Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed new legislation over the weekend that appeared to bar permanently deforming transgender surgeries for minors, but things aren’t always what they seem. Senate Bill 16, titled “Transgender Medical Treatment and Procedures,” was a top priority for lawmakers who introduced the measure two days after the legislature opened on Jan. 17.
Despite immediately receiving praise from numerous figures critical of transgender ideology, including a detransitioner, the bill signed into law Saturday certainly isn’t perfect. In fact, it doesn’t do much of anything.
The new law signed by the Utah governor, who has a history of introducing himself by stating his so-called preferred pronouns, only bars transgender procedures and hormone interventions for minors who have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In other words, minors can find a sympathetic physician steeped in wrongly named “gender-affirming care” who will give them a diagnosis that enables them to pump their bodies full of wrong-sex hormones and amputate their healthy organs. Teens focused on gender-bending can even be diagnosed online.
“who have NOT been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.“
Furthermore, under the new Utah law, once individuals turn 18, they’re free to do whatever they want. They can even schedule transgender surgeries on their 18th birthday.
“Legislation that impacts our most vulnerable youth requires careful consideration and deliberation,” Cox said in a press release after his signature. “More and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.”
Cox also thanked the legislation’s sponsor, State Sen. Michael Kennedy, while giving a passing mention of the deficiencies in the new law. “While not a perfect bill, we are grateful for Sen. Kennedy’s more nuanced and thoughtful approach to this terribly divisive issue,” Cox said.
Ideally, Cox would have sided with lawmakers a year ago in their attempt to fight back against the transgender craze. In March last year, the statehouse had to override the governor’s veto of legislation prohibiting men from invading women’s sports.
“We will continue to push the Legislature for additional resources to organizations that work to help this important Utah community,” Cox said on Saturday. “While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures.”
Despite its reputation as a deep-red state, Utah has been no exception to cultural currents imposing transgender ideology on children across the nation. Last fall, a Utah LGBT group sponsored an “all ages” back-to-school drag show with performers whose names sound like “anal leakage” and “genitalia” when pronounced aloud.
A drag queen named “Jenna Tailia” performed at an “all ages back to school drag extravaganza” in Provo, Utah pic.twitter.com/2OkdmXFhTE
Last spring, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mocked Cox’s use of pronouns after the Utah governor’s veto of transgender sports legislation.
“Bright red Utah is now led by a cut-rate Gavin Newsom imitator named Spencer Cox,” Carlson said. “He’s beyond belief.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
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 opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
After months of warning you about the GOP’s chronic overconfidence problem, now I’m feeling overconfident! Inasmuch as I will be giving a speech at my alma mater, Cornell University, the day after the election, I’m about to do something very stupid: make an election prediction.
My reasoning is, here we are, three weeks from the election, and this week, two major polls, Harvard Harris and Times Sienna, suddenly show Republicans gaining ground. This triggered a primordial memory from the 1980 election, the first presidential race I paid attention to.
That’s when I discovered the iron rule of election polls: They will never, ever be wrong in favor of Republicans. Another is that polls will generally show the Democrat winning until the election gets close — and the media finally start telling the truth.
Thus, for example, after being hectored for most of 1980 that Ronald Reagan was headed for another Goldwater-style fiasco, here’s the sort of thing a teenager would have read in The New York Times weeks before he won a landslide victory against President Jimmy Carter, taking 489 electoral college votes to Carter’s 49.
— Sept. 15, 1980: “Reagan and Carter Even In Washington Post Poll”
— Sept. 21, 1980 “Allowing for the margin of error, the polls indicate a virtual dead heat between Mr. Carter and Mr. Reagan”
— Oct. 23, 1980: “Poll Shows President Has Pulled To Even Position With Reagan”
In mid-September, the Times’ Anthony Lewis painted a vivid picture of Reagan’s coming annihilation, citing a bunch of state polls:
— “A recent New York Times poll of registered likely voters [in New York] showed Carter leading Reagan, 44 to 38.”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 47; CARTER: 44
— In Washington state, “a poll for the Carter campaign put the president ahead by 3 points against Reagan.”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 50; CARTER: 37
— In Illinois, a “poll for Carter’s campaign put him ahead by 5 points.”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 50; CARTER 48.
— In Connecticut, a “Hartford Courant poll showed: Reagan 36, Carter 35.”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 48; CARTER: 39
A month later, the Times produced yet more polls of gloom:
— Oct. 9, 1980 headline: “Texas Looming As A Close Battle Between President And Reagan”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 55%; CARTER: 41%
— Oct. 16, 1980, headline: “Ohio Race Expected To Be Close As Labor Mobilizes For President”
ACTUAL RESULT: REAGAN: 52, CARTER 41
And then Reagan won more electoral college votes than any non-incumbent in history. You’d think the polls would have picked up on the fact that history was about to be made. Nope!
This is not just an enjoyable stroll down memory lane, though it is that. It is to remind Republican-leaning voters, even in seemingly blue strongholds like New York, Oregon and Washington, to please vote. Because, win or lose, one thing polls will never do is overestimate a Republican’s chances.
1976
— Sept. 23, Roper Poll: Carter leads Gerald Ford 46%-29%.
ACTUAL RESULT: Jimmy Carter won by 2 percentage points.
1984
— Oct. 15, The New York Daily News poll: Reagan 45%; Walter Mondale 41%.
ACTUAL RESULT: Reagan beat Mondale by nearly 20 points, 58.8% to 40%.
1988
— Oct. 5, New York Times/CBS News Poll: George H.W. Bush 45%; Michael Dukakis 43%.
ACTUAL RESULT: Bush 53.4%; Dukakis 45.6%.
1992
Oct. 18, Newsweek poll: Bill Clinton 46%; GHW Bush 31%
ACTUAL RESULT: Clinton: 43%; GHW Bush: 37.7%
1996
— Oct. 22, The New York Times/CBS News Poll: Clinton 55%; Bob Dole 33%.
ACTUAL RESULT: Clinton 49%; Dole 40%.
2000
— Oct. 3, The New York Times/CBS News Poll: Al Gore 45%; George W. Bush 39%.
ACTUAL RESULT: Bush 47.9%; Gore 48.4%.
For some mysterious reason, election polls were pretty accurate in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections. Perhaps pollsters had gotten better. Maybe they noticed that people sometimes do look back at their forecasts. Or it could be that Republicans were running such losers those years that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to underestimate their performance.
But, boy, did the pollsters make up for any inadvertent honesty when Donald Trump ran in 2016!
The Times had the best pollsters in the business and sophisticated computer modeling. Based on their high-tech number-crunching, on Oct. 18, the paper reported: “Hillary has a 91% chance to win.” On Election Day, the forecasters were a little less exuberant, announcing that Hillary had a mere 85% chance of winning. A Trump victory, the Times said, was as likely as “an NFL kicker miss[ing] a 37-yard field goal.”
We know how that turned out.
On Election Day 2020, Times’s forecasters exulted that Joe Biden was ahead “by more than 8 points nationwide — the largest lead a candidate has held in the final polls since Bill Clinton in 1996.”
He won by 4 points.
Maybe it’s not a wild and reckless prediction, but the news this week suggests that the media are slowly edging up to the truth, and that Republicans could be on track to well outperform the polls.
This would be a good year for it. The Senate map, combined with five GOPs retiring, make 2022 a tough year for Republicans, who are defending seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and North Carolina, and trying to flip at least one state out of Nevada, Arizona and Georgia for a bare majority.
But Republicans winning requires that voters not be discouraged by the polls and remember to vote, even when the media tell you it’s hopeless, like in New York, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Mostly, I just want to wake up the morning after the election and find out Dr. Mehmet Oz has won in Pennsylvania and defeated that slovenly, goatee-sporting Michael Moore-wannabe, John Fetterman, who is passionate about only two things: not bathing and releasing vicious murderers. And that Lee Zeldin has beaten the demented, “release all the criminals!” New York governor, Kathy Hochul, with the crazy “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” makeup.
A man killed an 18-year-old North Dakota teen in a hit-and-run Sunday after believing he was a “republican extremist,” according to multiple reports.
Foster County Deputies were called to an alleyway in the town of McHenry around 2:35 a.m. by 41-year-old Shannon Brandt, according to Valley News Live and Inforum. Brandt told authorities that 18-year-old Cayler Ellingsonwas part of a Republican extremist group and he was afraid they were “coming to get him,” according to the reports.
Just before the alleged hit-and-run, Ellingson reportedly called his mother to ask if she knew who Brandt was. His mother said “yes” and immediately went on her way to pick her son up, according to Valley News Live and Inforum. Ellingson later called his mother a second time to say that “he” or “they” were chasing him, according to the same reports. (RELATED: Tim Ryan Says US Needs To ‘Kill And Confront’ ‘Extremist’ Republican Movement)
A person murdered a teen in McHenry, North Dakota, accusing him to be a right-wing extremist. Cayler Ellingson, 18, called his mother for help saying he was being pursued. He was found dead. The suspected killer, Shannon Brandt, is held on $50k. https://t.co/XqZTJtmVLf
Brandt told authorities that he was under the influence of alcohol and confessed to hitting Ellingson with his car because a political argument ensued between the two of them, Valley News Live reported. Brandt also reportedly said he left the site of the crash, but then returned and called 911 before leaving again.
Ellingson was pronounced dead at Carrington Hospital. Brandt is being charged with criminal vehicular homicide and DUI with a $50,000 bail, according to the report.
President Joe Biden attacked Trump supporters during a recent Philadelphia speech, saying, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic.”
Police: Driver admitted to intentionally killing teen at North Dakota street dance after political dispute
Court papers say 41-year-old Shannon Brandt confessed to a 911 dispatcher and police that he killed 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson due to a political dispute.
MCHENRY, N.D. — According to court papers, it was not an accident but apparently a politically motivated attack.
The fatal vehicle-pedestrian incident happened early Sunday morning, Sept. 18, in McHenry, North Dakota, about 120 miles northwest of Fargo and 54 miles north of Jamestown.
Shannon Brandt, 41, had his first court appearance via zoom from the Stutsman County Jail Monday, Sept. 19.
Prosecutors allege moments before he was killed, 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson called his mom to come rescue him because 41-year-old Shannon Brandt was chasing him in the city of McHenry, where the street dance had just wrapped up. By the time she could get there, her son was dead.
Police: Driver admitted to intentionally killing teen at North Dakota street dance after political dispute
Brandt was officially charged Monday with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly accident.
“He was the one who called 911 to report the crash,” said North Dakota Highway Patrol Capt. Bryan Niewind.
Court papers show Brandt called 911 around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and told the 911 dispatcher that he just hit Ellingson, claiming the teen was part of a Republican extremist group and was calling people to come get Brandt after a political argument.
Ellingson’s mom told police her son called her just before the crash, asking if she knew Brandt, which she does. She does not believe her son knew him.
“We are still trying to determine what, exactly, transpired at the time of crash and prior to that as well,” explained Niewind.
Police say Brandt was drunk when he hit and killed Ellingson with his SUV in an alleyway.
“We do not know of any witnesses. We are still making attempts to interview potential witnesses from the street dance, people that were present prior to the crash happening,” Niewind said.
A judge ordered Brandt held on $50,000, which he objected, saying he’s not a flight risk.
“I have a job, a life and a house and things I don’t want to see go by the wayside — family that are very important to me,” Brandt told the judge.
If convicted on the vehicular homicide charge, Brandt would face a minimum of 10 years in prison because of a DUI on his record. The maximum for the crime is 20 years. Troopers say as the investigation develops, they could recommend more serious charges.
A gofundme has been set up to help pay for Ellingson’s funeral expenses.
Matt Henson is an Emmy award-winning reporter/photographer/editor for WDAY. Prior to joining WDAY in 2019, Matt was the main anchor at WDAZ in Grand Forks for four years. He was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia and attended college at Lyndon State College in northern Vermont, where he was recognized twice nationally, including first place, by the National Academy for Arts and Science for television production. Matt enjoys being a voice for the little guy. He focuses on crimes and courts and investigative stories. Just as often, he shares tear-jerking stories and stories of accomplishment. Matt enjoys traveling to small towns across North Dakota and Minnesota to share their stories. He can be reached at mhenson@wday.com and at 610-639-9215. When he’s not at work (rare) Matt resides in Moorhead and enjoys spending time with his daughter, golfing and attending Bison and Sioux games.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin further delivered on his gubernatorial campaign promise to give parents more control over their children’s education. The Virginia Department of Education issued new model policies specifically directed at resisting the radical gender ideology that has become commonplace even in the Commonwealth’s elementary schools.
The New Model Policies
Virginia’s new model policies explicitly state that students’ participation in school programming and use of school facilities such as bathrooms or locker rooms should be based on their biological sex and that modifications should be offered only to the extent required under federal law. They also assert that students who are minors must be referred to by the name and pronouns in their official records unless there is explicit parental approval for the use of something else. And they also declare that schools may not conceal information about a student’s so-called gender identity from his or her parents and that parents must be given the opportunity to object before any gender-related counseling services are offered.
