are eternally tragic.
Dear Christian friend, I’m writing this article with a sense of humility and love for the Church and fellow preachers. The issue at hand is so critical, if my admonishment makes you uncomfortable, that’s a start because what I’m aiming for is a holy sense of urgency. Roughly 175,000 people die and go into eternity every day. People’s souls are literally hanging in the balance between Heaven and Hell. We don’t have a moment to waste.
As ministers, we have one primary job and that is to preach the Gospel. Unfortunately, in many churches and ministries, that isn’t happening. Instead, we have a growing number of preachers who distort the grace of God. Numerous pastors, teachers, and evangelists are consumed with selfish ambition and envy( Philippians 1:15-16). Counting members, upward mobility, and getting the surrounding community to like us causes many preachers to compromise the truth of the Gospel. The message becomes so distorted that many people who hear it will assume they are saved when they’re not. A number of years ago during a Sunday morning service, I heard a young preacher tell a large gathering essentially that they were okay and God was basically pleased with them.
No repentance, no brokenness, and no warning (Galatians 1:9-10).
This type of preaching has no place in a Christian church. Are we so consumed with people-pleasing that we would neglect to tell people that God is a holy all-consuming fire and that apart from repentance and faith in Jesus, they will die in their sins? God forbid! You might say, “Howard, isn’t that a bit harsh?” No friend, what’s harsh is not telling people the truth about the danger they are in. Imagine knowing about the Titanic, September 11th, or the Indian Ocean Tsunami a few days before it happened. Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to warn people? You wouldn’t spend months trying to get them to know and trust you first so they see how loving you are. You would risk your dignity, reputation, and possibly even your life to warn people. It is the most Christ-like thing we can do.
The Bible is replete with examples of shepherds who fail to warn people. In fact, God is so concerned with preachers and prophets who don’t warn people to repent and turn to Him that He rebukes them (Ezekiel 3:18-21). Moreover, He says, “My anger is kindled against the shepherds.” This is because they mislead people, telling them everything is okay, God is pleased with them, and judgment won’t come (Jeremiah 14:14-15, Micah 3:11). All of these examples point to the fact that God holds ministers accountable for failure to warn people.
Don’t believe the lie that you must first earn the right to share the Gospel. This is simply a worldly method to ingratiate ourselves to the community via a spiritual bait and switch with no biblical precedent. One preacher gives the following example:
“On my plane flight tomorrow, how am I supposed to earn the right to witness to that person? Am I supposed to pour his drinks for him? I have the right commanded to me by Almighty God to witness to him or her and you can be assured I will pray for that opportunity, and I will take advantage of that opportunity.” — Mark Cahill
Amid the tepid, seeker-sensitive approach to reaching the lost, Leonard Ravenhill asked preachers timely questions:
“Is soul-hot preaching a lost art? Have we conceded to impatient snack-bar sermons, spiced with humor to edge jaded spiritual appetites?”
Dear ministry friends, Let’s put aside all human craftiness, cunning, and marketing campaigns in our misguided effort to win public opinion. Instead, let’s rely on the power of the Holy Spirit through faithful Gospel preaching to save souls (Ephesians 4:14).
Look at the current state of our world and the cesspool of sin people are drowning in. Evil is called good, truth is supposedly relative, and society is imploding. Wars rage, lawlessness increases, and love is waxing cold. Please discern the times we live in and know that our redemption draws near. As we wait for redemption, lost people blindly race toward the judgment and wrath of a holy God.
As His disciples, we have no excuse for failing to warn people. We must preach the whole truth of the Gospel and warn people about the coming judgment, repentance, and faith in Jesus. It is a loving thing to warn people. Jesus loves everyone and desires that all people come to Him (Matthew 9:36).
May God bless you as you make Him known.
Howard Green leads Concerning The Times, a Bible teaching and evangelistic ministry whose primary focus is proclaiming the Gospel to the lost and exhorting believers through End Time Bible prophecy.
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Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R) was denied the gavel on a key committee he had long hoped to lead. The House Homeland Security Committee will instead be led by a member of the House Republican group Crenshaw branded as “enemies.” Crenshaw rebuked Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus last week, rhetorically condemning some as “enemies” for having leveraged their House speaker votes in exchange for concessions over how Congress would be run.
He told Fox News Radio host Guy Benson, “We cannot let the terrorists win,” referring to the 20 members of the Freedom Caucus who initially resisted voting for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Crenshaw also told Benson that the “terrorists” wanted “more places on committees.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the 20 Republicans who oppose McCarthy:
With McCarthy winning the speakership in the 15th vote on Friday night, Crenshaw’s remarks appear to have amounted to an unforced error.
TheBlaze previously reported that Tucker Carlson called out the Texas congressman on his Fox News show, accusing Crenshaw of engaging in “Soviet-style politics.”
Crenshaw apologized on Sunday, telling CNN anchor Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that “things get heated, and things get said. … I don’t want them to think I actually believe they’re terrorists. It’s clearly a turn of phrase that you use in what is an intransigent negotiation.”
The Houston Chronicle reported that Crenshaw couched his remarks within the broader context of “vile things” allegedly said by “the very same wing of the party that I’m fighting.” Despite the apology, the damage was done. On Monday, Crenshaw was denied the gavel for which he campaigned over the course of several months.
The Houston Chronicle reported in November that Crenshaw was regarded as a front-runner for the top spot on the Homeland Security Committee. He certainly thought so.
“I am uniquely positioned to lead the Homeland Security Committee,” Crenshaw said in a letter to his Republican colleagues, noting that having lived in a border state and served in the military provided him with the requisite experience and insights to “persuasively communicate our positions with the public.”
Crenshaw may also have won some favor after raising roughly $1 million for the House GOP campaign arm in the latest cycle. Despite the Texas congressman’s bona fides and contributions, the chair will instead go to fellow combat veteran Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), a 58-year-old member of the Freedom Caucus — the group that bore the brunt of Crenshaw’s turns of phrase.
Both Green and Crenshaw previously served together on the panel.
Politico previously reported the political significance of Green’s appointment, stating, “Green is also an interesting candidate because picking him would give Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy the opportunity to say he has seated another HFC member in a senior leadership position, following only HFC Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).”
Extra to expressing gratitude to McCarthy, Green wrote in a tweet, “@RepDanCrenshaw ran a spirited race. I’m grateful for his friendship and leadership. I look forward to working with him, a fellow veteran who understands our national security challenges, to secure our homeland.
.@RepDanCrenshaw ran a spirited race. I’m grateful for his friendship and leadership. I look forward to working with him, a fellow veteran who understands our national security challenges, to secure our homeland. /3
In a Jan. 9 release, Green noted that his priorities as head of the committee will be: “ending the border crisis Biden created”; stopping the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.; empowering Customs and Border Patrol personnel; and countering Chinese cyberwarfare.
Signaling the direction he might take, Green told Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in November that he should resign, indicating that failing that, he would be held accountable by House Republicans.
It is unclear what Crenshaw’s rejection will mean for intraparty politics.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, told Houston Public Media last week, “Crenshaw has been waiting his turn, being the good soldier, and if he were to lose it to someone who jumps the queue because they are threatening McCarthy’s speakership, that would estrange him, perhaps, from McCarthy for quite some time.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
President Biden has finally found a solution to address the surge in illegal crossings at the southern border: tell the tens of thousands of aliens unlawfully entering the United States from Mexico that they can come to America “legally” if they instead fly to a port-of-entry in the interior of the country.
Seriously, for all the Biden administration’s spin, that’s his plan — and it is illegal.
Of course, when Biden announced his administration’s newest policy on Thursday in advance of his midterm inaugural trip to the southern border on Sunday, the press release heralded the plan as a “new border enforcement action.” But as National Review’s Andrew McCarthy exposed in his weekend column, it’s a scam.
The scam, though, is layers thick, both legally and politically. And to reach the core truth — that Biden refuses to faithfully execute his duties as the president of the United States by defending our sovereign border — one must first unpeel the specifics of the newest plan buried in the Department of Homeland Security’s official notice of the changes, while also analyzing the relevant immigration law.
The Plan
Today’s edition of the Federal Register, which serves as “the Daily Journal of the United States Government,” contains the details of DHS’s supposed “new border enforcement action,” in four separate “notices,” titled respectively: “Implementation of a Parole Process for Cubans,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Haitians,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Nicaraguans,” and “Implementation of Changes to the Parole Process for Venezuelans.”
Each notice summarizes the Biden administration’s supposed “solution” to the flooding of the southern border, which in short consists of allowing, on a monthly basis, a total of 30,000 aliens to enter the United States “legally” if they are Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan nationals. To qualify, aliens must have a “U.S.-based supporter,” which could be “non-governmental entities or community-based organizations,” and must “provide for their own commercial travel to an air [port-of-entry] and final U.S. destination.” National security and public safety vetting are also required, as well as any additional public health requirements, such as vaccinations.
But how is it that illegal-alien border crossers can become lawful noncitizens by just jumping through a few hoops and flying to the interior of the country, rather than sneaking over the southern border? They can’t. And in crafting its latest immigration plan, the Biden administration is again acting lawlessly.
Biden’s Lawlessness
The Biden administration maintains it has the authority to allow aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the United States legally under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA. That section provides the secretary of homeland security the authority to “parole” noncitizens “into the United States temporarily under such reasonable conditions as [the secretary] may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
“parole” for purposes of the INA is a “legal fiction” in which “a paroled alien is physically allowed to enter the country,” but the alien maintains the same legal status as if he or she were held at the border waiting for an application for admission to be granted or denied. But besides obtaining the legal right to be present in the United States, an alien paroled into the United States may obtain employment authorization to work here lawfully.
As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently explained, “Parole began as an administrative invention that allowed aliens in certain circumstances to remain on U.S. soil without formal admission, with Congress codifying the practice when it initially enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act (the ‘INA’) in 1952.” At that time, Congress gave the attorney general “discretion to parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe … any alien applying for admission to the United States.”
However, “throughout the mid-twentieth century, the executive branch on multiple occasions purported to use the parole power to bring in large groups of immigrants,” prompting Congress twice to amend the INA “to limit the scope of the parole power and prevent the executive branch from using it as a programmatic policy tool.” First, as the Fifth Circuit explained, in 1980, Congress added a requirement that the executive branch only parole refugees where “compelling reasons in the public interest with respect to that particular alien,” exist. Then, in 1996, Congress amended the INA to provide “parole may be granted ‘only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.’”
While the DHS’s just-announced parole plans claim the department is making parole decisions on a case-by-case basis, the qualifications set forth by the DHS establish that the Biden administration is illegally using parole power “as a programmatic policy tool,” rather than as designed by Congress, for example, by “paroling aliens who do not qualify for an admission category but have an urgent need for medical care in the United States and paroling aliens who qualify for a visa but are waiting for it to become available.”
The Biden administration’s lawless use of its parole power should come as no surprise, though, as since November of 2021, the president’s team has relied on Section 212(d)(5)(A) to release “family units” at the border to supposedly deal with “capacity constraints.” Florida has challenged the Biden administration’s granting of such carte blanche parole, as well as the president’s failure to detain illegal aliens as mandated under the INA, and trial is set to begin on both those claims later today in a federal court in Florida.
The ‘Standing’ Problem
A similar legal challenge to the Biden administration’s recent parole plan seems likely, although by requiring applicants to secure a vetted “supporter” who will commit to providing for the parolees’ financial needs while they are present in the United States, it will be challenging for anyone to show “standing” to challenge DHS’s plan.
For instance, in the Florida case, while the Biden administration argued the state lacked “standing,” or the right to sue, the court rejected that argument, reasoning Florida “plausibly alleged that the challenged policies already have and will continue to cost it millions of dollars, including the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens and the cost of providing a variety of public benefits, including unemployment benefits, free public education, and emergency services to aliens who settle in Florida after being ‘paroled’ into the country.”
But other than providing “free public education,” the same types of monetary harms are lacking in the case of the Biden administration’s latest parole proposal. And it is questionable whether a court will find that providing free public education to children paroled under DHS’s plans will be enough to establish standing.
Absent a plaintiff with standing to challenge DHS’s plan to parole some 30,000 aliens into the United States every month, the only way to fight the Biden administration’s latest lawless move will be politically. Here, those seeking to secure the southern border have ample ammunition, including highlighting the fact that the Biden administration’s plan does nothing to address that portion of the 200,000-some individuals crossing the southern border every month that herald from countries other than Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Further, while converting 30,000 illegal border crossers into parolees at ports of entry in the interior of the country may provide a reduction to the problem on paper, it does not secure the border nor promise any reduction in the number of individuals attempting to enter via Mexico.
The parole plan presumes, though, that there will be an even greater reduction in illegal border crossings than the 30,000 who enter as part of the parole process. The parole plan, according to the Biden administration, creates a disincentive for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter illegally at the southern border because the DHS’s new policy also provides that aliens who bypass the parole process and enter the United States without authorization will be subject to an expedited removal to Mexico or their country of origin.
If so, then why not just institute a policy of expediting the removal of individuals who enter illegally at the southern border?
Biden’s Border Disaster
According to the figures included in last week’s DHS notices, prior to the surge at the southern border that followed the Biden administration’s change in enforcement policies, there weren’t even 30,000 aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela crossing the border illegally on an annual basis.
For instance, the notice reported that for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 respectively, DHS encountered only 3,039 and 4,431 Haitian nationals at the southwest border, but by 2021 the number exploded to 43,484.
From 2014 to 2019, DHS encountered 589 Cubans on average every month, but by 2022, the average monthly encounter at the land border totaled 17,809, and in October and November of 2022, some 62,000-plus Cuban nationals attempted to cross the border.
From fiscal 2014 through 2019, border agents encountered a monthly average of 127 Venezuelan nationals, but by fiscal year 2022, the average number of Venezuelans crossing the border illegally on a monthly basis totaled 15,494 and rose to more than 33,000 in September of that year.
For Nicaraguan nationals, in 2022, DHS encountered an estimated 157,400 aliens, or an average of 13,113 per month, compared to an average of 316 per month from fiscal years 2014-2019.
These figures show the Biden administration does not need a parole policy: It needs an enforcement policy.
No End in Sight
There is a telling admission hidden in the DHS notice from last week that announced changes to the parole plan established for Venezuela in October of 2022. As originally established, the Venezuela plan capped the number of “parolees” at a total of 24,000 beneficiaries. But, as the DHS acknowledged in its notice modifying that plan, just two months in, “demand for the Venezuela process has far exceeded the 24,000 limit.”
“Absent immediate action,” the DHS notice explained, “there is a risk that DHS meets the 24,000 cap, which would in turn cause the [government of Mexico] to no longer accept the return of Venezuelan nationals and end the success of the parole process to date at reducing the number of Venezuelan nationals encountered at the border.” Further, should it reach the 24,000 limit, thereby making prospective migrants no longer eligible for parole, the “DHS anticipates that we would then see increased irregular migration of Venezuelans.”
In other words, the Biden administration is allowing aliens to come to America “legally” because if it doesn’t, foreign nationals will just start crossing the border illegally again.
Further, while the Biden administration’s current plan caps the number of parolees at 30,000 per month, the DHS notices indicate it may revisit that figure if necessary. What then, is there to stop the Biden administration from increasing the 30,000 cap two-fold or ten-fold? Or what is there to prevent the administration from expanding parole to aliens from countries beyond the four — maybe 14, or even 40?
While the intricacies of immigration law are detailed and often convoluted, the bottom line of the Biden administration’s parole plan should be clear to all Americans: Joe Biden has no intention of securing our border or faithfully executing his duties as the president of the United States.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) delivers a speech after he was elected on the 15th ballot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 7, 2023. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
Tough negotiations in Congress that on Saturday ended with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) taking the gavel as House speaker have led to a series of compromises, including seven conservative bills that are guaranteed to be put to a vote.
McCarthy had to make numerous concessions to win over a holdout group of populist Republicans, including one that gives him a fragile grip on power by allowing just one member to move to vacate the speaker’s chair.
The rocky road to the gavel—which saw 14 failed votes before the 15th finally saw McCarthy ascend to the House top job—led to a compromise on a rules package, which includes seven bills that the 20 holdout Republicans pushed for.
The House rules package is expected to be put to a vote on Jan. 9.
“This is what we’ve been fighting for,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one of the Republicans who opposed McCarthy’s bid for the speakership and pushed for concessions, said in a Sunday post on Twitter.
The rules package includes the following seven bills that are guaranteed to come up for a vote in the House under a subsection of the package that calls for separate consideration of the bills under a closed rule with one hour of debate.
A bill to cut some of the additional funding that was made available to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
A bill to authorize the secretary of Homeland Security to turn away people crossing the border illegally.
A bill that includes prohibiting the secretary of energy from sending petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
A tough-on-crime bill that includes amending the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act to direct the district attorney and prosecutor’s office to report to the attorney general.
A bill to require a national instant crime background check system to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies when information surfaces that a person present in the United States illegally may be trying to obtain a firearm.
A bill to prohibit taxpayer funded abortions.
A bill to amend Title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.
McCarthy said on Jan. 7, shortly after being elected as House Speaker, that the first bill he wants to see taken up and passed is the IRS-related one.
“When we come back, our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” McCarthy said. He didn’t specify when the bill would be introduced on the House floor but said Republicans “believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”
U.S. House Republican leaders Steve Scalise (R-La.) (L) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) talk in the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
1st Legislation for Republican House
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a recent letter that there’s legislation that’s “ready to go” that Republicans will bring to the House floor during the first two weeks of 2023.
The seven bills in the compromise House rules package largely mirror Scalise’s list.
According to Scalise’s letter, the first bill, dubbed the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act (pdf), aims to revoke some of the additional IRS funding that Democrats passed as part of their Inflation Reduction Act that the agency plans to use for tax enforcement.
With the first bill, Republicans are targeting what Scalise said was “tens of billions of dollars allocated to the IRS for 87,000 new IRS agents.” That figure is in dispute, with the Biden administration saying much of the money would go to non-enforcement staff like customer service.
Another bill Scalise put in the schedule is the Strategic Production Response Act (pdf), which would prohibit non-emergency drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve without a parallel plan to boost energy production on federal lands.
Republicans have been highly critical of President Joe Biden for ordering the release of oil from the strategic reserve, arguing that it was a ploy to win votes ahead of the midterms by trying to lower pump prices.
Biden, for his part, has insisted the release was meant to stabilize global oil markets amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy price shock, as well as trying to lower prices for Americans amid decades-high inflation, of which a major component is the cost of energy.
Scalise has scheduled another related bill, called Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act (pdf), which would restrict the energy secretary from selling oil from the strategic reserve to China.
Another bill is the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act (pdf), which would allow the public to see how many cases prosecutors are declining to prosecute, along with the number of criminals released onto the streets and the number of offenses committed by career criminals.
On border security, Scalise put forward a bill called the Border Safety and Security Act (pdf), which would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the power to turn away people crossing the border illegally in order to gain “operational control” of the border.
Another bill, called the Illegal Alien NICS Alert Act (pdf) would require the National Instant Criminal Background Check system (NICS) to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and relevant local law enforcement if someone trying to buy a firearm is an illegal immigrant.
One bill, called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (pdf), seeks to make the Hyde Amendment permanent and prohibit federal funding for abortions as well as funding for any insurance plans that include on-demand abortion.
Another bill, called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (pdf), would ensure that infants born alive after a failed abortion would receive the same legal protection and health care as a newborn.
McCarthy’s Concessions
Besides the bills, McCarthy had to make numerous concessions to win over the holdout Republicans, including giving the Freedom Caucus members seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, taking a hard line on the debt limit, and reducing spending.
While it normally takes 218 votes—a majority of the House—to become speaker, that threshold can be reduced if members are absent or merely vote present.
It’s precisely this maneuver that gave McCarthy his coveted win, as six Republicans voted “present” instead of “yea” in the final vote: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Bob Good (R-Va.), and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.).
In a 20-minute speech following the vote, McCarthy laid out his priorities for the 118th Congress, including securing the southern border, combating “woke” indoctrination in American schools, and unleashing domestic energy production.
“We must get America back on track,” he said. “We’ll hold the swamp accountable.”
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
A 55-page set of rules for the House that Speaker Kevin McCarthy hopes to pass on Monday will set ambitious new curbs on federal spending, part of the GOP’s effort to stop piling on trillions of dollars in new debt each year. One of the biggest changes is a return to a “Cut-As-You-Go” policy that says legislation cannot be considered if it increases mandatory spending over a 5- or 10-year period. This “CUTGO” policy requires bills that call for new spending to find offsetting spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
That is a more aggressive stance compared to the “Pay-As-You-Go” policy under Democratic control. “PAYGO” also requires offsets to new spending, but those offsets can either be spending cuts or tax increases – and in either case, PAYGO rules were often waived entirely by Democrats.
House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, hope to pass a rules package on Monday that will put severe curbs on new federal spending. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The decision to go with CUTGO shows the new GOP’s aversion to possible tax hikes, which can be seen elsewhere in the new rules package. For example, the rules require a supermajority in the House to approve new tax increases.
“A bill or joint resolution, amendment, or conference report carrying a federal income tax rate increase may not be considered as passed or agreed to unless so determined by a vote of not less than three-fifths of the Members voting, a quorum being present,” the rules state.
In another push to stop piling on new debt, the rules will end the practice of allowing the House to automatically increase the debt ceiling through passage of a budget resolution that would require borrowing above the current ceiling. Instead, the GOP will require separate votes to raise the debt ceiling in a bid to restore accountability to Congress.
Since 2001, the federal government’s budget has run a deficit each year. Starting in 2016, increases in spending on Social Security, health care and interest on federal debt have outpaced the growth of federal revenue. (U.S. Department of the Treasury)
The rules package also instructs House committees to prepare plans for strict oversight of the Biden administration, including an assessment of which programs continue to receive funding from Congress even though their authorization lapsed. It calls on committees to make recommendations on how to either consolidate or terminate those programs.
The package brings back the so-called Holman Rule, which allows members to chop specific agencies or even the salaries of specific federal employees when appropriations bills are being considered.
Republicans have argued for the past year that excessive federal spending is a major cause of inflation levels that have not been seen in 40 years. They say spending reductions will help to curb inflation. Along those lines, the rules package calls on the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the impact of spending bills on inflation whenever they spend a significant amount of money, or whenever this analysis is requested by the House Budget Committee chairman.
House GOP leaders say excessive spending by Democrats has ramped up inflation, and are looking to establish a set of rules aimed at curbing that spending. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The rules package does not include other spending goals held by the GOP, such as its desire to cap fiscal year 2024 discretionary spending at FY 2022 levels. However, Republicans are also reportedly pursuing that as a goal as well, which has some GOP lawmakers worried about possible defense cuts.
Elsewhere, the rules package includes language requiring all bills to be available for 72 hours before they get a vote – a reaction to the way the Democrats rushed through a $1.7 trillion spending bill last month.
It creates new House committees and subcommittees on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, strategic competition with China, and the weaponization of the federal government.
Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.
Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally sleep on a sidewalk near a migrant shelter on January 06, 2023, in El Paso, Texas. President Joe Biden visited El Paso on Sunday for his first-ever visit to the border in his decades-long career in politcs. U.S. Border authorities took into custody some 2.5 million illegal migrants in 2022, the highest number on record. | John Moore/Getty Images
Critics of the Biden administration’s handling of the immigration crisis at the U.S. southern border say President Joe Biden’s trip to Texas and Mexico amounted to a “photo-op” and expressed concern that the administration’s policies will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
President Joe Biden visited the southwest border for the first time Sunday, as concerns grow about the high volume of illegal immigration negatively affecting U.S. citizens and border communities. Statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol show there were 465,034 encounters between migrants and law enforcement officials at the southwest border in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, which began in October. By comparison, just 339,682 encounters occurred during the same period in fiscal year 2022.
Biden’s border visit occurred against the backdrop of his administration’s efforts to abolish Title 42, which enables border officials to quickly turn away migrants seeking entry into the U.S. due to public health concerns posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Title 42 to remain in place as the justices are slated to hear a case involving the matter later this year. The abandonment of Title 42 is expected to cause the number of illegal border crossings to increase to an even higher figure.
The president announced his intention to visit the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a press conference last week. During the address, Biden laid out actions his administration was taking to address the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the expansion of a parole program allowing Venezuelan migrants with sponsors in the U.S. to come to the country for two years and receive work permits as long as they pass a background check to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.
The president predicted that expanding the parole program to three additional countries will “substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross the southwest border without going through the legal process.” He contended that since the establishment of the existing parole program, “the number of Venezuelans trying to enter America without going through a legal process has dropped dramatically from about 1,100 per day to less than 250 per day on average.”
When Biden arrived in El Paso, Gov. Greg Abbott gave him a letter declaring that “your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late.”
Abbott added, “Your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.”
Hand-delivered a letter to President Biden today during his first visit to the border.
His trip is billion too little & 2 years too late.
“Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your Administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis,” he wrote. “This chaos is a direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted.”
Abbott elaborated on the consequences of mass illegal immigration at the southwest border, including the emboldening of the drug cartels engaged in “trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings.” He told the president “when you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do.”
The Texas governor urged Biden to “comply with the many statutes mandating that various categories of aliens ‘shall’ be detained, and end the practice of unlawfully paroling aliens en masse,” stop “sandbagging” Title 42, “aggressively prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove illegal immigrants in accordance with existing federal laws,” immediately resume the construction of the border wall separating the U.S. from Mexico and “designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.”
Newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., issued a statement of his own, characterizing Biden’s visit to the border as a “photo-op,” suggesting that any calls for border security from the administration ring hollow as long as the president continues “pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the U.S. illegally.” McCarthy vowed that “House Republicans will hold him and [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”
Biden is making his first border visit of his life—a photo op—while pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the US illegally.
House Republicans will hold him and Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.
Ahead of Biden’s visit to the border, the Democratic mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency, citing the impacts of the migrant surge on his city. Critics of the Biden administration previously attributed the rise in illegal border crossings, which began at the beginning of his presidency in 2021, to the abandonment of the Migrant Protection Protocols that required those seeking asylum in the U.S. to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were adjudicated.
During his speech last week, Biden touted the CBP ONE app, which enables migrants “to schedule an appointment at a port of entry and make their asylum claim there without crossing the border unlawfully.” Additionally, the White House released a fact sheet last week outlining additional actions the administration was taking to reduce illegal immigration at the southwest border.
Specifically, the fact sheet proclaimed that “… individuals who attempt to enter the United States without permission, do not have a legal basis to remain, and cannot be expelled pursuant to Title 42 will be increasingly subject to expedited removal from their country of origin and subject to a five-year ban on reentry.”
“DHS and DOJ are surging asylum officers and immigration judges to review asylum cases at the border more quickly — with the aim of reducing initial processing times from months to days,” the document added. The administration also intends to mobilize “faith-based and nonprofit organizations supporting migrants, including those providing temporary shelter, food, and humanitarian assistance.”
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An illegal alien and so-called “Dreamer” who brutally murdered three American citizens in 2018 was sentenced Friday to five consecutive life sentences.
27-year-old Luis Perez, a Mexican national, shot and killed his former roommates Steven Marler and Aaron Hampton on Nov. 1, 2018, and injured two others in Springfield, Missouri. The next day, the criminal noncitizen murdered Sabrina Starr, the 21-year-old who provided him with the weapon he used in the first two slayings.
TheBlaze reported at the time of the murders that Perez had been locked up in the Middlesex County Jail just months before on suspicion of various felonies, including assault, aggravated assault, and child abuse. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials requested that the jail hold Perez while it started deportation proceedings against him, however, the jail elected instead to release the criminal noncitizen. Perez summarily went on to kill Marler, Hampton, and Starr.
John Tsoukaris, the ICE Newark field office director said, “This tragedy might have been avoided had it not been for the reckless policy required of the Middlesex County Jail by their county officials.”
County officials suggested that the blame instead lay with ICE, as the agency “has the legal authority and the resources to secure such orders from a federal judge with regard to any inmate in the county’s custody it seeks to detain or deport.”
While Greene County prosecutors initially sought to have Perez put to death for his crimes, they ultimately fought to ensure he would never again walk free, reported the Springfield News-Leader.
Assistant Greene County Prosecutor Phil Fuhrman said, “Mr. Perez is dangerous, he is violent, and he is deserving of the maximum sentence.”
Perez’s attorney pushed for leniency in terms of his client’s sentencing, suggesting that the murderous illegal alien should receive his life sentences at the same time rather than one after another, so that he might one day become eligible for parole. The thinking behind this leniency: Perez, in the U.S. unlawfully, allegedly had a tough time growing up in New Jersey.
A spokesman for ICE revealed that Perez was previously a recipient of the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program in 2012 and 2014, enabling him to dodge deportation and to receive a work permit.
Judge Thomas Mountjoy, who found Perez guilty of the murders in October, was not swayed by this line of argumentation, noting he was “struck by the magnitude of the violence” and that the “magnitude speaks to requiring the most severe sentence that the law would structure.”
Mountjoy gave Perez consecutive life sentences, ensuring the murderer will die in prison.
The News-Leader reported that Deboray Elkins, the mother of victim Aaron Hampton, called Perez’s victims “fallen heroes” and said Perez’s conviction in October marked a “day of jubilation.”
According to ICE, 62 illegal aliens were convicted in fiscal year 2022 for murder or manslaughter; 1,142 were convicted with assault, battery, or domestic violence; 896 were convicted for burglary, robbery, or fraud; 1,614 were convicted for driving under the influence; 365 were convicted for sex offenses; and many more faced convictions for other crimes.
While Perez’s co-defendant Nyadia Burden previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, having bought the bullets Perez used in the murders, two others have pending charges.
Dalia Garcia stands accused of tampering with evidence, having allegedly burned clothing worn during the murders.
Aaron Anderson also remains on the hook, having been charged with being an accessory to murder.
Image source: Portland Fire & Rescue, photo by Dennis Weis
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A 27-year-old transsexual has reportedly admitted to burning down a historic Korean church in Portland, Oregon, underscoring how he wanted to “take credit” for this act of apparent anti-Christian hatred. The 118-year-old, 3,000-square-foot Portland Korean Church at Southwest 10th and Southwest Clay Street, formerly the First German Evangelical Church, was set ablaze around 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 3.
In response to multiple reports indicating that the structure was fast becoming an inferno, 12 fire engines, six ladder trucks, four battalion chiefs, and 75 Portland Fire and Rescue Personnel arrived on the scene. Portland Fire and Rescue indicated that the church was not occupied when the three-alarm fire broke out.
According to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office, by 5:40 p.m., the south side of the church had partially collapsed along with the roof. The fire had also spread to a neighboring home, which was evacuated.
Video of the historic downtown #Portland, Ore. church that was destroyed allegedly by New England #trans woman Cameron “Nicolette” Storer: https://t.co/6feMy6Nnst
The toppling of its 35-foot steeple, which reached a height of 70 feet, was captured on video:
A construction rig toppled the charred wooden steeple of the historic former Portland Korean Church shortly after noon on Friday – the first step in demolishing the building after it was ravaged by a fire Tuesday night.
Mike Schmidt, the leftist Multnomah County District Attorney who made a name for himself by refusing to prosecute BLM rioters and other violent suspects, announced that 25-year-old Cameron David Storer was arraigned on four charges, including two counts of arson in the first degree, one count of arson in the second degree, and two counts of burglary in the second degree.
Storer, a transsexual who prefers to be called by a woman’s name, reportedly walked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on Jan. 4 to confess to setting the fire, claiming that he wanted to “take credit” for the attack and detailing how he had gone about doing so with a Bic lighter. Court documents indicated that Storer lit papers on fire in the church, waited nearby to make sure it had spread, then walked over to Plaid Pantry to observe his handiwork.
The alleged arsonist claimed to have taken 10 oxycodone daily and to have been addled by schizophrenia. He also suggested that voices had told him to burn down the church.
Andy Ngô reported that the bearded suspect is currently being jailed in a co-ed medical dorm in a single cell.
In light of Schmidt’s recent admission that Multnomah County can’t bring all dangerous criminals to justice — letting alleged stranglers, domestic abusers, sex offenders, human traffickers, child abusers, and berserkers of various intensities off without any penalty for their misdeeds — it is presently unclear if Storer will ultimately be penalized for the alleged crimes for which he has taken credit.
The Portland Korean Church, which the Oregonian noted was owned by Hadi Nouredine, a Beaverton and Lake Oswego dentist, was also targeted in September 2020.
Christian churches have been routinely targeted in Portland, primarily by leftist marauders.
A transsexual Antifa militant was charged with a Nov. 3, 2020, attack on Saint André Bessette Catholic Church — a church known for housing, cleaning, and feeding the city’s poor.
Father Tom Gaughan said, “The actions of this one individual has forced us to cease our outreach and its hundreds of people we normally give food to.”
"The act of one person has prevented us from providing for hundreds of people."
In April 2021, the First Christian Church was targeted in an attack, having its windows shattered.
At least four Catholic churches were vandalized by radicals with threatening and vulgar remarks in summer 2021.
The century-old Portland Stake Tabernacle in southeast Portland was abandoned in summer 2022, after its Mormon congregants fled the state, citing the leftist violence plaguing the city.
The Democrat-run city scores a three on Neighborhood Scout’s crime index, where 100 is safest. The chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime are one in 187. In the Democrat-controlled state of Oregon, the odds are one in 342.
In one week, Cori Bush proved she is more supportive of trans murderers than of black conservatives. The congresswoman from Missouri joined fellow Democrat Emanuel Cleaver in an attempt to stop the execution of Amber McLaughlin – formerly Scott McLaughlin – who was convicted of rape and murder in 2006.
Their efforts failed.
Bush’s tweet lamenting that McLaughlin’s execution – the first involving a transgender inmate – was much different in tone from the one she sent regarding a very different historic event.
Bush called Rep. Byron Donalds, a black Republican from Florida, a “prop” and supporter of “white supremacy” in a recent tweet criticizing his bid to become speaker of the House. Donalds would be the first black person to hold that position – the type of milestone that the left openly celebrates. Leftists certainly have celebrated for Hakeem Jeffries, the black Democrat and noted election denier, who will lead his party in the new session of Congress.
Byron Donalds is different. He describes himself as a “Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect Black man.” His entire political persona is in complete opposition to that of Cori Bush and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. This fact should be welcome news to black voters. Our political system is all about debating worldviews, priorities, and policy ideas. The black community would benefit from elected officials from opposite sides of the political spectrum debating the merits of charter schools or education savings accounts.