The document reads: “Parents have the right to instill in and nurture values and beliefs for their own children and make decisions concerning their children’s education and upbringing in accordance with their customs, faith, and family culture.” In a rebuke to those officials and administrators who have encouraged wrongly named gender-affirming “care,” it explains: “Parents are in the best position to work with their children and, where appropriate, their children’s health care providers.”
The new model policies are subject to a 30-day period for public comment that begins later this month. Following that period, in accordance with a 2020 state law, school boards across the Old Dominion must adopt policies that are “consistent with” those of the state’s Department of Education. Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for Youngkin, noted that the updated guidance “delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students.”
A Personal Anecdote
I can personally speak to how widespread the promotion of gender ideology has become, at least in Fairfax County, where I attended school for 12 years and then worked as a high-school history teacher. The very day after Virginia’s Department of Education issued this new guidance, my family attended a picnic in our neighborhood. My two eldest children (ages 9 and 7) were playing a game with other neighborhood kids, including, a bit awkwardly, a teenage girl who attends the local public high school. During the game, and when my wife and I were not nearby to overhear, this teenager told my children that she identifies as both a girl and a boy and that there are “72 genders.”
My wife and I homeschool our children. It wasn’t something I was eager to do — my extended family has been attending county public schools since the 1960s, and I was proud of my experience in FCPS 20 years ago. But I knew things had changed very dramatically in the last two decades, and I wanted to shield my children from ideas and behaviors that are not commensurate with their maturity. Simply put, prepubescent children don’t need seminars in gender fluidity and sexual experimentation. But over this past weekend, an FCPS-educated teenager took it upon herself to impart those ideas to my children.
As confusing as this was for my children — and as upsetting as it was to my wife and me — I do not level much blame at this teenager for taking away part of their innocence and forcing us to have conversations with our children about gender and sex we had been hoping to delay just a few more years. I blame FCPS teachers and administrators who welcomed this gender ideology in schools. And I blame smartphones and social media for proliferating these ideas with little parental oversight.
Protecting Our Children
Left-wing corporate media and Democratic politicians, of course, have been quick to attack Youngkin over his new policy. “Virginia has moved to restrict the rights of trans students in its public schools,” reads a mid-September headline from NPR. The Department of Education’s guidance “calls for the misgendering and outing of children in schools where they’re supposed to be safe. Absolutely shameful,” tweeted Virginia Democratic Del. Mike Mullin.
Think about the fact that in my kids’ very first interaction with a public school-educated teenager, she couldn’t help but share the confused, biologically inaccurate gender ideology she has been wrongly told is the most important part of her identity. That speaks to the pervasive nature and aggressiveness of this ideology and its adherents. Think about how many kids have had their lives thrown into chaos by adults who tell them they may be a boy in a girl’s body, “gender fluid,” or some other nonsense that may very well cause them permanent physical and emotional damage.
Thankfully, our kids trust their parents enough and have a solid enough understanding of what makes boys different from girls that we could have a brief, open, and hopefully instructive conversation about what they experienced on a neighborhood playground. Youngkin’s edict aims to ensure those conversations happen in the home, guided by loving parents, and less influenced by the confused ideology of bureaucrats who don’t have your children’s best interests at heart.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
New York is a blue state, right? Yes, but Democrats attempted to go too far in using their redistricting powers to make it an even deeper blue. In going so far to try and block Republicans from being able to win seats, the Democrats broke the law, so their redistricting plan just got slapped down by the state appeals court. The Hill, reporting on that decision, notes that:
The ruling noted that under the 2022 congressional map, there are four Republican-majority districts and 22 Democratic-majority districts; in comparison, in the 2012 map there were eight elected Republicans and 19 elected Democrats, indicating that the latest map was skewed blue.
Further, the court itself, describing the horribly biased nature in which the New York Democrats went about designing the map and how elections analysis expert Sean Trende was able to show that the districts were so biased in favor of the Democrats as to be impermissible, said:
Trende concluded that the enacted congressional map pressed republican voters “into a few [r]epublican-leaning districts, while spreading [d]emocratic voters as efficiently as possible.” Trende analyzed the differences between his ensemble of simulated maps and the enacted map using various methods, including application of the “gerrymandering index,” which, he concluded, rendered it “implausible, if not impossible” that the enacted redistricting plan had been drawn without partisan intent. Trende also portrayed his results in scatterplots, which he explained showed how “[t]he only place where the [e]nacted [c]ongressional [m]ap falls within expectations is in safely [d]emocratic districts,” whereas the more competitive districts were made safer by packing republican voters into other republican leaning districts.
Continuing, and giving another example of the bias involved in the district-shifting, said:
Specifically, Trende’s simulation reflected that the four most republican-leaning districts in the enacted congressional map were more republican-leaning than any of his initial 5,000 simulated maps. Of the next nine most competitive districts, the enacted map was, in each, more democrat-leaning than any or nearly all of the initial 5,000 simulated maps.
The court then ordered the legislature to create a new map, one that would survive its scrutiny, by April 30th, though an appeal from New York’s far-left leadership is expected. If that appeal is unsuccessful and the current map, which would probably take four seats away from Republicans, doesn’t hold, that’s bad news for Democrats. 2022 is already predicted to be a red wave year with Democrats needing every tool available to keep the wave from turning into a tsunami. When that’s paired with how DeSantis has gone about redistricting Florida and the mixed results of redistricting elsewhere, the loss of the four seats Democrats could have been handed by New York’s efforts is substantial.
The GOP is predicted to retake the House regardless. But the magnitude of that victory depends on a number of factors, including redistricting. With this win for the GOP in even deep-blue New York, the likelihood of the red wave becoming a red tsunami looks higher than ever.
“How did you go bankrupt?” Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
– Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”
– John Adams
Hemingway’s famous quote about going bankrupt connects with so many because it is true on a personal basis and a civilization basis. It applies to individuals and empires in decline – like the American democracy. John Adams realized two centuries ago democracy was no better than monarchy or aristocracy over the long haul. We were handed a Republic by Franklin and his fellow revolutionaries, but we failed to keep it almost from the very birth of this nation.
As we rush towards our World War 3 rendezvous with destiny, aided and abetted by politicians placed in power by globalist billionaires hellbent on the destruction of our way of life, so they own everything and you own nothing, I can’t help but ponder who is to blame and could we have avoided this dystopian outcome.
The United States has been going bankrupt gradually for the last fifty years, both financially, intellectually, and morally. Nixon closing the gold window in 1971 and opening the debt door to morally bankrupt bankers and politicians set in motion a downward spiral accelerating at hyper-speed as we speak. The American Empire was born in the shattered global debris of World War II with the Bretton Woods agreement, which left the USD as the dominant currency in world trade, specifically as the settlement currency for all oil transactions.
The empire has been sustained by currency supremacy, military might, and until 1980, manufacturing superiority. Once the most highly educated nation on the planet, decades of lowering the bar, less than mediocre union teachers, and replacing education with indoctrination, has created generations of ignorant zombies incapable and uninterested in critical thought.
The road to bankruptcy was very gradual at the outset of empire, with the national debt topping out at $269 billion, 119% of GDP, in 1946. In 1960 it had only grown to $286 billion but had dropped to 54% of GDP. Rebuilding the world and being the dominant economic power paid huge dividends. After a decade of guns, butter and welfare programs, the debt grew to $398 billion, but continued to drop as a percentage of GDP to 35% in 1971. After decoupling from gold, the national debt soared to $908 billion by 1980, inflation surged to 15%, and Volcker had to raise interest rates to 20% to avert disaster. What happened over the next forty years was mind boggling in its recklessness, shortsightedness, and acquiescence to the Wall Street cabal. These decade-by-decade increases were obscene:
1980 $908B 32% of GDP
1990 $3.2T 54% of GDP
2000 $5.7T 52% of GDP
2010 $13.6T 90% of GDP
2020 $27.8T 129% of GDP
Today $30.3T 130% of GDP
Rogoff and Reinhart postulated in 2010 that once a country passes 90% of GDP, economic growth slows dramatically, and the chances of financial crisis increase exponentially. With annual GDP growth of about 2% since 2010, their theory has proven accurate. Now we approach the existential financial crisis which could initiate the “going bankrupt suddenly” phase of our empire of debt. Larry Kotlikoff, Harvard, and Wharton educated economic professor at Boston University, estimates the unfunded welfare liabilities of the United States exceeds $210 trillion. We are a long way from when our Founders handed us a republic.
“American money was never more sound, or banking more free, than 200 years ago. Since then, it’s been a long steady decline from the gold standard and competitive banking to our Fed-run system of inflated paper currency, deposit insurance, and perpetually shaky banks on the dole.”
– Lew Rockwell
There is no conceivable way this debt can ever be repaid, therefore it will not. It’s just pure math, which the average dumbed down American chooses not to question or dispute. In their own lives they need to make enough income to make their mortgage payment and car loan payment. It’s the same for the government. The only way debt obligations can be met is for tax revenue to exceed expenses. Borrowing to make debt and interest payments is unsustainable, reckless, and an example of imperial empire arrogance. The only unknown now is whether the debt is defaulted upon, it is hyperinflated away, or some sort of debt jubilee and currency collapse makes it mute.
No matter the solution, the people will bear the brunt of the pain and drastic diminishment of their standard of living. Those in control will position themselves to benefit from whatever scheme is implemented to eliminate the debt. The current trend of running trillions in deficits per year is unsustainable and already resulting in raging inflation, declining GDP, and pushing the world towards a global depression.
There is no disputing the facts I have presented. These facts trump the willful ignorance of the masses and the false narratives of the ruling class, along with their media mouthpieces pretending all is well. Those controlling the levers of power know this shitshow can’t go on. They have fully exhausted their propaganda tools, financial derivative schemes, and monetary machinations, leaving them nothing but crashing the system and implementing a Great Reset, which would keep them in control and the rest of us in squalor and subservience.
We’ve been on the road to perdition for a long time, but we came to a peak on that highway in 2019 and the path has been straight down since, with our chariot of fire accelerating at breakneck speed towards its final destination with catastrophe and ruin. The rise and fall of the American Empire will be far more rapid than the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. With the inept and reckless leadership in place presently, I only hope we still have a nation after they successfully provoke World War 3.
The gradually part of going bankrupt is over. Since the end of fiscal year 2019, our fearless leaders have added $7.6 trillion to the national debt, a 33% increase in less than three years. Meanwhile, the duplicitous Fed has added $5 trillion to their balance sheet, a 125% increase, while keeping interest rates at zero and creating a tsunami of inflation, crushing the poor and middle class.
But at least the Wall Street bankers are raking in record bonuses, while still sucking at the teat of Fed QE to infinity. The blatant disregard for the lives of average Americans, while propping up the Wall Street cabal, billionaire oligarchs, and corrupt politicians should be met with pitchforks and torches in a just world. But that is not the world we occupy.
The last time inflation was this high (15% as measured in 1980), Volker jacked the Fed Funds rate to 20%. Spineless Jerome Powell has the Fed Funds rate at .33% today. It’s almost as if they are promoting record high inflation to make the national debt load less burdensome. Destroying the finances of hundreds of millions, creating global energy and food shortages, and instigating World War 3 as a consequence of their actions is just a minor irritation for the global elite. In fact, it appears to be part of Schwab’s Great Reset plan.
At first it seemed outrageous to think anyone would want famine, starvation, energy shortages, economic depression, and global war, but watching the insane decision making of politicians, trumpeted by the Deep State bootlickers in the media, has convinced me this is chapter 2 in their Great Reset book of horrors.
Once you wrap your head around how vile, evil, and demented those who are pulling the strings behind this Great Reset are, your eyes are open to how far they are willing to go to institute their plan. It appears they will stop at nothing, kill as many people as necessary, create maximum chaos and pain, wreck any civic cohesiveness left, and destroy all moral and legitimate norms of society, in order to increase their control, power and wealth on this earth.
They hold all the cards. They control the governments, corporations, banks, legacy media, social media, entertainment industries, military industrial complex, sickcare Big Pharma complex, and the mental processes of the masses through their mind control/propaganda technology. Their hubris and arrogance have reached peak altitude and exuberance. They believe they are invincible. That will be their fatal weakness.
The sheer cavalcade of lies, misinformation, purposely created chaos, engineered conflict, and financial market manipulation, make the daily intrigues confusing and open to misinterpretation. There are various factions competing to control the future course of history. There is not a clear good versus evil battle underway. Sometimes it is tough to distinguish the New World Order Great Reset crowd from those opposing Schwab and his Davos billionaire satanists.
I know we would like to root for the good guys, but there are no good guys running any country on this earth. Only bad guys, willing to sell their souls, are ever elevated to positions of power. They are selected by oligarchs, not elected by the people. The western propaganda spewing media machine specializes in demonizing those they are paid to demonize (Putin, Trump, non-vaxxers), while glorifying anyone the ruling elite have chosen to use to further their agenda (Zelensky, Fauci, vaxxers).
Putin is most certainly a bad guy, ruthless in his consolidation of power, serious in enforcing his beliefs through political or military measures, and willing to use any means necessary to achieve his aims. But he is only one of many bad men leading their countries across the globe. The Panama Papers show Zelinsky to be a corrupt puppet of Ukrainian oligarchs. He was a two-bit actor installed by the US, Soros, and NATO to play a role. As a reward, he has millions parked in offshore bank accounts and a $35 million mansion in Florida.
He’s such a democratic icon, he’s spent the last eight years bombing Russian speaking civilians in Donbass and Donetsk, and he outlawed all opposition political parties and media outlets last week. It seems our far-left media outlets have no problem supporting actual far-right Nazis in Ukraine, as long as they are paid to do so. They are nothing but faux-journalist whores.
The fact is Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Johnson, Erdogan, Xi, and the leaders of every country in the world are bad guys. Venezuela and Iran were evil, until our gas prices hit $4.25 a gallon because of Biden’s Russian sanctions. Now Biden is frantically negotiating with these “bad guys” to get their oil. Orwell nailed it seven decades ago with:
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
– Orwell – 1984
We have always been at war with Russia, supporting the noble democracy of Ukraine, and fully supportive of those benevolent dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and China when in our economic interest, no matter how many people they kill, imprison, or behead. Of course, if you don’t toe the line of the petrodollar, you get Iraq’d, Libya’d, or Syria’d. Those in control of the message just move from villain to villain in the their never ending narrative. First Trump, then Covid, then the anti-vaxxers, and now Putin. The real villains are the media and those who manipulate the minds of the masses to achieve their insidious aims.
Hypocrisy is not a characteristic that registers with empires in their late stages. Bribing, bullying, and bombing are what the American Empire does to enforce their waning power upon other nations. The over-the-top sanctions against Russia have accelerated the American decline into bankruptcy, while ignorant Americans remain distracted by their iGadgets, NCAA tournament pools and the latest season of American Idol.
Every conflict is manufactured to benefit the global oligarchs, the military industrial complex, and those seeking to keep the masses enslaved in debt and distracted by technology, entertainment, and hatred towards whoever they are directed to hate by the government/media propaganda machine. It’s always about wealth, power, and control.
The key financial arrangement sustaining the American Empire, even as it internally crumbles from cultural rot, institutionalized corruption, and glorified ignorance of reality, is the global dominance of the U.S. dollar in trade. This is why the empire’s bankruptcy has been gradual and to many, unnoticeable. But Dementia Joe has accidentally, or purposefully as part of the Great Reset agenda, set in motion the rapid spiral into bankruptcy and collapse of the short-lived America Empire (1946 – 2022).
By creating a global energy crisis over a border dispute 6,000 miles from our shores, with no strategic interest to our country, Biden has initiated the final countdown of the petrodollar as the global settlement currency for all energy transactions. Petrodollar warfare has been the policy of the U.S. for decades as economic imperialism has been enforced militarily against Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela.
Trying to enforce this policy against Russia will be a bridge too far. And the consequences are already being felt. Biden’s sanctions against Russian energy are backfiring and will bring an end to the petrodollar regime. Russia is demanding payment from Europe for their oil, gas, and coal in rubles, rather than USD. Any propaganda being peddled about the U.S. filling the gap is nothing but bullshit, as proven by this chart:
Russia supplies 47% of the EU coal demand, 41% of their natural gas demand, and 27% of their oil demand. They will pay Russia in rubles or have their societies grind to a halt, with starvation, chaos, depression, and revolution as the result. This doesn’t even consider Russian wheat and fertilizer exports, vital to Africa and the Middle East. Living within the propaganda bubble encasing the United States, where only the Deep State surveillance state sanctioned narrative is allowed to be broadcast by the dying legacy media and controlled social media propaganda platforms, you would be under the mistaken belief the entire world is in lockstep with Biden and his Great Reset cronies.
The vast majority of the world (countries in gray in the map below) are not supporting the sanctions imposed by Biden. As already noted, even the European countries in yellow are ignoring the energy sanctions. Biden has pushed Russia and China closer together, with the petroyuan rising as an alternative to the petrodollar. India has reached agreement with Russia regarding oil imports. Africa and South America, with all their natural resources, have told Biden to shove it. America’s bullying tactics are now giving rise to alternative currency schemes, such as cryptocurrencies and discussions about a gold backed yuan and gold backed ruble.
We stand on the precipice of a global conflagration, with talk of nuclear war bantered about by unserious low-IQ government bureaucrats, vacuous bimbo journalists and talking heads on the boob tube, and spurred on by the despicable hero worship of the textbook symbol of this farce – a sitcom actor who played a president in a TV show, funded by a billionaire oligarch, who was installed as president of Ukraine in a campaign funded by that billionaire, has ruled as a U.S. puppet, and who the Hollywood elite wanted to share the stage with the most dim-witted virtue signaling narcissists on the planet at the Oscars to call for the West to intervene in his losing battle and start World War 3. Instead they virtue signaled their support for Zelensky during the ceremonies.
The Hollywood elite ignore the actual Nazis fighting for Zelensky, his banning of political opponents and media outlets, and his government not allowing transgenders to flee the country because they are men. He belongs on-stage at the Oscars with the freaks, frauds, degenerates, pedophiles, and hypocritical scumbags who make up the American entertainment industry. He would have gotten a standing ovation for being such a glorious upstanding symbol of democracy, freedom, and the transvestite way. He could have stripped down, grabbed his guitar, and performed for a worldwide audience, while begging for missiles, fighter jets, tanks and drones.
We should all be laughing at this farce, but Zelensky and his handlers, Biden and his handlers, along with the other EU/NATO jokers and fools, have chosen to provoke Putin into war, and are now ratcheting up the rhetoric and sanctions to the point where a wider conflict is all but ensured. These reckless psychopaths clearly have not studied history or human nature when it comes to how wars can escalate rapidly with unanticipated outcomes and death on a massive scale. In a recent communication with writer Margaret Anna Alice, she described perfectly why we are headed into a horrific period in history, as the bloodiest chapter of this Fourth Turning hurtles towards its climax:
“The lethal combination of incompetency, obliviousness, hubris, psychopathy, narcissism, megalomania, and every other dark triad trait is on full display in those purporting to be our leaders.”
With it being quite apparent there are no good guy leaders in the world, trying to figure out the least worst outcome of this current episode of As the World Burns becomes difficult to grasp. I am convinced this engineered conflict in Ukraine is part of the bigger Great Reset plan of the global elites.
But writers I respect have differing viewpoints on whether Putin is playing his part in this scheme for a new world order or whether he and Xi are partnering to fight Soros, Schwab, Gates, and the Global Reset co-conspirators. Based on what I’ve observed, I don’t believe all these bad men have the exact same goals for how the world should be run and who should run it. But no matter who wins, the winners want more power, more wealth, more control, and an autocracy, with them calling the shots.
When I take into account all that has happened since 2014, who has been calling the shots, who was getting paid off, and the families implicated in this Ukrainian debacle, I conclude the Great Reset collaborators see this war as the next step (after the Covid scamdemic) in their Great Reset – purposely provoking Putin into attacking and now believing they can bleed him dry by funneling arms and cash into Ukraine. Why did the Clinton Foundation receive more “donations” from the Ukraine, prior to the 2014 CIA coup, than any country on earth?
Biden was involved in the coup to overthrow a democratically elected president, friendly towards Russia. There was no conflict within Ukraine prior to the coup. No death. No destruction. So, who is to blame for the bloodshed now? It’s not Putin. Biden’s crackhead son raked in millions from selling influence to the “Big Guy”, with the U.S. installed puppet presidents doing as they were told by Soros and his U.S. surveillance state agents.
There has been a simmering conflict since Putin annexed Crimea, shortly after the coup, and Ukraine began attacking the eastern Russian speaking provinces. The ratcheting up of attacks in those eastern provinces and the rhetoric about Ukraine joining NATO is what provoked Putin to attack. Despite the all-out propaganda campaign, Russia is winning and will win against Ukraine alone.
This is the point in history when the Great Reset acolytes have decided they can accomplish multiple goals by turning Ukraine into a nightmarish quagmire of death and destruction, fueled by a never ending flow of armaments into this war zone, as a means to overthrow Putin, create food shortages, raise the cost of fossil fuels to astronomical heights, implement further restrictions on civil rights, increase technological controls over the populace, and institute a Chinese like social credit scoring system to enforce obedience and compliance with government demands.
The Ukrainian people are just cannon fodder to these evil men. After two years of demanding submission from the peasants regarding lockdowns, masking and vaccine mandates, the ruling elite believe they will be able to enforce food and energy restrictions with the same ease upon the American people.
This is where I believe their master plan goes awry. Putin will not be cowed by Biden’s toothless sanctions, empty threats, and pathetic tough guy rhetoric. He will use any means necessary to defeat his foes. Economic sanctions are an act of war. Supplying his enemy with weapons to kill Russians is an act of war. NATO and the U.S. are one miscalculation away from starting WW3.
At a minimum, Biden has pushed China and Russia into closer cooperation as a new economic bloc. Biden’s weakness and inability to comprehend global strategy has probably convinced China they can annex Taiwan without the U.S. intervening in a meaningful way, other than easily avoided sanctions and threats. The new world order may end up revolving around China, with Russia and India as strategic partners and the U.S. and EU as outcasts.
The underlying anger in the country is bubbling to the surface. The raging inflation is crushing poor and middle-class families. Food and energy are the two largest monthly expenditures for families struggling to survive in this Federal Reserve induced billionaire boom society. When diesel fuel supplies dwindle to nothing, destroying our just in time, truck dependent supply chain, and real food shortages start inflicting real pain, civil disobedience and rioting will occur which will make the BLM riots looks like child’s play.
When people no longer have anything to lose, they will lose it and start looking for the culprits who stole their livelihoods and future. I don’t believe their propaganda machine will be able to convince the masses this was the fault of Trump or right wing conspiracists. Their pain and suffering are due to Federal Reserve bankers, corrupt politicians of the uni-party, and the media who has lied to them non-stop for the last decade. Woke is going to mean something different in the near future.
Pugnacious Putin has unwittingly, or possibly purposefully, initiated the “sudden” phase of the demise of the crumbling American Empire. A PR campaign and “USD subsidies” (aka bribes) to foreign countries will not save us now. Biden lit the fuse, and it is just a matter of when it blows. And does it just blow up the remnants of our empire, or the whole world? No one knows the answer to that question, but the future of civilization on earth depends on the answer.
Most of the world continues to go about their daily lives staring at their phones, oblivious to the danger of having angry senile sociopaths and egomaniacal billionaires controlling the use of nuclear weapons. We are one rash arrogant choice by a low IQ psychopath politician from the final scene in the Planet of the Apes.
“You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” – George Taylor
Are we destined to be victims? This Ukraine war has revealed both parties fully support never ending war. Left and right media outlets have been spewing the anti-Russian propaganda in lockstep. What has been set in motion will not be fixed at the ballot box, as if voting matters anymore in this empire of lies and deceit. Armed insurrection would not prevail with the current configuration of our society.
The only option is to organize in local communities of like-minded people to try and survive the coming storm. Get out of cities. Prep as much as you are able, with enough food, water, and fuel to sustain your family for an extended period of time. Stock up on guns, ammo, cash, gold, silver, and barterable items. On whatever plot of land you occupy, try to raise some food, and if possible become friendly with local farmers. No one can escape what is coming, as it will be global in nature, but you can take steps now to increase your chances of survival.
Our republic has degenerated into despotism, we’ve willingly relinquished our freedoms and liberties for the supposed safety and security of a Big Brother surveillance state, and now we will suffer the consequences of these cowardly actions. Life in America is about to become far harder than our generations of snowflakes ever anticipated. Those with no survival skills will not survive. If you are not prepared in mind, body, and spirit for what is coming, your future will be bleak. Only those already awake are likely to read this anyway, so good luck and Godspeed to you all.
“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
– John Adams
“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great El Rushbo, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
Election Day is two weeks away from today, when a divided nation goes to the polls. The last time the United States appeared so divided over politics was in 1856, says historian David Barton.
“You had physical attacks being called for by one party on the other. They were physically confronting each other,”Barton, speaking to the “Today’s Issues” program, said of that election year 162 years ago.
The young nation was polarized over the issue of slavery, and the three-way race pitted Democrat nominee James Buchanan against Republican nominee John C. Fremont and American Party nominee Millard Fillmore.
“Kill Trump” graffiti
Buchanan, who had defeated President Franklin Pierce at the party convention, won 19 states and 174 Electoral College votes to defeat the two opponents.
South Carolina was the first state to secede four years later and, four months later, war broke out to settle the issue for good.
Although a shooting war isn’t in America’s immediate future, Barton sees another similarity: a loud, intolerant minority trying to bully a complacent majority.
“We’re a polarized nation,” he observed, “with a bunch of loudmouths on one side and a whole lot of people who don’t want to get into a fight on the other side.”
Cruz and Beto debate
Anyone paying attention over the past two years has witnessed scenes of violence perpetrated by far-left activists and masked Antifa soldiers in their stated pursuit to defeat “Nazis” and “white supremacists” –— conservatives — who appear in public at restaurants and on college campuses.