But instead of engaging ideas, Bush went straight to attacks on what she believes black people value most: our racial identity. Bush is just like President Biden and prominent liberals in media and politics who think they are the gatekeepers of racial authenticity. They think anyone who doesn’t follow the left’s script “ain’t black.” But as is often the case in life, the foot soldiers of “Biden blackness” are engaging in projection.
Cori Bush is an abortion absolutist who thinks black babies are better off being killed in the womb than being born to poor black mothers. She also supports Black Lives Matter, the organization that wants to dismantle the nuclear family and believes black children are better off being raised in “villages” full of women where the only “dad” is the government.
Bush is most infamous for her support of the “defund the police” movement. A woman who represents one of the most violent cities in the country thinks that police are the ones making her city dangerous. She is a more zealous advocate for rapists and murderers on death row than for the law-abiding citizens in her district.
There is an important lesson to learn here. People who see themselves as oppressed, marginalized slaves will do anything — even kill themselves and their offspring — if they can be convinced that murder is a form of liberation.
The worst part about Bush’s comments is how normal they have become in our political discourse. The left has directed the vitriol it used to reserve for Justice Clarence Thomas to any black person who is right of center.
Winsome Sears, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, was accused of being a “black mouth” justifying white supremacist ideas by Michael Eric Dyson on MSNBC. Larry Elder was called the “black face of white supremacy” in a Los Angeles Times column during his bid to unseat Gavin Newsom as governor. Condoleezza Rice was called a “foot soldier for white supremacy” by culture critic Touré for her rejection of CRT in American classrooms.
This is the new norm in our political and racial discourse. Black children are told they can be anything they desire – as long as they are not out-of-the-closet conservatives.
Black drug dealers, pimps, and shooters are all treated with more respect than black Republicans. Rappers can degrade black women and glorify violence against black men without any fear of having their BET Awards invitation revoked. But if a black politician or artist says he is glad Roe is dead, he can expect to watch the show at home.
When you reward degeneracy and punish unapproved political thoughts, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more of the former and less of the latter.
This is why one of the most needed developments in American politics today is to break the notion that fealty to the Democratic Party is a litmus test for maintaining good standing in the black community. All black voters should feel free to support candidates based on policy positions that reflect their values.
This is the sad state of race in America today. Liberals like Robin DiAngelo who tell white people they are the key to black social progress are hailed as heroes. Black politicians like Cori Bush who spend more time championing the rights of “pregnant men” than the benefits of the natural family are treated like bold revolutionaries. But black conservatives like Byron Donalds are treated like race traitors online, by corporate media, and in Hollywood. Their motto for social control is simple, yet effective: “When in doubt, pull the race card out.” The problem is that too many black people see the death and destruction being promoted by the left’s agenda and won’t be silenced.
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Law enforcement now says that a 6-year-old student in Virginia intentionally shot his teacher last week.
On Friday, Richneck Elementary School first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after one of her students shot her. At the time, police said it was unknown whether the shooting was an accident or intentional.
But the shooting was intentional, according to police.
“This was not an accidental shooting,” Newport News police chief Steve Drew revealed at a press conference, explaining there was an “altercation” that preceded the shooting.
Officials, however, are not saying what led up to the altercation, and law enforcement has declined to say how the child obtained access to the firearm or who owns it. Police have also not said anything about the child’s parents. The child was taken into police custody, but officials are not saying where he is being held.
Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones confirmed the child is being cared for.
“It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old first grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher; however, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today,” Jones said in a statement. “This is still an active investigation, and the Newport News Police Department is working diligently to get an answer to the question we are all asking — how did this happen?”
Police officers have not revealed what criminal charges they will pursue, but the situation is incredibly complicated because of the child’s age.
Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults. In addition, a 6-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty.
A juvenile judge would have authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.
Fortunately, Zwerner’s situation has since improved, though she remains hospitalized.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Those conservatives who want to shape the nascent pro-family movement emerging on the right must be willing to embrace a controversial — and countercultural — reality: Healthy families require strong, stable, and secure men. That means Republicans interested in crafting pro-family policy must focus on the well-being of America’s boys and men.
Democrats have spent decades supporting policies that make men and fathers economically and socially obsolete. They’ve promoted the notion that families and societies flourish when women are empowered, even to the detriment of men. For instance, they see the fact that women outnumber men in the college-educated labor force as a win for gender equality.
It’s not all progress, however, from the perspective of modern feminists. So-called access to abortion, a major plank in the women’s empowerment agenda, was dealt a serious blow when the Supreme Court’s Dobbsv. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision struck down Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the states.
This seismic shift, combined with the economic challenges brought on by Covid-19 shutdowns and parental discontent with public schools, has opened the door for some conservatives to seek to rebrand Republicans as the party of families.
The initial push for this political pivot came from Republicans in the U.S. Senate. The most recent iteration of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act would provide between $250 and $350 a month per child, based on age. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s Provide for Life Act would expand the child tax credit, enable parental leave, expand support for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, and fund mentoring services for low-income mothers. Conservative social commentators have also made the case that limited government and support for families are compatible policy goals.
Whatever the merits of these efforts, the success of pro-family policies will depend on more than bipartisan support in Congress. The social and economic outcomes conservatives want to see must start with the understanding that men and women are not generic, interchangeable parts in the machinery of family life.
Recognizing Roles
Men have played the role of provider throughout human history, though in recent decades that role has been shared. Still, no culture teaches that it’s a woman’s responsibility to take care of an adult male and the children they have together. This is why women generally seek men who earn more than they do. One analysis of U.S. Census data found that female physicians married men in the same field. Male doctors, however, often married nurses and teachers.
This is not an argument against women in the workplace. It’s an appeal for conservatives to recognize that disregarding the natural order in the name of “women’s empowerment,” whether through public policy or cultural norms, will make it harder for Americans to form strong, stable families.
Conservative politicians and pundits need to become comfortable talking about what boys and men need in terms of education, economic opportunity, religion, social norms, and relationships.
Their political speeches, op-eds, and podcast appearances need a renewed emphasis on vocational education that is aspirational, not framed in terms of a fallback option for young men who are unable — or unwilling — to attend college. Conservatives need to speak with a similar sense of clarity and concern when it comes to men, sex, and family formation.
Every conservative bill, statute, policy, or regulation that directly affects families should include some version of the following statements:
Children have a right to the love and support of the man and woman who created them.
The ideal family structure for every child is to be raised by his or her married biological parents in a stable and loving home.
Men, not the state, are ultimately responsible for the children they father.
These self-evident truths should function as the “iron triangle” of social conservatism. Men need something they are willing to both live and die for. The responsibilities that come with a family give them both.
Critics on the left — as well as some on the right — will undoubtedly accuse conservatives focusing on men of promoting a regressive return to the rigid sex roles of the 1950s. What they fail to realize is that the sexual revolution and 60 years of liberal social policy did not destroy patriarchy — they distorted it by minimizing the importance of men while maximizing the influence male-dominated institutions have in every area of American family life.
Different Forms of Patriarchy
“Bureaucratic patriarchy” was introduced through the war on poverty’s expansion of the welfare state and policy incentives that provided aid and basic necessities for unmarried mothers. It has grown because of the symbiotic relationship between elected officials seeking votes, social service administrators overseeing the poverty economy, and single mothers who need financial support.
Conservatives have a hard time criticizing “corporate patriarchy,” by contrast, because it promotes financial independence for women and exploits conservative deference to the private sector. A recent video from the pro-life organization Live Action satirizes an unfortunate reality brought about by the right’s allegiance to corporations: Many businesses would rather fund abortions than paid maternity leave for their female employees. Perhaps business executives are simply taking cues from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said, “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”
The advent of “trans patriarchy” further complicates the pro-life, pro-family movement because men who believe they are women are committed to erasing biological sex altogether. In addition to attacking the foundation of human existence itself, this deformed version of patriarchy also seeks to usurp the family’s role as the primary shaper of children’s values.
Many conservatives fail to see how the daycare-to-demisexual pipeline was built over time by politicians increasing funding for childcare and schools, corporations offering generous benefits in exchange for employee loyalty, and gender ideologues who want access to shape the next generation of children.
The actors involved in all three deformed patriarchies are cruel taskmasters because they take a utilitarian view of women and children. A man who accepts his God-given responsibilities has a completely different orientation toward his family. His relationship with his wife is a covenant, not a contract. His children are the fruit of that union and the linchpin to multi-generational prosperity. They’re not mere “consequences” of sex and burdens to be overcome for the sake of economic productivity.
In a sense, some form of patriarchy is inevitable. The question conservative policymakers need to answer is which form they believe produces the best outcomes for men, women, and children. This is why clear thinking about families must be preceded by honest reflection on the different natures of men and women and how they can be harnessed to fortify American households. That is why now is the perfect time for conservatives to lean into the connection between strong men and stable families.
Delano Squires is a research fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @DelanoSquires.
Every so often, a moment of sanity prevails in our culture, quite unintentionally. At such times, reality hits home, and most people don’t even notice it. But that’s exactly what happened with the announcement of the findings of a major scientific study. For a split second, reality overtook ideology, as left-leaning journalists shared the results of this study without thinking through the implications.
I’m referring to the news, first reported widely on Fortune.com that, “Women are more empathetic than men, study of hundreds of thousands of people finds — at any age and in any country in the world.”
In response I tweeted sarcastically, “A major new study has revealed that ‘women are more empathetic than men.’ This leads to two startling revelations: 1. there is such a thing as women and men. 2. there are real differences between women and men. What do you know!”
Yes, presupposed in this major international study, which involved 300,000 participants, is the fact that there is such a thing as males and females. They really exist, and their existence can be defined, despite efforts to make “woman” (and, by extension) “man” undefinable. (Think of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s now infamous answer to the “What is a woman?” question and see Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?” documentary.)
Without this presupposition, namely, that there is such a thing as women and men, the study would have no meaning. In fact, it would be impossible even to conduct the study. Otherwise, all we would have is the difference between humans and humans. That’s it!
We could not report on differences between women and men, since sex and gender are merely what we perceive them to be. Instead, we would have differences between humans, and the results would be, “On average, certain humans are more empathetic than other humans.”
It would be like doing a major survey comparing the health of taller people (let’s say people 6 feet tall or more) to shorter people (here, under 6 feet tall). The only way it could work would be if height was definable and tangible. But if my height was whatever I perceived it to be, so much for the study. I would have no meaning or purpose at all.
It’s the same with differences between the sexes. If sex (and, consequently, gender) is whatever I perceive it to be, then scientific studies like this are worthless. After all, if I’m a biological male who identifies as a female, then I have undermined the whole premise of the study.
How, then, did the makers of this health study craft their questions so as to get tangible, substantive answers?
When you click on the test itself, conducted under the auspices of the University of Cambridge, you are asked a series of background questions, beginning with, “What is your age?” This reminds us that “age” is not a matter of perception, even if we feel younger or older than our actual years. Our age is identifiable, going back to the year we were born. That is a fact.
The second question is: “What was your biological sex assigned at birth?” What do you know! Despite the use of radicalized leftist language, as if your sex was arbitrarily assigned to you at birth by the doctors and nurses, the survey must ask for biological reality. Otherwise, to repeat, the survey has no meaning at all.
Quite tellingly, in today’s upside down culture, you can’t simply ask, “What is your sex?” Instead, you need to ask what was written on your birth certificate when you were born. Your actual, biological sex matters!