An ongoing “rap sheet” of left-wing violence, or calls for such attacks, hasclimbed to more than 600 this weekat Breitbart News, which is itself considered a “fascist” website by the Left even while it documents their fascist-like attacks.
With the media predicting a “blue wave”on Election Day, Barton suspects that Republican apathy finally started to change during the televised Brett Kavanaugh hearings, when the public witnessed Senate Democrats and screaming protesters attempt to stop the nomination with claims of sexual assault and even participation in gang-rape parties.
Brett Kavanaugh testifying
“After one week of Kavanaugh hearings, the nation was pretty undecided,” Barton said. “After two weeks, every major poll broke four to eight points in the direction of the conservative candidate.”
Some political analysts have observed that law-and-order Republican senators witnessed firsthand the tactics of the Left and their Democratic colleagues, unifying the conservative base and moderate Republicans weeks before Election Day.
Barton told the American Family Radio program all it would take to turn a potential blue wave into a red tsunami is the church to get engaged and vote.
“It’s just which side is going to turn out the most,” he said.
Note: Once again I received an email with an anonymous funny story, a joke really, about a Republican in a bar. No idea who to credit, but it’s funny enough and got enough truth in it that I have to share. Tami Jackson
________________________
A union boss walks into a bar from the factory next door and is about to order a beer when he sees a guy at the far end of the bar wearing a TRUMP “Make America Great Again” cap with two beers sitting in front of him.
The union boss doesn’t need to be an Einstein to know that this guy is a Republican, so he shouts over to the bartender so loudly that everyone can hear:
“Drinks for everyone in here, bartender…but not for the ‘Republican’!”
Soon after the drinks have been passed out, the Republican gives him a big smile, waves at him then says, “Thank you!” in an equally loud voice.
This infuriates the union boss.
After a few minutes, the union boss once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican. As before, this doesn’t seem to bother the Republican. He nods and smiles, and again yells, “Thank you!”
A few more minutes pass and the union boss orders another round of drinks for everyone except the Republican.
Just as before, this STILL doesn’t seem to faze the Republican who continues smiling and again yells out, “Thank you!!”
Frustrated that he can’t seem to get the guy angered, the union boss asks the bartender, “What is wrong with that Republican? I’ve ordered three rounds of drinks for everyone in the bar but him, and all the dummy does is smile and thank me. Is he nuts?”
“Nope,” replies the bartender. “He owns the place.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has 37 agreements in 17 states with local law enforcement agencies to help enforce immigration law. (Photo: Reuters/Newscom)
In July 2007, the elected board of a growing county in Northern Virginia adopted a controversial resolution requiring the police department to partner with the federal government to help deport illegal immigrants.
Corey Stewart, the Republican elected the year before as chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, ran on a platform of stricter immigration enforcement during a time of economic anxiety.
“The main purpose of the resolution was to remove criminal illegal aliens so they couldn’t commit crimes, and to reduce illegal immigration to Prince William County,”Stewart recalled in an interview with The Daily Signal.
Before 2007, Prince William, a county of about 450,000 today, experienced dramatic growth in the number of foreign-born residents. Most of these recent arrivals were Latino, a segment of the total population that almost doubled from 11.5 percent in 2000 to 21.9 percent in 2006.
The debate over the immigration enforcement measure, amplified by demonstrations and phone and email campaigns to sway the eight county supervisors, ended with a 15-hour board meeting. More than 100 people testified before board members, delaying the vote, The Washington Post reported. Prince William’s supervisors, including six Republicans and two Democrats at the time, approved the measure unanimously.
Test Case: ‘Avoided the Controversy’
Prince William’s policy, as originally implemented in March 2008, required police to inquire about the immigration status of anyone officers encountered who they suspected to be in the country illegally, including people stopped for traffic tickets, for instance. The Obama administration shunned policies like this one, which were authorized through the use of a program known as 287(g) that permits local and federal immigration partnerships.
The George W. Bush administration had expanded the use of 287(g) agreements—named for the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996, signed by President Bill Clinton, that created them.
In President Barack Obama’s second term, however, his administration curtailed the 287(g) program, citing investigations and court rulings that found local officers in some jurisdictions had engaged in racial profiling when enforcing immigration law.
The most high-profile case was in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, where a federal judge ruled in May 2013 that Sheriff Joseph Arpaio’s policy discriminated against Latinos.
But today, as part of its own effort to strengthen immigration enforcement, the Trump administration is seeking to encourage and expand the use of 287(g) agreements.
In new memos detailing implementation of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, John Kelly, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, called the program a “highly successful force multiplier” that would help overburdened federal deportation agents enforce immigration law. As local politicians and law enforcement agencies decide whether or how to act on Trump’s call for help, observers say Prince William’s experience can be instructive on how to make a successful partnership that balances community and security concerns.
Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, promoted an ordinance requiring the police department to help enforce federal immigration law. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/Newscom)
After pushback from the police chief at the time, Charlie Deane, who worried about diverting resources from normal operations to immigration enforcement and harming public trust, the board of supervisors suspended the policy at the end of April 2008. The board implemented a revised policy in July 2008. Under the change, police officers could inquire about immigration status only after arresting someone and taking him or her to the county jail—not during interactions on the street before making an arrest.
“Prince William County took a moderate, down-the-middle approach and avoided the controversy,”said Randy Capps, the director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, who helped write a study of 287(g) programs that included Prince William County.
“That’s an interesting contrast with other police departments and sheriff’s offices, and it shows that for this to work, it has to be somewhat reflective of local concerns,”Capps told The Daily Signal. “We have a tradition in the U.S. of local control over policing, and that will mean variations in policing when it comes to immigrants.”
Stewart, who served as Trump’s campaign chairman in Virginia, had fought scaling back the county’s policy of enforcing immigration law. But today he credits the change with helping reduce serious crimes in Prince William County, such as aggravated assault—which declined 27 percent after announcement of the original policy in July 2007—while also respecting residents.
According to a University of Virginia report from 2010, no one made a substantiated claim of racial profilingrelated to the immigration enforcement program. Stewart says that is still the case.
Police officials issued bilingual brochures explaining the modified program to residents, and conducted hundreds of briefings with religious groups, social service agencies, and school faculty, among others.
“I opposed the change at the time, but at the end of the day, it was good,” Stewart told The Daily Signal, adding:
Federal immigration authorities need to be able to leverage local law enforcement to do the job of removing criminal illegal aliens. To do these things right, you have to make sure the community understands you are not racial profiling, but you are targeting illegal aliens who commit crimes. I learned there is a PR element which was very, very hard. Because one bad case of racial profiling can undo the whole thing.
Change in Priorities
At the peak of the 287(g) program’s use, in 2008, more than 60 local law enforcement agencies across the nation had agreements with the federal government, including three dozen that allowed for street-level enforcement. In street-level agreements, known as “task force” models, police officers and sheriff’s deputies could inquire about a person’s immigration status when they encountered him or her during routine patrols—as under Prince William’s original policy. These agreements allowed state and local law enforcement to work in task forces with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on specific immigration-related operations.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said 287(g) agreements at one point were responsible for nearly 20 percent of all criminal deportations by ICE. ICE credits the program for identifying more than 402,000 “potentially removable aliens”from January 2006 through Sept. 30, 2015. From 2006 to 2013, the program led to 175,000 deportations, The New York Times reported. Today, ICE has 37 agreements in 17 states, but law enforcement agencies administer all of them in local jails, not in the streets.
That’s because Obama’s administration decided in 2012 to end street-level agreements, meaning that trained local police may question people about their immigration status only after booking and jailing them.
“The jail models are the ones that are most useful to ICE just because of the sheer numbers [of deportations] they generate,”Vaughan said, adding:
But the task force models canceled by Obama were extremely useful to local agencies, in some cases, at addressing specific crime problems. The Obama administration’s suppression of this program has contributed to the steep drop in interior enforcement.
In the Trump administration’s implementation memos, the Department of Homeland Security does not specify whether street-level agreements will be made available again to local agencies, although it leaves open the possibility.
“It is the policy of the executive branch to empower state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law,”the memos say.
In addition to restricting the 287(g) program, the Obama administration narrowed the categories of illegal immigrants targeted for deportation to convicted felons, national security threats, and recent arrivals. By the end of Obama’s eight years as president, the administration didn’t consider around 90 percent of the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants a priority for deportation,the Migration Policy Institute determined.
Interior removals—deportations of illegal immigrants who are not residing at or near the border—decreased by 71 percent during Obama’s presidency, from 237,941 in fiscal 2009 to 69,478 in fiscal 2015,according to ICE data.
The Obama administration had instructed local law enforcement officials to follow the narrow priorities set by the federal government. However, the Migration Policy Institute found that some jurisdictions did not always follow that direction, and sought to have ICE deport “nearly 100 percent of potentially removable immigrants they encounter.”
Trump’s orders, by contrast, instruct federal immigration officers to deport not only those convicted of crimes, but also those who aren’t charged but are believed to have committed“acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.”
“The No. 1 limitation of the ability to remove people from inside the United States is finding them,”said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former policy adviser at the Department of Homeland Security.
“Trump is expanding the net of people who are removable, but a few thousand ICE officers don’t have such a great chance of encountering them, especially in small jurisdictions,”Brown told The Daily Signal. “Criminal aliens, or those suspected of crimes, are much more likely to encounter state and local police. It’s up to the localities to decide how to follow Trump’s guidance. There’s always friction because there’s different priorities at different levels of government.”
Renewed Interest in Local Partnerships
Since it became clear Trump embraces the 287(g) program, some local agencies already are eager to engage with ICE, even if the partnership exists only in jails. Last month, A.J. Louderback, the Republican sheriff of Jackson County in Texas, signed such an agreement with ICE. Louderback, who is also legislative director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, said more than 10 other counties in the state have expressed interest in brokering new partnerships with the federal government.
“We need to make sure our criminal aliens are handled consistently throughout Texas and throughout the U.S.,”Louderback told The Daily Signal.
“And the best way we can do it, the most efficient way we can do it, is to cooperate with ICE to make sure each criminal foreign-born alien is properly vetted before we let them out of jail.”
In the jail model, trained local officers interview inmates about their immigration status and identify potentially removable illegal immigrants to ICE. When booked, all new inmates are asked to state their place of birth and nationality. If an inmate indicates he is a noncitizen and foreign-born, the officer screens him by accessing a federal database that includes information about immigration status and history, then consults with an ICE supervisor. If the local officer discovers that the person is an unauthorized immigrant, the officer may issue a detainer. This allows the jail to hold the inmate 48 hours past the normal release time before transferring the inmate to ICE custody. ICE then would decide whether to pursue removal proceedings against the illegal immigrant.
Aside from training local officers chosen to carry out immigration enforcement duties, and providing and installing associated equipment, ICE does not pay for any costs associated with implementing the program. The local agency bears the costs.
In Prince William County, the sheriff’s office currently operates the 287(g) program through the jail. The police department’s agreement with ICE ended in 2012, after the Obama administration stopped allowing enforcement by local officers in the streets.
Prince William’s Stewart says ICE has trained eight officers in the county jail who do nothing but check immigration status. He does not expect or want the county to expand into street-level enforcement, Stewart said, but is hopeful for one change under the Trump administration. In previous administrations, he told The Daily Signal, ICE did not notify the county on whether the federal agency deported or released illegal immigrants after local officials transferred them to federal custody. ICE held that such information was private.
Local police rearrested 14 percent of the more than 7,400 illegal immigrants handed over to ICE since 2008, Stewart said.
“What changes now is a belief that Trump will keep his word and we will finally see the federal government deporting the illegal aliens we have handed over to them,”Stewart said.
Resistance Remains
Despite some renewed interest in 287(g), the program faces resistance from some states as well as so-called sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation in enforcing federal immigration law.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that the city would cooperate in cases involving “proven public safety threats,”but vowed that “what we will not do is turn our NYPD officers into immigration agents.”
The Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization made up of dozens of senior law enforcement executives from the nation’s largest cities, rejects the policy of enlisting local or state officers in immigration enforcement.
“We do not believe local police should be involved in civil immigration enforcement,”Darrel Stephens, executive director of the association, told The Daily Signal. “We do have a responsibility, however, to enforce criminal laws regardless of one’s immigration status. Our agencies work with ICE on a range of programs involving human trafficking, gang enforcement, and the like.”
In Texas, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, a newly elected Democrat, terminated a 287(g) partnership with ICE in which 10 trained local deputies screened the immigration status of jailed suspects.
Adrian Garcia, a Democrat who served as Harris County sheriff from 2009 to 2015, told The Daily Signal that he tried to end an agreement with ICE that he inherited from his predecessor. During his tenure, Garcia said, Harris County altered the program so that local officers screened the immigration status only of “violent, serious” offenders in the jail, rather than all inmates.
The 23-year veteran of the Houston Police Department commended Gonzalez for ending the program.