Even so, the survey listed the options of: “Male; Female; Intersex; I prefer not to say; I do not know.” (Are we really supposed to believe that some people do not know if they were born male or female? We’re not talking here about the very real biological category of Intersex, where there is potential ambiguity.)
Not surprisingly, given the madness of our woke society, the next question asks, “What is your gender?”
Here the choices are more expansive (but of course!): “Female; Male; Transfemale; Transmale; Non-binary; Other; I prefer not to say; I do not know.” (Enough said. I don’t need to make any commentary here.)
What is remarkable, though, is the test results page (I took the test to see how I scored).
Under, “Your Empathy score (EQ)” we are told that, “Most females score 6 to 16” and “Most males score 4 to 15.”
What happened to all the other categories? What happened to the transfemales and transmales and non-binary people? Those categories no longer exist, displaced by differences between “females” and “males,” and that information was gleaned in question 2: When you were born, what was your biological sex? That’s what really matters.
Later, the test results page explains that, “On average, more men than women have a Type S brain type and more women than men have a Type E brain type. It is suggested that these brain types are caused by genetic and prenatal hormonal levels (2,3), as well as by environmental factors.”
Accordingly, the Fortune.com article reported that, “Females, on average, score significantly higher in cognitive empathy scores than males regardless of nationality, language spoken, and age, a massive new study published on Monday in the journal PNAS found.” And the 250-word abstract of the study references “females” 8 times — without qualification or equivocation.
Accordingly, David Greenberg, a psychologist and social neuroscientist at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and lead author on the study, commented, “Our results provide some of the first evidence that the well-known phenomenon — that females are on average more empathic than males — is present in a wide range of countries across the globe. It’s only by using very large data sets that we can say this with confidence.”
My wife, Nancy, saw this reported on CNN in the most matter-of-fact way, with both the CNN newscaster and the doctor brought in for commentary seeming to forget that is bigoted and transphobic to speak of differences between women and men. In the words of NARL (the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), “We use gender-neutral language when talking about pregnancy, because it is not just cis-gender women who get pregnant.” But of course. And men can menstruate too. All clear!
As I wrote in 2017 (with reference to “menstruating men”), “There is an all-out war on sexual difference (often referred to as ‘gender’), and if it wins the day, it will lead to societal chaos.”
That chaos is already here, growing by the day. But for a moment this week, quite unintentionally, reality crept back in and sanity prevailed as news outlets reported the simple, verifiable (and, widely known) fact that women, on average, are more empathetic than men.
Men and women do exist, and there are differences between the two.
Image source: (Left) Video screenshot/ (Right) Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
On “The Rubin Report,” BlazeTV host Dave Rubin shared a clip of Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik telling Tucker Carlson about the stunning offer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made to her after she was doxxed and threatened.
“When I was doxxed, someone from Ron DeSantis’ team called me … and she said, ‘The governor wanted me to give you a message. He said if you don’t feel safe, you or your family, if you need a place to go to hide, to stay, you can come to the governor’s mansion.’ He said, ‘We have a guest house for you, and you can come and stay as long as you need,” Raichik said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Today.”
“The governor of Florida did this?” asked a clearly stunned Carlson.
“Yes,” Raichik confirmed. “I was almost in tears.”
“And you were living in California?” Carlson asked, still agog.
“I [was] living in California and [DeSantis] took time out of his, I’m assuming, extremely busy schedule … to send someone to call me to make sure I’m safe,” explained Raichik.
Watch the video below or find full episodes of “The Rubin Report” here. Can’t watch? Download the podcast here.
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A Loudoun County father, whose arrest at a June 2021 school board meeting was used by the Biden administration to justify a politicized attack on concerned parents, was found not guilty of trespassing on Wednesday.
Law enforcement arrested Jon Tigges at a Loudoun school board meeting on June 22, 2021, after he tried expressing concerns about the school district’s “moral decay.” A Virginia district judge found Tigges guilty in October of 2021. Loudoun Circuit Judge Douglas Fleming Jr., however, cleared Tigges of any wrongdoing. Fleming determined that Tigges not only had a First Amendment right to attend the heated meeting but also that the superintendent who shut down the official gathering last summer had no right to declare it an “unlawful assembly.”
“My thanks to God for justice,” Tigges wrote on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
Tigges was one of the more than 250 people who had signed up to speak during the public comment section of the Loudoun County School Board meeting that summer night. He intended to voice opposition to the board’s new transgender policy proposal, which mandated that employees use students’ so-called “preferred pronouns” and preferred restrooms regardless of their sex. Before Tigges could speak, School Board Chairwoman Brenda Sheridan called off the meeting, and the now-recently fired Superintendent Scott Ziegler declared the gathering an “unlawful assembly.” Ziegler ordered the hundreds of people waiting to express their outrage at the government school district to vacate the premises or risk arrest.
Tigges refused to leave.
“I just felt led to realize that we could still speak,” Tigges told The Federalist last year. “It’s a public forum, a public room. It had been scheduled until seven o’clock for people to speak. I stood up to encourage folks to stay and if they had something to say whether they were on the left or the right, didn’t matter. They’d be heard and we’d respect one another and do so and so people started doing that without any amplification at all and you could hear them fine because it was a peaceful assembly.”
Despite Tigges’ claim on the First Amendment, police officers handcuffed, arrested, and charged him with trespassing.
Two arrests made at the Loudoun County, Virginia school board meeting after it was declared an unlawful assembly and some parents here to protest against critical race theory and a transgender policy refused to leave right away #CriticalRaceTheorypic.twitter.com/dsZDrqJ0Gp
Tigges’ arrest in June of 2021 was used by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), in collusion with the Biden White House, to justify the smearing of concerned parents as “domestic terrorists” who required punishment from federal law enforcement. In September of 2021, the NSBA sent its infamous complaint letter, secretly solicited by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, to the Department of Justice, which sparked a politicized attack on parents who wanted to speak out against corrupt school boards.
“Despite this victory, I have serious concerns about where we are as a country. We’ve been subverted by a darkness that is spilling out in rot at all levels and in both political parties,” Tigges tweeted after the decision. “Nothing will change until We the People value conviction over comfort.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas Wednesday for calling opponents to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speaker bid “terrorists,” saying that Crenshaw was ignoring “real concerns” raised by conservatives.
“They’re terrorists now? It’s hard not to see the connection, because over the past few years pretty much every part of the war on terror has been turned against the domestic political enemies of the neocons,” Carlson said after airing a soundbite of Crenshaw. “So now they’re coming out and telling you what they told you about Iraq: Either you’re with us or against us. You’re on the side of light or darkness. You’re good or evil.”
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida received 20 votes for speaker during Wednesday’s ballots after he switched from McCarthy to Jim Jordan on the third ballot Tuesday.
WATCH:
“Dan Crenshaw went all the way, as neocons always do, he proceeded to go to CNN to call his political opponents enemies of the state,” Carlson said, before airing Crenshaw’s comments from an interview on CNN.
McCarthy agreed to some proposals put forth by the House Freedom Caucus, but failed to convince enough of them to back his bid to win the necessary votes to become speaker. The threshold for a “motion to vacate,” which allows rank and file members of the House of Representatives to unseat a speaker, is a sticking point, according to Donalds.
“No matter how you feel, you have to acknowledge, if you’re being honest, that people who don’t like Kevin McCarthy have a reason for that,” Carlson said. “They have real concerns, real issues, but you’ll notice that Dan Crenshaw didn’t address any of those, none of them, instead he impugned their motives, their character, their intelligence, their moral standards.”
“What you just saw as Dan Crenshaw just spoke, what you just saw is the snarling face of the donor class, revealed for all to see finally,” Carlson said. “The deep loathing of disobedient voters that may be their most passionate secret emotion. They’re not bothering to hide that emotion anymore. Now you know how they really feel.”
A spokesperson for Crenshaw referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to a tweet by the congressman, urging people to “unclutch your pearls” and “grow thicker skin.”
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Jordan Peterson has been ordered by a Canadian psychology governing body to enter what Peterson called a “re-education” program reportedly over his past comments and speech that “may cause harm.” Not surprisingly, Peterson said Wednesday he “formally indicated” his “refusal to comply” with the demands of the College of Psychologists of Ontario.
Peterson posted to Twitter parts of a document from the College of Psychologists of Ontario that outlined its concern over his “public statements made on social media and during a January 25, 2022, podcast appearance” that “may have lacked professionalism.“
The document indicates that Peterson is to work with another professional to “review, reflect on, and ameliorate [his] professionalism in public statements” and complete a “Coaching Program.”
Here are the demands made of me with regard to my re-education. I have formally indicated my refusal to comply @CPOntariopic.twitter.com/Nl2poxgW2c
Peterson’s stated refusal to comply could result in discipline for professional misconduct, according the document’s language.
According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the College of Psychologists of Ontario last March appointed an investigator to examine complaints about Peterson’s Twitter comments as well as things he said on a Joe Rogan podcast.
The Journal — citing images provided by Peterson — said the College’s panel in November ruled that “the comments at issue appear to undermine the public trust in the profession as a whole and raise questions about your ability to carry out your responsibilities as a psychologist.”
More from the Journal:
What are these comments? Calling Elliot Page, the transgender actor, by his former name, “Ellen,” and the pronoun “her,” on Twitter. Calling an adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “prik.” A sarcastic crack at antigrowth environmentalists for not caring that their energy policies lead to more deaths of poor Third World children.
Calling a former client “vindictive.” Objecting to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover of a plus-size model: “Sorry. Not Beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.” In Canada even offenses begin with “sorry.”
The Journal added that the panel found “the impact risk in this case is significant” since Peterson’s comments “may cause harm” — and decided that coaching Peterson would help “mitigate any risks to the public.”
The College of Psychologists of Ontario declined to comment on the case, citing confidentiality, the Journal reported.
“Who exactly was harmed, how, when, to what degree, and how was that harm measured?” Peterson asked, according the the Journal.
Peterson also posted a Twitter thread telling the College of Psychologists of Ontario that he’s “making what is happening public. If the public believes I’m guilty then I will take the required course of communication and then resign.”
He added to the College that if its “allegations … are revealed publicly to be both baseless and politically motivated then a public apology and the resignation of everyone involved in the process on your side is appropriate.”
Peterson also appeared to take a page from Twitter owner Elon Musk’s playbook, setting up a poll so the public can weigh in and side with Peterson or with the College.
Twitter reinstated Peterson to the platform in November. He had been banned in July for “hateful conduct” regarding tweets mentioning Page.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Nearly three years after bureaucrats shuttered businesses, forced people to stay home, and threatened fines for those who didn’t comply, all in the name of preventing the spread of a respiratory virus, the Covid regime is quietly reviving the “forever pandemic.”
Ahead of the midterms, the Biden administration, Democrats, and corporate media championed the end of years of pandemic panic.
“The pandemic is over,” President Joe Biden declared during a “60 Minutes” interview in September.
The Covid regime’s grip on the country may have loosened during the heat of the 2022 election cycle, which gave Americans the false hope that everything was finally returning to normal. Shortly after the election, however, when Democrats realized the Republican Party isn’t as big of a threat as expected, fearmongering about a “surge” in the nearly three-year-old pandemic thanks to a new variant resumed.
“Should Everyone Be Masking Again?” one Atlantic writer inquired in December. His article is littered with comments from “experts” who eagerly and unanimously answered “yes.”
“You really should mask up again, says infectious disease expert: The tripledemic is hitting ‘too fast and too furious,’” one CNBC headline blared a few days before Christmas.
“The ‘Tripledemic’ Holiday: How to Fly More Safely (Hint: Wear a Mask),” The New York Times wrote.
When corporate media mouthpieces aren’t virtue signaling about staying home on New Year’s Eve, alleging that emergency rooms are “packed and doctors are rationing care,” they are offering favorable coverage of communist China’s forced lockdowns and wondering aloud why certain counties aren’t heeding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations to mask communities with “high” levels of virus transmission.
Despite the legitimate scrutiny the CDC has received for its bureaucratic malfeasance, its Director Rochelle Walensky all but confirmed the agency’s commitment to reintroducing protocols that, according to the science, don’t stop infection from spreading.
“We wanted you to put your masks away, not to throw your masks out,” Walensky said in an interview with NPR in early December.
Public schools all around the nation, similarly, are backsliding. Evidence indicates that forced masking takes a toll on children’s ability to learn and speak. That hasn’t stopped some of the largest school districts in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Boston from reintroducing forced masking for the beginning of the spring semester.
“We don’t think that learning will stop or that students will be inherently prohibited from learning,” Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. told NBC.
Some cities such as Oakland have decided to reinstate mask mandates for government buildings. Others are contemplating a return to masks at the behest of so-called “infectious disease experts.”
Bureaucrats justify these useless and harmful mandates under the claim that the rise of RSV, the flu, and Covid cases could, combined, overwhelm local hospitals. Sound familiar? That’s the same excuse bureaucrats used to extend “two weeks to flatten the curve” to keep the U.S. locked down for most of 2020.
Mask mandates aren’t the only indicator that the Covid regime is trying to claw its way back into the driver’s seat. Biden, who smeared former President Donald Trump as xenophobic for introducing a similar policy in 2020, quietly enacted testing restrictions on travelers from Covid-plagued China last week.
Furthermore, Anthony Fauci, the now-retired former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was mostly absent from TV screens for months leading up to the midterms, was back on corporate media shows shortly after Election Day telling Americans what to do with their lives.
Republicans have threatened to hold Fauci and other “forever pandemic” spokesmen accountable for the havoc they wreaked on the economy and Americans’ health and education. But while the GOP, which only holds a razor-thin majority in the House, is distracted by infighting, the Covid regime is emboldened to further encroach on Americans’ lives once more.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Fox News contributor David Webb reacts to Pelosi’s potential successor supporting a House commission to study reparations.
As House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy struggles to garner the 218 required votes to obtain the speaker’s gavel, Democrats are repeatedly delivering votes for incoming Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has a history of denying the legitimacy of elections.
The final tally in the fourth round of voting on Wednesday was 201 votes for McCarthy, 212 for Jeffries, 20 for Rep.-elect Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Rep.-elect Victoria Spartz’s lone “present” vote. All Democrats voted for Jeffries in the last five votes and no other Democrat has been nominated by the party to serve as speaker.
President Biden and other prominent Democrats, as well as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, have fumed over individuals who question or deny the legitimacy of elections, referring to them at times as “extremists” and threats to democracy. But Jeffries, who was first elected to Congress in 2012 and now has widespread support among members in his party, has a history of displaying the very behavior that many in the Democratic Party now accuse their opposition of.
President Biden has expressed particular criticism of “MAGA Republicans,” who he claimed “refuse to accept the results of a free election.” (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In multiple tweets, ranging from June 2017 to January 2018, Jeffries seemingly refused to acknowledge Donald Trump as the rightful winner of the 2016 presidential election.
“Climate Change is NOT a hoax. But 45’s election may have been,” Jeffries wrote in a June 2017 tweet, nearly five months after Trump entered the White House.
Jeffries — who was elected in November by his Democratic House colleagues to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as leader — has faced scrutiny from high-ranking Republicans over previously resurfaced remarks he made apparently denying the legitimacy of Trump’s presidential election victory. But numerous times in tweets during Trump’s presidency, Jeffries repeatedly suggested that Trump’s election was fraudulent.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries has received support from all 212 Democrats as McCarthy struggles to reach the required 218 to earn the speaker’s gavel. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
In September 2017, Jeffries stated in a tweet that Trump’s “Election Integrity Commission is the real FRAUD” and that it “should investigate his so-called victory.”
That same month, Jeffries, responding to remarks made by the president on Twitter, issued a similar tweet and called Trump’s “so-called election victory” a “hoax.“
“The real hoax is likely your so-called election victory,” Jeffries claimed at the time. The congressman also included “#RussianHacking” in the tweet, appearing to suggest that Russia helped to elect Trump in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into America’s elections.
Other tweets denying Trump’s election victory from Jeffries have also been made public, primarily from the Republican National Committee, which criticized Jeffries as an “election denier” and posted tweets that Jeffries had posted in 2018.
President Biden has expressed particular criticism of “MAGA Republicans,” who he claimed “refuse to accept the results of a free election.”
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden said during a September speech in Philadelphia. “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of the law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election.“
This is the only “So Long, 2022!” column you need to read. I combed The New York Times’ archives for all the pivotal moments.
It turns out that 2022 was a MAJOR year for firsts. True, other years had their noteworthy events — the first flight, the first man to walk on the moon, the first iPhone and so on. But step aside, 1903, 1969 and 2007! This past year was a goldmine of firsts. Below are just some of the epochal moments registered by the newspaper of broken record.
January 5: “Adrienne Adams Makes History as First Black N.Y.C. Council Speaker.”
Boise, Idaho, held a special parade to mark the occasion!
February 13: Erin Jackson wins gold in the 500 meters, “becoming the first African American woman to win a medal” in speedskating.
If this historic trend continues, could we one day see a black man in the NBA?
February 27: Burna Boy “will be the first Nigerian musician to headline Madison Square Garden.”
Just think of how much history we have to look forward to — the first Mauritian to headline MSG, the first Gambian to headline MSG. (There are unconfirmed rumors that a Djiboutian may have played cymbals at the Blue Note once, but apparently that moment was lost to history.)
March 6: Memoirist Silvia Vasquez-Lavado is “the first openly gay woman to complete the Seven Summits and the first Peruvian woman to summit Everest.”
She practiced by hiking up the remains of Peru’s mass child sacrifice — believed to the largest in the world!
March 17: “[Lia] Thomas, who competes for the University of Pennsylvania, became the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship.”
Now that Thomas has definitively proved that people born with vaginas cannot hold a candle to people born with penises in physical strength, please don’t tell me we’re going to have to rethink girl firemen?
March 28: “State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat and [Florida’s] first openly gay Latino lawmaker …”
A sentence that CANNOT BE SPOKEN in Florida, thanks to Ron Death-Santis’ “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” law that never uses the word “gay.”
April 20: [Announcing new editors, Marc Lacey and Carolyn Ryan]: “Ms. Ryan will be the first openly gay journalist to serve as managing editor of The Times. Mr. Lacey is the third Black journalist to serve in the role.”
And thank God the Times has rid itself of those nonentities, Donald McNeil, Bari Weiss and James Bennet.
April 29: “[Maye Quade] had been seeking to become the first Black woman and first openly gay woman elected to the State Senate in Minnesota.”
The Times neglected to mention that Minnesota also boasts of the first member of Congress who married her own brother.
May 5: “Ms. [Karine] Jean-Pierre, who will succeed Jen Psaki, will be the first Black woman and the first openly gay person to serve in the role.”
Biden delighted his base with the first black lesbian press secretary. But in a bow to tradition, she IS a complete moron.
May 9: “L Morgan Lee made theater history on Monday, becoming what production officials described as the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as a featured actress.”
In this one case, the Times returned to the anachronistic, misogynistic word “actress” in lieu of “actor.”
June 8: “[G]ov. Gavin Newsom played up [Rob] Bonta’s status as the first Filipino American in the role [of California’s attorney general].”
… between bites of succulent roasted pig and sips of a fine French wine with a piquant floral bouquet at the French Laundry restaurant.
July 6: “San Jose Hires a Retired Player as the N.H.L.’s First Black General Manager.”
And no one knows ice hockey like San Jose!
July 8: “Black Woman Named President of Raiders In a First for the N.F.L.”
Well, “black” under the one-drop rule, in view of her Korean mother.
July 8: “[Brittney Griner] … the first openly gay athlete signed to an endorsement contract by Nike.”
Also the first openly gay athlete to take precedence over a former U.S. Marine in a prisoner exchange with Russia!
July 27: [New York Times Bonus Content!]: “[Kamala Harris] was a historic choice, becoming the first woman, the first African American and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president.”
And she did it by being the only person in the country who met Biden’s three exacting requirements: 1) Must be black; 2) must be a woman and 3) That’s about it.
August 28: “Serbia’s prime minister, Ana Brnabic … is the first woman and first openly gay person to hold that position in the country.”
Yeah, they saw what happened when American gays turned against Russia.
September 10: “[Ons Jabeur of Tunisia] could become the first African woman to win the U.S. Open.”
Jabeur lost to Iga Swiatek from Poland (BO-ring!), who beat her in straight sets in the women’s final — but still.
September 27: Lizzo, the Black rapper, was the first to play a “200-year-old crystal flute that a French craftsman and clockmaker had made for President James Madison in 1813.” Serendipitously, she had been handed the flute by Carla D. Hayden, “the first African American and first woman to lead the Library of Congress.”
The moment was not sullied by anyone knowing who James Madison was because, luckily, all his busts and statues have been torn down.
October 2: “’Bros,’ the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio …”
For some reason, the Times minimized this achievement by headlining the piece: “‘Bros’ Fails at the Box Office …” — as if that matters to history!
November 6: Jacob Caswell became “the first nonbinary winner to earn prize money from the [New York City Marathon].”
Do any athletes who were born female bother competing in the “nonbinary” category? Can we get back to the question of girl cops and girl firemen now?
November 20: Actor Kumail Nanjiani pointed out to the Times — as if it didn’t already know! — that he was “the first South Asian superhero [in a Marvel movie, ‘Eternals’].”
The November elections was a cornucopia of firsts for the Times! Take a deep breath —
“The first Black governor of Maryland, the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama and the first openly transgender state legislator in Montana …
“The nation’s first openly lesbian governor …
“The first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress. …
“The first openly gay Black person elected to any statewide executive office. …
“The first transgender man elected to a state legislature. …
“The first woman and the first L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to Congress from Vermont …
“The first woman elected governor of New York. …
“The first Black woman elected to statewide executive office in Massachusetts …
“The first transgender person elected to the Minnesota Legislature …
“The first Hispanic woman elected to Congress from the state [of Illinois] …
“The first Black woman elected to Congress from [Pennsylvania] …”
Condi Rice still awaits the Times noticing that she was the nation’s first black female secretary of state.
November 12: Biden’s Customs and Border Protection commissioner, Chris Magnus, “is the first openly gay commissioner of the agency.”
On the other hand, he tried to enforce the border, so naturally Biden had no choice but to fire him.
December 5: Emma Corrin was “the first nonbinary star to appear on the cover [of Vogue].”
It’s outrageous that some people want to split hairs by arguing she’s actually a nonbinary nonstar.
December 5: Swiss writer Kim de l’Horizon “was the first nonbinary writer to win the [German Book Prize].”
I wonder if his nonbinary status cost the author of “Mein Kampf” that distinction.
December 25: “Adrienne Adams is the first-ever Black [New York City] Council speaker, a majority of those serving are women and the Council has its first South Asian members.”
Wait! Shouldn’t those South Asians be Marvel superheroes?
Medical freedom needs to become the new pro-life movement on the right. It quite literally affects even more human beings than abortion.