“It was a constant battle to stay true to what I thought the goal should be, which was to go after the worst of the worst,”Garcia told The Daily Signal, adding:
It was important for me that the community never lost confidence in the police department. There was an increasing amount of feedback that people were not engaging with law enforcement as they could or should have.
Evaluating Impact
Back in Prince William County, debate over the impact of its immigration enforcement program continues, even though it is less visible and contentious today operating strictly in the jail. A 2013 study published by the American Society of Criminology found that while the policy did not affect most forms of crime in the county (including robberies, drug offenses, and drunk driving), aggravated assaults declined 27 percent after the announcement of the original policy in July 2007.
Last year, 22 homicides occurred in the county, the highest total since local authorities began tracking them in 1975. The overall crime rate is at a 24-year low, however. Prince William’s noncitizen Hispanic population (legal and illegal) declined 23 percent from 2007 to 2009.
A 2010 study by the University of Virginia found that most of the arrests of illegal immigrants in 2009—about 70 percent—were for drunken driving, public drunkenness, and driving without a license. The study also showed that illegal immigrants committed a relatively small percentage of the county’s serious crimes—6 percent in 2009.
Experts say it’s difficult to connect crime and population trends to the county’s immigration policy, since illegal immigrants were committing a small percentage of serious crimes, and the policy’s implementation coincided with the economic downturn. Thomas Guterbock, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Survey Research, said that overall, the policy had achieved its intended effect.
“As Prince William County showed, these programs can be effective in doing what they are intended to do—finding undocumented persons who have committed crimes or serious violations of immigration law,”Guterbock told The Daily Signal. “If done carefully, they could be made to work behind the scenes as a fairly quiet and unbiased way to find and deal with those people.”
Kim Holmes wrote earlier this week on the Supreme Court.
The stakes are high—very high. Finding a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia will be a battle royale. But why should one government official’s position be so existentially important? Yes, control of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, but that raises the question as to why the Court itself is so powerful. Could it be that the answer to that question tells us something about our increasing inability to govern ourselves as a free people?
Let’s face it. Ever since at least the 1960s (and frankly even before) we have increasingly allowed the Supreme Court to decide controversial issues we have been unwilling to solve legislatively.
From civil rights to abortion to the issue of gay marriage, the high court has ruled on key issues well outside the legislative process. New constitutional rights were created out of whole cloth. If abortion couldn’t be legalized at the ballot box, or if gay marriage could not be made lawful by Congress or the states, a majority of the Supreme Court—a mere five people—would step in and do it for us. Using the power of judicial review, a new policy would be imposed simply by redefining it as a constitutional right.
The practice of judicial fiat is so commonplace we seldom realize how radical it is. We are, quite simply, losing our sovereign power to govern ourselves. We have allowed the courts in general but the Supreme Court in particular to become too powerful.
We are, quite simply, losing our sovereign power to govern ourselves.
No single government official outside the president should be so important that his or her replacement could shift the course and destiny of the nation. And yet that is precisely the case with finding a replacement for Scalia.No matter which way it goes, the next Supreme Court justice will decide the balance of power of an institution that has arguably become more powerful than the Congressand as powerful (at least) as thepresidency.
This was not what the Founders intended. Sure, we live in the modern age where a lot of water has flowed under the bridge of judicial review, but that’s precisely the problem. We have allowed those waters over time to become a flood, swamping in some cases the high court’s main purposes of safeguarding our existing rights and preserving the rule of law.
The irony should not be lost on us that it has been primarily liberal activists who have tried to hijack the court to get by judicial fiat what they could not obtain legislatively. For all their professed love of “democracy”—rule by the people—they have resorted to tactics that actually overturn laws passed legitimately by democratic legislatures.
The very insularity that the Founders had intended to protect the high court from the political passions of the times now serves those passions outright. It is not uncommon for Supreme Court justices to decide cases based on what they think—perhaps “divine” is a better word—the people or legislators really want.Perhaps based on opinion polls, for example, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy may have thought he was merely delivering what the people wanted when he decided in favor of gay marriage. But in doing so, he was overturning actual democratic votes that over the past ten years showed a 60.93-percent to 39.07-percent majority against gay marriage when the issue had been placed on the ballot.
Should not actual votes count more than opinion polls?
Ultimately judicial activism is harmful not only to constitutional government but to democratic self-governance. When judges try to ram through their policy preferences by contorting texts, abusing precedents, and making up new constitutional rights, they undermine the credibility of both the Constitution and democracy.
That is why, now more than ever, the next Supreme Court justice must be someone who respects not only the original intent of the Constitution—what Scalia called “originalism”—but the need to restrict the policy activist role played by the court. Nothing less is at stake than our ability to govern ourselves as a free people.
WASHINGTON – Businessman Donald Trump has told several top Republicans that he will swear off the possibility of an independent bid and commit to running his presidential campaign under the party’s banner, according to several sources. Such a move could endear Trump further to Republican voters who have remained skeptical about his allegiance to a political party he joined relatively recently. Trump had drawn sharp criticism from GOP leaders concerned that a third party bid would effectively guarantee a Democratic win in the general election.
“I know you don’t need any advice, but I’m going to give you some. You will do better in the Republican primaries if you just swear off the third party, because a lot of Republicans will never vote for someone who, like Ross Perot, will hand the election to a Democrat,” influential radio host Hugh Hewitt told Trump during an interview in early August.
“I’ve never heard it put so strongly,”Trump responded. “When you said it the way you said it, that’s very interesting, so I’ll be thinking about that.”
Michael Cohen, a top Trump aide, did not go so far as to confirm that the businessman would take the step of forsaking a run as an independent. But he did tell The Huffington Post that Trump never had “any intent” of campaigning as anything other than a Republican. “He just wanted to ensure that the establishment would treat him as fair as they would treat any of the other candidates,”Cohen said. “And I believe, right now, they are treating him fairly. It is my personal belief that the RNC is treating Mr. Trump the same as the other candidates, and he will live up to his agreement not to run as an independent.”
Trump, for his part, has long said that he was holding out the possibility of an independent run as leverage. But according to sources, he has since determined that the threat was harmful to his current chances.
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee did not return a request for comment.
A top Republican source, however, cautioned that any decision Trump will reportedly make should be considered a loose commitment at best, since he is known for his political impulsiveness. A stray insult from a fellow Republican could, theoretically, change his calculus.
“[Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger] Ailes thought he had a deal, too. Then Trump called Megyn Kelly a bimbo, again,” noted one GOP operative, referencing the supposed truce between the network chief and Trump. Asked specifically if Trump would be making a formal announcement, Cohen replied, “Only Mr. Trump can sign that oath. And when he does, you can rest assured, he will live by it.”
During an interview with Hewitt on Wednesday after this story was published, Trump was asked about it whether he would forgo an independent run. “It’s not something I want to do and at some point I will actually totally commit,”he said, in reference to formally running as a Republican. “I didn’t think it was appropriate to commit during the debate,”he went on. “You know, I was a little surprised they even asked me at the debate but that was OK. But at some point, look, I want to run, I’m leading in the polls by a lot, I want to run as a Republican. I want to get the nomination and I want to beat the Democrats.”
This story has been updated to include Trump’s comments to Hewitt on Wednesday.
Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the Center for American Progress’ 2014 Making Progress Policy Conference in Washington Nov. 19, 2014. (REUTERS/Gary Cameron)
The Obama administration unveiled the linchpin of its global warming agenda Monday: a 1560-page regulation called the “Clean Power Plan.” The goal of the Clean Power Plan is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. The EPA claims the plan will benefit the economy and the environment by reducing asthma attacks, creating jobs in the green energy sector and showing the world the U.S. is committed to fighting global warming. All of this ahead of a major United Nations climate summit this winter.
Put simply, the new agenda is a massive undertaking, and one that’s already facing legal challenges from a coalition of states and the coal industry. There are going to be clear winners and losers with this rule. Red states, fossil fuel companies and even blue dog Democrats stand to lose out — not to mention all the families who will be hit with higher energy bills.
Is EPA Punishing Red States?
The EPA’s cuts to CO2 emissions could cost states billions of dollars in the coming decades. States are forced to find ways to cut emissions based on certain building blocks set forth by EPA. But this could be costly for energy-intensive states, like North Dakota, with grids and economies that rely on lots of coal power, and oil and natural gas production.
There’s another interesting dynamic underlying the EPA’s rules. The Daily Caller News Foundation examined the data and found that red states were among those hit with the biggest, and likely costliest, emissions reduction mandates.
Of the ten states with the biggest CO2 reduction mandates, eight are dominated by Republicans and only two are Democratic. On the flip side, the states with the lowest CO2 reduction mandates are overwhelmingly liberal — six are Democrat and only four are Republican.
TheDCNF looked at which party controlled each chamber of the state legislature and the governorship to determine control. For example, Republicans control both chambers of the South Dakota legislature and there’s a Republican governor. We considered that state Republican. On the other hand, Montana has a Democratic governor but a Republican-controlled legislature. We’d also consider that state Republican since two of the three groups looked at were GOP-controlled.
Republican states were among those that saw the highest increases in their CO2 mandates from the EPA’s proposal to the final rule, according to Politico Pro. Some 16 states had their emissions targets increased by the EPA, but the agency also loosened targets for 31 states.
Politico reported that while North Dakota “enjoyed the lowest emission reduction goal in the proposed rule,” the state “saw that goal more than quadruple in the final rule to 44.9 percent.”
“Other states saw significant increases in their goals as well. Montana’s goal increased by 26.3 percentage points to 47.4 percent. Iowa’s went up 25.4 points, to a 41.5 percent reduction. And Wyoming’s goal went up 25.3 points to a 44.3 percent reduction,” according to Politico.
“On the other hand, 24 states saw their goals reduced. Washington’s declined the most, down 34.6 percentage points to 37.2 percent,” Politico reported. “Oregon dropped 28.1 points to 20 percent, and New York went down 24.7 points to 19.5 percent.”
Before drawing too many conclusions, it’s worth noting that red states are likely being hurt the most because they rely more heavily on coal for their energy needs. These states also tend to be major energy producing states, like North Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia.
States that rely too much on coal will have the toughest time complying with the Clean Power Plan because burning coal emits much more CO2 than burning natural gas. The EPA says it bases its reduction targets on what’s “achievable.” The agency sees coal-reliant states as having much more work to do when it comes to reducing emissions than states relying more on natural gas and green energy, as many Democrat-controlled states do.
The fact is that far more states saw their emissions targets reduced from the EPA’s proposal last year. Even so, states are still going to have a tough time complying with their targets no matter what since the Clean Power Plan essentially forces them to restructure their electricity markets and regulations.
Is This An Attack On Fracking?
The Clean Power Plan has also been seen as an attack on natural gas-fired power, which has been made economical due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale. The oil and gas industry is worried the EPA’s rule ignores the role natural gas can play in reducing carbon dioxide emissions — when burned for electricity, natural gas emits less CO2 than coal. The Financial Times reported that the “US shale gas is the unexpected loser from President Barack Obama’s climate plan, as the White House abandons its previous enthusiasm for natural gas as a cleaner alternative to coal.”
In recent years, the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of natural gas thanks to hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting water, sand and some chemicals deep underground to unlock hydrocarbons trapped in shale formations. But industry leaders fear EPA could harm the industry. “With the reported shift in the plan, we believe the White House is perpetuating the false choice between renewables and gas,”Martin Durbin, president of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, told Oil and Gas Journal. “We don’t have to slow the trend toward gas in order to effectively and economically use renewables.”
Reports have come out, mainly with support from environmentalists and green energy backers, declaring the Clean Power Plan downplays natural gas’ role in reducing U.S. emissions. Instead, reports indicate the EPA is focusing on boosting green energy instead of gas. “With or without new regulations, gas will continue to grow as a critical source of clean energy, but EPA’s rule does more harm than good,”Howard Feldman with the American Petroleum Institute told OGJ.
Major natural gas producing states have also been hit with steep emissions targets mandated by the EPA. Texas, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, must reduce power plant emissions 33.5 percent below 2012 levels by 2030. The state gets twice as much energy from natural gas as it does from coal.
Democratic-led Pennsylvania is also being hit with tough emissions reductions mandates from EPA. The state must reduce emissions 34.9 percent by 2030. Pennsylvania is now the country’s second-largest natural gas producer thanks to fracking in the Marcellus Shale. The state even gets 37 percent of its electricity from nuclear, while coal and natural gas each provide slightly less.
Blue Dog Dems Backstabbed By Obama
What’s probably most interesting about energy states being hit hard by the Clean Power Plan, is that many of them also sport Democratic lawmakers who are now put in a tough position.
North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp called the rule a “slap in the face,” according to Politico Pro. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin criticized the rule for being “utterly unrealistic.” Both of these lawmakers opposed the rule since its proposal, but now their states are some of the hardest hit.
North Dakota and West Virginia were initially given some of the smallest state emissions reductions targets by the EPA. In June 2014, the EPA said North Dakota would only have to reduce emissions 10.6 percent and West Virginia 19.8 percent by 2030. Now these states have to make much deeper cuts than the EPA initially told them. “Our President and his Administration think our country can do without coal, and they are dead wrong. They are in denial,”Manchin said in a statement condemning the rule.