This week, all eyes in the political world will turn to Washington as the excitement builds over the transition of power in the House of Representatives. But what good is a narrow RINO majority in just one branch of the federal government when Republicans ceded the budget leverage they otherwise would have commanded this month? Why not focus on half the state governments where Republicans enjoy trifecta control, in most of them with supermajorities in the legislatures? Indeed, this year kicks off the most important legislative sessions of our lifetime. The intensity of grassroots pressure placed on these equivocating Republicans will determine whether red-state America is just a pro-gun, anti-abortion version of blue-state hell or whether we can fully reconstitute the America we once loved in portions of the country.
There’s no reason to focus on the presidential election and what might happen two years from now. We can’t wait two years for change, nor are we likely to actualize it on the federal level. The American Revolution was catalyzed by state legislatures organizing together. The reconstitution of that revolution will also have to unfold in the bodies of government closest to the people, at least in the states where a majority of the people haven’t already succumbed to the spirit of the age.
Throughout the next few weeks, I’ll be posting legislative goals for various issues, but for today, we will focus on the most important issue of our time: medical freedom. It is the ultimate pro-life issue of our time. There is no evidence that the genocide that has occurred over the past few years from COVID and COVID fascism is even being addressed at the federal level. Therefore, it is up to the red states to reconstitute the Nuremberg Code and learn the lessons from the travesty of Covidstan.
Here are the legislative ideas and objectives that must be pursued in red states this session. If not now, while the malfeasance of the government is fresh on the minds of the people, then it will never be accomplished. This is a checklist of ideas that activists should use to determine whether there is legislation in your respective states addressing the issue of our time – to ensure there are legal, structural, and political barriers in place so that what occurred the past few years is immediately halted and cannot happen again.
Permanently ban all COVID biomedical security mandates:
Now is precisely the time not only to reverse the COVID policies, but to plow over the ground of tyranny and salt it with provisions permanently banning and even criminalizing its implementation. This means banning all public and “private” mask and vaccine mandates in any setting under any circumstance. This is no longer 2020 when we were merely playing defense. Now we have reams of data and studies showing these policies are not only ineffective but downright harmful.
Until now, some states agreed to a health care exemption from the prohibition on mandates, but that is precisely the setting where cancer patients, pain patients, and Alzheimer’s patients who are forced to use medical services regularly are still being coerced to cover their faces. This is unacceptable. Disability law mandates affirmative accommodations for people with health issues, yet somehow we are to believe hospitals can force patients to wear something hazardous? The bill must be backed by a stiff fine for any violator, and in the case of anyone caught forcing schoolchildren to wear a mask, there must be prison time.
Make health status a protected class under anti-discrimination law:
One way of accomplishing the aforementioned goal is to codify health status into state anti-discrimination law, making it unlawful to discriminate in any way on account of opting against a particular medical intervention to one’s body. It might also be worthwhile codifying such rights into the state’s constitution along the lines of the following: “The right of a person to refuse any medical procedure, treatment, injection, device, vaccine, or prophylactic shall not be questioned or interfered with in any manner. Equality of rights under the law or in the realm of public accommodation shall not be denied or abridged to any person in this State because of the exercise of the right under this section.”
Preserving doctor-patient autonomy:
No doctor shall be penalized with loss of licensure or board certification on account of speaking out against vaccines and mask-wearing.
No doctor can be punished for using off-label FDA-approved drugs, and all pharmacists must fill such prescriptions absent a religious conscience concern. There should be a cause of action in court for patients to sue pharmacies that block valid prescriptions.
Also, any barriers to doctors themselves dispensing drugs they prescribe should be lifted. Some states allow doctors to dispense drugs in the office, but this power is generally limited and must be expanded.
Finally, the complaint process against doctors with the state’s medical board must be overhauled. Complaints can only be accepted from patients alleging injury, surviving family of injured patients who die, or from medical professionals with direct contact who allege patient harm. All complaints in absence of patient harm must be ignored.
Abolish the state’s immunization register:
No good will come of the state holding onto a person’s vaccination status, and it will only be used to enforce the biomedical security state and should therefore be abolished. At a minimum, anyone administering a vaccine must obtain written consent from the patient prior to reporting the administration of a vaccine or immunization to the statewide immunization registry.
An immediate termination of mRNA vaccine promotion:
We are long past the time when the shots should merely not be mandated. The jabs must be taken off the market. State legislatures must bar their respective departments of health from promoting or purchasing any mRNA vaccines, ban all marketing or advertising of the COVID shots, create a commission to study the effects of the COVID shots by researching all those who died within 30 days of vaccination, and force the departments of health to fund treatment and diagnostics for those injured by the shots. Also, depending on state law, legislatures should follow Florida’s lead and work to convene grand juries to investigate the willful misconduct of hospitals, the departments of health, and the pharma companies throughout the pandemic.
Suspend the childhood immunization schedule:
All state indulgence and recognition of the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule must be suspended pending the outcome of a commission to study the need, safety, and efficacy of every vaccine category and prototype on the market. Health departments could still support the other shots pending the commission’s recommendations, but all health care and school settings would be prohibited from discriminating against those who opt out of those shots.
Patient Bill of Rights for those in hospitals and senior care facilities:
Some states have pursued a few of these ideas, but there must be strong criminal and civil penalties for violators. Every hospital or senior care facility must always:
allow one surrogate present in the hospital (or as a visitor in a nursing home);
permit patients to access FDA-approved drugs off label prescribed by a doctor at their own expense if they agree to assume liability;
accord every patient the right to refuse any hospital-prescribed treatment or the right to refuse to remain in the facility if they have the mental capacity to leave (a ban on medical kidnapping).
There must be a cause of action created to sue any hospital and possibly for the district attorney to bring criminal charges against hospitals that deny these rights. All hospitals violating the patient bill of rights should be on the hook to lose state tax-exempt status.
A complete ban on remdesivir:
There is no sane doctor alive who can look you in the eye and declare remdesivir to be a safe and effective drug. Yet to this day, it remains the standard of care for inpatient COVID care. States must ban its use as they would any toxic and potentially lethal drug with zero benefit.
Ban on medical kidnapping via child protective services:
There is a growing trend of hospitals or doctors working with the state’s child protective custody agency to steal children from parents who refuse to go along with their course of treatment or bio-medical goals. States must ban all investigations and agency decisions to suspend parental rights on account of a parent’s refusal of specific medical treatments, diagnostics, or devices unless there is proof that the parent acted with malicious intent. Idaho House Bill 821 is a good model. This includes refusal to engage in masking or vaccination of a child. Also, such actions, opinions, or beliefs shall not be used as a factor in family court in determining custody arrangements.
Hold pharma accountable:
Although the federal government protects vaccine companies from liability, and this issue must be redressed at the federal level, states can still broaden their consumer protection and anti-fraud statutes to target pharma for blatant fraud. There is a wealth of material showing that the manufacturers knew the vaccines didn’t work and injured people, yet falsely marketed them. Also, state health departments, which assiduously pushed the vaccines in red states just as much as blue states, must use their remaining COVID funds to fund diagnostics, detection, and treatment of vaccine injury.
State legislatures should also form commissions to study the scope of injury through studies, death certificate and medical billing data, and investigating all deaths in the state within 30 days of taking the shots. Finally, they must create a state-based vaccine adverse events reporting system that is user-friendly and must use state resources to require and encourage medical professionals to report injuries to that system.
Ban endorsement of experimental shots:
States must bar their respective health departments from endorsing or marketing any shot to the broad public that has not undergone a human clinical trial with a sustained and maintained placebo control group. That clinical trial must have some third party supporting its safety data, which is independent from the manufacturer. Any trial based on “immonobridging” – measuring antibody titers and comparing them to various study groups – does not qualify.
Criminalize gain-of-function research:
There’s no need to wait for the feds to act. States should ban research institutions from engaging in gain-of-function research with a statute backed by criminal penalties. Individuals potentially harmed by such research should be granted a cause of action to sue those institutions.
Tax-credits for direct primary care:
Some states are already doing this, but there is a need to even the tax playing field between “cartel” health care and direct primary care. The core problem we experienced during the pandemic was a lack of individual thinking among practitioners, much of which is connected to the fact that they are all controlled by systems, insurance companies, and networks. With so much tendentious governmental treatment for the current cartel, states need to find ways to even up the score to incentivize people to use more free market and free-thinking doctors. Offering direct primary care the same tax benefits – both on the employer side and individual side of the ledger – we offer to the insurance companies is a good start. How many of these ideas have already been adopted by your governor? How many are represented by a piece of legislation pending in your legislative body? Now is the time to get to work. If not us, who? And if not now, when?
After a routine tackle during Monday night’s Bills-Bengals game, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on his back in cardiac arrest. Medical personnel administered CPR for roughly 10 minutes before an ambulance carted Hamlin off the field and to a Cincinnati hospital.
While it drove off, onlookers reported seeing Bills head coach Sean McDermott gather his players on the field for communal prayer. As both teams and staff knelt around Hamlin during those 10 minutes of CPR, individual players certainly were praying too. One Bengals fan at the game scribbled “Pray for Buffalo #3 Hamlin” on a paper sign. Minutes later, fans of both teams showed up at Hamlin’s hospital to pray. Players from around the league, fans, and others across social media offered prayers. We join them all in their prayers for his body and soul.
To watch the heart of the man beside you on the field stop beating, as Hamlin’s teammates and competitors did, is to be reminded of the Maker-meeting moment every one of us will encounter. Those reminders compel us to pray for mercy. Only the players and God know the content of the prayers offered from the field in Paycor Stadium last night, but I’d guess they prayed for the mercies of healing, comfort, and more time on this Earth, either to serve God or to encounter his grace.
For followers of Christ, prayer is a familiar weapon. It is a means by which we may approach the holy God and make our requests known to him. It is an act of intimacy and communion with our Maker and Judge, and a channel by which we offer humble repentance and receive unmerited grace. When faced with the threat of tragedy — a symptom of living in a world tainted by our own sin — we quickly remember our constant need for mercy, and it compels us to pray.
In moments like last night, however, it seems it’s not only the adopted children of God who cry out to him. Something prompts even those who, in another moment, might doubt the existence of God, to suddenly seek his mercy. Skeptics love to mock the offering of “thoughts and prayers” as useless or silly, but their quickness to turn to prayer in times of need suggests that deep down, they know its power.
Why? Our souls are created for eternity. Whether we admit it or not, moments that force us to wrestle with our own mortality are less about facing death and more about facing the reality that we are part of a judgment and redemption narrative far beyond the scope of our brief earthly pilgrimage, and which extends far beyond that pilgrimage’s end.
To repentantly welcome that redemption, recognizing our utter need for it and Christ’s exclusive worthiness to procure it, inspires worshipful gratitude. To reject it, or to indifferently ignore it, is to choose a life in which the existence of death rightly inspires fear. As we pray for Damar Hamlin’s recovery, we also pray that his brush with eternity would stir onlookers to grasp their own need for the loving mercy of God.
A few weeks ago, Hamlin spoke on “One Bills Live” about a sobering injury his teammate Dane Jackson had received.
“I can’t even describe it, but I cherish it every second that I can. Every second of every day,” Hamlin said. “We just had our prayer, our DB prayer we do every Wednesday. He was next to me and I just grabbed his hand a little bit harder just because you know, you never know when your last day could be that you get to experience something like this.”
That’s a realization that, for untold observers, Hamlin’s own scare just prompted. In addition to recalling our need for salvation, such reminders of eternity should spur us to pray more diligently and to live more gratefully. Alongside our petitions for Hamlin’s comfort and healing, we pray God would use the events of last night to compel more gratitude, prayerful vigilance, humble repentance, and joyful reception of grace, in Hamlin’s heart and in our own.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., walks to a meeting with House Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 03, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Today members of the 118th Congress will be sworn in and the House of Representatives will hold votes on a new Speaker of the House. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The United States House of Representatives failed to elect a speaker for the 118th Congress on Tuesday, as Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was unable to get the necessary number of votes in support of his bid. For the first time since 1923, the Republican majority was unable to elect a new House Speaker on the first ballot, despite McCarthy being the favorite to win the position.