Montana Democrats, who originally supported the rule, are now reeling after the EPA announced the state would have to reduce emissions even more than was initially proposed by the agency last year. Montana now has one of the highest CO2 emissions reduction mandates of any state. Montana’s Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock complainedthat the EPA “moved the goal post on us,” saying that while “we need to address climate change” but added that “how we do so has to work for Montana.” The Montana’s AFL-CIO branch actually planned a press call in support of the rule, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, but it was cancelled after the union found out the EPA had increased the “reduction requirement.” The group called it a “gut punch.”
Even Democratic Sen. Jon Tester was cautious in his statement on the Clean Power Plan’s release, not condemning it but also not celebrating it being finalized. Tester told the Chronicle he needed “more time to review it to ensure it works for Montana and creates healthier communities and a stronger economy.”
“The Democratic party has never come to terms with the evil of its past”
History has a way of bastardizing politically expedient talking points. For example, the Republican party’s long-standing though not widely reported history of standing athwart the institution of slavery. As it turns out in 1987, then Governor Clinton boasted that the blue star on the Arkansas State flag was an homage to the Confederacy. Oops. Guess the New York Times forgot about that.
Mark Steyn joined Sean Hannity Wednesday to discuss the Confederate flag issue. “The idea that Republicans can have the Confederate flag hung around their necks is ridiculous, it’s a Democrat flag. The states that seceded during the Civil War were all Democrat states. That’s their flag. The slave states were democrat states, the racist states until the 1960s were Democrat states. The Democratic party was the largest and most powerful institution supporting slavery in the English speaking world, and it is the only one that has survived to the twenty-first century.”
“It’s their flag,”Steyn continued. “Hillary Clinton had it campaign bumper stickers when she ran for president in 2008. You mentioned Robert C. Byrd, Bill Clinton was doing Klu Klux Klan jokes at Robert C. Byrd’s funeral!”
Despite their racist past, the Democratic party has thrived for over 150 years, there’s simply nothing like it in the planet, Steyn noted. “People talk about apartheid Africa, the national party came to power in 1948 and they were gone 45 years later, that’s how long they lasted and they’re nothing now.”
“The Democratic party has never come to terms with the evil of its past,” said Steyn.
While I refuse to argue the Confederate flag should be a state symbol (it should not), the fact that Democrats chose to exploit mental illness and tragedy to pretend the entire South (which happens to be solidly Republican) is racist, is perfectly illustrative of egregious historical ignorance.
Thank GOD I’m not a Democrat. How embarrassing that must be.
DES MOINES, IA – MAY 16: Businessman Donald Trump speaks to guests gathered for the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center on May 16, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. The event sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa gave several Republican presidential hopefuls an opportunity to strengthen their support among Iowa Republicans ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucus. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Donald Trump officially threw his hat into the 2016 presidential race on Tuesday, and during his speech he took a swing at what he believes is America’s failing school system. “Twenty-five countries are better than us at education,” he said. “And some of them are like third-world countries.” But is that an accurate statement, or simply hyperbole?
To fact-check that claim we took a look at the international test most widely used as a tool for measuring education systems worldwide, the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The PISA exam is a worldwide study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and it measures 15-year-olds in 65 countries in math, science, and reading.
So, Trump’s claim that 25 countries are better at education than the US seems to be a fairly accurate point to make.
The second part of Trump’s statement, that some third-world countries beat the US, is a bit more nuanced to unpack. For starters, the term “third world” is a vague descriptor that means different things to different people. The term was birthed during the Cold War to refer to countries that were aligned with neither NATO nor the Communist Bloc.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the term has morphed to be more of a catchall term for developing or poor countries. As such, there is no authoritative list of third-world countries.
Still, we took a look at the countries with the lowest gross national income (GNI) based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita in international dollars, as a proxy for a list of “third-world countries.” For the most part, the countries that beat the US are also economically strong. Those countries include China, Singapore, and Germany.
But one country that beat the US is significantly poorer than those countries: Vietnam. The comparable average income of a citizen of Vietnam is $5,070 yearly, compared with $53,470 for the US. Vietnam beat the US in both math and science.
So even though it sounds outlandish to make that claim, “The Donald” makes a fair point about the US’ educational system.
His announcement marks the first time he will actively seek the Republican nomination, though he has toyed with the idea in the past. The real-estate mogul gave a characteristically boisterous performance. He spoke in an off-the-cuff manner and made some pretty big claims, such as, “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, shown here on her prized Harley Davidson, will lead a 40-mile motorcyle ride on Saturday – joined by Gov. Scott Walker and Rick Perry. (Image from Sen. Joni Ernst) more >
This pig roast could trump a certain steak fry – and it will certainly go down as a moment in Republican pop culture history. That would be “Joni’s First Annual Roast and Ride,” a bodacious event on Saturday organized by Sen. Joni Ernst. It includes a 40-mile motorcycle ride across the Iowa countryside to honor military veterans – boasting good cheer, thudding bikes and a full police escort – naturally led by the Republican herself, a combat vet and a Harley fan. Next up on the agenda: “a big pig roast,” the lawmaker says, plus a political rally of the old school kind with much speechifying, plenty of good eats and a country rock band.
The event has drawn seven Republican presidential hopefuls and major media as well.
The inaugural Roast and Ride is already being compared to former Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry, a tradition the Iowa Democrat kept going for four decades. Some locals are whispering that the Ernst party could best the Harkin fete; the barbecue gurus expect to serve 700 pounds of pork alone as the afternoon goes on.
There’s spectacle – and photo ops. Indeed, GOP candidates hopefuls will line up at the podium, including Gov. Scott Walker and Rick Perry. Both plan to make the ride aboard Harley hogs from the excursion’s starting point outside of Des Moines, meandering northwards to Boone. They’ll likely be front and center on the line.
Also on hand: Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. The quiet word among organizers is that Mrs. Ernst offered Mr. Rubio a spot on the back of her bike – but he turned the offer down, apparently. The candidates have also been encouraged to try their hand at horseshoes, wiffle ball and perhaps some artful pork chop flipping.
Gov. Scott Walker rides his 2003 Harley Davidson Road King (image from … more >
Prominent politicos and conservative stalwarts will also be in the crowd, including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, plus Reps. Steve King and David Young.
The press is eager, to say the least. C-SPAN, of course, will be there to bear witness to the big doings from 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, along with the FOX News Channel, which has sent senior correspondent John Roberts to the Hawkeye State. CNN, will feature chief Congressional correspondent Dana Bash who will interview Mrs. Ernst herself, along with Mssrs. Cotton, Graham and Perry. ABC News is also poised for coverage, showcasing their finds on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
Bloomberg News ran a happy news story this week about the “surprising” development of Republicans joining Democrats in their effort to end our “incarceration generation” by the simple expedient of putting fewer criminals in prison. (Lots of good ideas involve ham-fisted, Johnnie Cochran-style rhymes.)
And Bloomberg wasn’t just talking about the media’s usual lickspittle, Sen. Rand Paul.
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas governor Rick Perry have all called for “new” approaches to allegedly “non-violent” drug crimes — i.e., any approach other than prison.
Perry says: “You want to talk about real conservative governance? Shut prisons down. Save that money.”
Sen. Ted Cruz — along with lickspittle Paul — wants to end mandatory minimum sentencing. Yes, remember how much we trust judges to use their discretion wisely? The precise reason the public demanded mandatory minimums was because so many liberal judges had their own ideas about “alternatives to prison” — such as, again, not prison.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee suggests that, instead of prison, the government should “address character.”
Huckabee, for example, addressed the character of Maurice Clemmons — a career violent criminal who said he was deeply remorseful and was trying to be a good Christian — by granting him clemency. This allowed Maurice to rape a child and slaughter four police officers execution-style, in “the largest number of law enforcement officers killed by one man in a single incident in U.S. history,” at least according to Wikipedia.
(On the bright side, releasing Maurice saved Arkansas taxpayers all sorts of money — just as Perry predicted!)
Before sucking up to The New York Times, it would be really great if Republicans would read, so they’d know stuff.
Contrary to the assholery being pushed nonstop by the left, for example:
(1) No one is in prison just for possessing a joint; and
(2) So-called “non-violent” drug crimes that result in prison are generally committed by violent criminals.
Evidently, Americans need to patiently explain to elected Republicans — who are too busy hanging out with their Chamber of Commerce friends to have any idea how the world works — that no judge is going to waste prison space on a guy selling a joint.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 0.7 percent of all state inmates are behind bars for marijuana possession alone. Carnegie Mellon’s Jonathan Caulkins puts the figure at less than half a percent.
And these are the convictions of record.
Our pro-criminal media invariably cite the conviction of record, as if that’s the worst crime committed by the defendant. But, as the Times itself reports: “97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains.”
Do you think criminals are pleading guilty to the most serous offenses they’re actually guilty of?
Defense attorney: The prosecutors want to charge you with murder one, menacing, drug possession and distribution.
Criminal: OK, I’ll plead to murder one.
Defense attorney: No! We’ll offer to plead to possession of marijuana.
Criminal: Oh! OK, OK, I see — yes, you’re right
Show me all the wonderful fellows in prison just because they had a single joint. I want three examples — and I want their names, so I can find out what they really did.
For years — in fact, to this very day — the left’s poster boy for the monstrous injustice of the war on drugs was DeMarcus Sanders, whose life was ruined, so the legend goes, just because police found a single marijuana seed in his car.
And then you run a basic Google search and find out that DeMarcus was a known gang member who had already served time for shooting a rival gang member. After that conviction, DeMarcus was arrested — again, for who knows what — but copped a plea to possession of marijuana, the only charge we ever hear about in connection with his name.
Just a few months ago, DeMarcus was again sentenced to prison, this time after taking a plea to being “a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and ammunition,” as the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Iowa) reports. (Incidentally, I thought we all agreed that known felons shouldn’t be allowed to have guns.)
The reason so many plea bargains involve firearms and drugs isn’t that those are the perp’s main crime: It’s because guns and drugs aren’t human beings who can make lousy witnesses, leave the jurisdiction, die or be intimidated out of testifying. Possession offenses are the very least the prosecutor can demand in a plea bargain and the quickest way to get bad guys off the street.
Prosecutors know who the defendants are, and know what they really did. That’s why those in prison for “mere” drug possession actually have a higher arrest rate for violent crimes than those in prison for burglary, robbery or even drug trafficking, according to innumerable studies, including one in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.
You know what would be really great? Instead of Republicans impressing the media by taking “surprising” positions on crime, how about Republicans try surprising us by taking a position against Wall Street or the Chamber of Commerce and on the side of ordinary Americans?
True, it wouldn’t be celebrated as a “kumbaya” moment by Bloomberg News. But on the plus side, a lot fewer Americans would be murdered, crippled, raped and robbed.
In a move sure to inflame the left, a Republican congressional candidate in Louisiana is releasing a nearly five-minute long video railing against liberals and calling global warming a “hoax” that might be “the greatest deception in the history of mankind.”
The video comes from candidate Lenar Whitney, who is running as a Republican in the crowded Sixth Congressional District race in the state.
“A spectre is haunting America,” Whitney says in the video. “It is perhaps the greatest deception in the history of mankind. It has been almost 10 years since failed presidential candidate Al Gore put out his propaganda film, ‘The Inconvenient Truth,’ proclaiming that the actions of America’s energy industry are causing a catastrophic rise in the earth’s temperature.”
“But quite inconveniently for Al Gore,”Whitney continued, “and for the rest of the politicians who continue to advance this delusion, any 10-year-old can invalidate their thesis with one of the simplest scientific devices known to man: a thermometer.”
Talking about Gore, Whitney adds: “The earth has done nothing but get colder each year since the film’s release.”
Speaker John Boehner’s friends are trying to design new, more effective punishments for the conservative members that might vote against him on the House floor come January, but the message from the right is, “don’t even try it.”
“Look, intimidation tactics and threats do not take the place of leadership,” Rep. Jeff Dunacn (R-SC) told Breitbart News.
“I feel like the embers are gathered on the fire pit, and there just needs to be a spark for the flames to go up,”a senior GOP aide said, predicting the move could backfire.
Boehner’s allies, as firstreportedby Politico, have been quietly plotting how to prevent a small group of conservatives from denying Boehner a victory in the speakership election next January, something that members on the right have been actively discussing.
Under House rules, an absolute majority of members voting for a person is required to be elected Speaker, making it possible for a small group to cause a deadlocked vote.
Top Boehner allies have considered releasing a letter – it doesn’t exist yet, but the idea was discussed – with a few dozen signatures vowing to only vote on the floor for the person elected by the GOP conference in a closed-door, secret ballot leadership election that precedes the floor vote, according to several GOP sources familiar with the talks.
They’re also talking about altering GOP conference rules to punish members who don’t vote on the floor in accordance with the secret ballot results, such as stripping committee assignments.
Republicans said Boehner didn’t initiate the talks, and a senior lawmaker said Boehner had since signaled to his friends he didn’t want them to pursue the plan.