McCarthy was first nominated by Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, chair of the Republican Caucus, with her floor announcement receiving much applause by GOP congressmen. Stefanik championed McCarthy’s time as minority leader in the House, stating that he “has taken the fight to one-party Democratic rule on behalf of the American people.”
“A proud conservative with a tireless work ethic, Kevin McCarthy has earned this speakership of the people’s house,” Stefanik declared.
While McCarthy was expected by many to become the next Speaker, he faced key opposition from multiple Republican congressmen, among them Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona. Biggs had announced his intention to run for Speaker last November, explaining in a statement at the time that he was “about changing the paradigm and the status quo.”
“Minority Leader McCarthy does not have the votes needed to become the next Speaker of the House and his speakership should not be a foregone conclusion,” Biggs stated.
“There are reforms that must be made in the House in order to facilitate representation of our constituents. Items such as allowing members to move to amend bills, only allowing bills that cover a single subject, and requiring bills to go through committees before bringing them to the floor.”
Biggs also felt that members of the House “must also be granted more time to read the legislation and debate the merits of it.”
In response to Republican critics, McCarthy wrote a letter in advance of Tuesday’s vote pledging to “work with everyone in our party to build conservative consensus.”
“It’s time for our new Republican majority to embrace these bold reforms and move forward as one,” wrote McCarthy.
“That’s why on January 3 — and every day thereafter — I stand ready to be judged not by my words, but by my actions as Speaker.”
On the first ballot, McCarthy received 203 votes, while Biggs received 10 votes, and Jordan received six votes, while other elected officials received the rest.
After the first ballot results were announced, Jordan addressed Congress and expressed his endorsement of McCarthy, advocating for conservative policies during his remarks. After Jordan spoke, however, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida proceeded to nominate Jordan, and expressed his intention of voting for Jordan for the second ballot. On the second ballot, McCarthy again received 203 votes and failed to get the necessary majority, while Jordan, who had earlier endorsed McCarthy, received 19 votes.
For the third ballot, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana nominated McCarthy while Representative Chip Roy of Texas nominated Jordan. McCarthy saw his lead slightly decrease to 202 votes, while Jordan received 20, due to Representative Byron Donalds of Florida changing his vote.
“The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes. I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor. 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there. Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps,” tweeted Donalds shortly after voting in the third ballot.
During the same session, Democrat members of the House officially elected Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York as the new House Minority Leader, with all 212 voting for him.
Representative Pete Aguilar of California, chair of the Democratic Caucus, gave remarks on the floor in support of Jeffries, spotlighting his religious convictions and his being a regular church attender.
“He is guided by every step of the way by his faith that his mom instilled in him,” stated Aguilar. “Hakeem goes to church every weekend, sometimes that one where his church family is at Cornerstone Baptist, or somewhere else in the District, where he can meet his constituents where they are.”
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Heading into the new year, numerous notable economic experts and financial institutions delivered dire predictions of a recession in 2023.
What is a recession?
In July, the U.S. economy contracted for a second straight quarter – which signals that the country was in a technical recession. The real gross domestic product (GDP) – the inflation-adjusted value of goods and services for sale produced by an economy – decreased by 0.9% in the second quarter of 2022, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) declared in July.
Investopedia defines a recession as a “significant, widespread, and prolonged downturn in economic activity. Because recessions often last six months or more, one popular rule of thumb is that two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) constitute a recession.“
Disputes over the definition of a recession
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen refuted the notion that the nation is in a recession.
President Joe Biden claimed that the United States’ economic situation “doesn’t sound like a recession.” President Biden declared that a recession “hadn’t happened yet.” He said he didn’t think there would be a recession, and added that there could be a “very slight recession.” Biden proclaimed that Americans don’t need to prepare for a recession.
Experts deliver predictions on a recession in 2023
However, many economic experts and business leaders are warning that a recession will happen next year. The 2023 recession could be brought on by inflation, interest rate hikes, and supply chain issues.
In October, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned of a “hard” U.S. recession that begins within the first six months of 2023. In December, Dimon stated, “Inflation is eroding everything.”
Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini – who predicted the 2008 U.S. housing bust – gave a troubling economic forecast for 2023.
“In a short and shallow recession, typically, from peak to trough, the S&P 500 falls by 30%,” Roubini told Bloomberg. “So even if we have a mild recession…you’ll have another 15% leg down.”
“If we have something more severe than a short and shallow recession, but not as severe as the GFC…you have another 25% downside potentially,” said Roubini – a professor emeritus at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said in September, “The worst is yet to come.”
“We printed up too much money, and just thought the party would never end,” Icahn explained. “Inflation is a terrible thing. You can’t cure it.”
Kay Daniel Neufeld – director and head of forecasting at the Center for Economics and Business Research – said this week, “It is likely that the world economy will face a recession next year as a result of the rises in interest rates in response to higher inflation.”
Citi Global Wealth Investments forecasts the U.S. will suffer a “mild” recession in 2023 – which will include 2 million job losses that will push unemployment to 5%.
“We believe that the Fed’s rate hikes and shrinking bond portfolio have been stringent enough to cause an economic contraction within 2023,” the economists declared in the 2023 outlook report. “And if the Fed does not pause rate hikes until it sees the contraction, a deeper recession may ensue.”
KPMG – the fourth-largest accounting firm in the world – released a report that surveyed top executives in October that revealed, “While confidence is up over the next three years, CEOs anticipate challenges in the shorter term. Nearly nine out of 10 (86 percent) CEOs believe a recession will happen over the next 12 months, but three out of five (58 percent) feel it will be mild and short and 76 percent have plans in place to deal with it.”
“Seventy-three percent of CEOs believe a recession will upend anticipated growth over the next 3 years, and three-quarters (75 percent) also believe a recession will make post-pandemic recovery harder,” the report said.
A recent Bloomberg poll of 38 economists found, “Economists say there is a 7-in-10 likelihood that the U.S. economy will sink into a recession next year, slashing demand forecasts and trimming inflation projections in the wake of massive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”‘
A global recession could be imminent
In September, the World Bank warned, “As central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates in response to inflation, the world may be edging toward a global recession in 2023 and a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm.”
In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that global growth would slow to 2.7% in 2023.
“More than a third of the global economy will contract this year or next, while the three largest economies — the United States, the European Union, and China — will continue to stall,” the report warned. “In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession.”
Kevin Sabitus / Contributor, Timothy T Ludwig / Contributor | Getty Images
Include football in your prayers for Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills player who collapsed from a heart attack last night during Monday Night Football. Everyone desperately wants the 24-year-old safety to recover. The same is not true for the sport that enriches him and countless other young men. The woke have programmed us to hate football, to see it as a source of toxic masculinity, unnecessary health risks, and a relic of a dying patriarchy.
Football has been demonized. We watch it while holding our breath, believing that every hit leads to life-altering head trauma.
The 2022 season could very well be remembered as the year the NFL died in Cincinnati. The Queen City is where Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa crumpled, fingers contorted, and lost consciousness after a routine sack during Thursday Night Football. Three months later, another seemingly routine hit precipitated Hamlin’s collapse, loss of consciousness, and rush to a local hospital.
The NFL delights in its ability to attract massive audiences to its stand-alone games. The league’s pervasiveness and overexposure work against it when dramatic injuries occur. Games intended to entertain and distract turn into somber visitations and funerals. Broadcasters inadvertently transform into mourners, eulogists, and priests. Corporate media’s addiction to Twitter compels a competition of last rites and emotion.
The enemies of football are the real winners.
The feminists and leftists pushing the anti-football propaganda campaign have even seduced the sport’s participants. Inside an American culture that rewards victimhood, current and former NFL players cast themselves as martyrs of a game that makes them millionaires.
In reaction to Hamlin’s on-field tragedy, former Pittsburgh Steeler turned ESPN broadcaster Ryan Clark proclaimed that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was a byproduct of football.
“So many times, in this game and in our job as well, we use the cliches, you know? ‘I’m ready to die for this. I’m willing to give my life for this. It’s time to go to war.’ I think sometimes we use those things so much we forget that part of living this dream is putting your life at risk. Tonight, we got to see a side of football that is extremely ugly. A side of football that no one ever wants to see or never wants to admit exists.”
I played football all the way through college. I have many close friends who had long careers in the NFL. I’ve never heard anyone say they’re ready to die for football. No one I know looks at football as a life-and-death situation. Injuries are always a possibility. No one thinks of death.
In 1971, Chuck Hughes, a 28-year-old Detroit Lions receiver, died during a game. It was later revealed he suffered blood clots. Hughes is the only NFL player to die during a game. I was unaware of Hughes’ death until last night. There was no 24-hour sports news network in 1971. Monday Night Football was just a year old. As a news story, Hughes’ death wasn’t treated as a national tragedy. It was something bad that happened. Bad things happen in all activities.
In 1990, college basketball star Hank Gathers collapsed and died while playing hoops. In 1993, Boston Celtics forward Reggie Lewis collapsed and died during practice. In 1920, a Yankees pitcher struck the head of Cleveland’s Ray Chapman with a pitch. Chapman died 12 hours later. I was at the race in 2001 when Dale Earnhardt slammed into the wall and died. I knew the boxer Randie Carver. I was at the fight that killed him and visited his family at the hospital the day he was pronounced dead in 1999.
My point is that football is not unique. Men and women take risks playing sports, riding the subway, swimming in a pool or the ocean. There’s no reason to blame football for what happened to Damar Hamlin. Like Hughes, Hamlin could very well have a preexisting condition that contributed to cardiac arrest.
But it’s nearly impossible to have measured, nuanced conversations in the media today. Everything said on ESPN and Fox Sports is crafted in a way to please Twitter. It’s all performative emotion and outrage. It’s all dishonest and inauthentic.
Clark continued his performance and analogized Hamlin’s heart attack to his own 2007 medical event while playing against the Denver Broncos. Clark has sickle cell trait. Playing at Mile High Stadium at high altitude compromised blood flow to Clark’s spleen. He was rushed to the hospital and was never allowed to play at Denver again.
“I’ve dealt with this before, and I watch my teammates for days come to my hospital bed and just cry,” Clark said. “I had them call me and tell me that they didn’t think I was going to make it. And now this team has to deal with that and they have no answers.
“So, the next time that we get upset about our favorite fantasy player or we’re upset that the guy on our team doesn’t make the play and we’re saying, ‘He’s worthless’ and we’re saying, ‘You get to make all this money,’ we should remember that these men are putting their lives on the line to live their dream.”
Police officers put their lives on the line. So do members of the military. Football players play a game. Boxers and mixed martial artists take more risks.
What’s going on with football reminds me of the left’s demonization of boxing. Boxing used to be the king of all American sports, the pop culture symbol of male masculinity. Eventually the very people who benefitted from the popularity of boxing turned against the sport.
Eleven months after Muhammad Ali’s last fight, legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell “quit” the sport of boxing. He said this after watching Larry Holmes batter Randall Tex Cobb for 15 rounds. Cosell trashed the fight throughout the broadcast. He later told the New York Times: “I now favor the abolition of professional boxing.”
He milked the sport for fortune and fame and then took a dump on it.
ESPN and its battalion of ex-jocks and ex-journalists are doing the exact same thing to football.
Ask God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit to intervene on behalf of Damar Hamlin. He’s in critical condition. Do the same for football. Its public perception is on life support, too.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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