But the issue is already prompting pushback on the right.
In a radio interview with Laura Ingraham, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), a key member among the Boehner dissidents on the right who recently participated in a bull session with a group of conservatives in Sen. Ted Cruz’s Capitol Hill office, said the threats are pervasive.
“There are [conservative House members] who think, ‘My God, should I speak up? Should I speak up in a Republican Conference meeting because they might cut off my money? They might kick me out of committee,’” Huelskamp said.
But Huelskamp, who was thrown off of the House Agriculture and Budget Committees in 2013, said he was undeterred. “I think we need new leadership,” he said. “Cantor, McCarthy and Boehner all come from blue states….We need some folks from red states that understand what most Americans are thinking, especially grassroots conservatives.”
“Don’t make threats of committee assignments or removals – convince me of how you will lead going forward, especially in the pivotal times of the last two years of an Obama Administration when we need clear action,” Duncan added.
Huelskamp, in particular, has long drawn the ire of Boehner’s circle. Republicans close to Boehner said their latest plans to demonstrate strength and raise the cost of opposing him in a high-stakes floor vote are intended to offset members like Huelskamp who will go to extraordinary lengths to exert their will.
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW BELOW:
The logic of the move, a former leadership aide with knowledge of the situation said, is to make the point that “I’m going to be as f***ing idiotic as Tim Huelskamp” and do whatever it takes, including a series of deadlocked speaker votes, to get him and others in his camp to back down.
The timing of the Politico story drew speculation, since it came as Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who has been working to consolidate internal support of late, is locked in a high-profile primary battle with a long-shot opponent. However, Jake Sherman, the reporter who wrote the story, had been working on it for several weeks, sources said, putting its origin before Cantor’s primary race really got on the national media’s radar screen.
Interestingly, the criticism Cantor is facing from the right has prompted key conservative lawmakers to seriously consider whether Boehner might be preferable to Cantor, his heir apparent, Republicans said.
Their rationale: Boehner would be a lame-duck with a clear time horizon, while Cantor could consolidate support and serve for any number of years before the right got a chance to put one of their own in the speakership. During the end of Boehner’s reign in the next Congress, potential leaders on the right – Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the names most often mentioned – could continue to gain strength to take on Cantor when Boehner departed.
The New Jersey Secretary of State and the New Jersey Attorney General claim that New Jersey voters do not have a right to vote in primaries, but they do have an obligation to pay for them.
Across the nation, both Republicans and Democrats have closed primaries meaning that you must be a registered voter within their party to be allowed to vote in a primary.
So remember what I told you about 40% of voters being Independents and still others are registered Green Party, Libertarian party, Constitution party, Justice party, etc. That means, at least half of all voters are locked out of participating in the primary vote that ultimately decides their representatives. And yet according to Chad Peace with the Independent Voter Project, that is exactly what is happening.
“My right to participate in our democracy should not be conditioned. I should not have to join a party,” Peace said.
Now you might say… tough. If you want to change that, then don’t be an Independent. Don’t be a Libertarian or Green Party member. Join the republican and democratic party and make your vote count in the primary. Glad you brought that up…
Remember the video we started with, the video that demonstrates what happened in 2012. That is exactly the problem. Over 2 million Republican primary voters attempted to do that in 2012. But state after state, the rules were changed, sometimes in the middle of a convention. And remember why? Because the Republican Party insisted it could do so, claiming that it is a private club.
That brings us to the third principle of the End Partisanship coalition. Public funds should not be used to subsidize activities of political parties that abridge a voter’s right to meaningful participation in the election process.
“They say we have the right to tell people they can’t vote in our primaries because we are private organizations,” said Peace. “So the second cause of action is very simple. If you are a private organization, start acting like one, meaning you shouldn’t be accepting taxpayer dollars and tax payers shouldn’t have to fund primaries if you aren’t going to let everybody vote in them.”
Now a motion has been filed by New Jersey Attorney General John J. Hoffman, on behalf of the Secretary of State’s office, claiming that US citizens in New Jersey do not have a right to vote in primary elections,but political parties do have a right to use taxpayer dollars to fund them.
So, making the argument for the closed primary system is one thing, but what about the fact that while only half the state’s voters can participate in that system, the primaries are paid for with taxpayer subsidies.
“Whatever happened to one person one vote? The Left is always up in arms about voter oppression. A law that excludes 40% of the populace in primary elections is more like a tyrannical democracy than a Representative Republic. “Hey, Governor Christie. What do you have to say about all this? As President, would you restrict my vote? Would you nullify the vote of those that decided they don’t want to be associated with Democrats or Republicans? Hey Tea Party? What do you have to say about all this? We’re waiting!” JB
The motion continues, “The plaintiffs do not have standing to bring this claim because they only allege a generally available grievance about government, and have not suffered a concrete and particularized injury.”
So, at the end of the day, the claim is simple. The State of New Jersey says they are taking money from so many New Jersey residents that they aren’t injuring any one really, so there’s no damage to any one person. If anything, it’s just a general claim.
It remains to be seen how the judge will rule in this case, but fingers crossed, he doesn’t buy the argument that as long as a little money is taken from everyone, no one is really hurt by a system that is locking voters out of the process while forcing them to pay for it.
Conservative lawmakers are plotting to dump House Speaker John Boehner as soon as November, theNational Journal reportedThursday.
The National Journal said 40 to 50 House conservatives are behind a scheme to infiltrate the GOP leadership in 2015, and pushing the Ohio Republican aside would be the first step.
The rebels’ strategies include backing a single conservative leadership candidate, cutting a deal with Majority Leader Eric Cantor that would swap support with him for speaker in return for his bringing aboard “a conservative lieutenant,” or showing Boehner at the post-November elections’ meeting of the incoming GOP conference that he doesn’t have the votes for re-election in January, the National Journal reported.
One Republican told the publication the “nucleus” of the rebellion is inside the House Liberty Caucus, which includes Justin Amash of Michigan, Raul Labrador of Idaho, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who all objected to Boehner’s re-election as speaker in January 2013.
Amash, chairman of the Liberty Caucus, has warned then there would be a“larger rebellion”if Boehner’s leadership team didn’t bring conservatives on board.
“There are no big ideas coming out of the conference. Our leadership expects to coast through this election by banking on everyone’s hatred for Obamacare,” said one Republican lawmaker organizing the rebellion the National Journal didn’t identify. “There’s nothing big being done. We’re reshuffling chairs on the Titanic.”
Boehner isn’t the only target of the conservatives’ ire, the National Journal reported.
Cantor has come under fire from conservatives recently because of avoice vote maneuver that helped pass an Obamacare “doctor fix” bill.
“I’m getting used to being deceived by the Obama administration, but when my own leadership does it, it’s just not acceptable,” Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona said last week, after Cantor met with a group of angry Republican Study Committee members.
“It’s an issue of trust. If you want to have a majority that is governing, and a majority that is following the leader, the rest of us need to be in a position where we trust our leadership,” Labrador has said, the National Journal reported.
“When you have politicians actually playing tricks on their own party, and their own members of Congress, I think that erodes the trust the American people have in the rest of us.”
For his part, Boehner isn’t going anywhere.
“Speaker Boehner is focused on the American people’s top priority: helping our economy create more private sector jobs,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told the National Journal. “He has also said—publicly and privately—that he plans to be speaker again in the next Congress.”
The attempted overthrow of Boehner last year failed in part because conservatives didn’t have an alternative candidate for Republicans to rally around, the National Journal noted.
“Somebody has to step forward,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, one of 12 Republicans who refused to back Boehner’s re-election in 2013. “This is not something where after the election you can step forward. There’s going to be months and months of [planning] needed.”
There’s a phrase, often misattributed to Voltaire, which goes something along the lines of, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” While the author of the quote is probably lost to history, there is a lesson to be learned from this: dissent is healthy, but forced agreement stifles liberty.
America is not Nazi Germany or communist Russia. We should not fear government agents lurking about everywhere we go. Neither, however, should we fear each other or each other’s ideas. The forced resignation of the Mozilla CEO this weekend is just another in a long line of popular culture attempting to dictate what is thought, what is said, and what is written. Why must everyone conform to the same line of thought? More importantly, why must there be sanctions or punishments when we do not conform?
I understand that everyone has their own ideas, their line in the sand where they say, “This far and no more.” But we should at least be willing to respect that others have a similar boundary in their individual lives, and that when our boundaries collide, we owe it to each other—and to society as a whole—to have a civil, open debate, and to tolerate dissent.
In the last decade, we’ve seen party lines widen and harden. America is perhaps more polarized than any other time in its history. Even within the GOP, there is talk of a civil war with battle lines being drawn between the party’s social conservatives, neo-conservatives, establishment wing, and the libertarian Goldwater wing (if there’s talk of such an inner ideological war on the left, it’s not so obvious).
Why are we so afraid to sit down and talk? Why must it immediately become a shout-fest, and then we insult each other, and then no one changes anyone’s mind? The GOP can be just as guilty of this as the Democrats; while as of late the left’s hill to die on seems to be gay rights, the right prefers to crucify people over lack of conformity to issues such as immigration, marijuana decriminalization or individual rights.
Now, there are indeed many who view these as important societal issues with serious long-term ramifications for the nation as a whole. And, yes, these issues are—but please realize that these are exactly the feelings that those opposing you may have, too, or that those advocating for gay rights probably do have (and if your immediate response, rather than to sit down and discuss this, is to shout “YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG!”, then you’re as much a part of the problem as the Mozilla board, and thank you for your tolerance).
I’m not asking for anyone to concede ground. What I am asking, instead, is that we allow a free exchange of ideas and have a civil, intelligent debate. Decisions and policy are not made lightly or in vacuums. Informed policy is like a good wine; it needs room to breathe, something we cannot have if the environment is too stifled for either side to present options or arguments.
While the Mozilla issue of this weekend brings this sharply to the forefront, it is going to become even more of an issue as candidates begin to step forward for presidential primaries. We need to allow our inner debates to continue, civilly and intelligently, rather than try to shout each other down or just dismiss ideas offhand.
It’s time that both Right and Left remembered that dissent and debate are healthy by-products of a free, open society—and take a long look at the examples in history of those on either end of the political spectrum who decided only one point of view was worth being heard.
“I don’t care to keep up with politics.” Ever heard that before? I’ll bet you have. This statement should strike the heart of every American, yet what’s even more appalling is someone who doesn’t care, and votes in the major elections. Politics are the driving force of your country that has the power to change every aspect of your life, and you’re telling me you don’t care?! I bet I can guess who you voted for in the presidential election…
When people don’t care about politics, they don’t care about who is representing them and their community to the nation.
Being involved in politics is the best, and cheapest, way to really make an impact on the world. It’s free for your wallet since no body expects monthly payments, and there is no contract. You get out what you are willing to put in to it.
When you are up to date on all the politicians’ values and their voting record, come Election time, it’s less likely that you will be swayed by a catchy campaign phrase that’s paired with cool graphics and smooth words. You will know the real candidate and the truth behind their improbable promises, and free phones.
You should care about politics as much as you care about your finances. As often as you check your budget, you should check what your government is budgeting. Whenever you make a payment towards credit card interest, take a look at what your government is paying towards their interest. Why? Because that’s your money too, and right now your great grandkids are going to be getting the bill.
“It’s a lot of work, though.” Yeah, yeah it is. Anything that’s worth anything is gonna be hard to get. If the truth were easy to find, do you think half the politicians in office today would be there? If you’re ready to begin your search, subscribing to newsletters of people or patriotic sites is a great place to start. Personally, I am subscribed to Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Herman Cain, Girls Just Wanna Have Guns, Clash Daily, and the Morning Briefing by The Red State. It’s also helpful to subscribe to a couple members of the other Party to see what they are sending to their readers.
It’s also important to browse the Internet for multiple sources and references on a variety of topics. If you are getting all your information on the happenings of the Political Realm from only one source, there’s no way to gauge how accurate the story may be.
The moral of this story is to stop complaining, and start cramming! You are equally responsible for the state of the Nation as much as the politicians representing your district are. Can you name your governor? Your state’s House Representatives? How about your Members of Congress?
And that ladies and gentlemen, is why we all need to be involved in politics.
On March 20, 1854 the Republican Party was established in Ripon, Wisconsin. Referred to as the GOP or Grand Old Party, it established for one reason: to break the chains of slavery and ensure the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be for all Americans.
The Republican Party was created to achieve individual freedom. Then, as now, the antagonist to the Republican party has been the Democrats, the party of collective subjugation and individual enslavement — then physical, now economic.
The first black members of the US House and Senate were Republicans.
The first civil rights legislation came from Republicans.
Democrats gave us the KKK, Jim Crow, lynchings, poll taxes, literacy tests, and failed policies like the “Great Society.”
Republican President Eisenhower ordered troops to enforce school desegregation.
Republican Senator Everett Dirksen enabled the 1964 civil rights legislation to pass, in opposition to Democrat Senators Robert Byrd (KKK Grand Wizard) and Al Gore, Sr.
As a matter of fact, it was Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson who stated, “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs.
Yep, and who are the real racists? So far, thanks to a Republican Party that is ignorant of its own history and gave up on the black community, Democrats have 50 of those 200 years under their belt.
The problem with today’s Republican Party is that it has forgotten its own history and raison d’ etre: individual liberty. The Party must come to realize that GOP also stands for “Growth, Opportunity, Prosperity” and articulate how it stands, as its history and founding clearly demonstrate, for the individual pursuit of happiness as opposed to the progressive socialist (Democrat) lie of a collective guarantee of happiness.
So, happy 160th birthday to my Party, the Republican Party. I am a strong Conservative and I hope Republicans recommit to those fundamental principles which established this Party — the historical antithesis of the Democrats. Do I agree with every Republican on everything? Not always, but I doggone ain’t about to join up with the other liberal socialist rascals. And I do have a word of caution to my fellow Republicans, (wo)man up, or go the way of the Whigs.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes…and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”
The above quote perfectly encapsulates the divide within the Republican Party. The rift within the Party is based on many things, but when boiled down, it is all about philosophy. For the longest time, the philosophy of the Republican Party has been about winning at all costs. This has caused permanent blindness which has led to endless mediocre candidates. In the Party’s pursuit of the “perfect” candidate, they have eschewed their own values in favor of someone they hope will be “electable,” and adored by moderates.
The problem with the desire to be liked is that it clouds one’s judgment. Trying to cover every base is impossible, and in their extraordinary need to be liked by all, Republicans have become hated by all. The tides have changed a bit with the appearance of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and the rest of the cast of Real Conservatives of Washington DC. Their rise has dramatically shifted the demographics of the Republican Party, increasing the rift between the establishment and the true Conservatives.
According to Breitbart:
“Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, former Pennsylvania Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum bashed Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), saying that Cruz’s crusade against Obamacare had been counterproductive. ‘I would say in the end, he did more harm. I think it was not his objective.’”
This column is not designed to bash Santorum, but to highlight the philosophical difference between establishment and Conservative. Santorum went on to say that Ted Cruz is a good guy, but that his strategy was misguided. In those words lies a massive philosophical statement. Santorum belongs to the establishment, a group of politicians who are unwilling to make waves in order to incite change. He will gladly make a statement about abortion, making waves around himself, but he is not out to change Washington in any real sense.
Ted Cruz, on the other hand, is out to change Washington. His tactics, in terms of the shutdown and his unwavering opposition to Obamacare, are all part of his desire to see the Washington cesspool radically changed for the better. Santorum doesn’t understand that. Just like every other gray-beard Republican, he doesn’t have the foresight to grasp the tactics being employed by the new Conservative movement within the Party.
This is why we need to oust establishment Republicans. It’s not necessarily because they are malevolent—though some are (McCain)—but because they simply don’t understand what’s going on. No matter the situation, establishment Republicans just aren’t useful anymore.
“President Barack Obama and House Republicans began discussions Thursday on a GOP proposal to extend the nation’s borrowing authority for six weeks, marking a new opening in the budget stalemate that risks a U.S. debt crisis.”
Noooooooooooo! Are you kidding me?! Just Wednesday I was so proud of the GOP—especially the typical establishment types–because they had hunkered down, and held the line, even closing the government…well, 15% of the government. I was fairly certain that this would be a defining moment for the GOP as a whole. But, like so many things in life, the GOP never fails to disappoint.
The polls show that almost as many Americans blame Obama for the shutdown as they do the Republicans. A video from Campus Reform shows a vast majority of Colorado college students blaming Obama—this is Lib-central Colorado! Obamacare is an abject failure—even in terms of its website. A new Rasmussen survey of likely voters has Democrats tied with Republicans on a hypothetical general election, each standing at 40%. Just a week ago, the Democrats were in the lead by several points. And finally, according to an AP-GfK poll, Obama’s approval rating has dropped precipitously to 37%. We were beginning to reverse the tide. We can’t stop now.
Even with all of this pointing in a good direction for a new conservative tidal wave, Republicans are backing down in various forms. Once great thinker, now nitwit Paul Ryan wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, essentially telling Republicans to concede to Obama’s demands.
“This isn’t a grand bargain. For that, we need a complete rethinking of government’s approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government’s approach to health care. But right now, we need to find common ground. We need to open the federal government. We need to pay our bills today—and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. So let’s negotiate an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code.”
I am so tired of Republicans caving over and over again. Is Ted Cruz the only politician on whom I can rely? Is there no other Conservative who stands for anything? I’m aware of Mike Lee, and several others, but I’m speaking in terms of a larger group.
We cannot stop. It is time for a conservative revolution. Ted Cruz helped ignite a fire that was stomped out long ago—a conservative flame. Our country has to stand for something. If we cave to Obama—even slightly—he will regain his composure and become more powerful than ever before. We must not show weakness in the face of tyranny. We must harden our hearts for the sake of our future, and stand resolute in our ideals. This is my plea to Republicans. I hope they get enough of these, or this fight is over before it began.
It would be hard to find a man who had more potential excuses for failure, but E.W. Jackson is not an excuse maker. Rather, he is a tough-minded, courageous man who rejected excuses, choosing instead to take personal responsibility for overcoming barriers liberals claim black men cannot surmount without government assistance. If you have not yet heard of E.W. Jackson, make a point of learning about him. He is a conservative, a Christian, a pastor, a former-Marine, and a Harvard Law graduate who also happens to be black. He is also an exemplary role model for young people of all races. Jackson is running for Lieutenant Governor of the Old Dominion—the state of Virginia. Consider Reverend Jackson’s take on the Democrat Party (unlike the better known “Reverend” Jackson, E.W. Jackson is really a pastor). He calls the Democrat Party the “anti-God, anti-life, and anti-family party.” He also claims—rightly so—that Planned Parenthood has been “far more lethal to black lives that the KKK.”
Holding tightly to conservative, Christian views, E.W. Jackson is not exactly the poster child of the NAACP and other organizations that still believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that nanny government is the answer. Don’t worry. Reverend Jackson does not let the predictable ranting and raving from leftwing radicals who refuse to accept that a black man can have a conservative worldview stop him or even slow him down. After all, while others of his generation—white and black—were looking for excuses to fail, E.W. Jackson was serving as a United States Marine where he learned that failure is not an option and excuses are for cowards and quitters.
Mr. Jackson grew up hard. The story is not new: Parents who separated when he was just a baby, being passed from home to home in foster care, anger, resentment, and, predictably, juvenile delinquency. Fortunately, before he went too far down the wrong road, Jackson’s father came back into the picture and set him on the right path by applying what is now called “tough love” but in my youth was called being taken out to the wood shed. When given nothing but a daily dose of reality and when excuses are not allowed, one can eitherignore the odds and succeed in spite of them or give up and quit. Fortunately, there is no quit in E.W. Jackson.I say fortunately, because he is being attacked not just by Democrats, but by milquetoast Republicans—valueless fence sitters who would do America and their party a favor by registering as what they really are: Democrats.
According to WORLD Magazine, here is what the left had to say when Jackson pulled off a surprise upset and won the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor: “…journalists and politicians—including some from within his own party—painted Jackson’s views as too outside the mainstream for public office. They wrote about how Jackson displayed a Bible and a cross at the entrance to his convention party and that his positions on abortion, gay marriage, and the Democratic Party made him a fanatic with a dangerous agenda.” According to WORLD, Republicans were no better. Virginia’s current Lieutenant Governor, Republican Bill Bolling, informed the media that he thought Jackson’s nomination would “…feed the image of extremism, and that’s not where the Republican Party needs to be.” This kind of mushy-headed nonsense from liberals is par for the course, but coming from a so-called Republican it is hard to take.
E.W. Jackson is an exemplary role model for young people of all races who want to know how to succeed in spite of the obstacles they face. His is a story straight out of Horatio Alger. If believing in God and showing it, if taking personal responsibility for one’s life instead of making excuses, and if turning one’s back on government entitlements makes one an extremist in America today, God help us all. However, I don’t think we have gone that far down the road to self-destruction yet. Liberal Democrats, mainstream journalists, and weak-kneed Republicans in Virginia may not like E.W. Jackson and his conservative, Christian views, but apparently the people of Virginia do. They chose him above the other candidates to run for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican ticket. This raises an interesting question: Is it E.W. Jackson who is out of touch with the people of Virginia or is it those weak-kneed members of his own party who oppose him?
Republicans in Virginia and throughout the United States need to remember the old maxim that says: “If you don’t stand for something, you will stand for anything.” Americans admire people who stand for something worth standing for—people like E.W. Jackson. They do not admire wishy-washy political opportunists who will believe in anything they think will keep them in office. Let’s hope and pray that the good people of Virginia have the good sense and gumption to support one of their own, a good man who stands by his beliefs and who does the right thing in spite of the vacuous sniping of people who aren’t worthy to tie his shoes.
Stephen King said: “The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”
We are a world of liars; a Mecca to deceivers; living to eke out inches simply to get ahead. Once there–in a comfortable position–we lie even more, so that we may stay in that position. The reason we have Presidential term limits is because of this very human compulsion to lie. We have term limits because power is a strong tonic that, once taken, invigorates the user, and can compel them to do whatever it takes to stay in power.
Trust is a fool’s gambit. Well, blind trust. Proficient liars—the best of which are in the political world—use blind trust to take advantage of Americans every day. These lies pour from the mouths of Democrats and Republicans like water from the mouth of a river. These lies are never ending. As Reagan said: we must trust, but verify. We must make ourselves good students of character, so that we may see through deception, and find the honest politicians. Difficult as it may be to believe, they do truly exist.
Something I appreciate about Ted Cruz is that he is completely unafraid of offending his own Party. Not only is he articulate, but he stand on his convictions with an unwavering commitment. He gives a killer cross-examination (Dianne Feinstein) and he has a scalpel tongue, slicing apart his opponent’s arguments with surgical precision.
In the vein of offending his own Party, Cruz recently objected to his own Party forming a committee to hash out a budget. According to The Hill:
“Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he thought it was ‘bizarre’ that a member of his own party was objecting to forming a conference committee with the House to work out a budget.”
McCain said: “Isn’t it a little bizarre, this whole exercise? What we’re saying is that we don’t trust our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol.”
In response to this, Cruz said:
“The senior senator of Arizona urged senators to trust House Republicans…and frankly, I don’t trust Republicans…It’s the leaders of both parties that got us in this mess…A lot of Republicans were complicit in this spending spree.”
What Cruz said has extraordinary resonance for two reasons. One, he is exactly correct regarding Republicans being complicit in spending us to death. Two, he is unafraid of distancing himself from the Party that could very well have to support him in the 2016 Presidential race.
This lack of fear shows a maturity, and an understanding that doing what’s right isn’t about following Party lines; it’s about the truth; no matter the response. Ted Cruz represents an ideal of the Republican Party; an expectation that is often spoken of, but rarely met. Cruz is a rare brand, and we need to support him with everything we have.
In 2016, the Democrats and many Republicans will try to keep us in the dark; Cruz is the point of light toward which we can walk. Trust, but verify. So far, my trust in Cruz has been validated.
It must get confusing in the IT department at the Associated Press: Are you talking about the hackers who hacked our Twitter account or the Justice Department hackers who hacked our phones? Monday, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of records of phone conversations by its reporters. Meanwhile, the Washington Post revealed that the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups was more widespread than first reported. Someone at the IRS also leaked information about conservative groups to ProPublica. The Environmental Protection Agency may also have made it easier for environmental groups to file Freedom of Information Act requests than conservative organizations.
The Obama administration is doing a far better job making the case for conservatism than Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner ever did. Showing is always better than telling, and when the government overreaches in so many ways it gives support to the conservative argument about the inherently rapacious nature of government.
First let’s get our terms straight. Conservatives are not the same as Republicans. The former believe in a philosophy which stays roughly fixed and the latter belong to a party that occasionally embraces the philosophy but deviates when necessary to win elections, pass legislation, and follow the selfish aims of those who are in office and want to remain there. Conservatives argue against the expansion of government, whereas Republicans sometimes enlarge it to please their constituents or themselves. Republicans also sometimes botch foreign policy operations and spin themselves silly in their aftermath, which is why the Benghazi revelations are left out of this grand unification theory.
Though some of these scandals will allow Republicans to score points in the daily tally of who is ahead and who is behind, there is a larger benefit to conservatives that goes beyond the fall in the president’s approval ratings or the boost Republican Senate candidates may get in 2014. Those outcomes rely on further adjudication of these issues. It may turn out that President Obama had nothing to do with any of them. It could simply be rogues in various agencies. Or, maybe President Obama orchestrated the whole kaleidoscope of wrongdoing on the White House whiteboard. You don’t have to embrace either of those theories to see that it’s much easier to agree with the conservative notion that government is a mess. We have enough evidence of that already.
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Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
Michael Bastasch; 08/04/2015
It must get confusing in the IT department at the Associated Press: Are you talking about the hackers who 
What Did You Say? 
Kim Holmes wrote earlier this week on the Supreme Court.